The Money Mondays - The 40-40-20 Formula: How I Invest My Money for Safety, Growth, and Big Wins
Episode Date: July 15, 2025In this special solo episode of The Money Mondays, Dan Fleyshman dives deep into the investment strategy that’s guided him for decades — the 40-40-20 Principle. If you’ve ever wondered how to pr...otect your wealth while still leaving room for life-changing returns, this is the episode for you.Dan breaks down:📊 40% Low-Risk: How to earn consistent returns through CDs, gold, and the S&P 500 — even in a volatile market.🏡 40% Medium-Risk: Why real estate, established cash-flowing businesses, and individual stocks can provide solid 10-30% returns year over year.🚀 20% High-Risk: How angel investing and Bitcoin create asymmetric upside, with strategies to manage risk and unlock big wins.He also covers:✅ Real-life examples of how he invests✅ Why inflation is your silent enemy✅ How to invest at ANY income level✅ The power of compound interest (including how to set your kids up for future wealth)Whether you have $10k or $10 million, Dan’s timeless framework will give you a simple blueprint to follow — helping you build wealth while avoiding common mistakes.💡 Ready to stop sitting on cash and make your money work for you? Listen in and start creating your personalized 40-40-20 strategy today.
Transcript
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the Money Mondays, where we cover
three core topics, how to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity.
But today we're only going to cover one topic focused on investing.
I call it 40-40-20.
My investment philosophy, you may have heard me sprinkle in some clips here and
there over the last two years of the podcast, but today I want to explain everything about 40-40-20
so you can understand why I've used this investment strategy for my whole life.
First, the first 40% is low risk investing. I want to make between 5% and 9% for the year.
The second part, 40%, is medium risk investing. My goal is to make between 10% and 9% for the year. The second part, 40%, is medium risk investing.
My goal is to make between 10 and 30% for the year.
And lastly, the final 20 of the 40-40-20 is 20% into high risk investments.
This is where I want something crazy to happen.
I'm hoping for 3x, 7x, 12x, something wild to happen or a big return.
And if I get it wrong or it takes a long time, I'm hoping that the low risk and the medium risk covers the high risk 20%.
I want to have that as part of my portfolio so that I can have some major
things happen to shift my financial situation. Now let's use a real
life example of $100,000. Again for you this might be $10,000, you might have
$10 million or anything in between.
All the math percentages, they all equate to the same thing.
So I'm just gonna use the $100,000 as the core number.
But I want you to understand as you're listening to this,
if you've got 10 grand to work with
or you've got 10 million, it's the same concept.
We're just gonna use 100,000 as the number.
And 40, 40, 20 is the same math
whether you have 10 grand or 100 grand.
Okay, I'm very passionate about this topic. I use this as part of my speeches
and sometimes it changes with the time because things happen in the markets.
The 40-40-20 part does not change, meaning
I stick to the same principle, the same model, but I might be looking at certain
things
that change within the category. So there might be some new things in low-risk
investing
or might be some new things in medium-risk investing or might be some new things in low risk investing or might be some new things in medium risk investing
or might be some new things in high risk.
Right now you're seeing Bitcoin at $119,000 breaking records
so you might be thinking about within your high risk,
that 20%, maybe you're switching some things around
of allocating some extra capital to Bitcoin
or on the low risk side, there might be something new
like a CD that's being offered at over 4%. Maybe there's some switches on the low risk side, there might be something new like a CD
that's being offered at over 4%.
Maybe there's some switches there in low risk.
So let me walk you through real life situations,
real life investments that I've done over the years
so you can pick and choose for yourself
what might fit for you or you might do
my entire strategy of 40-40-20.
You can adjust this number based on
the type of investor that you are.
I like this strategy because
it keeps me focused, it keeps me safe, it diversifies me, and allows me to make good
decisions with my capital as it comes in over the course of time. What I do is, as income
is coming in, I'm consistently deploying it into one of these three categories and
into the subjects within those categories to make decisions
for myself and so that I'm constantly investing and deploying the capital, I'm not keeping
some big piggy bank at any given time.
You'll often hear real estate investors and a lot of strategic investors that don't keep
a lot of cash on hand because they're deploying it into investments on a business basis because
of this one concept, inflation.
Inflation is very, very real. We've been battling with 8 to 9% a year inflation.
Some people argue over the numbers, but let's just use those as the general examples. 8 to 9% a year
inflation. So let's say you do have $100,000 saved up in the piggy bank. So you've got $100,000 in
your Bank of America or your Chase or Wells Fargo account. That $100,000 in your Bank of America or your Chase or your Wells Fargo account,
that $100,000 in 2025, next year in 2026 will spend like it's $91,000.
2027, it'll spend like it's $83,000, then $74,000, then $65,000, then $58,000. The numbers can vary,
even if it goes down to 4, 5, 6, 7 percent, which it hasn't, or
it goes up to 10, 11 percent, which can be scary.
Each year your 100k becomes 91k, then 83k, then 74k, etc.
And so your physical cash number in your bank account stays the same.
