Trading Secrets - 27: The Art of Risk-Taking with Multi Billionaire, Marc Lore

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

Marc Lore dives into his successes, how to get into the 6th gear, and putting himself in a position where he couldn’t afford to fail. He tells Jason why he dropped out of college, how to work your way up in a corporation, whether a corporate route on entrepreneurship is best for you and why the best companies don’t pay the most. They touch on the $500 Billion Utopian desert city Telosa he plans to build and of course what kind of sports fan would he be if they didn’t talk about the Minnesota Timberwolves? It’s another episode you can’t afford to miss.    For All Access Content - join our networking group for less than 30 cents a day!   Sponsors:   Greenchef.com/secrets125 code SECRETS125 for $125 off and free shipping   Public.com/TRADINGSECRETS to download the app and sign up Host: Jason Tartick Voice of Viewer: David Arduin Executive Producer: Evan Sahr Produced by Dear Media.

The following podcast is a dear media production. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today we are speaking with what seems to be far from the jack of all trades and master of one. But the master of all trades and the X factor in each of them, Mark Lour, a serial entrepreneur who also owns NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves, WNBA, Minnesota Lynx was the CEO of Walmart's U.S. e-commerce biz from 2016 to 2021. Exited many startups into hundreds of millions of dollars and ready for this. This one, Mark, when I was doing my research, this was my favorite.

Mark Lour beat my childhood hero, Jerry Rice in a 40-yard dash in 2020. I'll tell you what, that's well-rounded, Mark. Thank you so much for being here on Trading Secrets today. Great to be here, Jason. Looking forward to the conversation. It's hard for, I mean, you beat Jerry Rice. That's real? That happened?

That's real, yeah. Damn, pretty impressive. All right, Mark, we've had some, you know, many successful people on the show from actors, musicians. We've had sharks from Shark Tank, founder, Netflix, other serial entrepreneurs like Gary V. But I got to say you are definitely the first multi-billionaire we've had. And I look at the stats. There's over 7 billion people in the world. less than 3,000 billionaires.

So I want to ask you a question. That's a basic question. But I'm looking for not like a, eh, I just worked harder. I never quit or go team go. What do you think really at the end of the day has differentiated you to be one of those, let's say, 2,700 people in the world that has hit the billionaire status as it relates to that worth? You know, when I grew up, first of all, I grew up with nothing. You know, parents had me when they were 20 years old.

and I was sort of the first one to go to college in my family. I grew up in Staten Island, New York. You know, my dad was just sort of an incredibly hard worker and more than that, a risk taker. Now, he never really worked out for him necessarily. You know, he took risk and it didn't work. And I guess you can go one of two ways as a kid. You could either, you know, adopt that philosophy and just take bigger risks and work harder. Or you can say, hey, that risk-taking stuff doesn't work out.

I'm going to be more conservative and not do that and get a normal job. Well, I did the former, you know, I basically saw that taking risk, even if you fail, like opens up opportunities where you get a chance to roll the die. You know, it's sort of like that's, you need to put yourself in position to roll the die. And it doesn't mean you're going to roll the right number. But if you keep taking shots, eventually you land on it. And it happened with me. I mean, I failed a lot growing up.

took a lot of chances. And, you know, up until I guess I'm now like early 30s, nothing had hit yet. And you can just say at that point, man, all that risk you took, I was doing really well in banking when I quit. And I quit in my late 20s. And five years later, I was making a third the money and nowhere. And I was just like, man, all this risk is sort of not really paying out. But I I sort of went after it again, even harder, took even more risk, started diapers.com, and that did work out. And after you go through a lot of failures and something works, you sort of, aha, like, I get the playbook now, and then Jet, and that worked.

And I've had, you know, two startups now, like I've been involved with that are multi-billion, you know. And I do think there's a playbook, but you can't just understand. understand the playbook until you've gone through and had lots of failures along the way. I really believe that. I think it's hard. I mean, I, I think it's, I want to share what I've learned because I think, you know, others could certainly learn from it. But in some ways, until you experience failure, you haven't really, haven't really learned yet, you know. Yeah. I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense. But the, so a question I have for you that, Mark, is so people, there are a lot of smart

people out here. And there's a lot of people that, I guess, do take some shots. And a lot of people come and they're listeners of ours or they're asking us questions in the chat when we have people and they're looking to be successful and they're looking to be like wealthy. That's kind of like their goal, right? What would you say is something, would you say that it is the ability to take the risk that you're taking and keep falling and getting back up that's allowed you to achieve the level that you have then? Yeah, I think it's the ability to take risk but also work incredibly hard. Not just hard. People say they work hard. I talk about this sixth gear, you know, where you're basically working in a way that others are unprepared to work, you know?

And you combine that with taking risk. You have to challenge yourself to do things and go places that other people aren't prepared to go. I think that's where the opportunity lies. So, you know, if I said to you right now, I don't know what kind of shit you're in, but if I said to you, you know, you need to, you know, bike across the country in 30 days or maybe two weeks, something where your initial reaction would be that's impossible. but then you put yourself in a position where you can't fail and you literally say okay well

