Transform Your Life: The Finance-First Approach to Holistic Health

Stephen Schmidt (00:02.774)
Welcome back to the show where we interviewed the nation’s leading real estate entrepreneurs I got a real treat for you guys today as I always say but if you’re joining us for the first first time Thanks for joining if you’re joining us for the second third or hundredth time. Welcome back It’s your host Stephen Schmidt. And as I said, I got a treat I got dr. Jeffrey burger in the house today and we’re gonna be talking about some real high-level stuff. Dr. Jeffrey

is a certified holistic coach and he takes a finance first approach to achieve an all-encompassing personal well-being with folks by embracing new ways to true wealth in the modern world. just before we get into our conversation, remember at Investor Fuel, we help real estate professionals, service providers, and real estate investors, due to 5X their businesses so they can build the businesses they’ve always wanted in order to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. That being said, Jeff, welcome to the show today.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (00:55.144)
Stephen, it’s really great to be here. Definitely a pleasure and honor to be a guest of yours today. And I’m really humbled to be sharing the stage with your audience.

Stephen Schmidt (01:06.702)
I appreciate that a ton. So before we kind of get into our conversation and kind of dive deep into what you’re working on, can you give us a little bit of a backstory, a little bit of a background on you for our listeners and kind of tell us how you got started in the space that you’re currently in and what led you to where you’re at now breaking new waves in the tech space?

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (01:29.499)
Yeah, absolutely. it’s been a very…

informative journey, if you will, and a roller coaster ride in many respects. But I grew up in Western New York. I’m the first of five boys. I do have a twin brother. My family, I grew up in a family of builders. My father was part owner of a lumber company and I’ve got brothers who are in the home building business. I went to tech and so I went to college. went to, you know, technology. So with that, after 27 years as a software

engineer, I just got to the point where was sick and tired of being sick and tired and I left corporate America in 2015 from total burnout, hostile and really toxic work environments. I went out to do a soul searching journey and in 2018 I had some medical issues and my doctor wanted to put me on to a sixth medication because I was having issues with the other five. That’s when I decided to explore holistic options.

And nine months later, I came off of five medications. I lost 60 pounds. I reversed my type two diabetes. I actually reduced stress and anxiety that was at a 10 plus for decades down to a level one. And I’ve been pharmaceutical free since August of 2019, which took me into a holistic coaching perspective, helping people with their gut health. But during those five years,

People’s number one complaint was finances. And I related to that because between 9-11 and 2008, the real estate crash, I lost over 900 grand in my portfolio. And then in 2020, 2021, my 401ks started to turn into a 101ks and one actually flatlined. And that was a time where a major, major mind shift occurred and I had to do something. I was started to really look into the technology.

Stephen Schmidt (03:04.845)
Hmm.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (03:31.565)
of today that are changing the future. I was introduced to an amazing company that is tokenizing real estate, building virtual reality real estate expos. So I jumped on board and I’m really happy to be a global ambassador for them today which is why I’m taking a finance first approach because once you have looked at and resolved your finances then the stress levels start to come down and people are more open to having other opportunities because bottom

line, finances do give you more options depending on what your options that you want to have happen in your life. And that’s where it comes into my whole theory of building a life, of creating a lifestyle, of living a life of abundance and optimum wellness physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and financially. So that’s a little bit about me.

Stephen Schmidt (04:23.805)
I love that. So, I love it. Man, that’s really interesting how your journey kind of shifted and evolved with the holistic wellness. I mean, it’s amazing what eating primarily meat and CBD will do to somebody. I’m not sure what your exact secret is, but I’m sure there some things that are a part of that.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (04:42.747)
Well.

Well, see, that’s all plant-based that you’re talking about. And I was all about plant-based protocols, science-backed, clinically trialed. So it was all about feeding the body temple with the right nutrients. today we’re living in a world of broken and corrupt systems that want to keep us sick. I don’t take away, and I always have to throw this in, I don’t take away from the medical, Western medicine world.

