How Steve Houghton Built a $1 Billion Fortune Using His Five-Pillars for a Wealth Life

 

Full Transcript

[00:00:03] Steve Houghton: I think that I certainly have an ego, but I've also tried to recognize what my ego is and not feed it, because ego is one of those things. The more you feed it, the hungrier it gets.

[00:00:14] Sam Parr: Steve Houghton is a billionaire.

[00:00:16] Steve Houghton: Roughly, if you could tell me what oil is going to sell for precisely next year and interest rates, I could be precise, but I mean somewhere in the high nine figures to low ten figures.

[00:00:30] Sam Parr: So the best part about this podcast is that wealthy people come on and they reveal their finances, and they also explain a bunch of strengths and weaknesses in their life, and they get really vulnerable. But amongst the uncommon people, which is young, wealthy people, who is our typical guest? There's an even more uncommon subset, and that is billionaires. I think there's only 2 or 3000 billionaires in America, so it's not a lot of people. Now, amongst those 2 or 3000 people, there's an even smaller subset, a group of people who are willing to come on this podcast and reveal all of their numbers and to be super transparent about their vulnerabilities, their life, their strengths, their weaknesses, and their finances. And so today's episode, we have one of those really rare people now, amongst the hundreds of podcast episodes that I've done, Steve is in that small subset of about five people who I think to myself, I want to emulate this person. I want to be just like this person. On this episode of Moneywise, we are going to break down Steve's finances, which is rare that a billionaire is willing to do that. But we're also going to talk about the key pillars of life that Steve has made up for himself to stay healthy, to stay happy, and to be truly wealthy. I promise you, this is going to be one of our most insightful episodes, and you're going to want to listen to the entire thing. My friends, I am Sam Parr and this is Moneywise. Look, spend just a few minutes on the internet and you're going to see a ton of nonsense out there on how to get rich.

[00:01:50] Sam Parr: But there's not a lot of stuff out there that talks about how to deal with life after you've already made some money. And the reason I know this is I'm the founder of a company called Hampton. Check it out. Join Hampton. Com. It's a community for CEOs, startup founders things like that. And most of our members are young and they're high net worth. And so I'm able to see all these conversations that they have about money, about problems that they're having and conversations that typically never happen in public. And I thought it would be cool to create Moneywise, which is a podcast where we talk to real people who are radically transparent about their numbers, meaning their monthly expenses, their income, their portfolios, and who are radically transparent about problems that they have in their life. And I thought it'd be cool to have those conversations in public. And so if you're listening to this, there's a good chance that you are a CEO or a founder of a startup. And if you are, check out my company, Join Hampton. Com, we host hundreds of events throughout the country, and we have thousands of members with the average person. They have a company that does about $25 million in revenue, and I review 100% of the applications. So check it out. Join hampton.com for more info. All right. To kick things off, we're going to start with the most obvious pillar that Steve has listed for his pillars of having a wealthy life, and that is financial wealth, which, by the way, is not something that Steve grew up with.

[00:03:11] Steve Houghton: I was raised really modestly. I mean, we heated our house with a wood stove in the winter, and I remember going out and if I didn't get the wood the night before, I would have to sometimes knock the snow off of it and get a whole lot colder. Loading up the wood stove to have it warm our house. And to say my dad was frugal would be an understatement. I mean, he threw nickels around like they were manhole covers. And so I did want to do well.

[00:03:44] Sam Parr: You went to high school in Utah. Where did you go to college?

[00:03:46] Steve Houghton: BYU.

[00:03:47] Sam Parr: And what were you doing about, like selling books when you were in between college and high school?

[00:03:53] Steve Houghton: Yeah. So my buddy, we heard about some people that had made a bunch of money selling books, and we were debate partners. And so we were just sure that we could parlay our debate greatness into riches. And so we told everybody in our high school and even recruited one of our buddies to go to California, and we were going to get rich. And so a week after graduating from high school, we drove down to the Bay area, and it was quite an adventure.

