EP 35 – Getting Unstuck with Self Directing

Mark Kohler: Welcome, everybody, to this week’s episode of the directed IRA podcast, coming to you live on all your podcast venue’s podcast

Mat Sorensen: Networks, channels, channel channels.

Mark Kohler: Yeah, and on YouTube. Welcome.

Mat Sorensen: Yeah, we’re coming at you. However, you you can’t help it. We’re out there everywhere. You’ll find us.

Mark Kohler: Yep. My name is Mark Kohler and I’ve got the amazing Mat Sorensen with me, both tax attorneys helping you, the American that wants to take control of your investments. Self-direct feel free.

Mat Sorensen: Set your IRA free baby self-direct it set your IRA free. That’s what this podcast’s all about. Invest in what you now don’t feel like you ought to just buy stocks, bonds and mutual funds.

Mark Kohler: Is that so? Set your IRA free. Is that a new one? Have you been saying that?

Mat Sorensen: I mean,

Mark Kohler: Corey, throw me a pen. I gotta write that down. Set your IRA free.

Mat Sorensen: That phrase is not to be used without the express written consent of Ricky Bobby, Inc. All right?

Mark Kohler: Set your IRA free. OK? All right. You heard it first here, everybody. Yeah, that’ll be trademarked by the end of the show. So, yeah, knock yourself out.

Mat Sorensen: Don’t let it be all locked up in a brokerage account where you can just buy stocks, bonds and ETFs. Well, that’s this podcast is all about about how you can invest in real estate, private companies, crypto, whatever things you’re into in life, can find a viable investment. Small business, Main Street, don’t feel like you’re stuck just buying stuff on Wall Street, but it takes a little bit of time and education to know how to do it. That’s what podcast is all about. We got tons of content on it. I got a book, The Self-directed IRA Handbook on it. We’re helping clients at our company, Directed IRA where we handle these types of accounts. So but today we’ve got a special topic.

Mark Kohler: Yeah, this is about getting unstuck. Now, some you may think what and the freak or these guys talking about. Well, there’s a lot of people that think, OK, I want to self-direct, I want to take control of my retirement account. But they’re not sure how to get their retirement account funded and going. They need a little more capital to do what they think they can do. And we want to talk about the fallacy of needing hundreds of thousands of dollars to get started. You don’t we’ll give you some examples and some ideas and how you can get family members started with basic investing strategies so that you can start Self-directing without a million dollars. And I think that’s an unstuck feeling or a stuck feeling. We want to unstuck that? You guys know what I mean. Number 2, Number 2. There’s a lot of people to move their money to a Self-directed IRA Trust company like Directed IRA Trust Company like ours. And they get there and they’re like, oh, I don’t have a deal. fall you know, I have a deal fall in my lap in the first week. And so, like, I give up Self-direct. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We got some ideas to help you feel liberated and free and give you some ideas and some steps to take so you feel unstuck. Not doing anything.

Mat Sorensen: Yeah. There you go. Yeah. And I think that’s there’s two groups of people, as Mark described, that get stuck and that’s those that don’t feel like they have enough money. Maybe you’re starting from zero. We want to talk about that. And there’s other people who maybe they’ve got hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars in retirement accounts, but they’re just they know how to buy stocks, bonds and mutual funds. But they get over here and they’re like, I don’t what I want to do Real estate, for example, what real estate do I buy? I’m like, I don’t know what to do or how to pull it off. And so we want to we want to talk about that, too. And, you know, we’re not advisers on what to buy and we’re not going to tell you what to buy. We want to give you some strategies and things to think about to help move the ball forward so you can truly take control of your retirement, set your IRA free, baby.

Mark Kohler: Move the ball forward. Good. Yeah, it’s almost college football season fun time.

Mat Sorensen: Oh I can’t wait. I guess it’s like the best sports time of year college football. Falls in the air of the band’s plan. It’s like this Christmas.

Mark Kohler: Bratwurst on the grill.

Mat Sorensen: Oh, yeah. Good times. It’s good times.

Mark Kohler: Good times ahead, as I say on NPR. Good times.

Mat Sorensen: Good times. Good times. Good times, good times. Well, let’s let’s talk about. Oh hold it.

Mark Kohler: Hold it. Mat Sorensen. Jeez, slow down, tiger. We have an important announcement for all of you that are also getting into this new world of self-directing or you consider yourself an expert. We’ve got two options for you, the far, far majority of you. We want to make sure you’re aware of our fall summit. It’s a two-day summit in Phoenix, Arizona. What date Mat?

Mat Sorensen: October 22nd and 23rd Self-directed IRA summit. Go to SDIRASummit.com SDIRASummit.com. The golf tournament was from charity involved. On Friday,

Mark Kohler: I was just going to ask you what date it was, and then I was going to say all that, I didn’t give you the whole microphone. Jeez.

Mat Sorensen: Oh you you just wanted me to say I say the date I get to twenty third and then. Yeah. Pass the baton back.

Mark Kohler: Yeah. I was going to keep going but feel free.

Mat Sorensen: You need to watch the Olympics like the relays and stuff like that. They actually pass the baton and the other person gets to run around the track. Yes. All right. This is a team relay.

Mark Kohler: Ok, sorry that you didn’t have the baton long enough. So you’re like, I’m going to run. I’m like, oh, let’s slow down tiger now. OK, so no Mat. You nailed it. This is going to be a lot of fun golf tournament and there’s going to be breakout sessions for everybody at any level of self-directing. It’s not broadcast on Zoom.

