Investing Outside Wall Street for Real Wealth

Dave Wolcott (00:00)
And this put me on this obsessive journey to figure out how are the top 1%, the top 0.01 % really building wealth.

how can I build the wealth that I really want to achieve and true legacy wealth outside of what Wall Street is

Erika (01:49)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pro Show. I’m your host, Erika, and today I’m thrilled to be joined by Dave Wolcott. He’s been shaking things up in the investment space. Dave, it’s awesome to have you on the show today.

Dave Wolcott (02:02)
Hey Erika, really grateful to be here to connect with you and your audience.

Erika (02:06)
Yeah, yeah, I think our listeners are gonna love what you’re doing and how you’re helping others build wealth. So let’s jump on in and get started. Can you tell us more about how you got started in the real estate world and with investing?

Dave Wolcott (02:20)
Yeah, 100%. So my journey really began, I was raised in a middle class family in Connecticut and I was told that the recipe for success was go to school, get good grades, and then you’d get a job and life would just work out, right? So I kind of followed down that path. And then in school, I had the opportunity to actually do the ROTC program in the Marine Corps. So I became a second lieutenant in the Marines and really learned some things in the Marines that

you don’t learn anywhere else in the world, things such as leadership, teamwork, and integrity. After four years in the Marines, I transitioned in the corporate space, got into the tech industry, started building a career there. We had an 18-month-old. And then, Erika, on October 24, 2000, my wife and I literally hit the baby lottery and had triplets.

So we quadrupled the size of our family overnight. And I can assure you, I know you have kids and holding three babies in your arms at the same time was just really, I mean, it just blew me away. And the first thing that was really going through my head as a father was, know, how am I gonna be able to provide for my family, right? My kids, it’s a million dollars to raise a kid, you know, they estimate, plus, you know, maybe retirement somewhere along the way.

So I went to see my financial planner and he told me that, ⁓ you know, hey, you should just max out your 401k, invest in 529 plans for your kids and you know, you’ll be fine. So that was really the light bulb moment for me, Erika, where I just said enough. I mean, I am not going to build wealth as a retail investor in the stock market.

And this put me on this obsessive journey to figure out how are the top 1%, the top 0.01 % really building wealth.

So I started investing in all kinds of private assets. And keep in mind, this is back in 2000, right? There wasn’t a lot of educational resources, Rich Dad Poor Dad had just come out. But I started investing in, on the real estate side, everything from retail.

to raw land, to office buildings, to single family, to multi-family. I even got into oil and gas and some other alternative assets. And fast forward 20 years later, I did quite well in terms of my investments. And I really wrote my book called The Holistic Wealth Strategy to help other people really create a roadmap for them and a blueprint to figure out

You know,

how can I build the wealth that I really want to achieve and true legacy wealth outside of what Wall Street is

Erika (05:47)
Yeah, wow. And I’m sure you’ve looked back and, you know, at this journey and, know, what life, what could have life been like if you, you know, just settled for the status quo? It was so good that you didn’t. Can you tell us more about the holistic wealth approach? What does that look like?

Dave Wolcott (06:07)
Yeah, for sure. it’s really, ⁓ it’s very flexible framework. It’s basically there’s five phases in it and it’s all really underpinned by a vision statement, right? ⁓ If any of you out there have businesses, right? The first thing you do when you create a business is you create a vision statement and a mission statement. Well, oftentimes we don’t have this for our families, for ourselves in terms of where are we going personally. So once you can get

crystal clear clarity on your own vision statement and where you’re going in life. Where do you want to be in the next 10 years? Literally describe the smells, the sounds. What is the quality of your relationships? How is your health, right? Where are you going? Because again, we’re using money really just as energy to do the things that we want to do in life. Does that involve maybe taking a year to travel around the world?

