605: Is Wealth Built Through Diversification or Concentration?

Keith breaks down why real wealth is built through concentration, not diversification and explains how focusing on one main vehicle—like a specific real estate strategy, business, or career niche—creates the expertise and asymmetric returns diversification can't.  He also clarifies that diversification isn't useless; it's most powerful later in life as a wealth preservation tool, not a wealth builder. Contrasting building wealth with simply earning a living, showing why specialization is the key to higher income.  Finally, he highlights the one area where diversification truly shines: your relationships and network, which provide resilience, perspective, and long-term support. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/605 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: [email protected] Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text  FAMILY to 66866  Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review"  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com  Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, is wealth built through diversification or concentration? There is one clear answer. Then, in five year age increments, how should you think about wealth building and real estate at age 2025, 3035, and so on, all lay out each one today on get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  0:26   Flock homes helps multi family owners exit the operator grind, whether it's your six Plex or a 50 unit apartment through a 721 exchange, this defers your capital gains tax. It's a strategy long used by institutions. Now you can swap tenants and toilets for passive income and zero management request your initial valuation, see if your property qualifies at flock homes.com/gre, that's F, l, O, C, K, homes.com/gre,   Speaker 1  0:59   you're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  1:15   Welcome to GRE from Buffalo New York to Buffalo Wyoming and across 108 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to get rich education. I am back here with easy to understand language to help you learn why and how real estate has made more ordinary people wealthy than anything else, and in your personal path to wealth building, how do you think that wealth is achieved is it through diversification or concentration? Because there is a clear cut answer. There is no squishy wishy washy, a little of this and a little of that, or no major exceptions. No gray area here. And it's interesting because I have a CFA friend, that means chartered financial analyst who's really smart and really well trained, and yet he seems confused by this. We disagree on this one straight away. Do you think that you're going to build wealth if you diversify or if you concentrate? And if you're still undecided here, I'll give you a hint. I'm going to ask this integral question one last time and stress a word in this sentence for you. This could really help you out. Is wealth built through diversification or concentration? With that emphasis on built accumulated? The answer is that overwhelmingly, wealth is built through concentration, not diversification. Most people who actually create any really meaningful wealth, they didn't go sprinkle a little money everywhere. Instead, they really focused hard on one thing, whether that thing was a business or a career niche or a narrow set of high conviction investments or a specific real estate strategy, for example, single family rentals or self storage facilities or assisted living homes. And why? Well, because concentration amplifies your upside. It lets you develop expertise which gives you an edge over everybody else, and it's what turns average returns into asymmetric ones. Think about how Warren Buffett made massive gains early with concentrated bets. Or how Jeff Bezos went all in on just a few ventures, or Sarah Blakely on just a few ventures. Those that say don't put all your eggs in one basket, well, all right. I mean, you can look at the world that way, that is a diversification path. Though you're going to end up working full time until you're age 68 and you'll probably be safe and you might just have a sound retirement, but you have done so much trading away of your time in your best years for dollars. I mean, that's it. That's not a wealthy path. Your employer wants you to invest any of your extra income in a diversified way so that you're not going to build enough wealth to leave that employer early. And yes, we're back to the old Andrew Carnegie. Put all your eggs in one basket and then really watch that basket. Carnegie's concentration was in the steel industry, wealth. That's what we're talking about here, like something outstanding, extraordinary, not just a good enough retirement nest egg. Maybe real wealth is built through concentration. This is why we concentrate on one thing here on this show. Largely real estate investing, because you don't build wealth from diversification. All right now, yes, there could be a little diversification even inside residential real estate investing, say, maybe you want to get into three markets. Call it Atlanta, Indy and Kansas City. But overall, that is still concentration in residential real estate investing. And if you want to be outstanding, you have got to embrace the heterodox, meaning a departure from the Orthodox. Orthodoxy is spreading all your money around in, say, the s and p5 100 index, we're almost guaranteed then to get a pedestrian like outcome. And now look, once you've built something and you've got something to protect, which is however you've decided to build your wealth through concentration, oh, now that's when the game changes. You'll probably best protect your wealth, not build it protect what you've built through diversification that being done when you're older. And what diversification does for you is that it reduces your downside risk, it smooths volatility, and it prevents a single mistake from wiping you out. So at this stage, you're no longer trying to win big. You're just trying not to lose big. The mistake most people make is that they diversify too early, and that usually ends up leading to mediocre returns, no real expertise, and these sort of portfolios that are busy but not wealthy, it's sort of like planting 20 seeds and then not watering any of them enough.   