Stephen Schmidt (04:56.299)
Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (05:05.484)
Yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (05:13.673)
Because hey, when I’m passing a kidney stone, give me that morphine baby because I don’t want to go through that pain. And I produced a lot of kidney stones. Thank God, not in the last nine years. But I learned how to eat properly. I learned to look at what I needed to feed this body temple because we’re filling it with poisons. that and that’s the key is being aware and making those changes. And that’s that was part of that transition from a holistic mental, physical and emotional.

Stephen Schmidt (05:17.185)
Yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (05:43.545)
and then now into the financial aspect because so many people are hurting they want change they’re sick and tired of being sick and tired like I was in 2015 and they want to level up they want to be have some kind of comfort level and they’re out there looking and you know platforms like yours and there are other platforms out there that are sharing information that is not shared on mainstream media unfortunately

Stephen Schmidt (06:09.836)
Yeah, 100%. I agree entirely. Careful, you might get us suppressed if we keep talking about the medical system. I’m only joking. So with your branding and how you define how you operate, the all-encompassing personal well-being by embracing new ways to true wealth, what do you mean by true wealth?

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (06:16.879)
Yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (06:35.163)
So true, while people think wealth is all about money and it’s not about money, it’s about my formula. I created this formula of living a life physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and financially. you know, I have my own podcast and for the first three years I talked about physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. I’m starting to get more into spiritual to be 100 % transparent. I never talked about finances because of what I told you in the beginning, losing all that money and trying to regain it back after that.

massive loss. And that all changed in 2022 when I started to diversify into the blockchain technology opportunities. So now I can fulfill that formula. The formula is complete and I’m no longer stress free. I’m no longer financially stressed. I am stress free from financials because I’ve taken a low six figure portfolio and turned it into a high seven

soon to be eight figures. So with that being said, I want to be able to share information with individuals. not a financial coach. I don’t have certifications in this. It’s about guiding people to information that’s out there. They do their due diligence and then they say, yeah, this is a great fit for me. want to jump on board or no, this is not a good fit for me. I’m not going to jump on board. Either way, great. At least you’re educated because

I followed the rules of regulations or whatever from my financial planner and when I liquidated all my 401Ks, he said, Jeff, why are you doing this? And I said…

because nothing is happening with my portfolio. And he said, well, give it time. The market will come back. And I said, dude, I’m going to be 70 years old in two years. I don’t have time for the market to come back. So I’ve taken that low six figure and I’ve transformed it. And those are the opportunities out there when you do your due diligence and you do that research that are available for people. And it’s about doing the right due diligence because I

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (08:47.95)
share.

my very first encounter with a cryptocurrency project, I lost 125,000. So it was a learning experience because I was green. I was new. I was just learning and I got hyped up on this. And so I learned from that and now I know what to look for. And what I’m totally invested in sharing with is today the buzzword is real world assets. So our, what’s

called currency or cryptocurrency. It’s all backed by real estate or by an eclectic ecosystem that is accredited by giants like Microsoft, Amazon, Amazon Web Services, winning the Microsoft at Tech Award. So there’s backing to these types of technologies that allow people to come in on the ground floor and take advantage of these technologies that are changing the world now for the future.

just like those who did and participated back in the days of Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, and Amazon when they revolutionized the tech industry back then. It’s all changed. So we’re in that same position today with these blockchain technologies that are revolutionizing the future.

Stephen Schmidt (10:09.142)
So tell us, tell us how you got involved in that and like, how does somebody even get involved in that? I think one of the big things that I find is, is nobody really knows where to go. There’s a lot of noise out there about blockchain and the bitcoins and the, know, whatever else, altcoins and SoFi and whatever. Right. So it’s like, I feel like a lot of people don’t take action on these things, even though there is great opportunity, because they just don’t know where to start. So like, where did you start and how did you

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (10:30.225)
Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (10:38.956)
kind of evolve into where you’re at right now with assets backed by real assets, right?

