KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Beyond Commission: The Infinite Banking Strategy for Real Estate Agents

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Summary:Financial strategist Mark Evans introduces an alternative wealth-building system for real estate agents known as "infinite banking." The episode details how agents can use a specially... designed whole life insurance policy as a private family bank. Listeners will learn the mechanics of saving capital, borrowing against their policy's cash value tax-free to fund other investments (like real estate), and creating a financial ecosystem where they, not the banks, are in control of their money.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is Wake Up to Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth. And now, here's your host, Brandon Brittingham. Hey, this next segment is brought to you by Paramount Property Tax Appeal. And these are guys that I trust, my good friend Wes over there. If you're overpaying for your property taxes, Paramount Property Tax Appeals specializes in helping commercial property owners and homeowners reduce their tax bills, ensuring that you you only pay your fair share. These guys are going to fight for you. And these are the guys that I trust. You can reach my good friend West. Their contact information is 310897-5056 or Wes at p-ptax
Starting point is 00:00:48 appeal.com. That's Wes at p-ptax appeal.com. Hey, what's up everybody? We are back again with another episode of Wake Up to Wealth. And I cannot thank you guys enough because you guys have continually made us in the top five in investing in Apple. multiple times we've leapfrog, Dave Ramsey and got the number one spot. We're averaging 65, 70,000 downloads per episode. So thank you all for listening and supporting. We greatly appreciate you being part of the Wake Up to Wealth crew. Today I'm super excited.
Starting point is 00:01:25 Got a gentleman by the name of Mark Evans here. It's kind of funny how small the world is because we get talking, have some mutual friends. and we met from Bobby Castro, who's a guy that helps both of us do some cool stuff. It's just funny, you know, when you get to the top of the mountain, a lot of times it's the same people. And it's just pretty funny that we get talking and we have the same circle of friends, same people that we know. And that's always really cool. And it's always why I stress to everybody, relationship capital is the best capital you can ever make. And so, Mark, thanks for being on the show today.
Starting point is 00:02:03 I appreciate you being here with us. Definitely, Brandon. Thanks for having me. I mean, dude, it's a prime example getting in the room. You know, amazing things can happen. We wouldn't be doing this right now if we weren't in that same room. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:02:15 So if someone's listening to this and they don't know who you are, you know, give us the elevator pitch who you are and kind of what you do. Well, small town Ohio kid, hillbilly. I know it doesn't look like it today, but I am June 2nd. I'll be in business 29 years. I've never had a job my entire adult life. if I don't kill it, I don't eat. I'm definitely eating over here.
Starting point is 00:02:37 I started off in a seamless gutter company. I bought it two days after high school for a thousand down, creative financing. I didn't even know what I was doing back then. I just knew I didn't want to work for anybody. Turned that in and was doing a lot of work for investors. Became a pretty big real estate investor. It was really bad at it for a long time,
Starting point is 00:02:52 but became really good at it. And then through that process, you know, started creating a lot of vertical integration through acquisition of companies from siding windows, garage doors, everything. I mean, pretty much everything inside around a house because that's what we did. We rehab and sold houses all day. And now if you fast forward, December 31st to 2005, excuse me, 2005, I took off for a month and I thought I had a business. I realized I had a job. So from 96 to 2005, I had a, you know, I worked 16 hours a day like we all do here. We all love
Starting point is 00:03:26 working. That's what we get to do. And but I was sitting on the beach, South Beach, with my girlfriend, and now my wife, Dina, on a flip phone, closing deals and putting out lots and lots of fires. And realize I got to figure this out. So that one month turned into seven years travel around the country and around the world. We went everywhere. We went all kinds of places. And while I was doing that, I was working on the business. It forced me to work on the business because guys like you and I, right, we'll just jump in.
Starting point is 00:03:51 Like, we'll solve, solve, solve, next, next, next. Problem is, that's cool at the beginning. It's not cool as it gets bigger is everything. We are the bottleneck to everything. We are the problem and the solution as well. Did that, finally build some real businesses, and I've been virtual ever since 05. I have offices all over the place. I never go to.
