Eric Mulvin: 00:00
Welcome to the Unfinished Business Podcast. I’m your host, Eric Mulvin, and this is a show where we sit down with CEOs, leaders, visionaries, and creatives who are out there changing the world through their business, through their organization, through their leadership, or through their creativity. Because it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve accomplished. Even someone like Brad Pitt is still out there trying to further their career and get things done in their life. And so that’s something that we explore here. Uh those stories on Unfinished Business with Eric Mulvin.

Theme Song: 00:48
It’s a close, and you’ll learn why.

Eric Mulvin: 00:54
This episode is brought to you by Pac Biz Outsourcing. At Pac Biz, we help software, e-commerce, taxi, and NEMT companies outsource their customer support and back office tasks with dedicated teams in the Philippines. These are full-time remote staff who work as part of your team, handling calls, emails, chat support, and admin tasks. So you can improve support, scale faster, and keep costs under control. For example, one client cut out over $600,000 a year by switching key support roles like dispatch to Pac Biz Teams. So if you’re trying to lower cost or scale support, visit pac-biz.com to learn more, or you can call us at 480-771-3009. All right. Today’s guest is a husband, father, grandfather, songwriter, and longtime business owner and entrepreneur. He has owned and operated a paint contracting company in California for 24 years and then moved to Colorado in 1999 so he could take a job in a church as the worship pastor. And in the 10 years that he did that, their church grew from over 500 members to over 2,500. And he discovered that many of the same growth, customer service, and value propositions that produce a thriving church also apply to business. And so in 2011, he went into the mortgage business with the goal of working in the reverse mortgage space. He has owned and operated Remarkable Mortgage for 10 years. They are a small concierge Colorado mortgage company. He is now at the tail end of his working career years. His new focus is centered around helping people find their most peaceful and productive path through life. He has recorded music that has become the song track of his life. So, ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome Mark Schmidt. Welcome, Mark. Uh, I appreciate you taking some time to be on here and share some of what you know with our listeners here.

Mark Schmidt: 02:56
Oh, Eric, it’s it’s not about time, it’s about people. And you’re the people right now. How’s that? Your people are the people. Well, thank you. Thank you. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Eric Mulvin: 03:07
So you are out in Colorado, and I know your current business is in reverse mortgages, but you’ve had a actually lengthy career in entrepreneurship. So I guess maybe we could start. I like to start on the podcast with uh just talking a little bit about your story and your journey. And the first thing you got here mentioned is this painting company in California. So maybe we could start there. That was that your first business?

Mark Schmidt: 03:37
Yeah, it really was. You know, I mowed lawns, I did things, blah, blah, blah. But in my sophomore year in high school, my father introduced me to one of his good friends who was a painting contractor. I worked the summer. Then I go, wait a minute. As soon as I could drive, I said, I can do this on my own. And I just started painting houses on my own in my hometown of Modesto, California.

Eric Mulvin: 03:59
Cool. And I mean, it started, it sounds like, as like maybe something in high school, summer kind of work. And it sounded like it turned into something much bigger than that, right?

Mark Schmidt: 04:09
Well, it it didn’t, I I still was a small, you know, solo proprietorship, but I would hire other contractors. But I I just found a niche and I I found I was really good at it. And at the time, it’s interesting, house painting, this is back in the late 70s and the 80s. It paid even at that time over like a hundred bucks an hour to do it. I’m good. Yeah, and you scale that time. That’s a lot. Yes, it was. And so I was able to work part-time. I started a family. I you know, I I worked on the next stage of my career, which comes up next. But I painted for 24 years. But I I do want to add, I painted too long. I I I stayed in one thing too long. And the opportunity cost did bite me a bit. I could have moved if knowing what I know now, which is what I love to help people see, is you know hindsight is not necessarily 2020 vision. It only lets you if you only look at what you’ve done.

Eric Mulvin: 05:11
That’s interesting. There’s a lot to unpack there.

Mark Schmidt: 05:14
Yeah, try it. Take a piece of take a you know, chew on that.

Eric Mulvin: 05:18
Well, what was it that that you feel like you were in it too long for? Like what what it makes you feel like that?

Mark Schmidt: 05:25
Well, uh it really number one, it was not what I wanted to do. I was good at it. I I made good money, it gave me a lot of things. Sometimes entrepreneurs think I’m gonna have freedom, I can make my own schedule, but not if it’s gonna take it, not gonna take you. And it was unable to take me where I truly wanted to go. I had a friend that he great quote, I’ll share this one. Put it on your wall. Okay. Never get good at a job you hate. Ouch. I was good at it, but I hated it. And it even took a toll on me physically because I because I didn’t love it, and you know, when you don’t love something, it takes you’re doing it, it it takes a it takes a toll physiologically, even on me.

Eric Mulvin: 06:11
And it did, so man, I I feel like that’s gotta be something a lot of entrepreneurs can relate to, or people that you maybe you found success in one thing. Like for me, I started a taxicab company. That’s definitely not my passion. I I I wasn’t like uh I love taxi cabs, but that was where I started. I don’t know how I’d feel if I was still in it, you know, like 14 years later as well for myself. But I would imagine a lot of people listening maybe might be in that situation themselves. Maybe they started a business, like a restaurant or something, brick and mortar something, and then it’s just not running the way they want, and they’re not happy.

Mark Schmidt: 06:52
What was the trigger for you? What was your that to get out of the taxi business? We talked that about that story.

Eric Mulvin: 06:57
People are losing a lot of money. There was a there was that problem, and yeah, for us, it was it was around the time like I I had the first app in Arizona to book a taxi before I even heard of Uber. And I was working with a startup out of Germany to do all the software. This is when like the iPhones first were coming out, so apps were a new thing on the phone, and but we were so small compared to Uber, and they were able to operate without making money for years, which is makes it really hard to compete against a company like that. So there’s a lot of factors, but it ultimately money was the driving force. I imagine if I had money that I could put into it, I might have stuck it out longer, which is probably good that I got out because I don’t think yeah, I don’t think I would have stuck around, but wouldn’t have worked out. But what do you feel like people should be looking for? Like if someone were like, ah, you know what, they’re listening and they’re like, that that does feel like me. You know, I am I’m I’m stuck, but I have no options, which is not true. There are options, yeah. But what do you think people should be looking for in their life to be like, I need to get out of this situation I’m in?

Mark Schmidt: 08:07
Well, I I think one thing is do you do you enjoy it? Does it does it bring life to you? And can you see like down the path a little further? It’s like, man, every time I look at this, it kind of there’s this you know, we all have a spark, okay? We’ve been given a spark. And is that spark growing in, you know, if it’s just smoldering and almost kind of going out, but if it’s growing and all of a sudden there’s a flame and you you know, if you it when you’re stopping you and all of a sudden it leads you down a path, you say, Well, I can see where this could go, I could be something. I yeah, this and also let’s just talk the money, the fundamental money. If you’re not making uh net after all is done, including paying expenses, insurance, and all that, and taxes, if you’re not making what you would make working for the Schmo company per hour. That’s that’s I always ask people one of the first things I ask, and you’re an entrepreneur, hey, you making any money? I always ask people that because it’s like you get into this dream state that you know I’m somehow it’s okay, but you understand that’s a thing, but it’s it it has to have its own momentum, it has to be pulling you instead of you pushing it. How’s that?

Eric Mulvin: 09:25
Oh, I that I think I agree with that uh a hundred percent because there are so many times where you know, being an entrepreneur, you get beat up, there’s challenges that you have, money is part of the problem sometimes, and you know, to find that motivation to keep going for something that you don’t even like doing, it starts becoming tougher and tougher. And and that I would I also agree too, like the physical toll it takes, it’s not just a mental toll. Oh, yeah, true. You know, and and you live through that. Talk to me a little bit. Like, what impact did that have being in something you didn’t really feel passionate about?

