Dragon's Gold: The Magic of Mindset

Leaving Corporate, Finding Freedom: Tom Dunkel on Risk and Reinvention

• Justin Mills • Season 1 • Episode 29

Share episode

Episode Summary:

What makes a man walk away from everything secure to build something completely uncertain?

Tom Dunkel took that leap and nearly lost it all. But through failure, faith, and the long game, he rebuilt a life of ownership, alignment, and impact.

In this episode of Dragon’s Gold: The Magic of Mindset, Tom opens up about the real story behind leaving corporate, hitting bottom, and learning to play chess instead of checkers.

Key Themes:

  • Leaving corporate safety for entrepreneurial ownership
  • Rebuilding from near-bankruptcy with patience and grit
  • The long game of wealth-building through mindset and service
  • Why “burn the boats” isn’t just a metaphor, it’s a call to commitment
  • Choosing the right “Who” to get you through the “How”
  • Leading with transparency, faith, and hard-earned wisdom

What You’ll Learn:

  • Why the compound effect of relationships is more powerful than timing
  • How Tom overcame fear and failure to rebuild something better
  • Why identity work matters more than strategy in the long run
  • What real wealth means, and how it’s different than comfort
  • How he created Belrose Storage Group with $63M in deals and zero ego

Tools & Weapons:

  • Who Not How – The mindset shift that reframed execution
  • Masterminds & Accountability – The "Who" that carried him through
  • Jim Rohn’s 5 People Rule – Surrounding yourself with the right circle
  • Joel Osteen’s Positive Framing – Anchoring in gratitude and possibility
  • “Principled Achievement” – Life philosophy rooted in his William & Mary days
  • Darren Hardy’s High Performance Forum – Real talk that changed everything

Send us a text

About Gold Dragon Investments:
At Gold Dragon Investments, our mission is to bring joy to others by helping them win the game of investing — helping every client become the hero of their financial journey. We believe that wealth is a tool, but joy is the ultimate outcome.
Through meaningful partnerships, we strive to empower our investors to create freedom, and build lasting legacies of purpose, fulfillment, and wealth.

