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in a previous video we hit the streets
of New York to find out what people do
for a living and how they afford to live
there and we came across this man who
used to be in the ship owning business
we turned this moment into a short
social media clip and it got 18 million
views what kind of stuff do you guys do
in New York what was your career ship
owning what really yes you own ships yes
what kind of ships mostly
tankers seriously yeah refined petroleum
product ships and you bought and sold
tankers yes so we found this guy flew to
Road Island and we're sitting down today
with Michael hudner to hear his full
story how much have you done in ship
real estate must have been well over a
billion dollars I mean there's a lot of
money I I'm trying to understand the
transition from going in a desk job into
the distress ship business I had a
passion most people don't actually they
have a lust but they don't have a dream
despite being able to live out his dream
life not everything went as planned do
you have any regrets let me talk about
the loss of my son quickly he became
schizophrenic when he was 19 he died in
a car accid he was a really brilliant
brilliant kid I wouldn't expect my son
to have respected
me if I fold it up on him you don't get
over losing a child but you learn to
live with it a lot of our content is
making money this is what this of course
it hits hits you in the face I if it
doesn't you're up we also take a deep
dive into Michael's views on money
culture you mentioned the money culture
is getting out of hand and it's not
something we should teach children our
world now you can be famous and
considered a celebrity just for having
money the money culture is running wild
and nobody puts any breaks on it let's
find out how Michael went from a desk
job to owning over 140 ships and how he
overcame the challenges and adversities
he had to face on his journey this is
the crazy one of the craziest interviews
we've ever post done so we did this
video walking around New York that
people that were well-dressed that
looked might I dare say wealthy so we
walked around New York looked at people
that were wealthy and asked them what do
they do for living how's New York an
advice for people like you and me and we
we shat out with you and you said you
owned oil tankers which we never met
anyone like that and then you also
talked about the money culture and that
clip as of today and it's probably
Higher by the time this video comes out
is at 17 million
views we tracked you down flew to Rhode
Island and now we're here to learn more
about the oil tanker business your story
and and all your adventures uh you asked
me what I did and I said I basically own
ships and that was something I got into
with a Norwegian partner in 1978 and we
spent a couple of year I spent several
years I was in the real estate Finance
business on Wall Street going to law
school at
night and I had two
passions one was the marine environment
and I grew up around here aranet Bay we
had a small boat when I was a kid 16 and
a half foot sail boat as a kid I always
wondered what it was like to go over the
horizon
not like Columbus Flat Earth I didn't
mean that just like what's it like it
just grabbed me and then I got enamored
of financial structures as I got older
for complicated reasons but they
appealed to me yeah mentally
intellectually we pioneered a number of
financial vehicles for international
shipping in the New York Capital markets
things that hadn't been done before and
they were built on my experience in the
real estate Finance business for six
years plus the benefit of the legal
training I got although I never
practiced and I had no intention to
practice but we basically took real
estate Finance Concepts and applied them
to ships and I made it a point to track
the capital markets for property for
real estate and I felt like if I could
get enough time with somebody who was an
investor in real estate I could get him
into a ship which was sort of floating
real estate very simply put and then how
much have you done in shipped real
estate sh fin okay so the the dollar
value of the 140 plus ships I never
added it all up but it must have been
well over a billion dollars I mean it
was a lot of money of ships that bought
and sold yeah the biggest deal we did
was buying the Canadian Pacific Fleet
that was 19 ships in one go one contract
so you started your career out in real
estate yeah and like how did you get
into that and then what kind of real
estate we were a Wall Street shop we're
the first dedicated real estate Finance
shop on Wall Street East still realy was
a product it was a subsidiary of East M
Dillan and Union Securities and then as
employees we got to own some of the
stock um we our clients Were Real Estate
developers big companies a lot of Texans
I mean traml Crow was a big client
and um Lincoln property I want to get
into the real estate business but from a
financial point of view this is because
of somebody I met the father of a girl I
know who had done this for himself and
he left the corporate world cuz he'
figured out how to buy a distressed
piece of real estate with somebody else
and they were off and running and they
left the corporate world which is an
important thing to be able to do to get
off to get away from W2 income I mean if
you got people who are trying to figure