I'll kill you if you don't do it changes the mentality that's six gear the mentality changes it's it's like not about whether you can or can you just have to do it and that you need to get into that mindset so in all the businesses that I've done I've always put myself in a position where I couldn't afford to fail that's so that's what I mean by like it's not just working hard hard. It's working with purpose. If it doesn't work, there are serious consequences. It gets you to that sixth gear. And I think people are capable of doing things they don't even imagine possible. And so in all my startups, had I not been in sixth gear, they would have failed. I can tell you stories on each one of them. And so it's so funny, you said this sixth gear mentality of being

backed against the wall and it forces you to drive at a speed that you've never driven before. because one of the questions I had prepared for you is that I had heard in one of your interviews you had said that in one of your first startups I believe you said every single penny of it was yours and on the line and I believe maybe it was your second startup again correct me if I'm wrong but you were calling on all your friends in relatives is it that type of risk tolerance of literally to go all in that you think put those two companies in the position they did that you are working at a level you because you can't literally you no you can't lose you can't lose I I'd made and say

a lot of money, you know, banking in a short period of time. I had saved 390 grand. And when I did my second startup, I invested 390 grand into the startup. And I had investors look at the cap table and say, wait a second, this is funny kind of amount to invest. Like, why didn't you just invest 400,000? Like, that seemed like to be a more normal round number. Like 390's a little bit weird. And so it's not weird. That's all I had. I don't have 400, you know? And that sort of kicked off this whole virtuous cycle of investors wanting to come in because they knew I couldn't afford to fail, like that this was in. I was all in. That's the kind of risk I'm talking about taking. It's not only risk in, you know, going after moonshots that have a low probability

success. I think that that's true as well. But then there's just personal risk that guarantees that you're going to have to find your sixth gear. Like I couldn't, that business could not have failed. I would have been in big trouble. I had a, I had a newborn baby, had a family. Like, I wouldn't have been able to recover so easily from that. And so I wound up working in a way that very few people get to experience. Gotcha. Not because I'm just prepared to work harder, which, you know, I am, but it's like, I couldn't afford to fail. There was no other option. And I like that. There's no plan B. There's no plan B. Such a different thing than we're hearing a lot of people come on and they're using the OPM, other people's money, you know, take, you know, you're putting the

hard work, just go fundraise. I love to hear that mentality. It's a different mentality. And it also reminds me about, and that's what we talk a lot about here, like breaking the blueprint, doing the things that work for you and maybe not what society is telling you what should work for you. And one of the things you did is, again, correct me if I'm wrong with research, I saw you dropped out of one or two, Columbia and at one point UPenn schools, which is unhurt, right? Just to get in those schools is practically impossible, but then you dropped out to go pursue, I believe, diapers.com when you're getting your MBA. So tell me about the conventional thinking or the practicality and saying, yeah, I'm in the best schools in the world, the best schools that tell me

if I complete my degree here, I'm good, I'm out of here, I'm dropping out. What was that like? Yeah, it wasn't really, it was never about the degree. It was, there were certain courses that interested me. I was curious, you know, people had said, you know, you can make incredible connections at these schools. And so there was some great courses to take. And I was interested in learning, interested in meeting people and seeing if this were, if this were, you know, how true this was. And I got into both schools and met incredible people there and took some great classes. And I sort of felt like done. I was like, okay, great. I have these great connections. I learned some great stuff. No need to like finish this and get the degree. And people thought that was sort of crazy.

but time is valuable and it was sort of like, no, I can put this time now into my startup and that's what I did. That's pretty cool. It reminds me of the story with the CEO of Etsy who snuck into different classes, just the ones that he needed to actually get the site going and they didn't even know that he wasn't a student. I love that story. It kind of resonates.

And from those same people who then go on to work in corporate America, we get the question all the time about, do I work in corporate America, grind my way to the top? Do whatever it takes to get into leadership, or do I start my own thing because I think that I can? Now, you have and were the CEO of Walmart, right, with one of the biggest corporations in the world. What is your take on people that are going back and forth between entrepreneurship or sticking to the corporate grind to possibly one day end up in a role as a CEO? Yeah, again, again, it depends on your personality type. I mean, I think it's important you spend time on yourself, understanding who you are, what motivates you, what's your personality type. In order to be an entrepreneur, you really do need to have certain traits to be successful.

If you're not the type of person that is comfortable with risk, don't be an entrepreneur. If you're not comfortable working 100 hours a week and being all in on something, don't be an entrepreneur. If you're not willing to deal with uncertainty and having to adapt to new information very, very quickly, if you're more comfortable knowing things ahead of time and sticking to a plan, forget it. So, like, it is, you have to, like, spend time and there's plenty of surveys online and things you can take, test and things to sort of assess, like, what's the right profession for me? And for most people, it sounds sexy to be an entrepreneur. it's not for everyone. It's not for everyone.

It's just some people get into it and then they realize they're miserable. Like this is not what I want to do. You know, some people, your quality of life is going to be a lot higher if you work for a corporation and you basically have someone, you know, a boss that tells you

like here's what I expect of you. It's kind of like, you know, being in school, like here's what you need to do to get an A on the exam. Some people love that. Oh, read this chapter, read that, chapter, answer, do these test problems. If you can do all that, you're going to do well. And then you get an A and you feel really good about yourself. Corporate America is more of that help than, you know, entrepreneurship. And some people flourish in that type of

environment. They love it. They love knowing what to do, what's expected of them, and then delivering results, getting the A and then moving on, right? So I think you have to figure out which bucket suits you best. Yeah, like a customized approach. Not to mention anyone out there with PTO, if you're thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, that goes away quickly and you won't see it again. But what thing, Mark, we get asked a lot about is negotiating. For those that are in the corporate world, so obviously as a CEO, I am sure you had many leaders and employees trying to negotiate their salary packages. Can you think of an example in which there was an absolute terrible and or a successful strategy that worked with you when an employee was

trying to negotiate a certain package because so many people are looking for tips and tricks as to how to approach their employer with being compensated appropriately for their work. Yeah. I think people probably won't like to hear this, you know, my advice on this. I have a strong, strongly favor what I call missionary as opposed to mercenary. Missionary, they're more interested and motivated by the mission of like, what's the purpose, why are we here, you know, something bigger than themselves, what are the values, what are the people that work here? What can I learn as opposed to mercenary where it's sort of just