Mark Schmidt: 10:00
What happened to you? I I think two two things were uh painting is a very physical thing. I mean, I actually had to have my shoulders, I had to break them loose because I got I could hardly lift my arms this far after you know years of doing that, and I’m a physical guy, and but I was also doing other things, I was working towards what I really wanted to do, or at least the best picture of it. And my family was there, and I but I knew I wouldn’t be able to buy a home, I wouldn’t be able to do the things that a father, you know, and I had three children by the time I I got out of it. And so, but just in my heart, you know, uh so I uh my day job and it it it wasn’t gonna release me. It would hold me for the rest of my life. And I’ve here and here’s another thing that entrepreneurs need to know. I I knew some I knew a couple painters that had crews. A lot of times they would work the weekend, Friday and Saturday, are you you hear me? In order to pay their crews. Now, if you’re working in your business and you’re working the extra hour, 60, 80, whatever, in order to make payroll, you’re you’re in a in a it’s a no-win situation for you.

Eric Mulvin: 11:15
Yeah, that’s crazy. For the most part. Yeah. I mean, it reminds me, it’s it’s something that comes up in business. You know, they teach business owners when I’m in workshops about this too, where you got to measure your customers, and when you start breaking down all the finances, sometimes you find out that there’s customers that you have on that are losing you money and you gotta release them. And it reminds me kind of like that, where you gotta look at the numbers and be like, is this making me enough money to survive if I have to work the weekends to keep this dream going?

Mark Schmidt: 11:46
Like, what did we say the other day where you and I were talking about revenue and profit? What are the what’s the difference?

Eric Mulvin: 11:52
Yeah, massive. I’d rather have a bunch of profit and very little revenue than I mean, like I I was listening to another podcast the other day, and the speaker was talking about like going and starting your own AI company. He’s like, Look, if you made a a thousand dollars profit this year with the AI software you built, you’re more profitable than open AI, which is funny, you know. That’s just the revenue and profit thing, it’s unless you have a bunch of Silicon Valley investors backing you, you have to be able to make money, which is very true for business.

Mark Schmidt: 12:25
Well, and most of us are small businesses, you know, and you’re you’ve got a big thing, you’ve got some people in your organization, so you and you’ve had to scale your thinking, haven’t you?

Eric Mulvin: 12:35
Oh my gosh. So many times over.

Mark Schmidt: 12:38
But you’re but you’re also constantly saying, is this taking can I do this? Do I want to be do I want this to own me or do I want to own it? Ultimately you want your business to be able to run, and then you can step back and it’s doing everything you uh can do. And the the less involved you are and uh Ronald Reagan said one time, says you have to you have to find that irreplaceable thing that you only you can do. Huge theme in my life. What is the thing that only you can do? And if uh if whatever you’re engaged in is enabling that, that you’re bringing your game, you’re bringing, like we talked about, your song to the to the forefront. But if you’re just if you’re just playing along and everybody else, if you’re just singing karaoke in everybody else’s bar, you know, that’s not the real thing for you. It needs to be coming out of you, out of your soul, out of your heart.

Eric Mulvin: 13:39
Yeah, I like that. Again, you it being going back to the how difficult it is to be an entrepreneur, and you know, you hear about this fake it till you make it. I hear this a lot actually.

Mark Schmidt: 13:52
Ooh, take just take take that one on right there.

Eric Mulvin: 13:55
Fake it till you make it. Yeah. Well, it’s like people talk about it uh for social media all the time. Like where I went through a lot of workshops preparing for the podcast and learning about you know being a personality on social media. And one of the biggest advices I’d always hear is you have to be yourself. Like if you’re trying to be someone else and faking it, and then now you have to put this persona on every day for every bit of video and media you create, you’re gonna burn out. It’s not sustainable.

Mark Schmidt: 14:28
Oh, yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 14:29
And I think the same for business too. Like you can fake it a little bit, but eventually you got to be able to make this part of who you are, otherwise, yeah, it’s gonna be tough. But you mentioned about people finding their own song, and you know, for you, you were doing the painting company, you’re ready to move on to the next thing. So, what was going on in your mind there where you’re like, I need I still need to find my song. Did you know what that was? And what what pushed you to move on to something else?

Mark Schmidt: 15:01
Well, it was interesting. Well, one of the things that pushed me on is my knee gave out when I was on the ladder, up the second story ladder. I could hardly get down and get to my car, and my buddy had to come and finish the job, and I really I got to the place where I could no longer work to do it. And at the same time, I really I play music. I went to school to be a pastor, and uh but it the music has always been the center point of what I do. And my friend told me something. By the way, if the people who are significant in your life are not grooving with your life, what you’re doing, that’s a big red flag right there. You know, that not just saying, hey, this is cool, man. I hope you make it, I hope you can fake it long enough to wear that you make it. But a lot of times you just end up learning how to what you make it is what you fa it just is fake. It’ll never not be fake. But for me, I I it was it was I I didn’t have a choice really. Kind of lot I didn’t make much money. And then my buddy said, he goes, you know, it was amazing. He goes, there there’s there are people out there, there’s a church out there that’s gonna and appreciate what you do and they’re gonna pay you well to do it. And I hadn’t connected those two things pay me well and appreciate it. So I looked in this magazine, you know, it was for worship guys, and there are 13 ads, and I was like the right guy for eleven of those.

Eric Mulvin: 16:31
Oh wow.

Mark Schmidt: 16:32
Because it was kind of a rare thing when I was doing it back in the day. You know, I’m kind of one of the OGs of this that business. And I was 40 years old. I I I sent out two resumes and two churches in Colorado Bit. I came out here to visit one and talk to another one, and I came back for a second visit, then they offered me the job, and four months later, we were here. My family and I moved here. What a life-changing move. Oh man, was it ever getting out of California where I was I’m so glad my family grew up here. We’ve loved it, we’re still here generations now. So I I I I kept that going, but I wasn’t exactly sure it was gonna look like because to be honest with you, I did not think about uh being a worship. I didn’t really want to. You know, I wasn’t sure where I fit in because it didn’t fit me. Oh, there’s a big thing right there. Don’t f try to find something where you can fit in. What you’re supposed to do with your life will fit you. It will be a custom fit. Like I’m seeing that for you, Eric. What you’re doing. This fits you. Everything you’ve told me so far and shown me, it’s built around who you truly are. And that’s highly commendable, pal, I’ll tell you.

Eric Mulvin: 17:49
Thank you. Yeah, it’s it’s taken some effort and work. Sure. It doesn’t happen by accident or on its own. It’s it does take a lot of personal perseverance. I don’t know. It’s just shaping everything to get to to this point. I mean, for me, I’ve been an entrepreneur now since 2011. So yeah, going on 14, almost 15 years. And but it’s it there was a moment, I’ll I’ll share this. There was a moment in my life where I was working a corporate job. I was living like in the suburbs of Metro Phoenix where I didn’t want to live. I was really it, I wasn’t really living the life I wanted to, who I wanted to be. And I always knew I wanted to start a business one day. I did have people around me that were not encouraging about it either. And and it took changing all of that. Actually, it was a big moment where I realized I had a friend pull me aside and was like, Eric, you know, you’re still young. You could do anything you want to do. Like there’s nothing holding you back, you don’t have kids. Because uh, I was it’s part of the theme song, right? I was working at Yelp and uh they were letting me go because they were going public, and I they needed to show every employee bringing in tons of revenue, and I was this culture guy, so they didn’t they couldn’t keep me on, but it was at that moment where I was like, you know what? That’s right, I could change everything, and then that’s when I really started doing everything for what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be, bring the people around me that kind of matched like my my energy and my interests, and so important by the way, matching energy with people, yes. Oh huge, yeah, because you got if you have a lot of energy, a lot of big ideas, and you’re around people that have small ideas and they bring you down, you need like again going back to being an entrepreneur, it’s or anything. I forget being entrepreneur in any field. If you’re trying to do big things, there’s a lot of a lot of challenges along the way, and you need people that are around you that can encourage you, like, especially, and we could talk about this for a second, a spouse. Like, for me, I feel like incredibly important to have a partner that supports your dream, your vision, and and pushes you, not just oh, that’s cool, but like, hey, you’ve been doing good with this entrepreneur thing, you could do even better, like you could do even more. Why don’t you make it even bigger? So I think that’s been influential. What about for you? You know, you’re oh okay.