Mat Sorensen: Not recorded. You’ve got to be there and we’re going to have some other speakers besides of course, Mark and I will be speaking. Some other amazing attorneys in our law firm will be speaking and then some of our board members and some other clients that have done really well. Self-directing we’re going to get some input from them. It’s got to be there. Great time to network. Scotsdale in October is amazing. Great place to be. So looking forward to that. Yep.

Mark Kohler: Now we do a virtual broadcast in the spring every year and we’re trying to increase the amount of virtual broadcasts we’re doing so that all of you that are new to this can get started. And so I want to next point for all of you to put on your calendar is the next date. So I want to put this. We’re coming up on. Oh, boy. OK, so where are we?

Mat Sorensen: See, this is why when you tell me when you ask me that date, I ran with it because I worried you were going to be fumbling around like this.

Mark Kohler: Are you being critical is that what you’re doing?

Mat Sorensen: I’m just this is not that my job. I was going to run with it because I knew the details.

Mark Kohler: It’s not your job to be critical either, Mr. Sorensen. So just. Gosh, man, this is not the time or place we’ve talked about this with our therapist. Ok, now, OK, August 18th, which is right around the corner is our monthly webinar that’s live on Zoom that all of you can participate in and you can go to DirectedIRA.com. And so if some of your like I can’t make it to Phoenix, I’d like to get some live interaction with your team, get a sense of what’s going on. You’re already getting engaged with the in the process Mark on your calendar, August 18th for an evening with our team at Directed IRA. So that’s a live webinar. Be aware of that. And then also we have in October, for those of you that can’t make the summit October 1st and for our fans in Texas. OK, Lee, this is for you, baby. We’re coming to Texas. This is our this is our main announcement. We are coming to Texas on October 1st for one night. We’re calling it the Masters event. Three hours, Buji dinner, Buji. If you don’t know the word Bujji, it means.

Mat Sorensen: Talk to a teenager, you know, talk to your millennial. Yeah.

Mark Kohler: If there’s anything how I could define buji, it’s the opposite of Buckey’s

Mat Sorensen: Bujy is what your parents might have said was fancy.

Mark Kohler: Yes, fancy. So Friday night in Dallas, we’re going to be very intimate. We’re only having 50 seats for 50 people. It’s called the Masters Evening with Mark and Mat. Or is it Mat and Mark?

Mat Sorensen: Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. You can

Mark Kohler: Wait. I’ll go first. So it’s Masters a night with Q&A and high-end strategies. Now I will give this disclaimer if you have not come to the summit or participated in the spring. That’s a pre-rec, you cannot come to Masters as a newbie, it will blow your brain, it’s not good. You will you will not have fun. This is for those that have been self-direct and know what the freaks are doing. You’re a master. We’re not the masters the night with the Masters, are you? So that’s in Dallas. So fly in people. So that’ll be on. So the dates you want to note and then we’re going to get into our topic here of getting unstuck are August 18th live webinar. You can go to Directed IRA to register for that and then August. Well, there’s a September webinar as well.

Mat Sorensen: Yeah, once a month we got a webinar. So if you’re sign up for the directory newsletter. You’ll get that. Also, if you’re on the the our main newsletter, Mark and I have too you know, you’re going to you’ll get those dates as well. And those are free webinars.

Mark Kohler: Yep. September 8th. And then we get into our live events, which is October 1st and October 22nd and 23rd. The reason why we like these on October too, it’s really nice for the accountants. A lot of people are wrapping up their tax season. We have CPAs that want to come get some additional CE training. And if you come to the summit, you will get continuing education, credit and a certificate. So if your financial advisor, a CPA or a lawyer also I’d say a dentist, a doctor, a realtor, we will give you a certificate. Now, whether or not it’s valid in your state and qualifies, you’ll have to submit it. But for the most part, alive attending financial training seminar from experts qualifies. And so we want to give you that certificate. OK, so there’s our announcements out of the way. Make sure you get registered folks and you can do all that at DirectedIRA.com.

Mat Sorensen: Ok, now. Right now. OK, thank you for that commercial interruption, everyone. Appreciate that. Now can I get started?

Mark Kohler: Yes, I feel like I had to think about it. OK, while, you get started. I’m going to ask Corey. Corey, can you bring me a cold rock star recovery? I need to show that on camera. It’s part of my contract. Yeah. Ricky, Bobby, Ricky, Bobby and I get Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Mat Sorensen: I don’t know what to do with my hands. I don’t have a car put them down. No good

Mark Kohler: Team. You don’t need to hold the mic. For those that have not seen Talladega Nights, you’re probably one of the lucky ones. But if you have seen it, you will appreciate these dumb jokes because Will Ferrell kills it in Talladega Nights. Show me second place and show me a loser baby.

Mat Sorensen: Yeah,

Mark Kohler: Thanks Corey. Look I have two Rockstars.

Mark Kohler: I watched it with my girlfriend with Michelle last night and she had never seen it. So I’m like, yeah, that’s why this these lines are going to be flying.

Mark Kohler: Oh, you introduced a lot.

Mat Sorensen: How has she not seen this? Yeah.

Mark Kohler: It’s like how do you not see Chariots of Fire or The Godfather or Talladega Nights.

