How The Rich Invest Their Money with Scott Ford – EP 216

Justin Donald: What's up, Scott? Good to have you on the show again.

Scott Ford: Good to be here. Good to see you. Thanks for having me.

Justin Donald: This is great. Well, you and I got a chance to really get to know each other really just a little bit before the first time we had you on the show. And there's only a handful of people that I brought on for a second time and you're one of that small percentage of people because the message was great. We're in alignment on so many levels. And what's fun this time around is you're actually formally a Lifestyle Investor mastermind member, which is really cool.

Scott Ford: Yeah. Yeah, it is. I'm excited to catch up and excited to be a part of the group, right, and learn more and just felt aligned when we connected, felt aligned in the presentation that we gave. It just seems like a great group that I definitely can learn from and then ideally, hopefully, share some things that are useful as well.

Justin Donald: And by the way, in between the last podcast and this podcast, you actually came on and did a feature teaching session with the Lifestyle Investor Mastermind community. And this obviously is going out to our much larger audience, so it'll be fun to get into some of those specifics. You know, we're not going to get into everything that the Lifestyle Investor mastermind gets but I do want to explore a handful of the topics that we discussed that are just so relevant for our listeners and for those that tune in and watch us every week. So, I'm excited to dig in.

Scott Ford: Yeah, I'm happy to do it. Look, it's what I've developed and being in wealth management for 30 years, so I don't know a lot about a lot of things but this piece I've learned some things along the way and it's what I personally do. So, I'm happy to share.

Justin Donald: I love it. Well, before we dive into some of the content, I'd love to hear from you. I mean, you're a new member so you haven't had all that much time to jump in yet. We've got our big annual retreat coming up, which is, I mean, we basically have 95% of our active members that show up to this and most of them bring their spouses. So, it's the biggest event that we do. It's only available to mastermind members so there's no way to get in if you're not a member. So, it's really a special thing. So, you're joining at the right time. But I'm curious, even without having been in it that long, what were some of the reasons why you did join or some of the things that you're excited about with the community so far?

Scott Ford: Yeah. What really the group aligns with my thinking and that is investing in things that you are your greatest investment, investing in things that you know, private deals that aren't necessarily publicly traded, having access to that, focusing on preserving capital, and for them focusing on income and then having a growth component where you can swing for the fences. And as you know, that aligns exactly with The Way2Wealth and how I think about money. So, very aligned there. And then it felt like values alignment, it just felt like the group were good people. There was a sense of humility that I sensed from the group that it's not like, "Hey, I got to have all the answers." No. We just want to have a good time and get to the best answer.

And, yeah, at the end of the day, all this really isn't all that serious so let's have a good time doing it and get in there together. So, I sense that. That's my belief system. And so, it just felt values aligned and your thinking when it comes to wealth and money felt similar as well. So, yeah, it felt right.

Justin Donald: Well, so much alignment on so many levels and you're the perfect fit for our community. So, I'm excited about that and I'm excited for you to really dig in as a new member. I mean, you've only scratched the surface, so I can't wait until you actually dive in and meet all the people and go to your first event. But I think that there's a lot of truth to what you said in, number one, the alignment of values and mindset, and then number two is just we have this incredibly humble group of highly successful people, which is atypical. That is an abnormal thing but we have built a community around that. And so, it's special and it's where I like to spend the majority of my time.

If I'm not with my family, this is the community that I want to be with because I'm a student first. I may facilitate it and I may have the name on it and behind it, but I show up as a student just like anyone else in the community sitting in the front row.

Scott Ford: Yeah. Well, it exudes so well done because it really does. And I know you're not wanting necessarily to take the credit for it, but in some ways, you do and should. And it's also the credit to the people who've joined because there is a like-mindedness and that humility yet at the same time having had success in the business and entrepreneurial realm, that's a unique combo.

Justin Donald: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And I'll dish all the praise and appreciation to the members because I do think the members are who make the community what it is. So, we've got some pretty important, I guess, frameworks around who gets in. So, I definitely compliment our team because we have never had to remove someone. But it's getting the right people in and magic happens when you have amazing people, so.

Scott Ford: Hopefully, I won't be the first.

Justin Donald: Yeah. We're going to have some fun.