Join Us on the Adventure:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome once again to another episode of Dragon's Gold, the magic of mindset. Today we have the pleasure of having managing principal of Eagle Capital Investments. Tom, welcome to the show. Justin, my man, it's so great to be with you. I'm looking forward to our chat today. Thank you, brother. And I as well have been looking forward to it for a while. as I like to, let's dive right in. Let's start with the origin story. Where did it all begin for Tom Dunkel? Yeah, man. So, you know, I was the kid in the neighborhood, mowing the lawn, shoveling the snow, raking the leaves, just trying to make a couple extra bucks. And, just kind of had that, I don't know if it's a mindset or just like instilled in me. You my parents, worked hard and, and I knew I had to kind of, participate and contribute myself. So that was me and, just got a lot out of it. And, so I guess that sort of. Continued on through my, through my teens and, in the, out into the world. not like I was a great student or everything. I like to have fun, goof around a little bit, but, but yeah, then, started getting a little focused, Justin, you know, probably after college, ended up, going to business school, paid for it. myself, took out loans, had a job in school and all that stuff. And then really kind of hunkered down, I focused in finance and accounting. I knew all along I wanted to kind of do something on my own, but when you're just getting started, it's kind of hard to do that, right? At least for me, I don't know if that was my bad mindset back then, but. So I did go the corporate route for about 10 or 12 years, which actually was great because I ended up doing mergers and acquisitions in the aerospace industry. So I worked with some incredible people. The CEO was at the time he was a young guy. was 40 something. was a Harvard undergrad, Harvard Business School, first Boston investment banking, smart dude, pulled this management team together. to grow this company through acquisition. I was really lucky to be, I was a financial analyst at the time. I was doing like the modeling and the forecasting and the valuations and, putting the packages together to present to the banks and the private equity sources. I worked closely with the CEO, the CFO, the corporate development guy, and a bunch of the other, you know, kind of C level people, which was a just a great environment. these are very accomplished people, know, colonels in the Air Force, ex fighter pilots. Actually, our chairman was a two time shuttle astronaut and his buddy Neil Armstrong was on our board of directors. So that was pretty cool. And so just learned a lot from these incredible people during that time. And then I got the deal bug. So I love the finance and the deals and all this. And so when the company decided, hey, we're going to We just acquired a bunch of these companies. we did over a billion dollars of deals over about a four year period. They said, Hey, we're going to integrate these companies, which basically means, you get them all to work together under this new roof. And I was like, you know, that's not really interesting for me. Cause had, was a deal guy, right? I wanted to go out and do more deals. So I took the opportunity to kind of left at the top of my game there. Got a great job at an investment banking firm. And but it was a technology focused investment banking firm at the beginning of the 2000s and you're a young dude. So I don't know if you remember this, but we had this huge internet bubble at that time and, you know, things were going crazy. There's a lot of capital flowing around to these crazy ideas that frankly to me didn't make a ton of sense. But, you know, we were out doing our thing, advising on mergers and acquisitions, raising capital for them. And then of course the bubble burst, right? have 9-11 happened, the bubble burst. So the firm that I was with went from about 500 people down to like five. I was not one of the remaining five, Justin. So, then I sort of bounced around a little bit. At this point I was married, had a couple of small kids at home. I was like, all right, I got to, you know, bring in, bring home the bacon kind of thing. proceeded to, uh, you know, move around a couple other times and, Justin, for various reasons, I found myself out of, out of a job three times in a four year period. And I, you know, it was pretty, I felt like I was a pretty accomplished dude at that point. You know, I had a pretty good education. Like I was saying, I had a great background in mergers and acquisitions. And I was like, this is crazy. I, know, this, this, corporate security stuff is. is a bunch of BS. So I was like, you know, I'm going to finally do what I've been wanting to do and go out on my own. that was 2006. After I got fired from my corporate finance job. And so I had a wife and a four year old and a two year old at home. was like, all right, you know, got to kind of hunker down and make this happen. Well, that was 2006, Justin. I decided to start my real estate empire, but Of course, before I knew it, next couple of years, the bottom fell out of the real estate market. The little war chest that I built up to start my business was going up in flames. So I found myself in a tough spot, but I just decided, I don't want to go back to corporate. I'm going to stick to this. I want to make something happen. You know, a bit of luck and serendipity, I found myself buying distressed mortgages at that time. now, you know, kind of fast forward 15 years later, my business partner, Joe and I have built a really