The Johnjay Van Es Podcast
From the mastermind behind one of the most popular morning shows in the country, Johnjay Van Es brings his signature blend of curiosity, humor, and fearless honesty to the podcast world. If you’ve ever had a question on your mind but were too afraid to ask, don’t worry—Johnjay’s got you covered.
With hilarious, jaw-dropping conversations, amazing guests, and the inside scoop on everything you actually care about, this show is a wild ride through the stories you’ve never heard and the truths nobody else dares to say. Whether it’s celebrities, trendsetters, or just the most interesting people on the planet, nothing is off-limits, and no question is too bold.
Come for the interviews. Stay for the insanity. This is the podcast you’ll be talking about. Don’t miss it!
The Johnjay Van Es Podcast
Who's Teaching Your Kid About Money?
What do you do when you’ve made millions, but don’t know what to do with them? Walter Clarke saw this firsthand and set out to fix it, not by selling, but by teaching.
From helping wealthy entrepreneurs understand their finances to writing 401Kid to teach kids about money early, Walter’s mission is clear: empower people before they get taken advantage of.
Oh, and he’s also a 62-year-old Ironman athlete training for a 100-mile ultramarathon. His secret? Pushing physical limits to build mental strength—on the track and in life.
This episode is packed with real money talk, mindset shifts, and lessons for raising financially smart kids.
okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today because this podcast is a spin-off of our radio show. This is the podcast, the john j J Van Ness podcast. My guest, walter Clark.
Speaker 1:Walter, I'm kind of nervous, my wife said on the way over. She goes, you seem nervous, I go, I am nervous. I'm nervous because the field you're in I don't understand it completely. But you and I met about a month ago, hit it off in Atlanta at this sauna retreat with Jesse Yetzler's house, right, we hit it off and you live here in Phoenix, I live here in Phoenix. And then we connected again and after spending several hours with you, I was fascinated by you and I was like you know, I got this podcast where I'm interviewing people that I think are very interesting and I was like I wonder if I could just talk to you and just pick your brain on stuff, cause I thought you were so interesting. So with that, walter Clark, I'm probably gonna make a lot of mistakes, I'm probably gonna say some things that are really dumb, but if you're laid back enough, I hope you don't mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are. There are no. There are no dumb questions in, so okay, fire away all right.
Speaker 1:So I you know what I also did. I also, uh, asked chachi bt to do a deep dive into you and come up with questions for me to ask you too. So I might do that too at some point. Perfect, when I'm like, oh my god, I'm lost. He's too smart. Uh, who is walter clark? No, just kidding. So what you like, you do the family wealth thing right yeah, I run a run a family office here.
Speaker 2:My background really started in 95 in the business and then in kind of interesting through a lunch I had with a gentleman who sold a very significant business in town. He was iconic car dealer. Talked about his frustration with the language and understanding of the investment world, which I thought was fascinating, because you make an assumption based on how successful are that they? They kind of know everything.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so he knew everything about the car business and nothing about finance. And so now that he had a lot of money and he would walk into these, these advisors and these people selling them stuff, he said he was clueless on how to interact with them. So I thought that was interesting and so you said let me help you well, no, I, I said he. I said well, what do you need? He said I need to get educated and not sold. And I thought, oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:And so I had a partner at the time and and we created a curriculum based on his guidance and back in 99 we went to asu and voila restarted the program at asu in 1999 there's like a class that you yeah, it was a class geared towards people that came into sudden money, a liquidity event it's either an inheritance, uh, divorce, uh, business transaction, uh some sort of major liquidity event that takes you from one economic event to another and when you, when somebody shows up at your door, you think it's an amazing thing you get a bucket of money dropped on your doorstep. There's a tremendous amount of responsibility in that and also a tremendous amount of vulnerability. You're like you don't even know what to do, how to do it, what the terminology is, and you feel at a, at a huge disadvantage to the industry, and so our class was really to close that, what we call an information gap. So we empower families, individuals, so they can make better decisions and be better informed when people are offering them investment products.
Speaker 1:But you never worked with the car dealer guy. He just inspired you.
Speaker 2:No, we never Does. He know that. Now, what's that?
Speaker 1:Does he know what? What happened?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, no, he's now deceased. It was Lou Grubb. Oh really, yeah, and Lou was was an iconic guy. So Lou really tracked what we were doing. We went on, we started ASU and we went on to I don't know eight or nine different universities around the country. We've taught at UCLA and UC Berkeley. We even did a program down at the Tech of Monterey, but there's just a common theme, because people that create wealth are really good at that thing. So Lou is great at the car business and so he just never really had a need in the money business. But since he sold his dealerships he now had a new business and he just didn't like being vulnerable. Nobody likes being vulnerable. Nobody likes walking in and say, well, john Jay, I got to trust you, I hope you're going to do the right thing.
Speaker 2:That's not where you want to come from, you want to come from an educated perspective so you can match your knowledge and understanding, and so that's really what we taught. We taught structure and process and really empowered people, and we had all walks of life come to our program over the years of, you know, engineers and MBAs and all kinds of different people that had the same common theme educate me, don't sell me.
Speaker 1:So are people? Are graduates of your program, have they gone on to them? They themselves become wealthy or they themselves now are wealth management people.