Let's say you just saved up 100,000, it's sitting in your savings account at Bank of
America, Chase, for example. $100,000 it's sitting in your savings account at Bank of America Chase example
It'll still look like you got $100,000
But if you go try to buy a Ford truck and that Ford truck was 55,000 and now it's 64,000 Or you go try to pay for valet parking and it was $25 and now it's $30
You go try to buy bread and the bread was $4 and now it's $4 and 70 cents
Where you buy a t-shirt was $25 now, it's $4.70, or you buy a t-shirt was $25, now it's
$28. That is real life inflation. So that $100,000 that's in your bank account, it still
visually looks the same, but the spending power is less, around 8% or 9% a year less
each year. That's why you have to deploy into investments. The majority of your capital
should be at work. And if you don't feel comfortable when I say that put it into low risk or no risk
investments even if you're just making four or five percent a year which is
great at least you're fighting with inflation at least you're not making
your hundred grand go down to 91,000 in spending value what you're doing is
battling it let's say you're 100k physically and appearance wise becomes
105,000 at least now you've battled with the inflation a say you're 100k, physically and appearance wise becomes 105,000, at least
now you've battled with the inflation a bit. You're not covering the whole 8 or 9%
but you have increased by 5% in your bank account. Alright, let's walk
through some real-life investments. I think you can hear with a passion in my
voice because this is such an important topic. The Money Mondays, it came to be
because of my passion for this 40-40-20 principle, me wishing and hoping
and spreading the message around the world through my speeches, books, and events about
this concept.
All right.
On the low risk side, again, I'm hoping for that 5% to 9% range, but I'd be taking 4%
or 5% if I could just for the safety.
And if you want to blow your own mind, if you go look at a compound calculator,
compound calculator, if you want to really mess with your head after this podcast, Google
search compound calculator, and just put in your age. So let's say you're listening to
this and you're 43 years old, put in the date of retirement. So let's say you want to retire
at 75 years old. So that's 32 years. Put in the interest amount that you want
to earn. So let's say it's 8% a year. And then put in the amount that you can
contribute upfront and then you can contribute consistently over the course
of time. So let's say you could contribute $10,000 upfront and an
additional $10,000 a year for those 32 years. Well, if you put in a compound
calculator, $10,000 a year, and
then you put in the $10,000 upfront, and you put in 8%, it will blow your
mind what that number turns into. Like a staggering amount of money, not a
couple hundred thousand dollars. Typically it could have ended up being a
couple of million dollars if you can stay consistent adding in $10,000
year after year after year. And by the way, if you can stay consistent adding in $10,000 year after year
after year.
And by the way, if you all of a sudden on year four or five, you could add $11,000 a
year or $12,000 a year or $16,000 a year.
And you could increase it over time as you're getting older, as you got more savings, as
you have more of a career happening, et cetera.
Maybe you've got some exits or you have an inheritance or you have a dual income with a husband or wife, like as things go, you can increase the rate of return at
a staggering amount just by going from 10,000 to 12,000, 12,000 to 16,000, 16,000 to 18,000
a year contributed to this pot of gold, to this investment of this 8% a year.
It will blow your mind. But if you just do it, $10,000, $10,000 a year
without increasing, I still want you to look
at a compound calculator and see the magic
of compounding interest.
Now imagine you do this for your four-year-old son
or your nine-year-old daughter,
and you're putting in a thousand bucks upfront,
and you're contributing a thousand bucks a year, right?
Let's say you're earning 40, 50 grand a year, maybe you're earning 80 grand, 100 grand
plus a year.
Could you contribute a thousand dollars a year to your son or daughter's consistent
compound calculator savings account for them?
It is staggering what would happen if you did that.
I mean, like actually staggering that.
Again, you can hear it in my voice.
What would happen for them when they're 35 years old,
you've been putting in for 31 years, for example, and at birthday parties,
instead of taking in presents,
you ask people contribute to that investment account and you can do it with
Acorn or one of those types of companies.
And it's just consistently now instead of someone buying them a hundred dollar
present, they're putting a hundred bucks into their Acorn account.
And you've invited 35 people to their party, to their birthday party, you can imagine what happens over the
course of time if you as a family are contributing and friends and
acquaintances are contributing into your child savings account. When they're 20, 30,
40 years old and they need money for college or they need money for their
wedding or for their first house, they could have tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands saved up depending
on your contributions.
And if you put it in over time, a little bit larger amounts, you know, a couple of thousand
dollars a year and you do it over those 30 years, then again, you're going to see something
that could be one or two million dollars saved up for them.
Not to mention if you did that until their retirement, obviously, now you're talking
about, you know, five, $10 million, which will, again, compound calculator will blow your mind.
All right, so on the lowest investing, what are some things that you can invest into that
are safe?
Well, your banks are offering CDs right now of 4% to 5% for the year.
That may not sound that exciting to you, but when Wells Fargo, Bank of America,
Chase type major banks are offering that, that is very, very safe. Now, could a bank go bankrupt?
