Tommy Mello's Net Worth is Over $1 Billion. His Goal? $1 Million in Daily Compound Interest.

We spoke to Tommy Mello in this week's episode of Moneywise. Tommy started his career painting garage doors and built A1 Garage Door Service into a billion-dollar business that continues to grow. He's already had one significant exit and has several more planned in the coming years.

Like all Moneywise episodes, Tommy breaks down his net worth, income, portfolio, and monthly expenses and then we pick it all apart.

We also went deep on how Tommy built his wealth in a blue-collar business, his strategy of continual exits to build wealth, and why he's committed to creating millionaires among his employees.

Below you'll find my summary of the episode along with the entire transcript.

And by the way...this podcast, the concept of it came from Hampton, a private vetted community for founders and entrepreneurs. If you like what you hear on Moneywise, you should know that these are the kinds of conversations we have all the time in Hampton. So if you've had a business exit or you're growing something with real traction, check it out. New Moneywise episodes come out weekly.

Listen to this episode on:

• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• YouTube
• Amazon Music

Now, below are the notes and the full transcript.

The Numbers

• Net Worth: "Right above ten figures" (over $1 billion)
• A1 Garage Door Service: Currently owns 47% (down from 100% previously)
• First Exit: Just under $30 million EBITDA, with a multiple "in the 20s"
  • $100 million went to employees
  • "A couple hundred million" went to Tommy
  • Rolled remaining equity
• Current Portfolio Breakdown:
  • $100 million in S&P 500
  • $60 million in real estate
  • $100-150 million in business investments (expected to grow to $300-400 million in next couple years)
  • Goal: $1+ billion in equity just in A1 within next two years
• Business Investments Example: $4 million for 35% of a company expected to exit for $80 million
• Monthly Personal Burn: Approximately $833,333 per month ($10 million annually)
  • Includes family office with 25 employees, CFO, personal staff, hotels, gas, salaries, benefits
• Real Estate:
  • Two houses under construction costing "just under $100 million" total
  • Paradise Valley house: 50,000 sq ft with lazy river, 7,000 sq ft gym, cold plunges, mini golf, shooting range, theaters, underground garage
  • Idaho lake house: 23,000 sq ft, three levels, all glass, on five acres on Ponderay Lake
  • Paradise Valley property alone: $12.5 million for five acres ($2.5 million per acre)
  • Construction costs: $800-900 per square foot

From Painting Garage Doors to Building a Billion-Dollar Business

Tommy Mello's journey to becoming a billionaire started in the most unexpected way - painting garage doors for $100 each. What began as a side hustle quickly evolved when he noticed how much money technicians were making in the garage door business.

In 2006, Tommy started A1 Garage Door Service with a roommate. The company struggled initially, and by 2010, Tommy gave his partner an ultimatum - take the business and debt or let Tommy take over. His partner left, and Tommy convinced his parents to move from Michigan to help build the business.

Fast forward 12 years to 2022, and Tommy had his first major exit with just under $30 million of EBITDA. He set a record for the multiple "in the 20s." From this exit, $100 million went to employees, Tommy took "a couple hundred million" into his account, and rolled the remaining equity.

Why Every Business Should Race Toward a Sale

One of Tommy's core business philosophies is that every business should be racing toward a sale. He believes it's "selfish not to" because it creates a clear goal for everyone involved.

Tommy argues that while owners and founders might be comfortable with the status quo, everyone else on the team doesn't see a "winning sight." Without a clear exit strategy, employees don't have the same motivation as the owner.

His strategy involves:

• Buying businesses for 3-5x EBITDA
• Fixing them and combining them to increase value
• Giving employees equity so they're "sprinting as if they're the owner"
• Planning for regular exits to create liquidity events for everyone

This approach has not only built Tommy's wealth but has created 25 millionaires within his company. He's now implemented a profit units program that gives technicians a path to earn equity in the business, with 49 employees earning equity in the past year.

The Compound Interest Obsession

Tommy is obsessed with compound interest and the power of doubling money. His current financial goal is to generate $1 million a day in compound interest within the next three years.

He explains his thinking about wealth accumulation:

• The rule of 72: at 10% interest, money doubles every seven years
• Tommy aims to double his money every four years
• With 28 more years of active work, he calculates seven more doubles
• Starting with $1 billion: "Then it goes to two, four, eight, 16, 32, 64. And if you double it again it's 128."

