Wealth Formula Podcast

It's been nearly 5 weeks since my Covid diagnosis. The good news is that my brain seems to be back. The bad news is, I still feel about 40 years older than I am. That said, at least the trajectory is in the right direction. And, as many well-meaning people have reminded me as of late, I'm not exactly a spring chicken anymore. Thanks again for all those who sent me well wishes throughout this time....

Political difference aside, I for one was relieved to see some order restored to the government last week. Whatever policy differences I have with Joe Biden, I believe him to be a man who cares dearly about his country and a man of integrity. As a person who loves this country first above any party, I wish him well and I hope that he can guide us through a difficult part of our history—one defined...

I'm still recovering from Covid so please excuse any typos and oddball things I might say. I am actually on steroids that do make people a bit different psychologically. As an update on my progress, I am about 10 days out from diagnosis. Overall I am relatively stable but have been dealing with something that many Covid patients call the cytokine storm period. At a high level, this means that the...

For those of you in our accredited investor club, you might have noticed an abrupt cancellation of our real estate webinar last Tuesday conveyed by a cryptic message from my assistant, Madalyn. Well, here's what happened. Sunday, I went on a hike with my daughter. She is 11 years old and has the lungs of a marathon runner. I do my best to keep up with her. We do this hike regularly and wanted to s...

When I just finished surgical residency, I took a job with a cosmetic surgery company for a few months before realizing that I was not employee material. It was a hodgepodge group of surgeons there. Some of us were younger guys who recently finished training and were looking for experience. There were also a couple of older guys who had failed in private practice and had become "journeymen" doing...

We are finishing the year off with one final episode of "Ask Buck". This episode has a wide variety of questions with issues ranging from cryptocurrency to child-rearing. Make sure to listen! P.S. Thank God 2020 is coming to an end!

Lots more questions to answer on this Christmas week episode of "Ask Buck"! We talk about real estate markets, equity vs debt in your home and lots more. In the holiday spirit, I even asked a couple of our Wealth Formula Network members to join! Lot's of fun as usual. Enjoy the episode!

It's time for another round of "Ask Buck". This week's episode includes questions on Wealth Formula Banking, cryptocurrency, gold and real estate markets. Listen HERE!

It's time for our next series of "Ask Buck" episodes. It used to be that we just did one of these every few months. But now we get so many questions that it has become a quarterly series! While all of our shows are educational in nature, the nice thing about the "Ask Buck" shows is that material is highly focused on practical information and strategy applicable to most investors. These shows have...

What if you were in a 747 jet airplane traveling 500 miles per hour. You could get to where you want to be pretty quickly. But what if you didn't know where you wanted to end up? Well, then it wouldn't do you much good to move at 500 miles per hour. In fact, depending on where you ultimately want to end up, it could end up making your journey take much longer than if you just walked directly there...

Wealth Formula does, in fact, have a mathematical formula behind it. Wealth=Leverage(MassxVelocity) I believe the key to building your wealth is behind maximizing each one of these variables. Mass is simple. It's how much money you invest. If you have more money to invest then you are going to create more wealth. Leverage is critical. Despite what some popular personal finance gurus say, significa...

Boring is good. Beware of shiny objects. When it comes to investing, those are the words that I generally live by. When I keep true to this wisdom, I don't generally lose money. Now that doesn't mean I have never lost money! Remember, before I became a boring domestic real estate guy, I was a flaming entrepreneur! I acted on every good and bad idea that I had. I made millions of dollars with some...

In 1798 Thomas Malthus published a theory that predicted that human population growth would eventually outpace food production and thereby push living standards backwards. He based this on a simple mathematical observation that human population was growing at an exponential rate while food production growth was linear. While Malthus' theory was mathematically sound, it did not take into account th...

Estate planning is by far and away the most ignored topic amongst the high paid professionals with whom I talk to every day. First of all, it's not a very sexy issue. Who likes talking about dying anyway? It's kind of a buzz kill. But I got news for you…eventually you are going to die and you probably won't get to pick when. Remember—I'm a doctor so I'm qualified to make this statement! The other...

It's not what you make but what you get to keep. Think about that for a second. If you are a physician in California that makes $500K per year, do you really make $500K per year? No you don't. With combined state and federal taxes, you make half of that. The Federal government and the State of California made the other half. Believe me, I've been there. I spent the first year after residency as a...

We are now just a few weeks away from a presidential election. Ordinarily that is, in and of itself, a wildcard for the economy. People tend to freeze up in times of uncertainty. Factor in some kind of October surprise which would not surprise me, on-going COVID-19 fall-out and decreases in government support and who knows what happens next. If you are in our Accredited Investor Club, you have for...

"Saying yes will get you to a million. Saying no will get you to $100 million." That's the advice I once got from a very successful centimillionaire friend of mine. And while, on the surface, it may seem like one of those things rich people say to sound profound, I assure you that the power of no is indeed real. As you may know, I have been a bit of a flaming entrepreneur since leaving surgical re...

If you want to be wealthy, do as the wealthy do. The wealthy do not use IRAs and 401Ks to invest in heavy loaded mutual funds. That system is set up to make others wealthy! The ultra-wealthy get a completely different set of options when it comes to investing their money. They often have direct ownerships in businesses and real estate. They may own publicly traded equities, but they are not paying...

People are social animals. We aren't designed to be wearing masks, not touching each other, and quarantining. Yet for the last six months, that's been our predicament. At the same time, we are increasing our dependence on digital socializing through social media and have significantly increased our collective screen times and subsequent exposure to toxic blue light at all hours of the day and nigh...

It is the second week of September—my birthday week. And…as I reflect on the past 12 months, I can't help but think, "What a shitty year". The only solace I take in my reflection is knowing how radically things can change over the course of 12 months. The pendulum just needs to move the other way. The good news is that this time next year could, and probably will, look very different. We could be...

If you like these "Ask Buck" shows, you've been enjoying the last few weeks. I would love to get some feedback from you as I'm always trying to improve the quality of my content. In the meantime, here is the third and last ask Buck episode of the summer! We will do it again sometime in the fall. Enjoy!

We do a lot of interview based content on Wealth Formula Podcast. However, the feedback I get is that the most learning happens during our "Ask Buck" episodes. The good news is that we have a bunch of questions lined up so we will do a couple of "Ask Buck" shows in a row for the next few weeks starting with this one! I also encourage you to go back and listen to older "Ask Buck" shows as well. It'...

"You're nuts!" That's what I would say to anyone a year ago who suggested that we would face a global pandemic that would put us in a recession magnitudes greater than 2008 (based on GDP), make all bars and restaurants shut down and cancel professional athletics. I would also think you were nuts if you told me that despite all of this financial destruction, our apartment portfolio would still be p...

There is a phenomenon in finance that I have witnessed first hand that I find fascinating. The best way to explain it is to tell you about a guy I know out here in California who has been very successful as a fund manager. I asked him once about the expectations of his investors and he quickly replied: "5 percent". Knowing this guy was pretty savvy and could easily produce more than 5 percent for...

Back in the early 1990s, I was a freshman at Columbia University in New York. Frankly, I wasn't very interested in the academic part of college at the time. I was too busy doing what a college kid might do after being dropped into Manhattan after going to private school in the midwest. In fact, I realized that college courses were starting to interfere with my nocturnal lifestyle so I started taki...