Chicago native, Mitch Joseph, is a real-estate investor well versed in the neighborhoods of Chicago. A hedge-fund veteran with 30+ years of futures/options trading experience, Mitch managed in excess of $70 million and co-founded a company called Flow Trading. He is also raising three children alongside his lovely wife of 20 years. Mitch seems to have it all, but how did he get there? His mantra… Balance, Balance, Balance! This episode is chock-full of interesting stories and excellent advice for those starting out and those already with skin in the game. Listen now!
Dub Feral by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3683-dub-feral
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Chicago native, Mitch Joseph, is a real-estate investor well versed in the neighborhoods of Chicago. A hedge-fund veteran with 30+ years of futures/options trading experience, Mitch managed in excess of $70 million and co-founded a company called Flow Trading. He is also raising three children alongside his lovely wife of 20 years. Mitch seems to have it all, but how did he get there? His mantra… Balance, Balance, Balance! This episode is chock-full of interesting stories and excellent advice for those starting out and those already with skin in the game. Listen now!
Dub Feral by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3683-dub-feral
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
00;00;05;04 - 00;00;39;09
Dave
Let me introduce you formally. So, you know, I gave you some I think I left you a voicemail. So I gave you some preface on this saying that, you know, this is this is a series of interviews with, you know, business owners, some some local small companies, some bigger companies, And the whole idea is that we're going to draw from the collective experience of these entrepreneurs and business leaders in the hopes that people might find this information valuable and especially young people.
00;00;39;18 - 00;00;56;03
Dave
You, as, of course, one of my mentors, has, you know, a great deal of experience in a lot of different businesses. And I wanted to make sure we got you on the ticket first. So let me formally introduce you, Mitch Joseph. I'm going right from your bio, Mitchell.
00;00;56;25 - 00;00;57;09
Mitch
Oh, boy.
00;00;57;12 - 00;01;11;01
Dave
You correct me if I if I missed anything or if I get anything wrong, but you are a Chicago native. You graduated from Purdue University, lived in Old Town in Lincoln Park for most of your adult life before moving to Chicago's North Shore.
00;01;11;14 - 00;01;13;03
Mitch
I'm going to stop you right there. Yeah.
00;01;13;10 - 00;01;13;20
Dave
Yeah.
00;01;14;04 - 00;01;22;28
Mitch
So that's your first blooper. Did I graduate from DePaul University? You know what you said?
00;01;23;09 - 00;01;23;20
Dave
What?
00;01;24;11 - 00;01;24;26
Mitch
Purdue.
00;01;26;07 - 00;01;27;02
Dave
Did I say Purdue?
00;01;27;22 - 00;01;29;26
Mitch
Yeah.
00;01;30;17 - 00;01;34;16
Dave
No way. Why would I say that? All right.
00;01;37;07 - 00;01;39;07
Mitch
Roll it back. Take 2.
00;01;39;17 - 00;02;19;13
Dave
Take 2. All right. Mitch Joseph, welcome. You're a Chicago native, graduated from DePaul. University. You lived in Old Town, Lincoln Park, for most of your adult life before moving to Chicago's North Shore with your wife and three kids. You were also an independent floor trader for 15 years at Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Also spent time at the Board of Trade and Chicago Board of Options Exchange. In early 2000s, you turned your attention to real estate, where you renovated and developed properties in the Wicker Park, Pilsen neighborhoods and also built a rental portfolio in the Greater Chicagoland area.
00;02;20;17 - 00;02;29;06
Dave
And if I remember correctly, you've also done some things down in your fave, one of your favorite areas of the country down in North Carolina, right?
00;02;29;23 - 00;02;30;22
Mitch
Absolutely correct. Yes.
00;02;30;22 - 00;03;14;15
Dave
You've also been a hedge You started a hedge fund. And we'll talk about we'll get into that and talk about it. But the namesake of that was Flow Trading and you built up a portfolio and used your knowledge of futures and options trading experience to manage a fund in excess of $70 million. And in the course of building Flow Trading, you helped create a proprietary trading platform with a partner and implemented successful algorithmic and synthetic trading strategies.
00;03;15;23 - 00;03;17;17
Mitch
Right now that nobody knows what you're talking about.
00;03;17;17 - 00;03;36;12
Dave
Yes. I had to add to that some of your personal endeavors. You're an avid racquetball and squash player and you enjoy a host of other sporting activities, including golf, paddle tennis, skiing, snowboarding. And I'm sure anything that involves a racket and a ball.
00;03;37;27 - 00;03;38;03
Mitch
Yup.
00;03;38;16 - 00;03;45;05
Dave
And you raise your three kids alongside your wife, the lovely Dr. Rayna Joseph.
00;03;46;21 - 00;03;57;08
Mitch
Well, that when I hear that, it sounds like I guess if you live long enough, you do a lot of stuff. Right.
00;03;57;08 - 00;04;06;21
Dave
This is true. You've got a collective wisdom, I guess, you know, through your own professional development. And I assume, you know, some mistakes along the way.
00;04;07;15 - 00;04;08;19
Mitch
Of course.
00;04;08;19 - 00;04;12;01
Dave
Yes. And those are things we'd like to learn from and talk about.
00;04;12;22 - 00;04;17;20
Mitch
Oh, that's cool. Podcast about mistakes, huh?
00;04;19;12 - 00;04;23;11
Dave
Yeah. And you've also created a fair amount of wealth for you. You know, we've.
00;04;25;04 - 00;04;25;12
Mitch
Yep
00;04;25;18 - 00;04;37;25
Dave
Talk about those things in detail personally, but, you know, from, you know, by my standards, you know, of course, you're a mentor of mine. You've developed a fair amount of wealth for yourself and your family and also mentored others.
00;04;38;22 - 00;04;39;11
Mitch
Yes.
00;04;40;03 - 00;04;54;02
Dave
So you are competitive by nature. You've always been competitive, of course. We have a long history and we're playing racquetball together and we're not going to get into, you know, who is the better racquetball player back in the day. I think we want to keep this focused on you.
00;04;56;12 - 00;04;59;18
Mitch
So we can go into that subject.
00;05;00;24 - 00;05;10;26
Dave
Yeah well, let's let's let's get back on track here. So so but you've always been competitive by nature, right? And this is something. Yes. Great. Yes. The Marshall.
00;05;10;26 - 00;05;16;21
Mitch
And you could you could put that on the video if you need to.
00;05;16;28 - 00;05;22;02
Dave
That's great. Yes. You are the you are the current sheriff. I will.
00;05;24;05 - 00;05;24;15
Mitch
All right.
00;05;25;03 - 00;05;27;11
Dave
I will I will concede. I'll concede.
00;05;27;14 - 00;05;30;11
Mitch
Let your audience know that I showed you on video.
00;05;30;13 - 00;05;30;23
Dave
Okay.
00;05;31;11 - 00;05;35;01
Mitch
OK, go ahead. Now now that we got that out of the way.
00;05;35;10 - 00;05;58;06
Dave
I guess I should add that to your bio. Mitch is the reigning sheriff of racquetball All right, so. So here we are. Let's just talk about your competitive nature. You know, of course, this is something I've experienced with you and we've had some great competition over the years, but just in general, you're competitive. Were you born with that? Was that ever instilled in you?
00;05;58;08 - 00;06;01;22
Dave
You know, where do you get that from?
00;06;01;23 - 00;06;25;24
Mitch
Yeah. So that's actually a really, really good question. And to be quite honest, I never really thought that much about that as a character. Terroristic of success in business. But to answer your question directly, yes, I think I've always been competitive, but not ruthlessly on the exterior.
00;06;29;21 - 00;06;31;29
Dave
Does that mean you're competitive with yourself?
00;06;32;05 - 00;07;04;21
Mitch
No, to me, I mean, I am competitive. I mean, I set goals and stuff like that. But I'm competitive in what would people would consider a competitive situation. But I'm never ruthless to my adversary. Or or my opponent. I'm never rude. I try not to be any way I, I try and let my actions speak louder than my words so I don't trash talk or anything like that unless it's you.
00;07;05;28 - 00;07;32;20
Mitch
It's actually that's really something that I'm going to actually think about now that you brought that up right off the bat because the reason I was hired in my first job was because of competitiveness. This is what I was told. I. Well, just to go back to my very, very first job, which is probably the only actual job I ever held for a few years.
00;07;32;20 - 00;08;01;03
Mitch
And then I was much more entrepreneurial from that point forward. And still to today. However, I was noticing, it was a for trading company at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. And I was noticing that the people they were hiring were like, yeah, I'm not the biggest guy by any means. Pretty small, relatively speaking. And I notice they're hiring these guys, you know, 64, 65, you know, 220 to 30.
00;08;01;03 - 00;08;43;09
Mitch
And the thing that everyone had in common, which I learned was they were all D1 athletes. All of them. Or they were extremely competitive in some sort of a sporting endeavor. And this company, decided for the trading industry, you had to have this innate competitiveness to be successful, to have any chance of success and the business model that they had, trade training, futures traders, even at options traders, which I got into later, which takes a little more mathematics than athleticism, but it doesn't hurt to also have that competitive nature.
00;08;43;09 - 00;09;10;00
Mitch
So it's a very like many many business and it's very cutthroat. And I think you need somebody who has that competitive edge or, you know, inside competitiveness to succeed. And I think that has been part of my journey all along the way, whether it is actual sports or me thinking I'm actually better than I really am, that happens a lot.
