Demetri Kofinas - Navigating a Degenerative Political System #22

This week on the 🎧Nick Halaris Show we are featuring Demetri Kofinas, the creator and the host of Hidden Forces, one of the most thoughtful and popular podcasts in the world today.  Demetri spends his days engaging with big issues and ideas and talking with some of the smartest, most influential people in the world.  Because he embraces things like complexity, uncertainty, and nuance, his show Hidden Forces is one that stands out from the crowd and one that I highly recommend.

I wanted to have Demetri on the show to get his take on some of the big themes he’s been exploring.  After binging on Hidden Forces for a few weeks, I had a feeling that he would have some very interesting perspectives and he did not disappoint.  Demetri got me thinking about things like whether China might not be as strong as everyone thinks and the extent to which our current culture and system incentivizes the gambling-mentality and produces what he calls “degenerates.”  He also spoke passionately and eloquently about our moral obligation to not only be informed citizens but also to reject the siren calls of cynicism in favor of a commitment to constructive discourse and engagement. 

In this wide-ranging conversation, we cover everything from the idea of the 4th Turning and the role that generational conflict can play in driving history to Demetri’s provocative financial nihilism thesis to the role that geopolitical conflict might play as a catalyst for a financial reconciliation and reset.  Demetri also shares the inspiring story of how a very serious brain tumor scare altered the course of his life and provided the foundation for his success as a content creator and media entrepreneur. 

As always, thanks for tuning-in and I hope you enjoy this fascinating discussion!

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Nick Halaris

I’ve been fascinated by investing for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I would read the Wall Street Journal, the Economist and Barron’s, pouring over the data tables, stories and interviews with a passion and an insatiable kind of curiosity. As I grew into adulthood, I struggled to find the right outlet and channel for this passion and spent much of my twenties wandering and trying out different things. I had a very brief career as an attorney, spent some time as a strategy and leadership consultant for big multinational companies, failed in an attempt to start a hedge fund, and even ended up helping run a scrap metal recycling operation for a while.

At the age of 30 though, I took my stand. I made up my mind that no matter what I was going to be an entrepreneurial investor. As crazy as it sounds, I owe everything in my life to this one foundational decision—even my amazing wife and my beautiful kids. I don’t think I would ever have met Alicia had I not made this one choice. At that moment in time, the financial world had just been devastated by the crash in the housing market and the near systemic failure of the global banking system that followed. I’ve always had a contrarian bent to my investment thinking; so, to me the carnage in real estate looked like an opportunity.

It all started with one house in Compton California. The business plan was simple: buy a distressed foreclosed home from a bank, bring it back to life with a big renovation and sell it to a first-time homebuyer. Things progressed slowly as they tend to do with real estate. In the first years of this, I think I did 6-7 homes. But then after plugging away day-by-day, suddenly it seemed, things just came together. I found the right investors and the right loans and the right deals and in just a few short years I ended up investing in over 100 such transactions, building a portfolio of almost 2,500 multifamily units and creating a fully vertically integrated real estate company with almost 100 employees.

Fast forward to today and I’m running the second evolution of my entrepreneurial investing career and having so much fun that I have to stop and remind myself that this is all real.

http://www.nickhalaris.com
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Adam Hill - How to Rise Above Fear and Transform Your Life #23

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Nick Hiter - How To Use Failure To Fast Track Entrepreneurial Growth #21