dollars and cents? Like, I'll do whatever you want me to do, just pay me. You want me to work harder or pay me more? Like, it's very transactional in that way. I like to flush those people out of the system. And I'm very much about fairness. And so, you know, my previous company, we had a system where we paid everybody at the same level in the company, the same amount of money. So whether you're a woman, person of color, you know, everyone gets the same. And so it's very fair. And we made sure during every review process that everybody that was at direct level were truly peers. If somebody stood out, they'd get promoted to vice president. And we had a really good, good system. So in that way, negotiating wouldn't help you at all because, you know,

the only thing to way to get more money is to get promoted. I like that system. It's fair. People trust it. They know that it's not the squeaky wheel gets to oil. It's something like buying a car. You know, I hated that, having to go in and just negotiate. You're like, oh, they got to go back to the manager. If they don't go back to the manager, you know, you're leaving money on the table, but you hate that. And then Tesla comes along and it's like, it is what it is. It felt great. Maybe it's even higher than it should be. But there's no bullshit. No bullshit. No bullshit. And, you know, I feel the same way about the salary should be like that, too, where it's like not even a fact. You don't need, you shouldn't feel like you need to negotiate. You should feel like

it's fair. Now, I think if somebody, you know, was doing really well for a long period of time and they wanted to sort of like ask the question, what would I need to do to get to the next level? Like what were the expectations, things like that? That's perfectly good conversation to have. And then you know that the person is motivated and willing to put the time in and effort and lay out a plan and say, if you want to get to vice president, like here, what I would expect of a vice president and what you would need to do. And then if they do it and they don't get vice president, that's a fair conversation to have.

Like, hey, we talked about this. I did everything you had asked, you know, I was really hoping, you know, that I'd be, you know, thought of, that's fine. But, you know, negotiating, especially negotiating a lot of people get too antsy too early. Yeah. And if you really want to move up in a corporation, the best thing you can do is lift you peers. Like people think that it's like I have to just like show that I'm better than the next person to get promoted. I have to outwork the next person. I have to like show them up in a meeting,

you know, be smarter. It's not really about that. Like companies are great because there are lots of people working together on a common goal. Because a lot of people will say it's so subjective if I'm getting promoted and that if I'm not self-promoting myself, I won't get seen. So is your take on that then, if that is the truth, that opinion is the truth, you're probably likely aligned with the wrong organization. Exactly. I was just going to say that. You're at the wrong company. If you feel that way, you really need to find an organization. And by the way, those are great questions to ask in an interview, you know, to assess the company. I think it's, most people have it backwards in what they look for in a company. Usually they'll go work for a company

that typically pays them the highest amount of money because they feel more valued. You know, I say that the most important thing is who you work for in the company. So, like, if I was going on an interview, I'd find out, like, who would be my day-to-day manager? And I'd really want to ask them a lot of questions about how they mentor, you know, how does what would they expect of the employees, what does good look like, things like that. And then after the person would be the company, like the values, what the company stands for. How much is the company invested in the human resources department? is there a chief people officer?

Is there, you know, like, that'll tell you a lot about the company. Then it's job, then it's money. So it's really like number four in the list, what they pay you. The other thing to keep in mind is funny, it's pay is inversely correlated with typically how strong the company is. So if you wanted to work at like a top company, they don't need to pay as much as they're competitive that's much weaker because in order to get talent, the weaker competitor needs to pay more. So, you know, there are some retailers that are struggling out there that

need to pay a lot more than a Walmart to attract talent to the company. I won't name names, but probably know who they are. The other thing that's that I'd just say about, you know, you said negotiating, people are too quick to leave their jobs. And I don't think people appreciate or understand the impact that has on their long-term career progression. So when I look at resumes, I am very in tune to whether or not people stayed in the company that they're at for enough period of time to get promoted and to show progress and to naturally get to a point where they're ready for the next big thing. And so you see people leave and they'll like go to a company for a year and a half or two

years and then move again a year and a half two years out like zero chance of getting into a company that where I'm the hiring manager for what is enough period of time from your perception when you look on a resume that you would like to see someone you're considering hiring if there's more than three moves in the first 10 years that's a yellow flag interesting it's not impossible but that's a yellow flag and usually it's perfectly normal to start you know graduate from college and after two years move. That is fine. Sure. And then the next time you move, maybe it's three or four years. So let's say it's three. Now you've got two changes in five. You better stay at the next company five years. Like don't don't have a bunch of

twos, twos, three, one and a half, like that kind of thing. I mean, get into a company and show what you can do. Like get promoted. Maybe once, maybe twice. If I saw someone that came out of school, spent two years at a place, learned, then found their way, knew what they wanted to do, got into a good company, a good job for somebody two years at a school. Like, expect them to stay there like four years and get promoted a couple times. And then the next move they make should be a nice step. Like if people move laterally from a job, that's also a yellow flag. Like, go into a company, show that you're.

good at what you do and get promoted and then and then move when you see a big opportunity. Those are great takeaways. Love the reverse engineer looking at people, you know, company, job, then money, where everyone starts with the money. And then the idea of just, I love the also the idea that you're saying like the most prestigious companies out there usually actually paying less, right? Yes, higher demand to work there. There's something that people don't think about.

And one thing I want to get into your head a little bit about some things people don't think about is the power of e-commerce. And so in the first three years, again, from the research I didn't correct me if I'm wrong, you were up 176% is what I'm seeing with Walmart e-commerce sales. Three years, 176%. That's massive with the biggest company that's out there. If you had more of a generalized tip, because I'm sure you can get in the weeds and do eight podcasts about what it took to get there.