Mat Sorensen: I know it’s on the list.

Mark Kohler: On the list everybody’s like what list our list.

Mat Sorensen: Get some culture. Get some art in your life. Jeez. Some some cinema. That’s right. All right. OK, I’m stuck on this. OK, I want to start with one group first because OK, because there’s different tips I have for different groups. I want to start with the group of people that are like Mat. I’m at zero. I have no retirement accounts. The most common person who self-directs someone who has a rollover. They have an old 401k somewhere. They had an IRA already. They’ve been doing other stuff with and the like. Oh, I got one hundred thousand plus in my account. I’m just going to roll over and that’s enough to do real estate, invest in a private company and all these things I may want to do. But a lot of people come in and they’re like now I’ve I’ve always wanted to invest in these types of things. You’re talking about real estate startups, crypto, you know, private, small business. But I’ve never put my I’m I have not a dime in a retirement account. Well, let me tell you the good news. Everyone starts at zero. OK, Peter Thiel we’ve talked about this, got to the five billion dollar Roth IRA or a lot of the people that have the million dollar accounts, there’s there’s there’s over one hundred thousand people. There’s there’s a lot of people that have million dollar plus accounts in the US. And so they all started at zero. Guys, we all start somewhere, so don’t be discouraged. I started at zero. I knew all the rules about Self-direct before I even could make a self-direct an investment I had to get start saving. So the first thing I want to say is if you’re at zero, you need to get in a habit of saving. You need to start putting as much money as you can into your retirement account of choice. We don’t have time to go into all the differences here, you’ve got lots of options there. You can max out different types. You want to max out an HSA, you want to do a Roth IRA, you want to do a Solok if you’re self-employed. I mean, you’ve been doing all these those types of accounts at the same time, actually, or maybe can only throw in a few hundred bucks a month. Well, let’s look at the types of accounts you can do. But start now. You’ve got to start saving. Now, remember, everyone else started at zero. Don’t let that discourage you. I feel like a lot of people in the retirement space, they get excited about this and like, that’s a cool tax strategy. I want to build wealth in a retirement account. It’s an awesome strategy, but I don’t have any money in a retirement account. Well, not yet start. I feel like it’s the person that doesn’t like going to the gym because they’re not in shape and they feel intimidated. Well, everybody start like everybody was new at some point and was and now all the other people at the gym that all look fit and stuff like, well, they’ve been going for a while, maybe a decade. All right. So you got to get started. So start saving. That’s my first point.

Mark Kohler: Ok, now, I haven’t been returning text to my gym membership here.

Mat Sorensen: I held that reminds me, I need to cancel my gym membership. Yeah.

Mark Kohler: Yeah. Corey can you help me into Google over here please? I can’t remember my password at the moment. I’ve got too many passwords in my head. OK, I’ve got a diagram that is awesome. OK, everybody has been able to hook me up so I can share the slide. Now this is really exciting and I, I, I’m jumping into the middle of a presentation I give to college students that are starting at zero. They’re like, OK, and this is going to be part of the Young Adult Financial Training Workshop. I’m doing three locations this fall, Chicago, Orange County and Hawaii. That’ll be on my website. You’ll hear more about that through the newsletter. But this slideshow is a part of that presentation. Now, this is perfect for everybody watching. This is this is legit. So here’s here’s what I’d like to talk about with people starting from zero. And this is practical info. What Mat just said is. Great, now I want to give you some practical what to do tomorrow steps, the first thing is saving. And what we take a little bit this from Dave Ramsey. We want to get out of debt and we want to have an emergency account. So a lot of people go, well, where do I start saving? And I say, just start with the basic bank account. It could be at a credit union. It could be at a bank. Get your emergency account. So you’ve got your short term savings, your take 10% of your after tax income and you’re doing short term and you’re doing long term. Now, long term is what we’re going to be saving inside of a retirement account. Typically, we’d like our clients to start with a Roth and build up from there. So let’s say you’ve got your emergency account finished and now you’re just putting money in a Wells Fargo bank account. Now we’re ready for maybe acorns. Acorns is a type of app like Robin Hood. TD Ameritrade has an app. I love acorns because you can get round ups, you can get shared or earned money by shopping at different locations. They put money right into your Roth so you could open. If you see in the savings diagram, we go from an emergency account to having one to three months of our cost of living is an emergency. OK, now, at that point, I start telling people, start saving. Now, you could start with an app or go to a bank and open a different account, see the short term savings account or the cost of living emergency account. Those are out of sight, out of mind. If something really bad happens in your life or a quick opportunity, you need to take advantage of you maybe have one to four or five thousand dollars available. You’ll put yourself in the top two percent of this country by having cash available. Then you start saving and you’re in these ACORN’s apps or something like that. And then we start saving and investing. We make that transition from saving to investing. Now, you might open a brokerage account. Now we have brokerage accounts are Directed IRA. You can say, hey, I want to get my acorns account going. And what I like to do is notice there in the diagram. Three thousand dollars, maybe it’s a thousand, maybe it’s five. I like three thousand. I push it, see acorns and and these little apps where you save or if you’re going to the bank and saving money, they’re paying you crap. You’re lucky if you’re getting one to two percent. Right. That’s not investing. That’s just learning the habit of savings. So I want my kids to be saving on their apps. I want to save I want to set that example for grandkids and family members, young and old. But then when it’s time to invest, I’m going to push that three grand go down to zero in my savings account. Now, my three grand is in a brokerage account. This is where we like ETFs. These exchange traded funds, no load. We’ve got those at Directed IRA. You can start in investing money and getting maybe a four to five percent rate of return, maybe higher, seven or eight percent, if you’re lucky.

