97. Nick Earls and Eric DiNicola Build a Strong Partnership

This week I speak to Nick Earls and Eric DiNicola, co-founders and principals of Winterspring Capital, a company looking to simplify the process of passive real estate investing.

Nick and Eric share the highs and lows of their empire-building journey and some of the most important things they learnt along the way.

Episode Transcript

Jason Butler 0:05
Hello, and welcome to the real money stories podcast. I'm Jason Butler. And I invite you to join me as I have intimate money conversations with people from all walks of life. Whether you're just starting out on your money journey, or well down the track, there's bound to be something you can learn from these stories about taking more control of your money, so you worry less, and enjoy life more. Real Money stories is sponsored by Vanguard, bringing value to 30 million investors worldwide. Visit Vanguard investor.co.uk for more details. And remember, the value of investments can go down, as well as up and you may get back less than you invest in. Hello, welcome to this week's podcast. Now, before we get into this week's interview, which is with a couple of great guys who have got a real estate background in the United States, and they've got some great insights and some stories to share, I just wanted to talk to you about a new report that's out from our organization called nudge. And it's called disrupting money habits. And it's really interesting because they've done quite extensive research all around the world, about what really drives people's financial wellbeing. Now, financial wellbeing, obviously, is this this state when, you know, you can cope with financial shocks, you've got choices, you're on track to meet your future goals, and also that you are enjoying life now as well. So it's making sure that you're using money in a way which is helping you thrive, not just survive. Now, nahj did an analysis on how people feel about their financial well being. They did loads and loads of analysis. But this was the this was the main one that I want to focus on today. And they looked at several areas, and one was being proud. One was being hopeful. One was being content, one was being positive, and one was being confident. And the four key areas of the world were Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Africa and Pacific Asia region. And there are some quite interesting differences. So let's just look at proud for a minute. Now 36% of people in Europe, which was the lowest felt proud about their financial situation, whereas the highest was those people in Latin America, then followed by North America on 42%. And then Africa and specific area 40%, which is interesting. So Europeans have got the lowest level of feeling proud, hopeful about their financial position, the the market leader, there was Latin America, 73% of people felt hopeful for their future. So that probably makes sense. Because if you know you're coming from a lower base, perhaps you you are going to be more optimistic, whereas the lowest was people in Africa and Pacific, at 56%, followed by Europeans in between at 58. So that's interesting. Now feeling content. The market leader, there were 46% of people in African Pacific area felt content about the situation. And the lowest was those in north and Latin America, 43 and 42%. Then when it comes to feeling positive, the market leader was 72% of people feel positively in Latin America, whereas the lowest towards people in North America 60%. So Nevertheless, the majority people felt positive about their financial situation. Now, the final one was feeling confident. And this is a really surprising one, because 88% of people in Latin America felt confident about their financial future, the lowest were people in Africa, and the Pacific region, 62% and North America 75% and the European area 78%. So the vast majority people feel quite confident. So that's interesting. And there's loads and loads of other stats there. So I would recommend that you have a look at this report if you're interested about the drivers financial well being. And one of the things that's really interesting is the report focuses on the habits and behaviors that are conducive to financial well being so it's well worth looking at. There's a lot of stats in there. You know, it's not as easy to sort of read as perhaps a short infographic but there's lots of stuff in there. And if you are someone who is writing and researching and leading in this area, or you're in a workplace and you're in the HR department, something you should definitely be reading because it's it's a good, it's a good treasure trove of information. So have a look at that. It's a it's a I'll put a link in the podcast show notes. It's called disrupting money habits by nudge global very, very good.

Okay, let's get on to this week's interview. A couple of cracking guys. Really interesting capital. Guys who basically met each other at college or school, and they decided to get into business together, focusing mainly on real estate and in fact they've known each other and been in a partnership together longer than they both been married and with their partners that they have you know, they're married to so interested camper guys, let's let's get over to this week's interview.

With thanks for joining me on another edition of real money stories. Can you believe we are approaching 100 episodes 100 episodes of stories, and today I'm joined by two interesting characters from North America. That's right, isn't it guys, Nick girls and Eric de Nicola. Hi guys.