This obsession with growth extends to his personal discipline. Tommy maintains a rigorous schedule that includes:

• 50 hours sleeping weekly
• 50 hours working
• 10 hours working out
• Time for family, reading, and personal activities

To maintain this discipline, he relies on accountability partners who keep him on track with workouts, eating habits, and work ethic.

The Cost of Success

While Tommy's wealth is extraordinary, he's candid about the sacrifices required to reach his level of success. He tells people who aspire to reach $100 million that they'll likely miss seeing their children grow up and might face divorce if they want what he has achieved.

To manage his demanding schedule and personal life, Tommy has built an extensive support system:

• Two executive assistants
• A personal chef
• A driver
• Two household staff
• A full-time handyman
• A family office with 25 employees

Despite his intense work ethic, Tommy is now thinking about being more intentional with his time to be a good father. He's planning to dedicate 3-5 hours a day of focused time with his kids, noting that fatherhood, not money, will be what ultimately slows him down.

Other Key Quotes

On his competitive nature: "I don't care what I play, what I do, if I'm playing your grandma and cribbage, I'm gonna kick her ass."

On continuing to push beyond already having billions: "My mom said that to me once, and I go, mom, do you think Tiger Woods mom came up to him and said, Tiger, you won four majors. You're good to go. No more golf. Like this is in my DNA. This is what I enjoy doing."

On the fulfillment of helping others succeed: "I remember watching them buy houses and just take care of their families, sometimes their parents. And and it was cool."

On his future philanthropy plans: "This next chapter I'm going into is, you know, 503 C what nonprofits do I start getting behind. What am I going to do with the church I go to, which is impact church. And not only money do I give, but how do I give time, effort and energy as well?"

Transcript

[00:00:00] Tommy Mello: I have a real chance here. By the time I'm 45, to have billions in an account that I could withdraw. I don't care what I play, what I do, if I'm playing your grandma and cribbage, I'm gonna kick her ass. My mom said that to me once, and I go, mom, do you think Tiger Woods mom came up to him and said, Tiger, you won four majors. You're good to go. No more golf. Like this is in my DNA. This is what I enjoy doing.

[00:00:33] Harry Morton: Tommy Mellow started his career painting garage doors. Now he's a billionaire and he's still painting garage doors. Technically. This is a guy who never quits and never goes easy. He plays to win. In this episode of Moneywise, he's going to tell us what it's like to ride a blue collar business to the billionaire class, the sacrifice it took, and why he's on a mission to make his employees millionaires. I'm Harry Morton, and this is Moneywise, a podcast. Not about how to make money, but how life changes after you already have and really quick. This podcast is a show for Hampton Zampa's highly vetted private community for high net worth founders. Go and check it out at Join Hampton. Com. Okay, let's get right to it. I said Tommy was a billionaire, but what does that actually look like for some needed context? Tommy is the CEO of a garage door installation company called A1. He's already exited once, which we'll get some details on shortly. And he's planning on a few more exits this year alone.

[00:01:29] Tommy Mello: I guess right above ten figures there, right at the ten. You know, I'm 41, which is so cool. So the problem is right now is I don't have a lot of liquidity. A lot of the money is still tied up in the company. So this next turn will probably be next year or the year after. And then I'll roll again. And then you want a 4 to 7 x that money. But here's what people forget. There's a pot of gold you're pulling out. I've invested in a lot of great companies. Now I'm not a super involved with the companies I invest in because I'm the CEO of A1, I've got an obligation to the company and my investors that I'm going to focus on A1 and continue to make it what it is. And this is where I live die and breathe. But I've invested in a lot of companies and they know about it. They don't care. And a lot of them actually make A1 stronger, believe it or not. So the companies I've invested in, I'll give you a cool example. I put $4 million in a company for 35%. It will exit next summer and that 4 million will turn into 80. That'll do. It's crazy because this is not uncommon, and they're everywhere. And there's a lot of those investments that I've made. That's a really good one.

[00:02:37] Harry Morton: So ten figure net worth. How's that broken down between the business, real estate, stocks, whatever else you got going on.

[00:02:45] Tommy Mello: See 100 million in the S&P 500. About 60 so far is in real estate. There is a lot of businesses and it's hard to put a valuation on that depending on the multiples and whatnot, but probably another 100 150 on that. But it'll equate to in the next couple of years, 3 to 400. And then in the business, my goal is within the next two years is to have over a billion of equity just in A1. And then if we sell, have half of that come out.

