Jay Boekeloo | 0:00

Hey everybody, and welcome back to For the Wealth of It podcast. I'm your co-host Jay Boekeloo with my other 2 co-hosts, Brett Maikowski and Jared Tanimoto. I had to look at their names there and remember who they were. Today we are very excited. Our guest today is Mark Marcus. I met Mark actually when he was working at Vanguard, and I'm going to let him tell the story about his career. But honestly, immediately I realized I have just run into one of the smartest guys I'd ever met. He knew Everything about employer plans. He was very gracious, and so we thought he would be an awesome person to have on—not just to talk about employer plans, but also he owns co-owns a law firm with his wife. He also is a realtor, a real estate investor, and as so many of us are, he is a dad. So this is probably the hardest role that he has. So we want to tap into that too. And not only a dad, a girl dad. So he just told us before we started the show. that he got some dogs to try to get some testosterone in the house. Mark, thank you so much for being here.

Mark Marcus | 0:59

Absolutely appreciate the opportunity. And I will say you are giving me way too much credit, but thank you for the grand intro.

Jay Boekeloo | 1:07

No, of course. So Mark, why don't we tell, you know, I touched on it a little bit. So you initially were in the field of finance, right? And why don't you tell us a little bit about your career background?

Mark Marcus | 1:17

Sure, sure. So I'll go way back, but went to Arizona State University, Studied finance at the time, got started in banking pretty much the second I turned 18. I knew that's what I wanted to do. Basically would just go to the bank with my mom all the time, and I saw these young professionals looking dapper and just knew that's what I wanted to do. So as soon as I turned 18, applied to a bunch of banks, was pretty fortunate that the recruiter for Chase had the same last name as me, which is a pretty unique one. So I felt like she felt compelled to give me a call and You know, I think the rest was history. So worked for Chase Bank for a couple of years as a teller and then moved over to Bank of America as a personal banker. So did that throughout my collegiate career. Once I got my degree, knew I wanted to get into investments. Always heard amazing things about Vanguard, so applied and was fortunate to get a job there. At the same time, I always had an interest in real estate, so, and I was also looking to buy a house, hired a realtor, That wasn't going over well. You know, at the time I think I was like 21 years old, so I don't think she took me seriously. So I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to try to figure this out myself. So take the classes, take the test, became a realtor and decided to help myself buy my own home, which fortunately was a success. And when I started Vanguard, I just figured out, you know what, I'm just going to try both of these opportunities, see which one takes off, see which one I like most, and then stick with it. But basically what I discovered is that as a realtor, you spend a lot of time working nights and weekends. So, you know, as a young guy, I had plenty of time, nothing to worry about. So I'm like, you know what, I'm going to balance the two as long as I can. So I actually did that for about a dozen years or so and then kind of made some life decisions from there, which we'll get into in a moment. But as far as my time at Vanguard, started as a high net worth client representative, so helping high net worth individuals with their accounts, anything from, hey, what's my balance? To, hey, I've got $2 million, what should I do with it? Let's talk about asset allocation, asset location, things of that nature. Then I transitioned into the VADP program, the Vanguard Accelerated Development Program. So kind of a rotational deal, primarily targeted to folks that want to launch into a leadership role. But I always liked sales, so I was fortunate enough to get a sales job out of that program. In our institutional sales division, working with small and mid-sized businesses, helping them set up retirement plans, primarily 401 and cash balance plans. So spent about 7 years doing that. Absolutely loved it. One of my favorite jobs of all time. Awesome people to work with at Vanguard. Awesome clients like Jay, actually. And just great work. So I felt like I was able to make an impact on a pretty large scale in that role. Eventually transitioned to a new role at Vanguard as a competitive intelligence analyst, basically taking a look at the marketplace, seeing what Vanguard's competitors are doing and what Vanguard can do to better position themselves when to go out to bid for plans. So did that for a little while, and then as you'd mentioned, eventually decided to leave the corporate world and go full-time into my real estate business and in helping my wife. manage our law firm. So it's been quite a journey, lots of pivotal decisions and moments and all of that. And I'm happy to dive into detail on whatever you'd like to talk about.

