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Welcome to Warrior Money. They showed devoted to supporting our brothers and sisters. I'm Patrick Murphy, and I'm Dan Kons. No guests this week. It's just us. So we figured it's a good time to share a little bit more about our own stories from military life to jumping on airplanes, to get into the civilian world, and taking on the highs and the lows and everything in between. So to kick back, let's get into it. Bottom line up front.YouHave this $100 million career mentality. Where did that come from? Well,

first of all, it's like episode 30 and it's the first time I get to answer this question myself. So I got to buy myself a second to be able to answer it. Um, so ever since I've been aLittle kid, like I was, I started working when I was 9 or 10 years old. I've always had a long range view like I have a long range plan that's laid out. And I, I like totally agree that you can get lucky once. You might be able to get lucky twice, but sustained luckiness is only because you've planned, right? It's only, it's only because you prepared yourself. It's only because you put yourself in the right positions. It's only because you networked the right way.So I, uh, I, I've kind of always constructed long term, I would say visions for myself and for my, my orientation, but like you said you set a goal for yourself. I want to make, I want my net worth to be $100 million over a certain period of time. That means that I've networked the right way. It means I've invested the right way. It means I've worked the right way, and it means I've done a lot of really good things, um.Last week I was so privileged to be in Napa Valley for a friend's birthday, and I just found out that some guy had a 200 year plan for his family, and I'm like, I'm, I'm not even, I gotta, I gotta get to a 200 year plan now, but it's like that embedded, that embedded planning process, just thinking about things over time is why is why I

have it. Yeah, yeah, it's funny because I think in America we think about not even quarters.Weak months, not even like a 4 year, youknow,

we got a real-time we got a real-time ticker above us right now,

right? And people forget that that's not how the rest of the world works. It's the Middle East or Asia, yeah,

no, no, no, we've got long term dynastic thinking like,

but what I think is interesting is that you have this $100 million dollar career mindset, right? And you have that even though you grew up.Not very wealthy, frankly, poor, no, I don't mean to be disparaging. You know, deliver newspapers when you're little, go to community college, you know, really bootstrapping your way, you know, up to live the American dream, and the army was part of that. Walk us through that story.

Yeah, totally, um, I will, I'll never ever say that I felt like I grew up poor because like that's just not the way that I view that at all.My parents were awesome and they worked their ass, their butts off to get to a better life for all of us, right? That's what, that's what we're all in time to do. But they were, they were working, they were either under my mom was probably underemployed and my dad had sporadic work, so it just was what it was. Out of necessity when I was when I felt out of necessity when I was 9 or 10 years old, I started a paper route, uh, they paid.Route started paying me my first money and I was like, I really like this. So like my profession now is sales, investing and fundraising. Like I, I know how to do those things. So I make the joke, man, I've been asking adults for money since I was 9 years old. Like 1, 10,000 reps came really early for me, and you wouldn't tell me no, but give me money. Like I've heard that 100,000 times it doesn't, doesn't matter, bother me at all.So like the um the starting work early, the building on this, having a longer term plan, all those sorts of things are really because I, I truly believe that it's a, it's a, it's an adult's job, but most most specifically a grown man's job to make your family and your family's legacy better than it was before. And that's that's that's what I do. That's why why I do what I do.

Yeah. And so whether it's poor, lower middle class or whatever.What I do think is that I think you and I both share that we're privileged in the sense that we grew up in America, right? And, and it's uh, it really truly can be a meritocracy now. People don't think it is, but the reality of it is if you plan your work and work your plan, you get after it. You mentioned something about sals and raising money, etc. because, you know, there's a lot of people say, oh, I have a $20 million fund or a $50 million fund, and they're not, they don't have any money behind it. It's just like their, their vision and that's fine.But you and I are venture capital partners together. Uh, we're part of two different ones that have raised over $250 million over 200 companies, mostly about 85% of them go to veterans. Why are you passionate about supporting your brothers to veterans to go into entrepreneurship?