out how to do this you got to keep your
expenses
down it helps if you have an
understanding wife
if you don't have an understanding wife
it's probably better not to have a wife
but that's like getting out of W2 income
I think that's a really important Point
yeah yeah what does that mean to you
Freedom you're working for yourself so
now you're an artist in a studio what do
you want to create that's how I sort of
felt but I had to I had to do something
because I had to eat and I was in fact
married at the time that I did it and my
wife was very understanding very
understanding that I had an
entrepreneurial Drive I didn't think of
it as being an entrepreneur I just
thought of it as wanting to lead my own
life but in today's world that's leads
to
entrepreneurship I I'm trying to
understand the transition you know from
going in a in a a desk job a very
standard New York Finance desk job into
the distress ship business because I
think a lot of people have dreams they
say I have a job in in Accounting in
well if they have that dream they're all
set just have to follow it yeah I did I
most people don't
actually they have a lust but they don't
have a dream or an
Envy I had a passion I mean I loved the
marine
environment the Marine World I wasn't
into it as an environmentalist exactly
but I loved being on boats loved the
ocean I had a Fascination for what it
might be like to go over the horizon I
told you and and then I got enamored of
financial structures which was just
something innate in me I wasn't a
mathematician that's a damn sure but I I
just the logic of it and the way it
worked was appealing to me and then I
saw the possible synthesis of those
things nobody was doing it that's
attractive and I felt
like whatever I do with my life I wanted
to make a difference that I was
there so that kind of works against
being a cog and a will
or whatever you call it like a tooth and
a cog I
mean that didn't work for me as I got to
know myself better as part of the
maturation process in your 20s I
realized I'm not really cut out to work
for somebody it's not because I want to
tell everybody else what to do I don't
have any interest in that actually but I
don't want to be told what to do I and
then you have to accept the consequences
of that I mean if you want to and my
father's father had a saying apparently
because I never knew him he died before
I was born born in
1862 he said the people who say they
never had a chance never took a chance
one thing I've got to highlight is that
whether you're buying housing or cars or
real estate or businesses you don't even
have to have the money yourself you can
do what you do which is fundrais I had
no money I still had some college loans
the
world has a lot of capital looking for a
home and there's a natural potentially
stressful relationship between operating
partners and Financial Partners the
financial partners need operating people
I mean if you were a guy downtown New
York doing Financial deals you can't go
buy a ship you can write the check and
then you'll go broke you won't know what
the hell to do and believe me there's no
good book to read about this because
you're
running uh you're operating in a
fundamentally hostile environment and
it's saltwater and all the vagaries of
the weather which can be boiling hot or
Arctic cold and you're running steel and
Machinery I mean good luck so you can't
do it as a novice somebody's got to know
what the hell they're doing on the
operating side so this is we you know
we're we need each other but then the
you know I'd like to own ships and keep
operating them and the uh the financial
people want to get out so that's there
you know that that's an inherent tension
in any industry financial people
operating people but they're looking for
you I mean they need us I mean I didn't
know that when I was a kid you know I
thought wow you get the money well but
people have money and they don't get
paid to sit on it they get paid to
invest it so that that's that's
available for everybody who knows what
they're
doing I've been working hard on my
upcoming book million dooll weekend
which is coming out early 2024 stay
tuned looking through my notes I found a
lost chapter that is not in the final
book very mysterious it reveals things
like how to double your income without
any new customer how to create
complimentary products to generate more
income one solar preneur did this and
made an extra
$340,000 how to optimize pricing
strategy and maximize profits and more
the Lost chapter is not online or Amazon
or anywhere else it is only for people
on my list like you you can download it
for free at noah.com
lost that's noah.com lost it's also
Below in the description all right back
to the video what were some of the most
challenging stories or moments in this
career my son became ill with
schizophrenia when he was 19 he died at
23 my wife after 40 years of marriage
well during the 40th year she had glol
blastoma and died at the end of that
year and I I I've survived good times
and bad times and I'm very deeply
motivated to try to be helpful to people
because the things I've been through
they were so difficult I'm not patting
myself on the back they were just
difficult and I was able to get through
I like to be helpful to people and
encourage people th it out and
don't don't run and don't take shortcuts
that you will regret how did you keep
going uh when your son passed away I'm