Jay Boekeloo | 4:46

That's, that's awesome. What a cool story. Like, you've, you've really, like, you know the business, you know the industry. I'm curious, you said one of the things you said is like, hey, I had all this time when I was young, but then you got married, you have kids. Is that, was that one of the impetuses for you to be like, I'm going to jump into Like real estate more now?

Mark Marcus | 5:04

Exactly. Yeah. So at the time, and again, I was at Vanguard for about 12 years, so having 2 jobs that entire time was awesome. But you know, it had its challenges as well. And again, when you have no kids, you have all of the time in the world. So that was totally fine. But once we had our first child, I would say that was a pretty big mental shift for me. I'm sure there's some science out there of how that changes your brain chemistry, but I know it definitely had an impact on me. Your priorities change. Far less time. You go into dad mode, you want to spend as much time with your kid as possible. So I knew something had to give. I just wasn't quite sure what that was. So tried out a few different things, but ultimately pared down my real estate business a little bit, which was kind of a tough decision too, because it was really taking off at that point. And then once we had twins, so we basically decided, you know what, we want to have our kids back to back, get through the diaper stage. Of course, on the second round, we had twins. So that was a substantial life shock. So anybody who's ever had twins, you know. What's that?

Jay Boekeloo | 6:09

I said back to back to back.

Mark Marcus | 6:11

Yes, absolutely. So I instantly knew something definitely had to give, and, you know, I had to make some pretty substantial decisions. So initially, you know, I thought to myself, hey, Vanguard's been awesome to me. I've been there forever. Stable income, great benefits. Maybe I'll stick with that and just cut down my real estate business even further. So tried that out, but just really missed real estate. So, you know, just had to have some conversations with the family, figure out what our priorities were, what our future could or should look like, but ultimately decided it was in our best interest to leave Vanguard, refocus on my real estate business, and help my wife out with her law business. So she started her law firm in 2018. And was just a solo practitioner the whole time. But she, fortunately, she's always been busy, which is a great problem to have. But unfortunately, she was working 7 days a week, crazy hours, and that also wasn't sustainable. So we just figured, you know what, let's give this a try. It felt like a good opportunity to do that. And, you know, we're pretty fortunate financially at that point. I felt like we kind of achieved financial freedom, so the risk was pretty low, and that played a pretty significant role in the decision as well.

Jay Boekeloo | 7:27

So you assessed the risk before, you're like, okay, let's look at our finances. We're bringing in enough money. Did you have savings set aside to say, hey, I want this much before I start my business just in case? Were you living off both incomes? Tell me more about that.

Mark Marcus | 7:41

Yeah. Yeah. So we've always lived pretty well below our means. So, you know, we've, we didn't really have much debt when I had made that decision. So yeah, it was a pretty easy decision for us from a financial perspective because we kind of had everything covered. So, you Yeah, to answer your question, we definitely had savings. We had a healthy amount in our retirement accounts. We had assets in real estate, so in rental income and other passive income. So we felt pretty good about where we were at. So again, that was the easy part of the equation. The tough part was obviously leaving behind an incredible company, 12 years of relationships I built up both internally within Vanguard and with great clients. So That was, I think, the tougher decision. Plus, you know, I think as humans sometimes we can be a bit scared of change. So I think that played a role in it as well. So definitely a big decision, but ultimately worked out for the better for sure.

Jay Boekeloo | 8:39

Yeah. Did you ever have a contingency plan or anything where you're like, okay, I'm gonna have this much time and if it's not going well, here's what I'll do. Or were you like, no, we're comfortable enough?

Mark Marcus | 8:52

Yeah, yeah. Honestly, we were pretty, we were comfortable enough where, you know, if we totally failed, we would still be fine again, just because of the passive income aspect. So my whole thing, and one thing you'll learn about me is I am extremely conservative financially. I don't like to take large risks. So I went into this knowing that we would be fine worst case scenario. I think my biggest fear was, hey, this doesn't pan out and, you know, I want to go back to Vanguard or corporate America and just, you know, kind of having to do that again, which again, incredible experience, but kind of an awkward scenario if you have to go back. So I was trying to avoid that. Fortunately, I haven't gotten there yet.