[00:03:19] Harry Morton: Casual man. Yeah. Sounds crazy. Um, a lot of rich guys invest in tech. Tell me about, like, why the interest in real estate?

[00:03:26] Tommy Mello: The apartments I own. A1 rents from me. When the technicians come to train to Phoenix, these two commercial buildings, they pay me rent. Now, here's the deal. A1 is in 43 markets. Let's say I went and bought an amazing building after this next turn in every single market. Not only is A1 paying me rent, but if I put a ten year lease on that, I could sell it for 55 to 60% more. So if I paid a million, they'd give me 1.6 for it. Any P investor in real estate because it's got a great company that's paying rent every single month. Net net 90 or whatever. So that's the cool thing about real estate is when you can pay yourself and there's depreciation. There's all kinds of like there's two tax codes, there's the normal tax code, and there's this other tax code that's really like I bought this in an opportunity zone and there's accelerated depreciation. And there's certain things you could do in trusts. And it's open and available for everybody. It's just you got to get lawyers and you got to get people to put it together. It's not like cheap to do this stuff.

[00:04:34] Harry Morton: What is your monthly burn Tommy like personally?

[00:04:37] Tommy Mello: So I've got a family office and I've hired about 25 people and the CFO, so I think I'm burning about a year now. Look, this is all of the people that work for me personally at the house and everything. And then my family office and this is hotels, this is gas, this is salaries and benefits. It's about 10 million a year. But you got to understand, they've got to run every other business that I've invested in.

[00:05:08] Harry Morton: Tell me about your house. It sounds wild. I want to hear about your house.

[00:05:11] Tommy Mello: Oh, boy. Well, I bought a nice house in Paradise Valley. And then I decided that we were going to build another house in PV. That's pretty special. It's, uh.

[00:05:20] Harry Morton: Tell me about it.

[00:05:21] Tommy Mello: I'm gonna have a lot of guests there, but it's, you know, lazy river. It's 50 zero zero zero square feet. It's going to be a pretty nice one. It's, uh, 7000 square foot gym, two cold plunges, saunas, mini golf, shooting range, two theaters, underground garage. It's got a few different living quarters. It's badass. And it will be the nicest house in Arizona. And then the Idaho house. Very nice house, 20 300 zero square feet, three levels, all glass on the lake. Ponderay lake. It's just. It's on five acres. It's just going to be. But what's so crazy about these houses is so many people are going to get to experience them and stay the night and have fun. And so many business deals will be made from these houses. So in a way, I'm like, this is like, at least I tell myself this and it might be a lie. I think it's real is by doing this, I mean my entire family. We had my mom's 70th birthday, my dad's 70th birthday, Brie's niece, we had our third birthday. Like, this is where we we all know we're we're going to Tommy's. Everything's taken care of, and we're going to live our best life, and we're going to have the time of our life. And that, to me, means more than anything. And it's not, look what I did for you guys I paid for. I never once ever have an IOU list or like, try to bring up ever, ever. That's not who I am and I can't wait for people to come in. I had a technician come in last week. He's like, where do you want me to stay? I'm like, in my house. And that's the deal. We went in the cold plunge together. It was super cool. They spoil me if I get a chance to spoil people. I love to do it.

[00:06:57] Tommy Mello: By the way.

[00:06:58] Harry Morton: What is that? The new house with all the stuff you described. What's that costing to build?

[00:07:03] Tommy Mello: So just the property. We set a record. It's $2.5 million an acre. It's five acres. That's before you even start the build. You're looking at, um, around 800 to 900 bucks a square foot. So you do the math. It's a very, very expensive house. It's going to be a crazy amount of money. I mean, both houses all in at just under 100 million. But I think they'll make exponentially more than that. And not to mention, I feel like they're going to be the nicest houses. They're going to make a lot of equity.

[00:07:36] Harry Morton: $100 million for just two houses is crazy, though, by the way he's describing them. They sound more like luxury theme parks. And he got to this point by going from painting garage doors to owning and building a company in that same industry. Now, garage door servicing is far from our usual tech guest, and that means there are a lot of different lessons he's learned on his way to extreme wealth. Those lessons shaped how he spends, why he's committed to making his employees millionaires, and why he believes every business should be built with an exit in mind for the benefit of everyone involved. But before we get deep into that, let's hear about how he ended up owning and exiting from A1.