[00:04:25] Sam Parr: How much did you make?

[00:04:26] Steve Houghton: So initially, I was going broke because they were giving us cash advances and everybody on our team quit, except for my buddy Brad, who was my best friend from childhood and me. But even our manager quit, and about halfway through the summer, the company realized that we were going to owe them money. And so they better send somebody else out to train us. And so they sent an experienced rep out, and we both worked a half day with him. And then being able to see somebody do it, we started selling like Crazy. And by the end of the summer, we were the number one and number two salesmen. And this was in 1982. And so we made both around 5 or $6000 that summer, which in today's dollars that would be, you know, 110,000 something plus or minus. So that was pretty good for a high school kid.

[00:05:18] Sam Parr: Oh hell yeah, dude, that's good for someone who's 25 or 30. I mean, that's that's a lot of money.

[00:05:23] Steve Houghton: But then the second summer that I did it was when I really kind of figured it out. And that summer I made 35,000. And I had a team that I taught how to do it. And anyway, it was quite an adventure.

[00:05:37] Sam Parr: The taste of what kind of money he was capable of making set Steve on a goose chase for more. What was the goal? You said you had a financial goal. So what was your goal back then?

[00:05:46] Steve Houghton: Just to be rich.

[00:05:47] Sam Parr: What's that number?

[00:05:48] Steve Houghton: I think early on. Well, I know what the number is now, but back then I thought it was 10 million. But now I really know what the number is.

[00:05:56] Sam Parr: Which is what?

[00:05:57] Steve Houghton: Whatever your current net worth is. It's one more. Zero.

[00:06:01] Sam Parr: Oh. That's interesting.

[00:06:02] Steve Houghton: The only problem is it always is that. And so you'll never get there. Humans are insatiable. But the other thing that hopefully we learn at some point is that the money's not going to make us happy anyway. And it's nice to have, but really happiness and joy in life. I mean, we all, those of us that know rich people, can probably all point to somebody that is rich, that lives a really poor life. Yeah. And so riches aren't I mean, they help or they can help, but I think of money as a magnifier. And if you're a jerk and you get rich, you'll be a bigger jerk. If you're a really nice person and you get rich, you'll be an even nicer person. And it will magnify whatever you really are.

[00:06:53] Sam Parr: Now going back to pre billionaire Steve, even pre millionaire Steve. He had come to realize that accumulating wealth was something that he was really good at, and he wanted to keep on doing. He wanted to do more of it, but he still wasn't quite sure how.

[00:07:09] Steve Houghton: I also went on a mission for my church for a year and a half, so I sold that first summer books, went on my mission, came back, went to college, and started selling books again to pay my way through college. But then upon graduating, was able to get this job with Trammell Crow.

[00:07:25] Sam Parr: I've never heard of that company. What's it do? This is in.

[00:07:28] Steve Houghton: 1989. They were the largest real estate developer in the United States. In fact, I think the year that I got on, they were the number one recruiter at Harvard Business School, which should have given me an idea that it was the top of the market, and maybe I should short the company and not go long. But yeah, they developed industrial office retail. They were huge back then.

[00:07:50] Sam Parr: What was like the main learning that you got after 18 months to say there's an opportunity here.

[00:07:56] Steve Houghton: Well, I learned that I didn't want to work in corporate America and that I just hated being under somebody's thumb. I enjoyed the independence of, you know, when I was selling books because it didn't really matter. I didn't have to kiss up to anybody. There were no politics. It was just like either I was successful or I wasn't successful. And so I really liked that, probably more than anything. And then I also just realized I wasn't going to achieve my financial goals.

[00:08:25] Sam Parr: So after a year and a half at the real estate job, Steve quit and started working on his own business ventures. Some of those turned out pretty well, and some of them, by the way, they did not.

[00:08:34] Steve Houghton: Self-storage was a great decision. The payments company was a huge mistake. But you know, even when you make mistakes, if you work at it hard enough, you can turn a mistake into something good. But I view it as I left my area of expertise and where I had an edge, and I paid a price for that, I missed some great opportunities because of that.