Starting point is 00:04:10 I have team members all over the world and still do real estate investing, have a lending business, have the media side of things, have a fintech company, involved in many blue-collar businesses through acquisition, equity, a little bit of both. And actually, getting ready to take a 60-day trip tomorrow. Actually, at least tomorrow, Brad. And so me and my wife and kiddos are going to head out to Hawaii, Tokyo, Australia, New Zealand for 60 days and kind of just explore. Obviously, I still do business. The truth is no one would know this is going on, Brandon, in our world unless we told them, right?
Starting point is 00:04:41 Because we have this beautiful thing called the interweb. Teams are still running. Businesses are growing and cranking, hiring, firing. Problems still exist. You know, winds are still happening. So it's, I'm sure we're getting some of that today, though, man. But I appreciate you having me, Brandon. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:54 So, man. And so a lot of people say kind of what you just said of, I've got a business, but they don't. They've got a job. I know it's probably a lot of things. But like, what do you think is one or two things you could pinpoint of? I was actually able to transition to here to basically sit in the owner's box, right? Like where you could have businesses running where you're not, you know, basically tied to doing that. A lot of people say they want to do that and a lot of people say they're going to do that.
Starting point is 00:05:30 But as you know, there's a few, there's a small percentage of people who actually get to do it at the level that you've done it at and be successful. There's a lot of people that try to do it and they fail. Yeah. Well, I mean, listen, I think it's a discovery process. You know, what kind of business owner are you? You know, I think a lot of people are trying to be something they're not. And, you know, the truth is we're all delusional, man. You know, our delusional actually serves us and hurts us at the same time.
Starting point is 00:05:58 That's why you got to be in the right rooms where people can counterbalance this delusional behavior and thought process. I always tell people, I'm not here to train you how to do it. My biggest job is how to untrain you. You know, it's kind of like a new program on a computer. You've got to take out the old disc and put a new system hardware. We've been taught a lot of bad stuff, man. We've been taught a lot of limited beliefs. For me, it's like, you know, real estate investing specifically, when I left in 2005, like I'm a chest-to-chest business guy.
Starting point is 00:06:23 Right, real estate, you're in the house, the seller selling, motivated. You know, we're running ads. We're doing all these things. The office is cranking. I actually loved that. I love, back then I loved like, I wanted to be the boss. You know what I mean? I was like, I'm the boss.
Starting point is 00:06:35 Here you come to me for the problem, you know, solutions. And then through the discovery, though, I realized I'm not as important in the business. Problems will happen. I am good at everything, but I'm not good at everything all the time. And no one's going to do it as good as us, right? We always say it. All of us have the same exact track. no one will do it as good of us.
Starting point is 00:06:55 Okay, but if they're only doing this 100% of the day, and that's all they had to focus on, and they only did it 50% better than 50% as good as me, but I have five guys doing that. They're way better than I ever could be as one person. Absolutely. And there's problems in that. There's problems in that, right?
Starting point is 00:07:10 You're going to have slippage. You're going to have over budgets. You're going to have these things that going on, but now I can focus on the business. Like Walmart, they have a 10%, you know, 10% of their profits get stolen out of the front door every day. You know, so they figure out of, solution. It's not like Sam Walton in there back in the day. I'm going to see in the front door
Starting point is 00:07:26 and I'm going to protect everything. I'm going to run everything. Like, no, Jeff Bezos is not boxing everything and shipping labels today. It's a business. And again, that's not right or wrong. Some people just don't want to do it or can't do it. Honestly, Brandon, it's a control-free thing for sure. Yeah. One of the things you just said that if you guys are listening, I don't want you to miss this because it is gold. You said, you know, I can't be good at everything all the time. You know what I mean? And I think that's the mistake that we make as entrepreneurs is we want to be good at everything all the time. We wear a bunch of hats. And a lot of us entrepreneurs are extraordinary in our ability.