Nick Earls 5:44
How's it going?

Eric DeNicola 5:45
How you doing?

Jason Butler 5:45
Yeah, Rocky. Thanks for joining us. And I know you guys are busy doing all sorts of things. You seem to have your fingers in lots of Peiser. Before we crack on in here about how you got to where you are, where are you and what you're doing?

Eric DeNicola 5:58
Well, where we're real estate developers and investors, we're based out of Boston, we do new construction condominium projects in Boston, we'll we'll buy an old piece of land, or an old house on a piece of land or piece of land and put up you know, small to medium sized multifamily building, sell juniors condos, that's a pretty hot thing in Boston. And then we also invest in the southeast of the United States. You know, states like Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee, there we buy multifamily properties that already exist, maybe built somewhere in the last 40 years. We improve them, add managerial efficiencies, you know, perform renovations up the rent. And that's kind of how we model our business. We have the two the two sides in our backyard, the new construction development, and then another part of the country the investing in pre existing multifamily.

Jason Butler 7:03
are you guys looking? Are you building for flips or sell on? Are you are you? Are you retaining for rental portfolios? Or is it a mixture of the two?

Eric DeNicola 7:12
Well, up here in Boston, the building, we don't hold on to it, it's tough, the economics are kind of tough, the prices are very high for land. So really the way to make it work, and to grow our business and to be profitable is to sell the individual units to homeowners. Or maybe sometimes you find an investor who wants to buy the whole building. But it's more typical that and then down in the southeast with our rental side of things, those we buy, hold on to for 510 years, some indefinitely, and we refinance. And we have investors who invest and they get quarterly distributions as a way to diversify instead of just investing in the stock market.

Jason Butler 7:53
And your firm's called winter spring capital. So that's the two primary activities. Is there anything else you guys are involved in or deliverable do?

Nick Earls 8:02
Not? Yeah, so we, well, let's stick to real estate. First, we're also getting involved in affordable housing development, which will have a component of government subsidy, either direct subsidy or through tax credits. And it basically just will, you'll be able to either rent or sell the building, depending on the nature of the project, at a much more affordable rate than the market which we know worldwide, that's becoming an issue, especially an issue here in the northeast of the United States. So that's becoming more and more prominent, and we're trying to lean into it as a as a business angle. So we're doing a project here in Boston, in a neighborhood called Roxbury, and we're going to be doing some affordable housing as well. And then I should also mention, we just started a nonprofit organization called the lucky puppy society. And basically what it does is that if a family or even a shelter has a dog that needs kind of a life saving surgery, but they don't have the funds will donate the funds for that. And we support that through the profits we make from our real estate businesses. And we also sell dog toys and dog apparel. Shirts we've actually been selling. We've been having a lot of sales like worldwide so it's been it's been a pretty popular brand we just launched it doing pretty well so far.

Jason Butler 9:34
Well my wife is gonna love this episode with the life is a dog not a lover. She's a fanatic. Alright, she is a dog fanatic. Okay, she said don't whatever you do never take away from me anything anything, anything position money the whole lot, but never take my dogs. So she's with you on that one. So Jane will be very pleased. That guys Yeah, great. Sounds like you know, the real estate thing. We'll come back to real estate in a minute and the whole phenomenon we know things are there's lots of moving parts and there's lots of challenges. He's all around the world that are very similar. But how did you get to where you are now? I mean, how did you two guys meet?

Nick Earls 10:06
Yeah, so we've actually known each other for over 20 years, we've met each other. And we're kids in high school. Almost 20 years, rather not all over 20 years. And we kind of always thought that we start a business or something together, and we were kids, we did a lot of team oriented activities. We played football together. We did powerlifting. We're on a powerlifting team. And most of all, we're big video game nerds. We played Warcraft. Competitive Guild, which is, you know, people have never played the game might think it's kind of a joke, but it's the stuff complex.

Jason Butler 10:47
Let's get the Escott sheriff in gaming. Well, yeah.

Eric DeNicola 10:50
Start up the whole competitive era.