Keith Weinhold  6:47   All right. So here's a smarter progression across your investing life. In your early stage, which is your wealth building phase, you want to concentrate your time, your energy, your capital, you want to build skill and conviction, and then you want to take calculated asymmetric bets after, say, 10 or even 20 years of that, you enter the mid stage. That's where you'll start spreading across related areas, for example, multiple property types, but still in markets that you understand. And then finally, after 10 or 20 years of this mid stage, it is later stage, which is wealth preservation only. Then is where you diversify broadly across asset classes and all sorts of geographies. And then you protect yourself against tail risks. So the bottom line is that concentration creates wealth, diversification preserves it. If you try to flip that order, you are going to stay stuck. And if you're young and you're still diversified, and you might think you're okay, and you even project that you're going to have something built up, like, say, $8 million in retirement. If you just keep this up, what you've just done is that you're making my point for me, because 8 million, that is not going to be an outstanding amount at all by the time you reach conventional retirement age, you had better flip to concentrating in something, whether it's residential real estate or data center construction or pressure washing. All right, so that was wealth building. Now, how about instead of wealth? Say that you're trying to make a living, all right, this is a different subject. Now, if you're trying to earn a living, should you diversify, or should you concentrate? How do you make a good living? Which is working at your day job? That's what we're talking about here. Now, once again, the answer is, through concentration, not diversification. We became a society of specialists by the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago, if not sooner, making a good living that comes from being valuable at something specific, not average at a whole bunch of things. One strong income engine beats five weak ones. Depth pays more than breadth. People are willing to pay you for expertise, not for dabbling around. This is whether it's a niche in real estate or a specific profession or a focused business model, you need one thing that reliably throws off good income and a little story here. I don't want this to be disparaging to Uber drivers, because I appreciate what they do and where they drive me. But I recently had an Uber driver. It happened to be in Hollywood, and this uber driver is also a stand up comedian there in West Hollywood. Well, those are two very diverse activities, driving and being a comedian, and that tells me something he's not a very successful. Stand up comedian. If you try to diversify too much, your attention gets split, your skill development slows, and your income plateaus at just okay. Now I'm fortunate enough to have had some good success at what I do, real estate investing, and then talking about real estate investing with you here, that is my specialty, my concentration. I don't mow my own lawn. A specialist does that. I don't shovel my own snow. A specialist with all the right equipment and all the expertise does that. I don't do my own accounting. Now in what feels like a previous life to me, when I used to work a day job for the Department of Transportation, and there were problems with paving a specific type of asphalt on the roads in cold weather, a specific specialist would fly out to help us troubleshoot that. He was a high paid consultant, because he is in a niche that's very tiny. So when it comes to the matter of making a living, where diversification fits is once your primary income stream is stable and predictable, well then maybe you could add a second complementary stream, and not something that's random, build redundancy so that you're not fragile. But just think of that as a backup engine. You don't want to think in terms of 10 side hustles. For an example, a real estate investor adds another market or a strategy, a w2 professional well, they had maybe one serious side income, and that's just a matey. Surely not six apps and gigs if you're out there chasing everything, then you are going to earn less. And now that I've discussed how you want to concentrate, not diversify if you want to build wealth, and you also want to concentrate not diversify if you want to make a good living, well then you might wonder, gosh, does diversification have any place in my life? Is there any life facet at all where diversification gives you an advantage? Yes, there definitely is. Do you have any idea where diversification helps you as you look at all areas of your life, because there is one clear cut place, and that is relationships. Yeah, whether it's romantic relationships, like dating a potential spouse or in the broader sense, I mean, when you met your eventual husband or wife, it's not very likely that you impress them by going deep on some nuance that has to do with asphalt paving, or how you or how you increase your cash on cash return with management efficiencies on your single family rental portfolio in Little Rock Arkansas,   Keith Weinhold  12:57   In relationships, you become attractive to people because you can say, show a soft side, or be a good listener or know how to dance a little all while you can make a good living a diversified relationship portfolio. Now for you, that might mean having close friends for fun and honesty and a professional network for opportunities and perspective, and you might have a mentor or two in your life for guidance, and then you've got family relationships for roots and support. So every one of them plays a different role, and that way, no single relationship has to carry everything and what this protects you from is having just one friendship. You don't want that, otherwise, your whole social life can collapse. It protects you from a career setback, because you'll still have emotional support. Having diverse relationships prevents you from falling into echo chambers. Instead, you're going to get better, broader thinking. So having diversification in relationships