Ep54: Financial Strategies to Secure Your Legacy with Mark B. Murphy

[00:00:00] Mark B. Murphy
You want a series of assets that will give you a guaranteed or highly reliable stream of income, we'll call those paychecks. And you also want another series of assets where you can spend it, you can save it, you can give it away. But the important thing is will not be responsible for producing income for your family. So if you have both paychecks and play checks, that's financial freedom.

[00:00:16] Podcast Intro
You are working professional but struggling to balance the workload of your career, family obligations, and preparing for your financial future. If so, this podcast is for you. You've spent years learning your craft, and now it's time to focus on your financial future. This podcast will teach you what you need to Retire Wealthy and Happy. Let's dive in. 

[00:00:39] Roger Jacobsen
Welcome to the Retire Wealthy and Happy Podcast. I'm Roger Jacobsen with my co host, Anthony Esparza. And today, we have Mark Murphy with us. Hello, Mark, how you doing today?

[00:00:48] Mark B. Murphy
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me, guys.

[00:00:51] Roger Jacobsen
Thanks so much for being here. Why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and who you are and what you do.

[00:00:57] Mark B. Murphy
I am a key business strategist critical thinker, financial advisor to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial thinking people. And I love the title of your podcast, because what we do is we specialize in helping people create multi-generational wealth.

[00:01:10] Anthony Esparza
How did you find a career and what you're doing now,

[00:01:13] Mark B. Murphy
when I started, my company spent a long time and I started 38 years ago, and I thought we'd be successful, I would hoped we'd make money. But this was really my vehicle to make other people's lives better. I was always at my best when I was serving others. And so I just crafted a company where I could help the most amount of people possible. And then you start to evolve the armored group grown up dumb and broke in Suffern, New York, when I got out of the out of the Kelly business school at Indiana University, they offered me $1,000 A month it wasn't a salary was a draw against commissions. And I took the job because it was $1,000 a month more than I was making. But I quickly realized that there were so many ways you can help and there are so many places you can make a difference in the lives of the people you touch. And this was just my vehicle to be able to go do that. Nice,

[00:01:55] Roger Jacobsen
I have always been working a lot more on my own personal income, looking at stuff, ways that I could build my net worth up. And more recently, I've been able to grow more into the mindset that I want generational wealth. So I have a few questions for you. Let's break it down for some of our listeners. First of all, what is generational wealth?

[00:02:17] Mark B. Murphy
I think it's to be able to do what you want to do with who you want to do it anytime you want to do it. And it's about financial freedom. I think too much emphasis in our country. Roger is about success being defined only as well. I think to me a successful life is that people always say to me, do you have a business life? Or do you have a personal life and I go, I just have a life, I just go from one thing I like to something I like more to something I like more than that. And that's whether it being with my five kids are going to ballgames or spending time at our palm beach house or working with clients. It just seems that each day is a great day, because I'm not doing the stuff I don't want to do. And I'm only doing the stuff that gets me excited. Work keeps me in my unique ability.

[00:02:54] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome. What are some examples of ways that people have achieved generational wealth that you've worked with.

[00:03:01] Mark B. Murphy
I always start with most so I created a pyramid to create multi generational wealth, sort of a gameplan for people to do it, because I realized that virtually nobody is creating financial independence as a percentage, and very few people, even less than that are creating multi generational wealth. So what I've always thought is that one of the reasons that I've observed that people either fail or don't have the success that they should have is because they don't have cash confidence. And cash conference to me is literally everything from cash in the bank to ARR to annual recurring revenue that they can count on a going forward basis. And so having said that, is I've created a lot of my wealth when I had cash and somebody else needed cash. And also on the flip side, if you have a bad quarter or a bad six months, a bad year, it can turtle your business plans, you've got to have the ability and the cash confidence withstand any sort of temporary adversity so that you can continue to move on with your long term plan. 

[00:03:56]
So, for both the abundance and scarcity mode, cash confidence is the number one thing. And then the second thing, and I could speak about this for hours, and I promise I won't. But I was going to say that. The second thing is, is that if you only have $1, to invest, I suggest that our clients always feed their money machine. And for a lot of entrepreneurs, that's their business for other people is real estate. And for others, it's funding other operating companies. But that's where ultimately I think people have to have the patience and the courage to be able to invest in themselves. And so my mantra is that I only have two things, I think their expenses and their investments, I have no appetite for expenses. And if you're an expense, you're always on the chopping block. But if you're an investment, as long as I need a four or five to one return on my money, I have almost a level of appetite for investment.

[00:04:38] Roger Jacobsen
And do you want to follow up? 