Starting point is 00:08:03 But then what happens is you're actually losing because you're stretching yourself too thin. Yeah, you probably would do it better than most people. But to your point, if they could do it at 50% your capacity, you're going to get there a lot faster than just putting the shit all on your shoulders. Exactly. And this is seasonality too, right? you know, when I was able to work 16 hours a day, I had a girlfriend, I even now my wife, I didn't have kids. I love working, you know, so it's like now, you know, depending on where you're at in the journey, my biggest fear of Brandon is you got these guys, 40, 50, 60 years
Starting point is 00:08:34 old, has these amazing children, grandkids, or whatever, and they're still acting like they're 17 years old or 22 years old, grinding about it. Like, you know, do listen, if you're success in business and failure at home, globally you're failing because the ultimate goal, like no one cares about what you've accomplished in business. your family is really why you're doing all this crazy stuff anyway. So I'm very conscious of that thought process because, you know, I don't want to be great at business and not great at home. Hey, are you ready to take the next step towards homeownership? At responsive mortgage, the guys that we trust, they make the process simple and tailored to your needs.
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Starting point is 00:09:44 Business acquisition. You know, and it's funny. I actually had somebody call me the other day and they're like, you know, I'm going to pivot. it and I want to start buying businesses. And I'm like, what the fuck do you know about doing that? Right. And how about figure out your business first? But it is a, it is a lucrative business. We've done it. You know, not at the level you've done it at. But like, if you would, you know, just kind of share like, what do you look for, you know, how do you evaluate one? What do you come in and try to do? Like, like, how do you look at that whole process? Yeah. Real quick, the disclaimer for me is,
Starting point is 00:10:20 you know, I have a lot of contrast. You've got a lot of real estate people, business people here. And I think you guys got to understand, like, buying a business is not like buying a piece of real estate. I know it's, by the way, it's a good marketing strategy. Like, buy a real estate deal. It only makes $1,000 a month. It's $100,000.
Starting point is 00:10:35 Or buy a business for $100,000. And it can make you as unlimited, sort of. Yeah, yeah. But the problem is with real estate, there's always a value to it. The truth is, if you buy the wrong business and you don't know how to manage it, right, it actually has a negative benefit because there's debt to it. You have employees, you have hard costs. You know, I have businesses I've sold and I'm losing $80,000 a month.
Starting point is 00:10:58 Those are not worth money. Those are actually, you're paying and or breaking even just to get out of them because you have liability attached to it. Single family house, dude, and I've had many of these where I could buy it and just landlock it and make 300, you know, make 300% in 20 years, 10 years or whatever, depending on the location. I don't have to do anything. Just pay the taxes every year and mow the lawn twice a year kind of thing.
Starting point is 00:11:18 So they're definitely different strategies, different categories in investing. But investing in business, like I said, I did my first one in 1996 and I did multiple up to 2000. And again, the truth is I didn't even know what I was doing. I was just so dumb. I was like, why wouldn't I buy something where the phone's ringing 80 times a day? I don't have to do anything. Like literally, like I lived with my parents.
Starting point is 00:11:43 I was 18 years old. I bought this gutter company. I literally, the day I buy it, I plug in the back. this is old days. So a lot of your viewers might not know you plugged in a phone and actually had a voicemail, like answer machine with a tape recorder. And I literally, the phone was ringing off the hook because it was established 16 years in business.
Starting point is 00:12:00 And it was needed product gutters in Ohio. It was a big deal. So I kind of had like as I started getting a little bit more mature, I started realizing kind of what I was going. But now what I, what I'm looking to do honestly, man, when I'm establishing it,
Starting point is 00:12:13 like I said, I call it the Torch method. So first is the T. time, right? We're all at different times in the game. How much time do I have? Some of you might have a lot of time on your hands. That's awesome. You could buy different businesses that I can't buy or won't buy simply because of a time factor, right? And then the O in the Torch method is opportunity cost. This needs to be low for me. Like I can't have, if I take my attention into this business, it better have a very high probability and value or my opportunity cost on what I actually have
Starting point is 00:12:45 going on that I know works for sure and I'm growing as well, it doesn't take away from that. And then I'm looking at risk, you know, like, let's be honest, not all businesses have the same risk profile. You know, if I'm buying a mom and pop store in the corner, which I don't do that. But if I did, that's a higher level of risk. One, I'm virtual. Two, I don't like to have that. I wouldn't mind own into real estate and running it back to them potentially, but I don't like the risk factor of that. And online, does it have assets? Does it have employees? You know, there's different risk levels. And then you've got to ask yourself, what skill am I bringing? Honestly, Brandon, a lot of these people aren't bringing any skill. They have an idea,
Starting point is 00:13:25 and they might have access to a little bit of capital. But if you don't have skill sets on managing these components, you're going to get smoked because there's real players entering this game now. Like, it's way different now. By the way, I bought my seamless gutter company for $25,000 and the thing was making six figures, well, it was grossing 650-ish, the first year kind of thing. So you could never do that now. It's just different. And it came with equipment, it came with a truck, it came with all these things, and $1,000 down.