Nick Earls 10:52
Yeah, 1520 years ago. Yep. Yeah. And it was, it's kind of a good, it's a good introductory to running an organization like running a guild and one of those games and we were doing that were 1516 years old, so that people on our guild or, you know, 3040 years old, so we had a lot of kind of training of being able to work together and run run teams. And eventually, I've got a background in real estate. My parents in the construction industry, they're a general contractors, my grandfather was actually a developer in Ireland. And so I just kind of came from that construction background. And I started selling real estate as an agent out of college. And we were saving money for a couple years, we had this plan. Alright, let's get into real estate. Let's Let's start our own company. But you know, as everyone knows, we were in our early 20s, we didn't have any money, Real Estate's really expensive. So we just had this plan to save up 100 grand between the two of us, and it took us like four or five years. But eventually we we had saved up quite a bit of money, even over 100,000 at that point, and we found a good project and 2015 and pull the trigger.

Jason Butler 12:08
So let me just be clear, Eric, you had this idea that you you'd found each other and thought that we can work together for because of the experiences the gaming Federation, and league and powerlifting and stuff in football, you had a background in construction. Nick, did you have a background in construction, or were you was your family from a different kind of, they are of a different mold.

Eric DeNicola 12:30
Different mold, I, my grandfather was a carpenter. So something and you know, my, my uncle was an electrician. And so in my family, there was a lot of more exactly, I was more into finance. And that was kind of, you know, a different route. Definitely the first one of my family who was interested in that and went to school in New Jersey, and then worked in New York City for a while. Stock trading and public equity. And then I worked at a startup firm and learn a lot about private equity. And so I kind of had a good background in both for, you know, four or five years coming out of college. But Nick, and I like he said, we've been friends for so long, that we we knew something we wanted to do something. And so I just remember thinking, something we always joke about is the first hour I sat down, right out of college for the first job. I said, I don't think I can do this till I'm 65 the first hour. So that was not a great, that was not a great start. But it just fueled the idea that okay, you know, we both have talked about being entrepreneurs for a while Nick has a background that he used, he seen it, he understands what it takes. And so when the time came to team up and actually pull the trigger on a deal, it made it that much easier.

Jason Butler 13:53
So So you had complementary skills, there was a higher limit of trust and empathy. There was the shared common vision, this this is this components I'm seeing, right. But tell us more about that. 100,000 because a number of people be listening to this podcast, I've got a lot of people on social media and follow me who who say it's getting the first getting over the hump of the first getting out of mediocre to anything more, you know, the first lump of capital getting going. So just tell us about that.

Nick Earls 14:23
Yeah, it was tough. I won't say it's the hardest part. You know, scale on the business. I think it's harder, but that's one of the hardest parts is getting that initial funding. For us, it for me, most of that came from commissions of sales of real estate buildings as selling. But part of that was I live with my parents until I was 24. Which I didn't. I didn't do like on purpose. I didn't want to do that. But I knew housing costs in this area are crazy high and I just figured, alright, I'll just live with them as long as all until they kick me out. Basically. Which is what I did. And that helped. I don't know, I was very, very stingy guys, I wore like the same pair of clothes. For years, I probably still have some of those. My wife probably not

Jason Butler 15:15
long enough,

Nick Earls 15:16
you know, she slowly

Eric DeNicola 15:17
throws them out.

Nick Earls 15:17
Yeah, no she does she she goes through she does the rounds and throws the ones of holes out. But yeah, I was I was stingy about everything. Except food. You know, I'm bad with food. But that's pretty much my only weakness when it comes to budgeting.

Jason Butler 15:31
So make 100,000 let's just be clear. So people, you obviously was easier when there was two of you to sort of keep each other going. And accountability. How important was it that you had a buddy that there were two of you to get that first 100 grand together?