[00:04:41] Anthony Esparza
Yeah, so as far as investments go, you mentioned real estate or whether that's your money making machine that could be your business. What do you do personally? What's your strategy? Do you invest heavily into real estate? I know you said you got your business now. Do you have any side businesses or are you investing any other houses?

[00:04:56] Mark B. Murphy
I mean, here's what I've said. I've said this for probably 30 Anthony said money markets, CDs, IRAs, 401, K's stocks, bonds, mutual funds, blah, blah, blah. Most of our clients have some or all those assets, most of our clients will have some or all those assets all their life. But at best their inflation-adjusted holding tax, Bill Gates was on the call with Sam where the 100 and $10 billion, because my 401k and I like fooling with kids, true wealth was created in one of three areas, it's investing in your business or some other operating company, it's investing in real estate, it's financing deals. So that doesn't mean that I don't have money in the stock market, or I certainly have money in cash or other things. But the idea is that, what I'll do is I will feed my money machine, which is Northeast Private Client Group, first, I then put my money into generally income-producing real estate because I want annual recurring revenue that's independent from my business as the CEO and owner of Northeast Private Client Group, and then I invest in a lot of private equity. 

[00:05:49]
But it's not private equity, where I'm taking a lottery ticket, or I'm hoping the smartest guys in Wall Street or Silicon Valley can find the cure for cancer or the next great widget, I'm investing in companies where you generally take a board seat on put my money involved. And I can generally have the ability with my network to be able to move the needle on that company. And so I don't have time to have any other full time jobs. I'm the CEO of Northeast Private Client Group. So I need things like real estate, which is more passive, at least to me, I've got some people that run it for me, but more passive. And I'd like to be spend time on those boards, steering companies and moving the needle. But I can't have another full time job, we've got to hire C suite people to go run those companies, when ultimately I think that everything to me is about collaboration, meaning virtually anybody who's relatively smart, who wants to work their ass off can get a 1x or 2x or 3x on their wealth. But I think that if you want to get a 10x or 50x or 1,000x on your business, it's all about collaboration. It's not how do we do it? It's who you need to collaborate with to go do it. And ultimately, it's the power of collaboration. That to me is the secret wealth, turbocharging variable.

[00:06:55] Roger Jacobsen
What forms of real estate are you currently invested in?

[00:06:58] Mark B. Murphy
I've got a couple of opportunity's own deals that I invested in a few years ago, I've got money in some apartments, I've got a little bit of money in self-storage, and you've got other rental homes, and so forth. 

[00:07:09] Roger Jacobsen
That's great. I have somewhat similar portfolio. So really happy with a lot of them right now. Interest rates, taxes and insurance have been going through the roof and the values have gone down. Currently, I'm more interested in industrial than anything else, less competition and a higher bar to join in. So that's one of my interests.

[00:07:28] Mark B. Murphy
I think real estate is particularly the to me the fool's gold, in the sense that when I started getting stock tips from like, dentist, I realized the stock market ready to collapse, I think it's when my dentist or my doctor becomes a real estate developer, I realized that's a sign of the apocalypse, too. And so I'm always going contrary and in most things in life is if everybody you know, I'm not afraid to be different, I'm afraid to be the same. And I think for the most part, when you're following the crowd, you're always gonna be buying high and selling low. 

[00:07:56] Roger Jacobsen
Absolutely. 

[00:07:59] Anthony Esparza
We just saw a quote, actually, this morning that says, if you're thinking like everybody else, are you really thinking are you kind of just falling that way, you got to think different and going to do the opposite.

[00:08:10] Mark B. Murphy
I mean, it's great to have a seat at the table. But I'd rather build my own damn table and be opposite. The expression I've always heard that I was going to chuck a love is, if you're pulling a dog sled, if you're not the lead dog, the view never gets any better. I think the ideas are a lot of people that are not really thinking with what they're doing. They're kind of following the path. I think, in the financial world, a lot of the things that people are doing, if they really think about it, they do with no thought or plan. And they do it with no synergy, meaning they think one plus one equals two were for most of the people because they have no velocity on their money. One plus one really equals one and a half. 

[00:08:49]
And really, we want one plus one equal four, five example that might be is hey, you it's great to put money in qualified pension plans, because you had a tax deduction, and we it's tax-deferred, and maybe you got lawsuit creditor protection in most states, but what steps have you taken to get that money out on a tax-advantaged basis? Or how does everything into that business? You know, what's the tax benefits of baileigh own the building that your business operates in? And you take advantage of either bonus depreciation and accelerated depreciation? And how does that fit in with other things that you're doing to be able to go grow your money? And I always think that, you know, I played I was a competitive chess player when I was in high school. And I'm a masters bridge player. So I think, eight moves and 13 tricks ahead. And so in my mind, I always think, Well, why would we solve one problem, we could solve three or four, everything has to have more than one spin.

