Leaving the Mormon Church, Homeschooling Children & Starting a $30M Fund | Mark McCormack DSH #286

You said you don't believe in fake it till you make it.

I hate fake it till you make it.

I'm in this men's group, you know we were talking about earlier.

There's like lies that people tell them.

So one of those is fake it till you make it.

And really to shorten my answer to that is you need to find mentors when you go.

That's the time to learn.

That's the time to grow.

It's not the time to, you know, make a million bucks and buy a Lambrid union with my men.

Right.

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And here's the episode.

All right, guys, fellow podcast host here today, Mark McCormack, all the way from Utah.

Not too far.

How's it going?

Good, man.

Really good.

We share some common goals, I think, and some common investments.

Yes, we do for now.

I know you got a $30 million fund, right?

Yep.

I'd love to hear about how you got into that space and what the goal with the fund is.

Yeah, absolutely.

So that fund is Tandem Ventures out of Utah.

So it was started by Alex Bean and McKay Dunn.

And Alex is one of the guys that started Divi.

And so he was sold to Bills.com.

What does Divi do?

I've heard of that.

They're an accounting software.

Okay.

So it's one of the biggest unicorns out of Utah, if not the biggest one.

So Divi sold for like 2.6 billion.

Damn.

After four years.

That's a good partner to have.

Yeah, so they're the managing partners.

I'm one of the venture partners.

So I really just raise money for them and go over deal flow and stuff like that.

Nice.

How long have you been doing that?

I've been in the investment space for probably about 13 years.

Okay.

So, but I've been with tandem since September.

And I first started just investing with them my own money.

And then,

you know, it's kind of a natural progression into it.

So is it true the VC space, it's like, what, 10% of the investments pay off or something low like that?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it really ranges.

So you're kind of, I call it placing bets.

You know, you bring in as many companies as you can, underwrite them the best that you can, you know, mostly medium risk, high reward.

And so we're really trying to basically three to five X every deal, you know, in about three to five years, really.

Nice.

But when you seed, so that, you know, with the different rounds, when you seed in, there's a lot of deals.

You know, you can get 50x, 100x.

And so, yeah, it kind of makes up some of the, some of the ones that go down.

Wow.

Any big exits so far?

No.

So that, that fund has only been around for about 18 months.

Oh, got it.

So we're just kind of loading right now.

We did that first round of 30 mil.

We're doing the next 20 million right now to close that fund, go 50 million on that.

And we do, let's see, I think we've got about seven SPVs.

Wow.

What is up?

So that's when you just do a specific raise for one specific company.

Got it.

Instead of a pot of funds.

Got it.

I just had on, I forget his name, but he did the uh fundraising for top golf he was on yesterday oh okay cool that was a while ago yeah he said it was the best investment he ever made oh cool he actually didn't have any personal money he raised it all for them oh really yeah yeah so he just basically does what you do yeah the cool thing with our funds so we um so number one all the partners we represent 10 of all the money going in so every deal that i raise i have my own personal money in and then we don't pay any carried interest forward or any of the upside for people unless we double their money interesting yeah we're because all of us are pretty pretty wealthy guys that are partners, you know, like Jimmer Fordet's one of the partners also.

Yeah, we've got some got some heavy hitters in there, so it's really fun.

Wow.

I want to talk about how you got to that stage of your life where you had money like that.

So prior to this, what were you doing?

So my dad's a Scottish immigrant, so came over.

And when I was three years old, he started an athletic equipment company called ADP Lemco in Seoul to Utah.

And so we make basketball backstop, gender viter curtains, we do bleachers, all sorts of stuff inside of new construction education market.

So subcontractor eventually.

Got it.

And so I ended up buying that company from him, worked there my whole life i started working i was eight years old he didn't give you it you bought it i bought it yeah yeah we kind of talked about that back and forth and i i to me it was just a much better transition to um to sell it and or to buy it from him and the reason why is because one day i'll eventually sell it got it and so i don't want to have you know an annuity basically attached to it forever oh interesting that makes sense yeah i never thought a business like that could be generating that much money We do well.

Yeah.

We're in about 35 states.

Yeah.

Damn.

And I also saw you did the flooring for the NBA and the NCA.

Is that a different company?

That's a totally separate company called Professional Floor Systems.

And so I bought into that company, I think about four or five years ago.

Started with a real estate transaction.

