How Self-Directed IRAs Help Real Estate Investors Build Wealth with Michael Smith

Michael Smith (00:00)
money intimidates a lot of people and stops a lot of people from moving forward. so one of the platforms that we do on our platform is teach people how to use self-directed IRAs, which is retirement funds, move to a custodian where you take control. So now you can exercise your stewardship. So basically empowering people to have that dominion over their money.

And tell the money where to go.

Quentin (01:59)
Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today. I have another fantastic guest. And listen, his platform is about educating people. Also, we’re probably going to talk about some alternative investments as well. So he loves helping entrepreneurs. And man, he dropped this line, and I had to write it down. Capital follows clarity. I am so excited to introduce you all to.

Mr. Michael Smith. Mr. Michael, how you doing today, sir?

Michael Smith (02:31)
I’m doing well. I’m doing well. Thank you for having me on your show.

Quentin (02:34)
Absolutely. Thank you for being here, man. ⁓ now listen, I am the type, sir. I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of a origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in. Then also tell us what part of the world you’re in. And so what you’re up to, what you’re up to, your origin story, and where you are. Mr. Michael, you have the floor, sir.

Michael Smith (02:58)
Yes, I’m originally from Austin, Texas, born and raised there. lived there till I was roughly about twenty, twenty-nine, twenty-nine and a half, moved to Connecticut where I am today. was able to get on at the banks and had a long extensive career in investment banking, retail banking, and now have

ventured on to create my company, which is a alternative education platform for alternative investments. So investments that are outside of your normal stocks, bonds, and it deals more with the private equity, private debt, and real estate investment. so just teaching people how to utilize different platforms to continue to grow their wealth. And like you said, over the

period of that time when I was going through my entrepreneurial journeys, going through all the things. I always was able to create money, but it it was hard to understand how to keep it. You know, so that’s why I came up with the phrase the clarity capital follows clarity. because when when you when you have a clear vision

you’re able to really strategically approach wealth, acquire assets in a strategic way that aligns with the things that you do.

Quentin (04:27)
Yeah, yeah. ⁓ man. Michael, thank you so much. And I, you know, that capital fall of clarity, that that really hits home to me. And so I think that’s an incredible line. Cause clarity, when you have clarity, you know, I I’ll say this and you’ll get this. You know, above all things, get an understanding, right? So clarity, when you get clarity, I mean things start to really, really connect. And so I love it, man. Thank you for taking us through your journey, telling us kind of how you got there, a little of the origin story.

Michael Smith (04:46)
Yeah.

Quentin (04:56)
And so you did that, you know, roughly in about maybe like two minutes, but I think you know life did not unfold in two minutes for you, right? It’s been years of unfolding, right? And so, Mr. Michael, I have a saying where I say destiny has no wasted moments, right? Destiny has no wasted moments. We’re learning from each leg of the journey, man. So I would love to know throughout your journey, throughout your processing, throughout the moments, what have you learned about yourself, sir? Have you learned discipline, resilience?

Has it changed your mindset with innovation? Talk to me, man. What have you learned about yourself?

Michael Smith (06:17)
Well, what I learned about myself through this journey is you you have early on, you know, I’m a PK, grew up grew up in a church. and you know early they’re telling you, you gotta find your purpose. You gotta find your purpose. You you have to you have to go get a job. So they align your purpose with your gifts, basically. so it’s like

You you may be gifted in computers, you may be gifted in doing podcasts, you may be gifted in being an entrepreneur, but that’s a gift. That’s not that’s not your purpose. so you know, I’m I’ve since been ordained, I I’ve been on this entrepreneurial journey. So the one thing that I’ve been able to coin, and I I love the book, The Alchemist, it’s a story about a kid who’s going on this long journey to find.

Himself or find this treasure and then realize it’s buried right in the backyard. ⁓ so literally on my journey, through studying and growing and understanding, I was able to really point back. Like I told you the scripture, Genesis 128, God formed man from the dust, and he had the whole infrastructure set up.