But from anybody that has more of a complicated e-commerce business to someone, I'm a Buffalo Bills fan, this isn't my business. but I do know there's people out there slinging Bill's Mafia hoodies that are online. What is like a generalized tip you might give someone as they're approaching e-commerce in 2021 to increase their overall sales? Yeah, well, I can answer this a couple. I could do specifically e-commerce, but let me try to just answer it from a macro perspective because I think this is more applicable.

Okay. When I got to Walmart, one of the primary issues was just sort of the level of talent in the organization. So I'm a big believer. If you get VCP right, vision capital people, if you get that right, great things happen. And so when I came in really focused a lot of time on what the vision was, what do we want to become in 10, 20 years and crystallize that. Obviously, Walmart had plenty of capital, so that wasn't going to be an issue. And it's like, do we have the best people in the world to go executing? I didn't think we did. And it's very hard to sort of change the impression of an organization and their ability to go out and hire the very best people in the world. Don't the way wrong.

They were good people, but there's a difference between good people and the very best people in the world. And so, and this happens in lots of organizations, lots of organizations in the same situation, we don't have the best people in the world to go out and do what you need to do. One of the things that startups do well is attract that kind of talent because you've got massive upside and it's fun, it's exciting and things. Corporations are less so. And so it's hard to get that talent. So the first thing we needed to do is change the external narrative and internal narrative. and internal narrative, but how do you change your external narrative?

We needed to sort of get top line moving, and maybe we didn't, you know, we spent a lot of money in marketing to get top line moving, and you could argue, hey, that wasn't the most efficient way to spend money, like the cost to get a customer versus the lifetime value, you'd say not good, but if you put it in the sort of macro, kind of zoom out for a second, that was necessary to get the press to start reporting on how Walmart e-commerce is now a growth engine. Then we started buying companies. We started to do really cool new innovations that we got out there in the press. And we started to change the narrative.

And when the narrative changed the caliber of people that we were able to recruit into Walmart changed dramatically. So it's just a good lesson. Like, you know, I wasn't sure how that was going to play out. But now that it played out the way it did and it worked, I'm a big believer even more so now. then I would do that again and again and again is don't necessarily, you know, get into the weeds and do the math on decisions,

zoom out and take a bigger picture of perspective and think about how to change the narrative to be able to recruit great people. And it's going to come at a cost. I mean, changing narrative is huge. You see it in every single world. Do you think about why the people at, you know, the greatest fame or celebrity or leadership,

they have massive PR companies around them to literally create the narrative and full circle with your story, changing the narrative. I'm doing research on you. And it wasn't about Mark Lores, about Walmart increasing their sales, 176%. So that narrative clearly was out there for Walmart's behalf. People see it. We're talking about it. Here we are asking how you did it. The next question I got for you is something about the whole premise of like, what does a billionaire do? Multi-billionaires achieved everything in life. Like, what do you do next? I would think maybe the only big asset

then it becomes time. Like you just as you want as much time as you can because you've pretty much achieved the pinnacle of everything. But then I'm doing more research and I'm reading all about this $500 billion plan for Tolosa, the city of the future. So for anyone that is hearing me say this and they're like, what the hell is Jason talking about? Mark, can you tell us a little bit about what the plan is for Tolosa and how this even became a plan or thought or idea? Yeah, sure. So like many people, I'm sort of just questioning what's happening in America. like why with all this material progress is there's still so many people just barely getting by and we know it's divided the country and we're sort of a risky point I think in America right now

and I think a lot of people would would agree with that and I was just fascinated by why is this happening and so I did research just literally went on Google started Googling stuff articles came across this book progress in poverty this economist Henry George and basically convinced me that the real problem was was the way land ownership in America was kind of divvy up, you know, back in the day. And that landowners basically have a monopoly. And you could, you know, if you own land and it's important land, you can basically extract enough profits such that there's always people that are just barely getting by. It didn't seem entirely fair, just the way that sort of all happened. And so again, I don't know if we have the answer or not.

I believe in like taking shots and testing things. And so we have a hypothesis that if all the land, like, for example, we're looking at building Tolosa in the desert Nevada. If all the land there is owned by a community foundation to start and because the land's worthless, and then we get five million people to move there, the land would be worth about a trillion dollars. And that would all accrue to the community of foundation. Foundation could then sell off land and create this incredible endowment that earns $50 billion a year in an income, that it can use that $50 billion to invest in education, health care, affordable housing. and suddenly you have everything that we love about capitalism still intact there's still no cap in the

upside we're not raising taxes but we've got these incredible services that only available in sort of socialist democratic type countries like you know Scandinavia or something but the marginal tax it's crazy it's sort of like the holy grail like you can do both and it's just a hypothesis we have when we want to test this see if we can make it work and people say oh that's crazy you know what do you know about this What do you know about that? And this is back to the original thing about taking risk. It's like, this hypothesis, this has a chance of working, put some probability on it. If other people are out there taking shots like this, eventually we're going to find a better model for society.

Like that's, we've been pretty stagnant. And you think about it, like America is a great country and there was so much innovation so early. We've kind of stagnated. We've not really taking shots at like trying to improve capitalism in a step change way that benefits everyone. you know it's sort of like one or the other it's either it's either you're republican or your democrat or you believe in this or you believe in that it's not what about a new model so like we're we're both you know would agree and so that's what we're doing i mean it makes it's blown away because it makes so much sense just really you look at a map right there's so much space out there

but still all the dollars and cents are gravitating towards these very small you know square mile radius in these certain cities all over the country and if you capitalized on all that land out there and just did it differently. It's fascinating. Because think about it. The land appreciation, why does land appreciate? It's because communities are formed and tax dollars are invested in infrastructure and things. So it kind of stands to reason that the community should benefit from that. And the way land was distributed in the past was, you know,

