Turn $0 into Millions: A Veteran's Investment Strategy

"RAISE CAPITAL LIKE A LEGEND: https://offer.fundraisecapital.co/free-ebook/"

What if you could turn $0 into millions, escape Wall Street's broken system and build wealth without risking everything? See, a Navy veteran just cracked a code, and he's about to reveal exactly how he did it. 

So whether you're broke, frustrated with traditional investing, or hungry to create real estate financial freedom, this next episode is for you all this and more coming right now.

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[THE GUEST]:Thomas McPherson is the CEO and founder of Lukrom.

[THE HOST]: Ryan Miller is an Angel investor, former VP of Finance, CFO of an insurance company, and the founder of Fund Raise Capital,  https://www.fundraisecapital.co where his strategies helped emerging fund managers and deal syndicators to report raising over $1B following his strategies.

Transcript

Ryan Miller  

My name is Ryan Miller, and for the past 15 years, I've helped hundreds of people to raise millions of dollars for their funds and for their startups. If you're serious about raising money, launching your business or taking your life to the next level, this show will give you the answers so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of Making Billions. Let's get into it. 

Ryan Miller  

What if you could turn $0 into millions, escape Wall Street's broken system and build wealth without risking everything? See, a Navy veteran just cracked a code, and he's about to reveal exactly how he did it. So whether you're broke, frustrated with traditional investing, or hungry to create real estate financial freedom, this next episode is for you all this and more coming right now. Here we go. 

Ryan Miller  

Thomas, welcome to the show, man.

Thomas McPherson  

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. You know, I was just telling my wife the other day we were actually watching some of your videos on YouTube, and she said, Wow, this is so cool and amazing. I was lamenting the fact that shows like yours in particular weren't available when I was in high school. So I just want to say, thanks for putting out amazing content. Literally, 20 years ago, I'd be glued to my phone watching every single one of these. I love it.

Ryan Miller  

Well, I love it too, man, and it's been an honor to have amazing guests like you've been fortunate to be in the top 2% in the world for podcasts. It's all because of amazing guests like you, brother. So with that being said, you're very kind. I'm just curious, why do you believe that Wall Street is in a death spiral?

Thomas McPherson  

Well, the fundamental word, when it comes down to it, is alignment. You know, that really is where I think Wall Street has missed the mark, you know. And I can take that back to kind of when I got my start to investing, even just to a couple of years ago when the really 60/40, traditional portfolio split just completely fell apart. I mean, major index, indices and bond portfolios down over 20% in 2022. So, you know, I think if you weren't sure before, that would be one of those years where you could really say, you know, hey, is this the right move? And I've got a bit of a philosophy, you know, find people that have what you want do, what they do, you'll get what they've got. And I look at ultra high net worth investment groups like Tiger 21 and they don't have a portfolio that is 60/40 they have a much more diverse portfolio than that, including a lot more representations in the alternative investment sector. Meanwhile, I read this, I haven't fact checked it, but JP Morgan has the single largest exposure to commercial real estate debt, I think, through not only direct lending, but through derivatives. It's in the trillions, upwards of some outrageous number, like $20 trillion through derivatives and everything else. I just thought, this is totally insane, man.

Ryan Miller  

So that goes back to the alignment question, where, you know, keep me honest, but it sounds like you're suggesting that there are people who move the markets. I remember back in the day Elon Musk would send out a tweet, and markets would go a certain way, or certain Fed chair or head of a global bank. And I think what people are waking up to see is to say maybe those comments are not as aligned. So he's suggesting that there may be a hint of a moral hazard where the incentives are misaligned with Wall Street and Main Street, and that's why we think Wall Street's in a death spiral.

Thomas McPherson  

You know, undoubtedly, I remember back in 2008 I had just separated from the military, I had made a series of stock market investments that did spectacularly, and then they imploded spectacularly, right? And I distinctly remember, you know, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, CEOs coming out on like, Friday afternoon, everything's fine, we'll figure out how to navigate this. And then by Sunday, it was announced that they're filing bankruptcy. Right? What happened in those 48 hours that we went from fine to bankruptcy? Oh, and by the way, you know, I will and the rest of the executive team will stay on board to make sure that the wind down goes appropriately, and also so I can collect my $20 million golden parachute pension package that was negotiated upfront. So those are the kinds of things that I think that Wall Street frequently misses the alignment for what is in the best interest for all stakeholders, not just the shareholder. Because if you're constantly chasing that next quarterly result, you're not actually optimizing for the long term, fundamental wealth growing and creation, I think, as a stockholder, we're seeking.

