Community Conversations: Building Wealth, Investing, and Retirement | Daniel Mason-Jones | Salon Owner + Stylist + Educator + Public Figure | Muse Salon and Spa

Robert Hughes: 00:00:01

Hey, what's up, everybody?

Robert Hughes: 00:00:02

I am Robert Hughes, the host of the Hairdresser Strong Show.

Robert Hughes: 00:00:05

And today I have a really exciting and special opportunity to talk about building wealth, investing, and retirement planning.

Robert Hughes: 00:00:14

This is a big topic that a lot of you have asked to talk about.

Robert Hughes: 00:00:20

So it's right there.

Robert Hughes: 00:00:22

And so.

Robert Hughes: 00:00:25

Hey, what's up?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:00:26

Good morning.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:00:27

Happy Friday.

Robert Hughes: 00:00:28

Happy Friday.

Robert Hughes: 00:00:29

How you doing?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:00:30

You know what?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:00:31

It's a good day.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:00:31

Why do we eat so much junk food yesterday?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:00:33

Oh, my gosh.

Robert Hughes: 00:00:36

Yeah, we had.

Robert Hughes: 00:00:37

We drove through our neighborhood, and it was like, we just had to park the car and get out because there was, like, no way to drive through the.

Robert Hughes: 00:00:46

Drive through the streets.

Robert Hughes: 00:00:47

It was.

Robert Hughes: 00:00:47

Everyone was so.

Robert Hughes: 00:00:48

It was, like, packed last night.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:00:50

Absolutely.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:00:51

Same here.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:00:51

And I was like, oh, my gosh.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:00:52

Just thinking this morning I was sending my kid to school, I was like, I think school is going to be a little bit of a today.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:00:59

These kids are going to be tired.

Robert Hughes: 00:01:01

That's funny.

Robert Hughes: 00:01:03

So thank you so much for coming on the show.

Robert Hughes: 00:01:05

I.

Robert Hughes: 00:01:06

It's like, I think.

Robert Hughes: 00:01:07

I don't know if it's my backlighting, but it looks like I have one of those filters on my face, but I don't.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:01:14

This is just.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:01:15

I need to borrow your lighting.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:01:16

I was playing with mine.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:01:17

Today's the first day.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:01:17

It's been cloudy here in Georgia, so I'm like, what happened to the sun?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:01:21

So I had to bring in some artificial.

Robert Hughes: 00:01:24

That's funny.

Robert Hughes: 00:01:25

Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and talking on this topic.

Robert Hughes: 00:01:30

We had talked.

Robert Hughes: 00:01:31

You and I had talked about having this conversation a while back, and so I'm excited to finally get to talk about it.

Robert Hughes: 00:01:39

So.

Robert Hughes: 00:01:40

Building wealth, investing, and retirement planning.

Robert Hughes: 00:01:43

I know you talk on this type of stuff already, and I loved listening to you talk in the past on this stuff.

Robert Hughes: 00:01:50

So I'm excited for today.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:01:52

Perfect.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:01:53

Yeah.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:01:54

I wore my shirt.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:01:55

You can't see it now, but when I originally started teaching classes, this was the class that kind of got me off the ground.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:02:00

It's called make money, not excuses.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:02:02

And it's like, okay, now that you've learned how to make the money, what do you actually do with it?

Robert Hughes: 00:02:06

Yeah, exactly.

Robert Hughes: 00:02:08

Yeah, exactly.

Robert Hughes: 00:02:09

So, like, I talk a lot.

Robert Hughes: 00:02:10

With a lot of rising stylists going to schools a lot, and they're trying to figure out what.

Robert Hughes: 00:02:17

Let me do something.

Robert Hughes: 00:02:18

This lighting is really bothering me.

Robert Hughes: 00:02:20

One second.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:02:20

You're good.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:02:21

I wish I could plug up.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:02:22

My iPhone's not.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:02:23

Or my phone's not plugged in either.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:02:24

So we're hitting the Pause button all the way around.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:02:28

All right.

Robert Hughes: 00:02:28

I think that's a little better.

Robert Hughes: 00:02:29

So, yeah.

Robert Hughes: 00:02:30

So we talk a lot about like the building blocks and they're like making no money.

Robert Hughes: 00:02:36

And I talk a lot about paying yourself.

Robert Hughes: 00:02:39

Even if, like get used to putting money away, even if it's a small amount of money, every paycheck, like $10.

Robert Hughes: 00:02:45

Get used to that kind of mindset.

Robert Hughes: 00:02:47

But we could talk a little bit on that to start if you got any thoughts on different ways to save the money.

Robert Hughes: 00:03:00

But we're also.

Robert Hughes: 00:03:01

It's a big conversation to talk about saving money as well as where we put the money, where different places that we can actually put the money.

Robert Hughes: 00:03:10

But why don't we start off first by kind of telling everybody a little bit about yourself, just to kind of give a little introduction to anybody who's listening and might not have met you before.

Robert Hughes: 00:03:27

And I would love to hear you tell them a little bit about why I'm excited to talk to you about it because of how you think about money and business.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:03:39

Yeah.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:03:39

Awesome.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:03:40

Thank you.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:03:42

So first of all, I've been a hairstylist now for a while.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:03:44

I'm Daniel Mason Jones.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:03:45

I've been a stylist for a long time, 25 years, and it's been amazing.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:03:53

And when I got into this industry, like so many people in our industry, many of us came from blue collar backgrounds, right?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:03:59

So our parents worked hard.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:01

We saw that example of what it was like to work now in where I started doing hair, we used to have to work all the time, right?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:09

It was nine to seven, four, five, six, seven days a week sometimes.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:13

And we were in a different time.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:14

I'm so excited for that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:15

I actually coached to that very topic.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:18

We try to get you to work as little as you need to.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:21

However, earn as much as you want to.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:23

And a lot of people are like, well, how does that happen?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:26

We have a whole plan around that and it's proven successful.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:29

We have 80 plus hairdressers here in our salon here in Atlanta, Georgia.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:33

So what we're doing is working and just understanding money.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:37

And I think a lot of us have fear around money and we have fear around investing or saving money.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:42

And when I first got into the business, I started making money my first year.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:47

It was a non negotiable for me that if I was going to stand on my feet 10 to 12 hours a day, that I could not go home broke, I couldn't do it.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:04:57

And so I was like, what model salon is going to work best for me?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:02

And then where do I need to position myself?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:05

What type of clientele do I want to have?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:06

I had to really have some deep thoughts there.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:09

And so my first year as a hairstylist, I became a stylist.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:13

I've told the story a million times.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:14

I became a stylist in May when I got my license.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:17

And for May until December, I had earned $117,000 in my first year as a hairstylist.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:23

And that was 25 years ago.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:25

Average ticket was $55.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:26

So I was working.