I mean, there's, so I had a really great conversation with one of the general partners that we were with last week in Austin or two weeks ago in Austin.And uh I think it like the, the business, the business principle, like there's good investments and there's bad investments, and there's really good investments, right? So like a good investment starts and then you see that it's gonna be successful and you make more follow on bets on it, right? Like, so, so I, I want to make good investments all the time. I'd really rather like win more than lose. Like, I know you're gonna lose sometimes, but I really rather win a lot. And the right people to win with are generally the community that we came from. Like either you've either done it before community founders orI know that you've been trained to be resilient, have great, understand how to resolve conflict and all those great things, and that generally comes from the veteran, the veteran community, or at least I have experience coming from the veteran national security community. So I think in the near term it's just like a good, it's a good investment. So I'm like, I'm being purely selfish on that. It's a better investment than investing in other, other areas. I, I that's what it comes down. Yeah, and,

and, and for those res, there's a lot of times with then I'll be like, hey Murph.Do TSSI best here, best there, and I'm like, I call my brother, right, 5000 here, 15,000 there. And then my son tracks, my son my son Jack, who's a freshman in high school, he's on the Robinhood app. I hear the Robin Hod happens for him, and I'll be like, Dad, I think we should do this or that. And I'm like, Hey, Uncle Dan,

so I, I actually love, so I love investing. I love being part of this whole thing.So part of that career journey was I started as an intern at the same time I was working in politics, cutting out newspaper articles. I was an intern analyst at a hedge fund when I was 18 or 19 years old, and my job was to analyze small and microcap stocks. So I was like, I was doing the politics thing on one side and I was doing the the small microca stocks on the other side. I had no idea that that was going to play.Of like 20 years later, but it's been the core of what my professional career has been about. It's like, how do I invest? How do I make sure I work at the right places, then how do I influence the way national security and public sector works? Like that's what I do.

And I love the fact that you invest now in do uses company. You're solving a pain point when you look at World War II generation, had the veterans start their own small business. Our generation, it's less than 5%.Let me go though, because we talked about being venture capital partners, but we also do business together, uh, especially in your previous work where it's about enterprise level sales. You know, I could talk about, you know, we both deliver newspapers, waiting tables, all that stuff, but what about enterprise?Deals, you know, you work at Gartner, you work at ServiceNow, um, and a bunch of other companies and what you've brought to the table and some we're talking about multi $100 million accounts that you've brought in that say a company like ServiceNow. Yeah,

soit's umThere's an adage where if you got the the bigger the problem that you solve, the more just inherently, the more money you're gonna make or the more scale that's gonna be behind it. It's just, it's just the way that it works, right? And so, um, what everybody gets caught up in is the end goal, like the end the end contract or the end size or the end of whatever, but like every one of those stories requires.True patience and discipline to focus on the things that matter, right? So like oftentimes we get distracted by chasing the whale or chasing whatever that is, right? But when you're when you're talking about enterprise sales, or you're talking about a good investment, sometimes the absolute best action is no action whatsoever, and to be prioritized on a few of the things that actually move the needle.Very often, and I can just I can differentiate this at this place like.I know when somebody's distracted by too many different things that they're not going to be able to focus for long enough on the thing or two, that's gonna really move a needle. I, I know it during a due diligence process. I know it in the review of a pipeline. I know it in the way that you're making investments. If you're trying to do everything all at once, you're not going to be successful. So I have had the privilege of working for some unbelievably awesome companies and I've, I've done very well financially at those companies.The best sales reps are the ones or the best enterprise sellers or the best organization growers are the ones that figure out a strategy and stay consistent over time and let that grow, which sounds very close to a $100 million career plan if you think about like just extracting that to different levels. Yeah,

yeah.All right, so let's flip it. Tell us, tell me about how we start working together. Tell the viewers, what, what's your recollection of you and I working together because we've been at this now for, for at least half a decade. Yeah,

