Wealth Without Wall Street With Joey Mure And Russ Morgan

Welcome to the Next Level Income show where it's our goal to take your income, your investments and your life to the next level. I'm your host Chris Larsen. Get your free copy of our book@nextlevelincome.com book. We just released our audiobook as well that you can get there. Today's show you're not going to miss it's Wealth Without Wall street with Joey and Russ. Not only is it entertaining, but you're going to learn how they can help create true financial freedom for you and your family without Wall Street. On today's show we have the team from Wealth Without Wall Street, Russ Morgan and Joey Murr. Russ and Joey are serial entrepreneurs and currently operate 19 short term rentals along with several other investment strategies. They love to talk about the challenges and motivations they experience as business owners and helping others pursue financial freedom. Today we're going to be talking about Wealth Without Wall street and how they can help you develop financial freedom without relying on Wall Street. Today's show is sponsored by MFIN Summit. Coming up on June 10th through the 12th. Do you want to learn how to buy an apartment building? If owning and managing or being an investor is better for you, perhaps you just want to learn more about the asset class which is apartments. The MFIN Summit is a three day information packed event for multifamily investors with over 1000 attendees and over 50 speakers including yours truly. You'll hear from experts about finding deals, raising capital, underwriting strategies, selecting markets and so much more. You can hear me as well as dozens of other speakers during the event. Just go to mfinsummit.com that's that's MF I N summit.com to grab your ticket, use promo code next level in all caps. That's next level all caps. To get $100 off. Whether you're new to multifamily investing or a seasoned investor, you do not want to miss this event. Join me at the Multifamily Investor Nation Summit. Gentlemen, welcome to the show.

What's up Chris? Man, we're so glad to be here.

Yeah man, the pre recording chat and look forward to the recorded part.

Yeah, we almost ran out of time just goofing off before the show here so we had to get started. But man, I'm so excited to have you guys on the show for so many different reasons. Wealth without Wall street before we get started, for those that weren't here to listen to us here chatting and joking before the show, if you could each share a little bit about, you know, how you got here to where you are today and also love to dive into your backgrounds after that.

Well, so I. Well, I'm not sure if I'm going to be answering both of those questions or not, but I was stuck in the mortgage industry since 2003, and I was climbing that corporate ladder. It was all I knew, like, financial freedom mind or financial success was just more income. And I don't know if you know much about, like, high commission sales in the mortgage business. It was. It's kind of like a lot easier than I thought it would be to gain as high income. But it also came with, like, some collateral damage. I wasn't present. You know, I don't know if you can relate, but I was on vacations with my family, and it was really just with a phone stuck to my hip. And Russ ribs me about that all the time. Like, it was literally on my hip like a nerd, but with the little bluetooth headset, you know, a little earpiece. And, um. But I. But I was stuck because, man, if I don't take this phone call, what do I have in months in terms of income? Like, I got to keep this hamster wheel rolling. And I was like, man, and the only thing I knew to do with all this excess money was stay out of debt and. Or put money in my 401k, which I didn't really like. I mean, be honest, I didn't know much about it. I didn't understand what it was being invested in. It was volatile. All these things that I didn't like, and I couldn't touch it. And so 2009, Russ and I had been friends for several years, and he finally started to refer business to me. And I was like, I mean, for the love, like, why don't you start sending me business? And he said, but, hey, look, in order for me to do that, you have to read this book. And by the way, 20 bucks. And I'm like, dude, you asked me to read the book. Like, that's low budget, man. Like, to ask somebody to pay for the. You want them to read.

Like, dude, he's so frugal and cheap. I knew if he would pay for anything, he read it, and that was vital. And he did.

