David Greene: How to Build Real Wealth (Not Just Chase Hype)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Stacking Benjamins Show

Episode: David Greene: How to Build Real Wealth (Not Just Chase Hype)
Date: December 29, 2025
Host: Joe Saul-Sehy (plus OG & Doug)
Guest: David Greene (BiggerPockets Podcast)

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Episode Overview

In this lively and insightful episode, the Stacking Benjamins crew rewinds one of host Joe Saul-Sehy's all-time favorite interviews: a conversation with real estate investor, BiggerPockets Podcast host, and author, David Greene. David shares his journey from humble beginnings scooping ice cream to building substantial wealth through disciplined habits, skill-building, and a focus on financial independence—not hype or shortcuts.

Centered around the theme of building “real wealth” versus chasing get-rich-quick schemes, the episode explores the bedrock principles that foster lasting financial success: setting high personal standards, developing valuable skills, and strategically storing and investing financial energy.

The show maintains its signature light, humorous tone, blending practical money advice with laughs, stories, and relatable metaphors (with plenty of friendly banter along the way).

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Wealth Building vs. Hype: The Fitness Analogy

(28:29 - 30:46)

• David Greene compares wealth building to fitness, urging listeners to ignore ‘magic bean’ promises. “There’s no pill or special exercise that’s actually easy but works super good… You have to work out hard, eat right, and the same is true for wealth.”
• He encourages listeners to ask if financial advice also applies in other domains: “When I look at nature, at relationships, the way the universe operates—does this principle work in other places, or am I being sold magic beans?”

2. Building the Foundation: Why Habits Matter

(31:11 - 32:06)

• The good news: Once you quit looking for shortcuts and actually build the foundation, “that base is there forever.”
• On budgeting and saving: “Budgeting only sucks when you first start doing it. The habits come in place that make it not hurt terribly bad.”

3. Raising Your Standards & Playing the Long Game

(32:06 - 35:23)

• David describes his relentless work ethic in his early days:
  • Saved $500/week working restaurants in college, often staying late or picking up extra shifts: “$500 a week turns into $24,000 a year… that’s $100,000 in four years. I left college with $100,000 in the bank, car paid for, no college debt.”
• Memorable Quote:

  “If I’m going to sacrifice my time, my energy, my effort… I’m going to keep that damn money. I’m not going to let it be taken away by somebody else.” (32:26)

4. Skill-Building Over ‘Getting Paid’

(36:06 - 39:30)

• David’s job path: Baskin Robbins ➡ Togo’s Sandwiches ➡ Fine Dining Restaurant
• On moving up: “Too many people try to hit a home run in one pitch… I got the only job I could get… figured out how to make friends, worked for less than minimum wage—but I learned and made connections.”
• On focusing on skill-building:

  “You really should focus on building your skills, not just what you’re making. I was getting a free education in business as a 17-year-old because I was out working everybody else.” (39:30)

5. The Secret to Getting Ahead at Work

(37:46 - 39:02)

• “Don’t fall into the trap of thinking ‘I’ll work harder when they pay me more.’ It’s like telling a coach, ‘When you give me more playing time, I’ll give you more effort’… Give them a reason to pay you more by being invaluable.”
• “What you’ve done in the past determines how you feel about what you’re doing now.”

6. Translating Skills—Every Job Is a Stepping-Stone

(41:11 - 45:32)

• Each job, from fast food to fine dining, taught David communication, stress management, efficiency, and people skills—foundational to his business and investing career.
• “If you’ve done harder things in the past, new challenges seem easy and you’ll be grateful.”

7. Measuring Wealth: Don’t Forget the ‘Headache Factor’

(47:19 - 50:58)

• Wealth’s three measures:
  1. Net worth
  2. Income
  3. “Headache factor” —How much you enjoy the work and life connected to your wealth.
• “Too many people work jobs they hate for money. Don’t measure only income or net worth—measure if you’re actually happy living the lifestyle your wealth demands.”

8. The Three Pillars: Defense, Offense, Investing

(50:58 - 56:13)

• David advocates defense first—protecting and storing your wealth effectively, not immediately jumping to risky investments.

9. How the Wealthy “Store Energy”

(51:49 - 56:13)

• Money is a store of energy—think of it as “hours of your life” you traded for value.
• It’s critical where you store that energy: “If you keep it in cash, inflation erodes it; spend it on stuff, it loses value fast. Invest it in assets (real estate, rare art, gems), and it can grow.”
• “The reason real estate works so well is the same thing that causes your money to bleed (inflation) makes real estate worth more.”

10. Takeaways: Bet on Yourself & Build Real Foundations

(56:13 - end)

• The formula isn’t glamorized: “There is no help coming. You have to find a way to handle this… Count on yourself.”
• Don’t expect fairness; expect to do the hard things others won’t.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On shortcuts:

  “There is no secret here. You can’t cheat it. If you can recognize that, you can start putting the things in place that will work.” —David Greene (30:46)

• On standards:

  “My standard was that I had to save $500 a week. And if I wasn’t going to hit that number, then I didn’t get to spend money on something or I had to pick up another shift.” —David Greene (33:32)

• On early money lessons:

  “This whole idea that, if you don’t spend your money, you’re wasting your life, I just think is total BS…” —David Greene (32:50)

• On the ‘Headache Factor’:

  “Wealth isn’t just having net worth or cash flow, but also enjoying what you have to do to earn or sustain it.” —David Greene (47:19)

• On skill vs. pay:

  “Get out of this idea that ‘I’ll work harder when they pay me more’… When you are not in the position of control, it’s a big financial mistake to try and use leverage when you don’t have any.” —David Greene (38:00)

• On betting on yourself:

  “There is no help coming. I’m going to have to find a way to handle this.” —Joe Saul-Sehy (57:06)

• On the store-of-energy concept:

  “When we look at money purely as a means of exchange, it makes sense to spend it on anything you want. But when you see it as a store of energy, you start to ask different questions.” —David Greene (53:14)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------| | 28:29 | David compares fitness and wealth building | | 32:06 | The importance of standards & expectations | | 36:06 | From Baskin Robbins to a fine dining restaurant | | 39:30 | Skill-building vs. seeking raises | | 41:11 | Every job as a skills stepping-stone | | 47:19 | Wealth metrics and the “headache factor” | | 51:49 | Where the wealthy store energy—real estate & inflation| | 56:13 | Defense, offense, investing—why investing comes last | | 57:06 | Takeaways: Betting on yourself |

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Tone & Style

• Casual, Direct, and Encouraging.
• Plenty of light-hearted banter, humor, and relatable metaphors—like likening financial decisions to fitness choices or restaurant service to business.
• Inspiring: Focus on actionable advice, self-reliance, and honest personal story-sharing.

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For Listeners

If you want a dose of practical, grounded wisdom on building wealth—and a reminder to quit chasing shortcuts—this episode is for you. David Greene pulls back the curtain on the slow, steady work of developing skills, raising your standards, and being strategic with not just how you make money, but how you keep and invest it.

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Links:

• Pillars of Wealth - David Greene's Book
• Stacking Benjamins Show Notes & Resources

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Host’s Sign-Off:
“Bet on yourself. There is no help coming—so become the person that others can’t do without.”

Transcript

[David Green]

Welcome to our ugly home. Reddit is back for a historically hideous season.

[Joe]

It's our 100th ugly house. This place is mayhem.

[David Green]

That is impressive.

[Joe]

And if these walls could talk. Do you cry a lot?

[David Green]

I do. They'd have a lot to say.

[Joe]

What in God's name is this pit?

[Og]

Don't get too close.

[David Green]

You've seen the show.

[Joe]

I'm scared of that. Ugliest house in America season premiere Wednesday.

[David Green]

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[Joe]

Monday here in the basement, the last Monday of 2025. Which means, guys, we raise our mugs because you know who kept us safe all year long? Our friends in the military. Thank you so much on behalf of the men and women who make podcast in Mom's basement and the men and women who serve our troops, our veterans and their families at Navy Federal Credit Union. Thank you for keeping us safe all of 2025. Here's two 2026. Let's stack some Benjamins together this holiday week, shall we?

[Doug]

Thanks, everybody.

[Joe]

Normally at that point we go into the episode, but today we are rewinding to man, this isn't just one of my favorite interviews, guys from 2023, it's one of my favorite interviews ever. David Green from Bigger Pockets came on the show back in 2023, episode 1436 in November, and he brought it. He talked about what made him successful. And if you think that what you've done is enough to be successful, I want you to hear what David Green thinks is enough to be successful. This. This interview still is one that I go back to. I get emails about. This is some powerful stuff, Doug.

[Doug]

I feel like this is when my parents sent me into that Scared Straight program. So if they take these kids who are delinquents, take them to prison, well.

[Joe]

This, no, this is not going to be a lecture, man. This is going to be. Doug. I chose this because I think it's a great way if you're setting big goals for 2026, starting off with David Green telling you that you know what, you want to do more, you want to be more the returns on that investment of time and energy that it takes. You look at all the things David Green has done now from biggerpockets. It has been just amazing. But it all starts somewhere. And for him, it started working at a Baskin Robbins. That's where. That's where it all began. Hey, before we get to the episode, the new Benjamin's Vault is out. Give yourself the gift of diving into financial security. And you know what? For more on the Vault, credit manager, privacy and ID protection, subscription manager. We worked with this over the last six with our friends at array who protect over 2 million people. Stacking benjamins.com vault gets you there early next year. By the way, we're gonna do a couple walkthroughs so you'll be able to see it for yourself. And can't wait to do that. That'll be YouTube live coming up. All right, guys, you ready for this? Ready to press play on this episode? Let's do this. We got a couple sponsors who help us keep on keeping on. We're gonna hear from them. And then episode 1436. Back from November 23. Man, this is a great interview. David Green and of course, the rest of the Stacky Benjamin Show. Hey, folks, let me ask you a serious question. Did you know that driving high is considered driving under the influence? That's right. Driving under the influence of marijuana is against the law in every state. That means even in states where marijuana is legal, that means driving high could get you a dui. And if you think law enforcement officers can't tell when you're driving high, well, my friend, you're wrong. If you're high, they can tell. Your friends can tell. Your coworkers can tell. Even your parents can tell. Everyone can tell. So what makes you think that law enforcement officers don't know when you're driving high? You'd be wrong. They can tell, too. Driving under the influence of marijuana can slow your response time and change how you perceive time and speed. So even if you think you're fine to drive when you're high, you're not. Because the bottom line is, if you feel different, you drive different. And driving high is driving under the influence. So remember, drive high. Get a DUI.