I, I will, I know this specifically, I'm not sure you remember this, but, um, there's, I was on the board of Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Marcus Allen, who's the guy from Philadelphia area, had just become the new CEO of the Philadelphia region.And we were at an off site over the weekend. It was like his first kickoff session. And

bythe way, we're both on the board and we wrote

the Big Brothers Big Sisters, and I had a little brother for a while who's now in the army in Germany. And if you look at my clips on social media, you're gonna see that fuckir Daughtry is now doing my clips. So I'm gonna plug right there for him. But, but anyway, um.So Marcus was sitting there and he wanted us all to introduce himself. And so this hotshot politician guy named Patrick Murphy is like 3 up. He introduces himself and then this hotshot bra brash 20 year old kid in law school introduces himself. And then I wanted to finish and say something else again. He like cuts me off. He's like, No, no, no, no, 111 thing for once. And so we went through this weekend, we went through this weekend of things and then, uh, we were in an elevator together and like, I think he just like busted my stones and in the.And then fast forward to just before COVID, we got to see each other again in February of 2020. That's kind of when we started really starting to think about our work together. That was by that time, I had done my army time. I had done the law school thing. I'd done all the things that Iwanted to do.

And I remember, you know, many times driving off the West Point with you and

that's where the concept of this game. What part of the concept of this is like, how do we tell good endearing positive stories about veterans that aren't.Art oriented to some sort of tragedy or some sort of problem. So

yeah, yeah, I mean, I, I always boil it down because the army says keep it simple stupid, and I used to talk to me when he said that, right? But it's like you gotta shoot, you gotta move communicate, but communicate. It's well that's distribution and to be on the platform, yeah, I would find that's the biggest business platform in the world and to do what we do, you know, once that like that's a responsibility, yeah,

because it's like some, so like, you know, there's a lot of things you can do where.You spend a lot of energy and you don't get a lot of output, right? But having the ability to have leverage where $1 turns the many or one hour turns into 100 hours or one person turns into $100,000 like that level of leverage, that level of distribution is what we're all really what we're all really looking for, uh, when there's 1.4 million serving active service members plus all the other guardsmen and reservists, plus all the different programs, there's.No way to distribute to that quantity of people unless you're on a platform that allows you to actually distribute that scale. So like, and they're global, and they all have issues and there's so many different ways. So like you need scale and distribution for that.

Yeah. And tell me, we've had 30 episodes together already. We're here once a week. Tell me one of your favorite guests that we've had and the stories they told. Yeah,

I, I will say the consistency of everybody saying.That you need to find a level of purpose regardless of whoever the guest has been, has been the most uh.Important I think messages that I've heard so far, like, no matter what we tell you in the transition, no matter what anybody tells you, no matter what you believe.Finding your next step to purpose is really important and as I reflect on my own life, the areas I felt a little lost or the times I felt a little lost were when I wasn't clear on my purpose. So it really resonates to me on that. Um, Maurice Filigen is, I, I, I really believe in mentors and I really believe in paying for mentors and I really believe in doing that. Moe was one of my mentors and I, I paid for some coaching years ago from him. And so, um, the way he's constructed his life to be able to find.Corporate satisfaction but also entrepreneurial, uh, freedom and creativity is really the way that I'm, I'm, I believe and I wanna model myself like I, I believe that we're all renaissance people or at least we have the ability to be renaissance people and blending a life of public service with corporate experience, with the ability to invest with the ability to coach my kid's baseball team is like that's what I want to have so you you can have it all.And the only way to have it all is by prioritizing the right things at the right times. And that's why I really resonate with what what Moe's message was. Yeah, and

that purpose driven life, you know, when you do keep it simple, I mean, I think you live your life. It's like God, country, family, right? And it's OK to provide for your family, whether it's a 20 year plan or a 10 year plan, but providing for them so they canhave,

I tell you, I got a little chapter when I heard that somebody else had a 200 year plan. I got to get out to 250 years. America's 250th anniversary they're like, anyway, so.