nice business in the distressed mortgage debt business. generated over $63 million of revenue over that time period. And we're a pretty small team. So there's been some extra capital to do other things. So we have a short-term rental portfolio. We built a self-storage business and um we've also tried some things that didn't work out. So don't want to skip over those because definitely. Yeah. Yeah. we do, want to touch on just, you said so many valuable points in all of that, that I want to touch on. The one thing in the beginning, and I love, and I think this is so relevant to any entrepreneur, anyone who's starting something, is having an excitement about it, knowing that you want something, not quite knowing where to go and where the focus is, right? And so the key word in that being focus. When you finally applied that focus and you started pushing that in, then you were able to grow in whatever field that you attempted to achieve greatness in. And in that, the lessons that you learn, the relationships that you make, the elevation that occurs in that situation because of your focus, attention and energy. Then being able to leave that company at the height, right? Recognizing that you've added the value, you've gained value and you've made a name for yourself and then be able to make a lateral move or or upward move or, even sometimes a down one we're just getting out into the next space, whatever that is. I think that the lessons that come along with that time that you vested, because nothing comes without that time, effort, energy, right? Someone's timeline may be faster or slower based on that, but that's their race and just as you're running yours, all that focus, that time and attention, the other thing that I wanna make note of is that you put yourself through school, right? No one did it for you. You had skin in the game. you worked towards that and you now had a vested interest in making that successful because if it was, if you didn't do it, it was on you and those bills didn't stop like coming, right? You had to, you had to pay. So adding fuel to that fire to push you along because you had something that you needed to succeed for the, the other part. I know the timeline is slightly off or different later, but being married, having a child, having to go through, trials and tribulations, moments where these unexpected things, losing multiple jobs in a very short period of time, right? Even when you're good at what you do, like there's no, no security. There's no one that's going to do it for you, but you, and you have to make sure to take the steps necessary to protect yourself and create that. love how you say the war chest, right? Create that, whatever that is to you, to be able to create that level of protection so that when, when oddities or things occur that are macro events that are completely outside your, your realm of control, they don't, lay you low, or they at least give you a basis, a foundation to where you can still rise from. We talk about trials and tribulations. We talk about these rough moments. And of course you shared a brief pieces of them, but I'd love to dig in more about what are some moments in your life that were difficult that you had to overcome. Sure. Well, like I said, when you've got a young family at home and the company decided to move its headquarters from Philadelphia to Seattle. I'm like, all right, well, I'm not moving from Philadelphia to Seattle. So, Justin, one of my favorite sayings is that life is 10 % what happens to you and 90 % how you respond to that, how you react to that. And so I guess I have to say, don't know if it's because I grew up playing golf and golf teaches you like, you know what? You hit your ball in the woods, guess what? Now you're in the woods. Now you got to figure out how to get out and still try to get on the green and make a putt, right? or you hit your ball in the water, you hit your ball out of bounds, you can't spend a lot of time, crying over your bad shot. You have to go and you have to, keep moving forward and do your best and forget about what happened and just focus on where you're going from there. Because guess what? You can't fix anything in the past. I feel like I was sort of brought up to just approach life that way. And I think it's kind of served me well. so the company relocating, you me getting fired from my job, the real estate market, crashing when I, maybe I should have been, shoulda, coulda, woulda, right? But I think for me, it's just always, you know, having that belief in myself and just seeing that vision of what I want my future to look like. And that way, these are just things that happen that you just need to react to and overcome and then just, find your way forward. Absolutely. think like you say 10 % what happens 90 % how you react to it. I love that quote had it posted on a wall literally since since high school Charles Swindle There's a long paragraph but it all boils down to Attitude is everything right and how you approach that is is and I think that is an amazing quote I'm super grateful that you shared it The other thing you mentioned that I was really excited about was when you related it to golf. And it made me think of I did an interview with a Dennis Trixler. If you haven't watched that episode, you should go back and check it out. It was great. it was one of my first ones, the episodes a little rocky, but the content is great. And Dennis's story is really amazing. But I bring it up for this reason, because he talks about golf is life. And he just talks about the relatability of how that is. And I think that the way that you