Speaker 2:No, they're not. We didn't teach to wealth management people. We didn't really want those guys in, because that's a different educational program. We wanted to teach to the money. Okay, and what does the money need to understand, whether or not they want to try to do it themselves, or if they work with the wealth industry, then what do they need to look for and how do they hire and how do they evaluate? And really it was just an a to z about hey, if you, if you got a bunch of money, we. We had one guy, fascinating guy, probably the most eclectic, fascinating guy. He was employee number 21 at Google and he created Gmail and went on to do like amazing things. And he walked in. He's 30 years old, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and he just said show me behind the curtain. That's it?
Speaker 1:What year was this?
Speaker 2:This was, oh God, this is probably you know, 06, 07.
Speaker 1:Okay, because you know what's funny about that right.
Speaker 2:You know, google went public, I think you know, but it was interesting because it was so funny. His email address he says I want to meet with you. His email address was his first name At Google, At googlecom okay, so funny story I was about.
Speaker 1:I was about to say when you brought up luke grubb this is the thing about walter that I've discovered is that you and I have these paths that have crossed in many different ways, because I have a luke grubb story too. I have two different stories for that. But let me jump to the google thing. Uh, one of my wife's best friends who was in our wedding, um, we, we were, we met and we got, we were dating in san diego and one of my wife's best friends was working for uh, what was it? The san diego journal, the san diego business journal, and it's a couple years out of college. So this is, this is like. I think it was like 96, 97, 95, 96 or something like that. And she was quitting the san diego business journal to go join a startup, and it was that. And she was quitting the san diego business journal to go join the startup, and it was google. And she was the third person. Her email is carrie at googlecom and I remember telling her going are you stupid? Why will you leave the san diego business journal to go to this startup no one's ever heard of before? Right, I mean, now you know she drives ferraris and Lamborghinis and Rolls Royces everywhere she goes and she cashed out pretty big. Right Now she's at Reddit. Now she's at Reddit right now. So that's a Walter path.
Speaker 1:A couple days ago, you and I, when we were hanging out at the Global Ambassador after I left there, you know Walter, you know I had people because back the next day for something and he just brought a blue grub, um, my wife, who just met her dad as a car dealer, or was a car dealer too, he sold out. He was he pals with blue grub. Yeah, they, oh yeah. They were good friends with the grub and a good friend of mine.
Speaker 1:About 78 months ago I was in cancun getting stem cell I'm a big stem cell freak, uh, uh. And I was in mexico getting stem cells next to a guy, me, and the guy hit it off and he was from here too and he's. I need to get my cardio up. So him and I started hiking about twice a week, sometimes more than that, and he lives in the house that Lou Grubb built. Weird, right, I got Lou Grubb, I got Walter connections. I mean, I know it's not, but an interesting fact about his house is at one point he had the tallest tree in Arizona. It was a maple and it was Lou Grubb's tree. Well, you know I know it's weird.
Speaker 2:So what was kind of fascinating about the story? So ASU as an organization was actually afraid of a financial class. So we wrote it and went through all the due diligence and was with them for a year and Lou would always check in with us How's it going, how's it going, how's it going? And and finally they finally said you know what? We're not really sure we want to do this because they were afraid that we were going to recommend something and then that was going to go bad and that they were going to get sued. We had really told them that our class was process driven and not not opportunity driven.
Speaker 2:So Lou said hang on a second. And he called me two days later and said you're approved. And I said what'd you do? And he said well, laddy Corr is a good friend of mine, prior to Michael Crow being the president of ASU called Laddy Corr and said Laddy, you got to do this class because it's for people like me and all the others that need to be educated without a, without a brochure, because you can imagine Lou's transaction hit the paper. So everybody knew what the transaction was and and the approximate value. So he had everybody under the sun the real estate guys, the insurance guys, the wealth guys, the stock guys, everybody in their son was selling them something. And Lou is such a nice guy that if somebody would call him and say, hey, can I grab 10 minutes of your time, he would say yes, and he just was beside himself at just the inability to kind of sort it all out.
Speaker 1:So what was that number? I'm just using the paper. What was? What was it? It was 100 million so he sold for 100 million back in 96 right, wow so, wow. So since then, right now, like do you manage 10 families, 50 families, six, six families? Yeah, do you take new clients, or that's if it's the right fit so it's kind of like the firm yeah it's the right.
Speaker 2:we, we do things very specifically and have a very specific model and and some people fit really well into that and some people don't- Are they well-known families in Arizona or all over the country? Well, we sprinkle between San Francisco, LA, and here in North Carolina.
Speaker 1:Oh, but these families own businesses all around town. Yeah, businesses, we would know. Is it like a doctor thing You're not allowed to say who it is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fair. There's a lot of confidentiality of this stuff.
Speaker 1:So what are some numbers Like this story? It sounds like those people you always hear about that win the lotto and they don't know what to do with their money, right, and then they go broke, or a lot of like pro athletes. Yep, they get all this money and you always hear about so many career making millions and millions and millions and now they have nothing right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we actually got really really close to doing a program with the nba, uh, but but unfortunately it just it didn't happen. You need a certain, you need a commitment and a certain amount of time with people in order to get them educated. You can't do it kind of haphazardly, you can't do it you know one hour here at a lunch or you got it. It's got to be a committed process. The program that I taught was 18 hours, six weeks. You know three hours once a week and it was homework and reading and worksheets.
Speaker 1:But you're not teaching now, are you?
Speaker 2:I haven't for a while.
Speaker 1:So what's a day like for you, because I know you're also in the health and wellness Like you get up, at what time? What do you do?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean'm training, uh, kind of on on the side. I'm training for an ultra marathon which is 100 miles 100 miles at in leadville. So that's that's kind of um a personal challenge that I'm, that I'm taking have you ever done that before?