Sure, but if a bank goes bankrupt, especially a household named bank, our economy is in complete
disarray. Something tragic happened in our society. You can think about to the times in 2008 when we
had a humongous economic collapse. And so the likelihood of a Bank of America chase or as far ago is pretty
close to 0% of them going bankrupt when you're using a household named bank like
that. Is there some risk? Sure, but it's very very much much less than 1% chance.
So I look at that more as a no risk investment than even a low risk
investment because highly unlikely that a household name bank is going to go bankrupt and there would be signs and situations ahead of time
that you could pull your money out along the way. So think of that as a no risk investment as close
to it as possible. Now four or five percent a year doesn't may not sound like a lot to you
but just a few years ago typically CDs were 1%, 2%, or 3% on specials.
It was very rare that you would ever see something like this, and now it's being consistent at
4% to 5% for the year.
Another one is gold.
Again, gold might seem like a high-risk investment, but if you go look at the last 30, 40, 50
years, gold has been very consistent.
Have there been some drop-offs along the way?
Of course there have.
Drop-offs can happen during economic turmoil, war, recession, et cetera.
But look at the consistency.
Over the decades, gold has consistently gone up, and it is outpacing the stock market and
so many different things people can be investing into.
And you can physically have gold at your house or in a safety deposit box at the bank and it's something that you can see feel touch
or you can invest into it as a commodity.
But gold has just been one of those things that has been tried and true for many, many
years.
The next thing is people are surprised when I say this is in the lowest category is the
S&P 500.
I mean, how dare I say S&P 500 in a low risk category
when this is betting on the top 500 stocks on the stock market. People hear stock market,
this should be medium risk or high risk, but it is not. Here's why. It has been 91 years of the
S&P 500, which has gone through recessions, depressions, and so much craziness, and it
has averaged 11% a year return if you dollar cost average, or you just look at the investment
over the course of the last 91 years.
That number has been extremely consistent.
If you look at the last few decades, there's only been a few losing years.
Just go look at S&P 500 or Google search it
or track GPT. S&P 500 returns the last 25 years, for example. You'll notice there's
only been a few losing years over the last few decades. Decades. That is a very rare
thing in most investments. Typically, investing, you're hoping to win here, lose there, win,
win, win, lose a couple times. You're thinking about ups and downs. S&P 500, if you look
at it, has only had a few losing years in the last few decades. And those few losing
years were nothing in comparison to the consistency of growth. So when you think about 11% a year
and go back to that compound calculator that we talked about, oh my gosh. If you were getting 11% a year return and you were putting in
10 grand a year, for example, you would have millions and millions of dollars at the end
of the rainbow. If you go look at it after 25, 30 years, what would happen at 11% return?
It is mind blowing. So the S&P 500 is the top 500 stocks on the stock market
and it is very easy for you to invest into. You don't need an investment manager, you don't need
a wealth manager to do this, you can handle this on your own. All right so the lowest investing
cd is around four or five percent which is amazing. You can do them on six month, twelve month notes,
you can do them longer if you like. Gold can buy physically. There's typically gold pawn shops and gold stores and gold
You know things you could go to those stores in your area if you want to buy physical gold or obviously you can buy it online
And buy it as a commodity
The S&P 500 is something you should be taking very seriously if you could be contributing capital to S&P 500 year after year
There can be losses along the way.
There could be a bad quarter, a bad year, etc.
It just hasn't happened very much over the last few decades.
And so I look at that as the safe category.
All right. Medium risk investing. There's three core topics that I like.
Again, there's other categories. There's lots of options, if not infinite options for you to be an investor into.
But in the medium risk category,
I look at three core topics.
Real estate, the stock market, individual stocks,
and cash flowing businesses.
On the real estate side, there's obviously lots of options.
There's long-term investing, there's fix and flips,
there's Airbnb rentals, and so many different options.
You could try to look at section eight houses.
You can try to look at short term rentals.
You can look at vacation rentals.
You can look at fixing and flipping cheap houses
that are 100K, 200K, 300K.
You can look at fixing fancy houses
that are a million dollars, two million dollars.
You can look at multifamily, storage units, commercial.
There seems to be so many options.
I like to study as much as humanly possible or co-invest with someone that's really good
at real estate.
So there might be someone in your local market or there might be someone that you've been
following online that accepts investment capital.
Think about people that are experts in the category. you might want to co-invest with them.
That could be co-investing into a real estate fund, right,
that has fixed returns or that has average returns
over the course of time.
So there might be someone that has a $50 million fund,
you could put in 50 grand, 100 grand, 25 grand, 500 grand,
for example, depending on their minimum.
And then in that fund, those funds are typically five years or 10 years, you could be earning
return on that.
That same person might also have individual projects, right?
They might be buying a house for $600,000, putting $100,000 into it, so now they're
in for 700K, and they're hoping to sell it for 840 or 900K, for example, after they pay
commissions and fees and things like that they're hoping for a return of 12% 18% 22% 14% etc. So you might be able to
co-invest with someone into a real estate project like a fix and flip. If they are a seasoned expert
I don't mean your cousin or your friend from high school that's doing their second or third flip
I'm talking about someone that has done it dozens of times, if not 50 or 100 plus times.
