Ep438: Curt Mercadante – Not Every Home Is an Investment

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community. We know that to win in investing, you must take risk but to win big, you have got to reduce it. To join our community go to my worst investment ever.com and receive the following five free benefits. First, you get the risk reduction checklist I've created from the lessons I've learned from all my guests. Second, you get my weekly email to help you increase your investment return. Third, you get a 25% discount on all a Stotz Academy courses. Fourth, you get access to our Facebook community to get to know guests and fellow listeners. And finally, you get my curated list of my favorite top 10 episodes fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast hose Andrew Stotz, from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with Kurt mercadante Kurt, are you ready to rock, I am ready to rock and roll. I'm going to introduce you to the audience. And before I do that, for the viewers out there, I'm just going to share a little a little book that that I showed Kurt before we got started, and this is the book called Strength Finders, I found it one of the most excellent resources to understand myself and my strengths and my top five are activator strategic Maximizer significance and focus. So Kurt mercadante, specializes in helping business owners deliver the right message to the right clients to generate the right revenue. for 23 years, he has counseled small businesses, entrepreneurs, as well as some of the largest corporations and associations in the US. In fact, even the CFA Institute, he's built three profitable businesses, including a seven figure PR and ad agency. Kurt has trained, coached and delivered keynotes and workshops to clients across the globe. He is a Gallup certified strengths trainer, a certified human behavior consultant, hosts of the authority brand podcast and author of the best selling book five pillars of the freedom lifestyle. And speaking of freedom, lifestyle, curtain, his wife, Julie, are currently traveling the us with their four children. My goodness, Kurt, take a minute and filming for the tidbits about your life.

02:31
Yeah,

Curt Mercadante 02:31
thank you for that all lies you just read. I sent them to you. But they're all lies. Don't believe a thing that Andrew just said, No, I appreciate being here. And you know, freedom is what it's all about. We decided last year as the world was on fire, what the heck, let's just sell everything we own and hit the road. And we've been having an absolute blast. And as I tell people, we're traveling where we feel we're, we're most free and fulfilled. And, and it's working out so far.

Andrew Stotz 03:02
That's fantastic. And tell the listeners out there about the podcast and your books so that they can kind of understand what they would get from, you know, getting involved in these things. Yeah, so

Curt Mercadante 03:13
so one of the I mean, you read what I do write message, right clients write revenue. And the reason I do that is that's the basis of building what I call an authority brand. And it when you build that authority brand, it enables you, it fuels what I like to call a freedom business. You know, I had a five, seven figure, PR and ad agency and three and a half years ago, I woke up on a Tuesday morning, I shut it down at peak revenue, fired all my clients. I was 60 pounds heavier. I wasn't being an epic dad, epic husband, anxiety attacks. And I just wasn't the person I wanted to be. And I woke up and I was supposed to fly to DC we were living in Charleston, South Carolina at the time. The following week, it was Thanksgiving week, I supposed to take the week off. And it didn't stop everyone from calling we'll just hop on this call happened this thing and I woke up Tuesday. And I said if I go to that meeting next week, and my plane goes down to or from that meeting, is it worth it? And the answer was Nope. And I fired them all. And I started my current speaking training and coaching company, helping people build businesses that you know, a lot of people start their business and they want to have freedom. They build a prison instead, my goal is to help them build something, build a business that allows them to work with their ideal clients and those ideal clients. That's not just, you know, important for profitability. I mean, it's important for your brand. It's important for mental health, because you don't want clients who suck because when you have clients that suck it like literally sucks your soul out of you. So you work with those people to provide your unique and fulfilling impact. And as many of them as you can handle to allow you to still live the life you want to live.

Andrew Stotz 04:53
And that's inspiring, really and to challenge to the listeners out there like you know, you can reshape yourself, you know completely. And you can do it at any time, it just feels like you can't. So I think it's a real good inspiration. I just wanted to before we get into the big question of the podcast, I was just thinking about, you know, I was thinking about my listeners out there. I know a lot of people either have businesses want to start businesses, they got great ideas, they've got excitement, they got knowledge, they got passion. And I just want to talk about the message, you know, you're talking about the message, the right message, the right clients, you're talking about authority, branding, these types of things. And I'm just thinking that, you know, maybe one thing I can do is tell just a quick story about my own situation. And then you give me some feedback on that. And basically, one of the things I noticed, and I think it's probably the case for a lot of kind of idea of people like myself, we've got a lot of ideas. And I've got a lot of ideas of things that I create things that I use things that I sell. But sometimes we just get so many ideas that we end up kind of confusing people about our message. Now I went to a process with one of my guests where I kind of this was episode with Chris Reid, who is an expert in LinkedIn. And basically, he has a pink Mohawk, and he's a CEO. In fact, he's the only CEO in the world with a pink Mohawk. And I thought to myself, what's my pink Mohawk? And I decided that I would introduce myself as the worst podcast host of my worst investment ever podcast. And I just thought that that would be the most unique thing that I could do to get noticed in this world. But I just would be curious about, you know, my business, I do valuation, I have the valuation masterclass. And I do many, many other things. But I'm just curious about your observation of that.