Speaker 1:100 miles?
Speaker 2:no, I don't, I don't, I don't like to run, so um, it's uh, it's a really, it's a uh, it's really. It's been a really amazing mental process for me. I've done a lot of extreme events that have tested me in different ways, but I think this will be the toughest thing I've ever done.
Speaker 1:What are some things you've done? Triathlons.
Speaker 2:So I've done four Ironmans. I actually did one Ironman seven months after full hip replacement with a kid that had cerebral palsy. So I carted around 140 pounds for 17 hours and my doctor said that was impossible to be able to do that. And you know again, mindset and discipline and having a plan. And so ended up doing that and finished it. Finished with 20 minutes to spare. And then I did the hardest mountain bike race in the world, which is called the Cape Epic, and that's an eight day mountain bike race in South Africa, and so that was a different race because it was a multi day. So we were on the bike seven to nine hours a day for eight days.
Speaker 1:How do you plan for that? Like I rode a bike three miles and my butt hurt. Like how do you I got to believe nine hours on a bike, your butt had to hurt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it doesn't matter what seat you wear or what pad you have, you hurt everywhere, right, I mean it's not just your butt, it's your hands, it's your neck, it's everything, and you hurt in a way that is different.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And then how about you do that? And then you wake up the next day and you do it again for seven more days.
Speaker 1:Is there recovery in between or no, Not really.
Speaker 2:I mean we were slow and so the pros do it super fast, but by the time we got in it went anywhere from four to six at night. You leave at 7 to 7.30, 8, and you eat. You're not moving really fast, you. You take a shower, you eat, you get a massage and to go to bed.
Speaker 1:When? When is the ultra marathon?
Speaker 2:Uh August 15th.
Speaker 1:And how many miles have you done at one time training for that?
Speaker 2:Uh, 30. Wow. So now it's. I'm in ramp up mode right now. I've done, I've run five marathons in the last seven months and so my body's got a lot of base of a volume on it and you learn a lot about yourself and how your body holds up with injury and little knickknacks and getting sick and all those things that are all part of the all part of the journey. That's incredible.
Speaker 1:Like, what's your like? Are you running at a fast pace? Do you have you paced your miles?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, it's really not a speed race right um, I do some speed training, but it's mostly just endurance, you know long and and steady and and nutrition. So when you're running that long and that far, what about when you're not racing?
Speaker 1:are you watching your nutrition?
Speaker 2:are you carb loading like what's the I mean I, I just, I eat pretty healthy.
Speaker 1:So you do, you drink no ever like that's not, that's no. Not because you're training, you just don't drink, right right.
Speaker 2:Wow, stopped that when I was 22. Oh, that's good. That's a whole other story, is it? That's a different podcast. We cover it all here, man.
Speaker 1:I mean when you do a, you know, when you and I were just sitting a couple weeks ago with Jesse Itzler. Yeah, Jesse Itzler.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that guy runs ultra marathons and does all these incredible things. When you do that, are you goal setting? Do you write these things down?
Speaker 2:You teach yourself physical mindset, which translates into business mindset. Like we, we come into business differently. You know we have fears and insecurities that hit us a different way and we talk ourselves out of doing things in business, whether it's a new venture or something we don't know how to do, or I don't want to look stupid, or you know all that stuff. And when you, when you take on big physical challenges, you're you're kind of training your mind to transcend things that make you uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:And so I like the parallel, I like building that muscle physically, which then translates, see, emotional challenges are harder to me, are harder to overcome because they're a lot more subtle and they're they're they kind of way that they exist in your mind. They're sort of covert and how they want to try to have you not do what you intend to do.
Speaker 1:Are these things like ultra marathons and Ironmans? Is that like an addiction? I mean it sounds like. I mean that's I just like, I can't imagine, I can't, even I can't. I tried today on the treadmill. I was walking on the treadmill today before I worked out and I thought let me just do a little sprint. And I'm not trying to be funny.
Speaker 2:I did three seconds and I was like I'm out of a run. I don't think it's an addiction, I think it's a lifestyle. I think it's a lifestyle of what you're committed to and how you want to live your life. Now, in any endurance there's a, there's sort of a build. You know there's. You know, when I started triathlons, I did a. I did a sprint distance, which is relatively short, and then I did an, an Olympic distance. And then somebody said, hey, let's do a half Ironman. And I'd never even thought about doing a full Ironman. I mean, that was like impossible. So I did a half and then I did the half and I'm like there's no way I could go another minute. And then, you know, a month and a half later I was doing a full.
Speaker 1:But this ultra marathon you're doing in August, back in November, or did you write this down? I want in 2025, I want to do an ultramarathon, like what made you want to do the ultramarathon.
Speaker 2:Well, it was kind of the next thing, because I don't really like to run and running, running long distances it's it's absolutely a mental challenge, you know, after you get beyond 10 miles, and so I really wanted to be part of that, and then a couple of my daughter's friends had signed up for it and they're like, hey, let's, let's do that. So I'm competing with a couple of 25 year olds and I'm 62. And so they don't know what's coming.