That is someone that you can safely co-invest into.
Now, when I say safely, we're still in the medium risk category.
Can someone that's done 80 flips lose on the 81st flip?
Of course they can.
However, their likelihood of messing up is much less than someone doing
their second or third flip. They have so much experience doing 80 flips. They have so much
knowledge in their area. They probably know the county officials. They know the contractors.
They know the people at Home Depot by name and face because they go to Home Depot so
often. Like they know the people and the things. They have the experience. They know the real
estate agents. They know the market. They know a lot of the things they have the experience. They know the real estate agents. They know the market.
They know a lot of the things because they're doing their 81st flip.
Can they lose on flip number 81?
Sure.
Can they lose a lot a little bit?
Sure.
But ultimately you could feel safer someone doing their 81st flip that they're likely
to win or break even and most of the time they're going to win and you typically aren't
just going to invest into one fix and flip with them.
You might be wanting to invest in three, four, five, six
with them, and then the likelihood of them failing is tiny
because again, they've got an experience doing this
80 times in the past.
So on the real estate side, you can research for yourself
to try to do it yourself, which I would consider
more high risk if you don't have the experience,
or you could consider co-investing.
What you're gonna wanna research also is,
do I like short-term?
Do I like Airbnb in this city?
Do I like multifamily or fourplexes?
Or do I like storage units?
What is the type of real estate
that you'd like to invest into?
What is the type of return you're looking for?
Again, in the medium risk,
I'm hoping for that 10 to 30% range of return.
All right, businesses, cash flowing businesses.
So an example for you is I invested into a company called Ever Bowl.
I put in 500,000 back in 2018 when there was around 13 locations.
Then they got to around 17, 18, 19 locations, helped them raise $5 million for the company
to help them scale.
So it's helping protect my investment.
It's helping the business by adding gasoline to the fire.
And I believe in the company watching their growth.
Then I invested more buying some locations in 2020 and 2021.
So owning physical locations of Everbow, which is an Acai bowl chain.
Now if there was only one or two locations,
that would be high risk investing. No matter how much I like Jeff Fenster, the CEO, if he only had one or two locations, that would be a high risk investment. But the fact that they
were at 17, 19, 22, 24 locations, et cetera, that became a lower and lower risk. Can any individual
Ever Bowl close down or have a bad year? Of course it can. But again, over the course of time, they're going to learn, get better,
better menus, better experience, better staff, et cetera, better marketing.
Now fast forward to 2025.
Remember I invested when there was around 13 locations.
Now there's 103 locations, right?
It has grown by over 800%.
There's eight times as many locations as my investment back when I put in 500k back in
2018.
And they're opening one new location every six days.
Now think about this for a second.
It's a cash flowing business.
These restaurants can do 600k, 700k, 800k, 900k, maybe even a million dollars, some of
them more, out of a location that only costs around 160,000 on average to open and
So the risk rate of return is let's say it costs around 160,000 again this number changes based on your market
Changes based on the size of location. Let's just use that as an average for this ever bowl
and you guys can look at ever bowl comm and
If grosses let's call it 600k 700k 800k, let's say it makes around 20 to 26%
profit, that becomes interesting.
That means after about a year and a half or so, I'm starting to get most of my money back,
if not all my money back on investment, where other franchises could take three or four
years and cost more than double the investment.
Meaning another type of restaurant could cost
$350,000 on average, and it might take three or four years to get the money back that I
invested into that franchise.
And so I like this model and I look at it as a cash flowing business.
I've invested into gyms, I've invested into other types of businesses that are cash flowing
businesses.
And so look for yourself, is there someone opening their ninth hair salon
or their ninth pizza restaurant
or their 14th dry cleaners, right?
Think about someone that has experience
if they have their first or second location
that is considered high risk investing.
If someone that has nine locations, 14 locations,
25 locations, that becomes medium risk to
low risk investing.
Can it fail?
Of course, I have to keep saying that.
Yes, any one location or any one situation can have a bad quarter, bad year, etc.
But over the course of time, companies with experience, people with experience, businesses
with multiple locations are less likely to have failure. There is
going to be and there can be failures in investing. I reduce my risk if you notice
from the kind of the theme and the trend of my topics I reduce my risk by
investing into experience by investing in something that's been a proven track
record over and over and over. So if someone has their 13th location of something, I know
going in I could lose some of my investment on a location 14, but it's unlikely because
of the experience. Because of the things that have taken them to get to their 13th location,
now they're opening number 14, I like co-investing in something like that. That's a cash flowing
business. You can study people like Cody Sanchez,
Pace Morby, and people like that,
Marcus Limonis, that are showcasing small businesses
and creative financing in ways
you might be able to even buy cash flowing businesses,
but you gotta make sure that you study
and really understand that cash flowing business.
