Lessons - From HUD Housing to 34 Years on Wall Street by Scheduling His Anxiety | Milton "Todd" Ault III - Ault & Company CEO

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In this lessons episode, discover how scheduling your worry can prevent problems from consuming your time and attention.

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Learn why setting aside a dedicated window for worry creates space to focus on solutions, understand how strong relationships and clear expectations support long-term success, and explore how taking action can replace overthinking with progress.

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Tell me something, because you're building out your brand.

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You have a conference, Risk On 360.

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Obviously, you're jumping on podcasts, too.

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Does this not, at the level that you're playing at, does it not cause more stress for you to be putting yourself out there all the time?

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It's just like more eyeballs looking at what you're doing.

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You're already getting death threats, or you don't give a shit.

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Yeah, I don't care.

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I don't care about the death threats.

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I don't care about that part.

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I care about, so the Risk on 360 conference, what we've done differently with this conference than most of them is, like if you went to some of Grant's TEDx conferences, there was so much pay to get access.

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It was so expensive.

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We wanted to lower the cost of that and really create an environment of like, I know we're going to try to get you there.

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We want to create an environment where people can know each other and that there's at least a level of trust of how they met you and that the cost is minimal to be there.

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And I've had, I believe, two of them so far, two or three.

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Yeah.

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And we've had like Alice Rodriguez, we've had Damon John, we've had tons of people, Tucker Carlson, RFK Jr., a ton of entrepreneurs, guys that have started businesses, girls that have started businesses.

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And we know that the people are networking in a big way.

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I find out this later on that a lot of business is being created there.

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And one of the things I got out of Grant Cardone was all the people I met there, but the cost was so parabolic.

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Then it was like, you know, 50 grand pay to play.

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Right.

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And I'm like, yeah, I just the average person can't afford that.

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And it's not that I don't want the average person there, but I want people to have a reasonable opportunity to go meet people and network.

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Right.

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And then you've got to you've got to fed out, you know, feather out who's real, who's not.

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Yeah.

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But I ultimately think because the companies will ultimately turn cash flow positive, even without positive, and we expect to produce a lot of cash long term, that I like investing.

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I've created this thing.

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You know, I'm so excited about the social club, what you have.

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And I encourage people that have had an exit or understand financial markets, private equity, public equity, private credit, public credit, to learn about the social club, because I think that these are really valuable things.

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things to put together.

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You don't all have to be a Tiger 21.

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If you don't know what I'm referring to, either Tiger 21 or the social club that Scott runs, then you probably need to do a little research.

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It'll eventually rise up to where, as an entrepreneur, where you want to be.

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And there's criteria to get in.

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I'm not suggesting everyone can be in.

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But I've created something not the same, but similar in the sense that I created this thing called the dealalliance.com

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And the Deal Alliance allows people that are accredited to just see the deals I'm doing and they can join me or not join me.

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The problem I have with this is that when I started my career 34 years ago, when I worked at Dean Witter, I did so many IPOs that I was giving them out to brokers as a syndicate manager.

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And I've never really had an opportunity to tell everyone, here's the private deal or public deal I'm doing.

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If you want to have access to it, you've got to be accredited.

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Here's the deal memo.

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Here's my thesis.

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Make your selection.

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Very similar to Kalanis, Jason, who's doing the syndicate.

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Yeah, Jason Kalanis.

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And I'm part of his Slack channel, and he does all of his deals through there, too.

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I can't remember what it's called, but...

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Right.

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And so, but mine are more like structured equity, structured finance.

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Yeah.

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Some sort of elaborate transaction that I'm doing.

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I do a lot of structured finance deals where I want like, you know, 100 people in them.

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They all put in 50 grand or something, you know.

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So I...

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I do this public stuff because I believe that ultimately I can help people.

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And that's why I do, that's why I did your podcast.

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That's why I hope you did mine.

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And it's because I like to network with people and get to know what they're doing.

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I I'm, I'm probably more selective on the deals I do now than ever before, but I, I do believe that we can ultimately help everyone.

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There's someone out there to help every person, no matter how small or no matter how big they are.

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Well,

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Over $150 million, $200 million company, I'm probably not the guy for you.

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But maybe.

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You never know.

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Yeah, but you know what?

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You get somebody started.

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So you democratize access to deals, to education, to your years of experience.

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You've been in the trenches, which is what people actually need.

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They don't need somebody who built a whole audience on social media and is teaching somebody to do something they've never done themselves.

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Big red flag, and that happens a lot.

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So when someone like you puts themselves out there, democratizes that access, and sort of helps them get started from a lens of experience, then some people are going to go on to build incredible things, whether or not they become...

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Full-time investors, they find a way to do a deal that gives them the capital required to maybe take their business to the next level or not take another job because now they have a nice nest egg to sit on for a little bit, whatever it is.

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More financial acumen and more financial education and access to deals that you normally wouldn't have access to.

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This is all good.

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It's all good stuff.

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So I think that it's just good that you're doing it.

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That's my two- I will tell you that that's what I think attracted me to you, and that is warts and all-

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You know, you don't want to be doing business with someone, in my opinion, that's just a social media popular person that's not ever done it before.

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Now, sometimes the people that have done it before don't really present well in social media, right?

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So there's a mix of me doing this myself to try to explain to people.

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I get people all the time to say, oh, your background, you know, you got sued.

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Okay, well, let me tell you something.

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If you're looking...

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for people to help you that have never had any problems, keep looking, buddy.

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You know, in 2009, when I was dead broke after the housing crisis, I borrowed 200 bucks from my mom.

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I mean, I couldn't pay my bills.

