Would You Rather Be the Richest... or Have Rich Friends?

Mike DeHaan: [0:02] Well, Dylan, the government created the Internet just like the CIA created Bitcoin so that they could have so they could have their their money laundering and their fake drug money hidden from the rest of the institution. But

Dan Austin: [0:14] That makes sense.

Mike DeHaan: [0:17] Nuh-uh. Yeah, guys. Breaking news. Satoshi was a CIA agent. It's actually, everyone that was on that group, they just took all their initials, they made a word out of it that sounded Japanese. So they're just like,

Dylan Koch: [0:29] yes. You're close. It was the NSA. But the NSA was close.

Mike DeHaan: [0:32] Yeah. Whatever. Whatever. Yeah. Depending on who you talk to, it's gonna be something different.

Dan Austin: [0:36] One of those agencies definitely did it for it's yeah, dude. Come on. For sure.

Mike DeHaan: [0:40] But anyways, guys, welcome to Collecting Keys. I'm Mike DeHaan here with my co host, Dan Austin, Dylan Cook. Dan showed up today. How'd you shoot on your round last week? When I was on When you bailed on us? I'm a

Dan Austin: [0:52] low eighties.

Mike DeHaan: [0:52] I'm a

Dan Austin: [0:53] low eighties golfer.

Mike DeHaan: [0:53] Low eighties on nine? Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [0:57] Like From the first nine holes.

Mike DeHaan: [1:00] Dude, you're you're definitely not low eighties.

Dylan Koch: [1:02] I'll tell you this. I'll tell you what

Dan Austin: [1:03] I told Dylan is, like, golf to me is not like, I only care about it because I wanna be good at anything I do. Like, wanna not be like the best, but I wanna do good. But like, to me, it does not get me excited. It does not motivate me. Like, I'm not like, I can't wait to go go with the boys. Like, my daughter's in golf, and she's taking golf lessons, and I attend and go. And I want to be able to take her golf, and I want her to get a baseline. Like, I'm past the ability to be like, I'm gonna be a low eighties golfer. Like, this is never gonna happen, because I don't care enough. Right? It's just not something I care about. But I will go out and do it. I do enjoy like being outside with people. Anything outdoors, I always have always enjoyed. But like, it's just not a thing that I that it gets me excited.

Mike DeHaan: [1:40] It just takes too long. That's always been my

Dan Austin: [1:42] That's for me, dude. It's it's too long. I was out there for like two and a half hours and shot nine holes. Right? And like, that's too just too long. Right? And I don't necessarily need to be slugging beers when I go golfing, which is also a problem.

Mike DeHaan: [1:55] See, that that's also the other issue is there's the two groups you can go with. And so if you guys missed last week, Dan accidentally didn't show up because he was his calendar was obviously placing him golfing with our banker instead

Dylan Koch: [2:06] of showing off the podcast.

Dan Austin: [2:07] Which I felt like was an important trip.

Dylan Koch: [2:09] I mean, that's a write off, for sure.

Mike DeHaan: [2:11] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Write off. Yeah. It's If yeah. For him. Yeah. He, like, brings, like he always, like, brings, like, his hockey friends with us to go fucking golf.

Dan Austin: [2:17] He did. He brought the head coach of the hockey team.

Dylan Koch: [2:20] Yeah. And they're fucking

Mike DeHaan: [2:21] good. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [2:22] But they but they drink, like, 23 They drink

Mike DeHaan: [2:25] a lot. Yeah. Jesus. Oh, like, not even kidding. We've gone out with them, and, they'll they'll drink a beer a whole lot.

Dan Austin: [2:30] This is, like, on a Tuesday.

Mike DeHaan: [2:32] But this is this is also my my problem with with, like, me going golfing is there's basically the two kind of groups you can go with. It's either the people that take it way too seriously, which I do not, so that's not very fun. Or it's people that just encourage all of my bad habits where I just get shit faced at noon on a fucking Tuesday. Right?

Dylan Koch: [2:49] And I don't need to do that.

Dan Austin: [2:50] No. You don't need to. Rex the rest of your day.

Mike DeHaan: [2:52] Yeah. I'm not completely above that, but it needs to be very limited.

Dylan Koch: [2:54] Right?

Mike DeHaan: [2:55] Yeah. You can't do it every week. And I also don't need to do that in a situation where I'm now going to go back to my home with my new child. Right? And I'm like, now I'm just a sloppy master ass of the day. No. If I'm doing that, I want it to be like on a vacation or like I'm in Vegas or I'm doing something fun.

Dan Austin: [3:11] Yeah. So Dylan, how do you do that? You come home drunk every Monday to your child and wife and your wife's like, Oh, I hope golf

Dylan Koch: [3:17] No, is even better, sir. A league doesn't start until like, depending on the, your time slot, until like 05:00PM instead of but it does take freaking forever. So sometimes I I won't even go home till past bedtime. The Do

Dan Austin: [3:27] you do, like, a full 18 with the league?

Dylan Koch: [3:29] No. No. No. It's nine holes

Dan Austin: [3:30] every Okay. Oh, every Monday's nine. Okay. Yeah. That's not terrible, but still, I mean

Dylan Koch: [3:35] Honestly, with you guys, I I enjoy golfing. Like, that's one of my favorite hobbies to do. And so, like, I enjoy going to my league every Monday.

Mike DeHaan: [3:42] I know. It's it's taken off by a by storm with young men these days.

Dan Austin: [3:48] Golf athletes.

Dylan Koch: [3:48] There's the shrink the game movement right now, which I can kinda get behind because now it does take freaking five hours to finish a round of golf.

Mike DeHaan: [3:54] So they do need

Dylan Koch: [3:55] to figure this out. They did that with baseball.