Ryan Miller  

Yeah.

Thomas McPherson  

 And that's one of the I love about the there's a really amazing book I forget the author, called predictably irrational, and it talks about how the human psyche is horrendously irrational, but very predictable in this way. And one of the things they did a lot of research on was people and their innate desire or lack of desire, to cheat, right? And the further removed you are from people, or from relationship, or from a moral hazard, or from even just stating, like, if I were to ask you, hey, what are the 10 Commandments, and then ask you to take a test and in which you could cheat, literally just asking you to state a moral position reduces cheating down to almost near zero levels. So you know, when people get that far removed from the people that they're supposed to be looking out for, I think that creates an opportunity for the human psyche to effectively break that link of what they should be doing in the first place. Morally, ethically, legally.

Ryan Miller  

I love that, and so that's probably why, and I would agree with that sentiment, and that's to the degree that we're starting to see more people shift their assets. And this is why we're talking about the 60/40, traditional split may not be what Wall Street their prescription for all ales. And now you're starting to see people go into real estate, venture capital, private credit, hedge funds, whatever that is, private equity and a lot of that's why I think we're about to enter to the golden age of alternative assets. Alternative investments is to say, okay, right, we get what we get. We know what we get and some people are kind of like, I don't like what I'm getting from Wall Street, perhaps, right, just a theory. And so now these alternative asset fund managers like yourself and the things that you do at Lukrom and your own private deals, now, people are starting to carve their own, their own path, right? They're they're flipping houses or doing deals, or they're investing in people who do so I'm really curious then, because I know you and I have, we've known each other for a little bit now, and you told me a really cool story about in that time that you were going through it, it was 08 and then you had a really cool experience with fidelity that really a light bulb turned on. Maybe you can walk me through that.

Thomas McPherson  

Yeah, well. And so I had an experience in 2008 as I mentioned, where I had made a bunch of money, effectively blindly investing. I didn't have the depth or breadth of knowledge or experience to know what I was doing. And I happened to get lucky and just made a couple of really good picks. And then, you know, in, oh, wait, September 29 specifically, I remember the day the Senate didn't pass, Congress didn't pass the stimulus package, the doubt goes down and absolutely craters, and I got completely wiped out. So again, I had just separated from the military. I had basically zero net worth, maybe a 10, 20, $30,000 positive net worth. And in a day, I went down to negative 80, right? And I was in a bit of a dark place to be totally honest, you know? And when you're in the military, there's a certain amount of camaraderie. I had recently separated, and I lost that social connection, that kind of social net, and lost a lot of that camaraderie. Now I just kind of got kicked in the teeth financially and I said, you know, instead of depending on others, I'm going to place bets on things that I know I can influence the outcome of right? And the area that I really been leaned into happened to be real estate, and that offered me an amazing opportunity, because now I can either, like, I can't affect the whole market, right, I can't affect the tide, but I can pick which boat I get into and the condition of that boat, and, you know, where we go. And so in doing so with real estate, I was able to pick the market, pick the product type, timing, put together the equity stacks, the debt stack, and all the other aspects of the deal that you need to do. And so I look at it as in life, you want to make as many asymmetric bets as you can right some measurable downside, but significantly massive, you know, by a factor some some factor more upside and real estate for me was that avenue to be able to do that, because you can be hyper specific, hyper, hyper local with your knowledge, you know, maybe infrastructure going in what neighborhoods have that up and coming feel. You know, as a young guy investing in real estate, I always look for like, where are the neighborhoods that I want to hang out and Where do My friends want to hang out? Because we're of that cool crowd. So I decided to again, get into real estate, and it's been a great ride since. And since then, as you mentioned, fidelity, they put out a great article on the wealth management insights and how alternatives can better diversify a portfolio you have less volatility, and even in some down years in the stock market and bond markets, like we had in 2022 real estate can still produce positive returns. So one of the reasons I love it.

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, absolutely and you strike right at the heart of alternative assets is gets you a little bit closer to the deal. It allows you to do it instead of just throwing money into a transaction or mutual fund. Not saying there's anything wrong with that, but what we're saying is it's saying is, seems like the public opinion or the appetites of where their money goes is starting to change, and you even see the shift in a lot of larger private funds as well, where venture capital funds are moving to late stage, and there's a lot of things to adjust to meet people's preferences. 