Mat Sorensen: Even if you on the brokerage account here, if you just buy the S&P 500 ETF spy. Right. Get on the most common ones. But it’s an eight percent to 10 percent annual return over the last fifty years, S&P five hundred. And that is a great way to I like to transition from this investing to savings. And you can do that. Like if you want to just day trader, you want to be in and out, you want TD Ameritrade, you want to be buying, you know, whatever meme stock is out there. You want to buy whatever strategies you want. OK, but you can also just be simple. And I think that’s the a lot of people waste so much time trying to beat the market, including hedge fund managers. Just buy the S&P. Five hundred. It’s the best. Kind of like when you don’t know what to do and you don’t have a better investment, just buy that and you can even do that with Directed IRA. We have a brokerage account. Add on you can do it’s a little more expensive because we don’t we don’t get commissions on your trades. We don’t get payment for your orders where you actually pay a higher price. At the end of the day, when you trade, we just have a thirty five dollar fee. But that’s a just consider that is like that kind of like getting started. I’m now moving to investing.

Mark Kohler: Mm hmm. I love it. Now we’re going to go to the next slide where we go from investing to Self-direct. But staying here for a moment on phase two, notice that these little icons of Ameritrade, Stash, E-Trade or Robinhood, please know, we are not endorsing those companies. We are not affiliated with them. We make no money. If you use those, these are simply examples. And same with acorns. You may love acorns or hate acorns, but these apps that are out there have made saving and investing so much easier. These never existed when I was a kid or college or even ten years ago. This is beautiful. And so notice what you’re doing. You have a thousand dollars in emergency account. You’ve got one to three months is an emergency for cost of living. Once you save 3000 in some of these apps, like a Roth app of some sort, boom, I bounce it over to a. Brokerage account, where I can have more choices, see acorns is about saving, but not investing. Now, keep in mind, Robin Hood does not allow for a Roth IRA. So I put it in there just to give you options. But you’ve got to be thinking through this. If I’m building a Roth IRA and I’m going to push that three grand over there. OK, I’m going to start investing it. You want to keep the character of the Roth. So when you open a Roth IRA, a Directed IRA, it could be a Roth Crypto account. It could be a regular Roth account with a brokerage account. You have all these options. So this is, again, just an example. Now, here’s the beauty of this. Go to the next slide, Corey, phase three. Now I go from investing to really exponentially growing these accounts, and that’s the beauty of Self-directing and look at all these little of buckets for a health savings accounts kid and family rot’s college savings accounts. So once you hit three or ten grand and one of these brokerage accounts now you’re like, OK, BOOM, I’m going to Self-direct and that’s our unstuck problem number two, what do I invest in? We’re going to come to that. But this is how you start building that pool of money. How do you like this Mat? I mean, you’ve never seen my little buckets like it.

Mat Sorensen: Yeah, buckets. I mean, they could build a sand castle or your retirement, either one. Fair enough. Those are adorable buckets. I, I think that that is the right mindset. Remember, you’ve got to get saving, but then don’t just save and do nothing but move into the baby investing K just into the ETFs or find a mutual fund, just get something invested but don’t focus on like day trading unless you feel like that’s going to be your thing. But know, you’re going to graduate from the investing to self-directing. You’re going to build up your account, get the money you need, get educated or we’re going to talk about some other things to get unstuck. But we’re building here and this takes time. It took me three or four years before I made my first self-directed investment. I knew everything I needed to know. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to buy a rental. That was the first thing I wanted to do, which is what I ended up doing is my first self-directed investment. And but I, I couldn’t do it immediately, like, I want to do it. But it took me three to four years to get some contributions and max out on a number of different things. On my my 401k, my Roth IRA is doing Back-Door and now I could I could pull the trigger on it and do that deal.

Mark Kohler: I love it. Now, my goal was I wanted to do some crypto mining in my Roth IRA. Well, I had to save up enough money to buy my rig and get the structure properly formed. So I had a goal in mind. Now this is where we’re going to come to the phase to abstain, unstuck, getting unstuck with sometimes analysis paralysis. We’re looking at all these ideas and we don’t know which one to pull the trigger. We’re going to come to that. But here’s what’s interesting in this phase two and three, you don’t get rid of your acorns. You don’t get rid of your Wells Fargo, you don’t get rid of your TD Ameritrade account. You keep building those accounts. But it’s the account hits a threshold. Now, this is just our recommendation. There’s different ways to save and invest. I get it. But this has made sense for us and so many of our clients is that when I hit these trigger events where I’ve got $10,000 Ameritrade boom, I kick it over to my Roth that I can self-direct. Now, you can do this all in the same Roth account at Directed IRA. Some people are like, I don’t want to open this account and open that account and open that again. I’m just going to open one account. That’s where I’ll make my deposits. I want to keep it simple. Cool. You can do that. We’ve got the structure for you. Other people are like me. I’d love to ACORN’s app and the TD Ameritrade app, but once I built about five to ten grand, I’m ready. Cool bounce that money over to a Roth account Directed IRA. And that’s where you see in phase three. That last step now I put twenty thousand is maybe the threshold where you’re like, OK, I can really do some damage. Twenty thousand I can really invest. And so look at you’ve got three and acorns. You bounce it to Ameritrade as an example. I’m not saying we’re endorsing Ameritrade either. And then you say even invest in Ameritrade until you hit ten grand, then you bounce that ten into your self-direct it account with maybe some other self-direct it accounts of yours or your family. That’s why we have all these other buckets. So you’re simultaneously building all these little buckets in your crescendoing to a point where you really have enough money to do the investments that you had in mind. And notice what I put here to ten to twenty five percent. Now, I know I get hate mail for that, but that, I think is very realistic. We see so many clients that average 10, 15 or 20 percent rates of return. Now, the minute I say that I have to give a disclaimer, we are not promising that you could lose all your money. I don’t know what you’re investing in it’s your choice, but that’s how, again, the Peter Thiels of the world did this. They they found investments that are outside the box.