Curt Mercadante 06:46
And what I like to say is that, and this is true, just not for financial professionals. But for all of us, right? We're business owners, right? We're smart people, most of us, maybe not me, but most of us are smart people. And most of us have a lot of ideas. A problem is when we meet our potential clients, we have all those ideas. And we want to share them all with that potential client. And we often go up to our potential client, we share all our bells, or whistles, or bullet points, all our ideas, everything we offer, our background, our experience, all of that. And I call that verbal vomit. We verbally vomit all over them. Because all that client wants to know is what's in it for me. They may love you, as a human being they may have empathy for you, they may want to go out on the golf course and have a beer with you. But guess what, when you start asking them for money, they want to know, what's the positive impact I'm going to get from using that money. So at the very beginning, you introduced me and said he helps business owners deliver the right message to the right clients to generate the right revenue. If you ask me, if I go to a networking event, anyone asked me what do you do? I never share a job title and never say coach consultant. I never say any of that. I say, Well, I help financial services professionals deliver the right message to the right clients to generate the right revenue, because that's all about the impact they get when they give me money. The next question is no kidding. How do you do that? Oh, well, would it be worth 20 minutes to get on a call and learn how I can help you deliver the right message to the right clients? Then we get on that call? I don't say anything I say I clarify why we're on the call. And then I listened. So you're having challenges delivering that message to the right clients, you know, where do you want to be at the end of the year? And what are some challenges to get there? And then I close my ears there I open my ears, I close my mouth. I take out my pen and I take notes because they're about to give me the roadmap to everything I need to do to close the deal because there's different things I do. I do corporate trainings I do you know I help people build freedom business. But if I think I know what that person needs, it's not necessarily what they want. And I use the example of Ilan musk. Ilan musk sells a ton of Tesla's to people who don't care or care anything about the sustainability aspect, the green aspect, right? If he walked around and sandals and a tie dye t shirt talking about saving the world, right? He wouldn't sell any Tesla's he went on Joe Rogan's podcast three hours and 15 minutes. A little bit was about the environment, you know, as bad as about zero to 60 and 1.7, the self driving car, all that cool stuff. He went on Jay Leno's, you know, car show and talked about bulletproof glass. Why? Because he knows people want a status symbol. And there's a lot of people out there who pay a lot of money, who are like, yeah, help the environment. But here's what I want. You get into find out what you want. And by the way, in the financial world, a lot of people offer very similar in any industry, right? So you line up 10 people, right, but how do you so we start with the ideal client? How would your ideal client different from John's client, Jane's client etc. So I had a financial advisor go through my branding bootcamp last year and He decided to niche down to people he really wants to help and who want, what he has to offer, were people who were probably 5560, within 510 years of selling their medical practices. So really niche down everything he does, speaks to them and what they want. Now, that doesn't mean if some 40 year old comes through and wants to invest with him, he's going to say now, but when you're going to spend your valuable time resources, you mentioned LinkedIn, if you're going to go out, I teach people to use Sales Navigator to build sales and go out. There's 262 million active users on LinkedIn, I don't want to target all of them. Right? I want to find my ideal clients, and I want to speak to them. And by the way, as you speak to them, you're going to find out what they want. And maybe you tweak that. So that line, right like for me, right message, right clients, right revenue. I call that your impact story. I'm called value proposition. The reason I don't do that is lookup proposition in the dictionary. And, you know, unless you're in the business having to do with prostitution, but it's also not a proposal. It's not it's not you're not cutting a deal. It's just this is how I help my clients. And that person can opt in or opt out. That's not for me, great. Oh, how can I learn more great, come on in. And so you have to know who you're speaking to know who your ideal clients are, and speak to what they want. That's not saying you can't have 20 different businesses, but make sure that when you're in this business mode, you're speaking to these clients about that when you're in this business mode.

Andrew Stotz 11:32
So yeah, okay. So my takeaway from that is my worst investment ever, and the worst podcast host is kind of a hook. But then I've got to deliver after that. Yeah. And what I do is help business owners exit their business at the maximum price.

