Josh Cantwell: So, hey there, welcome back to Accelerated Investor. Hey, it’s Josh, and I have a fantastic opportunity and really some tools and resources for you today. Today, I’m interviewing a gentleman named Dave Wolcott. David started his career serving the country as a captain in the Marine Corps. In 2000, he and his wife won the baby lottery by having triplets, which as you can imagine, creates a certain amount of excitement and also a lot of financial responsibility that inspired Dave to challenge the traditional financial planning advice of Wall Street.

Dave spent the last 20 years building several businesses, investing in alternative assets, and creating the Pantheon Holistic Wealth Strategy. He authored the book called The Pantheon Holistic Wealth Strategy. And he is today focused on investing passively into superior real estate opportunities, alternate investment assets that have predictable cash flow, tax efficiency, and upside potential of equity. He’s also the host of the popular podcast, the Wealth Strategy Secrets of the Ultra Wealthy, and he is my guest today.

Today, we’re going to talk about, number one, the three wealth destroyers. We’re also going to talk about what is a holistic wealth strategy and why it starts with phase number one, a paradigm shift to focus on your mindset, and then number two, to focus on four main sources of capital – financial IQ, mindset IQ, physical capital, and relationship capital. And then finally, we’re going to talk about what we call the three freedoms.

You’re going to love this podcast interview with the author of The Holistic Wealth Strategy, his name is Dave Wolcott. Here we go.

[INTERVIEW]

Josh Cantwell: So, hey, Dave, listen, thanks so much for joining me today on Accelerated Investor. I’m so excited to talk to you about your holistic wealth strategy and your new book. Thanks for jumping on the show.

Dave Wolcott: Yeah, you bet, Josh. Grateful to be here to connect with you and your listeners.

Josh Cantwell: Awesome. So, you launched the book just a few months ago, about four to six months ago. But before we jump into the book and some of the strategies in there, how is everything going with book promotion? I’m sure you’re really excited about the launch of it. Anytime I’ve launched a new book of my own, it’s always really hectic. And so, tell us how all of that has been going.

Dave Wolcott: Yeah, hectic is an understatement. So, tons of activities kind of leading up to the launch and doing the launch. But frankly, it just feels awesome, Josh, to really get this message out there that I’ve spent 25 years really making mistakes, having successes, but to be able to kind of encapsulate that in a book, and then to share that with other people so they can really accelerate their wealth journeys. Super rewarding.

Josh Cantwell: Yeah, I love it. So, when I’ve written a book or when I’ve talked to other of our guests that have written books, usually, this is a big wave that starts out in the middle of the ocean, right? And it starts to grow. And you’re like, maybe I should write a book. And you’ve got all these strategies and ideas in your head, things you’ve used or done. So, tell us about how long has this journey been, you said, 20-some years of creating this holistic kind of wealth strategy. When did you decide to write the book? And why?

Dave Wolcott: Yeah, that’s a really good question. And yeah, if you really go back 20 years, as an entrepreneur, every entrepreneur is really trying to solve a problem, right? And what is that problem, which could be your massive transformational purpose, as Peter Diamandis calls it, but I really wanted to solve the problem of how the top 1% are really building their wealth because I realized quickly, it wasn’t as a retail investor in the stock market doing 7% returns with all the casino of Wall Street, right? So, that was kind of my initial moment.

And then, in terms of the book, I think I really wanted to put something together to really create a system of how do you build wealth in this alternative strategy that’s contrary to every financial planner is talking about and how can you leverage things like syndications and a variety of different strategies. So, really, and something that probably resonates with you and a bunch of your audience is how many times do you go home and say, “It’s Thanksgiving,” and you’re telling someone, your family members like, “Hey, we’re doing this great investment in multifamily real estate and it’s got passive income and tax advantages,” and it just goes right over their head and they just don’t get it at all.

So, for me, it really started with actually creating an infographic of how could I articulate that to people, so they could better understand all of the benefits of passive investing, investment thesis, investing in syndications, these different types of things. So, I started with an infographic, which then became an e-book, which then became, I really need to build this out into a full book.