that is basically risk management for your life and in this life, facet smart diversification makes you resilient. It makes you grounded. It makes you harder to knock off course. So let's review here in relationships, diversify to build wealth, concentrate and to make a good living, concentrate. And with that said, you know, if you want to get mega, mega wealthy, like stupid rich, let's just call that a billionaire with the letter B, if you want to reach that level, then I don't think that investing in rental property is the fastest or the best way to get there, although it can give you a good start. And then what's the point of this show? The point is that real estate investing is the most proven way to build wealth when you concentrate on it. If you want enough net worth and income so that you never have to work again all while you're still young enough to enjoy it, direct investment in real estate. Hey, that's great. If you want to get up to the $10 million net worth level, or even to say, $50 million that is totally doable. And the good news is that it's almost inevitable if you apply yourself and yes, concentrate, because that's all most people want, options and freedom. Those words are often a proxy for wealth. But if you're trying to get on the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest 100 people or whatever, which is where you need to concentrate on a novel business idea. All right, you can go for that, and then your risk of failure goes up substantially. You might even reach the billionaire level. As a real estate investor, more likely the DECA or the Centa millionaire level. But there are other ways of doing that outside of real estate. Real estate investing is great if you want to get sort of regular wealthy. Maybe even say that can be as little as 15 million or 25 million plus when you're young enough to enjoy it. And you know even half or 1/3 of those levels are enough as a freedom number for most people. With all that said, when you concentrate to build wealth, you do have to pick a proven vehicle. You can't say you're going to concentrate on sports gambling or prediction markets like call sheep or polymarket. They are not proven wealth building vehicles. Most people lose money on Poly market if you've wagered your mortgage that Mr. Beast is going to be the next President of the United States, perhaps reconsider that approach. In fact, according to an analysis that Bloomberg just performed, nearly every poly market trader either loses money or they make little or no profit. More than 100,000 accounts lost $1,000 since the start of last year, and that is twice the number of accounts that made at least $1,000 in aggregate, traders lost $131 million on this prediction market over that time, the tiny number of accounts that make lots of money appear to be mostly bots. That's what Bloomberg found. And there was a separate study that found that since 2022 69% of traders lost money, while three quarters of total profits were won only by the top 1% of users. So gambling, wagering, this speculation, it is not a proven vehicle, and it's not the same as investing. The cleanest way to think about the difference is that investing means putting money into something that produces value over time. Instead, gambling means putting money at risk on an outcome that you cannot influence, usually with a negative edge. And gosh, one reason that this is on my mind is, you know how I recently shared with you that I stayed at the Bellagio in Vegas. I didn't gamble at all. And in fact, I don't even know if I'm going to stay there again. That's just not congruent with who I am. But I marveled with my mouth agape when I watched a few games at the roulette wheel. Yeah, you're allowed to watch if you're not gambling. A typical scene is that perhaps five players were wagering their chips at the roulette wheel. Now the way it works is that the casino, they often have two and sometimes three of their own staff, like uniformed employees, that are there facilitating and monitoring the roulette wheel. I mean, look right there, if the casino is paying two or three staff members to facilitate the roulette wheel, well, the player should know that the odds are tilted against them. I mean, those casino dealers make, you know, they usually just make 50 to 70k a year with tips, all right, well, so the house needs to have enough of an advantage to pay their employees that are at that table and still profit. And they sure do profit. If you don't understand the game, when you play roulette, you can basically either wager that the ball is going to land on either red or black, but two of the 38 spaces on the wheel are green. They benefit the house directly. So with every bet that a player makes, they've got 18 winning spots and 20 losing spots. This is why roulette, like most gambling schemes, is for losers. And this roulette metaphor, I mean, this is a easily intuitive example for How the house has the advantage, whether it's the DraftKings app on your phone or it's a physical in person Casino. And look, I had another Uber driver recently. Yeah, lots of Uber drivers in my life lately, as I've been traveling in Pennsylvania, New York, California and Nevada, all right, interestingly, this uber driver is a dealer at the Horseshoe Casino, which is near the center of the Las Vegas Strip. While he drove me around, he opened up and told me that he doesn't understand why anyone is a serious gambler in his life history, he divulged to me that he has never known one long term winner. That's a gambler. It's amazing that he would admit that himself as an employee there. So suffice to say, wealth is built through concentration, not diversification, and certainly not through gambling.    Keith Weinhold  20:56   How should you think of building wealth for yourself at different age profiles, 20,25,30,35, and so on. I'll discuss each age profile that's next. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to get rich education.    