Really understand what is it doing,
what is the profit, what is it doing, what is the
profit, what is my risk, who is going to be the operator, how can I help scale
this business, the marketing, the ads, the efficiencies, etc. On the other part of
meeting risk investing is the stock market, but individual stocks. These
individual stocks are companies that you believe in or that
you like or that you're a customer of. So I'll use an example. There's thousands
of stocks to choose from. I'm not looking at penny stocks. I'm not looking at the
next new shiny thing. I'm investing in the companies that I believe in for the
long term and or I'm a customer of and I know that a lot of other people
are so Netflix Netflix you've been paying 15 bucks a month for example for
the last 10-15 years but you're listening to this and you probably don't have even
10 or 15 dollars worth of Netflix stock that is one of the best performing
stocks in the history of the world that you've been paying for,
that you've been spending hours a week watching, and your kids, your friends, or your parents,
or your neighbors, all of them are watching it too, and you hear about Netflix all the time,
and you could have invested in their stock. You could have thrown in a few hundred dollars here
and there into their stock, and a few hundred dollars, it would be a few thousand dollars now.
If you would have invested a few thousand dollars, you'd probably have 10 or 20 thousand
now.
If you'd have invested 10 or 20 thousand dollars, depending on the year, you'd have hundreds
of thousand dollars now.
Because Netflix is one of the best performing stocks in history, and you've just been sitting
idly by watching it.
You're paying for it on your credit card, you're watching it, consuming it, you know
about it, everyone talks about it, and you're not investing into it.
Just like the Apple iPhone, the Apple laptop.
You might be listening to my podcast right now, The Money Mondays, you're listening
to it on Apple AirPods.
Do you know that if AirPods were their own company, they'd be one of the biggest companies
in the history of the world?
The AirPod has done hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue and it's
gonna keep growing year after year because people lose the AirPods or they
want the newer version etc. Sometimes AirPod does a launch and does like 13
billion dollars on a launch of just the AirPod itself just one little category
one little product inside of the Apple portfolio. You might be listening to this on your AirPods or
on an iPhone or on a laptop and you don't have Apple stock. Think about this
for a second. You could afford to buy an $800 phone, a $1,200 phone, a $1,400 phone,
so you cannot tell me that you couldn't afford to buy $800 of Apple stock,
$1,200 of Apple stock, $1 $800 of Apple stock, $1200 of Apple
stock, $1400 of Apple stock, for example.
There's a fun fact.
Do you know that if each time that you bought the iPhone, there's been 15 iPhones, let's
say they averaged for $1000, they were $800, $1200, and everything in between, let's just
call it $1000 times 15 iPhones. If each time the iPhone came out and it was $800, that same day you bought $800 of Apple
stock.
The next iPhone comes out and it's $920 and you bought $920 of Apple stock.
If the 15 times that the iPhone came out on the exact same day, you bought the exact same
amount of stock, so you can't tell me to have the money because you bought that phone that
day. Do you know what would
happen if you spent that fifteen thousand ish on stock? You would have
over one million dollars of Apple stock for fifteen grand. It's a really fun fact
you can go research it. It will blow your mind and it will keep growing up. That
number will keep rising year after year because Apple has been
consistent year after year it is staggering the revenue that they do the
market share that they have it is super impressive and so if you like a company
like Apple research it and buy some Apple stock and oftentimes people say
this is not investment advice this is investment advice I want you to do your research, choose companies that you like, and make an investment that
you can afford to do.
If it's a few hundred dollars, fantastic.
I don't want you to go put all of your capital into any one thing.
I don't want you to put your life at risk.
I don't want you to put your finances at risk.
That's the whole point of this model of 40-40-20, diversifying your investments into small bite-sized different amounts so
that no one investment can hurt you.
I don't want you to put all of your money into Apple or all of your money into a CD
or all of your money into a real estate deal or all of your money into an Ever Bowl restaurant.
I want you to pick and choose things that you like as you're listening to this, that
you feel comfortable with, and I want you to invest a small amount or a portion
that you can that fits into your life.
And each year, year after year,
as you bring in more income, deploy more investments
into the categories that you like.
I diversify it in this 40-40-20 model,
but I want you to think about for yourself,
what type of investor are you?
As you're listening to me,
are you liking when I say low risk stuff
that you're like, oh yeah, I wanna invest with the CD for 4.2% that'd be great or
you know what that's the S&P 500 that is right I did research it it does crush it
maybe I just do that or you know what I want more action I want to invest in
real estate I want to fix and flip houses every seven months well you can
research each of those different categories and make a decision for
yourself or split it up the way I do.
So, in the stock market, to wrap that part up, think about companies that you shop at.
If you drive a Tesla, you should consider some Tesla stock.
If you buy from Amazon, like most people on the planet do, well, Amazon's one of the best
performing stocks in human history.
Why don't you have some Amazon stock?
You're buying $265 on Amazon every other week, maybe you should be buying a matching amount
of stock.
And after years of you buying and shopping on Amazon, and you at the same time buying
Apple Amazon stock, wow, what would happen for you if you just look at the Amazon rate
of return over the last few decades?
It is again, mind blowing how well Amazon has done as a company.
Think about the thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars that you spend on Amazon
every year.
Imagine if you bought thousands and thousands of dollars of Amazon stock every year also.
Again, these numbers are adjustable.