Robert Hughes: 00:05:27

What?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:28

Yeah, but, so during that time though, I thought that if I made a bunch of money and I saved a bunch of money, that eventually I would be wealthy.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:37

Well, that doesn't work, friends.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:39

Saving your way to wealth is not even, it's not even a thing.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:43

Especially with inflation.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:44

Like the dollar becomes weaker.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:05:45

So you have to put your dollars to work to get those dollars to make you money.

Robert Hughes: 00:05:51

Absolutely.

Robert Hughes: 00:05:52

So I'm glad you've said that because, you know, I think about money like my dad, how my dad thinks about money.

Robert Hughes: 00:05:59

And my dad is very much a worker saver.

Robert Hughes: 00:06:02

He taught me budgeting and he taught me how to be, think about, be very conservative with money.

Robert Hughes: 00:06:08

So I was able to like, I was able to, I was able to build up piles of cash.

Robert Hughes: 00:06:13

Yeah, and, but, but yeah, like, I think, you know, and I think like some of us, I think the Gen Z is a little more hip and a little bit, I think they're going to be like, I think they're going to be impacted when it comes to money significantly.

Robert Hughes: 00:06:28

But like, you know, I'm a millennial and I was in high school or not high school.

Robert Hughes: 00:06:34

ry, I was, see I graduated in: 2002

Robert Hughes: 00:06:37

So I was like, just kind of like make, starting to make some money and build a clientele when the market crashed.

Robert Hughes: 00:06:46

And so I saw what it's like to quickly see your things kind of just be wiped away.

Robert Hughes: 00:06:54

So that creates a conservative person in me when it comes to emergency planning kind of thing.

Robert Hughes: 00:07:01

But I'm also hungry.

Robert Hughes: 00:07:04

So I try to balance myself with two ends of the spectrum when it comes to risk.

Robert Hughes: 00:07:09

So I have a solid cash pile for emergencies, but then the rest is like pretty and high risk stuff.

Robert Hughes: 00:07:18

But I feel like people who are going through grew up in like their early years during the pandemic.

Robert Hughes: 00:07:25

And coming out of the pandemic, we saw inflation pop off.

Robert Hughes: 00:07:29

And so I feel like inflation is a very easy conversation to talk about right now.

Robert Hughes: 00:07:35

So when you think of putting, where you're putting your money, well, first of All.

Robert Hughes: 00:07:40

How do you think of, like, this concept of building wealth investing versus, like, retirement planning?

Robert Hughes: 00:07:46

Like, do you think about the idea of, like, generational wealth at all?

Robert Hughes: 00:07:52

Are you more thinking about your own lives?

Robert Hughes: 00:07:55

Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:07:57

I plan for both, though.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:07:59

I'm not going to let my kid know that, you know, being able to create an easier pathway is incredible.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:08:07

However, with them not knowing that there's a pathway that's there, I need to instill work ethic and the responsibility that comes along with having wealth and money.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:08:17

And when I first started, and I know what I'm gonna say is gonna be highly unpopular right now, so get ready.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:08:23

But there's a lot of people that are, like, anti tip culture inside of our salon.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:08:28

They're like, oh, I'm anti tips.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:08:30

Tips are toxic.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:08:31

I've heard all things.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:08:31

That's fine because there's enough room for everybody.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:08:35

As I say, often, there's a lid for every pot.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:08:37

I just want to say, for me, when I first started out in this industry, I wanted to make as much as I could.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:08:46

And so I had grown up poor already.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:08:48

I had seen my parents struggle.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:08:49

They worked and lived paycheck to paycheck, and I did not want that lifestyle.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:08:53

So because I already knew how to adapt to not having a lot, I would literally take the tip income that I was making in the very beginning, and that was the money that I allowed myself to live off of.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:09:05

And when I talk about tip money, I also want to put a whole entire banner around this to let you know that I have always done that ethically.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:09:13

So, meaning that I have claimed the income that I have made, because that also I see a lot of people like, oh, I'm going to hide my cash.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:09:20

I'm going to hide my tips.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:09:21

That is probably one of the worst things that you can do.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:09:24

It actually will make you poorer in the long run, because if you're not showing your exact income, then when it comes to getting loans for a home or a car, you actually pay higher interest rates, which actually hurts you in the end.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:09:38

So I would live off of my tips, and then all of the money that I made on my paychecks, I would put that money aside.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:09:45

And so I'm going to date myself.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:09:46

There used to be a bank called Ing, and I would put this money into this bank.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:09:52

It was like the first online bank.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:09:53

And I would put my money in Ing because you would make more interest.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:09:57

So at least I was making something.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:09:59

Granted, it wasn't a high yield interest it was just a little bit of interest.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:10:02

I think I was making maybe 4% a year, which isn't that much money.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:10:07

So as I continued on, I started to build some compound money there.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:10:12

And I started to learn about different things.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:10:14

Like, I would get into first a Roth IRA at that particular time, you could invest $3,000 a year.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:10:20

And I was like, I think I can swing that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:10:22

And so I would put that into that money, into that account.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:10:27

And then I also started to learn about real estate investing.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:10:30

And if you could buy a home and rent the home out, then that would create these additional revenue sources.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:10:36

So I just started to kind of learn on my own, like, how to make my money, make money for me.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:10:42

And I remember when I had my meeting with an accountant, and the accountant says, we have to come up with some additional strategizing here.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:10:50

And I was like, why?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:10:51

And my goal as a kid growing up, the way that I had grown up, I was like, I want to become a millionaire.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:10:57

Like, if I could just touch a million dollars, wow, my life would be so complete.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:11:01

Well, I didn't realize that I had already done that by the age of 27 years old in this industry.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:11:06

And so that was kind of a cool moment for me.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:11:10

And then once I learned how to put the money to work, the money literally started to explode.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:11:15

And so investing your money and it's not too late.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:11:17

If you're watching this or listening to this and you're like, oh, I'm 45 years old.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:11:21

I'm 55 years old.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:11:22

I don't know what to do.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:11:23

There are so many strategies that can still get you to where you need to be without having to literally labor yourself to death behind the chair.

Robert Hughes: 00:11:31

Totally.

Robert Hughes: 00:11:32

And so we had a couple of comments.

Robert Hughes: 00:11:35

Maria says, hey, what's up?

Robert Hughes: 00:11:37

Two of her favorite people.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:11:39

I love her.

Robert Hughes: 00:11:41

Yeah, I love her, too.

