Billionaire Strategies: Personalized Guidance for Your Investment Journey With Jason Mandel

Jason Mandel is the Founder and CEO of Mandel Family Office, a firm dedicated to providing comprehensive financial services to high-net-worth individuals and families. He is a Wall Street insider and a private financial adviser and has held senior positions at the LeFrak Organization, D.E. Shaw, and Cantor Fitzgerald. Jason has over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience in financial services and risk management. Additionally, he is the President of Caretrust Financial and the author of DEMAND TRANSPARENCY: Stop Wall Street Greed and Rising Taxes From Destroying Your Wealth.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [04:49] Jason Mandel explains why he became a financial advisor
• [10:38] The ideation behind DEMAND Transparency and what it entails
• [12:57] The genesis of The Mandel Family Office
• [15:44] Entrepreneurial lessons Jasson learned from his corporate days
• [20:03] Alternative investment strategies with a focus on risk management
• [25:32] Jason shares tax-efficient wealth management strategies and income plans for retirement
• [34:47] The Mandel Family Office’s ideal client profile
• [41:52] The four key members to have in your financial team
• [49:34] Life insurance investment strategies
• [01:03:48] Recommendations for investing in real estate
• [01:09:36] Mistakes entrepreneurs make when creating the company’s financial structures
• [01:22:49] Jason speaks about their pricing model
• [01:25:52] The Mandel Family Office’s customer success stories

In this episode…

Are you ready to take control of your financial future? It’s time to explore investment options that can generate rewards and help your wealth grow. But with so many investment strategies available, how can you determine which is right for you?

Investing is a powerful tool that helps you achieve your long-term goals and build wealth over time. But it’s crucial to approach investing with a strategy that aligns with your unique needs and goals — and that’s where a financial advisor comes in: an expert who can provide personalized guidance and expertise to help you navigate the complex investing world with a focus on tax minimization, asset protection, risk management, portfolio optimization, and the creation of tax-free income plans.

In this episode of Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Jason Mandel, Founder and CEO of Mandel Family Office, to discuss wealth management tips. Jason talks about the genesis of The Mandel Family Office, alternative investment strategies with a focus on risk management, its ideal client profile, and life insurance investment strategies.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Jason Mandel on LinkedIn
• The Mandel Family Office
• Sky Gem Solutions
• DEMAND TRANSPARENCY: Stop Wall Street Greed and Rising Taxes From Destroying Your Wealth by Jason Mandel
• Caretrust Financial

Related episode(s):

• “[Top Giver Series] The Power of Video Storytelling to Transform Your Business with Ian Garlic of StoryCrews” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “How to Set and Achieve Goals With Ian Garlic, Founder of Video Case Story” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “How to Author a Book for the Revenue, Respect, and Results You Deserve With Michelle Prince of Performance Publishing Group” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Giver Series] How to Triple Your Profits and Impact with Dan Kuschell of Breakthrough3x” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable Moments: 

• “The stress of money could be so intense that you could take your own life.”
• “Wrap your assets inside of vehicles which are not taxed.”
• “Don’t get freaked out when I mention the word life insurance.”
• “Insurance is predicated based on what’s called a lapse rate assumption.”

Episode Transcript

Intro  0:01

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz  0:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here founder of inspiredinsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today is no different. Jason Mandel. He’s themandelfamilyoffice.com and skygemsolutions.com. And Jason, I always like to formally introduce you. I always like to point out other episodes, people should check out of the podcast, we’re gonna dig into some amazing topics, just to let people know, what do billionaires do that everyone else should be doing. And Jason has worked with them and helped manage lots of money and just asset protection, everything in between. He’s got a book coming out. By this time, it’s already out Demand. And we’ll talk about that. And this white paper that came out that goes into these very topics. But we’ll dig deep into that I just want to mention, people should check out the episode I deal with Ian Garlic, actually, the reason I met Jason is because of Ian. Ian is a master. He’s been doing marketing and videos for many, many years, he has videocasestory.com. And he helps people tell their stories, and get their information out of their heads to other people know they’re not the best-kept secret and educate people on what they’re doing so they can improve their lives and their business. So check out Ian. And he also comes from a family of entrepreneurs. I don’t know if you knew this Jason, but his dad was an entrepreneur, and he had many businesses. One was a restaurant, and they had live dolphins in the restaurant. Now, it’s not where you are in Florida. It was in Wisconsin, it would be weird even if it was in Florida, but it was this was actually in Wisconsin, so.