Mark Schmidt: 20:26
How important has your spouse been for uh I’ll I have I told you before, I’m probably gonna bring a perspective that most people they might see it. They’ll see it when I bring it. Okay, my wife was a stay-at-home mom until she was 40 years old, raised our three children. I was single income and I didn’t make a lot. We lived well, we lived, you know, we learned how to live debt-free early on. So that has gone through my entire life. By the way, make it a goal, make it an objective to learn how to live underneath your means and debt-free. And it will it’ll free you like nothing in the world. So I just spoke my little advertise. Okay, my wife told me one day, she was 38 years old, she goes, I want to become a nurse. I’m like, Really? She had a degree. So she spent two and a half years out here at CU and she became an RN. She got her RN, went to work, and went to work for the VA. She out-earned me the her first year. Wow, is that here I here I am. And so uh we started a thing, and then I after a year later, I left my job in the church. I had a good job ten years, but I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. Even in working in a church, I knew it wasn’t right for me anymore. So we we basically I had to I had to reinvent myself and I and I went into the mortgage business, and that became my day job, and it really was I hit it at a perfect time. But the the s uh the Symbiosis. You know that word symbiosis? How two organisms feed on and nourish and feed each other?

Theme Song: 22:07
Mm-hmm.

Mark Schmidt: 22:07
I have a little I have a little saying. The secret to being a successful entrepreneur is to marry a nurse. You like that?

Eric Mulvin: 22:19
Why so explain that. Why why a nurse specifically?

Mark Schmidt: 22:23
Okay. The the thing you cannot deny in any business adventure is you gotta look at the bottom line, okay? We we don’t live on fantasy, we don’t live on borrowed money, we’re not venture-driven or anything like these other companies. You know, we have to have X amount of money, we have to be able to afford how we live. We need health care, we need benefits, true. All these things. My wife’s job has the benefits, health care, vacations. I’ll tell you what, and it pays well, and it’s a very good profession. Amazing. It’s been great for us. She’s almost done, by the way. And I added in the fact that she was covering the things that would cost me two or three times more before profit money to cover, you know, paying for health care alone and other things. So we kind of joined forces economically where I brought in, you know, the the entrepreneur entrepreneur money, which can be a lot. And I I’ve structured my business so it has the lowest expense, but I still have the best tax advantage advantages to it. So together we’ve built something, but I we have used what each of us has to offer. And that is a huge pairing. I’ve seen plenty of families where there’s two entrepreneurs, tough. It can be, you know, really, really tough. And that’s uh me. Oh, so I understand. And you know, and you’re gonna have to have access to capital or savings or having a way. But I’ve I’ve discovered some ways to do that too. Through through my proper through my homes. And there are ways, but but always understand that bottom line. You know, we need X amount. You do need to save, you do need to prepare for the future, which we did. Now I’m kind of in that place. I’m at retirement, you know, right there. I guess literally I’m retired. I kind of self uh I self-identified as retired this year. So that that’s one thing. And you said something else. Let me go back to another little markism I like to throw out. You know, you said, oh, you can do anything. I like to say, no, you really can’t do anything. You know, I can’t play professional basketball.

Eric Mulvin: 24:48
True.

Mark Schmidt: 24:49
You know, and I can’t be the lead singer for you too, because that spot’s taken and I I couldn’t do it anyway, you know. Maybe once one one song. But what you need to do is your thing. You need to find, like you mentioned, that you found it matches your identity, your personality, that spark in you. That the thing that the thing that you have to stop yourself from doing because you really enjoy it. And really, it really self-generates, you know. And it’s kind of like a perpetual motion machine. It creates its own energy, and that includes your finances and the relationships and the and but ultimately the good you’re doing. Because like what you’re doing, Eric, you’re serving these people. Like you you said this one. I I well you know, you’ve you saved a lot of people a lot of money and improved their business, their bottom lines, because they’ve been able to outsource things that you can do far better than them. And but man, look at those those features. You know, are you truly making it or are you just kicking the can down the road?

Eric Mulvin: 25:53
And so Yeah, well, and if you do kick the can down the road, then when you get to the age you’re at now, you might find yourself in a tough spot as you don’t have the money that you need for retirement.

Mark Schmidt: 26:06
Oh, you will find yourself in a tough spot, believe me.

Eric Mulvin: 26:09
Yeah. And well, in your business now, to like for that you’ve been running here the last uh decade or so with the reverse mortgages, talk to me a little bit about that. Because it it does seem like it, you know, you talked a lot about you know the importance of finances and budget and making sure you’re making enough money with your business. And you know, that’s it’s an interesting financial tool that reverse mortgages gives people. So, what brought you into that and what what’s your passion behind it? Because I I would imagine that with everything you said, it has to align with what you believe, and I I could see that.

Mark Schmidt: 26:45
Well, it it does, you know. So what how I got into is pretty simple. My parents needed to do something financially, they owned their home, but they didn’t have enough monthly money. Monthly in retirement, everything in the world is about monthly money, you know? So I I’d left my position, the best job I ever had. I left I left it because I knew I was done. It’s better to leave on your terms than to be asked to leave on someone else’s terms. How’s that?

Eric Mulvin: 27:18
Yeah.

Mark Schmidt: 27:19
Insight in yeah, you you told me your story. You you were able to do that and then roll it into my parents owned a home free and clear, valuable home out here, homes in Denver, you know, an area, they’re valuable. And they didn’t know what to do. So I I just started and I heard about a reverse mortgage. It was not really well known. I didn’t know anybody. I come from a big church. Nobody, I didn’t know anybody that did it. So I finally found a guy. We sat down, they had an appointment. I walked out, I go, I went to work with this guy at a call center. My parents went out and got a reverse mortgage. That was my first. But I saw I saw what this was possible. So I worked for about five years in the in the industry, hated the forward part. I don’t do it. And then I finally became a broker and then started my own company when I figured out that that was really the best path. It usually is the best path, by the way, owning your own company. Unless you can beat it, but it’s seldom if you do it right. And so I’ve been in that doing this reverse mortgage, for those of you who don’t know much, it allows you at 62 or older to be able to begin to take money out of your house or to no longer have to make your mortgage payment, your principal and interest. You can put it in, it’ll accrue. But even the building up of that cost of that that accruing loan balance is usually much less than the growth and the value of your house. So it frees up monthly money, it’s secure, it’s an FHA loan. And I the longer I’ve done this, the more I look at it, the more I like it. And I will eventually do one place on our ranch out here. We’ll do it too, but it’s just not quite right yet for us. So that’s a little bit of my story about that.

Eric Mulvin: 29:05
So that’s I it’s an interesting thing for you to be ending your career and doing this, but then helping people, you know, that uh that because like my my dad recently passed, you know. Yeah, you told me. Yeah, my mom is in her 70s, and I’ve been having to help them through all this stuff this last year or so. And man, there’s a lot of realizations that were unexpected as we’ve gone through it. Like, whoa, there’s especially with my dad, he was he got into an like an assisted living facility. Yeah, that monthly that monthly amount that needed to be covered was too great. It it became very challenging. So I and that’s with my parents. I mean, they my dad was it was called a tool and die maker. My mom worked in a middle school cafeteria for like 10 years, so they didn’t have like they had a paid-off house that it grew up in, but they didn’t have like a huge retirement or anything. So there’s definitely things that I wish we would have looked at a lot sooner. And I know that for a lot of entrepreneurs were just like, ah, you know, that’s 20 years away, 30 years away. It seems so far, you know. Like when you started your your pastor job, you were 40. How much were you thinking about retirement or the future at that point?

