My Financial Journey: A Personal Odyssey and the Why Behind My Work

TLDR

• Grew up in lower/ working class.
• Learned how to work hard and that money could help improve certain aspects of my life and provide greater independence and optionality.
• Taught myself a lot about personal finance, money, risk, debt, investing and business through necessity very early in life.
• Made a lot of mistakes with money, but recovered and learned a lot from them.
• Paid off $313k in student loans, built a long-term rental real estate business, started a few businesses, climbed the corporate ladder, supplemented real life with formal education with a BBA and a MBA.
• People work way too damn hard, take on so much risk and give up way too damn much of their time to acquire money, not to have some form of financial success over their lifetime.?
• Whatever a person defines as financial success to them, I have a burning desire to help them obtain it. I want to provide the guidance and assistance necessary to get them there.

To understand my “WHY”, I’ll need to let you get to know me a little.?

The early years…

I grew up much like most other people in the Midwest...often in a class many would call the working (lower) class.

If I had any kind of relationship with money/ finances as a young person, it was probably a bad one. The only thing I thought I knew about money is that you had to work very HARD for it, and nobody was just going to hand it to you (a lesson that would pay off in spades the rest of my life). When my parents worked, they worked hard, but neither one of their households ever seemed to have enough money to fully support themselves for long periods of time. Both of them were always in fear or doubt on when, where or if enough money was going to come in each week. That rollercoaster never seemed to improve year after year.?

Before we go too much further I would like to say for the record that I am not in any way casting shade on either of my parents, and that I believe they did the best they could with the information and environment that they surrounded themselves in. I’m simply stating personal history as it obviously has a meaningful impact on value systems and the lens in which you see certain topics in this World…like money.

My parents were divorced and my brother and I bounced around between whichever parent seemed to be in the best situation (financially & lifestyle) to take care of us at the time. My mother was a bartender the majority of my life and worked mostly night shifts for tips. My father was what I would call a nomad working many different jobs for a good amount of my childhood and then became an over-the-road truck driver in the later years of my childhood in which we went very long periods of time without seeing or talking to each other. Both homes relied heavily on social welfare programs such as Food Stamps and Medicaid a significant portion of our childhood.?

At a certain age it becomes clear to you as a kid that your family is struggling with money and that not every family is living the same way. You start to notice things like: the difference in how people interact with you and your family vs others (the difference in classes), the way you are paying for your food (and the type of food you are allowed to buy), that you can’t do all the extracurricular activities like the other kids, you don’t have the “nicer” clothes, shoes and backpacks at school, your access and choice of healthcare providers aren’t the same, your vehicle is more often than not broken and you’re unsure when you might be able to get it fixed, gas money to be driven somewhere is a real thing, your parent’s emotions around holidays and when discussing money, the loss of hope that situations can improve, the friction that exists between people over anything that has to do with money, the bad outcomes that come with decisions that were made because of a lack of financial resources, the numbing of the pain and much more.?

On one hand, this type of childhood gave me a skillset and a mindset that are extremely valuable in the real world (grit, resourcefulness, don’t “need” a lot), but on the other hand, this type of experience can also lead the next generation down the exact same path of a very challenging life full of financial distress, poverty, broken relationships, substance abuse and being a slave to the system.?

So…like most people, I grew up with no information (or bad information) about money and personal finances. I believed all the myths about money too: "Money doesn't grow on trees (scarcity)", "A penny saved is a penny earned (never focusing on income, opportunities and skills)", "All debt is bad (never learning about leverage or how to manage it...good or bad)", "I'll work until I die (not planning for anything)" and the list goes on.?

And what is worse, is that when you grow up in these circles you hear others saying things like, must be nice, I’ll never have that, rich people just take advantage, he doesn’t work for his money and so on. So it programs kids on both sides of the equation to shut off their minds and have false beliefs about money and different classes of people.

Leaving the nest…

Early in my life I started doing little things to try and make money and/ or to trade for something of value (back then it was a sports card or a candy bar). I was never afraid of hard work, and honestly found it much more enjoyable than a lot of the other things kids were doing back then. Full transparency, the idea that I could spend a little time to get a little money and then it was mine to do whatever I wanted to do with it was something I can’t even tell you how interested I was in! I would do any job you could think of no matter how laborious or disgusting it may have been, and I would do it for $0.25 because that would buy me like two or three little candies that no one else would have ever given me the money for back then.?

As I got into my early teen years I realized it could do more than buy me snacks. I realized that it was the ONLY way that I was going to get any kind of independence and freedom from a very rapidly deteriorating home life. My first real jobby job came at fourteen when I started power washing homes and washing windows for a small local company. I worked my butt off at that job, and I worked as many hours as the owner would let me. If it was up to me, I would have probably dropped out of school right at that moment and kept working for that guy until he let me buy it from him or I could start my own. This job let me pay for a semi-fraudulent driver’s ed school and buy a car for $800 that most likely had zero business being on the road, and it allowed me to put gas in it. My first taste of how money could provide additional independence…WINNING.?