[00:08:11] Tommy Mello: My one roommate told me one day he's like, I got a job managing a garage door company and I'm like, I started laughing. I just remember I was like, what? I'm like, what goes wrong with a garage door? And he's like, dude, it's a pretty busy business. Like, there's a lot of technicians that work here. Six months goes by. He's making great money. And he goes, hey, dude, would you ever consider painting garage doors for me? He goes, I'll get you 100 bucks a door. You're a hustler. You always figure out ways to to just make money. I think you could do pretty well at this. I'm like, yeah. I went on Craigslist. I hired a painter. It was this old man taught me how to paint, and I got to the point where I was painting ten doors on Saturday. Ten doors on Sunday. So two grand a week. And as I'm meeting up with these technicians, I'm realizing they're making a lot of money. This is like the heyday of Phoenix. 2006 is like the market was at the tippy top, and my other roommate started working for him as a technician, and now he was the top sales guy.

[00:09:06] Tommy Mello: And I knew business. I knew a little bit. So I'm like, I asked my other roommate, let's start a business. And A1 just happened to fall first in the phone book. We struggled. I mean, we made enough money. I remember we did cash jobs, we split it. We paid our rent out of it. But I used to get a lot of anxiety and animosity because he'd smoke weed all day. Mind you, this guy is one of my best friends. He's my roommate and he's my business partner. So it was a hard conversation. 2010 I gave him an ultimatum. You could take the business and the debt and make all the payments or all. I'll take it. And he said, you keep it. He goes, I'm going to move to Montana. We're still best of friends. And then I got my mom and stepdad to move from Michigan, and I said, you guys are going to have to take a leap of faith on me, but I'm going to build something really special here. And, uh, they did.

[00:09:59] Harry Morton: 12 years later, in 2022, Tommy had his first exit.

[00:10:03] Tommy Mello: It was just under 30 million of EBITDA. And, um, we set a record for the multiple. It was it was, you know, in the 20s. So that was a lot. And then 100 million went out to the employees, and I had a couple hundred that made it into my account. And then the rest of it I rolled equity. So.

[00:10:20] Tommy Mello: Okay.

[00:10:21] Tommy Mello: And then of course, I had to pay taxes.

[00:10:23] Harry Morton: Sure sure, sure. 200 million. That's obviously insane. What did you do with that money?

[00:10:28] Tommy Mello: Well, I have a really, really, really, really smart guy that worked with me. His job was to help companies get to exit. And this was by far, like the massive deal. But he knew exactly what to do, what lawyers to get, How to start a family office. What? The Goldman account. Exactly how to set up the trusts. And a lot of that made it into the S&P 500 of March of 2023. And it was two record years. A lot of family members I gave money to, I gifted a lot, a lot, a lot of people.

[00:11:03] Harry Morton: So you own 47% of A1 at this point, is that correct?

[00:11:06] Tommy Mello: Yep. Yeah.

[00:11:07] Harry Morton: So what's that like as an entrepreneur who built everything? Did everything. Owns everything to owning obviously what is now a minority stake. How do you feel about that change in dynamic or is there a change in dynamic?

[00:11:18] Tommy Mello: There's there's horror stories and there's great stories. For me, it was um, they really were curious to see what it was like to work with me. And they said, is he going to be a humble student or is he going to be an authoritarian and come in? And so they came in and they said, here's what we'd like, Tommy. We'd like you to take all the information your CFO, your fpna team, everything and get it to look like this. Because this is how we work with our major fund, like the major company partnerships. So we did that faster than they've ever seen. And I kept calling them up and asking them questions and saying, what do you guys feel about this? They asked me really smart questions to get me to think outside of the box and look, there's no better partner. I could have found these guys. They're so amazing. And I'm not just saying that like, I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

[00:12:11] Harry Morton: Tommy has a plan, and that plan works because of his relationship with his investors. His goal is to keep growing the business and keep exiting. We'll talk more about that in a few minutes. But first, let's talk about what sets. Running a blue collar physical world business. Apart from the tech companies we typically talk about.