Mark Schmidt: 30:26
When we came here, it was my first full-time job because I’d been an entrepreneur and I I was a starving artist, I was a musician, you know. I used to always, I like to say I paid to play. I would play for anybody anytime. One day I was gonna go play for a lunch gig. And they said, Oh, by the way, lunch is $14. And I said, Wait a minute, you want me to come in and play and buy my literally at that moment I said no longer, and I would no longer ever pay to play again. I set my value, and six months later, almost to the day, I had my first paying job as a musician. Isn’t that crazy? That is beautiful. It worked, but I it but I made the decision that I was no longer gonna pay to play. I came out here getting paid to play for the first time. I mean, a full-time job, I had benefits. We had a retirement program at the church where they matched up to 10%. That’s huge. Well, that’s that’s you huge, man. That’s huge, huh? And so I I worked my way up to you know, setting aside up to eight or ten percent. And that account grew, and I’ve continued to grow that account on my side and my wife too. But never let go of free money, man. Find a way to afford free money. How’s that?

Eric Mulvin: 31:53
Yeah, well, yeah, there’s lots of there’s places where it exists, you know, gotta look for or the the employers. I remember I worked for Chase for a number of years. Okay, yes, and you know, they have their, I think it’s three percent, and you gotta work there a long time to venture in it. But but yeah, I took advantage of it too, even in like early college. I was work, I was still in college, getting that, and it it is funny. I ever to this day, because I bought like half of a stock of Chase, and so once a quarter they mail me a check for like 60 cents for my dividends. Yeah, I have to go to the bank and deposit it with all my business checks, so it’s always crack up. It’s like postage is more than this check.

Mark Schmidt: 32:35
Well, now here’s here’s another one of my I call them mark, they’re called markisms by people, and I’ve adopted it. When it comes to money, there’s always a better way. Always. And if you’re gonna be an entrepreneur, you’re gonna have to understand money, capital, taxes. Oh, no, begin to learn. Learn a little bit every day, and never allow yourself to say, Well, I don’t understand that, somebody else take care of that. Well, they will, but ultimately it’s your money, your responsibility, what happens to it. And to pay attention, there’s a proverb that says always pay attention to the state of your crops and your flocks. Pay attention to it. Because the one thing all of us can do, every entrepreneur, every company, remove the waste, the redundancies. You know, Elon Musk has a great principle in in his uh algorithm for his companies. First thing he says, get rid of the stupid stuff. Isn’t that great? Can you can you relate Eric to that?

Eric Mulvin: 33:44
Yeah, it happens. I mean, when you have 250 people, and there’s a lot of stuff, like you you go and look at the some of the tools that we have in place. I’m like, no one’s using this. We’ve been paying for this monthly. I mean, it’s like $15 a month, but it’s there’s there’s stuff like that that happens all the time. And sometimes it’s not software, sometimes it’s it’s people. You’re like, wait, what are we this person isn’t really doing anything, and and that’s not really fair to the worker, too. Like when they’re in a position where they can’t be fulfilled, so but the I especially see it in the Philippines. There’s like a culture there about not waste, it’s just they try to make everybody resourceful. But I even saw an article about this in the 1920s. There was a strike that happened in New York City, and all of the elevator workers, or is the people that used to push the buttons for you in the elevator, yep, they went on strike, and they had already automated it for the most part. Like they didn’t even need them, but there was this fear from people that oh, we need to have that person in the elevator. Well, that strike happened, and then all of the buildings in New York just started updating all the elevators so that they didn’t need people anymore. But it was mentioned that there’s still one place in the world that they have elevator button pushers, and that’s the Philippines. And you go to the malls, there’s always someone there sitting on a stool pushing buttons, and uh but there’s like a lot of people there, so it’s great you’re giving jobs to people, but yeah, if you’re running a business, some of those things, yeah, there’s some waste there.

Mark Schmidt: 35:24
It is there is, and those little boy, I’ll tell you, just being able to cut costs, but not just to sput cost, but then redirect that money’s energy, okay? I like to say money’s an energy, money’s also an agreement. It’s all based on an agreement. Whatever you make an agreement with, that’s where the money flows or comes from. Upgrade your agreements, your perspective. You know, I read this little book years ago called The Everyday. I mean, I’m pulled out of my brain. The everyday undeniable, seven blah blah rules of leadership. And but the last chapter he said, imagine imagine unlimited. Um he said basically just imagine he would take in like two hours on a Friday, every Friday, and just say, I simply I clear my calendar and I spend time imagining what’s possible. And boy, uh that quiet, that find that allowing your imagination. I heard a guy say that imagination is the creative power of God, you know, and I go, Boy, he is the source of all imagination and all creativity. I go, that’s a pretty strong statement there. Take time to see where you want to go, where your people can go, where your company can go, but more importantly, just where your life can go. Because as an entrepreneur, your life is in your company for the most part. And it’s really hard to separate them, isn’t it?

Eric Mulvin: 36:59
So true.

Mark Schmidt: 37:00
Can you segregate yours out?

Eric Mulvin: 37:02
I mean, we got different bank accounts, but my my identity is pretty wrapped up in this business. Sure it is. Yeah.

Mark Schmidt: 37:09
And that’s that’s not a a negative until it becomes until it begins to destroy the positives, okay? Do you see what I’m saying? It’s kind of like negatives can boy, negativity and things that we it’s it’s a force that that just nullifies stuff, you know? It’s like it’s like when the flood waters flow around and when the arroyos get rolling, they just the dirt goes down, it just washes away everything, doesn’t it? In your region where you are.

Eric Mulvin: 37:41
Yeah.

Mark Schmidt: 37:42
And and it you can no matter what’s been done there, you know. I had a piece of land, and man, when that when that creek started rising, it would wash away our culverts and everything. And it didn’t matter what we were gonna do. Some guys would chain them down and stuff, you know, but you know, and but the cattle were higher, so they didn’t have a problem. But uh use your imagination to create and I think the one of the strongest powers of imagination is to eliminate is like you were saying, in this fifteen bucks or whatever, but man, what could I not do that would enhance everything I’m doing? And uh in in my what I’m doing now, what I’ve always done writing songs, it’s not the noise many times, it’s the space between the notes that make the song happen. It’s what isn’t there that allows other people to fill in in their own heart part of it. So anyway, I’m just riffing on imagination.

Eric Mulvin: 38:45
No, I I I mean for me, I uh love creativity. I think this is such an important part of being an entrepreneur because you every day I’m using creativity to solve problems, think about how can we do this better. I mean, just looking at things and saying there’s gotta be a better way to do that and more efficiently. And part of that wraps in the the cutting out the waste part because yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s that’s not that the people that were, you know, when people outsource with us, they’re they’re having problems with the staff that they’re not able to do the job that they need. And yes, so and then they bring us in and they’re like, Whoa, the you your people are doing better than what we were doing with our people. And part of it’s because you’re you’re not managing like people don’t go out to start a business to start a call center, except for me. Like that was that’s my intention. But if you’re a business, you got to answer the phones. You now you find yourself having a couple people, and I I what I see a lot of times people just pay minimum wage, they’re like, Oh man, we’ve we had the fourth time this year, we’ve had to replace this person, and they don’t measure. There’s a lot of hidden costs that are there, like the waste that is kind of not visible if you’re not tracking it. Like your manager that now has to train these people over and over and over again, and they can’t get to the things they need to do because they keep training people because they keep rotating through the position.

Mark Schmidt: 40:15
Yeah, the turnover, huh? The fallout. Yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 40:18
There’s there’s costs there, and waste that but you yeah, you got to be able to recognize that.

Mark Schmidt: 40:23
Let me give you let me give you a real world with dollar amount imagination. How’s that? I thought of one in my business. Okay, I own the company, I set up all, you know, and it’s very lean kind of it runs out of my I I like to say I do I do business from phone for the most part. You know, I have my this is my home office I’m in right now. You can see guitars on the wall behind me. But this is my little office. I decided because the way a reverse mortgage is structured, the maximum origination fee you can charge is six thousand dollars. Okay? Six grand. And we as brokers and as a business owner, I get paid on the back end, okay, by the company to do the deal with a where the the borrower’s not paying me to do our loans. You know that? Isn’t that crazy? That’s wonderful.