[David Green]

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[Joe]

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[Doug]

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[Joe]

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[Adam Barwi]

It's easy to grin when your ship comes in and you've got the stock market beat.

[Doug]

But the man worthwhile is the man.

[Adam Barwi]

Who can smile, but his shorts are too tight in the seat. Okay, Pookie, you're the honors.

[Doug]

Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. Today you'll learn how to turn your capital into wealth with the host of the Bigger Pockets podcast, David Green. But before that, here's one of our favorite segments. Every year it's Fire Safety Month again. So here with tips on how to take care of batteries and your family, we welcome from UL Labs Fire Safety Research Institute, lead research engineer Adam Barwi. Plus, we'll throw out the Haven lifeline to Stacker Adam with another brilliant question from you. And then I'll share some frosty trivia. And now, two guys who are constantly cooking up new ways to bring you the best personal finance advice. It's Jo and O. J J J.

[Joe]

Hey there, Stackers. Happy midweek to you. Man, do we have an action packed show today. So happy you're here with us. Sit back, relax. And you know what, Doug? Just before we hit record, we were talking about Adam west for people that. Yeah, if you haven't seen the old 1960s Batman with the POW. And then there's. It shows pow across your screen.

[Doug]

Kablooey.

[Joe]

A ton of cheesy goodness. Like the cheesiest stuff ever there. Except for what OG's doing on his camera. That kind of cheesy goodness light up the sky.

[Og]

This kind of cheesy goodness.

[Joe]

Once OG figured out that his scream will do all kinds of effects, it's become more annoying than usual.

[Doug]

He's just happy somebody's listening to him. Somebody's reacting to what he says.

[Joe]

But how are you, Og?

[Doug]

Oh, come on. With the hearts.

[Joe]

It's like a dog with a new toy. It's just.

[Og]

That's me. Yes, I'm a dog with a new toy. I like to press buttons. Remember when we used to just do these instead?

[Joe]

Like the good old days when we'd use sound effects for an audio podcast.

[Doug]

What a God.

[Joe]

Remember that?

[Og]

And now, now I can do these.

[Doug]

Now we're doing visual effects for an audio podcast. We're really pushing the envelope here.

[Og]

Now I can do it at the same time.

[Joe]

Yeah. People break the fourth wall on movies. We break the fifth wall in podcasts.

[Og]

Indeed.

[Joe]

I don't know what it is, man. It's. Can you believe it's fire safety month again? Oh, gee. We spend so much time talking about insurances. Why not just avoid using the insurance altogether?

[Og]

Just don't have a fire at your house. That would be a lot easier.

[Joe]

And I know how much fun we had with our kids practicing, like fire safety. The whole family gets into it. Super fun month in November. And as if that's not enough, the man behind biggerpockets, David Green. It's a action packed day. We are ready to roll. It's time to get this party started with Adam Borrowee. So let's get moving.

[Og]

Hello, darlings. And now it's time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamin's Headlines.

[Joe]

Well, stackers is fire prevention month. And UL's Fire Safety Research Institute has some new research out about, of all things this year, batteries. And here to explain, Adam Barrowy, UL lead research engineer at fsri, joins us. How are you, Adam?

[Adam Barwi]

I'm great. How are you?

[Joe]

Well, I'm better now that you're going to help us avoid fires on this important month. But let's talk about the focus this year is on lithium batteries. How come?

[Adam Barwi]

Because we've seen an uptick in lithium ion battery fire incidents, most specifically with micro mobility devices. So hoverboards, scooters, E bikes, mostly that category. But I think our attention now, as we transition into a new phase of electrification, you're seeing batteries go into all kinds of products. I think this is just a period of change of us adapting and using new technology.

[Joe]

Well, so when that the gate agent when you get on the flight says, are there any lithium batteries in your, in your luggage? They're not kidding around.

[Adam Barwi]

They are not kidding around.

[Joe]

This is about not just fire but also toxic gases. Tell us what we should be worried about with a lithium fire.

[Adam Barwi]

Well, if you look at the specific incidents of some tests we ran for E bikes, there's definitely some concerns about toxic gases. But it's sort of a race for which becomes the hazard first, to be honest with you. So if you fail a lithium ion battery, you get this thing called thermal runaway where it gets really hot really fast and then catches on fire. You put a nail through it or you put it in the oven, all things I'm not recommending. But you can cause it to fail. And what happens is the internal contents of the cell break down chemically, and they turn into carbon monoxide. Carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and a bunch of hydrocarbons, things like that. Kind of similar, like gasoline. Those things are definitely not what you should be breathing. And there's a very high concentration of carbon monoxide. Those can absolutely be the same things that would cause you respiratory distress, injure, or possibly even kill you in a fire. But our work on these unregulated E bike fires, like you've seen in New York City, shows that it's really the fire developing extremely quickly that can bring a room to this fully involved state in about a minute or less. That gets considered when we look at other battery products. But of course, that's the one that's specific to E bikes.

[Joe]

Someone from your team sent me the statistics, by the way. The New York Fire Department says so far this year, there have been 216 fires caused by lithium ion batteries, 120 injuries, 14 fatalities. That's just in New York City.

[Adam Barwi]

That's correct. We see those fires occurring nationally, and it's largely because if you look at the major brands that you're probably familiar with, if you're like a road cyclist or mountain biker, there's a lot of design that goes into those products, and there's some standards that have been built by UL for those. So UL 2272, UL 2849 for hoverboards and E bikes. And there's ways to design these things so that you don't have these risks. But it's sort of this gig economy in cities, especially like New York City, where you can buy unregulated E bikes for much cheaper, that haven't been designed for safety and have not been evaluated for safety where you can have these fires. So it's not limited to New York City. It's other cities, it's other people. Wherever you might buy a less than safe product or where the safety is unknown. But one of the challenges is there's not a national system that collects data on that. That's sort of a separate story, but we don't quite know the scale of the problem, but we know it's nationwide.

[Joe]

It sounds like a question, though. I should ask if I'm thinking about buying an E bike, Adam, about whether it has the. How would I know? It says UL right on it, like my lamp does.

[Adam Barwi]

Yeah. So similar to other products, if you. If you've ever found a UL listed product. You know, tis the season basically for, for artificial Christmas trees coming. You'll see that front and center on the boxes because it's a very due to Christmas tree fire safety, you know that the issues become very well known. And so you'll see that the UL mark right on the box almost kind of bigger than normal. You should look for that same mark on any of these E mobility devices. And you're also going to want to try to look for 2272 on hoverboards. It'll be part of the sticker. Or 2849 for E bikes. Barring that, I would say the safety is unclear of the device.

[Joe]

We will, by the way, note those numbers if you're out walking the dog or you're on your commute on our show notes so that you got them when you get get to a safe place. Doing just a little bit of research beforehand. Adam, it sounds like this identifying this fire isn't the same as let's say a fire with a stove. You can actually, you can hear this. There's like a certain noise you can hear.

[Adam Barwi]

Yeah, it's often identifiable because what's happening is as that failure is occurring, pressure is building inside a cell and a battery is made up of anywhere. From a couple cells, like in a power tool, you'll have maybe a dozen cells. In an E bike you might have like 150 of those little cylindrical sort of E cigarette style cells. If you're familiar with vaping, when they build up enough pressure, they pop. And so you can hear that. And that tends to be this puff of smoke that may come out. So those are really imminent signs of danger. And if it's a big battery like in an E bike, and that's a clue to just leave immediately because what comes from that? And if you watch the video on our webpage, fsri.org, you can see how quickly an incident can go from I think something's happening to something's happening, it's starting to ignite other things in my room to now the room's on fire. So there's very little time to react to it. And that's been the hard lesson. That's that that's been demonstrated in New York City.

[Joe]

When you say little time, I mean this could be as short as three minutes.

[Adam Barwi]

I mean, so I'm an engineer and I have to always say it depends because we live by that. But the important thing is if you recognize it, it's time to leave because you might have 10 minutes, you might have half an hour. But in the extreme cases, it's a minute, as we've demonstrated. And so you really don't want to gamble with that. You really just need to get up and leave and call 911.

[Joe]

But deliberately, no, I mean the big batteries, like, oh my goodness, for my spouse Cheryl's E bike. I mean that to your point, that's a huge battery pack that she's got. But this could be, this could also be your cell phone, it could be a laptop. What other little advices people might have around the house that might be a culprit?

[Adam Barwi]

Well, anything that used to take a power cord that now takes batteries. I mean, because lithium ion batteries are so good at what they do. And generally, I mean, the thing to be very careful about is not to sensationalize here. We've all been using these batteries for a long time and we've only really turned around and noticed the problems recently as some new industries start using them. I like to think of it as a learning curve each industry goes through to make the product safe.

[Joe]

I feel like, I feel like too, though, Adam, they're also all over my house. Like they weren't 10 years ago. I mean, I have so many more batteries in my house than I had. So the chance I would think of having something happen once again, don't want to sensationalize it, but way bigger today than then.

