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This week on The Millionaire Choice Podcast, Tony talks with Taylor Welch, founder of Wealth Cap Holdings and Welch Commercial Capital. Tony and Taylor discuss financial education, generational wealth, and why Taylor claims anyone could be a millionaire within the span of ten years.
About Taylor Welch
In 2001, Taylor attended his first “business seminar.” He was 12 years old and was, in his own words, “forced to attend” by his father. Taylor didn’t want to be an entrepreneur or start a business early on — his dream? To work at a church; he wanted to be a pastor. “That dream came true,” he says, “and for the first time I experienced what so many people experience later on in life: the thing you always wanted, after you get it, you don’t want it.”
Today, Taylor is a real estate investor & business consultant. His companies have serviced over 50,000 individual small businesses in the last 5 years. He is a dynamic & energetic speaker who not only enjoys playing the game of business but teaching it also.
Learn more about Taylor Welch, https://linktr.ee/taylorawelch
Take advantage of Complimentary Life and Money Mentor Session with Tony or Download FREE eBooks.
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Show Transcript
Tony (00:00):
Welcome back to the millionaire choice show. Today, we're gonna have somebody I met by chance. You never know who you're gonna run into in different places. And I decided to have lunch at Chipotle one day because my other lunch appointment canceled and I ran into Taylor Welch. You all are in for a real treat today because Taylor is the founder of Wealth Cap Holdings and Welch Commercial Capital. He's a young millionaire, and he's got a lot to share with you all, with his story and everything he's got going on, especially in these crazy financial times. Taylor, welcome to the show.
Taylor Welch (00:31):
Thanks for having me. And I'm glad that, Providence or God, however people wanna call it, put us together that day.
Tony (00:38):
It was fun listening to you and your dad. I'm kind of jealous a little bit, honestly, because I don't remember having any financial discussions with my dad, except for maybe where the hundred dollars bill got lost, when we went out to the movies and to eat one night and we had to cancel the movies because, mysteriously the hundred dollars they got outta the ATM disappeared. But, the day I ran into you, you and your dad were sitting there talking about some of the financial stuff you guys are doing and estate market.
Taylor Welch (01:04):
People mix up their attribution and founder stories all the time. I sometimes see people say, "I'm self-made this self-made that," and I understand what they're trying to get at, but everybody has shoulders to stand on, and I got lucky and blessed because my parents raised me in a way that was conducive to me, moving forward in life in the system, whatever you wanna call it. I remember my dad, when I was 11 years old, he was the VP of sales at Allstate insurance. He would force me to skip school, to go with him to these big business simulcasts. John Maxwell, simulcast, you'd go into this church. It would put the projection on the screen. These are the most boring things. I was begging to go to school and you know it's boring when I'm like, "I would much rather go to school than go to these things," but he would say, "if you come with me, we'll get Chick-fil-A it a father-son-day."
Taylor Welch (02:06):
And I would sit through these simulcasts all day. And, I would listen to Patrick Lindsey and John Maxwell and these leaders and Titans that now everybody listens to and reads. But back then, I had no idea. When you're 11, you're not thinking about these things. People ask me all the time, like, "how did you get going so fast?" Because it is not normal; The things that I've been able to achieve in the time that I've been able to achieve them. And, I think that there's some muscle memory that was given to me by my dad when I was 11-14. And, once you get into the business world, you got a lot of subconscious strategy and muscle memory going on. For me- as a father of a daughter, and I'm gonna have a son here pretty hopefully soon- one of my highest calling is to make sure that my children are raised up with the same advantage and opportunity to steward people in the future. A long tangent there, but I'm very grateful for my family. Very grateful.
Tony (03:04):
I love that part of your story. Mine's a little bit different. Both my parents came from broken homes, no fathers in their lives, and just a lot of broken stuff. But, they gave me good stability, and I think what you're talking about is a foundation. You got the bulk of your foundation, your success foundation, pretty early, whether you knew it or not, it was being built for you, which I think is awesome. My parents gave me more of a work ethic. I saw my parents working a lot, and they took me to work. It's one of the things I wish I had a position, for many years where my kids could go to work with me on the job. My mom would manage convenience stores. So, she would take advantage of the free labor and use me to restock the shelves and you name it. I was doing it. My dad was a carpenter. So, now you grew up, but it sounds like your dad was- your parents, or your house- Were you guys more middle class growing up?