Robert Hughes: 00:11:43

And then we have Naomi Trotto says Tippy is a great solution for helping manage tips and creating a full detail report.

Robert Hughes: 00:11:52

I so like when I totally.

Robert Hughes: 00:11:56

I'm glad that you brought up the fact that they claiming the tips, because I talk about that and people always look at me sideways and the reality is honest.

Robert Hughes: 00:12:09

Well, I can't.

Robert Hughes: 00:12:10

I have to.

Robert Hughes: 00:12:11

I'm going to be honest right now and say, I don't do it to be honest.

Robert Hughes: 00:12:15

I don't do it for ethical reasons, just to be honest.

Robert Hughes: 00:12:18

I do it for my own interests.

Robert Hughes: 00:12:21

Because, like, by claiming.

Robert Hughes: 00:12:23

Claiming the tips to your point, it gives me access to capital.

Robert Hughes: 00:12:27

Like, the ability to borrow is determined, is based on your tips.

Robert Hughes: 00:12:31

So like, if you're 45 and you're watching this and you never claimed your tips, well, you can get a massive.

Robert Hughes: 00:12:37

If you like, the way I do my math, it's almost 40% of my income.

Robert Hughes: 00:12:41

So, like, if you can get that big of a jump in your income within two or three years of claiming tips, you can be borrowing 40% more money, which is.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:12:54

And people are also scared about that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:12:56

People are like, oh, you know, borrowing money is so scary.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:12:59

Borrowing money is.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:00

It can be scary if it's.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:01

If it's just like with anything with money, if you're using it for the wrong reason.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:05

But if you're getting yourself into good debt, you know, we.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:08

We now own both of our salon buildings that we're in.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:11

And that's crucial, you know, to be able to have that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:14

When we were renting our salon, our first location, we were paying $18,000 a month in rent.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:21

And so over time, that's a ton of money.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:23

And I was like, you know what, if I could get a mortgage for around the same amount of money, I could actually own the building.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:29

So you just have to be smart inside of our industry.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:31

And one of the things that drives me crazy, if I'm going to be completely honest with you, is our industry people make up these crazy excuses like, oh, I'm an artist.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:41

I don't do math.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:43

There's a reason I'm a hairdresser.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:45

And like, we dumbed down our industry and we are supposed to be professionals, especially with the amount of people that own their own businesses.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:53

You have to know your numbers.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:54

And when I coach to people, you know, we can talk about investing all day long.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:13:58

And in addition to that, if you don't know how much money you're actually making, then you don't know how much you can actually afford to invest.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:05

And so I'll say to people, what is your average service ticket?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:08

And they literally will look at me like, is that retail?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:11

I'm like, no, like your average service service ticket.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:15

And then there's a retail ticket.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:17

They don't know their number.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:18

Well, I think it's around $400 a customer.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:21

I'm like, because you did one customer that was 400, because then maybe you did eight haircuts that were 65.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:27

So there's an average that has to happen there.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:29

So we have to start knowing our numbers.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:32

And I often laugh inside of our industry because we have the most capability of earning.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:38

It's limitless, honestly.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:40

And people will be like, oh, I'm making so much money now.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:43

I'm in this particular business model.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:44

I'm keeping all my cash.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:46

Nobody's keeping all their cash.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:47

You have to pay taxes, you have to buy supplies, you have to buy products.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:51

You have all the things that we have to do.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:52

If I own a salon, I'm buying tons.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:54

I can tell you my salon centric order every Tuesday.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:57

Holy Lord.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:14:58

It is expensive to supply that much color for that many stylists.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:15:02

So you have to understand your numbers before you can invest the numbers.

Robert Hughes: 00:15:07

So you have two salons now.

Robert Hughes: 00:15:10

Yeah, I think you said.

Robert Hughes: 00:15:11

Yeah, that's so awesome.

Robert Hughes: 00:15:12

And you, you have mortgages on both of those buildings.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:15:16

Yeah, one is.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:15:17

One is almost no mortgage.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:15:19

And I'm very excited about that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:15:20

We bought that property 11 years ago, and it's cool because it's on a great location.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:15:26

Both are in great locations.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:15:28

And that allows me freedom to.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:15:31

Once that's all handled, that allows me to give more back to my team.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:15:34

And that's been our philosophy all along was how much can we give to our team?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:15:38

How can we create financial freedom for this generation now?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:15:41

Like, we've created it for ourselves.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:15:43

Now we're responsible, or I feel that we are responsible to train the next generation and give them the same freedoms and opportunities so that they can teach the next generation.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:15:52

So it's a responsibility that I feel that we have as people that have actually done it.

Robert Hughes: 00:15:57

And what is your real estate profile?

Robert Hughes: 00:16:02

I mean, I don't know if you feel comfortable sharing this, but as much as you're willing to share, just to give everybody watching and listening an idea of what we're talking about, where we can kind of work up to.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:16:15

Yeah.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:16:16

So one of the first things that I purchased was just a simple rental home.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:16:21

And that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:16:22

That's been.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:16:23

We've had that forever.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:16:24

And then I bought a couple of, like, town homes, rented those out, and then when the market came back up, I sold those, doubled the income.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:16:30

So just give you an example.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:16:31

I'm just going to throw a number out.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:16:32

It's not going to be an exact number just because I don't want to offend anyone.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:16:35

Just say that I paid $150,000 for that town home, and then the town home became worth $350,000.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:16:44

So then I sold the town home and made money.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:16:47

And then.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:16:48

Then you take that money and maybe you divide that money that you earned off of that after you pay your taxes, and then you roll that into two properties.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:16:56

So I sold one to get two, and that allowed us to get into bigger properties, beach properties, and Lakefront properties and then real estate properties.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:07

And so you just, you're able to start playing this game.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:10

It's like playing a real life game of Monopoly.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:12

And so it's like, once you start to do that, it's just amazing.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:16

And so it's a headache.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:19

Let's be real.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:19

The more things you have, the more responsibility and the more, especially with hurricanes happening all the time.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:24

Holy smoke.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:25

We had seven properties in the path of the last hurricane.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:28

And I was literally, we were out of the country and I was like, oh my God.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:33

Like, come on, Milton.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:35

Like, get your life together.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:37

Or Helene.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:38

Sorry, it was Helene.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:39

And so it was stressful.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:40

But you do have to take those risks.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:42

And I love that you said that in the beginning you are a high risk person.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:46

And when you said that, the first thing that calculated into my mind was that you're young enough that you can have calculated higher risk.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:54

You know, if you're 65 years old.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:17:57

And I would not say, hey, go gangbusters and just like open this up to a very risky market.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:18:01

If you're talking to your financial planners, they're going to, they're going to do some pretty amazing.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:18:05

If they're good, they're going to have some great tests that you should take to find out if you're a moderate investor, if you're a super conservative investor or if you're a risk taker.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:18:14

And for me, I'm very diversified.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:18:16

I've got some things that I do take really big risk in.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:18:19

More recently, I've invested into kkrs, which is, it's basically companies.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:18:25

I'm not going to name any of them, but it's larger companies that maybe have fallen into trouble in the past year.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:18:31

So investors have come in and maybe pumped in $100 million to buy that business.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:18:35

So I invest into their portfolio so that when that business comes up, they sell it.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:18:40

Then I get my money off of that and it's pretty much, it's very safe.