Eric Mulvin: 41:14
That’s nice. So you’re not taking the money from them.

Mark Schmidt: 41:17
Yeah, and so guess what I looked at? I I go, I could A, either charge maximum origination, six thousand dollars, or I could say, almost every case I see, I’m gonna waive the origination fee. And when I’m talking to them about the deal, I say in your case, it would be six thousand dollars. It would be added to their loan, but it’s still their money and still cost. I in essence say, I’m gonna I’m gonna waive this, I’m gonna give you back six thousand dollars. I’m not charging it. I would make it, it would go into my pocket. First time I said that to my wife, she said, Well, what do you think she said?

Eric Mulvin: 42:01
We could use that six thousand dollars exactly, but you know what?

Mark Schmidt: 42:05
Every time I would talk to somebody, they would not go anywhere else. I I call it, I make a one-call close in my business for the most part.

Eric Mulvin: 42:15
Yeah, for in the mortgage industry, that’s pretty crazy.

Mark Schmidt: 42:19
And I I talk about this, I explain, and I say, by the way, in your case, I’m not gonna charge you origination. And they go, hmm, six thousand dollars. I say, because I’m still working, I can make that. You you really can’t. Yeah, and I and so all of a sudden, this is it. And I got skin, I got my own skin in the game. And besides, I have been I have prospered in this business. Yeah, I make plenty of money. Who know who says that ever? I make plenty of money, okay? I don’t need to make more money on a deal. I make plenty, it’s generous. That’s one of the reasons I went into the reverse business. So far better than the forward business. And but I don’t need to make it out of their pocket, and when they find out what I’m doing, all of a sudden, the bond and the trust that goes with that. Oh man. So that I’m just saying, I was I used my imagination. I saw down the road how that would add up to my bottom line. And I have not missed that six grand per deal, let me tell you. I’ve never missed it. I still don’t miss it. I’m I’m doing one right now. I didn’t charge it. How’s that?

Eric Mulvin: 43:28
No, that’s that’s 6k. For again, the people, I mean, you come across people that are in need. Like, no one is gonna reverse mortgage if they have a big fat bank account for retirement. They’re not thinking about like, oh, I need this money to pay for my groceries every week or pay for you know living expenses. So you’re dealing with people that that definitely have the need so that they could be prepared for the futures.

Mark Schmidt: 43:56
Well, that’s true, but I also have started doing out here. Million dollar plus paid off homes, okay? I still don’t charge origination. And the people even with more money, in fact, usually people that have more money have a far better understanding of money. Have you noticed that?

Eric Mulvin: 44:17
Yeah, that’s that’s and an appreciation.

Mark Schmidt: 44:20
So I I well yeah, it’s not it’s not universal, but it’s it’s frequent. But no, I I still make the same kind of deal because it’s become part of my principle, okay? And it and it it really it echoes through my entire life and my business. You giving, being generous, not taking the most I had a very wise man, very wealthy man, made his money. He said, Mark, he goes, he goes, This is what I do. Every time I close a deal, everyone around, everyone’s happy, and he goes, I always leave something on the table for the other guy. Always. I leave something from my pocket on the table. In my case, it’s usually 6K. How’s that?

Eric Mulvin: 45:07
Yeah. Did he have any examples of like what he gained out of that?

Mark Schmidt: 45:13
No, well, I know his life. I knew him. He was in my church, and I knew he he had made he’s one of those guys that hit the wave, you know, in real estate redevelopment and all that, condo converted. He he made he money was not an issue, you know?

Eric Mulvin: 45:27
Yeah.

Mark Schmidt: 45:28
You do come to the I’m in the place, money’s not an issue in my life anymore. And there’s several reasons for that. We won’t get into it now, but it it you do come to the place when there is enough, okay? And I I’ve hit that spot where I have enough. And it’s it changes it. When you have enough, what do you do with more? It’s really an interesting thing. Like when your kids grow up and you know, you hit you hit different spots in life. And you need to be you need to reimagine these things. You know, what are you gonna do now?

Eric Mulvin: 45:59
Well, uh that’s interesting, you know, with the especially in entrepreneurship, you know, you’re you have a well, many people they have a goal. Maybe you know, if it’s a smaller business, they’re just trying to sustain their family. But I know a lot of bigger companies where they’re trying to build up their business for an exit, sell to maybe private equity or bought out. And I I know how much money’s involved in some of these deals, and I feel like that’s a lot more than most people need for their life. But I mean, that’s their goals. But I mean, where what do you think? Like, what’s some of the questions someone should be asking themselves to see? Like, is this enough? Am I doing too much? When should I scale back?

Mark Schmidt: 46:44
Well, you I’m I’m firmly of the of the the viewpoint if you work more than just a normal work week, you enter a dim a state of diminished return, you don’t even know it. Like I mentioned, these painting contractors back when I was a painter. They would work the weekend. They work six, seven days a week. And you ever heard the old phrase of burning the candle at both ends?

Eric Mulvin: 47:11
Oh yeah.

Mark Schmidt: 47:12
Yeah, and that’s that means your your candle’s burning more than twice as fast. And if you can’t make enough money working a normal work week, then it’s more of a failure of imagination or of administration. You need to find a way that that business is gonna do the work for you, not just you putting in if you’re still trading time for money, you know, hours for money as an entrepreneur, you gotta you’ve gotta step back and say, I cannot work this way. I can’t think this way. And if you’re gonna take less in order to go forward, that’s that can be a strong strategy to do that. Allow your business, allow your imagination, allow your value add to whatever you’re doing for people. Allow that to grow and increase your not just your revenue, but your profit, your bottom line. It’s not gonna be you putting in more time. Nope.

Eric Mulvin: 48:14
There is a limit to that. And I do like the that concept about, you know, does it? I mean, the world’s who sets who sets the limit?

Mark Schmidt: 48:22
Is it you, Eric? Who sets the limit?

Eric Mulvin: 48:24
Yeah, but we’re the ones in control of the city. I do, I set my own limit. I do. I mean, does Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, you know, we all have the same 24 hours in a day? Yeah. And ultimately, you know, it’s just what you do with the those hours. And there’s only so much you can do. You know, I one of the things I learned at Yelp, they they always because I did sales, I had to call 80 small businesses a day to try to get them to buy advertising on Yelp, those people. And the the thing that they would always tell you is like, it’s a numbers game. It’s a numbers game. And so, you know what? I worked late into the night, I worked on weekends trying to get in front of those business owners because I’m like, oh, this entrepreneur running this restaurant in Atlanta or in Florida. Like, the only time I’m gonna catch them is a Saturday morning, and so worked a time backwards to Arizona. Okay, I gotta I gotta catch him at seven in the morning on a Saturday so I could talk to them, and of course, they don’t pick up. It didn’t success. Also, hard work did not equal success. And then it it was like a a big realization for me that you you that creativity that that you have to be able to do that to like, oh, there’s gotta be a better way to make money, you know. And at the end of the day, that’s what I was just trying to do is make a career for myself.

Mark Schmidt: 49:44
So switching that around, but yeah, and you you you know, which I like to like to share, and I shared it with my kids and other other anybody who will I I basically will share it with anybody who will listen. Okay. One of the things in life you want to do is pay as little dumb tax as possible. Do you know what dumb tax is?

Eric Mulvin: 50:10
I would imagine. Well, there could taxes that you shouldn’t be paying, or well, it could be just things that you are you’re taxing yourself by spending money on things you don’t need and well it’s it’s it’s an un it’s an unnecessary expense at your expense.

Mark Schmidt: 50:25
I I gave an example, say, man, if you can’t do this in 40 hours, you’re not doing it right. You’re not doing it well. And you just told me how you spent all this extra time and energy and effort in I mean the energy that that takes, correct?

Eric Mulvin: 50:41
Yeah.