Taylor Welch (03:56):
We were. We never really wanted for anything. But, we had a lot of advantages, but my family went bankrupt in the Great Recession. So, that was the first time that I even knew what money was. As a kid, I just though money was always in the bank; when we needed it, we had it. But 2008, 2009, I was in college at this point. It was such a horrible time for so many people, not even in just America, but the world. That was the first time I was like, "yo, I don't know anything really about money finance. My dad taught me how to budget, but they didn't teach me how to control, the economic situation of my life.
Taylor Welch (04:45):
They taught me how to count money, but they didn't necessarily teach me how to become valuable and earn more money. They didn't teach me how money is created or, investments." And so, we went through that period of my life and it started putting a fire in me that I needed to study. Life teaches you two things. When you go through good times, you typically develop advantages and you develop different levels of comfort. But when you go through rough times, you develop resilience. I think most of my life, I was definitely given advantages in terms of education, leadership training, a relative level of opportunity to do what I wanted to do. But, in 2008, I started developing resilience for the first time, because life got really hard. So, that's like a different tangent that we can go down. But, as the personality that I am, I have studied every single successful person that I can find that lost everything in 2008, cuz I don't wanna go through that. Unfortunately, a lot of people go through situations and they get frustrated and they wanna know why it happened to them without flipping it around and looking for attribution and asking the question, "what did I do to allow this and how do I prevent it in the future?"
Tony (05:55):
That's a lot of great wisdom. The way I say it is that everything's fine until the party stops, no one ever expects the party to end. Like you said, the Great Recession in that 2008, 2009 housing crisis that we saw happen, where the banks all got bailed out because, "that's the way should do it." No, no it's not. But, that's an interesting perspective. And, I do think that's true; if you don't learn from your mistakes, you're gonna repeat 'em or as you said, you learned from other people's mistakes. Cause you didn't wanna go through that.
Taylor Welch (06:32):
A hundred percent. Yep.
Tony (06:34):
Now, when you went through that, as you started learning about finances, it sounded like your dad and your family gave you a lot of good, character, culture, through the simulcast and things that you discussed. They didn't sound like they gave you a lot of financial standing or financial wisdom. You had to pick that up on your own.
Taylor Welch (06:53):
Well, they didn't know. My dad didn't really develop what I would call like financial infrastructure until years after that season of his life. That is partially due to just the lack of financial education in America. I feel like, one of the things that we're building now is a brand that tackles financial education, not financial education from a position of, "Hey, here's how to just budget and get out of debt." But, from a posture of, "look, money is a tool and it's not to be feared. It's not to be emotionalized or used against you. There is a way to develop authority over money, over assets, over balance sheets, and really learn how systems works and how the game works so that you can take care of your family with it."
Taylor Welch (07:43):
I wanna go into colleges and teach the young, like all, all of it. We're gonna eventually hit some problems because when you teach a community how to control their financial future, you remove the control mechanisms that culture can have on labor. So, there's a little bit of a wrestle happening in going into schools and colleges and teaching young people how to be leaders and how to control their value propositions, because it just doesn't make sense because of what we're taught growing up. There's a counter narrative that's most of the time being taught in schools about how real success is achieved.
Tony (08:25):
I totally agree with you, it's interesting you say that. Because, I had another guest on and we got talking about- I'm sure you've read the book- the Creature from Jekyll Island. Have you read through that?
Taylor Welch (08:36):
Yes.
Tony (08:37):
That book is popping up everywhere right now on my radar. I'm in the middle of going through it. I've had it on my bookshelf for a while, but haven't finished it, but I know the gist of it, but the whole thing it gets down to is; the system we're living in, even though, statistically, America has, just a ridiculous amount of millionaires per capita compared to other countries, 40% roughly of the world's millionaires live in the United States, but you still have to ask the question, why do we have 330 million people in the us?