Robert Hughes: 00:18:45

That's exciting.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:18:46

Wow.

Robert Hughes: 00:18:47

Cool.

Robert Hughes: 00:18:48

So let's kind of do a.

Robert Hughes: 00:18:53

I have a couple, I prepared a couple of questions.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:18:56

I love them.

Robert Hughes: 00:18:58

So we have, let's see.

Robert Hughes: 00:19:02

Okay, everyone's.

Robert Hughes: 00:19:03

I know we've kind of touched on this, but I feel like what we've done is like a high level kind of overview.

Robert Hughes: 00:19:08

We talked about, we talked about like having some sort of knowing your numbers, making sure, you know, like, where your money's coming and going so you can identify how much you have to invest.

Robert Hughes: 00:19:19

And just for the record, we.

Robert Hughes: 00:19:21

This is not financial advice.

Robert Hughes: 00:19:24

You should call talk to a financial advisor.

Robert Hughes: 00:19:26

We are talking about what Daniel does and what I do and how we think about this topic.

Robert Hughes: 00:19:33

And we're hoping that it's a good jump off place for you to go and talk to your financial advisor, do your own research.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:19:39

That's a great one, by the way.

Robert Hughes: 00:19:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Robert Hughes: 00:19:43

Do you have any recommendations for how to find a good financial advisor?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:19:47

I'm going to keep it super simple just because like you said, we're not offering financial advice, we're just sharing our own journey.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:19:53

So if I were starting out two companies that have been around and kind of bulletproof for a long time, I mean their track record speaks for itself and I would encourage you to research them.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:20:04

Is Fidelity.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:20:05

You can do Fidelity or even Vanguard.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:20:08

And they both are really, they're pretty incredible sources to get you started and just read and see if it's something that feels comfortable to you.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:20:14

Of course, you can also go to your local bank.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:20:18

You know, they typically have someone.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:20:20

I don't do that personally because that does not work for me.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:20:25

But it might work for you.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:20:26

Nice.

Robert Hughes: 00:20:27

Okay, cool.

Robert Hughes: 00:20:28

All right, so.

Robert Hughes: 00:20:29

So we have like to find it.

Robert Hughes: 00:20:31

Find somebody to help you with your finances.

Robert Hughes: 00:20:33

That's always, that's what, that's what all the people with money do.

Robert Hughes: 00:20:37

They all, they all have experts to help them with this.

Robert Hughes: 00:20:40

Even it.

Robert Hughes: 00:20:40

Unless they're, of course, unless they're maybe in a fine.

Robert Hughes: 00:20:43

Even financial people might have, I don't know, financial advice anyway.

Robert Hughes: 00:20:47

I'm sure.

Robert Hughes: 00:20:48

Yeah, I'm sure.

Robert Hughes: 00:20:49

So, okay, now and then we talked about like risk, like risk tolerance.

Robert Hughes: 00:20:58

Like risk is important because lower risk.

Robert Hughes: 00:21:01

You talked about time horizon.

Robert Hughes: 00:21:02

If you have, if you're older, you might want to take less risk just because you're probably thinking about retirement and that and then.

Robert Hughes: 00:21:10

So like that's a risk conversation that's important to understand.

Robert Hughes: 00:21:13

Like the higher the risk, the higher the return you should be getting.

Robert Hughes: 00:21:17

Right.

Robert Hughes: 00:21:18

Okay.

Robert Hughes: 00:21:18

And then we also talked about.

Robert Hughes: 00:21:20

I brought the word generational wealth.

Robert Hughes: 00:21:22

You talked a little.

Robert Hughes: 00:21:23

You brushed on it.

Robert Hughes: 00:21:24

So my first question is under generational wealth, everyone's talking about creating generational wealth.

Robert Hughes: 00:21:31

It's a very much a buzz thing.

Robert Hughes: 00:21:35

What does that even mean to you?

Robert Hughes: 00:21:37

And what simple steps can we take?

Robert Hughes: 00:21:39

Now I know some of this might be repetitive, but what does it mean to you?

Robert Hughes: 00:21:45

And if you had, if you went back with your hindsight, what are the, what are three things that you would do, would.

Robert Hughes: 00:21:54

Would do at you know, maybe various points of your career?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:21:58

I would have started investing earlier.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:22:00

I Can tell you that's a huge mistake that I made because I would be so much farther along.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:22:05

I didn't understand at the time what compound interest was.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:22:09

And I think once you understand compound interest, then you understand kind of the secret to wealth.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:22:16

So what is.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:22:17

If I compound.

Robert Hughes: 00:22:19

What is compound interest?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:22:20

So think about someone that goes to the gym, and maybe we're going to be silly for a minute and just say, okay, I'm not going to the gym, clearly.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:22:28

But if I.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:22:29

If I were to go to the gym and I were to take a weight and I'm going to start lifting on my right arm, and every day I go to the gym and I do 10 or three sets of 10, and I'm like doing the curls or whatever you call them, but I'm leaving out this arm over here.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:22:43

This arm over time is going to start to become larger because I'm building muscle, but I'm doing little bits every day.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:22:49

So compound wealth and compound interest is really the same thing.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:22:53

So if, if I, you know, just say a simple number, $3,500 a year.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:22:59

If I invest $3,500 a year, because maybe that's all that you can afford to do, 3,500 a year.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:23:05

And over 10 years, you know you're going to have $35,000.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:23:08

You already know that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:23:09

But over that time, interest has been compounding.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:23:12

So if I only invested maybe to say I got a $10,000 in the bank, I've got $10,000 in the bank in an investment account that's going to naturally grow.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:23:20

Maybe it's got a little bit of risk associated with it.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:23:23

In seven years, that money is going to essentially double.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:23:27

So only put in 10,000, but in seven more years, it's going to be 20,000.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:23:30

And in seven more years, it's Going to be 40,000, and then 80,000 and then 160,000 and so on, so forth every seven years.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:23:37

So it naturally will compound.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:23:38