just expounded on that you you you really elaborated on that. point of reference in regards to like, got to play it where it lies, right? So it's all in the woods. Like, what do do? You keep going, right? Like the game ain't over. So, I think that it's a really powerful lesson, to reference. And I love the relatability because whether it's referencing sports or whatever it is in life, everybody has a way to relate it, make it understandable. At the end of it all, the root of it, the crux of it is the same. It's you have to keep moving forward. You have to take action. And a positive attitude will help you through in all of those things, especially in the dark times. We talked about. another quick example of that, if you don't mind me jumping in, Justin so, and I learned this from my mother. sadly, um, my dad passed away about 21 years ago and me and my brother and sister, you know, obviously we're all devastated by the loss of my father. my, mom and my dad were very close. Like they, he was in high school, like he was the football player. She was a cheerleader, you know, one of those storybook kind of relationships, which I super grateful that they had that experience. So when my dad passed away, was rough. It was rough for everybody. But about a year later, my mom got remarried. And so me and my brother and sister were kind of like, what's going on here? What about dad? What about that great relationship you had for 50 some years? And my mom just said, I wish things were different, but your dad's gone and I need to keep moving forward. It's like, wow. I mean, that's like really pretty incredible. you know, talk about dark times, know, losing someone like that, you you spent your entire life with basically. And then, you know, just having to say, you know, I gotta keep moving. Yeah, appreciate the times you had. Remember the memories, right? Remember the lessons and cherish them for what they are. But as you say, like at that point, she was still alive and she needed for herself that relationship or whatever the case is. And part of when I hear you say that, it makes me think about the fact that her decision was for her, but it affected you and your siblings, right? and because of the perspective that you had from it as the child, right, versus her in in her moment in her life and on her journey, right, it was a different viewpoint. But she did the right thing for her. And when you brought it up or questioned about it, right, she acknowledged your concern, worry, thoughts, etc. But then she just simply advised that like, this is what I need to do for me, right. And what do do from that except accept it move on, right? Or rail against it and there's what can you do, right? It's her life. and, and I think that that even of itself, it just, well, it's, it's a one example. I think the same thing applies in anything that you do, right? Moving forward and living your life, going along your journey, Appreciating and helping support other people on theirs, but understanding that this is, this is your spin around the rock and you have to do the best that you can with what you have in this moment. Right? So None of us goes it alone. And along the way, we have people that help us. They go along with us. They teach us. They run alongside us. And in some cases, we lift them up. But we call this the fellowship. Who might you cite as someone who is inspirational or powerful for you on your journey? Yeah, wow, Justin, that's a big question. There's probably more that I could possibly list, unless you want to take the rest of the day for this interview. But that was something that I learned pretty early on. can see over my shoulder here, the Who Not How book, when I read that book a couple of years ago, was like, I had sort of been living it already, but it just brought it home that it is so important to you know, surround yourself with the right who's and don't get too tangled up in the how, how do I, how do I do this? It's, who do I know? Or, you know, what relationship can I draw on to overcome this, to answer this question, overcome this obstacle, whatever. But yeah, if I had to put some names to it, of course our mutual friend, Hunter Thompson has been super influential, for me in the last couple of years, just really honing, my capital raising skills and frankly, just my relationship skills. He's an amazing relator and His energy is just incredible. But if I had to go back to that, that was one of the things Justin that I found that I had to do when I did leave the corporate nest, you know, it was like, okay, I'm kind of out on my own. who do I, you know, I got to find some people that can help support me. I can bounce things off of. So I, I've joined multiple masterminds over the years and met some really key people there. one of my early mentors was Darren, a guy named Darren Hardy. so through one of his programs, his high performance forum, I met a guy named Stephen Wessner. Stephen has been my accountability partner 10 years, 10 and a half at this point. So we talk every Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. Eastern. to just talk about the wins from the last week, the losses, the fixes, the ah-hahs, and just sort of those types of things. So even though Stephen and I have only been physically in the same space twice over this time period, I consider him to be one of my best friends and closest confidants. guy I would throw out there is Joel Osteen. I didn't really grow up in a religious family. Joel is a pastor of a big church down in Houston. And so, you know, just kind of coming at it from the spiritual side, you know, which is