[00:12:29] Tommy Mello: I will say this a lot of the guys I work with and gals, they didn't have a good upbringing. They were born into a family curse of barely making ends meet and struggle and they weren't told they were loved. And some of them didn't go through make it through high school. So in a lot of ways, I've had to become a father to some of these guys and tell them how much I care about them and want them to succeed, and to start learning what money really is. And instead of thinking about how you're going to spend it, think about how it's going to make you compound interest. And I know a lot about software and SaaS products and the rule of 40. You know, I think the main thing that separates me is and a lot of these blue collar companies is we make our money based on EBITDA, not annual recurring revenue. I'm jealous that I can spend a fortune and borrow a bunch of money and raise funds and get MRR and RR. But I remember we were at 5 million of EBITDA and I'm like, wow, the company's making $5 million a year, and then we hit 20, then we hit 40 and then we hit 60. I've got a path to get to $1 billion of EBITDA, and I know exactly how we're going to do it. And it's kind of been preordained. It's like already been manifested and people are like, but why? Like when's enough? Enough. And I'm like, my mom said that to me once, and I go, mom, do you think Tiger Woods mom came up to him and said, Tiger, you won four majors. You're good to go. No more golf. Like this is in my DNA. This is what I enjoy doing. Like I don't come to work anymore because I have to.

[00:13:58] Harry Morton: You've got three more exits planned for 2026. What's the financial goal there?

[00:14:03] Tommy Mello: Well, that's where the real money is made. I mean, right now a lot of the stuff is illiquid. The S&P 500 money is pretty liquid. I could pull the money out, sell the shares pretty quickly there. It's going to be 3 to 4 hopefully exits and just take that money. And the goal is to get more diversified. The goal is to be more diversified in real estate. Different states, even different countries is to be way deeper into stocks, way more other business investments. I love A1, I still wish I owned 100% of it, but I first of all, Elon Musk owns some 13 something percent. You know, he's got different companies. But SpaceX. Jeff Bezos owns I think, 8.3% of Amazon. This is how it works. This is how you play the game. So you take these exits. Now once you go public you borrow against the stock. You never sell the stock. You just borrow against it. That way you don't have to pay taxes.

[00:14:58] Harry Morton: When you were 23 and you started A1, was there any doubt that you'd reached this level in your mind where you are today? Was it a goal in your mind or it was just like winning success a goal? Like did you have like, okay, I'm going to be a billionaire and I'm going to be making $1 million.

[00:15:09] Tommy Mello: No, no, no.

[00:15:10] Tommy Mello: The billionaire I've looked this up since I was in my 20s. You know, there's about 3000 billionaires. It's a pretty exclusive club to be in. And a lot of the billionaires out there are not billionaires. Like, they'll never really have that cash. It's illiquid. There's no way to pull the money out. So you know I have a real chance here. By the time I'm I'm 41, by the time I'm 45 to have billions in an account that I could withdraw. I didn't know that it would be this level. It's kind of unfathomable. And here's the coolest thing is this compound interest people don't understand. Like the sacrifice it takes to not buy things that go buy my another house here and invest in a jet. I didn't buy a jet, and I still fly commercial most of the time. Like I'm still living well, well, well below my means because I'm like, once this thing turns on. I mean, I've got a list of people I want to bless a lot of people, but it takes money to make money. And I got to continue to be successful.

[00:16:07] Tommy Mello: And then all of a sudden when you got 500 million in Goldman Sachs, they do a lot of special things for you. If you look it up, they treat clients completely different at 500 million. And then that's how the rich get richer. It's crazy. And then you get these opportunities to get 23, 25, 27% IRR, which if you got $1 billion and you're making 23%, you got to realize that money is doubling every three years. You know, the rule of 72 says at 10%, your money doubles every seven years. So if you're making more than that, it's crazy. And here's what I want you to think about. Everyone listening. Think about how many doubles you have left in your life and how you grow that principal amount. And so if I'm able to double every four years and I'm going to go hard in the paint for the next 28, I've got seven more doubles. And you take a billion, then it goes to two, four, eight, 16, 32, 64. And if you double it again it's 128.

[00:17:12] Harry Morton: Tommy's got huge goals for his personal finances obviously.

[00:17:16] Tommy Mello: So my goal is to get to $1 million a day of compound interest within the next three years.

[00:17:22] Harry Morton: But exits are about more than just his own gains. He wants to make millionaires. So you've given or you gave 100 million to your leadership team during that that sale. Like tell me like, what was that moment like, I got to imagine you changed a couple people's lives overnight.

