661: How to Get Your Money Back from Wall Street

SHOW NOTES FOR EPISODE 661: HOW TO GET YOUR MONEY BACK FROM WALL STREET

Was your retirement account hit hard this last year?  What if you could get all that you lost back and then some?  In today’s podcast, real estate investor, entrepreneur, author and martial arts expert Damion Lupo shares how he and other investors are taking control of their retirement accounts for total financial freedom.

What You Will Learn

• How broker fees, commission and other expenses can eat up to 60-80% of your mutual funds retirement fund profits
• Why Damion was thankful that his real estate portfolio went from $20 million to minus $5 million
• What you can do today to get your 401-K or IRA stock losses back
• How you can contribute $67,500 a year to your retirement account
• The importance of your network to your net worth
• Why the 8% average stock market return is a lie

About Our Guest

Damion Lupo

Best-Selling Author of a dozen books on personal finance, investment and retirement strategies, Damion is on a mission to free 1 million people from financial bondage. He hosts the Financial Underdogs podcast, ripping conventional wisdom apart for the Main Street investor looking for truth about money and investing. Not only has he started 50+ companies, but he also founded his own martial art, Yokido®. Damion developed the ultimate investor retirement tool called the eQRP®.  His strategy gives individuals total control of their retirement money to invest in real assets like real estate, gold, and crypto.

More About Damion

• Damion grew up in Alaska
• The last job he had there was working for in the oil fields
• He had to dodge polar bears
• If you moved the wrong way, you could be eaten by a polar bear
• It’s a strange work environment that he doesn’t recommend
• After that, he felt compelled to find a job where he could use his brain more
• He moved and got into the insurance business
• And that led to real estate investing in 2000
• He started by purchasing a house for $6,000 using a credit card
• He spent 10 years in real estate
• And he grew his real estate portfolio to $20 million
  • Drove a Ferrari
  • Lived a fun lifestyle
• But, in 2008, the $20 million and turned it into $-5 million almost overnight
• He lost it all and then some
• There was much blood, tears and pain
• Looking back on it all, however, he now considers the whole situation as a gift
• He learned a lot
  • One of the biggest lessons he learned from it all was that, no matter what he is doing, it has to be about more than just money!
  • There has to be something that helps other people than just himself
  • He asked himself, “Is this going to change me or am I going to go back out there and do it again the wrong way?”

Starting Over

• One of the biggest things he realized was that his “self-worth and net worth were not the same thing”
  • When he had is $20 million, he thought that was who he was
  • To rebuild himself and his business he had to disconnect the two
  • A person can provide a lot of value without looking at their balance sheet
• Five years later, he realized that there is a bigger role for him to play if he is going to continue
  • He had to identify what the problem was that he could solve and what is the “pain point” – that’s what an entrepreneur does with pain
  • He knew he could show other people how overcome the pain by learning how to become financially free
  • To break away from financial bondage
• Today, he is on a mission to help 1 million people to becoming financially free
• He is focused primarily on those persons approaching or already in retirement
• He is providing them with the tools and confidence to be able to create investments that they can understand, not just had their money over to someone else who they will then trust to that it all works out
• He created a company called eQRP.  He also wrote a book explaining how people can become financially independent without Wall Street!

Launching eQRP

• eQRP, according to Damion, is the gold standard in self-directed retirement accounts
  • It’s a unique type of 401-K retirement account where people can take all of their retirement money and actually have control of it
    • You used to be able to do that with IRA accounts (using a checkbook) but the rules changed in 2021 when the court said you couldn’t have control of your money like you used to
  • eQRP allows people to take their retirement money, tax-free FOREVER (even beyond their death) and invest it in things like real estate, crypto and gold
  • It works for individuals
  • It works for people who have 100 employees
  • It’s the only retirement account of it’s time in America that gives people, at any different level, the ability to grow their nest egg and live tax-free forever
  • With most retirement plans, the administrators restrict how you can invest, for example, only in mutual funds, etc.
  • With eQRP, people can contribute up to $67,500 a year (if someone makes a little as $70,000 per year in income
  • It has the same max caps as others and some of the same rules but they give people all the flexibility and all the choices without the restrictions that only benefit Wall Street
  • It’s a platform they built with custom banking, custom software and it uses the tax code within a unique type of retirement account