Jared Tanimoto | 9:31

What was the transition like from being at Vanguard to running essentially a law firm? I think there's a lot of overlap, and we usually see most people go from big companies like Vanguard, JP Morgan, all over to starting their own firms. But as kind of, I've, you know, been a a business owner running my own firm, I noticed a lot of the technology is pretty similar to law firms. I mean, you still have your onboarding, your compliance, your CRM, your marketing. A lot of the systems are pretty similar. I'd be interested in hearing what it's like running a law firm and keeping the learning curve to switch over careers to learn that.

Mark Marcus | 10:11

Yeah, so that was an interesting one. I will say that was definitely something that gave me pause as well, because Obviously my wife has been an attorney for a bit of time, so I've been exposed to it. We have conversations about it. I'm familiar. I know enough to be dangerous, but if you ask me a couple of in-depth questions, I'll have to turn it over to her. So I kind of went in with that background, not knowing too much about the legal field. So it was a little bit intimidating, but quickly found out, to your point, a lot of my experience, background knowledge was pretty transferable to my role specifically within the law firm. So my goal going into this was just to make sure that my wife could just solely focus on being an attorney. So she handled everything immigration related. My role is just strictly the business side of things. So a little bit of sales, marketing, HR, IT, all of that. So there was definitely a learning curve for sure, but I also took a lot of the systems, processes, and approach that I learned over at Vanguard and through my real estate business as well. So I know like one of the big things that I take away from my time at Vanguard is they are great about treating their employees well, building a culture, making sure everyone feels engaged. And that really built a strong culture over at Vanguard, having team building events. So I brought all of that over to the law firm and essentially used that to build a team around my wife to give her the support she needed to lessen her hours. But we're big on leveraging technology, to your point as well. So, you know, when I joined the firm, like she did everything from her cell phone and an Excel spreadsheet to track everything, which worked in the early days. But, you know, obviously we wanted to grow and evolve. So putting those systems in place and those resources behind her, things like a professional CRM system, we leverage AI quite a bit, which I will tell you, my approach to AI is always trust but verify. It is awesome, but it definitely has its drawbacks as well. We're definitely power users of that. Yeah, it was definitely a change and a learning curve, but I was able to get to speed pretty quickly through some of that prior experience.

Brett Maikowski | 12:23

Yeah. Very cool. Can you speak to the, just the personal dynamic of working with family too? I know that that's a whole nother component that, you know, you may bring all this valuable experience over from Vanguard and, you know, team building and all that, but when that other person is related to you, there's a whole nother layer there. So hoping you could kind of speak to what that was like, at least initially and now.

Mark Marcus | 12:47

Yeah, great question. You know what? It's funny you bring that up because every time I say, hey, my wife and I work together, somebody always says, whoa, I don't know how you do that. Could never work with my spouse. We'd end up killing each other. You know, so I, it's definitely an interesting scenario. I absolutely love it. She loves it. So we get to spend all day together. And the funny thing is, you know, we are also gym partners, life partners, business partners. So we literally spend all day, every day together, but it's a blast. I think at the end of the day, the most important thing is communication and having fun. So we make sure that those are paramount in our relationship from a business standpoint. And funny enough, we actually share an office, so we work out of the same room in our office building by choice. So we just have a blast with it. But yeah, fortunately, I will say we have 2 extremely different skill sets. So again, She's an immigration attorney. There's no way I could even attempt to do the work she's doing. And then of course, my work at the law firm is business related, which she doesn't have much expertise in as well. So I think we're pretty fortunate from that perspective that we never have the risk of stepping on each other's toes since our skill sets are totally different. I think, you know, if the 2 spouses are doing similar work, that might be a bit more of a challenge. But I think for us, Probably the biggest challenge is talking about work outside of work. So sometimes we have to draw those boundaries as well. Like, hey, love the law firm, but we talk about it all day, every day. Let's go into family need.

Brett Maikowski | 14:25

Kind of setting that personal and professional boundary. Now, do you go into it with having to kind of like lay out some ground rules or are you just kind of figuring out as you go trial by fire?

Mark Marcus | 14:36

Definitely the latter. So, A little bit of trial by fire, figuring it out as we go. And again, just simply clear communication, making sure that nobody gets offended by being honest, which we're pretty good about.

Jared Tanimoto | 14:51

I feel like having 4 kids doesn't allow you to have those conversations after work anyways.

Mark Marcus | 14:55

Yeah.

