Transcript of Why Most People Never Build REAL Wealth (and How to Change That) 💵 EP147
The Money MondaysLadies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the Money, Moneyish podcast, where we cover three core topics: how to make money, how to invest money, how to give away to charity. Normally, this podcast is done inside of an RV motorhome. I travel around the country. I've been doing over 200 episodes in that fashion. The podcast today is number 40 in the world out of 5. 4 million podcasts because of you guys, liking, commenting, subscribing, and So I appreciate you guys for doing that. We've been keeping this commercial free. I'm spending around 70,000 a month just to keep it commercial free for you guys. We have a 93% listen to rate. Because of this. We keep these podcast episodes short, sweet, and straight to the point. Why is this one not an RV motorhome? Because we are inside the Amerit Bank Arena. Today, we hosted the Maine and the Arena Tour Part 2. At the first one, we had an amazing lineup of speakers, including our guests who's here with us today, who then spoke again for us here in Florida today, literally a few hours ago. He just crushed the stage. And hopefully we'll have him at number three, number four, et cetera, as one of our few repeat speakers.
Now, as you guys know, we keep this very focused, very pointed. And the whole point of it is, it's not just for you. This podcast episode might be for your friends, family, and followers. It might be for someone from your past, present, and future. So don't just listen to Raul for the things he said for you. It might be for people around you, again, from your past, present, or future. Without further ado, Raul, can you give us the quick two-minute bio so we get straight to the money?
Love it. Thank you, Dan. Man, the 40th podcast of the world. Love it, man. I can't wait for this to be number one. We're going to get it there. So make sure you click on the link, share this podcast. We're going to continue to bring value into the world.
I don't know if I can beat Joe Rogan, but we're going to try.
We're going to try. We're going to try. We like competition. So my name is Raul Velasquez. I built a brand called The Edge. It's a man empowerment movement. I I work with men who somewhere in their lives have lost their edge because that happened to me. I built a real estate company. I made millions of dollars, and I went to depression. I started drinking every single day, and I knew that I had to find some help. I spent half a million dollars in my personal development. I spent half a million dollars in my edge back. When I did that, I went to do a seminar to raise capital for real estate because my back was in real estate. But guess what everybody wanted to talk about? How did you break through depression? How did you find your edge back? I had all these asset managers, all these investors, pick my brains about how to find your edge. And from there, I built a brand called The Edge, helping men find their edge back.
All right, so on the make money side, why do you think that most men are not good at making money?
I think a lot of us We're very good at making money, but we suck at keeping the money. Because I speak to guys all the time, make millions of dollars. But, Raul, how do I keep the money? So my mentor, when I started real estate, gave me this book. He said, Raul, read this book. It's going to make you a millionaire. This book, hands down, we read it from the first page to the last page, you're going to make millions of dollars. That book was the white pages. If someone of you guys know what the white pages is, you're probably too young. It's where you have all the numbers, four numbers, names of every person who lives in your city. Because he said, Start calling. Call calling. So I was selling real estate. Call calling. So he was right. Two years into the real estate, I made millions of dollars. Call calling. But I didn't know how to keep the money. So the second book I read was Rich That Poor That. Nice. And that's when he said, Make the money, invest it, and buy real estate. I bought my first property. I flipped it.
I made $100,000. I thought I was rich. Yeah, for sure. I did what most men will do when they make some money, go to the dealership, and get a BMW. Exactly.
Spend it.
Of course, I didn't finish reading the book. I was only halfway through. I came back, finished the book, and I said, The worst thing you could do is buy a car. Sure. So I went back to the dealership. I said, Man, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. Can I just get my deposit back? They said, Well, we are BMW. We're proud ourselves of customer service. Here's your money back. And I went and I bought another real estate property. And that's what we continue to do, buy real estate, flip, hold. And eventually, that's where we made millions of dollars.
So on the investing side, what do you think holds people back? What are they so scared about investing into real estate, stock market, cryptocurrency, angel investing? There's so many options. What do you think holds people back from making that first investment?
It's fear. Fear holds everybody back from doing something that they know deep in their heart that they should do. We all know that we should invest, we should save money. But the fear, and when I look back and I teach my son this, He's 19 years old. I said, If you broke in your 20s, that's fine. As long as you take risks, you got to take risks. I see these young kids, they're just waiting for the new opportunity. Everybody wants to have a safe risk. Risk What is risk. The way I look at it is at the end of the day, if you are a producer, if you make money, take the risks by the same time. Don't take a risk that you're not going to come back from. I made that mistake. That's why I'm speaking from experience. I put everything on real estate. I thought I was the man. I got a letter from my account when I was 30 years old. I was like, Raul, you're a multimillionaire. Congratulations. You made it. And then a year later, I was for closing my property because the market crashed. Because I thought I did everything right, but it was the wrong timing.
So that fear of losing is what holds me back. Those stories, they hear it like, I don't want to be like Raul. Why don't I be like this guy? So that holds them back.