Dan Austin: [3:56] They figured baseball out. And I I do think, like, the pitch clock and everything has made baseball much more exciting. I saw that they made changes in the golf. Now they're gonna have, like, Michael get like this. They're gonna have, like, the, what are they, like, the premier and champions league kind of stuff? Like, so they're gonna have the what do they call it, Dylan? Have you heard this? I mean,

Dylan Koch: [4:12] are you talking about, like, live? Like, live golf?

Dan Austin: [4:13] No. No. No. And and the PGA starting 2028, PGA golf tour has 72 of the best golfers, and then there's a lower tier league, and you get relegated. Oh, I really haven't seen

Dylan Koch: [4:23] this. This is interesting.

Dan Austin: [4:24] Each tournament is a $20,000,000 purse for the champions league.

Mike DeHaan: [4:28] So they did this with all European soccer. In fact, much all soccer leagues, except for North American leagues, they do this. I think they should do this with all American sports. Right? Not only in golf, but they should make it so that, like, the lower, like, NFL teams get replaced by the higher tier college teams.

Dan Austin: [4:44] That actually would be

Mike DeHaan: [4:44] freaking With sick, the NIL at this point, it's not that fucking different. Let's have, like, the Browns go out and, like, have Alabama come up.

Dylan Koch: [4:53] We can't do this because I I would have to get rid of all of my sports memorabilia for the past thirty years.

Mike DeHaan: [4:58] No. You don't. No, dude. Because when your team goes down, you just support you gotta support them so they get back up, man. This is why the whole system is really exciting in Europe with the motion and promotion is because you can be, like, several leagues lower, and you get, like, a new owner that comes. This is what Ryan Reynolds has done with his Rex MFC. Right? Is they were like, not even really a professional team. And now he had them they almost made the premiership last year, which is crazy. So like for context, that's like a Oklahoma high school suddenly like bringing enough people that they're gonna go to like the NBA or the NFL or whatever

Dylan Koch: [5:29] your

Mike DeHaan: [5:30] sport is.

Dylan Koch: [5:30] Yeah. That's a lot of jumps.

Mike DeHaan: [5:31] Right? It's a it's a lot of jumps. And they did them, like, back to back to back to back, which is unheard of. But also during the season, if you get to a point where, like, the title's decided there's three games left, it's like, the point rest of the season's kind of pointless. But at the bottom, everyone's, like, battling to not go down, then it's super exciting. Right? Yeah. And so it keeps it interesting.

Dylan Koch: [5:48] There's no, like, tanking for draft players and shit like that. No. You see, like, in the NBA and stuff. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [5:52] Because it's so financially detrimental to go down. Like, you get less prize money. Your good players will leave. It's like a big deal. But then when you go up, like, it literally shapes some of these small towns. And I feel like we need to do that because

Dan Austin: [6:05] I think

Mike DeHaan: [6:05] that's especially in in professional US sports, some of these, like, football teams and NBA teams have been so bad for decades.

Dan Austin: [6:11] Right. Let's get rid

Dylan Koch: [6:13] of them.

Dan Austin: [6:13] Dude. Let's have, like, the what would we call our Spokane team? Like, the Spokane I don't know. Fatties? Fatties?

Mike DeHaan: [6:20] Well, so, like, imagine that. Right? That like, a couple years ago when when the Zacks went to national championship, they got promoted, and now we have like a professional NBA dude. That'd be awesome. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [6:31] That would be awesome. I actually agree with that. So just to round this out, the relegation retention and relegation. So the top 90 players are in the championship series, or you can get, relegated to the, what is it called? The challenger series, which is the next like 90 or whatever players. So that's how it is.

Dylan Koch: [6:48] And I know like the Korn Ferry tore underneath that. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [6:51] Yeah. Probably some I'm sure. Yeah. The last chance, the fall series players who are relegated from championship series and those who just missed promotion from challenger series will have a final chance to compete in a four to six event last chance series in the fall to secure remaining spots.

Dylan Koch: [7:09] I'm I'm looking forward to it.

Dan Austin: [7:10] Yeah. Be more exciting. Now they can just I know Tiger Woods has I was a Tiger Woods has created like a a different league too. I, I don't know. I could be wrong, but like they're talking- He's

Dylan Koch: [7:18] got a clothing brand, but yeah, I don't know.

Dan Austin: [7:21] He's the one that helped shape these rules. I don't, Tiger must be pretty awesome at golf because despite crashing his car drunk every year and breaking all of his legs all the time, they're still like, hey, could you help us, like,

Dylan Koch: [7:33] figure this golf thing out? The personal brand, man.

Mike DeHaan: [7:36] He's he's got the Trump connection too. He can basically pull whatever strings he want. Yeah. Isn't he dating, like, his

Dylan Koch: [7:41] Oh, yeah. There's something I forgot about that.

Mike DeHaan: [7:43] I thought he

Dan Austin: [7:44] was dating Lindsey Vonn. I don't know.

Dylan Koch: [7:45] No. No. Then she, like, tore me in the slurry. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [7:49] Of the One of the Trumps.

Mike DeHaan: [7:51] Children, nieces, something. Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [7:53] Tiger's girl. See, we don't know anything about the paparazzi. We're not the people to ask for this kind of news.

Dan Austin: [7:58] Vanessa Trump.

Mike DeHaan: [8:00] Yeah.

Dan Austin: [8:00] Yeah. It's it's one of it's probably one of his bastard children. She just hosted him. They found out, like, a year ago it's one of his kids. Yeah. He's probably got, like, a 100 of them. Probably.