Ryan Miller  

Now I'd love to just dive in a little bit deeper. Let's peel this back one more layer. When, now you're a real estate guy, you're in alternative assets and alternative investing a big part of real estate, especially for those who start out, but pretty much all of it is dealing with debt and using debt and loans and different loans programs in an effective way. Just curious, you told me this story early on, when we first met, about how you pieced together that first four plex. I'm wondering if you could open that up from the context of financing that first deal, how did you go about doing it? 

Thomas McPherson  

I love it, and this is available to the folks that are in my specific situation and similar situations. There's a lot of programs out there available. So I think this is a great hack that many, many people should be taking advantage of so I'm a veteran. I served five years in the Navy, and a loan that is available to me as a veteran is a VA home loan, right? This kind of came about end of World War Two. The government wanted to get GIS forming the war in houses, and kind of push the American economy that way. So they offered to back these loans for GIS to purchase a residential property. Residential Property is defined as one to four units, and that's the important part, right? That was kind of the takeaway for me. So I used my VA home loan to buy a fourplex. And what I did was, this was actually cool. I not only did I not use any money down, but I made a little bit of money in the process. I found a fourplex that needed a little bit of work, right? One of the units wasn't livable. It wouldn't qualify for a VA loan. So I said to a friend, hey, will you buy that property? Hire me to consult you to help fix it up. We'll fix it up, and then I will be basically a guaranteed buyer for you, and I'll use my VA loan to buy it. And he said, sure, yeah, that sounds great. So we did that, and I wound up making something like $20,000 consulting fee, right? Buying a fourplex with no money down. I took that hack, you know, even just a little bit further everyone's always talking about, you know, increasing your income potential, which is always very important, but you can also decrease your expenses to improve that wealth gap, right? And I lived in this fourplex for free, the other three tenants paid my mortgage, my utilities, insurance, landscaping, all of it. So now I'm living in this fourplex for free, with no money down. I even managed to put a little bit of money in my pocket going in. And I lived there for several years, and I took advantage of the primary residence exclusion when you sell a home that you've lived in for two out of the last five years, and my wife and I lived there, and so we were able to sell the building for a 500 just north of a $500,000 profit, and we realized that entire gain tax free. So when somebody says, you know, well, it takes money, I don't necessarily believe that, you know, I think there's an FHA program that you can do that was three and a half percent down, and that's available to almost everybody. And so, you know, if you're willing to make, I view them as short term sacrifices to set yourself up for long term success, do it, do it early in life. Make as many sacrifices as you can. I view it like farming, you know, you're planting seeds that your future self will get the benefit from. You know, you're not going to get to enjoy the benefits of that, but your future self will. And I frequently think my past self, but I say, hey, thanks, man, that was a solid.

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant so, so you go from that you you make, make a few bucks, about a half a million dollars, so 100 grand a year. You're living with your spouse, and you live rent free. So this is a very nice profit for you. So not only did you have some good upside, but you reduce your downside on top of that. And it was a great move. And it sounds like that was the springboard that catapulted you into what you're doing now, which, now I'm curious. So how did you go from that to running Lukrom?

Thomas McPherson  

Yeah, you know. So I have a great mentor in a real estate business, and what he said was, hey, listen, here's what you want to do. You want to find a job in real estate that you can work, get paid for and learn the industry, learn the business, right? Really learn the nuance, the ins and in the outs. And so I started off as a multifamily broker, and I got to see underwriting a multifamily deal. I get to see the sale, the disposition, you know, all the marketing efforts that went into it, operationally, you know, the management everything. And so I did that for a number of years, kind of getting to see behind the curtain, if you will. And from that point on, I realized, you know, a there's a lot better returns to be made on the principal side of things. So after being a multifamily broker for about three years, I decided to start putting together my own syndications, my own investment groups and doing deals. I had access, I was talking to all the owners, and what I wound up doing was, at the time, this is the Great Recession, it was a heavily distressed market. So in addition to trying to get listings and do traditional real estate deals, you got to get really creative and find where other opportunities might be that could be short sales, REOs, auction, seller financing. And in my case, I made a ton of money buying distressed debt, there were a lot of banks that wanted to get bad loans off of their portfolio. They had regulators breathing down their net. And so I became very accustomed to dealing in the distressed debt space as a tool to get to the title or to get to ownership of that real estate. And so a lot of people are talking about private credit now it's the new cool thing, which is fun. That's nice. I got a backdoor to private credit, and I came in through the distress side how to resolve bad credit. It's ironic, I guess my career, you know, in the military, I was a combat medic. I guess he had just like, that's my natural entry point to some of these things. What can happen when it goes wrong, and then I back door into figuring out how to run it so that it doesn't go wrong. 