Scott Ford: It'll be good.

Justin Donald: Well, I want to dig in. You know, one other thing you said that I want to touch on, you talked about investing in alternative investments and private deals. And I think most people don't realize that 25 years ago there were 10,000 companies on the stock exchange, publicly traded companies that people could invest in. Because of the regulatory environment and because of all these restrictions, it is tough to be a publicly traded company. So, that has dwindled down to 4,000, around 4,000, actually, probably a little under 4,000 companies and that's such a small percentage of the number of companies. I mean, we're talking tens of millions of private companies in the U.S. and hundreds of millions of private companies in the world. So, the stock market is like less than 1% of the total available investment opportunity in these companies. And I think that's worth noting, right?

Scott Ford: Yes, completely. And, look, I wrote a paper, All Season Investing, and my allocation belief is to have a chunk in alternatives and I have an allocation we can get to if it makes sense as far as publicly traded because it has its benefits of liquidity and diversification, etcetera, and different than the alternative space. And so, that's what's so interesting. Big believer. Happy to dig into that. But you're aligned. I know, right? It's part of Lifestyle Investor is getting access to these deals. And, look, let's just think about it like this. I've done wealth management since like '91 is when I started my career. So, if nothing else, I'm getting old. But with that, hopefully, comes experience and ideally wisdom.

And one of the things that clearly I've seen is when people really create wealth and we can define what wealth is, of course, but if we just look at it from a monetary standpoint, where are they doing that in a big way? Some have done really well in real estate, but the majority of the big wealth that's been created or the large amount is private business.

Justin Donald: That's right.

Scott Ford: Owning private business, right? And so, this is what this is giving you access to. I'm a big believer in your own and then outside of that, alternative investments. One slice of that in my mind is owning these privately held companies that are publicly traded at this point.

Justin Donald: Yeah. I'd love to dig into that because I think asset allocation is important and, I mean, at this point in time, it's almost comical to me that these financial advisors, most of them are so out of touch with the reality that people want alternative investments, they want cash flowing investments, they want passive income. But most of the financial services industry is stuck in the past thinking people want a 60/40 stock-to-bond split and that's what diversification is. And that's the furthest thing from the truth and this idea that everyone has the vast majority of their wealth in the stock market. So, in less than 1% of the companies available in the world that you could invest in, a limited pool bound by all kinds of restrictions and highly volatile.

Scott Ford: Yes. And here's what I'll say to that. I'm in agreement. And I'll say if I'm not, I am totally in agreement. And here's the thing. I think there's a reason this thing plays out. And so, I'll give you the, why does this happen? Why do financial advisors, which is my space, how does this happen that this is what you recommend? It's the 60/40 split and use publicly trading. Well, because it's what you're taught. So, just a comparison would be our medical industry. Okay. So, if you go to traditional medicine, what's going to happen? Well, they're going to say, "What's happening to you? Oh, here's this drug, take this, and you're going to be... This is next and you come back and you do it all over again."

And if that's the path you take, so be it. Why does that happen? Well, it's because it's what's taught, right? So, it's this scope. Where if you really were just focusing on what's the root cause and then what works, then if you really just care about what works and if a pharmaceutical works, cool, take that. But let's get to the root cause and let's be open-minded enough to not just be shoehorned into this way of thinking because it's been taught for 60 years. If it's not working, let's look for an alternative. So, what would you do? You may look for use your traditional medicine doctor.

But maybe you consider a functional medicine doctor and maybe you consider someone in alternative medicine, etcetera, etcetera, right, that's going to look at the root cause, going to look at you as a holistic, and not going to really have a dog in the hunt, so to speak, and it's going to be open architecture. Well, it's the same in financial services. There's a lot that we're going to just shoehorn into, "60/40, this is the answer," because it's what they've been taught. Okay. But just know it's a big world out there. There's a lot of other opportunities which you're well aware of that deserve your recognition and looking into. And if your current advisor is not doing that, don't use me. Find one that does, though, that is going to be more holistic in their approach, looking at the root cause. And let's look at all the options that are out there.