Yeah, okay. Truth be told, he's right. I probably wouldn't have read it if I didn't pay for it. So I'm glad he did. And it set me off on a trajectory. Like, this was exactly the thing that I had been missing. And it totally changed the way I about money in general. I stopped doing the 401k nonsense. And I started thinking so differently. Over four years, I had changed so many different things about the way I thought. I was like. It was like, man, I've got something. It's like a secret here. Like, people don't know this stuff. Why don't more people know it? And it was kind of like God was putting his thumb in my back. Like, well, why don't you teach it to him? And I'm like, because I make, like, way over $300,000 a year doing something that I'm good at in the mortgage business. Why would I change that? Well, it became this passion. Like, I've got to get this information out. You know, we need to be freeing people from this retirement jail idea. And so anyways, I went home to my wife, who's pregnant with my fourth. At the time. We now have five girls, but she was pregnant with number four. And I said, hey, babe, I think I leave my career to start from scratch. A business with Russ. And I kind of coiled back like me. And, you know, she said, joey, you absolutely should do that. Wow. And the reality is, I mean, now look back on it. At the time, it was like this. I was totally shocked that she said that. But just even a few weeks ago, I asked my wife about that moment, and she said, you know, Joey, you could have told me you're going to be a garbage collector. And I would have said the same thing. No offense, Russ, but. But it was because she honestly felt like I was so distracted and far gone from our family that honestly, she didn't know how our marriage was going to fare. And I. And of course, me being the guy, I was oblivious. I thought I was, like, the man. And you are, but thank you. Thank you for that. But. But it literally woke me up to the fact that, man, financial freedom is so important, and people need to know these things. So, anyways, start us on a journey. That was 2014, and Russ and I started Wealth Without Wall street shortly thereafter. And so, I mean, at the end of the day, Russ is like a superhero.

Well, you were making me out like a superhero, and then all of a sudden, you snatched a rug out from under me. Said basically offered you a job, you know, like, picking up cans or something like that. And your wife would be like, yeah, go do it. I don't what Russ does.

That could be a compliment, too. But look, anybody. Anybody that can grow a beard like that Joey, then, you know, that's got. That's got some pull at home. I'm sure but there's. And look, I want to, I want to jump, you know, I want to jump on some of the stuff you said there. But I also want to, I want to let Russ kind of share his side of the story. But, you know, it's, it's interesting. I'll add this before, before we go over here, Russ, but I just formally left the medical device industry as we do this recording and same thing, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. But I was on call for 12 or 13 years of the 18 years that I was in this industry. So I know exactly what you're talking about. When I started, we actually had pagers with beepers. Right. Because you're on call. And I had one thing in particular. I remember I was sitting there chopping vegetables for dinner, and the hospital called me. They said, we have a patient on the table. We need this product that you have. Like nobody else has it here. Can you get here? And I lived 10 minutes from the hospital. I said, no problem. I literally dropped the knife on the counter, ran out the front door. My wife was pulling in with the kids. I said, don't let the boys near the counter. There's a chef's knife sitting there on the counter with the chopped up vegetables. Sped to the hospital, ran in there. That was the life you get. Yeah, yeah. And that's what, that's exactly what happens. You get in and it's like the boiling pot. And then the funny thing is when I left, like, nobody really called me. Like, the world went on, surgeries happened, the job's got, the job got done and I was really good at it. But, you know, there is, there's a world outside of that and that's, that's really what kind of drives us now. But Russ, Joey got the hog. The initial impression there. I'd love to hear your half of the story here or two thirds of the story.

I appreciate that. You see, I don't get to talk a lot around on our show, so whatever. So good for him that he was able to get the first words in. It's not how you start this, how you, how you finish. I was actually the financial advisor. So we talk a lot about Wall Street. We beat up on Wall Street. And the reason I feel confident in being able to do that because I was, I was in Wall Street. I was the investment advisor. Actually got my certified financial planning designation. I, you know, I was the financial expert. Right. That makes a financial expert, don't you? A rising market. Right?

There you go. Yeah, lots of, lots of Experts right now. Yeah.

There's an amazing amount, Chris of experts in the world right now. And I started in 2004 and you know, I was riding the wind and it was, it was beautiful. And I thought everything was roses and you couldn't do bad deal. 2008 happens and all of a sudden, wham o right there you are just hands up to the sky like what am I going to do? And then people are coming to you.

What are you going to do?