Speaker 1:So are you in better shape now with your hips replaced than you were before.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Like there's no pain in your hips, even when run 30 miles, there's any kind of pain at all. Like you don't even know that you. Well, when you, when you think about when you do amazing things and you do big things, there's a there's a tremendous multiplier to yourself and others. So, like if you go into phoenix sports med today, you walk through the hallways and there's there's nothing but professional athletes that have gotten you know, tomm, tommy John surgery and knee replacements and all that, but in the exam and consultation room there's no professional athletes. There's just a poster of a 52-year-old guy pushing Patrick Utitas, who has cerebral palsy, across the finish line at Ironman. And so when people say, hey, what's my life going to be like, they can't translate or relate to a professional athlete because they're so far removed from that.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But a 52 year old guy pushing 140 pounds for 17 hours, they can relate to that did that, get national news when you did that? Uh, I don't. I don't know, because that story sounds familiar to me. Yeah, could have you don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so then after the ultra marathon, what's next? I don't know everest, we'll see one of those things I don't know well when you do stuff like sauna, you know because you, you and I met in the sauna uh, do you try to do extreme temperatures? Do you try to go for longer distance there too?
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I always try to challenge myself, but it's not. There's never like kind of an end.
Speaker 1:Do you have advice for anyone watching this? That's maybe I mean like I don't want to run. I hate running, but talking to you now makes me want to learn to run, because I also think I have bad running form.
Speaker 2:Do you bad running form? Do you work on your form? You have a coach? Yeah, you have a coach. Yeah, I had to.
Speaker 1:I had to relearn how to run after my hip replacement.
Speaker 2:Oh you, did because, yeah, so people, people's running form causes, uh, a lot of joint dysfunction, I believe that so I had to learn how to rerun in order to have longevity, because I knew I wanted to use the hip. And so I went to a running guy and I said you know, you watch my gape. And and so we, uh, we had to relearn to run you?
Speaker 1:um, you'd be really interested in the stem cell stuff that I'm doing. Have you done any of that stuff yet? No oh, man, I think, because I mean you don't look 62 to me, you look late 40s yeah what are you doing like? What's? What's your anti-aging secret?
Speaker 2:well, I you know I don't drink, I'm I'm healthy, I I have a sleep regimen, I have a schedule do you monitor your sleep? I don't monitor it, I'm not. I'm not a gadget guy, I'm pretty lazy and so, um, I just have a particular routine and my uh, my dad's 90, my mom's 89, and we just have great genes and take care of ourselves and love to exercise.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about this book. Okay, I remember we were again about a month ago I feel like a host of a talk show 401kid. We were sitting in Georgia at Jesse Itzler's cabin, yeah, and you said I have this book. It's called 401kid and for some reason this sticks in my head. Head. He goes what a great name for a book, what a great name. So what is 401 kid?
Speaker 2:so, um, 401 kid is is the result of so many conversations that I've had with people over the years, I mean from you would think, um, that people that came to my class the Lou Grubb who was actually one of the founders would have a level of financial acumen in their world. And people always said, categorically, I wish I would have learned this earlier. And I just got tired of hearing it. And then I was somewhere in a very wealthy area and I had a very disturbing thing happen, and that was I was with some dads and their kids had just graduated college and they found out I was an educator and they started peppering me with questions like what should we be teaching our kids? And I kind of was like, and they were in the finance business and I thought, Hmm, this is this sort of interesting. And there's a, there's a great book written by John support called the wealthy gardener, and it's the one I recommend to everybody to to read. It's it's similar to my book, only, you know, very deep, very well written. He draws the analogy between a garden and and and investing.
Speaker 2:And so I just got, I got tired, and what the dad said. I said what are you teaching your kid about money and he goes. I'm not. And I thought, Hmm, why is that he goes? I don't want him to be a spoiled, entitled kid. And so I thought about that. And so here we are and I'll give you the landscape.
Speaker 2:So in the Bay area, his dad lived in a little community called Atherton and Atherton is one of the most wealthiest zip codes in California not in the country and I and I just said to him, I said you know that's a mistake. You know you really got to teach, you got to talk to your kid, you got to be vulnerable with him, you got to tell him about your journey. You're not trying to give him money. You need to educate him about what is your successes, your failures, how you did it, what was good, what didn't work, and really the overall landscape. And so the other thing that was also impactful about that is I watched those families and the trajectory of their kids.
Speaker 2:They were all Ivy league, investment banking, New York. But then what about the landscaper? What about the dock worker, what about the restaurant guy? And what kids typically do is they will follow in the footsteps of what they see, Mm-hmm. And so, anyway, I just I walked away and I said I got to do something. And so, anyway, I just I walked away and I said I gotta do something. I gotta write a book whereby parents need to educate their kids, and then the one thing that we're just not doing is we have a window of opportunity from zero to ten, when our kids like us, they think we're smart and their minds are very pliable and they're ready to absorb, and we're not doing any of it in this zone, and that's a massive, massive mistake. So my book is really a wake-up call around how to build kids' self-esteem, how to build their character, Because if we don't do it, because it's in the forward, like if we don't do it.
Speaker 1:Guess who's going to do it? Going to do it?
Speaker 2:the internet, oh god yeah, and the internet is going to tell our kids and there's an epidemic with suicides and kids that can't get out of their rooms and all the things that are affecting our kids because the internet is so persuasive in the message of my life is amazing your sucks and then kids adopt that and then they get on this rat treadmill of I got to get something on the outside to make myself feel better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's doom scrolling. Yeah, they just start looking in. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And parents got to get in front of that. Yeah, they, they 100% got to get in front of it.