Mike DeHaan: [8:10] But anyways Anyways. Alright, guys. I wanted to ask a philosophical question, which we I talked about briefly last week for, I wanna get to hear Dan's response to this particularly. So I guess for context, I went down to California last week. I mean, I was sitting in a TSA line, kinda sitting there, you know, bored. And I heard, like, a line over from me this question. And I was like, hey, this is a very deep question for a freaking TSA line. And b, I didn't get to hear their answer. And so I was I was kinda fascinated by it. And so these these random people are outside and they said and this girl is kind of out blue. She goes, who do you think is happier? Someone who is the richest out of all their friends or someone whose friends are all richer than them? Right? And basically, her viewpoint, she started to explain it, is if you're the richest out of your friends, you're kind of at an elevated status. You can, you know, provide a lot of opportunities for people, which I'm like, can make people happy. You know, you can kinda do whatever you want. Like, you don't really have, like, an inferiority complex with anybody because you're the coolest person in your little circle. But it can also lead to, like, a level of loneliness because maybe there's someone that can relate to you quite as much. It can be kinda, like, embarrassing sometimes if you have, like, a higher status versus everyone else because you'll get, like, a must be nice kinda thing. Versus the person that has all your friends richer than you, basically, the view is you'll probably get to participate in more things than you would normally because you will get invited to sort of higher cure events than you'd normally afford.

Mike DeHaan: [9:32] You would kind of have access to mentors, to different opportunities based off of your network. But the downside would be you would be constantly comparing yourself to those people. Right? And it can be harder to be content with what you have, which can be good or bad depending on your personality. And so I'm curious what your guys' views are on that. Because I would imagine we have both been in both situations or are even actively in both situations depending on what sort of circle you're in at the time. And I just thought was a really interesting question. So I don't know. Dylan, what are your thoughts?

Dylan Koch: [10:02] Well, I think I'm actively in both of those circles nowadays anyways. Especially like the GoBundance groups, and then going to some of those things. I mean, there's people that are sent to millionaires that I would never, I could be around that I would never thought I'd be around. And then from like, my at home friends, I'm still friends with today, still live relatively close, I'm probably the most affluent. So I don't know. It's still like a complex question where I can see both sides of you. Got into my head, like

Mike DeHaan: [10:27] So let's say that you're in a situation where you have like a, I don't know, like a, you're gonna plan a week vacation, or there's a week long commitment that you're going to be going to well, there's two of them that are conflicting. Can only pick one. One is with the friends that you're richer than them. One is with the friends that are richer than you, which are

Dylan Koch: [10:45] your favorite. Probably choose the one that I am the richer one.

Mike DeHaan: [10:48] Really? Yeah. That's so interesting. That's not what I was expecting from you at all, actually.

Dylan Koch: [10:52] Leave the alone. It also depends on like how big is this wealth gap too? Because like, if your friends are like so poor that they can't go out to eat like a random like Friday night because they're saving money, that is, oh, that is different.

Dan Austin: [11:04] So they're gonna take you on a boys trip. That's You

Dylan Koch: [11:05] guys take the motel

Dan Austin: [11:06] a because they are all brokies and, like, you're gonna go to, like, Red Robin for dinner. I'm fine with that.

Mike DeHaan: [11:12] So Dylan's fine with that. Really? Okay. My way, we are different. Oh, wow. So I think I think our our snob is showing over here, Dan.

Dylan Koch: [11:23] Yeah. You're Pacific Northwesterners.

Mike DeHaan: [11:25] Hey. We have we have basic standards out here. You know? You know what they say about the Midwest, Dylan? It's for people who gave up on their dreams. That's okay.

Dan Austin: [11:32] Yeah. Is.

Mike DeHaan: [11:35] Alright, Dan. What what do got?

Dan Austin: [11:37] I have had to elevate even my my wife, her, like and I've seen it now where her my kids are this way because I'm just a snob. But, like, my wife has now elevated her expectations for things like in quality. So we agreed this this we were just traveling this last week. And, I just finally admitted to

Dylan Koch: [11:54] my like, and we're like, we're never

Dan Austin: [11:56] booking an Airbnb again. Airbnb sucks. And I could spend the rest of this podcast telling you why Airbnb is the worst business model ever, and it's trash. It's awful. It's disgustingly awful, like bad compared to a hotel. Tell me in what situation it makes sense to get an Airbnb and not a hotel, where the hotel nearby does not provide superior accommodations?

Mike DeHaan: [12:16] So there's two instances. One, if you are going with a a large group of friends. K. And you're staying in like a nice, like, luxury Airbnb.

Dan Austin: [12:24] K.

Mike DeHaan: [12:24] So we went to

Dan Austin: [12:25] Which is so rare.

Dylan Koch: [12:26] It's so rare.

Mike DeHaan: [12:27] Super rare. Not common. But we went to Florida a number of years ago. We went with five other couples, and we basically got this sick Airbnb that was, like, by the water. Significantly cheaper than a hotel. We have, like, our own private space. That was one. The other situation, which is new for me, is we are going to Europe here next month with our 10 old. It's gonna be, you know, it's a baby. Yeah. And we opted for an Airbnb because it gives us the ability to put him to bed and then have our own space that is not in the room that he's sleeping.

Dan Austin: [12:57] Got a hotel suite, loser.

Dylan Koch: [12:58] So yeah. But like, the the difference is

Mike DeHaan: [13:00] the room.

Dan Austin: [13:01] Got a one bedroom suite.

Mike DeHaan: [13:02] Hotel suites were priced comparably. And so instead, I got an Airbnb that has a nice view.

Dan Austin: [13:08] So if the pricing is comparatively, I'm going to hotel every time now.

Dylan Koch: [13:11] Uniqueness. Think it'd be another one too. Like, you get some, like, tree house Airbnb or something, you know, something like that.

Dan Austin: [13:17] I guess, yeah, in that case. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [13:18] So not only that, but it's also a two bedroom, so he can have his own room entirely. But I'll report back. And this is a town it's a place I've been to before. I'm not the Airbnb, but like it's a city. So like that instance made more sense.

Dan Austin: [13:30] I cannot speak to, European Airbnbs because I never stated one. But my luck I mean, how many times have you walked into an Airbnb and you're like, this is not what they said.

Dylan Koch: [13:38] Well that pisses me off the most, it's like, hey, clean the entire place, and we're also gonna charge you $600 for a cleaning fee. Pisses me Yeah.

