INTRO / PRE-SHOW MESSAGE
TONY: Hey, everyone, this is Tony. Before we start today's conversation, I want to give you a quick heads up. At the very end of this episode, I'm going to share a piece of music that's very close to my heart—my newest hit song. If you've ever seen those four words on every coin and every dollar in the US, hearing them in a song gives them a whole new weight. So stick around to the very end. I can't wait for you to hear it.
Welcome back to the podcast. Now today's entrepreneurs face a—let's call it a quiet anxiety that rarely gets discussed openly. Now you know you could build a business. You can generate income, even accumulate savings, and yet still wonder if the traditional retirement system is actually designed to work for you or against you.
Well, my guest today has spent decades challenging that system. Robert G. Allen is legendary in wealth building. He's a multi-million copy bestselling author whose real estate and financial books have shaped generations of investors. No doubt you've heard of him or have actually read his books or know more about him.
But what makes today's conversation especially relevant is that Robert isn't here to repeat old formulas. No, he's here to explain why most retirement advice taught through Wall Street is fundamentally flawed and why entrepreneurs, business owners, and independent thinkers just like you—we need a different model entirely.
We're going to explore a few things here, like how cash flow wealth replaces equity speculation. We're going to talk about how taxes can legally be minimized, why inflation can actually work in your favor. Many things. And we're going to go over what Robert would rewrite today from his own famous books after decades of real-world experience. A little bit of everything, huh?
Now, if you've ever wondered whether the traditional path to retirement really fits the entrepreneurial life, well, this conversation may change how you think about money, time, and freedom. Let's dive in. Let's go. Bring him in here.





INTERVIEW – PART 1 (THE BACKSTORY & CHALLENGE)
TONY: Hi, Robert. Well. Excuse me. Robert, you're famous. You're well known. But you also have that Allen from the second name. So second name?
ROBERT: Exactly.
TONY: Hey. Well, Tony, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure for me to be here with you and to maybe dispel some myths and some mistakes and some lies that we've been told about retirement. And that's my job today.
TONY: Uh, yes. I'm looking forward to learning about Real Wealth Reset, as mentioned. And I'm curious—some of the listeners may not have heard of you or would like to know more. So maybe you could give us a little bit of how did it start and what made you question the traditional financial system, you know, kind of give some of the backstory?
ROBERT: Well, my traditional MBA was hard for me to get. I got my MBA, but then I applied to thirty major corporations, and none of them said yes to me. And therefore, I made a decision not to pursue the traditional "let's go get a job and retire when I'm sixty-five." I really started with no money. My dad gave me a thousand bucks for my graduation present. I didn't have any credit. I didn't have a job. But I went and bought my first piece of real estate with that thousand dollars.
Then I wrote the book, Nothing Down: How to Buy Real Estate with Little or No Money Down, and it became a huge number one New York Times bestseller. Because most people have an American dream and they want to get a home. They want to live in their own home, but they don't have the cash, the down payment, the five, even ten or fifteen percent. They don't have enough income. They've got to go to a bank and the banker says, "You don't qualify."
So I was famous for doing this crazy challenge. I said, "Send me to any city, take away my wallet, give me one hundred dollar bill, and in seventy-two hours, I'll buy an excellent piece of real estate using none of my own money, using the techniques in that book I just told you about."
And the LA Times saw my ad in their newspaper and they called me and challenged me and they said, "We don't think you can do that. We're going to put a reporter with you. We're going to fly you to a city we choose. We're going to take away your wallet, give you one hundred dollars, and if you haven't bought a property in seventy-two hours, we're going to make you look like a fool in front of the world."
And I flew with an LA Times reporter. They picked San Francisco, and I bought seven properties in fifty-seven hours and gave the reporter twenty dollars back in change. And therefore the front page of the financial section of the LA Times read, "Boastful Investor Accepts Times Challenge and Wins."
So that kind of put me on the map. And I've been teaching people ever since. Multiple Streams of Income is another one of my famous books, How to Generate a Lifetime of Unlimited Wealth. That was followed by a book with Mark Victor Hansen, The One Minute Millionaire, and another book that was called Creating Wealth.
And this one we're going to talk a little bit about today because my message has been for my entire life—how do ordinary people fix the money problem? And most people—well, forty-nine percent of people when they reach their retirement age, don't have enough money to retire or are literally on fumes when it comes to that point.
So what do the fifty-one percent do? Well, eighty-one percent of the people will have less than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to retire on, and only ten percent—ninety-nine percent actually—will have five hundred thousand or more. And frankly, you can't retire on five hundred thousand. Because if you retire at sixty-five, you're going to live another thirty years. You know, if your economy, if your Wall Street fortune is at five hundred thousand in the stock market, what are you going to do?