Right. I gave you my money. I'm like, who me? So I just. Joey, we were talking book. I gave him. And it was because I was at a conference in 2009 that I experienced the author of the book. Becoming your own banker is the book I gave. You sold him. And you know, maybe I was too cheap to give it to him, make fun of him.

You just went through a market crash. It was 2009. I don't blame you. Exactly.

Right. Every dollar you can get. And I think I bought it for 17 bucks. So yeah, I was looking for a little markup on that. So I figured out that like, you know, the thing that you have to invest in, the number one investment is in yourself. And I, I truly thought I had been invested in myself, but I'd been invested in somebody else's business. And while, you know, people are thought they were investing for the future, they were investing for hope. And so there I was trying to help myself, my family. And people are looking at me to say, how do you help me as well? And I didn't have the answers that sent me on a journey. And that book was just the catalyst to basically saying you got to get control, you got to have access to cash. And the answer to financial income isn't $4 million in a 401. It's more cash flow coming in every single month from a job that you don't work in greater than your monthly expenses. It's just simple.

Absolutely.

And even though that really is hard, the work to accomplish that is hard. The formula was simple and that's what I understand it perfectly at the time. And it led me to trying to learn what that was. But I also then was helping educate people on that process. And Joey was a great student. So great that he decided that I wasn't doing the job well enough that he needed to come help me. And that has definitely been the key to our success, is having somebody that I could bounce ideas off of, somebody who looked at the world a little bit differently. And it's just been fun to watch go From a local business here in Birmingham, Alabama, to serving people all over the country and having a podcast that's even downloaded worldwide and be podcasts like yours and being able to have this conversation. So that's my quick story in a nutshell.

Yeah, that's the quick version, Chris.

That's all the time we have for that story because we started so late sucking it up forehand. But no, I mean, this is. And again, this, you know, 2009. I actually started my infinite banking policies in 2000. Let's see here. Yeah, it was October 2009. So kind of fortuitous timing. My wife was pregnant with our first son and I started learning about all this stuff and now I have an MBA in portfolio management. So. Right. Like know all about Wall street, learned all about it during my MBA and decided that, you know, there's, there's kind of better ways to do it. Like there's. This isn't how the rich do it. And that's what our mission is now at Nexiled Income is to teach those lessons so people know that there's other ways to do it than this accumulation theory and do that. Um, you know, one thing I want to touch on, Russ, is what you said about it takes time, it takes discipline to do it. What's interesting to me is when you talk about this concept and we can kind of get into what the foundation of this is with become your own banker. But you talk about this concept of cash value, whole life insurance. People say, oh no, it's too slow. We don't do that. But it's the exact same stuff that a financial advisor will tell you. You need to be disciplined, you need to invest every month in the stock market. The difference is stock market's unpredictable. And this vehicle is much more predictable.

Yeah, I love the way you said that. I mean, we have a three step process that we take people through. And the second step in that three step is controlling and controlling your environment. Right. I mean, we're sitting here doing this interview and there's a lot of storms around us right now. Our wives are blowing our phones out.

Right.

They're concerned, but not in control of the environment around them. And there's so many people right now that are listening to us that are not in control of their environment. And that's why stress in our life, that's why they're uneasy. There's a lot of times the reason why people are going in those hospitals that you are having to go into because the stress leads to a lot of the medical maladies Right. And finance is one of those, like, leading indicators to stress. And for, for us, like, as much can help people get in control. And there's a lot of things that go into that, but understanding the rules of the game, understanding how to play the game, and then being able to dictate the outcomes just because they are in control. And it's just so fun to be able to be on a podcast. I know I'm preaching to choir with you, but those points that are constantly being brought up to people and sometimes it's just new information and maybe it's being said just a different way that helps that light bulb. Come on.

Yeah. So I think, I mean, I already know the answer to this, but share with the audience. Why wealth without Wall street and then what's the main vehicle? What is at the core of what you all do?