To speed things up I’ll just say that for the next couple of years I was always working and mostly worked minimum wage jobs ($5.25/hr) and as many hours as I could while in high school. Then once I graduated I was able to pick up multiple jobs at once and so I did that while also enrolling at the local community college. I’d work a full-time seasonal job during the day, and then my pizza delivery job every night to maximize the amount of money I could make since I quite literally had no other choice. I should have mentioned, by this time I was moved out of my home and completely on my own. Neither parent was a part of my life at the time and I rented a room from my grandparents at a place they didn’t stay full-time for a place to stay.

So from a relatively young age I was forced to develop a relationship with money. I had to learn how to make it, how to save it, how to spend it, how to open accounts, how to deposit it, how to protect it, how taxes worked, how credit worked, how income based programs worked, how it impacts independence, how it impacts relationships, how it is valued by others, how to invest it, how to use it for good or bad and many more before the age of eighteen. By eighteen I had self-taught myself more about personal finance and the basics of money management than most adults will in their lifetime.

I taught myself out of pure necessity. Nobody was coming to save me, and the reality is that nobody was going to really care if I ended up going down the same generational path as my parents. In fact, it was to be expected from me by most of the adults in my life. Up to this point in my life I knew more clearly what I wanted to run away from and what I didn’t want, then what I did want. I didn’t want to financially struggle every day and every week for the rest of my life, and I didn’t want to be dependent on anyone or any government to help me survive.?

Adulting…

That was a small glimpse into my background and relationship with money as a kid and very young adult. Fast forward a ways, and I have never stopped learning more and more about money, investing, risk, insurance and personal finances. The topic was always a necessity for me to survive, and I always found it interesting on so many different levels. Most meaningfully…how it shapes our society and impacts our individual lives.?

As an adult I have made many different financial mistakes on one level or another, but I have also recovered from them and learned real lessons from them. In the words of Oscar Wilde, “Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterwards.”?

I’ve been married now for over 13 years, and my wife and I have two beautiful little girls and one baby boy due any day at the time of writing this. Life, which includes marriage for many, is one great odyssey full of learning experiences. Mine and my wife’s is no different. In fact, we’ve actually gone on a unique journey that has really helped me gain experience in the finance space and taught us so many lessons.?

Here’s a quick summary:

• I graduated college right in the middle of the GFC. Jobs didn’t exist, and bailouts for mainstreet didn’t really either. Times were tough for everyone…especially young Mark graduating college and needing to support himself.?
• Elisabeth pursued a career in pharmacy which requires you to get a PharmD (doctorate degree). We also found ourselves $313k+ in student debt.
• Paid off the $313k in student debt very quickly with a disciplined and executable plan. (I talk about this in detail in other areas)
• I eventually climbed a corporate ladder into a Sr. Director role and became a higher W2 income earner for a period of time. (High W2 income creates all sorts of new challenges and things you have to learn)
• Went and got my MBA (more on this in other articles)
• Built a 20 unit rental portfolio from scratch with creative financing and hard earned cash and sweat equity. (I also discuss this in many other areas)
• Built and sold a canoe livery business. (standing up a business teaches you so many things and develops many different skills)
• Stood up and operate a profitable AirBnB (short-term rental)
• Assisted many friends and family with what I would call “Financial Coaching.” It became clear that people with all different income levels and backgrounds need help with their finances, and that every single person/ family has their own unique needs and challenges that need to be overcome.?
• I’ve watched family, friends and coworkers struggle every single day the way I did, my parents did and most people do.?
• I watched my grandparents live out their last years fearful of not having enough to survive and having to make choices they didn’t want to make because of poor financial circumstances. (this made me learn and think about all the best ways to prepare for the last 20 years of life, and to vet out all the tools available to those that haven’t prepared and are struggling)
• I watched my father die of cancer without the ability to have the best care. (gut punch in the reality that money is important for certain things in our society, and those that lack it don’t have the same opportunities and access as others)
• I’ve watched other family and friends pass away without a proper financial setup, and their family having to struggle and be in fear when they should be grieving and celebrating life. (This made me learn the importance of legitimate planning for life events. Whether insurance, wills, trusts or end of life wishes…having a well thought out plan saves the people that are left after you pass additional heartache, confusion and uncertainty.)

But…here is the thing…

I GOT LUCKY

For one reason or another I was given the gift of learning how to work hard from a very young age, and eventually I aggressively pursued learning about personal finances, investing and money. And while I am still learning today, and will be for the rest of my life, I am fortunate enough to find myself a few chapters deep and able to help and serve others so that they can win with their finances and hit their dream outcomes as well.?