[00:08:55] Sam Parr: Still, within three years, Steve had made about $3 million. And this is where his views on the financial pillar of wealth get really interesting. It's the reason he's a billionaire today. He goes all in on the power of compounding.

[00:09:09] Steve Houghton: My whole strategy is I try to be a recycler of capital, and so I try to put my capital in something that is a high quality asset that I never really planned to sell, and then get it back in, you know, two years, maybe 2 to 3 years, get it back and then roll it into something else. So early on I rolled everything into into the self-storage business.

[00:09:31] Sam Parr: So you had 3 million and you bought. If I had to guess some higher number than 3 million in property, and your 3 million was your down payment.

[00:09:38] Steve Houghton: Yeah, but I did several properties. I just kept building these storage properties. But then it was five years later, so it wasn't really that 3 million I'd used and recycled and but I took most of my liquidity and put it into property, which at that time, because I had a bunch of it tied up into storage stuff. I put, you know, 1 to 2 million, which was most of my liquidity at the time because the rest of it was invested into prop. And then I didn't get it back out for like a dozen years or more. And I had planned to be a passive investor. I was just going to be the chairman. I was going to put the money up, but I wasn't going to really be that involved. And, you know, it didn't really work out that way.

[00:10:22] Sam Parr: How much of the 2 million in prop turned into.

[00:10:25] Steve Houghton: Close to 40? But it took a long time, and I missed a fabulous opportunity in oil and gas that I had been just waiting for. But when it finally came around, because I was so fully invested in prop, I just had to watch it go by and watch and weep.

[00:10:44] Sam Parr: How much did the 1 million of storage turn into?

[00:10:47] Steve Houghton: Oh, it's been so many years. I don't know, it's hundreds of millions.

[00:10:52] Sam Parr: That's crazy. You're an interesting person. When I started my last company. It was a media company, and I was the CEO. I was in it every day. I was in the grind. It was really hard, and it worked. But I didn't have anything on the side. It was like, that's my thing. If this doesn't work, I'm screwed. And it was like 9 to 8 every day or whatever, like my full time job. It sounds like you, you're in this group of people who, oddly, there are a lot of Midwestern and Southern people who I know who are like, like this, where they have their hands in a variety of things. Is that the case with you where like, you're not like 9 to 5? It's not really the same each day.

[00:11:29] Steve Houghton: Yeah. Especially now. I mean, when I was first getting started, I was 18 hours a day in the loan business with Commerce First Financial, and I did that with credit cards. And it was like all or nothing. I had $20,000 starting out, and I had $70,000 in credit cards, and I rolled all of that. And my first deal was $64,000. And and I'll always remember drinking Maalox as I'm driving to Midland, Texas to buy these loans, telling my wife how awesome this is going to be, and thinking to myself, oh my gosh, am I making the biggest mistake of my life? And it was terrifying. But it worked out. After about two months, I got my cash back and went out and bought more loans, and it was kind of a unique opportunity for about three years. And at the time we lived like church mice. We lived so frugally because we viewed our capital, our investment capital. I mean, when you can invest your capital and make ten times your money, you hate to spend it on fancy clothes or anything that's expensive. And so and it wasn't my dream or Jennifer's dream. It was our dream. And we were just like, you know, if we can live our first ten years, like few couples will, you know, We'll live our last 30 or 40 like few people can imagine because of the power of compounding interest. And.

[00:12:57] Sam Parr: Well, that. But that's assuming that you find some type of machine that can ten x, which is hard.

[00:13:02] Steve Houghton: Well, but, you know, I was destined to succeed based on Mark Twain's comment, because it was Mark Twain that said, all you need to succeed in America is ignorance and confidence. And I had an abundance of both.