[00:09:35] Anthony Esparza
There's always opportunity to tune up your business by even 1% You do 1% Here, 1% there and then now you're 20% better. I see that a lot as well. There's some things I should be doing and kind of just goes over my head but I know they're out there just need to fine tune those little areas and make it more efficient back to collaborating. You mentioned earlier. What are some steps you've taken to build your business? In terms of collaboration to make it a better business,

[00:10:04] Mark B. Murphy
I decided 35 years ago that I wanted to be a hero to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial thinking people. And so I basically built a business around collaborating with people and companies that wanted to be a hero to the same group where that client immediately saw that entrepreneurial synergy. Because ultimately, I don't want a level playing field, I don't want to run straight downhill, which I thought was certainly an improvement on a level playing field, I want to play in a competition free zone where the only place that client can get that experience is by working with me, or if you're my client by working with you. Awesome.

[00:10:37] Roger Jacobsen
I love that that's definitely similar to the Warren Buffett theory of having a business with a moat, around it, something that protects you and, you know, trademarks that are keeps you different. So for example, Pepsi can't use cokes recipe, they can try and they can mimic it, but their branding and their recipe are theirs in their own. And so it's really hard to copy and gives you a big distance in difference in what you can make and how business can be successful and grow. 

[00:11:05] Mark B. Murphy
The other thing, I think, also the entrepreneurial. I know you guys do an awful lot of work in real estate. So you've got to make sure that you can limit your downside. In real estate, sometimes it's a lot more difficult if you're a general partner, if it's your project, as opposed to a limited partner going forward. But one of the things that entrepreneurs have in common is that they view failure as just another form of market research, that ultimately that failure is just one step closer to success, because you don't have failure have either learning or success. You don't have failure. And so the idea, at least for me, I don't know about Roger about you or about you, Anthony, but if I hadn't done three or four things that failed, I wouldn't have done a couple of other things that made me millions or 10s of millions of dollars. 

[00:11:48] Roger Jacobsen
Absolutely. And that's a good point. And it doesn't really matter how many times you fall down. It matters if you can get up after the last one. 

[00:11:53] Mark B. MurphyI mean, I always say it's all BS, belief systems. And so the idea is to remember for most people that when they get their ass kicked, they get a pint of Haagen Dazs and a blanket and crawl under the covers and you never hear from them get-go. 

[00:12:05] Anthony Esparza
Looks like me right now.

[00:12:08] Roger Jacobsen
Did you need some Haagen Dazs. For anybody that's listening and wants to know, Anthony had a little scrape on the road after a little motorcycle thing. Excellent. Today's reclining back in bed and doing some recovery.

[00:12:27] Anthony Esparza
I'll be good by the weekend should be steady limp by then. That's good. 

[00:12:33] Roger Jacobsen
Good luck. What else can we talk about, Mark?

[00:12:36] Mark B. Murphy
I would venture to say that I go back to mindset all the time. And here's some things that I think are some rule that you have to have. There's a Chinese proverb that says someone who blames others has a long journey. One who blames himself is halfway home, one who blames no one is there. And I think that when I see people not succeeding, one of the things I find in common with people that are not successful is they're doing a lot of blaming a lot of complaining and making a lot of excuses. So I think one of the things you have to do is you got to be very listened to no blaming, no complaining, no excuses going forward. I also think that the world is not served by playing small. 

[00:13:13]
So you want people to play big going forward. And so the people that I look to bring in my world, I look for intelligence, but I look for intelligence in different ways. Everybody knows what IQ is. I'm not saying you have to be a genius got to be pretty smart. But genius. EQ, I think that's pretty common that's out there. Somebody's happy? Are they sad? Are they reading the room? There's so many people who just are not reading the room. I mean, we've all been there where somebody was not reading the room and just kept going on with what they were doing. And it was a disaster. I think it was Eskew. I think part of success is in playing big is people have to like use social quotient out of things to people like if they don't like you, they're not going to do business with you or be around you. 

[00:13:50]
But the intelligence that I find most interesting and most rare, is AQ, which is adversity quotient, meaning when a deal is going down, or things are happening, and everything's fine. Everybody's a hero, everybody's happy. But when you know what hits the fan, how do you flip the table, flip the script, turn that lemons into lemonade going forward. And I think the ability to have adversity quotient, that type of intelligence is as valuable or more valuable than the others. But you have to have a mole. I mean, you can't be a dummy. And you got to be able to read a room and you got to be likable. But that's something that I think when in the world, we don't talk a lot about adversity quotient. We talked about the others, much more than that. 