00;09;10;24 - 00;09;33;23
Mitch
Yeah, very funny. Or if it's, you know, if it's in any endeavor, if it's in business, I kind of want to do so. That's where like the competitive inside, I want to do the best I can up to my capabilities. But, you know, again, I don't I'm not like, you know, a jugular. I don't go for the jugular.
00;09;33;23 - 00;09;57;05
Mitch
I'm not that kind of a I don't have that type of personality. So, you know, I don't know if that answers your question or not, but sure, it is what you know, you also you followed up yourself was that instilled in me that I where my parents or did not by my parents, other than the typical parent thing of, you know, you can do anything you want and, you know, whatever you set your mind to, all that kind of cliche stuff.
00;09;57;14 - 00;10;19;24
Mitch
But there is one thing that did I say I would say set me off on a more competitive path. So I have an older brother. You'll hear this story if I could relate to this. He was seven years older than me, but he was a great big brother. Still is, by the way. And he's still seven years older.
00;10;19;24 - 00;10;42;01
Mitch
I mean, so one of the things but I was always into sports. I love sports and he was a great big brother and he would bring me along with him to compete, not to compete, but, you know, to kind of hang out with his friends who were playing sports. And, you know if I was lucky enough to be able to be called to, you know, play left field because their guy didn't show up.
00;10;42;02 - 00;11;02;26
Mitch
You know, I was so excited. Right. And then as I got older and older, I wanted to compete with these guys. I wanted to actually be able to not embarrass my brother and compete. So whatever it was, you know, tag football outside in the street, you know, baseball, hockey, whatever the sport was skiing, you know, all of that stuff.
00;11;03;13 - 00;11;13;14
Mitch
And then, you know, eventually I got better than all of them. So screw that. That definitely was a childhood catalyst. But other than that, no pressure. No, no, nothing like that.
00;11;14;00 - 00;11;16;18
Dave
Your brother's brother was somebody that you looked up to.
00;11;17;13 - 00;11;19;04
Mitch
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.
00;11;19;17 - 00;11;33;19
Dave
Along those lines, was there anybody in your life that, you know, influenced you the most in terms of you know, mentorship or in terms of inspiration?
00;11;33;29 - 00;12;01;07
Mitch
This is going to sound horrible, but. Yes, but it's not going to be what you think OK, so I hope people can not necessarily relate to this, but I'm not even sure if I want to leave this out there. But as I was growing up, I saw like my father who was loved by everybody, the greatest guy. Everyone loved my dad, the nicest guy but not driven at all.
00;12;01;22 - 00;12;27;28
Mitch
OK, so, you know, good dad and all that kind of stuff. But I saw as he you know, I was only in my teens, but I saw that, you know, he never really you know, we'll get into this a little bit, which I would like to talk about. Balance, right. Balance is a key thing in my life. But he never like put enough into truly providing for his family when he had opportunities to do so.
00;12;28;02 - 00;12;57;22
Mitch
Some people don't have the opportunity. He did. And I saw like through the years as I was in my teens and twenties that, you know, I don't want to say he let the family down because he did other things that were great. But I noticed that he put himself in a position that was not desirable and he was then dependent on me basically as he got older like he, not that he was old, older then.
00;12;58;05 - 00;13;16;20
Mitch
You know, he died actually when he was kinda young, but in his you know, fifties and sixties he didn't have much financial strength, let's put it that way. And he became dependent, which was a horrible thing to see. And watching that and seeing that happen, that motivated me to never do that.
00;13;17;05 - 00;13;17;19
Dave
OK.
00;13;18;00 - 00;13;19;03
Mitch
OK. Does that make sense?
00;13;19;03 - 00;13;27;20
Dave
It's yeah, it's I mean, it's really it's, you know, something that you could perceive as negative, but turning it into a positive, really. I mean.
00;13;27;26 - 00;13;34;18
Mitch
Yeah, it definitely motivated me to have a little more focus on finances.
00;13;34;20 - 00;13;35;00
Dave
Yeah.
00;13;35;08 - 00;14;01;11
Mitch
And and I would say being aware of opportunities that that's a really, really good way of putting it. Not everyone has the opportunities, but I do think you you know, you have to work for it. You can make your own opportunities. But I watched him let opportunity by opportunity go by and it was really confusing to me and then I saw the end result and it was also disappointing.
00;14;01;21 - 00;14;16;24
Mitch
And so I think yeah, on the competitive side, my brother on the self-motivation part I you know, a negative impact though, sort of was. Yeah, kind of how my dad handled things.
00;14;17;09 - 00;14;52;16
Dave
Well when you realized, you know, what how important opportunity was and and the importance of acting on those opportunities when you started to realize the importance of of, you know, of building of money and building wealth is something that that's important to your life. Did this happened for you at a fairly young age? When was, you know, when was this you're the you're the type of person that it wouldn't surprise me if six months after being born you started a lemonade stand but but you know.
00;14;53;06 - 00;15;10;25
Mitch
Sort of like that but not far off. So I did have I mean, I didn't know it at the time, of course. But when I was really, really young. I'm talking yeah pre ten years old, like eight, nine. Just my living situation. We I lived in a very humble, two flat, and my grandparents lived on the second floor.
00;15;10;25 - 00;15;31;01
Mitch
I lived on the first floor, and they actually had a, a shop of a coat a coat shop. OK, down on Maxwell Street back in the day, way back. And on Sundays, I would actually go to work with them. Now, I was you know, I started when I was like nine.
00;15;32;19 - 00;15;32;26
Dave
00;15;32;26 - 00;15;58;27
Mitch
I got to see firsthand how they ran the business, but what the clientele was like, which was very interesting, just kind of what the community was like there. But my grandfather, both my grandmother and grandfather, you know, they were from Europe. They came over, they open the shop and they were that American, you know, kind of success story.
00;16;00;13 - 00;16;21;12
Mitch
And I was allowed I would say I was trusted and allowed as like a let's say, ten or 11 year old at that point, you know, as I would go and see what was going on to actually get involved. I mean, they would let me run the cash register. They would let me actually wait on certain people and give them get them help.
00;16;21;23 - 00;16;47;00
Mitch
And from that moment, I was kind of into understanding the exchange of money for goods and services and all that kind of stuff. I did find it fascinating plus as a kid, you love working the cash register. You know, it's fun and you know, of course, they would pay me for my day a little bit and maybe it was ten bucks, which was a lot, you know, about that for the day.
00;16;47;09 - 00;17;15;23
Mitch
And I did. I saved a little bit of money back then as I got a little bit older just to make it a little more relevant I started working when I was able to at 16, you know, I was looking for a job that would pay me kind of more than minimum wage I did that for a little bit growing up, but I think more telltale, a telltale was when I was in college.
00;17;16;00 - 00;17;34;03
Mitch
College was kind of a turning point for me. Originally, I was very into music. I was going in as a music major and I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do for sure. But, you know, I played trumpet, performance trumpet and all that. And so I studied with guys at DePaul University. Some of the greatest teachers there when I was in high school.
00;17;34;03 - 00;17;51;09
Mitch
So that's why I followed through there. There was a I had an epiphany around my sophomore year. My sophomore year was I realized that, hey, you know, if you and this is kind of where you're asking yourself, you gotta be honest with yourself. You know, if you love being a musician and you really, really love it, this is what you should do.
00;17;51;25 - 00;18;32;24
Mitch
You know, but to be the best at what I was going after, which was performance, maybe classical performance and jazz performance, a trained musician, you have to be really dedicated like all in and and you have to be also financially like the top point .00001% to make a decent living at it. So I had a good look in the mirror and I said, I love music, but nothing against teachers because God need them all but I did.
00;18;32;24 - 00;18;49;06
Mitch
I just knew I didn't want to be a music teacher. I didn't want to be a music teacher. And, you know, it's a great profession, but it just wasn't for me. So in my sophomore year, I went to the people who were grooming me to be a professional musician, and I let them know that I didn't think I wanted to pursue this solely.
00;18;50;03 - 00;19;16;24
Mitch
So I continued with the music they were heartbroken but also cooperative, and I told them I wanted to take business classes, which was like, you know, they never heard that come from a music student before. I said I wanted to learn about finance. So I learn about, you know, marketing and accounting and and how to run a business and they're like, why? Anyway
00;19;17;06 - 00;19;37;28
Mitch
It was during my sophomore year in college where I continued, I still play music now by the away, but I didn't do it as my sole profession. And I realized, like, if I was the best in the world as a musician, I could make X. But if I got into a business that I liked or whatever, I could probably make more and be, you know, not as good.
00;19;37;28 - 00;19;58;29
Mitch
So I was somewhat motivated by making a good living. I'm not you know, it's not altruistic, where, oh, you know, I wanted to just learn about this. I wanted to make some money. And I knew being a musician, it had be a labor of love and if I made money, great. And I kind of wasn't honestly willing to make that choice at that time.
00;19;58;29 - 00;20;06;06
Mitch
And so I figured music would take a second step and I would educate myself and the world of money.
00;20;06;22 - 00;20;10;05
Dave
Ok. And thus started your journey.
00;20;10;15 - 00;20;50;18
Mitch
Thus started my journey. I will also mention in a corny way that for your listeners out there at much, much later. So so now I'm a mid adult and trading on the floor and all this right, mid-aged adult. And one of the most like famous books, but also a very, very basic book that I would say shaped the second half of my business life was the simple book Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.