[00:13:18] Sam Parr: From the ages of 30 to 40. Do you remember what your income and net worth and how it grew was? So you start the age of 30 with around 3 million. You invest two into property that turns into 40. Ten years later. But what about the the rest?

[00:13:36] Steve Houghton: I would say I mean, roughly, I put a zero on the end of it by 40. I put a zero on the end of it by 50. I didn't put a zero. I probably did a little less than half as well the last ten years, because I didn't realize the fed was outlawing recessions. And so, you know, they just haven't. Other than my oil and gas, which has been a great deal. I mean, I've sat on the sidelines. I mean, the last couple of years I've just flown by helicopter because there's just no good deals. And I figured if I'm busy, I learned how to fly a helicopter and spent a couple of million dollars getting a helicopter. And I figure, you know, I just have to miss one bad deal. And the helicopter is paid for. And so so.

[00:14:23] Sam Parr: I'm going to do the math. I'm going to try and do public math. So if I understood you correctly, that means roughly, you started at the age of 30 at 3 million. By 40 it was 30. By 50 it was 300, and by 60 it was 450.

[00:14:38] Steve Houghton: Oh, no, I did better than four. When I say half as much, I didn't add a zero. I would be 3 billion, right?

[00:14:45] Sam Parr: Yeah. Oh, so 1.5 billion.

[00:14:48] Steve Houghton: I'm probably not quite there.

[00:14:50] Steve Houghton: If you could tell me what oil is going to sell for precisely next year and interest rates, I could be precise. But I mean somewhere in the high nine figures to low ten figures.

[00:15:02] Sam Parr: Which it doesn't matter right at that point. Like, what's the difference? What's the difference actually between 200 million and 1 billion. Like is there any difference?

[00:15:11] Steve Houghton: No, man. Maybe a little bit, but not really. The fact is, I mean, I live a great life. I mean, I love my life, I love what I do, and but I would say I've always had this fear of going backwards, not voluntarily. And so I've always wanted to expand my lifestyle much slower than I could because of that fear, if I'm really honest.

[00:15:38] Sam Parr: Can I ask you about some strategy and philosophy questions? Because. Sure. To ten x from 30 to 40 to 40 to 50 to ten x, and then almost ten x again. I mean, that's like magnificent. I'm going to use phrases that make sense to me, but I don't know if you see it this way, but from when I hear your story, it sounds like you're betting it all often, meaning you're putting a lot of your assets or cash money into non-liquid ish assets that you control, which I consider like betting, which you can debate if that's how you see it.

[00:16:12] Steve Houghton: Now, I don't see it that way. And the reason why is one thing is I rarely sell anything. I hate to sell things. I am an acquirer. I want to acquire quality assets in a distressed situation and then keep them forever. I tell people my exit strategy is deaf, hopefully many years down the road, but if you have a great asset, why do you want to sell it? You just have to pay taxes on it. So part of that is the assets. If you when you have quality assets and then I don't put debt on any of my oil and gas stuff, because oil and gas is just too volatile. That's the way you get wiped out in the oil and gas business. But I do have some debt on my on my self-storage business, but it's all non-recourse. So I may lose a property or something if things go bad, but they can't come after my other assets. And so I try to bifurcate my ownership so that I'm not betting everything over and over.

[00:17:15] Sam Parr: So would you say if you had to generalize what you do for a living? Is it real estate and the types of real estate being oil and gas assets as well as self-storage assets? I'm a total I'm a technologist. I own internet companies. I don't know anything about real estate.

[00:17:28] Steve Houghton: Yeah, I think of myself as oil and gas and real estate.

[00:17:31] Sam Parr: And what does oil and gas? What does that actually mean? Could you explain like I'm five to a dummy.

[00:17:35] Steve Houghton: Oil and gas can mean so many things, but the area of oil and gas I'm in is I buy the minerals, which is in the United States, you can own the subsurface rights. So all of the oil that is in the ground, when you own the mineral interest, you own that. And then I lease it to the big operators like Exxon, Devon, whoever else. You know, there's a whole host of them and they come in and drill and develop my oil assets, and they pump it out of the ground. They use their money, their skills, but they pay me rent of 25% of everything they get out of the ground. That's how I make my money in oil and gas.