You might be able to afford millions of dollars of Amazon stock.
You might only be able to afford $500 of Amazon stock and both are fine.
Just investing where you're at, don't try
to keep up with the Joneses, just consistently invest in things that you like, whether it's
Amazon, Apple, Google, Netflix, Facebook, Tesla, etc. Research the companies that you
like, put in a comfortable amount, and just keep contributing to that same thing that
you feel comfortable with year after year after year.
Alright, the last part is high risk investing 20%.
Now again, you can change this number based on your comfortability.
If you get nervous when I talk about high risk investing, maybe it's a smaller percentage.
If you're obsessed with high risk investing, I would still not suggest a higher than 20%
percentage.
Here's why.
If you all of a sudden deploy 50% of your 100K that we used as the example into high
risk investing and things don't work out or they take a long time, you are essentially
gambling.
High risk investing is called high risk for a reason.
Now you might be able to change your financial life if you get it right with that 50% investment,
putting 50K into something in the high risk category, but this is not a safe strategy.
And so I'm going to walk you through the safe strategy, which I say is 20% or less
into high risk investing.
And let's just use the 100K example.
That means $20,000 goes into this category for this year.
Okay.
What are some high risk investments?
There's a couple.
One is cryptocurrency.
Mostly I'm talking about Bitcoin and Ethereum and really Bitcoin.
And two is angel investing.
Angel investing is similar to what I mentioned about Everbowl when I put in that first 500K
in 2018.
That was into the parent company for parent company stock and shares.
That is a long-term angel investment. Now, people talk about this statistic,
that nine out of 10 angel investments fail.
Well, nine out of 10 anything fails.
Nine out of 10 comedians fail.
Nine out of 10 musicians fail.
Nine out of 10 lots of things fail.
You can reduce your risk,
which is the theme of my speech today.
You can reduce your risk by finding things that already have experience,
that already have proof.
So if you're angel investing into your friend's first restaurant
or first year of their clothing line, that is not just high-risk investing,
that is very, very, very high-risk investing.
But if that same friend of yours is doing 12 million in sales of their clothing brand
and they are raising capital for their business and you throw in 25k, well, you are now angel
investing into a still considered a startup company.
You're buying some equity of that company.
Let's say they're doing 12 million sales.
Let's say they have a 25 million valuation.
You're buying a percentage of that company.
You're buying a little piece of that company with your 25k. And if that company goes from 12 million sales to 19 million,
and 19 million to 31 million, and 31 million to 42 million, the valuation of that company will go
up and your 25k will be worth 45k, then 70k, then 100k, etc. On paper, that is not a liquid investment, let me repeat this, on paper,
your 25K in equity could now be worth 45K, then 71K, then 100K plus, et cetera, on paper
based on the valuation of the business.
Does not mean you can pull that money anytime soon and the company cannot give it to you.
And so when angel investing, why I'm saying that so clearly is even when you get it right,
it might be right on paper.
So when I say angel investing, sometimes it takes long.
Well the liquidity event for a company is typically five to seven years.
I invest in the companies that are already doing two to 20 million in sales.
That is my message.
That is my thesis.
So Elevator Syndicate, you can look at ElevatorSyndicate.com, is
my angel investment group. I have 930 investors in the Elevator Syndicate. I've raised over
$56 million for companies and we deploy $3-$6 million per deal into companies that are doing
on average $2-$20 million in sales. So I'm not just telling you guys a theory. When I
talk about all these investments, when I talk about investing in Ever Bowl, when
I talk about the stock market, when I talk about real estate, these are my real life
investments.
These are the things that I actually do.
And so when it comes to this, with angel investing, I've actually raised $56 million.
You've seen some of the brands.
I've done it for Skinny Pasta.
It's called It's Skinny Pasta. I've raised millions of dollars for Icon Meals. So you can look
at itsskinnypasta.com, iconmeals.com. I did $4 million for Joyride Candy. I've raised
money for multiple different brands, a lot of food and beverage brands. We just did it
for Key.co. We raised millions of dollars for Key.co, which has over 7,000 luxury homes on their platform.
I like angel investing into companies
that have got good traction.
And so I try to find businesses.
I've done it for Cards and Coffee,
my sports car store chain.
So when you hear about Skinny Pasta,
Icon Meals, Joyride Candy, et cetera,
I'm raising money for these companies to help them scale.
You can co-invest into deals like that.
You can find people in your neighborhood, on social media, people that you trust that
might be raising money for their companies.
Again, you've got to vet it and make sure that you trust this business or this brand
or the CEO.
And when you get it right, you could have a big win.
There's been some companies that I invested into
that they were doing, let's call it 7 million sales,
and now they're doing 60 million sales.
That is a huge return.
When you hear about Ever Bowl,
I invested at 13-ish locations.
Now there's 103 locations.
That is a big return.
That is on paper.
I've not gotten cash back from my investment for that.
Now I've got some distributions along the way.
Obviously I've gotten some payouts
along the way from Ever Bowl, but for the most part, this is a really good example.
My 2018 investment has now been seven years.