Everything that I have learned about real estate, money, investing, leverage, risk, insurance, business and personal finances I have learned on my own through rolling up my sleeves and getting my hands dirty. I've made many mistakes, but I've also had some real WINS. So I guess you can say that my knowledge has been earned through real life and hasn’t just just been learned in a book or picked up from something I heard someone say one time.?

My WHY…

As time has gone by, and I have matured, I have also realized that there are only a few areas in people’s lives that can have a big enough impact that it can truly change their entire life and that of their family’s. I would summarize those areas as the five buckets of life worth making constant deposits into which are: Mind (mental health), Body (physical health), Financial, Relationships & Impact and Spiritual.?

While all of these buckets need to be worked on individually by everyone, in my opinion, the financial bucket is the lowest hanging fruit. That means that it can be improved more quickly than any of the other buckets and can compound into the other areas of your life. Most of the time it is just one small piece of information you are missing that will make all the difference. In addition, the financial bucket happens to be the only one that you can legitimately farm out, or put on autopilot if you wish, and still have a reasonable chance of success in that area of your life. You simply can’t outsource or put on autopilot your mental health, physical health, your relationship or your spiritual health and expect any of those buckets to be very full.

In broken homes and/ or homes where personal finance and money is not understood or discussed, we as children typically develop an unhealthy relationship or NO relationship with money. This sets us up for an incredibly difficult adult life since so much of our lives are impacted by our financial resources and our ability to manage and grow our money.?

Most people in general are hard workers and great people, but many of them remain on the hamster wheel and stuck in the generational cycle of working/ lower class and middle class America. Most people that are able to get off that hamster wheel still had to struggle more than necessary and most likely didn’t maximize their potential while carrying unnecessary risks. For those that are doing very well financially, more often than not there are massive inefficiencies and risks in their investment, tax, estate and wealth protection strategies and they could be doing much better without as much risk.

The reason for all of this, barring really bad luck, is the lack of financial literacy (knowledge about money) and the lack of quality financial professionals. Most people are never taught about finances in the home or at school, and the majority of people never truly seek it out later in life individually or with a financial professional either.??

These are some scary, sad and disappointing things to consider. Tens of millions of Americans are under informed and under represented when it comes to personal finances, investing, insurance, real estate and money. In fact, 64% of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck in 2023 according to CNBC. This includes American's making $100k/ yr, $200k/ yr and even $500k/yr if you can believe that. Millions are underinsured. Millions have no retirement. Millions of others have savings, but don’t have any idea what to do with it or are scared to invest. Millions pay more in taxes than they should. Millions will never get out of debt. Millions will rely on parents to support them until they can’t any more. Millions will rely on kids that don’t have many financial resources to support them. Millions will lose their homes. Many will have their estate fall apart after death. Millions never teach their kids about money. Millions get scammed in the financial industry. Millions overpay for “advice”. Millions will continue working a soul sucking job for decades to make ends meet. Millions will continue relying on government assistance their entire lives, and research has shown that their children probably will too. Many will squander away all of their inheritance. Millions will make more than enough to live comfortably and retire in dignity, but they won’t because of poor financial literacy and not seeking out help. Many will lose everything investing in one scam or another trying to get rich quickly out of desperation and a lack of financial literacy. Many will believe they are investing, but they will really be gambling. Millions will watch inflation wreak havoc on everything they built over their lifetime and won’t know what to do about it.?

And worst of all…Millions just don’t have any hope when it comes to their finances. Whether they make a lot of money or not, millions of people struggle every single day to understand and get control of their financial health so that they can live the life they want to live and have the freedom they so desperately desire.?

I have been around, or have been myself, each and every one of these millions of people. Look around, everywhere you turn someone has a challenge with money they are trying to overcome. Maybe they have limiting beliefs, maybe they don’t understand taxes, maybe they don’t have time to manage their investments, maybe they are being crushed by student loan debt and have given up hope.

While I may have been in some of those shoes, and I’m still learning everyday…I have progressed a couple chapters ahead of where most people are today. I want to pay it back and give hope back to the people that don't know where to start, have all but given up, are aggressively seeking information, have high incomes but are still broke, have savings but don't know what to do with it, are in massive student loan debt and don't know what to do, have significant assets and/ or earnings and would like to maximize the risk/ reward, be more tax efficient, develop an estate plan and also insure they are protected and more.?

I very much believe that financial success (whatever that looks like for each individual) is a worthwhile pursuit, but it is a challenging one that has many cards not in our favor. There is a serious lack of financial education, the financial industry unnecessarily complicates things and not all financial professionals have your best interests.

That is my WHY. People work way too damn hard, take on so much risk and give up way too damn much of their time to acquire money, not to have some form of financial success over their lifetime. Whatever a person defines as financial success to them, I want to provide the guidance and assistance necessary to get them there.

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