Keith Weinhold  21:13   What if you got your mortgage loans the same place I get mine. You sure can at Ridge lending group NMLS, 42056,they provided GRE listeners with more loans than anyone. Because Ridge specializes in investment property, they'll help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your pre qual and even chat directly with President chailey Ridge while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lendinggroup.com that's Ridge lendinggroup.com   Keith Weinhold  21:44   Let me ask you something, if you've worked hard to build wealth, is your money positioned to actually support your goals? A lot of accredited investors leave capital sitting in cash because it feels safe, but inflation and missed income opportunities can quietly erode its value. Freedom family investments offers freedom notes for investors seeking structured income backed by real estate. It's a straightforward approach built on real assets, not speculation. In full disclosure, I'm an investor myself. What I like is that their team walks you through how it all works, so you can decide if it aligns with your portfolio and income goals, every investment carries risk and nothing is guaranteed, but with a track record of consistent on time investor payouts, they built real credibility. Go to freedomfamilyinvestments.com to book a clarity call or text. Family 266, 866, that's family 268,66   Ted Sutton  22:48   Hey, it's corporate, directs Ted Sutton. Listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream.   Keith Weinhold  23:02   welcome back to get rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, and you're listening to Episode 605 let's talk about some age profiles, because your life isn't random, it's staged. And if you understand the stages, I'll take it from age 20 up to age 40 or perhaps 50, because I don't have experience yet with being older than them. And then you can stop guessing and start engineering your future. Let's discuss mindset and then some tactics on how to build wealth in five year increments, largely through real estate, starting with age 20, at this stage, you're not behind you are early, though. I do know some people that have owned rental property at age 18 and 19. For the most part, your job isn't to invest yet. Your job is to build awareness and identity. Listen to shows like this one that you're listening to right now, even though you might be in college or trade school or have some employment, yes, as an employee, start thinking like an owner at this time you're installing your financial Operating System. Most people are 20 are consuming entertainment. You you're consuming direction. You're thinking, how can I set up a life where I'm not living below my means, which will always limit you? You're thinking, how can I grow my means at age 25 let's say you're out of school, you have a job and you're only making 65k per year if you're living with your parents, that means you can accumulate more liquidity. I don't like to say that you're becoming a saver, because that does not wire your mind for wealth, but that's effectively what you're doing. You're trying to amass some Liquidity, some capital formation is taking place. If you only have, say, $30,000 of cash amassed, well, then you're not ready for real estate, unless perhaps you're doing an owner occupied FHA loan in a duplex or a fourplex with a three and a half percent down payment. If you've got credit card debt. That's at 21% APR. You do want to retire that first age 25 is when you're likely to have student loan debt. The average student loan debt balance at age 25 is about 35k and the interest rate is 7% as long as your income is stable. You know, I didn't focus on paying down my student loans at age 25 I mean, why would I? Why should you I invested first? Because you might feel like having student loans slows you down, and it does, but not accumulating assets is what will keep you stuck so you're 25 when do you buy your first income producing asset? Say you've just got 20 to 30k accumulated liquid. That is still a little early to buy your first rental property, because that first property that would take all of what you had accumulated, that down payment would take it all like for an out of state turnkey property, and you've always got to stay a little liquid, but sooner than later, you have got to increase your income and own some real assets. If you accumulate instead 60k cash and the cheapest decent investment property would probably take something like a 30k down payment in closing costs right now, all right. Well, that tilts toward pulling the trigger and doing it because you've got some buffer. Now, you're still learning along the way, but you're learning really begins when you own your first property. Now, if you happen to live in an investor advantage place, oftentimes in the Midwest or south, perhaps the inland northeast, well then maybe you buy locally. But if you live in a pricey Metro at age 25 then you are probably rent vesting instead. What rent vesting means is that you're paying rent in, say, New York City, and you own property that you rent to others in, say, Chattanooga, Tennessee, that's called rent vesting. And you might pick up more than one property in your late 20s by age 30. Okay, look, this is when your cumulative better decision making really starts to show your trajectory has diverged from the herd, and it's really becoming noticeable to your peers, because your past decisions start compounding here by age 30. This is where you can benefit from modeling if you see someone like you that's doing what you want to do now, you can see yourself doing it. That's called modeling, and this is where your confidence grows. We'll say that now you're married at age 30, and you have a young child. You and your spouse make 175k together. You still have student loans, but you definitely own some real estate by now, we'll even say that you own your own home, your primary residence. By 30 you have a pretty good understanding of financing, property management and markets. By age 35 now you're investing in multiple real estate markets, and this is fueled because you've now done cash out refinances of your earlier properties into some more properties, and that means that you don't even have to use all of your own money in order to buy other properties and make down payments on them. So by age 35 your mindset has shifted from how do I buy a property over to how do I build a machine that buys properties, and this is where scale happens for you, you want to be sure to stay in your lane of competence and avoid