The company is obviously doing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, opening a new location
every six days.
I'm not pulling cash out.
I'm not selling my stock.
On paper, my stock is worth
obviously a lot more going from 13 locations to 103 locations, but that is on paper. And so you
have to keep in mind when you do an angel investment, that has to be that, let's say that 25k
that we use as an example, that money you have to be comfortable locking up for a long period of time,
even when it works. All right, to wrap it up, Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is the single best performing asset in the history of the world.
Let me repeat, Bitcoin is the single best performing investment asset in the history
of the world.
Now, you might think you're too late.
There's a famous quote or famous theory.
When was the best time to buy real estate?
20 years ago.
When's the second best time?
Today.
When's the best time to buy Bitcoin?
14 years ago when it first started.
When's the second best time?
Today.
You don't have to try to dollar cost average or wait for it to go down and wait for it
to spike up and wait for it to go down and try to trade.
Buy little bits of Bitcoin that you feel comfortable with and do not watch.
I want you to put it on the side.
So if you're throwing a thousand bucks in Bitcoin, for example, and it's going to have
fluctuations, it could be at 119,000 today.
While you're listening to this, it could be 114,000.
It could jump to 122,000.
It can have fluctuations.
But over the course of time, because it's a 24-hour market, there's a lot of liquidity,
a lot of fluctuations, a lot of movement that happens in a 24-hour market.
Bitcoin is very volatile from that perspective.
However, if you look at the last 14 years, it's only had a couple of losing years, I
think two losing years out of 14.
To me, that is a great, great, great thing to consider. Now, can it
keep up with this growth for the next 14 years? Maybe. What we've seen is the consistency
that year after year, year after year, Bitcoin has fought through bad marketing, bad situations,
bad people, all the things, bad press against it. But year after year, it has gone up consistently
for all 14 years.
There's been two losing years, and really,
just one losing year of any substantial matter,
which I think was around, let's call it around 30ish percent.
And guess what?
The very next year, got it all right back.
Consistency, if you look at the Bitcoin track record,
is what you should be looking at.
Now, you're buying in at the all time high.
Bitcoin is at an all time high this week as you're listening to the Money Mondays.
However I'm not asking you to go spend hundreds of thousands of dollars if that is a big amount
of money to you.
Don't.
Put in 500 bucks.
Put in 200 bucks.
Put in 2 grand, 10 grand, 20 grand.
Whatever is a comfortable amount for you that you can leave in a volatile thing that has shown consistency.
Bitcoin, to me, mathematically over the course of time, should end up being worth $1 million,
$2 million of Bitcoin in our lifetimes, maybe even more.
And here's why.
Now, as I say that, it could also go down tremendously this week, this month, this year.
Bitcoin can go from 119 down to 90,000 really quickly.
It could happen.
But there's so many wealth funds, wealth managers, venture capital, hedge funds, whole countries,
major moguls that are buying up Bitcoin.
And so there's support.
Bitcoin cannot go to zero.
Just be clear. That is a physical impossibility because there's support. Bitcoin cannot go to zero, just be clear.
That is a physical impossibility because there is support
from so many people that would buy it along the way.
It is unlikely or mathematically at this point impossible
for Bitcoin to even go down to 10, 20, 30,000
because there's so much support from so many wealthy people
that have a vested interest.
So what is that threshold?
What is that number?
I don't know the exact number.
No one does.
But I would assume if you just think about the amount of support that is out there from
so many wealthy people, wealthy companies, corporations, countries, et cetera, that are
supporting it, I don't see how Bitcoin can even go down to 50,000 really because there's
too many people that would buy it up at 70, 80, 90 because they've got investments at the hundred thousand dollar range in this
example. So is it scary to buy Bitcoin at the all-time high? Well not actually that
scary when it's had an all-time high so many times in the past and so thinking
for yourself are you comfortable with the high volatility investment? I don't
consider it high risk even less in the high risk category
because of the consistency year after year.
There will be swings.
So you have to be ready to put it in and trust in the consistency.
If it goes down, I'm not asking dollar cost average.
If it goes up, I'm not asking you to throw in more.
I'm just asking you to be consistent.
You could buy it, Bitcoin now, on Cash App, Robinhood,
Coinbase, there's a lot of options.
But I would be looking at Bitcoin as something
that you put in a small amount of money over and over
and over, and again, small is relative to your situation,
and you just keep buying in over and over,
whether it's at 119, 104,000, 150,000, whatever,
Bitcoin is something that mathematically, why do I
think it's going to be worth a million, two million, three million over the course of
time in our lifetime is this, and I'll end with this.
There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin.
4.6 million Bitcoin are missing, and people don't talk about this or realize this part.
And more than 4.6 million, that number will grow month after month, year after year, for
the rest of eternity.
Why?
4.6 million are missing because people lose their wallets, people lose their phones, people
lose their cold storage, people lose their lives.
And so when someone loses their wallet, if they don't find that wallet, there's no way
to get their Bitcoin back.
If someone loses their little cold storage, that little device, there's no way to get
their Bitcoin back if they lose that passcode.