So there's so many different options to invest into. You've chosen the real estate path. But within real estate, there's Airbnbs, fix and flips, multifamily, commercial, storage, RV parks, mobile homes. So many options in the real estate space. How can someone study and try to figure out what part of real estate they should dive into?
Again, I'm teaching my son right now. He just bought with me his first multifamily cash flow properties. I know you probably hear this all the time, but multifamily is the safest investment in a way Because you depend on tenants to pay the rent. For me, I always look at a property that if it's cash flowing, I could maintain it through the recession, through the oppression. People are still going to need to live in a property. The mistake that I did when I lost millions of dollars because I started developing properties. I had my cash flow on properties. They were paying the bills, but then I got too greedy, and I started building properties, commercial, and I got out of my lane. If I were to stick to multifamily, it wouldn't have happened.
All right, so what about the charity side? Why do you think it is important for a household? Let's just go with fathers in particular. Why do you think it's important to have some type of charity component for their wives, children's, parents, friends, community, and employees to see them doing some philanthropy?
The most important thing that I teach my kids is the value of money. I teach them that money is not meant for you just to keep. Money is meant to circulate. That's what it's called, currency. The value of money is necessary for them to learn early age. So my son, when he was eight, nine years old, he came to me, Dad, my friends are having allowances. Should I not have an allowance? How much is my allowance? Interesting. What are you talking about? I'm allowing you to live in my house. That's your allowance. I'm allowing you to eat my food. But if you're talking about making money, I could help you through a transaction, bring value. So my kids have always, I've never given them allowances. They always brought something to the table. What are you going to do in order for you to earn money? But we also taught them, we also have to give back. So every holidays, what we do is we could do a Our properties, we look for the tenants who don't, they're not doing so well. We look for other neighborhoods, and we go for a run. Thanksgiving, that's one of the most fun times for us to actually give back to the community, giving gifts, and Then once you learn what they want, we also go back in Christmas and we give the kids gifts.
We were doing that since they were 9, 10 years old, and they remember that from all the holidays. That's the magic moment. That kid, when we give them that bicycle, when we give them that scooter, it lit up, they actually love doing that as opposed to just receiving presents. I think part of as a family, it's so important for you to teach your kids that money is not just meant for you to keep. Money is supposed to circulate. You have to give back.
What about as a business owner or a brand? Why do you think it's an important component to have some type of charity philanthropy tied into a brand or just for the employees, the clients, the vendors, the customers to see you as a leader of this company have some type of charity component?
At the end of the day, every entrepreneur is focused on making money. But if that's all you want to do, you're going to have a short-term life. The biggest opportunities that I've had to be in rooms, actually, my first event, I was in a fundraiser, and there was a movie producer. I don't know if you know the author, Eker Tolle, of the book, The Power of Now? I've never heard of him before. For me, everything was brand new. But they were raising capital to raise money for the movie. The guy comes out of the stage having this conversation, and he tells me, What do you do? I said, I want a real estate company, but I'm putting on a seminar. Maybe you want to speak at my event? I could help you raise money. I said, Absolutely. Here's my card. I had no seminar. I don't know where that came from. I looked at my wife and she was like, What are you talking about? I was like, I don't know. It just I want to put a seminar.
I got to put a seminar.
So I said, You know what? I'm nobody. The guy probably just forgets about me. He's a big producer in Hollywood. The next day, he calls me, Hey, Raul, we met. I'm interested in knowing more about your seminar. All right? I ignore him. He calls me every single day for a week. Come on. I was so embarrassed. I called him. I said, Oh, you're probably not interested. What's your real estate guy is very unconscious behavior. Not like a cartola. We drink. We talk about money. He goes, Raul, when I met you, someone told me that I have to support you. So whatever Whatever you do, I'm there.
Wow.
I had to put a seminar. Yeah, for sure. Now, I can't look bad because I told this guy. I looked around and I said, Well, where does everybody go to put seminars? Las Vegas. Great. Las Vegas. Just pick a place. I called the win. I said, Do you have this date? Looking back now, I was constantly trying to sabotage my first event. I picked two weeks before Christmas. Oh, boy. They actually had it available. I called, I got back, says, Hey, these are the dates. He goes, I'm in. Fuck. So now I have to come through. December 15.
There we go.
So now I have to get speakers because I've never spoken before. So guess who I call? Who is my first speaker, do you think? Now, knowing me in this arena, who do you think I call first to be a speaker in that event?
I'm hoping it was Garret J. White.
Garret J. White? I just met Garret about a couple of weeks before that event in the stage. And I said, Hey, maybe this guy wants to speak in my event. I called him up, said, Hey, I'm going to have an event in Las Vegas. Would you come down to speak? Because it's just so happened, I have an event there, so I'll be there, too.
Wow.