So I think the name wealth without Wall street for us is really about pushing against that mindset that has been really. We actually talked about this on a previous show. It's been sold to us by Wall street and big banks for generations, not just in our lifetime. Because what we learned came from our parents, typically, right? And we learn bad habits and we learn good habits from them, but typically those were stained with this idea that just kind of name a few of those of those concepts. So 1. Defer, right? The word defer. When you hear defer, you should run the other way. Okay? Defer taxes, Bad idea. And there's a whole lot of reasons that we probably don't have time to get into. But all I can say is stimulus bill. $4 trillion has to be paid back at some point, and the money they're giving to you is a fraction of what they're going to ask in the future. So just, just go ahead and. Go ahead and bank on your taxes being way more in the future than they are today. So don't defer. Tax and deferring Life. Retirement. This idea of retirement is a scam, right? It is. It built out of the industrial age and is taking something out of service. Well, if you're listening to this podcast, likely you're like us. We're producers. When you're a producer, you don't want to stop producing. You don't want to stop giving value to the world. You gifted that by God to give value to others. So why would you ever say, you know what, I'm done, I have nothing else to give and just hang up the cleats like that's not even in our DNA, so quit buying that idea and Start living. Today. We fly in the face of all the vehicles that cause you to defer both life and taxes and other things, because it's not ultimately what you're after. If we get really honest, like if people put up that mirror in front of them and say, what do I really want life to look like? It's not like what it is right now. In fact, it's not like what our financial vehicles are basically out to accomplish. It's, I want to spend time with my kids when they're 5, 6, 10, 12, not when they're 35, 6, 42, like that's going to be great. But what about the times that they want to throw the baseball in the yard? Right? Or my girls want to go on their golf competitions and things like this. I want to be present with those things, not wishing I could be there.

Absolutely. And actually I have an article. It blew up on social media when I published it. It talks about leaving my six figure career and retiring. I put retiring in quotes because I hate the word. I don't let my clients use it. I say we don't talk about that. We talk about you want to be more productive. And when you're financially independent, you can provide that. And I know from firsthand experience, because not only did my father die when he was 41, I was five years old, but I saw my best friend. I identified him on the hospital table when he died at 18. And when you see that and you realize that life is finite and then you have a family of your own and you're missing those moments and you know there's a better way to do it. You feel compelled to share that way with other people.

A hundred percent. One hundred percent. And you know, Russ actually has a great quote. We talk about 401ks. I don't want to beat up on 401ks the whole time. Maybe just like 99% of the time.

You can get a couple more blows in.

Okay, good. By the way, 401ks do not allow you to invest in things like what you're putting together, Chris. So that's right. People quit locking that crap up. Like, get access to it. But he talks about, like, some people get drawn into this marketing. This is also part of that Wall street mindset. And I get an employer match, like that's a good thing for me because I get an employer match, it's like free money. It's like 100% return. Like, we hear all these things and Russ says, you know what? You can't pay me enough to Keep me in jail for the next 25 years, next 35, whatever your number is. Right. And so just don't buy that stuff.

I'll never forget my accountant looked at me about five years ago and said, chris, you need to stop contributing to your 401k. And I look back and I'm like, are you crazy now? I did. I got a very generous match when I was with Medtronic, and it ended up working out pretty well in that situation. But I was like, what do you mean I need to stop contributing? And then you look at the required minimum distributions, you look at the fact you can't use it, and it's like, okay, I've talking to a client just yesterday. He's like, we have all this money in these plans, but we still feel broke. We feel like we don't have any control. We feel like we can't spend $5,000 to paint our house even though they're worth seven figures on paper.

Yeah, it's not. Again, wealth is the tools that we have. Money is just the medium of exchange. And what we're seeking is those experiences that we. When we have that stuff and when we are deferring, all we're doing is giving someone else access to money so they get to enjoy it. And while we're not people to spend frivolously, right, to not live below your means. But it's about, like, how do you create more cash flow than what you. And every single month. And when you get there, you don't have to wait to some arbitrary number in the future. And like you said, we don't know when we're going to die. None of us are granted tomorrow. And so, you know, our mentor would say plain, as if you're going to live forever, as if you're going to die tomorrow. I mean, you know, so like, the whole concept is, what do we do? How do we put ourselves to work? How do we use our own gifts and talents, understand who we are, partner with people who are smarter than us to help us in those other areas, but stay in control and that that's financial freedom, at least from our perspective.