[00:18:21] Sam Parr: Between the ages of 30 and let's say mid 40s, late 40s when a lot of people are in the grind mode. Were you able to take any liquidity or was it mostly non liquid?

[00:18:38] Steve Houghton: No, I had I had a fair amount of liquidity, but I would just roll it back into something and I was still I wouldn't say by the time I was 35, I wasn't living super frugally. I mean, we had a nice lifestyle, but not a lifestyle that was reflective of probably how well we were doing just because we wanted to reinvest it, and I didn't. I wanted to keep my money working.

[00:19:02] Sam Parr: You seem fairly introspective, like you examine your life a lot, and because you're so wealthy now, I'm curious, have you noticed any thresholds where life changed at a certain number or a certain monthly spend?

[00:19:18] Steve Houghton: I'll always remember in my early 40s, waking up and just realizing, wow, I don't really need to work. And I had dreamed my whole life of getting to that point, and I had always imagined how wonderful it would be. And yet I felt just the opposite. I almost felt like I had lost my purpose and not purpose, because my purpose has always been bigger than just making money. But it was so disappointing because I thought it was going to feel one way, and I didn't really feel any different.

[00:19:51] Sam Parr: What was that number?

[00:19:52] Steve Houghton: I don't remember exactly, because I don't even remember the exact year or time that it was, but it was under 100.

[00:19:59] Sam Parr: And was it like a certain amount of income where you're like, oh, I'm good.

[00:20:02] Steve Houghton: Yeah. I just could see I could see what was coming in. And it was really stable income, off stabilized properties, and I was never going to spend it all. And ironically, it was disappointing a little bit. And I can't even say why it was disappointing. It just was anticlimactic.

[00:20:25] Sam Parr: Now that brings us to pillar number two emotional wealth. This is the part of Steve's life that brings him the most fulfillment.

[00:20:34] Steve Houghton: Emotional wealth is about relationships, and that's about whether it's relationships in your your marriage, your family, your friends, your business colleagues. It's about having meaningful relationships. And in my book, I talk about this idea of the triad of relationships. And it's the idea that all strong relationships rest on a three legged stool of sorts. The first is trust and loyalty. The second is striving for competence, and the third is fun to be with. And you think about all of your relationships. If your wife, you trust her, she's loyal. She's super fun to be with, but man, you just don't respect her. She's just like dumb and, you know, not competent at anything that's going to erode your relationship over time. And, you know, the same is with your work colleagues. You know, if they're super fun to be with and they're really competent. But man, you just can never turn your back on them because they're not loyal and you just can't trust them. It's not going to work. And so long relationships, whether it's commercial relationships or personal relationships, they need those three elements or they're doomed.

[00:21:54] Sam Parr: This is a pillar that he luckily began to understand and respect very early on in his life.

[00:22:01] Steve Houghton: Eventually, I stepped back and just reminded myself of what my life really was about. And yeah, money is fun and it's exciting. And I love being successful and I love deals. But what I really love is my family. And where I really find joy is, is in my marriage and my kids and my close and loyal friendships and investing. You know, it gave me the opportunity to do things with my family that, you know, it was fun. And we in that period began to expand our lifestyle more than we previously had. And I just find a lot more joy in that than I still love work and I still want to continue to grow and build my business. But I'm far more interested in in my family and my kids and my wife and my friends.

[00:22:55] Sam Parr: What things do you think that you've spent on that has genuinely made you and your family happier?

[00:23:04] Steve Houghton: We bought a lake house. It's a place that we all love to go, and we have so many good memories there, and we continue to enjoy being there. And so it's less about the house and more about being together. In the last four years we bought a ski. I love snow skiing. I learned to ski as an adult because I couldn't afford it as a poor kid growing up in Utah. I had to move to Texas to learn how to snow ski, which is a little funny, but I love snow skiing. All my kids and my wife ski. And so we bought a place a few years ago, and that has been really fun.

