I Spent $25,000 on Myself… Here’s What Actually Happened

I need to get into another— a circle, a room of winners, a room of people who want more in their life.

You're trying and failing while you're seeing 10, 15 other people around you trying and failing.

What does that really mean to invest in yourself?

As a leader, you've had to have front-loaded that money, that time, that investment before anyone else can invest in you.

I want to be more, but I'm not proud of who I am. I don't want that in my life.

At some point, you gotta cut people out of your life because it's becoming too toxic.

I see the person I want to be. I don't know how to get there.

Victim mentality. Victim that your surroundings put you in that box.

That's why I need to invest in myself.

The reality is you can step out of that box anytime.

Failure takes a toll on you.

You're so self-conscious.

Invest into that person who's already done it.

Exactly.

I've invested $25,000 in myself. Here's what I've learned.

Why do you think people don't invest in themselves?

People don't invest in themselves because they've bought into the lie about their own self-worth. They, they feel like they're not worth it. They feel like that investing won't work. And I feel like they're waiting for permission that's never going to happen. You know, most people are living other people's dreams. The job that they have, the career that they're in, the life that looks good on paper. Looks great, but I feel like they're not fulfilled with what it is that they're doing. And most people don't take the steps because They feel like they're not worth it. They feel like the change wouldn't work for them, that they've accepted their circumstance. Oh, I'm just the way I am. This is just how it is. They've accepted the ceiling. So people don't take the risk of the investment because one, they don't know how to invest in themselves. Like, what does that really mean to invest in yourself? I think that's where most people— they get stuck, get confused and get stuck. Because when you look at investments in general, most people think of investments as a monetary thing. What stock market should I invest into? What, uh, Bitcoin? People look at investments as— and what is an investment? An investment is something that you gain something that has losses. I would argue that investing in yourself has more guarantees than playing in the stock market if you want to invest, because you are in control of those investments into yourself. You're in control of the knowledge you're gaining. You're in control of the environment you're putting yourself into. You're in control of the takeaways that are to be taken away.

Yeah, it's the one thing that someone can't take away from you. Yeah, the thing you actually can't lose is what you've invested in, in your skills, essentially.

Yeah, most people don't take advantage of those opportunities because of the unknown. What if this doesn't work for me, you know? And it's, that's the limiting belief that's there. You're not believing, maybe you're not believing in the person or the product or whatever you're investing into. But then at the same time, maybe you're not investing, or you're, you're not taking on that responsibility to say, I can make this work. Because more people face the fear than they face the fact of success. That's a bar. Sorry.

It's all emotion.

It is.

They're in a limiting mindset. They're in a scared mindset.

Yeah. And you say emotion, and some people are logical with their decisions. They are emotional because now they feel that they need to make this investment or this difference. And then you have those who are— they don't know how to act. They don't act because they don't have the discipline to do it, which doesn't rely on the emotion or the logic. They're just a leaf in the wind. But the biggest thing is when you're looking to invest in yourself, what does it really do for you? And for me, I break it down into the 4 C's. I'm all about frameworks when it comes to understanding concepts, because any speaker who speaks, they will talk in a framework that makes everything make sense. Yeah, just talking you're just talking and rambling.

It's also easier to remember.

It is. It's, it's digestible and you can always relate back to it. And that's why I say the 4 C's: clarity, confidence, credibility, cash flow. Those 4 things help you to navigate investing into yourself. And to keep it simple, clarity. First, you're clear, you're clear on exactly who it is you want to be. What do I want to invest myself into? And to be able to realize something like that, some people need to explore, explore. But the reason why they explore is because something hit them where they need to explore. For example, somebody who wants to lose weight, they explore when they're either diagnosed with a health problem, they're physically not able to do something, or they're unhappy with their circumstance and they feel their self-esteem is low because deep down in their mind, they're like, I want to be more, but I'm not proud of who I am. I don't have that confidence in it.

That's true. There is a pain point or a trigger that prompted that action.

Yeah. And a lot of people need that pain point to be hit for them to finally make that move to do the investment. To then have that clarity on what it is that they need to do. You know, for me, my clarity was my environment, working where I was working and seeing how everyone's lives were, seeing their limited beliefs on this is it. When you just clock in and you say, I'm just going to make it through the shift. That's all I have. I'm just going to make it through my 12 hours like that's That's the clarity of that is I don't want that in my life. I want more than that. So I— how do I get out of my environment? Well, I need to do— I need to get into another circle, another, another room, a room of winners, a room of people who want more in their life. But to get in those doors, gotta pay to play.

You gotta pay to play. You gotta find an in. Yeah.

And most people don't look for the end because one, they don't trust the end. Two, they don't know how to get in to the end. And three, they're comfortable where they're at. Yeah, they don't want that change.

Their pain wasn't strong enough yet to force that change.

Yeah. If you're listening to this and you're a high-income W-2 professional and you feel like you're working hard but creating nothing that's actually yours, let me talk to you for a second. You probably make really good money. You're disciplined, you're driven, you've built a solid career, but deep down inside, you know you're capable of doing more. And I don't mean working more shifts or taking more responsibility. I mean creating something that belongs to you. Maybe you thought about building something special online using your knowledge, your experience, maybe even your perspective, but you either overthink it or you stay stuck because you don't have a clear plan. That's exactly why I created the Post to Profit Masterclass. This is a live 90-minute experience on Zoom with me where I'm going to walk you through how to turn what you already know into a personal brand that creates income outside your job. In just 90 minutes, you'll have real clarity on how to position yourself the right way, how to turn your expertise into a simple offer, and how to create content that leads to real momentum, real income, and real ownership while building towards multiple 5-figure months. If you're serious about creating something that's yours instead of just collecting a paycheck to help build someone else's dream, click the link below and join the next Post to Profit Masterclass. All right, now let's get back to the video. For that change to happen, they have to put themselves in that pain if they're not in the pain yet before it's too late. But they need the clarity. And when they get the clarity, they'll gain confidence. Because now they're confident in their actions. They're confident they were able to make the change, the one move. For you, for example, their clarity was knowing that you want to start a business. And in order to have a business, you need to be out there, you know, you need to be known, your marketing. You could be a closet setter, closet closer, dial people, leads as an insurance agent. Great. But that's all you're going to be. When you want to build your own, you need to have the confidence to actually be out in front of people to say, this is what I do, which is what made you get into now making your YouTube videos and your channels.

My pain was so strong that I was out there business to business marketing myself in person and then on social media.

Yeah, you're door knocking, you're going to cold, you're walking into businesses.

Most people would start social media first and then door knock.

Yeah.

But I found comfort in the door knock before the social media.

Which is crazy because that's such an old school mentality to go and door knock. And then people, back in my day, I was walking miles and door knocking.

Yeah, they say it's a lost art.

Oh yeah, you found the art.

I knocked the art.