Josh Cantwell: Yeah, I love it. And so, let’s jump into the book. One of the things that I’ve found that built my own portfolio, and some of the things that I’ve looked back on are the mistakes that I’ve made. And one of the ultimate ways to destroy wealth is making mistakes. And if I looked back at the top two or three mistakes that I’ve made in the last 25 years, they’d cost me millions and millions and millions of dollars. And I know you talked about it in the book as far as wealth disruptors. And so, maybe as we talk about the book and kind of unpack this a little bit, talk about some of the things that people are doing wrong. When you look and evaluate your own journey and other people’s journeys, maybe let’s first talk about some of the things that people shouldn’t do. What are your thoughts on that?

Dave Wolcott: That’s such an insightful question, Josh, because I think most people don’t think about it that way. Everyone’s just thinking about a product or a particular yield, which is one-dimensional in nature. But when you can actually solve some of the top wealth destroyers and get a handle on what those are and then start to create a plan, you can avoid some of those things.

So, the top three wealth destroyers are number one, taxes. Taxes are literally your biggest expense on your income statement, whether you’re a business owner, or even if you’re a W-2, you’re paying the most amount in taxes. So, taxes are really a massive wealth destroyer that’s out there.

The second one is stock market losses over time, and so many people just don’t have the insight to be able to say, they got their statement back this quarter of their stocks, bonds, mutual funds portfolio and say, “Hey, I’m up 8%.” But last year, the market was down 20%. You have to realize that that 20% is of your entire compounded value. So, in order to just get back to where you were, you’ve got to do way more than 20% the following year. And so, this is why stock market losses over time typically yield maybe a 7– you’re getting maybe a 7% return. So, how can you mitigate that? That’s a big one.

And then the third one is all about government-sponsored qualified plans. So, I don’t know about you, but I want to be in control of my money. And in these plans, the government tells you when you can access the money, how much you can take out, and by the way, you’re going to be paying ordinary income tax rates on a lot of those 401(k) funds that come out in retirement, right? So, getting a handle on those and potentially repositioning those is a really key strategy.

Josh Cantwell: I love it. So, the other thing that I would add to that, for an entrepreneur like me, who’s been an entrepreneur all my life, is one of my top wealth destroyers has been, really there’s two that stick out, is you don’t really realize when you’re an entrepreneur and you’re going to make a decision to start a business or build a company. That one decision could lead to years and years of either flourishing or major suffering, right?

And when I was much younger, I would make decisions to either start a company or I saw shiny object and I wanted to go after that, and I really didn’t think through. There’s the original decision, but then there’s all the second and third and fourth-generation consequences that come from that decision. And so, I’ve gotten much more mature and realizing I have to look at the first decision and then the second consequence, the third consequence of what’s that’s going to look like and what has to happen. So, that’s it.

And number two wealth destroyer was bad partnerships or bad employees, bad people. And so, a good employee or a good partner can help you build something, and maybe it grows at 10% or 20% or 30% every year, hockey stick growth where a company is really growing. You could also have an employee or a partner who doesn’t carry their weight, or even worse, sabotages the company, steals from the company, does something wrong that can completely implode things. And then you have all of the compounded reputation loss, the ability to recruit other money from investors, the ability to start the next business because you’re winding down the first business, I’ve had to do that a few times. And that cost me years of my life and years of wealth building.

Now, I’ve been fortunate to be able to rebuild numerous times. And so, those are some of the things that I’ve learned as an entrepreneur, not just in investing money, but running businesses, that are some major, major wealth destroyers, as well. So, I’m glad we started with that. But let’s jump back into this holistic wealth strategy. So, when you think of that word, the title of your book, what does that mean to you having a holistic wealth strategy?

Dave Wolcott: Yeah, it’s really interesting, Josh, because we talk about concepts like financial freedom, financial independence, building your wealth, right? And I did a lot of deep thinking on what does wealth really even mean as you’re progressing through life, you’re building a family, you’re in different stages, and everything. And for me, I came to this deep discovery that it’s really all about creating freedom in your life, and especially as an entrepreneur. So, we want freedom of money, to be able to create the experiences that we want to have in our life. It’s like oxygen. We want to have freedom of purpose, to wake up every day and be fascinated and motivated about the work that we’re doing.