Mat Sorensen: Yeah. And that’s when, you know, you’re moving from this investing to Self-directing is when you know you can beat what you’re going to do. See, when you’re looking at a self-directing investment, you need to be analyzing it and doing your due diligence and running the numbers to know, oh, this is going to beat this mutual fund I’ve been in for the last year or this ETF I’ve been in for the last two years. OK, so we’re not saying what you can get doing this. I’m just saying you’re going to move to that. That’s of people are doing. That’s just the natural thing. People don’t self-direct because it’s fun, you know? I mean, maybe people people like it have a little more connection to the small business. Yeah. But they like it because they can make more money and they get better returns. They grow their account larger. That’s the point of retiring. So of sort of retiring, of having a retirement account. We want want to be as big as possible.

Mark Kohler: Yeah, I think that was great. OK, so let’s drop these slides. Corey, thanks so much. But let’s both Mat and I say give a closing statement. OK, unstuck number one is getting stuck in the the dilemma. The perceived dilemma is that I don’t have enough money to build a retirement. I don’t have enough money to invest. I don’t have enough money to self-direct. Those are those can be self self-fulfilling prophecies. You tell yourself that enough. What are you going to do? You’re not going to save you’re not going to take action in five years from now. What have you where you at the same damn spot. So we want to change our thoughts. We want to say to ourselves, I can put positive thoughts in my mind that even if I save just fifty dollars a week, one hundred dollars a month, whatever it is with an easy to use app on my phone that’s got the Roth bucket. It’s a Roth vehicle and I’m saving. You’re making progress and all of a sudden you wake up one day and I love doing this, like I can do this right now, I can open up my little acorns app and I could look at my balance and I could this is where it’s green and you get your little here you are face ID and it’ll say, good afternoon, Mark. You have saved X amount of dollars for your future. And I don’t mind saying this. I’ve got about a thousand fifty dollars right now in my Roth account. Now I do a backdoor Roth. So this is a traditional IRA that I’ll convert to Roth later. But I know it’s a Roth in my mind, but it’s a traditional in the actual application. So anyway, I’m at a thousand fifty when that hits about 2000 dollars of just weekly savings, I’ll transfer it. No penalties, no tax, and I can transfer to my Roth over directed IRA and I can put it in a pool over there to do more fun things. I don’t want to leave it in acorns to invest. I want to use acorns to save. So here’s my final statement is take action, stay positive and just do the little things. And before you know it, you’re going to be the. OK, can you get that one, can you be done, but you’re fine.

Mat Sorensen: Come on, I did my counselor. I did like that. I don’t know. There’s not about beating, you know, we can both win the council.

Mark Kohler: So that’s fair enough.

Mat Sorensen: I mean, can I just, like, take first once? I mean, it’d be like a new slingshot. Me maybe. I know. Like knock. I want to be I want to win. Well but I’m Ricky Bobby, Bobby. I’m thinking Bobby like that would mean I would take second and then but you know I was more Talladega Nights. Sorry. OK, here’s I think what I just want to say is, remember, everyone starts at zero. A lot of people like like Mark talked in this procedure here. This is as you said, it’s more like the college person approach. Or maybe you’re you’re you’re needing this saving strategy to get money to Self-direct. I run across a lot of clients that are like I can plow as much money as I can to hit every max limit out there. I don’t need a saving strategy, but you kind of do because there’s only so much you can put in a retirement account each year. So figure out how you can max it out. Are you self-employed? Consider the Solok. We can drop $50K plus a year and that you can also do a back to a Roth IRA, even if you’re high income. Six thousand, you could look at doing a health savings account too family over seven grand or you got a spouse. We’re doing the same thing over there with the backdoor Roth and another Solok for them. And so now you’re you’re able to fill those buckets faster. But it might still might take a year or two before you self-direct and you still might need to just be doing some brokerage account stuff. Be buying, you know, a mutual fund or an ETF. And then you’re getting the you’re you’re getting ready, you know what I mean? Like, you’re not playing football yet, but you’re running around the track, you’re in the weight room like you’re getting ready. All right. And so the football season getting ready for it.

Mark Kohler: Know I got it. I got the

Mat Sorensen: Ok. I wasn’t the best, but it was OK. It was going to be OK. So so for those of you out there, like, just figure out where you can max out, get the right account types that work in your situation and know it might take a couple of years. That’s OK. But you’re on track and start now because every year the contribution rolls, you have to start over and there’s only so much you can do next year. So the earlier you get starting, the quicker you can start maxing out and getting these these buckets filled.