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (10:46.841)
Yeah, absolutely. So that’s a great question, Stephen. So I actually was blessed to attend a…

workshop in Las Vegas and it was a networking workshop and I sat at a VIP table and this very funny guy Lord Lothar was sitting at my table bald-headed dude just like me and but funnier than hell but we started to talk and he introduced this concept about fractional ownership and high-end hotels and resorts and you know high-end apartment condo

complex living and I’m like I don’t have that kind of money to invest. So long and the short I was open I was skeptical but I was open to getting educated because I knew nothing about it. So I got educated two months later I decided to jump on board as a customer because I was looking for diversification opportunities if you will.

And within about six to eight months, I really looked at the business plan. looked at the vision of the company, which is all about the for the betterment of humanity. And it’s a platform that is really geared for the masses because you don’t need a lot of money to come into this type of platform to just get your baby toe wet or get your ankle wet. So I jumped on board and then I saw what the possibilities were. And I went to Dubai in

August of 2023 for their annual summit, sat down with the directors and then the CEO actually approached me and asked me if I’d be interested in being a global ambassador for the United States because we’re expanding here in the United States. And I humbly accepted, yeah, I’d love to. So I got started and then I do monthly webinars. I do five webinars to educate people. First I get them information. I have a free ebook that really

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (12:49.973)
educates people about the foundations about blockchain cryptocurrency tokenization of real estate what does that really mean and then I share a you know some information about a site that we’ve broken ground last January in Zanzibar it’s a hotel and resorts so I talked about that particular property because our vision is to really get build a high-end some kind of commercial property hotel

resort, whatever apartment complex in every country moving forward. And through that education and sharing the information, then they really, and of course I’ve had multiple conversations and that’s what I’m here for. I want to be able to provide the information, educate the individual, and if it’s going to be a good fit or not. And that’s where you start. It’s all about education. And it’s really the other thing too I want to say, Stephen, is in my

My experience is, I’ve gone through my own journeys of health and now this, and it’s about becoming comfortable in your uncomfortable zone. Because when you’re in your uncomfortable zone, that’s when growth happens and that’s when innovation really thrives. And the possibilities of things that can really, happen, that’s where that happens. It doesn’t happen in your comfort zone because you block all that out.

resistant to getting that type of information. it’s information is the bottom line, getting that information.

Stephen Schmidt (14:27.211)
Yeah, absolutely. I love what you say there about the uncomfort zone. I like to call that the learning zone. I think of it as like a circle. You’ve got your comfort zone and then all around your comfort zone is the learning zone and then once you become comfortable within that, your comfort zone expands. And life is almost, yeah, 100%. Life is really just, for those that play the game intentionally,

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (14:33.871)
Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (14:44.359)
Exactly. And you open the doors. Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (14:53.579)
It’s really just about how big of a comfort zone can you build, right?

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (14:58.151)
you

Exactly. Now it’s easy for like for me over these last since 2018, the uncomfortable zone is much easier to step into because I know that each time I’ve done that, you know, the first time was leaving corporate America. The second time was researching and choosing holistic options. And the third one was this whole paradigm shift here. And so those are the three major ones. And as I did that, it just got easier and easier.

Yeah, you’re still going to be uncomfortable. That’s humanistic emotions and feelings and stuff, but it does get a lot easier.

Stephen Schmidt (15:39.733)
So I want to ask you a few questions just like about the real estate tokenization. I know that they can go grab your ebook and get that. What exactly is the tokenization? Because I think everybody is trying to find.

like a way to pinpoint like how is this physically real, right? Like obviously we live in a digital age where theoretically, and it could never happen because the infrastructure is too big, but let’s say the lights just went out across the globe. Well, now all of it’s gone, theoretically, right? Which again, now it takes like a worldwide EMP, you know, for all the servers to be offline, but.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (15:57.328)
Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (16:19.371)
How does the tokenization work and how is it tied to the physical real estate, like in a real way that people can tangibly understand the tangible aspect to it?

