Secrets to Building Legacy Wealth with Powerful Insights from Tabatha Thorell

[0:00] This is the Wealthy Investor Show, where we don’t just talk about your wealth, we also talk about your holistic health. I’m your host, Matias. And I’m Erica. And this is the Wealthy Investor.

[0:15] Welcome back to the Wealthy Investor. Today, Erica had a podcast recording that she did by herself, and I am doing this podcast recording by myself. So by the time you’ve heard this, you’ve already heard the Erica alone debut. I’m sure she killed it. I’m excited to hear it. But today, I spoke with Tabitha Thorell out of Nebraska. Her and her husband have been investing for a while. It was a really interesting story. She’s a coach, and she is creating this legacy wealth project where she wants a mastermind of people that will kind of come together to learn the ropes and get going with their property investing, push past the fear, push past whatever limitations you may have to get the wealth growing, to have the properties to start that off. Because a lot of people talk about that they want to have a property, they want to invest in real estate, but they never do. And there’s usually something that’s stopping you, probably fear, ultimately. I know money is not always abundant in everybody’s life, but that is not really something that’s going to completely stop you.

[1:19] There are ways, and part of it is definitely mindset. So she wants to help people with that. She also wants to help people pass on the legacy to their kids. And I think that’s a really important thing that often gets overlooked when we’re talking about, you know, I want to create a better life for my kids. I think I hear that kind of thing all the time, but I don’t really hear people worried as much about the bad that comes with it. And I think that I’ve definitely, you know, through my years, have seen people that have not always benefited really from having wealth as a second generation or third generation person. And I think that it can actually kind of hinder development if it’s not done sustainably. So I think, you know, money has a lot of power. And with a lot of power comes a lot of responsibility, not to get too cliche. But I have heard that, you know, you know, if you were to give money to a charity, if you were to just drop a lot of money into a charity without any kind of parameters, just go run with it, you could actually run that charity into the ground. And it’s kind of a weird way of

[2:28] thinking. But it might be similar to somebody who is, you know, you hear the stories about the athletes that come into a lot of money, and then their careers over, and they had never learned how to be financially literate or how to manage money. And they came maybe from a poor background, where they were never taught that. And then all their money’s gone, or the people that win the lottery, and don’t know what to do with their wealth. You definitely have a responsibility as you create the legacy for your kids to help make sure that they are able to, you know, the financial literacy is part of it to, you know, not run out, not to live a balanced life that, you know, what is balanced, but to live a way that, you know, they’re, they’re growing more than they’re losing, that the money isn’t just going away, that they’re building. And I don’t say that, like, they have to be into real estate, or investing necessarily. But I think living sustainably is a key piece. And ultimately, you know, living a fulfilled life, whatever gives them passion, whatever gives them joy, the goal would be for the money to just be,

[3:39] enable them to get there, maybe faster, maybe, you know, give them a little bit of a head start, if whatever they’re into, but that they would then run with it and make it their own thing. And so that’s, that’s one of the things I’ve definitely struggled with. One interesting thing she talked about was actually creating, you know, like a mastermind, where the kids also would have their own kind of mastermind, so that the kids would have a similar line of thought that, you know, we are trying to instill in ourselves. So like, you know, your, your net worth is your network. If you know, the people that you are surrounding yourself with, really have a big impact on your life. And that’s obviously true with your kids as well. And that has true for limiting beliefs and finances, just as much as it is. And you know, if they’re going to be party animals and promiscuous as teenagers. So really interesting food for thought. I hope you enjoy Tabitha on The Wealthy Investor.

[4:44] Welcome back to The Wealthy Investor. We are here with Tabitha Thorell. Tabitha, thank you for joining us. You are based out of Nebraska. Yes. Yes, I am. And you said you’ve been investing for about 20 years now. Can you, can you tell us a little bit about your investing journey? Yes. Well, thank you so much, Matias, for having me on your podcast. It’s my honor to come and share with your audience. I started 20 years ago. So, you know, when I was two, I started right now. My husband and I started when we were in college. We weren’t married at the time. My husband had a previous experience because his dad started rental properties. When my husband was about 15 or 16 years old, he bought his first income property and my husband helped him renovate it and like kind of property manage it type of thing. And so when he was in college, he was like, hey, Tab, I just want to buy a house and live in the basement and rent out the top. Would you help me, you know, like design it and stuff? And I’m like, oh yeah, awesome. Let’s do this. You know, this was back 2004.

[5:45] Before the term house hacking was out. Yeah. Yes. Well, and that’s kind of when the first like reality show of flipping kind of came out back then. They were still more like documentaries. And so we’d watch those and I’m like, of course, let’s do this. You know, it’s going to be just like the show. Yeah. Right. But we just love to take old things and make them new as well. So we were like, we bought this big old house. It had nine layers of wallpaper and we’re like, let’s go. And so we made it all pretty. We put like chair rail and crown molding. We just made it this old house new again and we put renters in it. And my husband lived in the basement and he was able to essentially live rent free. And I’m pretty sure have some, a little bit of cashflow in that investment. And I remember after the first year, the tenants moved out and we were, you know, assessing the property and the chair rail was broken and there was holes in the wall. And I was like, ah, you know, like our pretty house. But we just learned early on, like we still wanted to make the houses nice, you know, because I was like,

[6:52] I think everyone deserves to live in a nice home, you know, no matter what. So if we are going to provide that for somebody and we’re going to, you know, provide affordable housing for somebody, we still wanted it to be nice, but maybe take it back a notch, you know? And so it was just a learning curve for us. And that was the beginning. I was 19, he was 21. And within that next year, he bought his second property and we were just kind of off to the races. He wanted to live rent free, but something that your audience needs to know is that we saw plans of getting married and we knew our jobs were not going to be with a corporation. We were going to be some sort of entrepreneurs. My husband’s family were farmers. He was also getting his construction management degree. So whether he was going to be a contractor or a farmer, if I was going to work from home as a real estate agent or, you know, have my own business, I knew that there was going to be no retirement plan for us.