Dan Austin: [13:45] Can you take the garbage out please? Or it's non refundable, or it's like, you can only get refunded up until the Airbnb fees. Airbnb doesn't refund won't refund their fees. Right? And so you can get like partial okay. There's a whole story here, but I don't wanna distract from this. I'll share with you guys later. But what was the question?

Mike DeHaan: [14:01] So are you Oh, Poor people or rich people.

Dan Austin: [14:03] Who do think?

Dylan Koch: [14:04] Poor people and rich people. They don't have to be poor. Just, like, basically, just less

Mike DeHaan: [14:09] rich than you. They can still be fully capable of having money.

Dan Austin: [14:12] And you're saying which one would you be more happy with?

Mike DeHaan: [14:14] Yeah. Which one is a is a person typically more happy with? It could be you. It could be just, like, in general.

Dan Austin: [14:18] This is there's no absolute answer to this because it just depends on if my lower, I guess, income or lower wealth status friends or people are doing something cool I wanna do versus like, I don't wanna go hang out with a bunch of what'd you call them? Centamillionaires? Decamillionaires? Hundred millionaires? Yeah. And like go talk about like, how their family's doing awesome, and you should do the same family stuff that they do. Like that sounds stupid to me compared to like, a fun boys trip with poor guys. So depending on what I'm getting out of it is when I would say which one I'd go with. I don't think that I would be any happier in one or the other because I would because like, well, happiness is like a kind of a fleeting thing anyway. So it's like that group is not gonna just make me happy. Right? So I get a lot of different things from a lot of different people. And just depends on if I'm in the mood for getting certain things.

Dylan Koch: [15:07] Here's a good example to this. It's personal. And I think only one of my friends actually listens to this show.

Dan Austin: [15:13] Is he a brokey?

Dylan Koch: [15:15] No, he's okay.

Dan Austin: [15:16] I'm just kidding.

Mike DeHaan: [15:16] I'm just kidding.

Dylan Koch: [15:17] I had my bachelor party when I got married out in Vegas. But I was 20 well, how long ago is it? Five years? I was 27, 28 years old. And a lot of especially at that time, I wasn't as fluent as I was now. And my friends really weren't either. And so they booked a hotel that was not on the strip of things. And it was so fun, we still had good time. But going back, I would have forged you extra money just to stay on the strip during the couple of days that we were there.

Mike DeHaan: [15:42] But that's an

Dylan Koch: [15:43] example of, that was more other people's talk about just determining where we sit

Dan Austin: [15:47] and Sure. Where we Yeah, it determines your experience. So, and I guess to let me just I'll close this out with my more direct answer is, so I'm an underdog guy. So if I had to pick like of a and it's not being like the actual experience of that I'm getting, but like what it's going to provide to me, I'd probably go with people that have some sort of elevated status that I could learn something from. Because I do strongly believe in like, you gotta, whoever you hang out with the most is really who you're going to assimilate to, like whatever they're doing. Right? So you're just going to. So for me, like I said, I'm an underdog guy. So that's like the direction I would go in in my life. I haven't like sought out people based on like financial wealth, but like certainly people that are doing something I wanna do. I mean, that's how I got into real estate. I literally heard one of my close friends saying he owned rental properties and I went, shook his hand, introduced myself. And today I'm really good friends with him. And he taught me everything I knew up to a certain point in real estate. Like so I think to answer that directly, yeah, that's probably where I'd go.

Mike DeHaan: [16:45] Mike? Makes sense. So for me, again, it's varied on the situation. But if it is people that, like, I'm hanging around with on a regular basis, it literally doesn't make any difference on average because what you're doing is typically inconsequential. And if there's a cost gap, I'll just pay for it and not say anything about it. Mhmm. So, like, as a as this is actually I got from Pat Hybin from GoBinds. I went to one of the conferences a couple years ago. His whole thing was like, if there's something that you wanna do, but you know it's gonna be cost prohibitive for people, just like Just pay for it. Buy the tickets and then invite them. And so I've done that a lot over the years, and I literally never regret it. And it doesn't and it makes us there's no financial barrier. So like a good example, March Madness was here a couple years ago. They're opening rounds. I really wanted to go. But tickets were expensive. They were like $1,500 a seat for decent seats. So I just bought four tickets, and I just invited friends to go each night. And I gotta go and see all the games. I gotta have a great time. You know, people wanna pay me back. I was like, just buy me drinks. Buy me an $18 beer while we're here. That's fine. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [17:46] Yeah. Right? And that was worth it. And that basically just doesn't really matter. If I am doing short trips within The US, wanna I go with people that have more money than me because that shit's always expensive, and people that have more money are more willing to do stuff. If I'm traveling internationally, I only wanna go people that have less money than me. And the reason because most people that I and this is my just general network. People that I know that have more money than me, they travel international like assholes or in a really uninteresting way where they're like going

Dan Austin: [18:15] just get the luxury hotel in every single city.

Mike DeHaan: [18:17] Yeah. They're like, I'm gonna stay at the fucking Ritz in, like, wherever I go. And I'm a cultural traveler. And so I love to go with people that have researched, that have budgeted, that have like figured out like the stuff that is getting your money's worth, because I find through that to be a much better experience. It's much more interesting.

Dylan Koch: [18:35] That makes sense.

Dan Austin: [18:36] So I think the I think that's very, like you said, situational. But I think the spirit of the question is, is do being around people that you can aspire to make you happy? Or do people that you can have that you're mentoring basically, or they can aspire to look to you make you more happy?

Mike DeHaan: [18:52] That is the actual question.

Dylan Koch: [18:53] I think the latter for me. So the first must be nice would piss me off, though. I'm not gonna

Dan Austin: [18:59] Must be nice, bud.