00;20;51;08 - 00;21;20;03
Mitch
OK, it's a book that is very basic, but the concept is is golden. And that really changed the second part of my business life of knowing what I really wanted to achieve and what my goals were and how I did not want to have to work per hour for every dollar that I made. And I highly recommend that book for those who haven't read it.
00;21;20;03 - 00;21;37;04
Mitch
And some may find it you know, a primary, some may find it boring. I don't find it boring at all. But it's it was sort of the kick start and the stepping stone for the entire evolution of how I started to think.
00;21;37;13 - 00;21;45;15
Dave
Which is still relevant today. Absolutely. And it's still still still one of the best read.
00;21;45;15 - 00;21;46;03
Mitch
Rich Dad Poor Dad.
00;21;46;17 - 00;22;19;07
Dave
So that kind of gives us a little bit of a background on your upbringing and how, you know, how how your ideas evolved on on, you know, building wealth and making money and some of the challenges that you had what I'm getting at is, you know, it's interesting that you point out that that in the profession that you thought you were going to going to, you know, your chances of, you know, building wealth were very slim.
00;22;19;07 - 00;22;41;08
Dave
I mean, only the top few percentage of people would do well there. Whereas in business, you had a much, much bigger, bigger opportunity there to to build wealth is it is easy to make money today as it was back when you're a mid adult or a younger.
00;22;42;07 - 00;23;15;10
Mitch
Sure. I don't think, you know, everybody thinks it's this is the hardest time for whatever is going on. This is the worst time for this. This is the hardest time for that. I think every generation faces its own challenges. And I think today is equally maybe even more opportunity because there are so many more entrepreneurial minded people where you can get involved or people will if you're entrepreneurial, people might take a chance on you.
00;23;16;19 - 00;23;24;14
Mitch
So, yeah, I think it's it's certainly not harder and it may even be easier. OK.
00;23;24;23 - 00;23;27;20
Dave
So the American dream is still alive is what you're saying.
00;23;28;04 - 00;23;30;06
Mitch
For sure. Look at you.
00;23;35;02 - 00;23;59;15
Dave
We're not talking about me, you know, or here's another good question I wanted to ask you. You know, if the American dream is still alive and it's easier in many ways, easier to make money today. You know what stops a lot of people you have been you know, you've got a lot of you got a lot of business acquaintances, friends, you've invested in multiple businesses.
00;23;59;15 - 00;24;25;16
Dave
You've seen success you've seen failures. And I've seen you shake your head sometimes at some of the things that some of the opportunities that that that kind of get squashed, if you will, you know. And what is it that stops people from becoming successful? Is it mental is it is it, you know, training? Did they not read Rich Dad Poor Dad?
00;24;25;16 - 00;24;25;27
Dave
You know what?
00;24;26;11 - 00;24;33;13
Mitch
Look at this. Of all the books here I keep this one there.
00;24;33;21 - 00;24;34;09
Dave
There you go.
00;24;34;22 - 00;24;35;10
Mitch
Isn't that wild?
00;24;38;16 - 00;24;41;08
Dave
You should get it. You should get it autographed. It's still. He's still.
00;24;41;26 - 00;24;42;11
Mitch
Yeah.
00;24;42;19 - 00;24;44;16
Dave
He's still doing alot of YouTube.
00;24;44;16 - 00;24;47;05
Mitch
I met him a few times, actually. Yeah.
00;24;49;15 - 00;25;05;09
Mitch
Interesting character. He's changed a little bit over the years, but he's a very worthwhile talking to. To your question, what keeps people from either taking the plunge or doing what they want business wise.
00;25;07;14 - 00;25;08;28
Mitch
I mean, is that the direct question?
00;25;09;24 - 00;25;13;05
Dave
You know, what's hindering them? What stops them from being successful?
00;25;13;05 - 00;25;18;01
Mitch
There's, there's of course, everyone has extenuating circumstances, but
00;25;18;01 - 00;25;18;10
Dave
00;25;18;22 - 00;25;43;08
Mitch
You know, there's the saying, you know, just do it. There's a lot to be said for that, saying, but you also don't want to go in blind. You don't want to just you know, this kind of alludes back to a bit of my mantra which is the three words, which is balance, balance and balance, you know, real estate, location, location, location.
00;25;43;13 - 00;26;06;19
Mitch
Yeah. I'm all about balance, balance, balance. And that that applies more to the macro side of business, family spending money on goofy stuff, investing. So balancing things out is key. But if you bring it down to let's say opening a business or why don't people go into business? There's a couple of reasons. I think fear, of course, is the number one.
00;26;06;19 - 00;26;31;08
Mitch
It's always the number one thing. Fear, fear. Everyone's afraid of failure. And so some people have the money, they're afraid to do it. People who don't have the money are afraid they won't get the money. Fear of knowledge. I don't know enough about what it is I'm going to do or how to run the business. So fear is probably the number one.
00;26;32;09 - 00;26;58;00
Mitch
Then I would say you do need a semblance of education about what you are trying to accomplish, but you don't have to know it all. As a matter of fact, it's sometimes best if you don't know it all, but you find the people who do know it all. That is a key is surrounding yourself with the people who know what you don't know.
00;26;59;21 - 00;27;22;06
Mitch
It's impossible to be the best at everything, even though you and I try you know, it's it's when you recognize that you can't absolutely do it all, that you can't. There's a sense of peace actually comes up about you. And, you know, you have to hire people who are smarter than you and then you're in a good position.
00;27;23;14 - 00;28;01;06
Mitch
But yeah, I mean, so on one hand, I would say educating yourself to a certain point is worthwhile because it's going to give you a level so if you know nothing about the business you're going into, why are you going into that business? OK, so and if you don't, if you're going to be the one running the business, I think it's worthwhile to know, even though you may hire an accountant or a CPA or business advisor, you have to have you have to have meaningful discussions with these professionals so you can be at the table and understand what they're trying to tell you.
00;28;01;29 - 00;28;25;02
Mitch
If you if somebody puts a you know, financials in front of you or a balance sheet or, you know, p&l or something like that, the profit loss statement and you have no idea what they're talking about, it makes it really hard for them to do their job. OK, so getting a basic education and it doesn't take much more than a basic education.
00;28;25;02 - 00;28;43;19
Mitch
You can find everything online for free. You don't have to go to college. You don't have to go to community college. You can find everything on YouTube that's decent and websites that teach you enough to have a conversation with professionals. That makes sense.
00;28;44;08 - 00;28;44;27
Dave
Absolutely.
00;28;45;05 - 00;29;20;25
Mitch
OK, so then I would also say the thing that holds people back and one of the I'm not going to. All right. I am going to pat myself on the back here. One of my strengths is a certain level of ignorance, OK? And my strength is this. You learn so much more by doing than reading. OK, so I feel that you you have to get a basic understanding of what it is you're trying to accomplish are basic understand any of the business you're going to run or something like that.
00;29;22;08 - 00;29;59;03
Mitch
But if you just read, read, read, read, read, you're never going to do, do, do and I will personally do less reading enough where I feel like I got a basic idea and I jump in, I and then I will learn more than the guy who's reading. You know, I learn more in 30 days than the guy who's taken two years of college OK by doing it so if you never ever and that's the only thing that holds people back is they never pull the trigger, you know, they never go ahead and say, let's go, let's do this.
00;29;59;16 - 00;30;22;23
Mitch
And I have done that a lot and yeah, failed for sure, but learned a ton and I've succeeded at a lot more than I failed by doing that. So it's scary as hell. But if you are, let's say, satisfied with the fact that even if you fail you're building education, realize there's going to be some value at the end of that.
00;30;22;23 - 00;30;46;01
Mitch
Now, you know, I'm I am intentionally not including the big thing out there, which is money. People are like I can't do this because I don't have the money. I can't do this because I can't get the money. And it's I don't I can't I don't I can't so the one thing I've learned later in life is money will follow if your ideas good, if you will, then we'll get I think we will meet.
00;30;46;01 - 00;31;08;11
Mitch
I need to talk about that if you are good. You know, you being the pivotal part of the business. Now, I don't necessarily mean good at knowing what you're doing, but that's part of it. But you have to be a good person. You have to be something that somebody that people can get behind. And if your team is good money, will follow, it can't help but follow.
00;31;08;11 - 00;31;41;02
Mitch
It's like osmosis in a way. Stuff finds, money finds opportunity, so yet there will be people say, I don't even have $100 to open a bank account. OK, you're right. If you same thing there, if you don't have $100, the bank open a bank account, then I would say get a job for a little while in the area that you like and you have to balance out how much you spend with what you save and what you're really trying to accomplish by having this job.
00;31;41;12 - 00;32;02;06
Mitch
You can learn on the job, but if you can accumulate some funds to then put towards your business, you're going to find more people who are interested in following on with you than if you put nothing into your own business. So that's another key point is you do have to have some money. I think it's you know, if you have a backer that's going to back you, great.
00;32;02;15 - 00;32;20;01
Mitch
Well, I think it's naive. And you hear this out there, you don't need any money to do this. You know, sometimes that's true. But I'd say in most cases you need some money before you kind of get started. It's just like, you know, you got to you might have to feed your self or if you have a family even more so.