Which is wild. But you start building that confidence and you feel better about yourself. For the person that wanted to lose the weight, they feel confident now to be able to be a speaker to then walk around with their shirt off or even— and it's funny because I think about this when I didn't really care about my physique or anything like that. When the wind would hit my shirt and then it'll hit and your belly button would be hanging out and you see the little holes, you always got to do this all the time, just untuck because you felt uncomfortable. Like those little subconscious things play in your mind. And then once you don't have that, you can then use that same mindset energy into something else instead of that weighing on you. It's a little small, little tweaks that can make such a huge impact in your life.

That's true, because when you do have a pain point, like you said, like your belly button indent showing through the shirt, that's taking up bandwidth in your day-to-day life. That's distracting you from all the other things going on. So you're out working or consciously talking to someone, and but inside you're thinking, okay, how's my, how's my shirt looking up against me? And it's not allowing you to be fully present in the things you're doing because you're so self-conscious.

Yeah.

And that threshold is building until you're like, damn, I need to make a change. I need a diet. I need to go to the gym. I need to take action. But first, they're going to find that clarity and then, you know, go on to the next step to actually make that change. Yeah.

And they get that comfort finally. And when you have that comfort, you start developing credibility because now you're able to You've already executed what you were able to do, that first milestone. Now you have the credibility to say, I did this. If you're a coach, I did this, you could do it too. Testimonies, um, whatever business you're in, what if you're selling, if you're financial advisor and you need credibility on being in front of the camera to be able to sell whatever you do, or just give free game. I mean, building that credibility is huge, but it would never start if you didn't have the credit, the clarity to have the confidence. And when you're— my mind is like just rushing because I'm thinking about so many great things right now. But it's like, side note here, when you have so much in your closet of your mind, so many clothes in your closet of your mind, and you don't know what to pick because you don't know what outfit you want to wear, that's how my mind functions when it comes to conversations. Which in my aspect of investing, because this is complete side note here for investing for myself, I want to invest on being a better communicator. I want to be able to have these deep conversations, be more analytical, be more framework mindset, more punctual with the material that it's not all over the place. It's literally just like bar after bar after bar. And again, this is a super side note tangent right now I'm about to go on. I guess why I liked rap music so much, and not hardcore shoot 'em gun bars, you know, type stuff, but I do like the gun bars, you know, shout out J. Cole, he's got some great gun bars. But the flow of rap music, and that's why it sticks in your mind, you're able to say the Drake words in the club because the words hit and has such subliminal meanings that make you think so much. If I could take the rap background that I have had and apply that into a functional conversation that's uplifting.

Totally different direction.

Totally different direction. I feel like that would be such a great thing, but that's an investment that I'm looking for in myself is being a better communicator.

Yeah, translating those skills into something different.

Yeah.

But same framework, I would say.

Same framework. Yeah, framework is there. It's the— that's the foundation. But it's applying it to something else.

Yeah.

And that's part of the investment that I'm trying to do for myself. Super side note there. But going back to the topic of having your confidence, that would give me better confidence to be able to show up, to be able to have more conversations and talk, especially with people who I don't know. And bridging that comfort between the conversations is like, we can talk as if we've known each other for years, but I'm confident to be able to show up and deliver, especially if I'm a guest or I'm a host on anyone's show or podcast. If it's in person, if it's a meeting, if it's giving a presentation, that goes such a long way.

Yeah. And you might have an easier transition into growing that skill because you have that background as opposed to someone starting fresh.

Exactly.

And they're not used to working in that way in their mind.

Yeah, they're not because they're so all over the place that they don't even— how do I even get to those steps? And that's one thing that I look at people who are so successful in that. How do I get to where you're at?

Yeah.

And always have to remember that people aren't born like this.

They're not.

People aren't born with communication skills. It's a skill that they acquire by practice, by repetition, repetitions, by exposure, by exposure. Yeah.

Yeah.

And by doing that, you have to show up, you have to do it, you have to apply and put the reps in. And then over time, episode 100, we're going to be speaking like we've got our PhD, you know. That's—

I feel like that was a big weak point for me and still is, is I've always admired people that were so great at telling stories. And when they're asked a question, they say something with true meaning behind their words. And they're not just all over the place, like you said. And because I've always been the type that's had a short response because I'm aware that I'm not a good storyteller. So I am a short responder and I just give you the answer, but I wish I was able to, you know, facts tell, stories sell. So I wish I was able to be more like that. I think I'm shifting that way, but like you said, it's practice and I've always been more self-conscious about that, about me that, so I would just briefly respond.

Yeah.

And I think this is really helping.

It is because I'm the same way. I'm, it may be because I'm not irrational, but I'm impatient. And I don't like beating around the bush, but then rambling is beating around the bush. But then when someone asks me a question, I just want to give the delivery. But when you're in sales, when you're running a business, you have to give people the journey. You just can't give them the destination. And that's one thing that I have to sit back and really frame how my conversation can work for someone to understand what it is I'm saying so that way they understand the journey to say, that's why I need to do it. That's why I need to invest in myself, because I see my end result. I see the person I want to be. I don't know how to get there. And if you show someone just the destination and this super side note here too, when somebody— I don't know where I heard this from, but when you go to watch a movie, you want to watch How would you feel if you just saw the ending?

I wouldn't want to watch it anymore.

You wouldn't want to enjoy the movie, right? You wouldn't enjoy the journey. The number one question I usually get from people like you is, Justin, how the heck do you get your videos to look and sound so dang good? Well, the truth is it all comes down to the gear that I use, and you'd probably be shocked with how affordable it actually is. So what I did was put together a full list of the gear that I use, and I I want to give it to you. If you're listening to this or watching this, just click the link in the description box and check out my full gear guide for every budget. Now let's get back into the conversation.

That's why I never watch a movie twice. Some people watch their favorite movies over and over again. I hate watching a movie twice because I already know the storyline. I already know the punchline of it.

Yeah, but to argue that, sometimes you want to watch the story twice because you're able to get a different perspective.

True.

It's like if you listen to a different— if you listen to the same song for over years, you're always going to be in a different season that when you hear that song, it's going to hit differently.

Yeah.

You might go into a breakup. Now that song hits more. You might got married. Now that song hits more. It's always going to be a different scene in your life that you're going to pick something different from. I didn't hear that. I heard this song for years. I never, I never paid attention to that.

Yeah.

And then you learn more about it. So you could be doing that with the movies. Maybe you didn't see that scene. Maybe that dialogue in that one cast was super powerful and it made a shift in your mind to say, man, I didn't really—

but I already know how it ends.

You know how it ends. But again, when you're plugging in your GPS, you're point A to point B. There's so many routes to get to that one destination. But along every one of those routes, you're going to pick up something different. Yeah, that maybe you want to go and do this route. Like when we go to the gym, what happens? We go one way and we say, all right, we know what's there. I want to go this way now. Oh, I never been over there. I didn't notice that store was there. We should go to that store. Well, had we have not made that different detour to the same place of the same destination with the same ending, with the same punchline, we would have never been able to see those new things and have those different perspectives.

True. That is true. I guess if I really like the arts, I would watch movies multiple times so that I can get that different feeling. But I think maybe in education things, I would do that more so.

Yeah, I guess because of what the subject is and then being that category, the genre, it being a movie, You look at a movie for entertainment.

Exactly.