Justin Donald: Well, and I want to give a hats off to you and to several of our other members. You know, a couple of them I've had on the podcast. And these are big-time players, including yourself in the financial services space. And I just love that we have just a good handful of people that are like, "Hey, I don't know alternative investing the way that the people in this community do or the way that Justin does, and I want to be involved." And so, big-time kudos to so many of our members that are saying, "Hey, financial services actually needs to be different. We need to adapt with the times. We need to provide and offer things that people want today. And we need to be good at what we do."

You know, we need to have an alternative investment platform and we need to shift maybe the allocation. And so, hats off to so many of you that are like, "Hey, we need to innovate, we need to stay relevant, we need to be cutting edge." And not that you weren't already, right, but I think it's cool any time someone's willing to get outside their box outside of conventional financial education. So, big-time hats off to you. And I think the more that we can learn what the family offices do and I know this is your world, I know you work with family offices and we see the asset allocation that they have, I think that's a powerful start that if you look at, you know, it's funny. I actually have JPMorgan, their private bank. You know, I actually went to this event so I'm holding it up there.

Scott Ford: Oh, yeah.

Justin Donald: And we went through a bunch of their stats and I get their annual report. I get their family office report. Same with UBS and Goldman and KKR does one and a bunch of these family offices do. And really the range is this is based on 2023 numbers. So, end of the year 2023 is you've got about 45% to 59% of the wealthiest family so single-family offices with money in alternative investments like that's the percentage of their portfolio that's in these alts or alternative investments, 45% to 59%. That's a big shift from years ago, even three, four, five years ago. It's massive. And by the way, I actually think the percentage is going to grow once we get the 2024 numbers, which will come out sometime May Q2 of next year.

Scott Ford: Yes, totally. What's the rest of the allocation? Did they have it on the reports in 2023?

Justin Donald: Oh, yeah. Yeah. You generally have. I mean, so the breakdown is each one's a little bit different by a few different percentage points, but usually it's around 15% to 25% public equities. You've got 15 to 20, maybe probably 15% to 20% real estate. Some of these groups will actually go a little higher to 25%. And Tiger 21 is a highly real estate-oriented group that I'm part of, and they often skew even up to 30%. But I like including those numbers because there's another group that I looked into that is only, I mean, and these are all centimillionaires and above and it's only 5% in public equities which is interesting and a little larger share in real estate. But overall is a general consensus.

You've got probably 20% to 30% in private equity. So, 15% to 25% public equity, 20% to 30% private equity, 15% to 20% real estate. You've got 5% to 15% fixed income, 5% to 15% cash or cash equivalent. You've got 1% to 5% crypto and more specifically probably Bitcoin. You know, I'd say probably like 90% to 95% of that crypto allocation being Bitcoin, right?

Scott Ford: Yes.

Justin Donald: And I think, oh, and probably 5% to 15% private credit.

Scott Ford: Yes. Makes sense. And the only one I did in here that I talk about because that all resonates with me and allocations may be tweaked a little bit. But what you're saying yes is hedged equity, which would like fall into…

Justin Donald: Yes. Usually at 2% to 6%.

Scott Ford: Yeah. Yeah.

Justin Donald: But I'd love to hear your numbers. I want you to talk about The Way2Wealth, your company, and I want you to talk about some of your allocations because I love it. Because yours actually skews to a lot more of a cash, comfortable, and confident position where you can really make some strategic moves when the time is right. So, I really like what you do.

Scott Ford: It does. It does, Justin, and it does align with what do family offices do, what do institutionals do. And so, really, this research came out of a couple of things. One is, how would I manage the entire wealth as my family and as my family office? That's where The Way2Wealth came from. And then out of that, okay, how do we then allocate capital? Because The Way2Wealth is really the complete wealth management process of looking at asset protection and tax reduction strategies and insurance strategies and cash, the whole wealth management. And then once done, how do you deploy capital? Well, that's where I wrote a paper called All Season Investing, and we can share it with anyone interested.

The paper was based off of research looking at Harry Markowitz and the 60/40 portfolio, looking at Ray Dalio and what was he doing with his all-weather portfolio, and looking at the libertarian Harry Browne and his permanent portfolio. So, all of these 30 years of being in the industry had me synthesized down into, what would I do with my, I mean, what is the highest and best use of my capital? And I was thinking about it through Ray Dalio's lens. So, if I'm no longer here just like he thought, how's this going to be managed for my family into perpetuity? Well, I developed this portfolio to do just that to you can base this as a map, and then someone could allocate it based off of it.