Tony (09:05):
And we're not really taught about finances. We're taught about a bunch of stuff that we don't really use. I had that conversation with my daughters last week; the different things, calculus and all those kinds of things that are, you just don't get back to 'em. I went to school as an engineer and yeah, I used calculus while I was an engineer, for about six years, but I don't do calculus anymore. Why would somebody else- that wasn't gonna be an architect or engineer- need to learn it at all? And, it goes back to the system. I think the fundamental system is flawed intentionally to not teach people. I think people that learn about finance, learn about money are- they're free, they're more free. They're gonna be more free than people that didn't learn about it. And, I think that's the crux of the whole system; people in poverty, people that are broke just easier to control.
Taylor Welch (09:55):
People might listen to this and be like, "oh, conspiracy theorists." And, it's not necessarily that we're being conspiratorial. You can have something that's set up for the right reasons that eventually goes wrong because you don't change it, or you change it the wrong way. People get into relationships that originally were really good and they were committed to one another, but at some point along the way they started skipping the fundamentals, or they started changing things in a way that were detrimental to the trust of the relationship. It doesn't necessarily mean that America started as this, "let's take over a slave population of labor," and that's not what I'm saying, but I do believe that when something gets big really fast and powerful really fast, you mistakes are made and fault lines are stepped on.
Taylor Welch (10:39):
I think from an education standpoint, we have such a divide in the country around what is important to learn. And, if you can get into the political realms of power, and then you get into the media. You are able to control the opinions of the mass market, and both of those venue right now, unfortunately, are placing undue emphasis on things that do not matter. Nobody cares about, the color of the first lady's shoes. Nobody cares. It doesn't matter. We shouldn't be reporting on it. And if you're still using checks, like there's something wrong with you, like you don't understand. You don't have a requisite understanding of online banking, or how do you use software to budget? It's like, there are areas of opportunity. I trained my staff today, I'm like, "don't bring me problems; bring me a list of opportunities."
Taylor Welch (11:29):
It's the same thing, but how we view the world. That's why I don't wanna hate on the system over and over. It's like, we have so much opportunity inside of the system to make it better, to make it stronger, more resilient. Cause our kids are gonna grow up one day and they're gonna take over. And, the level of their competency is going to be determined by the decisions we make right now. We just get lost in the days, and then nothing changes. We just perpetuate the same norm. That's why, we're where we are.
Tony (11:56):
It's interesting. You said you have got two kids. I have six actually.
Taylor Welch (12:01):
I have one. I want two.
Tony (12:03):
One, going on two. Are you gonna stop with two?
Taylor Welch (12:06):
We'll see.
Tony (12:08):
I was try to get my wife to stop after three and she started crying on and told me that she always wanted four, so I'm like, "oh, whatever, let's go with it." I was a responsible- I was gonna say at fault, but my kids might kill me if I say that- for number five and six, but what was interesting; when we go through that, like you said; you didn't learn finance from your dad. You had to learn it on your own. I was the same way. I was a little bit older than you. I'm 51 this year. 25 is when I started learning about finance and breaking free. Now I'm in the place where I'm like, "okay, I learned all this stuff, but how am I gonna make sure my kids pick it up?"
Tony (12:49):
And that my kids don't just learn to be frugal, and avoid debt, and budget, but actually learn the principles of wealth and wealth building. And, that's something, I don't have all figured out yet. Cause, I'm a dad that's doing it for the first time and I don't really have a model that I had to mimic. I think some of the times we learn things from other people and get to observe and watch. And, most often that happens within our own family. So, How our dad did it and taught us is how we teach our kids kinda like perpetuation. I'm figuring that out for the first time. I got, talking about cryptocurrency with one of my kids and golden silver with a couple and some apple stocks with others and yeah. And, obviously real estate is your forte.
Taylor Welch (13:31):
All of it. Real estate is probably my favorite to begin, but crypto, NFTs, options, capital markets. To me, they're all just different variations of the same game, which is, how do you multiply money? And, there's three things you can do with your money. You can store it, you can spend, or you can multiply it. What the wealthy people do that the people in the middle class and lower class don't do is when they are spending or storing, they're also multiplying. That multiplication effect undergirds everything that they choose to do with their money. So, I wanna multiply money in real estate. I wanna multiply money in the markets. I wanna multiply money in encrypt to currency. I wanna multiply money and everything that I do. I wanna be able to multiply what I'm given, so that I'm able to be more generous and my family can learn the skill sets.