So because it's entertainment, you've already been entertained. There's no more entertainment now.

I'm not going to a movie to soak it up and regurgitate that movie to someone else.

Yeah. And when you say— I know we're getting off topic here, but when you say entertainment, for me, the investment for making this kind of content and showing up to certain meetings and certain groups, I feel like it's my job as somebody who's to be a leader to consume the content that isn't just for dopamine, for my pleasure. But it's my responsibility to be able to attain information that I can pass on to the next person. So when I look at content now, I don't— I make— I'm not gonna lie, I'm human. I get captured in the doom scroll. 11 o'clock at night and I'm watching car salesmen and crazy things going on and I'm like, oh man, yeah, keep going, Justin. Oh my God, been on here for 30 minutes, I gotta get off, you know. But I also feel like it's my responsibility to be able to pick information from certain shows, podcasts, videos, to take in that information to learn and apply that investment tool there into my life and see how I can apply it that make my life different in a sharper way, my mind sharper, my my AI tools that I do, my camera settings, my podcast studio, how can I apply that to me? And then how do I teach the other person what it is I've learned? How did I learn to go to the gym and do certain things? How did I learn to diet and, and treat my body this way? It's all by applying the stuff there. So as a responsible steward, I need to give that, give that knowledge.

You know, I agree. Yeah, I agree. That's big. You got to practice what you preach. Yeah, and you actually— people come to you for certain things, and you have to, as a leader, as other people investing in you, you have to have invested already. You've had to have front-loaded that money, that time, that investment before anyone else can invest in you.

Yeah, and looking at that, actually, there's window shoppers and there's people that go into stores and buy. Window shoppers are always going to just kick the can down the road and wish I had this. I wish I could make the change. Oh, I wish that would look good on me. But they would never just go into the store and actually buy the dang thing that they were looking at.

Yep.

That time that's passed between window shopping to then finally buying it. What did that really cost you? Yeah, emotionally, it cost you time. It cost you the stress of thinking about the what-ifs. It cost you to stay in your same circumstance that you could have already made that change. But you were hesitant. You didn't believe in yourself. You didn't have the confidence. And now you're looking back saying, I wish I did that when I was younger. Had you just made that investment that day and went to the store and got whatever you wanted to get, or call that person and said, hey, I want to learn from you, teach me your ways, you would have already made the difference by then. And I think of so many people that always reflect back to the high school days. Oh, man, when I was in high school, oh, man, I was a killer. Well, what happened? Why aren't you killing anymore? That was like 10 years ago.

Yeah, the glory days.

The glory days. Well, well, you see, life happened. And then— and it's this excuse after excuse after excuse. And that's the more you accept those excuses, the more that becomes your reality, the more you buy into that lie that that's your life.

Now they've accepted the box that the world put them in, that society or their circle or their community put them in. They didn't see beyond that border.

Yeah, and now because of that, they've created such a strong border that they can't even climb over the fence.

Yeah, and a big thing with that too is victim mentality. Victim that your surroundings put you in that box and kept you in this box. But the reality is you can step out of that box anytime. You don't have to be there.

Yeah, but you choose to and you remain there. Yeah, but all that to say, Credibility will go a long way once you've already had the clarity and the confidence. But if you're in the business world, that could ultimately bring you cash flow. We live to be able to make the money, to make the means to support our families, to support our dreams that aren't selfish. It shouldn't be selfish, but to also give to others. And when you have all of those C's, especially if you're trying to leave your business or leave your business, if you're trying to leave your current job that you're at, that you're unhappy in, and how do I make money? Well, once you start that investment, the cash flow is going to happen. That becomes the byproduct because now you have broken those self-limiting beliefs. Money is going to come in, then you're going to be treating it as a game. And now you're going to figure out, well, how can I make more money? Well, I need to invest more because like a business, you're going to continue to invest the money that you— your capital that you gain back into the business, and you're going to keep the business running, improving, scaling.

Exactly. It could be said in both personal and if you're a business person. So in personal, if you wanted to lose the weight, like you said, the belly button example, yeah, then you are, you know, going into gym consistently, maybe for 2 weeks, you know, automatically you feel better, you feel more energized, maybe you lost a pound or 2 or more than that because it's water weight in the beginning, and then it gives you more ammo, like, oh wow, I do feel a lot better, and it gives you positive reinforcement to keep going. And then you're— you realize, man, I'm healthier, I attract more attention, all the positives that come with it. Um, and the same thing in business, like you said, you want to continue to invest. And once you start seeing those gains return to you, then you need to throw that back into your investment or your business until you keep scaling to where you want to be at. Or, you know, the endless goal.

The endless goal. And then when you think that you made your goal, you're going to make a new goal.

Yeah.

And looking at the investments of it, it's all learning. And when I say that these are all guarantees, it's not a loss because even a loss is still a win because you've learned what not to do. You've already got rid of the what if. That was probably a what if of yours that was costing you momentum, costing you hesitations. Now that you know that that doesn't work, well, perfect. I won't do that again. Yeah, it might have been an expensive thing that happened, but Did I lose anything for myself? No, I gained a new skill. I gained the skill to say no to that. I gained the skill to recognize what I should not do, how to help the next person not make that same mistake there. Now I became an educator. I've gained the respect and the credibility of now being able to educate other people.

Exactly.

On what not to do, which I can say, I've invested $25,000 in myself. Here's what I have learned, which I did. I invested $25,000 into myself, which sounds crazy to a lot of people. You say that to any random person, they're going to be like, you did what? You could have bought a car. You could have bought this. You could have bought— and that's what it is. You could have bought, bought, bought. And what is buying the stuff doing for you? You buy— and when we bought the Tesla, what happened? Oh, I wanted to wrap the car and I want to add a little modifications and it's a Tesla. I want to add a little carbon to it. I wanted to, what else? It was not much to do with the Tesla.

Tesla's pretty good. Yeah. You should have talked about the BMW.

Well, I was going to say the BMW is a different story. So you get the BMW, oh, you buy an M4. Oh, now I got to wrap it. I got to lower it now. Now I got to get the rims. I got to change my bumper.

Yeah. Make it look more aggressive.

More aggressive. I got to buy, buy, buy into it. And then to the point that when you've perfected the car into whatever you want, now what do you do? Now I sell it. I stay with it. Now I'm kind of like on to the next thing there.

Yeah, the next tier.

The next tier. But what did that really do for me other than give me the consumption, that greed of wanting to continue to pour money into something that wasn't truly making a difference in my life?

And cars are the worst investment because all they do is depreciate.

Not all cars, though. Your luxury cars, your supercars. Well, but we won't get into that.

Yeah. Then the small demographic of supercars to the, the the ones that make 20 versions of it and then that's it.

Yeah, they buy it, they hold on to it and they resell it. Yeah, that's a whole different story, which is a whole different business there. But at least for my car, it's a conversation starter, which then bridges the gap of, oh, what do you do for work? Which then asks, how do I get like you? What do you do? Can I work with you? I mean, that conversation alone. I mean, today I got 7 messages driving on the road from people talking about my car looks nice. What do I do? And they now they see the podcast and they're like, oh bro, you do a podcast. Like, that was an investment for me for that reason. But the investment for yourself, like a marketing write-off, it is. Yeah, yeah, literally. But the investment for yourself, that, that $25,000, if I apply that to anything else, what am I really gonna get? What am I really valuing from spending that money elsewhere that's not myself?