Speaker 1:That's a problem too. Yeah, you know what it's so damn interesting, cause I I know nothing about that stuff. You know, no one ever taught me how to do that stuff, and in school they kind of stopped teaching all that. I remember when I was in school, you know, I remember taking a class I don't remember what class it was but they taught us how to write a check. They told us how to fill out the W2s and W4s. I don't think that happens anymore, right? So how are they going to teach you how to manage wealth? So this is on Amazon, this is everywhere, bookstores, everywhere. It's on audio, is it you reading it, Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Can I keep this one? I want to read it. Yep, the other day I thought you posted something so funny and it was well. I experienced this myself a couple weeks ago. I saw David Goggins running on the canal David Goggins, navy SEAL, motivational speaker, tough, tough guy and he was running towards me and I was like that looks like David Goggins, I'm going to say something. No, I'm not going to say something. He runs by and I thought that would've been so cool to say hey, david, I'm going to run with you but I can't run. So I really probably would have run like three or four steps. But then you saw David Goggins Walk me through that experience.
Speaker 2:So I'd actually seen him the day before and so I looked up and he was running on the other side of the canal. I'd heard that he was in town and I'd heard that he'd been running on the canal and I knew it was just a matter of time because I run so much that there was a likelihood I would run into him. And so I saw him and it looked like he wasn't running that fast and he was kind of sauntering and I I was 11 miles into a 12 mile run. So I I was pretty cooked um when I I had nothing left in the tank. But the minute I saw him I'm like, okay, it's game on, I'm gonna catch this guy. And boy, I emptied the tank and I could not, I could not catch him and I was flying, I mean, I was rolling, he's fast.
Speaker 2:But the thing that was really really impactful to me was I saw him the next day and this day he was running at me. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to flip around. And so I flipped around and we ran together a little bit and I said, how far are you going? He goes 21. I go, do you mind if I run with you and he goes. No, I run alone. And that's the only thing he said to me. It wasn't. I'm sorry, it wasn't any. He didn't explain anything to me and the really fascinating thing is he is so hyper-focused. He had no water. He had no water. He had no headphones. He had no sunglasses. He had no camel pack. He had no nutrition. He had no water, it was just black shorts and shoes. And he said no, I run alone. He had nobody with him, it was just him.
Speaker 1:So then do you just slow down and let him go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah I didn't want to get killed you know, when you run, what do you?
Speaker 1:you got headphones on. What do you listen to?
Speaker 2:Shit. I listen to audio books, so I read. I probably during my Leadville train I've probably read 40 audio books.
Speaker 1:Does it just take you away?
Speaker 2:You're just in the zone. Yeah, I mean it. You learn a lot I. I love reading all kinds of all kinds of different books and it's on my journal. Sometimes I listen to music but it's mostly you take a call sometimes, well, very cool.
Speaker 1:So I went to jet gpt um because, like I said, you know, it was like like, when I have other people in here, like I had sam fox in here, you know, I had, uh, this Rafael Gonzalez's scientist guy about stem cells, like it's stuff that I know, so I can just like I can talk to Sam Fox about restaurants. He lives on my street we could talk about. You know, we grew up in the same town, so it's like with you, it's just so out of my world. I should have read this book first and then come in there and said and ask you, you questions.
Speaker 1:So I was at Chachapiti and I'm fascinated with Chachapiti and I was like I'm interviewing this guy, walter Clark, do a deep dive and can you come up with some good questions for me to ask? And, holy smokes, man, can you share the story behind your Ironman triathlon? You already did. What lessons did you learn from the challenges? Yes, okay, you already did that one. What are common mistakes families make when dealing with sudden wealth and how can they be avoided? Boom, that's a good one you know what?
Speaker 2:what happens? There's a there's a thing with money, um, when you get a windfall and people look at it two ways. Athletes do this all the time, but it's what money can support versus what money can buy, and so there's a very, very different, distinct method around that. So money generally can support about a 4% distribution rate. So if you get $10 million, that supports $400,000 a year in annual spending. But $10 million can buy a big house, cars, a boat, a lot of stuff, but what you do is you diminish the engine. Money is the engine that generates return, which feeds your lifestyle, and so what happens for people in the sudden wealth spectrum, kind of twofold One is a lot of people want to sell you stuff and a lot of people get caught in complexity and don't keep things simple and they get involved in a lot of things and they um, they don't understand, and so therefore, they make a lot of mistakes and they lose a lot of money.
Speaker 2:There's lots of examples. I wrote another book before this, one called the big risk. I thought it. It was a big mistake. Yeah, I know the big risk, and and we watched a lot of people vanish money and getting into things cause, cause they thought they were smart, they made money in one business and they thought it translated into another and um, and so they took unnecessary risk and jeopardize their, their lifestyle. They people overspend and therefore that that that bucket of money can't, can't support so is there basic advice?
Speaker 1:you think people should save a certain percentage of their.
Speaker 2:Well, there's two sides. There's accumulation size, where you're saving and you're investing for a future date. The audience that I taught to had the windfall. So it wasn't really about savings anymore, it was about I got this amount of money, how can I best invest it to where it can be efficient and then it can serve me and my family, not only for my generation, but future generations to come?
Speaker 1:Was there ever a moment when you first started where you had a client, a new client, and let's say they were worth a billion dollars and they're coming to you? I don't know how wealthy your clients are, but if the first time someone came to you with their money said help me, did you freak out? Did you stress? Did you, were you worried?
Speaker 2:Did you freak out? Did you stress? Did you were you worried? Did you make mistakes? No, because you do it in such a way that you craft a plan based on what they're trying to accomplish, so you're really matching what it is that they're wanting you to do. So you just have to understand volatility and how markets go up and down, and it's really for a lot of, what financial advisors do is regulate the emotions of their customers. We see it right now with the tariffs and the world and the panic that we saw not less than three weeks ago. You know, the world was falling apart and people were running for cover and now, all of a sudden, the sun's out, like we just made a deal with China.