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I couldn't put food on the table.

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Fast forward seven years from 2009, I brought a company public that I owned half of for more than 3.3 billion.

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That was the first trade.

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It went public at five, opened at 33.

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You have to have access to people.

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And my whole life is based on this risk on philosophy that relationships are the most important thing.

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They're the most vital.

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You have to invest in yourself.

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You have to stay your own course.

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You have to know your competition.

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You have to own your own mistakes and you have to never give up.

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But if you start with relationships that are honest...

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You can get through pretty much anything as long as you don't lie to anybody.

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As long as you don't lie to them, people will want to help you.

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And I want to help people the best I can, and I need to avoid people lying to me.

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And so I love the conference because...

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You meet a lot of people in all...

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I met this guy the other day in Bermuda, an 18-year-old kid doing something called microgreens.

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I thought, okay, is that really a business?

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Eh, maybe it is.

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And then I found out that he's doing microgreens so you can feed your reptiles.

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So I said to him, hey, the pet space is huge for this.

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And I said to him, hey, if you create

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A GoFundMe account or what was it?

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What's that thing where you can sell microgreens to get paid?

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It's you can sell like your idea.

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You know, that Web Kickstarter, Kickstarter, Kickstarter.

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Yeah.

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I said, I'll do the he said I only need I only need $10,000.

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I said, I'll do the first 10 percent.

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But you got to ask for 50,000.

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You know, I'll do the first 10% right now.

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So sometimes I like to help people that just have a really cool idea and we'll see where it goes.

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You know, I'm a true believer and I'm not a religious guy, but I'm a true believer that there's something bigger than us.

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And the more you give away, you're going to get it back tenfold.

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I'm a real believer in that.

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And so the conference, we don't make money really much at it.

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I don't know that we actually make a profit at the conference, really, when you think about it.

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But we make a lot of relationships that turn into things.

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And so...

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I mean, I don't think you charge for people on your podcast, but you probably get a lot of relationships from it, right?

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And you're giving away a lot of your time to educate people on something that I think is invaluable.

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There's nothing more important than learning whether someone's ever made a payroll or not and how they made it through it and how they got help.

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Because you will need help.

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I'm engaged.

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What?

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Because a person, an entrepreneur, anyone who's starting a business is fooling himself if they don't think they're going to need help.

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How do you gauge success?

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How do you gauge your success?

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My wife.

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I gauge all my success on the relationship I have with my wife and my four kids.

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So everything else is just a business.

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So now you're probably saying, well, you had to have some financial success to keep a family.

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That's true.

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But she stayed with me when I didn't have a dollar.

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Never complained, not even for one second.

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So.

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Like I said about the R in relationships, the hardest part about being an entrepreneur is being married to the right human being.

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Whether you're male or female, you have to have the right counterparty with you, the right mindset.

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My first wife basically said to me one time, and I wasn't paying attention to this.

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I worked and ran a hedge fund, and she said, it would be nice if you came home at 5 o'clock and left your work behind.

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And I said, well, that's never going to happen.

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And sure enough, a couple months later, she divorced me.

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So I wasn't thinking that when I answered the question, it's never going to happen.

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That was going to lead to divorce.

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And that's probably not the only reason she left me.

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But the second time, which is really better the second time, I said to her, you have to accept $50,000 or $500,000.

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I never know what I'm going to make.

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And I work all the time.

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And this is what I'm committed to.

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And she signed up for it.

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And it's been a rocky roller coaster fun ride.

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But you set expectations, which is, that's the secret.

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You set expectations early on.

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I think that that's when people screw up.

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All right.

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What did we not go into?

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Because we went into a lot today.

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I just have a couple.

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One last question to close it out, just to tie it and bring it home.

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But what would be one thing that we didn't go into that I didn't ask you, maybe that I wouldn't know to ask you from all the stuff you posted online that would be a lesson or insight or learning that you've experienced in your life?

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So...

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I did learn to schedule my worry.

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And what I mean by that is, this is just something that could be helpful, and that is, I have things that happen to me every single day that are a problem every day.

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They're just a problem.

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My wife says I wake up to problems as a fireman that people...

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if they experienced it once in their life, would not recover from it, and I have it weekly and daily.

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I have a strategy of scheduling my worry.

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It's about 15 to 30 minutes a day.

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I only allow myself to worry that time frame.

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The rest is all taking action to solve those problems.

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So if you can schedule your worry, don't drag it out.

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Don't tell 1,000 people.

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And I'll emphasize that by if you don't have a business coach or a life coach, I've been seeing the same shrink for 24 years.

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I never miss.

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I've been seeing her every Saturday now by Zoom because I live in Vegas.

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I've been seeing her one hour a week for 24 years since my first divorce.

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And if you're not talking to someone and you're not, if you're not laying your issues with someone you pay to coach you, you're making a mistake.

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I mean, an actual licensed therapist, someone that can help you with whatever issues you think you have.

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And they have to be really able to help you.

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Meaning they're not giving you the answers.

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They're helping you find the answers.

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And, um,

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I would encourage everyone to read two books and read them completely.

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The Road Less Traveled, the original by M. Scott Peck.

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And it tells you in the first page what the problem is.

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And I remind myself of that all the time.

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And I would read Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, even though it's written in a way which is kind of the old English language.

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It's important to understand that.

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why you're doing something, what you're giving in return, right?

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If you understand the difficulties of being a human being and you understand the difficulties of being in business from Napoleon Hill, you're halfway there.

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But you really got to understand it.

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You can't just say you read it.

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You got to live it.

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Thanks for tuning in.

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If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

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And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode.

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See you in the next one.