Jared Tanimoto | 14:55

So what is that like juggling, I guess essentially 2 businesses and then 4 kids including twins? What's that like?

Mark Marcus | 15:02

Yeah. Oh my. It's pretty wild. It is pretty wild. I will say, Having— when we had our first kid, you know, that was incredible. You know, all the cliché things you hear about being a parent, like, this is just awesome. You know, you want to dedicate everything you have to your kid and every moment is precious and amazing. And then, and I love my twins dearly, but once the twins came into the picture, you know, all of the rainbows and butterflies totally went away. We just strictly went into survival mode. You know, a lot of folks say when you have a baby, you don't sleep at night. When you have twins, you literally do not sleep at night. Like you'd be lucky to get an hour or 2 max. Yeah. Because it's like you feed, you change the diaper, you feed the baby in the middle of the night, finally get 'em down to sleep. But by the time you do that, the other twin is starting their whole routine. You gotta do that all over. So it is a brutal process. So that first year was pretty challenging. So we really had to give it our all and focus on that for sure. But now that, you know, they're a little older, so our twins are 4, my eldest is 6, you know, they're more self-sufficient now. We're not changing diapers anymore, thank goodness. So it definitely allows us a little bit more flexibility. But yeah, we definitely try not to talk shop when we're around the kids. Our big thing is trying to be as present as we can. So no screens when we're around them. And we're pretty strict with them about screens as well. So just trying to be present is really one of my main focuses. Especially post-Vanguard. That was a big reason for this shift as well.

Jay Boekeloo | 16:38

Yeah, that is such a good point actually. Like on the personal side of the, you know, they are going to do as you do, not as you say. And as business owners, it is so easy to get caught up on, oh, I have some down moment, a down moment, I can get a little bit more done. Or, and it hit me when my 6-year-old now, but he was about 4 or 5, when he did an impression of Daddy, and it was he got on a computer. And I was like, oh man, this is what he sees me as. So I like that screen thing. But warning to anybody out there who doesn't have kids yet, the world is screen. So you got to do the best at home, but they are going to be on screens because schools like require them now. It's crazy.

Mark Marcus | 17:19

Exactly. It's pretty wild. And we're not too strict to that extent where we're trying to control it externally. So for example, You know, we try to go to the gym daily, so they'll sometimes go with us into the little daycare section and they know like, no, we don't do tablets here. We don't really watch TV at home. Like we'll do a movie night once a week, but when they go to the gym, they get excited cuz they have tablets there. So that's where they get their screen time and we're fine with that. We recognize that. Yeah.

Jay Boekeloo | 17:50

My, one of my favorite things, just cuz of your, your scenario, Is one of our neighbors. They had 2 kids and then they had their 3rd. And I'm sure you've heard this, but they said we went from zone— what is it? Man-to-man defense to zone. And you went from like double team to zone. That's a huge difference.

Mark Marcus | 18:08

Yeah, absolutely. It's so funny because when we had our twins, it was in the middle of the pandemic. So I actually couldn't go to the first doctor's appointment. So I didn't know what was going on. And of course I had a work meeting at the time and I was talking with my boss and my colleague who all also has 3 kids. And my colleague's like, do you go? Having 2 kids feels like you have 2 kids. And then when you get to 3, it feels like you have 500 because you're outnumbered. To your point, you have to do that zone defense. So literally in the middle of that meeting, I get a text message from my wife that says, call me. And I'm like, oh my goodness. I just said, good or bad? Good, but call me was her response and instantly knew it was twins. So I had to, I had to call my boss and colleague back up like, hey guys, I'm part of the 500 club now. So. It's a wild experience, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. They are an absolute blast, a joy, a blessing. So we were super fortunate.

Jay Boekeloo | 19:06

Well, Mark, one of the things you touched on was you said, when I made this decision, we didn't have debt, but your wife went to law school, which is not a cheap thing. So did you guys have debt in the past? And if so, how did you handle it?