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. All right, so we're gonna take a quick break. We're gonna talk about, um, you have 3 kids. We're gonna talk about

next. Well,

yeah, but why you pick me to be the godfather of your youngest son.

We're gonna talk about you next.

We'll be right back on where your money.

Welcome back to Warrior Money. I'm Dan Kons with Patrick Murphy. Uh, roles are reversed for the second segment of the show, so I'm gonna do Bottom line out front. All right, Patrick, everything you've done since you've been a kid is oriented in some way to public service. Why, why does that matter to you so much?

I, I just think it was ingrained, you know, my, my, uh, father, mother, I'm 3rd generation veteran, but my dad, you know, was a Navy enlisted veteran during Vietnam. Two uncles served in Vietnam. My mother was a Catholic nun.I joked that she dumped Jesus for Jack Murphy. I just did a sub stack on that. Um, but, you know, it was really about, you know, taking care of our neighborhood, you know, clean the house every Sunday before you go play sports. It was, you know, taking care of the elderly people that shuffled their steps for free, even though that was a side business, we did the elderly people for free. We delivered newspapers, you know, we cut their lawns, that kind of stuff. Uh, and I just feel like that's where it comes natural to me. Like that is like, what are you doing?You know, to live what the Bible says, having a servant's heart and give back. And that service comes in a lot of different forms. It could come from my time in the military or political public service, or even now helping other veterans, investing in their dreams and their companies andAnd it's not something like, you know, a lot of veterans we have to turn away, because this isn't, you know, when I do invest and when we do invest, it's not a charity. It's we have to believe in them and their extraordinary leadership to get things done.

Yeah, you and I share a pretty, at least I think share pretty similar.Like like origin story, right? Like, uh, blue collar folks, uh, kind of a blue collar start, a lot of different jobs. Can you tell me a little bit about your, your early life and then how you got to military service? Yeah,

I'm blessed to have a great family, you know, I'm the youngest of three. my sister's done now 2.5 decades as a public school teacher. My brother's Air Force 2 deployments after 9/11 overseas, uh, is in public safety, you know, full time.And then, uh, you know, for me it was, it was, it was you went to church at 6:30 in the morning with my mom or he delivered newspapers. So me and JJ Murphy got there roller skates or shopper cart, you know, we had 888 papers to deliver, you know, before school and, um, you know, to me that was, you know, that was the hustle, you know, and then on Sundays if my dad didn't have date work, you know, he'd be, he'd get the station wagon and we put the papers with the roller skates because we do it even faster and we had, I think on Sundays we were even more like 124 papers, butYou know, that brought me into, you know, wait, you know, bussing tables and waiting tables. And then in my senior year, now, listen, I, throughout the years I've learned, I've always been a hard worker, but working smarter is something I had to kind of learn. Um, and, you know, it probably wasn't smart for me in my senior high school to, you know, play hockey, but then also, you know, work 4 jobs and work the graveyard shift on Friday and Saturday nights, you know.When you're a 60 year old senior in high school, you shouldn't be working the 11th night at 7 in the morning. But like, hey, I didn't know any better. I was making money and it was great, and it did frankly keep me out of trouble, and none of my colleagues didn't, um, you know, follow thatpath,

um.I guess I have the benefit of knowing you so well, so I get to ask it kind of an unfair, what I consider to be an unfair question. Uh, you had this unbelievable opportunity to serve in the army, uh, for and have a career that was unbelievable. West Point, you, uh, went to Iraq, you went to Kosovo, you had this awesome in-service career, right?But then what I think is unbelievable is that you were inspired to run for Congress following, uh, following your time in army service. Why, why did you why did you do that? Like why of all the things you could do, and you had no money, like you were broke, why did you decide you wanted to do that?