Mike DeHaan: [19:00] It depends on the personalities, you know, because there's also people that you have more money in, they don't care. Right? And it's just something that, like, it's not even necessarily a mentor and a mentee situation. They're just a I don't know. You just exist. Like, in that situation, it is better to be the top person for a lot of people because it is fulfilling to have those relationships where people are interested in it versus I think everyone is it is hard to not compare when you are around people that have more money than you. You know, even if you look at, like, the highest level. I look at some of, like, the bigger personalities that are that are very wealthy. Right? Like, Al Tremozi is a good example of this. He is a very brilliant person what he does, but he always seems like he's so unhappy. And I think of and I'm like, what are you doing? Like, why do you need to have more all the time? And it's because all of his mentors and stuff that he seeks to be around are the people that even though Alex makes, you know, whatever millions dollars a year, he's talking to people that make, you know, tens of millions or hundreds of millions. Yeah. And so he's sitting there going, damn. I can only live in this $20,000,000 freaking penthouse in Las Vegas. That's what he sold his penthouse for, by the way.

Dan Austin: [20:08] How much?

Mike DeHaan: [20:09] Crazy. Was 21 I think it was Solid. From Aria. I remember when he when he posted the listing on Instagram.

Dan Austin: [20:15] That's pretty crazy.

Mike DeHaan: [20:16] But he's like, looking at what other people have and that that isn't enough. I'm like, that's a miserable place to be. But I think that that's a hard mindset to not fall into if you're always around people that are

Dan Austin: [20:25] You know what's interesting about like Alex Shimosi? I would actually like put him in the same category as like a Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan or some of these like fanatical athletes that just sat

Mike DeHaan: [20:36] like- He's obsessive.

Dan Austin: [20:36] Obsessive. And his scorecard is money, which I don't think is any different than your scorecard of championships or getting marginally better at a sport. Right? Like, they both have the exact same meaning, especially for the person doing it. It's like, and so you're like, man, yeah, when do you get, like, when when is that happiness moment, you know?

Mike DeHaan: [20:54] Yeah. To that same point, you can have those athletes, they like win a championship. And the second they leave that arena, they're already focused on next year.

Dan Austin: [21:02] They're practicing the next morning, 5AM.

Mike DeHaan: [21:05] I'm like, yo, you just did it, dude. Like, chill.

Dan Austin: [21:07] That's not

Mike DeHaan: [21:09] how they

Dylan Koch: [21:09] are. It's weird now that I think like talking about like comparing your people to successful and using money as that barometer in this example. I'd be like, okay, they have a $15,000,000 net worth. Oh yeah, but they're 50 years old. I have seventeen years. You talk to them and you're just like, oh, they're really not that impressive. They just did the same thing for a long time.

Dan Austin: [21:31] I mean, time is like the biggest factor in investing. Right? And so if they have more time than you, of course, gonna have more money.

Mike DeHaan: [21:36] That's such a great point, Dylan. Like, they're just so relative. Right? Like, if you can see that with anything in life, you know, whether it's money, like, yeah, if you're older, it's less impressive. It's easier to not be envious. Same with, like, fitness. You know, like, you have, like, a 22 year old that's, like, stud athlete. Yeah. And you're like, fucking enjoy that, dude. Cool. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [21:55] You have abs. You're 22.

Mike DeHaan: [21:57] Yeah. They're like just hitting the gym, doing stuff like all the time. I was like, I remember when I was like you. That was last week. Now I'm 35. Like, time flies. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [22:04] My shoulder hurts.

Dylan Koch: [22:05] Go ahead and go to the gym for three hours when you have a two year old at home. See about except for you. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [22:11] Yeah. You know? Every everything's always always relative with it. But I don't know. So I guess, like, the the final answer with that is, obviously, it depends. But I would say if we are changing outside of ourselves, I mean, just looking at general people, I would bet you that on average, people are happier if they are the wealthiest out of their friends. Because I also think that what most people care about I feel like three of us are a little bit different than the average person. I know Dan, I know you are. Don't, I'm assuming you are. Where you don't necessarily care about, like, personal image quite as much. But I feel like the average person that drives a large number of their decisions. And so for them, that neighborhood status really means a lot. And so they would wanna be the wealthiest. That's why you see people that do outrageous stuff. Like, they live in, like, kind of a bum ass house, but they have, like, a super nice car. Or vice versa, they live in, the nicest house, but they drive, like, used cars that are kinda shitty, you know, and you know they're kinda house poor. That's about image. And I think that that really matters to a lot of people, that person would typically be happier.

Dylan Koch: [23:15] Mhmm. I would agree with everything you just said.

Mike DeHaan: [23:17] Anyways. Cool.

Dan Austin: [23:18] I thought that good. Yeah. No. That was fun fun question to answer.

Mike DeHaan: [23:20] Yeah. I posted on my Facebook. I've had a couple good answers there, and then I hit me up on Instagram too. I'd love to hear what you guys think about that. I've been really getting into kinda just like those, I don't know, psychology of like money or like the psychology of success stuff recently. Because I feel like with how sort of turbulent the market and economy and stuff has been, you've seen more variation with it as people have been put up against the wall with stuff. You know, all of a sudden, what their true relationships are with their own abilities, with money, with their wealth, everything else is being put on display at both, like, the lower tier and the higher tier level of people. Right? From like the sort of small entrepreneurs to like the big influencers that we've talked about that have been getting cooked. You really sort of see what kind of people they are once they start getting getting press.

Dylan Koch: [24:05] I don't think it's bad to have like some of your, I don't know, self esteem around like a net worth. I think it's important to have goals. But I think, like, even personally, like, mine went down a lot over the past year.

Dan Austin: [24:17] I wonder why.

Dylan Koch: [24:18] And, like, seeing what it what it was to what it what it is now. So it's like, it's a hard pill to swallow.

Mike DeHaan: [24:23] Oh, dude. It's brutal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I have sold a bunch of my properties over the past number of years. I paid a very, very significant tax bill this year. You know, I've had a whole bunch of different things. I did a re analysis of all my properties and stuff. And my net worth first a couple years ago was probably down, I think about 35%. It's like a lot.