[00:23:43] Sam Parr: Now, on the topic of spending, I tried to find out how much Steve actually spends per month. Turns out he's not the guy to ask.

[00:23:50] Steve Houghton: Honestly, I don't know what I spend anymore. I mean, I have a bookkeeper. I could go find it out. I kind of don't want to.

[00:23:57] Sam Parr: How high do you think it would be?

[00:23:58] Steve Houghton: It would be six figures a month, but it would probably bother me to know. But I know, I know, I'm taking in many times what I'm spending. And to me, that's one of the luxuries of being where I am. The first 30 years I could have told you exactly what I was spending, but you get to a point that you don't have to do that. And to me, I like not having to be so focused on that.

[00:24:32] Sam Parr: All right, let's dive in to the third pillar for Steve. And that's the mental pillar. You might immediately think of mental health, and I'm sure that's definitely part of it. But Steve takes it a step further. To him, mental acuity means a never ending commitment to learning and growing.

[00:24:48] Steve Houghton: Mental is more of a mindset and, you know, learning to have a mindset that is continuing to learn, that stays curious, that is able to change its mind. I think being very deliberate about optimism and seeing the good. I think those are all part of being mentally rich.

[00:25:06] Sam Parr: Do you work for that? Like do you read certain things? Do you do drills? And you know, it's easy. Being physically fit is like straightforward and it requires work. I have to spend an hour a day like working towards it, and I have to avoid certain things. What are your habits or drills or routines for the mental part?

[00:25:26] Steve Houghton: One thing that we've done is we have an audible, a family audible account, and we are very deliberate about listening to books and learning that way. And we read also. But my routine is I listen to something first because I can do that while I'm exercising or doing something else. And then if it's really good, I'll buy the book and and read a physical copy where I can notate it. So I think continuous learning, I make a deliberate effort to listen to perspectives different than what is mine. And so like from a political standpoint, I'm really interested in hearing what people who view the world differently from me, how they view it, at least if they're smart. I started listening to the All In podcast, you know, 5 or 6 years ago, because there's some really liberal guys that are very smart now. They're not so liberal today as they were when I started listening to them. But the reason I listened to them was because I wanted to hear what really intelligent liberals were thinking, because I tend to have a far more conservative perspective on things and continuing to learn new things. You know, a number of years ago, one of my kids wanted me to pay them with this new service called Venmo. And I'm like, I don't want to use Venmo. I just can't I just give you a cash or write you a check. And he said, dad, do you remember how your parents never learned to use email? And as they got older, they became increasingly isolated because of that. I downloaded Venmo that day and have used it ever since. And so, you know, continuing to learn new things and, you know, stay up with how the world is continuing to change. I think that's all part of mental wealth. You know, if you're still thinking all the same thoughts you thought 20 years ago, there's a problem. You need to have new opinions. You need to revise your opinions. You need to stay flexible and humble in your opinions because things change. And you know, the last ten years I feel so differently about so many different things.

[00:27:33] Sam Parr: And another point on the mental pillar comes from Steve's wife.

[00:27:37] Steve Houghton: Tell you something my wife started doing probably six years ago, maybe a little bit more. She's on Instagram and, you know, she's got over a million people in her community. But she started on her stories just expressing gratitude for something every morning. And she's a Turtle Creek Lane. It's been magical for me. I remember after 6 or 7 months, I saw a marked change in Jennifer where she became, I mean, it was like she retrained her brain. And as I have talked to her about it since, she said, I realized one day when I wasn't very busy that without really thinking about it, I was focusing on positive things rather than all of the problems that she otherwise would have been thinking about. And I am convinced that so much of, you know, listen, I've got a good life. I'm. I'm very lucky and fortunate, but I also think that we're only able to take in just this little bit of stimulus in our world. And I think that as we train our brains what to look for, we see more of it and we find more of it. And I think that when I was 18, selling books, I was exposed to the power of optimism. And it changed my life in a very positive way. And I think that it's blessed me and my family greatly.