sorry to hear that in your wife let me
talk about the loss of my son quickly he
became schizophrenic when he was
19 he was a really brilliant brilliant
kid and his behavior changed and we said
like what the hell's going on
here and nobody suspected any kind of
Mental Illness but that's what it was he
died in a car accident he took my pickup
truck and went to Cambridge
Massachusetts from Little Compton where
he was spending the weekend which he
shouldn't have done that was beyond his
he was okay for driving around town I
didn't want him on the
highway and he I think had a paranoid
episode based on the observations of his
driving from Full River down to Little
Compton on the return trip and
he lost control of the car my wife and
I were joined at the hip to deal with
his
illness and or to help him deal with his
illness and then when he
died we were devastated and for some
months the emotional pain was so severe
it became physical
pain and you want to you don't want to
get up in the morning but you get up and
then you're standing up you want to fall
down on the ground and stay there but
you literally you figuratively and
somewhat literally you have like
hundreds of people standing
shoulder-to-shoulder with you who want
to help you so you can't just fall back
down on the ground because then you're
letting them down you're not doing
yourself any good not doing my son any
good and I said to my wife hope I said
you know we got
to get this in some kind of perspective
or context so we can live with it
because this is this this is torture the
only thing worse than the way that we
felt would be if we didn't feel that
way then what the hell was this all
about you're telling yourself how much
you love your
child and the investment you
made emotionally and time and giving up
other things it's all when you
got a problem like that there's only one
thing you're interested in it's
somebody's health and I realized we are
hostages to love in life you don't get
over losing a child but you learn to
live with it we moved on from that and
had the
realization that um we had been given in
a sense
a
very um expensive and painful gift from
our
son which was
um you get your heart
enlarged and you become a lot more aware
of suffering around you people that are
have problems and have challenges and
could use help
and you become
more not only more empathetic but more
proactively empathetic where you act out
your empathy by trying to be helpful to
people and I'm
sure that like me if you knew you were
on the sidewalk talking to somebody
whose next move after talking to you was
to go 20 floors up in some building and
jump there isn't anything you wouldn't
say or do to stop to try to stop that so
I stick my nose into problematic
situations that people are having and I
don't care if they want to hit me I
mean I I might be able to be
helpful and I wouldn't say
I've helped somebody in that extreme
case I described but I've definitely
helped people who were lost and and
needed it so that's a
gift
from my
son and it
uh shouldn't waste
it you can see how tough it
is
sometimes but
uh that's that's the the way we're
made but boy I'll tell you when you have
problems it certainly whatever
quotient you were carrying through your
life it gets reduced pretty close to
zero because you really come in touch
with what's important I can't imagine
let me just start there you should and
I'm sorry that you no no I mean we don't
deal the cards in life we have to play
them and everybody should understand
that I wouldn't expect my son to have
respected
me if I fold it up on
him I had two basic jobs which was to uh
protect my family and provide for
them
so anyway we should get back to shipping
I want to talk about the economics of
shipping no no I I'm genuinely curious
because I I think a lot of our content
is making money living but it's not even
about making money it's how to live a
good life and I guess I was curious how
that probably put in perspective like
you're making all this money and you're
losing money but you're like holy
this is the thing I'm assuming this is
what matters this is of course and this
the money all it hits hits you in the
face I mean if it doesn't you're
up I I mean look I don't pretend to be
immune to that but um that's why I made
my comments about the money culture and
especially for kids I
mean you know it's tough on them I mean
I see the kids today they all think they
should have what their parents have and
their parents might have spent a
generation working for it and that's not
true of everybody some people are born
with it that wasn't my case it's
important to to live a full life and a
good life
life and it's its own reward and I think
that
um I'm not naive about it I said when we
spoke the first time I said you know
everybody it's it's nice to have some
money in your pocket I get that totally
I totally totally get that but you but
you can't destroy yourself for it and um
I think you want to be careful not to
burn out your marriage for it which
happens in a lot of cases especially in
the professions where time is everything
time time time in is everything um one
of the advantages of Entrepreneurship is
if you get things
rolling you can decide who you want to
do business with that's very good for
dealing with the quotient in
your life like if you were in a big Law
Firm I don't want to work with that guy