And so we're going to talk today about why the retirement system is broken and how we fix it.
TONY: Robert, I am at the edge of my chair, but there's one thing that the penny hasn't dropped. I've got my diploma somewhere here. I think it's out of the camera view. I've been through that. You don't learn this stuff there. So you did your MBA. I got that, but somewhere you learned some—working on the streets. I mean, I remember that the famous story, the challenge, the one hundred. Yeah, I remember all that. I'm like, where did you learn this stuff? Where did you get this street smarts? How did that part happen?
ROBERT: Well, the first part happened because I knew I needed to invest in real estate. My intuition was telling me at that time, it's time to buy real estate now. And nobody would hire me. I had thirty rejection letters in my most famous book that I've only had one copy of—this book right here. Of all those thirty rejection letters from General Foods and from Nestle and, you know, I got these thirty rejection letters in here because I said to myself as I looked at these letters on my bed when I was thirty, you know, just graduated from my MBA.
And I got mad. I said, "Who are these thirty people who signed this rejection letter to me? One day I will earn more money than all thirty of these people combined." And yes, I did do that, but I had to take a risk. And that means I quit my career before I even started. I went right into real estate. And since I only had one thousand dollars, I went to a millionaire who was very successful in my church group. And I said to him, "Paul, you're a millionaire. I want to be like you. Tell me how to think like you."
And that's been a model ever since. Whenever I want to do something new, I always find whoever the best at it is. The best are always free because they may have a fee and it may be real expensive to us. But frankly, when the best work with you, they give you the shortcuts. And therefore ultimately the fee is minuscule.
For example, Jay Abraham is a great marketing expert, probably the best marketing expert in the world. And I went to him when I didn't have any money and he wanted twenty-five grand. I gave him twenty-five grand, and I turned that twenty-five grand into two hundred and fifty million dollars. So you just go to the best, frankly, and you pick their brain and you do what they tell you to do, and you do better.

INTERVIEW – PART 2 (THE WALL STREET PROBLEM)
TONY: It's astounding. Absolutely. And as I'm thinking with this, one of the things you've said is that the Wall Street, let's just hit it head on—the Wall Street retirement models, people are being misled on that. And you talk about something fundamentally wrong with the traditional equity-based retirement approach. I'm all ears. What have you learned about that?
ROBERT: Well, Warren Buffett will tell you—of course, he's a direct investor in the marketplace. He's fully in. But he'll tell you that the ordinary person shouldn't do the way he does it. He says, "Don't do the way Warren Buffett does it. You just buy an S&P 500"—the five hundred of the biggest stocks in the world, and you put your money into it on a regular basis, and you just watch that grow, and it's going to grow at, what, nine, ten percent over fifteen, twenty, thirty years? It'll have short-term higher rates of return. And it'll sometimes be lower. But on average it'll be about ten percent.
But what they don't tell you is they'll brag about this ten percent, but the average investor doesn't get that ten percent. They've got fees they've got to pay. And they've got some hidden costs that most people don't realize. And it's actually about half that. And so when you take your rate of return, multiply it out for thirty years and you invest, you know, ten percent of your money on your salary, and it's going to grow to maybe two or three million dollars, it's possible. But then you've got inflation. So it's not worth three million by the time you get there. And then you've got taxes because most people defer their taxes, and they defer their taxes at the exact wrong time, because they've been told that they're going to have less money when they retire.
Is that the way you really want to retire? I don't want to retire with less money. I want to retire with more money. You know, I want to have a higher tax rate. And so they end up at a time where their taxes have to be paid out of the money that they're pulling out of their savings accounts, out of their retirement account.
And the real mistake that they make is they go for equity and not cash flow. And this is a strange concept because everybody talks about equity and that means I want to be a millionaire. Even me. What are my books? You know, The One Minute Millionaire? One of my dreams originally was for me to be a millionaire, and it took me about four years to become a millionaire, because that's what I was aiming for. I was aiming for equity. But frankly, the real secret to wealth is cashflow. And if you have cashflow that you build over time, then you can retire much earlier than if you're going for equity.
And now the real problem with the markets is because our advisors—and there are a few companies that don't do this, but the vast majority of the advisors, they make money on your investment into their funds because they make money whether you make money or not. If you lose money, they still take a percentage of the money that you lost. And therefore they win whether you win or lose. And therefore the entire message to you is, "Just keep putting money in the market, keep putting it in, we want to build our portfolio for you." Well, it's their portfolio too. And the more they manage, they make money on their management of a billion dollars. And they get one quarter of a percent or a half a percent, something like that. It seems like small money. But when you deduct that from right off the top of the money you put into it, it makes your long-term results dramatically lower than what you've been taught.