Mark Marcus | 19:18

Yeah. Yeah. So fortunately we've never had anything like credit card debt. We've had Like short-term auto loans that we generally paid off pretty quickly. You know, we both had pretty solid income, so that's never been an issue. But to your point, when she went to law school, she went to private law school and the debt was tremendous. So, and I don't mind sharing numbers, but basically she ended up with $200,000 in debt, which is pretty tough to stomach. You know, when you're, when you're doing well, I have no debt. You know, that can be a bit of a challenge. So basically the game plan was she would work for either a nonprofit or a government agency for a period of 10 years, because if you do that, or at least at the time, they would actually wipe your debt clean. So I'm like, hey, free $200 grand, we'll take it. Let's take that approach. So we started on that track for a couple of years, and actually I think her debt started maybe around like $160K, somewhere in that range. But, you know, a couple years passed by, I'm like, whoa, it's now $200K because she's making income-based payments. So her payments are not even covering the interest, so the balance is growing. And then I started seeing stories about how folks in similar scenarios screwed one thing up or another and didn't qualify for that relief. And I just started getting a little bit worried about that. And I generally think we're pretty good at dotting our i's and crossing our t's, but you never know. So started doing a little bit of math, asking my wife, hey, would you have any interest in doing this elsewhere, either through a private practice where you could potentially make more money, or maybe doing it on your own? If so, how much do you think you could charge clients? How many clients do you think you could get? So kind of doing that business planning upfront to see if that might be a viable option. So the way I kind of figured it is if we have $200,000 in debt and it takes 10 years to get that wiped clean, the benefit's essentially $20,000 a year. So if she can find a way to make $20,000 more per year, then that opportunity would be worth it for us. So basically—

Jared Tanimoto | 21:24

That's a really good way to put it. That's, that I have, I haven't seen that many people frame it in that way and that just kind of clicked. Oh yeah, sorry.

Mark Marcus | 21:31

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So we figured, you know what, let's just go for it. And again, you know, I had pretty solid income working at Vanguard and with my real estate business, so Risk was pretty minimal. She launched her own law firm, fortunately did pretty well from the start, so it wasn't an issue. And again, since we were doing pretty decently financially, you know, we were not penny pinchers, so to speak. So we would always go out and do the fun stuff, sporting events, concerts, travel, all of that. But once we made that decision, the goal immediately became pay this off as quickly as possible. We'll make any sacrifices we need to. In order to accomplish that, so actually a friend of mine had turned me on to Dave Ramsey, who I'm a huge fan of him and his philosophies. I know sometimes they're a bit controversial, so everyone make their own decisions, of course. But for us, it really worked, and really the principle was basically try to save as much money cut by cutting out as many expenses as possible. So we just decided, hey, based on our bank statements, we're spending an incredible amount of money eating out at restaurants. So we literally stopped eating out entirely other than for like special occasions or what have you. But that was a game changer for us. So we were able to pay it off pretty quickly, basically just use all of my real estate income to pay it off. And we got it paid off in, I had to guess maybe about a year and a half, 2 years max. So it worked out really well for us. It was definitely a bit of a challenge and a lifestyle change for sure, but well worth it in our opinion. And I will also say we are now pretty decent cooks, both of us. So that is the silver lining as well. If you're in a similar scenario, totally worth considering just buckling down, cutting out all frivolous expenditures and figuring out how to get that debt paid. That was honestly like one of the most pivotal moments in our financial careers to kind of launch us to the next level.

Jay Boekeloo | 23:30

Yeah. Yeah. And just so for any listeners out there, this could be a whole episode. And so, What I would say is I would encourage people to reach out to a financial planner so you can talk more. But what Mark is alluding to earlier was public service loan forgiveness. So there are federal programs if you have federal loans. So I would, you know, look into that. PSLF for short. There's, it depends. You have to meet some very strict stipulations to receive that. And to Mark's point, it's like there are a lot of people that suddenly weren't getting it. And there's a lot of litigation still going around it, but definitely reach out if you guys, if you are a listener, is there in that position where you have some student loans? You know, there's some really great resources. Reach out to one of us if you want. We can always put you in the right direction. Did you reach out, Mark, or did you kind of do your own research since you were in that world a little bit?

Mark Marcus | 24:22

Yeah, so just did my own research and yeah, just kind of used that and Formed our opinion decision based on the research and the numbers and what made sense for us.