00;32;20;01 - 00;32;35;07
Mitch
But, you know, you need some reserves. You need some cush money and you need some skin in the game for people to believe in you. Even if they totally believe in you, they're going to believe in you a little more. If you got money OK? OK.
00;32;35;15 - 00;33;06;10
Dave
Makes sense. Makes sense. All right. So you've you've met people that maybe have all the skill sets they need. They have the a semblance of knowledge, you know, they're willing to pull the trigger and seemingly have everything they need to get started and, you know, build success. They have some measure of success, but somehow somehow let it all go to waste.
00;33;08;01 - 00;33;54;08
Mitch
OK, so is this it you mentioned? Yeah, it would be it would be hard the other life. So go to waste. I'm assuming it's something that just implodes as opposed to just stays level. Like there are businesses that don't grow but stay stagnant because sometimes the owner wants it to be that way, which is fine. But like if you have everything going for you, you have a good team, a good leader, you have money behind you unless it's some thing that is completely out of your control that, you know, like a war breaks out or something I mean, something that, you know, then I don't know.
00;33;54;08 - 00;34;03;23
Mitch
I don't know what would make that business fail other than completely, you know, what they call that you know, the the black swan event.
00;34;04;18 - 00;34;34;15
Dave
I've heard people that have everything seemingly to get started and run a business, but they don't you know, they they don't they lack the commitment to, you know, get get over that hump, you know, get past that startup. Stage. They lack the discipline to manage that, to manage their success. Once they have it, they you know, maybe there's a lot maybe they're a victim of their own personal personality or demons.
00;34;34;15 - 00;34;42;14
Dave
You know, you talked about semblance of knowledge and being willing to admit, you know, you have narcissistic personalities out there just can't get past that. You know.
00;34;42;29 - 00;35;05;12
Mitch
Not everyone is meant to be a business owner. You have to be extremely honest with yourself. Kind of like I was with music. You know, it's it's a weird example, but I it was really, really hard for me. I mean, I was groomed for this and all that. And then, you know, you have to have this moment where you're honest. You have to to be a business owner and to have success.
00;35;05;12 - 00;35;26;13
Mitch
And, you know, people essentially believe in you. You have to believe in yourself. You have to have a certain competitiveness, a drive where failure is not an option, even though if you do fail, it's not always a failure. So you have to have the willingness to be able to fail, but also have the commitment to want to succeed.
00;35;26;13 - 00;35;57;25
Mitch
And, you know, you you know, not everyone has that. And that's OK. You know, some people are much more comfortable getting a W-2 salary and they can sleep at night. That's what they want. Those people are not, you know, necessarily meant to be business owners. Somebody who feels they have all the characteristics that we say you need to be a successful entrepreneur or business owner.
00;35;58;08 - 00;36;36;14
Mitch
You first of all, do have to take the plunge. You can't sit on the sidelines forever. You have to. And if you can't take that step, then you have to look in the mirror and say, maybe I'm not that person I thought I was because, you know, I mean, that's the most obvious thing. I think those who are best prepared a little bit financially have a little cushion and those who feel they have enough education are going to and those who have the personality, the drive, the competitiveness and the creativity, you know, your best laid plans are not a straight line.
00;36;36;14 - 00;37;19;15
Mitch
They never are. And you have to be able to adapt to a situation, personnel, government changes, change of the rules so you have to have a certain mindset and flexibility going in. So if you if you think you have that personality with all those things that I mentioned, you're doing yourself and the general community a disservice by not taking the plunge at the same time, if you know, you do not have that personality, you're also doing yourself a disservice by taking the plunge so it's sometimes it takes a good look in the mirror and you just have to be completely honest with yourself.
00;37;19;24 - 00;37;49;00
Mitch
You know, I knew I knew early on there was no way I was going to work for anybody else the moment I did have it. But I knew I had to at the beginning. I did not come from money at all. Story about my dad, you know, no money. So it was definitely a ground up endeavor. And so it's not like somebody said, hey, here's some money, start a business or hey, go to an Ivy League school and get yourself a job.
00;37;49;00 - 00;37;56;10
Mitch
No, I needed to accumulate money in order to get to my goal of never having to work for someone.
00;37;56;17 - 00;38;12;28
Dave
People who recognize and decide that, you know, being in business is as good for them. You know what? If you had to pick one common trait, is there a common thread among successful entrepreneurs and business owners?
00;38;13;10 - 00;38;42;14
Mitch
Not successful. I was going to say like confidence, but there's a lot of confident people who don't have the other ingredients. I don't know if there's just one trait. I think it is a combination of, you know, somewhat competitiveness, creativity. I will tell you this. OK, here's here's a big one. Those who are most successful in the long run, one of their traits is super high integrity.
00;38;42;27 - 00;39;10;02
Mitch
Integrity is a trait that I don't know if it can even be taught, but is is so valued by the business community. Those people who don't have integrity sometimes are very successful for a certain period of time, but they usually end up failing or going to jail or getting caught or for whatever that means.
00;39;12;07 - 00;39;34;00
Mitch
Those people who have the greatest success, I think, have the highest integrity. Not only do they want to do well for themselves, but they will. They want to do well for their employees. They want to do well for their team. They want to do well for their community. They will try as hard as they can to deliver on their word.
00;39;34;27 - 00;40;04;12
Mitch
And many of these people rely less and less on written contracts. They will have agreements, but they don't get bogged down with written contracts where every word is dotted and I as opposed to the word of other people. So you know, people like to talk about my early industry traders were traders. All of you know, there's a lot of bad people out there who are traders it's a it's an industry with a lot of scoundrels and all that.
00;40;04;12 - 00;40;05;06
Dave
A car salesman.
00;40;05;28 - 00;40;06;07
Mitch
Might.
00;40;06;18 - 00;40;07;19
Dave
Like. Car salesman.
00;40;08;09 - 00;40;08;19
Mitch
Yeah exactly.
00;40;08;21 - 00;40;10;00
Dave
00;40;10;10 - 00;40;48;17
Mitch
Yeah. They have their reputation and which I'm not going to say there's not those characteristics there, but that's a business actually that's built entirely on integrity and word of mouth from trader to trader. There's no contract. You're making a deal with somebody in the pit. Your word is your business. So all of the stories that made the headlines about people who I don't have high integrity in that business, I would say, you know, high nineties, you know, 98% of people do and they build their entire livelihood on their word.
00;40;48;29 - 00;41;24;05
Mitch
And so that's how I was brought up and trained from my employer at the time. You know, if you made a trade, you can't later say, ooh, I didn't make the trade or you know, I thought it was a one line not a 10 line. You know, it is your word. You have to own up to it. So in business, I've noticed through the years that those who are successful and those who attract investors, those who attract the money, generally have the highest integrity some people who are trying to set up a business quicker without.
00;41;24;10 - 00;41;29;21
Mitch
So I would say that's probably the number one thing, is that I have the highest integrity.
00;41;29;25 - 00;41;36;09
Dave
Is that an important characteristic of what you would would define is as leadership or good leadership?
00;41;36;27 - 00;42;07;28
Mitch
Well, good leadership has a number of characteristics but I think, you know, having the highest integrity will build your reputation. And, you know, one misstep, it's all gone. You know, that's the thing. You can build this tower for years and years. You do one underhanded thing to try and maybe get to the finish line quicker. And, you know, you're if you if you become exposed, your entire tower comes tumbling down.
00;42;08;08 - 00;42;34;15
Mitch
Building integrity takes a long time. I mean, being having integrity should be innate. But building a reputation for integrity takes a very, very long time. Once you have it, it's the most precious thing that you can get because you can do business deals on a handshake. If if your integrity is at a certain level, you can basically tell somebody, I will back you or you will have the money by this point.
00;42;35;00 - 00;43;03;12
Mitch
This is the deal that we understand it. And you've heard the back of an envelope deal on the back of a napkin or something like that. You can jot a few points down and then hand it off to your attorneys to make it legal without too much bias in there. You make it very simple and you know you have a deal, but it takes two people who have that characteristic to who have built up that integrity to make that happen.
00;43;04;01 - 00;43;31;05
Mitch
So as a younger person, I would say always keep that in the back of your in the in the background. Keep that in the front of your mind. What are you saying to people? How are you coming across? What are you promising? I you promising something, you know, you probably can't deliver. Huge mistake. You will you'll never get another dollar for your next deal or whatever it's just you have to you to you know the words.
00;43;31;05 - 00;43;33;21
Mitch
What's that saying? Under-promise, over-deliver.
00;43;34;09 - 00;43;36;19
Dave
It would be overpromise under deliver. Yeah, I've.
00;43;37;11 - 00;43;39;02
Mitch
No under-promise over-deliver.
00;43;39;04 - 00;43;40;26
Dave
Over deliver. Yeah. That's the better route.
00;43;41;05 - 00;44;08;04
Mitch
Right? Under-promise over-deliver is good, but you have to deliver. So that's the thing you asked me about leadership is the integrity part of leadership. So absolutely it is. But there's another thing that I've learned probably later in life, OK, the best leaders are the best listeners. You cannot be telling people what to do all the time because people will resent you.
00;44;08;04 - 00;44;32;05
Mitch
And many times they actually know better than you. They're they may be in the field, in the field for lack, but they may be doing the job that you did years ago. And now it's evolved and they know better than you. And you might you may hear a suggestion that seems silly to you, but if you actually listen to what they're saying, maybe not everyone's that articulate or nobody can.