[00:14:25] Roger Jacobsen
That's a really good insight. And I love that and right now, there's a lot of people that have done multifamily syndications, if they could do anything to help themselves, in my view, they will be to grow their AQ, because right now there's a lot of foreclosures going back to the banks and the people that are doing the syndications have to be able to pivot as much as they possibly can to be able to grow any kind of more noi that they can and then when they get to that point they need to be able to go through that adversity talking to their investors talking into their property managers talking to their banks and everybody else they can in order to get through what could be a major bankruptcy or a slight default or close call, depending on how they're set up and what they're able to do, how much they're able to pivot.

[00:15:14] Mark B. Murphy
And that thing, I also think with people, that part of being in the entrepreneurial world is, you want to have a good time, if the host isn't having a party, nobody's having any fun. And I think I find so many folks that really good people, smart people, they're not enjoying what they're doing. And I love experts, you can't see the forest for the trees, or to me another expression, which I love is it's hard to read the label when you're inside the jar. And I think ultimately, that part of that world is that I don't know if you guys familiar with the Japanese term, there's a few pronunciations of it called Edgar Kai.

[00:15:43] Roger Jacobsen
I'm not. 

[00:15:45] Mark B. Murphy
So Edgar Kai, I view that from that prison, when I'm looking to do something, or maybe like what I did this morning, I was coaching one of my friends, kids who's graduating college this month, and looking at some different opportunities. And I said to him this morning, here's how I'd be looking at this job, because he had a few job offers out there. And I'm not sure what he wants to do may go back to graduate school different. This kid's got some options. So I said to him, here's the four questions I'd be asking myself, I would say 1am. I passionate about this, too? Am I good at it? Three? does the world need that product or service? 

[00:16:15]
And the fourth is, can I get paid to do it? And so it shouldn't be a yes to one of them? Or two of them? Or even all four of them? It should be a hell yet all four? And if not a Hell yeah, I generally will not do it. Now. Not everybody who's watching or listening to your podcasts has the ability to be there. But that's where you want to aspire to be. You guys talk about retiring richer, or financial independence, all the things that you guys espouse. You want to get to that place where you have the ability to only work when you could ask for Hell yeah. And all for those questions. 

[00:16:43] Anthony Esparza
Absolutely. I agree with that. I've definitely had opportunities where it sounds good, and you make money, but maybe I'm not good at it, or I don't feel passionate about it. And I kind of let those run by.

[00:16:53] Mark B. Murphy
The other thing, I also think is that when I hear people that are need to get out of their own way, it's they've got to change their story, meaning what's the story here in business, if it is to meet B, it's up to me, I'm the only one that can do it. Well, if you're going to scale or build any kind of business, the likelihood of you being able to do everything and be that you'll be the bottleneck on the funnel, and you'll only hit a certain size of growth. And I think ultimately, what entrepreneurs understand is that you don't really grow a business, you grow people. And so you are you investing in people, and sometimes those people take not months, but years to get a real return on one of my pet peeves is when I talk to people and they say, you know, my biggest expense is people and payroll. And I'll go, Well, if they're an expense, we should fire them all. 

[00:17:34]
Why would you have them authority expense? I think it's how that people look at those people. And I think that oftentimes, I think the hard part is scaling. It's like a restaurant where they can be the best restaurant in the world, cuz they have nine tables, and they get so popular, they open a place that's 300 tables, and the whole thing is a disaster. Because you can't scale that nine table restaurant like they had, they didn't have the skills to be able to do that. And I think that's the mistake that many people wake make. But what far more people make is they don't even have the ability to scale. I mean, if you're working 14 hours a day, I'll tell you this, if you want to double your income, you can't double your hours, because there's only 24 hours in the day. 

[00:18:10] Roger Jacobsen
Yeah, I think it was Dan Sullivan that wrote the book. 10x is better than 2x. And the point was, rather than trying to grow from you're doing eight hours worth of work and doubling it and going to 16 hours of work, bringing in the people in the implementations that can help you scale and go directly from one to 10. 

[00:18:30] Mark B. Murphy
Dan is brilliant. In fact, I have a few Dan Sullivan’s. And I love one of his. He said, It's you've got to win with the cards you have, not the cards you wish you had. And that doesn't mean we don't try to acquire the cards we want. But the idea is you got to win today with the cards you have. And that mean he was the guy who got people to focus on their unique ability to get people to get rid of the stuff that they're crappy at, which is pretty easy for most people. And there's so many things. He's certainly somebody that that I am a huge, huge fan and has mentored me. But I think the idea is that the thing is hard to get rid of is things you're good at or competent. The idea is that you've got to be able to spend time working in your unique ability, its unique ability, unique ability, unique ability and hiring people that that's their unique ability, which oftentimes complements you. He's 80 years old right now, and he is a machine.