Speaker 1:I just I just made a deal with China. I just told my wife that today. I said we should have bought stocks this morning. Right, Was today the day to do it? No, it was two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. I said that two weeks ago too, when everybody was running for cover.
Speaker 2:I mean, what happens for people is. We're a big advocate in the class and in my practice. You got to keep things simple. Complexity breeds loss and the families that do the best over a long period of time have simplicity inside their investment thesis and they don't get involved in the newest and the latest.
Speaker 1:Crypto. They don't do crypto.
Speaker 2:You know whether they do it or not. They may do it in a small percentage, but they don't chase the fads that everybody else is running around with. They're very basic, they're very simple. You know they're on. They're not on the five-year plan or the two-year plan, they're on the 50-year plan or the hundred-year plan.
Speaker 1:What is your take on crypto? By the way?
Speaker 2:You know, I just I don't have a lot of opinion about it. It's an equity asset that has. I look at every asset in terms of two things. One is it's expected return, like how much money it will make going forward, and then how much volatility it has. And so, based on those two things, how much of it are you going to mix into your equation? That's what people? It's three things it's expected return, variation and correlation. Those are the three things that you look at when you're mixing in and you're building a portfolio.
Speaker 2:And so crypto is just a thing. It's not the thing, it's not the catch-all. It's like do you want 5% crypto? Do you want 2%? Do you want 10%? And then what does that do in terms of the variability to your portfolio? So you're building something that can weather storms.
Speaker 2:That's what is important, because most people in portfolio management, if you violate your fear threshold like we lost 22% in the stock market in literally three weeks you know trump gets elected, everybody's excited, the market goes up. Then he comes into office, he starts rattling the saber. Oh shit, oh shit. You know we're going down, we're, and rational people become very irrational in fear. And so when you're crafting portfolios, you've got to do it in such a way to where people stay the course when they're in a lot of fear. That's great advice, and if you don't do that, you're going to make a decision.
Speaker 2:So, like all the people and there's a lot of them because tariffs were really scary, right Right, like the world's falling apart, and a lot of them because tariffs were really scary, right right, like the world's falling apart and a lot of people said I'm just gonna go to the sidelines, I'm just gonna wait this out, right, right.
Speaker 2:Well, you gotta be. You gotta make two decisions. You make one decision when to sell, and then you gotta make another decision to rebuy. Now, today, they, they read the paper and like, oh no, Do I get back in or I not? I guarantee you they're getting back in higher than what they sold for, because people sell on the way down. They don't sell when everything's wonderful, and so it's really. It's a psychological game. So if you just do what we teach in the class, if you just do what we teach in the class, if you just do basic things, basic things, and get market-like returns and stay the course, you'll do better than 98 percent of all the people that are out there I agree with you I think that's what we do.
Speaker 1:That way we do good. Uh, you know, you brought up your daughter, 25 year old-old daughter. Did you teach her all this?
Speaker 2:So she's a financial advisor, oh, wow, okay. And so she's a rock star.
Speaker 1:Does she work with you or just her own thing?
Speaker 2:No, she works with a group out of the Bay Area at Northwestern Mutual an amazing group, amazing firm, an amazing team and you know she gets it.
Speaker 1:Was she always inquisitive growing up, asking you questions about finances and how to do this. Dad, how do you?
Speaker 2:do that Well. You know both my kids my older one was an athlete, my younger one was more analytical. But what's happening is, because they've been in the conversation for so long, they both really understand budget and spending, and one of the things that is paramount for families and kids is they need to understand the twofold aspects of revenue how much money you make versus expenses. And where a lot of people make a ton of mistakes is in lifestyle inflation, because you start making more money and we have conversations all the time about bonuses and as wage increases and you know, can you keep your lifestyle in check and not buy the bigger apartment, the bigger car? Cause there's cause. That's what 20 year olds do. They want to impress everybody.
Speaker 2:You know I'm, I'm driving a bigger car, I live in a bigger apartment, I have nicer stuff, and you know it's the. It's the challenge of what we call the fake rich. You know people that want to show an air of and so to be able to have an image of discipline where you're not flaunting your lifestyle, but what you have is tremendous amount of free cash flow where you're putting stuff away in your retirement accounts and your Roth and your your building for the future, which is not sexy, you know. It's sexy to show people that I'm oh, look at this vacation, or look at this car, or look at this watch, or look at this fanfare, look at this party that I was in and that. And that's not freedom.
Speaker 1:But what about living and having life experiences? I have a friend of mine that's pretty wealthy and he does incredible things, and he told me several years ago you know, life is about experiences. You can't take this money with you when you go. And my father passed away at the age of 66, and he was always saving, always saving, and he lived life, but he didn't live life For me. Right now I look at it like I'm like let's get those four seats of the suns, let's fly first class, let's get the private jet here, let's buy the fancy car, and, of course, now I think we're broke. So, uh, you know. But but we have these great life experiences, right? Is that? That doesn't sit well with you.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean it's. You have two. You have two aspects to the wealth management game accumulation and distribution, and health and longevity and enjoyment. Some, some decisions you make are efficient decisions, Some are enjoyment decisions.
Speaker 2:There has to be a balance, but you can't be a slave to your lifestyle. I've been involved with some celebrities and some Hollywood figures and and I've looked at their books. And they have no money. They have no money and so they're a slave to their business. And one of the things when you're a high income earner, what that means is you have more variability to your income than the 50 to a hundred thousand dollar guy. You know he has a bad year, he makes 60,. You know the million you know he has a bad year, he makes 60. You know the million dollar guy he has a bad year, he makes zero.
