How many years have we spent listening to politicians in Washington argue about how to make healthcare insurance more affordable? Obamacare was supposed to fix it. Then we needed bigger government subsidies to make Obamacare affordable. Those subsidies expired. And guess what?
People are paying more again at some point. Maybe the question isn't, how do we keep fixing the same system? Maybe the question is, what else is out there? That's why I want you to take a look at WeShare Health. WeShare isn't health insurance.
It's a nonprofit, Christian healthcare sharing organization. And their members pay up to 60% less than they would for Obamacare. You still get access to a nationwide PPO network and over a million physicians plus unlimited telehealth.
So stop waiting for Washington or the insurance companies to make healthcare affordable for you. Do your own research. See what your options are. Call 188-WESHARE for a free quote. That's 1-888-WESHARE.
Or visit weShareHealth.org and take a look for yourself. Harvard is proud. Killmead here. Are you tired of those uncomfortable dress shirts, especially when they bunch up under a sweater? If so, then you must check out Collars Co., makers of the dress collar polo.
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I'm going to inspire you and let you know the possibility of America. Are you ready? Owen Zidar is with us, and Eric Zwick. They've together written a book, Everywhere Millionaire: Who is Really Rich in America and How They Got There. And, guys, first off, great to see you.
Let's start with you, Owen. Why did you write it? Yeah, we wanted to en inspire people. Billionaires kind of Are monopolizing attention, but they don't monopolize wealth and opportunity, and there's just a Ton of ways to get really wealthy in this country, and we want to inspire people and show them there are many ways to do it through running ordinary, everyday private businesses.
So, you guys both, you didn't know each other when you were in college. You went to Dartmouth, you went to Swarthmore, and you got your business degrees, PhDs, in business? In economics, business, right?
So, in a time in which people are talking about socialism, capitalism doesn't work, you see the polls, and it's underwater to a degree, is this your pushback? I think it's a story that we really don't see very often, Brian. And I think we one of us came up kind of working a little bit in finance also, and I worked a little bit in tech before going to grad school. And so we had this view there was that very narrow path through Silicon Valley and Wall Street to get to the top. We started doing our research and realized there are all these mundane business owners that have made themselves fabulously wealthy and been extremely successful, coming from very different backgrounds and through very different avenues.
And we think those are still available today in a wide way. Give me some examples, Owen. Yeah, so it can be very basic things like storing paper. You know, Brian, I have three kids and so I read a lot of kids' books and we somewhat jokingly talked about turning this into a kids' book of the ABC's of getting rich. A is for auto dealer, B is for beverage distributor, C is for contractor.
And it's just the everyday businesses you drive by and don't really think about. But when you go to a nice lake house or a mountain town or a golf resort and ask who owns those big homes, it's very often these ordinary Americans who've gotten extraordinarily rich. Running these businesses. Is that how you did it? Who's got this home?
Who's got this business? And then you did reverse forensics on it?
So we started out working in the Bowels of the Treasury Department with Administrative Tax Aid on all the businesses in the country, and we were able for the first time to link those businesses to their owners and workers. We were working on tax policy research with folks in the Office of Tax Analysis, the Treasury. That was your job. That was our job. And we couldn't figure out from that data, it's private.
So we couldn't see the names of the businesses or the people. But you saw the numbers. We could see the numbers, and you don't have the people who are willing to participate in a survey. You can kind of see what are the industries, what are the geographies, what are the size of the businesses, how many workers they have.
So you get a broad picture. Then, for the book, we wanted to go find them and meet some of these people.
So that's where we went to the property. Registration data. We bought some yacht data. We bought some jet data to try and find some of these more conspicuous consumers that we could then go and interview and talk to about their stories.
So, you have some examples and maybe some takeaways. First, you have a story of a guy who just wanted to sell hot dogs. Yeah, one of our favorite stories is a story of Dick Portillo. He grew up in the Cabrini Greens Housing Project of Chicago. He's a kid of immigrants, Greek and Mexican immigrants.
And he was kind of a fighter, wasn't great at school by his own admission when we talked to him. And he went to the Marines and bounced around a bunch of jobs and couldn't quite figure out what to do. And then finally, he said, Look, I got to provide for my family. I'm going to put a little trailer in with no running water. Got a thousand bucks from his brother and start selling hot dogs because in Chicago and the city, it's pretty successful, but in the suburbs, nobody's doing it.