you were the first to kind of put a stake in the ground and say, hey, this is my 160 acre piece of property. I was here first, you know? And that's it. And then there's no more land. And nobody else has a chance to put a stake in the ground. and it's sort of done forever. And this is just challenging that, you know, and testing a new model. Wow. And it's a common theme about reverse engineering, rethinking, redesigning, and just like rewiring

how you're doing things. What would be your estimation of like something like this actually coming to fruition? Time wise. The goal is, and this is tight timeline, but 2030, having 50,000 people, the first 50,000 move in on our way to 5 million. It would probably take 20 years more to get to 5 million, but that's the current. in plan right now. Unbelievable. All right. The future is coming. It's here. The city of Toulouseau. Let's see how that works out. All right. So let's crack, open the vault with you here, Mark. Just a few rapid fire

questions. Then we will get your trading secret. The first rapid fire question I have for you, you ask me, I'm going to ask you right now, could you ride across the country on a bike in 30 days based on the shape you're in? Like I asked you that question. I could not do it. Unless my life depended on it. But, like, that's what I mean. It's like, it's all a whole other level. Like, if you say, can I do it? No, I can't do it.

But if you said, well, you know, literally, like, you have to do it, then I'll do it. Yeah, I'll do it. Got it. And you take that approach to everything and you'll just murder. Okay, here's another one I got for you. I read that you had made the, this is great. The U.S. Bob Sled team in 1998.

Do you ever regret not going because of sticking with work? Like, I've thought about it sometimes, but no, I definitely don't regret it. I love the experience and going through it, but, like, I have no regrets. I focused on my career at that point and it's paid off, and now I don't regret it. What is either professionally, financially, or maybe even personally, what is your largest regret at this point? With things have gone in your direction so many times over and over, what is your biggest regret? Biggest regret? probably, you know, I gave up a lot of family time.

I have two daughters in college right now. And I probably would have just, I guess this is, you know, common people that have been successful. But I just would have, I would have tried to have more time with them when they were younger. Interesting. You know, that's probably, yeah, that's probably it. Gotcha. Awesome.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing that. All right. I also read that you had started reading books on stock options in seventh grade. I'm curious, what was the first stock you ever purchased? First stock, I believe, was Merrill Lynch. Interesting. I love it. Merrill Lynch.

Merrill Lynch. And do you own any cryptocurrencies or NFTs? I do not. And are you bullish or bearish on it or just no? No, it's like, I know people have made a lot of money. And I just, I like things that have intrinsic value. Like things I get it, you know? Maybe it's the sort of Buffett approach.

It's like, is this, I buy a company or do a startup, it's going to generate cash. And so the company's worth the discounted value of the future cash to companies expected to generate. Like that, I get that, right? Sure. I don't get, I never got gold, silver commodities like that or crypto or NFTs and things. Like, I know values creating, people are making money, but I just don't engage in stuff unless it makes, like, mathematical sense. I mean, maybe I studied the toolhole craze in Holland, you know. too much, you know, to know that like bubbles happen and then they burst and people like

scratching their head wondering why. It's, I just, I don't think it's necessarily going to just bust, but, but hey, it could. And then you look really foolish. Like, why did I invest in something or something that had no intrinsic value? So I'm more an intrinsic value type. Intristic value and stay in the lane that you're comfortable with and that you know best. We got two more for you before you're training secret. What do you think is one thing that you spend too much money on, but you're like, I'm not going to stop spending that money.

It's too good. Probably, I would not recommend this for somebody trying to make money, but I grew up in Staten Island. Like I said, all my uncles and grandfather and everyone like into horses. Yeah. Horse racing and gambling and stuff.

And I love going to the track. Yep. And buying horses, not a good investment. gambling on horses not a smart decision but it's in my DNA you know that's the way I was

I was born up that way so the amount of money I've dumped that Saratoga trace horse drive horse drivers not not something I'll talk about in trading secrets all right the last one we got you gotta finish this sentence here we go

the Minnesota Timberwolves will win an NBA championship before the year I'm gonna try to pin me down on a on a year Give me a year. Give me a guess. No, the thing is, I could just see the headline now, you know.

2,200. Yeah. No, just like anything, the way I approach anything, in order to have a goal and a vision, and I believe in a big vision, big, hairy, audacious goal, like, that's so important. And we will have that for the Timber Walls. But in order to do that, you have to do the foundational work. To just throw out a big vision, a big goal just to do it, like, you have to do the fundamental foundational work. Like, what exactly does it take? What do we need to do to attract the best free

agents in the league? What do we have, how do we have to position the team? What are the values? What do we stand for? You got to understand it. So you say, okay, if we do these things, our probability increases. And then you can start putting odds on. I mean, there's 30 teams. And so, you know, probabilistically, like, it's like, you know, you should win once every 30 years, all the teams were equal. So in order to do it sooner than that, you know, you got to sort of be than average, you know, as a middle market team, it's even harder. And the fact is Minnesota hasn't won it yet in its history. And so it will be challenging. But I think we do take the right steps. We build the foundation. We do all the right things that we need to do to increase

the probability. We should be in a good position to put a number on it, at least a probability by a date, but we're not there yet. Yeah. And sorry I didn't give you an answer. No, that's fair, though, because it goes back to the same answer of me saying you're a multi-billionaire. You know, how'd you become a multi-billionaire? And to me, the two takeaways are, you weren't worried about becoming a multi-billionaire. You're worried about doing what you did best and at the sixth degree that you could do it. Yeah, it's clarity of vision too.