So, it's four things. It's four quadrants and it's basically thinking of a four quadrant system. And I simplified it 25%, 25, 25 in each one of the four quadrants. Well, all seasons is what's the weather you have to navigate? This is a little bit of a Ray Dalio's thought process of weather portfolio is a growing market with rising interest rate, an inflation rising interest rate, falling interest rate, and also you have inflation with the falling interest rate. And so, they're all four seasons. Well, what do you deploy? Where do you put the capital? So, the top left, if it's that kind of market, stocks is going to be the place to be. So, I put 25% of my capital in stocks and it's allocated about what we were talking about. So, about 15% apiece so that's about 25%, 30% in private and public.

Then when you go to the far upper right, this is navigating a rising interest rate and inflationary type environment. This is where alternatives come in. So, this is where you could look at crypto or Bitcoin, you could look at gold, you could look at various alternatives to include real estate in the upper right. It's how I allocate. Then the bottom, this is really how do we protect capital. So, this is when you're looking at falling interest rates, a more recessionary-type environment, which we have, right? The markets are cyclical. The recommendation strategy is short-term bonds or long-term bonds. So, the bottom-left quadrant, and you'll see this in the paper is short-term bonds bottom-right, long-term. So, you could consider cash being part of that short-term environment.

Well, my favorite tool to use there and you know this, Justin, is the infinite banking concept, which is where you're using dividend paying whole life to allocate to short-term and long-term bonds. And, gosh, I could spend hours telling you why I would do that. And by the way, I hate that that's the answer, to be very honest, because it's a battle every time you go there. And I started my career 30 years ago in insurance and got a complete disdain from it. I'm like, "Ehh." I'm representing these companies. Then they get a claim, then they don't want to pay it and it's like, "Ah!" I turn my back on it. So, here I am all these years later now embracing it but that's after reading like close to 70 books on Austrian economics and dividend paying whole life with a mutual company. So, I am all in on this strategy because I understand it. All right. I think that's key.

Justin Donald: And by the way, just throw out there, I totally agree with the whole life falling in the fixed income category and that being a very, you know, it's a liquid portion or component of because you can borrow against it at favorable rates. So, it's beautiful.

Scott Ford: Yeah. Yeah. And it's not an investment, right? This is where we're storing wealth to deploy and looking for safety of capital or a good rate of return and given us access. And so, the overlay of the quadrants and this is what Justin was talking to, was the banking piece for the bottom we were just talking, that's the overlay on the bottom. The overlay on the top is the weight of wealth DNA or as our friend, Garrett, has called an investor DNA. And there's a book on the shelf years ago that's called Financial DNA. The point is, to me, you know what you're investing in, meaning you have a unique skill set here. So, anywhere you're allocating, I think the bottom quadrant, you could use infinite banking or any other cash alternative there, short-term, long-term bonds.

The top when you start looking at stocks, publicly traded or private equity, or you start thinking about gold, silver, crypto, real estate, what's your unique skill set that you can bring to manage that risk and capitalize on any delta that may be there in any rate of return because of your unique skill set of all your upbringing and years of experience that you have that you can bring to it?

Justin Donald: And just for clarity's sake, I want to make sure everyone understands this, the bottom two quadrants are 25% each and 25% on the short term, 25% of the long term but this is the fixed income and liquid bucket. Right? So, I just want to make sure that everyone understands the 25% in each category but the bottom of this being more fixed income, whether it be bonds or treasuries, whole life. We can put Bitcoin in there as well. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that as well. And by the way, side note, your white paper is incredible. So, I love it. And if you have not read it, read it. That thing is amazing and it's worth everyone's time. It'll take you probably 15 to 20 minutes to read, 30 minutes, tops. It's incredible.