The guy that owned, well, the guy that was in that industry came to me and wanted a loan and partnership into buying a commercial building that they were in.

And then we eventually started flipping wood floors.

And I love the business, so I got into it.

So now we represent a lot of NBA teams.

We're getting the NCAA really tight.

Nice.

It's actually the reason I'm in Vegas right now.

I bought another company called Artsman Sports.

You'll see a pattern here.

Okay.

And we do memorabilia for for the nba we have a license with the nba and so we're actually branching into the nfl into uh soccer worldwide and they're at a trade show right now so that's where i'm going after this damns you gotta you wear a lot of hats i do man i get i get my fingers on a lot of stuff and a lot of these companies are all i have really good journal shout out to the science of scaling podcast hosted by mark roberge it's brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals each week mark founding CRO at HubSpot CRO and senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, interviews some of the most successful sales leaders in tech to learn the secrets, strategies, and tactics to scaling company growth.

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Really good general managers, really, really good employees.

So I'm able to kind of go around and do...

I don't know the word for it is big level stuff.

You know, meet people, kind of do like, you know, long-term deals that take nine months to a year to kind of come to fruition.

And are you the one making these important hires or you've got a team for that too?

I don't do a lot of the hiring anymore, but like acquisitions, absolutely, I do all of them.

I do all of my own underwriting and it's all my own money, too.

Wow.

Yeah.

You rarely see that, I feel like, with people in your shoes where it's your own money.

Yeah, it's interesting.

You know, I'm 42 currently.

And so a lot of my career was just.

kind of putting my head down and building the business and growing state to state and growing dealer networks and all this kind of stuff.

And then the last few years, I've kind of realized I'm a little bit of a unicorn in the space.

I kind of figured most business owners would go buy verticals and stuff like that yeah yeah sounds like you've really got that balance of just passion and making money which is rare yeah yeah it's fun I've kind of uh

I've just got to the point where I just want to spread my wings but like in a very systematic way that I like right so so you don't deal with any stresses anxieties you've kind of mitigated most of those yeah I don't have a lot of anxiety I'm pretty I'm pretty confident you know I've got a good amount of money personally you know and so it's easy for me to like look at something and go and buy it.

And when you use your own money, you don't, there's not as much stress behind that, right?

You have investors that are, you know, knocking on your door wondering what's going on.

You know, none of my companies are publicly traded, so it's, you know, all the accounting is done in-house and all that kind of stuff.

I see a lot of my friends regret going the public route, actually.

Yeah, are they going through SPACs?

Are they going?

Usually SPACs, yeah.

And it usually doesn't work out.

Excuse me.

Good luck.

Yeah, I think.

That's all a finance thing, right?

It just depends on how you're going to finance your business and bring money in.

But then you got to perform, right?

I mean, that's the big thing with a SPAC.

If you don't perform, the market will beat you fast, basically.

Yeah, I sold one of my companies and part of the deal was a stock that was part of a SPAC and I thought I was going to be loaded and stock never happened.

And a learning lesson, right?

Not to sell just for stock.

See, and I would, my companies, two of them I'm trying to prep actually for an exit to a publicly traded company.

So when I do, I actually like getting the stock because then it's a non-taxable event.

So you're not getting beat down with taxes.

But I'm looking more like mid-level companies you know they're like doing two billion a year right this was a brand new company and it wasn't established yeah yeah there's risk there you think you just if you can make it happen you can make it happen yeah you had an interesting take on your instagram you said you don't believe in fake it till you make it i hate fake it till you make it

yeah i really do

i i'm kind of doing this series i'm in i'm in this men's group you know we were talking about earlier and there's a lot of guys in there i'm a little bit i'm one of the leaders in there and so when i'm kind of mentoring some of the guys i there's like lies that people tell themselves one of those is fake it till you make it.

And really to shorten my answer to that is you need to find mentors when you're young.

If you're in your 20s, that's the time to learn.

That's the time to grow.

It's not the time to make a million bucks and buy a Lamborghini and look like a moron.

It's really establishing yourself in a career path.

So if you go to work for somebody and you're just honest with them and be like, hey, I'm going to be the most resourceful person that you ever hire.

It's almost like Tom Brady, right?

Walked up to Robert Crowd the very first day, this is the best decision you've ever made.

It's because he just worked hard and became who he was.

And that's really the principle that I think people need to to get.

It's not about just fast cash and looking like you're wealthy on Instagram.