another thing to me personally is very helpful when you are in those dark times to be able to know that, you know, there is a plan for you and you've got this, you know, destiny you're trying to fulfill. And then I would say, my business partner, Joe, we've had certainly like any other relationship, we've had our ups and downs over the years, but all in all, it's been great to have. a partner with similar values. We're both family oriented guys. We were never looking to build some huge corporation with tons and tons of people. We were definitely looking to build a lifestyle company and we've succeeded in doing that. We've had plenty of failures along the way, but all in all, in the grand work of things, I would say we've been pretty successful. That's awesome. And congratulations to you, Tom. It didn't come from nothing. You put in the work, you put in the time, right? So that's incredible. One of the things that you commented on that made me reflect, you had mentioned your accountability coach and having someone to hold you accountable to the commitments that you make, to the things that you do. You don't stick on track all the time, right? Unfortunately, reality, we're human and we do derail, but to be able to have that accountability that you hold yourself to, but that someone else calls you on, and can also reward you and give you compliments for the accolades that you've had or the successes that you've made, right? And also just reminding you that in your dark moments that you were able to pull through and then, you can do this too. I was thinking, you know, over 10 years, you think about every once a week, every Tuesday, I think you'd mentioned, you're thinking about that, like 500 meetings, right? Kind of funny when you think about that timeline and how fast that goes, you reflect, that was a decade, but that's a lot. It's a lot. And it's an investment that you made in yourself that someone else is making in you as well. And I have to expect and assume that you as well are adding value to that person in your own way too. And so it's mutually beneficial. uh I think about in those times, five, meetings and all the other things you've done. Like that's a lot of reflecting to do. And so when we talk about reflecting, there's a moment I've found that tends often to be a moment, a pivotal point in our life. And we call this the darkest hour, a moment that was incredibly hard that we had to either crumble or drag ourselves up from. And is there a moment that you would share with our listeners? That felt that way and what is the mindset? What is the the lesson that you had to learn to get yourself through that? Yeah, for sure. mean, my journey has been anything but a straight line. It's definitely had plenty of down times that have been challenging for sure. So, the first one that comes to mind was had all this great experience in the corporate world. I had built up a war chest of cash. went out to build my real estate portfolio and then everything was going wrong. The market was going against me. frankly didn't know what the heck I was doing. I didn't know how to really run a business. I had some great experience, but being an entrepreneur is something completely different than being cog in this big machine at the companies that I was with. You know, being the guy in charge and all it was, was a big transition. So here I am trying to learn how to be an entrepreneur, how to run a business, how to build a team. And meanwhile, the world is crumbling all around me. So yeah, I definitely went through a period of time there where it was like, wow, you this money is flying out the door. Cause I started out my residential career in wholesaling, which is all about marketing, right? Marketing to buy houses. for wholesale prices, right? So it's, there's tons of marketing dollars going out the door. And, next thing I know, I'm just seeing the bank balance just going down, down, down. know, and then at a certain point, like I was just out of money. I was in a franchise, so I owed my franchise money. I was renting office space. I had to, I owed that guy money. I had credit card bills I couldn't pay. had negotiate discounted payoffs of those I was looking up, you know, bankruptcy attorneys online to see like, do I need to declare bankruptcy to just kind of clear the decks and start over? thankfully I didn't have to, but I came close enough where I was, was definitely having some conversations, but, it's at that time where. I think again, you just need to keep that long-term vision in mind for your life and just know that this is period of time. and just realize too, that nobody who's successful or who you look up to, nobody got there in a straight line without any trials and tribulations. I feel like just kind of knowing that, Justin, and just... Persevering, just plowing through you just got to keep going. I think it comes down to grit. think it comes down to just knowing that you've got people relying on you and yourself. You got to do it for yourself and just keep grinding it out. The sun will come out tomorrow. You always believe in that brighter future. I love that. And thank you for sharing that, Tom. I think that really resonates, I would believe, with a lot of people that are behind the eight ball, right? They have a vision, they have a dream, They're bleeding money, hemorrhaging. And you start questioning, like, is this worth it? is it going to work? And that's the thing. There is technically no guarantee of success. Like, you can absolutely burn it all out and burn yourself to the ground. But the reality is that if you don't quit, you will