[00:19:16] Roger Jacobsen
That's amazing. And I definitely feel the same way too. And also love the book Profit First, which was one of the earlier lessons I learned in real estate was we would do the math on flipping the house. And in order to qualify for a loan, it was an easy qualification that you had to figure out your Profit First, a lot of people will start business without a goal without this is the profit that I want to get and paying themselves first. They'll say we want to earn this much money and then see what's leftover. And you just can't do that when you have such high risk and high costs in house flipping. So that was another big insight for me in my life.

[00:19:52] Mark B. Murphy
I think real estate is clearly the people that I work with have created significant wealth, many of them have taken the cash flow from their money machine, which oftentimes is a business, and they put it into real estate being one of the primary assets to create those paychecks and play checks, meaning, you want a series of assets that will give you a guaranteed or highly reliable stream of income, we'll call those paychecks. And you also want another series of assets where you can spend it, you can save it, you can give it away. But the important thing is will not be responsible for producing income for your family. So if you have both paychecks and play checks, that's financial freedom. 

[00:20:23]
But there's still one more level. If you have an operating income, or an operating business beyond normal retirement age, that's a vehicle where you can get tax deductions, you can run expenses through it, you could do things where you have earned income, when most of your friends are worried about going to early bird specials or worried about living too long or making it a choice to go now to one car instead of to worry a lot of people are making some pretty draconian choices, as opposed to choices of abundance by not having earned income beyond normal retirement age. And so that's what you want to do. You want to be in a position where you're making decisions for yourself. And the difference to me between an entrepreneur and an entrepreneur is entrepreneurs get paid for what they know, business owners get paid for what they do. 

[00:21:07]
And you can tell when you get to retirement, who is a business owner who's bought themselves a job, and it was an entrepreneur, and the entrepreneurs are always in creation and fascination mode. Their minds do not shut off. You take a look at Dan has been helpful put together strategies like this as well, Roger, you talk about things like how many people succeed retirement and go, Hey, I went down to Florida, I'm in this community. And it's like summer camp for retired people. That's awesome. I should retired 10 years ago. But entrepreneurs go crazy when they do that. Because one is there's no structure in that you have no structure when you retire. Second thing is when you run a business, you have a whole team around you, you got no team in retirement. But one of the biggest things, I think is that, first of all, there's no risk, which means there's no excitement, that's what ages, people not having any excitement in their life. 

[00:21:49]
And then last but not least is there's no applause. Nobody's telling you how smart you are, how successful you are, how amazing you are all day, none of that happens. And so I think that ultimately, when you talk to somebody who's saying, I'm can't wait to get to retirement, I've never heard an entrepreneur say that.

[00:22:04] Roger Jacobsen
Well, we'll pick that up later, or we get to the Final Four. A lot of times, the best thing you can do is find the passion that gets you up out of bed and the network that keeps you going. And for me, it's like there's a lot of things that I enjoy outside of real estate, and it's motorcycles and cooking and creating fun environments for people visualize myself being a divemaster on a boat, or is sea captain or maybe just an assistant captain. So I didn't have as much responsibility in that type of thing. Like, I'd like to own a small restaurant where I just made Rodgers specials every day, or scoop ice cream for kids and just have something that brings a smile to your face and get you out of bed and you don't do it.
 

 [00:21:46]
Nobody's gonna do it. So you do have some pressure to show up and be there a network of friends that you can see and be with every day. But then you really don't want to just sit down and retire and sit on the couch and watch Oprah reruns. We love Oprah. And I don't mean to dig on our every time I say that. But when I do know you're here, you know what you mean? I think I'd live a week if I sat and did nothing. But I think I live another 40, 50 years, if I really loved what I did. And it got me out of bed and early hours in the morning. And I got excited and ready and couldn't wait to tell everybody what I had in store for them and then couldn't wait to show them and everything else. So I love that. 

[00:23:24] Mark B. Murphy
How many people have you met Roger that were 65 years old going on 50. And like the captains of the world, and then they retire. And you see and two years later at 67 and their 60s on 87. And they're like Dotrice and they're watching Oprah. They're going to the dry cleaners. They're making restaurant reservations, when they turn golf into a job. What kind of existence is that? I mean, who the hell would want to do that? 

[00:23:45] Anthony Esparza
That's what scares me. And I'm pretty young, but I see it all the time. I'm so young. I got so many years ahead of me, but I don't know the idea of retirement. That seems like a death trap. 