[Adam Barwi]

It's true. So I guess the way I like to think about it as an engineer is I think I've got 36 devices at my last count with lithium ion batteries. And it's okay. So it's my toothbrush, it's my power tools, it's my gps, it's my phone, my iPad, all the things I have. But you know, what's 36 on 10 million if that's the assumed failure rate, if these products have been designed well, that math still really works in your favor. You don't really need to lose sleep over it. But you can still adjust your risk by reducing your risk factor by doing things like not leaving things charging underneath your pillow, not leaving things charging unattended, especially with these E bikes lately, not putting bigger ones like your E bikes in between you and your egress path, especially if you're in an apartment. And there's only one way out. So that's where our whole safety campaign is. Fall is looking at these things you can do as a consumer to protect yourself.

[Joe]

One of my favorite parts of this month, one of the reasons we also love this segment, Adam, is because each year we get to talk to a pro like you about family fire escape plans. Right. Kids do it at school, we invest in homeowners, we invest in, in renters coverage. But the just the general escape plan. Can you tell me what's important when we're leaving the building?

[Adam Barwi]

Well, I don't know what exact answer you're looking for, but I tell my wife and I will be telling my, my two year old and he's old enough that we need to have two ways out. And that is absolutely critical in my house because there's really only one good way out. And so we have to kind of practice that as well.

[Joe]

Yeah, I love that. And that was exactly what I was looking for, two ways out. Because if the fire's coming one way, got to practice. Maybe the not so easy way. You have a mission here this year for people to. This is a direct quote from you guys take charge where C H A R G E represent different things to help you remember. So if you don't mind, I'd love to go through this. I'll just take the first letter and you tell me what this is. First one is to choose certified products. Walk me through that.

[Adam Barwi]

Choose certified products means make sure you're buying something that's been evaluated by a third party like Underwriters Laboratories. So there's, there's other labs that do the testing as well, but you're in with e bikes and hoverboards going to be looking for that certification to a standard like UL 2272 or 2849.

[Joe]

I think that the second one we've also covered handle with care. I love the one. Don't put it next to you on the pillow or, or between you and your escape route. But let's, if it's all right with you, we'll go on to the third one. So choose Handle. That cha is always stay alert for warning signs. And I guess with batteries that's more like the hiss we talked about, the pop it is.

[Adam Barwi]

But there's some other situations to consider too. I mean, there's a strong solvent smell. I kind of think about it as like the smell that might come out of a, an aerosol can for hairspray or deodorant or whatever. There's a smell that they make when the, when the cells opened up and started to fail. That can be a warning sign. And I think most people at this point have probably had something where the battery puffs, maybe your phone gets puffy or you've got a device that won't close right Anymore because the battery started to swell. That's also a sign of failure. So those things are sort of conditions you can see or smell physically if you're holding the device and it gets unusually hot and then maybe the battery capacity is not so good anymore. That's another fairly decent warning sign. The cell's not working the way it's supposed to.

[Joe]

Next up is recycle.

[Adam Barwi]

So we could talk about that for a long time. But I will say you can go to earth911.com or call to recycle.com those are companies who are trying to make it easy for us to have drop boxes like at your local Home Depot or Lowe's where you can responsibly recycle your lithium ion battery powered products. A major challenge right now for waste management and recycling companies is to have these batteries go through their recycling stream, get crushed and then set your waste transfer station on fire. And there's a major uptick with that. But yeah, that's a serious challenge.

[Joe]

We already talked about get out if there's a fire. I love this last one. Educate.

[Adam Barwi]

Yeah, educate others is extremely important. I mean, we're putting out as much material as we can as quickly as we can on the hazards. We know, like by going on this program. But we need to spread the word very quickly because there's such a ubiquitousness of lithium ion battery products that we're really all subject to the hazards. I said 33 or 36, whatever, on 10 million, but there are more than 10 million people in this country. So eventually some of us are going to run into some challenges. And if you know what you need to do either to prevent the event or what to do to react to it in advance and you can share with all your friends and family, we're all going to be that much more protected. Especially as, I mean, I see this as the industry is going to continue to improve safety on these things over time. You saw it with laptops, you've seen it with cell phones, you'll be seeing it with hoverboards and E bikes. We're going through those changes, regulations catching up, so we'll be able to get to that. Oh, remember that time way back in the 2010s and 2020s when lithium ion batteries were failing? It'll be a thing we talk about when we're old.

[Joe]

I love that. Remember when lithium batteries used to be a problem? Man, I'd love that. That might be a thing of the past or will be a thing of the past. Right, let's Be confident. I also like the fact that this month is a great month for us to communicate with each other about this. I know my family really had fun when we started doing these segments, and my kids were still at home just talking about fire safety and taking a minute. Like, my kids really got into it, and I was surprised how much fun Cheryl and I had just having a plan. It makes you feel so good to have the plan. So, Adam, thanks for the time. If you guys have. I know a website where people can go if they want more.

[Adam Barwi]

Yes, absolutely. That's fsri.org and you can see how we get to do some fairly extreme testing, demonstrate some hazards. And while it is fun, it connects us with our purpose of trying to make people safer. And so it's all very meaningful to us. And we create those resources so we can make everyone safe as quickly as we can.

[Joe]

Adam, thanks for your time today, and thanks for helping our stackers stay safe. I really appreciate it.

[Adam Barwi]

Thank you very much for having me on this. Really helps us get the word out.

[Joe]

Big thanks to Adam for joining us. I know og with your kids. You guys have the plan. If fire's coming this way, we go that way. Like, you guys have practiced this at home.

[Og]

We have, and it reminds me that it's been a long time since we've talked about it, so this will be a good reminder to bring it up at the dinner table again, because I've had a house fire in my lifetime. It was not great.

[Doug]

That sounds like a back porch story. Can we talk about that with a cocktail on the back porch?

[Adam Barwi]

Yeah.

[Og]

I mean, it was awful. Sure. Let's relive some of my childhood trauma.

[Doug]

I would love to stick that scab.

[Joe]

Yes. Nothing like back porch therapy to get that going.

[Og]

There I was minding my own business. I never thought something like this would happen to a guy like me.

[Joe]

You were minding your own business, right?

[Doug]

I was fire safety porn.

[David Green]

You totally were.

[Joe]

I was just out delivering pizzas. Somebody's like, we need to start the fire. It's a different fire. All right, coming up next, he is one of the host of a little show called Bigger Pockets Podcast that has won tons and tons of awards in the area of real estate. But, you know, David Green is not just about real estate. He's about financial independence. And today, we're going to widen out what David usually talks about. He's our mentor for the day on our most inspirational segment, the guest presenter, and can't wait to hear what David has to say. But before that, let's hear what. What Doug's got to say.

[Doug]

Hey there, Stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. On this day in 1969, Dave Thomas opened the very first Wendy's restaurant. Less than 10.

[Og]

Delicioso.

[Joe]

What?

[Og]

I said delicioso. Who doesn't like a double Dave's Double with cheese and all the fixings.

[Doug]

I'm a spicy chicken guy myself. I think that's their number one selling thing now is spicy chicken.

[Og]

I would think that's.

[Joe]

I can skip the fries. Unless they're just fries.

[Og]

Go in the frost. How are you supposed to eat a Frosty if you don't have.

[Joe]

Oh, I love the Frosty. I love lots and lots of ketchup.

[Doug]

Lots of ketchup and the Frosty.

[Og]

Ketchup and Frosties are gross.

[Doug]

You're disgusting. You need professional help.

[Joe]

Is that what we're talking about?

[Doug]

Can I do my Trivia? Less than 10 years later, the 1000th location opened in the Midwest. To this day, Wendy's continues serving square burger patties even though they haven't been able to figure out how to make square buns. As most people know, the global restaurant chain is named after the founder's daughter, Wendy. What is lesser known, however, is that Wendy is one of five children. Apparently they just kept having kids until they had a girl. So the business name would work. Maybe his other kids were named like Cheeseburger and chicken and fries. And Frosty. Probably Frosty. Today's trivia question is what fast food chain did Dave Thomas work for for before he opened the first Wendy's. I'll be back after I see how much it is to trademark my own name.

[Og]

Shopping is hard, right?

[David Green]

But I found a better way.

[Og]

Stitch Fix online Personal styling makes it easy. I just give my stylist my size, style and budget preferences. I order boxes when I want and how I want. No subscription required.

[David Green]

And he sends just for me pieces.

[Og]

Plus outfit recommendations and styling tips. I keep what works and send back the rest. It's so easy. Make style easy. Get started [e-mail] Spotify. That's stitchfix.com Spotify if you're an H Vac technician and a call comes in.

[David Green]

Grainger knows that you need a partner.

[Joe]

That helps you find the right product.

[Og]

Fast and hassle free. And you know that when the first.

[Joe]

Problem of the day is a clanking.

[Og]

Blower motor, there's no need to break a sweat.

[Joe]

With Grainger's easy to use website and.

[Og]

Product details, you're confident you'll soon have everything humming right along.

[Joe]

Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickgrainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[Og]

Next roll with Vernon Davis. The transformative journeys of athletes, artists and entrepreneurs. We have very special guests.

[Doug]

Ladies and gentlemen, Devon Franklin.

[Joe]

Whether it's the movies I'm doing, whether.

[David Green]

It'S TV shows, just tap into the truth.

[Joe]

That's what I bring to every project.

[David Green]

Ladies and gentlemen, Isaac Keys. People always ask, how did you make.

[Joe]

It to the NFL?

[Og]

How did you get into acting? There's a story behind all of that.

[Joe]

It's about whether you're willing to tell your story or not.

[Og]

Next roll isn't about what's next. It's about why they do it.

[Joe]

Next Roll with Vernon Davis. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

[Doug]

Hey there, stackers. I'm fast food lover and mom's secret favorite person, Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. During the break, I went online and filled out all the paperwork to trademark my name. Now I can finally charge people to license my name for merch. Today's trivia question is what fast food chain did Dave Thomas work at before he opened the first Wendy's? The answer? After serving in the Korean War, where he helped cook meals for 2,000 soldiers every day, Thomas returned to the States and got a job at kfc. He later owned four of his own before he used the profits to start Wendy's. And now, here to teach you how to build a multimillion dollar portfolio, BiggerPocket's own David Green.