We also want to have freedom of relationship, to pick and choose, just as you pointed out, the people that you want to spend your time with. So, not only in your personal circle, but in your work circle, you want to be with people that are actually taking you closer to your goals. So, those are some of the key freedoms that we want to have. And I think, once you get more of an understanding around those freedoms, then you can start to shape your vision statement towards, okay, how is it that I get there? Maybe it’s creating that freedom of time in your life because your parents are aging and you want to be able to spend more time with them.

And interestingly enough, sometimes it doesn’t even involve money. It could just be more time to go spend time with them. Or oftentimes, people will say, “I want to spend more time with my kids as they’re growing up because it goes by so fast.” Well, you can change some of those things if you do some deep thinking and understand what that wealth means to you to be able to support that vision.

Josh Cantwell: I love it. So, the holistic wealth strategy, you really started with the freedoms and the vision. What are your thoughts on like– so my mom once said to me, she said, “I felt like I was married to your father,” they were married for 52 years before my dad passed away. She said, “I felt like I was married to a different man every five years. And we were in a different phase or a different chapter of our lives or our marriage every five years.” And a lot of that had to do with me and my brothers and what phases we were in – young, high school, college, 20s, dating, married. My dad was an entrepreneur and a business owner. And so, how much do these changes or phases of our lives, these chapters of our lives go into having this holistic wealth strategy? Because if you ask yourself the question of the freedoms, the freedom of money, purpose, and relationship, and the other freedoms, we all want that, but your vision for your life is probably going to morph and change a little bit every 5 to 10 years, like my mom described.

And so, re-asking yourself about your vision, re-asking yourself about the next phase, re-asking yourself about what’s important to you, it’s probably critical not to ask it. Just many people think like, I want to ask it one time, and then I want to invest for the next 35 years, then I want to retire. There’s a way more phases or journeys in there, like many journeys, many phases. It’s not just, hey, I wake up, I start working, I retire, and I’m done. So, how much advice or thought goes into the book and around what you’re thinking, around that real life experience? Because nobody’s life is just linear, right? It’s all going to change every 5 or 10 years, it seems like.

Dave Wolcott: Yeah, 100%, Josh, especially as an entrepreneur. If you’re not growing, you’re not moving forward. So, you are going to evolve as a person. And it is important to constantly be reflecting and creating that vision in five years’ time. I can’t even think about today, where I could potentially be in five years, or the opportunities that could be created through a new relationship, a new experience or something, or you may have some kind of health issue that completely changes your life.

And in fact, this is one of the reasons why I really strongly advocate that people really think long and hard about their vision because how many times have you heard the stories about someone who has a chronic illness, loss of a loved one, or some type of major catastrophe in their lives and that’s caused them to completely change everything in their life, their health routine. Now, all of a sudden, we’re going to focus on health is 100%.

Well, in our wealth strategy, it’s all about being proactive, understanding what your vision is because if you don’t have a target, you’re going to miss every time, constantly refining that, and then creating this framework with which you can actually have guidelines to operate within. It’s flexible enough to support those changes that you have in life.

Josh Cantwell: Yeah, I think that’s unbelievably important. So, when it gets to understanding the freedoms that we want, we have a vision for what we want to do. Okay, and let’s say, take my own personal kind of journey right now, 46 years old, we have a really large multifamily portfolio, about $300 million. We’re building and growing that. But it’s very important for me to continue to support my mom. I made a promise to my father that I would never let my mom. And my dad struggled, my dad passed away after an eight-year battle with Parkinson’s. And so, making sure my mom is free and retired and be able to do what she wants to do is critical to me. I’m kind of in that sandwich generation. I’ve got kids who are in high school now and going to be approaching college in the next few years. So, these are all the things that are happening to me.

But I want to create, like you talked about, the vision for where do I want to be, what is it where I want to go, like, it’s that subconscious that’s going to say, “Okay, this is where you want to be. If you don’t have that target, you’re going to miss every time.” And then you have to implement some actual money management and wealth-building strategy to get you to that place, right? So, tell us about that, the mechanics of some of the actual wealth strategies, whether it’s capital preservation, whether it’s growth, whether it’s traditional investments, alternate investments. Once we kind of lay out that vision of what we want, tell us a little bit more about what your thoughts are in the book about how to create and build wealth to ultimately live that life.