You asked about, like, what are some of the baseline things that we're about at wealth, about Washington, what kind of tools do we use, so to speak? And I'd say it starts with our process. The first is that clarity piece, like understanding. And I think what we've talked about so far is really clarity on what do you want your life to look like? And then to. To design it in such a way that you get closer to that. So then you start having framework to say, okay, well, if. If I want financial freedom now, well, what I'm doing with money has to change, right? The things that I've been doing with money no longer make sense. I have to change the way I do that. And that leads it to the second step, which is control. Control step. We talk about budget. And when you. When you're really clear about what you want your life to look like, now all of a sudden continuing to qualify plans, that's gone. Putting extra money towards debts that don't make sense, that's done. When you start looking at ways you can get creative about your tax strategies, you now get more of the money that was automatically going out the door to the irs. Now that's in your control. And that leads you to, as you mentioned before, this become your own banker idea is we now have a place to store all that excess cash every single month, every single year that we found because we got really clear about what we wanted our life to look like. And so I would venture to say, I don't know this for sure, so don't quote me on this, but I would venture to say, people that engage with us, when they first come, they love the idea and they're like, but I really don't have a ton of money left over after every month. Very similar to the person that you just mentioned. I got all this money, but I feel broke, right? There's more month than there is money at the end of the end of the month. But when they start thinking critically about their cash flows, like what we'll teach them different modules and things, they start to say, well, I got anywhere from 1500 to $2500 a month that was being unknowingly allowing money to go out the door that should have been coming back towards me. And that's where we start these policies. Infinite banking starts to take place at that point. Now we have access to money that is growing in a compound nature for the rest of our lives that we can leverage into the third step. And maybe. Russ, do you want to talk about that?

Well, when you have dollars, the last thing you want is those dollars to be lazy. And the beauty is, is that what people oftentimes the. The devil's advocate to what Joey was talking about as well. If I, If I got access to money, I don't understand, like, you know, Chris, you. You're putting together syndications. You. You understand what deals look like, you spent all this time for it. And like, I don't know to do that. You know, I'm a physician. I'm the one, you know, sewing people up and cutting them open and doing all these things like, how do I know what that is? I don't see deals. And what we tell people is that deals exist all around you. You've just never been in a position to take advantage of them. So you never knew that he existed.

Exactly.

But opportunity finds cash. It always has. And once you tell your brain, you let that little reticular activating system in your mind work, and you tell your brain that you are interested in deals, you'll be amazed by the number of deals. I mean, Warren Buffett said, you know, his job is saying no 99 times out of 100. Right. He has so many deals coming at him, he's constantly having to say no. Well, that's where we are is once you're in a position of cash, then you got to tell those dollars what to do and you find those opportunities. You partner syndicators like yourself. You're able to get dollars at work, but not to never come back to you. To start coming back with friends on a monthly basis. You get to evaluate that in comparison to how much expenses you have. And then you can do the math and say, oh, wow, based upon this track, I can actually quote, unquote, leave my active work if I want to, keyword want to so that I can pursue other things. We tell people work is what we're called to do. But be passionate about what you're doing. So if what you're doing in your daily work right now, you're not passionate, do it until you get more passive income. And then go do something that you are passionate about. There's the passion income. And pursue that. Maybe your passion is like, you know, doing watercolors and you suck at painting, so nobody's gonna pay you for it. But it doesn't matter how much money.

You're former President Bush. I love how he paints. But you're like, this is. It's great. It doesn't matter if you're not. I'm not criticizing his painting, but. But no, it's just. It's like, hey, that's awesome. Former president. He's water. You know, he's painting. Like, that's exactly.

If you're passive income is greater than.

Your states to paint.

There you go.