And he was working his butt off. I mean, he basically would go and wash the dishes in his um bathtub, and there was mustard stains, you know, from all the the hot dog um leftovers of the day. And many decades later, he ended up Selling that business for a billion dollars and sailing off on a yacht that he called the Top Dog. Wow. And so and then how did you find that story?
Through the yacht data.
So you got you find out who's got rich stuff. And that, by the way, very innovative. What else did you what are some other stories? Another great story I love. This is a generation later, then Portillo, a woman named Karen Bentledge.
She dropped out of college. She's from Connecticut. And she started out Learning a little bit about running a business, working for somebody else, and then decided she was gonna set out on her own, um, distributing tanning beds.
So she would buy tanning beds and initially she was just selling them, flipping them basically as a distributor, and she decided, oh, A lot of people are getting into this. I'd rather own tanning beds and then rent the service to Tan.
So she bought one with the savings. She came from a pretty low-income family, put them in the back of a salon and was like getting $10 for every 10 minutes. And she was like, oh my God, I'm making $1,000 a week all of a sudden just with this tanning bed service. I'm going to be rich. And her mom still wanted her to go to nursing school.
She's like, I'm not going to go to nursing school. I'm going to be rich. So she would flip one tanning bed into three tanning beds, started salons basically, and then built a huge tanning franchise, was the second largest distributor of tanning beds, and then built a huge franchise business. She also read the leaves when people were less interested in tanning. She switched to waxing salons.
So she pivoted. Always reinvesting the profits from the business to grow that thing. Owned a huge chunk of it and was very successful without taking venture capital, without having a fancy pedigree degree. And I think it's a super inspiring story.
So when you read things like, if you look at Phil Knight's story, I mean, this guy has absolutely nothing. He told his sister to go down and pay $25 to get a business license and then thinks he can make a different sneaker and it was falling apart. And he had every month he had to come up with, there was no financing like it was today.
So it ends up being this behemoth of a company, which, by the way, they're running into the ground without him. Those are high-profile stories. Is these people seem to have an innate drive? If you get up every day, I gotta find something. You will find something, right?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, one of the most powerful parts of Karen's story is she said, you know, I made a lot of millionaires myself. She had other people running some of these wax centers, and they were hustling, and they could do it too. And so, I think when you look at the data, you really need to remember there's a lot of paths. I mean, I think these everywhere millionaires are giving people a blueprint for success in America.
Right. And by the way, the name of the book is The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Was Really Rich and How They Got There.
So, another illustration of a story. By the way, where is she from? She's from Connecticut, from I can't remember what city. Shelton initially. All right.
So, what do you have to? Did you head to the Midwest?
So, you mentioned Kansas. Yeah, absolutely.
So, I mean, you know, like we portillos from Chicago started out in Chicago. That's a that's a homebred Chicago story. Another story we like to tell is a chemical importer-exporter. Jamie Shaw was the person we talked to. She was a second generation running the business that her father started as a chemist, basically buying chemicals and then repackaging them and distributing them to pharmaceutical companies and other users.
A very mundane, boring business that, you know. Has made several members of that family extremely wealthy. And he started basically dropped out of a job because he was like, I'm tired of working these really hard, hard hours, and started just cold calling people, like, can I sell you chemicals? Can I sell you chemicals? From people's couches, he tried to get closer so he could call from a local number, sitting on friends' couches and stuff.
His first customer was PBR, Past Blue Ribbon. He's selling a chemical for in beer manufacturing. Wow. Do you find when you came to these people, they were very Proud of what they did. And they almost willing no very few people ask them.
Yeah, often they want to share their stories.
Some of them are pretty secretive and don't want people to know, for good reason, how wealthy they are.
So there's one guy who's an auto dealer. We found a story about him, and the title is something like: He's like Batman. He goes to conferences only on the condition that nobody talks to him. He doesn't put his name on the dealerships. He has somebody else run it and get some equity.
So there's a huge range.
Some want to share their story. Like Dick Bortillo wants to share his story, and I think it's a great story. And there's so many of them that we haven't. You've also a car dealership, family car dealership. You might think, okay, that's a grind, but you do really well.
You run a dealership and you have the service and you are kind of people. These people are doing well. Yeah.
So my favorite car dealer is Larry Miller. He basically started at a parts department at a Toyota, really learned how to do it, made it turned it around and eventually found himself in a place where he could buy a dealership. And then it was two and then three, and then he ended up buying the Utah Jazz. They end up buying the Utah, Jess. Right.
uh a self-made millionaire. Uh so why do you why did you want to write this book? I think, you know, like we want to both sort of open people's eyes and like. Who's really rich and prosperous in the country? We want to basically take them sort of off the social media version of it, which is just Bezos and Musk over and over on repeat, and see this much broader class of people.