[7:49] And so we did it as a way early on. We saw, okay, when we’re older, this is going to help us retire early, you know, help with the finances when things get tough. You know, we saw it as another bucket. And so there were two reasons why we got started. And I think that’s important for people to realize because whatever reason you want to invest in something, you have to look at the why, like, why are you doing this? And then you have to stay hold of that because when it gets hard, you really do have to look at like why you started in the first place. Yeah, no, absolutely. Cause I would imagine those tenants moving out and destroying things after you, like your first thing that you’re probably super excited about, you’re super energetic and probably had a lot of your heart in, that’s probably hard. Um, our first property was our first house. Um, and I recently toured it, we’ve had the same tenants in it and it’s, it’s been, uh, lived in hard and, and especially your first house, uh, is it’s, you know, we got married and bought it right at the same time. And it’s hard, it’s hard to see. So, but you, you gotta like realize everything’s fixable

[8:56] and it, in the big picture, keep the why in mind, exactly what you’re saying. Like it’s, it’s, it’s a small potatoes for the reason you’re doing all this stuff. Yes. Yes. Cool. Yeah. So then you, you all, uh, just kind of kept accumulating single families. Like what, what else have you invested in? Yeah. So we got married, had some kids, bought some more properties. Single family is where like our sweet spot is just because of where we live. The return on investment is so high that it’s kind of like for us, it’s a no brainer. And his dad has a lot of single family homes as well. And so for the first 10 years of our marriage, he helped manage those and work on those while we were accumulating and he farmed as well. And I was a coach. So we all, we had these different businesses and raising our kids. Um, and we didn’t have a really good mentor that was like pushing us. Um, sometimes I look back and I think, Oh, I wish we would have, you know, been a little bit more aggressive, but the season that we were in was the season we were in and we were scared. We didn’t have the right mentorship. I did seek out a few

[9:59] different coaching groups, but they just, the reviews weren’t great. It was a lot of fluff and a lot of things we already knew. And I needed someone that was going to uplevel us. We just didn’t really jump on that. So what I did was I just invested in me. So I just hired coaches and did things for my mindset and my money mindset, because I knew it wasn’t just about real estate because that’s only going to take you so far. I was like, I have to change my mind on business. I had to change my mind on money, on fulfillment, like what it meant, like with our kids and all of like all the things. So I knew that was going to take time developing me. And so I just invested in me and we just slowly accumulated more properties. When they would come up, there would be days that I’d say, we’re selling all of our properties. I’m so sick of this because honestly, we did it all ourselves until just recently. Like we property managed, we fixed everything. We started hiring out like plumbers and stuff like that because my husband can do it, but he hates it. So we started slowly hiring stuff out. Oh, probably eight years ago, like that kind of stuff, but he was still fixing everything.

[11:15] We were still dealing with all the tenants. We were doing all the fulfillment, meaning like all the applications and stuff. That would be the first thing that I tell people, get a really good property manager. We just were living in fear. We didn’t, you know, again, it was like, we just kept doing what we knew because then the ROI was really good. We were still growing and we were kind of like, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. But then the way that we wanted to scale, we were like, there’s no way we can scale at this. Like we have five kids now. I was running a coaching business. I was like, I can’t property manage all these properties because right now in the next two to three years, we will time and a half are trying to think more than double our properties that we have.

[12:02] And they’re all single family, um, some duplexes, some quadplexes, but for the most part, that’s kind of like what we stick into. And then we have some, um, storage units that we’re negotiating. And that’s kind of, my husband likes to work with like RV parks and storage units. That’s kind of where his sweet spot is right now. And of course we would love like a big multi-unit apartment building, um, that hasn’t been available for us yet, but we’re always open to that now. Five years ago, we probably would have been more hesitant, but now we have the systems and we have the mindset to actually obtain that and not kill us or kill our marriage because that was, I was like, we can’t have all this and then us crumble because what’s the point. Right.

[12:46] Yeah, absolutely. And I think, I think like, it’s always a different, it’s different for everybody. Um, I knew that, uh, first of all, I don’t have tons of, uh, handyman skills. Uh, I never really learned them. Never, never really was something that I loved and had any passion for. Yeah. And so, and, and, you know, I started off as a realtor, so I was very busy. I got really busy with sales, uh, before really starting to accumulate property. And I decided from just the get go, I was like, you know what, if I have to feel like I need to go fix everything that ever comes up, I I’m going to hate this. I’m going to stop. And so I just drew that line from the very beginning. And I don’t think there’s a right answer there. Like, I mean, everybody, some people see that they have to do, they have to fix the toilets to start to get to where they want to go. And that’s fine. And I think like, it’s more about analyzing where you are, what you really want, the purpose of everything you’re doing. Right. And, and how to get there. Like, I mean, planning and being intentional to, to get to that end game is just key. Well, don’t get me wrong. Like what I would tell people now is