Starting point is 00:13:54 Like, it was literally a handshake, two-page contract, you know, good old boy thing, you know. And then, you know, I'm a cash flow investor. So don't ask myself, does this, how much cash flow does this have or is this a cash suck? You know, some of you guys listening to me are really good. And my mind breaks with this, by the way, but like when you do startups, hey, my burn rate is $100,000 and I go six years of burn rate because you're going to constantly be raising money, raising money, raise money. I don't do that. I can't do it. My brain doesn't work like that.
Starting point is 00:14:22 I'm not that smart. Genuinely, I'm not that smart. However, I know if a hundred comes in, 80 goes out, net 20, I like that model. I understand basic cash flow structures. And then what am I building this for? Because a lot of you guys are creating fragmented opportunities, meaning you're in the gutter company. and then I'm going to go do software and then I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this. There's no connection.
Starting point is 00:14:44 So what happens on part of the Torch method, the E is enterprise value. If I buy this company today, does it add to my enterprise value of what I'm really trying to accomplish? Oh, that's, that's, that's money. I've never heard some, I've never heard somebody relate it that way. That's, that's a good one. Well, again, I've, I discovered this the hard way because I was buying everything all over the place and my resources got so limit. again, again, it's kind of like real estate, right? If you do single family investments, that's good.
Starting point is 00:15:14 But if you do apartment buildings, that's a different team, different lawyers, different commercial broker. Everything's different. Yeah. But you're like, I'm still a real estate investor, so it's the same. Yeah. Well, no, if you're doing rehabs now, if you're a rental portfolio, like these are all different businesses, the skies is the same business.
Starting point is 00:15:30 However, if I did single family, this is exactly how I progressed, I did single family rentals. And then I moved over to single family rehabs. I call it the one step over method. As long as it's one step over and I can actually use some of my resources, the same bookkeeping, some of those and then expand resources with relationship capital. That's different. That's a lot easier to make these moves.
Starting point is 00:15:51 The reason most people won't do it though, Brandon, it's boring. Yeah. You know, it's like almost something new and it's exciting. It's, well, sometimes honestly, real business isn't too exciting. No, that's a good point. Another thing that you said that I think is so important, I've had to learn this the hard way. I think it's a gift and the curses of an entrepreneur. You said opportunity cost.
Starting point is 00:16:14 And I think so many people miss this. And we were in the room together when a gentleman said, one of the biggest struggles you're going to find as an entrepreneur is you've got to say no to really good ideas to execute on the great ones. That stuck with me. And opportunity cost is I remember one of my first mentors, I was looking at an opportunity and we thought it would make us a million dollars, right? She had a ton of money, especially to me at that time.
Starting point is 00:16:46 And but he sat me down and he said, that's going to cost you three. And I said, you're fucking old and crazy. And he said, okay. So walk me through what it's going to take you to make that million. And then he said, okay, now see how much that. takes away from everything else that you're doing. That's making way more than that, by the way. And then I was like, holy shit, like a light bulb went off.
Starting point is 00:17:15 And I was like, that's real opportunity cost. You know? And that's, I wanted to highlight that because you said it, you know, you eloquently said it very easy. And I just don't want people to miss that because entrepreneurs, all of us, we chase the shit and we chase the shiny object and we forget it takes away for the main. for the main thing. I love the enterprise value and the one step over that, that is genius. Another thing that you said that I want to highlight is, you know, you said you don't want to do startups.