Jason Mandel  1:59

Explains a lot about Ian. And now I understand now it makes sense.

Jeremy Weisz  2:02

He knows that story and just really some awesome stories about his journey. Um, Michelle Prince, also another one. Michelle is amazing if you want a book written for you, and you don’t want to do all the heavy lifting, but you still want in your voice, Michelle Prince Performance Publishing. They’re amazing over there. And oh, Jason knows, Michelle and Dan Kuschell Breakthrough 3x. He’s kind of like a fractional CMO. But he talks about how he grew his company to a pretty large degree. But he started having health issues from the stress. And he had to take a double take on his life because they thought he was having a heart attack at a young age. And he had to do a check on his stress levels and how he’s running his businesses. And so he kind of had to do a reset because of that health scare. So check that out, and many more. And this episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help people and businesses give to and connect to their dream 100 relationships. How do we do that we actually help you run your podcast. We’re an easy button for a company to launch or on a podcast we do the accountability, the strategy and the full execution. Jason, we call ourselves the magic elves that run around in the background and make it look easy for the company and the host so they could just really develop amazing relationships create great content, but run their business. And the number one thing in my life is relationships. And I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships. And I found no better way over the past decade to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So you thought about podcasting, you should if you have questions, go to rise25.com or email [email protected]. I’m excited to introduce Jason Mandel. He’s an experienced Wall Street executive and advisor to entrepreneurs all around the world. He’s held senior positions at Cantor Fitzgerald Securities, D.E. Shaw company and LeFrak Organization. Jason’s a founder of The Mandel Family Office, which I mentioned, and he’s managed limited partnerships and discretionary funds for large hedge funds, banks and even other family offices. As I mentioned, he’s the author of DEMAND TRANSPARENCY: Stop Wall Street Greed and Rising Taxes From Destroying Your Wealth. Jason, thanks for joining me.

Jason Mandel  4:23

Thanks for having me on. It’s a real pleasure.

Jeremy Weisz  4:26

We’ll dig into your book and what you do. But I want to start off a little bit with your why. And we’ll get into the evolution of what businesses have you started and I was watching a video this. It was really powerful of why you do what you do. And I think it goes back to your grandfather.

Jason Mandel  4:49

Great-grandfather, actually. Yeah.

Jeremy Weisz  4:51

Great-grandfather.

Jason Mandel  4:52

Yeah, yeah, he was an immigrant to this country, worked incredibly hard, built a business and like many people during the depression, his business failed. And he was so distraught. And he was so concerned for his family and their well-being. I guess took the solution that he took was devastating for our family. He actually read an article about the subway system in New York City providing $1,000 to families who had someone die in an accident on a subway, I guess there were more accidents back then. And it’s believed that he took his own life and jumped in front of the subway and was killed. And the subway system paid the family $1,000. And that story was not really told to us growing up, it was something that doing some genealogy work, we knew he died at a young age, but it was never really explained to us. And through some research, I saw that he actually, it was an article about him taking his life. And that was so jarring to me when I thought that money problems could be so severe for people, the stress of money could be so intense that you could take your own life. And we’ve seen it there have been other people that this happened to. It really made me think a lot about that. And when I thought about what careers I wanted to go into, eventually, when I started to advise entrepreneurs, it felt right, it felt like I could put them in a position where that would never happen to them. What happened to my great-grandfather.