[13:51] I’m like, you work on your money limiting beliefs because that’s what held us back. Uh, like his, I love his dad, but his dad was very much like a guy has to do it himself or he’ll never make any money. I mean, that’s what hardworking, both of our dads were like extremely hardworking blue collar. You know, his dad was a farmer. My dad was an electrician. So we just had that, like, we’re just going to do it ourselves. And my husband is a perfectionist. So if we did hire it out and it didn’t happen the way he wanted, he would just be frustrated because then he’d have to redo it anyway. So, you know, it was kind of that like, well, and in the beginning we were just really counting every single dime, every single nickel. And if we would have grown faster and had the right mentorship, I think we could have like jumped over that a little bit and really put it off to other people that had the skillset and just went through that learning curve early. But again, we were both kind of scared and we both didn’t know. And so we were just like, well, we’re both kind of like, oh, we’ll just do it ourselves. We’ll just take it on ourselves.

[14:53] And I don’t recommend that to people just because you do burn out, even if you can do it. It’s almost, it’s almost bad that my husband has such a great skillset because he can really fix any, I mean, honestly, and he can do it by himself because he’s done it so long that he like makes, he’s like MacGyver, you know, he like does stuff that two men are supposed to do. And he likes to, or he’s like recruiting me. I’m like, you’re just lucky that I actually am willing to do this because, you know, most people don’t, but he’s just, he’ll just do it to get the job done. You know, he doesn’t want to wait. And so it’s like, it’s like a double-edged sword. Cause I think it did get us started and we weren’t fearful going in. Like we’re never fearful of a house that like the foundation is bad or the roof look, you know, the roof is leaky or whatever. Um, or people go in and they’re like, Oh my gosh, this house is disgusting. That doesn’t scare us. Cause we’re like, well, you can fix that. But somebody who doesn’t have that skillset where they think, Oh my gosh, I can’t even imagine coming in and fixing this. Then they stop. So again,

[15:56] it’s like that given to me. That’s a good point. I think you really do. And I think I learned a lot about, um, through flips, not me actually doing the flips, but through managing them. I feel like I learned a lot about like how much you can salvage and like how far $30,000 can go and how like a, uh, an ugly house seems like to a lot of people like, Oh my gosh, like this is going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars when it’s like, no, that’s gonna be like 30. Yeah. Yeah. You can do this. You know, it’s like, there was a quote and it was like, give me a hundred thousand, like this house can be made over easily with a hundred thousand dollars, but only give me 20 and see what can happen. You know, it’s like, if you really want to challenge, you stretch that budget. And that was one of the things in the beginning for us, that was a blessing. It didn’t seem like it at the time was we didn’t have a big budget, but we were able to stretch it. We were able to be creative. We were able to be inventive. And I just listened to, um, a podcast where a guy talked about that. He said, being broke is really can help you because you have to be creative when you don’t have any other

[17:04] options. When we were in the beginning, we didn’t have any other options. We would stay up late. It stretched our determination muscle. It stretched our persistence muscle. It stretched us, you know, being tired and doing it anyway, and still learning to have a good attitude and keeping our marriage like top notch because that was always important for us. Well, that was a skillset that we learned in the trenches when it was really hard, when we were both tired and irritable and we have babies and tenants and renovation projects. Now, when you’re in it, it sucks. And you’re like, please, God send somebody to like help us. But when we’re in it, it’s really stretching that muscle and building that muscle because now where we’re at, our growth can happen like 10 X and we can actually handle it and it won’t crumble us. And I think a lot of people, they want that success. They want that million dollars or that, um, you know, seven figure portfolio, but do you have what it takes to withstand that? And I’m not just talking about systems and people and business. I’m talking the mental, the characteristics that it really takes to withstand that. And I can sit here today and say,

[18:18] yes, we can. I mean, will it still be a struggle and a stretch? Absolutely. I hope so because everything worth having is that. If you’re not growing, if you’re not, if you’re not pushing yourself, you’re, you’re, if you’re staying in your comfort zone, um, then it’s, it, it, you don’t get that fulfillment. I mean, so I think there’s, it’s, it’s, you’re not going to grow obviously, but I think that pushing through the hard stuff and getting past it is one of the key areas that you just feel so good afterwards. Um, and even when things, when everything seems to be falling apart and it’s just pouring on you from every direction. Uh, if you remember that when you get through it and things are good again, you’re going to appreciate that moment so much more, uh, because you felt how bad it was. And you’re so much better off. It’s like, you’re a completely different person, whether you recognize it or not. So then when that happens again, it doesn’t even seem like a storm.

[19:11] Like there’s stuff that happens now that if this happened 10 years ago, I would have like, I would have been like, Oh my gosh, this is horrible. And now it’s like, okay, this is just a little shower. Like we’re fine. And then we’ll have something that will feel like a hurricane and we’ll come out of it and we’ll be better people. And you know, the cycle continues and that’s just life. But it’s like what I know people always say like, it’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey. And you kind of like, you know, um, you’re like, I just want to get to it. And the thing is, is if you, if you really true withstand it during it, then when you do get there, it’s exciting. Like you have this sense of like, man, this is really cool. I could do this again.