Wall Street and Your Retirement

• Wall Street is really just one big casino
• You have no control over what happens to your money once they have it
• You invest and just hope, when you want to cash out, that it will be as much as you put in or, better yet, even more than you put in
• If the markets are down, people from Wall Street say it’s a long-term hold and don’t sell because you’ll take a loss
• When the markets are up, they say don’t sell out because “You’re on a roll” and it will just go higher
• They never say there is a good time to exit
  • The reality is that it’s always better to exit because then, at least, you’ll have something you can control
• The reality is that, once you find alternative (non-Wall Street) investments, like real estate, you’ll find out you can actually control your money instead of trusting in others to make the decisions
• There’s a lie being perpetuated about the Wall Street model that, if you keep your funds in, you’ll generate 8% on a regular basis
  • The reality is, after fees (which can eat 60-80% of your actual profit, according to John C. Bogle, the founder of Vanguard) the traditional retirement stock portfolio won’t help you build wealth
  • Getting your money out of Wall Street is the key!
  • Once you are in control, it doesn’t matter if there is inflation or recession – there are always good investments for those who understand what’s happening and can see the opportunities

Empowering People

• His company provides people with the tools and resources for people who are putting deals together and education
• According to Damion, Wall Street is designed to get people to give them their money and just go away
• He’s trying to give people the education, network and connections to learn how to be a savvy investor
• They are creating a community for people to prosper
• eQRP is very high-touch, one-on-one, designing people’s plans and empowering them with the truth
  • Most people, who have $500,000-$1,000.000 in mutual funds don’t really know where they are at financially and in regards to their financial freedom
  • eQRP helps people really see their financial situation and give them clarity
  • They try to see for their clients if their is an alignment between and investor and an investment
    • It starts with the philosophy of the investment (apartments, crypto, etc.) and the team behind it
    • For example, real estate is not so much “the deal” as it’s the people behind the deal, making decisions
    • They teach people how to vet their deals and come out with a high degree of success
    • Their job is financial coaching and mentoring – they don’t manage people’s money
    • It all starts with a question, “Do you want to take responsibility for your money and your financial life?”

Your Biggest Mistake(s)

• In the early years, he chose partners poorly
• People is where all the power is
• But, because he had bad experiences with partners that stole millions of dollars and people who were not very skilled, he bungled around, carrying everything on his shoulders, not trusting others
• When he sought help from others who could truly help him overcome this previous problems, that’s when he realized it was the team
• He sought out great people and paid them well
• When he put faith in great people everything changed
• Today, he has 22 great people who are part of his organization and it’s a lot more fun than going at it solo

Biggest Success

• Bringing people on his team and
  • empowering them to do what they do best
  • give them flexibility
• Jim Collins, the author of “Good to Great”  talks about bring great people in and getting out of their way
• He also gave his team vision
• It’s important for team members to have the same vision first before putting them to work
• Then, they need the drive
• You can have big dreams but you also have to have a big work ethic
• It was also important to him to hire a mentor who could be honest with him and help him do things a better way

Advice for Old Dawgs Looking at Real Estate Investing to Help Them in Their Retirement Years

• The best thing they can do is to be around real people who are doing what you want to do or accomplish
• Don’t be a solo player
• Become more natural and normal by connecting with other like-minded persons
• The key is to not try to do everything by yourself
• Look for teams, masterminds and other groups of people you want to emulate
• Share mistakes, challenges and see how others have dealt with the same

Current Business

• There is an emergence of people who are willing and interested in taking control and responsibility for their finances
• eQRP gives them that option
• Most people are not aware of the fact that they can own and take control of their retirement
• But people are spreading the word and the community is growing
• It’s gone from 100s to 1,000s to 10s of thousands of people that know about eQRP who know about and use it

Rap-It-Up

• Favorite real estate book: Powerhouse Principles by Jorge Perez
• Favorite business book: Mastery by George Leonard
• Favorite app: Evernote
• Favorite quote: “Mistakes are a gift to you.”
• If you lost everything – all your assets – and had to start all over, knowing what you already know, and you only had $1,000, what would you do to re-launch your real estate investing business?  The first thing I would do is to connect with my network because our “network is our net worth.”  I would take my network and experiences and go out and ask questions – “What are people stuck with?”  Then I would try to figure out what the pain point is and then see if I could solve the problem.

How to Reach Damion

• Website: eQRP.co

Get His Book Free!

• Link: QRP Book

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