Or maybe it’s just more time with your kids, right? On a daily basis and living, you know, an intentional life. But we really start with creating that vision statement. And then from there, we move into phase one. And phase one, Erika, is really, it’s all about you. It’s actually investing in yourself and understanding that you are your greatest asset. So how can you invest in your health, your mindset, your education, right? Think about people like

that you went to high school with, and that are still in the same job in the same town doing the same thing compared to someone like Elon Musk, right? Who’s, you know, conceivably starting a new business just about every other month, right? And going interplanetary, right? It’s all about mindset. Or if you think about the great quote from Jim Rohn, you are of a product of the five people you spend your time with, right? So what is your circle of five actually look like?

You know, and then creating goals and habits that support your vision. So that’s phase one.

Erika (08:07)
Yeah, yeah, and that quote that you were saying about surrounding yourself with the right people, what was that journey like for you? Did you find any groups that were really helpful or a good mentor when you were starting off?

Dave Wolcott (08:21)
You know, having a great mentor is always key but what’s interesting is you move through different levels in life and again, this, you know, we believe in holistic wealth, right? So it doesn’t always have to be money but even on the money side, right? Why are we taking advice from some of these financial planners where they’re not even accredited investors themselves? They haven’t even actually achieved wealth. So why are we taking advice from those type of people, right? Or…

you’ll find even on the health side and medicine side, we’re going to some doctors and being in this system of sick care that’s basically just prescribing you some kind of textbook answer about something versus, right now I work with a world-class concierge medical team which is looking at exactly how my body works and then how can I take advantage of different opportunities with regenerative healthcare.

with all the new technologies that are out there to be proactive in doing it. So what you’re trying to do, and this actually goes into phase three of the strategy, is you’re creating a dream team around yourself as you evolve into who you wanna become, your future self. But always understand that maybe some of the people today in your circle could actually be holding you back.

You know, you need people who are at higher levels for you if you’re going to aspire to go higher.

Erika (10:25)
Yeah, and that can be a tough pill to swallow if you realizing that the circle that you’re in isn’t, you know, really helping you in that way. So what kind of advice would you give to someone, you know, looking to build that dream team?

Dave Wolcott (10:39)
Yeah, so it’s interesting that I mean, there’s, you know, it’s kind of like that saying, right, you’ve got crabs in a bucket, right. So you’ll find that certain legacy people and the tough part is they can even be family sometimes or friends that you’ve known for a long time. But they see that you’re being successful and you’re challenging the status quo and trying to move ahead. And they’re trying to latch on to you. But you have to reach higher and then start to look for those people.

⁓ So what I would recommend to people is actually, you know, sit down, you know, after you’re in a great, I love to do work when I’m in a great state of mind, you’re in a peak state, so you’ve just worked out. Maybe you’ve meditated or, and you know, you’re having a good cup of coffee doing a journaling session and just write down on a piece of paper, you know, in order for me to achieve my fullest potential and biggest vision.

What type of team do I need to surround myself? You know, ask yourself great questions like that and then you’ll figure out that, you know, who, you know, what is it going to take, you know, to get there? And again, that’s why like I, I, I’ve gone through this myself and that’s why I believe in health so much. Think about someone like Steve Jobs. He had all the money in the world, right? But he couldn’t buy himself one more day. Right? So health is, is really key. It’s very foundational to that.

If you’re focused on the real estate asset class, you know, who is someone you really look up to and admire who’s you know, ten times better than you right now and figure out how to learn from them, you know, can they be a mentor for you? Can you do free work for them? It’s all about the education, right? That’s what Kiyosaki talked about. It was all about the education from his rich dad, right? That was free, right?

We actually just had Sharon Lecter on our podcast who was the co-author of Rich Dad Poor Dad. And she talked about that as well. Having a mentor in the education is just super key.

Erika (12:38)
And speaking of education when it comes to real estate and investing, what do think people should know when it comes to either jumping in or how to level up?