Mark Kohler: OK, love it now. Stuck number 2 the second dilemma people face is all right I got my twenty thousand, my ten thousand, my five thousand,

Mat Sorensen: My fifty. Whatever it is.

Mark Kohler: Yeah. I want to buy a rental, I want to buy real estate. We’ve got clients with three hundred grand and they’re going I can’t do what I want, I want to buy a million dollar apartment building. And it seems like in life you always want more than you have. So that can be a dilemma no matter how many zeros you have in your account. So. Here’s my first take on this, really, it’s just opening your mind to new opportunities, being open to the universe, inspiration, thinking that if you’re a one track mind, I got to buy rental real estate. Maybe that’s not healthy. Maybe it’s not the right time in the market you’re looking at or are there other things you could do? Yes, and I think this is where a little bit of education and opening your mind to other podcast strategies. We’ve got clients that are Self-directing a thousand dollars and they love it. They’re buying maybe into new startups. They’re buying gold, they’re buying silver, they’re buying crypto. And and they’re for a thousand dollars they’re in the game. And they know real estate will come down the path, but they don’t have to do it right now. So that’s my first opening statement, if you will.

Mat Sorensen: Yeah, OK. Yeah, I think what I want to say for those that are like stuck on like the investment, like you’ve set aside the amount of money you thought you needed to self-direct and maybe you’re at Directed IRA or you’re out some other self-directed IRA custodian and you’re like, I just can’t find the right investment. All right. I hear that all the time. And sometimes people close accounts here because they get all excited. They set up their account and they’re like, they got money here, but they’re like, I just can’t find the right deal. And I wanted to say a couple thoughts on this. Yeah.

Mat Sorensen: You get a couple thoughts, you get two

Mat Sorensen: I’m going to do a couple. OK, I’m going to a couple. You go for what, the first some time? Will you yield the balance of your time?

Mark Kohler: I will yield for two thoughts,

Mat Sorensen: Ok, for two thoughts. OK. All right.

Mark Kohler: Thank you. Until I write down

Mat Sorensen: A note, the senator from the great state of Idaho, I appreciate it. There you go. OK, so. I think the best way to articulate this, because this is this is really important and I sense the frustration that clients have when they’re at this spot. What I’ve always felt, what I’ve seen from my most successful clients is. Great investments are not sold, they’re not just lying out on the street, great investments are found, they’re discovered, they’re made. All right. The people that have these huge returns out there, they’re working to find investments. They’re doing what they can. And I’ll just tell you a few things that I’ve seen. I think the successful people do they have the million dollar counts you due to find good deals. What if let’s say you’re in real estate, OK, they’re active in real estate, everyone knows they do real estate. If you’re, you know, their every cousin they have knows they invest in real estate. Every neighbor they have, everybody on their sports team, like everyone in their life, knows this lady she invests in real estate and she even uses her IRA or Solok or whatever account that she has. Why is it important that everyone knows that’s what they do? Because those people bring you deals and opportunity. So you need people to know this is what you do. All right. You’ve got that is your network, your family, your friends. Maybe you’re in the real estate business. Let people know you also invest in real estate. Don’t keep it a secret. So, yeah, don’t keep it a secret. Don’t be like, oh, well, this is just so personal and it’s my financial stuff. No, these people bring you deals they’ll be like, oh, this person is getting foreclosed on. Oh, this person needs a private money loan to cover something on their house or the property there flipping, you know, like so let people know then go to places where you can find deals. Maybe you need to find your local real estate clubs. Sometimes you got to be careful at those places because there’s people that may want to, you know, make money off of you, not with you, but like get out there and find other like-minded investors. They can bring you opportunities and deals. You could bring money to be a solution to people that have deals that need money to to to get deals done. All right.

Mark Kohler: With the two thoughts, one, talk about what you’re doing and two find network,

Mat Sorensen: Network yeah network and get out there to places. And I’m just using real estate as an example here. But it could be private private equity deals. Maybe you’re like, you know, I’m not a real estate guy, but I love startups and venture space and all like that. OK, great. There’s angel networks all over the place that if you have enough money to invest, you can go attend these meetings. And they get pitched all the time by by founders of companies trying to raise money. So look out for Angel Networks. We did a webinar. I’ve done some content with some angel networks out there, and they want people to come in with their IRAs and invest in these deals, get out there. So you’re going to it’s going to take some work. It’s not like you’re just going to read The Wall Street Journal and be like, who? I’m going to buy this. That’s not going to happen. All right.

Mark Kohler: I like It. I OK, I love it. Mat good comments. I’m going to give a couple here for getting unstuck at this stage, number one come to the summit. If you’re going to really invest. Your future, your retirement into this concept of investing, what you know and you’re struggling to find options, come to the summit. One of our breakout sessions is going to be ideas to invest like maybe Mat we could call 30, 40, 50. Like, you’d be so sweet to just, like, go through 50 ways. You could buy or sell a truck, buy or sell Crypto, buy or sell gold. Let’s have 50 ideas. The Yuga do,

Mat Sorensen: And we rattle off a lot of ideas at the last summit, the virtual summit that was actually recorded and got other people at the summit attending, I mean, these are other people. Most of them are self-directing already. So you’re seeing what other people do. And we see so many different things. I mean, I’m involved in a lot of transactions here at Directed IRA from someone buying a rental, flipping a property, private lending on someone else’s deal, investing in a startup, investing in a private fund, buying crypto.