Ryan Miller  

So that gave you a good, we'll say, a backdoor, but an inside track on the funding and the financing, as well, as doing your first deal on that fourplex as well, what I found interesting is I looked at your firm, is I noticed that this may not be exactly the best way, but it looks like you got a bit of a green thumb, not in the traditional sense of gardening, but it sounds like you got a you really have an affinity for, we'll say green real estate. I don't know if that's a real term, but just using a lot more sustainable methods in real estate. So I'm wondering if you can unpack that and some of the ins and outs, the good, the bad, the ugly of developing real estate in that way?

Thomas McPherson  

Well, I think that a lot of folks in the space have done a huge disservice. You know, you've heard the term greenwashing, right? You kind of say ESG, or you say sustainable, and then, in theory, people would throw money at you so they could virtue signal and talk about how great they were. And I think that if you think about development, in particular, real estate development, a little bit more holistically. You say, hey, listen, do you want to breathe cleaner air? Do you want to drink cleaner water? Would you like to have more natural sunlight? Would you like to have less cortisol levels, higher alertness levels, be more productive? How about would you like to generate higher rent, deal with less turnover, right? Would you like to have more efficient energy systems and be a better steward of our natural resources? All of those are undoubtedly yes answers, right? And so what we have done is we're approaching real estate, as you know, one of the things that are uniquely human, the built environment is something that is, again, very uniquely human, and it has been effectively unchanged for 100 years, give or take. And we think there's this incredible resource just sitting right here available to us to do a little bit better, right? And if you can differentiate yourself in those ways, that's when you can in a sea of homogeneous, you know, sameness, you can rise to the top. And that, I think that's a really important thing to do in whatever aspect of business that you're pursuing. And so for us, we did choose sustainability or high performance, and it turns out we're actually getting the highest rents in our market because people are willing to pay a premium to live somewhere that gives them the Health Options that aligns with their values. Then when they get to those buildings, when they get to that property, it turns out that they found their tribe, right? Because everyone else's values align. There's a really great book called Value Graphics where they talk about this and what's unique is now we have lower turnover, we have less vacancy issues. Was a matter of fact. We have people that move out, and have people requesting their unit friends of theirs to say, hey, I actually want to live there. And so the these buildings were actually building community that, ironically, become sustaining in and of themselves. So, you know, we're taking it beyond just that kind of greenwashing, because we don't get it perfect on the design, the energy performance and all that other stuff. But what we're trying to do is really change the conversation right around what is possible, and show both municipalities say, hey, look, we've done it. It's not conceptual. We've done it show other developers what's possible, but most importantly, give the consumer an option to vote with their money, because at the end of the day, whatever they vote for, we will see more of just like, you know, Steve Jobs. We didn't know we wanted the iPhone, but as soon as that became an option, we wanted it. 

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, I love it, man. And you know, you bring up a good point, and this, this is, this is brilliant. So, so you have a thesis where people invest with the values that they care about. So you provide them with an investment opportunity that is really great for their values, or they can take a moral frame. Is to say, sure, like we, we have these real estate assets that you can do. But what's really cool is, as you're building them and developing these things, you're not just creating real estate assets, you are, but you're also creating communities with people of shared values. And I know you went really fast, but I caught that, I see what you did there. So this was really good, and I don't want that to get lost. Is to say because you invest, because you have people who move into your projects, and you're developing these neighborhoods, but the way that you're doing it is you're attracting people with similar values. Now you actually have a community. And so I could see why people want to move in when their friends move out, is you're saying it's not just a place, but it's a bit of a vibe. Would you agree?