Quentin (07:15)
Mm.

Michael Smith (07:35)
So Adam didn’t need to go out here and create some stuff. You know, Adam, Adam had raw infrastructure around him. God provided the food, provided the things that Adam would need to do whatever it was that Adam needed to do. So after he formed them for from the dust of the earth, he he told them, be fruitful, multiply, replenish.

Subdue and have dominion. So from that scripture, I created a framework which is part of my IP in the business, and it’s the Dominion Framework. And Dominion Framework is the eight pillar eight pillar speaking point that I follow that talks about divine purpose, ownership and assets.

Quentin (08:14)
Yeah.

Michael Smith (08:25)
Multiplication and investments, innovation and income streams, networks and relationships, and then I’m I’m I’m blanking on the on the eye, but we we basically follow that framework and lead people through understanding. So I do that for my speaking engagements and I you know if you if you haven’t noticed yet, I’m faith aligned.

If if you wanted me to ki keep it corporate, I could definitely keep it corporate, but you kinda opened the door at the beginning. so so I took the took the, you know, liberty.

Quentin (09:03)
Yes, sir. No, I’m faith in line too, and people follow me enough. I there is no duplicity. I can’t divorce who I am. I’m a king’s kid. So I talk in King’s I talk in the King’s language. And I ain’t talking about Britain. I’m talking about the King, King’s language. So I’m with you, man. And so we we can’t divorce who we are, especially us as business people. We bring all of all of who we are to business. And and you and I know.

Michael Smith (09:13)
Yeah.

Quentin (09:31)
Alveol business, it comes from kingdom language. And I love that Genesis 128. And I I’ve spent plenty of time in there. And that has structured me as a man to understand that my po things come from my Papa, things come from heaven. And I suppose to steward what he gives me. You know, you know, I you know, I know people, you know, they got the h the hustle culture, and this is not to bring shame to anybody, but for me, I have found that there is an infrastructure.

That God creates for me and I’m just supposed to steward it. And that’s what I found how be successful in my life is to steward what he gives me. And so I love that. give me the language again. You said it’s the what, what what what did you call it? That that Genesis 128, the infrastructure you built?

Michael Smith (10:03)
Mm-hmm.

So the Dominion framework and the and the I, the I is for integrity and stewardship, the O is for overflow and generosity, and the N is for next generation legacy. So so ⁓ I blanked there for a second, but that was the pause to let you in there.

Quentin (10:51)
May the main of fine.

There you go. Come on. Come on.

Yes, sir. Yeah.

See? There you go. Dominion framework,

man. I love it.

Michael Smith (11:14)
Yeah, and

I have the Dominion Capital mandate, which is part of my speaking when I go out and share information. And then I usually tailor it to the audience, which your audience you know, I I believe is a a group of entrepreneurs hustling in real estate, probably doing a successful job, making money, or maybe coming to their first deal and a little intimidated because of the money.

⁓

money intimidates a lot of people and stops a lot of people from moving forward. so one of the platforms that we do on our platform is teach people how to use self-directed IRAs, which is retirement funds, move to a custodian where you take control. So now you can exercise your stewardship. So basically empowering people to have that dominion over their money.

And tell the money where to go.

You know, it’s like like like that clarity only comes when you have a clear understanding of a vision, a strategy, and the execution of all that. So that you can close out and get to your destination. so it it’s very important to me, you know, it it’s definitely a lifelong business that I put together.

You know, I started when I was eighteen. I left the house. my mom was like, Okay, babe, what you gonna do? You gonna go to college? Or I said, No mom, I’m gonna be a business mogul, you know, cause I was thinking about making money. Needless to say, I got out there. I I joined every network marketing group you could ever think of. Like I told you earlier, I had the

Quentin (12:46)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mm.