We're talking about 3 million everywhere millionaires. These are people with net worth of at least $5 million, average net worth of $25 million. Collectively, they have more wealth than the Forbes 400 combined by an order of magnitude, more than 10 times the wealth. And their stories are at the same time much closer to home, much more abundant. And I think a lot of them are much more attainable because they're not starting rocket companies.
You know, they're car dealers, they're starting $5 electric toothbrush manufacturing companies, they're running chemical importer exporters, or renting tanning salons, and this is just like a kind of path to prosperity through owning and running one of these businesses and growing it over time that a lot of people who aspire to that kind of success could achieve themselves.
So, and that do you think that's especially important now that we have this growth of socialism in this country? Yes, I think especially you took PhDs in business. You're studying all these different ways to earn money and comparing it to other economic systems. And then we're pretending as if there wasn't a Cold War. I mean, are we looking at Cuba and saying, man, we should get some of that magic.
Venezuela is going so well with an oppressive communist country. What happened to the Soviet Union? Was that just bad luck? I mean, we do have lessons about this. I think it's important to retell the lesson.
And one fun thing about this book is we gave early copies to some of our colleagues. Many of whom are from Europe and other places, you know, in Scandinavia with different. Slightly different systems, and they were like, You guys are optimists. You really believe that in the potential of America and that this can work. And I think more people need to hear and be reminded of the power of being able to get wealthy in this country.
When you, for example, if you're an athlete and you compare yourself to Michael Jordan, you're going to feel pretty frustrated. But what you're trying to say is there are so many ways. besides going to the moon. You know, besides people that you see on the stock exchange or people working in New York City and around the country.
So I almost think you're on a mission now. That's right. I mean, I think to your point about basketball players. The glamorous world of the NBA isn't necessarily the way to make several hundred million dollars.
So we tell a story in the book of a guy named Junior Bridgman, who's a sixth man for the Milwaukee Bucks. who got the idea from somebody working in the organization that maybe franchise fast food restaurants was a way to make some more money because he didn't make that much money as an NBA player. And so he started working as uh Wendy's franchise operator. And he was like working every job in the Wendy's after he retired from the NBA. He made hundreds of millions of dollars operating Wendy's franchises and other fast casual restaurants like Chili's.
Way more in that unglamorous business. We had a former teammate say, What is he doing in there with those work pants on, running the fryer? And he's like, Well, he's raking it in compared to what he was doing as a basketball player in that glamorous job.
So I think it's like an amazing inspirational story that also tells you, like, maybe wealth and prosperity is not exactly where we're all told to look. Right. And do you feel as though you're in your 40s? Do you worry that people think the American dream is dead, Owen? I do worry.
And one of our messages is that hard work can really bring you from the bottom to the top. It's not just Portillo. We looked at every single entrepreneur in America who started a business. There's 10 million of them. And we link them back to how rich they were.
And the typical entrepreneur who's successful comes from a middle class or poor family. It's not from a rich family. There's a lot of people who are not afraid of it. There's a lot of first-time millionaires. Absolutely.
And that's just it. That gives hope. It's not old money.
So what what What do you throw what role, since you used to do this? does the tax structure have in people's success? How could it be used better to help people who have this type of drive?
So, the tax code definitely encourages folks in the U.S. towards ownership, towards starting a business, towards reinvesting, because you get the deductions for the reinvestments. If you take profits, you reinvest them, you get deductions for those reinvestments. And so, there are a lot of ways through those kinds of incentives to encourage people to grow businesses or start businesses. The tax code says if you are a salaried worker, you pay a different rate than if you are a business owner.
And in the last 40 years, the rate for the business owner has been a bit lower. And so, that's trying to encourage folks to do that. You know, a lot of the people we talk to are driven not just by the after-tax gains, but they really like kind of enjoy it. They don't, they can't tell the difference between Sunday and Tuesday. Yeah, they don't really do hobbies very well.
And so, like, you know, to the extent that maybe a little bit more after-tax is nice and helps them buy a slightly bigger yacht, that's great. But a lot of non-tax factors are driving these stories. Owen Zaidar and Eric Zwick, stick around. We got a few more questions on the back end. The name of their book is The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Was Really Rich in America and How They Got There?