eventually succeed. Now there will come a point where you question whether you're going, you can make it, but if you keep that vision, just like you said, the sun will come out tomorrow. If you think about the fact, like what can I do today to get me to that vision, right? What steps can I take? And then just keep taking those steps, right? Don't allow yourself to be crushed by the weight of of those moments that are hard. And oftentimes there's a there's a quote that I'm fond of. Do not lament the heat of the flame or the pounding of the hammer, for that is what forges the steel. And when I hear you talk about that, right, that's that's getting pounded, right? That's it's a hot moment to be in. But to to keep pressing forward and to come out of that and to find creative solutions to be able to avoid the bankruptcy to be able to pay back the debt and the creditors, right? And then to grow out of that into something successful and profitable, Which all comes from the time effort energy, the lessons that you learned along the way, The grit, the determination, much as you said, and you push that through, you didn't quit. And then like the eagle, You flew and you soar back in the sky. So I just think that what an amazing in my brain, amazing visual picture, like to come out from that dark moment. so thank you for sharing that with our listeners. Yeah. You know, it's funny, Justin. I, I, I often tell people that I had the worst possible upbringing to be an entrepreneur, you know, like I mentioned earlier, I had two loving parents. I was a third of three kids and like, you know, upper middle-class family. Like I didn't want for anything. I did still go out and shovel those driveways and rake those leaves and cut those lawns. But, I didn't really face any real adversity in my life. probably the first big thing was losing my dad. And then, you know, 9-11 and then, you know, so it wasn't until going out and starting my own company that, you know, I really did have to forge myself in fire in a short period of time, because, kind of like I touched on earlier, when I left corporate America, you know, I was, I was riding high, I was a VP at a publicly traded company. I, this great experience. thought, being an entrepreneur, no problem. Well, guess what? It was tough, man. But, but thank you. Yeah. it's just, as something that any, anyone is going to face. If you, know, if you want to get to the mountain top here, you're, going to face these kinds, this kind of adversity. No question. I love that. uh, th actually you made me think we talked about being the mountaintop again, and I don't usually cite other episodes in this, but I am now there's one we did with, uh, uh, Jason Wright and he had a story about going to this mountain top and I, it's an amazing story and he almost died. And, uh, I totally encourage anybody to listen to that episode because it was impactful. But when I hear you talk about that, that's it. If you want to ascend, things will come along that you never anticipated. Mm-hmm. The best laid plans will crumble under it, right? And how you adapt to that and how you push through is super relevant. And that's ultimately how you succeed. And so congratulations to you. Thanks buddy. Things, another little quote you might like is things with 0 % probability happen every day. So you can, you can take that positively or negatively. So, you know, it's impossible to anticipate anything, everything, you know, on the good side and on the bad side. super grateful for that. I've never heard of it that way, but exactly right. You're like, this, this would never happen. wait, it did. Okay. Well, I never saw that coming. and how do you, and how, then, and then the cool thing about that is, that the resourcefulness that you have as a, as a person, as an entrepreneur, as a human, right? What can you do? How can you pull through it? What can, what can you do and then take those steps, right? Um, focusing on what you can, not what's overwhelming, but what's that next bite? What's the, Next piece of the elephant to eat, right? Right, one step at a time. Yeah. Well, speaking of eating the elephant at the end, this feast, right? So, so many things after all of those trials and tribulations at the end of it. And of course, it's always ongoing. There's always something. along the way that we learn these lessons, and I call this Dragon's Gold, the idea is the mindset, the things that we've achieved, accolades, what have you, that we learn through this experience. Is there something that you would share with listeners that you would consider Dragon's Gold? dragons gold. So, to me, Justin, keeps coming back to just, in your deepest core, like who are you and what do you see is your vision for, for your future. And, you know, all this other noise that comes at you, it's just, you know, things that you have to have to plow through. I say, it's a funny, story about that. So. Like I said, I got fired from my corporate finance job. And while I was looking for something entrepreneurial to do, which I ended up doing real estate, but I was considering some other things I did because I had a young family at home. I was like, you know, I needed. Go on some interviews with for some jobs, right? For some J O B's and, you know, just see what I can find out there. So here I am this, you know, mergers and acquisitions guy had all this. great experience in that world, worked for some really cool companies, achieved kind of an executive level. And so I get this opportunity with this private equity fund, tons of money, tons of financing, very well backed, big corporation, global