chasing shiny objects again. Concentration over diversification by 35 it's become so apparent that you're glad that you did what you did. Other people are still doing things like working a lot of overtime and missing dinners. Maybe you do a little of that, but you don't have to do that. You're happy that you were strategic and you took the actions necessary so that your life doesn't feel like spinning on a hamster wheel like it does for everybody else, and it might still feel that way for you, too, but you are able to see a way out of that. And some people retire with real estate investing by age 35 but in this case, let's just say that you're not. Most aren't, but by now, you are getting so far ahead Of your old peers that you are definitely saying something to yourself, like, wow, indeed, capital compounds and labor doesn't this is the time in your life for this type of epiphany. Let's see where you are by age 40, and by the way, let's acknowledge that the average age of the first time homebuyer is now fully 40 in America. But by listening to this show and following the path that we help you with and engaging with our coaching and reading our newsletter, you are well ahead of this now I have a traditional financial advisor friend who says that he recently shared with me that he thinks a couple is in good shape if they have a net worth of $2 million by age 40. I don't know about that, though, if it's $2 million and a soldier in a 401 K that's locked away and it's not producing any income, that's a poor trajectory for the 40 year old couple. Sheesh, it's still a minimum of 20 more years from there until you can access 401K money, penalty, free. And, yes, there are some workarounds, but that's generally the picture. Well, instead, if you're a 40 year old couple with $2 million dollars in real assets. Oh, now you're in a substantially better position than if it were in some illiquid, conventional retirement plan. If it's in real assets. Oh, now you've got all these options. It could be producing income. You've got tax advantages that are greater than a 401, K, you might be able to access some of the equity, tax free, with a refi and plus say that your $2 million in equity is leveraging $5 million in real assets. Well, then, with 5% appreciation that alone is growing your net worth by $250,000 every single year, in addition to everything else that it's doing for you, yeah, talk about diverging from the herd. $2 million of equity in real assets crushes. Having that amount in a 401 K for you as part of a 40 year old couple, by age 45 you could very well be job optional. You could have teenage kids now, so you've got some expenses, you've been cash out, refinancing in a refi for life plan. Now your properties regularly are able to buy more properties for you, so that you aren't spending your own money on them. Instead, you're spending your own money on travel and living a better life than those others that are soullessly grinding at age 45 and yes, by the way, let's acknowledge that there would be ways for you to borrow out of a 401, k as well, but they're less forgiving than borrowing against your real assets after this period of time for you, you're getting into your late 40s, it is less about accumulation and it's more about optimization and freedom. I mean, you're soon asking, What do I want my life to look like? And you're not asking, How do I make more money? And at age 50 plus, since I really don't have much life experience here, you've probably done a number of 1031, exchanges, or you're even doing 721, exchanges, if you're substantially older than this saying that you want to retire from landlording. Now, one big lesson learned here is that early on, that focus, that concentration, is what allowed you to diverge from the herd that played small with diversification. One thing to be aware of when you're asking yourself that question, how much is enough? You're asking, how much is enough? Well, today, a five to $6 million dollar net worth that can usually generate enough income so that you don't have to work anymore. But people have a propensity to move the goalposts. It's most natural to think that you need to have twice as much as what you have now. Almost everybody inevitably thinks his way. If you've got 100k to your name, you think you've got it made. If you have 200k and if you've got 5 billion, you think you will need 10 billion. Be aware of that propensity to move the goalpost the amount that you think you need is almost always double what you have right now. And of course, in the words of the late George Foreman, the question isn't at what age I want to retire, it's at what income. Even conventional retirement planners will tell you that they just need to know two things in order. A plan for you, how much monthly income are you going to need, and how long you're going to live. And I think they've got that part right now. As you listen to those age profiles, you might have felt yourself ahead of that pace, on that pace, or behind that pace. There's a good chance that you were behind that pace, because by age 20, most people just don't adopt the abundance mentality that early. Most people drift through these decades, but if you understand the sequence, it's really this, learn, then earn, then buy, then scale and then optimize and be sure that you're living the entire time. The really good news for you is that you don't need luck. You need alignment with the stage that you're in. And if you get that right, you don't just build wealth, you build a life where money works harder than you do. Most people that try to do that get their money to work harder for them, well, that approach does not work until it's too late, but it works out for us because we ethically crowdsource other people's money to work harder than we do. To review what you've learned today. Wealth is built through concentration, not diversification. And from a young age, set up your life not to live below your means, but to grow your means. I'll talk to you again next week. Until then, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.   Unknown Speaker  36:42   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively,   Keith Weinhold  37:10   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building, get rich education.com