Yeah, I mean, well, listen, I always say to people like, even my military career was the teacher wants to play at age 27, like, like, and then to go to combat with the 82nd Airport Division, that was awesome. But when I was 19 when I joined the army, I said, I want to be an airborne Ranger. I want to be a paratrooper with the 82nd Airport division because my uncle was, you know, an 82nd Vietnam vet. And so like for me, like I listen, I did airborne air assault and then I was supposed to go to the Rangers squad. I didn't get the slot because I had to go to combat instead, right?So like, that'll always chat me a little bit, but at the end of the day, it's like I can't focus on, you know, and so I moved forward. For me, it's, it's simple. I was independent my whole life. Um, I wasn't a political science major. I wasn't a journalism major in college, but to me, you know, when I was teaching at West Point and, you know, really being with the best of the best, um, and, you know, people forget like there's 55,000 high school students that try to get those 1200 slots to West Point andUm, to be able to teach the next generation of leaders, it was an awesome experience and an awesome responsibility. Uh, I'm still friends with some of those students. You know, we've had some of my other students on here, uh, when I teach at Wharton, you know, on the show, but I would say,When I lost 19 men in Baghdad, um, you know, I know for the young cats that listen to our show that are still in the military, people forget, you know, our nation was attacked on 9/11, uh, by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda that was based in Afghanistan. And then within two years, we divert our attention to fight an unnecessary war in Iraq. Now, again, those of us who served in Iraq, served honorably, we did our job, butIt was a strategic mistake for America. You know, people forget, we, you know, we took out Saddam Hussein, who was not a great guy, but, you know, he was a Sunni leader that kept Iran with a Shia country in balance. It took off that balance. Iran got wrapped up, butYou know, when you had someone like Barack Obama come in as president, he was, he, and he came in on us. He said, if you make me the commander in chief, we're gonna devote resources to bring Bin Laden to justice because he's been, he was on the land for years and years and years. And we tripled the amount of forces in Afghanistan, brought bin Laden to justice. Now we probably should then start diverting to bring the troops home quicker than we did, but it is what it is. They're home now. But to me, that's why I got in that political public service. It's why I ran for Congress. We won by 0.6%.Um, and, and I didn't know if it was gonna be a two-year gig or a 20-year gig, but I said I'm gonna make every day count. You know, we did things like the GI Bill and some other stuff.

And one of thecool things about being in power or having some level of power is that you can see a wrong and you can make it right, or at least try to make it right. Um, what is the, what is the, what is the thing that you saw when you were in Congress like that the, if the, if the students at West Point compelled you to run for Congress and those things, right?What was the wrong you saw in Congress that you're like, I gotta, I gotta fix this, uh, otherwise I won't behappy about it.

Yeah, I mean, I think even in business, it's like politics like what pains are you solving, right? And so at first, my first term in Congress, I served two terms was, hey, we had 16% unemployment with veterans, 16%, and people forget that, right?So I co-authored, uh, with my roommate, you know, the post I and GI bill, right? And now that post and GI bill is 800,000 young Americans using that GI bill right now in America today, right? So phenomenally successful. The American taxpayer has got an incredible ROI on that. So I'm super proud about that. And then my second term, you know, we then President Obama gets so my first term was under President Bush. My second term was under President Obama.And, and, you know, I wrote the bill that repealed the hotel, you know, and that, that pain point was, yeah, yeah, I'm straight, but we kicked out 13,000 troops just because they were getting out for misconduct, you know, misconduct, if you're going straight, yeah, we'll throw you out. But just because of who they love, it was wrong. Um, and for me, you know, if I couldn't stand there as devout Catholic, as a, as a Christian, as a, as a combat veteran, the fight for those who didn't have a voice in Congress, um,You know, I knew that I would be embarrassed, you know, that my kids would read about me, my Wikipedia page. So for me, you know, we caught that bill, we got it done, got it done bipartisan.Uh, and, you know, to me it was important and then ushered in, you know, we hit recruitment goals years later and stuff like that. There's