They've taught about how compound interest is so powerful. That is—what was it Einstein said? It's the most powerful, you know, equation in the world. I don't know if he really said that, but compound interest—I've been preaching compound interest forever. And compound interest is all about equity. It's about the ultimate growth—having a million, two million, and five million, whatever. And that's not the metric that you need to be looking at. You need to be looking at how do I generate cash flow?
And if you can't figure that out now, and your advisors are not telling you that, they're not teaching—they want you to stay in the market as long as you can.

SPONSOR BREAK – NOTION
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All right, let's continue.
INTERVIEW – PART 3 (THE STRIKE NUMBER & EARLY RETIREMENT)
ROBERT: And if you retire at sixty-five, who said that you should retire at sixty-five? Who made that number up? I don't want to retire at sixty-five. I want to retire at fifty-five, fifty, and forty-five. I want to retire as soon as my cash flow can fund my we call the strike number.
And what is the strike number? A strike number is the amount of money you need to earn to live a basic modern life. And this is where we go wrong when it comes to teaching people how to make big money. Even I'm going to take blame for this too, because I've always talked about, you know, having a big car and a fancy house. And we did have a huge home in California—ten thousand square feet, multi-million dollar home. If I were to rewind my life, I would rewind it to a much more modest home. I would live first not to get the equity. I don't want to be a millionaire. I want to have enough cash flow to reach my strike number. And that number is a number that lives a basic, modest lifetime in a modest home.
And that's the opposite of what rich people are doing. They're so rich, it doesn't matter. For ordinary people, you need to be aiming for financial freedom first. That's the first goal. Not to be a millionaire, but to have enough cash flow for you to be able to live without having to work. And that is going to be a five to ten year process. And that's why I talk about in my book, Retiring in Ten Years or Less. That's a ten year process. That's how you generate not only the cash flow—and we'll talk about the investments to do that in a second—we talk about how to do that without taxes. And this is the thing that nobody talks about.
Why does Jeff Bezos spend, in terms of a percentage, less than his secretary? I'm going to go into that. I want to go cover that in just one moment. But first we are speaking with Robert G. Allen. We're talking about Real Wealth Reset. He's discussing a new path to financial freedom, not trying to sell you anything here. Just you can feel his passion. You can feel his quest. He is all over this—this is the real stuff.
Robert, where can we find out more? What website do we go to to find out more about you and what we're going over right now?
ROBERT: Oh. Thank you, I appreciate that. It's just RetireIn10Years.com/book. RetireIn10Years.com/book. Now that will take you to a site where that book is available. Uh, I think it's $19.97. Fully guaranteed. I want you to win, but there's a lot of bonuses that come with that, a lot of videos that come with it as well. Probably one thousand dollars worth of extra bonuses.
But anyway, this is the best book I've ever been involved in. And I've written books that have sold millions and millions of copies all over the world. They've been translated in Russian and Chinese and Japanese and Italian and French and all over the world. And I've traveled to those countries and talked about creating wealth. But this book is what I would want my grandchildren to read—this book, Retire in Ten Years dot com/book. This is the book they need to read. Why? Because some of the things I said in this book, Creating Wealth, some of the things I said in this book, Multiple Streams of Income, some of those things I would not do these days. I would do totally differently.
TONY: So anyway, you tell me. I'm not sure if you have responses or anything you need to have to break in here.

INTERVIEW – PART 4 (DEBT VS CASH FLOW)
TONY: I'm thinking with this, and I've got questions. And one of the things that comes to my mind—and I haven't written a book on wealth and what have you, but one of the first things that comes to mind is there's two schools. One is pay off all your debts, have no debt, which makes great sense. And you don't see that talked about enough in the other school, which the pundits say, "Max yourself out and get that cash flow up." And to me that's a little scary, a little dangerous, because let's just make up a number, make up any number you want. I've got, you know, five million dollars in assets and I've borrowed against them and I'm getting cash flow. But if something happens in the market, which it's had, then a domino effect and then all of a sudden you're out, you know, you're really under—you know where I'm going, what I'm saying. And that's a very scary thing. Obviously that's not what you're saying, but that's what comes to mind is there's a fear on that.
ROBERT: There's a fear even when you put your money in the market. And seventy percent of Americans have their money and their retirement tied to Wall Street, seventy percent. Now, there are some of us who are entrepreneurs who have different ways of investing. I'm going to recommend that you sell all of your stock market, all of it, sell it all, and that you pay off the penalty that you have and that you do something crazy. And that is you invest your properties into single-family homes that are managed by a turnkey provider.