[Joe]

And I'm super happy we have this man back in the basement with us. David Green is here. How are you?

[David Green]

I'm good. I'm excited to be here today. How are you, Joe?

[Joe]

Well, I'm fantastic. And I have to ask, this is not your first project like this, David. You've done book tours before. You've done tours around your projects. Is it still always weird to have somebody else interviewing you versus you doing the interviewing?

[David Green]

I actually like this way more. I would much rather be the one to talk than one ask the questions.

[Joe]

Well, it's actually funny, David, because I was going to have you interview me today. Let's get to it. Let's. Let's talk about it. Because you begin this whole project by comparing wealth building to Fitness CrossFit versus Shake Weight. I feel like there must have been like some contractual obligation where you had to get the term shake Weight into your book. But tell me, what's the analogy between wealth building and fitness?

[David Green]

I wanted to Paint this example, frankly, because it is easy to sell people on a dream. And for the person who's hearing it that isn't familiar with what actually works to create wealth or what wealthy people do, or how they think, there's no way they can tell the difference between the person that's selling them hyper selling them the truth. It's just a tough position to be in as you're listening to these podcasts and one person comes in and says, this is the NFT you have to buy. This is the cryptocurrency that's gonna shoot to the moon. Why work hard when you could work smart, Just do these things and then you have someone else that comes in and says no, you have to do it step by step, old fashioned. Like how do you really know which of these things is right? So one of the ways that I've navigated that in my life is I will ask myself the question, is the advice that I'm being given in this area something that applies in other areas of life? When I look at nature, when I look at relationships, when I look at the way that the universe oper weights, does this principle work in other places or am I being sold the magic beans? Okay, well if you just buy this one, it'll work really good, but I don't see that anywhere else. In fitness, there's no way around what works. You have to eat less carbs and less sugar and have the right number of calories and you have to work out really, really hard. And the proportion of effort you put into your workout will determine how much muscles you build. And the quality of diet that you maintain will determine how well you see those muscles. And there's no fake in it. And I don't say this as a person who's incredibly fit. I'm not a fitness person. It's just, it's how the world works. If I wanted to be more fit, there's not a pill that I could take or a special exercise that's actually easy but works super good. There's only one way to get there and we all know it. Wealth building really works the same way. And in this book I try to. It's really like an appeal or a cry to people to wake up and recognize. There is no secret here. If you can recognize that, you can start putting the things in place that will work. Because just like fitness, you can't cheat it.

[Joe]

It is very foundational what you've done here. And there is actually some good news though, David, which is, you know, if I skip Three days of running. I got to go back and rebuild that base. The good news, I think for people there is, once you finally quit trying to get around shortcuts and you actually build the effing base, that base is there forever. I mean, this. You can do some foundational stuff and build on top of it.

[David Green]

That's exactly right. That is how people should be looking at it. Just like the first time you go work out, it's horrible. You're incredibly sore. You feel bad about yourself when you're there because in your mind, you think you're stronger than you really are. I frequently go through periods where I stop working out, I get sick, I travel, I just fall out of the rhythm, and then I got to go back in there and start again. And it's horrible. I hate it. I'm thinking bad thoughts the whole time. But if it stayed that way forever, nobody would ever be in shape. The good news is it does get easier when you stick with it. The same is true with building a business. Once you've got a foundation in place, you understand principles, or you've got maybe sound budgeting principles in place. Budgeting only sucks when you first start doing it. You eventually start to get into a rhythm of recognizing, I don't want to spend money on that, or I'm checking my finances every week or whatever. Rhythm works for you. And the habits come in place that make it not hurt terribly bad. It's really the hardest when you first get started. Much like other things in life, you.

[Joe]

Write that the most important step in building wealth is raising our standards and expectations of ourselves. Like a lot of our stackers. Listening to this right now, David, they might not have any money. You didn't start with any money. They might not have any connections. You didn't start with any connections. What was your standard and expectation back in those early days of yourself?

[David Green]

Yeah, so I worked a lot, and I didn't want. I didn't like the idea of going to work and sacrificing time or things I could have been doing instead of to have nothing to show for it because I spent money on dumb things. I just inherently understood if I'm going to sacrifice my time, my energy, my effort, and I could be doing something more fun. But instead I'm picking up a shift in a restaurant. I'm going to keep that damn money. I'm not going to let it be taken away by somebody else. Because I basically traded eight hours for a pair of shoes, right? Or I traded eight hours of my life for a fancy Dinner somewhere that I have nothing to show for. This whole idea that people have that if you don't spend your money, you're wasting your life, I just think is total bs. It can be that way, but oftentimes you can replace spending money with something that's much more meaningful. Having a deep conversation, taking a hike with someone that can be free. There's lots of things you can do that don't require spending money. There's this belief we get sold, that unless you're spending money, you're not enjoying life. And I just don't agree with it. My standard was that I had to save $500 a week. That was from working in restaurants and waiting tables. And I learned that in order to hit that standard, I'd have to stay late and be the closer every night. So I'd instead of working a six hour shift, I'd work a seven and a half hour shift. It didn't seem like a huge sacrifice If I'm already there, I'm already dressed, I'm already at work, I'm already in the rhythm. Just stay another hour and a half and pick up the last tables. I could literally double my money because you don't have to trade table with that waiter and then this waiter and then it's your turn again. You just get all of them at the very end. I learned if I didn't have anything going on, there wasn't anything I really wanted to do. I wasn't playing in a basketball game that I was looking forward to, or I had a Bible study I really wanted to go to. I would go to work. What else am I going to do? Sit around and do nothing? Like I can sit around and do nothing for the other 14 hours of the day and just go to work for that, you know, 6 to 10, whatever it was, if I wasn't going to hit that number of $500 in savings, then I didn't get to spend money on something or I had to go pick up another shift. There were several times where I asked someone if I could work for them and they said, no, I don't want to give up the shift. I was like, what if I gave you 20 bucks? A lot of people are willing to give up a day's work if you're going to give them 20 bucks. So I'd give them 20, I'd make 100. I was up 80. I hit the goal. Now that seems to a lot of people listening to it like I'm wasting my life. I'm not enjoying my life. I really think it worked out the opposite because $500 a week turns into $24,000 a year. This is while I was in college and I. And I was able to save more than the minimum goal. So I was able to save over 25 grand a year for four years of college. That's $100,000. And that's just what I saved right out of that money. I paid for my car and I paid for my schooling. So when I graduated college, when most people walk out with debt, somewhere between 60 to 80 thousand dollars is probably what like someone in California is going to have with student debt. Yeah, I left with $100,000 in the bank and my car, paid for cash, no bills, no college debt at all. And a couple of years later, the real estate market crashed and I had $100,000 plus whatever money I made working as a cop at that time to go invest in the market. And I didn't waste my life.

[Joe]

Well, and I want to pursue that next because number one, and I want to focus on this with our stackers. What I like that you did, David. You turned it into a game. I think a lot of people think about the work, but when the work becomes a game and the work has an outcome, I think that's very fulfilling. The second thing I want people to know is that this whole thing started. Tell me if I'm getting this wrong. This started with a job at Baskin Robbins. Am I, Am I wrong?

[David Green]

Yeah, that was the only job that I could get when I was in high school. Baskin Robbins ice cream.

[Joe]

And then Baskin Robbins. There was a. I mean, this to me is the part that you didn't address, which is working connections. Somebody worked next door at a place as a busboy. Did your brother work as a busboy? And so then you got hooked up as a busboy.

[David Green]

So there was one little step between there. But too many people try to hit a home run in one pitch. Yeah, right. I want to get a hundred thousand dollar a year job. How do I get it? Well, they don't have a hundred thousand dollar a year skills. So I got the only job I could get, which was Baskin Robbins. I didn't have a car at that time, so I would have to ask my mom to take me to work. And if she couldn't take me to work, I'd have to walk there. And it was, I mean, it was far. It's probably four miles away from my house. So I had to learn how do I make friends so that I can get dropped off at work so that I'm not walking four miles there and back all the time. This was long before Uber. At Baskin Robbins, they paid us 75% of minimum wage. They did not even pay full minimum wage. Because if you were a student in high school, there was a law that allowed them to get away with paying less. So I'm working.

[Joe]

There's a law that allows business owners to rip you off.

[David Green]

That's exactly what it was. Because you're a high school student. What can you do? So the next door was a sandwich shop called Togo's. It's kind of like Subway, basically. And they would come in and they would get ice cream, and I'd see them in the uniform, and you'd slowly make friends with those people. They may drop off, like, an extra sandwich that they made that somebody didn't pick up or something like that. Well, I got to know the staff, and they really liked me. And when I was done with my shift and I would, like, get done cleaning the restaurant, we would shut down. They'd be open for another hour. So I'd go over there and I would literally just help them clean their store without getting paid. I was like, well, it's another hour, right? I gotta wait for my mom to come back. I might as well be productive before I get picked up. So I'd go next door and I'd help them clean down the restaurant. I learned how they did their dishes, and I do the stuff no one wanted to do. Well, eventually, the shift manager came by, and she's like, what's this guy doing? They're like, oh, he comes by to help us work. He's just a nice guy. And I met her. Her name was Anna. And eventually Anna was like, do you want a job? I was like, yeah. And she said, we paid 25 cents over minimum wage. And I'm like, well, that's like a 35% raise to me, right?

[Joe]

Don't gotta be a math whiz.