[00:23:54] Mark B. Murphy
I would have to have motorcycle accident, which I was hoping was on the motorcycle. That's the death trap before you. Stop. But I was gonna say, aunty How old are you? If you my mask? 24 the 24. So I'm saying? What if you had a world where you could get rid of overtime, all the things you didn't like about your work? At the same time? You could slowly add stuff to that you what's your like to do? And then my argument is if you're doing stuff you want to do and not do the stuff you want to do don't want to do who retires from that. Why don't you retire at 24? Why wait till 60 or 70 years old to go do that?

[00:24:27] Anthony Esparza
Yeah, I think it's a fine line. I think it's like you said if you got all the money in the world, why not wake up and play golf every day, right? And go to the casino. But I think you have to have some sort of drive or passion or some sort of knee to wanna serve to really get that fulfilling. I mean, if you do it for years and years, you can't just go to nothing and then leave your brain empty and crazy like that. I think you always have to have something you're working on or progressing at again, better are trying to build whether that's still operating a business Being a CEO or maybe just serving, serving people, I think you got to have something like that in your life to keep you going. And while it's great to wake up and play golf every morning, you can still do that. I think it's a balance. So.

[00:25:12] Mark B. Murphy
Roger mentioned ice cream. I loved ice cream. I think though, if I ate ice cream every day, I hate it. At some point, I feel like playing golf, I think eventually, you would hate it. Or most people would hate it at least if that's all they did all the time. 

[00:25:23] Anthony Esparza
Yeah, there's so many different things you can do out there, I mean, endless possibilities.

[00:25:27] Roger Jacobsen
And to clarify, like Dad, I would be scooping ice cream, and meeting the kids seeing their different flavors, getting the talk to watch those like young impressionable minds and enjoy the different kinds of ice cream and stuff like that and just creating joy. I personally like tacos more than ice cream.

[00:25:49] Mark B. Murphy
Every one of my friends that when they were in high school or college worked in an ice cream store that most of them came back with a verdict. They were sick of ice cream, by the end of the summer, or by the time was ready to go back to school. But you could be the exception. I'm sure. So the people that are listening to this podcast, what do you hope that they get out of the podcast? And specifically, what can we share with them that would make a difference in the lives of the people took the time to listen to this podcast?

[00:26:10] Roger Jacobsen
That's a perfect segue into the question I've been itching to ask. So for somebody that's just getting started out that maybe they have a little bit of scarcity mindset, or lack of experience or influence in their lives. How do you go from one feeling that you can do better and justifying it not having a imposter syndrome? To? How do you go again, 10x that and say I want to be a millionaire, a cent a millionaire billionaire? And then three, which is more for me is how do you justify wanting generational wealth when realistically, All I want is the ability of the five freedoms where I have the ability to do what I want, where I want, when I want with whoever I want and gifted by want. How do you influence somebody like that, to believe in themselves and want to do that? 

[00:27:01] Mark B. Murphy
Well, first of all, I would say this is that the number one job of an entrepreneurial thinker is to protect his or her confidence. Confidence is everything in terms of what you do in everywhere in your life. And it's a mindset to have confidence. I think for a young person who's starting in the business, there are some intellectual shortcuts, but there's no shortcut for Malcolm Gladwell says, to create mastery in any subject, you gotta put your 10,000 hours in. And the idea is that everybody wants it yesterday. But the idea is, you can't create mastery in virtually anything without 10,000 hours. You know, I know in effect, I gave a presentation about five years ago called 95,370. And that was the amount of hours that I put in, in my field, I'm well over 100,000 hours right now. But that first 10,000 is critical. And so I just think that you've just got to have focus, you have to have discipline, and you have to fall in love with the mundane. It's all about that. 

[00:27:51]
The other thing is why generational wealth, I will tell you that some of the most selfish people I know in the world, are people that have just enough, they have just enough for themselves no more for anybody else, just for themselves. And so the reason create multi-generational wealth isn't. So you can just buy fancy cars and planes, but it's good if you want to do that. And luxury is nice. But the idea is that what that money can do to improve the lives of the people you touch, meaning my goal would be I'd love to change and affect positively 100 million people. I have the ability to affect people but directly could I affect the lives of 100 million people? I'm not sure I don't think so. But with other people like yourselves and other people that we could get involved, we might be really make a difference in the lives of those people. I mean, there's so much divisiveness, so much strife, so much angst in the world. Imagine if we have people like us that put as much energy into abundance, and for the purpose of not gluttony, but the for the purpose of making other people's lives better. That would be the kind of world that I'd be proud to live in. 

[00:28:52] Anthony Esparza
Absolutely. Great response. I like the part about some people just make enough to feed themselves. I think that really kind of opened my eyes like that. 