Yeah.

And Being in the life insurance field too, that taught me, especially with doing the advanced market, you are your biggest asset. And without you, nothing else around will be working outside of God's work, not battling that, but you— I'm going to work, I'm providing, I'm paying the bills, I'm having the mindset to show up every day. If something happens to me, none of everything goes away, you know. So when it comes to protecting yourself and to build on yourself, it's important to pour back into yourself there. The food that you eat, going to the gym, heart healthy, mindset, relationships, spiritually. There's so many facets on investing in yourself that are so powerful. But the problem is people don't know what to consume to be able to call it a true investment. And that's why I'm a firm believer that when you find somebody that you can say, man, I love what he does. How does he do it? I got to pay how much? That's not even a problem. That's it. And I'm going to make that? Oh, take my money. Because it's not even about the money. It's about the transformation. Yeah, it's about what comes because I can take that $25,000 and then make $100,000. Yeah, I could pour $100,000 and then make $500,000.

Well, let's back up a little here.

Sorry, I was getting excited.

Not everyone has built up that income where they can blow it when they, they hit that trigger point, when that pain threshold gets high enough and they're like, I need to make a change. They don't have that monetary investment. So let's say for those listening here that don't have You know, they're still living paycheck to paycheck, they're unhappy with their job, and they know a change has to happen, but they can't afford a big investment to buy into that circle of people so that they can be influenced, absorb the information, use it in their own life, have true mentorship. If they can't afford a buy-in, what can they do to invest in themselves?

That's a really good question because that's probably majority of the people in this world.

Agreed.

Everyone's in a different season. You consume what you need to consume to get you to the next level. If you spend your time investing your time in the wrong things, you're never going to make the means to be able to get out of the race that you're in. So if I see somebody that I like and they have endless content, I'm going to consume as much as I can, and I'm going to apply all that knowledge to everything that I have. Because I know that free game is out there. Like, there are gatekeepers and there's some people who literally just give everything away.

Yeah, it's a great age to live in right now.

It is. And what makes the difference is that when you pay, you pay attention because now it's more intentional. But if I'm seeing something that is $100,000 worth of information that's given to me for free, it doesn't, it doesn't hit me the same way. I think of like a spoiled kid. Kids get all their stuff from their parents. Oh, that's Daddy's money. And they don't treat it the same. But when they worked up to it and they were consuming it, or they worked up to it and they bought it, they're treating it like, oh, my precious.

So what you're saying is if you can't afford it yet, you find some people either in your community or online that you're like, man, I really look up to these people. I do like what they're doing. I wish I was in their shoes.

Yeah.

And so you start consuming their content or hanging around them if it's someone in person until maybe you built up something where, hey, I can invest a little bit more in this monetary-wise. So at that point, you're able to pull the trigger and get even further with them.

And I think of like, there's so many ways that, you know, that's being an objection of this being too expensive. If you really want something, people always find the way. They always find the money to be able to make something happen. Whether that's taking out a loan, asking a friend, doing a payment plan on something. There's so many ways to get money that there's no excuse outside of you having terrible medical condition that you can't work.

That's true.

You have 20 kids, or if you have 2 kids or 1 kid, single mom, single dad. I know there are circumstances where you have you— I just can't do it.

Yeah, I agree, because even let's say someone could scrounge up a couple hundred dollars per month by not ordering the Amazon order every other day, and then maybe cutting off some subscriptions that aren't serving them. Maybe some subscription— yeah, I can't even say that word. Subscriptions. Why does it sound wrong?

Subscriptions.

Subscriptions that they forgot about that they're still paying for every month.

Yeah, like a gym membership that people— that's where most gyms make their money.

That's true. Majority.

Yeah.

Don't use it.

People are spending all this extra money on things for new— on things that they don't need, they don't use. Like you said, subscriptions, Amazon packages, stuff like that. Like, do I need this? Is me buying this stuff replacing the pain that I'm having right now, fulfilling that pain of me wanting to be different? So I keep spending and splurging on these little dopamine hits to make myself feel better and comfortable about my position.

Yeah.

But deep down inside, I really want more, but I don't know how to do it. So I revolt or resort back to the person that I am now.

Yeah.

There's a lot of different factors, but that's also why it's nice to— it's important to reach out to people who are thinking different than what you are because they're able to help you overcome those thoughts and help you realize your situation from an external point of view to say, hey, this is what you need to do to get out of where you're at. I was there. Everybody's been broke. Everybody's been in the same position at some point. But there's probably one person or one situation, one milestone, one pain point that made someone make the change and say, I got to change today.

Yeah. And I think the traditional way is finding a mentor out there. Yeah. Going to that internship, whatever it is, working for free. But with this day and age, with everything at a grasp of a hand, finding people online that resonate with you, exploring everyone and finding that group that resonates with you that you want to be a part of. That you want what they have.

Yeah.

And you do, you are able to get in there. You just need to go from point A to point B, cut off the excess weight in your own life to get you to the next step, or else you're always going to be where you are.

Yeah, trim the fat. And you can always reach out to people. The worst thing that somebody can say is no, or they don't respond to you. But at least I tried.

It's the persistency that works.

Exactly. It's on— and fortune's in the follow-up. Follow up with somebody who you wanted to reach out to, like my mom's reading all those books on that lady that I can't remember her name. What's her name?

Lisa.

Lisa. What?

I don't know.

Okay. She's reading these books on Lisa.

She calls her my Lisa.

Yeah, I think it's L-Y-S-A. You know what I did? I did.

You messaged her?

I DM'd her and I just said, hey, my mom has been reading your books. She loves your content. She loves everything about you. It would be amazing if somehow I can get my mom to come see you. And I mean, it was— this was a very deep message I sent her. It was pretty lengthy. She probably didn't look at it because of that, but she didn't respond. Am I going to follow up? Yes. But it's me extending that invitation out there to be able to see, hey, maybe she's probably $50,000 to go see. I don't know, maybe.

I don't know.

Yeah. But she might also say, hey, I do charge this, but thank you for reaching out to me. I will take your mom in for free. You never know.