Curt Mercadante 11:49
There you go. Perfect. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And keep not for you. I mean, what you just shared is great. But make sure there Don't try to get too fancy or creative with it. You know, like, fifth grade level. And it's not because people are stupid. It's because the English language, every word is left to interpretation. And so I have the authority brand podcast, because my impact story used to actually be help business owners build their authority brand, but that word brand, yes. 10 business owners, it means different things. Oh, you design logos. Oh, wait, you help me with the color scheme for my website? any of that stuff? You know, it's message clients revenue?

Andrew Stotz 12:31
No, that's awesome. Well, ladies and gentlemen, there's a little mini master class, what's your message? clients who your clients? And how do you get them the right revenue? That's a great description. Well, now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one ever goes into their worst investment thinking it will be tell us a bit about the circumstance leading up to it, then tell us your story. Yeah,

Curt Mercadante 12:57
I you know, you asked me that question, the worst investment ever. And I usually I like to go with the first thing that comes into my gut. Because usually that's the real that's, that's like without a filter, right. And so I'd have to say, a home, but not a specific home, all the homes I've ever bought. And we've bought, I don't know, four or five homes and last one years. And I wouldn't have said that a while ago. And probably about three years ago, we got a new financial advisor, actually about six years ago again, and he came in with a different strategy. And a lot of financial advisors say No, don't do that strategy that's neither here nor there. But one of the things he said is, this is going to sound counterintuitive. And he was a former CPA, turn financial advisor. And he said, I tell my clients or I urge or invite my client, to not think of their home as an investment. Unless you're flipping it, you know, you're going to sell it in two years. And it's a your, you know, he said, but when you consider the property taxes that you never get back, and that go up, and especially depending on where you are the $20,000 h vac system that you got to fix every few years, the rough, all this stuff that goes on, and now you know, perhaps inflation and then cost of living goes up. So you sell it and then you go into a bigger home, but then you're just paying more and more and more, you know, and I thought I had been conditioned to think No, you're my dad grew up during the Great Depression. And he told me, Son, you always got to own real estate. They can never take that away from you. And so I was conditioned right? And so when he told me that I'm like, okay, I don't know if I agree with that. I don't know if I agree with that. Over the last couple years, I've come around on it and and you know, we sold their home last year and you know, my mom's at a pace where Okay, they've made a, you know, several $100,000 on their home. My dad passed in 2012, but she's doing it The homes too big for her, like sell it. She's like, Where would I go? It now the cost of living has gone up. And so, you know, we sold our home last year I and by the way, we've also traveled around the world and we've traveled a lot through Europe. They don't have the quote unquote, to quote George W. Bush, the ownership Society of homes, in many cases, they rent, there's a lot of other things they do, like they pick up fresh fruit on the way home, rather than going to some mega store and getting 72 pork chops that they're never know, right. And so we're like, wow, people survive with renting. And and now, as we've been doing this route, that I'm gonna be hard pressed to ever buy a home again, unless it's in the middle of nowhere, and I can just pay cash, and we're going to be there for the rest of our life. Or, hey, here's an investment. Let's flip it quickly and do that. Not just me. I know, some people would disagree with that. I've talked to some financial advisors who said, Yeah, you're about right. button. But that's that. That's my, I would say that's my word. And we lost big, and we've made it back. But overall, it's like you go to a casino 10 times? And if you're doing really well, you're even.

Andrew Stotz 16:19
That's, yeah, yeah. It's, uh, what would you say you learn? How would you summarize what you learn from this?

Curt Mercadante 16:27
I think one thing I learned is the conditioning isn't necessarily true. And that applies to a number of things, you know, all the habits that we have, you know, because of conditioning, because of society, because of the habits of the people who came before us. And it's dangerous. I talked to a guy earlier this week, who wants to start his own business, like not fulfilled? Not at all. But the minute he brings it up, the people around him, and something you said at the beginning of this, you said that, you know, you can change and you can make that change there in is facing? Why would you give up your guaranteed health insurance? Why would you give up this and I told them the story of a high school friend that I had, who told the story of his kid had epilepsy, and was racking up bills, and the insurance company said you're done. So there's a lot of the security we have as an illusion. And I think over the last year, a lot of people have learned that. But step back, have some discernment and awareness and start asking yourself, why are people telling me this? And society does it this way. But like Why? Otherwise, you're kind of an automaton on a moving walkway that you're not allowed to leave.