Fuck. So now, see, all these worlds are colliding, right? It's omnipotent. So at that event, one of the things that we had to do is I took them the attendees to a hospital for Christmas to visit kids that had cancer, that had an illness, that they were hospitalized. That was the most impactful thing that we could have done. We took a couple of hundred people into the hospital giving gifts. Wow. Imagine, Garrett. Yeah, for sure. Interacting with kids, all the speakers. And that event created such a magical pivot in our lives that every speaker wanted to support me because I had that component, the component of giving back, the component of actually doing something, not just a seminar, not just listening to our lives, but now we're actually going to do something for the community wherever we went.
All right, so there's only one question I've asked on all 200 plus episodes, and I've never gotten the same answer before. Hopefully, it's not until 100 or 200 years from now when you finally pass away. What percentage of your networth do you leave to your children?
I look at networth not just in money. My networth that I like to think that the value is more the time. We're empty nesters now. My wife and I, we look at each other like people say I'm an empty nester because my kids are in college. They moved out. But I feel like a fool nester. I don't know if that's even a word because we give time to our kids. We spend time with them. But I want to let my kids know that they can depend on me to provide for them. They have to go there and create their own. I'm going to provide opportunities. I'm going to live on an opportunity for them to create, but I cannot stop from stopping them from doing their own lives. My kids know. When that leaves, that's it. It's done. That's it. I want them to know that they have to work to create their own legacy. I want to create my legacy, but they have to create their own legacy. So ideally, I would like to give my kids the net worth of knowing their value, their capacity to produce, but at the same time, the opportunity to provide for themselves.
So where can people find you on social? Where can they find The Edge? Where How do they find everything about your ecosystem?
I'm very active in Instagram. They could just send me a DM on Instagram, Raul The Edge. We also have a podcast. We did a podcast, actually, a couple of months ago. It was great. Got great feedback. The Kingsville podcast. But right now, we're focusing on supporting the movement of the men in the arena. I want to see this event with 10,000 men. Amen. That's my vision, 10,000 men. So I know it's coming, and I know we're going to need every single one of you to start supporting because it's not about competition. There is billions of people in this world. Sure. Men are dying every single day because they don't have a brotherhood. They don't have a connection. I am convinced that the reason that God put Gareth and I together is for moments like this. We're creating a movement, a global movement, a man going into the arena to find their edge to get this shit together. Because I believe that this is the moment the man needs to fucking step up and lead because you are the fucking problem, but you're also the solution.
I appreciate you for being here. As you guys know, these podcasts, it's very important for you to like, comment, subscribe, and share. When you hear the things today, there might be someone in your life that you should forward this to, and it might not just be today. You might think back on this episode two, three weeks from now, two, three months from now, and want to forward what Raul said. So check him out on social media, Raul the Edge. Make sure to like, comment, subscribe, and we will see you guys next Monday here at themoneymondays. Com. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a very special edition of the Money Mondays podcast, where we cover three core topics: how to make money, how to invest money, how to give away to charity. Normally, I do this podcast inside of an RV motorhome that I travel around the country in. And normally, I only have one guest at a time. But tonight, we are inside of an arena, a Merritt Bank Arena. We just finished the Man In The Arena tour. We had Tim Story, Trent Shelton, David Gaugin, so many amazing speakers. This is the event I do with Garret J.
White. This was the second time we throw in it. First time in Salt Lake City, this time out here at the Merritt Bank Arena in Florida. So as you guys know, these podcasts are typically around 30 to 35 minutes because the average workout is 35 minutes. The average commuter to work is around 40 minutes. So we keep these episodes to around 35 minutes for your listening It's been a pleasure. Without further ado, can I get both of the guests to give a quick two-minute bio? So we get straight to the money.
Right on. Well, thank you. Appreciate you letting me come on here. My name is Aaron Chapman. I am an author. I'm into the real estate finance game. Been doing that since 1997. Also a grandfather, which is an interesting environment to be in, husband and now author, published author. And excited to come on the show and talk about business, talk about the book. Also, I'm going to introduce my brother Eric Chapman, who illustrated this piece of art.
Brother, tell us.
My name is Eric J. Chapman. Father, husband, illustrator, now book illustrator. I find that oil painter more what I do, but this This opportunity came to me, and it's been an amazing experience to do so.
Tell us, you sound busy. You got a lot of things going on in your world. Why did you decide to write a book?
I was at an event, much like what we had here, and Robert Allen spoke, where we I don't know who this man is, a powerhouse in real estate author, one of the New York Times best sellers way back when you couldn't manipulate it. He was speaking not on real estate like he normally did. He was talking about books and how to write a book. Well, I had published other books, but everything he said you shouldn't do, I did on the other books. I cornered him and said, Okay, I'm going to need your help. I'm going to pull these back from the publisher. I'm going to finish them. He's like, No, you're not. The longer we talk, you're going to write another book.
From scratch.
From scratch. I'm like, I don't want to write another book. I've already written it down. I've already got 800 pages that I need to correct.