[19:54] I want to do this again. It was worth all the things. It’s kind of like, I mean, you’re not a female, but like when you’re pregnant, when you go through it, it’s like, they’re a pregnancy, like there’s really good things about pregnancy. And then there’s really things that suck during it and you go through it. And then when you’re done, you’re like, Oh, okay. I can do that again. Right. But when you’re in it, when you’re like 10 months pregnant, like me, cause all my kids were overdue, you’re like, I’m never doing this again. It’s the heat of the summer. I’m going through 26 hours of labor. You know, this is horrible. But then at the end of it, it’s like, Oh my gosh, I would do this 10 times over to get the same feeling. And that’s what happens. Like whether it’s real estate, whether it’s a business marriage, like all of those things, but when we get in it and we get in our own head and the enemy pulls us that way, and we’re stuck in frustration and maybe the bills are piling up and that investment doesn’t seem like a good investment, like trust the process, you know, especially with real estate, because unless you got really duped, which I’m not saying

[20:54] that doesn’t happen. There’s always redemption there. It’s just about being creative. And that’s the thing that I think, like I said before, when you’re forced to be creative and you’re forced to bootstrap it and do everything yourself or whatever, or find, you know, trade services or find a contractor that’s just starting out and then helping him along the way. We’ve done that because my husband knows what to do. And so we’ve helped people get businesses off the ground and then he helps them and he, you know, vice versa and you be creative. And then pretty soon that investment that you thought was horrible can turn around and be the best one yet. That’s great. No, I love that. You mentioned family, you mentioned having to go through the hard stuff with your husband. How do you maintain the balance? What are some key strategies you’ve figured out to maintain balance with your relationship, with your kids through any, it sounds like both of you are on board on this real estate journey and you’re both high achievers. It takes a toll. How do you, how do you manage? Well, silly Matias, there’s no balance. There’s never a balance on

[22:02] anything. I get this question more often than not. And here’s the thing there isn’t, but that’s okay because I’m balanced. I think it’s about who I am as a female. And if I feel centered and balanced, and what I mean by that is, is my health on point? Is my spiritual life on point? Motherhood, do I feel like, okay, this is what, you know, I’m feeling really fulfilled there business wise, investment wise, like, am I feeling excited about stuff or do I wake up with dread? That’s when I know that things are just off and then I have to go internal and think, okay, why am I doing this? Am I doing this for significance? Am I just trying to get somebody to say, good job, Tab. Awesome. Or am I doing this to help my family financially so we can go on a vacation and have a great experience together? Am I doing this to be a role model for my daughters? You know, so it’s, oh, it always comes back to that. Why? And I know that is a term now that can be overused, but it really does help anchor me and keep me balanced. Because if I’m doing something just to show off or be like, I need like, you know, I’m feeling a little insecure and I need to like prove myself. Cause in my twenties,

[23:18] I felt like I had to prove myself. Um, just growing up kind of chubby and this and a whole bunch of baggage. I felt like I had to prove that I was worth it. Like I had to prove it. So I’ll find myself being pulled to that. And I’m like, wait a second. Like, why are you doing this? What, what are you needing? Like I asked myself this and ask everybody to say like, what are you needing right now? If my marriage is off, if I’m bickering with my husband and nitpicking him and just saying like, Oh, you never do this. And I find myself just, you know, being super critical of him. That’s something with me that has nothing to do with him because he is the same person. I mean, we all change and grow, but like at the core, he is the man I fell in love with. And I think that’s what a lot of people forget. It’s like, why did you fall in love with them? Cause they’re still there.

[24:08] And if something is happening, it’s usually a you problem. And so I just look at me and say, okay, what can I do? Like if say me and my husband have a little tat, you know, we’re just like bickering on everything. A couple’s no, it’s just like, ah, I just tripped over your shoe and you’re mad. And it’s like, really was that big a deal? No. You know? So then I go like, what’s happening? Okay. I’m feeling frustrated. Cause we’re not progressing in this business part of it. Or maybe I’m feeling a little insecure as a mom, because right now I have two teenagers and two toddlers and one in between. And so it’s like, I don’t know how to navigate this. I’ve never parented teenagers. Right? So like, if I’m feeling insecure about that, it can come out in, you know, my marriage, or if I feel very unfulfilled in like my business life, if I feel like, you know, I’m just grinding out and not getting results, I will take that out on my husband or my kids.

[25:04] And I have to say, okay, tab, what’s going on here? Like, what do you need to do? Take time for yourself, figure this out. Because the why always is, how can I be the best version of myself for my kids, for my husband, for my business? And if I, if that’s not it, then there’s something going on. And that’s for me, that’s how I get the balance, or I just anchor myself. Well, and is that something you do intentionally? Or is that something it sounds like you kind of maybe ask yourself that question on a regular basis? You don’t do you have any systems that you would like, you know, you journal in the morning or something like that to kind of help with that process? Yeah, so I used to journal really avidly before my baby number four, and then she’s almost three, and she still doesn’t like to sleep through the night. So I like to get back to journaling, honestly, and this sounds so stupid. And people, you can make fun of me all you want. But like, I’ll go, we live in the, like, in a small town. And so I’ll just walk in the country. And I just talk out loud. Like, I’ll talk out loud to God. I’m just like, God, like, and I’ll just,

[26:08] sometimes I scream. Sometimes I mean, people probably think I’m a crazy person. They see it. But I verbally get it out. That is probably for me right now in my season, the best way. But now journaling is a better way, because you can like, go back and look at it and analyze it. But sometimes I just need to get it out. Like, sometimes I just need to be like, you know, or in the shower, I’m like, I’ll lock my door. It’s the only time I can get alone time without my kids. I’ll lock the door and even play worship music. And I’ll just like, be like, oh my gosh, why am I acting like this? Or in the car, if I am alone, I get all those frustrations out. And I talk with God. It’s my conversations with God that I have, because he’s the only one who knows me and can lead me to the right direction. Because usually what I’m mad about or frustrated about is not the actual thing. And so it gets me out of myself. And I know like the tendencies, like I tend to get frustrated. I’m a very fast paced person. I’m very passionate about stuff, which is great. But on the turn side, I can get frustrated and mad and annoyed with things.