Thomas McPherson  

I totally agree. And you know, we hear it from quite a few the residents, they say, literally, you know, I found my tribe, right? This building, or in this property, this community is really my tribe. And what's really fun and interesting about that is all of the, you know, economic benefits for the stakeholders on the investment side, but then, you know, the managers of the property, the neighbors of the property, and then the residents of the property all really love living there. And so one of the other things that about real estate, I've noticed, is incredibly important. If I'm looking for an apartment building in a particular area, a lot of the new stuff all looks the same. You know, they've got a game room, they've got a pool, they've got the same amenity packages. There's no real way to distinguish or differentiate yourself. But when we come in, you know, there's a few things that people are willing to pay virtually unlimited amounts of money for, and their health is one of them. Because we realize that not only is it, you know, the quality of life, lifespan, but it's also health span, and when you can tap into that, you know, I think I read the other day that the medical industry is the number one employer in something like 30 states or 20 states, you know, so we really are willing to pay virtually anything to ensure our health. And our buildings are at the forefront of both energy resource good stewardship, but then also, you know, the resource of your own health, your connection to self, your connection to nature, your connection to your community. These are all things that fundamentally drive the health of our communities.

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant man and and you mentioned, plus, you get a premium out of that. So it sounds like you've, you've created a really cool product where everybody wins, investors, managers, and, most importantly, your end users of your product. I absolutely love that. So you know, we wouldn't be a show called Making Billions if we didn't cover the market. So market. So I'm just curious, from what you're seeing, what are you seeing out in the market? What's what's going on from your vantage point? 

Thomas McPherson  

Well, our primary market is Phoenix, Arizona. We are in several other markets, but that's our primary market. We are still a robust, growing economy. We've got one of the largest fabrications in the world going on right now with Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company building what I believe has so far been announced as 165 billion fab facility in North Phoenix. So we are again continuing to see robust population growth. With that robust population growth, our home and housing prices have been relatively stable, stable demand. We've got a great diverse employment base. And so our market, we are seeing listings stay on the market a little bit longer, but we're actually seeing prices hold or even increase in highly valuable areas, and that's both on the commercial side as well as the residential side. Now real estate is, you know, always, location, location, location. There are markets in the US that are not seeing those same growth and incredible economic numbers. So one of the benefits of living in a growing market is you don't have to have the best tactics, as long as your strategy is good, and our strategy is to invest in high growth markets with diverse employment bases. You know, I grew up in the Midwest, the Midwest City that I grew up in has been declining in population for the last 40 years. And you know, you don't see real estate prices doing what they do in other higher growth markets that are in Texas and Florida and Arizona and others. You know, if you don't live in a high growth market, but you love living there, consider investing in a high growth market.

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant man. And where do you now? You kind of touched on it, but where do you see the market going then, so we know where we're at, but investing is a big part of taking a position based on future ones. And obviously this is just your opinion, not financial advice, but I'm curious, from your opinion and your perspective, where do you think the smart money is going in the future? 

Thomas McPherson  

Undoubtedly, well, to really zoom out, and I don't know how to capitalize on it yet, but I think a lot of smart money is going to be looking at Africa as a continent. It is going to be one of the only geographies in the world that will continue to experience robust population growth. And as we all know, you know, national GDP is a function of population and your per capita GDP, right? So if you've got more population, that national GDP goes up. So aside from investing in Africa, I think the world in which we know and understand and live in will only become more and more abundant. We are effectively limited only by what we can conceptualize, because we have infinite resources, effectively infinite resources at our fingertips and so I think we will see more abundance in the future. We will see, you know, more people get pulled out of poverty and into amazing economic situations. What does that mean specifically in the US? You know, right now, we've got an administration that has given us a few head fakes, a couple different directions, as far as tariffs, as far as policy goes. I think that that is part of the overall strategy, which is to make it challenging to decipher what your next move will be. And if you can kind of obfuscate and make that very challenging, then people are kind of on their heels. They don't really know how to play right in that marketplace. And so much like shiny object syndrome, I think you just have to find your focus, put your blinders on, and go for it. Because I can tell you from personal experience, all too often I get distracted by the latest headline. I get everything all bunched up, and then next thing I know, it's undone, right? And I spent a day or an hour or a week figuring out how to navigate that new thing. So, you know, one of the lessons that I've been given by some folks that have been around the block a few times is just find what it is that is going to be your focus. Stick to it like a rabid dog with a bone in its mouth, and just don't let it go. 