Scott Ford: Yeah. Thank you, Justin. I do totally believe in it, clearly. And, look, not just believe in it. It was academically - the thought process was academically really researching all the different options out there and then distilling it down into something that you can consume but it's not a through your traditional research paper where you need a magnifying glass to read this thing and get through it and good luck not falling asleep. It really is meant to be digestible. But the other thing is it's literally how I allocate our family's monies. I mean, verbatim, what you read is 100% how I allocate fund. So, I am totally a believer in this. And that sounds like, "Yeah, no kidding. Like everyone does that." That's not true, right? What people say and how they think about investing is not always how they allocate, which does kind of blow my mind, but it's important to point that out.

Justin Donald: Actually, I’d like to chime in here. My experience has been the vast majority, and when I say vast majority, I’m going to say probably in the 90 percentile of financial advisors, people working in financial services recommend something that they themselves do not invest in. That has been my experience. And by the way, this is also knowing a lot of people, having a lot of friends in the industry, knowing exactly what they invest in compared to what they sell. So, that to me is a big misalignment. And so, I’d like to clarify your point because you said this is exactly how you invest your family’s money, meaning your clients’ monies as a family, their capital, but it’s also how you invest your family’s capital, right? Your family office.

Scott Ford: 100%, yes. And look, I used the medical analogy earlier, so I try to be proactive and work with various doctors. So, I look to bring another one on this year by a recommendation from a holistic doc I work with. And in that meeting, we did a Zoom call. She had given me some recommendations. And this is an observation. It’s not meant to be judgment, but I think it ties into where we’re at. This poor lady was really, really overweight and was sharing with me what to do to optimize health.

Well, my point is I would struggle taking health advice from someone who doesn’t seem like they’re taking care of themselves, right? Well, when you’re thinking of your money, has the person that you’re talking to had financial success if you’re talking about finance, right? And the answer to that, in my mind, should be yes, but yet, it’s not always yes. And then are they doing with their capital and their money? First of all, they have done well, not to show the exact dollar amount, but they could illustrate that they’ve pretty much figured out the financial game. And then are they doing exactly what they’re saying? And both those answers should be yes. Or why are you working with them?

Justin Donald: That’s right. If you can’t show me (a) that you’re invested in the same things that you’re sharing with me, and (b) that you’ve actually created a lot of wealth doing what you’re talking about, I have no interest. And so, there’s two different sides of the spectrum to me where most people are like, hey, let me, my financial planner, my financial advisor is this side or the other thing. And I’ve known them forever, but there’s no transparency. We don’t actually know how well they’ve done. We don’t know if they’re investing your money into the products that they themselves are invested in. And we actually don’t know if they’ve done well. Just because they have a nice car or just because they work for a name brand company, a Wall Street company, does not mean that they’re actually good at what they do. That’s one side of the equation.

The complete other side of the equation, which this one’s also mind boggling to me, is the influencer space where people are sharing what they’re doing. And here’s, I’ve had tons of success doing this and you should do it. But people trust them not based on whether they’re an expert, they trust them based on how many social media followers they have, which is also mind boggling to me that the level of diligence on either side is so insufficient that there’s just such a high likelihood for disappointment and an underperformance, right?

Like, if you’re a social media influencer and you have a big following, there’s a high likelihood that you make most of your money from selling information, education, or products to people. You didn’t actually make money doing the thing that you’re talking about. So, big danger over there, but big danger on the other side where you’re really fully on the conventional side with a big firm or with someone that has a slew of products that are primarily all the same and all offered by the big financial institutions.

Scott Ford: Yeah, totally. So, they get it and for whatever reason. I’m using health today as an analogy, maybe because it’s something I’ve been focused on for a while, but going down this path, I engaged with Paul Chek in 2018. He’s a holistic lifestyle coach out of California. He’s a unique cat. Anyway, he’s become a friend and someone I work with one on one for a year. Why? One, he was 10 years older than me, in great shape, and really seemed to be so well-educated and dialed in. So, it’s like, well, this dude’s already been there and done it. And I could see it in his physique and in his energy level and his interactions, he was healthy physically, mentally, spiritually. So, I’m like, there you go. So checks out. Why would I go to some fat dude that isn’t practicing what they’re preaching and isn’t showing me physical and mental and spiritual health, right? So, it’s the same in the financial world. Why would we take advice from someone like that? Yeah, and so, it should sound obvious that I’m eating what I’m cooking. But to your point, it’s not always the case.