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (16:29.137)
Sure, so traditionally when you deal with real estate, you’re dealing with a lot of paperwork.

It’s a physical property, which is the same thing with tokenization. But we take it into the digital world. And basically what this allows people to do is invest into a property from a fractional perspective. example, our very first property was a one bedroom apartment in downtown Dubai that was successively tokenized on the blockchain technology in 2019, 2020, around that time frame.

Stephen Schmidt (16:49.813)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (17:06.313)
a 1,000 square foot property and they broke it down into one square foot chunks of ownership. So that’s a thousand tokens, you will, NFTs, and each square foot was valued at a thousand dollars. So when that apartment is rented out, owners, those tokenized owners get part of that rent in dividends. So, and that’s, that’s residual income coming in.

like a rental of a property. If you own a house, get the rental from that. So it’s breaking the real estate tokenization as a process of really representing real estate assets as digital tokens on the blockchain technology. And there’s no paper involvement. It’s all done digitally. And you have what’s called a smart contract. And that smart contract basically is a digital version of the

transaction of the contract of you owning that digital asset, whether it’s 150, 100, or 1,000. Did that help?

Stephen Schmidt (18:14.89)
So, That’s actually probably one of the better ways I’ve heard it explained. This isn’t my first rodeo and hearing about this or looking into it, kind of doing a little bit of research. But again, where do you start? Who do you trust? Right. So to put it in another analogous term for our listeners, essentially, you think of it like the stock market.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (18:29.509)
Right. Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (18:39.804)
right, but in a more secure way where it can’t be taken from you, etc. Whatever your ownership that is. And it’s essentially like if I invest in Coca-Cola, for example, and I buy five shares of Coca-Cola and that physically was related to this warehouse of this building in South Dakota and their production of what they do in that area.

my dividend is paid out of the profits generated based on that portion of the business and then it’s obviously securely paid through blockchain technology. Would that be a good analogy?

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (19:13.335)
Absolutely. That’s perfect. You’re a part owner of that piece of property. to give you an example of where it came when it started to where it is today, and I’d have to double check like today being June of 2025, but the NFT for that property, which is the, you know, the fractional owner token, if you will.

Stephen Schmidt (19:16.874)
Hmm.

Stephen Schmidt (19:20.564)
you that.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (19:43.431)
was it sold at $1,000. So each NFT is $1,000. And the end of last year, November to December, I went on to

the exchange and it was selling for $23,000, one NFT. So just in a couple of years it had gone up and I know the property went from below, they purchased it for below a million dollars. It’s now what I recall is it’s over $3 million in Dubai, a one bedroom. I was like, my gosh.

And you know, so that’s an example of that. And we’re doing the same thing with Zanzibar. That still has open slots for people to purchase that. we’re dabbling in also just to bring awareness is that this particular property that has already broken ground in Zanzibar is only 17 % of the entire property development. And it has apartments and what are called glamps. I call them glorified camping units because there’s

half dome circles and it’s a one bedroom with you know and those they allow people to purchase the entire apartment or the glamp or a fraction of it so there are those that are going to be incorporated as we develop properties you know in the future so there’s lots of lots of different possibilities but what I love about this and this is one of the things that

I really embrace is that I’m not building a property, I’m not flipping a house, I’m not managing a property, I don’t have to deal with, you know, property management companies, so forth and so on. It’s like, here’s a chunk of money, take it and then invest and they do everything. My money is there for to grow and that’s one of the things that I loved because I watched my family.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (21:39.591)
building homes and going through all the trials and tribulations of insurance companies and contractors and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, my gosh, but they loved it and that’s cool. That was their gig. That wasn’t for me.

Stephen Schmidt (21:56.394)
Sure. Yeah.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (21:58.233)
Although I’ve owned property, I own my own homes and condominiums as I’ve gone through my life and I’ve done my own construction within or remodeling within my homes. But to go out and do it for somebody else, that wasn’t me.