Dave Wolcott (12:50)
Yeah, I mean, that’s that’s a great one. Right. You know, and I don’t think there’s one silver bullet, Erika. Right. You know, one thing I think that’s really key, you know, we were kind of talking in the green room a little bit earlier and I interviewed a gentleman who runs actually a centimillionaire community with centimillionaires, billionaires. And he told me that the one single biggest trait that you could have is actually self-awareness. Right.

So really understanding and for me, for instance, you know, real estate’s a people business. It really is. And I love people. I like being around people. So it makes sense for my investor DNA. So I want to spend time with like-minded people or people who are going in the same direction, right? But if you find yourself going against the grain, I mean, that’s a big miss right there.

Now you could have, for instance, let’s say you had a trader type mentality and you’re trading in crypto or stocks, right? Real estate might not be the right asset class for you. So I think to answer your question, right, self-awareness is many of those different tests that you can take. The disc profile, doing your Colby test is a really big one to understand your instinctual wiring, how you’re wired, right?

So the more you can learn about yourself, the more you can apply your strengths to actually accelerate your results. That’s a really key step. And then in terms of going into whether it’s an asset class or a certain niche, right, of real estate, figure out what are your strengths and then who can I align with to help me there. You don’t have to do it all alone. Can I partner with somebody else? Can I get a mentor?

can I sign up for a class and there’s so many great resources today which is the great news.

Erika (15:23)
Yeah. Yeah. I, man, I love everything that you’re saying here. It’s, ⁓ you know, it’s got, me inspired. And I think sometimes we can also get some inspiration out of the tough stories. And I know you’ve done a lot of investing yourself. Was there a moment on your journey, you know, maybe a deal went sideways and investment didn’t go how, you know, how you had wanted it to, what was it like and what did you learn from it?

Dave Wolcott (15:49)
Yeah, wow, that’s such a great question. know, and especially in today’s market, right? There’s just so much volatility with things. And ⁓ look, I’ve lost money, you know, I’ve lost money, but I can tell you that I’ve lost money in different things. Everything from, you know, when I was in the stock market, we had a pretty good position in Kodak stock, which was a blue chip, you know, it was in people’s pensions supposed to be as secure as possible.

and it went to zero overnight and there was no recourse. So that helped solidify my investment thesis more towards real estate. And now we’ve had some challenges on the real estate side where people are having a lot of deals are having capital calls or distributions paused and things like that. it’s important to always make your learning bigger than the experience.

And I do something called this actually comes from strategic coach, which is called a experience transformer. So anytime you have a big lesson, whether it be particularly with an investment or maybe a partnership or, you know, to people you’re working with, just really sit down and kind of do this after action debrief to figure out like, hey, what did I learn here? Right? That’s the biggest takeaway. And the biggest investors in the world, mean, big act

you know, George Soros, Bill Ackman, I mean, all of these guys, they’ve all lost money, BlackRock loses money, right? So that’s gonna happen. The quicker you can understand that, the better off you’re gonna be. And, you know, start to figure out what is your risk tolerance, right? How big are you gonna go? I know a lot of like real estate syndicators got too big too fast, right? And got kind of ahead of themselves. So, you know, again,

understanding your investor DNA, understanding yourself like is really important. And then with these investments, just constantly hone your investment thesis for what aligns, know, to you. And then also what aligns to your vision, right? What really brings me through with all of this is, is I really want to create impact for people and how they really view money, how they how they think about money, because again, like money is right, it’s just energy.

A lot of us get into real estate because we want to build true wealth. if I gave to today, Erika, let’s say I gave gave you a billion dollars. Like, how does that change your life actually? It actually probably creates a lot more complexity. You know, but would you would you, you know, would you spend more time with your kids? Would you want to travel? Would you want to deepen your relationships? You know, what are some of those things that you want to do? And what’s what’s fascinating is sometimes when you think through that,

It actually doesn’t really take money. It actually just takes more being, know, having intention about some of these things in your life.

Erika (18:39)
Yeah, yeah, goes back to self-awareness, which you were you were saying before. Well, I think I’d be missed if I didn’t bring up what we had talked about before we we hit record, which is that your your company helps investors and I might be saying this wrong, but it helps them with their their CIO. Can you explain that a little bit more?