Justin Donald: Yeah, I think people need to do a great job diligence, seeing the most important vendors or relationships in their lives and doing an audit of the most important things to understand what they’re doing, what their business is. Like, are they the real deal? Are they not the real deal? I think that’s so important. To me, the most important place is like, on the wealth creation side of things, it’s like who’s managing your money? What’s your exposure to alternative investments? And who’s helping you with that?

And then who’s overseeing your tax strategy? And then who’s overseeing your estate plan? And then likely, who’s quarterbacking all those and coordinating all of those? And who’s actually making sure that you have the cash flow needed to support the life that you have or you’re at least trending in that way and you can project that in a certain period of time, your passive income will exceed your lifestyle expenses?

Scott Ford: Yeah. And like, literally, that’s our process. And maybe I’ll share some of that. Before I do, things that I wanted to point out is, because this may not be known is, in our industry, there’s broker-dealers and there’s compliance and there’s various departments. Some of these various departments limit how much can even go into the alt space.

Justin Donald: That’s right.

Scott Ford: Even if some of the advisors wanted to, they’re handcuffed. So, again, that’s like some of this, I get the reason for the protections, but it’s again, the core, like this on the health side. So, you get where I’m going. It’s like, why are we limiting that? Maybe the intent is well, maybe it is, maybe it’s not. But nonetheless, does it make sense? And would you ask yourself, what do you have in hedge? What do you have in private equity?

And if I’m listening to this, I would be thinking, what do I have in that? And that would be a good homework assignment to go back and look and see what’s private credit, what’s private equity, what’s hedge, and telling you what your percentage should be. But do you have it? Why or why not? What do you have in crypto, etc.? Why and why not? So, these are good questions.

And then, when you look at what’s your process or if you’re working with someone, what is their process? And does it make sense to you? So, ours is under this umbrella, The Way2Wealth. The way is the idea of living in harmony with things. That was philosophy of the way. So, it’s very intentional and it’s also living now in the present moment. And I’m very, it’s not just words, like, what are you going to do this year with that capital? One, you should be enjoying it because we only know we have today. So, what are we doing to use the money to enjoy?

And then what do we do this year to reduce taxes? Not some printout on some 30-page, 30 years from now, what’s going to happen? Silliness in many ways because all of those variables change. What can we do this year to reduce that tax burden, to increase cash flow, to get a return on investment, the way? Then the 2’s the team, and the game is won or lost here.

If you can surround yourself with people smarter than you and really standing out in their area of expertise and they don’t have egos, so the difference between A players or A hosts is there’s a pretty distinction there. A players don’t have to have the best answer. They don’t have to be the one with the best answer. They want to get to the best answer for your benefit. A hosts have to have the best answer. So, do you want to have A players? Okay?

And then, the process, ours is WEALTH. It’s an acronym. W is what’s the foundation? Well, what’s the foundation? Tax reduction strategy, asset protection, estate and legacy plan, insurance maximization, interest rate and credit all should lead to more cash flow and control. So, these are the bricks in the foundation.

Then the E is establish a savings bucket. You need to allocate towards where you’re warehousing your capital for emergencies and opportunities. The A in WEALTH is all of your expenses are covered by income. You have a bucket that’s going to be focused on income so that you’re financially independent because when your income is exceeding expenses passively where you’re not having to go work for it, you’re economically independent and have some financial freedom.

Then we can go for the L is living with inflation. We can swing for the fences in the growth bucket because we have the foundation, we have the savings, we have the income taken care of, then we swing for the fences in the growth bucket. And then lastly, the T is taxes, again, because it is our biggest expense. So, we want to have a tax diversified strategy of taxable tax deferred and tax free. And then H is have it updated annually. That’s all on one page. That’s a process. It’s mine. It’s what I do with our capital and our financial plan here for our family. And yeah, just make sure you have a process. And then from there we can start digging in the weeds of all seasons capital. What private equity or what private credit or what publicly traded stock, all with the overlay of what’s your unique way to wealth DNA that you can use and leverage to maximize on these opportunities versus just handing it over and hoping?

Justin Donald: Yeah, that’s beautiful and well said. And I love that you have these one-page documents that you use as your frameworks and you have acronyms that are one word and you’ve got your company based on all the different processes, but built into one short saying. It’s very clever. I think that that’s really fun.