Jeremy Weisz  6:24

I want to talk about, I’m sorry to hear that. When I heard that I’m like, now I see why he does what he does, and why are you so passionate about it to help others in yourself and your family? And we’ll talk about the evolution it kind of goes back to even if people think oh, Jason, you grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth, you’re given things you’re successful. But it’s funny, your dad said something to you when you’re young, about this is all you’re getting. So talk about where it started. And we’ll talk about kind of where you’re at now.

Jason Mandel  6:59

Yeah, my paternal grandfather was an entrepreneur as well. And he had a significant level of success and was very generous to my father and my father benefited. My dad chose to have the career of his dreams, he wanted to be an educator, he became a professor. But frankly, his income was supplemented a bit from his father’s inheritance that he received from his father. And my dad took me aside at a pretty young age, this was around the time when I was approaching my Bar Mitzvah. And he sat me down, he said, look, I’m gonna be honest with you, Jason, I liked my lifestyle, and I have no interest in working the way my dad worked. And I really, I like living nicely. So there’s a high chance that this money that I’ve been able to help put away was actually with the help of his father started a college account free, but this money that we have here, including your Bar Mitzvah gifts, if you get any, those, that’s the only money you should expect to get from me that unfortunately, he was teaching entrepreneurship, but he wasn’t really practicing it. And he said, chances are, there won’t be any kind of real inheritance for you. And he’s, I’m sorry for that. But I know you’re very capable, and I’m not worried about you. But it was a funny thing to tell a kid because I obviously it changed me a little bit. And I said, okay, I better figure this money thing out pretty quickly. Because I don’t think there’s gonna be any kind of significant inheritance here. So, and unfortunately, I lost my dad two years ago, and he was a man of his word. He did a great job, thank you, thank you. But he was a man of his word. He loved his life, he had a great time. And he enjoyed his money. But there was not really any kind of inheritance there. So I was glad that he told me that upfront, because what I did is I started to think seriously. So my dad was very, very smart guy. And he did teach me a lot about Wall Street. And we spent a lot of time together, studying Wall Street. So he did give me the better gift than money. He gave me the gift of education. And that is something that he and I worked all those years after my Bar Mitzvah. And we managed the Capitol, and we had enough money actually, to pay for the, my dad was a SONY state of New York, a college professor, and we had enough money to pay for four years of SONY. And he said, I suggest you go and I got into the SONY schools, and I wanted to go do something else. So I ended up going to a private school in Boston, Brandeis University, and it was much more expensive than the SONY schools. So man of his word. After three years, I was going to be out of money. And my dad said that on you, you made the decision to go to a private school. And it kind of put me in a position. I ended up graduating a year early because I didn’t want to go into debt. And I took an extra class every semester, which allowed me to graduate a year early, but my dad taught me a lot of lessons. And actually in the book, I do talk a bit about my dad, I share some of the knowledge that he imparted in me, and it was an important part of the book. It was right cathartic for me after losing him? And I do feel like, that’s my greatest enjoyment was that I was able to share some of the knowledge that he and I developed together and share love the book for a second. Oh, sure. Here it is, it’s going to be next, I think next month or so it will be out. So very excited.

Jeremy Weisz  10:17

DEMAND Transparency, if you’re listening to the audio version, and one thing…

Jason Mandel  10:24

And also paperback, both, and there’ll be audio as well.

Jeremy Weisz  10:29

Awesome. So, with that, what’s another important story from the book?