Now, what does that mean? Here's the mistake that most people make when it comes to real estate. This is why it's so scary to people. Because first of all, you read one of my books—"Go buy real estate. Even if you got nothing down, at least get you in the game, right?" But I teach you how you find the deals, how you fix them up, how you manage them yourself. And you only should buy within a fifty mile radius of your own house. This is what I preached for almost forty years, forty-five years.
My grandchildren I'm going to tell them to do just—almost throw all of that out the window. And I'm going to tell them not to buy a property wholesale, which for forty years I've been saying, "Never pay retail for real estate. Never pay retail for real estate. You want to buy it with as much creative financing as you can. Borrow as much as you can. Go all in. Be one hundred percent leveraged."
And at this point, I'm going to tell my grandchildren, no, you do not do that. Now, if you can't do it because you can't save enough money for a down payment, even if you have a five percent down payment, if you live in the home first and then eventually you're going to rent that home out and eventually you're going to have two. And in my book, Creating Wealth, the formula I've taught, and this has been modeled by Robert Kiyosaki and many, many others, I say buy two houses a year for ten years and then retire. And that's the simple model.
But what my co-author on this book right here, Ryan Lee, he read Creating Wealth, and he did what I challenged him to do, which is for him to buy the property, for him to fix it up, for him to manage it while he had a job and he was working full-time at a job. And ninety percent—well, let's see what percent. Actually, it's eighty percent of people in this country are employees. They're employee minded. They've got security mindedness. He was an employee. He was making good money, but he was killing himself with these real estate investments. He was absolutely destroying himself because he was trying to do the best job he can and on the side do this. And he fixed it the way he fixed it.
He says, "Robert, I'm going to go against what you taught. I'm going to find somebody who fixes it up for me. I'm going to let them make the profit from the fixing it up, and they're going to sell it to me at retail, and I'm going to put twenty percent down." Because he says, "I've got the money to put the twenty percent down, and I'm going to buy it where it makes sense."
And what I've been teaching for forty-five years is you never buy property outside of a fifty mile radius. And yet when you live in Los Angeles, you live in San Francisco, you live in New York City, you know, even fifty mile radius outside those cities, you can't rent it for positive cash flow. But you can in Kansas City and you can in Ohio, and you can in the middle parts of the United States. You can even buy a modest home in Northern California. Believe it or not, you can. But how do you rent them? See, that's just the problem.
And I live in Utah now, so if I were to buy something in Ohio, that's two thousand miles away. How do I manage it? Because one bad thing goes wrong and I am screwed, if I use the language. And therefore what Ryan did is he sets it up so he finds the turnkey providers. These are people whose livelihood is finding the deals and they're hard to find. Finding the deals, fixing them up and making a profit immediately from the selling of that property, getting it refinanced from somebody who can afford to refinance it. They put the twenty percent down and they get cash flow. They get cash flow immediately.
Now, what's powerful about the cash flow is, okay, so it's two, three hundred bucks a month. It's not going to make you rich. But what it does is something that the market doesn't do. It protects you in taxes. It gives you savings, tax protection, and inflation. Because inflation is going to be with us forever and it's going to affect everything you do. And therefore you want an asset that is inflation protected. And the rents will continue to increase over ten, twenty years. They continue to increase over time because people just get used to paying higher and higher amounts.
And therefore this asset that is professionally managed, you might have paid retail for it, so you paid two-fifty for it and you get two hundred and fifty dollars in positive cash flow now. But five years from now, what will it be worth? Well, if it's just a five percent rate of return, it's gone up a little bit. It's increased your rate of return. But frankly, what is your rate of return when you add those cash flow tax advantages, equity build up because you're paying down the loan every month, and the appreciation of your properties? You're making twenty plus percent on your money every single year.

SPONSOR BREAK – SHOPIFY
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All right, let's continue.

INTERVIEW – PART 5 (THE THREE GEARS & THE VAULT)
ROBERT: I challenge you to find any stock market investment that will give you a guaranteed long-term rate of return without having a massive collapse. Now, you brought up a good point. What happens if there is a collapse? What happens? Well, I'll tell you, the stock market is going to go to hell. What will real estate go to hell? That's a good question. Well, it did in two thousand and eight. Why? Because there was too much of it. There was too much supply and the demand—what happened to the demand? Well, demand went to zero because when everything went to heck for all the banks, everybody pulls their money in and they're trying to dump their real estate.
And you know what they were doing wrong? People had positive cash flow from these properties. Not all of them, but many of them were speculative and they were negative cash flow and they were the worst investments. But, you know, twenty percent of those properties were owned by owners who had cash flow from those properties. They had renters in those properties. And yes, the values, the equity dropped dramatically, there's no doubt about it. But the cash flows were still there. And if they had just hung on for another year or two or three, the equities rebounded big time and the cash flows would have continued to increase.