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, I love it. That's, you know, you touch on an important part of it, I say in my different organizations, which is, follow the trend lines, never the headlines. And so often headlines can say whatever they want, and that's a whole hot topic, and we're not going to go there. But with news and media, I know there's a bit of a shake up and kind of a rebranding and retooling going on right now, but I think more important than anyone who's worth their salt in this industry understands the importance of following importance of following trend lines over headlines, trust but verify. All of these things start to come together, these axioms that we hear in high finance, so following the data for sure is absolutely correct man, I love that, man. So as we round third base, I'm just curious, with all of your experience, you've been doing this for a while. I mean, you're a vet, you've pieced together different deals, you've worked in real estate and credit. Just curious if you have, say, two or three deep competitive advantages that you would like to share,

Thomas McPherson  

I think the single most important competitive advantage that any of us can bring to the table is our mindset. You know, that old saying, you can't beat me if I don't quit. Yeah, those, those real kind of, I found them to be truisms, for lack of a better word. I mean, they really are, you either have to or you get to, you know, and it's all in your outlook and approach. And you actually said it earlier, you know, what you put back and put out, you get back kind of by a factor of 10. And so if you're putting out the energy that I'm going to accomplish, whatever it is, you know, compel or high water, it's almost like, once you've made that mental decision, the path just opens right up before you. And so one of the things that I've found is, as I speak, what I'm trying to make happen into reality. I wind up finding people that have what I want, you know, and then I just copy them. I ask them, I copy them, I use, you know, flattery, but not too much. And I just say, you have what I want in this particular area of life, you know, if I can get coffee or once a month, once a week, or whatever that is, I do what they do, and I get what they've got. And then eventually you find yourself kind of a link in that chain, you know, teaching people and continuing to get mentors. So that's really fun is, you know, mindset, find people have that, have what you want do, what they do, and then what's the saying? Like, eat the frog first, do the hard thing first. That has served me, I do that with my kids. You know, I've got young kids, they're five and seven. I love being a dad, super fun. 

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, me too.

Thomas McPherson  

But right when they get home from school, they just want to take off and go play and goof off. And for me, it's listen, you need to take your lunches out. You need to clean up these little things, do whatever homework things you need to do. And then after you've done all those hard things, those things that you have to get done, you can play the rest of the day. You've done the hard thing  and I find that doing that first is not only a little dopamine hit. You know, you listen to guys like Andrew Huberman and like, why that's so good for the brain and stuff like that, but it becomes a muscle, and then you get good at doing the hard thing. 

Thomas McPherson  

And that gets me to my final little piece here on life that has served me really well, and that's getting scared, being scared, getting scared, staying scared, because that's where the growth happens. You know, I call it forced evolution. I put myself in situations that I don't know how to get out of, and sometimes it can be a little scary. You know, I wouldn't recommend this. It's certainly not financial advice, but wouldn't recommend this to anybody and everybody. But being scared is again, where, like, that magic growth happens because, you know, you've got some anxiety and you've got some stress, and the brain is, like, trying to solve this problem, and that's all the brain is, is like this giant computer trying to solve whatever problem you've given it to solve. And so I've got a colleague who, I asked him, I like parachute sports. My thing is BASE jumping and wing suiting and skydiving and stuff like that and so that scares me, as it should. And I took a colleague to go watch and hike and watch me BASE jump, and he was fired up. He's like, man, you know, how did you know, what can I start doing to get more of that in my life? And I go, what scares you? He said, meeting people, going up to introducing myself to and meeting people. I go, well, great, do you want to be success in life? He said, Yes. I go, we got to get over that fear. Here's how we're going to do it. Let's start tomorrow. Go to a cafe in the morning, and I want you to introduce yourself to 10 people and he literally, his voice cracked. He said, really, you know? And he's like, look, man, my hands already shaking, and I thought it was so funny. Go. Let me tell you what's going to happen. One through three, the first three people, you're going to be sweaty, palms, nervous, heart fluttering, all that stuff. Four through six, it'll calm down a little bit. You realize that you're not going to die from introducing yourself to someone, and it'll be okay. And then, like, seven through nine, you'll be like, this is no problem. I got this. It's actually people are pretty easy to talk to. This isn't so hard. And then by number 10, like, that's where the magic happens. It's always that last rep you know number 10, you're now going to have the confidence of someone who has exercised this muscle, and you'll be able to present yourself so confidently, so that people can't help but be interested in what it is that you're doing, and want to hear what you have to say. And I go, and if you're lucky, you might get a few phone numbers from some cute folks out of it and so it worked out. He reported back the next day, on Monday, you know, hey, I actually made it all 10, and it was great. I was so scared, but by the end of it, I realized that there's nothing really to be scared of, right? It was all something that existed in my head, in the future, in some indeterminate period of time, in the future, and that's where I think a lot of anxiety exists, is not being present in the moment. 