Mark Kohler: The way the summit, what’s you’re given away the summit. This isn’t the summit.

Mat Sorensen: So I’m just saying it it’s like it’s there’s a lot of things and we want you to invest in what you like and what you know, we don’t know. I mean, we people make money and all those little different categories. It’s it’s not like you just, you know, one’s better than the other. So so. So I love the sum that is the next thing I would say is like get educated because a lot of times people will run across the deal, but they’re not ready. Like it’s like I get that all the time. A client’s calling and like I want to do this deal with my Ayari. I’m like, do you have an IRA? No. OK, where’s your money at? It’s in an old four one K at my prior employer. I haven’t even rolled it over yet. I mean, you need to do it today. Yeah, it’s an auction deal. Right? I got to do the contract today.

Mark Kohler: I’ll be primed and ready to go. I liked that primed and ready to go. Yeah, OK. The other one.

Mat Sorensen: Be ready so you don’t have to get ready.

Mark Kohler: Yeah. Be ready.

Mat Sorensen: That’s a homie. That was not be ready, so you don’t have to get ready. Where’d you get that tone? Now he’s he’s a client. He’s used that on me. I like that one. Be ready. Not producing, I have to get ready.

Mark Kohler: So you don’t have to get ready. You don’t. I’m writing this down, people. This is good stuff. Be ready so you don’t have to get ready. OK. All right. Next, I’m going to throw this out. Get your family involved. I think when you make this a family affair, your family gets pumped and excited and they put pressure on you. And it’s nice

Mat Sorensen: To see you.

Mark Kohler: Soon as you share your idea, everybody’s going to be asking you every other week, how’s it going? What are you doing? Where are you going? You know, like, damn, I shouldn’t have said anything. You know what? I’m talking about people. Right?

Mat Sorensen: You’re accountability partner. Yeah.

Mark Kohler: And so get your kids forming Roths. Get your mom and dad forming Roths, get your brother and sister your best friend. Whatever your circle of family your friends are, say open an account. Let’s see what we can do together someday, maybe or maybe not some you say, well, I don’t want to mix money with friends or whatever. Hey, you don’t have to invest together, but you can invest alongside each other. So you can see what they’re doing. They can see what you’re doing and you’re not going to do a deal together and maybe damage a relationship. Find other people love to do deals together. That’s OK. But get your family involved so you have some accountability. I’m not kidding Mat just this morning, I got it under the breath comment from my daughter that said our LLC still isn’t invested. We pooled about eight IRAs into a family LLC and I won’t tell you the name of the LLC. There’s you know, I’ve got my privacy strategies, but she’s been bent for like three weeks. Are we going to frickin invest this money or not? And so I’m like, I love that. I need that sometimes. And so I go, you got an idea? And she’s like, yeah, all right, OK, we’ll talk this weekend.

Mat Sorensen: So then, yeah, get your family. That’s great. And it’s also by getting your family involved, it also gives you more resources. You can do the Multimember IRA/LLC. So before we are like, oh, it might take me two or three years to get this enough money set aside by myself. Well, if you’ve got a spouse and your spouse is doing the same thing in maxed out account, you’re doing some kid Roth accounts that Kid Rock has rock account for the kid Roth accounts. So Kid Roth. Yeah, Kid Roth with a T, you know, if you’re doing those, like you might be able to do a deal immediately, I mean, fund it in a multimember IRA/LLC got an episode on that and you’re off to the races. So, OK,

Mark Kohler: I’ve got one more and then I’m done on getting unstuck. OK, now this is a dangerous one because it can really bring down your mojo, but. Watch the news, read the paper, listen to what’s going on in the market now, I’m kind of disgusted that 90% of the news cycle are politics, I’m like, when did this happen? It’s like I don’t remember 10 years ago that every news station, 90% of their content was politics. I’m like, who is driving these Nielsen ratings that they can talk about politics all day long, watch the news, watch these programs that give you a sense of what’s going on around you, because you might see an emerging opportunity before someone else. And that goes for your industry. If you’re in the industry of biomedical research, if you’re in the industry of pharmaceuticals, if you’re in the industry of mechanical engineering, whatever you do for your day job. Listen, watch, look for something that could come about, we’ve had so many clients sort of like, oh my gosh, I was at work and we had a vendor that fell through on a project and I thought I could use my IRA and do that. I love it. Be aware. Don’t be have your head in the sand. Avoid the politics. Show’s fine. I agree. But maybe you could watch some news stations that give you some sense of what’s going on around you.

Mat Sorensen: Yeah, yeah. My final comment and also be kind of a summary comment is remember, you need to save, start investing, educate yourself and network, that’s really the key to Self-directing. You need some money set aside to do what you need to do. You need to get educated so you know how to pull off a deal. And maybe this is not just self-directed educating. This is I don’t know anything about real estate, but I’m interested and I don’t know anything about crypto. But I’m interested in knowing anything about startups and venture capital deals. But I’m interested. Well, you got to go get educated on that. No one’s going to do that for you. There’s not financial advisors that want to help you buy that stuff. So you need to kind of do the work yourself. And as we say many times, be the captain of your own ship. So get educated on the investments and assets you’re interested in in addition to how to do it with a Self-directed account. That’s where our content comes in handy. And then lastly, network, you’ve got to be out there where you can find deals, get invest in your small business community, like all these places where there’s opportunities where you want to let people know I invest. All right. So those are my tips. And I think you’ll have a much more likely success in Self-direct if you’re doing those things. And that’s, I think, what our successful clients are doing. It’s not rocket science.