Now, if they'd done that in twenty-ten, now it's fifteen years later. They'd be multi-multi-millionaires today. But they got scared out. And so you never buy a property with a negative cash flow. Just never. Because yeah, there could be challenges. But people always need a place to live. And therefore you never buy an expensive home. You never buy a property in the higher ends. You're always buying a mid-priced home in the median price range, and you're going to buy them where you get positive cash flow.
Now, what happens if you don't have the twenty percent down? Because how many people here on this call don't have the twenty percent down to buy an investment property? Because that's what it's going to take.
In this book, Retire in Ten Years, there are three gears that are linked together that really make the whole passive income machine. That's what the subtitle of this book is—The Passive Income Machine. And what we teach here is, number one, passive income machine is number one—you have to change your mindset and you cannot be a Wall Street person. You have to get your money out of there as soon as possible. And you have to get it into an inflation-protected, tax-advantaged, cash-flowing piece of real estate as soon as you possibly can. And obviously that's one step.
The next step is I want to put my money in a place where it's protected, and most people put it in a bank account and they got it in a savings account. Well, what's the problem with the savings account? It's taxed in the last place you want. Your money is a place where it's taxed. So you put it into literally a cash insurance policy, a cash value insurance policy. And you get what we call a vault where you put your savings there, where its cash is protected from taxes, and it grows twice as much. And then you pull it right out. And that's where you buy your real estate.
So you save your money in the vault first, and then you save it up and you have enough money to buy one. If you've cashed out of the stock market and you have enough money to buy two or three or four, you buy two or three or four. But if you don't have any money at all, you've got to be a saver.
TONY: Robert, could you explain a little bit more, give a little more detail on the vault?
ROBERT: So many rich people, even Biden, a lot of very, very famous rich people, they put their money where the banks put their money, you know, where the banks put their money—in cash value life insurance. And you've never heard of this before? Well, unless you've been in the markets or you've been a smarter investor. But, you know, people like, uh, the coach of the San Diego—what's his name? The San Diego, the football team. A lot of these people, very, very famous people will put their money in cash value. Why did they put it there? Because they get insurance, number one. And we all should have insurance, but they get to pull their money out of a tax advantaged place and they get to invest it in other things.
Now, most of us, when we want to borrow money, like my home, paid-for home here I'm living in today, if I want to get a line of credit, you know how hard it is to get a line of credit? I've got to qualify, I've got to show my credit. I've got to do all things to somebody who earns much less money than I do, and they're going to tell me whether I qualify to put a loan on my free and clear house.
And when you put your money into an insurance policy like this, you don't have to qualify at all because you get cash value as you build your insurance in there, and you can borrow it out with no qualifications whatsoever, no application at all. You just say, "I want my money, please." And you pull it out immediately.
So we call this a vault because it's a very special way to house your money. And it's fantastic. And before I heard of the vault, when Ryan told me, you know what I told him? I said, "You're crazy. Real estate or insurance is the worst investment you can do. You need to buy term insurance and then invest the difference," which most people never do. They just buy the term insurance until they're too old to afford it. And it's just a mistake.
If I were to revise my life and go back to my grandchildren, I'm going to tell them to do a radically different thing with the way they do their insurance.
Now, the final piece to it is that the investments of the property in the right kind of real estate, with the right kind of person, because most of us, the seventy, eighty percent of us that work, we don't have time to do this. We're giving our whole hearts to our jobs, and a lot of us love our jobs. We don't want to leave it. We want to get the income. And we like the income. It gives us goods. But ten to twenty percent of that money should go right into a vault. And until you get the first amount of money for the twenty percent down, and then you get that money out of your vault ASAP. You borrow it out. Frankly, how can you do that? You get a rate of return while you're in the vault. It's usually four or five percent and its tax free. And then you put it in a place where you can make twenty percent of your money. So it's really fun.
TONY: Robert, has said another term for annuities. It used to be life insurance annuities years back. Is that just another name for—?
ROBERT: We don't do annuities. No. You don't do annuities. No. It's actual whole life insurance. And it's—that's very rare to find. Only three percent of the insurance companies have the kind of policies that we're talking about, where they want you to borrow the money back out. They're happy for you to do it. Most other companies, you know, ninety-seven percent of them, if you show up and say, "Would you do this for me?" they won't do it. And so you have to know what kind of company to choose.