Andrew Stotz 17:42
That's, you know, I just want to share a few things from your story. The first one is it kind of made me think about your travels to Europe and your travels around the world, traveling around the world really helps open up your mind because you can't it the whole world can't be wrong. You know, it's one thing to go to another state, you know, if you're living in the US and go out the way they do in Alabama is stupid compared to the way we do it in taxes, or whatever that is, you know, but to go to places around the world that have had civilizations much longer than yours, let's say, and to say they're all wrong. Well, you know, I think it opens you up. And then once you start to open your mind that, then it starts to open me up to this, you know, the the social construct that we're in, while we're not aware of where we're raised, and it tells us to do certain things. And definitely one of the big things in America that tells us to do is buy a home. It's the American dream. And everything in America is geared towards that, you know, tax breaks for mortgage payments. You know, the bank's us banks are rare. You know, most banks around the world would never give out a 30 year loan. How could they possibly manage the funding of that? In US banks can only do it because the federal government funds Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and they all sell it to them. Bingo. And if they and we didn't learn our lesson from while years ago, 13 years ago, yeah, there's a great people who shouldn't own homes. Yeah. You can't say that, though. It's happening right now. Again, in the US, my mother's we sold my mother's house for I don't know what it was exactly what it was, but let's just say probably 60% higher. her neighbor just sold the exact same condo, you know, in Charlotte, North Carolina. So, you know, we're fueling another bubble. And, you know, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac probably should have been privatized and then let the market rates prevail, but we don't do that. And so when we push huge volume of people into any industry, and into buying anything, we ultimately push up the price. But, you know, I was singing about the fact that the benefit of traveling abroad and what that does to open up your perspective. Also, I wrote down something I wrote down Have you ever seen the movie, the first 40 year old virgin? Yeah, of course. Yeah. So I think I've got a, I've got a good one here is that I am the 55 year old renter. I've never lived in a house that I might have bought some condo, but eventually sold as like now not interested in buying land and bought some other things. But generally, I just happy to be renting. And it raises some things. You know, I mean, on the one hand, there's so many incentives to borrow in America, that it's free money now, it's almost free money. And what many people don't realize, of course, is what you said property tax, the expenses of maintaining it, and all that. But even then you could argue that, with so much tax incentives that are given and so much incentive on keeping interest rates low, it's very seductive. So I just, you know, just got me thinking about this. It's not for everybody, but for those people that want the freedom of just renting. Go for it.

Curt Mercadante 21:00
Yeah, it's, it's funny, we went back to Charleston in December to spend the holidays with your friends. And we stayed at beach house right on the beach, right on the Atlantic Ocean. And it was probably a 30 year old house, nice house, and they're on stilts, you know, the ocean comes in and, and we had lived inland maybe 10 miles when we lived there. But we would still like the marsh was there. You'd worry about hurricanes every year. So I'm sitting there on the deck, talking to my wife, I said, Man, I wonder what they do if they freak out during you know, hurricanes and where the water goes. And I looked up there and I said, You know what? Not my problem. We were here, in our current house, we're in Sedona, Arizona, and the air conditioning went out. And it was nice if it had happened now it's like 100 degrees. But yeah, it's not my problem, the guy sent someone over fixed it. I don't have to deal with that. So there's all those little things and it's, it's just a matter of what, what you have a taste for. And we didn't have a taste for that. That other piece, we wanted to take something away, one chain away from us to be able to just be up and free. And we're going to be here, I think for a year now we're gonna stay here for a year. And after a year, if we don't like it, we'll go somewhere else.

Andrew Stotz 22:18
Yep. So. And one last thing I would say is that, for a lot of older adults, you mentioned like your mother, as an example, the struggle with properties that you end up, you know, spending most of your cash, but you do have your house. So your your, your asset rich, but cash poor, you've got this big asset. And I know, my sister has been a mortgage broker for a long time. And she sells these reverse mortgages. And we just had a friend family friend of ours, and they just didn't really know about it or didn't trust it or whatever. And they ended up at the age of 90, you know, 8890 having to sell their house and go through all the trouble of that and move into a little apartment to get the cash out of the house. So it's just one of those little financial innovations that are pretty, pretty powerful for people as they get older, which is the reverse mortgage. So yeah, I see all the commercials. Tom selling I think Tom Selleck is doing I think now. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I haven't, I haven't lived in America for 30 years. Yeah, easily. Basically, commercialism ruins everything, just like politics. But you know, anyways, yes. So based upon what you learn from this story, and what you continue to learn what what action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Curt Mercadante 23:34
I think discernment you know, which is, I guess, a subset of awareness. But don't just take things at face value, because someone you know, said it, or someone on TV said it, or some experts somewhere said it. Do your homework. Be your own, when it comes to health Be your own kind of physician, don't just trust to get a second opinion. You know, when it comes to financial advice, don't you? I've been working with this guy or this gal for 20 years, therefore, that doesn't mean they're there. Right? You know, shop around, look around, but also apply our greatest weapon, which is creative thinking, you know, sit back and think Okay, wait a second now. And think back by the way, it's easy here in the US especially right? And maybe it's maybe it's the same around the world, but here in the US. I mean, we think so short term. And so, you know, when I hit 40, which is when I shut down my agency, it was like that was when I hit a wall. Because you know, your whole life is geared towards 59 and a half because that's what you're putting money toward, because you can take money out of the, you know, they control your money. And I never liked that. By the way. It's like I can't my money's there. I could be dead in eight years or a year or a day right. When I hit 40, I could suddenly see 59 and a half around the corner. I'm 46 now as like, Wait a second. And so all of a sudden, I started thinking in 1020 years, when you're in your 30s, it's like I'm, I'm Superman, nothing's ever gonna happen. And then you hit 40. And then people around, you start passing away. And, and so think about 1020, it's gonna, you may not think it's going to be there very quickly. So I think where you want to be thinking with the end in mind,