Don't Move. How many years have we spent listening to politicians in Washington argue about how to make health care insurance more affordable? Obamacare was supposed to fix it. Then we needed bigger government subsidies to make Obamacare affordable. Those subsidies expired, and guess what?
People are paying more again at some point. Maybe the question isn't, how do we keep fixing the same system? Maybe the question is, what else is out there? That's why I want you to take a look at WeShare Health. WeShare isn't health insurance.
It's a non-profit, Christian healthcare sharing organization. And their members pay up to 60% less than they would for Obamacare. You still get access to a nationwide PPO network and over a million physicians plus unlimited telehealth.
So stop waiting for Washington or the insurance companies to make healthcare affordable for you. Do your own research. See what your options are. Call 188-WESHARE for a free quote. That's 1-888-WESHARE.
Or visit wesharehealth.org and take a look for yourself. Hi, everyone. Brian Kilmead here. Are you tired of those uncomfortable dress shirts, especially when they bunch up under a sweater? If so, then you must check out Collars Co., makers of the dress collar polo.
Listen up. These shirts are four-way stretch, buttery soft polos with firm dress collars on them, so they give you the dress shirt look, but extremely comfortable polo feel. You can wear them with anything under a sweater, with a blazer, or by themselves as an elevated polo. They work for any occasion. These polos are perfect, whether it's in the office, on a golf course, or a night out.
Collars Co. is exploding and have gone viral on social media thanks to the 1 million investment they received on Shark Tank from Mark Cuban and Peter Jones. You don't have to worry about collars that flop down and spread out. They stay firm and sharp all day. It's an amazing array of sweaters, quarter zips, pants, and outerwear.
If you're looking for the performance dress shirt or polo that looks great all day, check out collarsandco.com. Use promo code Brian for 15% off of any purchase. Hey, we are back. Oban Ziddar was with us right now in Eric Zwick. They have a brand new book out called Everywhere Millionaire, Who Is Really Are Rich in America and How They Got There.
And you have different illustrative stories to go over. And they're not the high-profile stories, you know, not the launch of a famous company or the story of how a millionaire became a billionaire. It's you wanted to expose what other people have done to be successful to spread the word of capitalism. Because the other thing that comes out, I'll start with you, Owen, is when you are a capitalist and are successful, you have to hire other people. And when you hire other people, they can learn from what you're doing and maybe get inspired to do other things.
And other people, maybe they don't have that inspiration, but you're helped. That's the theory behind capitalism. Your thirst for success brings others with you. I mean, that we talked about Karen Bentledge a little bit before the break, and she brought so many people along with her. If you talk about Dick Portillo, he was employing thousands of people.
And one of the key ways to make an entrepreneur is to basically give them early experience in a sector that ten, fifteen years down the line, when a baby boomer who's running their business wants to retire, somebody's got to run it. And that there's a lot of opportunity right now for those people who are working for entrepreneurs to hand over and do that themselves. The founders of Dave's Hot Chicken, three friends, started in a Los Angeles parking lot with $900 and a passion for Nashville-style hot chicken. Eight years later, they had more than 300 locations, sold the business for $1 billion. What I love about this story, other than the fact that I just personally love hot chicken sandwiches, is that It's evidence that even today, like these are young guys that are done this in the last 10, 15 years.
These same stories, like Portillo's sort of story, starting out with very little, just a passion and recognition that there's a problem unsolved in the market, which is a super competitive industry, but there's no hot chicken sandwiches that people want to be eating. And so, you know, these guys sort of say, okay, we're going to make a better sandwich and we're going to grow it. And it took so little time for them to attract attention and grow this thing. They're ripping franchises up. Like they're just like going across the country with growth.
And yeah, they made a billion dollars selling that business. Almost just 10 years later, very recently.
So I think that. Is it tough to get that story told? Was he one of the people that didn't, or the one of the three people that didn't want to tell it? Those guys, I think, were actually pretty happy to see us feature them in the book, especially in the journal. I think they're pretty popular.
They're hot on media. And I think they use media, the new media, in a way to promote and grow the business faster.
So this will help. Portillo. Totally. Totally. I mean, I've got some amazing pictures of taking my family to Dave's after that Wall Street Journal story came out.
Well, I'm sure you know this would be a great podcast to have all the people that you interview and hear their stories. That would be something. Absolutely. I would listen. Number one.
Love to make that happen. All right.
We'll do it. Congratulations, guys. Pick up Everywhere Millionaire who was really rich in America and how they got there. Thanks so much for listening. Don't forget One Nation Sunday at 10 p.m.
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