Mark Schmidt: 50:42
To get up to, you know, the make of the ganas to play, you know, another phone call. So that’s a great Spanish word, by the way. And uh so and so you reinforced what the dumb tax was. You didn’t get the return for the effort you put into it. It didn’t it didn’t really manifest in profit. So a lot of people they’ll they’ll want to do that and pay it, and and literally it goes into paying way too much income tax. I’ve done that as well. You know, before I became an S-corp, I paid it probably cost me an extra thirty or forty thousand dollars in taxes. How’s that?

Eric Mulvin: 51:20
Real number No, I did the same thing, had a new LLC until I got some more better expert advice, got a new CPA, and they’re like, well, you’re not doing this. Made me question the last CPA. How come they didn’t recommend that? But it and I think if I would have educated myself sooner on tax strategies on these things, I could have been more proactive sooner, and it would have saved tens of thousands of dollars for sure.

Mark Schmidt: 51:47
So we both we both paid that dumb tax. So can we together say to our the listeners of this pod, uh, understand if nothing else, understand the S-corp designation for taxes. Ask your accountant, or if you don’t have one, get one. But also begin to understand, like for instance, deductions do not make you money. They cost okay. Can I get an amen on the and true?

Eric Mulvin: 52:14
Amen. Yeah.

Mark Schmidt: 52:15
They cost you. And so anyway, though there’s things that when it comes to money, the marquis is there’s always a better way. So do it the best way you can, but that will typically, if you stay open and stay pliable, you will find a better way. You’ll find somebody to come along and say, Hey, I did that, but man, guess what? That one cost me 40 grand. Like I’m what you said, 12 or 20 or something like that, you know. Yeah. And then then I changed here. I share it with all kinds all the business people. Yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 52:45
And yeah. The I had some advice another one of my CEO friends gave me that I to this day, uh I really try to stick to it, and I think it applies here well. That rich people typically will spend about a week a month managing their money. And and I I guess there’s been some studies on this, and so they’re spending a lot of time looking at their investments, looking at you know whatever it is they’re trying to grow. And most people do not spend any time. Correct. I mean, I’ve and that’s when I realized, like, you know, I’m always so busy. I’m always putting it off, putting it off, putting it off, and focused on the business. Well, my personal finances were a wreck. So ever since then, I got some apps, I got it’s running my budgets. It’s I’m looking at I spend time every month. Me and my wife look at our our our budget. Are we spending more than we’re like less or more? Do we need to adjust things? And that’s been a huge game changer for us. Yeah. And I just feel like I’m guessing there’s probably a lot of not a lot of people out there listening that are doing that. And their her challenge to me, my CEO friend, was try to spend at least eight hours a month managing your money and see what happens. And then you start the imagination, you know, you start being able to find some creative ways to be like, oh, I could be doing this instead. Oh, I the the dumb tax that you’re paying, you don’t even realize because you don’t ever look at your money, then you can start uncovering it.

Mark Schmidt: 54:16
So another good thing to do, this goes to every entrepreneur, business owner, and you’re doing this, by the way, because you told me about your mastermind with these CEOs and they’re and they’re you know, they’re big, they’re big ticket guys, you know, they’re got big boy pants. When you meet somebody that is has accomplished something or is doing something, that you go, that’s that’s noteworthy. Ask them, could you what could you share? Could you pass some wisdom? Or ask them, would it be wise if I dot dot dot? I I like to I I was talking to a young guy who was out here on my ranch dumping some mulch chips, you know? And we started talking a little bit, and I told him I a lot of these young guys said, you know, man, I wish I had met me when I was your age. Isn’t that interesting? And yeah, but then I go, I realized, wait a minute, I did. I just wasn’t listening, I wasn’t ready. Make yourself ready by being around people that can give you wisdom is is more valuable than gold and silver. It’s the most valuable commodity is to get the wisdom on something. And I’m going into retirement now, I’m looking back and said, Oh, now what I know, wow, I would have done this if I had known that, but I I didn’t put myself in a place to need to know it at that. Like you said, how to to take that time, and even though I did it, but I’m I’m still doing it now, and I’ll do more. And but I can pass that along too, hopefully to other people. Yeah. So yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 55:58
Well, you had mentioned something when we were talking the other day about helping younger people like cut years of toil out of their life. That’s it.

Mark Schmidt: 56:07
Oh, the wormhole. The wormhole.

Eric Mulvin: 56:10
Talk to me a little bit about that, the concept there.

Mark Schmidt: 56:14
Okay, let me just give you the fundamental. The most important thing in life and eternity is your life, who you are as a person, how you live, how you care and love for other people. You know, I had a buddy years ago, preacher buddy of mine, he goes, There really is nobody on their deathbed that said, you know, doggone, I wish I’d spent more five more days a month at the office or you know, more hours. People are everything. They are. People are everything. And but the other thing is that you are also a person in your life. I call it, you know, there’s there’s this idea that you we have selflessness, you know that we all know that. Or selfish. Bad, bad, bad, you know, selfish.

Eric Mulvin: 57:03
Yeah.

Mark Schmidt: 57:04
I kind of came up with my own third option, better option. I call it selfness. Selfness. Selfness is is understanding who you are, what you have to offer, what and but just who you are in the scope of eternity, of your community, of your family. Pay attention to who you are. And the better there’s this Ayn Rand wrote this book years ago, if you know who she is, you know. I just saw the title, and that’s all I need. And I wrote one story, but she said it was called The Virtue of Selfishness. Basically, if you take care of yourself well enough, you’ll make enough money to to take care of your family, and you’ll do good enough in business and in life to be able to contribute and share and be happy and peaceful yourself. Peace and happiness at the end of the life, most people say they want two things out of life, out of marriage, out of retirement, before they pass. They say I want to I want to have intimacy in my life with people and my spouse and my and I want to have peace. Isn’t that great?

Eric Mulvin: 58:11
That is great. I feel like it’s at odds with I I wish it wasn’t like this end goal that oh, after I’m done working, I could attain that. And I I I feel like I might be in a position where I can get there much younger than most of my peers, but man, it just seems like that’s a a tough goal to achieve.

Mark Schmidt: 58:33
So why are you in that why Eric, why are you in that position? Why do you think you’re in that position?

Eric Mulvin: 58:38
Well, I feel like I could grow this business to the size where you know I I have it’ll give me some options. It’d probably make me enough income where I can save up for the retirement, not have to work the nine to five at some point. And and who knows? I I haven’t made any final plans with the business at this point. I’m enjoying you know running it and and leading the company and being like the face of the company, but at some point, I like just like the painter thing, you know, I can’t be I can’t be running a tech focused company forever. Yeah, eventually that’s like I’m seeing this right now. I know somebody that just is getting ready to merge their marketing company with a bunch of other companies. And one of the things that she had shared was there are like hundreds of thousands of marketing agencies for sale in the United States right now, and it’s a lot of people that they’ve had this business for decades and they don’t want to adapt to AI. They’re like, forget this, I’m not gonna convert my business into AI, and so they’re trying to exit out. So I don’t know, I just don’t want to be in it forever. But but yeah, I feel like there’s there’s that possibility, or maybe one of the crazy creative ideas I have turns into something that that could be lucrative. I don’t know, but that’s why I think that’s possible. But for if you’re working like uh for if you’re a lot of people work in their nine to five jobs, I don’t know, like you see how much that you need for retirement in the US, and it’s uh it and and the stats. I’m just looking at the data, right? Like how many people have enough money saved up for retirement or are saving for retirement, and it’s it’s always disappointing to see just how few people out there are prepared for like a big chunk of their life.

Mark Schmidt: 01:00:29
Well, okay, let me let me just say something that’s I I’ve I’ve I’ve observed and learned because I only work with retired people, okay? I do reverse mortgages, you know, old people. My average, my average borrower or people is probably 72 years old. Couple, you know, or if they’re single, it’s tougher because or their widow, widowed or widower. And I’ve discovered a couple things. I’d say about 85 to 90 percent of the people I’ve done reverse mortgages with live on Social Security alone and they owe money on their house. How’s that? Is that interesting?