Stephen Schmidt (22:11.219)
So, and to even take that a little bit further, you know, it’s a completely different situation where somebody can get involved in a secure way that’s, it’s hands off, it’s passive, dare I say, right? And it’s not like when you get involved in a real estate syndicate, for example, or…

something along those lines where you’re still signing physical papers or e-documents or whatever else and then money’s held in certain accounts and then this is what’s done. So it’s almost done in a completely secured way because of the actual blockchain network.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (22:36.956)
Right.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (22:47.559)
Absolutely. mean, the initial monies are transferred to banks, but then the ownership goes over to the blockchain technology. But what I love about this, too, though, Stephen, is that I see that this is an opportunity for realtors. know, realtors have good times and bad times and the market fluctuates. And this is a great opportunity for them to diversify their income. And this is I think I think it was, you know, if I

Stephen Schmidt (22:55.72)
Right.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (23:17.513)
remember correctly on one of your shows, was Ron Curtis who talked about income, multiple streams of income, you know, and this is another way of multiple streams of income and investing in real estate or a platform that will house our real estate expo. It’s called a continent that is going to revolutionize the way we do real estate. And this is another way of

generating income streams for those realtors in good times and bad times.

Stephen Schmidt (23:54.044)
I I don’t know, think realtors is the wrong market. With all due respect to my realtors, I think if realtors knew everything that real estate investors knew, they wouldn’t be realtors. I’ve heard that said before by multiple people. And even a CPA I was interviewing recently, he said the same exact thing. And so I think although it’s attractive, I think most realtors, and again, I mean this respectfully to all the realtors that I love and respect, most of them don’t really operate real businesses. They’re not real investors. They’re, you know,

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (24:03.194)
No.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (24:11.409)
Yeah, nope.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (24:18.311)
you

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (24:22.947)
This is true. This is true.

Stephen Schmidt (24:24.361)
So, but I think for the investor market, like that’s where I think to myself, I’m like somebody that’s already understands the value of money, that already understands money working for them, that would be a very attractive consideration for them. That’s really interesting.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (24:33.137)
Right.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (24:41.327)
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s something that I talk about as well as we’re getting ready to launch this real estate expo because there’s a lot of opportunity for contractors, builders to really showcase this whole platform. You’re going to be able to design your building within the metaverse without even putting it on paper.

and then transforming it over to paper if that’s the case. But lots of great things are happening with technology from a building perspective. So yeah, it’s going to be great.

Stephen Schmidt (25:14.195)
Well, Jeff, thanks so much for coming on the show. If people want to connect with you for more, learn about what you’re working on, where should they go for that?

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (25:20.167)
I think the best place to go is LinkedIn. Just look for Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger. Look for the bald-headed dude. And all of my information is on there. I do have links to my monthly webinars. You sign up and just pick the date and the time that’s convenient for you. I generally do two on Mondays, one on Wednesdays. Mondays are at 7 p.m., 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Wednesdays are in the mid-afternoon Eastern Standard Time. And then Saturdays.

are always at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and if there’s a request to do later in the day I’ll do that but right now there hasn’t been so those are the best ways to get out and what I do is I provide some preliminary information before they even come into it you know just to see if this is something that they really want to jump on board and learn a little bit more because I don’t like going into things being cold I want people to have a warm and fuzzy feeling it’s like I need I want more information

on this, I’m gonna join.

Stephen Schmidt (26:25.031)
Love it. Well, thanks so much for joining us here today, Jeff. And for all the listeners out there, I hope you got a ton of value out of this like I did. I’m sure you did. If you paid attention, because that’s what separates some people from success, is those that pay attention and do the work. So we’ll see you all in the next episode. Thanks again, Jeff.

Dr. Jeffrey E. Berger (26:41.275)
There you go. Thanks, Stephen. Bye, everyone.