Jason Mandel  10:38

Let’s see, what’s it good and important. So I guess one of the main lessons for me is, is the idea that you really have to cultivate relationships, and you really do have to be open-minded to people. I did a lot of business in Korea over my career in South Korea, and I had some extraordinary friendships there. But there is obviously big cultural divides. So I found that interesting. I went on a marketing trip, and I was raising capital for one of my funds. And I don’t drink a lot. It’s just not me. And there’s a lot of socialized drinking as part of the culture there. So I’d spend the whole day explaining teaching. And then at the end of the day, we’d have a dinner with the clients or some of the clients. But then I really was happy because they let me go home to the ogilby go to the hotel, and I was able to rest and prepare for the next day, but they’d be out all night long. Finally, by the end of the trip, I’m exhausted, they’re all exhausted as well. And the last night, they said, no, no, you got to drink Jason. And I didn’t want to be a party pooper. So I had a few drinks, but they really seem to want to get me drunk. So I said, what’s going on here? Why are these guys trying to get me drunk? And I said, let me play along a little bit. So I did my normal thing. I was putting some of the drinks under the table when they weren’t looking. I was doing everything I could. So after maybe eight or nine drinks that they thought I had had, I started to act silly. And they said they looked at each other. And they said, okay, guys. Jason, we want to talk to you. I said, yeah, what do you want to talk about? Like, we want to be your partner. And I said, what do you mean, you want to have heart? I said, What are we talking about here? I said, you’re my partner. Anything I do in Korea, you guys are my partner. And I was amazed. They pulled out a book. And it was all in Korean. But I was able to see some of the graphics there. And unfortunately, the book that they pulled out was actually a horrible book that had been translated into Korean, called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. They knew I was Jewish. And this book was one of the most anti semitic books ever written in Russia, in the 1800s. And many people use this and say it was part of the type of misinformation that was used to deal with, to create the environment for the Holocaust. So the point of the story is, you have this cultural divide with these people read a book, they were all very smart people. They were just misinformed. So what do you do? Do you react violently and say this horrible? You guys are evil people? How do you think why?

Jeremy Weisz  12:56

Why do they bring out the book?

Jason Mandel  12:57

The book talks about a conspiracy of Jews to take over the world. They wanted to get involved in that conspiracy. They wanted access to this conspiracy, it was one of the craziest things. And I almost wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry, I didn’t know how to react. So you know, obviously, they thought they were getting access to this worldwide opportunity to be part of the Rothschild money empire and Soros, whatever people say about Jews and money. And unfortunately, that’s not me. I don’t know the secret handshake. And I don’t know, the codes or anything like that. I’m not part of that. If there is anything I don’t think there is, of course, but the part of this story is, I learned that, people have different expectations from you. I wasn’t going to be angry, I wasn’t going to dismiss the relationship. Clearly, they thought I was something that I’m not are a part of something that I’m not. In the end, I raised more money with them and did business with them. But it probably wasn’t what it could have been if I had lied to them and said, sure, I’ll give you access to this. Now you’re part of my secret world. But these are the kinds of adventures I’ve had. And I talk about a lot of them in the book about wonderful people that I’ve encountered some of them, obviously everyone has their own insight and goals and vested interests. But I really enjoyed my career advising many families, many of these different organizations around the world, different funds, banks, and I’ve had the pleasure of being able to really, I think change the direction of many people’s perception of what investing is, most people still believe investing is about stocks and bonds. I started my career at large firms like at Cantor Fitzgerald actually worked there in the 90s before 9/11 and the World Trade Center, so I’m very blessed person, not to have been there but it did change me because I lost so many friends, so many colleagues, and it took out maybe some of the fear that many people do have in life. I kind of lost that because I feel every day for me is a true blessing. And I went on I left there I went to a very large hedge fund called D.E. Shaw I went on to work for a billionaire named Sam LeFrak. This is all in the 90s. And then in 1999, I started my own firm. And my core belief was that there are better ways of investing than stocks and bonds only. And most financial advisors, I would say, 99.9% of people at some of the large firms, that’s their core allocation for clients, if you’re young, you might have more equities. If you are risk averse, you have more bonds. These are all the ways most of the big firms manage money. And that was not something I believed in. And I changed that. And I presented alternative ideas to my relationships.

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