INTERVIEW – PART 6 (TAX-FREE STRATEGY & INFLATION)
ROBERT: But I want to answer the one question about the tax free part, because we don't want to miss that. Why does Jeff Bezos pay less taxes? This story is—I don't know if it's true, but they say he and Warren Buffett pay less money than their secretaries. Why is that? Because Buffett does what smart people do? He borrows against his stock, and when he borrows against his stock—and he's of course, he has billions of dollars worth, well, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stock—when he borrows against the stock, what is the tax consequence of that?
When you borrow money from your credit card, does the government want you to pay money on the money you borrowed from your credit card? No, the government doesn't even ask you how much you borrowed on your credit card. The government doesn't even ask Jeff Bezos how much he borrows from his credit card, from his assets.
Now, one of the assets that you're going to build is the vault. The vault has assets in them. Now, what happens if you die and you have four hundred thousand dollars that's borrowed against your vault and it's to buy real estate that you own in different parts of the United States. What happens to that four hundred thousand dollars borrowing that you've been paying with the cash flow from your real estate? Obviously the loan gets paid off by the insurance. So your family ends up with free and clear real estate, and the four hundred thousand dollars gets paid off by the cash flow from your real estate.
Eventually, you borrow. This is what's happened. In ten years from now, your equity will have grown. It will have grown and grown and grown. You want to pull out one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for you to live on that year. You just refinance one of your properties and you refinance by using the vault, and therefore you end up with cash flow, tax-free money.
And what this talks about is that the subtitle—Unlock the Passive Income Machine and Secure Tax-Free Income for Life. Now, this book is so detailed it tells you exactly what the equity would be, how it would grow. What are the rates of return? What are the projections? What would you have? And how much would you be able to retire on ten years from now in cash flow? And of course, you have equity that's constantly growing. And that equity now becomes a way for you to retire without paying taxes.
TONY: Robert, one more time on how does that work or how does that fit with inflation? You've mentioned it, but bring that—let's go into that again.
ROBERT: We don't know what the inflation is going to be. The vault, we understand it can be five percent plus or minus. It seems to be.
TONY: Yeah. It's about four or five. Yeah. Exactly. What about inflation? We don't know what's going to happen next year. We don't know what new war is going to happen. What tariffs. We don't know anything. And that can change the whole mindset of the whole country.
ROBERT: Yeah. So we are not like two thousand and eight where we had builders were building everything in the world because they could qualify anybody to buy them. And the supply of real estate was massive. And therefore when the demand went to zero, we had all of this real estate that dropped fifty, sometimes seventy-five percent in value because nobody would buy it. It's all about supply and demand.
Now, what is the supply today? We are five million homes short today. And that's why even in slowly, you know, even kind of sluggish times as the interest rates have gone up to fight inflation, real estate in the right areas are still increasing in value.
But remember, we're talking about a ten year time frame here. And so yeah, there'll be some years when it'll be two percent, will be minus two percent, frankly. And there'll be years when it'll be fifteen percent. But over a ten year period of time, it's going to generate roughly seven, eight, ten percent tax advantaged. But when I borrow against it the way I borrow, when I'm borrowing it, it ends up being tax-free money.
Now, if you didn't have to pay taxes, just think about that for a minute. What is your strike number? Suppose you're making one hundred and fifty thousand a year and you're paying thirty, forty thousand dollars to the IRS and you've got money to go to work. It costs you money. You drive your car and you've got work-related expenses. Well, what if you're not working? And what if your tax bill is not thirty, forty thousand but was that much less? Your expenses were less and you were living in a modest home? Not the home on the golf course. Your strike number would be five, six, seven thousand dollars a month.
Now, how many houses would it take for you to generate that kind of revenue? It would be fifteen, you know, fifteen, eighteen houses. It's enough—you can count on both fingers. And that's within a ten year period of time. And those are continuing to grow in value. So you just refinance them every four or five years.
And the bottom line is what happens if inflation goes to zero? Do you in your right mind think that would happen? If that does happen, inflation is certainly dropped from where it was during Covid time. There's no doubt about that. But two or three percent of inflation, which everybody thinks is normal, is devastating. It's terrible. It's horrible. And we've got to do something to get rid of it because the number that the government projects and tells you it's two or three percent, you know, it's a lot higher than that. There are things that are not even included in the CPI. And we all know what it's like because we go to the grocery store and we know what's happened and we know what's happening right now.
So I don't think it's going to go away. Um, I really don't. But even if it does, I still have cash flows from my real estate.

INTERVIEW – PART 7 (ENTREPRENEURS & MULTIPLE STREAMS)
TONY: Robert, the one thing I'm thinking of on this is there are entrepreneurs, business people. They put all their income back into their business. They're not in Wall Street particularly, or very minor, very, very small. So they're thinking, "Well, Tony, Robert, this doesn't really apply to me because I'm just taking, you know, so much and putting it back into business or doing other things." So is there a point where it makes sense, or should there be a certain amount that we put towards this to start growing that? Because we're entrepreneurs here, we're much focused on I've got this business and this model and these products, and I'm really going down this way. I'm not necessarily thinking of retiring or having a second or alternative, a secondary lifestyle going. But something we should look at and do.