Yeah, I was actually watching this one podcast where this woman said that her mentors— she didn't have access to a lot of mentors at the time. She couldn't afford a buy-in either. So what she did is found someone online and had great content. She loved what they're doing. And so she kept reaching out saying like, Man, that content that you posted, that really changed my perspective on this. I'll report back when I've implemented that. So like a week or two later or a month later, she'd say, hey, I implemented this. This is how it changed my business. I just want to say thank you. No need to respond. And she kept doing that for about 2 years. Once in a while after, you know, repeated saying, I put into action, this is how it worked. And he would be like, oh great, like, he almost became invested in her journey because she kept, you know, sending him messages without even expecting a response. Eventually, maybe a little bit, he'll respond. And after 2 years of that back and forth, she was like, hey, I'm in New York too. I would love to take you out for lunch. Would you be interested? And at that point, he had that little inkling of like, I'm invested in her success because she's been using my content, putting it into practice. I've been following her journey a little bit. and now they're meeting for lunch and they've never met before. And she was able to get that buy-in with that mentor because she was actually not expecting anything in return, but she was using his knowledge and actually practicing it and giving him that follow-up, even if he was never going to read it. She was persistent for years and she got that mentor. And what she did, she got that mentor, she was able to have access to his community after actually being with him. And now they're in person, they have that personal relationship that opens up a whole new network of people. And once she's in that network, guess what? She's going to reach out to another person who's coming in, do the same thing, and then keep doing that stepping stone. So it doesn't always have to be monetary. Monetary will get you there quicker to buy into that circle because they're actively investing in you because you invested in them. But it doesn't always have to be that way.

Consistent actions leads to indirect opportunities. She was very persistent and consistent with reaching out to this person, even though she wasn't getting anything back. But the indirect opportunity was the acknowledgment that this person was giving him, and then became a testimony that he's probably going to use, which would then make him more money. So it's going to invite her into his circle to make her more money. For free.

That's true. And the statistics show that successful people actually fail a lot more than unsuccessful people because successful people are just trying more. They're taking more shots. They're actually failing a hell of a lot, but all it takes is failing 100 times, 20 times, whatever it may be, 2,000 times until you get to that success. But they were persistent.

And when you say that, that failure, that failure takes a toll on you. But how do you limit your failures? By investing time, knowledge, the person. Invest into that person who's already done it. Yeah, the success leaves the clues. There's footprints for you to follow. Reverse engineer what they did.

Exactly.

And then make the magic happen instead of trying to figure it out on your own. And I'm guilty of this because I'm the kind of person who wants to know the good and the bad as much as I can before I make a decision. Like, I'm the worst person to sell to. If someone came to me about, oh, this is what the product is, this is what we're doing, this is the game plan, all right, cool, yeah, I'll let you know.

It's a skeptic.

I'm very, I'm very skeptical about things, everything. I am, especially if I don't have like good energy with you.

Yeah.

And that's a huge thing. And I have to go back and do my research. I gotta do the Carfax before I buy the car.

You're always searching up, like, even if we get you know, exposure to a new carrier, things like that. You're like, what are the reviews? What is, you know, the outcome for people using their products, whatever it may be? Because you want to vet whatever it is.

Yeah.

Before you even, you know, want to market yourself or use it in your own life. You're always skeptical, which is great.

It is. It's great, but it's bad. It's great because I like to make sure that if I'm putting my name or my stamp of approval on something, it's a reflection on me.

Yeah.

It's my—

it almost paralyzes you sometimes. It does.

It's Yeah. Analysis by paralysis. Paralysis by analysis. Said it backwards. Yeah. 'Cause you're paral— you're paralyzed because you're overanalyzing. But yeah. And I don't make a move, which may cost me more time, more effort, more energy, more mental capacity, more frustration, spending more money on the wrong things.

100%. And I was just thinking about that earlier today because some businesses, they work really quickly. They, their trajectory's like this, but why is it like this? Because they are making quick action. They're moving quickly and making quick decisions. But some people need to think about it. Is it going to work? What are the pros and cons? How are they going to feel? And they think about it for months. But if they just made a decision and move forward, they're already 10 steps ahead of the other guy still debating, is this the right decision?

And that's a whole sales thing right there. I mean, do I need to feel like I need to make that move? Is it a feeling that I need to have? Is it logical? Well, let me be logical about it. Let me do the pros and cons, make sure, you know, ways. But do I feel like this is a good fit for me? Like, I don't know anything about you, but I feel, I feel what you're feeling. I don't know what you have, but I'll buy whatever you're buying because I feel, I feel the energy. Or I'm at the pain point in my life where I feel like I need to do this because I have to do this. I need to make this decision. I'm at my wit's end. I'm stuck at this job that makes me so miserable. I don't know what to do with myself. I need to get out of this environment. Please help me.

Yeah, almost like a lifeline. You'll take whatever lifeline is shoved out to you.

Yeah, and that right there is your first step into duty investment because now you've hit the pain point so hard that I need to get out of this. I can't kick this can down the road no more. I keep going back to kicking the can. I don't know why. Kicking the tire. Let's change it up there.

Yeah, no one uses that saying anymore.

Anymore? You don't even know about the sayings.

I know.

So, but the, yeah, the power of investing into yourself is it's huge and it's one that many people take for granted because they think of going to college was the investment. But I'd argue you're right, it is. It is the investment because you went there, you got student loans, you learned about yourself because that's what it always comes down to.

You learn what not to do.

You learn what not to do. You learn what to do.

Yeah.

But I know that's more for self-growth. Maybe your knowledge, maybe your career, maybe you know what you want to be. But then what does that cost you in the end? Because who are you learning from?

That's true. I think for a lot of careers out there, education, college is going to go away because it is better to learn the— what— by the person that's already doing the job, either automatically making them your mentor, having that buy-in from the get-go and then using that to learn. Honestly, with education, I don't think— I probably— 90% of the people I know aren't using their education. Everything they've learned in college has not been applied to their current career. Yes, maybe it made them a little more mature, they have good general knowledge, but did it directly translate to their job? No.

Yeah, unless it's your career of you being a lawyer, a doctor, something of a professional degree that you're using it.

Or they needed that. Yeah, like you said, they needed the professional degree to get into that job.

Yeah, they need that stamp of approval of whatever.

They needed it on their resume.

And I look at a lot of my ER coworkers who, oh, I got to get my bachelor's in nursing, I got to go back to school. And those who did go back to school to get their bachelor's, yeah, it was such a waste of time. It was just writing a bunch of papers that had nothing to do with the job. But I needed to get that degree so I can get that pay increase of maybe $10 more an hour. So then, and it's like, but then you're set the same situation because now you got the $10, but your cost of living probably went up because now you bought more stuff.

Yeah.

But then puts you back at the same position when you were less, um, I was going to say poor. That's not a good thing to say when you had less money. But you're still in that same mindset. So you invested into something like a dopamine rush of getting— making more money for a short term. They then get you right back into the same position. So now I have to go and invest more money to now get another degree or invest the time to look for another job. And emotion— now I got to probably move because I got to relocate, got to take my kids out of school. Because I need to relocate for this job that'll pay more money to better my family. It's like, it's a constant change emotionally on trying to make a difference when you're chasing the dollars. Yeah. Based off someone else's dream that you're never fulfilling your own.

It is. And I think there's two ways to think about that because there's some people who don't actually wanna learn from the job. They just wanna go where the most money is. They job hop with whoever's gonna give them the most money for the same set of skills they have. But there's other people that job hop to grow their skills to get to a better position because every job, even if the pay's maybe worse, better, whatever it may be, they're job hopping because they're going to learn a new set of skills at that new position and take that to further get promoted in life or, you know, be exposed to new people, new networks.