No way.
I had this crazy idea. I had my 800 pages. Another publisher read it and said, nobody gives a shit. Make something that somebody will give a shit about. I was on a call with my my mother-in-law, and he said, Hey, you should actually break up your chapters into individual little books. So I published those, like the dime novels of the 1800s. They were cool. But Robert, when he described what I did, I did it wrong, and I asked him to fix. He went, Let me fix. I said, Okay, so what's this book going to be about? Because you tell me. Well, I'm not the one wanting to write it. So then we got talking, talking, talking more, and then we hit something. And he said, I'll help you with the outline, but you go from there. So after we did the outline, I just started writing, and it started to just flow, and in five months, it was done. I would send him a chapter at a time, and he had said, This is perfect. Keep going. What do you mean perfect? You're Robert Allen. You're the most critical sumbitch I've ever met in my life.
When he sees a book that's crap, he'll tell you, This is crap. He'll throw it. He goes, Perfect. Go. Hit another one, hit another. Then we're 13 chapters in. He says, You need to illustrate this book. I'm like, How am I going to illustrate this book? Who do I get for an illustrator? Do you have an illustrator? He goes, No, I've never illustrated in my books. Like, Okay, so what do you think I do? He says, Call an artist. I'm like, I only knew one. I called Eric up, said, Do you illustrate books? He's like, No, I don't illustrate books.
Yeah, illustration was... I did one book before. I mostly do oil paintings for people's homes and whatnot, portraiture and landscapes and all that. But I didn't like the process when I did it the first time. It was all right. But after I got Aaron's vision of what was going on, it really intrigued me. This was going to be a different approach than anything I'd ever done. How could I say no to that? I love a new experience.
On the painting side of life, some people paint for money, some people paint for passion, some people paint for their livelihood and to pay the rent, some people paint and make extravagant prices, and some people make it for 50 bucks and 500 bucks or a thousand bucks. How do you decide as a painter, what's the charge for your work when it's typically up to the value that either you perceive or your customer perceives?
For me, I charge based off of size and medium. And there's a certain element where over time I've developed an idea of how long something's going to take, how much effort is going to be involved in there. But so as to not feel like someone's getting If you had two paintings of the same exact size, same exact medium, and one costs more than the other, clients, they scratch their head about that. So I try to keep it that way just based off of that.
And it also started out be a lot cheaper endeavor. I mean, we were going with 14 paintings. It was actually 13 paintings. It was 13. It was 13. Just because of 13 chapters. Then after he read Robert's Ford, because after Robert finished the book, he wrote a Ford that was unbelievable. I still can't believe that a man like that would write a Ford like this.
Wait, he wrote the Ford?
Robert wrote the Ford. Dolph DeRousse wrote my afterwards.
He's illustrated the book.
Then Eric, we were driving down the road to my dad's place. I said, You should illustrate the Ford. He's like, What do you mean? I said, No, do the same thing you did with the chapters. He took the illuminated manuscript from the 1300s, the religious books, and he rednecked it up for the cover of every chapter. Every chapter, when you read it, it's painted into the cover art for the chapter. Well, then I wanted the book to look like something you'd pull off the Vatican wall, an old beat-up leather-bound wall, an old beat-up leather-bound You should actually illustrate the forward, too. So after reading the forward, he painted what his mind had for the forward. Well, then we went to find an editor, and his wife is a professional editor. She was too busy. She was, Hey, call these three guys. I reached out to them and said, Hey, I've got a book that Robert Allen wrote the forward for and I need somebody to edit it. Like, oh, Robert Allen wrote a forward. We'll take a look at it. But then they started bastardizing my book. They would rewrite it to thou. They would write a book.
I'm like, that's not my book. Well, that's how I edit. Like, well, then you're not my editor. So I called another guy. You may know him, Allen Stein Jr. He wrote, raise your game and sustain your game. I'm like, buddy, I need some help. I need an editor whose balls are attached and not there for decoration. He's like, what do you mean? I said, every editor I talk to wants to bastardize my work. I need somebody who will dig in and just do it how I did it. He gave me a name. So I reached out to this guy. He goes, send me the manuscript. The guy read it within a week, got back to me, goes, I'll publish your book. What do you mean publish my book? I'm ready to get an editor. And then he sent me his information. He was CEO of a publishing company. Wow. Says, This book needs to get published. Not everybody's going to like it. Not everybody needs it. But the people who do need it badly.
What's the title of the book? What's the name of it?
Redneconomics.
Explain.