[00:17:38] Tommy Mello: You know? I didn't know what it was going to feel like. I remember doing the whiteboard math of if I got them involved to the level I did, and not every one of them had earned it in the same level. But almost every person, I didn't give them anything. It was like they sprinted with me next to me. I just remember watching them buy houses and just take care of their families, sometimes their parents. And and it was cool. I got to say, it's of course, everybody, you know, everybody wants like, how do I do this on the next turn? And it's impossible. I gave more on the first turn than I could possibly do on the second one, because it's not all my money anymore.

[00:18:16] Harry Morton: How many millionaires inside of A1 have you created, do you think?

[00:18:19] Tommy Mello: Well, I.

[00:18:20] Tommy Mello: Say there's about 25 now. And I'd say, I mean, listen, a lot of guys, they just have not learned how to save. They make 300 grand a year. I mean, I've got the best, I've got the Top Gun here. I mean, these guys are very good at what they do. They leave a smile on their customers faces. They fix it right the first time. They're trustworthy. They take care of our clients. They should be millionaires. But this what I've done now, instead of an equity incentive program, it's called profit units. And I give technicians a path to earn equity in the business. And this past year, 49 of them had earned equity, which is a record. So I bring them in their significant others to Mexico. There's 120 people going to Mexico in the first week of March, which is, uh, if you think about it, it's a lot of people, and it's a big, big thing.

[00:19:11] Harry Morton: You've said every business should be racing toward a sale. Why do you believe that?

[00:19:15] Tommy Mello: I think it's.

[00:19:15] Tommy Mello: Selfish not to. I think the people that helped you get to where you want to be see, most of the time, the owner, the founder, the CEO is like, well, I'm good. I'm making enough money, my family's happy. I'm not in a rush, but everybody else the CFO, the COO, the VP of Corporate development, whatever is on your team, they don't see a winning sight. Like, you know, the problem is you're allowed to take draws, you're allowed to pay yourself a W2 and then take draws at the end of the year, however many times you want. And so my big thing is like, why not have everybody sprint? Once you learn how to sell a business, how to go through a quality of earnings gap accounting. Accrual accounting, like once you learn the process, it's nerve racking. And they look at your past and they go through all this. It's excruciating. But now I'm like, there's no other way I'm going to do it. If you buy businesses and stack up the EBITDA, it no longer relies on, like the certain founders and just certain people. So when I learned that you could buy these businesses for three, 4 or 5 X and fix them and buy more of them and combine them, it's crazy. And then you can have everybody make a lot of money as part of doing the deal as well. So they're sprinting as if they're the.

[00:20:26] Tommy Mello: Owner.

[00:20:27] Tommy Mello: When you understand that piece, it's crazy. And then when you got software, you know, if it's AI enabled, you get 40 or 50 X revenue, which is nutty. I mean, yes, there's a lot of fundamentals the business needs to have. Don't get me wrong, it's not like everybody's trying to do software. Everybody and their brother. It's crazy. All my software buddies, all my real estate buddies are starting to try to get into home service right now.

[00:20:52] Harry Morton: Why? Just to put a bow on that. Like why?

[00:20:54] Tommy Mello: Well, when you hear about the multiples and they're like, it's just so practical. Like everyone needs an air conditioner when it doesn't work and it's 100 degrees out. You know, garage doors, when you break and your car gets stuck, you've got to get that fixed. When I'm around people, I never try to, like, use big words and make them think I'm like this crazy. I read a lot. I've got a lot of coaches, but I think they say this and I like it. They say, If Tommy could do it, why can't I? And what they just don't understand is the sacrifice it took. Like I always tell people, they're like, I want to get to 100 million. And I'm like, well, okay, no problem. You're not married, are you? They're like, well, yeah. And I'm like, you don't have young kids, do you? They're like, yeah. And I'm like, well, you're not going to see them grow up and you're going to get a divorce if you want. What I did. So don't think it doesn't come at a sacrifice.

[00:21:48] Harry Morton: Tommy is always in a race. A race to the exit, a race to the next big financial goal. He thrives on competition. It's the fuel that keeps him moving. The spark that makes him feel alive and with purpose. But meeting the demands of that drive without burning out. That's a whole operation.