You saying that made me like, something hit home for me when you said that and not for me, but just watching other people. I have become so anti-corporation and not for making a corporation, but being the cog in the wheel to the corporation. Because in my mind, all I think about is that I'm replaceable at that job. No matter what I'm doing, this place is going to still continue to run after I leave. Just like it ran while I'm there. It may not have the same flair. It may not have the same pizzazz. It may not have my energy. but it's still going to run.

That is why it's so important to, if you do plan on staying in a corporate job, you need to have your side investment or, you know, your nest egg or whatever it may be. Or, you know, like, you know, invest in another career slowly so you can phase out of your corporate job because you are just a number. So even if you're making a $2 million salary because you're the CEO of a company, You think you're not replaceable? You are far from being right. Because how many corporations out there do you see their CEO replaced every year at some of them? Where are they going? They're job hopping. They're all just shifting around.

Yeah.

But at some point, you're going to be without a job. You may have to downgrade. Some people don't even— who would want to downgrade their career? They have to settle for a lower salary somewhere else. And that's hard mentally, emotionally. Financially.

It is. And then, I mean, it's like a lot of doctors I work with who went to med school, they're making good money, and they're so unfulfilled with what they're doing. And now they have to figure out, well, now I got to jump to another hospital, or now I gotta do telehealth, or now I gotta— maybe I want to open up my business, but I don't even know how to. And they don't have the tools to be able to invest in themselves because, again, for them to make the jump, they already need to acquire the skills that are outside of their box.

Yeah, because they were only told patient care. They don't know how to— they're not a, you know, they don't know how to do a business proposal. They don't know how— what licenses it takes to actually have that business. They only have their medical license. They're not a CPA. They're not any of those things. They're not a marketer either. And all those things have to come into play to make your business successful. And overhead's so expensive for all those things, especially in a medical practice. That's why there's virtually 10% private practices out there. Almost everything's bought up by corporations because they make it impossible to stay afloat.

They do. And you have to— and it's a lot to be able to take in all that stuff there. Is that there? I'm thinking about when I say there. Side note, every time I say there, I always say there at the end of a sentence for some reason. I'm trying to not say there.

Yeah, you're doing pretty good.

Doing pretty good.

Better than before.

Yeah, we're getting better. Every podcast we get better, 1% better. But going back to the doctor, there's so many— it's overwhelming to think about all the different things that you have to learn to do. It's like, where do I start? And I don't want to make a move because I'm hesitant because it's too much to take in. But that's where you're looking at the destination versus the journey, because if I give you all my knowledge, if I gave you everything, you wouldn't know what to do. You'd be so overwhelmed. You'd be like, I don't even know where to start. I don't even want to do this. But if you do a step-by-step, breaking it down phase by phase, letter by letter, C by C, and it unlocks new things in your mind, you're able to really enjoy this, that journey, you know, the tops down and the summer breeze and really enjoy the ride until you get to that destination to then really say, Wow, that was great. I— it makes sense. I don't feel overwhelmed. And that comes down to who you're investing your time with and what it is that they're offering you that makes sense for your specific thing. Because everybody— somebody might have a killer offer on making a— like, like Myron Golden, like, people pay a lot of money to be in his circle.

Yeah, like a million dollars, right?

I don't pay a million dollars.

Oh.

But they pay like hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it's like $50,000, I think. Okay, maybe $75,000 now. I don't know.

Where did I get this million-dollar number before?

Because he makes millions of dollars. So it makes sense. But to be a part of his circle, you know, and his offer is phenomenal. Maybe not, may not resonate with somebody because I don't know, he's a Black guy with white beard and maybe I don't vibe with the Black people, you know, something crazy. It may not resonate with you. Well, okay, I'll go with somebody else who's adjacent to him. That's kind of like him. Maybe he doesn't do the same practices, but The principles are kind of similar. Sure, go with that person that makes you say, I'm going to stick with what they tell me. They tell me to jump, I'm jumping because I believe in what they can do. You have to have that relationship when it comes to wanting to invest. You know, when I made my investment with Omar El-Takrori and amongst a few other people, I invested my time, my money with them because their value was so empowering. Empowering, so powerful, their circle of people were even more powerful. It was— I was getting indirect influence from them to open up my limiting beliefs to wanting to do more in my life.

Yeah, and you, you want to— naturally, you want to go to someone that's not too many steps ahead of you that have had so many success stories because, you know, it's possible. You're it's, it's comfortable enough because they're not, you know, transforming $10 million, $100 million businesses. They're transforming the everyday people into something that's, you know, you're making hundreds of thousands of dollars. You know, we're not at the million-dollar, $10 million, $100 million status, but they're transforming people into getting out of that $100K salary into something more. And once you get to that point, then, you know, it's a stepping stone and you want to make sure that you have— you're talking to someone that's working with people in your same bracket.

Yeah, something that's relatable. Because I mean, if I work with Alex Hormozi, I mean, of course he has so much knowledge, but I have no idea where I can even work with him because he's so far ahead that I have not even scratched the surface on the free content he's provided on all his social media platforms. I've not implemented any of that stuff. But again, It's there. Am I implementing it? No. Could I? Yes. But there's also— if I pay him now, I'm going to really implement it because again, you pay, you pay attention because I was like, okay, this is what he's telling me to do. I have to do this. But again, the different season that I'm in, I'm not at the level where I need to then talk to him to say, hey, this is what my business is, this is my ROI, this is my revenue, my bottleneck is this, how can I scale here, blah, blah, blah. I'm not at that level at all.

Yeah, we don't have a 100-employee business where our 20 brick-and-mortar shops that we want to turn into 50 brick-and-mortar shops and scale that. They're, they're operating at a different frequency.

Exactly. So I have to talk to somebody who is more relatable, who is still learning too, but is there or at a situation where I want to be at. I want to be saying I'm making multiple 6 or multiple 7 figures, and they're learning from people who are making eight figures.

Yeah.

And that's— and then for me, there's people who haven't even started yet or who have started, but they don't have the direction.

And in real time, your mentor is fresh in that season of scaling to hundreds of thousands to like millions at that point. So they're fresh in it. So they immediately know how to transfer that knowledge because the Alex Hormozi or whoever, a mentor that's far beyond you know, our stage in life, that's so behind them already. It's not fresh in their mind how to scale that size of a business. They're already at a different stage. So you want to be with someone that's fresh implementing everything because, you know, as they say, like if you had a 10-person employee business now, that's different from a 10-employee business a decade ago. It operated in a different economy, a different market. A different stage in technology. It's completely different.

It is. And they're probably at the point where we've said it so many times, just go watch our other video. They don't have the emotion tied to it anymore. That's all they probably hear is the same questions. How do I get started? If you were in my situation, what would you do? That they're like, guys, just go watch our free content or go talk to this other person who is probably where you want to be for that season. When you make it to their season and have their problems, come talk to us because that's what we're trying to work next.

Exactly. And like you said, in my— well, going back to my example of the lady who reached out for 2 years to get in, you know, get in the same room essentially with that mentor, and then to be exposed to a new network and jump and jump and jump, because essentially her finally getting in the room with that person exposed her to his network of maybe his mentors, and that's where she was able to scale. But it took, you know, essentially a decade to get there. But as you're saying is that you can buy into, you know, the small room that leads you into that bigger room and bigger. Well, I would say smaller and smaller as you go up the ladder.