Dave Wolcott: Yeah, so that’s a great segue, Josh, right into phase one. And in phase one, it’s really making that big paradigm shift to understand that you are your greatest asset. Anytime I’ve invested myself, I’ve gotten a 10x return, whether that be through my health, my education, my relationships, or whatever that is. So, having a strong growth mindset is absolutely key here. There’s so many people you talk to about alternative investing or investing in yourself or doing other things. And a lot of people just right out of the gate, they say, “It’s too risky. My financial planner doesn’t say it’s a good idea. He doesn’t like it. Real estate is too risky because it doesn’t align with him.”

So, understanding maybe some of your limiting beliefs that were hampering you, maybe from your background, how you were brought up, things like that. What are your goals and habits that actually support those goals? Are your goals taking you closer towards your vision, and then you’re creating habits to actually support that? Or in some cases, our habits might actually be detracting us and taking us further away from our vision. So, how can we get more aligned with our future self and how we want to be through all of these different dimensions? But it’s really how you think about the game.

And a great example is just think about someone like Elon Musk, the number of companies that he has, the magnitude of his thinking, and compare him to someone, let’s say you went to high school with, who’s still in the same town, same circle of friends, same job for the past 30 years, what’s the difference? It’s all mindset.

Josh Cantwell: Right. My dad said to me one time, he said, “Son, you were born with a lot of talent. In the second half of your life, if you don’t figure out the best ways to optimize that talent, you’ll have a lot of regrets, I’ll have a lot of regrets as your father that you didn’t live your full life, your full purpose because you were given a lot of talent.” And I think many people can find talent in themselves and other people if they’re looking for it.

Some people just aren’t looking for it. They have their own, they have talent, they have the ability to grow outside of their comfort zone, do the bigger jobs, start a company, whereas Elon was like, “Hey, dude, I’m going to go to the moon, I’m going to go to Mars.” And everyone thought he’s crazy. But that’s what I think needs to happen for humanity, right? Just the way that he chooses to think versus the other person that chooses to think without that kind of growth and without that huge, huge mindset that he does.

And so, it’s like, whatever the mind can conceive, the body can do, whatever we can conceive, whatever we want to kind of believe in our mind, that’s our only kind of self-limiting belief, that’s the only thing that’s going to hold us back. But yet, there’s other people who say, like, “I don’t really want to build all these crazy businesses, I don’t want to really build all these companies. And that’s okay. That’s their vision for what they want to do, right?

So, after we have this phase one kind of locked in, whatever that is for you, as big as Elon Musk, or whatever, you are in between, what happens next? What’s the next part of the book? What’s the next part of your strategy to help them keep moving towards this wealth accumulation, this holistic wealth plan, that once they have that dialed in, goals, habits, health, mindset, where’s the next place they should go?

Dave Wolcott: So, there’s a simple equation I really like to think about in this phase two. It is that your net worth is equal to your financial IQ, plus your mindset IQ, plus your physical capital, plus your relationship capital.

Josh Cantwell: I love that. Can you say that again?

Dave Wolcott: Yeah. So, your net worth is equal to your financial IQ, plus your mindset IQ, plus your physical capital, plus your relationship capital. So, if we break these things down, and again, this is not necessarily obvious to many. The first time, again, you started talking about investing in multifamily syndication to someone, it might be completely mind-blowing because they have no idea what it is, and you start talking about bonus depreciation. And it’s like, it’s crazy, right?

But the more you start to learn, and then you start to execute on some of these deals, and you see that you’re doubling your money and a fraction of the time that you did in the stock market, you’re getting these different tax incentives, it’s really empowering, right? And so, wow, if I can move my pieces on the chessboard this much further because now, I have this new financial IQ. I’m getting a lot smarter about different asset classes that no one taught me about before. So, getting smarter there is really key. We really talked about the mindset.

And again, think about it as if you were playing the game. Let’s say you’re playing chess in a linear fashion. But who’s to say you can’t play in a three-dimensional fashion and start to make really big moves on your chessboard, right? And that all comes with mindset. Linearly, we just want to think, oh, this yielded 7%. So, maybe if I get 10%, I’m doing better. But it’s a very linear way to think.

And then, just think about our relationship. You could be introduced to someone tomorrow that could be a new business partner for a new venture, that gives you 100x return on a new business model or maybe a new collaboration you never even thought of before. So, really focusing on those relationships.