Of course, you should continue adding money to that so that it can get a larger compound effect.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:23:43

But that's how compound interest works.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:23:46

It's just like buying a house.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:23:48

If your parents have bought a house 40 years ago for $100,000, that house chances are now is probably 6 to $700,000.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:23:56

So the inflation, though, people, and this is what I also want to say is there's so much rhetoric around economy and inflation.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:04

You need to understand it.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:05

Don't regurgitate what you've heard.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:06

And everybody's like, oh, the economy is so bad right now.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:09

I'm Going to fight you on that and tell you that the stock market has been amazing this year.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:15

And that's numbers.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:16

That's not emotion.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:17

I have the printed out report so I can see the numbers that grew.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:20

And if I were to sell my house right now, it's actually doubled in value from what I paid for it five years ago.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:26

So if I were to sell my house, I would make a fortune right now.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:30

So the economy is not as bad as people say.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:32

Now there are people that are in bad economies, but for those of us that are, that are working the economy, it's not bad.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:38

Groceries are expensive, yes, I get it.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:40

But the numbers don't lie.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:43

So with that being said, just really, again, knowing your numbers, that compound interest starts to build over time.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:50

So you want to do reverse engineering.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:52

So if I plan to retire, my goal is 55.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:24:55

So if I plan to retire at 55 years old, I know how much money I need to have in savings and how much money needs to be there invested so that I can continue to live the way that I currently do live.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:25:06

Factoring in that inflation will increase every single year around a rate of 3 to 5% right now.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:25:12

It's the highest it's ever been.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:25:13

Yes, but you have to factor in all these numbers.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:25:17

So if I know that I need to have X amount of dollars at 55 years old, how much do I need to start investing now?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:25:23

Does that mean that I need to start talking more about conditioning treatments inside the salon?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:25:27

Does that mean I need to add on one extra highlight a day?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:25:30

I don't know.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:25:31

I don't know your numbers.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:25:32

But we have to start thinking at the big picture and then working back into macro.

Robert Hughes: 00:25:38

I love that.

Robert Hughes: 00:25:39

I love that.

Robert Hughes: 00:25:40

So, and then what is, when, what is the word generational wealth mean to you?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:25:47

Say I do really well in my lifetime and my time is up and I am no longer then my child, and then my child's children will eventually inherit some of the things that I have invested in.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:02

So, and that's another thing, like the homes or properties that we own, everything that we have, we put them in LLCs because there are people out there that might want to come take what you have.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:11

So having individual LLCs, limited liability on each property that you have, on each thing that you have that protects you.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:20

And then also checking with your financial people, with your legal team to find out if putting your properties in a trust worth it.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:28

I recently lost my mom.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:30

Her property is not in a trust.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:32

There was, there wasn't even really a will.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:35

There and so we're having to navigate that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:39

And.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:40

But if things had been in a trust, there wouldn't be taxes paid on that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:44

It would just naturally flow to the next person.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:46

So there's ways to defer taxes and tax payment on properties also.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:50

So you really do need to have a strong team around you to help you navigate these conversations.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:55

But there's so much information online.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:57

If you get it from a credible source.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:26:59

Again, Vanguard and Fidelity are two that you I would trust, because there's a lot of bad information out there as well.

Robert Hughes: 00:27:06

Totally.

Robert Hughes: 00:27:07

And my condolences for your loss.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:27:11

Thank you.

Robert Hughes: 00:27:12

That was relatively recent, right?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:27:14

Yeah.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:27:14

It's the worst thing anybody would go through, I'm pretty sure.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:27:17

I'm sorry.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:27:18

And thank you.

Robert Hughes: 00:27:19

Yeah.

Robert Hughes: 00:27:20

And.

Robert Hughes: 00:27:21

And I do appreciate you taking the time in the midst of all this to talk with us about this topic.

Robert Hughes: 00:27:27

I really do.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:27:27

We're all here to help people.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:27:29

I think that's the key to success, and that's the key to life.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:27:32

And the key to happiness is when we understand that we're only here to help and serve other people.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:27:37

The rest of everything falls into place.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:27:39

Amen.

Robert Hughes: 00:27:40

Okay, so let's.

Robert Hughes: 00:27:42

I got a couple more questions.

Robert Hughes: 00:27:45

Okay, so, see, retirement planning.

Robert Hughes: 00:27:50

There's a lot of talk about early retirement online, but what does realistic retirement planning look like for hairdressers?

Robert Hughes: 00:27:58

And how can we balance enjoying life now and saving for later?

Robert Hughes: 00:28:02

I know that's a big topic.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:04

You're so cool.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:06

I love this.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:09

All right, so how do we start to plan?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:11

Now, again, looking at the big picture, what does early retirement look like for you?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:16

Are you paying down your debt?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:17

Listen.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:17

Okay, so I've told this story a million times.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:19

I love what I get to do.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:21

I travel all over the world, literally.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:23

And I get to train and work with the most amazing people, which happen to be hairdressers.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:27

And when I go to the shows in certain part of.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:31

Let's just pick on the United States.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:32

I go to certain shows in certain parts of the country, whether it's Dallas, Texas, Houston, Texas, or la, that market in particular.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:38

I show up to these events, and the people are literally so beautiful.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:42

Sometimes I'm like, how are they all so gorgeous?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:45

And you get there and they're all wearing Gucci belts, and they've got Valentino and they've got their Chanel bags, and they have all these things, and in my mind, they look beautiful.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:53

I get it.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:54

We're in the fashion industry.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:55

We're rocking the fashion.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:57

We're leading the way.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:28:59

I also know that the average hairdresser, if you Google this, average earnings is around $25,000 a year.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:29:05

So if you're carrying a Chanel bag that costs 7,500 and you earn 25,000, we need to reevaluate.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:29:13

Unless you're planning to retire inside that purse, you know, right now, like, if you, if you were to hang around me like I love, I have zero shame.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:29:30

I will go straight to Walmart right now and buy jeans.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:29:34

I have zero problem with that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:29:38

Do I have nice things in my closet?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:29:41

100%.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:29:42

But I don't need to impress anybody with high end brands in particular if it's going to allow me not to retire.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:29:48

Because when you're 65 years old and you literally are trying to figure out how I'm going to continue to do this, or maybe you're even older than that, you're still having to work not because you want to, but because you have to, are you going to think that, like, wow, I really impressed the crowd at the club with my Gucci belt on or, oh my gosh, I, I'm going to have to keep doing this.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:30:07

So we need to put things into perspective on, like, what really matters.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:30:12

And I think that's really critical.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:30:15

If you can afford those things, fantastic.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:30:17