Speaker 2:So if you got a really, really high lifestyle, you're in trouble. So it's really about financial freedom, and so I believe that if you're reaching for lifestyle but you're impoverished because you're overspending, you're not making lifestyle decisions because you're reaching for lifestyle but you're impoverished because you're overspending. You're not making lifestyle decisions because you're suffering. So, like my daughter and I went over her budget, she called me and said dad, I'm overspending. And she said I'm going to cut out my latte. She went through her budget, kind of line item by line item, and she says I'm really going to sacrifice because I'm not going to have these things. And we thought about it for a minute and we said are you sacrificing or are you not? So when you're spending money that you know you don't have, is that a sacrifice? That's almost like a punishment, because you know in the back of your mind you can't afford that stuff. So you're putting on a credit card and then the credit card bill comes and you feel guilty, you feel remorse and you're like, oh my God, how am I going to make that payment? I have no money, but yet I'm showing the world that I'm a baller.
Speaker 2:And so months go by and she calls me back. She goes, dad, the credit cards are gone. I go. How do you feel? She goes? I feel like a million bucks. I go. Do you feel like you made sacrifice? She says 100%. Not. I got right with myself. I had to talk to myself in the mirror and that's really what we need to teach our kids is that delayed gratification, that fiscal discipline, that want versus that need and what you can afford and what you can't afford. So she cut out lattes.
Speaker 1:She cut out lattes.
Speaker 2:She cut out a lot of thingses. She cut out a lot of things. Yeah, she cut out a lot of things. She cut it to the bone. She said I don't want to live like this anymore.
Speaker 1:What about you? Is there anything you splurged on that you regret, or splurged on that you?
Speaker 2:thought was. So I really break my life into two categories the spender Walter and then the fiscally disciplined Walter. So in the book the big risk you know I was uh, I never learned it, even though I was a financial educator. It's like the cobblers kids have no shoes.
Speaker 2:You know, I didn't. I never drank the Kool-Aid and I always believe that more was coming. And so you know, when I made money and spent money, I spent equal amount of money that I that I made. So it was a very, very painful lesson going through that, going through that scenario, and it really shapes you in a in a different way, and so you, you have a very, very different view, because the 089 downturn was tough, very tough, tough on me and tough on a lot of people. A of people lost, lost a lot but since then?
Speaker 1:so now you've you. You've got the two walters, you know who they are yeah, definitely you go.
Speaker 2:you go through a painful and I think I needed to go through all that because hence here's the book. You know the big risk is there and 401kid and it's like you got to get in front of this because I I grew up with mr spender. You know my dad had to live a life with with other people. We were ski racers so we had there was little money, mid money and big money, and we were little money. That wanted to be big money and in the boat racing world, if you're ever a racer, a car racer, both it is not an inexpensive sport, and so he tried to compete in a landscape that he just couldn't compete in, and so I just learned that and what you learn.
Speaker 2:He never sat down at the table and said, son, I'm spending every nickel I made and then some. He didn't say that, I just experienced it in his behaviors. So kids are going to watch what you do. They watch what you do, and, and even for families that are that are financially challenged, what I say to them is you can hire coaches and steer your kids towards the internet so they can pick up mentors like Sarah Blakely, I mean Jesse's wife. Love Jesse. I've never really met Sarah, and so in my book Sarah's dad is leaving leaving their household and gives her a series of tapes from Wayne Dyer and says and they're the limitless Wayne Dyer's tapes that you can do anything. And she grabbed that at 15 years old and realized it was up to her to create her own destiny.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they didn't have much.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so 401kid is more for the lower income than it is for the privileged families, because there's so many resources now that are next to free, where you can teach your kid entrepreneurial characteristics and your kids can have a different life than you. You want your kid to be a landscaper, a mechanic. That's fine, but maybe instead of being a wage earner in the landscape company, he can own the landscape company.
Speaker 2:Or maybe he can develop an app or a technology or a new electric motor. So maybe there's many, many things that they can do, I believe my wife.
Speaker 1:did you go on a date with Wayne Dwyer's son? Were you on a date with somebody like that, some motivational? I was just going off the connection with the Walter connection. I felt like you told me, or was it Ken Blanchardard, there was somebody you went on a date with that was a motivational speak, ken blanchard, yeah, his son. Um, I didn't know that about sarah blakely.
Speaker 1:And a real quick story when I started in radio, um, I was on a sports radio station, uh, doing I was an intern for free, and a guy there gave me these cassettes that were tonybins cassettes. There were cassettes, go back to you know, and I listened to those things every freaking day over and over and over again and I always felt like you could pull something out of there, you know, and just pull something that makes you a better person or better at what you do. You're ahead of the game. I didn't know that about Sarah Blakely. That's, that's awesome, that's all and that's pretty wild, didn't it? Yeah, no, jesse's in the book three times. He is uh-huh before you met you, like you didn't? That's wild? Yeah, wow, you like manifested that right, because now you're spending it, yeah, so jesse did a couple things on the kids side.
Speaker 2:One is he said um raise gritty, we're raising our kids to be too soft yes, I agree with that and he said praise the effort, not the results.
Speaker 2:I think parents are being way too negative the the tennis parent, or the swim parent or the uh, baseball parent that's yelling at their kids through the chain link fence because they're not performing in the way they. I think that's. I think that's a cancer. So I think we need to do a better job of of encouragement. I think we need to do a better job of of encouragement. I think we need to do a job better job at mentorship. I think we need to teach our kids entrepreneurial traits about business and lemonade stands and what's possible for them out in the future instead of, you know, soccer, sports, music. We really got gotta teach life skills and we hire so many coach.