Dylan Koch: [24:42] Yeah. That's actually probably pretty close to what mine is.

Mike DeHaan: [24:44] Yeah. But I will tell you what, the fact that I am no longer in equity and I have a bunch of, like, actual liquid assets, I really don't care at all. So it doesn't matter.

Dan Austin: [24:53] I would I would ask you this then with, for your question, Dylan, to, like, reframing things. Like you said, maybe you're down, like, say 35%.

Dylan Koch: [25:01] What is Bitcoin down, by the way? Around, like, 50.

Dan Austin: [25:04] So, anyways, like, reframing, like, the idea of success, like, worth, is it comfort? Is that a comfort thing? Right? So your net worth is down and then you have to reframe, like, what comfort you need or what is I'm just, like, curious of, the the idea.

Dylan Koch: [25:22] I don't know. I mean, there's a thing of being, the traditional sense, like being the provider for your family, like being the person who drives most of the income. And then I guess security would be a part of that equation of, okay, we have, you know, net worth is this, like, we're good for a long time unless I really screw something up.

Mike DeHaan: [25:38] But like, are you though? Like, if you have no liquidity, but you have a lot of a high net worth, like your net worth doesn't buy groceries.

Dylan Koch: [25:45] In that example, correct. No. I mean, in personal situations, we have ample liquidity.

Mike DeHaan: [25:50] So Yeah. Like real estate is where most people's net worth resides, right? Is in those kind of hard assets. Four zero one k. This is the one that really gets me. You have all these people that have like, they're like four zero one k rich, but they can really pay their own bills.

Dylan Koch: [26:02] This is a big problem for people That of sucks. They have a house and

Dan Austin: [26:05] they have a four zero

Dylan Koch: [26:06] one k and an IRA that they still can't touch till they're 65. Like, I want to retire. I'd be like, well, I have $20

Mike DeHaan: [26:13] And everything you can't touch without like a massive liquidity event that causes additional costs, right? So like, does that provide security? I don't think so. In my mind, net worth like that is purely ego

Dan Austin: [26:24] driven. Yeah, it depends on what you're doing it for.

Dylan Koch: [26:26] Yeah. I mean, if you say like you're you know, oh, I can sell a property. And even if you're using your conservative metrics of your sales costs and capital gains, like, I can I can tap a 100 k right now? Yes. It would be slow, but you could still do it.

Dan Austin: [26:38] Right. I think you have to

Mike DeHaan: [26:39] have layers too, right? Like you

Dan Austin: [26:40] can, if you have just a four zero one ks and just a primary residence, you're kind of hurting if you don't really have a backup plan unless you have like say a million dollars of other securities and cash. Like to me that I guess this would be comfort for somebody, if depending on what you're doing with it. For we're, I think in our circle, has been over the last several years, it's changing now. People are like, yeah, I have this much net worth because, and it was all real estate. Right? And at that point, it's like how many units and all, there's a ton of ego metrics. And I think a lot of people were actually much more leveraged than they thought they were. And then as that equity came down, it really started showing their ass. And we could talk about big players like that, but just average guys that maybe went from a $5,000,000 net worth to like 3,000,000. And of that 3,000,000, it's like not much liquid.

Mike DeHaan: [27:26] Yeah. You know what the wildest shit is that you're seeing now? Thanks to like the Cody Sanchez buy business sort of thing.

Dan Austin: [27:32] Oh, is scary, dude.

Mike DeHaan: [27:33] Is you're seeing all these people whose entire net worth is like, in their business equity. Yeah. And not not their business revenue, but they'll be like, oh, well, this industry trades on, a seven times EBITDA. So I'm gonna say that my business that does a million dollars a year in top line revenue is worth $7,000,000. And so that's why networks, I'm a 100% owner. That is so absurdly false in every way. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But you're seeing a lot of people that are starting to sort of flout stuff like that or make financial decisions based off of this fake sort of metric like that.

Dan Austin: [28:06] Yeah. That's silly.

Mike DeHaan: [28:07] It's ego driven.

Dan Austin: [28:08] To me, it's, it's never been about like, I have this much. And if I had to like step back, and the reason why I asked you the question, Dylan, is like that net worth or that wealth or whatever is, it's just comfort. That's all it is. Just peace of mind. And to me that relates to some level of happiness, or, you know, satisfaction that, you know, as you start out in life, as we all were out of college and all that sort of stuff, like, you don't necessarily have, you have a lot of things going for you. You have some ignorance and you're young. You don't necessarily have the comfort of wealth yet. And so you're always working towards like, do I get more money in savings account? How do I get a higher income? And then you get to a point in life where you have to reflect back and say, oh, okay, I, all my eggs that I'm starting, the chickens, I'm starting to count, right? Like, okay, this is act what is that for? What is it? Is it I'm not a person that's looking to go buy the newest car, the newest boat or things. I'm not an object person. Like, think they're cool, but I know me, it's like a momentary happiness thing from them. So, like, that's not why I grow income or anything. It's more just purely just for like, oh, cool. I feel pretty good about that. I feel comfortable.

Mike DeHaan: [29:09] So let's have another philosophical question with that then, Dan. Let's say that you knew that when you were, say, 55, 94% age, 55 years old, that you were

Dylan Koch: [29:18] gonna get years from now. Versus, like Okay. My god.

Mike DeHaan: [29:22] 55 years old, that you were gonna get, say, $10,000,000. K? So significant, but not, like, so significant that, like, you can go and, you know Yeah. Buy an island or whatever.

Dylan Koch: [29:34] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [29:34] Would that change how you view the network that you've created yourself and or how you are investing right now? If you knew without a doubt, you're gonna get a flat $10,000,000 in your 55.

Dan Austin: [29:45] Yeah. I think as an edge case, that would absolutely affect me. I think when I was younger

Mike DeHaan: [29:51] Would you sit there and look at that $10,000,000 and like ego stroke exactly the same as you do with your own net worth?