Ryan Miller  

That's absolutely brilliant. You know, you reminded me a friend of mine is he's partners with another fellow veteran, Jocko Willink and so his name is Brian Littlefield. I was fortunate to be in Miami, and we caught up and had some good food. And he talks about that very thing. And he said, in our company, we have that culture, and what we found is the place where you get scared is the point between reaction and reflex. And so when you have something, then you have a moment where you react, or it's actually a reflex. And he said hesitation is like gasoline on fear, and so a lot of the times in their culture, and I'm sure that comes from military, but I don't know. I've never had the fortunate luck to serve my country in the way that you have, but I have nothing but love for what you've done. But one of those things that I find absolutely fascinating, and it sounds nice, and it rhymes, and it's easy to say, but it's really hard to do personally, and I can't even imagine creating a culture around that, but it's really just saying, how do I train you to go from hesitation to activation. And moving from hesitation to activation, turning that into a reflex that I think is what you're talking about. That's the callus that comes from even if it's like your first thing is just say hello to 10 people because you're so shy. Whatever it is doesn't have to be this, you know, wildfire fight or anything like that, but it just has to be things of, you know, embrace the suck and seek discomfort daily and all of those things. I can't underscore what you're saying enough, brother. And so getting from hesitation and moving into activation, I think it just comes from what you're saying is just get scared. Put in the reps and do that, and pretty soon it'll be a reflex and not a reaction. Is that, how does that fit into what you're saying?

Thomas McPherson 

You've summed it up precisely. Not only does it relate to business, does it relate to, you know, being in the military and some of the stuff that I've done, but I think it's a general way of being. It's, it's, it's that, that little micro second that you just talked about where it's like the dragon goes through this period of hyperinflation, you know, it's almost like, kind of, you both stop and look at whatever the thing that was just happened, and it's like, whoever moves quick, whoever moves first, gets it, you know, don't hesitate. That is, that is where that dragon gets hyper inflated and becomes almost unbeatable, you know, but in that first second, second, it's that big.

Ryan Miller  

Oh, man, I love it. So before we wrap things up, is there any final remarks, anything at all that you can leave with ways people can contact you if they want to learn more and just get to know you, anything at all? 

Thomas McPherson  

Yeah, one of the, you know, I just, I want to, I would love to just wrap quickly on alignment and, you know, finding investments that suit your needs with managers that you know, I think there's certainly great things about some of the major investment banks and portfolios and Main Street offerings. And you know, if you've got the option and you've got the availability to go meet sponsors in your area, to go meet people who you can look at in the whites of their eyes and get to know them. You're going to help their business. They're going to help you accomplish your financial goals. And I think we should all be striving to do everything in life just a little bit better. So you know, if you're an accredited investor and you like aligned investing with people that put their money where their mouth is, which we've done in one of our investment funds, love to talk otherwise. Keep paying it forward, man. I think what you're doing you're doing, you're going to get back 10x and based on some of the stuff we talked about earlier, it's more like 20x which is great. 42x and I'm happy for you, man, so keep doing it big. I'm trying to, I'm I actually need your advice, your leave behind, or you're the one that's trailblazing. So you tell me what guys like I should be doing.

Ryan Miller  

All right, brother, well, I'm happy to help in any way that I can, I think if those who know me, they know I'm like that. So you're part of the Making Billions alumni, man, you just call me if I can serve you and take care of you in any way. So just to summarize everything that we talked about, find people that have what you want, do what they do. The other thing is, do the hard thing first, and finally, just move from hesitation to activation by just getting scared. You do these things, and you too will be well on your way in your pursuit of Making Billions.

Ryan Miller  

Wow, what a show, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Now, if you haven't done so already, be sure to leave a comment and review on new ideas and guests you want me to bring on for future episodes, plus, why don't you head over to YouTube and see extra takes while you get to know our guests even better, and make sure to come back for our next episode, where we dive even deeper into the people, the process and the perspectives of both investors and founders. Until then, my friends, stay hungry, focus on your goals and keep grinding towards your dream of Making Billions.