[00:29:14] Sam Parr: I know that the idea of just focusing on the positive, that might sound really cliché, but I want to seriously focus on that just for a minute. The point is, is that even though the brain, it definitely plays a huge role in shaping how we naturally view the world, we can absolutely train our brain. It's just like building any habit. You push yourself until it sticks. And again, it is kind of the advice that you get all the time, but that's the irony. We need to keep hearing it for it to really sink in. I had another billionaire friend, by the way. Tell me the reason he's happy all the time. And and he's one of the happier people that I've ever met. He says that he chooses to be happy. He goes, I don't really want to be happy all the time, but I make that decision early on in the morning. And I knew this guy, by the way, before he got wealthy. He was always like this. He would just say that he made the choice that day to be happy. And with Steve, a significant part of his success and happiness, it comes from his intentional, consistent effort to train his brain by keeping it engaged and maintaining a positive outlook. But speaking of training, let's talk about the easier kind physical. That's Steve's next pillar.

[00:30:22] Steve Houghton: The way we experience our lives are with our body, and if we are sick, infirmed, overweight, we are not going to have as joyful a life as if we are fit. And so having good eating routines and exercise routines and staying fit, you know, our food has been weaponized.

[00:30:44] Sam Parr: Yeah. That's insane. And that frustrates me because it seems like even regardless of money, we're on similar supply chains. Everyone's on similar supply chains. How do you spend money in order to improve your physical wealth?

[00:30:56] Steve Houghton: I don't buy sugar or processed items. We eat fresh foods like our ancestors ate, and we had to clean out our pantry and our fridge from, you know, everything has sugar in it. I think in 100 years people are going to look back at sugar. The way we look at cocaine 150 years ago, people would carry these little snuff boxes and they would, you know, if they were rich, they would pull it out and sniff it. And it made them feel better. And they thought it was healthy. And now we recognize that cocaine may temporarily make you feel better, but it doesn't. It's highly addictive. And anyway, I think sugar is the same way. And I went off of sugar about seven years, 7 or 8 years ago, and it was hard for three weeks. But after about three weeks it was like, ah, it's just not that interesting and it's so much easier.

[00:31:46] Sam Parr: Do you have a private doctor or anything?

[00:31:48] Steve Houghton: Yeah.

[00:31:49] Sam Parr: Have a concierge doctor and that was like a pretty big needle mover, if you ask me.

[00:31:53] Steve Houghton: Yeah, but physical health to me is fairly simple. It's not that complicated. At least you can do a few things that really moves the needle. And that doesn't mean that's everything you should do. I think we're still learning more things, but I think cleaning up the food that we eat is a big step, and then staying active is another one.

[00:32:14] Sam Parr: And we'll quickly get to the final pillar, which is spiritual.

[00:32:18] Steve Houghton: Spiritual is realizing that your life is about something bigger than just yourself, and living for something bigger than just yourself. That doesn't require organized religion. It might help, but it's not about any specific faith, but it's about believing in things that are bigger than you, and you don't even have to have a faith in a supernatural, necessarily. It's just living for something more than just yourself.