[00:22:07] Tommy Mello: So I've got two executive assistants. Bree is super organized. I've got a chef. I've got a driver. I've got two people at the house. I've got a full time handyman. You know, there's 168 hours in a week. Spend 50 sleeping, 50. Working ten working out. You still got enough time to take your wife on a date every night, read your favorite book, watch your favorite show, spend time with the kids and still have 20 hours left over. I think the first thing you got to do is take control of your schedule. Stop making excuses because most people don't own their schedule, and they got a lot of time to kind of come up with what they should be doing. But when you learn how to master your schedules, you master everything. So I think that's the first thing. And then the second thing is I just I don't enjoy a whole lot of dead time. People go, how do you keep going? How do you start early and stay late? I'm like, oh, it's a lot of variety. It's not the same thing. I'm not sitting here podcasting ten straight hours. This is one podcast that I'm having a lot of fun at to disrupt the day. I did a four hour orientation earlier. I've got meetings after that, like it's just different variety and it's fun and I enjoy working out.

[00:23:14] Tommy Mello: I feel like the discipline, discipline is one of those things that just I feel like it's a massive, massive dopamine release. When you do something hard and you start your day with something hard. And I've created these accountability partners that don't let me off the hook. That's the secret. I know my Achilles heels and these accountability partners, they don't like it when I miss my workout. They don't like it when I'm not pushing myself hard. They don't like it when they knew I took a cheat meal. So that's the way to do it. And if you're married, you got to get your wife or your husband to do it with you. You tell them how important it is, and it's this little delayed gratification that changes everything. And unfortunately, most people I know, they have what I call creative justification. They create reasons why they're going to miss a workout, or why they're going to cheat on a meal or whatever it is. They figure out why they're not going to work as hard or why they're going to, you know, go binge drinking the whole weekend. And, you know, that's just a muscle. When you start flexing this idea of discipline, the world's your oyster.

[00:24:13] Harry Morton: How much do you want in your account before you start slowing down?

[00:24:18] Tommy Mello: Here's what I really look up to. Richard Branson. I don't think it's not necessarily slowing down. It's, um, how to be way more intentional with my time, where I'll work very hard from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and tonight I'm going to be probably having cocktails with 30 people that are all super high wealth business relationships. And some people will say, yeah, he's doing that for work. But the truth is, I'm doing that because I love it and I'm having fun. So I think I'm going to have to slow down if I'm going to be a good dad. I think that's the only way is to is to put together 3 to 5 hours a day, spend really intentional time with my kids. So that's really the only thing that's going to slow me down. It's not going to be money. But yeah, you know, God's been great, money's been great. And this next chapter I'm going into is, you know, 503 C what nonprofits do I start getting behind. What am I going to do with the church I go to, which is impact church. And not only money do I give, but how do I give time, effort and energy as well?

[00:25:28] Harry Morton: Tommy story isn't just about making money. It's about mastering the game, playing to win, and bringing others along for the ride. He's built himself into a billionaire, but more importantly, he's building millionaires in the process. Because at a certain point, wealth isn't about the numbers, it's about impact. True success isn't measured by how much you have, but by how many people you've helped. Whether it's through equity, mentorship, or simply leading by example, Tommy knows that giving back is the real end game, even if at the same time he's still obsessed with becoming a billionaire. But here's the thing not everyone is built to stop. Some people need the competition, the challenge. It's what keeps them moving and happy. If that's you, selling your business might not be the victory you think it is. That drive doesn't just disappear. We've heard from a lot of people on this show who went through a period of of real grief after leaving their business, and they inevitably start another one, whether they're planning to or not. Tommy knows himself. He's built to compete. Which is why he's still in the game. Still competing, still growing.

[00:26:25] Harry Morton: Because for him, an exit isn't an ending. It's just another move in a much bigger play. So if you love Tommy's story and you want to hang out with a bunch of hyper competitive, hyper successful people just like him, you've got to check out join Hamptons.com. It's a private community of founders and CEOs. We're in there having conversations just like this one all of the time. And I think you're going to really enjoy it. These are the conversations that just don't happen in public. So it's only inside of private communities like this that people really feel like they can open up and kind of share what's really going on inside of their businesses. So do check it out, join Hamptons.com. I also want to plug my own company, Lois Street. We produce this podcast if you like the sound of this show. If you want one just like it, you've got to check us out. Go to lowerstreet.com slash Moneywise for more information about how we can work with you to make stories just like this. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.