ROBERT: That's why they should read Multiple Streams of Income, because you can't have one stream of income. Period. End of story. And if you have one stream of income, you're pouring all that money that you're profiting back into your business to grow it. Not smart. Period.
You should have—let me tell you the first thing I would have changed about my life, frankly. We had a great life. We lived in the biggest houses, and we had the most amazing trips all over the world. And I have lots of memories from that. But there's one thing I didn't do. I didn't save ten to twenty percent of my revenue no matter what. I didn't do that. I do it now, obviously, and I've done it for, you know, the last few years. But for most of the time we just lived high on the hog and we had a great life and I wouldn't change a lot of it. But if I could rewind my life, my life wouldn't have been affected that much if I just made the decision—no matter what business I was in or what multiple businesses I was in, ten percent of that money had to go away or the business wasn't worth keeping. And therefore ten percent, period.
And what Kiyosaki has said is that savers are losers. Well, if savers don't invest in long-term, better assets, and I'm not talking about the stock market here, where did Kiyosaki put his money? He didn't put it in the stock market. He owns almost seven thousand pieces of real estate because when he read the book Creating Wealth, he said, "That's what we need to do." And he read my book in nineteen eighty-eight, and now he has seven thousand properties, because he did what I told him to do.
And the savings part—most people won't. They'll live a higher lifestyle. I met a couple in Chicago, which is where you're from, and they said, "Robert, this is what we do. We both work and I work and my wife works, and we save my wife's salary. Her entire salary. She says we live on my salary. We live in a more modest home. But we have to save. We have to."
And therefore they invested that in real estate. And now they've done extremely well for that because they tightened their belts. And people hate that thought. They hate that they have to, you know, be more careful with their money. But there's going to come a time, a day that if you're not careful with your money, you're going to be like fifty percent of the people who show up at retirement age and they can't retire. They have to keep working. They have to be Walmart greeters. And you don't want to be a Walmart greeter. That's the last thing you want. Although we recommend we say to those who are Walmart greeters, thank you for the service you provide us.
But had you lived your life slightly differently, had you taken that ten percent and saved it like it was precious, if you put it in the right kind of investment in real estate and managed by the right kind of people—because most of us are bad at managing, we are too, our hearts are too kind and a person says, "I have to make my motorcycle payment this month. I can't pay the rent." And we have to say, "Rent's first." The mortgage payment. They can repossess your motorcycle, but you cannot stop paying your rent, period. Or you're out.
And most of us don't have the guts to do that. We just don't. We're kind. We believe people's lies. And therefore you have to have somebody that's not hard, just somebody where the rules are clear. You move in, you have a deposit. If you miss a rent, we're going to apply your deposit. If you miss another month, we're going to bring the sheriff to your door. And you will be out. And trust me, when they know the rules, they live the rules. And you have long-term tenants. You don't want short-term tenants, the wrong kind of tenants. Most people have all the horror stories of, you know, the floods, the toilets and everything else. Well, if I got houses in Ohio, I can't fix a toilet in Ohio. No, my turnkey provider does that for me.
And therefore I recommend you go to RetireIn10Years.com/book. Get this book. This is the book I want my grandchildren to read because it's specifically detailed exactly what would happen in ten years. It's the most detailed book I've ever read. Even this book. This book has sold a million copies. Still sells to this day. Published in nineteen eighty-two. My full description pretty much was buy two houses a year for ten years. Uh, but in terms of the detail, just not the detail this book has got, because Ryan has done this with thousands of students. He's got incredible success stories, as you mentioned earlier.

OUTRO
TONY: It's sad to see someone older in their years working a job. It's just—if they had this knowledge way back in the day, they would have the lifestyle that you don't have to be eighty years old and work a part-time job. It's just wrong. So I hope more people wake up to this. You may have something going now. Totally get it. You have your business, you have your job. But as you've written and it's very wise to do, have something else to back up because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. But at least this way you're better protected, better prepared.
And once again, yeah, this is Robert. The subtitle of my book, Multiple Streams of Income, is How to Retire with Passive Income. Yeah. And this is the hard thing for people to get. It has to be income, not equity. Yes. And it just changes that one little formula right there. Just say, does your equity—how do you turn your equity into cash flow? Well, what happens if you start cashing out of your equity and the market has a downturn like it does every four years? Exactly. And now your equity—what happened to it? It dropped by one third, and you're still pulling money out of your equity because you've got to live.