It's really about establishing your processes and procedures and growing your net worth.

Yeah, more people need to hear that because so many people want that fast cash and it rarely works out.

You know what I mean?

The universe will punish you if you make it fast because usually when you're making it fast, it's a bit unethical and you'll lose it pretty quick.

Yeah, and you also don't appreciate it, right?

So then you start doing dumb investments.

You know, I see guys $50,000 here, $100,000 here.

They don't know how to underwrite it.

They don't have anyone advising them.

And, you know, because they're making some good money and they and they're just the deck of cards falls down.

No, that happened to me, honestly.

I made a lot in crypto very fast.

And I was like, let me diversify.

Let me invest in restaurants.

Let me invest in AI.

Let me invest in all this.

Lost all of it.

Because when you invest in stuff you don't know about, it's hard.

Yeah.

I actually think diversification is another lie, actually.

You take a mutual fund, right?

It's got 1,500 stocks into it, right?

Those things do not do well over the long term.

It's much better for you to go pick three winners and just ride them all the way.

Wow.

So you're not a fan of investing in the SP 500 every year?

No.

Well, there's two lines of thought there, right?

If you are an intelligent investor, absolutely not.

But if you're running your business and you're growing an asset class and you don't have time to really look into stocks, then yeah, you can buy the S P, which I was, you know, index funds is where I'd go for that.

Yeah.

Do you invest in those?

What are they called?

It's like treasuries or whatever, like 5% a year, too low for you?

I don't touch bonds.

I don't touch treasuries.

Yeah, I'm just, I've been, I started investing when I was 21.

Wow.

So I I have a massive runway.

And so it's like, no, I'd rather take more risks now.

And

it's worked out.

You know, I've been able to buy Apple and Google.

And not that I'm some genius, anyone looking back in time can sound like a genius.

So I bought Apple, you know, 10 years ago.

I just knew it was a good company.

10 years ago, you knew.

Oh, I've been, oh, yeah.

I've been buying that.

That's when the iPhone came out.

No, well, that was 2008.

So probably about 2010, 2012 was when I really started going heavy into Apple.

Got it.

Wow.

So to have that foresight, do you think it's just being around the right people, reading certain certain websites?

What do you think caused that?

So I was a Warren Buffett guy.

I studied Warren Buffett the way.

So when I was in college, college was really easy for me.

And so

I just studied a lot of Warren Buffett and value investing.

And so I just looked at companies that I think are great.

And then that's where I put my money.

I mean, I do a little bit of underwriting.

You know, I want to make sure that they can grow and that their top line revenue can grow and stuff like that.

But really, at the end of the day, I just go, is this a great company?

I'll invest in it.

And I look, I'm a 10-year, 15-year horizon guy.

So I don't, I put it in and almost said it and forget it.

Wow.

I wish I did that with Shopify.

I bought Shopify in college.

And if I still had it now, you know,

worth millions.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I think people think like, oh, let me flip this within a week.

Yeah.

And I had some misses, right?

Tesla was a major miss for me.

I don't, I have, I don't know, maybe 10 grand in Tesla just because it got really, really expensive and the PE ratio got wild.

I think it was like 1,200.

And so, but yeah, you know, 15 or not 15, probably eight, nine years ago when Tesla kind of started getting hot, that'd have been a perfect time to jump in.

But I'm also a dollar cost average guy.

Once I start buying a stock, I normally buy it up to like five years, right?

And then once it gets to a certain level, I kind of leave it.

Do you dabble with any crypto?

I do.

Yeah.

I tell people not to because you got to understand the blockchain to understand cryptocurrency, right?

And so, um,

but yeah, I have like 14 miners and oh, wow, Bitcoin or Ethereum.

I was doing Ethereum to begin with, you know, but then they lost their minds and went to proof of stake or whatever it is.

And then most, most of my almost 90% of my crypto is all in Bitcoin.

Nice.

You had an interesting take regarding goals.

So you posted, never tell anyone your real goals until you accomplish them.

Why do you feel that way?

Because it's a dopamine hit.

So dopamine is the enemy to success.

And that is, and if anyone doesn't know what dopamine is, dopamine is

a rush that your body is a chemical that your body releases on the anticipation of a reward.

And so marketing is all dopamine, right?

You're going to get this thing or something cool.

And luxury brands really play on your dopamine.