Nick Earls 15:46
I think Eric and I and he probably agrees with this. There, we see guys out there who like if you're going to own a successful business, you're gonna have to build a team around you, right. But there's certain guys who are kind of a lone wolf type, they have a vision, they think of it all themselves, and then they build people underneath them. I don't think Eric and I are capable, that we're just not those type of people we had to like have people to lean on to begin with. And that that was huge. And you know, we come from like that weightlifting background like powerlifting. That's a huge thing of like, kind of mutually supporting each other. So it's kind of again, it was like we are in our adolescence kind of trained for this in a certain sense. So that was that was a huge component. And I view it as a strength because from the beginning, we weren't thinking like, Alright, I'm gonna slap my face on this is always kind of a team effort. And we've just kind of built that out horizontally sense, where everyone kind of has ownership stake in the company to some extent or another everyone's kind of, you know, Eric and I are running the show, but there's no like domineering managerial styles. It's very team based.

Jason Butler 16:55
So interesting. You so it sounds to me, like you both came from quite industrious families where, you know, there was a work ethic. But what was the role? Or what messages Did you guys pick up? What are your values, if you can remember, in your late teens, early 20s, about the whole idea of money, the role of money, the role of work business? In other words, what was it about becoming entrepreneurial and building a business together? What was it that caused you to that?

Eric DeNicola 17:23
I think, Nick and obviously speak to this as well. But one thing we both shared is just the the idea of of money bringing security in the importance of it, because it you know, I remember, you know, growing up, say, you know, wanting to play hockey or something, and always hearing about how expensive hockey was, and expensive the equipment was in going to the US sporting goods store. And I just thought, someday, there's not going to be my kids, I'm going to make sure I have enough money there. What they want to do, they're not going to be spoiled, they're going to have a work ethic, but they're going to understand they're going to not really want for anything that was my goal since since you know, when I was little, I remember this. And just the idea of Okay, showing up to answer your question kind of showing up, you know, being reliable, putting in work to make something happen, no one's gonna really do it for you. And if you do that, right, and you're honest about it, and you and you have, you know, compassion for people you're working with, just, you know, values like that taught me that, you know, good things will come. I mean, yeah, there'll be a lot of bad walking, both of us have faced it a lot in business now. But you kind of you can't get down, you just have to keep moving forward, no matter what time is not going to stop. So you have to just do what you can with the time you have to put your family in the best position to have a comfortable secure life.

Jason Butler 18:48
And, Nick, any thoughts on that?

Nick Earls 18:51
Yeah, I mean, for me, I, I kind of drank the kool aid of societies, you know, nonsense about money doesn't matter, which I think, is a combination of good intention. Like, hey, we shouldn't all be like robber barons, like lording over the world. Like, that's part of the reason why society tells you that there's some good intention, but there's also some bitterness involved with that message, I believe. So I kind of believe that growing up, I never really cared about money. Even though my parents were entrepreneurs, small business owners themselves, I bought that stupid message. And it wasn't until I was older, and just a little bit more logical that I realized, well wait a second money is just an instrument of a freedom and B security, which are two things I like quite a bit. So I don't want to be slaving away under someone else's vision, you know. And another thing for me is I'm just kind of competitive. I like to compete. When I was younger, I like to compete against other people and like those sports and stuff and the games. Now I like to compete against myself. I like dogs. is, every year every month I like any on doesn't always happen, but you want to always be on an upward trajectory in life. And I just view this this current modern age, this is the instrument of doing it it's is starting a business, making a lot of money. That's how you can influence society and you know, whatever small way you can, which are all things I just want to do my life.

Jason Butler 20:24
But don't you I just interested in what you guys you know, you've been together a long time you've seen a better life, and I'm sure it hasn't all been in a straight line up, you know, there's been some bad times, which we'll we'll touch on them, because I love to share the difficult times because people who, who, who see successful people don't realize that it wasn't a straight line. I'm just interested to know, how you how you unpick a story or a value or a message or a concept. When you're a young person starting out when you've got your pick this up? You know, like you say that money doesn't matter. But you had to have an epiphany, what? how did how do people unpick that how do people get on the right, you know, got a healthy relationship with money as opposed to a recession or a different relationship?