Andrew Stotz 25:24
I thought about like a child, an infant basically thinks about the moment and a kid thinks about the lunch coming up. And a, you know, a teenager thinks about the date on the weekend, and a 30 year old or 25 year old thinks about, you know, success on that job for the year and getting their annual bonus, or whatever that is. But yeah, when you get to a later age, you start thinking, you know, longer term, like, you see the horizon, once you see the horizon, all of a sudden, it changes your thinking. I remember my father said to me, thing about getting older is that it's the first time that I have seen the horizon shrinking. I always saw expanding that I could do anything I could, you know, go anywhere. And now I see it shrinking. And that, you know, yeah, things change. So, yeah. Last question. What's your number one goal for the next 12 months.

Curt Mercadante 26:27
The one word that comes to mind is creativity. And unleashing my creative flow on a regular basis. You know, as a business owner, it's easy to get, I call them the hustling, grind pornographers. They sell a lot of books, they get a lot of video views. And it's, you know, I like to I read a lot of Taoism. And you know, think of yourself as a mountain stream and your will the water flowing down the stream, right and a challenge in life, a boulder comes in front of you, that's a challenge in life, right? the hustle and grind, pornographers will tell you, you swim toward that Boulder, you grab that boulder you beat your head against until you're bloody. And by the way, if you give up, you're weak, have some more coffee, right adrenalin. So that's awesome grind pornographers, what I urge people to do is see the boulder don't get panicky. Because when you get panicky cortisol shoots to your body. And you're literally dumber, right? It's fight flight or freeze. When you sit back and you yield and you take a deep breath, you can see the whole playing field, you can see the whole stream. And so what I like to do is, wow, when you think creatively, I can flow to the right. Or I can flow to the left around the border. And when I do so I'm waiting at the hustling grind people, they're all bloody, and I'm still going toward my vision. But you can't do that unless you employ your creative thinking. Because that when challenges are coming life, right, you can either turn them into excuses, or you can turn them into outcomes to be achieved. And that ladder with its outcome to be achieved requires some sort of answer some sort of creative answer. And we as humans, we've never should have been out of let out of the caves, right? I mean, we're not very large as far as animals go, you know, the environment is horrible. It always has been stormed whatever else. The only reason we survived was our creative thinking. And so when we employ that we can do anything. The key is when we employ it, and I'm not always, I'm not always convinced we always do and that's, you know, that that's more of a political statement. But I think that individually, it's easy not to do it, especially in a world where there's a lot of, you know, fear and panic porn on TV and social media, etc. Take a deep breath, step back yield, it'll allow you to think more creatively and get in that state of flow.

Andrew Stotz 28:46
That's fantastic. And all that fear and panic that's out there means that your competitors or the other people around you are distracted, for sure. And so if you can be the person that sits back and says, I'm not going to let that distract me right now, I'm going to focus in on who I am, what I want to do what I want to be, you know, now's the time. 100% listeners, there you have it, another story of loss to keep you winning. My number one goal for the next 12 months is to help you mind listener, reduce risk and increase return in your life. To achieve this, I've created our community at my worst investment ever.com and I look forward to seeing you all there. As we conclude, Kurt, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy I hereby award you alumni status returning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience? Be out to go out there be creative when the world burning around you? What is it the Ganga Dan when the world is get you know, keep your head about you. think creatively, and you won't go wrong. Amen. Well, that's a wrap. Another great story to help us create, grow and protect our wealth fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.