00;44;32;05 - 00;45;09;25
Mitch
Sometimes people can't express themselves as well as you may be able to do as the leader. But if you listen to what they're either saying or trying to say and how you approach these people or how you present their ideas. It's really, really key. A great leader is a great listener, but a great leader can so let's say take concepts and ideas that may have not been articulated particularly well and make them express them appropriately and articulate them for for others.
00;45;10;14 - 00;45;43;17
Mitch
And a great, great leader can make everyone feel important because why would you have them there if they're not important anyway? OK, so everyone is important, but you know, so there has to be a certain humbleness, humility to a great leader, which also is somewhat counterintuitive and people react differently to different leaders, too. So you also have to kind of know how your people around you react.
00;45;43;17 - 00;46;06;09
Mitch
Some people react better to more of a dictatorship. I don't work that way, but some people maybe do and respond to that. I don't want to even surround my people I don't want to surround myself with people who respond to that even. So everyone has different, you know, characteristics of what they find. But I'm telling you what I have experienced and found to be successful.
00;46;06;09 - 00;46;11;27
Dave
But let me engage you in this because this is this is a topic that's close to me.
00;46;12;26 - 00;46;13;13
Mitch
00;46;14;24 - 00;46;40;04
Dave
You know, I, I relate to what you're saying. I feel in a leadership role that if I'm going to be successful, I'm going to draw from the collective experience of the people that I surround myself with. And, you know, they begin to trust you not just because of integrity and not just because you're going to be doing what you say you're going to do.
00;46;42;12 - 00;47;02;19
Dave
But because you value their opinion. And I might get ten different opinions I might not listen to. I might not take the advice of any of them. But maybe I it helps me you know, avoid the pitfalls of the path that I'm going to take. Or maybe at.
00;47;02;19 - 00;47;21;22
Mitch
Also, I think it broadens your perspective, too, you know, I mean, you may they may be like on the fringe of what you're thinking about or implementing a new policy, whatever it is that you're thinking about doing. If you listen to the collective, you're going to have a much better perspective of how to approach the problem.
00;47;22;27 - 00;47;38;27
Dave
A lot of people don't get started in business because of fear of failure. You know, and I think, too, everybody, to some extent more than others, some more than others has some fear you know, it wouldn't be natural to say that you don't have any fear.
00;47;39;11 - 00;47;39;20
Mitch
Right? Yeah.
00;47;39;21 - 00;48;22;13
Dave
But also, I've never met anyone that, you know, was successful 100% of the time. You know, there there are you make informed decisions, you make the best decisions you can. And sometimes it doesn't work out the way you think they are. They're going to work out. So can you think of some are some big moments in your life where, you know, you know, you you made a decision, you took a certain path and you failed and and what did you learn from that experience and how did you how did you adjust coming out of that?
00;48;22;13 - 00;48;28;28
Dave
I'm not talking about, you know, whether you chose scrambled eggs or French toast. I'm talking about something significant.
00;48;29;12 - 00;48;30;24
Mitch
A breakfast is very important.
00;48;30;24 - 00;48;31;22
Dave
Ha ha ha
00;48;32;25 - 00;48;53;17
Mitch
Of course, I eat breakfast at two in the morning. Yeah, of course. Of course. I mean, it is part of the process, and you have to, you know, you want to avoid failure, but when that happens, don't, you know, don't look at it as, you know, the end of the world. It's a stepping stone for sure.
00;48;53;17 - 00;49;19;19
Mitch
So I've had a number, oh my God, I mean, you know, I've been in so many types of businesses and industries that I could I could draw from a number of experiences. But I'm going to you know, there's two things. One is a little more subtle that I learned and one's a little more, I would say, macro that I learned.
00;49;20;23 - 00;49;50;28
Mitch
I mean, I'll use the macro one first. OK, macro one is has to do with real estate. OK, so I got into real estate investing and like we'll just call it 2000 could have been 99 could have been 2001, but it was around 2000 and I well, one of the things I wanted to do was to develop a property. I don't have an architectural background, I don't have a developing background.
00;49;50;28 - 00;50;22;07
Mitch
I, but I really wanted to do it. So as I was talking about before, I surrounded myself with, I learned enough to kind of get into the game, self-educated. I found a mentor to explain what a development project was all about. I learned the nomenclature of how to talk the talk and hang around construction people, and then I just frickin did it.
00;50;22;14 - 00;51;04;20
Mitch
I actually said, OK, I'm buying a piece of land and I'm going to develop this property and we'll see what happens. OK, so that project turned out to be successful, but along the way, yeah, it was a learning experience. My goal. Now, here's the difference. My goal in that first project was to, like the wildest success would be to break even. I was considering it, you know, an on the job learning experience and if it cost me some money, I was willing to pay for it, almost like an apprenticeship, you know, where I was learning from somebody.
00;51;04;20 - 00;51;30;28
Mitch
So I was supposed to be the head developer, and I asked somebody if I could basically follow them around and pay them who had done this many times and was willing to not make as much as they normally would. But so I could learn the ropes and this thing turned out to be in my eyes, you know, very successful from a normal developer standpoint, it wasn't a success.
00;51;31;08 - 00;51;52;07
Mitch
But that's not even the story. I want to tell you the story. I just saying that the thing is I jumped in and I did it. And, you know, and then from that point, I did a number of other developments which turned out to be fantastic. And I based it all on the failures on the first project. OK, so it was that's a perfect example. As far as an actual actual real life failure.
00;51;53;19 - 00;52;22;16
Mitch
I decided that yeah, I was into residential investment. Now, I did some development. I've still done development later on, and I figured I was going to get into a commercial investment. So, you know, it's just a numbers thing. I felt pretty good. I had a small portfolio of residential so I went in to this commercial development. There were a couple of things that I learned about.
00;52;22;29 - 00;52;49;12
Mitch
Again, took some mentor... That's another key thing by the way, you have to ask questions. You cannot be shy about asking questions and going to the people who you might think don't want to give you their secret sauce or whatever if they don't know they'll let you know, but many times people want to share with you and if you don't ask them, you'll never know.
00;52;50;01 - 00;53;08;09
Mitch
So it's kind of I've had responses already where like, hey, buddy, you know, learn on your own dime or sure, let me show you how I did this because they're proud of what they did and they want to share it with somebody. And sometimes they have kids, sometimes they don't have kids, and they want to share with somebody so you would be shocked.
00;53;08;16 - 00;53;31;13
Mitch
I think most for younger people, I've got a little advice for older people, too, but for younger people, my advice is never be afraid to approach somebody and ask for ask them questions or ask if you could take them out for a cup of coffee or something. Like that. So I did that getting into the commercial real estate business, and I'll cut to the chase.
00;53;31;13 - 00;54;06;15
Mitch
The chase was I bought a building way above my means, which was fine. All I wanted to learn, which I did, I learned how to protect myself if it didn't go well, but I couldn't see a way that this wasn't going to go well. Everything looked good. The mix of tenants was perfect. Without getting into the details of investing in commercial real estate, I checked all the boxes and it had some huge upside potential at the same time, particularly this was near Midway and they were going to expand the orange line to go right by this property.
00;54;06;15 - 00;54;30;23
Mitch
There are a lot of things looking up for it, and it was well occupied with with a diverse tenant mix with a couple of good anchors. State Farm Insurance was there. I got I don't know for people who may know this, Kelley Temporary Services were there so of course this happened during the 07 08 implosion of real estate.
00;54;33;08 - 00;54;51;26
Mitch
One of the things that I was able to do when I borrowed the money, which I learned from past experience, was to have non-recourse loans, basically a deal didn't work out. The bank would basically get the property, but I couldn't yeah. I couldn't see how this wasn't going to work out right.
00;54;54;09 - 00;55;30;02
Mitch
So this is what I'm saying. So extenuating circumstances, what happened? Well, the county imposed a strange tax on businesses per head count. So if you are a temporary agency, if you were, let's say, a business like yours and you went out you had 20 employees, they put like a head count tax on everybody, which was insane. But they were trying to raise money if you had a temporary agency where you had three people in the office, but 200 people working for you, they taxed all two.
00;55;30;10 - 00;56;05;02
Mitch
They put a tax on all 200 people. So what the business did is they moved out of the county. They basically broke their lease, moved out of the county. Real estate imploded, recession 07. State Farm, my big tenant started to consolidate offices, they moved out and they consolidated their offices. There were issues with medical practices, there were issues with malpractice, people and they don't like getting malpractise.
00;56;05;12 - 00;56;32;00
Mitch
They moved to Wisconsin and everybody left. Ok. It was ugly. And it was a it it got to the point where I had to decide, am I going to hand this building back and how am I going to handle the lawsuits that come from the bank anyway? And all that type of stuff. So yeah, that, that turned out to be probably my
00;56;32;12 - 00;56;57;12
Mitch
And I had to I had to walk away. So I had a private investors in that deal, and I had to explain to them that it did not work out OK. And they were all all, you know, big boys and girls about. But it was I had presented this as you know, can't lose dea. So I learned from that point on
00;56;57;20 - 00;57;24;18
Mitch
Yeah. You can not present anything as a can't lose deal. Big mistake. So I lost the building, cost me a decent amount of money anyway because they had some, you know, up front. But it didn't ruin me because I had certain non-recourse loans in the deal. But this is the difference here. I get here's, here's how do you turn this into some sort of a positive?