Nick Earls 21:07
I think you just got to strip away all the baggage, you know, you got to just forget about what everyone else says Just do your own cost benefit analysis of what the pursuit of money gets you, you know, and anyone who's living an adult life, will quickly realize you know what it does, and some people believe in adult life and still just reject, you know, the utility of money for whatever values are, again, they picked up a message on their child, and they're just kind of holding it close to their heart, even if the evidence in front of them kind of contradicting that. I don't know, there's just a lot of just wipe away the nonsense. Don't worry about what other people think worry about what's best for you and your family and your future. And and what do you want to do in the world because I watched a video, I don't know who the guy was speaking, I watch a video a while ago. And the guy was basically saying, if you don't have money, you can't do anything. And I don't necessarily fully agree with that. Like, clearly there's, you know, been like rebel leaders in history who like had mass uprisings with no money, but like, it's pretty much if you have no money, there's usually your path influences violence, like money is the only alternative, in my opinion. So I just kind of think money is really the only way if you want to have a positive impact in society, you have to acquire some money, and then give it back in logical ways, which is, you know, one of our goals, that's why we started the nonprofit organization.

Jason Butler 22:38
So tell me, guys, you've got the first 100,000 together, right? Okay, you knew that you were the ones for each other in business. What happened? Then how did you get the ball rolling.

Nick Earls 22:47
So I'd been looking for, we were looking for a rental property to own just kind of own and rent it out. And I had noticed that the condominium market where you'll build, you know, an apartment building, but you're selling each unit to a homeowner was doing really well, in Boston, Boston has a has a really strong university system, you got Harvard and MIT and, you know, the very long list of colleges and universities. And on top of that backbone in the past, you know, 20 years, and especially in the past 10 years, the life sciences industry has really kind of exploded, and that is given a lot of strength to this, this model of selling to homeowners is basically it's a luxury, luxury real estate, because these are kind of wealthy people who are coming in here. And the prices have reflected that. So anyways, we were tracking a couple different neighborhoods, and a neighborhood of Boston called East Boston seemed to be on the upward trajectory. And a good deal came on where I saw how we could leverage a little bit of extra value. It was a two family house, so two units in it. But the zoning code that regulates you know, what you what you're allowed to build, said you could do an extra unit. So that and you know, all when you're doing development, you're doing real estate, you want to look for like little hidden things like that, that where you can add additional value, rather than just buying a building and then just sitting on it, you want to kind of improve it. That's how you make the most money in real estate, whether it's development or just holding on to a property. So that that project just kind of got us started. And we kept rolling in the profits we made from that and to our next projects. And then a couple years ago, we started working with investors. And that has kind of really helped our scale up faster. We've got a lot of projects going on right now. Our big, our biggest ones a 32 unit, right near Harvard and MIT. So that'll we're excited about that. But yeah, then we've got investors involved around 2018 but prior to that, it was all just rolling in our own Money over and over again.

Jason Butler 25:01
So tell me, how did you guys because that high idea of scaling up any operation, whether it's real estate or whatever, the idea of scaling up and using, as Danny DeVito says other people's money. And tell me about that, you know how that kind of how you navigated that because people sometimes are frightened, aren't they to do both those scale up and get other people's money to help them.

Eric DeNicola 25:24
It's a, it's a little frightening in the sense because now you have a lot of other people you're beholden to or or one just however many people you of course bring in, we have a good amount now of people we work with. And we knew right away, okay, we we we had our eyes on on the bigger prize, we didn't want to just do two in three families only we knew we have to get in, we have to start, this is a great thing Nick's found where we can add value as he just went over. Okay, so the next one then has to be a five and then a 10. And we that was kind of our approach. In the beginning, we had some good foresight there. What we didn't really realize, though, until a nick just mentioned 2018 is this other people's money component. So as he said, You know, we're rolling our money and project to project. But we started to see, you know, sort of some peers of ours doing very similar stuff. And we said, Wait a second. So they have like four projects at once that they're doing all in the area, we're focusing on one, and it's taking up all our time. But if we could figure out how to do this, and have two or three at once we can manage that we just have different crews on each one. And it's no big deal. There's plenty of people out there who work construction. How do we do that? And the answer was more money. We said, Okay, so do we need to wait till our 10th project. And before we can do two at once, we realized quickly that, alright, we need to bring other people's money. And so yeah, it's, it definitely makes you a little not that we weren't focused, but almost like more focus, because now you have other people that are relying on you to perform. And that was sort of the start of that for us doing multiple projects and bring in other people,