And look, this is. What you just said is really. It's the same formula that we thought. We call it the make keep, grow strategy at next level income. And yeah, figure out how to Maximize what you're making. Keep the most that you can through tax strategies, through insurance. That's why we make these high cash value life policies such a cornerstone of what I do, what our investors and clients do, and then figure out what's your strategy to replace that income. Then you have true freedom. Then you do whatever you want at that point and focus on that. So if, if people are listening today and they're like, okay, you talk about these tools you have, how can, how can people learn more about your strategy, about some of the tools that you guys have at wealth without Wall Street?

Well, we'll give away one tool, okay? And then it gives them access to our community. So if you go to wealthwithoutwallstreet.com Scorecard, that is the tool that right now you can find out exactly where you are in relationship to financial freedom. It is a simple tool. Within a few minutes, assume you have handy, you can know as a percentage how close you are to financial freedom. Now the key is, is that what do you do next, right? And so on that same age you can join our community. There's almost 4,000 people in it right now that are seeking the same thing and are on the journey. Some further along are right. And the thing that I find that is most, you know, holding people back is that they're surrounded by people who are not on that same. They're at work, they're everybody else is putting money in their 401k. And when they say they're not, they feel like the outcast. They feel like they're on the island and they need to be surrounded by a tribe of people who are pursuing that and who have different beliefs and different eyesights toward the process. And so what we do when you wealthy wall street.comscorecard you can not only download the scorecard, but you can also access our community. It's a free community. We given that it's a place where you can actually direct message Joey and I, you can get access to any courses and groups and things that we're doing. But to me it's getting and building a network of people because you know, they've always said your net worth is in your network. And what that's what we've been trying to work on for several years is what we're probably most proud of is this network of people and individuals who are in this community who are seeking the same thing you are that can help you along the way.

Love it. I love it. So gentlemen, we're kind of wrapping up the show Here. And I mean, we could go on for a whole nother episode and we'll probably have you guys back. So if you want to check out wealth without Wall street, we'll have that in the show. Notes Wealthwithoutwallstreet.com you can get that scorecard for question I'd like to ask both of you here is if you go back to your 25 year old selves and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

The number one thing I would say is that I wish I had started my infinite banking policy, which is what everybody always says, because once you learn the power of this, you understand that it's a lifetime worth of growth. So you wish you were telling yourself at birth, but you know, then you can't understand English because you're a baby. But at 25, you can understand yourself. So I would say, yeah, that, that would be what I would do.

Oh my goodness. I'm, I'm thinking like, you know, the little E trade baby, something like commercial. Okay.

I was thinking, I was thinking about Ricky Bobby talking about. But anyway.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, I would say that my mindset was focused on just being a worker, right. And that's what was trained. It had been ingrained in me. That's what I had watched and observed up to that point. And it would have been to seek out membership. It would have been to seek other people of who I would want my life to look like. Because if I would have done that, I would have found entrepreneurship through that. People who were enjoying the lives that I would have wanted were entrepreneurs. And even though I didn't really understand what that meant, I would have found it. And I just think like starting to learn. I mean, people you mentioned having an mba, like we can get an MBA in the car ride from work, from listening to podcasts like yours, and to listening and reading books and other things. And those things will help us. I mean, one of our mentors, he was actually an immigrant to the States, he went to college on a tennis scholarship and he wanted to learn how to speak English. And just like the, you know, the art. What's the proper word? It's not dialect, but you know, like be able to be conversational in English. And he went to the library that he was at and they were like, we don't have conversational English, so we have conversational French, German, Spanish, you know, like, we don't conversational English at our.

You know, because that's what we.

An American university.

Right.

And so what she did at the time is she gave him an audiobook, and so he didn't know any difference. She was like, well, listen to how they speak and that'll be. Well, it ended up being Tony Robbins. This guy at 10 years old is listening to Tony Robbins create a mindset. And he became one of the most talented entrepreneurs that we've ever met, sold a business for several billion dollars. And it's because he was learning from entrepreneurs. I would say find people that you can learn from who are entrepreneurs. And I wish I could have done that myself.

That's fantastic. Well, John, I really appreciate being on the show. Joey and Russ, check them out@wealthwithoutwallstreet.com and good luck in that storm down there. But remember, in the storm of life, if you follow this advice, it can keep your boat that much more steady. Sam.