Dave Wolcott (19:01)
Yeah, so so really in phase three of the holistic wealth strategy as part of really building a team, we also talk about building an infrastructure, which is things like having a proactive tax planner on your team. Because if you’re paying if you’re in real estate, and you’re paying anything in taxes, you know, you’ve got a big opportunity there.

We also leverage something called ⁓ infinite banking cash value whole life insurance You probably maybe had some guests on kind of talking about that So we we try to kind of create an infrastructure around that and then our business we’ve now ⁓ offered a virtual family office and What that is is a cost-effective and flexible way for people to actually extend, know create that team extension where you’re the CEO of your wealth

but then we act, our wealth advisor and strategist will act kind of as your chief investment officer. So helping with due diligence, helping you be compliant. Sometimes people are always making decisions with their wealth in a silo. So let’s say you go and you do that next deal and you’re all excited about it and everything. But what if you completely missed something around like asset protection and you increase your exposure by like 10 times?

by maybe you’re a KP on a deal or whatever it is, right? You miss that critical point that you could lose everything, right? So really having a 360 degree view on what is your, we call it an investment policy statement, which is really creating this overall strategy with your wealth, making sure your tax compliant, asset protection, risk management, all of those key things.

to help people and then you know I think people should really think about regardless of how much capital you actually have what your net worth is start thinking about your wealth like a business right because it really is a business so you can create again infrastructure in a team around that to help you know exponentially grow it.

Erika (21:02)
Yeah, yeah, that’s exciting. A lot of things to think about here, Dave, when it comes to you, what do you have currently going on that you’re excited about? And, you know, what do you see on the horizon with investing?

Dave Wolcott (21:15)
Yeah, one of the biggest ⁓ challenges I’ve had and it’s been going on for 25 years now is as I was doing all these different investments, like I couldn’t figure out like how do I track all these things outside of, you know, 45 different spreadsheets, right? And then trying to update them. And, you know, I’ve got an Airbnb here, I’ve got a single family here, I’ve got syndications over there. Maybe I’m a GP in some deals, right? But

How can you track all of that and by the way, right, you your spouse has a 401k and you have an old IRA and things like that. you know, we’re looking, most of us in the real estate space, right, we wanna build wealth and we understand how important passive income is and we wanna get out of the rat race, right? We want our passive income to exceed our expenses so we’re financially free. Well, how do you track that?

Well, we’re creating software, which is you can actually go to PantheonWealthOS.com. And ⁓ we have a software application that really centralizes and unifies all of your assets across real estate alternatives, plus traditional assets to do portfolio allocation, to track your passive income and everything, and really get true visibility and then start to do AI analytics on it.

Like, hey, what if I do that next deal? How does that impact my cash flow, my balance sheet, my debt service, all of these things so I can make smarter decisions? And ultimately, you get to your goals faster. Just think about it. It’s like when you try to lose weight, you’ve got to start by standing, getting on the scale, right? But once you get on the scale, then you know if things are working or

Erika (22:53)
Absolutely. Well, Dave, it was so awesome having you on today before we let you go. If someone wants to connect with you, learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Dave Wolcott (23:04)
Yeah, appreciate that Erika. What I wanted to do for your listeners, if anyone had any interest in that book, is to give your listeners a free copy of the book. So you could just go to the holistic wealth strategy. Sorry, not the it’s just holisticwealthstrategy.com and you can download a free copy of the book and glad to connect with you from there.

Erika (23:26)
We really appreciate your generosity, Dave, with that and all the fantastic advice that you gave today.

Dave Wolcott (23:32)
You bet. Appreciate the opportunity.

Erika (23:33)
And for everyone tuning in, if you got value from this episode, make sure that you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pro Show. We’ve got more conversations lined up with people like Dave, who are building incredible real estate and investment businesses. We’ll see you on the next