Jason Butler 27:12
when you've got to raise other people's money. And I'm interested to spoil this and get your perspectives when you when you are bringing in other people's money. It does two things, doesn't it? One, you don't have a proper compelling story that you can you can kick yourself, there's a great deal. But that can be getting of convincing other people is a bit more of a thing, right? Because you, you kid yourself, it's going to be a bit cheaper to refurb your kid yourself, you're going to do it quicker, all that stuff, but we've other people, you've got to you've got to be a proper, proper appraisal, proper analysis. And secondly, you've got to do what you say you're going to do. Right? So something counters are ticking. So I'm just wondering, did that that bringing in other people, capital, not just the scale thing, but did it did it take you to another level in terms of professionalism and dynamism? And actually, the thinking big as Grant Cardone says doesn't he says, you know, the problem most investors in property is they think too small.

Eric DeNicola 28:02
That's right. And it did help us think that way we couldn't. Now as Nick mentioned, the 32 unit building, that's our biggest one, we wouldn't be at that point, if we didn't a bring people in and be, you know, maximize the potential of bringing people in what it allows us to do. So we, when we started raising this money, like I said, it was more Okay, we can do a few projects at once now. But what it taught us is okay, a lot of the capital we've raised, maybe came from sources we somehow already knew and our network that we hadn't really explored. And then we start exploring new sources. And what it taught us was, you don't necessarily even if you know, we didn't really know anyone to start, who you know, could just contribute 100 grand, a lot of people say all your friends and family money to start, we didn't really have that. But we just based on doing the projects and working in the industry for several years, we had a bigger network than we thought we did. And talking to people about, okay, this is what we need. This is what we can do. Well, you can see our projects already. And then we talk to people they see okay, these guys are pretty smart. They have a good handle on this. They start seeing our story that okay, all they need is more capital. We start talking to them about that they talked to their friends their callings before you know it, you know, we have people who have called us who said, Hey, so and so told us you guys are looking for some more capital, we want to diversify, invest in real estate, can we maybe work together and it? It was it was very intentional. But on our part, there was a lot of intentionality to build that but at the same time, some of it happened organically that we hadn't really expected adjust based on being open to talking with people about it and based on you know, our having dealt with other contractors and doing other projects and just meeting people so it kind of gave us the big the big thing I think it gave us is okay. Don't you know forego any potential. You're meeting with someone try to really talk with anyone who's interested and anyone tangentially related, and you never know what you know what could come up that eventually.

Jason Butler 30:09
And it's about telling people what you're doing what you're up to what you want to do. And it's interesting because that concept you're talking about there is we call it obviously, we all know, it's the scarcity versus abundance mindset. But not everyone does know that. And this idea that money has plenty of money, there's plenty of money, and you can attract it to you don't just mean you know, put your finger in the air and, you know, sing Kumbaya, but the point is, but if you are intentional, if you're busy, if you put yourself out there if you start doing stuff that you can't do and, and and the interesting thing, I think was a guest turn episode in the 3032 or 33. And it was one of the ideas of don't say, I can't, or I haven't got so what do I need to do to get more money? What do I need to do to be investable? What? How would I, you know, it's that kind of, what do I need to do? Or how do I as opposed to I can't or it's not possible? So interesting guy, so you've got the business, I'm interested to just to take a couple of steps back, I don't know what your personal situation is. But if you've got a partner or wife or a boyfriend, or, you know, in life, how do they How do they fit into the equation? How did they fit into the equation when they joined you if you have partners, in so far as you our relationship together, but it's a different kind of relationship, obviously. And then, and how did they How did that how did the that change your personal situation, because of course, when you have a partner, or if you have a family, then of course, there are other demands for your money. And there's a pressure to spend more and buy a bigger house and have all the other things that go with it. I just interesting how you guys evolve that and how you handle those, those challenges, and those temptations and those obligations.