Starting point is 00:17:46 And I think to your point, the buying businesses or whatever you do needs to be tied to your identity. Another thing that the, when we were together in Florida, the founder of Netflix said is he was good at startups, but he was bad after they were startup, right? And he knew that. And he knew when to get out. So that's really cool. So you went through the torch method, and I really appreciate that because that's goal to break down for our audience.
Starting point is 00:18:13 So like what do you look at like what is, if you were to pick one, what is the ideal business like today you want to buy? Like what kind of revenue are they doing? What do you think you bring to the table? And then ultimately, do you look to exit? Do you look to roll that business into something else? Like how do you look at it? Yeah, again, just to be clear, I have construction background, right? I grew up in construction my whole life.
Starting point is 00:18:34 so I understand construction very, it's simple to me. Yeah. So, you know, I just got to say that because I do, that's why I like the blue color space. My family's blue collar. I'm, I'm blue collar. Like, it's just, it's through my blood. And I believe I saw my uncles.
Starting point is 00:18:49 I saw my mom, my dad, my parents, all these guys and gals work really hard and never get to the end of the finish line and get a payday. So I kind of have an internal mission to like really help great blue collar guys and gals, you know, take what I know and understanding and my relationships and my my connections, everything, that's my biggest value, my knowledge, my relationships and connections, and I do have a little bit of banking relationships too, where we could plug in a lot of these companies in the blue collar space specifically. I like them going anywhere from $5 to $10 million, gross. You know, typically, EBIT is going to be anywhere from $700 to $1.5 million. I like to come in
Starting point is 00:19:24 around that point. I don't like them when they're too small. Again, I'm not in the day to days. I'm not a micromanager. I'm more forecasting big vision. Here's the targets. Hey, we're going to bring in these three people, four people, you know, typically we'll bring in a books person, someone to jump on the books and really understand that and give us visuals and data to support everything they're saying because we're all good at saying stuff, but very few people good at actually accomplishing it. And then I bring in an operations driver. Typically, I'll layover an operation third party. We just pay them out monthly and say, hey, I need you to go do every two or three weeks,
Starting point is 00:20:00 especially in the beginning. I need you to do site visits and I need you to drive the team. team, reorganize the team, drive the team. When we come in, there's a little bit of disruption, right? Of course. So my company would have anywhere from 25 to 60 employees when we're stepping in, and our job is to go in there and to streamline, get their books tight because no one has good books typically. Let them get some good. And again, this, if you ever feel overwhelmed or anxious, it's really because you don't have good books. You know, because business is just math. Humans mess it all up. And this is way, no doubt. By the way, no doubt. I suck it. That's why
Starting point is 00:20:33 I hired people to do it for me. So it's like, and it's like, man, I don't know what's going on. Everything's falling down. It's like data, not drama. So every day, like anybody said, I was talking more than three words. I'm like data, not drama. But so we'll step in. I like blue collar.
Starting point is 00:20:48 I like roofing. I like siding windows. I like HVAC plumbing, electrical. I like them where, like I said, I'm going to go in and get a, you know, a 3x, 4x valuation today. That's where I'm going to come in. Oftentimes, I don't mind bringing money to. them as well. Oftentimes, they don't need money. They need knowledge and connections in a
Starting point is 00:21:08 playbook. They need clarity of where they're going. These are already focused people, by the way. I think this is a big misunderstanding. People have focus and clarity mixed up. You know, you're focused. A lot of people are just focused on the wrong problem or the small problem. And I can step back. I'm non-emotional. I understand the playing field a little different because I've been around the long enough where it's like, hey, guys, we need to gain clarity. And then we're going to take this clarity and we're going to plug it into your focus. Because these guys are, there's a lot of amazing people out there just working way too hard for way too little. So we typically were trying to sell them within three to five years max. And, you know, sometimes
Starting point is 00:21:43 what will happen is it might be a singular focus. But, you know, a roofing company tomorrow I'm taking down actually, we actually already have two other companies that will fold into that. And we'll sell them probably in about 18 months. Right. Yeah. You know, they want three years. They want to be out in three years or less. I think it's going to happen way sooner because, again, that's our power. Like, we'll come in and like, hey, you're bringing. bringing us in at 3x, we're going to sell this at 8 to 10x when we go on the X-Ex. So, you know, but again, those are the type of companies I really like. Yeah, one of the things you said, too, is this is not to be understated.