[27:14] And I can get really opinionated about stuff. And then I have to just stop and say, is this serving me? How can we switch it so it does serve me? And then again, like, am I in alignment with who I want to be, which is an amazing mom, an awesome wife, I want to make impact for the world. And have fun doing it. And you know, the more money you have, the more you can give, like I just have visions of like, just anonymously giving people cars and like sending kids on like mission trips or like big youth conferences and people who can’t afford it, especially in the community we live in. Just very blue collar, amazing people, but they don’t have a lot of room for extras. So if I could buy that kid, you know, who would love to have name brand sneakers, all of a sudden they’re in his locker, you know, but anonymously, like those are the things that like, I know I can do with money. So when we’re building businesses, I look at it that way. When we don’t miss, we meet our mark. I’m like, dang it, I don’t get a bless somebody like, and so that makes me mad, you know? And so I have to go back to, okay, well, how can we do this? You have the resources,

[28:24] what do we need to do? And it’s just a process for me of just getting out of my head. Sure. Into the world. That’s interesting. No, I, so I’m a verbal processor, which you might be as well. Yeah. But I, I, I found sometimes even like chat GPT or some sort of AI that you can almost, almost use like a pseudo therapist. Don’t tell Erica I said this. I’m glad she’s not here right now. But you can like have a conversation and just the process of getting that out. And I think there’s actually, I don’t remember the name of the AI system, but there is a, something that would actually just, it’s designed just to ask you like questions. Oh, that’s interesting in response. But for me, what’s easiest and best is if I can say it out loud.

[29:09] So I should probably go do take walks around my neighborhood and yell. That’s, I highly recommend it. Or sometimes I coach myself. Like I will, like I’ll pretend like I am a client of myself. Like, what would you tell somebody who is whining and complaining right now? You know, like what would you do tab? And so like, I’ll play that. And it works for me. Cause I’m like, I just get out of my, so many people like listeners on here, you just need to get out of your own head, whether that’s journaling, whether that’s verbal. Yeah. Do an AI thing, whatever it takes, because it diffuses it. And it’s in the Bible. It talks about that. It’s like, when you verbally say it, it’s kind of like letting your light shine. Like when you say it, when you expose it, it’s not so heinous, you know? And a lot of times I think even in marriages, when people like have quarrels or fights, they just bottle it. When, if they just released it, they’d realize it really doesn’t hold so much power. But when you, when you hold it in for years and years and years, it just, it eats at you and the stuff that really isn’t that big becomes big. So even with my husband and

[30:17] I, there’s some stuff that I’m like, he doesn’t need to know that I’m mad about it at that because there’s really nothing that he can do. It’s my issue, but I still need to get it out. But there’s no need to like say it to him and berate him and make him feel horrible about something that one, he probably doesn’t have control over or two, like what he did. My responsiveness is my responsibility, not his of what he did. And so I don’t need to go and make like a big deal about like, oh, we got to talk about everything. No, I have to talk about everything because I’m verbal, but he doesn’t. Now, if it is something like with parenting or in a relationship that he’s doing, that’s, you know, causing conflict, of course. But if it’s the fact that he, you know, not that this happened, but like, you know, leaves the shoes out in the living room. Okay. Is that really going to like be the end of the world? No. Why do I have an issue with that? You know, like working through those things. And then a lot of times I go to him and say like, Hey, I was having this thing, but you know, and then it’s diffused and it doesn’t really matter anyway. And we can kind

[31:21] of laugh about it and move on. No, that makes sense. Um, you have the legacy wealth project that you have been working on. Um, we talked a little bit off air about it and there’s some things in that, that you talk, you told me that, you know, you want to help people think about not only their legacy, they’re giving, they’re creating now, but how their kids and their kids can, uh, take advantage of it. And that’s something I love and think about a lot. So you want to tell us a little bit about that? Yeah. So the truth is that by second generation, 70% of wealth is gone by third generation, 90% of wealth is gone. Look it up every statistic, Google, like, I mean, it might be within a few percentage, but that’s the statistic. That’s the reality that we live in, which means what you’re building right now, your sweat and tears, your time sacrifice, your money sacrifice, whatever, even if you’re just a professional, you might not be an entrepreneur, but you know, maybe you’re a doctor, a lawyer, you’re investing in your life right now, the wealth, the money, and let’s face it, the characteristics that you live behind are gone. If you do not change some things. And so I started

[32:30] researching this back in this winter and it was astounding to me because the number one thing that came up whenever it was like, you know, why is the wealth gone or why are their family splits after, you know, cause everybody thinks like billionaires just live it up, right? They have all the servants and the cars and they get to do all these vacations. And in the reality, they were split families, nobody that you would want to say of noble character, um, money blown, like just gone. And it was communication. It was that person that created that wealth was not connected with the family. And I see that even on a lower level, even just if you’re earning, you know, six figures, that entrepreneur, they’re hustling and grinding and spending the hours and spending the time and they’re doing it for their family and they’re doing it to provide, and they’re doing it to build a better life. But what ends up happening is the life at home starts to crumble. And I saw it even in our own family, cause my husband’s a farmer. So there are some days that he works 16 hours a day.