Taylor Welch (14:26):
And, when you look at what's happening in crypto right now, if you haven't invested in crypto, it's not because you're smarter than anyone else. It's just because there's a lack of fundamental understanding of the technology that's running crypto. And, I think that that's where I sit on the conversation. Cause people are like, "oh, you're a real estate guy." I'm like, "yeah, I'm just to go and to multiply. And crypto is a conduit for money to multiply. It's a value accrual for people and where people assign value, they also assign money." So, you gotta be where that value assignment is to accrue the value.
Tony (15:06):
I love that. I think there's an easy way to say that the same way you said it, which is; when you get a new dollar, future millionaires that listen to show, when you get a new dollar, are you gonna spend it, save it or are you gonna put it in a place where it multiplies? I think like you said, Taylor, the people that build the most wealth, their propensity or their inclination when they get a new dollar, they're already pre-programmed mentally to stick it somewhere where it multiplies, whether that's any one of a dozen areas that you just mentioned, not just stick it in a bank, let it collect dust or, deflate by, 10% a year or whatever the inflation rate is this year, depending on who you talk to.
Taylor Welch (15:43):
Higher than that. If you look at CPI, it's like, used cars and trucks are up 25% used, like housing is up 35%. People are not- this is funny; if you've ever read the book, How to Lie with Statistics, you start seeing it everywhere. It's like, "oh, you can make math do anything that you want it to do. Math can tell whatever story you want it to tell." So yeah, we wanna say that inflation for 2021 was 7.5%, but you have to count in also the CPI increase, probably closer to 25-30% when it's all said and done, unless we have deflation, which is not gonna happen this year, I don't think.
Tony (16:20):
It's not gonna go back down, and not construction, but I do a lot of home repair, but two by fours have gotten kind of pricey here lately. A year and a half ago they're at $2.95, but bow I'm paying likes seven bucks a piece for one. But, you talked about education. Let's delve into that a little bit because you've obviously been thinking about this problem. Do you have programs in place or are you in the process of developing your programs?
Taylor Welch (16:45):
We do have programs in place, but we primarily serve the entrepreneurial market. Freelancing is one of the fastest growing sectors of the U.S. Economy. Over the next 10 years, we wanna help a million freelancers add a hundred thousand dollars a year to their bottom line. So, a hundred billion added back into the economy. The thing that we're working on right now is fractionalizing some of that content to put into education, which is a little bit different. It's not, "Hey, here's how to go get clients. Here's how to run your books. Here's how to set up operating accounts and so forth and so on." It's a little bit more of an applicable, practical, training curriculum that we can get into schools, around the ideas of, "here's how money works.
Taylor Welch (17:33):
Here's how you should think about money. Here's how you should think about poverty and middle class and upper class." I've got a book coming out in may of this year called Good at Money. And it represents the first significant investment that I have made into mass market financial education. Talking to people about my story, talking to people about how debt works, why it works, the way that it works, whether debt is good or bad, and teaching people how to set a plan for their money that doesn't involve the fear of debt or slavery to debt. There is a world that you can arrive at, personally, where you're not operating based on fear, but you're operating based on vision. And so, we're gonna teach people how to do that. Who knows what'll come of that. I'm hoping that people find it valuable, but we'll just release it and see.
Tony (18:26):
Well, I think there's no shortage of people that need help. My, sister, it's no secret to you all listening to the show. I used to work for Dave Ramsey for 15 years. I've been out from there for about five years now. I left in 2016, but my sister, when I was going into that program, I had already been, mentally in a different place financially. I was doing my own investments and things for about five years before I joined Dave. At the end of the leadership model, you're expected to be on the same program. So, that changed my financial mindset, but my sister actually went through, Dave's program three times. And, for whatever reason, it just never stuck. It's never stuck with her. And, I think the gist of that is, people learn in different ways, or connect with material in different ways and get active. So, there's no shortage of people out there that need, I think a fresh approach, or different types of financial education.Taylor, you said your books coming out, has your wife read it yet?
Taylor Welch (19:28):
She has read bits and pieces. I am rewriting the script as we get them back from publishing.