It's basically the economy of an ass beating. Just like Gaugn's talks about, just like white talks about, just like what you talk about. Life is a series of beatings, and it's going to sort you. You're either going to step up and take the beating and get what it's going to give you and then plan the next beating you're willing to take to achieve what you want to get, or are you going to let it just push you down into the ground, you're going to fade into nothing? This is me giving people the formula to plan the beating you're willing to take. Being that we both grew up cattle ranching together, we've been through the beatings and how it is to be successful in that type of environment, really any environment. It was me taking those values and applying this here. Then other people putting their name behind it, Robert Allen, Dolph DeRousse, that publisher, and other people who have read it and put their endorsements on that, to me is monster. I still sometimes can't believe that they would put their name behind it. But now we're out trying to, and yourself, allowing us onto your podcast to talk about our work that we pray has a dent just in at least one listener's life.
So we talked a little bit about the making money side. Let's talk about the investing side. Once someone starts to make money in their career, they want to invest into real estate, how would they decide, I'm going to invest into Airbnbs, or I'm going to buy short term fix and flips, or I'm going to buy multifamily, or commercial, or storage units, or RV parks? There's so many options. What would you say to someone how to figure out what might be right for them?
I'm talking to the individual and find out what's the point. Why do you want to get an investing? What's investing going to do to you? A lot of times people think that when it comes to real estate, it's a very passive thing, just like going to stock market. I put a down payment closing costs and it just pays you money. I was like, no, you're now becoming a business owner. This real estate is a business. You have to create the business. So instead of selling them on, Hey, go to this guy and get the real estate and I'll do your financing, let's dig down to where you're heading. Most of the time it's because people want to leave a legacy to somewhere. A legacy has been defined as money, but it's actually leaving behind a process system, stop processes, leaving behind what you did to create that. I take them all the way to bread bedrock. Let's figure out how you're going to put that capital together. Let's get your entities in place, gets you trust, gets your holding company, let's start the LLLCs, and they start working on the financing for that. But let's understand what's going to create the most value in the real estate itself.
You can go all kinds of directions, as you just said. But let's look at what I believe is the most valuable per square foot real estate, which is a single family home. They're not making much more of them. It's becoming scarcer and scarcer and scarcer. If I want to get my tenfold hat on, we can go all the way back, pre-crash, and all the things that have happened that led to the hedge fund that hold the bulk of the single families out there are turning our society into a subscription-based economy. If they don't get in on that subscription providing part of it, then they're going to miss out. I want to get people into that part of it because it's easiest to get into, easiest to get out of if things get bad. But also understanding the is the biggest value, and that is the leverage itself. We have grown up in an environment where people want to tell you that the mortgage is debt and that you're going to be beholden to this thing for 30 years. So put extra in and pay it off. Do the debt snowball. And I'm trying to tell them to stop, quit listening to that.
That's the banking world trying to program you. When you have an environment where somebody is willing to come in and give you 80% of the capital for your business, but take no stake in the business, let You keep that business, yet somebody else pays them back at a small percentage every month for the next 30 years, and you get to keep the asset that appreciated. You get to keep the asset that somebody else paid off. You get the tax benefits, you get the cash flow. Who wins? It definitely ain't the bank, and it sure as hell ain't the renter. The other thing that's awesome about the bank, what people don't understand is that you're paying it back with the US dollar. I like to illustrate something to people with this. Let's go back 30 years ago. It was actually a little more than 30 years ago. I walked to my very first taco Bell in 1994. It was Moses Lake, Washington. I bought two crunchy tacos, two bean burritos, and a drink for a $1. 99. What does that cost right now? Now, you probably don't go there, right? Somebody in this You might know, but right now it's 14 bucks for those items.
For two tacos and what?
Two crunchy tacos, two bean burritos, and a drink. It's $14. It was a dollar 99 back then. Of course. In 30 years, it swung over 800 % in the buying power of the US dollar.
800 %.
In the buying power of the US dollar. It's not because they made bigger burritos and bigger tacos, and it's not because RFK Jr. Now discovered it's a superfood, and he's telling the whole world. It's because the dollar is buying less. I'm going to pass this to you. Tell me what that is.
It looks like a Susan B. Anthony, but it's gold version.
It's a Gold Liberty, and it tells you the The denomination on the back is an 1888 US gold coin. Tells you how many dollars it's for.
I don't see it.
It's in the band,. They'll tell you it's 20 bucks. It's hard to read on that one. That means it's the same as this. Will this buy that?
Will $20 buy a $20 coin?
Yeah. Will it buy that $20 coin?
This $20 coin?
Not today. What's the price of gold?
Gold?
A lot. It's over $4,000. $4,000? This $20 won't buy my socks. But in 1888, actually up until the early 1900s, that gold coin would get you a hat, a hand tailored suit, a shirt, a tie, a pair of socks and a pair of shoes. Like I said, this one would buy my socks. Why is it that that $20 is not this $20? What's interesting about a loan to people to be able to buy real estate, you get to pay it back with this, not that. So What that means when you get a $200,000 property and you put 20% down, you're financing $150,000, you're paying them back every month for the next 360 months. The math tells you you're going to pay $420,000 for that $160,000 loan. But when you look at what's happening to this, you're actually paying $152,000 or less. You pay back less than what you borrowed. That's why the banking world has convinced people you need to pay it off faster, that you need to do the debt snowball, and that you need to take your extra cash flow and pay them They want their money back faster so they can put it into somebody else's hands.