[00:29:02] Mark B. Murphy
There's been a lot of books written about this. And they but they basically talked about the three types of people they talk about givers, matchers takers, there's been a few books, I've read a few books on that. And the beginning givers are always the lowest performers. They're giving and not receiving. And the takers get a little bit of advantage because they're taking and not giving. And matchers are like hey, I'm going to be nice to Auntie because Anthea can help me but screw Roger, because he can't do anything for me. He's alma mater. But if you spend, you know, guy who's 24 years old, if you spend not months or years, but if you spend decades in the pouring, and other people, you will have an army of people that want to come back and support and help you. And that's how the world works. And I think it's counterintuitive to business.
 

 [00:29:39]
Like I always think when, when I'm asked to speak at some big conference in the financial services industry, I find people or real estate or accounting or law or whatever, I'll come and give a speech and I'll go I'll see that the speakers that are speaking are asking about how to get referrals or how to get introductions or how to get business and I'd rather give my talk on how to give it I'd rather be able to lead with by giving our own I can control and try to help that other person to come from underneath and, and lift them up and not be attached to the outcome because I'm not attached to the outcome of whether they're going to come back and do it for me, it's not a quid pro quo, I'm going to do because that's what makes me feel good. And ultimately, it just seems to work out. And it works out a hell of a lot better than when you're keeping score.

[00:30:17] Anthony Esparza
I love that. Yeah, that's a great mindset to have. I totally agree with that, too. I mean, you definitely give a lot, and you know, you can't count on anything. But somehow, someway, the universe makes it work for you. 

[00:30:30] Mark B. Murphy
When you do a quick story, you talk about everybody, everybody, basically, their past is just a series of decisions that they made for the most part, which means your future's, that the decisions you're going to make going forward. But to me, the seminal moment around that was I got cut from the high school basketball team as a freshman, and I busted my ass and I made the JV team, I think I played the 43 seconds a game when we're up, up or down 30 points or something. And I think I've made the varsity as a junior and it was like, came off the bench like six or seven demand. And I think I never started a game. So I was a senior. But I left there for a six foot two white guy with three-inch vertical leap, having thought I got the most out of my high school ability I played with a guy who played the NBA guys won national championships and football. I mean, we were on some very talented athletes. And I was a good athlete, but not at that level. But I competed with them. And I played well. And by the time I was a senior, I got everything I could out of my job. It wasn't a star, but I was a good contributor to that team. 

[00:31:23]
And so I look back is what I realized is I'm not competing against anybody else. I'm competing against the best version of me. And so the idea is that I don't believe in competition, I believe in differentiation, that was one thing that came out of it. But the most important thing that came out of it, we talked about mindset is if I'm only competing against me, then I can be free to be your biggest cheerleader. Meaning if something good happens to me, and I want something great to happen to you, you know, if I have $1 Roger, I hope you have 100. And so the idea is I can and I can truly be happy for other people, because I'm not competing against you.

[00:31:53] Roger Jacobsen
And I think we've kind of mentioned the theme of one of my favorite books. And when I started getting more into an entrepreneurial mindset, I started listening to books on audible. And the third book I listened to is The Go Giver by Bob Berg. That's one of the books I talked about it Yeah. And when you look at it, you see, oh, you've got to hit these hurdles, you've got to hit these sales. And if you focus on that, you're gonna miss the real big picture. And if you focus on helping everybody else, then you have that team behind you. The rising tide raises all ships, all the cliches that go into it.


[00:32:28]
And every time I listen to that book, and I get to the point where the key was Rachel's coffee, and Rachel's coffee was like, just the most intelligent person that happened to be an assistant to an entrepreneur turned out to be the thing that created the biggest deal that even as friends that he had referred business to thought that he was so big, because he gave so much business, that they gave him the biggest deal. And the fact that he had been nice to Rachel and she knew everything about coffee, made his biggest deal and blew up is you know, skills and success level and everything else. Definitely one of my favorite books ever.

[00:33:01] Mark B. Murphy
I'm gonna get the names or you should release the names. There's two or three books that have similar themes that I've read on that that was one of them. I mean, I was thinking, the other thing you want to look at is being a voracious reader is also important. I think if you don't read, you're behind the eight ball. 

[00:33:15] Roger Jacobsen
Absolutely. And I love getting the emails that are spam and everything else and spending so much time that could be growing my mindset, learning more things. And having to go through a couple of 100 emails a day that are often just mundane.