well hey you want to get
paid you know it's we don't have to do
business with that guy and if that means
we make a little less
we have a better life for it I mean I'm
I'm not trying to be I love it utopian
but you got to think
about the cost benefit of things how
else have you enjoyed your money from
your business successes the one material
thing I had a desire for I mean it's a
slight exaggeration but not too much
when I was younger was to have a
cruising boat that would allow me to get
away I worked on first of we had a
little 16 and 1/2t boat when I was a kid
five miles from
here great but then I worked on boats
two summers when I was in college so I
got paid to learn how to run a big boat
I mean you know 47 feet 57 feet we one
guy did nothing but crws with his wife
and the other guy only wanted to race so
um it just always I responded to that uh
and I have a boat I got to say 60ft
sailboat I've had the boat for 32 years
and it was built for me and my first
wife in fact I I did everything I said
you shouldn't do I was working too hard
I was taking a lot of risks in the late
80s looked like we'd split up and then
we go back together which
was the way it should have been and as
our Getting Back Together project we
already had two perfect children so
didn't need to go for three and uh we
had this boat built
in the fantasy of the boat was
longdistance relatively short-handed
cruising were there other things that
you thought would give you more joy from
business success like or things that you
bought or did and you're like this
didn't really satisfy me in the way that
people might expect or imagine when I
saw the Life Style in New York I
realized this isn't really for
me and the value of having a lot of cash
is that I mean my son very smart comment
he made when he was about 20 he said
money is
energy 20 years
old and um I had seen having more
Capital as extra colors on a pallet so
you're working on a canvas and you can
do more things with it but um you don't
have to have the money we touched on
this earlier I mean money is around
people who've got money or who run money
are looking for things to do with people
they think they can do it with
successfully so you can do
both
um but when you start seeing people who
can only talk about money and people who
can only think about money and they want
to tell you how expensive the wine was
that they had last night I'm telling you
drink it tonight pee it in the morning I
mean I don't care what you're dealing
with that's the that's the story nobody
no nobody's doing it any different and
um it's a question of your values and
I'm not trying to be preachy here but
just I think it's sustaining and I think
as a society of free people who respect
the rule of law and
value human dignity and human
life and
opportunity how much money do you need I
think the whole things are going crazy
and finance capitalism is a double-edged
sword you know a lot of goods come out
of it because things have been done to
create more value more wealth Finance
more
Innovation but boy we're getting it's so
heavily skewed now it's just crazy can
you elaborate on that because you you
mentioned the money culture is getting
out of hand and it's not something we
should teach children and you said
people are celebrities now simply for
having money but it says nothing of your
care character yeah so can can you
elaborate on this this theme and your
your feelings around this the the prime
civic virtue of character has pretty
much been replaced by
celebrity and you can be famous for
having done something but in our world
now you can be famous and considered a
celebrity just for having money so
that's the difference in the from where
I grew up and I I mean this is in New
England I I mean it's different here but
um I don't think it's healthy and it's
happening all over the world the money
culture is running wild and nobody puts
any breaks on it with with your career
and do you have any regrets like you
work too hard was it all worth it I I
don't have regrets about that I mean I
can say there were times when work got
in the way of things you know you're
it's a constant Balancing Act in life
you can't do all things at all times and
I'm very I'm totally at peace with uh
how I lived my life recognizing numerous
mistakes I feel like life is uh you live
it like an elastic
band and you can take it out to the
limits and you can hold it there for a
while but you're got to let it come back
in then you can take it out again but if
you take it out too far you're going to
break it and then it's done and you
can't live in here so I think people
have to be mindful of that then you can
work it out but if
you try to do all the things all the
time I don't see how that works I had an
incredibly rich
life not
easy but a rich rewarding satisfying
life
and I'm grateful and I'm grateful to
have been born in this country where
these
opportunities are found more readily
than any place else for a lot of our
audience that wants to make money they
they dream of making a million dollars
what advice do you have for someone
who's a young person that would like to
make a million dollars or more money try
things and
see what gives you
pleasure in doing it and then consider
following that ramping up your
involvement and ramping up your
productivity in that area because I
think that's a great start I mean would
you out with a woman that you weren't
attracted