Michael Smith (13:01)
real estate podcast. I mean I mean the real estate boot camp on my computer. I was studying that. Yeah, I was into finance. I was into a lot of different things. So then I learned that money was not the mission. because a lot of times we jump and go side to side and we spread ourselves too thin. You know? So one of the strategies if if let’s say that real estate

Owner or real estate flipper or a person in real estate investment on the on the physical side and doing doing the work, I would teach them tax strategy coupled with the self-directed IRA. So you learn how to utilize the self-directed IRA as a tool for your tax strategy. And then after you learn how to use the tool for your tax strategy, you can utilize it then to also fuel.

Quentin (13:48)
Yeah.

Michael Smith (13:56)
what you’re doing. So always invest in what you know. You know, if if you use Tide Pods, invest in Tide, you know? If if if you wear Jordans, invest in Jordans. Because what you know is clear. You know, y you and you’re a person, you know, that is a consumer in America.

Quentin (14:06)
There you go. Come on, come on.

Michael Smith (14:21)
You know, and and we we have a power within ourselves to understand what’s going on in the culture, what’s what’s going on in the market. Cause pretty much whatever’s going on in the culture is what’s going on in the market. You you look at what shoes Brunson had on yesterday. Every little kid is probably begging their mom and their parents for him this morning after he hit New York last night, you know? so it’s like

If you if you knew what shoes he was wearing before the game, before the camera hit him, you could have put your money there and made a little bit of money. So it’s like the the culture follows the celebs and and and as a result, you know, we can learn from these things and get clarity on what to invest in. A lot of people are afraid of the stock market, but we’re in the stock market. We found that out in two thousand eight, you know.

Quentin (15:56)
Yes, sir.

Michael Smith (15:57)
⁓ two thousand

Quentin (15:57)
Yes sir.

Michael Smith (15:58)
eight, if you were a homeowner, you know, y y you got kind of dashed, you know, and took a haircut on your on your equity in your home. if you if you didn’t some people were upside down, some people just took a haircut, some people walked away, you know. and they were not quote unquote in the market, you know. So

Quentin (16:16)
Yeah,

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But Mr. Michael, I love it, man. I love everything you’re saying, sir. what’s next for you in the business, sir? Like what’s next? What are you looking to solve at scale next, man?

Michael Smith (16:30)
So the beautiful thing about it is I’m scaling this platform into a private equity firm. so building my followers, building different capital groups to where now as an entrepreneur, I founded a funeral home five years ago, which is part of the work that I’m doing with Smith Capital Properties. and I’m underwriting a roll-up strategy right now.

and gonna release a private placement. But that’s for future, you know, future references. we’ve we’ve been building traction. I’m getting all the legal work involved done so that and that’s part of the teaching too, right? ‘Cause when you invest, a lot of people, you know, we consider investing giving giving you

A hundred thousand dollars telling you to go out, run the business, maybe establish a LLC, put both our names on the paperwork, and and then now everybody go do their thing. but there’s a lot of legal hoops, risk risk that you need to disclose. You know, you need to really demonstrate that you know your numbers, especially if you are, you know, taking other people’s money, you know. So this is part of the education on the alternative investment platform.

So I teach you how to invest in businesses, and I also am walking epitome of creating those frameworks for from the business side. So like when I discuss the different angles, I’ve been able to see real estate from a buyer side of the end user. I’ve been able to see real estate from the banking side. And I’ve also, as an investor, I’ve been able to see it from the investor side.

Quentin (18:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Michael Smith (18:18)
And knowing that 360 view gives me the clarity that I need to now instead of just funding one deal, establish a real estate trust. You know, and now that I have the real estate trust, allow my clients to have access. a lot of times in in alternative investments, a lot of people don’t know about alternative investments because there’s requirements that you have to follow and and

standards you have to meet as far as wealth is concerned. A lot of us don’t even know how wealthy we are. You know? a lot of a lot of people are working hard. They’re doing an excellent job. They have money. They have assets. They have the things that they need in life and they still feel like I don’t know if I, you know, I don’t know.

Quentin (18:53)
Mm.

Yeah.