Jay Boekeloo | 24:33

Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, congrats. That's a huge thing to be out of debt. I will touch on as well. I think what's really cool about Dave Ramsey is he modifies behaviors, right? Like it's not about the numbers. And so that's one thing that I do love about him. And one of the things I really, as you were saying this, I was like, oh, this is a good point for listeners. Is you said you looked at it and you were eating out a lot. And I think sometimes people are like, so I have to cut all these expenses. It's like, no, look at where your money, look at your cash flow, and you might find there's something that doesn't matter to you as much as the goal. We're not saying, hey, cut your life and live, you know, as a hermit for the rest of your life until you're out of debt. It's, you may have some frivolous spending. That you can go, I don't really need to go out every night. Maybe I can go down, go out 4 nights instead of 5. That's a 20% reduction right there.

Mark Marcus | 25:31

Absolutely. Absolutely. And especially with the cost of eating out these days, like cutting out that 1 time per week can have a pretty significant impact, especially if you have a family. Like we're a family of 5. When we go out, it is pricey. Even if you're going to Chick-fil-A or McDonald's, I'm always astounded by the bill. So, The amount of savings you can realize is pretty significant. And again, I think what I also learned in that process was we can make better, healthier food at home for far cheaper. You know, and on top of it, because we're making our food and having that savings, you can also splurge on the ingredients. Like, I have no problem buying a prime ribeye, you know, because that's going to cost me what it would cost to eat at McDonald's, but I'm eating, you know, awesome food. So it's a pretty great thing to go through from a lot of levels, the savings, building a new skill of cooking, and just realizing that you can do it better yourself.

Jay Boekeloo | 26:30

Yeah. I love also what you're touching on is kind of what the whole idea behind this podcast is, is that while we're talking about finances, what you've tapped into is time with the family. Your wife was, you know, 7 days a week. You're like, this isn't feasible. You're talking about working out every day. You're talking about family dynamics. Like, that's a wealthy life. And I think that's what's so cool to have you on here is that you are working towards having that balance, not, hey guys, yeah, I have millions of dollars in the bank, but I hate my life. You know, like,

Mark Marcus | 27:01

yeah,

Jay Boekeloo | 27:01

not what we want to do. So

Mark Marcus | 27:04

that comment definitely resonates with me because I know, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, but early on in my career, definitely had a focus on I need to make as much money as I can as early as I can so I can get to this destination. But eventually you realize there is no destination, there is no endgame. It's just a journey. So you've got to enjoy it start to finish and figure out how to do that. And ultimately, you know, there was a study I read forever ago, and I know these numbers are totally out of date, but basically it's like this balance of how much happiness can you obtain from your annual income? And basically the study had concluded that, hey, after $75,000 of annual income, money doesn't necessarily bring additional happiness. Again, tons of inflation since then, so maybe that number's double now, or maybe it's $100 grand, who knows? But ultimately the level of happiness that you can receive from the money you make is definitely capped. So I think that's one thing you have to realize. So working hard, saving money, making money, all great. But at the end of the day, you have to truly look within to figure out what your priorities are and make sure that you are actually prioritizing those priorities over possibly making money if you're in a decent financial position. So that's something that really stuck with me. And actually, I just want to throw out this little story because honestly, this really changed my life and my mindset, and it really goes in tandem with that comment. But basically, Forever ago, maybe about a decade ago, went to Jimmy John's and they had this sign in there and the sign was titled, How Much Is Enough? And it's basically this story about this Mexican fisherman who lives in a coastal village. He goes out fishing, comes back in, he's at the dock. He meets this like investment banker who's a Harvard MBA. The Harvard MBA comments and says, hey, those are some nice looking fish. If you don't mind me asking, why'd you cut your trip so short? You know, you could have caught more fish, made a little more money. And basically the response was, well, I have enough to provide for me and my family and live a comfortable life. And the response from the banker was, that's great. Now what are you going to do with the rest of your day? Or what do you do with the rest of your time? And his response was, well, I get to wake up late, go fishing for a little bit, come home, hang out with my kids, Play guitar with my friends, go out into the village, sip wine, hang out with my wife. So I live a nice fulfilling life. And he said, that's awesome. But if you spent a little bit more time fishing, you could make more money, buy a bigger boat, eventually buy a few boats, start selling to the direct person as opposed to the middleman. And then eventually you can have your own cannery and then eventually you'll have this huge business. You can IPO it and then you can sell it. Hopefully for millions of dollars, and the fisherman was like, "Okay, and then what's next? That sounds awesome." And then his response was, "Well, that's the best part. You know, you take those millions of dollars, you retire in a small Mexican fishing village, so you can wake up late, fish a little bit, hang out with your kids and wife, play guitar with your friends, and sip wine." So that really stuck with me, and that's really when I realized, hey, this whole making money thing is not a destination, simply a journey, and you need to figure out how to. enjoy it all the way through. And again, figure out what your priorities are and figure out how to weave that into your daily life.