Starting point is 00:22:15 It's most people's books are not right. If you're an entrepreneur out there, one of the things that he just said, you know, data not drama, your decisions are math and they're all based on data. The struggle that I see so many people have is they don't even have the data. They don't even have the right data to make a decision. And they don't have their back office tight enough to even have the right data to make a decision. One of the things you should really be concerned with as an entrepreneur is investing and having that side of your business correct.
Starting point is 00:22:50 Because if not, you're going to have problems. Well, problems are coming for sure. And not of that, you'll sleep a lot better at night. The thing is that what you said, Brandi, is very important. It's an investment, not a cost. a lot of people, and I did this for years, so I'm talking out of experience. For the first nine years, I thought an accountant, bookkeepers, tax advisors were a cost, not an investment.
Starting point is 00:23:12 Really, I realized that when I almost went bankrupt twice, by the way, how much of an investment they really are back in the day. I never did go bankrupt, but I was close. I mean, I had the paperwork filled out. I was ready to file. And I just ended up one more day, one more day, excuse me one more day. And then I figured it out, but I can tell you, these are great investments. And again, you don't have to spend 20,000.
Starting point is 00:23:32 a month with these individuals out of the gate. It all depends on your size. Once you get clarity on one data, and don't get too complex with data, that's another thing I see too brain. A lot of people get complexity inside of their data. They know data about everything, but they don't know what to do with the data. Right. They're coolest. It's like you have overconsumption. Ideally, you're finding, you know, six, seven KPI points that really can move the needle. I mean, let me give some basically, like sales calls, right? How many calls are you making and what's a conversion? Real simple, right? I don't need to know cold leads, warm, leads, hot leads, follow-up leads, blah, blah.
Starting point is 00:24:04 Like, I just need to understand the main important ones. Obviously, if I need to deep dive into them, we can. But I see a lot of people so, they're deep diving on the stuff and why they're deep diving, they're not actually doing the work. And there is that other side of the category where I have people and companies I've had to let go. They know everything about the data, but they don't know what they do with it in the companies or stuff.
Starting point is 00:24:22 Right. Yeah. That's a good point. That's a really good point. Hey, let me tell you about my good friend Jeff Hyde over at MSC consultants and check out his episode. if you've missed it. With today's volatile interest rate environment, real estate investors are looking for every advantage illegally available. More and more are realizing that accelerating depreciation
Starting point is 00:24:43 allows them to free up cash flow, enabling them to acquire their next property sooner. MSC's approach to COSSEGs is the answer. If you've got properties out there, you haven't done COSSEGs on, you're paying too much in taxes. MSC's approach to COSSEGS is the answer. Visit them at www. That's www. call segs.com and ask for my good friend Jeff Hyatt. So you just mentioned it. You're on the brink of bankruptcy. And obviously you turn that around.
Starting point is 00:25:15 I'm always interested more in, for me personally, I think that success is a bad teacher sometimes. I've learned way more when I got my ass absolutely handed to me than when I hit the walk off home run. So, you know, what do you? you think was a lesson you could share in that?
Starting point is 00:25:35 Obviously, you didn't give up. But what do you think you learned? What clarity did you gain through going through that? Well, man, again, we just saw it happen real time with Kansas City Chiefs. They left their foot off the gas a little bit. I was there, by the way. Yeah, I saw that. When you're winning, you know, you kind of think you keep winning.
Starting point is 00:25:52 I promise you they come out next year, fucking hungrier than they've ever been. Getting embarrassed like that on national, national TV at that stage is a whole not a level. And that's what happened to me. I was very young, naive. I was spending lots of money at the club being silly. You know, I thought I had everything figured out. Having fun. Yeah, yeah, man, listen, I was the boss, not a leader.