Nick Earls 31:44
I mean, it's not as easy. I'm married, I have two kids. But I think we already had the company, when both of us met our current wives. We've been running it for a few years. And Eric can tell, you know, his mentality, we don't commiserate on how we like approach dating and marriage. But for me, I kind of went in with the mentality of I want to marry someone who I want to find someone who likes this lifestyle and wants to maybe not be involved with it. Because I know like for my parents that that's that's another avenue of potential stress if they're if you're both like heavily involved, but almost like, semi involved and on the sidelines. And that's pretty much what my wife spent. She's a real estate agent. So she's kind of involved. She sells like houses. So she's kind of involved and she has helped us bring in a really big million dollar investor last month, so she's uh, she says she's pretty good. She's helping us with the, with our nonprofit. Right. Well,

Jason Butler 32:56
to be to be fair, though, I'd love to hear about how the end of year appraisal goes with her. You know, yes, you've done very well, we've got a big deal. Yes, you you can stay on. So Eric, how is it the VA you and your partner

Eric DeNicola 33:11
it's, it's a little different. My wife works in the medical field. She's a physician assistant. So she's, you know, deals with surgery. She's She's performing surgeries and very different field than this. And she likes it, you know, she she likes what we're doing. Not not super involved, though, doesn't know a lot about real estate other than sort of what I've taught her on the side. But I think it works out well for us, because we have different personalities. And we have sort of a ying and yang thing where it's like, she's very organized and to the point and a job like hers requires, you know, very early leaving of the house and returning very late and a lot of stress throughout the day. But then that's it, then she can sort of shut it off. And whereas you know ours, Nick and I, this type of job is like slowly, just constant constantly, like on the mind. And yeah,

Jason Butler 34:17
there's never you're never off duty as an entrepreneur, interestingly. So you know, as much about surgery as she does about property and real estate investment. Right. So that's why you think so that's a so you don't bother swapping sort of insights with each other because it's not going to help me get ahead. Yeah,

Eric DeNicola 34:32
I pick her brain like she's a doctor what she gets annoyed with,

Jason Butler 34:35
but you know, this pain? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, guys, if you say, Nikki, so you've got children. I'm just interested. I'm doing an Instagram Live tonight. And I've got a great guy called wil Rainey who's fantastic. He's written a book all about how to teach children about money. He's observed this all over the world. Just any thoughts about how you you mentioned that? No, actually, I think it was Eric who mentioned he didn't want his kids to have like their hammy down. a hockey game. But here's the paradox. And I, I don't know that the answer is I've got some thoughts, but I'd like your ideas. One of the problems of entrepreneurial people is it seems it starts out being economic motivation, you know, we want the money, and then it becomes kind of marking the score, then it becomes kind of legacy and what we leave behind and kind of who we stand for an identity. So how do we avoid our children spoiling our children, even if we don't think we're spoiling? And how do we avoid affluence that we never had? How do we avoid it making them lazy bums who squander all the money because part of the what I also do is help families plan prepare their is for the inheritance who's going to receive so what's your thoughts on that? Just wanted your ideas? I'm not saying you got all the answers. But just your perspective on that.

Nick Earls 35:44
I think we're just going to be a strong like, my kids are very young. So I feel almost hypocritical, like trying to get my thoughts when I haven't even experienced it yet. But my my theory is, is there's just going to be a emphasis on excellence and success, not from like a neurotic level, like you might see sometimes like the the sports dad or the tiger Mom, I'm not going to do that. But there's there's going to be expectations, you know, it's not going to just be because sometimes growing up for me, there's there's no expectations like I was I did well in school, but those just random. And I don't, I don't necessarily think that was the best approach. Sorry, mom and dad, but I'm trying to like, because I'm thinking about this issue that you're bringing up, I don't want to be affluent. And then you know, there's that phrase about like, the third generation that it's all gone like the second generation started squander and the third generation, but then you got these families who've had money since like, 500 years ago. So there's some way to do it. I'm trying to figure it out. And I think it's, there's got to be an expectation that you're going to live up to that, that same energy that your parents had. And like I said, it can't, the delicate balances not doing it in a neurotic or damaging way. It just has to be kind of a light touch. Hey, still still go and play with your friends. You're not reading books all day or whatever. But you're reading books 60% of the day, you know what I mean? So I think it's a balance. I'll let you know in 15 years, yeah,

Jason Butler 37:25
we'll check in again and say, hey, go in either an appraisal. So what's your thoughts on that?