If someone transfers it incorrectly, they send Bitcoin to an Ethereum wallet.
Or they send Bitcoin to someone else's wallet incorrectly, there's no way to get that back.
If someone loses their life, it is very difficult to go get their Bitcoin out from their phone
or their laptop or their app unless you know exactly where it is, you know all the keys,
you know all the access, etc.
It is actually very difficult if someone passes away to get access to their Bitcoin unless
they've left protocols for someone or left it in their will, the information on how to
get it out.
So if there's 4.6 million Bitcoin missing already and then
goes to 4.7, 4.9, 5.2, this is a supply and demand issue is why I'm mentally
focused on Bitcoin over the course of time because I believe in supply and
demand very very greatly in all things that I do. Sports card trading, sneaker
flipping, inventory and low amounts of like the Michael Jordan
rookie card, the 1986 rookie card of Michael Jordan, because there's only 430-ish of that
perfect 10 card, there's a low supply, I know the number, and I know that Michael Jordan
will grow in demand year after year because he's the goat, he's the legend.
This applies in all things that I like, supply and demand.
So if there's 4.6 million Bitcoin missing, that means that there's 16.4 million Bitcoin
that are out there.
And that number goes to 16.3, 16.2, et cetera.
And we're not even fully mined yet.
This can take to around 2045 to all 21 million Bitcoin have been mined.
And so if the supply keeps getting less year after year because people lose their lives,
lose their wallets, lose their storage, et cetera, and the demand, as you can see, keeps
growing from people in the past, present, and future, well, if the demand keeps growing
and the supply keeps getting less and keeps weakening, what happens to the price?
Well, you've seen it.
You've seen what happens to the price year after year as it continuously goes up.
Even though there can be drops along the way from people selling for liquidity or people
selling for different reasons or trading or whatever they're doing, there can be drops.
The consistency, if you look up the Bitcoin chart year after year, has gone up except
for two years.
If the supply keeps getting less, not if, it will keep getting less because people will
keep losing their phones and wallets.
They'll keep losing their lives because that's just what happens.
Sadly, I don't want to say it so bluntly, but it is the reality.
So the supply will keep getting less, the demand will keep growing.
To me, you will see Bitcoin over the course of the long term be worth $1 million, $2 million per Bitcoin,
but you can still invest just 400 bucks, 800 bucks, 2 grand. You don't have to buy a whole Bitcoin to
invest into Bitcoin. It is something you should be considering. You should also be considering it
for your family, for your corporations, for your children, etc. Buying small amounts that you're
comfortable with, setting it aside, and do not make an emotional decision whether it goes up or down.
There's plenty of people that have FOMO, plenty of people that have regrets, ah I could have
bought Bitcoin at 80,000, I could have bought Bitcoin at 400 bucks, blah blah blah blah
blah.
This is the reality of the time now.
Buy little bits of Bitcoin that you're comfortable with, hold onto it, and do not sell.
Whether it goes really really high up, really really low down, or has a roller coaster up
and down along the way, buy an amount that you are comfortable with to stick in there
for the long term.
If you can keep adding to that for yourself, for your children, for your future, you will
be very happy over the course of the long term, even if there's some fluctuations along
the way.
All right, so you were listening to the Money Mondays, covered three core topics typically,
how to make money, how to invest money,
how to give away a charity,
but today was called 40-40-20.
If you'd like to look at the Elevator Syndicate,
you can go to elevatorsyndicate.com,
you can join for free.
If you are a credit investor,
then we send out investment updates
on things that we're investing into every four to eight weeks
for people to optionally invest into deals alongside of us.
If you're looking for a mortgage, we have Elevator Mortgage.
You can go to elevatormortgage.com if you are here in America.
We have the Elevator Nights.
The event is actually this Thursday.
I don't like to be time sensitive typically on my podcast, but it happens to be this Thursday,
Elevator Nights.
That is my 57th time throwing a free event.
You can look at elevatornight.com.
I'm throwing it in Los Angeles at Hubble Studio this this Thursday, and if you listen to this after this,
there's gonna be more elevator nights all over the country
as I throw event number 58, 59, 60, et cetera,
completely for free.
We have elevator.studio, that's my social media agency.
We've spent over $60 million with influencers
for brands, products, mobile apps.
And so elevator is my brand, Elevator Knights,
Elevator Syndicate, Elevator Mortgage, et cetera,
because I want to help people in different categories,
especially in the financial markets,
things that are important to them,
like mortgages, like social media, like investing, et cetera.
I appreciate you guys listening to the Money Mondays.
Make sure to spread the message with your friends,
family, and followers about money.
We grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money.
I think it's ridiculous. We have to talk about investing, we gotta talk about loans, we gotta followers about money. We grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money. I think it's ridiculous.
We have to talk about investing.
We have to talk about loans.
We have to talk about bills.
We have to talk about overhead taxes.
Those are all real parts of our life.
So make sure to have blunt discussion with your friends, family and followers about money.
Have open conversations.
Learn as much as you can.
Research as much as you can.
And we'll see you guys next Monday on themoneymondays.com.