Jay Boekeloo | 30:34

Yeah, that's such an insightful story. I love that. Thank you for sharing that. That's really cool. I mean, normally I think it's like, man, let's end on a high note right there and be like, yeah, that's great. But I'm going to push it just a little bit. Yeah, let's do it. I want to ask some final questions here as we're coming to the end of the show. A little bit about your real estate. I mean, so you're a realtor, you're helping people get it. So tell us about that. Like what you said, you were interested in it at 21, so you are a real estate investor now?

Mark Marcus | 31:03

I am. Yeah. So absolutely love real estate. That is one of my biggest passions, like every aspect of it. So being a realtor, helping folks buy their, what in most cases is their largest financial purchase. So that's awesome because that can be a pretty, stressful endeavor. So being able to alleviate that stress for folks and make it as seamless as possible. And my biggest thing is I love negotiating, so I really get to flex that muscle with my clients, whether it's on the buy side or the sell side. So absolutely love that aspect of it. And then aside from that, you know, we, we do invest in real estate as well. So love being an investor, finding good deals. I'm definitely of the buy and hold mindset. I've had, I've only sold one of my own properties and honestly it was one of my biggest regrets. And again, hindsight's 20/20, so it's really easy to say you regret a decision when you see how much you could have made after the fact. But obviously not knowing that, it totally changes your mindset as well. So love being a real estate investor as well as a landlord. So we rent out property and that's just a nice I don't want to use the word passive income, but semi-passive income because there definitely is work involved with it. And then I'm just a big DIYer, love renovating properties, taking something ugly, making it nice. So we like buying, I wouldn't say ugly homes, but we like buying properties that are kind of in original condition. This way you're not paying a premium for somebody else's upgrades and you can make it your own after the fact. So love real estate from all angles.

Jared Tanimoto | 32:44

Real quick, can you touch on, and we haven't talked too much about real estate in the past, but to kind of your average investor, what you see the benefits of real estate are? I think you mentioned like, oh, I'm just a small-time real estate investor, but I think that's where the real returns are, what most people, average people can do and get into. And there's so many tax advantages, so many ways where you can leverage your dollar. Maybe just briefly touch on what you see as some of Strong points of being a small real estate investor are?

Mark Marcus | 33:14

Yeah, so I feel like that is such an interesting topic because we all have different strategies, different perspectives on it. So I'll simply share what my experience is and what my perspective is that may be right for some, maybe not for others, but the biggest benefits really is capital appreciation. So real estate always goes up in value over the long Obviously you're going to have down years. You had 2008, a very down year, especially here in the Phoenix market. But ultimately, if you look at a chart, the trend line is always up. So capital appreciation is huge. Aside from that, the passive income through renting out the property, if that's what you're looking to do as an investor, is incredible. And then as, and you can have all kinds of write-offs associated with that rental property. And then aside from that, of course, if you have a mortgage on that, that can also help you around tax time as well. So Lots of different benefits, but I view it as a pretty core component of our wealth-building strategy and something that I definitely love doing. So

Jay Boekeloo | 34:19

yeah, one of the things you said was that hindsight's 20/20. I read a book by Mark Minervini, who's a few-time, I think 2-time US investment champion. And so he's really interesting to listen to and he's a drummer as well. So he lives a Of wealth for himself. He's like, it's not about the money. But one of the things he talks about is that hindsight bias, you know, of a man or regret or anything like that. And he's like, did you make money on it? So that sale that you made, if you made it, you made the profit, which is what you were trying to do.

Mark Marcus | 34:52

Yep.

Jay Boekeloo | 34:53

That's great. Because, you know, the what-ifs could have, what if it had gone down? I'm sure there's someone out there that held the property and everything went down and they went, man, I wish I sold it when I could have. So Play that game forever. I hear you. We all fall for it. But I loved how Mark was like, did you do it? You, did you learn something? Did you make a profit? You did great. Let's move on.