Tony (19:35):
When my book came out, my wife was the last person to read my book actually, before it went off to the publishers. And, I like that it worked out that way. I had one of my good friends be my first readers, and he gave me feedback, and then she was supposed to be the last reader and editor. She does writing herself. She's a little bit of a journalist, and went to school for journalism. She, by the way, has her own book coming out, probably this year, on human trafficking. We're working through that. It's been an interesting journey just for us to learn about the travesty of human trafficking. But, when she read my book, and I wonder if your wife will do this to you, she came back to me.
Tony (20:10):
I thought I was finished and ready to get to the publisher. She came back with like 63 changes that needed to be made. And, I'm like, "honey, I've already done 10 edits. You're gonna make me change it some more?" And, I really blew 'em off. I didn't think I was gonna have to change the book at all. I thought it was like, "eh, maybe three of these." But, I'll tell you what; about all 60 of 'em were great edits that she found. I had to make the changes, and there were about three that I'm like, "I'm not gonna do those three," but, she was a big help. But what was interesting about that is, she had also been through Dave's program and knew about it. And, when she read my book, she was like, "Hey, I get it. Like, I understand finance now."
Tony (20:46):
Which, that was a real blessing to me. Because, on our financial journey, I kind of just did my thing for our family. I didn't really include her. She just trusted me, which I think is the wrong way to do it. But, young couple, you figure things out. But, that was the biggest compliment I could get. She's already been through what a lot of people would say is one of the most impactful people in teaching, personal finance out there. But yet, for some reason it didn't connect with her, but it did connect with her when she read my book. And, I don't think that was her just, giving me props. But, I'll be interested to read your stuff when it comes out. When do you think it's gonna be out?
Taylor Welch (21:25):
I would say the end of may and we should get you a copy. We're getting everything finalized right now, and we should have everything approved hopefully by the end of March and published by the end of may. That's always, TBD though.
Tony (21:39):
So, there's no telling what you're gonna have to change on it. Now, in that particular book that you're coming out with, are you trying to stick with like what I would call like a foundation of finance? Like, "Hey, here's your foundation. You gotta get this under your belt before you can move on to more of the advanced stuff." For example, multiple wealth building concepts and things like that.
Taylor Welch (21:57):
No, I talk about whole life insurance and the pros and cons, and talk about when you need a trust versus just the will and Testament. We'll write several of these books over the next 10 years. It's being published by the new brand that we stood up at the end of September called Levels of Wealth. And so, in my mind, from studying and ascending these levels myself;there's these levels that you have to go through, and they're pretty infallible, and people can skip around from time to time, but usually they spend a season of their life in each level. You've got the level where you're poor, which is by definition, not derogatory. It's just that your means are not supportive of the life that you wanna have.
Taylor Welch (22:43):
And, then you get to a place where you're rich and, I'm just gonna define rich as the person who is no longer struggling to live, paycheck to paycheck. Then you have wealthy, which is when your balance sheet pays you more than your P&L. That's where we all wanna get to eventually where you no longer have to work for money. You work for impacts. And your balance sheet is really the drive of your monthly burn. But, then there's a fourth level that I've seen people get to. It's imortality. It's legacy. It's that their message won't die after they do. And they are passing along these generational lessons with their family. You look at the Rockefellers versus, the Vanderbilts. The Rockefellers did a better job multi-generationally than the Vanderbilts did, and they're still wealthy.
Taylor Welch (23:37):
And the Vanderbilts are not- comparatively- but what was the difference? Well, one set up something for the long term, and one really just set up kind of for a gold rush. And so teaching people how to set their trusts up in such a way that, their kids are going to be able to have access to all of the opportunities that they want them to. We get into some of that stuff. So, it's a really good like primer on, "here's how you start at one of the lower levels, getting control of your finances, get in control of your spending. And then, once you do that, you've gotta get in control control of your value production, because you wanna earn more money." The Dave Ramsey model is; there's two ways to become financially free; spend less than you make, or make more than you spend with an emphasis on spending less than you make.
Taylor Welch (24:21):
There's really an emphasis on that first primer. Here's how to stop over spending, erase debt, all of those things. what I wanna do is I wanna take people to financial independence and I don't just want to get them out of debt. I want to get them into productive debt and out of unproductive debt and get them to a place where, they are earning more from sleeping than your traditional civilian is earning from working a full day. That's when you're free. That's when you have independence and there's not enough education around that, in my opinion.
