$13M But Zero Cash: Why Net Worth Is a Lie

Moneywise

Hampton

Business, Entrepreneurship, Investing

4.8 • 674 Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you're a founder doing at least $3M/year in sales, check out Hampton: https://www.joinhampton.com/.

Mike Brown built an oil & gas empire, scaled his net worth to nearly $20 million, but ended up cash poor, losing $1.8M in a failed bet, and borrowing money from his wife to pay taxes. Now, he’s rebuilt his fortune, redefined what wealth really means, and is living a life designed around freedom, not just big numbers.

Here’s what we talk about:

How Mike went from $2K in his bank account to making millions in oil & gas deals
The "gold rush" mentality that led him to reinvest everything and regret it
Why he thought $100M was the magic number (it wasn’t)
The dangers of illiquid assets and chasing wealth at all costs
Losing $1.8M on a distressed e-commerce acquisition
How divorce and bad bets forced a complete financial rethink
Mike’s personal framework for financial freedom (12 months of liquidity, 5–7 years cash cushion, escape velocity)
Why liquidity and cash flow > net worth
His full portfolio breakdown today: fixed income, oil & gas, index funds, and zero angel investing
The mindset shift: from "grow at all costs" to "invest for safety and joy"
What it really feels like to sell your Lamborghini and love it
How he's building a life he never wants to retire from — and helping other founders do the same

Cool Links:

Hampton https://www.joinhampton.com/
Lower Street https://www.lowerstreet.co/
Mike’s Wealth Business https://unbreakablewealth.com/

Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction to Mike Brown's Financial Journey
(02:36) Mike's Early Life and Money Lessons
(05:07) Navy to Entrepreneurship: The Million Dollar Deal
(07:24) The Gold Rush: Rapid Wealth Accumulation
(16:54) The Downfall: Divorce and Financial Struggles
(19:23) The E-commerce Disaster: Losing It All
(22:28) Rebuilding and Relying on Support
(24:55) Rebuilding with Cash Flow
(25:42) Lessons from Failure
(27:02) Current Portfolio Strategy
(28:41) Cash Flow and Investments
(31:11) Financial Freedom Levels
(33:53) Personal Monthly Burn and Joy
(36:17) Redefining Wealth and Happiness
(42:12) The Irony of Wealth
(47:24) Final Takeaways and Community

This podcast is a ridiculous concept: high-net-worth people reveal their personal finances.
Inspired by real conversations happening in the Hampton community.

Your Host: Harry Morton

Founder of Lower Street, a podcast production company helping brands launch and grow top-tier podcasts.
Co-parents a cow named Eliza.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'm watching that last million dollars I have, you know, hurtling towards zero month after month,
0:08.1	and I got to a place where I had to borrow money from my wife to pay my taxes.
0:12.8	Mike Brown is worth $13 million, but to him, that number might as well be zero,
0:18.2	and not in the existential way you might think.
0:22.1	Mike spent years chasing wealth, reinvesting every dollar aiming for a hundred million dollar empire. But he didn't get
0:27.5	there. Instead, he ran out of money. I began losing $100,000 a month, and it didn't stop.
0:33.8	There was days I didn't even want to get out of bed because I was so humiliated and so
0:38.0	completely broken and I'd even want to face the day. That experience didn't just change his bank
0:42.7	account. It changed his entire philosophy on money, success, and even happiness. If you can't
0:48.5	be rich now, you'll never be rich because wealth is a state of being. Mike's story is intense,
0:53.7	it's exciting, and thanks to his
0:55.5	mistakes, it's very valuable for us. We're going to hear exactly what he did to end up
1:00.1	rich broke, how he clawed his way out of that, and how he's built a safer, smarter fortune
1:05.0	that keeps him out of danger for good this time. I'm Harry Morton and this is Moneywise, a podcast,
1:10.6	by the way way that's made
1:11.3	specifically with the Hampton community in mind. Hampton is a private group for high net worth
1:15.6	founders built to connect people who are dealing with the same unique challenges we face as
1:19.5	entrepreneurs and it's also a really great place to get the exact advice you need to avoid
1:24.1	situations like the one that Mike got himself into. So if you're a founder
1:27.8	doing at least 3 million air art, go go and check it out at joinhampton.com.
1:36.3	This is usually the part where we explain the guest net worth and we're still going to,
1:40.6	but keep in mind he doesn't assign too much value to it. It's about 13 million kind of
	...

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