Mark Marcus | 35:13

Exactly. A learning moment for sure.

Jay Boekeloo | 35:16

Yeah. Well, Mark, I, I really appreciate you coming on here. Before we let you go, I wanted to bring up an old school question that we used to ask, maybe to close the show here. And that is, and I'm gonna do a 2-part here. What does wealth mean to you and what are you doing now? Like, what's your goal to achieve that? What are you going to do after this show?

Mark Marcus | 35:39

Yeah, great question. So definitely view wealth as a multifaceted thing. So obviously one component is the financial aspect, and I think once you have the financial aspect covered, it allows you the freedom to do a lot of other things. And again, you can weave those other things into your game plan early on. You don't have to wait till you're at a certain point, but that's definitely a component of it. But to me, the most important components are the things that you prioritize outside of that. So for me specifically, that's going to be family. So I try to spend as much of my free time as possible with my kids, with my wife. Fortunately, I already spend all day with my wife, so that box is checked, but definitely spending time with my kids. So when I look at that, seeing them go into school now and being successful there, like that just brings me so much joy and gratitude. So that is probably the biggest component of what I define as wealth. But aside from that, obviously we all have our personal interests and hobbies. So for me, I like to spend a lot of my free time as well playing guitar. That brings me ultimate joy. And the beauty of guitar, of course, is that you can never quote unquote accomplish it. You can never achieve it. It's an ongoing thing. You can always be better. You can always learn something new. You can jump into a different genre and continue to challenge yourself, which is something I'm big on. I always try to be better today than I was yesterday in some form or fashion. So that kind of scratches that itch. I also really enjoy woodworking. So making furniture is a passion of mine. So I would say those are the core components of what I view as wealth, and of course building up our businesses and all of that. So definitely multifaceted, but I would say financial, you've got the personal aspect and then your health and wealth. Excuse me, just health. But yeah, so for us that means trying to go to the gym maybe 4 or 5 times a week, eating relatively healthy. We still cook most of our meals just because we're in the habit of it now. So So it's, it's definitely a complex question. I think one that's going to differ from person to person, but that's at least my version of it.

Jay Boekeloo | 37:49

Yeah. Well, thank you for your vulnerability and being willing to share that. I'm sure it really resonated with somebody out there. If anybody wants to get ahold of you, we always will put the stuff in the show notes, but why don't you give a pitch real quick? If anybody wants to get through to you, how do they, how do they do that?

Mark Marcus | 38:04

Sure. I'm kind of old school, so I don't have TikTok or X or any of that stuff. But I do have Facebook, so you can get ahold of me on Facebook. Again, Mark Marcus. You can look up Mark Marcus with HomeSmart for my real estate page. You can look up Marcus Law Firm. We have websites for both as well. And I try to post content for, for both businesses to try to help folks out with at least what our perspectives are on what's going on in the market, both from a real estate perspective as well as from an immigration standpoint. Legal perspective.

Jay Boekeloo | 38:37

That's great. Well, as I said, we'll put it in the show notes as well. So anybody listening, if you're interested, Mark is a great guy, even if you just want to reach out to him and pick his brain. We'll have to have you back on, Mark, and have you talk employer plans sometime. Didn't even remember to bring that up about how you're doing, if you're doing that with your own businesses. So yeah, thank you again for being here and look forward to having you again.

Mark Marcus | 38:57

Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Mark.

Speaker 3 | 39:02

The views depicted in this material are for information purposes only and are not necessarily those of Cetera Advisor Networks, High Note Financial, or Savvy Advisors. They should not be considered specific advice or recommendations for any individual. Neither Cetera Advisor Networks, High Note Financial, or Savvy Advisors, nor any of its representatives may give legal or tax advice. Jay Boekeloo is an investment advisor representative offering advisory services through High Note Financial LLC. Jared Tanimoto is an investment advisor representative offering advisory services through Savvy Advisors. Brett Maikowski is an investment advisor representative and registered representative offering advisory services and securities through Cetera Advisor Networks LLC, member FINRA/SIPC, a broker-dealer and registered investment advisor. Cetera is under separate ownership from any other named entity. THM Wealth Management is located at 102 S. Goliath St., Suite 103, Rockwall, TX 75087.