That's wonderful.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:30:19

But you also need to pay yourself first.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:30:21

Every time you get paid, you should set aside a certain amount of money.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:30:24

You know, if you are young and you're maybe still living with your parents, you should be setting aside so much money right now.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:30:30

This is your ticket.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:30:32

And get that money invested early on because the earlier you start, the more wealth you have, so much sooner.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:30:38

So that is, that is a critical conversation that should be had everywhere.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:30:42

And in fact, our schools, I feel like our schools are failing in the education system because they're talking about trigonometry, which is great.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:30:50

If you're going to be an engineer, we need to be learning about finances, like the overall economy and how it works.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:30:57

And if you don't have it, you don't spend it.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:30:59

If I make a, I can tell you this for myself.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:31:02

If I make $100, I can promise you right now, $50 of that 100 is going into an investment.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:31:10

That's how that's going to go.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:31:12

I'm going to pay myself $50 and then the other $50 I can play with.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:31:17

So I've just always kind of lived that way and it's worked out.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:31:20

And what that allows is, it allows us also to help a lot of people that are in need that maybe can't get on their own feet.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:31:26

And so when I see those situations, having that additional money allows us to do better things.

Robert Hughes: 00:31:32

Totally.

Robert Hughes: 00:31:32

And like Elise Michelle says, says, well, that's because they aren't claiming income on taxes.

Robert Hughes: 00:31:39

And it's like, yeah, like back to that kind of connecting it all together.

Robert Hughes: 00:31:43

It's like, yeah, maybe people are making more than $30,000 or 20, whatever it is, but what are they making?

Robert Hughes: 00:31:53

60,000.

Robert Hughes: 00:31:54

I mean, I still think your point still stands with a $7,500 purse at more than 10% of your income.

Robert Hughes: 00:32:01

Or 10%.

Robert Hughes: 00:32:01

I mean, to me it sounds crazy, but unless, unless that bag is going to go up in value and you're going to resell it.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:32:10

Value, but you still can't afford it.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:32:14

Okay, go to Target and get a seasonal bag and you'll look just as fine, I promise.

Robert Hughes: 00:32:19

Okay, well, to, to the other piece, I just want to add my, my two cents on, on what you're saying is like, and what we're talking about here and to the, all these points like at claiming, claiming your tips.

Robert Hughes: 00:32:34

Enjoying, enjoying.

Robert Hughes: 00:32:36

On paper, higher income gives you access to more capital to buy.

Robert Hughes: 00:32:42

Acquire more assets that go up in value faster.

Robert Hughes: 00:32:46

Then a savings account can increase the value of your money.

Robert Hughes: 00:32:53

And so to your point, being able to help other people and whatnot, well, the more opportunity you have to take advantage of, the more opportunity you have to help others.

Robert Hughes: 00:33:06

So it's like a compounding.

Robert Hughes: 00:33:07

Go back to compound interest.

Robert Hughes: 00:33:09

It's like making interest on top of interest is awesome, but you also have the compound effect of being able to help others as you grow your own.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:33:18

Wealth too, which is key.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:33:21

And with that being said, we could have a whole entire podcast about when you give, you get and you never give to get or you should never give to get.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:33:31

You should just give because it's the right thing to do.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:33:33

But every time I've ever been in a situation, I've got so many absolutely off the wall stories that are just proven.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:33:41

large amount to a charity in: 2020

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:33:46

Our salons was closed, we didn't know what we were doing, but that charity still had to go on.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:33:50

It was her childhood cancer charity and we had supported them every year and I was like, I can't not support them because these children are still getting sick and they need help.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:00

So I made a contribution.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:03

I just put my amex in and did my thing and it was a five figure contribution.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:08

And I'm going to tell you what happened.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:10

I have goosebumps right now because I Know the end of the story.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:13

So crazy.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:14

So no one had been in my home.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:17

Nobody should have been in my home.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:19

It was just a really crazy time, and we didn't know anything during that time.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:23

And I don't keep money in my home.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:26

That's a big no, no.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:27

We keep it invested.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:28

And so for whatever reason, that amount of money that I gave, I found in exact.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:36

In exact money.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:38

And neither of us know where that money came from to this day.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:41

And it's just wild, but it was confirmation to me.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:44

And this wasn't the first time something like that had happen.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:46

It was the largest it had ever happened.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:48

But it reminded me that we are supposed to do good in the world.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:52

And so the more that we earn.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:34:54

You know, I grew up really religious, and there was a passage that I did take from that that says, to who much is given, much is required.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:35:01

And so I just feel like when we are given a lot, we're given opportunity, we're given luck, whatever you want to call it in your world, we are supposed to give back.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:35:11

And it's really nice to be handed these opportunities so that we can earn, so that we can invest, so that we can invest in others, too.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:35:18

I'll get off my soapbox with that.

Robert Hughes: 00:35:20

No, that was so good.

Robert Hughes: 00:35:23

Just let's do, like, two more questions, and we'll wrap it up.

Robert Hughes: 00:35:27

Does it sound good?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:35:27

You're so good.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:35:28

I would literally talk to you all day long.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:35:30

I love it when I get to be around you.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:35:32

I get excited.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:35:33

Awesome.

Robert Hughes: 00:35:34

Well, thank you.

Robert Hughes: 00:35:35

I feel the same way.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:35:36

Thank you.

Robert Hughes: 00:35:37

Okay, so let's see.

Robert Hughes: 00:35:40

Investing.

Robert Hughes: 00:35:41

So the conversation of stocks versus real estate, it can be kind of a hot topic.

Robert Hughes: 00:35:49

Anybody who, you know, I know that coming up in the industry, the only real advice I got was invest in real estate.

Robert Hughes: 00:35:56

And it wasn't until later studying money and finance and that I kind of learned about.

Robert Hughes: 00:36:03

I mean, I always knew about stocks, but I never really quite understood what I was doing.

Robert Hughes: 00:36:09

And.

Robert Hughes: 00:36:10

But anyway, that said, how can hairdressers decide?

Robert Hughes: 00:36:14

Obviously, this is.

Robert Hughes: 00:36:15

We're not giving financial advice, but, like, in your opinion, when you think about putting money.

Robert Hughes: 00:36:21

So we talked about real estate, but, like, could you talk on some of the other investment opportunities that you take advantage of and what you.