ROBERT: Totally understand. This is a very good, valuable lesson we're talking about here. Real Wealth Reset. This is definitely a good path, a very important path to financial freedom. I hope everyone takes advantage of it and goes to RetireIn10Years.com.
TONY: Robert G. Allen, I just want to thank you so much for this advice and this information. We obviously could do a whole series on this. There's so much to talk about. I really appreciate you've opened up my eyes. You've opened up some other people's eyes. I just want to thank you so much for coming on and spending some time helping us. Really, really appreciate it.
ROBERT: Thank you, sir. And thank you, Tony. And by the way, I told you at the beginning before we started that your song, "In God We Trust." If any one of you have ever listened to you, go to TonyDUrso.com and go listen to his music. And "In God We Trust" is a cowboy music. It's a fantastic song. I absolutely love it.
And you know, Tony, in order to prepare for this call, I watched some of your podcasts. It's good detailed information. I recommend everybody signs up for Tony's event because he's a giver and he's giving his time here as a gift to you. So I hope more people will sign up and that you'll have more views. And I wish you well. Thank you very much, Tony. God bless everybody. RetireIn10Years.com/book. And, uh, get the book. You'll love it. And I'll see you at the top.
TONY: Robert, thank you so much. So good to have you on. Absolutely amazing. Well, there you go, guys. Now, if you like this, which of course I know you do, tell your friends about it. Tell them about Robert G. Allen. Tell them about what he's been through, what he's accomplished, and the insight of how to—you're not beating the system, but in a way you are. But you're just dealing with the cards that are there and dealing with what's available and making sense out of it, so that when you're in your older years, you don't have to go work that part-time job. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but you should be enjoying yourself more when you're up there. And that's the way I feel about it.
And guys, wherever you're getting this, please follow the show. Robert says he loves it. He's a good fan of mine, of the show, and I'm grateful. I'm grateful for that. And by following the show, it helps to bring in more amazing guests to you. All right. Very good. Let's use this and let's help you move on your journey to success. Thanks. Remember, just take action. Success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds. So good seeds, do good deeds. And I'll see you on the next episode.

CLOSING SONG – IN GOD WE TRUST
TONY: And before we close today's episode, I want to share something special with you, something I mentioned at the start of the show. This is my brand new song, inspired by four powerful words printed on every US coin and every dollar. You've seen these words your entire life, but when you hear them as a song, they carry a whole new meaning. It's called "In God We Trust." Here it is.

[SONG LYRICS]
Walking by a bus stop
not even a book
Feeling everything is just plain old stuck
a dime on the ground, I held it to the light
what it said restored my sight
In God we trust, the words shine true
guiding my steps and all I do
through trials and storms I find my place
In God we trust, amazing grace
Yeah
I took the next bus, though my pocket had no fare
I told the driver my life with a humble prayer
He gave a smile and said, "Go on, son"
I knew then that my hope had begun
In God we trust, the words shined through
Guiding my steps and all I do
Through trials and storms I find my place
In God we trust, amazing grace
I found a diner with a crowd at the door
and asked the kind lady if I could do more
She smiled and said, "You can stay if you try"
With a dime in my hand, I whispered on high
When the road feels heavy and hope runs thin
That coin reminds me where faith begins
One small coin, yeah, the truth so wide
In God we trust forever, my guide
In God we trust, the words shine through
guiding my steps and all I do
through trials and storms, I find my place
In God we trust, amazing grace
Forever we sing
In God we trust
forever we sing
In God we trust
TONY: And that is "In God We Trust," the song that truly came to me as a gift from God. I hope you enjoy it and I'd love to hear your feedback. Thank you for listening and thank you for spending this time with me today. I hope this episode and this song gives you something meaningful to take with you. And by the way, this song is part of my very first album, which is now out. If you want to hear more of the new music, visit TonyDUrso.com/Music. That's TonyDUrso.com/Music.

PRE-INTERVIEW CONTINUATION MESSAGE
TONY: I just want to take a moment to thank you for being here. Thank you. Your time and attention truly matter to me, and I appreciate you choosing to spend part of your day with The Tony D'Urso Show. If today's conversation is giving you something to think about, I invite you to follow the show and share it with someone who might benefit. That simple act helps these discussions reach more entrepreneurs and leaders who care about building something meaningful.
And if you're not already receiving my Elite Entrepreneurs newsletter, you're welcome to join us a couple times a month. I share insights from conversations like this, along with practical ideas you can apply on your own journey. It's free, thoughtful, and designed to help you move forward with clarity and purpose. You'll find it at TonyDUrso.com. And if you'd like to explore another creative side of what I do, you can hear my music anytime at TonyDUrso.com/Music.