And I love as Jim Rohn likes to talk about, you’re a product of the five people that you spend most of the time with. So, who are those people? And I know you’re into coaching, Josh, it’s critical to be always up-leveling your game. If you’re out there playing golf and you’re just playing with your friends every weekend and you keep shooting the same and you want to get better, you can’t. You need to be playing with people way above your level.

And then the last component of this, I think, is so critical as well is that health component and the physical capital, right? There are so many people, think about LeBron James spends over a million and a half a year on his body. And if you look at some of these folks that are in biohacking, like I actually just turned 53, and my biological age test came in at 43. So, I’m actually younger. So, 10 years younger, but it’s because I focus on it. I’ve got a really strong focus on that. So, that physical capital is helping me be more productive, be more sharp, be able to accomplish my goals more. So, I think the physical capital is really important.

Josh Cantwell: This is great. What’s popping off in my mind right now is that most people just focus on physical capital. They probably picked up your book and started reading it. And they started to think about the holistic wealth strategy, what they probably started thinking, which is kind of my preconceived idea when I first saw the book, oh, this is just about having a balanced investment approach, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, crypto, oil and gas. We’re going to diversify.

You’ve gone to a whole different place by saying because most people like I just did, I went to the physical capital, how much money do I have? How much return do I need to get? That’s physical capital, right? It’s cash in retirement accounts or cash in a whole life policy or different alternate investments in real estate. But what you went to, Dave, is fit financial IQ, right?

So, my question for our audience is, can you grow your physical capital if you don’t grow your financial IQ? The answer is probably not. If you want to grow your physical capital and just be worth more money and have more of the freedom of money, freedom of purpose, freedom of relationship, can you do that if you don’t change your mindset? Can you really have freedom of purpose, freedom of relationship if you don’t level up your mindset and your mindset IQ?

So, I love the fact that, Dave, that you’re talking about those. And then relationship capital, every great business that I’ve built, and most of the great businesses you see, are typically some sort of partnership. It’s sure, Warren Buffett, but what about Charlie Munger? It’s the guys at Apple, the guys that physically built the machines, like Steve Jobs wasn’t an engineer, he didn’t physically build machines. That was Steve Wozniak. So, you have a partnership. And so, the relationship capital, every great business that we’ve built, has been me and a partner, me and two partners, and then a great group of leaders and executives.

And so, I built my physical capital, like a hockey stick because of the relationship capital, not instead of, or in lieu of, but because of. All the equity and cash flow we have in our apartments is because of the relationships that we built. So, I didn’t even think you were going to go here. But now that I’m topping off of my mind, like, how do you even build a larger net worth without these other three? You can’t do it. You really cannot if you want something substantial.

You can always get a 7% return in the stock market, but that’s not substantial. And that’s just save, slave, work for 35 years, and retire. And then most people die, they retire when they’re 65. They die when they’re 75 because they’re bored out of their minds. So, let’s not do that, ladies and gentlemen, let’s do something else.

Dave, I know there’s so much in this book. Guys, you got to get the book, The Holistic Wealth Strategy, again, by our guest, Dave Wolcott. Dave, tell us what’s the best place to get the book. Do they go to Amazon, your website? What’s the best place to get it?

Dave Wolcott: Yeah, so if folks go to our website at PantheonInvest.com/wealth-strategy, we’ve got links to the book there. And then we’ve also got a bunch of free downloads. So, one thing we have is a 401(k) exit calculator. Okay, so paying your taxes, paying the penalty, but redeploying it in some of these alternative assets, what does that look like in 20 years? You’d be massively surprised at what that is. So, we’ve got some good assets like that in there, and the bonus materials.

And also, just to let everyone know, all the proceeds of the book are going to TheFund.org, which is our charity for helping critically wounded veterans across the country. So, it’s a fantastic cause. It’s only a couple of bucks for the book. But yeah, it’d be great for you to check it out.

Josh Cantwell: Look, PantheonInvest.com forward slash– say it again.

Dave Wolcott: Wealth-strategy.