Eric Mulvin: 01:01:10
That is interesting.

Mark Schmidt: 01:01:11
And so when we do a reverse mortgage, they have the o they they they their payment goes away if they just they don’t if they don’t have to make a payment. It’s not required. And so that changes their quality of life, their cash flow immensely. But I’ve also learned what it takes to live well. And one of the things it’s not a whole lot of money. Because these people, a lot of people are living on, let’s just say, $3,000 a month, and they’ve been making a house payment. And uh what you need to be is you need health, you need people that these are the three things. You need a home, you need a place to live that you’re comfortable, healthy for you, you need your as much of your health as possible, and you need good relationships. Money can contribute to those, but it cannot establish any of those. Okay? Yeah, but you do that, we bring that to the table. I do, I bring it in my home, in my family with my wife. And so it’s it’s an interesting thing. Money is not is not the main driver on this, because I’ve been around so many people that live great lives and had rich lives and family, and they don’t have much. You know, they most of them don’t have a 401 at all.

Eric Mulvin: 01:02:29
Philippines, the entire country of the Philippines is a perfect example of it.

Mark Schmidt: 01:02:32
Yeah, there you go.

Eric Mulvin: 01:02:33
Yeah, bring that up. That’s so true. Yeah, I mean, you could see videos where people walking through flood waters, but they’re smiling and they’re still happy, even though some of their possessions got washed away in the flood. You know, you’re talking about the culverts getting washed away and the auroras. Yeah. I mean, these people’s homes are getting like flooded. And I mean, even talking with someone on my team, we were beginning, there’s a big typhoon that hit the Philippines this week. And she was where our call center is based, Dumaguetti, it’s about an hour flight south of Manila. So we’re further south, but we have staff around the Philippines, and she was saying, Yeah, you know, there’s there’s some flooding going on right now, it’s up to my knees. And I’m like, What are you talking about? And she’s like, Yeah, if I go downstairs right now in my house, it’s flooded up to my knees, but that’s why I’m just working upstairs. I was like, That is crazy. She’s just working upstairs, how incredible. You would be calling off not working, and meanwhile, they’re like, nope, they didn’t even mention it until I started asking questions. I’m like, What how is it up there where you’re at? Like, oh yeah, it’s pretty bad. But it’s the the mentality is so different from the US and the gratitude they have in life.

Mark Schmidt: 01:03:51
Oh man, so astonishing. So you know, and that’s a perfect example. Then, if you have money, then you can look at it. It’s not the driving force anytime in life, you know. We lived very simply, raised three kids on one income, wasn’t a huge income. Learned to get out of debt and stay out of debt, and enjoyed. And I still enjoy every day. I have a new motto. You ready for my new motto? You ready? Live a good day. Live a good day.

Eric Mulvin: 01:04:30
I like that. There was a speaker I had earlier this year that spoke to my business group, and one of the things that they taught was to try and make every day a 10. Like a 10 out of 10. Yeah. And what can you do to like every day you could do something to make the day really interesting? So like he challenged us to go out tonight and try to, you know, what can you do to make today a 10? So it was like my kids were in school, they got out of school. It was like a Thursday night. And I I mean, this particular night, I chose to spend some money. I’m like, we’re busy, just let’s just go to Dave and Buster’s and took him to Yeah, now we’re talking. Now we’re talking. Play some arcades and play play games with them, but like totally unexpected, and they were just they were so happy. But we also you could do this very affordably too. One thing my wife and I like to do, we’ll go to Goodwill and look at all the used games, and I mean we have a closet full of like so many different board games. Yeah, I found one recently, they made a board game version of Tetris, and now we’re hooked, like we keep playing it, and it costs us like three dollars at Goodwill. So nice. It doesn’t mean you have to spend money. There’s definitely ways to do it to you know, stick with your motto there being debt free. You’re definitely not gonna get there by spending a hundred dollars at Dave and Busters every time. But yeah, lots of ways to do that. So I wanted to, as I know we’re getting kind of close to the end of time here, we didn’t touch too much on music. You got those guitars sitting back there. You said something interesting about that one guitar back there. Oh, here, let me get it for you. I got it. Yeah. This one right here? Yeah, there’s something special about this one, right?

Mark Schmidt: 01:06:13
Everything is. It’s a Martin D18 Sunburst. Very rare guitar. I bought it in 1977. And my father lent me 400 bucks. It cost $800 in 1977. Oh my gosh. This guitar has bought every property I own I’ve ever owned. Playing this guitar.

Eric Mulvin: 01:06:40
Through all the music you played?

Mark Schmidt: 01:06:41
Yeah, through the music, the money I made with it, playing. I got paid to play. Remember, I stopped paying to play?

Eric Mulvin: 01:06:48
Yeah.

Mark Schmidt: 01:06:49
My first house. I bought my first house. I was making with this guitar $1,200 a month playing. Wow. And I bought my first house. How’s that? And from there, now we ended up at we have a ranch. We have 12 acres out here. This guitar. And the other things I’ve learned and done. But it was the seeds. Like you talked about seeds and the wildflowers, okay? And they grew and I took more seeds and I and I but it still comes back to this first guitar. So that’s the story of this. And my father blessed me with it by giving me half the money to buy it.

Eric Mulvin: 01:07:28
Yeah. It is fascinating. You’re the second person I talked to in the last 30 days I had on the show. I had DJ Luigi. I’ve been having a lot of people in music lately.

Mark Schmidt: 01:07:40
DJ Luigi. I like that.

Eric Mulvin: 01:07:42
That’s yeah.

Mark Schmidt: 01:07:43
But he I gotta get a better name, man.

Eric Mulvin: 01:07:47
Oh yeah. Well, nothing wrong with Mark. Nah, he works. But yeah, he had gotten his first DJ equipment from a family member and invested. It was it was a large expense too, like thousands of dollars, because he saw like the potential, and and uh it was his uncle, I think. So saw the potential in his nephew to invest in, and it turned into this big career. So it’s just uh well the interesting thing, and I I mentioned on that episode too, is just how important family is to support you know your dreams. And I mean, we talked about spouse, but also family plays a a major role, critical critical role in helping you out at times. So which there you go, you got your guitar because that’s that’s a lot of money to spend on the guitar. Well, you know, back then it was.

Mark Schmidt: 01:08:40
Yeah, it well this guitar, you know, it’s I don’t know what it’s worth. It’s it’s I’d never sell it. It’s staying in the family, and yeah, it’s worth 10 grand, probably easy. But if I didn’t have the guitar and had the money, I’d I can’t play a hundred dollar bill, you know.

Eric Mulvin: 01:08:59
And uh so it’s like no, you can’t, you know. No, it it reminds me a bit about me with my cameras. Um and my parents helped buy my first camera, and yeah, yeah. The cameras, when I had that taxi business, I made no money, it sucked up money. But the way that I survived, one, I was kind of like you. I had my wife, she was working in a hospital, not a nurse, but in healthcare, and her income helped cover our expenses, and I was able to focus on the business for three years, not having to worry about making money. But the cameras, what what saved me, what got me all of my income is I did freelance making videos and and stuff for like Arizona Department of Health, for different brands here in Arizona, and that’s what paid the bills. But same thing, I took that that camera and used it to make money for myself, and so we have some interesting similarities.

Mark Schmidt: 01:10:01
It is, and you’ll see them through so many people. Uh, there’s a proverb. I lived by this until it became my life. How’s that? I lived it in faith, in belief. It says, During the do your work during the day, and at evening don’t withhold your hand. Because you do not know which one will prosper. Okay, then the interpreter says, keep your day job and for me, but keep keep writing songs. Keep playing.

Eric Mulvin: 01:10:34
Yeah, we didn’t ever talk about that, but you have a whole bunch of songs that you’ve written over your life, right?