00;57;26;15 - 00;57;49;17
Mitch
Because I just got through saying that every failure somehow you can get something out of it. Sure. This was pretty tough for me because I was still relatively new in real estate and I was brand new into commercial real estate, so I realized that I was this wasn't going to be the end for me. Very competitive. Right. And driven and I was still going to continue doing real estate.
00;57;49;26 - 00;58;03;22
Mitch
And I realized that I would need these people who backed me the first time to back me, to have a core group of people backing me in my future projects. Now, who the hell is going to back you when you just lost all their money?
00;58;04;28 - 00;58;06;08
Dave
Hey, let's do this again.
00;58;07;05 - 00;58;08;05
Mitch
Wasn't that fun?
00;58;10;24 - 00;58;15;19
Mitch
Want another kick up the butt?
00;58;15;19 - 00;58;30;04
Dave
Did it broaden your knowledge about, you know, factors that can influence the deal? You know, had you even considered, you know, the county or whatever could pull pull these kinds of things out of there, out of the bag of tricks you know?
00;58;30;08 - 00;58;45;15
Mitch
No, no. Now I was aware, of course, you know, real estate comes and goes and ebbs and flows. Yeah, I had no problem with that. It did ebb higher, you know, really, really hard. Everyone here is alive and in real estate knows how awful that was.
00;58;45;15 - 00;58;45;23
Dave
Yeah.
00;58;47;05 - 00;59;10;11
Mitch
I did not get hurt on the I did not get hurt on the residential side, ironically, because I was never overexposed. So I was only on the outside I had my rents covered and I never had to worry about having to sell to cover leverage. So I was leveraged appropriately, which thank God I did that.
00;59;10;23 - 00;59;23;27
Mitch
But, you know, commercial, you know, multimillion dollar buildings where the bank basically is your partner and they don't you know, they're they're funding the property, not you. Real estate residential, they're funding you more than the property.
00;59;24;09 - 00;59;24;28
Dave
Right. Right.
00;59;25;11 - 00;59;51;19
Mitch
So anyway, I digress. There, but what I learned is, yeah, there are certain things that you could not possibly how how could you anyone possibly think that, you know, unless you have some into the county meetings that take place behind, you know, in dark places. And I know no way to know that. So it wasn't a fault other than what I promised to my investors.
00;59;51;19 - 01;00;12;19
Mitch
Now like look at the numbers are this this looks great, you know, and so nobody blamed me. You know, they're like you look at there's no way you could have seen this coming. We were even we thought we were insulated against the downturn because of the great tenant mix we had. And the and the tenant, you know, the character of the tenants we had and the possibility of the orange line.
01;00;12;19 - 01;00;38;27
Mitch
By the way, the orange line expansion never took place. The mistake I made really was, like I said, over promising and under delivering, even though it wasn't necessarily my fault. The thing is, you have to realize is that just because it's never happened before in business doesn't mean it's not going to happen. You know, even on the trading floor, people I remember they I remember looking over the meat and people like, oh, hogs have never traded.
01;00;38;27 - 01;01;03;05
Mitch
This high ever. I'm selling and like double the next day, limit up the next day, limit up the next day. Never seen this before. Limit up the next day. People go belly up, no pun intended. And so pork bellies. So, yeah, what you have to realize that just because it's never happened before it doesn't need. So all you can do is go in with the best intentions and the best integrity.
01;01;03;11 - 01;01;26;10
Mitch
And when the good game plan things don't always work out as planned. Now, there was nothing I could do at this point, but one of the things that I realized was I was going to need this core group of investors. So I did make a promise to them after the fact that even though we all lost our money, that I was going to pay them back for their loss.
01;01;27;16 - 01;01;51;01
Mitch
OK? And I hinted that in exchange it wasn't it wasn't conditional by any means, but I hinted for their support in the future, more or less, you know, hey, this didn't work out. Here's why I think we all understand. But it wasn't your fault. Wasn't that necessarily my fault? But as the leader of this project, I want to make you guys whole, if I can.
01;01;51;01 - 01;02;16;17
Mitch
And it was it. I was fortunate enough this is not the case for most people. I was fortunate enough to be in a position to make everybody else whole. Cost me a lot of money. But I figured this was a pivotal moment in my business career. I had to make a choice of do I walk away and let everyone lick their wounds, which I was entitled to and everyone understood it.
01;02;16;17 - 01;02;26;18
Mitch
Nobody was really pissed, they understood it. They were big boys and investors. They've done it before. And girls. I did have a fair amount of women too, so I just want to point that out.
01;02;27;00 - 01;02;27;08
Dave
OK?
01;02;28;02 - 01;02;49;14
Mitch
Nobody was mad. They were upset, of course, and disappointed. But they realized it so I decided, OK, wow, these are really great people. Let's see if I can if I could make them whole, can I parlay that into something even better than what I have here? And long story short, as I did, I took my own pocketbook. I paid them all back.
01;02;50;00 - 01;03;10;20
Mitch
It put me behind the eight ball a little bit, but I realized I would probably have their undying love and support if they wanted to going forward. And to this day, we're talking, you know, 15 -17 years later, all these people are still involved in all the projects that I do because of the integrity that I brought to them.
01;03;10;20 - 01;03;39;22
Mitch
And it just I wanted to make them whole. And so that paid dividends ten times over of what I put out of pocket at the time. Now I realize not everybody can do that. That's almost unrealistic. But the concept of trying to treat the people who are good to you well, or the concept of trying to make everybody whole, if you can, will pay dividends long after you make your initial outlay.
01;03;40;01 - 01;04;07;22
Mitch
OK, so that was one thing there's one other failure that I do want to talk about. It's more as I was later in life, I I'm still in real estate, still the trading business. I'm still a hedge fund manager for a crypto fund, but more on the peripheral and advisory say, side of things as opposed to the day to day operations.
01;04;09;13 - 01;04;41;21
Mitch
But before I so let's just say, you know, ten years ago I got more into the private equity investing seed money, angel money and all that kind of stuff. So some of it works out, some of it doesn't. And again, I base a lot of it on who the leader is, who the team is. I have a series of questions I ask myself or a checklist more or less that before I go specifically into making an investment.
01;04;41;21 - 01;05;12;17
Mitch
But you know, you always hear the story about never lending or borrowing from family and all that. So but there's always a but right? I had a couple situations where I had family member also friend, different situations where their ideas were pretty good and they wanted money and all that kind of stuff. And so I did it without checking everything off my checklist.
01;05;12;17 - 01;05;48;21
Mitch
But I did it because of that and that's actually not a good idea. All right. Both failed. All right. And I was kind of I was upset a little bit more than I should have been. And I just realized that if you even if it's a great great idea. All right, it's not a great idea. By the way, the relationships are still good, but I don't know if everyone will come through it that well, because both parties kind of have to, you know, be mature about it.
01;05;50;08 - 01;06;15;06
Mitch
But you know, I would I would say take the advice that I now have. The advice I now have is if you think that it's a good idea and you check most of your boxes, but you want to help somebody out, consider that money door, OK? Don't expect to ever get that money back. And if you can still make the investment with that mindset, then go ahead and do it.
01;06;15;06 - 01;06;53;29
Mitch
But you have to be honest with yourself. In other words, you have to really realize you're never getting that money back and don't hold it against the person, of course, who's not going to pay you back, even though they say, well, if you're doing it for the reason of helping out a family member or a friend, so that's the only time I bend the rules and take that mindset of I'm not giving this back every time, every other time I invest in a good investment based on wholly the wholly the merits of the leader, the team, the project you know, I check all the boxes before I will put the money out.
01;06;54;04 - 01;07;08;07
Mitch
Yep. Know how you're going into it? Let me put it out. You know how you're going into it most of the time, going into a business, you know what's going to be successful and it's going to work and you know, I'm going to make money and the product is going to serve the greater good. And it's all everyone's going to be la la, la.
01;07;08;07 - 01;07;31;21
Mitch
It's going to be great. They don't all work out, of course, but when a deal's to when it comes to dealing with a friend or a family member, I don't care how great the idea is. And if it checks all the boxes, if you're an investor, go into it knowing you're never getting that money back. And if you can do that, make the investment hard stop.
01;07;33;08 - 01;07;43;16
Dave
So, yeah, I mean, there's you know, I think I've heard an old saying before, don't do business with friends because it's the if it goes bad, you lose the business and the friend, right?
01;07;43;16 - 01;08;04;11
Mitch
Yeah, for sure. For sure. And that's why I think if you can go into it with that mindset, which is really hard. I mean, you know, you can't fool yourself about it. You gotta be totally honest. I know I've done it a few times post that and I've given money and I knew I wasn't getting it back and I was right.
01;08;06;06 - 01;08;07;07
Mitch
I didn't get it back.
01;08;07;19 - 01;08;21;18
Dave
You brought up you brought up kids. You know, if I asked your kids what they admire most about their father, what do you think they would say?
01;08;21;18 - 01;08;42;26
Mitch
The one thing that they talk about a lot and they make fun of me to a point where it's become a joke. I mean, I don't know if I told you this before or not. Is my optimism. They say I'm optimistic to a fault, that it's funny. Like no matter how something goes, I will find some sort of a silver lining in it.
01;08;43;10 - 01;09;07;02
Mitch
And I can take the worst situation and flip it and, you know, if something bad happens to my kid and they're crying because something horrible happened, you know, of course, you want to make them feel better, but I'll I'll legitimately try and find something and you know, that they can pull something positive, right? So optimism is definitely one of those things.