[David Green]

There you go. So now I get a big raise, and it's the same location as where I was working. It's right next door. But I get a job that has a little bit more upside. Now I have a new opportunity to excel. So I start practicing. How do I make sandwiches faster than everyone else? I really wanna be the best employ. That was my goal, is when I go there every day, there better not be one employee at this place that's better than me. How quickly can I make the sandwiches? I got in the habit of when I'd go to the refrigerator to pick up the turkey and the cheese and the lettuce that I needed. I'd look at the stations of the other workers as I walked and I'd be like, that guy needs ham, that person needs tomatoes. They need more pepper. I grab them supplies when I was there getting my own, carry them all my arms, drop it off like Santa at Christmas, giving everybody what they needed, get back in my line and I'd start working again. Well, managers see that stuff you're showing them, you give a crap about how the company works. And that's one of the principles I talk about is get out of this idea that says I will work harder when they pay me more. It's like telling a coach, hey, when you give me more playing time, I'll give you more effort. When you are not in the position of control, it's a very big financial mistake to try to use leverage when you don't have any. You don't get to say, I'll work harder when you pay me more. Because they are the ones that control what you get paid. You have to play by their rules and give them an incentive to pay you more. Well, it actually works because no one else does that. So I got to think about.

[Joe]

Hold on just a second there, David, because I want to pause there for a minute. When you say that, I think there's another benefit too that let's say, because there's. There could be a lot of our stackers listening, going, well, what if this jerk doesn't pay me though and I never do get the raise? Right. They got their brother in law comes in or their son comes in and it doesn't matter because now you've got the skills that you develop that you can take to some other employer that you develop because instead of dreaming about the next job, you're. You're focused on what's in front of you right now.

[David Green]

Yeah, and that's another principle which is that you really should focus on building your skills and not just what you're making. That is a. I don't know what it is about our generation, but you don't hear people talk about how important that skill building is. It's not all about how do you make the most amount of money with the least work possible. I actually did a TED talk and that's what I talked about, the art of building skills and how empowering that is. But you're exactly right. So not only did I get promoted to shift manager and get another raise, I learned skills. I learned how to count the till at the end of the night. I learned how to make schedules for employees. I learned how to do the inventory for the place. I learned how to manage the people that were there. I learned what products we sold that had a higher profit margin where other people thought I was being taken advantage of. I was actually getting a blessing. I was getting a free education in business as a 17 year old because I was out working everybody else, which opened up the door for the next job, which is when you mentioned my brother was working as a busboy at the Mexican restaurant next door to this one, and he was making 30 bucks a night in tips. And at the time, I was probably making like $6 an hour or something like that. So I was like, you're getting paid for five hours of extra work and you're getting your $6 an hour. Like you're making more. No one's gonna let their little brother make more money than them. And he was so like, I. I took a job there. And then I quickly learned, like, how the restaurant industry worked. Right. It was a step up, but it wasn't a huge step because I didn't have to go from serving ice cream to restaurants. It was serving ice cream to making sandwiches and managing staff to working in restaurants. I then said, well, where's a more expensive restaurant that has better tips? That led to me applying to the restaurant that was the most expensive one in town. This was a steakhouse with seafood and pasta. And I actually got a very, very extensive education in fine dining. I mean, the, the people who own that restaurant were like, classically trained. There's a way you serve food. You serve from the right, you clear from the left. The water glass goes. On a certain point, there's an etiquette that they drilled into us, and most of the people did not like that. They didn't like the micromanagement. They didn't like making a mistake and being seen. But I had a background in sports, so I was kind of used to coaches that micromanage you. And my attitude was, well, if I am the best person on the team, they're not going to have any reason to get down on me. So I embraced it. I would ask her questions. The owner like, well, how do I do this better? Tell me more about this steak. Or what wine would I pair with this steak? Instead of everyone else having a bad attitude. Oh, here they come again, asking me about the difference between pinot noir and merlot. I was researching that before she asked me that because I just wanted to be good at my job. And once again, I was promoted from busboy to waiter and then from the regular waiter to basically the top waiter, all before I was 20 years old. So I was making the same wage as adults that were raising families when I was 18, 19, 20 years old, going to school.

[Joe]

Those high end waiters make great money. And it also seems to me to be, David, that on some level, while that's a. A tough job, that also just looks to me to be a fun job. Like that regimentation and getting that right and nailing this beautiful experience seems to me also that translates into real estate as well. I mean, translates to anything, right? I mean, how you work with contractors, how you work with people, Just the etiquette stuff you talked about had to be just so fun.

[David Green]

That's a great point. There's a. It was challenging. Okay. It's not easy. It is high stretch.

[Joe]

A lot of people hardest.

[David Green]

Hell, exactly. If you have a brain that's thinking, I want to have as little stress and make as much money as possible, you will hate it there. But I had a sports background, so I was used to stress. The other team is trying to stop me from doing what I want to do. So I got into restaurants and I'm like, dude, there's no one playing defense. There's no one trying to stop me. They're not getting in the way between me and the kitchen and they're not hitting the plates out of my hand. Like, I'm the only one that controls you to win. Yes, that's exactly what they're actually going to help you. If you ask for help, you got a boss who's like, yeah, I own this place. I want it to go well. Let me send someone over to help you. I just had a completely different perspective on going to work. I did not think I was a victim. I was like, what a great job that I get to go here, make this much money and I don't have to find my own clients. I didn't have to go out there and find someone to sit in the restaurant. They were waiting there for me. I just had to go to the table and do a good job. Well, I learned skills. I learned to communicate effectively and quickly. Because in restaurants, it's all about time. How quickly can you get in, get what you need and get out? That restaurant that I'm describing didn't have computers at the time. We wrote everything on tickets by hand. If you made a mistake with the math, you paid for it. She would look at every single ticket at the end of the night. And charge you if you added it up wrong. This would all happen when you were super busy. A lot of what the waiters would do is they would take the order from the guest on a piece of scratch paper. They would go in the kitchen, there was a copy of a menu, and they would write down, okay, they wanted a ribeye steak. It's $26. Because you had to write on the ticket, ribeye steak, medium rare, either baked potato, rice or pasta. And whether they wanted soup or salad and what kind of salad. And then you would have to put the price $26 for this size or $32 for the bigger one or something. Well, I memorized those because it was going to save me time getting stuck in the middle of crunch, having to look at the menu and know the prices. I would just go for runs and in my head I would recite the menu and every single price. I'd make flashcards because I needed it in my mind. Well, what do you know that allowed me to pick up more tables when we got busy because I was more efficient. And that little, maybe 6% of efficiency would translate into significantly more money if I could get one more party of eight, another party of 12, because I could take them and other people couldn't. And like I mentioned, over a four year, five year period of time, making an extra 20 to 30% a year is like getting another year and a half of time working that you didn't actually have to trade time for money. I just did it more efficiently. So I learned to communicate better. I learned to leave people with a laugh. I don't want to get stuck talking to you when we're having a deep conversation when all my other tables are waiting. So I had to make you laugh and shoot out of there. I learned to anticipate things were going to go wrong. I learned to say, hey, when I'm in the kitchen, I better grab all the other stuff before I go back out there to save steps. And then when I got into law enforcement, when I got into being a real estate agent, when I got into other business opportunities that were inherently stressful, I had skills that allowed me to bear that weight. Where the other people who got into the same jobs just thought it was ridiculously hard and unreasonable to expect someone to be able to deal with that stress.

[Joe]

I think that's why so many military people do so well when they, when they transition out is they expect life to be hard. It's like growth mentality.

[David Green]

I talk about that all the time. Like for a real estate agent, One of the things we'll tell agents or investors is, hey, you're going to make phone calls. You're going to ask people if they want to sell a house. Well, if all you've ever done, Joe, is work at Starbucks and you wait for someone to walk in the front door and tell you the coffee they want, you see Starbucks employers that get all their feathers get ruffled because the person doesn't know what they want, oh, my God, they're still not ready. Do you want a Venti or a Grande or whatever they're doing there?

[Adam Barwi]

Right.

[David Green]

The littlest thing will throw them off that person. If I ask them to make 20 calls a day, feels like I'm asking them to do an incredibly difficult thing. But if you ask a Navy Seal, can you make 20 calls a day and say this script, they would look at you like, well, where's the work? Do I have to do pushups when I'm doing this? Are people shooting at me? Am I climbing a mountain? Am I swimming while I'm making these calls? Like, what do you mean? That's my job, is I just make 20 calls? And I learned through that industry that what you've done in the past will determine how you feel about what you're doing right now. It is not objective. If you've done harder things in the past, when you're asked to do the new challenge, it will seem easy and you'll be grateful. If you've done nothing hard in the past, what you're being asked to do now, like budget your money, save it, whatever the case would be, it feels unreasonably hard and your subconscious will resist and say, I shouldn't have to do this.

[Joe]

Let's talk about some of the measuring sticks. You go through some of the measuring sticks we talk about here all the time, like knowing your net worth statement, understanding your budget, getting comfortable with cash flow. But you got a metric in here, David, which was. Which I thought was. Was a pretty fun one. When you're measuring investments, you have one. One factor you call the headache factor when it comes to investments. Tell me what the headache factor is when you're evaluating investment opportunity.