The longer you take the pay, the less you actually pay. When you refinance for rate, you're being taken advantage of because it's not about the dang rate.
How much is that coin now?
That coin right now is about 4,700 to $5,000.
That coin?
That coin.
That's a lot more than 20 bucks.
A lot more than 20 bucks. Because this is backed by nothing. Absolutely nothing. If you look what's happening in the world today, you look back interest rates, people keep wanting to know the rates are going to go down, the rates are going to go down, the rates are going to go. They're not going to go down unless we start doing quantitative easing again. That was started on, it was announced for the first time and at the end of November of 2008. We all know what happened in 2008. And that from that point on, November 25th of 2008, all the way up until the end of 2021, there was a lot of capital that was printed, shoved into the economy to keep our rates down. What's interesting about that date, if you look back after we had quantitative tightening, where we went down the rate spiked up in 2022, every time we've hit the level in the mortgage-backed securities that was set up that day in 2008, every time we hit, we bounced off it, bounced off it, bounced off it. We are presently right now at the lowest rates that we should have and less moved upon by more quantitative easing by the federal government.
I think they're going to do it to crash the US dollar to get us into a digital currency.
All right. On the charity side of things, talking about making money, investing money, giving it away. Why do you think it's important for a family household to have some type of charity component, whether it's financially, emotionally, or taking the kids out, taking the parents out, taking the friends and neighbors out to an actual give back, feed the homeless, clean up the beach, go to a senior citizen home?
But when it's commanded, it's biblical. So money is a resource. I look at it just like a river. As it's flowing, all the big cities started growing up around rivers, correct? But then when it gets dammed up, what ends up happening? When it pulls up, it becomes corrosive. It will eat things. It will kill things. It needs to move. It doesn't just need to move for the purpose of you because then you become a corrosive person if it's just for you. It needs to go to something bigger. We need to build up that charity. I think that if we as humans became more charitable, we wouldn't have a lot of the problems that we have in the world today. I think that as far as the charities are concerned, it gets us out of ourselves, gets us to become aware of more things around us than what's in our own heart, and we don't become corrosive people.
Yeah. If communities don't give to communities who will? Families don't give. Then you've left it to the government to do it, and that's not helping anybody.
Well, they use that for slavery. People giving it to people is to elevate, become more. I think we become more by giving. What's interesting about that is the more I let it flow in the source of giving, and I don't worry about that source or where it's coming from, more just teams to come. I've never had to worry where the core capital is coming from when I'm giving it. When I have to worry about it is when I'm keeping it.
There's only one question that I ask every single time on every single episode. It's been 200 something, 240, I think, episodes, and I've never gotten the same answer before, and I'm definitely not going to get the same answer tonight. Fifty years from now, 100 years from now, it's time for you to finally pass away. What percentage of your networth you end up leaving your children or your grandchildren?
At that time, it'll be 100% of the net worth that's left, whatever it is. The intent I have right now with the family trust and with the holding companies and the LLLCs and every single member of my family is living in a house that's owned by the trust. They pay the trust, and my children are all beneficiaries of that trust. I will use up all the cash capital that I have available to me, but the life insurance policies and all things go to them. What legacy I leave to them is what to do with it. I'm not leaving them capital because the money never really leaves the trust. It's how do they perpetuate it. How do they ensure that the next generation has something as well and the generation after that? There are certain rules in place that they all have to abide by to be able to sit on the board of the trust to decide what the money is done with or what's done with the money. If they don't meet those obligations, they don't get to vote, but they don't get to take it out either. They get to perpetuate it. That's the job.
That's the goal, is to make sure that the next five, six, seven, eight generations are still perpetuating that. It's not for the sake of the family name or Aaron Chapman. I'm the first in my family to have ever created this and start perpetuating. I'm teaching that to my clients. I'm showing that to every single one of my clients. I'm creating a software to help them to track it and manage it. So if something happens to them, their family can log in and see it. I love that. It's not paperwork locked up in a safe. It's not looking for keywords in a Google Drive. It's literally built in the way they can click and see everything and they can access every point and they know exactly where it was drawn to. Because I'm tired of seeing generations being left behind. I watch my grandkids. I got three little grandkids, and they walk up, I see them, and they don't have a chance. Unfortunately, their parents have not been given a chance. It's up to me to create the chance for both. The legacy that I am leaving is the knowledge of what to do. What they do with it is up to them.
What do you think?
I'm an artist. I'm supposed to be starving, right? Isn't that how it goes?
Well, eventually, your painting is maybe worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Yeah, it's possible. Anything It's possible.
But what if 50 years from now, you've sold 100 paintings, and they're tens of thousands, 50,000, 100,000 each, and you actually have amassed wealth from this passion project that you had on the side and becomes something that builds fortune.