Starting point is 00:26:12 That's a big thing to change. You asked that earlier. I did transition from a boss to a leader. I don't want to be a boss to anyone. I want to lead leaders and I want to be a beacon to them. I want to help them and guide them and, you know, level them up. And if I level humans up in my organization, the organization levels up. You know, so that was not the old me.
Starting point is 00:26:30 That's like new talk track for me, for the last 12 years. The old me was like, this is the way it's done. No, you can't question me. I'm the boss kind of thing. So I just got cocky, man.
Starting point is 00:26:41 You know, I thought I figured it all. Not only that. I wish I understood the Torch method. I didn't understand opportunity costs. I didn't understand time. You know, I didn't understand my time involved.
Starting point is 00:26:50 You know, we take for granted. We were like, oh, yeah, it's only going to take an hour a day. Yeah. Every business I buy, every business I buy.
Starting point is 00:26:56 They're like, oh, yeah, only spend a couple hours a day. I'm like, um, how? Like, you think
Starting point is 00:27:02 about it. You're not even sleeping three hours a night because you're stressed out overwhelmed of what you've got to do tomorrow. Like, that's thinking. And oh, by the way, you're working 12 hours a day. The brain, well, the brain damage. People forget that. Oh, it's real. Yeah. It's very real. So yeah, that was like the biggest
Starting point is 00:27:18 lesson, man. It's just like, you know, be humble. I'm a student forever. I'm constantly investing myself. We are the best of our investments in ourselves. Obviously, you know that brand. And so, you know, I'm like, I always want to learn. I'm very curious not to just learn, curious to be better.
Starting point is 00:27:33 You know, who's doing it better than me? Like, as you know, as you get bigger, it's not about competition. It's about collaboration. Absolutely. You know, when you're in the beginning, it's all about competition. You're always worried about everyone trying to take your client, take your buyer, take your seller, whatever. Dude, like, at the end of the day, it's like, I'm like, how do we collab? This is what you do.
Starting point is 00:27:51 That's what I do. How do we do more together? What's one plus one equals four? How do we do that? And, but this comes with maturity, longevity, getting kicked in the face many, many times. You know, so I don't get this ugly face by night being getting kicked a bunch of times, that's for sure. Switching gears a little bit. So you've taken a lot of your knowledge, right?
Starting point is 00:28:11 And you've built community. I'd love for you because I'm just, I'm such a huge believer of that. We've got a huge community here with the podcast. You know, I run a couple of groups as well. But you do some cool stuff. I'd love for you to touch on that. Yeah, I have two communities, the DM family. You know, it's a $50,000 on your community.
Starting point is 00:28:29 There's 33 guys in that group. group, high level. It's max it. It'll ever be it. We don't go over 33. It's a little bit more hands-on. A lot of guys have exited companies for big money. A lot of guys have built pretty large companies, nine figures or more, some eight. And then, you know, I have the DM Alliance. It's $1,000 a month. We have 154 guys and gals in there. And what we're doing is just teaching them how to build a business right. That's right for them, by the way. That's one thing I got to always focus on Brandon when I'm doing this in the community is, I don't want to tell you what I would do yet. I need to understand where you want to go so I can guide you the fastest path. Because what I want to do and what you
Starting point is 00:29:07 might want to do might be a billionaire. I might want to be a hundred millionaire. I don't, I don't know. And these are way drastically different action plans. Not to say we shouldn't all want to be more, but like some people just genuinely don't want that, you know, from my experience and I've got to see where they're at. How long you've been in the game? What are you trying to accomplish? What's your life look like today? What's your cash flow position? you know, what's your urgency factors? Because a lot of us make very crazy decisions in urgent situations. Like, I need cash today. They melt down everything. Just try to get a quick buck. We've all been there. I'm not judging it. But like, I need to understand where they're at.
Starting point is 00:29:43 So those groups are, you know, very collaborative. As you know, we're big into relationship capital. The giving muscle I talk about often, you know, I get people rewards for giving. Like how much are you giving back? Not just money, but time as well. Because I do feel like we have to be great stewards, not only of our wealth, but of our efforts and knowledge and connections. Yeah. So that's that's golden man. I appreciate that. So one thing I always ask everybody at the end of every show is we call the show, wake up to wealth.