[00:32:49] Sam Parr: The pieces of Steve's framework, the pillars they themselves aren't really revolutionary, to be honest. And when you lay them out like we did here, they seem really obvious. Financial, mental, physical, spiritual and emotional makes a ton of sense. I have something similar, by the way. I call it the four F's. It's finance, fitness, family, fun. So this is a really common way to look at life. But what I find so impressive about Steve and why I respect him so much, and frankly, why I've been thinking about the conversation that I've had with him. It's been about 5 or 7 days since I've last talked to him. I've been thinking about him constantly in this conversation. It isn't the specifics of the framework, though. I did learn a lot from that. What really stood out was how his framework keeps him constantly reflecting on himself and his life, and I think that's a big reason for his success. The fact that he was so intentional and by the way, so kind. I kept thinking about that a lot. It's kind of like running a business. He's tracking key metrics, and he's making adjustments where he's failing and falling behind. I love that. I think this can actually shine a lot of light on a topic we've talked about on this podcast a lot, which is after selling your business and why it can feel so unfulfilling. We put a lot of pressure on very specific moments in how we want them to change our lives forever. But the truth is, is that there's not really a jackpot that you can hit in life in order to, like, feel really successful. I mean, we've talked to a lot of people who have sold their businesses for a lot of money, and they'll say the same thing, which is like, I didn't really feel much different. In fact, it's a constant effort and a constant intention to provide yourself with that type of fulfillment. But that fulfillment, there's always something trying to rob it from you, which is your own ego. And Steve has accounted for that.

[00:34:33] Steve Houghton: I certainly have an ego, but I've also tried to recognize what my ego is and not feed it, because ego is one of those things. The more you feed it, the hungrier it gets. I want to do well, but you know, I have a close friend who has many, many times what I have, and I don't feel an ounce of jealousy because he's earned it. I mean, he was not lucky. It's not like he just made one great deal. He's a super smart guy and he's been very smart and wise. And so the thing I'm most proud of about my life isn't, isn't the money I have.

[00:35:11] Sam Parr: What is it?

[00:35:11] Steve Houghton: It's my family. It's the fact that I'm. I still love my my wife Jennifer of 38 years. And it's that my best friends are my adult kids. And I'm glad that I have money. And, you know, make no mistake, I'm trying to be careful never to lose it because it's a lot of fun and I like it. And I'm glad that I have it Because it gives me opportunities. And another thing that's fun about having money is it's so easy to do nice things for people, and it's not like you're mortgaging your future to change their life. I mean, it's easy to to do things that really make a difference in other people's lives.

[00:35:50] Sam Parr: What's an example of something that you like to do for people that you you regularly do, and you notice that it makes you happy and makes others happier?

[00:35:57] Steve Houghton: So I lost my mom a couple of years ago, and there's something about losing a parent that is really hard. And I remember the first time I did this, I was I was having a hard time with her death, and I was at a gas station, and I noticed a lady who was about my mom's age, and she just pulled up in her car, and I went over to her and I said, you don't know me, and I don't want to be creepy, but if you would let me fill your car with gas, I would be grateful. And, uh, and and I said, it's in honor of my mom who passed away. And it made her. I mean, she was shocked. She couldn't believe it. And so I put gas in her car and and she drove away and I never saw her again. And yet the whole day for me was different after that. It just changed the feeling that I had that day. And being kind to somebody that can do nothing for you in return and doesn't know who you are, but it's just because of who you are. It just it brings me and I think probably everybody, so much joy. And it's kind of hard to completely articulate. But anyway, that would be an example. But I try to I'm interested in doing things for individuals more than I am putting my name on a building, you know, with some institution that has billions of dollars. And, you know, any money I give them is going to be a drop in the bucket.

[00:37:33] Sam Parr: All right, my friends, you've made it to the end. I have really enjoyed talking about. And to Steve. I thought he was fantastic. I didn't actually know that he had a book. When I asked him to come on this podcast, and he did not mention me to promote this, but I went and got his book. It's called Rich Routines, and he breaks down what we talked about here on Moneywise. He just breaks it down even further. I'm actually in the middle of reading it and so check it out if you liked Steve and if you liked this episode, tweet at me. I'm at the Sampah and my friends, if you liked this podcast, I have this community. It's called Hampton. You can check it out. Join Hampton. Com. The reason I'm able to get guests like this is because of my community. Hampton. We have people like Steve. In fact, I got introduced to Steve through his friend who's a member of Hampton, and I'm able to have conversations like we're having on Moneywise. And I have those conversations constantly with people who are with tens or hundreds of millions and a lot of times who are even billionaires, and they're in Hampton.