And I said BCP, Vision Capital people. Like a lot of people, they have these big, ambitious goals or vision, but it's not crystal clear. Sure. And the strategy to get there's not clear. Like, you've got to spend a lot of time on the vision statement. Like, what exactly do you want to be and become? You know, I just, it's funny, I just had a,

conversation, you know, I went to Bucknell University and had the president here and some great, you know, alumni. And we were talking about the future of the, of the university, 20, 30 years out. What is the vision? And it wasn't, it wasn't crystal clear. And that's one of the things that that we have to work on. It's like, you have to know exactly what you want to become to be able to work backwards and come up with a strategy to get there. So, yeah, I like that. And I was going to ask you for your trading secret, but that seems like a pretty solid trading secret. Do you have another one, or should we stick with the reverse engineer and understand your vision? What do you think? Yeah, that, but another one that usually comes up often is when you have that clarity of

vision, you can't get caught up in thinking about all the things. You can't have everything figured out between now and the vision. The bigger the vision is, like in this Tolosa, this is a massive, massive vision. We know exactly where we want to go. We have painted a picture of the future so meticulously. But in terms of how we're going to get there, if you try and map out and think about all the things that could get wrong and all the things, you just fall down, so you know what, forget it.

Like, I don't know. I don't have the answer to that. I don't have the answer to this. And you sort of give up. Get paralyzed by it. Yeah, paralyzed by it. So it's really important when you have that clarity of vision that you literally just try and take the biggest step toward that vision each day.

Like the biggest step, like people don't say that what do you mean by biggest step? Meaning, you have a certain number of hours. And that amount of hours, what's the most progress you can make toward that vision? And you literally just take these steps every day. And that's what we've been doing with Tolosa. And suddenly people start to believe because you start making progress and you start moving. And there's a temptation to want to say, oh, man, like how are we going to figure out how to get water in the desert for five million people? It's like, let's not worry about that right now.

take the biggest step forward that you can take right now and we'll figure these things out along the way. And that served me well. I like that. And each step forward, right, just generates more momentum to be that much closer. People go sideways. They don't, if you actually look at the step, you'll say like, oh, wait, you spent a lot of hours today worried about something that we're not having to worry about for 10 years. That's not the biggest step you can take. I mean, like the biggest step you can take today to tomorrow. How do you move the ball the furthest in a single day and then in a single week and then in a single month. And it's amazing the kind of progress you could make

when you're not worried about things that haven't happened yet or you're dwelling on the past. Like staying the present and just boom, boom, boom, boom. That's a hell of a training secret. The first thing my brain went to was move those chains out of a football field. Just keep moving the chains forward, baby. That's it. Keep moving the chains.

Mark, this has been just fantastic. We really appreciate all the insights. site. For anyone that's listening to this and needs more on, Mark, where can they find you and everything you got going on? Yeah, at Mark Lori. So M-A-R-C, L-O-R-E, and yeah, thank you to Instagram. Well, there it is. Mark, Lori. Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate your time and all your education. Thanks, Jason. Bell, of all things, with our first billionaire and hopefully not our last billionaire, Mark, the owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves. He has built it from the ground up and was the freaking

CEO of Walmart and is now working on building his own city. I know the Curious Canadian is going to have so many thoughts and takes on this. And I'm sure there's probably a thing or two that he may have said that had you wondering, David, what the hell is he talking about? So David, It's good to have you here. And also, I got to say, you are looking like probably the most legit podcaster I've ever seen with these new headphones. I'm glad they showed up. You liking them? Yeah, these things are elite.

I'm feeling like a true podcaster now. Thanks for that, hookup. I was going to say, you're giving me the opportunity to learn from multi-billionaires, which we had on the podcast. And a really awesome episode for Mark Lauer is really, you know, he's all over the news with his business investments and his successes and the people that he's kind of aligning as partners for for his investments. But, you know, anytime you can get a multi-billionaire on the podcast and have them relate things to the common person is just so incredibly valuable. And that's what I got out of him. So, you know, I'm going to kick it to you, but you said that one thing you said in quote,

you said, things you're saying seem relatively basic, but it will resonate with our audience immensely. And that kind of hit the nail on the head. And the biggest thing that I took away was that just that sixth gear comment, right? That mindset of the sixth gear that really drives him to be successful. I just want to kind of open this for discussion between you and I and get your take on what that means to you and how that works in your life. I'm so glad you brought up the sixth gear because what I think about David is when I do these podcasts and then I tell people about the podcast, there's always a few things that come top of mind. And for me in this episode, when I tell people about the Mark interview, I always think about the sixth gear.

And I've done a lot of self-analysis with myself to try to understand why is it that I'm not always in the sixth gear. Well, it's human nature that no one's always in the sixth gear. But then I think to myself, well, how can I increase my output so that I'm in the sixth gear more often than not? Because I do agree, he's like, if I tell you you're going to die, are you going to be able to get across the country in a bike? And I said, yeah, in 30 days, I will.

But I don't act like that every day. And I know it's a little crazy to act like that. But here's what got me thinking. if anyone here listening can think about this for themselves, I think they'd be in a better position. When you are working at your sixth gear, whether that's 5% or 90% of your week, what is it that gets you there? And so I think, David, if we could briefly talk about, like, what is it that gets David Arden went there? What is it that gets me there? Or what if I avoid in my life, will I be able to be in the sixth gear more often that listeners can take

away. I think that'd be pretty beneficial. So I'm going to kick that to you, David. If I can get David Ardoin in the sixth gear, what is his tip for getting himself there that maybe someone else can use today? Yeah, I think it's a, I think it's a realization. Like for me and everyone listening, we've all been in the workplace. We've all been in, you know, in college before. We've all had project deadlines. We've all had work deadlines where the report needs to get done or something needs to get done and guess what we always get it done right we always get it done yeah we probably procrastinate but at the end of the day when that deadline hits a midnight and you submit it at some point your sixth gear kicks in and that's just a realization for me that like we've all done this we're all capable of