01;09;07;23 - 01;09;10;16
Dave
Your glass is always half full. That's what you said.
01;09;11;15 - 01;09;42;02
Mitch
Of course, as they get older, you see a lot more eye rolling. Dad... you know, but like there's one of the funniest examples which my youngest daughter used recently. She goes dad, you know, it's like even when we're on a road trip and we make a wrong turn and, you know, we made a wrong turn, you get off on the ramp and it's going to cost us another 20 minutes or a half hour, you know, and say something like, oh my God, look at this beautiful town.
01;09;42;02 - 01;10;10;09
Mitch
We would have never been able to see this town had I not made the wrong turn. You guys are so lucky to experience this. So, I mean, optimism is definitely one of the thing. I think my kids would say, you know, they they've only known me obviously, I had kids much later in life, so they've only know me as the stay at home dad that is driving them to all their sports all the time.
01;10;10;09 - 01;10;21;23
Mitch
They don't know all the hard work and gazillion hours I spent you know, prior to getting to where I am now, they think I have, you know, this great cush life that just appeared out of nowhere.
01;10;26;05 - 01;10;28;16
Dave
Let's talk about love. You want to talk about love?
01;10;29;16 - 01;10;31;26
Mitch
Like my love for you particularly?
01;10;31;26 - 01;10;52;08
Dave
Now, see, no not what you think. What, you know, about what you love to do and what you... what is something you just don't like to do? I mean, you'll procrastinate it if at all possible.
01;10;53;09 - 01;11;21;00
Mitch
Yeah. Well, so it's funny because, you know, quote unquote, technically, I retired like five, six years ago or something like that. I don't know from, from the day to day grind of, of, of running, you know, businesses and all that. But I love kind of doing what I'm doing now, which is on the business side, getting to see the new up and coming opportunities that are out there.
01;11;21;00 - 01;11;50;12
Mitch
I love looking at a business and and actually, you know, looking at the financials, you know, not many people enjoy that, but I like to see the health of the business that is real. So and I like very much help helping out investing and worthwhile projects that I think, yeah, they're going to make money, you know, but I also like projects that have some sort of a value to them.
01;11;50;12 - 01;12;11;21
Mitch
I'm not a value investor necessarily. Or a green investor, but if a project has an element of that to it, all the better. So I like seeing that kind of stuff. I really enjoy I love having this is the thing that I guess drove me to the point that I'm at and I love being in charge of my own time.
01;12;11;26 - 01;12;34;02
Mitch
Time is the number one where if you can be in charge of your own time and if you decide you want to work 24 hours a day by your choice God bless you. If you decide you don't want to work today at all and you want to go to your kid's baseball game, which I do all the time now, there's no I love that.
01;12;34;11 - 01;12;39;20
Mitch
I love being able to being able to call my own shots.
01;12;40;01 - 01;13;19;00
Dave
Let me ask you about that. You know, so you know, you've you I think this one of the things I appreciate about you've got you've got so many friends and so much family that you surround yourself with and you've got all these business ventures and you you really you really make time for for everybody that's important in your life. You know, like, I don't we don't talk that often but if I you know, three months from now, I called you up and said Mitch I really, really need to see you. You're going to make time and so certainly I certainly appreciate that.
01;13;19;00 - 01;13;33;27
Dave
I feel privileged to be part of that. But it all comes from balance balance in your life. And this is something that a lot of people struggle with, you know, and I don't know if it's something that you've you've really worked at.
01;13;34;10 - 01;13;34;17
Mitch
01;13;34;17 - 01;13;51;16
Dave
An early part of your life. Or something that, you know, kind of evolved. Once you got more successful, you were able to control things a little more and create that balance. But how important is it to you and, you know, how have you gone about, you know, creating that balance?
01;13;52;11 - 01;14;31;24
Mitch
So this is the most important question you've asked. It is the foundation, actually, of everything. So my advice to younger people is balance, balance, balance. And I'll explain it in a second. And my advice to older statesman is balance, balance, balance. It never changes because the weighting may change a little bit. But if you lose sight of the concept of balance in your life, something's going to pay the price.
01;14;32;19 - 01;14;41;02
Mitch
And I have you know, we could do an entire podcast on how important this is. Did I just invite myself to another podcast? Now.
01;14;42;19 - 01;14;43;08
Dave
I think you did.
01;14;45;04 - 01;15;08;07
Mitch
This is so important that it does. It actually deserves an entire episode because all the things we talked about again, you know, I talk about integrity, but balance probably trumps all. And here's why. I'll try and make it as quick as I can to get the points I can. It changes when you're young.
01;15;08;22 - 01;15;09;08
Dave
01;15;09;22 - 01;15;44;27
Mitch
And it changes when mid-life and changes when you're towards the end of your working career. But I don't think it ever goes away. Never, never actually changes. So what am I talking about? Let's put some concrete concepts, some concrete examples to this concept is really what I meant to say. So I let's talk about the early person, the person who's graduating college, the person who is, you know, working for somebody but wants to maybe go out on their own and start their own business.
01;15;46;21 - 01;16;10;11
Mitch
So why do you need balance there? And when I talk about balance, the main three points are you're money, meaning your business life, anything having to do with that, your family, which is self explanatory and your friends, OK, now people will say, oh, you know, some people are more spiritual, but down the family category, it's all about time for yourself.
01;16;10;11 - 01;16;34;09
Mitch
Be kind yourself. Put that in the family category, your own family, OK? So you can divide, you can subdivide this all you want. But I don't I basically just think about money, family and friends and if you spend too much attention on one, the other two will suffer. If you spend too much on two of them, the third one will suffer.
01;16;34;21 - 01;17;05;28
Mitch
Now, sometimes you have no choice. Sometimes you have to spend all your time on, let's just say, making money. You have to spend all your time at your work in your business. But if you have to spend time prior to that building, up your family and your friends, they're going to understand for a while, OK, if you spend all your time with your friends and none of what your family, they're not going to want to be hanging out with your friends because they think you don't love them or you don't want to be with them.
01;17;05;28 - 01;17;32;20
Mitch
And it could be a girlfriend, it could be a spouse. It could be your kids. So one is going to suffer while you're paying attention to the others, but you have to monitor all of them if you have spent time in a great relationship with your significant other. And that significant other knows that for a time of for a period of time, you're going to have to sway the balance a little bit more towards your business.
01;17;33;05 - 01;17;55;26
Mitch
Hopefully, you've done a good enough job where that person is supporting you behind you, but if you just assume they're going to support you because everyone knows you need money, it's not going to work, OK? And it will it will suffer. So at the beginning. That's part of it, too. A I'm also addressing a younger audience for this part of it as well.
01;17;57;17 - 01;18;23;11
Mitch
When you are spending time on your own. So in other words, for a young person, yes, too much time on your friends. You can't spend too much time on your family. You can't spend too much time on your business, but you have to spend enough time on all day. So you are the best judge of, you know, what needs attention when you are spending time with your family, make them the most important thing here.
01;18;24;00 - 01;18;51;00
Mitch
So and they actually are the most important thing, period. So let them know it. And so you can't be distracted by your cell phone when your kid is talking to you about something you may not even care about. OK, this is more for the middle group. People who are now start families and this up. But let me go back to the of the the person starting out because there is a thing about business that is really, really, really important.
01;18;51;17 - 01;19;10;16
Mitch
So let's just assume that you have a good relationship or you don't not in a relationship right now. Whatever it is you're able to focus on your business while you're in your business and you're making money. You might be on a salary. You probably are to be making a little. You could be making a lot this is also a I'll go against my ruler.
01;19;10;17 - 01;19;33;29
Mitch
I want you to subdivide balance here. This is this all has to do with business, but you need to subdivide OK? So I have tons of examples which I'll say for another time, but I don't know why I tune into this early on, but it just was a gift. OK, I had a ton of people I knew who made way more money than I did, and they're still working for a salary right now.
01;19;34;09 - 01;19;58;16
Mitch
OK, they need to work to survive. And I know a ton of people who work, work, work, work, work. They save all their money, save all their money, and they have a lot of money but they have nothing else in their life and they are miserable. OK, you won't understand that until your later life. So as you know, I mean, you you can't experience things until you've experienced that.
01;19;58;16 - 01;20;24;09
Mitch
People can tell you it's the same thing, like a doer. OK, you can read about it, you can hear about it. But until it actually happens, to you and you actually go through it, you will never it will never hit home the way it does until you experience it. So my advice to a younger person, if you have entrepreneurial goals, if you have ideas of starting a business or working a business, you have to save money for that business.
01;20;24;15 - 01;20;45;00
Mitch
We talked about that a little bit earlier. OK, you can't let's say you're making I'll just throw it out. You're making $50,000. And, you know, at the end of the year, you're getting a $50,000 bonus, OK, you can't go out and buy a $100,000 boat, OK? It's not that you can't, but if that's all you want out of life, great.
01;20;45;04 - 01;21;02;01
Mitch
By the way, that boat will depreciate and all that kind of stuff and not be great. It's a horrible investment, but it's a lot of fun. And if your intent is to only have fun at this age, know that, honor that and say, I'm spending all my money on fun, but you will most likely pay for that later.