Michael Smith (19:12)
and that’s one of the things that I wanna really empower. So in the clarity session, which is my my promoting what I’m promoting today in our clarity session, we sit down, we take a snapshot of where you are today, we look at your investments. one of the biggest thing that eats away over investments over time in traditional investing is the fee structure. fee structure is

legal, but a lot of the costs are hidden. in funds, you have 12 B1 fees, you have all these fees, typically about 1.85% average fee base. And I have this scenario where if you invest two hundred dollars two hundred thousand dollars in you know regular traditional IRA

And do the normal investing in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, EFTs, and then you take the 200 and you move it to a custodian that will allow you to go and purchase a piece of real estate. I have a 20-year model, and they both end up close to the same place. So in one on my model, it it in the self-directed IRA, you would have made 927.

Quentin (20:21)
Mm.

Michael Smith (20:31)
thousand dollars over the over the twenty years and then in the traditional IRA with the traditional investments you would have made nine hundred and twenty-four thousand dollars over the twenty years and the difference is the fee base so that one point five one point eight five percent over that twenty years make you miss out on a hundred and seventy three thousand dollars that you could be putting to work

Quentin (21:00)
Yeah.

Michael Smith (21:00)
And

and accelerating what you’re doing.

Quentin (21:02)
Yeah. Man, sir, Mr. Michael, thank you, man. You’ve come through with some gems, you’ve come through with some strategies, you come through with some experience. So I really appreciate you coming through and sharing. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, sir?

Michael Smith (21:23)
you can go out to the website is www.smithcapitalproperties.com. and through the website you can learn more about the products, you can learn more about the clarity sessions. and I have a more extensive you know platform. So we we cover six different pillars. those six pillars are investor readiness.

We teach you private equity, we teach you private debt, and then real estate investment. Hopefully you guys already know real estate investment, but self-directed IRA and tax strategy. So so we teach all those different things. It’s six different platforms, it’s five phases of each platform. and we typically take a person through one and we go through

Clarity, blueprint, and then execution. So your clarity session starts out at $3.95 if you want a basic clarity session. If you want to get a little more intense and really understand your fee structure and different things, I tailor the cost to whatever it is that you’re trying to build into. And then

The good thing about the clarity session is if you go into the clarity session and you make your decision within 30 days, your clarity session monies go towards your blueprint price. So you get your, you know, now you’re moving into your blueprint, you want to create a strategy for yourself, set some objectives, set set a destination in the GPS, and then we don’t leave you hanging. if you want to move forward to execution.

Where you actually move your money and you want to execute transactions and you want that partner by your side. We we do the execution phase. and and those those fees are tailored towards whatever we executing towards. But I’m more of a consultant. Hold your hand, coach you through it, make sure you know everything there is that you need to know in order to execute your transactions.

And then we do ongoing maintenance for recurring costs, you know. So and and on the website, by the way, you can get to all my handles. I’m on Instagram, I’m on LinkedIn, Michael Smith MBA, and LinkedIn, Instagram, and X. And it’s all on the website. So

Quentin (23:33)
Absolutely. Well this is ⁓

Michael Smith (23:55)
If you go to the website, you could definitely learn more information. I would love to see you guys in a clarity call, because you definitely need to understand your power and operate in your dominion.

Quentin (24:07)
Beautiful, beautiful. Well, listen, sir, man, let me say three things to you. First, thank you for your time. I appreciate you coming on. Secondly, thank you for your story, the gift of your authenticity, your transparency. I believe stories, they plant seeds, and we may never see the growth, but the seed is there and it can grow at any given time. So thank you for your story. Lastly, thank you for your mindset, sir, and for bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you coming on today.

Michael Smith (24:33)
All right, thank you. I appreciate it.

Quentin (24:35)
Absolutely. Well, listen, y’all heard Mr. Michael. Please look. His information is in the show notes. Get in contact with him. But definitely make sure you subscribe here. Cause I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Mr. Michael. So, sir, thank you again. And everyone else, you have a fantastic day.