Eric DeNicola 37:31
Well, I, I see, Nick, Nick. And I talk about you know, psychology and philosophy a lot we always have. And so I've sort of seen from just from the outside him, he This is something he talks about a lot, as he just said, it's something he thinks about and I, you know, I plan to have kids, somewhat soon. So eventually, it will be an issue for me as well. But that is that is something we've actually talked about many times. And I see kind of how he's starting to deal with that, and sort of learning from him. Close up. And I think one another thing is, you look back, you know, your own childhood, and think okay, because that's before you have kids, that's kind of your only perspective on kids is in, you know, when you're talking to 30 years ago, it's, it's not necessarily easy to remember, but you think, Okay, how did this go, and you start to see how you act and how you do things in life probably had some basis. And you know, at that time, you know, in your three, four or five, six years old, and you form sort of ideas, and, you know, values, however you want to put it. And I think if you can start off the right way, of course, easier said than done. But you get your your kids off on the right foot that, okay, I have these things, but I'm not a I'm not going to take them for granted. I'm going to understand sort of where they came from, but also not, don't force them into something. And again, I don't have kids, so I can't really justify this. I can't I don't know how this would work exactly. But I just I was never really forced into doing stuff. I was encouraged if I like something. And if I wanted to quit, I was sort of, you know, sports or whatever. I was told, that wasn't just given the green light to quit. But I if I got to the point where I just hated it, or whatever it was, I wasn't forced to do it. And that's the intent, you know, approach. I want to take that, okay, let them figure out what they want to do. But also, don't just let them off the hook with everything they need to have some semblance of, you know, ethic work ethic. That's right.

Jason Butler 39:33
And there's an old saying, If children need to have enough economic means to be able to do anything, but not so much they can do nothing. And I think that's really sums it all up. So look, guys, that does Yeah, so Look, guys, obviously I'm wearing at the time we've got to see could talk for hours to you guys. I love, love the energy that you're all about and I really appreciate your time. But look, before you go. I just want to I'm going to give you a really tough question. Okay. And I just want you to see if you can give it your best shot at answering because I I really, really find this question. evokes different responses. What is your definition of true

Nick Earls 40:04
wealth? I think for me true wealth is basically the ability to do whatever you want, barring imposing your will on other people. That's my definition. Oh,

Eric DeNicola 40:20
that was st my prayers never quite as I would say to Yeah, it starts with a similar thing to do whatever you want it any basically to be able to do whatever you want, at any point and never have the feeling of, oh, how am I going to pay for that? You know, not not in the sense of like, the electric bill, but maybe, you know, even just that kind of mentality to never have that thought again, if I never did, and my kids don't and my family doesn't my friends don't want to get to that point. I would feel truly wealthy.

Jason Butler 40:59
Fantastic answers guys. Look, when I get back over to the States, and now that COVID is kind of hopefully, you know, getting what I call a normal situation, and we're all sort of just living with it. I'm going to check you guys out in Boston is a fantastic beautiful city. I've always wanted to go for the jazz the jazz in November, or is it may I can't remember there's a jazz festival. They have in Boston, I think it's my But no, I'm going to get to see if I can get over there on our check you out and see what's going on. You can tell me all the best places to take my wife, nice meals and cocktails, what have you. Look, winter spring capitals, your firm that you've obviously got your foundation. Well make sure there's links on the show notes for everyone. But look, it's been great having you Nicole's and Eric Nicola. Really fantastic. Thank you for your insights. And I wish you all the very best with your business.

Nick Earls 41:44
Thanks so much for having us on you as

Eric DeNicola 41:45
well. Thank you.

Jason Butler 41:51
Thanks for listening to real money stories with me, Jason Butler. If you like what you hear, please do tell your friends. And more importantly, please rate us on your preferred podcast app, because it really does help us get the message out there. So until next time, good luck with your money journey. Real Money stories is sponsored by Vanguard bringing value to 30 million investors worldwide. Visit Vanguard investor.co.uk for more details. The value of investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai