Rocket Your Dollar Ep. 48: Simplicity, Probability, & Leverage with Rick Sapio

Rick Sapio, co-founder and general partner of Mutual Capital Partners joins the podcast to discuss his philosophies of business and success.

Shownotes:

• Mutual Capital Partners
• The 100 Year Real Estate Investor

Transcript:

Thomas Young:

Welcome back to the Rocket Your Dollar Podcast. Today, I am so excited to have Rick Sapio with us. Rick was introduced to me by another guest of this podcast, Teresa Kuhn, who has always been a mentor of mine and a fantastic, fantastic person to know that's helped us a lot. Rick has worked with her. A little bit about Rick:

Rick is the seventh of 10 children. He is a life-long entrepreneur who started his first business, which was a bicycle repair shop, when he was just 13 years old, after the untimely death of his father from cancer. Since then, he has founded more than 20 companies. Since 1994, Rick has been the founder and CEO of an investment holding company that has made more than a hundred investments. Since 2003, Rick has been a co-founder and general partner of Mutual Capital Partners, a PE firm with three funds.

He's an author. He's a coach. He's a speaker. He's got a podcast. He's got a TED Talk. All of these things we're going to link in the show notes. Rick, thank you so much for being here today.

Rick Sapio:

Hey, you're welcome. Glad to be here. You said he does all those things, but I'm really not that busy, and that made me seem like I'm really overwhelmed, but I enjoyed reading that, so thank you.

Thomas Young:

These are a lot of different things that you do. How can you say you're not so busy? How do you do it all while still maintaining sanity?

Rick Sapio:

Yeah. It's interesting. We just celebrated our 27th year in business. From the day we started, I've never once had operating responsibility in any company. I'm a huge proponent for people, when you start a business, think of yourself as an owner. You're starting a business to create freedom. What most people do, is they start a business to create a job, and so now they have all the work that they had prior, as whatever they were doing for a living, plus, the added responsibility of owning a business and marketing and all that other crap that goes with it.

I've always had the mindset of owner not runner. It's just a different mindset. When an opportunity comes along like this one to do a podcast, I've got a window of time. I'm sure when you talked to Morgan, she said, "Rick does podcasts between 12:00 and 2:00 on Thursdays." Which is what we're doing now. I keep time windows available for things like this. When I write books, which I've written several, I think seven total, I like to use a ghostwriter.

I work very closely with the ghostwriter, but again, in certain windows of time, and that I think enables me to leverage time.

Thomas Young:

There's so much in that opening statement that I want to unpack, from why people start businesses, to how they should start businesses, to how you see yourself as an owner, not an operator. Let's go to the beginning. When someone is thinking of starting a business, and you have so much experience in this, how do you get out of the initial flurry of activity and then really take the time to step back, get out of the business and look at it overall, versus just falling into the trap of being an operator forever?

Rick Sapio:

Yeah. By the way, I have to tell you before I answer, it's very clear to me, I know you're young. We're probably 30 years apart in age, but you really want to know. I just get the impression that you're a learner, which is great. Most people are too busy to really learn or ask questions. I say those types of people, their cup is overflowing. Let me answer the question by way of a story first, and then I'll dig into it. I was having lunch with a mentor, and this was about now 13 years ago. It changed my life.

I would meet this guy once a month in the same restaurant at the same table. He happened to own the restaurant, and his name is Phil Romano. He had over 25 billion in revenue in his restaurants. He created over 20 national chains. You may remember Romano's Macaroni Grill which he sold to Brinker International for a lot of money. He was buying a medical company at the time and he said, "Listen, I know your funds are in this space. Do you know anybody that could be the CEO of this company we're buying?"

I'm like, "Describe this person." He said, "He or she is this age. They've got this experience and I really need to get this person." He literally spent the whole hour and a half talking about finding this person. He's like, "You have a massive network. I know you know the person. You got to help me here. The deal's in jeopardy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." That happened. A month later, we're sitting down in the same seat, in the same restaurant and I said, "Phil, did you find the person?"

He said, "What person?" I said, "The person to run the company you're buying." He goes, "What company?" I said, "What are you talking about? I sat right here a month ago, all you talked about was finding this person." He literally was dumbfounded. I thought that he had early-onset Alzheimer's or amnesia or something. He finally looks at me. He goes, "Oh, okay. Okay. I remember that." He looks right at me and he's got this very commanding presence.

He says, "Let me tell you the difference between a billionaire." He points to himself, "And a millionaire." And he points to me. He says, "A billionaire, if they do it right, they don't do anything. They do nothing, unless they find the exact perfect person to run it." He goes, "Everybody else, got to get a website, got to get an office, got to get on the internet, got to get this, got to get that. Got to, got to, got to, got to. They're got to machines." That completely changed my life because it's true.

So my philosophy on business, even prior to that, has always been, the most important thing I could tell anybody at any stage, whether they're just starting, to your question, or they've been doing it as long as you ... Well, I don't know you, but as long as me and Teresa have, is what not to do, as opposed to what to do. What not to do is to do anything, take any moves at all that are not aligned with your purpose, with your values and with your primary life objectives.

That's really important. I'm just going to restate that. You shouldn't be doing anything unless it's completely aligned with your purpose, your values and your important life objectives. When everything's in alignment, it makes everything easy, which is the next step. You're going to have to unpack this, Thomas. This is your job now. I'm going to give you a lot of work. Every single thing that I do, I put through the lens of my operating values, both in my family and in my business life.

Those operating values are simplicity, probability and leverage. You get those two separate ... If you want to look at those as peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter is purpose, values and objectives and jelly is, in this case, operating values. Like, how am I going to think about my purpose, my values and my objectives? I'm going to put them through the lens of simplicity, probability and leverage, which is very simply this. We're overwhelmed in society today in our personal lives and our business lives.

How can we keep everything as radically simple as possible? That's number one. Number two, probability. We should only be doing things that increase the probability of us hitting the stated objective. I've got four young kids. My objective is that they're independent 18-year-olds. I tell them, "I want you to be independent 18-year-olds." If I'm going to increase the probability of that objective, then I don't give them any money ever. They have to earn their own money.

They will never receive an inheritance. They have to pay for their own stuff. If they want a cell phone, they buy it. That's creating independence. I tell them, "I will never drive you to a ..." What do you call those events where you get on those club sports teams and parents are driving their kids all over the nation. No. My job is to create independence. Independence means you do that.

Now, some people might say that's harsh, but that's what my family did to me and that's what my wife's family did to her and we were completely independent. Now I feel like ... Don't get me on the soapbox, but parents' jobs are to put pillows just below their kids' asses, just in case they fall down. God forbid their butt touches the ground. Probability is about doing things to increase your objective. If your job ... I know Rocket Dollar seems like a great story.

You need to be doing things as a company that increase the probability that you create the objective, which might be to go public. I don't know. Then lastly is leverage. Everything that I do, you do, the world does, I believe enhances simplicity and probability if you use leverage, which is, do things that are related to existing technology you have, existing talents and capabilities you have, existing relationships you have, existing infrastructure you have.

What most people do is they do stuff seven steps removed, and they've got all this chaos around. I see this all the time. People say, "Hey, let's start a Facebook campaign." Now their staff's on Facebook all day long trying to get the marketing right when that's not even a good lead source for them, as an example. I don't know why I made that one up. Just to reiterate, I'm boringly simple. I'm monotonous. I love being monotonous and simple.

Simplicity, probability, and leverage are my operating values. I don't think anybody should do anything unless they've got purpose, their values and their objectives lined up. That means, Thomas, that you got to do a little work. If you haven't sat down ... I don't care, go to a log cabin somewhere, and figured out your life's purpose and written down your values that you're going to make decisions from and written down your objectives, then what the hell are you doing?

It's a waste of time because you can't tell the difference between an opportunity and a distraction that may ruin your life, unless you've done that work.

Thomas Young:

I love everything you just said. You're right. I do have my work cut out for me because there was so much in that statement. My follow-up question was going to be, how many people that you know, or that you might start a relationship with, have actually sat down and defined these things before starting a company? Because there're so many people out there ... and I'm in Austin. I hang out at some of these accelerators and stuff.

There's all this unbridled excitement about starting a company, but how many people have started a company or bought a company, but have sat down and done the work on what they want?

Rick Sapio:

That is an awesome question. I'm going to give you an answer that you don't expect. I went on a trek starting in 2007 to interview self-made billionaires. I got up to 44. I spent time with them. I traveled with them. It was an amazing journey. It took about 10 years. What I realized is on the back end of it, when you're sitting across the table from T. Boone Pickens or Warren Buffett or Richard Branson, or I can name others I spent time with, I am not name-dropping. That's not the point.

All of them were that way. Meaning, you see the evidence of people who are crystal clear about what their values are. I love this story from Branson. He was 16. He wanted to be an entrepreneur and he realized, "Damn, I don't know anything about running a company." He hired a CEO at 16 or 17. Then the other great story I love about him is he's like, "I don't want to be talking to people all day long. I don't want to have an office." Which was another common trait that they all had.

They didn't have offices. He's like, "I'm going to find an island that nobody can get to me." I think he bought it when he was 26. Just think about that. Most people want to be accessible. These people wanted to be inaccessible because they wanted to focus on what they're good at. To go to a long way to your question, which was a brilliant question, you're a good questioner, by the way, is the people that you see that already made it had that trait, which is, "I'm not going to do anything that's not aligned with my values and my purpose because I want success." Right?

You see that in marriage too. I took a long time to get married. Like literally I was the best single guy on planet earth. Then a few months shy of my 43rd birthday, I got married for the one and only time. Anybody who gets married more than once, I don't know, I think they need to have their head examined. I had a list. I said, "Here's my values and here's the values and attributes of the perfect woman for me. If I can't find that, because I want simplicity, probability and leverage in marriage too, I'm not going to do it."

Lo and behold, Melissa comes along and I'm looking at her, I'm looking at the list. She's looking at my list and she's like, "Well, I guess we got to do this." It was like, "Oh." But it made it easy. Marriage is hard enough. Why the hell complicate it? Answer to your question is, not many, Thomas. Not many do it. Probably near zero. That's why there's so few people at the top. It's funny. In my high school yearbook, they ask us to ... I didn't even know this.

I completely forgot about it. They asked you at graduation, "What do you want to write under your high school picture?" Everybody wrote a quote under their high school picture that ultimately got in the book that came later. Mine was, which you could see the seeds, and I was 17. It said, "The reason the straight and narrow path is so narrow is because few people walk on it." Think about that.

I would say it's a straight and narrow path to find entrepreneurs that actually stop the insanity, go somewhere, figure out why they're here i.e. their purpose, figure out how they're going to make decisions, i.e. values-based decision-making i.e. what are my values? Then, what are my real objectives here? What the hell am I doing here? It's not a top 500 list. It's like, why am I here? What do I want to achieve?

Thomas Young:

One of the things that comes to mind is, there's all this, like I said earlier, just unbridled passion, ambition to be entrepreneurial. But, and you know, this entrepreneurship is not the path of least resistance a lot of times. I think that a lot of people if they sat down and really defined these values and what they want out of life and what they want to do, they could find a simpler path. It's not to dissuade anybody from doing it, but you can make your life a lot easier, richer if you're clear, and then you choose that path.

I don't really know where I was going with that, but it seems like a lot of people's existence, whether they're entrepreneurs, business owners, employees, whatever, their lives would be a lot simpler and happier if they took a few days to, like you said, go to a log cabin to sit down and decide what they really want.

Rick Sapio:

Yeah. I say this all the time. I learned several years ago, probably not too long ago, that I'm never going to convince anybody of anything. However, I say, "You do not have to do what I'm saying. However, if you want simplicity, probability and leverage it's probably a good idea." Because I've probably told 50,000 people what I just told you over the years being on different programs and whatnot, and a handful of people have called me and said, "17 years ago, when you said this, this and this, it radically transformed my life."

I don't know why people don't implement things. I have a feeling it's because we're a society addicted to screens and so we're always looking down at the screen and we're consuming things as opposed to generating things. We've shifted from a culture that generates and creates. Think, I'll use the example of a ... I'm Italian. I'm an Italian citizen. I love two people that changed the world, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

There's a famous story about Michelangelo and his friends would go when he was painting The Sistine Chapel, and go, "Michelangelo, all you do is work. Why don't you come out and have fun with us?" He would say, "Fun? I'm having the time of my life. I'm working a hundred hours a week. This is fun because I'm changing the world and I'm on fire."

I think people just have that mindset that consuming things, whether it's alcohol, Netflix, social media, pornography, it's an absolute waste of time. The reason they don't realize it, is because they haven't taken the time to figure out their purpose so that they can be on fire.

Thomas Young:

That's one of the things that comes to mind. This is why our internet connection at home, our download speed is so much higher than our upload speed. It's because we're consuming. We're not uploading. We're downloading.

Rick Sapio:

I tell my kids all the time, I think you'd appreciate this. They go to grandpa's house and he's sitting there watching TV, watching football or something. We just chose not to get a TV. They're seven, nine, 11, and 13. We do have one that you can play a DVD on. I say to my kids, in front of grandpa, "Do you want to be on the field or in the stands? Do you want to be the watchee or the watcher?" They get it from a really early age.

It's like, "Why the hell is someone watching somebody else play football or watching somebody else build their company or watching somebody else do whatever?" It's a profound, yet simple discernment. I don't know if it a hundred percent is sinking in, but I remember my son, Leo, he was seven and he goes, "Dad, I lost another one." I'm like, "What do you mean you lost another one?" He goes, "I lost another friend."

Like, "What do you mean you lost another friend?" He goes, "Their parents got him an iPad and he's gone." Then I think, "Why are we stealing children's childhoods from them by giving them all these electronic devices so that they can close the door of their room and veg out."

Thomas Young:

This is fantastic. When you were telling the story about grandpa watching football, wanting to be in the stands versus in the game, the famous poem is The Man in the Arena. I mean, you want to be the person there, otherwise you're just watching everybody else do it.

Rick Sapio:

Yep. You want blood and sweat on your brow and you want the critic from the stands to tell you that you did it wrong. You want that because it's funny. I laugh at those people. It gives me so much energy that someone could be stupid enough to sit in the stands and criticize somebody else. How does that make any sense in any rational world? Unfortunately, it's a part of humanity.

Thomas Young:

Absolutely right. I want to segue a little bit because we're talking about The Man in the Arena. We're talking about doing things. We're talking about purpose. Tell me a little bit about when you got into coaching and when you realized the importance of having a coach in business, and what got you into that world. Because it's always fascinating to me that entrepreneurs will resist a coach and will resist coaching or business people or investors, whoever, and yet every professional athlete has a team of coaches behind them.

Rick Sapio:

Yeah. That's really funny. I get asked this all the time. By the way, I'm not a coach. I've never been a coach. I'm a massive proponent of having coaches, and I've had one for ... Is it 38 years? Am I doing the math right? I started when I was 20 and I'm 58, so is that 38 years? I guess so. Wow.

Thomas Young:

Yeah.

Rick Sapio:

First of all, you asked like three questions in one. My dad died when I was 13. I have no idea how this happened. It was like magic. Maybe it's a God thing. I don't know. When my dad died, a guy reached forward and he said, "You probably need a mentor." I have been addicted, since the age of 13, with finding successful people and asking them to mentor me. I've had hundreds of mentors. It's so funny how few people will actually ask somebody to be a mentor.

A mentor and a coach are the same thing to me. I've already baked into my genes, or my DNA I should say, to be oriented around finding mentors. Coaching to me is a very different thing however, because it's an ongoing paid relationship. I would say the vast majority of coaches are horrible. 1% ish are phenomenal and what they do is something really simple. They ask you, "What do you want to be held accountable to in terms of your values and your purpose? What do you want to be held accountable in terms of your objectives?"

Whenever you talk to them, whether it's once a month or once a week, it's all about that. Holding you accountable to your stated objectives, values, and purpose. You get these coaches, I had this one guy who was really high priced and he guaranteed his work and I'll never forget, I paid him a lot of money. We talked about whatever for an hour. Then the next week we get on the phone, he goes, "What do you want to talk about now?"

I said, "What do you mean, what do you want to talk about now?" He goes, "Well, what happened this week?" I'm like, "Who gives a shit what happened this week?" It's irrelevant." I said, "Two words." He goes, "Two words? What?" "You're fired." Most coaches are like therapists. The reality is, it doesn't produce simplicity, probability and leverage, i.e. the result you want, and so it's a complete waste of time. I'm a massive fan of coaches because they're like your rear-view mirror.

They're looking out for you. They're helping you clear the way so that you can be the best version of yourself to achieve the life you want to achieve. It's impossible to do anything alone. We all know that. Why do I do it? Because it's helped me be a better human being. Why should you do it or anybody else? Because it'll help you be a better human being, but you have to have some humility because a lot of people don't like being told what to do, or they have to learn everything.

I just tell this quick story, a tale of two human beings. One of the things we do as a company ... so I have a holding company and we have some funds. We make investments. We take large companies and we try to get them liquidity. There's this trend right now called SPACs. In the area that we play in, we try to get companies who maybe they're looking for $50 million or whatever. We say to them, "I know you only need 50 million, but if we could get your 500 million, what would you do with it?"

This very famous billionaire that I know, I ask him that question. In this case he needed 125 million for his business. When I talked to the Wall Street SPACs, they said, "Listen, our minimum is a valuation of a billion. We like the deal. We like the CEO. We like the founders. We like the board. What would they do with more money?" I went back to the team and I said, "Here's the bottom line, why don't we make a game out of this?

Why don't we look at your business and find the areas of business that could create growth using simplicity, 5 billion leverage. Doing that, could you create another revenue item or a revenue line item? What would you do if you had 500 million?" 48 hours later, they come back to us, completely blown away, excited. They had redone all their financials. They realized that there was a revenue line item that didn't require them to hire anybody or get new technology, whatever.

But it allowed them to be a financier in their industry because other companies couldn't get financing in this specialty area. It turned out there was 500 extra million dollars. They could create more than triple on a dollar-by-dollar basis, the output, i.e., their EBITDA. It created immense value for them. We're in the middle of the transaction now. That's one way of thinking and one way of going through life being open-minded.

At the same time, we're negotiating with another company, similar space. We say the same thing. They're like, "We don't have a need for more money." Well, but if you did, what would you do with it? "Well, we already know what we're doing, and this is our plan, and this is how we're doing it." I get that you have a plan, management team, but what if there was an opportunity to create more shareholder value? You get more money, the SPACs win because they have a bigger deal.

We get more coverage from analysts. What would you do? The point was, they were completely and totally closed. Oh, by the way, it's funny that you're talking about coaching, because that particular CEO, I asked him if he wanted a coach, just like you said, Tom Brady's got seven, Tiger Woods has many. He goes, "What would a coach teach me?" All that to say, in life, if you have a choice, you could be open to new perspectives, new opportunities to be better, or you could be closed.

Unfortunately, the vast majority are consumers and we're closed. It's a sad reality. You know what? We don't have to be judgmental. It's just important to point that out, so as you're going through life, it'll save you, Thomas, and you, listeners, a hell of a lot of time in banging your head against the wall. I have a saying here. All human suffering is caused when people don't realize that cows moo and dogs bark. We spend all our time trying to get cows to bark and dogs to moo.

That's what we do as human beings, "But if you only did this." Well, people are people and they're going to moo their own way. I spend a lot of time trying to change people, or used to, and the older I get, the more I accept them for who they are.

Thomas Young:

How many people do you think just simply play too small? They just play too small. They don't think of what's possible because they're not open.

Rick Sapio:

The vast majority, I would say, I don't know. What do you think?

Thomas Young:

I'm in the same boat. I mean, we look at ... It's almost easy to see things as a third party. I think this is why coaching and mentorship is valuable, because they see you as you and what you're doing. I think a lot of people would be surprised if they just really took a step back and said, "What if I had this? What could I do?" I mean, and being open to that, I think could be life-changing for a lot of people.

Then you combine it with actually sitting down and defining your objectives and your purposes, and I think people would be amazed at how quickly magic can happen.

Rick Sapio:

If you followed people around in the morning from the moment they get up, let's say you got up at 6:00 AM and I followed you around with a video camera, the whole day. From the minute you get up to the minute you go to bed, every single thing you do in a day, and we were to categorize those things. What I found when I interviewed those successful people over that 10-year period is, if you ask those people, "What is your priority in life? Describe your priorities."

It changed my life by just asking the question. You'd hear things like, God first, my company second, my family, my health and fitness and my hobby, which is rebuilding cars, or whatever it is. If you followed them around, that is all they would do the whole day. 90% of their time plus would be focused on their priorities, which is a reflection of their values.

97% of us, if you followed us around, the rest of the world, you would find that they would tell you their priorities or something like God, health and fitness second, my purpose third, but 90, 80, whatever percentage of their time that they're awake, is doing something else. It's Netflix. It's social media. It's toxic people. It's toxic behaviors. It's getting drunk. It's smoking pot. It's whatever.

Therein lies the secret to life. That is this. If you want to have a successful life, understand what your priorities are, which is your values, your purpose, et cetera, and only do that, Thomas. Bingo.

Thomas Young:

That's fantastic. If anybody listening takes one morsel away from this entire conversation, it's right there. Rick, we've had a fantastic conversation over the last few minutes. I really hope our audience has thoroughly enjoyed it as much as I have. I want to wrap it up with asking you a couple of questions. One, for someone that's looking to do something else, or even if it's start a new company or make a career move, what sort of parting advice would you have for someone that's looking to make a change in their life, whether it's entrepreneurial, whether it's professional or whether it's personal?

Rick Sapio:

It's funny. I used to go to the Berkshire Hathaway meetings every year, for many years. I was a long-term, and the long-term shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway. Warren buffet would talk for a long time and then he would look over at Charlie, his sidekick for 50 years. Charlie would say, "I have nothing more to add." He would say that like 15 times at every meeting. The reality, Thomas, is I have nothing more to add. It doesn't matter where you are in your life.

You got to take the time to peel the onion on yourself and figure out why you're here, what your purpose is. Why you're here is what your purpose is, and what drives you, i.e. what are your values? Then, what objectives do you want to attach to those? I don't care if you're an entrepreneur, a billionaire, you're just starting out, you just moved to the United States. It doesn't matter.

That's your engine. That's what gets you out of bed in the morning. That's what I would say for my final words.

Thomas Young:

I love it. Rick, while we're here, what are you personally working on right now that's got you really excited? Professionally, what's getting you out of bed in the morning?

Rick Sapio:

Well, thank you for that question. I've written four books recently, all on long-term thinking in a series called The 100-Year Mindset. We've got The 100-Year Mindset, The 100-Year Savings Solution, The 100-Year Family and The 100-Year Business. There's a series of others coming along, none of which are published yet. However, The 100 Year Real Estate Investor, and the domain is www.100yearrei.com, REI stands for real estate investor, is basically seeking out those people, those rare few that have a long-term mindset.

The product that we sell on that site was a product originally talked about by Nelson Nash. Nelson Nash was a forester. He would build forests that lasted tens of generations. There're some foresters that plant trees now that will be used 500 years into the future. When you think about a cathedral being built, you think about the Middle Ages, they would seek out trees that they knew the wood of which would last for a thousand years. What we're looking for is people that think long-term.

People that generally think long-term are those that if I know where I'm going to be in a hundred years because I planned it out, what am I supposed to do today? Thomas, for you, personally, if you want to live to be 120, that would inform what you did today with your time, right?

Thomas Young:

Absolutely. I think a lot of people don't plan a hundred years in advance or even five years in advance. You ask people, "What's your five-year plan?" It's not always clear.

Rick Sapio:

Well, it's interesting. When my wife and I got married, we said, "Let's describe our life in 50 years." We wrote a little page about our life in 50 years. 50 years from now, it's going to be snowing outside. We're sipping coffee. Our great grandchildren are running around us. We've got a log cabin in Colorado. There's a fire going behind us, et cetera, et cetera. When you describe a scene in the future so clearly, what happens is when you have a fight in your marriage, you're not running for the exits like a lot of people are.

That long-term commitment informs what you do today. It doesn't matter if it's 50 years or a hundred years or 500 years. The 100-Year Real Estate Investor, and really this hundred years' thinking that we are embarking on, is about finding those rare few, that tiny percentage of the population that wants to make decisions today that have long-term impact.

When it comes to real estate investors, we've got a product that it's an insurance product that they can purchase that provides interest and they can borrow against it to buy real estate. It's using whole life insurance as a financial vehicle. They can find more information on the site, but the philosophy behind that is what matters. Thank you for asking that question, Thomas.

Thomas Young:

I love first of all the name. Teresa's told me a little bit about what it is, but I just love how it runs counter to a lot of things that are being pushed today. For example, a Tim Ferriss fan, but everything is about the four-hour this, the four-hour that, four-hour that. I love how this runs a little bit counter to that. Like, no, let's think a hundred years out instead of four hours out.

I think it's a great mindset to have in what you do with your kids, what's your hundred year plan with your kids? Well, neither of you guys are going to be here, but what you do today will influence two generations down. I love that sort of thinking in general. I think it's fantastic.

Rick Sapio:

Yeah. It also informs what your footprint is on the world. I don't think I've met Tim Ferriss. Maybe I have. I can't remember, but I think he was reluctant about the name four-hour work week when it came out. I can't remember. There was a reluctance because he really didn't want to be so much about that, but when it took off, I think he was like, "Well, I guess this is my brand." And he embraced it. It does absolutely run counter because there is a frenetic energy around best, best, best, best, best. That's counter to my values.

Thomas Young:

I think there's a great ... I don't remember if it was Mark Cuban or Bill Gates who said it, but most people overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in 10 years. This sort of has the same vibe to me about how consistency and just doing the work over a long period of time and planning out ahead gets people results that I think would surprise most people.

Rick Sapio:

I mean, if you look at it from this ... This will be my final point on it. If you know where you're going to be in the long-term, at least you have a direction, directionally, I'm going to be there, think about a mission to Mars, or whatever your goal is. You know what your plan is for the next quarter, so you're crystal clear about my quarter, which lines up with my hundred-year vision, then the middle kind of takes care of itself.

You recalibrate quarterly or monthly, however it is for you, but there's so much information out there. It's information overload that people are recalibrating minute by minute by minute by minute, which is the reason why we take 6 billion ... Just on this square, the number is 6 billion pills per month for mental disorders like anxiety, per month in one country. Unbelievable.

Thomas Young:

Yeah. That is unbelievable. I think that's a great place to wrap it, Rick. I'm going to link everything that we've talked about, all the resources, the 100-Year Real Estate Investor, on the show notes. I really want to thank you for your time being here with us and sharing a lot of those fantastic stories and just for your time. Thank you.

Rick Sapio:

You're welcome. It's been great.

Thomas Young:

Thank you for listening to this episode of Rocket Your Dollar. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share the podcast with your friends. Learn more about self-directed investing, or to get started with your own account, please visit us a rocketdollar.com. See you next week.