And what happens is once once you have that dopamine hit it actually like slows you down you get like a an elation to it instead of just like grinding grinding grinding grinding and when i say grinding what i actually mean is being disciplined you know the way you lose weight the way that you build businesses it's disciplined right because you do the same thing every single day no matter what right it's a big thing i mean i'm sure you know who alex ramosi is yeah so i've been following alex for a while i he's one of my There's very few social media influencers I follow, and he, to me, he's like the king right now.

Agreed.

Because he just, he gets it.

And he did it the right way.

He just builds and builds and builds and builds.

And there's not a lot of emotion to it.

There's just, I know what works.

And even him himself, he talks about the three things he does really, really well.

You just hire everything else out.

He's very similar to myself.

Speaking of discipline and weight loss, you lost 65 pounds.

You sent me a photo of you before.

I couldn't even recognize it.

I'm actually up to 70 now.

Wow.

Yeah, I've got another 15 pounds to lose.

It was kind of funny.

I was, I, in our men's group last year, we did a UFC kind of training where, you know, we were like kind of wrestling each other and fighting.

And I realized that day, I'm like, dude, I am not not as fit as I think I could be.

And so I'm six foot seven, tall like you.

I was 344 pounds at the time.

And

the next day, I just said, never again.

And I just started a diet.

And then I've had little things along the way that have actually kind of steroid shot me, not actually doing steroids, but gave me, you know, some more encouragement.

Like Jimmy and I were actually talking one time, Jimmy Rex, who's the leader of We Are the They, and it's his group.

Yeah.

Good friend of mine.

And I basically said, dude, I'm the most disciplined dude you've ever met.

And he looked at me and I knew it was coming, right?

And he said, well, you know,

look at your body essentially, right?

And at that point, I'd actually been working out for about six or seven weeks and I'd lost about two pounds.

And it was mentally hard, right?

To like just go to the gym every day, eat.

I ate 250 grams of protein, backfill my calories.

And it was just really, really hard.

And so, but that was a moment where I was like, you know, he's right.

Like, I need to really, really never stop doing this.

And then, um, and then Andy Frazilla actually had this thing where he says, when a fit person walks into a room, everyone notices and they respect them automatically.

and and i was watching that you know i just on instagram i was like dude this dude's right like every time a super fit person walks in the room i just there's just an instant amount of respect facts yeah because it takes years to get to that physique so you respect it does and there's no cheating no you can't yeah you can't fake it one of my best friends is a plastic surgeon right so i can have plastic surgery done anytime i want and it's like you you actually just can't get there unless you do it I'm not a fan of cosmetic procedures, actually.

Yeah.

Yeah, like even on girls, like I just don't like it.

Yeah.

How do you feel about them?

Are you interested in coming on the digital social hour podcast as a guest well click the application link below in the description of this video we are always looking for cool stories cool entrepreneurs to talk to about business and life click the application link below and here's the episode guys

you know i've got a bunch of different opinions on that really

um there's a confidence thing with

speaking specifically women um

I think it's best for people to have a certain amount of confidence as long as it's real confidence.

And if the only way for that person to get there is through plastic surgery,

I'm okay with it.

It's probably a good thing, really.

Not even that I'm okay with it.

Do I like the plastic who looks?

No.

Do I think facial stuff looks good?

No.

I'm not a big fan of big fake lips either.

I mean, that's me personally, right?

Now, does that woman look beautiful in some points?

Yeah.

And if it makes her really feel better and she's increased her quality of life, then I say that's a good thing for you.

Right.

I can respect that.

I just mean from purely the health aspect.

Like, you don't know what, like, the plastic, like you see the boob ones, like, the thing breaks and then they almost die.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's just.

No, my wife has implants and she's had them redone and one of them had it actually ruptured.

Wow.

And so, but it is maintenance thing.

Once you do it, man, you have to always do it.

That's true.

But in regards to her, she's kind of a good example.

She started working out really, really hard when we first got married.

I've almost been married 20 years and she lost them all.

They went down to an A-cup and it was making her feel...

Wait, from working out?

Yeah.

I didn't know that was a thing.

Yeah, because they're just fat, basically, right?

So the more lean you get, the flatter they get.

Interesting.

And so she did fitness competitions.

And so she, she wanted them.

We talked about it.

We, you know, bought them and she's, she's had them.

It's made her, and it makes her feel more feminine.

Yeah, that makes sense to me.

Yeah.

Speaking of marriage, 20 years, rare these days.