Dan Austin: [29:56] No. I think that, like again, that's a total edge case. I think when I was younger, it would've probably I would've probably taken different risks. When I was younger, knowing that I would've been It would've just been a different mindset. I think it allows, at least in me, like it would've allowed me to take bigger, like I said, bigger risks when I was younger, try different things, as opposed to thinking like, oh, I need to get a job. I need to build this career because I need to be this way. Maybe look at things slightly different. I may not have had the tools. If I knew that at 25, I may still have been like, well, get a career, you know what I mean? You build a business. Cause you still have to have income that whole time. And I, I would still want things. I personally am not the kind of person though that would wait and say, can't wait till I'm 55. I can buy the, whatever the things are No. That I I'm way too like personally motivated to be like,

Mike DeHaan: [30:38] I want that shit now. Yeah. You're not gonna like just work in a coffee shop, like minimum wage chill job, because you know that you have that windfall. Yes.

Dan Austin: [30:45] You need

Mike DeHaan: [30:45] to make money right Yeah.

Dan Austin: [30:46] And you see that with certain people, like, I don't know, I'm sure you guys all have those kind of people in your network, where it's like their lifestyle's slightly different because of maybe a successful parent. The way that they act or react to situations. And you can tell, like there's some of that. Would I have that too? Probably. But, I think it wouldn't change my motivation to do things, because that's just like, that would be an unfortunate thing. That would actually be a really unfortunate thing. And I think it probably hurts a lot of people that way.

Mike DeHaan: [31:14] If you have like that crutch, because it kills that motivation.

Dan Austin: [31:16] It steals their life a little bit. Because like, I mean, you guys know this, like the points in memory that stick out as you were younger were probably when you were like, I don't have any money. I'm going to figure out how to make this work. You know what I mean? Yeah, there's some pride in

Dylan Koch: [31:30] developing a certain net worth. And then if people, especially people know about it going to like the image part that, Oh, he inherited $10,000,000 from his dad. They're like, any credibility that you might've had as an investor or a business owner gets diminished a little bit because of that windfall.

Dan Austin: [31:44] Sure. Right. Yeah. Unless you can, you know, do it on your own too.

Mike DeHaan: [31:48] But there's a lot of like, what else should that, you know, you might not make it to 55. Right? Like 55, maybe $10,000,000 is worth nothing when you're 55 because the entire country collapses. Right? Yeah. Maybe it's like getting 10,000,000 Zimbabwean dollars. Like who knows? Yeah. You know? So there's a lot of different ways you can view it.

Dan Austin: [32:04] But

Dylan Koch: [32:04] It's the old, you know, would you trade places with Warren Buffett because his net worth is like a 100,000,000,000, but he's also 90 years old. For sure.

Mike DeHaan: [32:13] Yeah. Or or like there's the old philosophical question of like, if you could find out the day that you were going to die, like to the year and month and everything, would you wanna learn it? Right?

Dylan Koch: [32:24] I don't think so.

Mike DeHaan: [32:25] Most people typically say no. I tend to on the side of yes, because then I know what to, like, what to prioritize on.

Dylan Koch: [32:33] Sure. I just feel like I would think about it too much. It would be a mind consuming thing.

Mike DeHaan: [32:38] The reason is because the fear is for people is that it's soon. Right? Sure. But if there's also, like, statistically, there's a better chance that it's gonna be when you're, like, in your eighties. Right? Or older. Like especially for us that are that are younger and healthy, they're saying more people are gonna live to be 100 with the advance of technology and health and fitness everything else. Right? Even though we all walk around with little radioactive boxes right by our nutsack all day. Like, we just pretend like that's not a future problem. So I feel like if I if I found that out and it was next week, I'm like, what the fuck am I doing here? I'm gonna go somewhere. Yeah. You know? But or or if it's something that's like, oh, and I'm 94 years old, I'm like, sweet. I can focus on my business. Like, my pressure to have, like, FOMO is now completely gone. Right? Interesting. Yeah. It would have

Dan Austin: [33:23] it would have to be the type of personality. It's like, are you gonna let that date consume you, or are you not gonna let it consume you? It probably for, I mean, the average person would probably consume them if you knew knew the day you're gonna die all the way up to that point.

Dylan Koch: [33:34] Mark it in the calendar.

Dan Austin: [33:36] Yeah. I think of, I think about that, I mean, quite regularly, because like I was

Mike DeHaan: [33:40] I would set an alarm on my phone. Just no. You're alarming. Wake up

Dylan Koch: [33:46] every day just before. Less.

Dan Austin: [33:47] Yeah. Golly, dude.

Mike DeHaan: [33:48] I got, a ticker.

Dan Austin: [33:49] Like, put it on your wall. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [33:50] Yeah. That'd be that'd be freaking ominous. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [33:53] That would not be cool. I feel like I had, like, this weird relationship with death or lungs. I haven't in my normal life, like some people like have like close people, they lose, like their parents at a young age, or like a brother, sister, aunts, uncles, grandparents. I really haven't had a lot of that in my direct family. So it's like, it hasn't an Emmy, but like when I was younger in the military, like you would see death all the time. Like you would stare at it in the face all the time. And then you were also like, oh, I almost died there, right? Like just simple things like, oh. And so I have this like weird thing of like, you could die so easily. Like the smallest thing can kill you.

Dylan Koch: [34:27] Dan, do you have your estate documents set up for your family?

Dan Austin: [34:30] I've been working on

Dylan Koch: [34:31] it for like six months. That's how

Mike DeHaan: [34:35] long have you been working on it?

Dan Austin: [34:36] Yeah, it's so long. Dude, it's the guy's, it's the same guy Mike referred me,

Mike DeHaan: [34:39] so I feel bad.

