In this episode of The Agent of Wealth Podcast, host Marc Bautis is joined by Dr. Jeff Anzalone, a periodontist who teaches a unique prescription for success centered around mindset shifts.
Dr. Jeff Anzalone shares his transformative journey from a practicing periodontist to a leading advocate for holistic wealth. Discover the pivotal moment that sparked Dr. Anzalone’s realization that traditional income sources weren’t enough to secure his family’s future, and learn how he embarked on a mission to diversify his income streams through real estate investing.
Gain valuable insights into the importance of nurturing relationships and prioritizing physical health on the path to holistic wealth. Dr. Anzalone’s wisdom and practical advice will inspire you to redefine success and take actionable steps towards building a life of abundance and fulfillment.
In this episode, you will learn:
- The importance of securing multiple streams of income (beyond a single career) for long-term financial stability.
- How to embrace a holistic approach to wealth – one that involves prioritizing health and nurturing relationships alongside financial prosperity.
- Why over 90% of affluent individuals leverage real estate.
- Why having a strong “why” is essential for driving action and perseverance in pursuing financial freedom.
- And more!
Resources:
DebtFreeDr.com | Bautis Financial: 8 Hillside Ave, Suite LL1 Montclair, New Jersey 07042 (862) 205-5000 | Schedule an Introductory Call
Disclosure: The transcript below has been edited for clarity and content. It is not a direct transcription of the full episode, which can be listened to above.
Welcome back to The Agent of Wealth Podcast, this is your host Marc Bautis. On today’s show, I’m joined by a special guest, Dr. Jeff Anzalone.
Dr. Jeff Anzalone is a periodontist who teaches a unique prescription for success centered around mindset shifts. Through his platform, DebtFreeDr.com, he empowers clients to elevate their health, maximize their wealth with real estate, and enrich their relationships to give them the life they want.
Dr. Anzalone, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, I’m looking forward to it.
Yes, same here. I’m excited to speak with you today about holistic wealth, and how people can balance their health, relationships and finances. But before we get into the bulk of the show, let’s start with your story, because I find it very important.
Can you begin by sharing the pivotal moment when you realized that being a periodontist wasn’t enough to secure your financial future?
The Importance of Securing Multiple Streams of Income
It was a perfect incident that happened nine or 10 years after I started practicing…
When we get into our normal jobs or careers, we typically think we’re going to do that forever – until we are ready to retire. My kids were six and eight at the time, and we were skiing.
You never think about getting hurt, sick or injured until you get hurt, sick or injured.
I had an incident where a kid cut in front of me and I had to swerve from avoiding him and I fell.
When I fell, I injured my wrist. Luckily it wasn’t anything major, but that was the first time that got me thinking, ‘If I can’t use my hands, I’m screwed.’ At that time, all of the money that was coming in was from my income as a periodontist. I did have a practice, but the practice didn’t operate without me. So I thought, ‘How would I provide for my family?’
That incident made me rethink my financial situation, which I think is really important. I think we should all ask ourselves:
- If my main stream of income is gone, what would I do?
- Would I be able to continue the lifestyle I have?
- Would I be able to provide for my family?
That experience led me to begin looking at how wealthy people operate. What I found out was most wealthy people don’t just do one thing. When you ask them what they do for a living, they don’t say: “I am a dentist,” or “I’m a doctor,” or “I’m an accountant.”
Instead, they tell you what they own: “I own businesses,” and “I own real estate.”
I realized two other things…
#1: Over 90% of Wealthy Individuals Invest in Real Estate
At that time, I only had my primary home, which doesn’t bring in cash flow.
#2: On Average, Wealthy Individuals Had Seven to Nine Streams of Income
And again, at that time, I had one.
So that was the pivotal shift to start my journey moving forward.
So, how did you begin the transition into real estate and securing multiple streams of income?
Dr. Jeff Anzalone’s Start in Real Estate
That’s a good question. If you look at most successful people – athletes, entrepreneurs, etc. – they’re usually successful because they have a strong “why.” My “why” was providing for my family. I had to do this for them.
After I had my why, my focus was on figuring out how to do this. How can a full-time practicing periodontist start investing in real estate?
What I realize now is I could have taken a shortcut if I had just paid people to do it, but I didn’t know that at that time. I did a lot of research on YouTube, and I make it a priority to meet people… I thought I had to go out and buy a rental property. I had to go buy a house, storage units, or whatever. Yeah, you could do that, but what happens is that takes time away from your main business. Luckily I ended up finding ways to passively invest in real estate, but back then there really wasn’t much information about it.
I started a blog called DebtFreeDr.com where I educated people. It really helped me because as I was learning concepts – like what is a cap rate, or what is an internal rate of return – I would write an article about it.
Long story short, the blog really took off and I was able to create some other businesses through it. But the intent was to educate people in my position, and share ways to passively invest.