Talk to me about that journey and how you were able to make it work.

Yeah.

So to be fair, 20 years hits in June.

So it seems to be smooth sailing.

I think you did it.

You know, I really,

I got lucky.

In some aspects, I married my best friend.

We've done everything together.

We've got three kids together.

She's still my best friend.

I love and respect her more than any person on this planet.

It's interesting, right?

Being married for 20 years, like you learn different stages of love, you know.

And that's the reason why I say I got lucky because I didn't love my wife the way I love her now.

Wow.

Because I've gone through so many things with her, right?

I've watched her.

I've watched her be disciplined.

I've watched her birth three children, raise three kids.

We homeschool, so she homeschools our kids.

I just, almost every day, and this will sound cliche or romantic, I just almost fall in love with her again every day because I just respect the person that she is.

And I get a front row to her all the time.

That's that's beautiful.

And the thing with relationships, I'm in a six-year one.

You know, you changed a lot in those years.

Yeah.

And you weren't the same guy when you met her.

So I think just evolving together and just constantly communicating helps a lot as well.

And she really helped me in through my 20s, right?

I got married at 22.

She was 20.

We were wildly young.

Yeah, that's super young.

But, you know, like all the business, all the times I was gone, flying all over the country, meeting people, fixing things I was breaking, building companies, like she was at home holding it down right just you know she I was I always feel love when I come home my my home to me I always call it my castles like my peace so when I go home I get filled with all this peace and and it's gentle there and there's a lot of love then I go back out into the world just kind of you know fight or grind or whatever you want to call it it just it brings a lot of like you know energy to yeah same and that's so important right it took me years to get to that point and I think a lot of guys you know that are single they're they're really missing that in their life 100 yeah and it you you will make much more money if you're you're a married man.

Agreed.

And it's a common thing these days to be single, and the numbers keep increasing, so it's a little scary to see the family unit being broken up.

Yeah, we'll see how it goes.

We'll see.

I don't think it can keep going that way for long.

Speaking of family, though, three kids.

Yep.

What went into that decision in regards to homeschooling?

Yeah, so when hit, you know, we had the kids had to come home, I think, for three or four months or something like that.

And actually, my little boy, nicest kid you've ever met, couldn't read.

He was in second grade.

Now, teachers kind of passed over him because he's very kind, right?

And he's very fun and people love him, right?

So he would just memorize a couple words and really couldn't read.

So as we were doing homeschool, and my wife is very academic.

She grows up in a very academic family.

And she just was like, hey, Nixon can't read.

You know, I don't think these kids are doing that well.

She's like, what do you think if I homeschooled them for a year?

And my honest first reaction to that was like, oh, are you sure?

Because that's like a lot of time and a lot of energy.

you know, I mean,

she's a homemaker, right?

So she can do whatever she wants all day.

She doesn't have a job.

And I just said, yeah, honey, if you want to do it, I'll support you 100% in that.

And it's actually expensive to do it because we don't get any kickbacks from the state.

We still pay our property tax for all that for the general fund.

And I always just said to her, I'm like, hey, if it ever gets too much, we'll just pop it in school.

No harm, no shame.

And our kids have just really, really, really excelled.

And we also look at it as a blessing too, because when you have kids, right, you know that they're eventually going to leave.

Little kids love you.

They're all over you, right?

And they just, they're happy to see dad and mom and all this kind of stuff.

And so instead of shipping them off for eight hours now, she actually gets to be with them all day.

She only does school for four, but she gets to actually spend all this time with them.

And I just, as I'm looking down the road, I just like, this is going to pay so much dividends and the relationship.

And the, and I tell my kids all the time, too, I'm like, you need to be grateful that you're not going to public school, that you have your mom who loves you, that's sitting here teaching you, and you're getting a great education at the same time.

Right.

Yeah.

Public school was an interesting journey for me.

I feel like the one thing I didn't like was everyone learns at the same rate.

So like I listen to podcasts and audiobooks at 2x, 2.5x, and I'm just a fast learner.

And I feel like just being, I almost felt trapped, you know what I mean?

In certain classrooms, because I was just so jittery.

I'm like, oh, I already know this.

And I feel like it holds you back in a way.

100%.

My junior and senior year in high school, I did nothing.

I was like a TA for my coach because I played football.

I took stupid classes, right?

I sloughed all the time, and I still graduate with like a 3.9 GPA, 3.8 GPA.