to what's the point you know there are
things that we're attracted to you just
have to let yourself find out and
getting to know can be as important as
getting to yes so you save yourself a
lot of trouble well I'm not going to be
a lawyer well okay I'm not going to be a
doctor okay I think I'll be a
photographer wow did you see that Sunset
yesterday or whatever it is you know I
mean just that's why I mean your stomach
tells you things that your brain won't
let through if you have a passion for
something it is a form of compensation I
mean to some extent you I mean you got
to have cheeseburger money but it it's
its own it is its own reward and it gets
you through the hard times when you're
just
working because you're making money at
it I I couldn't stand the merit badge
approach I'm doing this because I want a
merit badge so I can then do that and
get another merit badge which a lot of
people I'm sure you've seen this a lot
of people maybe not the guys you're
talking to they've all broken
out but most of the world seems to be on
that path they're looking for approval
which makes you a
conformist I'm not saying people should
be wildly non-conformists
but don't be afraid to be a majority of
one can you break down the ship owning
business model like how you make money
let's let's specifically do this
Canadian one you were talking about like
how much did the deal cost like how do
you make money on it how do you even you
know do you look online are the Yellow
Pages you know you're like oh let me
just I hadn't thought of that yeah like
but specifically this Canadian one you
said it was the best deal of all time
for you guys like what what did the
numbers look like and walk us through
that well it covered the most ground the
fastest I mean it was one transaction it
was it was 19 chips and I've forgotten
some of the numbers this was in 1988 it
was around1 165 or $170 million in a
soft Market that was the price of the
fleet I mean you can pay that for a
single ship you know of some type so the
numbers can get big
um the best analogy and this will help
any
viewer is to real estate this is a hard
asset business we're renting
space in a
Marketplace and we're subject to the
laws of supply and demand and I mean and
then some much greater volatility than
real estate but it's comparable and it's
Capital
intensive um you don't get a premium
particularly for the value of your
management I mean you're buying and
selling assets and everything comes back
to a net
asset perspective not like price
earnings and growth potential and all
that
um so you you make your
money with cash flow that you generate
from the ships and then if your timing
was good you may get asset
appreciation that is not absolutely
necessary to have a successful
investment it's it's icing on the cake
if you get it but um you could build a
ship and have long-term employment and
get it paid down substantially the trick
here is to reduce the risk as fast as
possible and then hang on
for either normal markets which are
quite
rewarding or super hot markets which are
spectacularly rewarding and me the cash
is coming out of these ships like water
out of a hydrant and and last thing is
what is your one what is one story from
running your own shipping company like
what's the story that comes to mind that
that makes you smile or that you're
really proud of you know who DK Ludwig
was Daniel K Ludwick at the end of World
War I he was probably the biggest trip
owner
nonc nonpublic in the world had over 100
ships guy had about an eighth grade
education he had built in Japan two
structures one was a power plant and one
was a pulp Mill and he had them floated
over across the Pacific up the amazon
and set on pilings on the river
jar and he was growing eucalyptus trees
a fast growing tropical tree to turn
them into pulp and then the Brazil some
Brazilian political people started
trying to move in on them and they
wanted to get paid for this and that and
he
said and he shut it
down and he this was in his later years
and he wrote off 500 million bucks which
at that time was a monstrous amount of
money he died his right-hand man was a
guy I knew when I was talking to them
about some ships they still owned and
might want to sell we're in Old Man
Ludwig's office in this guy is telling
me this story that one day old man
lewick says to him so the river Jarry
project what do you think of that he's
sort of got a conventional view of this
500 million bucks is a lot of money to
lose an unthinkable amount of money to
lose it's an unthinkable amount of money
okay so the guy kind of mumbles say yeah
he said well it was a success and the
guy mumbles a little more he doesn't
know what to say to his boss he say it
was a success because we did it now this
is another part of the story which is
true I was walking across town at one
point on 59th Street and across the
street I thought I saw DK lwig walking
down the street I was not in the
shipping business at that time but I was
thinking about it so he's walking down
the street I hear him say this guy well
you got to be a bit of a dreamer in life
and I thought oh my God so you ask me
now my greatest satis action is not a
single story but the fact that I did it
if you like this video you are going to
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80 and ask them if the money was worth
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