corporation, they're looking to build out their mergers and acquisitions team. And it was gonna be like, big salary, know, pre IPO stock options, you know, all this juicy stuff. So if you had looked at Tom on paper back then, you would have been like, yeah, this is checking the boxes, checking the boxes, checking the boxes. So I'll never forget, I was at the interview and I'm across the table from super, super nice gentlemen. We're having a great conversation. can, and you know, when you're interviewing for a job, can kind of tell that, you know, things are going well, right? So things are going well. and I hear this voice in my head, Justin. And I knew at that time, I was either certifiably insane or I was truly an entrepreneur, because the voice in my head said, Don't do it. Do not do it. Do not take this job. Do not do it. So at that point, like the guy talking to me was sort of like, you know, like I couldn't even hear what he was saying. It was like, want, want, want, want. Right. And so I finished the interview. I go home and I call up the recruiter and I say, Hey man, I'm really sorry, but I'm pulling myself from consideration for this job. I said, I have to go and I have to try something entrepreneurial. And he says to me, he you know, you're their guy, right? And I'm like, yeah, I had a feeling that I was their guy, but I said, I got, I got to give this a try. You know, I'm at a good point in my life. You know, I got it. I got to give it a go. And he was like, all right. So, you know, I turned it down and that's, that's when I, you know, started my entrepreneurial career and which has been great. All the ups and downs and the good times, the bad times, I wouldn't trade it for the world. think it's worked out real well for me. thank you so much for sharing that story and that perspective. And wow, right? To be at the top of your game, to literally have something that you know, you already know your shoe in, it feels right. that you have, I want to say right. You know that you are jiving with this individual. To have that moment, to have that voice in your mind, like whatever caused that, whatever. whether it was internal, whether it was external, right? Some people will talk about infinite intelligence. Some people will say it's spiritual. Some like whatever skin you put on it, whatever perspective that you look at, the filter that you see that through. At the end of the day, you had this opportunity that could have been great, but you chose to step back and do what you were passionate about or what you really believed was the right thing. You recognize this wasn't the path you wanted to go. So you decided to make that chance. And then since we already know you made that choice, wah, and then starts falling off the cliff and everything starts lighting up fire. I'm sure in those moments like you had to look back and go, Oh my God, what did I do? but you didn't waver in that regard. Right. And now you're in now, like now you're neck deep. You're like, that's cool. Like that ship is sailed. Like, right. And so what am I going to do with this one right here, right now? You batten down the hatches, you make it happen. Yeah, the boats were burned and I got new boats. Yeah. I got new boats. Yeah. Absolutely. I love that analogy. Right? Yeah. We like to say they sailed onto a different port. No, that thing was gone up in flames. But how amazing to know that you listen to yourself, that it wasn't easy, that you did push through and that you did become successful all through that effort, that grit, that perseverance, your belief in yourself. And I boil this back, all of what I just said really is coming down to this one piece, is the belief. You didn't know what was going to happen, but you believed that you were making the right choice. And when the going got tough, you believed that you would succeed. Maybe not at every moment, sure. No one's perfect. And there are moments that are dark. then when you're laying in bed staring at the ceiling in the dark going, my God, what did I do? Or what's next? Like, that's not a comfortable time. but to come out of that crucible, to push through and then to achieve the success. Like the entire purpose of this podcast is intended to share these stories so that people know that when, when stuff's getting real, right, you can do it. It's in those moments that, that your, that your strongest memories, the best lessons, the appreciation that you have to be able to look back and say, look at all that I came through. to success, right? No one gave it to me. I earned it, right? And I think that this interview, thank you so much for it, has been incredibly powerful and has been packed full of lessons for reference. And so thank you. Tom, we talk about legacy and I like to call this the Hall of Heroes. If there was a massive statue of Tom Dunkel and it had a plaque on it and it could say anything that you wanted to the future generations, what would you want it to say? You can do Put your mind to it. Surround yourself with great people. Find a niche in your world. And then lift up the people that are around you and share your gifts with them. In my business school, Justin, I went to the College of William & Mary. the Mason School of Business and the Dean there, he taught us all to strive for principled achievement. And so that's always stuck with me to, you yeah, you want to achieve, but not at all costs. want to principled achievement. And so to me, that means, you know, doing the right thing, you know, taking care of people around you and, you know, just striving to be the best version of yourself. love that. And then