Why is building capital more important than cashflow?

[Account Closed]

I was listening to podcast #17 and at point 25:00 minutes, Brandon Turner and Jeff Brown were agreeing that cashflow wasn't the most important thing to focus on when you're young, but building your capital.

The biggest highlights to me were these below...

“Cashflow is a yield on a pile of gold”

“Get as much real estate as you can safely and prudently, with cash reserves, so you're building that capital for when you retire. At that point when you retire, you start to convert to cashflow.”

“I used to be all about cashflow. Rather than living off my cashflow, I'm saving and re-investing my cashflow just to build up capital”

“Recycle that cashflow”

I can't wrap my head around this for some reason, but the way I understand it is that every time we get cashflow, we shovel it towards our capital/pile of gold. Once the pile of gold gets big enough, you retire and live off that cashflow? Is that what they're trying to say?

Should building capital be the primary focus regardless if you're starting out or been real-estate investing for over 10 years?

Why is living off your cashflow not the primary focus? Isn't the way to get out of the rat race is to have cashflow greater than expenses?

What's the benefit of the building capital end goal vs living off your cashflow?

Sorry for the bombardment of questions, it's just this podcast, and possibly this thread, might flip my perspective a whole 180 degrees!