Dan Austin: [34:40] But yeah. But you know what I mean? So I have like this weird, I don't know if it's weird. It's probably healthy. It's probably normal. But like, where you like, do I want to die? Like, is it gonna suck when I die? But then I also think like, how much of our life do we spend just falling apart versus the awesomeness of like getting bigger, faster, stronger? And like, like as a human, like you started as a baby, and your whole life until as men, probably until we're like 25, you're getting kind of better at everything. You're growing, you're full of chemicals that are just making you awesome. You don't know it at the time. You're like, this is forever. But then a- after about probably twenty five, maybe thirty, everything small little, little chunks gets worse and worse. And then pretty soon you're like 80, and you're like, my body hurts all the time. And then you're 90, and then you're one hundred. You see some of these dudes that look like they're one hundred? They don't look super happy.

Mike DeHaan: [35:31] Very rarely.

Dan Austin: [35:32] You're like, so my whole life I'm spent I've spending you dime. I think,

Dylan Koch: [35:35] like, when you're younger, have the young twenties and, like, I would work out cross it, like, six days a week, and I'm I'm sure that did more damage than it was

Dan Austin: [35:42] Yeah. It did. Definitely.

Dylan Koch: [35:43] That's how I feel some of that shit now.

Dan Austin: [35:45] If you do cross it like I did.

Mike DeHaan: [35:47] Well, that's why they find fulfillment in other things that aren't physical. Right? Like, so people get into business. So good. Yeah. Sudoku. Like, would they travel? You know?

Dan Austin: [35:55] I mean, there's a good chance, though, when you're 100, you don't have your brain anymore. Right? Like, might have You don't know. Like, I guess at that But point, it doesn't

Dylan Koch: [36:03] You got to work on something. I don't know the actual stat. But once people retire, they die within five years. It's crazy. Something stupid like that.

Dan Austin: [36:09] Yeah. Especially the average lifespan of a CEO is seven years after retirement. And that's people retiring at 55 and 65 and 70, because they I can never

Dylan Koch: [36:19] retire then. Lose Time

Mike DeHaan: [36:20] to 40.

Dan Austin: [36:21] They lose their sense of purpose and they are such a significant person in their company, which is why I have like, I don't know what it would be like, just like this mental state of like, don't make your life like the significance of your career, whatever you do, such an important part of your life.

Mike DeHaan: [36:40] Yeah. What would actually be really interesting, I don't know if this exists yet or not, is how that stat differs from people who have kids versus people that don't. Because I would say that the people that have children, they have like a reason. Right? Especially if their kids have like grandkids, things like that. That will probably is a good motivator. But they're probably also gonna, just by nature, be potentially less healthy, less financially stable. They've invested more money in their kids, things like that. Versus, like, the dink couple Mhmm. That got old and never had kids and were very successful. But when they retire, what is their purpose? You know? Like, where does that come from? If they aren't very intentional about pursuing a charity or something else, they're not gonna have it. Yeah. And so and they're probably looking around, and they're the richest of all their friends. And they're like, well, this is this is fun. You know?

Dan Austin: [37:25] Right. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [37:25] And their friends have grandkids Yeah. That they're always

Dan Austin: [37:29] Yeah. There there's I think there's a significance, and it's doesn't to me, it's like there's no wrong answer. But I think you're more likely to regret not having children when you're older than you are to regret having children.

Mike DeHaan: [37:41] I think so. As someone who was never really into having kids and now has an almost one year old, I will say over the last, like, three months, these are like six to nine months, I get it. A 100%.

Dylan Koch: [37:51] Yeah. It's it's kind of a

Dan Austin: [37:53] weird thing. Yeah.

Dylan Koch: [37:53] It is so weird.

Dan Austin: [37:54] You know?

Dylan Koch: [37:55] Yeah. Is this something that you can't, like, actually describe to someone and expect them to get it?

Mike DeHaan: [37:59] Like, you just can't. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [38:01] And it doesn't mean that they're gonna have

Dylan Koch: [38:02] a miserable life without kids.

Dan Austin: [38:03] Think that's a perfectly sound choice. Like, my wife and I talk about that all the time. Man.

Dylan Koch: [38:07] What if we could have these little shits?

Dan Austin: [38:10] Today would be way better. Like, they're having fun. And but for me, I think that I know I would have regretted not having kids when I was older and you can't have kids. Right? Fortunately for men, like, we can just upgrade for a long time and get kids whenever we want. But like

Dylan Koch: [38:26] to the to the newer model. Jesus Christ.

Mike DeHaan: [38:28] Yeah. What a what a way to phrase that. And so I was gonna add one other thing, but I wanna end with that for Dan's Jesus Christ. So alright, guys. Well, thanks for tuning in today. Little philosophy for you guys. We'll dive some more into some business things next week, but hopefully found that interesting because I enjoyed that conversation. So thanks for listening, everybody. We'll talk to you guys next time. See y'all.

Dylan Koch: [38:51] See you.

Mike DeHaan: [38:51] This episode is sponsored by Sir Lenzelot LLC, also known as SLA Capital, which if you didn't know, is Dan and I's private lending company. So, yes, we are sponsoring our own show, but what you're do about it? It is our private lending company that offers hard money and DSCR loans to real estate investors of all types. So you can be a new investor, an experienced investor. You can be buying flips. You can be buying rentals, whatever. We can do everything. And not only that, but the rates that we offer are just as competitive, if not cheaper, than pretty much every other company out there. So whatever big company you've been working with, bring us their term sheets, I guarantee that we can probably beat it. We have the same connections they do. We just don't have all the overhead and middlemen. So if you wanna come and check us out, go to slacapital.com/keys, and I will know that you came from the show. And by seeing that you came from here, when you get the closing, you will save $500 on your first loan with us. So slacapital.com/keys, we would love to fund your next deal. Thanks for listening, everyone. If you want more from us, you can shoot us a follow on Instagram. I am at Mike underscore Invest. Dan is at investor man. Dan and Dylan is at Dylan underscore does underscore deals. Choose to follow and send us a DM to let us know what you think of the show.