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How to Get Creative About Wealth Creation

What does it mean to take a creative approach to making money? Most importantly, you don’t have to do what everybody else is doing. Conventional wisdom often tells us to follow the herd, but when the shepherd is wrong, so to speak, that has disastrous consequences for everybody. Instead, try looking for opportunities that won’t put you at the mercy of someone else.

Investing always depends on some degree of trust, since you’re effectively throwing your assets in with someone else’s to support a common goal. However, scale counts for much more than many people realize when making investments, and you can increase your success significantly by putting your money into smaller scale ventures.

Consider this: instead of entrusting your life savings to an IRA or 401k that will make your financial decisions for you; you could use a self-directed IRA to become your own bank. Self-directed IRAs offer you a much broader range of investment choices than conventional options, many of which have the potential to be more secure and grow faster.

Pinery at the Hill: A Case Study

I’ll give you an example: Pinery at the Hill is a luxury venue I developed for weddings and special events. It spans more than 24,000 square feet and cost over $13 million. However, it also brings in considerable amounts of money—early estimates put revenue between $6 and $8 million each year. It’s one of the most successful businesses I’ve ever spearheaded, but that’s not the point. The point is: it couldn’t have happened without investors who were willing to consider more creative ventures. Today the Pinery is a thriving business that makes real, tangible money for its investors—not speculative capital that could evaporate in a flash crash or market disaster.

My goal is to provide the kind of financial empowerment for investors that Wall Street can’t—or won’t offer. Many of my partners are high net worth individuals who want to see their investments grow in ways they can measure with their senses. They want to be able to keep their money safe and close by so that they have access to it if the need arises. This kind of community-based financial framework has the potential to give investors greater agency over their own money. Investing in brick-and-mortar businesses can also be a boon in turbulent economic times—we started to conceptualize Pinery all the way back in 2006, and succeeded despite the fiscal crisis.

Make Financial Choices that Empower You