[33:39] And I told myself when we had our girls, I said, I will do anything I can to help bridge the gap for my kids and their dad. Because growing up, I did not have a relationship with my dad. I said, I hated him. I wanted nothing to do with him. I was so close with my mom. I, you know, I wanted him to die. Like, I mean, so many things, but the reality was all I wanted was time. Now he was trying to provide for a family of seven with a, you know, a wife who was ill. And so he was doing what he could, but as a kid, I didn’t understand that. He did teach me hard work, which was amazing. But he didn’t teach me that it’s not about just hard work because he was the hardest working person I knew. And yet we were always late on our bills and we couldn’t have any extras and there was no going on vacations. Right. And so, but work hard, work hard. And which was a great thing. It was a good start, but there was no talk about like investing and work smarter and trying to find a way and doing these things. And in his respect, he didn’t know that either.

[34:51] So he couldn’t teach it. But as entrepreneurs in today’s age, we all know that there’s a better way and that it is about a deeper thing than just the hustle and the grind. You know, yes, you need to be persistent. Yes, you need to be determined. You need to have ambition and goals. Those are important things. But without the characteristic of kindness and forgiveness and perseverance and grace and mercy and investing in not only physical assets, but investing in yourself, in your mind, in your body, in your marriage, in your child. You know, for parents on here, if you want to blow your child’s mind, just take a day, get one of those personality tests, figure out the personalities, then analyze your kid for a minute and then just talk to them and their personality type and just sit and ask them questions about it. And some parents are rolling their eyes like, oh, I asked my kids questions.

[35:54] No, you ask them generic questions, ask them specific questions and do specific things to their personality type. And they will feel so loved and they will feel so seen. Even if they’re a teenager, even if they roll their eyes, they’re going to remember that because you invested in them. And that’s the missing thing. So we’re we started this idea clear back in 2019 of getting, you know, entrepreneurial families together and really masterminding together because we’re a different breed, right? Like, I mean, entrepreneurs just have a different sense and there’s a lot of different masterminds out there. But if we could combine business and family and then have the kids even mastermind together and build friendships together, because my girls go to public school and it’s a great school, but there’s not a lot of people that have the same mindset as them or us as parents. So when we can have them surround by the, you know, because they would say the top five people are you need to surround yourself with. So our kids are no different. And so if we can have those and develop those opportunities for them to just develop, and then we teach them how to buy their

[37:07] first income property. So if they haven’t ever bought an income property, you know, a very simple way to start off investing. That’s not so scary. You know, we handhold, we teach you the step by step, we kind of push you out of the nest and say, okay, let’s do this, you know, because most people want to invest. That is the number one question that my husband and I get is, or statement is, oh, you guys invest in properties. That’s so awesome. We’ve always wanted to do that. So I ask them, like, why haven’t they? And you know, they kind of, oh, I don’t know. Well, it’s just so complicated and you have to have so much money or we don’t have the money and it’s all these things. And it’s a lot of limiting beliefs.

[37:44] That’s just not true. So we help you break through those limiting beliefs by your first income property, but then have an environment where we mastermind and we’re not, we’re not just throwing tons of trainings at you every single day. Cause let’s face it, we don’t have time for all these trainings, these groups that have all these trainings. That’s great. But like, I don’t have time for that. But if we can all congregate and really learn from each other and have our kids congregate and learn from each other and then like meet once or twice a year and just build those friendships and build those investment opportunities and maybe even business ventures collaborate, you know, be there for each other. I think that is so powerful in of itself. And that’s what we’re developing. We’re, we’re really looking at the marketplace and saying, okay, what do you need and how can we serve you in this way? Because we want you to teach the characteristics to your kids that will actually get them excited about it. Like want in on it. Maybe they don’t want the family business per se, but they’ll take all those attributes and make something better. And then they teach it to their

[38:50] kids and they’re excited about it. And you know, maybe they want the family business, you know, or whatever. And they just, it’s that the legacy of wealth is not just money. It’s wealth of your character. It’s how you connect with each other. It’s how big is the room going to be when you have your funeral, you know, and teaching them those things. But it can happen with money too. We always see this. Like you have the miser, right? Like the Scrooge that has all the money and nobody’s at his funeral. And then you have the grandma who is amazing, you know, and she’s the homemaker and she doesn’t make a lick of money, but her room is completely filled. And I’m thinking, why can’t it be both? Why is it either or, and it’s not, that is a lie we’ve been fed and we want to bridge that gap. And you do that by your internal family structure first. Now, I love that. I’d never thought about the intentionally planning to have kids be with, or have, you know, have like-minded kids with the same kind of mindset towards like money and character and stuff like that. Of course, we, we don’t want our kids hanging out with the riffraff. The druggies. Yeah. Yeah. But,

[40:06] but that’s a really good point. That’s really cool. And I mean, yeah, like it’s, I’ve struggled with that a lot. So I’ve, I came personally from not a wealthy family. Um, right. I wasn’t from a blue collar family, but I was from, uh, you know, my dad was a professor, um, and well-educated, but we, you know, actively kind of shunned money, honestly. And, um, so I had my own battles to get through with money and all that kind of stuff as well with mindset. Um, but, but one of the biggest things as, as I’m building all this stuff, as I’m buying rentals, as I’m doing all that and raising a family, is like, you know, how this is going to impact them one way or the other. And how do I make sure that they are well-educated? They don’t take it for granted. They see it as an opportunity and, and are able to run with it and continue. It doesn’t, again, like you said, doesn’t have to be the family business. It doesn’t have to be exactly what, uh, you do, but you know, how can they make it their own and take advantage of, you know, the prosperity, but, and yeah, continue it in their own way. Um, and that’s, that’s a tough, that’s a tough thing. And it’s not easier to be