Mostly bought by the Fleishman family.
Yeah, there we go. I'm not sure. I'll be honest, it's not something I've actually even thought about. You see, in my family, whenever somebody died, there was a big fight. We're talking about when a grandparent on both sides of our family, it was a mess.
They picked through the rubble.
My father, right now, he's just coming to us directly and saying, You want this? You want that? It was one of those things where it was, in my mind, that thought was a pariah, and maybe I haven't addressed it because of that, because I saw my own family get broken up by it.
It was interesting to watch on both sides, my father's side and my mother's side. What's interesting, they have lost contact with their siblings over that stuff. Yeah. Fragmented. Absolutely.
Here He's in the stories all the time.
Oh, yeah. My dad's trying to keep it all together. My dad has more money now than he's ever had in his entire life. He's 79. Seventy-eight. Seventy-eight. He's turning 79 here real soon. He has more money he's ever had in his life. We finally got him to put together trust and put it all together for my siblings. I did not want to be part of it. I helped him put it together. I helped him collect what he needed to get and get all that stuff in place, but made sure that was not written into it. It was written into it for my siblings.
If he were to write me, if I wasn't included, I wouldn't care because I don't want to fight my siblings. Yeah.
We're not going to We're not going to perpetuate that.
Yeah, I'm not trying to cut you off. I guess I'm playing with you.
No, that's okay. But it's something that I see my siblings struggle. I see them fight through things. I've been blessed monetarily to not have to fight those, but I still fight. I mean, let's just be honest. We're both... That's where we're here for, because the battles in the hell and the destruction is, slaying the Dragons all the time. Sometimes you can't even come home and take off your armor because you need to keep it on there, too. It gets exhausting. But resources I have Resources I can use, I'm not going to take from others. That's one of these things I think is probably one of my Achilles heels, but also my greatest strengths is I take from no one. I'll go earn everything that I get, and I'll make sure that whatever it is I do, people benefit from. But it's also something that is also Achilles heel because I ask from nobody. I will suffer. I will walk 100 miles for a call for a ride. That's true. I don't let people's lives be blessed by helping me, and it's wrong. Damn it, I'll go bless other people's lives, but I'll go walk 100 miles to carry them the 100 miles that they would have walked if I have to.
All right, so where can people find the book? Find you, find you guys on social? Tell us everything.
So you can go to erinchapman. Com. It's part of the easiest way place to find me. The book itself will be getting sold on quitjerkingoff. Com. It's also going to be on Amazon. It's going to be on Barnes & Nobles, it's going to be on all the other places like that. S-g-o-c-erin, that's where you'll be able to find me on Instagram. And that's me.
My Instagram handle is @ericjchapmanart. I know it's long. E-r-i-c. Then I have a website, ejc-art. Com. I will have a piece in a group show over at the Brennan Gallery in Scottsdale come December. That's for the month of December. It's a 12 by 12 show. If you're in Scottsdale, December, I believe the 11th is the reception for that. All the pieces are for sale, of course. Last year, my piece sold before the show even started.
To another artist, which is amazing. One of the guys that this guy has been looking up to for decades bought his piece, which is complete- He has quite a collection.
It was very flat.
It was amazing for me to walk in and see that, see that whole situation. I'll just tell you about this thing here. It's not going to get released until July 13th of this next year, actually, my dad's birthday. But this piece here, this book, I have an enormous amount of capital tied up in this book. He gave me- It was like '61.
There's illustrations in there.
He gave me an enormous discount, even at $47,000. When a person buys this for 28 bucks, you're getting $47,000 worth of artwork to hold in your hand, which is, to me, an amazing bargain just in that, even if you don't like the words. Then, quite frankly, I even tell you right in the first paragraph, throw the sum bitch away if you can't stand it. But somebody is going to read it and somebody gets something.
But I will say everyone that's looked at that book, especially if we've been at this event, oh my gosh, nothing but positive. Everybody that has their thumb through it, read through it, check it out, their feedback has been incredible. We're extremely appreciative to be here, by the way.
As far as the time, I'm not sure where we're at in our 35 minutes, but I do need to share. I didn't let my parents read the manuscript. I intentionally don't want to read the manuscript. My mother has a lot of influence on me. She's 73 years old. I'm a 51-year-old man. She'll still chase my ass around the house with a chancla. I have a Hispanic mother. I finally let her read the book after it was in print. She asked me when it was getting close to the print, she goes, Could you read this to the savior? I said, He's already read it five times, mom. I don't know how to tell you. She finally approached me after reading. She goes, Yes, you can. She goes, Let me tell you one more thing. I wished I had this to give you when you turned eight. Now, she read it five times. She called me the other morning. It was actually the morning before I came here, before you guys invited me out here. I'm working out. My phone rings my mom at 6: 00 in the morning. She goes, Can we talk about your book?