[David Green]

Yeah, so that came from the question of people saying, well, what is wealth? And basically, we measure wealth in three major categories. The first is your net worth. This would be like within real estate, the equity you have in a deal, that's one way to measure wealth. The other would be your income. So from a real estate perspective, that would be cash flow. But it's very easy to find yourself Working yourself to death in a job that you hate when you're miserable in life and you get a really good income. Okay, so you have a high net worth, but did you win? Are you wealthy? You really need to ask yourself, how much do I enjoy doing the thing that I'm required to do in order to make money? Because I know when I was playing basketball and I loved the sport, I worked harder than everyone out there, but I never resented having to do the work. I loved competing. I loved working to beat that other person or lift up my teammates. Was it hard work? Yeah. But did I hate it? Hard work doesn't have to be synonymous with miserable. But if you made me do a job that I did not want to be doing, I will be the first to admit if you make me do something that I don't want. I'm trying to figure out how quickly can I get out of this thing and like, how, how fast can I get this over and done with? I think a lot of people making poor financial decisions get themselves into debt, end up in a job they don't like. On the outside, it looks like they're winning because they're making a good salary. But if they're not saving their money, they're stuck with the job they don't enjoy. They don't want to wake up the next morning. They get two days a week, if they're lucky to have some kind of fun, and then they have to take care of all the other responsibilities of adulthood. They're not winning. They have a headache factor. They don't like what they're doing for a living. And what I noticed specifically with real estate investing is too many people look at it like this magic pill to get them out of the life they hate. I don't like this job. I don't like this commute. I don't like whatever. And I'd say, okay, so quit it and start a business. I can't. I got a car payment, I've got student loan payment. I've. I'm house poor. I go out to eat all of the this many times a week because I don't like cooking. I need the job because I need the money. And they're trapped. They've got the wolf by the ears and they think that real estate investing is going to give them passive income and they're going to get out of that mess. And it doesn't. In fact, more people lose money in real estate trying to turn it into something passive because it's not. Just like your fitness isn't passive. Your friendships won't be passive. Your romantic relationships will not be passive. Anything that you stop paying attention to will fall apart. It will fall into disarray and you'll have to jump back in and build it right back again. There's no one that says, I got really fit and now I have passive fitness. I don't have to go to the gym and I can eat whatever I want. It's a ridiculous idea. Yet we will consistently sell people on passive income. You bought a house, you just let someone else handle it, and money's just going to come rolling in. You can quit your job. No, My argument is if you do not like your job, instead of saying, I won't work hard because I hate this job, that's actually the person that should be working twice as hard to get out of that job to earn the right to get a higher position or a better job that they enjoy more and their quality of life will go up. You don't improve your position in life by sulking and complaining and saying, well, I hate this job. My boss is a jerk, so I'm going to rebel by being lazy. You just give away the leverage that you would have in that relationship with your employer who you are dependent on to get money Again, we're coming back to, when do you have leverage and when do you not? When do you have power and when do you not? A way better approach is, how do I get power? How do I make myself so valuable that this company couldn't run without me? You're going to get a raise at that point. How do I make myself so invaluable to this company that they could not do it without me? Or I make them so much money that I can ask for a 40% raise and they would be smart to give it to me, or they'll give me a promotion, or if they won't, I can get another job because I have the skills that will translate. That's the way that you build a better life for yourself. Not looking for real estate to be the savior or getting yourself mired in something with a huge headache factor that you're not happy with.

[Joe]

There are three different sections in this Pillars of wealth, project, defense, offense, and investing. And you begin with defense. And there's a concept, David, in the defense part that I've only heard once and I actually heard about. I heard this term on a documentary about that. That da Vinci painting. Have you ever saw There's a da Vinci painting that was the biggest. It was sold for more money than any other painting ever. And people think it might be fake.

[Adam Barwi]

Right.

[Joe]

But they were talking about rich people and how they, quote, store their money. And you use that term, storing your money. And I'd like you to take a second, if you don't mind, and help our stackers learn what this is, because I think it's a. I think it's a really important concept because wealthy people think about, where am I storing this wealth?

[David Green]

I love that you're letting me talk about it. I frankly think it's a shame that it doesn't get talked about more. It's incredibly important. The whole concept first hit me when inflation just ripped through our system because of all the money we printed. I don't know how much you or your audience follows like macroeconomics, but quantitative easing was devastating for the value of the dollar. And what I found with real estate was that the price of your house could go up like the little green arrow on Zillow could point up. So it was 500. Now it's 520. Which makes you think, I'm getting ahead in life. I am progressing. But if the value of the dollar dropped by 10%, that $500,000 house dropped to 450, you could have lost a theoretical $50,000 of purchasing power. But you think you gain 20,000. The fact is, we don't really know what a dollar is worth. It doesn't have an inherent value and it doesn't stay locked in place. It is complicated. Money is used primarily. It has three different uses. The first would be a means of exchange. We can all agree I give you a dollar is much better than I give you a laptop and a couch cushion and you give me a car door and a carburetor. So it's useful in that way. It's also used as a means of account. So if you said, David, how much did that couch cost? I wouldn't say 77 chicken eggs and 14 two by fours. Right. That could be accurate.

[Joe]

Although that, Although, as you say, that might be truthful.

[David Green]

Yes, exactly. But it's so inconvenient that we turn every. We convert everything into a dollar and say, well, this is what it costs in dollars. Which becomes misleading because a $2,000 couch could have been a twelve hundred dollar couch five years ago. Right. And when it's now a $3,000 couch. But it might have lost value because no one wants to pay for a used couch. It's confusing. And the third use of money is it is a store of energy. Money holds value. So what I talk about in pillars is if you go work an eight hour day and you get paid a $20 an hour wage, assuming, like we're just gonna leave taxes out, that's $160 of value that you were given. And you can store that energy that you traded your eight hours of work for in $160 that you keep in the bank. Or maybe you go buy a pair of Jordans and you store the energy in those Jordans. Or you take a girl out to a restaurant and you trade that $160 of energy for a memory, I suppose. And if you don't marry the girl, what do you hell do you have to show for what you just did? When we look at monies purely as a means of exchange, it makes sense to spend it on anything that you want. When you see it as a store of energy, you start to ask different questions. If I said to you, Joe, would you want to work an eight hour day plus an hour of travel both ways, plus time getting ready, plus time decompressing, so that's like 12 hours to get paid for eight, or would you rather go out to dinner for. In order to go out to dinner for an hour, you probably would say, no, that's a dumb exchange. I'd rather make some hot dogs and watch the game with someone that I love and like, tell some jokes and make them laugh or something. When you think of it like that, it becomes very clear this is a stupid thing to spend my money on. But we don't think of it like that. So what I'm encouraging people to think about is where you place your energy matters. You can keep it in a dollar. Inflation may be ripping through the value of that dollar. You can spend it on something which is even worse than keeping it in a dollar, because that pair of shoes that you bought the minute you wear them aren't worth very much to someone else, and every time you wear them become worth less. You could spend it on expensive dinners, and all you really do is give your $160 to the restaurant owner who gets to keep, say, 40 of it after they pay everybody else and now they have that labor and that energy. Or you can invest it into an asset that will hold its value or hopefully grow in value, which the most obvious one that I know of is real estate. And the reason that real estate works so well is not because we're as smart as we think we are. It's because the same thing that causes your money to bleed, inflation makes real estate worth more. So by taking your energy out of a dollar that's losing money and putting it into an asset like real estate or a rare painting or gems or anything that is hard to replicate. You are ensuring that you will maintain that wealth for a longer period of time or hopefully even let it grow. And some of these assets you can improve the value of. You can put some elbow grease into em to make them worth even more. And over time that is how wealthy people become wealthy. But you need the money in the first place to do it. Which is why I talk about saving money and making money and not just purely investing.

[Joe]

That's why investing not surprising is in the back of the book where a lot of the, the get rich quick stuff has investing right away. You know, forget about a savings account, David. You're not going to get rich there. Let's, let's do let's something else. The book is called Pillars of wealth how to make save and invest your money to achieve financial freedom. Guys, we, we just barely. I could have talked David to you for 16 hours but thank you so much for mentoring our stackers for the last half hour on this. I think there's so much, there's so much valuable stuff we talked about here.

[David Green]

Thank you. Joe.

[Adam Barwi]

This is Rebecca from Connecticut.

[David Green]

Instead of stacking Hamiltons and Jacksons, I'd much rather be stacking Benjamin's.

[Joe]

Big thanks to Mr. Green for joining us. Oh gee, I love this theme of betting on yourself. Right. Nobody's going to do it for there is no help coming. I love it when you have that attitude. There's no help coming. I'm going to have to find a way to handle this.

[Og]

The only easy day was yesterday. Burn the boats.

[Doug]

That's the spirit. I remember the first time that notion came to me, Joe. I was working at a company that had gone bankrupt through no fault of mine. And weird. I was given a budget for parties. Anyway, the financial rescue firm that came in, it kind of took over in receivership. The main guy sat down at the table and said, look, there's no more help coming. The people who are going to fix this are sitting at this table right now. And that, that really woke me up. I hadn't really thought of it in those terms. You sort of always feel like when you're working with a larger company that there's some senior person above you that has the vision and has the plan. Really it's just you sitting around the table figuring it out. And, and I love that idea that you got to count on yourself.

[Joe]

How many times have we talked about gratitude and what a huge thing having gratitude for all the help that you do get is. I think you also espouse much more of a gratitude mindset, Og, when you. If you think no help is coming to Doug's point and then somebody does lend a hand, I mean, think about the gratitude you have when you're like, wow, I thought I had to handle this alone.

[Og]

Yeah. At some level, you know, you got to kind of pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Right. And take care of you and just go the way you want to go. You don't have to get permission or. Or any of that sort of stuff.

[Adam Barwi]

Right.

[Og]

It's like, just go.

[Joe]

I remember when John Hope Bryant was on the show and he said, you know, and that's not because it's fair or that it's going to be easier doing it yourself. He goes, no, you do it yourself. It's hard, and it probably won't be fair. There's going to be cronyism all around you. You might not be a part of that group. That means you need to work harder. Like, it's a. It's a great message.

[Doug]

Fairs where pigs win blue ribbons. It's not where you work.

[Og]

Wow.

[Joe]

Wow, man. Doug bringing it today.

[Doug]

Laying down the folksy kind of life advice today.

[Joe]

All right, back off. Mike Rowe.

[Doug]

Hey, let's.

[Joe]

Let's throw out the Haven lifeline, the Texas Tackle, some of life's most important questions. Hey, let's say hi to Adam. Adam, how you doing?

[Adam Barwi]

Hi, Doug, Joe and Og. I have a question around estate planning. My parents own outright a fairly significant plot of acreage here in the great state of Ohio.