[00:33:33] Mark B. Murphy
It's funny, we're now in political season with the presidential election coming. It's got to be 5060 email political emails a day. I'd like to cut that down by about 100%. For sure. But hey, I got to tell you guys, I appreciate you guys appreciate what you're doing. If there's some way that I can help support you, please let me know. And I just enjoyed spending time with you guys this afternoon. Awesome.

[00:33:53] Roger Jacobsen
I have one more question. And then we'll have Anthony lead us into the Final Four. But if you could go back in I think it was 95,306 hours and talk to yourself at age 24, 25. What lessons would you give to yourself? 

[00:34:10] Mark B. Murphy
I think the most important thing is I would have worried a lot less in my 20s and my 30s and my 40s. I'm worried about a lot of stuff that quite frankly, if the actual bad thing happened to me, would have been less painful than all the worry that I did about it. Like they used to talk about these Cuban prisons that every day they would beat the prisoners every day. And it was the anxiety you prayed every day that you were beaten first, because the torture wasn't the beating the torture was listening to people scream as the guards got closer to you and closer to and closer to you. So you got your beating of the day and the gift was being beaten early in the day. And I think it's the same thing with your mind. It's like I used to worry about stuff. I couldn't sleep some nights and quite frankly, there was a lot of wasted energy that I could have used for more productive things.

[00:34:53] Roger Jacobsen
I totally relate. 

[00:34:55] Anthony Esparza
Well, you're ready for the final four.

[00:34:57] Mark B. Murphy
Let's go. I'm a huge college basketball fan. So by Happy Places Indiana University with the Hoosiers winning the national championship. So you're talking my language.

[00:35:05] Anthony Esparza
Okay, here we go. Number one, your favorite business book.

[00:35:08] Mark B. Murphy
God, there's so many I think, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell or Who Not How Dan Sullivan book we mentioned before, there are too many

[00:35:18] Anthony Esparza
Oh, we got those two, what is your favorite way to give back? 

[00:35:21] Mark B. Murphy
Listen, they always say the good ones till the great ones ask. And so I aspire to be a great one. And the way I aspire to be a great one is to listen. 

[00:35:29] Anthony Esparza
I love it. And Roger. I'm skipping a beat again. I got question four already. But what can you do three?

[00:35:36] Roger Jacobsen
What brings you happiness? 

[00:35:37] Mark B. Murphy
My wife and my five children. Kids bring me a lot of sorrows too, but much more joy. But yeah, seeing them grow and develop and become great, productive members of society. That brings me great joy. Also, if you want to be a little pedantic, let's see in the Hoosiers hang another banner. And.

[00:35:53] Anthony Esparza
That's right.

[00:35:54] Roger Jacobsen
Do you have grandchildren, Mark?

[00:35:56] Mark B. Murphy
I do not I started late. So I've got kids between 17 and 25. So I've got four in college next year. And my oldest Lucas works 17 to 25.

[00:36:04] Roger Jacobsen
I have a fiance that we're about to get ready in June, and she has five children. So our ranges are 27 to 15. And I'm looking forward to the day that I don't have to train the kids, I don't have to be the authority. I don't have to do anything, I can just spoil the grandkids, which is an easier relationship in my mind where everything you do now with the kids are guiding and leading them and teaching them. And when their grandkids they've got their own parents to guide and lead them. So I can display on there have fun. I'm looking forward to that day, we need to question four.

[00:36:38] Anthony Esparza
Question Four. What does your future retirement look like? And or do you have one?

[00:36:43] Mark B. Murphy
I think that I'm going to have more productivity in the next five years than I've had in the last 50. And one of the keys to life is your future has to be bigger than your past. So retirement to me is a foreign word. I don't know what I do, I'd go get a job. I don't know what I do. You know, I'm not sure I want to be in creation and fascination mode for the rest of my life. And so to me, that's a dirty word, George Carlin and that's the seven dirty words retirement should be the dirty word for me.

[00:37:11] Anthony Esparza
Amazing. Mark, great having you on the display a great characteristic of leadership, I want to say and I definitely learned a lot from you today. So thank you and appreciate you having you.

[00:37:21] Mark B. Murphy
Right right right back at you guys really enjoyed the time you're spending 100 Fellow with five children. I think we're brothers in arms. And Anthony, I gotta tell you, I wish I was 24 years old, the future that you have if you don't kill yourself on a motorcycle. I think your future is bright. And you've got an opportunity to do some incredible things. I'm going to keep an eye on you and see how well you do. 

[00:37:38] Anthony Esparza
Awesome. Appreciate you. Well, everybody.

[00:37:40] Roger Jacobsen
Thanks for joining us on The Retire Wealthy and Happy podcast. We had a great time getting a lot of golden nuggets from Mark Murphy. We'll see you on the next one. Bye. 

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