My main focus was on real estate syndications. This is a passive real estate investment that can start to replace your income. So, if something happened to me – like another ski accident – I would slowly be able to replace my income now, versus having to tap money locked into retirement accounts, like a 401(k). I’m not anti-401(k) or anti stock market, some people make enough money to where they can do both.
You mentioned that you had a lot of learning experiences, one being that if you were to do it again, you would pay people to help. Do you mean you’d pay for learning experiences, or pay people to manage the syndications? What would your advice be to someone who’s in a similar position – with a primary income source from their working job, but wanting to generate passive income?
The older I’ve gotten, the more I realize how important your time is. Now, if you’re 20 something years old, you’ve got plenty of time. So in that case, learn it on your own for free online or connect with people online or in person.
But, for instance, let’s say I want to learn how to invest in a certain asset class that I’m not familiar with. It may take me a year of doing it myself, versus paying somebody that’s already doing it and already successful. For them, it may take two to four weeks. So instead of me waiting a year, I can shortcut it.
I do some coaching right now, where I help people invest in RV parks. I can teach that same information for free over a series of several videos on YouTube, and then I can take that knowledge and charge someone $20,000 to implement it. Which of those two people, the free route or the paid route, do you think are going to be successful? It’s usually the people that pay because they value the information more. Plus, you get the guidance of having somebody to work with and hold you accountable.
That makes sense. How has your real estate investing strategy changed over time?
Well, I invested passively in syndications for five to six years before I got comfortable enough to do it more actively. I’m more involved now, and I still have partners that I work with, but I’m actively involved. I still do both.
What’s nice is I’m able to help people if they just want to invest passively, which is what most people want. I can guide them on what to look for and how to find out if a deal is good or not – that sort of thing.
Versus if somebody comes to me for help and they want to actively own property, most of the time they’re already involved in real estate themselves. Maybe they have some rental properties already, but they require help on how to scale. It’s hard to scale with single-family homes, for example. It may take you a while to get up to 20 of them, versus just buying one mobile home park or one RV park. You can scale that much quicker.
Yeah, especially when time comes into play. There’s a misconception that all real estate is passive… That’s often not true, especially if you are buying your own rental properties and managing those own rental properties. Even if you have a property manager involved, you have to devote your own time. Are most of the syndications you’re involved in local to you?
All of our syndications are in the Sunbelt area. We only have one syndication offering in town – it’s an RV park – everything else is in the southeast (Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee).
So, we talked about how creating passive income leads to financial freedom, but two of the other parts that you focus on are relationships and health. Let’s start with relationships. How do you suggest someone goes about nurturing and strengthening relationships while also maintaining their financial responsibilities?
How to Embrace a Holistic Approach to Wealth
It has gotten easier as my kids have gotten older. Now that they’re teenagers, they’re not here 24/7, so that’s helped – your time is freed up more as you get older. So for those of you listening, it gets easier to manage everything as you get a little bit older.
One of the things that really stood out to me about wealthy people regarding relationships was something that I’d never heard of, but it makes complete sense – and it’s the opposite of what people do… Wealthy people, as they enter new relationships, they think, ‘How can I help this person? What value can I add to this person?’ They don’t ask for anything in return. And I think that’s important to building relationships, across the board.
Yeah, I like that you pointed that out. Now on the health side, what role does physical health play in achieving holistic wealth? Are they somehow connected?
100%. You could have a billion dollars, but what’s the point if you’re overweight, or you can’t walk, or you’re in chronic pain – you can’t enjoy yourself. I would much rather be broke and healthy than rich and unhealthy. A lot of times I’ll start with people when I’m coaching them with that aspect, with the health aspect because they’re working all the time. They’re burned out, they’re not spending any time with their family, and it’s like, what are you doing all this for? And they don’t have the discipline. Once you get the discipline to get up early in the morning and exercise, make healthy choices, you got to conquer that first. And once you become disciplined in it and you look back and go, golly, I’ve lost 20 pounds eating better, I feel better. Once you start there, then you realize, hey, now I have a mindset where I can take that type of discipline and use it in other areas of my life to benefit those as well.
Yeah, I mean you can see the importance between the two and how if you neglect one, it’s going to impact the other. Alright, Dr. Jeff, that’s all the questions I had for you today. I want to thank you for opening up about your journey and for sharing some very important information with my audience. How best can listeners learn more about you and what you do?
The easiest way is to go to debtfreedoctor.com. There, I have a free passive income guide. It’s right there on the homepage. I also have a YouTube channel and Instagram account, which you can access from my website.
Great. We’ll link to all that in the show notes. Thanks again Dr. Jeff. And thank you to everyone who tuned into today’s episode. Don’t forget to follow The Agent of Wealth on the platform you listen from and leave us a review of the show. We are currently accepting new clients, if you’d like to schedule a 1-on-1 consultation with our advisors, please do so below.