at the end of it, we all win together, right? I love that. Super grateful for the sharing that. Well, Tom, what's what's next? What's the next quest for Tom Dunkel and Eagle capital investments? Sure. Well, I'm proud to say that I'm taking the summer off, Taking the summer off, I'm going to kind of recharge, refuel, and just enjoy some downtime. And then come this September, Eagle Capital Investments is going to be rocking and rolling. going to be raising capital from our trusted investors. to support our trusted small business owners, which is a big benefit. I think a lot of people skip over that when we talk about investing and in these multifamily deals or these self-storage deals or mobile home park deals, whatever. I think people skip over the fact that as an investor, you're really helping the next generation of entrepreneurs to... kind of realize their dreams. So at the end of the day, I'm an investor. And so I look to invest with quality operators, many of whom I've gotten to know through our through our mutual group of friends. And then I look to bring my group of investors who've entrusted me for years and just look to do some cool projects, support our small businesses, which are the backbone of our country, and also, you know, make a few bucks. for ourselves along the way. I love that. You write the investors make money. You're helping impact the people and the people that are the beneficiaries or recipients of whatever you're investing in. Right. And so it's a win win win situation. And when you go at it, much like you made a comment earlier about that in regards to being the principled application, of your effort and helping everybody to succeed because of that. That's awesome. Tom, I like to share with the listeners tools and weapons, things that you've used, resources, books, et cetera, that have helped you along the way. Is there anything that you would share that has been inspirational to you? Sure. So, touched on it a couple of times, but I think getting around the right people is really, really critical. And I'm tough on my kids about this and anybody else who will listen. But an old mentor of mine, Jim Rohn, says you become the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. Your average weight, average health, average income, average achievement, average relationships, all of that. you know, surround yourself with the right people. And for me, I've been able to find that those people in networking groups, in mastermind groups. And so, you know, do not begrudge the money you might spend to join those groups because you'll get your investment back tenfold easily. go for those great mastermind groups and through them, you're also gonna learn all these other cool tools and tricks and weapons along the way because you're gonna hear about the books that people are reading. You're gonna hear about the software or the techniques or the other resources or other relationships that these people have that they're finding are valuable and then you can kind of tap into them and then it's just a kind of a compound effect of awesomeness. I love compound effect of awesomeness. That's amazing. Compound effect of awesomeness. And it is, and it is. And I agree completely with you. And I think that just like you say, you get in there. Yes, oftentimes, no matter what the networking is or the grouping events, there are free resources that you can get online. There are meetups in places locally. You can get on Zoom calls with people across the world that are in the field that you're looking for, There are many different places that people will congregate that are aligned or doing what you want to do or that are in the space of what you need and want. And if you get yourself around the right people, and apply yourself, use the knowledge that you gain, nurture the relationships that you create, don't be a jerk. Yep. Yep. Yep. hard. I take that back. It is oftentimes hard, but the recipe is not. but the recipe is not. relationships, they will accelerate your timeline to get to the gold. Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely that compound effect of awesomeness. I love it. So got one last question, my friend. personally, this is the most important question of the entire podcast. If biased, if you were any mythical creature, what would you be and why? I gotta say... The hippogriff from the Harry Potter series, I thought that was such a cool mythical creature. I love when Harry's flying him across the lake and he sort of scrapes his talons through the water. I thought that was really cool. But I guess the reason would be, sort of an amalgamation of all these really cool, awesome. strengths from these other animals. Being able to fly, having just this strength and cunning of... I don't even know all the creatures that are in there, but I'm assuming it's like some part lion, part eagle or hawk or something, and just being able to fly, but also having the strength on terra firma to be a badass. And, you know, at the end of the day, he was also very relatable. people, a bunch of the students were scared of him at first, but then, you know, he became a great resource for Harry Potter, even, you know, being able to channel his strength into, you know, something positive. So I think that's pretty cool. Okay. Yeah, man. Awesome. Well, my friends, thank you for joining us once again to inspire, educate, and empower you to turn your dreams into reality. One mindset shift at a time. We'll see you next time.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Justin Mills

Host
Head Shot

Aaron Iler

Producer
Head Shot

Tom Dunkel

Guest