Tony (24:52):
No, I totally agree with you. It's a different mindset chef. I think for me, I I've really started breaking it down into four buckets, which is; the broke bucket, the just getting by bucket, the future millionaire bucket and the millionaire bucket. And, what you sound like you're moving people too is into that future millionaire state, or the millionaire state is where your focus is like getting people away from the, just getting by and from the broke buckets. Now, question. When I talk to people, whether they're old or young, one of the things that always comes up is; they think rich people got lucky, rich people like you, me, anybody else that's out there that, 10 plus million households that are millionaire households in the us and the truth is that's not, that's just not true. That's not the case. And, it doesn't matter what age you are. You can do it at any age. How long of a timeframe do you feel, on average, does it take for somebody to get financially independent, as you say, when they decide they make the choice? They're making a choice to do it. They're starting to grow. How long do you think it takes?
Taylor Welch (25:55):
Three years to get into like a healthy level of living. So, be like rich and then another seven years, I think, to get to independence. So, you could do it inside of a decade.
Tony (26:07):
Yeah. And, that's a timeframe that I think a lot of people don't really even understand. It seems like a far cry, especially when you're going from 70% of people living paycheck to paycheck, just to get your head around that, that financial independence level. What do you think is the key to that 10 year timeframe?
Taylor Welch (26:25):
It's buying assets instead of buying toys, it's getting anything that you want in your life paid indirectly from an asset or a balance sheet. And, this is the hard part about it is; when we talk about financial independence, it's an arbitrary definition because if somebody makes, $400,000 a year, financial independence for them looks different than somebody who makes 3 million a year. Because, my definition of dependence is the burn on that person's lifestyle is paid from the balance sheet. So, as you can imagine, certain people come into this game, within a couple of years, they start making really good money. Well, for them to become financial independent, spending $200,000 a year? They have to reset their independence targets. They have to reset because at this point, them earning $60,000 a year from their balance sheet, which is what they earned three years ago, no longer qualifies for financial independence if they're now spending $200,000 a year.
Taylor Welch (27:23):
So you gotta be really careful that as you start earning more money, you don't just increase your burn at the same time. And, that's where I think people get it all messed up. They'll go from $100,000 a year to $200,000 a year and their burn or their budget will go from $100,000 to $200,000. You're just never gonna get ahead. You're never gonna get free because every time you make more money, that extra increase is reallocated right back into spending. So, you have to, at some point, get a lifestyle that you're happy with and fix it, cap it, leave it, don't change it. You continue to go to work and you make more money and more money and more money. But, you hit that "enough is enough" point. And you are able to live happily on a quarter million a year or a hundred thousand or whatever. The number is, everything excess is put into assets. That's the key, because if you keep increasing your burn rate, you're not gonna hit it in seven years. You're not gonna hit it in 700 years. You're never gonna hit it.
Tony (28:21):
It's expense creep- your expenses go up as your income goes up, but what's really happening is if you envision just- almost like a sand; your cash is sand. It's slipping through your fingers. You gotta find a better way to hold onto i;, put it in the right places. But, I really appreciated you being on the show, and hanging out with us. How are people gonna find more about what you're doing and get in touch with you
Taylor Welch (28:49):
Best place to follow me for just the raw unfiltered would be Twitter, TaylorAWelch is the username. You can also go to Taylorawelch.com/links. It's got a list of almost all of the projects that I'm involved in. It's a lot. So, real estate is one of the buckets that I'm putting focus and time into. But, anytime you connect with me on social, send me a note. I love connecting with people and responding to people. And, if you have any questions hit me up, I'd love to share value with your audience. Anytime I can.
Tony (29:24):
Taylor, I really appreciate it. And, definitely an inspiration. I can't wait to see when your book comes out. Make sure future millionaires, listening to the show. You pick a copy of that up. You're gonna get, you may not realize it cuz we didn't talk about age, but let's pull that out. Taylor, how old are you right now?
Taylor Welch (29:39):
I turned 33 in about a month.
Tony (29:44):
Yeah. So don't, don't miss that. If you're listening to the show, this is a 33 year old multimillionaire talking to you, trying to help inspire you guys to, make some better decisions with your money. And, he's got some great wisdom. Check him out. Thanks Taylor.
Taylor Welch (29:57):
Thank you.