So, we talked about this briefly, but I don’t know if we actually drill down on it. Where does Bitcoin fit in this? I think it fits below based on what you had said, but I’m curious, how comfortable or confident you are in it. For me, personally, I’ve made some big shifts over the years where we’ve really built a treasury for most of our big businesses. So, for real estate company, for Lifestyle Investor, where a good portion of our treasury is actually sitting in Bitcoin, and not to mention, just having other investments that we do there under our holding company. But to actually have the treasury of these businesses there, I think is a profound, I guess, revelation or realization for me in kind of following the path of Michael Saylor and what he’s done with MicroStrategy. I mean, it’s been a game changer for us for compounding wealth while having liquidity at the same time.

Scott Ford: Yeah, yeah, I’m a fan. I was a bit small, small, small allocation, albeit early adopter, but nonetheless, early adopter and have been following it. I’m no expert, however, read quite a bit. I’m a fan, very familiar with Michael Saylor and his thought process and a lot of his sharings and talks, very articulate and well thought out on his stance. And so, to me, I really like the idea of 1% to 5% allocation as a bit of a guideline, but again, based on education.

So, I would be leaning towards that I like it and I would like it as an allocation and leaning towards the lighter end if I weren’t educated on it. If I were, then I would lean towards the top end of that 5% and then, even potentially more if educated, meaning you feel comfortable and you have a thesis on why, so that when you have swings and when you have people saying that this is complete gambling, you feel like you can stand on your own two feet. You need to be able to get there.

And from there, then you could use alternative ways to participate, i.e., some of the companies that are exchanges or you could look at MicroStrategy as an example, and I’m not recommending this, I’m simply saying another way to play that since he has so much in it, could be owning that stock. So, there’s various ways to go above that allocation and to play it that could make sense based on your unique understanding, education, and Way2Wealth DNA. What skill set can you bring? Which one is understanding and educating, being educated on it?

Justin Donald: Yeah, and I love that standpoint there because before we hit record on this podcast, you and I were talking off air and you said, “Hey, I’ve got some capital to invest and I want to find some good deals. And I’m excited to dig into a lot of the Lifestyle Investor deals.” And in fact, we’re wrapping up this call here in a couple of minutes because we have two deals that we’re presenting inside of our community that have gone through. We spend about $300,000 a year on our vetting process for the deals that we do just through our channels of due diligence.

And one of the things that you and I both talked about that we agreed upon is that you don’t rush investing. You don’t let FOMO kick in. You don’t make emotional decisions. You build out your investment criteria. You do it based on facts, not emotions. And there’s always going to be another world-class best deal ever, even though emotionally, we think this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. But I’m telling you as an investor, someone who’s invested for 25 years, and 15 of which in alternative investments, there is always a deal of a lifetime. And you should never rush into anything. And you should take your time and you should educate yourself and put in the hours to be competent and confident.

Scott Ford: Yeah, that’s it. Look, so I’m a new member and there’s a lot of opportunities, right? And what I said going in, I’m looking to deploy capital. And I shared being in this industry for 30 years, you can have a couple losses. You can have loss of capital, which how are you going to get that back once you’ve lost it? Or are you going have loss of opportunity? There’ll always be another opportunity is what I learned. It may take a while, but again, if you think about how I’m deploying capital with close to 50% of the allocation is basically warehousing my wealth, where if I never deployed it, I’m comfortable. So, I can let that game come to me waiting for another opportunity, but what I’m not comfortable with that 50 is lost capital.

Justin Donald: That’s good.

Scott Ford: So, that’s why I can take this stance and believe in. And I think everyone should consider that loss of capital or loss of opportunity. Just know there will be another opportunity. Once you lose the capital, you’ve lost the capital.

Justin Donald: Yeah, there’s no doubt. What are you going to pick? Loss of capital or loss of opportunity? Just lose the opportunity, more will come. That’s well said. I love that. We’ve only got a couple of minutes here. I want to make sure that people know where they can find you. And by the way, we’ve had some of our mastermind members and people in our community that have used you and and your company for building out their whole life strategies and use that in the bottom quartile of, that would probably fall under, it’s interesting whether that falls under long term or short term because you can use it like short-term money, but it actually is a long-term product.