I mean, it's just,

as long as you hand your homework in, right?

There's no big deal.

And so,

you know, I look at public school and public school is not good.

And I don't care if that offends people.

It's just not.

It's one of the programs in our country that really needs to be revamped.

Agreed.

Part of it's that, right?

Like, why don't we take our best learners and accelerate them?

Yeah.

And turn them into the future engineers and doctors and scientists and, you know, the things that actually make our society much better.

And it used to be that, right?

My dad skipped two grades, but when I was in school, that wasn't an option anymore.

And I feel like.

I mean, years were wasted.

Let's be honest.

I mean, there's nothing of substance that we learn there that we still use to this day other than like networking, maybe.

Yeah, 100%.

And college and university is almost as bad.

The first two years are like your last two years of high school because people don't get that college really is a business.

You know, and I sit on boards in colleges.

I've done a lot of work.

I donate money to colleges and kids' education.

Wow.

And I'm not saying education is bad.

I'm just saying that even university now, I mean, the ROI is horrible, right?

You get a liberal arts degree and even half the business degrees.

Your ROI is just not there.

Right.

And yeah, I like that you said they're a business because they are making billions of dollars.

Yes, they are.

Off those tuitions.

I mean, 50K a year, some of these colleges, it's crazy.

Yeah.

And the ROI, I mean, the professor's salary is probably 100, 200K.

So they're making a ton of profit.

Oh, absolutely.

And then they get, you know, the state all gives them grants, you know, and some of the big schools like Harvard, I mean, I can't remember what the numbers, like a $40 billion,

you know, whatever their pot of money is.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

Your story is interesting, though, because you were on the football team.

You were really good in school and you're good in business.

I've never seen like that mix of athleticism, you know, school smarts and street smarts.

Well, my football career ended in high school, but yeah.

And the reason why is I actually, I used to be an LDS, a member of the Mormon Church, you know, the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints, they've changed, or they've gone to the full name now.

And when I was on my mission in Scotland, I actually broke my back.

Damn.

And so when I came home, it kind of ended that.

And so I really poured into school after that and my career.

I was actually going to be an attorney.

Wow.

And so I got into law school.

I was going to go to Texas Tech.

And then my dad came to me and said, hey, I want you to help me run the family business.

And I wasn't loving, well, I didn't do very well in the LSAT.

And so, and, you know, being a white kid, you know, you just don't get ranked that well in these schools.

And so I didn't want to go do the partnership grind of 80 hours a week.

And so I decided to stay at my parents' company for a little while, and then I ended up buying it.

Nice.

Everything happens for a reason, right?

Yeah.

How'd you break your back?

Dunking a basketball.

Attempting to dunk over somebody.

Just a nasty fall.

Trying to pull a Vince Carter.

Yeah.

What really happened was years and years of football training had weakened my discs.

And so when I went and I rimmed out on this dunk and it just ruptured a disc in my back.

Yeah, I'm in a couple leagues now.

I don't play as aggressive as I want to just for that reason because the more you drive and dunk and just the risk for injury is too high.

And when you're in the air that high, I mean, well, especially not when you're playing outside of organized stuff, right?

Because just dudes are going to take streams off and just stupid stuff.

Yeah, they don't care about you.

Going back to the Mormon stuff, you left the church, right?

I did, yeah.

Yeah, I left the church like 14, 15 years ago.

Really, what that was is

the way that I grew up was wonderful, right?

I grew up in a very safe place, very highly concentrated LDS members.

I got married in the temple to to my wife which is a thing in the Mormon culture and then once my wife got pregnant my our values just didn't quite align with the church anymore and I really look at the church as a stepping stone right I have no I hold no animosity towards the church a lot of people leave the church and they're mad they feel like they've been bamboozled or something or and

you know I mean look at marketing you know you've you've been tricked into buying all sorts of stuff your whole life that's kind of how I view it so for me when I left the church I basically just flipped a light switch and but I mean I still have a contract with the LDS church like we still do business with them oh nice the community that i live in is full of lds members we're all friends we're all you know so it wasn't really like frowned upon when you left um

yeah yes and no most of the members are a little confused right because i was i was a good member i did what they asked me to do and that kind of stuff and my parents still have a have a little bit of an issue with it i don't know to what extent my siblings are fine with it all my friends are fine with it now but In my opinion, the church is having a little bit of a mass exodus.