Robert Hughes: 00:36:32

What your thoughts on are.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:36:33

Are on each course.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:36:36

My gosh, we could get started on that and go down a whole rabbit hole.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:36:38

There's mutual funds where multiple people invest together.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:36:42

There are hedge funds.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:36:43

There are.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:36:44

There are Roth IRAs.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:36:45

There are Roth 401ks.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:36:46

There are 401ks.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:36:48

God, there's so many ways.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:36:49

There's even certain insurance policies, if you can find one that's ethical, there's ones that you can use to build wealth.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:36:57

Also we have a policy right now, I can tell you that we've had in place this an 18 year policy and if we don't have to use that policy, it turns into a certain monetary number.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:37:08

And that number, we do have a college savings for our child.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:37:11

But in addition to that, we also put these two policies in place and if we live those 18 years when they're mature, they have cash value and that will also.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:37:22

And it was tax deferred, so we're able to use that toward college also.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:37:26

So whether that's housing, it doesn't matter.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:37:28

So that kind of thing is important.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:37:30

This year has been an amazing year for me.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:37:32

I am not, I'm going to put a massive disclaimer.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:37:35

I am not giving financial advice on this piece.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:37:38

I'm going to tell you, no different than I had a hamburger that was really good at this restaurant.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:37:42

You may hate hamburgers, but I invested this year in a pharmaceutical company.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:37:49

I'm not even going to say the name of it, but it's in one of the weight loss drugs that everybody's taking one of the shots.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:37:56

Holy smoke.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:38:01

Oh, oh my gosh.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:38:03

For all the people like, oh, the economy's doing terrible this year.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:38:05

I'm like, well, you should have invested in that because baby has been good over here.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:38:10

So.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:38:10

But yeah, following, you know, I'm in, I'm invested, I'll tell you, I'm invested in Disney, Coca Cola, Home Depot.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:38:18

There's certain companies that I'm gonna always, just because those companies to me are always gonna do pretty good, that doesn't mean they're always gonna do good.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:38:26

But for right now, that's what I chose to do with my own personal decision making.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:38:30

So.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:38:31

But my financial team, they chase all the numbers all the time.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:38:35

And you know when you're looking for a financial advisor, there's going to be fee based and there's going to be commission based.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:38:40

So you have to figure out just like rental or commission in a salon, you have to figure out the model that works for you.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:38:45

I'm not saying that one is right and one is wrong.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:38:47

I'm actually in both.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:38:48

But what I'm going to say is like, if you have someone that's making commission on your money that tells me that they're going to work for me personally, they're going to work harder because the more Money that my money earns, the more money they earn.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:39:03

So that's the model that works for this guy.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:39:06

Maybe you're somebody that wants to pay a flat rate of $1,500 a year.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:39:11

I don't know.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:39:12

So just understanding what works for you, you need to become educated.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:39:16

You know all the time that we spend scrolling TikTok and Instagram, watching everybody's hairstyles and colors and extensions and whatever we're doing, that's great, but you probably already know how to do hair.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:39:25

What you may not know how to do yet is how to invest.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:39:28

So start following people that are really sharp in the financial world.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:39:32

Absolutely.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:39:33

I love that.

Robert Hughes: 00:39:34

I'll add to that.

Robert Hughes: 00:39:36

So just from like a, what do they call it, like a scholarly perspective, like if you study finance, then the conventional wisdom is having your emergency stack of cash have it, be able to access it in the event of emergencies.

Robert Hughes: 00:39:54

And then you have whatever that three to six months that that's up.

Robert Hughes: 00:39:59

You know, talk to your financial advisor obviously to see like if this conventional works for you and then, and then putting money.

Robert Hughes: 00:40:06

And when you do go to invest, starting off in like index funds, which is like a combination of a bunch of stocks, so it's diversified.

Robert Hughes: 00:40:16

So you don't like if you pick, let's say that you picked, you picked one of the pharmaceutical companies out of two and only one of them went up.

Robert Hughes: 00:40:27

You didn't make that money.

Robert Hughes: 00:40:28

But a fund might buy, invest in both of them.

Robert Hughes: 00:40:31

So it kind of reduces your risk.

Robert Hughes: 00:40:33

You don't get the big return, but it's safe.

Robert Hughes: 00:40:37

And then you kind of layer on the risk as you go on.

Robert Hughes: 00:40:40

And did you know that real estate is considered not low risk investment?

Robert Hughes: 00:40:45

Which really blew my mind when I was doing my research.

Robert Hughes: 00:40:49

I thought that was really fascinating.

Robert Hughes: 00:40:51

Maybe real estate as an investment property, maybe not as your home, is a higher risk.

Robert Hughes: 00:40:56

I don't know if you have any thoughts on that as a landlord.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:41:00

The laws have changed a lot.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:41:02

You know, when you, when you have a primary residence, there's a certain tax deduction that you would get from that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:41:07

And then when you start buying secondary, like a rental home or a beach home, of course there's depreciation.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:41:12

That's going to be a factor when you're doing your taxes.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:41:16

Depreciation is going to always happen on a home.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:41:19

Like I have a place in Florida and you know, if it doesn't rent the way that it's supposed to rent, then I'm going to, it's going to, I've lost Revenue because it's a business and if it didn't generate X amount of dollars per year, so there are ways around it that are illegal.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:41:35

So understanding that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:41:37

But overall real estate to me has not been that risky.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:41:40

redibly risky and that was in: 2007

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:41:51

And so that was catastrophic for the real estate world unless you were smart during that time.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:41:58

And that was the time that we were building wealth in capital.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:42:01

And so all the properties were like severely undervalued.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:42:06

Maybe there was a property that was $1.5 million that now is on fire sale for 600,000.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:42:12

So then you would buy the $600,000 property and then just a couple years later it came back up to the 1.5.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:42:18

So you were able to get the 900.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:42:20

Well then you could pull out a line of credit from that, the equity line, and then you could buy something else.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:42:24

That was how we got into our first salon was we couldn't, we didn't have enough money that we could borrow money at that time.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:42:32

We were, we were trying to figure it out, but we had purchased a home.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:42:35

In that home, we had paid down enough.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:42:38

We are the people that pay two payments a month on the house or we pay additional principal.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:42:43

So if your payments: 2000

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:42:48

Or I would pay: 1500

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:42:55

So if you have a 30 year fix now, it's a 15 year fix.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:42:58

There's so many things that we could talk about right now.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:43:00

Hello and good morning.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:43:01

Del Potts.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:43:02

She's a rock star here in Atlanta.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:43:04

But anyway, so, yeah, it's just there's so much thought that has to go into the things that we do.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:43:10

And these are conversations just like the other topic that I talk about all the time now is mental health.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:43:14

These are two major conversations that if they're being had, they're being had by people that don't need to be having those conversations.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:43:21

Like those people are giving advice.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:43:22

I'm like.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:43:23

Or they're not being had at all.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:43:26

So we really have to continue having bigger conversations on this.