[41:12] intentional about that as well. Well, yeah. And like you said, you haven’t even thought of that. Not intentionally. Did you not think of that? It was just something that you’re like, oh, I just don’t want my kid to hang out with the druggie or the alcohol or, you know, the promiscuous or whatever. But here’s, here’s the reality. It is very dangerous for your child. If you’re trying to develop them into some extraordinary, which I believe we all are when they’re surrounded by thinkers that are mediocre and not, again, this is not a judgment thing. Don’t send me hate mail on this. This is just the average person. And the book I’m going to recommend at the end of this is going to, if you read it, it explains a lot more about this, but the average person just does not, they want extraordinary. That’s why they’re, that’s why they watch the things. That’s why they’re jealous of people because they really want those things, but they either don’t know how to get them. Or like you said, like shun it because, oh my gosh, I would be bad. Like there’s some sort of belief system that in them, like I won’t be Christian

[42:16] enough. Like then I’m not going to go to heaven if I have all this money because the man with all the money is not going to go to heaven, you know, all these stories. But in reality, it’s like, that is just as dangerous as your child who hangs out with someone who starts drinking alcohol, because it’s the toxic thoughts that are here that are going to stop them from being everything they can be. And that could lead to addiction. That could lead to pornography. That could lead to promiscuity. That could lead to bad relationships because any limit that we put on ourselves, it overflows. It’s not just like one stream in our brain. It’s like toxic thinking on everything. And so when you can surround them, it’s just like you would never, okay. Like as a Christian, I’m open to other religions. Like I have no qualms about, I know there’s a lot of other different religions, but I would not want to put my child in a community where everybody like was agnostic or did not believe in Jesus. No way. I’m going to like, we’re going somewhere where they believe in Jesus because to me, your salvation is the number one thing. So I’m going to put them in an environment.

[43:26] Well, same with thinking. If you put them in an environment where they’re told constantly, like you have to test well to go to a really good college, to get a really good job, to go, you know, and, and whatever, make money. And, but, but don’t make too much money because then that money is like, then you’re going to be evil, but you want to make enough to pay off those loans that you just did because, oh my gosh, and heaven forbid you go to the hospital because it costs $72 for a bandaid. You know, like we have all these weird things. And that’s why like in this group, I want to like break open and like show people, even in our household, we don’t use the word expensive. I say that costs more than what we can afford right now, or that costs more than, you know, the brand that’s over here or X, Y, Z, because expensive is relevant. It’s like what and compared to what in the world, right? But they don’t have anything to compare it to. So it’s just expensive. And then we start saying like, everything’s so expensive and we just expensive.

[44:25] Well, you know what? A nickel’s expensive compared to a penny, but is a nickel really expensive? You know? And I think teaching kids that, and then I know we’re coming on 40 minutes. I’m not even sure how long this interview is, but I like to share the story because I feel like for parents who have, especially teenagers, or you have preteens coming up and you’re like, how do I teach my kids about money? Like these generation, like sometimes they feel entitled. Like when they turn 16, you know, they get a car or like, you know, they go to college and they have all this debt and everyone’s telling them to that. And it’s hard to navigate that and not to have a support system that says, you don’t have to go to college. You don’t have to give your kids everything they ask for. Okay. When I was growing up, you got something on your birthday and Christmas and that was it.

[45:11] There was no fluff. You might get some school clothes, maybe probably from Goodwill. I’m not sure. Okay. Now, if you lived a better life than me, kudos to you. I got a lot of hammity downs. I was the youngest of five, but so, but nowadays, you know, with the Instacart and Amazon, everybody’s getting everything so quick that it’s really easy to fall into that. And I fall into that too. Like, oh, you want new socks? Okay. What ones, you know, and just click it instead of that delayed gratification. But my daughter’s turning 15 this summer and she wants a car and we’re like, you got to work for it. So we match what she makes. That was just something that for my husband, I said, I want to bless my children because God blesses us, but also they have to learn to work for it too. So like if she earns a hundred, we match a hundred. So I’m like, depending on what car you want. So she’s known that for years. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. And, but we also told her, Hey, you can buy an income property and we will teach you how to make it cashflow positive. And so during school, cause she’s in a lot of activities, which she loves, I said, so during school, you don’t

[46:17] have to feel like you need a job because once you get that car, then you have to pay for gas and you’re going to be going to, you know, out to eat and that stuff is not coming from mom. So you got to figure this out. Well, we’ve been, we’ve been telling our two older daughters is for years, like since they were like 10. So it kind of goes in one ear out the other. And the other day we were working on, we’re renovating a pontoon and she was working on it. And I said something about it and she got really emotional about it. She goes, mom, I just don’t want to talk about it. I still want to talk about like super anxious. And I’m like, why are you feeling anxious? I just don’t want to talk about money. Like just stop. And in our household, like I try to avoid anxiety around money. So I was like, what is going on? So I let her kind of simmer. And I said, tell me what about this is causing this anxious feeling? I’m not going to judge you. I’m going to listen. And I said, what’s causing this?