People that are 40 and under, you know,

don't really report their numbers, but there's not a lot of, the membership's definitely going down.

You aren't the first guest that has left that church on the show.

I'm sure, yeah.

And that's with religion in general, I'm seeing with millennials, Gen X.

They don't seem to be as passionate as the older generations.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, to me, religion historically, and it was kind of a way to control people.

And I don't even know if that was a good or a bad thing.

You know, there's a lot of uneducated people, you know, back in the 1200s, 1300, 1400s.

And so I just kind of feel like religion was used as a tool to to control people or control society at some level and keep people good.

But yeah, I mean, I think nowadays there's so many people can access information on their phone.

I mean, it's just, it's just too easy to like really understand how history and religion is all tied into each other.

Now, you know, we get one life, right?

You got to live it the way that you want.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so easy with the access to information.

There's just one YouTube channel.

I think it's called like Growing Up Scientology.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Have you seen that one?

I haven't seen that, but I've watched Going Clear a few times.

Yeah.

I mean, he just really exposes the Scientology religion.

It's fascinating.

And when I was in L.A., I actually got pulled by one of the Scientology guys.

I had no idea it was Scientology.

Oh, really?

Yeah, he walked me inside.

I signed up and I was like, what is this?

Oh, you signed up?

Yeah, he got me.

I had no idea.

It was crazy.

But yeah, this guy just stands outside his building and just exposes them.

Yeah.

It's interesting, but I don't know.

I kind of just studied different religions and spiritualities and just formed my own opinion.

Yeah.

So where do you sit on it?

I would say I'm just spiritual.

You know what I mean?

I believe there's a soul.

I believe there's a greater purpose.

Yeah.

I think where I'm at right now is I went atheist for a while, actually, when I left the church, you know, and mostly because I just felt like I needed to reset everything that I, because I grew up that way, right?

So you don't really know what's right or left when you leave.

Right.

And so, but now I really just, I just hope that there's a God.

I just hope that I can be with my friends and family into the eternities, right?

It just feels a little empty that if we just die, then it's over.

That's how I used to believe.

I do believe there is an afterlife.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I really hope there is.

It'd be kind of bad if there was, in my opinion.

Yeah.

Or it won't matter, right?

Because you're deaf.

Yeah.

Do you ever think about legacy, like your kids, like providing for them when you're gone?

100%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What I do for my legacy with my kids is I've been paying them as employees, right, for a long time.

And they do certain things for me, Instagram models, whatever, whatever.

And so I've been building a stock portfolio for them for years and years and years.

My kids are 14, 12, and 8.

Wow.

And so.

When they turn 16, they'll actually start coming to work with me every day and doing school

from work.

And I will teach them how to grow businesses and real estate and all these kind of things through my employees and basically doing the mentor thing that I tell everybody to do.

I'm going to force that with my kids because I can, right?

And then hopefully

I will eventually turn over their net worth to them when they're responsible enough to do it.

Interesting.

Because to me, net worth is more important than how much cash you earn in a year, right?

It's growing assets.

Looking at the different asset classes and seeing what you're good at and then playing in those arenas and really growing that over the years.

Right.

I love that because money cycles every three generations, I believe.

So the fact that you're doing this with your kids, hopefully their kids won't lose the money, you know what I mean?

Correct, yeah.

Yeah, because that's definitely concerning when I, because when rich people have kids, you know, the daddy's money kids, it doesn't always end up well.

Oh, no, you know, the trust fund kids is a real thing.

Yeah.

And I've really looked at that because I'm not the guy that's going to donate all of his money to a charity at the end.

My kids will get it all.

Okay.

And I just, I just, I feel that my responsibility is to educate them in my way along that way.

Assume I'm going to live a long time.

Let's just say 80, right?

So these kids should be 50, 50, 60 when they actually finally get that money.

But by then, they should have so much of their own money, it won't matter.

I'll just go, there'll just be more assets in their portfolio.

And

I'll be wherever I'm at.

I love that.

Mark, where can people find you, man, and what you're up to?

The place to find me is on Instagram.

I'm President McCormack.

There's my handle on there.

It's also the name of my podcast, the President McCormack Podcast.

Feel free to reach out to me, and all my companies are listed on there.

So if you need basketball hoops or floors or whatever, thanks.

I'm gonna get a hoop from you, man.

Yeah, sounds good.

Let's do it.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Thanks for watching, guys, and I'll see you tomorrow.

Thank you.