doing it and like you said we just don't put ourselves in that mindset in that sixth gear but what drives us is fear right what drives us to get in that sixth gear is fear and like you said with the bike analogy if you're going to die biking across the U.S. But for work and for life, it's deadlines that put the fear in you that your boss is going to get upset, that your co-workers are going to get upset, that you're not going to get

an A on that test in college. That's why we pull all-nighters, because that's our sixth gear, because it's this like fight or flight fear potential. I think that, you know, what Mark talked about in being like, hey, you have to put yourself in a position where you can't lose. That is the

definition to me of sixth gear. It's that desperation all in. If I don't do this, something bad's going to happen. How to get more percentage of our life dedicated to that sixth gear is kind of like the secret sauce because I also think the temptation beside that is like our whole life we've been told like vacation, relax, like that's your happy place, right? Just like taking a step away, which is like first gear, not sixth gear. But we all are capable of that sixth gear because I know everyone listening has that

situation where it's like, yeah, I pushed and pushed and pushed and went above and beyond of what my normal mindset is to get that done. Yeah, because I think, David, the happy place becomes happier when you know that when you are working, when you are doing what you're supposed to be to be productive, you are that much more productive. I think that's when the relaxation actually becomes a little bit easier. So I like your tip of procrastination, kind of like if we set immediate deadlines that we know there has to be a delivery, you are forced to actually deliver it. And I think for me, it's kind of similar in the fact that if I have, I have known as if I have free time, David, I am never as productive as if I'm totally time blocked. And I'm

going to give you an example. It goes back to college. I'm curious what your answer is. Both David and I played Division III sports at the same college. David was a hockey player. I was a soccer player. And we were both captains of our team, leaders on the team, et cetera. David, let me ask you this fall semester spring semester okay so fall semester we were full go in soccer i mean it was non-stop practices workout you know exercise you got to go to team meetings go over film there's no time can't even go out really when did you have and then not only that but you're driving like you know eight hours to go play a game to come back like you don't have time to study was your GPA higher in fall semester or spring semester the time that you were playing your sport i mean it's a no brainer

and I'm going to double down on this. I was a Division 1 athlete before I was a Division 3 athlete where I had less time. Yeah. And my highest GPA of my college career was my freshman year when I was a Division 1 athlete

when I was time blocked out the yingang. Like, I remember those spring semesters of Geneseo when we didn't have a sport to play and it was like, what am I going to do with all the time? It was a fuck all fast, dude.

It was a fuck all fest. I'm glad that your correlation's the same. Like when you are busier and when you're time blocking, when every minute matters, My productivity is way better. And I find that the same in the real world. If I look at a day and my calendar's open, fuck all, man.

I'll just like, I'll do whatever I got to do. But even if my calendar is open that day and I organize exactly what needs to get done, when it needs to get done. And the time I'm going to do it, I'm in the sixth gear. So that's my takeaway there. 100%. And my last touch on that is like, you know the feeling. When you're that snowball momentum of being in the sixth gear and shit's getting done,

that's when that like, you know, adrenaline goes for your body. we just want to get more and more done. The more that you go in, like, clear calendar vacation mode, like, you're screwed. So the next thing that I want to talk about, because I can't be the curious Canadian unless talking about the curiosity that building a brand new, like, community, city, society. It's crazy. When we had Mark on, I remember peppering you being like, you got to ask about Tulosa. You got to ask about Tolosa.

I mean, overall, I just want to get your quick hitter. And then I have one or two questions on that about Tolosa and just the idea that he's he's, he's, he's envisioning a new way of, of living, which I think is absolutely fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the first thing is you talk about the sixth degree and you talk about Tolosa. Those are the, what I tell people I got to interview Mark, those are the two things I talk about. So David, we're toe to toe because what everyone should know is when David can't be on the podcast, which is often because of his schedule, he will listen to it on his own. and then come prepared with items he wants to talk about.

And I love that the things that I take away from this are exactly what you took away. It's a wild concept. I think it's going to work, though. And I think it's crazy when you actually think about it is the real estate owners in this world in the biggest cities that will continue to have all the wealth. Because the businesses and the people are paying those real estate owners. They're going to continue to cash flow. The real estate's going to continue to appreciate.

And you are going to have that wealth that is turned over from generation to generation to generation and the people paying the rent are the people that are going to end up in a more difficult position. And think about this. I know right now, David, it's a wild topic. Real estate's appreciating. Inflation is a very real thing, 6.1% in October. And what we're seeing now is real estate owners are having the opportunity to increase the rent. And what you're seeing is that some businesses in certain industries aren't able to keep up with that rent. And I personally know people that are having to turn their businesses over because rent has become too damn high. So his concept is right. I think Tulosa is going to work. And I thought it just, it's just

fascinating. So when you heard him talk about it, any questions or voice of the viewer type things that you want to talk about or did it all make pretty clear sense? I mean, it's never going to make perfectly clear sense when you're talking about taking a worthless plot. You're talking taking a worthless plot of land in the desert that he said it'll be worth trillions and just that idea and the concept that you're taking dirt and turning into trillions of dollars of worth is incredible he said the reason it's going to work is you're going to make the community the land owners and then you're going to put the basically the money in the capital that would be going into the people's pockets in terms of land ownership he's going to put that worth into an

endowment which will then basically spit off money to benefit the community of telosa just for our out there, and I only know this because I worked in fundraising before, you heard the term endowment a lot. Can you describe what an endowment actually does and how it works? I'll explain it in just a second. I'm going to break it down. But before I do that, you just said that you worked in fundraising? Yeah. So what was your job to do? Because this is the exact example I would give about an endowment, were you working for the college to increase the overall endowment? Yeah, three years when I coached a Geneseo as a full-time fundraiser. which is a fascinating job in itself.