Yeah.

But a lot more knowledge in that new stage of life.

Yeah. And you're never— the biggest thing to learn is that you have to be a forever student. When you are a student of the game, you have— you just continue to gain infinite wisdom. If you're a know-it-all, then you're never opened up to new ideas. You're never opened up to more possibilities to change your situation, which is why some people don't invest in themselves, because they already have all the answers. Yeah, because they're complacent where they're at. They think that, oh, this— you're not going to be able to do that. They've already limited them. They already limited their self and they're pushing on their limited beliefs onto you. Yeah, because if they didn't take the leap of faith, there's no way you're going to do it.

And a big thing too is that if you were just to, let's say, take the slow track, slowly find someone that you want to just, you know, be a fly on the wall and learn from them and slowly implement things, you may be exposed to that one person, but you're not exposed to a lot of people around them or someone in the same stage of life. You're not there with 10 other flies on the wall learning. So it's a beautiful thing being in these rooms with other people that are in the same stage, actively seeking aggressively to grow or scale or just be better in general.

[Speaker:BRANDON] Yeah.

[Speaker:JULIA] And so you're not only learning from that mentor, but you're learning side by side from people who are trying and failing. So you're trying and failing while you're seeing 10, 15 other people around you trying and failing. So you're learning exponentially, not just vertically, but horizontally. And that cumulative effect is driving you to your goal faster. And then I think about people that I see, and I'm like, wow, they were living a normal life before, and then all of a sudden, like, they have a new aura about them. They're doing so much. You could see they, like, are— their, their vapor around them is all success. You can see their aura is glowing. I'm like, what changed? Like, how did that happen? And it's because they just immersed themselves in that community. They immersed themselves in something new because everyone before had a limiting mindset, but they forced themselves out of the box and put themselves in a new box where there was no ceiling. And so their whole mindset shifted, which affected their actions personally, business, and they pretty much leveled up in all aspects of your life. And you're like, what the heck changed? Yeah, well, they changed their environment.

It's funny, when you're talking about learning horizontally, I was thinking about being on the front lines in a battle. And I'm walking with all my brethren, my soldiers, and we're all just moving forward.

Like a shield. Yeah.

Overcoming the opponent, which is the environment I'm in. But we're all holding hands and we're all shields together, moving forward and pressing forward. I don't know why that was my visual.

Yeah. It's the cumulative effect. It's powerful.

It is. And I will say that the short conversations that I have in a lot of our meetings and our groups, like an hour, 2 hours long, it's so invigorating and so empowering because everybody wants the success. I mean, we start off with our wins. What did you— what was the win this week? Give me some wins. These are the wins. These are the questions about my wins and how do I get better? And it makes you want more. It's like, man, I'm hungry for more. I love this environment. And then you come to the regular folks, and I'm going to say regular folks because that's the majority of people, the middle classers, and they're in the middle for a reason because they don't know how to get above it. And they're too afraid to go below it, so they're stuck in the middle. But how do I— I go back to that, and it's the same conversations, it's the same talk about the rerun shows, it's the same problems in life, the same money issues we're having, the job issues. It's— there's no growth, it's death, opposite, it's just stalemate. Nothing's going on there. Yeah, kids are getting older but nothing's changing with them, you know, it's It's a hard environment to be a part of. And though you want to encourage other people, you can't. It's hard to encourage someone to invest in themselves when they don't want it.

It's funny you say that because for those listening, Justin and I, we go to a men and women's group at church to better ourselves, you know, with God and grow that part of our life. So yesterday we were talking about, um, how God is in our life and, you know, being a Christian person, having people around you that aren't very religious, aren't living a Christian life. There's a fine line of, okay, I want to stay present to help, you know, lead you towards this path of being Christian, especially if someone that actively says they're Christian but aren't living a Christian life. Like, you know, you want to— it's almost like in business too, like you want to have people below you that that you're mentoring, but at some point, like, you can't just have a bunch of people under you that you're mentoring. You got to have mentors, and sometimes the people below you will bring you down. So this woman was saying that, how do I know when I should stay and God wants me to help leading her to him, or at some point you gotta cut people out of your life because it's becoming too toxic? So it's a fine line of knowing, like, which dance to do.

Yeah. And we were talking about that. Funny enough, you mentioned that at church too. I think our things are just similar, our lessons.

I think.

Kind of. Because we were talking about when God is speaking to you about making the move. And we were talking about God puts problems in front of you for you to overcome them. And the decisions that we make, we have to know and recognize, is it a spiritual decision or is it a body decision? Is it the flesh speaking that needs this? And then we were talking about being confused about, well, is this what God wants me to do, or is this what the devil wants me to do? You know, what's God's wishes? Because we were talking about one of the gentlemen, he's retiring, retiring, and he was talking about, what am I going to do after I retire? And what's my— what do people do? You know, that's it, I retired, I'm done. Well, I want to do something. And then he's like, well, I was telling my wife, I want to buy some land. And then she's kind of like, why would you want to buy land?

Have a farm?

And he started talking about that. But then he was like, is that a selfish desire for me because I want to buy land? And then I had talked to him, I mentioned, I said, is it that you want to buy the land because maybe you want more for the land? Maybe you want to raise foster kids there on the land to have it? And he's like, it's funny you say that because I wanted to help the youth. And I felt that me having land would be able to do something with that. And I'm like, well, there you go. And that's not— that's a spiritual thing there. But then we get in our own way with what is and what's not. And then we get hesitant. We never execute. We never make the move. We never learn from the mistake if it is a mistake. I mean, God puts these ideals— and not to get on a spiritual tangent, but God puts ideas in our heads. That maybe we're supposed to learn from them. Maybe we're supposed to know that the stove is hot by touching it. And we say, "Whoa, not doing that again." Yeah.

And also, God allowed sin to come into the world. And he, you know, he very much could have not allowed them. We just are perfect soldiers, but he wanted it to be a choice.

Yeah.

And being exposed to things, maybe learning from things, it's always going to be a choice. Do I want a choice to accept that fate? Be a victim and just downward spiral my life, or am I going to overcome it and do better the next time? Yeah, those are all choices.

I would ask you, this past year, what changes have you seen in me from this year to last year?