[47:10] And what do you think you have to do to buy an income property? Cause I just wanted to hear what she had to say. And she goes, well, you have to work really hard and save a whole bunch of money. And then you have to go and then you have to like find all these people and do all this stuff and fix everything. And it’s just so time consuming. It just costs so much money. And I said, okay, I hear you. Um, what if you and I found a property and then you and me and daddy went into the bank and we signed for you and you were able to buy that house without a lot of money. And then we took you to our property manager and you met her and you worked out an agreement with them where they filled the property for you. And you just checked in with them maybe once a month.

[47:56] And if there was a problem, you would contact your mentors, which is your daddy and me. And we help you through the process. Would that be overwhelming? And she said, well, no, that’s really easy. Boom. The problem with people today, they think it’s all this stuff and it’s not. So if my 15 year old daughter can get this. So she’s like now, like, mom, let’s look at properties. Like, let’s go, you know, do this. And some people will be like, oh, good for her. She has parents. You have the same accessibility. I am a coach. This is what I do. There’s other coaches out there that will literally walk you through the process. You don’t have to bring any money to the table. You don’t have to know all the things. You don’t have to fill the property yourself.

[48:47] That’s the beauty of this. And that’s what I want people to understand. She built it up so much in her head and in her respect to her, she saw us hustle and grinding when she was younger. So she saw the hard. Okay. So she’s like, I don’t want to do that. So I had to, as a parent, step back and say, okay, like I did not, as parents, we think because we told them 10 times that they heard it and she didn’t hear it. But then when I stepped back and then I put it in her words, then she heard it. So then she got excited about it. That’s awesome. That’s really cool. I love it. I mean, yeah, my daughter wants, first of all, she thinks that I own all the houses I sell. Yes. She did. And so like when I told her she could save up for a house, she’s like, dad, you’re not going to give me one?

[49:42] I’m like, no, no, no giving here. And you’re welcome for that. That’s what I tell my girls. I’m like, you’re going to thank me later. Like I know right now. No, but they’re all different. Yeah. So it’s, it’s cool that they, you know, they’re getting that exposure one way or the other. So kudos to you for that. You mentioned a book that you want to talk about. I know you have two books. You want to, you want to tell us your favorite books? Yes. So this one, I even brought them because I think you need to see like how weather like this, I haven’t read this for a couple of years, but this was one of my, the first books that I read that really changed other than I can’t remember. I honestly think I read this before thinking grow rich. Um, I was involved in a network marketing company and of course they’re like giving out all these books and I’m just consuming everything because I didn’t have a business background. So anything, anybody that was making a million plus said to read, I was reading it. And this was one of them. And I just love it because it’s just a book about persistence. It’s about sticking the course and not quitting. And you’re

[50:44] so close to your gold or you’re so close to your diamond mind, like stick it out and figure it out. And it’s in story form. So it’s really easy read and also like good audible. So it’s three feet from gold. And then another one, I just recently got exposed to this, but I have read it. Um, I got exposed to it last year. I read it, consumed it, listened to it and read it. And then this year, every year I will read and listen to it again, because it’s changed my life so much. And it’s called outwitting the devil. And this is what I was talking about the people around you. Right? So Napoleon Hill wrote this book and he actually never published it. This was not published until recently. Um, cause he was scared and you’ll realize in the book why, um, he has a conversation with the devil and it’s a lot of, um, he predicted a lot of things that are happening now, which is like a hundred years later, which is crazy. Um, just with human behavior and why you need to develop a tenacity of staying in the uncomfort and how the comfort zone is, you know, just this little enemy, this little tease of like, just stay over here. But how just that one little off point can pull you

[52:00] in a majority of people? Like he talks about, it’s like 97% of people, which is crazy to me, but you hear that in the Bible too. It’s like many are called few will follow. So when I read this book, anytime I get stuck in myself, I’m like, no, I will not fall into the trap of, you know, modern day society. Like I’m going to go against the grade. And so it’s a, it’s a great book. I, I recommend listening to an audible because when you have the conversation with the devil, it’s two different voices. So it’s very engaging and, um, you like want to keep listening to it, but then also get the book to like highlight stuff in it. And it’s very good. That’s awesome. Those that have not been mentioned yet. So that’s, I, I have them on my list now for things to read. Um, and, and, and if people want to reach out to you, uh, what’s the best way?

[52:50] So I’m on Instagram and YouTube. So my Instagram’s tab Thorell, my YouTube channel, tab of the Thorell. Um, we have a podcast and it’s on YouTube and every podcast platform. It’s called what went wrong, the untold stories of bouncing back. So that’s a really good, it’s all stories of people who have literally hit rock bottom and like what they did to come back up and where they are today. So, um, if you’re someone like me who just loves stories, obviously, cause the books I gave you were about stories. Um, that’s great. And then, um, yeah, those are the best ways I’m on Facebook as well. And so you can message me, but those are, those are the best ways. Keep legacy wealth is the website, um, with our new project. Okay. We’ll link those in the show notes. Um, yeah. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, sharing your stories, uh, for your family and your, your old’s, uh, journey. Um, yeah, it’s been a great conversation. Thank you so much, my days. It’s been fun. Thanks for listening to the wealthy investor podcast, where we talk about wealth and holistic health. If you enjoy our content, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts

[53:56] to hear new episodes every Thursday. If you really like our content, you can follow us on social media at the wealthy investor wealthy spell W E L L T H Y.