a, there's an adage that I have where it's just like once you see something you can't unsee it, right? You can't, you can't unsee the thing you've seen that that for me at least is like my growth stages of my life. Like once you start to do one thing and you see the next level, it's hard to go back to the previous level, right?So you saw in the arm, you saw in the army a whole lot of stuff, and you're like, I'm gonna go run for Congress. And then when you're in Congress, you see a whole lot of other stuff. And then uh 2010 comes around and it was, uh, I think it was 2010. It was a kind of a crazy election cycle. So then fast forward, you have this opportunity to get called back into service again as the Undersecretary of the army under Obama.Uh, what, what, what was that experience? Well, first of all, how do you get a call from the president to be like, Yo, like you should run the army. And then second of all, what was the job and what did that mean toyou?

Yeah, when I was leaving Congress, you know, the President Obama, who I, who I loved and, you know, was, you know, basketball with him, etc. was early, was one of the first members of Congress to endorse him when he was down 38 points in a primary, right, and won the win. But, um, I would just say for me, I saw him, he said, hey Murph, I'm we're finishing these next two years out strong. I need you to come back in.And he'd offered me a job really, and I said, sir, like, like, I don't need a job. Like I'm gonna be fine. I'm going back home to Pennsylvania. But he said, no, like this time like I need you need you, like, and so he goes, we'll make some changes to the Pentagon. I need your leadership. And so you can't say no to the president. And the next day, Dennis Madonna, who's his chief of staff, calls me and says, Patrick, hey Patrick, thank you. He goes, the president wants you to be the undersecret of the army.Dan, I will tell you I taught at West Point. I served in the Armed Services Committee, the Appropriation Committee. I didn't know the rank structured at the Pentagon because I never served in the Pentagon right so like I was like, is the Undersecretary bigger than the assistant secretary? So it goes like Secretary of the Army, Under Secretary of the Army, CCOO, and then it's like Assistant secretary. So, so, uh, you know, of course, you know, I'm right there looking at Google images like the rank structure of the, the flow chart, um.But yeah, listen, I, and I, you know, I, we served, we have recruitment goals, 120,000 gen Z years in, um, and that was a phenomenal. That was probably the best job I've ever had. Uh, I love every day. I mean, every day is a blessing, but that was the, the stand in front of formation, uh, to lead, you know, men and women, people who are part of America's varsity team, United States Army was a pretty awesome.

Uh, let's just make sure that everybody knows this. The United States Department of Defense is the largest employer in the world. It's a Fortune one.The army is the 2nd largest employer in the world, and they're part of the Department of Defense and their fortune too. So that means that Patrick's budget when he was the undersecary of the Army was over 180 billion, is that right? And he was responsible for 4.5 million.In the total service members between active guard and reserve,

it was about 1.3 million, so about, about half a million, uh, active duty, another $5 million in the guard reserves, and then about 300,000

the 4.5 million is actually me going back to the civilian workout as well. Sorry about that. All right, well, hey, um, I'm gonna ask you 11 rapid fire question real quick. Uh, what is the money mistake that, what is the money that you know?What is the thing about money that you know now that you wish you knew when you were younger?

Yeah, I think I've always been disciplined. I didn't realize about compound interest and even putting a little weight each month, no matter if you're a private first class captain or whatever. Starting early in that compound interest makes complete sense. And so I wish I did it younger. I'm doing it now. I'm making up, you know, I'm gonna be, I'm providing for my kids like, and, um, you know, I don't have the 200 year plan, but, you know, I have a plan that I'm executing on and I just was I started earlier, butUh, I've been blessed, brother, and I'm blessed to do the show with you. I think we're changing the world. We're trying to support our brothers and sisters out there that, that need to get good advice, uh, good advice from the world's experts, and that's who we bring in every week, and it's been an honor to work with you, brother. Awesome. Thanks, brother.All right, so that's our show. So listen, subscribe, review where your money on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcast or find us at Yahoo Podcast, or Yahoo Finance. I'm Patrick Murphy and I'm

Dan Kons. We'll see you again

next week.This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services.