I could go into the weeds about that. But yes, that's where I became knowledgeable with endowments. Okay. So we'll talk a little bit about that in another episode. But essentially what an endowment is, financial endowment, is just it's like a legal structure that allows you to manage this big pool of money. It could be in real estate. It could be in financials.

It could be in other investments. And the idea behind this big pool of money is that there is a common understanding of what the purpose of this money is used for. And typically what they'll do is they will have principals or they'll have owners or a board that will make decisions on what the money is used for. And the idea is to continue to fundraise to keep the core amount of value intact. Right. So let's talk about what that means, right?

So if you have a university endowment, I'm sure anyone out there that went to some sort of college or university, there's an endowment, they'll have that money there. the goal will be to make investment income off that pool of money to help them fund certain things like let's say at university Pennsylvania they want a new football field they'll use the income from their endowment to pay for the football field and so there's the same idea here right in this area everyone will own part of the real estate and the real estate income will go towards this endowment and this endowment will go back to the community for roads and lighting in water and stuff like that.

So if you put in perspective, David, the top five right now endowments for colleges in the country are Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, and MIT. I want you to take a stab right now. You worked in the industry. What do you think around Harvard's endowment was at the end of year 2020?

I think it's in the bees. It's in the bees. I think it's billions. I think it's multi-billions, is it not? For almost $42 billion in Harvard's endowment. So that's a fucking university. How much do you think that endowment is kicking off a year in usable, spendable money? Well, I mean, David, even if you're, if you're clipping off 1% of that a year,

you're not talking about $4 billion. I'm sorry, 10%, right? I'm sorry, 10%. So if you can make 10% of $41 billion, that's $4 billion you can use however the fuck you want. And that's typically what endowments are. They're usually at a 5%, 10% clip usable over each year. So that's purposeful fundraising. It's less transactional and it's more generational.

And think about this. If Jason Tartick goes to Chase Bank and says, hey, guys, I have $100,000, help me out. Okay, yeah, we'll give you a little thing here. There's a little more. Now, if Harvard goes to Chase's hedge funds and says, hey, guys, I have $41 billion fucking dollars. They will do anything.

to get that money, anything. And that's what happens. It's crazy. Work with hedge funds, private equity, insurance, crypto, do all different types of investments to make the most they can. And people will do the most they can to make the most for those endowments. Here's my trading secret. If you are in a company or in a business or you have an idea and you want powerful,

impactful people who can make a difference, pitch them on idea of an endowment because it is lasting generational money that can get put towards your fundraising efforts for rather than a one-time, you know, 50K transactional donation, endowments are the key to success. Look at you. You could tell you fundraise because you're using that pitch. Because I've gotten that call from Geneseo. Yeah, so you want generational.

You could donate anywhere. But if you donate here, you're here forever. I got a question for you. What do you think it would cost? If I wanted to donate to Geneseal, what would it cost to get like the soccer locker room called the Tarduk Foundation? We did the hockey locker room at Geneseo for 50,000.

What? That's it? Yeah. I know. Well, it's a D3, low D3 school. But if you want to do like a locker room at let's say like a big time division one school, you're probably getting that.

I think the rock. Like I think the rock just did the use. And I think he did, I think it was close to $10 million. And I think it's like a five year naming rights. Like it's not for eternity. So there's huge, huge money in naming rights. David,

let's blow this. podcast up to the next level and donate to the hockey and soccer locker room in Geneseo and we'll call it trading secrets. I love it. I'm all for it. I love it. David, I have one last question before we wrap up because I got my haircut the other day by my hairstylist Jeremy in Nashville. He's one of the best in the business. Reach out to me if you need a good hairstylist in Nashville. And he said he listens every podcast and he said, what happened to Dave's crypto? You guys never went over that. So I got to ask you, in a succinct matter, because this recap has been 18 minutes, which is pretty damn long for us. Where is your crypto? Did you find it? I can only answer this

in one way. I haven't clicked into my sixth gear to find where this crypto is. You have 20 fucking Ethereum out there. That is literally a hundred grand and you can't click in your sixth gear. That's the other thing Jeremy told me. Jeremy said, I'm like, David, I would be too scared to do it. Like, what are you doing? Honestly, I think that it's been where it's been since 2017 where I bought it. It's not going. I didn't get legs and run away. I just got to follow through. I email Jack support. I have the step by step. It's unread in my email box. I got a week off of hockey for Thanksgiving break. It's number one on my priority list. It's on my calendar. It's scheduled time, which means it's going to get done. It's my sixth gear into finding where that what is now $80,000 worth

of Ethereum is... Okay, I'm going to give you a deadline. Next week, we're recapping. You better have this figured out. By next Wednesday, you better figure out where this Ethereum is. Give me until Thanksgiving. All right, you have till Thanksgiving

to find $100,000. This is unbelievable. The Curious Canadian guys, and that's why we have him recapping because he's not even motivated to find a fucking $100,000. You got to love it. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode.

David, thank you for my time. We have a really cool episode coming next week. And in the recap next week, pay attention because David and I are doing an investment challenge. What does that mean? We're going to tell you how much we've made from the podcast. We're going to tell you where that money is going. We are going to do what we tell you guys to do. We are going to reinvest that money. I'm going to create my portfolio. David's going to create his portfolio. We're going to tell you what we invest in. And we are going to have a battle for a prize to see who can outperform one

another. I would love the Curious Canadian, the David, to take down, apparently the self-proclaimed client. This is going to be the pros versus Joe's episode of investing and I am fired up for it. I love it. Let's go. I hope everyone enjoyed this episode again. Please give us five stars. Feel free to join our networking group

and we will see you next week on another, another, another, another episode of Trading Secrets. Hopefully one you can't afford to miss. Living that dream Making that money Money

Pay on me Making that money Living that dream You know