Robert Hughes: 00:43:30

Absolutely.

Robert Hughes: 00:43:32

Okay, so as we wrap up, I wanted.

Robert Hughes: 00:43:37

There's a, there is a question the audience, it's I think Leavage B.

Robert Hughes: 00:43:45

Levi's.

Robert Hughes: 00:43:46

Sorry, Levi.

Robert Hughes: 00:43:49

All right.

Robert Hughes: 00:43:49

Yeah.

Robert Hughes: 00:43:50

So Levi says suggestions on Pete do You have any suggestions on people to maybe follow or look into that?

Robert Hughes: 00:43:56

Are that you like in the world of investing?

Robert Hughes: 00:43:58

Maybe.

Robert Hughes: 00:43:59

Maybe online, maybe in the news?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:03

Oh, I don't watch the news.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:05

I'm allergic to the news.

Robert Hughes: 00:44:06

Good for you.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:07

It is so scary.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:10

I choose happiness each day.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:14

So no, there are people.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:18

And Levi, I can send you a list of those people.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:20

I'm scared to give advice here because maybe somebody invests wrong and then they might blame it this way.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:26

But yeah, I'm happy to share some of those names, but there are some really incredible people out there.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:33

Even I personally am not a fan of the personality.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:38

But he's got great advice is Dave Ramsey.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:41

That one I'll endorse.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:42

I can't listen to him personally because he's angry all the time.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:47

If you have that much money, you should be happy.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:49

But anyway, the only thing that I don't agree with him on is the credit card theory.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:54

He thinks that you shouldn't have credit cards, that you should use a debit card.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:44:58

And I can tell you completely and 100% in my body and soul, I love my American Express.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:45:04

I pay it off every single month.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:45:05

But the amount of points that I get from that American Express, it literally helps me travel my team all over the globe.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:45:12

We just took eight of our team to Paris and Vienna, Austria last month and we used a whole lot of American Express points.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:45:20

So if you're responsible with a credit card, do that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:45:23

If you're not responsible, maybe you should stick to a debit card.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:45:26

But yeah, Dave Ramsey overall is good.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:45:28

His emergency fund, the whole segment that he has on emergency funds is incredible.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:45:32

You know, if something were to happen to you, God forbid, can you live one year without being behind the chair?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:45:38

And most stylists and industry professionals don't have insurance.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:45:43

Long term, short term, we don't have short term, disability, we don't have anything.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:45:47

We do, my company does, but most don't.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:45:51

And so making sure that you can afford to live in a crisis, that's so good.

Robert Hughes: 00:45:56

Yeah, yeah.

Robert Hughes: 00:45:57

No, you know, it's like, I'm glad that we're wrapping up on this note because I feel like a lot of times the conversation about money and investing and wealth starts off with the super boring stuff that no one wants to hear.

Robert Hughes: 00:46:13

Like, need your backup fund.

Robert Hughes: 00:46:15

You need to have like some base level foundation of like, lower risk investments.

Robert Hughes: 00:46:22

And it seems like every single financial advice or planner or anything that I've been to, anything I've watched, they do really emphasize that.

Robert Hughes: 00:46:31

And the insurance, like the life insurance, the short term disability, long term disability, all that.

Robert Hughes: 00:46:37

And health insurance, like having all that stuff, which is not sexy to talk about.

Robert Hughes: 00:46:41

And it just sounds like I got to spend more money because insurance is not exciting.

Robert Hughes: 00:46:46

You don't get to watch your insurance grow.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:46:49

Yeah.

Robert Hughes: 00:46:51

So.

Robert Hughes: 00:46:52

But I'm glad that we're wrapped up here because it is very important to, like, you.

Robert Hughes: 00:46:57

We could talk all day about.

Robert Hughes: 00:47:00

I mean, I'm, I'm a crazy investor.

Robert Hughes: 00:47:02

I like crypto.

Robert Hughes: 00:47:03

Like, I, you know, like, I, I could talk, I could talk with you.

Robert Hughes: 00:47:08

Like, we could go down rabbit holes on like, fun, like sexy real estate and stocks and crypto and all this high risk stuff, crowdfunding, crowd investing, you know, all that stuff.

Robert Hughes: 00:47:19

But the reality is, like, I'm glad we had the conversation and we ended on.

Robert Hughes: 00:47:24

But make sure you look into these things before you go off and like, do anything crazy on your own.

Robert Hughes: 00:47:32

So get advice, have emergency funds and consider having some low risk stuff and some insurance.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:47:41

But absolutely.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:47:42

And be careful of the conversations that we have as professionals too.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:47:45

I'll leave with that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:47:46

Just be careful of the conversations.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:47:49

I have one quote that if I had a tattoo, it would be down my whole entire arm.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:47:53

I say it all the time.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:47:54

I say it probably 50 times a day.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:47:56

But the words you speak build the house you live in.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:47:58

So if you constantly are speaking poverty into your life.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:02

I don't have, I'm just a hairdresser.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:04

I'm always going to be broke.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:05

I don't know what to do.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:07

If you continually speak that mindset, you're going to build the house of that.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:13

So just be careful with the words you speak and start to envision yourself in a different lifestyle, if that's what it is.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:20

Manifestation.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:20

I talk about that all the time.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:21

The house that I'm sitting in right now, I actually drew a picture of this house when I was 14 years old in eighth grade.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:27

And I live in this house right now.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:29

And so your mind is powerful.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:31

Your thoughts become actions and your actions become behavior.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:35

So with that, happy investing.

Robert Hughes: 00:48:38

Well, you.

Robert Hughes: 00:48:39

I thank you so much.

Robert Hughes: 00:48:40

You're awesome.

Robert Hughes: 00:48:41

I love talking with you.

Robert Hughes: 00:48:42

This was so good.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:44

Thank you so much.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:45

Keep doing the thing that you're doing.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:46

Your vibe is always good and you're the real deal.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:48

So if you're just watching this guy for the first time, don't lose contact.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:48:52

He's the good one.

Robert Hughes: 00:48:54

Awesome.

Robert Hughes: 00:48:54

Thank you so much.

Robert Hughes: 00:48:55

And I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Robert Hughes: 00:48:57

Have a wonderful day and yeah, happy holiday season.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:49:02

Hey, thank you.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:49:03

Yeah, we kicked it off, didn't we?

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:49:04

Here we are.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:49:04

Let's eat and be merry.

Robert Hughes: 00:49:06

Yeah, that's right.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:49:07

Take care, friend.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:49:08

Happy Friday.

Robert Hughes: 00:49:08

All right, See ya.

Daniel Mason Jones: 00:49:09

Bye.