Starting point is 00:30:16 And my whole idea and premise behind why I wanted to do this show was because I was never taught correctly about money, as most people aren't. And one of the reasons I did this show was to bring people on like you and open people's mind up to see a different world of you can become wealthy and you've just been taught shit the wrong way. And my vision was I want to give people of knowledge that they can change their life and they can wake up everyday wealthy, regardless of what that is to them. So I ask everybody the same question, which I'll ask you is, what does waking up to wealth mean to you? Well, it means a lot of things. Number one, waking up, I can, I can't, I can't move. Like, that's step one. I can't, I can't do anything else if I'm not moving. So you got to take care of yourself. Healthy, right? Healthy is wealthy. And then, you know, just being around my family. Like, I do this because of my family. I don't go out. I don't drink. I don't, I'm not doing
Starting point is 00:31:13 any that crazy stuff. I typically travel with my family everywhere I go. So to me, family is, you know, what drives me. And then, you know, wealthy too, surrounding myself around people. I love having great people, you know, like we self-brandt, we're just getting to know each other, but like people that challenge me to be better, you know, how can I have a bigger, blah, blah, blah, blah, or how can, not even just bigger to be bigger, but like bigger vision, bigger mindset, bigger connections, bigger everything. Like, how do we just, and I'm very appreciative and thankful for everything I have, but I feel like I'm honestly, man, as you know, I don't think we feel like we've done much of anything. I know we've done some cool stuff, but like, there's so much more to do.
Starting point is 00:31:51 And life is, you know, the end is coming. Like, I'm very motivated. by death. One day it's coming and I wanted to just be meaningful for my family and all that. And then obviously, you know, we got to have money in it. So don't get it twisted. Like I'm all about having money, but, you know, money's not the first of the line, you know, even though it is very important up there by air for a lot of people. But like, there's lots of ways to generate wealth. And wealth is relative to everyone here. And I think, you know, just having the mindset that you're moving towards wealth and, you know, listening to a show like, like this with you, Brandon, I think it's very important for people. It's constant learning. Like,
Starting point is 00:32:28 this never goes away. I'm still learning. Brandon, we're all still learning. So don't think you're behind the eight ball. Most people, truthfully, never even catch this idea. You know, they just suffer. That's my family, by the way. They just suffer through life and they accept it. You know, and a great way to know this is, are you still dreaming? Are you still pushing? Like, if you ask most people what their top five dreams are, they don't even know, dude. They don't even know. they kind of given up on it because like if you say it out loud, you actually got to work to get it. And you got to get uncomfortable and it's scary and you might fell. But, you know, I think to me waking up wealthy is just being around great human beings and pursuing greatness, you know.
Starting point is 00:33:10 That's also, man. Powerful, powerful, powerful statement. So for those that want to follow you, check your stuff out, where can they find you? What's the best place to get in touch with you? Yeah. Social media everywhere at Mark. Evans DM or get over to Mark EvansDM.com as well, man. Love for people to check it out.
Starting point is 00:33:27 And if there's anything I can do, let me know. I love Donuts stuff, man. As you know, I think we have to do this. It's very important to help other people. Yeah, well, I know you're a busy guy, and I know you're about to be traveling for 60 days. So the fact that you took the time to come speak to me in my audience, I'm very grateful. And I thank you so much for your time and being with us today. Hey, what's up, everybody?
Starting point is 00:33:52 This next segment is brought to you by Greg Harleen and my good friends at Horizon Trust. Greg's a guy that I trust and a real estate partner of mine. Greg's company Horizon Trust was founded in 2011, has over a billion dollars in assets. And what they specialize in is helping you get into a self-directed IRA account that you can leverage to do things beyond traditional investments. So you can invest in things like precious metals, real estate, private lending and so much more. So a lot of people are not aware that you can do this with your retirement account. And these are the guys that I trust. They do a single low annual fee.
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Starting point is 00:35:16 We sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcast. This way of good updates as new episodes. episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review on Apple Podcast and tell your friends about the show. It is how new people find us. Until next time.

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