I'm like, Oh, she finally found something. She's going to bust my chops over something here. She goes, I just finished your book for the fifth time, which blew my mind. I asked her, How many books have you read five times? She said, Only scripture. She's read thousands of books, but never anything else five times. She sent me a picture of the last page where she wrote in it. She went on that fifth time, she went, I finally have decided to I finally found the strength to forgive myself for the failings as a mother. I don't remember a whole lot of failings. I remember a lot of volatility in our life. My mom's a very passionate woman. But for my own mother to be able to do that. Then I looked at the picture of what she read, what she sent me as I read the page where she highlighted above where she started to highlight it, it says in there, If you've gotten this far, you're only 20 % done. You got four more reads. I don't know why I wrote that when I wrote it. But now I know it is for my own mother.
Let me tell you something. There's something special about being able to create something that does something for the most important woman in your life that raised you. Now, aside from my wife, there is nobody more important to me than my mother, and it changed her, and it gave her some strength that she can find somewhere else. If that's all I got out of this book, then it was worth every dang cent I put in it.
All right, guys, you know what to do. I want you guys to check them out across social media platforms. Check out the book, check out the websites, check out the art. When you hear episodes like this, it's not just about yourself, there might be people in your past, present, and future that should be hearing these things, hearing from guys like this that have built businesses, gone after their passions, writing books that change their lives and open up people's eyes to different things and aspects. And too often, we just think about ourselves. We have to be able to talk about money. We have to be able to talk about business. We have to talk about these things that go on in our world because it's part of our daily life. Money is not the root of all evil. It helps pay for your family, for your hospital bills, for situations, for groceries, for electricity, and all the things that go on in your world. There's a tiny, tiny, tiny subsection where the evil part comes in. The other 99. 99% of money is used for good. It's used for a useful tool. And so we have to have these blunt discussions about it.
So like, comment, subscribe. The whole reason we've been able to do this podcast, I spend 70 grand a month for the last two and a half years to just keep it free. There's no ads here. There's no commercials here. I want you guys to listen through these short and focused episodes. So actually listen through the whole thing. We have a 93% listen-through rate, so I want to keep it that way. It's always up to you guys by sharing these podcasts. It truly helps us. Appreciate you guys. Check them out across social media, and we'll see you guys next Monday here on themoneymondays. Com.
In this special episode, Dan Fleyshman sits down with three guests, Raul Villacis, founder of The Edge men’s empowerment movement, and the Chapman Brothers, Aaron and Eric, who recently collaborated on a thought-provoking and visually stunning new book. Together, they share insights on entrepreneurship, financial discipline, personal growth, creativity, and giving back.---Raul Villacis is the founder and CEO of The EDGE Program, a movement helping high-performing businessmen find purpose, discipline, and clarity in every area of life. Before leading thousands of men around the world, he was one of them, a man who had achieved success on paper but felt empty inside.---Aaron J. Chapman is a veteran of the real estate finance industry, speaker, and author, while Eric J. Chapman is a professional illustrator and fine art painter. Their latest collaboration showcases the intersection of entrepreneurship, art, and personal growth reminding listeners that true wealth lies not just in money, but in meaning, impact, and legacy.---Like this episode? Watch more like it 👇Building a Billion-Dollar Platform Across Law, Healthcare & AI w/ Sean Callagy 💰: https://youtu.be/HEyjoJSrIgQHow One Man Went From Prison to Building a Fitness Empire (REDCON1) | Aaron Singerman 💪 : https://youtu.be/9p4dpUEEFDITurning Setbacks Into Millions: Tim Storey & Natasha Graziano On Making, Multiplying & Giving Money: https://youtu.be/Stbx6c5bawIFrom Mowing Lawns to Madison Square: The Grind to Pro | Andre Berto 🥊 : https://youtu.be/INn4jL1iRR4Watch ALL Full Episodes Here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs0D-M5aH-0IOUKtQPKts-VZfO55mfH6k---The Money Mondays is a business podcast here to teach you how to make money, invest money, and donate money by showcasing some of the world's most successful people and how they do the same. Hosted by serial entrepreneur Dan Fleyshman, the youngest founder of a publicly traded company in history, this money podcast gives you an exclusive behind the scenes look at how the wealthiest celebrities, entrepreneurs, athletes and influencers make, invest and donate money.If you want to learn more business and investing while you work to improve your financial life, you're in the right place! Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@themoneymondays?sub_confirmation=1Dan Fleyshman,The Money MondaysLearn more here: https://themoneymondays.comWatch all the podcast episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs0D-M5aH-0IOUKtQPKts-VZfO55mfH6kLet’s Connect...Website: https://themoneymondays.comPodcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-money-mondays/id1663564091Twitter: https://twitter.com/themoneymondaysLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-money-mondays/about/TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@themoneymondaysFB: https://www.facebook.com/The-Money-Mondays-110233585203220/