[Doug]

Cut it.

[Adam Barwi]

My family and I enjoy using this property for hunting, fishing, and outdoorsy stuff. You know, all the things that Doug talks about while Og rolls his eyes in the background. The property is very sentimental to me, and I would like to ensure that I own it. When my parents are in their early 60s. Eventually pass. Neither of my two siblings has an interest in owning the property. So my question is, do you have any recommended approaches for how best to navigate the eventual transfer and or purchase of the land? I don't have the funds to buy it outright. Should something happen to my parents in the next 10 or so years, should I look at doing life insurance on them with me as a beneficiary, or should I just save my money and cross my fingers? Is there anything else that you could recommend in this process? My shirt size is probably one step above a shmeedium, also known as a large. And one last Note for Doug, since I said your name first and really do enjoy traveling to your state, maybe you can do me a solid and ease up on us Ohioans a bit. We're not all that bad. Thanks for keeping me entertained in the mornings. Always appreciate the interviews and the book recommendations. Adam from Ohio.

[Joe]

Adam, great call, especially for somebody from Ohio, I would have to say.

[Og]

Here's the great news, is that the property can't be worth anything if it's in Ohio. So.

[Doug]

I'm just kidding, dude.

[Og]

I'm just kidding.

[Doug]

Adam, Note that none of this is coming from me.

[Og]

The good news, you don't have to save any money. Wow.

[Doug]

This is a bloodbath.

[Og]

No, no, no, no. I'm kidding. Just because we said about it.

[Joe]

So we have to. It's all. It's all actually super fun. We're. I. I think as states, we're contractually obligated to have these back and forth. I think we. We have to. Yes. What was weird, OG was, of course, you moved down to where we live now. And there's the same stuff. It's not Michigan and Ohio now. It's Texas and Oklahoma or it's Arkansas and everybody. Whatever. Whatever it might be. Let's talk about how to handle this. Oh, gee. Because I can think of a few ways. He mentioned one. Do I buy life insurance? Do I save up for it? I've got a couple thoughts, but what's going on in that noggin?

[Og]

Well, I mean, a couple of things. Firstly, you're right to think about it now. The downside is, or I guess upside probably would be the likelihood of having to solve this problem sometime in the next 30 years is pretty low. Unless, of course, your parents need the money from the property. Right. Like, if they're like, okay, we're out of money. We're gonna go sell the hunting lodge. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Time out. That could be an issue. But if it's like just part of their estate and it's kind of just a family thing that's been around a long time, it may not need the cash and may not ever come up for sale. So then you're talking about it from an estate planning standpoint, and there's a couple of ways to handle it. Firstly, having property in a trust where there's going to be multiple trustees is always going to turn out to be a giant train wreck because some person is going to say, I think we need a new roof. And one person's going to be like, but I don't have any Money for a new roof. I'll pay you back next Christmas. And then somebody's going to be like, I want it all summer because I'm going to bring my family up. And you know, it's like, it's just going to be this big thing. So I think you really need to settle with your siblings and with your parents as their property about what their vision is and what yours is. Because it could be a scenario where it's like, okay, in the estate plan, we'll give the land and the property to Adam, we'll give the IRA to Becky and the other IRA and the other stuff to John, or you know, whatever it is to kind of keep it even. And I think there's also a scenario where you have to consider that if there's some large disparity, right? Where you go like, hey, the property's worth A million five. Mom's only got 100,000 in the Iraq, like, how are we gonna deal with that? And the only answer is you gotta go get a loan or write a check.

[Adam Barwi]

Right?

[Og]

Because again, back to that. We don't wanna have like multiple owners if possible. Cause again, one of them might be, I wanna borrow money out of it. It's just gonna be confusing. So I think you've got a lot of time, hopefully. Mom and dad are 60, you said so.

[Adam Barwi]

Yeah.

[Og]

Probably 30 years before this kind of comes to fruition. But it would be a good idea to kind of put it out there with, with them as well as, as well as with your siblings and run through a financial plan of like, well, how do we think this is going to end in 30 years from now? See where the money is and if it's going to be able to be divided evenly or if you have to think up new ways to deal with it.

[Doug]

Yeah, I have a little experience with this exact scenario. And you nailed one aspect of it.

[Og]

Og, which is just one.

[Doug]

Okay, you did. Because I think there's a second part to his question that we haven't addressed yet. It's even though you have siblings who I think you said don't have an interest in the property, they have an interest in what is a big bag of money sitting in the woods. Right. And so if the other assets in the, in your parents estate are not in their financial estate, are not roughly equally valued. OG's right. You got to find a way to make them whole. And if there's a big disparity, there may not be another way other than to liquidate everything and then divide it it equally. That's what. That's what the experience. What our experience was.

[Joe]

Well, he may be able to take out a loan at that time.

[Doug]

And would you suggest he takes out the loan not to purchase the property, but to pay off the siblings? I mean, what. What's he using that money for in the loan?

[Joe]

For the. How many. Did he say how many siblings he has? I just assume three.

[Doug]

Two or three.

[Joe]

Maybe it's. Yeah. Yeah. So if it's three of them together, then he needs to buy two thirds of them out. Yeah. So he will need a loan to pay off the two thirds of them or to fill out the amount of inheritance that he won't receive. Because, you know, this was the most. This was the biggest piece of mom and Dad's estate.

[Doug]

The other thing that OG also nailed was talking about it explicitly in advance because the family that I was a part of when this happened did not do that.

[Og]

Yeah, it's always. And it's always kind of sort of. Yeah.

[Joe]

It's kind of the understanding summertime discussion.

[Og]

The one who would handle this, this, and, you know, that kind of weird stuff. Just be very straightforward.

[Joe]

I will often see Doug, that they will do to appraise that property. They will put right in the estate planning documents that, you know, he gets first right of refusal to buy the property and to pay off everybody else and to fairly value it for the estate. They will get. What's your number, OG2, three appraisals, whatever. The number of appraisals is just a couple.

[David Green]

Sure.

[Og]

Yeah.

[Joe]

They either take the middle one or they. They get two and find the middle ground between the two. One of those two approaches works. And every state that I've seen, that's.

[Doug]

Another aspect is how do you agree on a price? So that's part of it. But I think we've talked about this in the not too distant past on the show, but am I correct in remembering that the one thing you don't want to do is buy that property or have your parents sell it to you for a dollar?

[Joe]

Amen.

[David Green]

Right.

[Doug]

Because then you. Then you have huge capital gains issues later on.

[Og]

Right. Joe said it. Yeah. Amen. No, you don't. Because if this property's been in the family forever, you know, or just even one generation, mom and dad bought it for whatever. Now it's worth some bigger number. The only way that you get to inherit it at that higher value is if you inherited at that higher value. If you have a transaction, you've just said to the government, now, I'm the owner of this At X price. Whether it's a full market value price or not. It'd be foolish to. Unless they need the money, right? Obviously there's some estate planning issues there, whatever. But it would be foolish to buy something from mom and dad that is of value. You know, if they're just gonna will it to you.

[Joe]

Anyway, can I take a second to say that we just heard halfway through the Haven lifeline read OG getting this gift from his daughter and his self control is literally zero. Like he's in the middle of answering this question while he's already gobbling on the stuff.

[Og]

Peanut M's, Adam.

[Doug]

He was chewing the entire time.

[Og]

M M's wait for no man.

[Doug]

Agreed.

[Og]

Amen.

[Joe]

Just sister. Anyway. So completely agree. Doug. We see that all the time and it is a huge mistake. You get to step up in basis at that point.

[Doug]

Are you chasing Peanut M and Ms. With a peppermint? Oh my God. What are you doing?

[Og]

It all goes. It all turns to the same inside the old gullet.

[Doug]

Your head is going to explode. Just go eat some toothpaste now. That's disgusting.

[Joe]

These guys, Adam, don't even care about Ohio anymore. The second that we get into a chocolate fight, like I don't care where he's from, we're gonna talk about.

[Og]

I would have preferred it to be in the freezer, honestly.

[Joe]

Stacky benjamin.com voicemail. If you would like us to answer your question. There's one more part of this we didn't address. OG which is buying life insurance on mom and dad. That's a way to plan for this.

[Og]

But pretty, pretty pricey work to do, you know, and you'd have to be a permanent policy because you don't know how long they're going to live and that makes it even more pricey. So I think working it out with the. With the siblings can be a lot easier.

[Joe]

The only good thing it does, Adam, is two things. Number one, you get to decide what the value of that property is going what the exchange amount's going to be first. So you know, okay, this is what I'm buying the thing for. Which means you're going to come to an agreement with your parents about how much that exchange is going to be. To Doug's point earlier, that may or may not be the fair market value in the future, which could create some tax problems potentially later on. Probably not.

[Og]

Think about the potential issues of you decide that the property is worth a million bucks and then somebody comes in and finds diamonds on the property or oil or something and now it's worth 10 million. Your siblings are gonna be peed off that you get to get it for a million. Likewise, you're gonna be peed off.

[Joe]

What a great problem to have, though.

[Og]

Yeah. You're like, well, guys, it sucks to suck, but I'm rich. So contract's a contract.

[Joe]

You, you whiners can go, I'll have.

[Doug]

My people call you.

[Og]

Or the other way around, right?

[Joe]

I'll pay for all your million.

[Og]

And then you find out that it's on a landfill or something and it's worth half that. You know, it's like, I think, I think it's a good idea to have it valued in advance, just to kind of get an idea of what you're looking at. But you can do that on Zillow.