Speaker 2:I mean, all the kids have music teachers, dance coaches shooting coaches why not have like a life coach, uh, for, for the parents and for their kids to, to, to create unity in in the family, to bridge that educational gap? Because you know there's an interesting story Francis Tiafoe I don't know if you know who that- is. Yeah, why do I know that name?
Speaker 1:Oh, he's the tennis player. Tennis player, yeah, the tennis player. That's right, right, right yeah.
Speaker 2:Francis is incredible. My daughter played tennis with Francis oh wow Coming up through the junior ranks. The guy was a oh wow his tennis career, but instead his dad recognized that his son had talent. He's like I got to get my son to people that can further this talent. And it's the same with entrepreneurship I don't care who you are, we have to expose our kids to this dynamic, to show them how to create, how to build, how to be a part of. Which was fascinating in my class to Sudden Wealth. I never had a founder show up. Not one time did the guy that created the company come to my class. But how many millionaires and multiples of millionaires come because they had equity in the company? Employee 21 didn't start Google, he just went to work there. So, teaching our kids how to get equity, how many millionaires are at Walmart, meta, facebook, nvidia, plantier? We got to teach our kids that equity is the game, not wages, and so the sooner we teach them that, the sooner they learn and they start to look at the world differently.
Speaker 1:The problem with the Tiafoe story is, I think every parent thinks that their kid is francis. So they get him a coach, they get him a shooting coach, you get him a batting coach, a hitting coach, a pitching coach right. And then I call it the american idol syndrome and I used to feel like that about my. I thought am I a parent like that? Because I thought my son was a pretty good basketball player and I'm right. Right because he's got a scholarship to play basketball. I was right. But I used to think like when they weren't playing my kid, I'd be like why aren't they putting him in Like he's great? And then I remember American Idol, season one of American Idol.
Speaker 1:One of the reasons American Idol took off was because of all the horrible singers. Do you remember the horrible singers and all those horrible singers? They'd interview their parents and the parents would go my son is just the best, he's the greatest. And I thought is that me? Do I think my son is a real good basketball player? But in reality he's not. Am I an American Idol parent? Now I look back and I was right, because he's currently playing with a basketball scholarship in Hawaii. So I think there's a lot of that. Like Francis Tiafoe, his dad saw something special, but he knew it. He wasn't an American Idol parent Somewhere along the line. Someone's got to be realistic. We need a book on being a realistic parent. Does your kid have talent? Does he not have talent?
Speaker 2:But you also got to be tougher on them too, because they're so soft. But if you think about the odds and the percentages, how many kids grow up to actually? One become a professional player and two make money?
Speaker 1:right it's.
Speaker 2:The odds are, but, but if you teach entrepreneurial skills oh yeah how many of those kids are going to go on to create businesses or go to work for businesses that change the world?
Speaker 1:where does someone get an entrepreneurial coach?
Speaker 2:they're all over the internet.
Speaker 1:Well, it's the internet. We try to keep kids on the internet.
Speaker 2:They are. They are. Jesse Itzler is one.
Speaker 1:Can you hire him?
Speaker 2:individually? No, but there's the one guy that runs around on the internet School of Hard Knocks. I think he's amazing.
Speaker 1:He goes around and interviews oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was an athlete an ex-handball athlete, yeah, and he played for.
Speaker 2:And he has little.
Speaker 1:He has little Lewis Howes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he has all kinds of things. There's all kinds of very affordable, whether it's Gary Vee or Grant Cardone or Russell Brunson. There's tremendous amount of resources on the internet for free on people that you can learn Wayne Dyer tapes, I mean. I think that stuff's free now. You know the Anthony Robbins stuff. I had it when I moved out here in 85. I came to a Tom Hopkins seminar.
Speaker 1:I was just talking about him to my wife. I went to his seminars.
Speaker 2:Is he still around Because he lives out here. He is still around. He is still around. He is still around, but he blew me away.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:He showed me something and it was affordable.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:We have to do a better job at, yeah, sports, music, dance, all great stuff. We all learn great characteristics, but we have to start teaching business. We're not teaching business to our kids. We're not teaching life skills about learning, trying, failing, excelling, building, creating value. Value comes from compensation. The more value, the more we're not. We're not teaching these things to our kids early and we just need to do a better job of it.
Speaker 1:You're a hundred percent right. Let me ask you this, cause uh, you and I are going to this party in a couple of days and I was asking you what to wear. You said business casual. But you're like like, where do you get your style? Cause you got. Every time I've seen you, you're like style, don't just tell me me. Do somebody help you? I I'm, I look on the internet, do you really? I'm a visual person, so you're like that looks cool, it'll work on me because you dress sharp yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to dress like you. Yeah, we'll dress the same when we go to this party yeah all right, so this, this is out 401kid great book.
Speaker 1:Um, I I thought because you know I I do this thing where I try not to research anyone I'm interviewing, like I like to all come up. But the one thing that popped up when I was asked, I thought you didn't have a book called the Great Mistake, the Big Mistake, it's the Big Risk, the Big Risk. Well, maybe you do part two of the Big Mistake. The Big Mistake is me calling it the Big Mistake on this interview and not doing my research. All right, well, thanks, walter Clark. Thanks, brother. Okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today because this podcast is a spin off of our radio show.