Josh Cantwell: Perfect. We have time for probably one more phase. So, instead of just going to phase three, the question I wanted to ask you is I love asking authors about their book because the book is such kind of a pet project, it’s often way more work than we expect. And so, we put our lives into these books, you put your life into the book. You probably have a favorite part. Dave, if I had to ask you about the favorite part of the book, the favorite chapter, the favorite message, what would that be?

Dave Wolcott: Yeah, so it’s really sharing my vision because I walk these steps myself. So, just to give an idea how all this really works, part of our vision was to– I’ve traveled all over the world, and my wife is Italian. We wanted to get a place in Italy. So, instead of doing the normal thing, which is try to figure out how to buy property over there and just whatever go, I followed this entire strategy, which was, I first took capital, put it into my infinite banking policy. I borrowed the capital out of the IBC policy, and then I invested into a multifamily syndication that was cash-flowing. I then took that cash flow to help purchase a property in Italy, which we made a rental property. So, we rent it out. We flew. We’ve been flying for the past 10, 12 years to Italy with our family tax-free because we have to go visit our asset.

And then we’re teaching our kids, I have four kids, so we’re teaching our kids about the business. They’re getting involved in real estate, they’re understanding taxes and how that works. And in the meantime, we’re learning a new language, exploring the culture, which was all part of our vision to create a bigger life for ourselves. And the entire life cycle there of all these different techniques and strategies and everything really kind of come together with my vision. So, I like to share that with people to think about what’s possible.

And it’s really just having this overall compounding effect and this effect of having a strategy in place that really moves you closer to your goals. And it’s firing on different cylinders, whether we’ve got crazy uncertain economic times, as we always will. But you’ve got parameters with which to operate in.

Josh Cantwell: Fantastic stuff, Dave. Just a small little tidbit or taste of what’s in the book from what you just described in the last 30 seconds there. The Infinite Banking policy, borrowing against it to use into a cash-flowing multifamily investment, take the cash flow to buy the property in Italy, to fly there, just really, really methodical steps that you just described that really anybody could duplicate. That is just one small nugget inside of the book, The Holistic Wealth Strategy. Dave, this is fantastic stuff.

Guys, go get the book. We’ll put it in the show notes. Dave, let me just ask you one final question. Again, if you looked at the book or your life and was just going to pass back one piece of advice to our audience, just something about your life or something about what you’ve learned as an entrepreneur, as an author, as an investor, is there one piece of advice you’d like to share that really stands out that you absolutely just have to push out to audiences that you speak to?

Dave Wolcott: Absolutely, Josh, it’s all about understanding that you are your greatest asset. You’ve got to be investing in yourself every day, whether that’s your health, your relationships, all of these different things, right? I’ve always seen the most maximum amount of gains kind of come through that. And again, it’s all based on the fact that you’re supporting your vision of your future self and how you see life being played out because if you’re not in charge of your life, somebody else is going to be.

Josh Cantwell: Yeah. I love it. Dave, that’s fantastic stuff. Guys, listen, get the book, The Holistic Wealth Strategy. Learn more from Dave and his journey, his entrepreneurial journey, his investing journey. Follow along with his phases to build your own wealth strategy. Dave, thanks so much for carving out some time for us today on Accelerated Investor.

Dave Wolcott: You bet, Josh. Really grateful for the opportunity.

[CLOSING]

Josh Cantwell: Well, there you have it, guys. Listen, man, I could have kept going on and on with Dave about the next phase of the book and the next phase of the book. But truth is, you can download the book, read it, engage with Dave and his podcast. Check that out. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you did, make sure you subscribe, rate, review, like, all those things. And I would be so, so grateful if you would share this episode all over social media, on Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram and wherever you can share from your social media platforms.

Listen, my biggest takeaway from this is the idea of what we talked about in phase two, where Dave really talked about not just physical cash, physical capital, or net worth, but the conversation we were having around, look, the relationships that I have, have impacted my personal net worth much more than just a return on investment, 7%, 6%, 10%, 20% return on investment. My hockey stick growth in my personal net worth has happened primarily from the relationships that I’ve built and then the companies that we’ve built.

And in order to grow your physical capital, you have to expand your financial IQ. Those are some of my specific takeaways from Dave and from the book, The Holistic Wealth Strategy. Make sure you pick that up, and make sure you like and subscribe to the podcast. We’ll see you next time. Take care.