But a lot of people in the Lifestyle Investor community have used you guys and The Way2Wealth, which is awesome, but you have a new book also. So, I’d love for you to, number one, share the book. And then, number two, tell us where we can learn more about you and find you for people that are interested in your methodology, your way of working with families and deploying capital and allocating capital. And then, if they want to get whole life, if they want to get the process, if they want to become a client in some way, I’d like for them to know how.

Scott Ford: Yeah, well, thanks, Justin. The book, this is book number, I guess, 4. And so, this one is a labor of love, is The Way2Wealth. It’s what you just heard me riff on for a few minutes ago and it’s probably 5 to 600 pages, so it’s a bit of a tome. So, it could be a solid paperweight, but I wanted it to be. When you think of books and when you think of business and when you think of processes, there’s typically substance and sizzle. And you need both, the sizzle sells, and you need that for growth and opportunity.

But I’ve always been way more focused and wanting to be focused on the substance, hence the almost 600-page book because I want it to be meaningful. So, anyway, I lean towards the substance side, so hopefully people appreciate that about the book. It’s written, it’s in the editing phase. It’ll be out likely next year, so look for that. And finding it or more on me and the company, The Way2Wealth, so T-H-E, way, W-A-Y, the number 2, and wealth spelled out, TheWay2Wealth.com. You’ll see our process there. The book will be there and be available there. And I’m sure on every place, you can get a book as well.

Carson Wealth is the company name. We’re in Maryland, Tennessee, and Georgia locations. I’m involved with on a day-to-day basis. And then, probably, every state is my assumption as far as the entire enterprise. And yeah, that’s where you can learn more about us. And I say us in those locations because they’re the locations who follow the process that we created called The Way2Wealth.

And look, again, the one promise I’ll make is what I said earlier, no bullsh*t. You’re going to get what you get, as far as what we share is what we share and it’s also what we do. So, if you’re talking to someone and if it’s not me, ask them what they own. You can ask to look at it, right? And I think to date, we’ve had some significant players come in and participate in this infinite banking idea of how do you warehouse capital, but I don’t think anyone’s putting as much capital in on an annual basis to match me just yet. And I hope I can keep that.

Actually, I hope someone beats it. But the point is, I’m not just saying it like we’re doing it. And ideally, I’ve done good enough to be able to do that as well, right? So, that’s why I think it’s important to share. But no matter who you talk to, if we’re talking to you about infinite banking, rest assured they can show you their programming and policy, what company and why and how they do it themselves. I think that’s critically important.

So, you want to find out more, best place I would say is TheWay2Wealth.com, and yeah, man, thanks for having me back on, Justin. Glad to be a part of the group. Hopefully, I could share some value with some of the sharings, but also look forward to learning. And I’m sure I’m going to get plenty of that coming up in Austin.

Justin Donald: I am sure you are too, and so excited to have you part of this community. And for those of you that are doing your audit, ask whoever you’re working with, what are their fees, get clear on that, too. I’m just going to throw that out there. And most of our paid, with AUM, assets under management, so they probably are highly discouraging you from moving your money into alts because they’re not paid the same way. And if you’re not using alts on their platform, then they’re not getting paid on it. So, very interesting the way that it all works. And I love that you’re an open book here. I think that’s amazing. And by the way, you’ve talked a lot. So, you can look up Scott Ford as well and learn some good stuff.

I like ending every episode with a question for our audience, and the question is the same each week, but it’s what is the one step you can take today to move towards financial freedom and move towards the life you truly desire, one that’s on your terms, not on default like most people live, but a life by design? And what’s the one thing you learned from Scott today that you can put into action? Thanks so much, and we’ll catch you next week.

Scott, this is wonderful. Appreciate your time. And to everyone watching and everyone listening, thanks for consistently tuning in and for being avid followers of our content because I tell people all the time, health experts always say, mind what you eat. What you put in your body is important. I would say equally as important, if not even more important is what is the content you put in your mind. What do you feed yourself intellectually? Because I actually think that has the grandest impact of anything. So, thanks for tuning in.

Scott Ford: Thanks, Justin.