Mark Kohler: I love it. I love it. One summary comment for me. Watch Shark Tank now. Now, why do I say that? I know I sometimes get really annoyed with Shark Tank because the know it all sharks sometimes bug me, but. It is so insightful to see the elevator pitch of people with ideas and to go, oh, that was a frickin good idea or that was a dumb idea, or I could present my idea better next time I have an opportunity. And you can also get a sense of you’re a shark. See you’re Self-directing account is really kind of a shark and you’re looking for where am I going to place this money? And so look at the world as your tank and you’ve got this shark called your Roth IRA and what am I going to invest in and be protective, be territorial, be excited, be engaged. And I like watching Shark Tank for that because I think it gets us in a mindset of I’m an investor, I’m sitting in one of those chairs. You’re not the one pitching. You’re the one investing when you’re self-direct. Yeah.

Mat Sorensen: Yeah. And negotiating, cutting the deal. Yeah. And so if you think about it, let’s think about this. Every publicly traded company right now, every one of them was a small business at one point. Yeah. They were all a small business. Somebody put some initial capital in it, somebody put some middle of the way capital, someone put some pre-IPO capital and then, you know, and then and then, you know, 20 years later, when the company went public, let’s say, or whatever timeframe it was, people bought it with their IRAs way down the road and pay it up much, much, much higher price per share for stock. So think of it that way in like, where are these companies that can have success? It doesn’t have to be a company that’s going to go public or it’s going to be acquired. There’s plenty of clients of their own pieces of small businesses. I’ve a client that buys invests in what a Buffalo Wild Wings with their retirement account, very profitable, great returns, you know, but they’re not going to they’re just on the franchises. You know, these are the locations. And and that’s totally cool. It’s great. Great investment. Great return.

Mark Kohler: Well, I bought you. Now I’ve got my mind spinning because I bought cows with my HSA. Maybe I should have bought Buffalo,

Mat Sorensen: Buffalo, my buffalo.

Mark Kohler: You know, I was in Yellowstone over the weekend.

Mat Sorensen: Roll your cow deal and profits in the buffalo. Yeah. You know, it’s kind of go by

Mark Kohler: Elk around here. They do buy buffalo. Maybe I should buy a buffalo.

Mat Sorensen: I don’t know that that’s OK.

Mark Kohler: Yeah. You know,

Mat Sorensen: You can ranch Buffalo or Buffalo ranchers. Do you know what I’d like is that like the elite level of ranching, if you buffalo are you kind of like Yellowstone.

Mark Kohler: You watched Yellowstone. Did they not run some buffalo? Yeah, they did. That was a great episode. No, I was up in West Yellowstone this weekend and such a fun little town. You’re on the one block away from the entrance to Yellowstone National Park. And there’s just such an interesting energy if you feel like you’re in the Wild West a little bit. I mean, there was a shoot out on the street and some guy got killed. But I mean, it was just really no, that didn’t happen. But anyway, I was in West Yellowstone over the weekend. We went to a little restaurant and it was like elk medallions, buffalo burger. I mean, you know, and but those are ranches, local ranches of wild game that they sell to sell the meat to the local restaurants. And so maybe I’ll have to get my Roth in on some buffalo. OK, when you come up,

Mat Sorensen: See what happens when I give an example of buying a small business, Buffalo Wild Wings, it goes all the way into. Yeah. Oh, actually your IRA could own the buffalo itself. It could own some actual buffalo.

Mark Kohler: What do you think I was talking about.

Mat Sorensen: I know. I’m just saying.

Mark Kohler: Oh you’re you’re connecting the dots for the listeners, OK?

Mat Sorensen: Yeah. Just like. Yeah. All this is options. Yeah. Maybe I can start money at a

Mark Kohler: Bigfoot expedition company with my Roth. You know what people you could do that you just couldn’t be the guide, is that in your Roth? Could yeah, your Roth could buy a boat up in Puget Sound, in Seattle in that boat, could do fishing or fishing charters, and your wrath could own a boat. And you partnered with the captain to do fishing charters. Could you do that? Yes. See, just that idea alone. Maybe someone was like, oh my gosh, see what do you know? Do you live in Seattle? Do you like to go fishing? Great. Do you know a guy with a boat? Yes. By his boat. With your Roth share in the profits of chartering. Dun dun. That’s how simple it is, you know. All right. Well, thanks, everybody. Oh, that’s such good stuff. Mat. Take us out and start playing the music Corey makes Mat sound good.

Mat Sorensen: All right, everybody get over DirectedIRA.com/podcast to check out our prior episodes on this. If you’re new to the concept of Self-direct, start back at Episode one. You can sign up for our newsletter there as well. And remember the events we mentioned today. To learn more, you can go to DirectedIRA.com, also SDIRASummit.com And MarkJKohler.com. We look forward to seeing all of you there. And we’ll be back next week with another amazing podcast episode

Mark Kohler: Buy boat or by a buffalo. There you go. Pen drop.