[Joe]

The only thing this solves, Adam, though, is it does solve if you listen, if you don't want to take out a loan, you do want to make payments toward having that money available to put into the estate later. A life insurance policy. You know, you're looking to OG's point, maybe depending on their age, four or five, $600 a month that you're going to put toward that if you want to make sure it lasts forever. So you're going to have this payment go on and on and on forever. But if you don't want to, if you want to avoid the loan and you want to lock down the amount that he's putting toward it, oh, gee, well, then that's where life insurance can work. But I'm with you. I don't think I'd, I'd do that approach either. Again. Stacking benjamin's.com voicemail if you've got a question for the show and Adam, we're sending you a one size bigger than a schmedium all the way to Ohio. All the way to Ohio.

[Doug]

And actually have our crash research team find out if that's the longest Haven life segment we've ever had.

[Joe]

It very well might be. We do have a quick segment coming up. Welcome to the Back Porch. This is the last segment of the show. We always begin it with the community calendar. What's going on in our community, Doug?

[Doug]

Yeah, I want to make sure though, I'm going to queue it up for everybody. Here's what we're going to talk about. But we are absolutely getting to the Back Porch. Like the good part about the Back Porch, because I don't want to miss out on Og's traumatic childhood fire story. But before we get there, well, I'm going to remind Everybody again, as I did on Monday. We've got a great Instagram Live tomorrow night, tomorrow afternoon, if you're, you know, being specific about it. Andy Hill, five o' clock tomorrow, Instagram Live. You know, he brings great, great stuff about family, kids and marriage and money. Nicest guy in personal finance. And yeah, I'm including you two in that. He's nicer than you.

[Joe]

I think that's good. I think that's, that's correct. I think that's easily correct.

[Doug]

So tune in for that, hop on your devices, your phone, get on Instagram Live tomorrow, 5 o' clock Eastern. And we're getting a bunch of great reviews. I didn't talk about this on Monday, but I want to read part of one of them off. We got a review from EK 1106. So apparently we're getting reviews from droids on the planet Tatooine. He says EK 1106 says it's David Letterman show on finance, life and trivia. My favorite shows are the Friday shows when all of the regulars are together. Joe, og, Len and Paula. Lots of laughing and learning. Emphasis on that throughout the shows. Add the interesting guests and Doug's trivia. It's a great listen. So thanks, EK1106, a couple of others. But I want to move on. Basement discussions. We had a pretty lengthy question a couple of weeks ago, weekish ago, about rolling over IRAs, simple IRAs, Roth IRAs, and so interested to see the responses on that from our community. But I'll tell you what, if you ever put something out there, a real serious question like that, and you did, couldn't get a good clear answer.

[Joe]

That's the War and Peace. The War and Peace of questions.

[Doug]

Yeah, this particular one is pretty lengthy if you don't get what you're looking for. Anonymous, plus the person posted it anonymously. But if Anonymous does. If you don't get the answer you're looking for, call into the Lifeline. Call into the Haven Lifeline. And if you're not from Ohio, it'll be a lot quicker than the one we just had.

[Joe]

And it doesn't have to be random Candy Day, right. At Og's house.

[Adam Barwi]

Right.

[Doug]

So that's. That's one of the discussions going on in the basement right now. But can we, can we finally just crack the beer and talk about I.

[Joe]

Think it's time and here I think it's time.

[Doug]

Fire story.

[Og]

Oh, gee, sorry, I wasn't listening. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I know, I know. I was joking. I'M joking. Fire.

[David Green]

Fire.

[Og]

Fire. The. Yeah, I mean, it's not that exciting. It was super scary, obviously. But my brother, my younger brother, not steak brother, but my younger brother, older than steak brother, anyways, was a fire bug and so he liked to light stuff on fire. So one Saturday morning we were watching cartoons, I was in fourth grade and he was in second, and he was lighting popsicle sticks on fire, you know, like lighting them and then blowing it out. Lightning blowing it out, right. And somewhere during all that, I said to him, or he just figured out on his own this would be a bad thing to have dad find out because my dad on Saturday mornings would hang out in the kitchen and listen to the radio and just sit at the table and read the newspaper and drink coffee while mom was sleeping. So he went upstairs and threw out his evidence into the trash can, you know, because didn't want to have burning, you know, popsicle sticks in the, in the living room. And sometime thereafter, maybe like 30 minutes or so, he went up there and opened the bathroom door and saw that the bathroom was engulfed in flame and then ran downstairs and didn't tell anyone. So turns out you're not supposed to put popsicle sticks that are smoldering in a wicker waste basket in the bathroom full of tissue paper.

[Joe]

Who knew?

[David Green]

Who knew?

[Joe]

That's weird.

[Og]

So in very short order, of course, now, you know, there's all this fresh air going into the. To the otherwise sealed room, you know, by it being in bathroom, or mostly sealed, I guess, and. And we start hearing this pounding noise. I was like, you know? And my dad yelled from the kitchen. He's like, you know, knock it off, your mother sleeping. Kind of look at each other like, the hell is he talking about? Happens again. And he goes, I said, knock it off. Your mother's sleeping. We're looking at each other like, what is he yelling about? We're not doing anything. You know, third time happens, he comes out. You know, my dad was pretty, pretty rough and was like, if you. Sobs do the. You know, and we're looking at each other like we're not doing anything. And it happens again while he's standing there. We're like, huh, See, wasn't us. You know, like loser off the hook jokes on you. And it just. So I don't remember how I got there, but I just kind of took three steps around the corner, which is where the stairwell was, and I could see all this smoke coming down the stairwell. And then I said, dad. And he ran up the stairs and grabbed. Grabbed my mom out of the. Out of her bed. Out of her bed and ran down the stairs, and we went across the street to the neighbors or went next door to the neighbors, actually. And what was happening, what we didn't know was that it was my mom. She had inhaled a lot of smoke. She was disoriented.

[David Green]

All that stuff.

[Og]

She was pounding on the window to try to open the window. That was the noise, which obviously was a great thing, that she wasn't able to do that, because had she done that, it would have forced a whole bunch more air into the house. It was also the middle of winter. It was the end of January, so everything was sealed up. So you kind of got that negative pressure thing going on. So it would have been a pretty catastrophic thing. I do remember my mom running outside in her nightgown, basically, and sticking her head in a pile of snow. And I'm like, well, that's kind of weird. But, you know, she was, like, just trying to breathe and all that, all that other sort of jazz. Went to the neighbor's house. While we were sitting there at the neighbor's house, they called the fire department, obviously. And I just looked at my brother, and I was like, what did you do? Because I knew it had to have been something that happened with him. And he's like, I didn't do anything. So the fire department shows up, take care of the business, and then the fire chief comes down, and he's sitting at the neighbor's house. You know, this dude. I mean, he's full on battle gear, right? It's a winner. So he's got the heavy winter stuff on. The oxygen mask, the helmet, the gloves, the ax. You know, it's like central casting superhero. And he takes his hat off, and she's like. And he kneels down next to my brother, and he goes, son, do you have something to tell us? And he just. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And I'm like, I knew it. I knew he was a troublemaker. We should leave him. Anyway, so what was.

[Doug]

Did the fireman hold up a great popsicle stick?

[Og]

No, no, that was incinerated with everything else in the upstairs. So it was just an upstairs. I mean, just. Just an upstairs fire. So we were able to move back in as the construction was working after several months. The most interesting thing out of all of that was I was in fourth grade. My brother was in second grade. And, you know, mom went to the hospital. Obviously, she had smoke inhalation, all that stuff. And they're like, okay, we got to do some X rays. Are you pregnant? And she goes, no. I mean, I guess anything's possible. And they're like, well, before we zap you with a bunch of, you know, X ray stuff, oh, we're gonna take. And you're pregnant. So my. My aunt, who had also recently had a house fire within the previous 45 days, obviously the news spread in the family, so she came to the hospital to help her sister. And the doctor says, you're pregnant. My aunt goes, I'm the first to know. I'm the first to know. And then the curtain opens and my dad goes, first to know what? Oh, and his reaction could be summed up like this.

[David Green]

Oh.

[Og]

So that begins the story of stick brother.

[Doug]

Wow, that's a story.

[Joe]

Okay, Doug, besides that, what should we have learned today?

[Doug]

I can't even think anymore. I'm pretty focused on that. That was like a Hollywood story. That's amazing. But I'll take a shot at it, Joe. First, take some advice from David Green and remember that every dollar you earn is yours to keep. Second, take some advice from Adam Borrowy and dispose of your lithium batteries. And watch those E bike batteries especially. But the big lesson, if you're gonna name your restaurant after someone, give me a call. I'll give you a great deal on the rights to my name. Heck, there's already a Carl's Jr. You could own your own Doug Sr. Home of the Doug Burger and the Neighbor's Nuggets. Yeah, that's it. The Neighbor's Nuggets. I love it. Thanks to David Green for joining us today. You can hear more from David on the Bigger Pocket podcast, wherever you're listening to me right now. We'll also include links in our show [e-mail] thanks to Adam Borrowey for joining us. You'll find more fire safety tips for the whole [e-mail] and we'll have even more resources in our show [e-mail] this show is the property of SP Podcasts, LLC, Copyright 2023, and is created by Joe Salsihai. Our producer is Karen Refine. This show was written by Lisa Curry, who's also the host of the Long Story Long podcast with help from me, Joe and Doc G. From the Earn and Invest podcast, Kevin Bailey helps us take a deeper dive into all the topics covered on each episode in our newsletter called the 201. You'll find the 411 on all things money at the 201. Just visit stackingbenjamins.com 201 wonder how beautiful we all are. Of course, you'll never know. If you don't check out our YouTube version of this show, engineered by Tina Eichenberg. Then you'll see once and for all that I'm the best thing going for this podcast. Once we bottle up all this goodness, we ship it to our engineer, the, um, amazing Steve Stewart. Steve helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as I do right now. Want to chat with friends about the show later? Mom's friend Gertrude and Kate Junkin are our social media coordinators and Gertrude is the room mother in our Facebook group called the Basement. Say hello when you see us posting online. To join all the Basement fun with other stackers, type stackingbenjamins.com not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. What are you still doing here? The show is over. Go home.