Mark Schmidt: 01:10:41
Yeah, I I have. I’ve I’ve written, uh I’m a songwriter. It’s just like, you know, you’re a photographer. Period. Correct? You always are gonna take Yeah, you’re gonna see it and you’re gonna clip it. I I write songs, I hear songs, you know, it’s a it’s an interesting thing. But I’ve also performed and I play and I’m I’m beginning to record again. I stopped for 15 years, you know that? I hung this guitar on the wall. And a buddy of mine came along and said, Mark, you need to take that guitar off the wall. It’s in this song I’m gonna play for you. And the other thing was 15 years, I walked away from something that was so important. And every one of us has something like there was a wound, there was a disappointment, yeah, discouraged we all know that. I went back and I picked this thing up again, and this song I want to do, share it for you. It’s kind of the theme song. Everyone who’s ever heard it says, Oh my gosh. So I’ll let you make your own decision. But this is the story of taking my guitar off the wall, and my oldest son was in the army. Got out, a couple years later, ran into one of his battle buddies. During their conversation, his his buddy was saying, Man, I’m I’m I’m terrified of going to college. And my son goes, You know what? We need to be as bold as we were then. I go, Man, that’s a great line. So I go, Mason, I my oldest son, I go, I’m stealing it. He goes, Hey dad, do whatever. And it comes up in the course of this song.

Eric Mulvin: 01:12:09
Ooh, can’t wait to well, we’re gonna wrap up with that. Are you ready here? So, but I have one more question for you. One more, tear it, tear it up, man. And because it’s the point of the show here is unfinished business, and uh, I love hearing different people’s perspective from the last guests we had on. Was uh I also in music, a band in high school, all the way to you know, entrepreneurs and folks your age as well. But for you, you know, you mentioned a lot about your you are self-proclaimed retired now, although still still can’t uh still doing some entrepreneurial stuff.

Mark Schmidt: 01:12:43
But for you entrepreneurs never stop doing deals. We never stop.

Eric Mulvin: 01:12:48
You can’t.

Mark Schmidt: 01:12:48
No, you never stop.

Eric Mulvin: 01:12:50
But for you, like what’s your unfinished business? What is something that you know you as you get into this next chapter of your life here, where you’re not focused on having to work much anymore? What is something that you’d like to get accomplished in in your time?

Mark Schmidt: 01:13:07
I I really want to share my song. Not just songs, but the story of the things that were the most valuable and meaningful in my life. I want to make those transferable to people who are open. I don’t need any I the the reward is to be able to share that and to see other people get to the place in their life where they have freedom and they have peace. And that to me is the most important thing. But I’ll probably be really successful because the songs they’ve meant so much to me and they seem to be, you know. I’m not gonna give them away, I own them, but I’m gonna give I’m gonna record them and share my version free. Everybody else gets to pay full freight on them.

Eric Mulvin: 01:13:56
So for your music, because I want people to be able to find you, are you posting anything on YouTube anywhere? Or not yet online? Not yet.

Mark Schmidt: 01:14:04
I’m gonna finish this album, but I I do have a website, it’s kind of clever because the song, the theme, the the main song of the album is called Better at Nothing. Better at Nothing. So I actually I have better at nothing.com. And that’s that’s gonna be my music and my my site, and I will do YouTube and I will do things like that. And so like you’re the first, my friend.

Eric Mulvin: 01:14:27
Well, it’s an honor.

Mark Schmidt: 01:14:28
Thank you. Well, no, it’s it it the honor’s mine to be able to and to do this and you know, have the old silver sage share a few things, you know, and yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 01:14:39
Well, like there’s a lot of wisdom tied up in that that that uh head of your isn’t it? Yeah, it is. That’s why I love having the show where we get to get some of those stories out and and share that with others. So hopefully, you know, someone listening today gets inspired and you know, be able to go out and start singing their song that they were meant to sing.

Mark Schmidt: 01:14:59
Play your song, you know, you gotta find it, free it, and then finish it. That’s awesome. So, whatever it is, and you have a song, and one thing you gotta know it’s gonna be original to you. It’s not gonna be just somebody else’s, like we talked about, you’re not just gonna sing karaoke in somebody else’s thing. There’s something in you that no one else can do that only you can do. And the last thing about that, if you don’t do it, it won’t get done without you.

Eric Mulvin: 01:15:24
It’s very true.

Mark Schmidt: 01:15:25
How’s that true?

Eric Mulvin: 01:15:26
The world is gonna miss out on that that gift that you didn’t share with the world. Well, Mark, thank you so much for being on the show. It was awesome having you on and hearing some of your journey. And thanks, Eric.

Mark Schmidt: 01:15:38
Appreciate it.

Eric Mulvin: 01:15:39
Sharing your music with us too. I love I love that. I mean, this is part of what I wanted to be able to do with the show is get people on to not uh to sing their song about their business, but literally also when when it’s uh appropriate that we got someone that has musical talents to share.

Mark Schmidt: 01:15:56
So yeah, it’s kind of you know, it’s kind of a bonus. It’s kind of like being able to dunk a basketball, you know. Yeah, hey man, that guy can you know that’s uh so but it’s yeah, thanks. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it, and I I want to encourage you. You’re doing a fantastic thing for you know that’s a young guy, and oh thanks, you know, all that and good looking on top of that. So what can I say, you know, and and what you’re sharing is this is valuable, this is good. And I’ll tell our buddy who introduced us to thank you and that we did this great shout out to Greg One BC shout out to Greg One BC. I’ve been a member for oh a dozen years.

Eric Mulvin: 01:16:32
Yeah, so if you’re looking for a group to connect with, a bunch of entrepreneurs, especially in Denver, but they do virtual stuff.

Mark Schmidt: 01:16:38
Yeah, one business connection, Denver, and I’ve been a part for many years, and I’m a life member, and that means you can’t quit. Whether you want to or not. Yeah, stuck, man.

Eric Mulvin: 01:16:50
Stuck. Well, again, that website, we’ll get the the link here. So that’s it.

Mark Schmidt: 01:16:55
Yeah, better at nothing. There’s nothing there yet, but I’ll put I’m gonna put something up, but it’s gonna be there, and that’s gonna be my my portal, my platform. Okay.

Eric Mulvin: 01:17:03
And if you guys like what you heard today, you want to hear more amazing stories from entrepreneurs, from talented people like Mark here, then make sure you go subscribe, Unfinished Business with Eric Mulvin, anywhere you listen to podcasts, or you can go to @ biz witheric on social media. And until then, we’ll catch you guys on the next episode. See you guys all later. Bye, everybody.

Mark Schmidt: 01:17:26
Okay, this is called the way back, because it was my way back.

Eric Mulvin: 01:17:30
All right.

Mark Schmidt: 01:17:45
Old as you are now, as wise as you become, young as life allows. Be the one who’s strong and free. Let others take the bow. Turn and face into the wind. Live as only you know how. Old as you were then, old as you are now. Take the guitar off the wall, pull the folder from the drawer, lift the easel from behind the bed, push the Chevy from the shed, load that novel from the drive, flip the shoebox full of poems, get the rolled-up quilt behind the couch, stitch a free verse about home. Make metal bent a beautiful, mix the colors of your soul, be stubbornly original, go where no one else can go. Fix a broken link in a tired dream, clear a path for hope to flow. Tell the truth you’ve lived and loved and learned, so open hearts will know. Cause if you had this to do all again, you couldn’t change a thing. It’s yours to share with those who care the secret of life’s game. You made the role and paid the toll in doubt and fear and pain, but you leave behind for the wise to find the gold in your good name. So bring your soul up to speed. Ask for what you need. On the other side of doubt is what your life’s about. You’re part of everything, is a song you must sing. Start this now, not then it’s joy to begin. As bold as you were then, bold as you are now, wise as you become, young as life allows. Be the one who’s strong and free. Let others take the bow. Turn and face into the wind, live as only you know how. As bold as you were, then bold as you are now.

Eric Mulvin: 01:20:20
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Man, that is perfect for the show. I didn’t like people listening. If they’re ready to start something and they needed some motivation, just uh listen to that song and listen to those lyrics because there’s a lot of a lot of life built into that, as you could a lot, baby, a lot