01;21;02;01 - 01;21;24;17
Mitch
OK, ideally why not have some fun? OK, have some money set aside for your goals of starting a business and you know, have some money to do whatever you want with. Either go ahead and save that, give to charities, or just you don't know what you want to do with that. But if you spend all your money on fun, you will pay the allowance for that later on.
01;21;24;17 - 01;21;37;25
Mitch
I'm sorry. You know, you can only go so long and I have a ton of unfortuneately and I have a lot of people who did that in the trading industry. You hear a lot about that. And it is true, they weren't bad people. They played by the rules. They made a lot of money, but they spent every cent they got.
01;21;38;23 - 01;22;08;02
Mitch
So I do think you need to balance that out a little bit on the especially when you're starting out, you have to have some pockets and know that the money that you're saving for your business isn't just sitting there. You know, it's it's basically going towards what your ultimate business goal is. OK, so there's that balance, balance, balance there as you mature and get older, maybe you're going to be married, you're going to have kids later on and all that stuff.
01;22;08;14 - 01;22;49;24
Mitch
Yes. That becomes your number one priority. So what I said before, super important spend a ton of undivided attention on the on that which you are paying attention to it at the time. So if you have a friend in me, if you have friends you haven't seen in a long time, if you have a friend that just wants to hang out, be there all in for that person at that time and it pays dividends, you know, ten, ten fold over if you're halfway there, OK, so and then again, building a support team around you, it will grow and grow and grow.
01;22;49;26 - 01;23;13;07
Mitch
And the other thing I will say about that is no when the cut back, not everyone is there to watch you to be successful. There are people who don't want you to be successful OK? There are people who want to suck your time and they want everything from you, but they're not willing to give anything back. And you have to recognize that, too.
01;23;13;22 - 01;23;47;01
Mitch
And so, you know, I in the trading business, I do have another saying, which is in many, many businesses, but you never want to burn a bridge. You never know. So if it comes time to cut bait, whether it's with a job you're in, a boss a friend I hate to say this, but sometimes even a foul play member, you have to do it in a way that is mature, respectful and hopefully doesn't burn a bridge.
01;23;47;16 - 01;24;01;29
Mitch
Even if you have to say some euphemisms along the way, like, look, let's take a break or whatever it is. Meanwhile, you're going to say, because maybe there is hope for the future, but you do not want negativity or people who are trying to intentionally bring you down. And believe me, there are people who will try and bring you down.
01;24;02;28 - 01;24;27;28
Mitch
Nobody there's not that many people who are happier for you than they are for themselves. They want they want to themselves to be better than you and all that kind of stuff. But and if you do feel like you're in a position of success, it's always great to help realize that you want to talk to people. You do not want to elevate yourself to a point where, you know, you feel they feel you're so much better than them or anything like that.
01;24;28;07 - 01;24;55;12
Mitch
So but yeah, back to the point. Sometimes you have to get rid of negativity in your life and it's a hard reality. So doing it in a appropriate way is equally as important as doing it in the first place. Don't think if you have a boss that was really awful to you. And it's time to move on, come up with something that you're grateful for.
01;24;55;14 - 01;25;12;08
Mitch
Come up with the fact that you're able to move on because of this. So there's somebody you know and then bow out gracefully. I had people in the trading industry who did some, you know, really not great things. You know, to me, I never burned a bridge and that has come back to pay dividends later in life and you see them later in life.
01;25;12;14 - 01;26;01;00
Mitch
They've matured. There's a business there in that life. Partner with something you're doing or someone you know who could partner with them, you put them together, which is, by the way, recently happened to me. So it's funny. You just can't predict. But burning a bridge is not good practice. Now, the last thing I'll say later in life to the more mature people who are older like me, that this balance balance balance thing is as it is so important to have the time, you know, if you can, you know, have a time with family and friends, OK, businesses that I know very, very well.
01;26;01;00 - 01;26;22;12
Mitch
You know, I know so many wealthy people who are absolutely miserable, they have more money than I will ever have. Or, you know, and they are unhappy because they don't have the core values that actually bring happiness, which you know, people will say money doesn't bring happiness. Well, if you have no money, you're miserable. I don't care what you say.
01;26;22;12 - 01;26;57;02
Mitch
You know, it's really, really hard to be happy if you have no money, OK? But once you have a certain amount of money, then, yes, then money doesn't bring happiness, but relationships do. So if I keep on talking about this, like kidding. If you if you do have kids and your kids go on and on about something, an art project at school that you really don't want to listen to, if you let them know that you are listening and you actually do care about what they care about, you will be shocked.
01;26;57;23 - 01;27;16;12
Mitch
You know, no child psychologist or anything like that, but you'll be shocked at how they remember these things, you know, later on and just how you can build the trust and relationship with that. And that's really the most important thing. And then you become a role model for them and how you act, how you treat this is for everybody, but especially older people.
01;27;16;12 - 01;27;46;08
Mitch
Like when your kids are watching you treat either employees or treat the person who just bought the who brought the water to your table or the person who's cleaning the facilities, cleaning it, how you treat them, meaning these people your kids are watching every bit of that. And you can you can do so much good by how you behave and how you act and how you treat other people and how they do that.
01;27;46;16 - 01;28;03;05
Mitch
So part of the balance is being aware of what you're doing on your business side, but much more into what your how you're a thing, these little brains and stuff that are watching your every move and, you know, pay special attention to that. That was a lot on balance.
01;28;03;28 - 01;28;39;03
Dave
It's a, you know, this that we're kind of winding down here. So I think these are two topics to kind of end on because they could turn into a whole, whole new podcast. But at the end there, you're talking about how you act and how you carry yourself. I mean, you know, we know we all know people that that have a lot of money or that, you know, would like to think they have a lot of money it's all relative, of course, but they they, you know, they just don't act, you know, you know, in a way that's, you know, common becoming or or kind or somehow they, you know, they think they're better than
01;28;39;03 - 01;28;57;07
Dave
others and they let you know it and you know, I think the people that inspire me the most are those that, you know, don't let money change who they are. And and yet they still treat people the same.
01;28;57;27 - 01;28;58;23
Mitch
Yeah.
01;28;58;23 - 01;29;14;24
Dave
You know, that's why I love hearing, I love hearing stories. I mean, when you and I sit down, you're talking about different things. I'm just, you know, I'm engaged, inspired. I'm not, you know, threatened. I'm not, you know, I'm happy about it, you know?
01;29;15;09 - 01;29;35;28
Mitch
I mean, Dave, I did the same thing. I still do. So I have people I've had people in my life. Some of them are no longer here. I have people in my life. So a lot of times it's I it is funny because, you know, I'll sit down with some particularly older gentlemen. Who people say aw, I don't want to hear their stories.
01;29;35;28 - 01;29;52;17
Mitch
And there are stories I think of, I love them. I absorb them. I, I get something out of them. So I do the same thing, you know, in an older generation, you know, that you do. You can really, you know, garner a lot of morsels. Learn a lot.
01;29;52;17 - 01;29;53;20
Dave
01;29;54;22 - 01;30;10;17
Mitch
But I learned a lot also by watching how these very, very successful, very wealthy people treated others. And I took on that. Like, I was like some people, I'd be like, hey, you know, I don't care how much money you got. You're a jerk. You know, for lack of a better word, I'm clean. This has to be right.
01;30;11;10 - 01;30;31;25
Mitch
And other people were just super, you know, humble and kind. And you see that coming through it. And obviously, you know, you did mention I do have great family. I have great friends. But it takes work, actually. You know, it's not but it's it's it's rewarding work. It's and it may not even be the right word, but it takes attention now.
01;30;31;25 - 01;30;51;25
Mitch
You can't just assume that things are going to be there and friends are going to be there. You know, you have to give back and you have to be there for other people. So, yeah, it's I feel very lucky. I feel very blessed to be in that position. But it doesn't go without paying special attention. To what you're doing.
01;30;52;02 - 01;31;18;03
Mitch
I will just also say there are certain people out there that no matter how kind you are, no matter what you do, they're just miserable. And that's where I was talking about before. Sometimes you can try, you know, you shouldn't feel let's say you become a successful entrepreneur. You know, you can try and help people but don't feel obligated to try and save everybody because you'll spend all your time doing that and not everyone wants to be saved.
01;31;18;03 - 01;31;36;28
Mitch
So I think if you're kind and help people, that's great. But, you know, at the same time, I've learned that some people don't want or just are happier being miserable and you just cut those ties and move on.
01;31;38;04 - 01;31;41;10
Dave
All right. Well, that's that's a good way to end on a positive note.
01;31;46;00 - 01;31;47;10
Dave
Some people are just miserable.
01;31;49;27 - 01;31;51;07
Mitch
And that's the honest to God truth.
01;31;51;07 - 01;31;52;05
Dave
Yes. Right.
01;31;52;18 - 01;31;54;19
Mitch
Right. But all right.
01;31;55;18 - 01;32;18;03
Dave
It's the you know, the ball's in your court. I mean, thank you for taking all this time and making time for me. And, you know, you know, I hope that people out there I know I've I've learned a lot just talking in the last the last hour and a half or whatever we were doing here. So I hope people can really find something useful out of this conversation.
01;32;18;03 - 01;32;20;13
Dave
Because there's a lot a lot to learn, a lot to.
01;32;20;22 - 01;32;23;18
Mitch
And yeah. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
01;32;23;29 - 01;32;26;22
Dave
All right. Let me hit the stop record button here.