Oh, so many. I think one, your environment changed a lot. A lot from growing our businesses. You are now immersed in an environment that's gonna foster that growth. I mean, we would have never had these mindset conversations a year ago, maybe a little bit here and there, diddly-dallying, but not like this, not where we are aggressively seeking a better life for ourselves and people around us. So one, it would be the environment. I think the environment has shifted you as a person. So you have become so much more— I wouldn't say mature, but more mindful, more— what is the word— you are more intentional with everything you do, and your time is extremely valuable. So before when we kind of had businesses, but it wasn't, you know, we weren't trying to scale so much and, you know, aggressively grow this. You were, you know, time is valuable, but, you know, let's go do these things, let's watch anime, maybe play a video game here and there. But now everything you do has a purpose. Not to say you're perfect, because we're all human. I mean, we all, you know, I got my occasional Netflix show that I have to watch because I'm guilty pleasure. But you are very, very intentional in time. I know how valuable time is to you, and I think a lot of people in business will know that it's not a transactional thing where you're doing one job, so you're gonna get this money out of it. Like, your time is so valuable because you could be doing so many things, exponentially growing or learning, or everything has a purpose. As you are your business, you're not just clocking in and clocking out. You're clocked in all the time. So I think that's the biggest thing is that you're intentional. Your time has so much more worth to it. It's always been worthy, but now even more so. You're just very, very aware of that. So when someone wants to do something that is just like a, I guess, f-off activity, you're like, absolutely not. Like, what are you doing with your life?

Yeah.

And oh, let's see. I think those are the main things. I think you have been— you're, um, not better husband, but a really, really good partner. You have become a really great partner. You've always been good, but I just feel so much more aligned with you because we are doing this together. And I feel like I trust you because you are very like I said, intentional with everything you do, that we are going to fall forward and progress. And we are always going to be pushing forward. We're not going to be stagnant in our relationship or even in finances because we're always pushing forward. We are going to make it happen. And if there's one thing I know about you is that whether you're in your other stages of life or now, you always push forward. And you, once you put your mind to something, you're getting there. And I think now is just another stage where you're getting to another whole other level. So before you're pushing forward, you had some tools, but now you have a lot of tools at your hands that you're actively using, and I'm super proud of you.

Oh, I just— I ask because in my mind, I feel like I'm doing certain things. I feel like I'm always in this flow state of constantly trying to make my time maximizing my time, but it's in my own head. In our own heads, we always think we're in this certain light or a certain lens, but it's nice to hear a different perspective from someone that's watching. Are my actions aligned on how I'm thinking? Are my intentions aligned with what I think I'm doing? Is my time being as effective as I feel like it's doing? And it's— I asked that question, it's more of like a checkpoint for me, more of a credibility on myself, on am I being the person I want to be, or not being the person, am I acting or making the actions towards the person of the person I want to become?

I firmly believe that you're a whole lot more aligned with life right now than you were a year ago, which is honestly really, really nice to see because when you're misaligned, like, it shows. And I know how passionate you are about everything you do right now and that you're going to do. So like, we could be losing all this money investing in something. It's not losing, it's investing. And I'm okay with it. I trust you. I 100% trust you because you will do everything you can to get to that next phase and do better for us. It's not just about you. I know you firmly want to do it for us as a family, and you have people that rely on you. You have, you know, we have people that depend on us and we want to grow a family and you want more for our future family. So I know that you are so driven that you are, you're always going to lead us in the right direction. We may be going like this because every business is like this. Every time you, like we said, we gotta fail. To grow, but we're always going to be, you know, once we do that average, it's going this way and I am right behind you on your coattails being like, yes sir, because you are the leader in this family and I truly feel like your partner and I feel like you always trust my opinion, but I do know you're going to lead us in the right direction.

Appreciate that. That's feedback.

Not to go on a tangent about it.

No, no, I mean, it's good for me. It's just, it's good feedback to have because—

But I do, I will tell you when I'm like, hey.

Yeah, you do tell me.

Or if you're being like, I think this goes with how passionate you are, how persistent you are, and how intentional you are. And I am okay with calling you out when I feel like you're being too abrasive with certain things, that you need to be more delicate with certain situations.

Yeah.

But I think a lot of business owners can relate to that, that sometimes you are just— a lot of business owners can relate to that, that you are just yes, no, this needs to be corrected, very analytical about the situation, that you don't know how it comes off sometimes. So I'm okay with calling you out on those things, like, hey, you need to handle that in another way.

Yeah, and I think that's— we say passionate, I think that is a passion to be able to speak like that, but at the same time, it's recognition on I need to let off the gas a little bit and then be more inviting and make this a safe place.

Yeah.

And that's good feedback that I need because nobody wants to be led by, by that. No one wants a leader that's always aggressive. And I'm not saying I'm always aggressive, but it's nice to know that there are time and places when you need to be. But then also there's audiences or people I'm teaching and helping mentoring that don't respond in that light and they feel Oh, why is he so mean? Why is he yelling at me?

Yeah, and some people need to be led in a different way.

Yeah, because—

and that's okay.

Yeah, people are already in their heads enough about probably beating themselves up that they don't want to take the step because they don't feel their worthiness. And then who am I to talk to them? Not saying I talk to you bad, but I guess say things in assertive tone that complements their already existing mentality on themselves. I'm supposed to help bring them out of that darkness into the light of the mindset of you can do this, you will do this, let's do this.

And I think that would resonate with people that, you know, you are mentoring or other people in your environment that if they truly wanted to make a change, if their pain was strong enough, they are going to take that into consideration. Like they're going to be like, okay, maybe sometimes you're direct or you need to do like this can be shifted. Or maybe you do need to talk to them a different way, but they'll know at the end of the day, like, you're— you mean well. And they need to be able to communicate that with you. Like, hey, like, I need to be led a little differently. Like, I need it. Yes, you can see all these, like, things to shift my business this way, but I also need a congratulations once in a while. Yeah, yeah. Those things, like, I think being open to communication is a valuable asset to have as a mentor or mentee or employee and CEO or whatever it may be.

That was just straight bars, just letting you know all the E's at the end.

Yeah, yeah. Um, not every business or relationship is going to be like that, but to have that open communication where you're not just gonna like snap back at people, you're actually going to absorb people around you and what they're saying and take that into consideration and have that in a bidirectional channel, that's super important. And if it's a one-way direction and you're not going to do that, then that's, that's toxic relationship, truly. And then maybe you do need to seek another mentor, another employer, whatever it may be.

Yeah, that's beautiful that you're saying all this because this is not only feedback for myself there as my review for my performance, but it's also a testimony on the power of the investment that I put and did for myself. Because this, like, the investment has— it was sure is about my business and making more money and how do I get from my unhappy situation to being happy. But there are so many other little micro things that have made such a huge difference in our relationship, our— my demeanor, my— me carrying myself, my thought process, my mentality on making certain moves, my perception on time, the things that I truly value has become— become invaluable. And had I have not made that investment to force myself to say I need to make the change, that I'm now making the change, I would have still been thinking about, man, I wish we were happier together. I wish we sat and did a podcast and talked about meaningful conversations. I wish we did our business. I wish we went to the gym together. I wish we would start a family. There's so many things of the I wish that are now turning into reality. Yeah, the 11:11s are happening all day, every day, you know.

I love that, and I think that's important for people to hear because you want your leaders or your mentors to have their leaders and mentors. And that aura glow that I talked to previously about some other people, I see that in you too, how you have overall just like shifted into like a beautiful version of yourself in all aspects too. And that's honestly a big factor of that is because you put yourself in that new room. And I was one of those people who were skeptical, like, this is a huge investment, whatever it may be. I was in a very, you know, I was a mentality where I'm like, okay, I've never been exposed to this, like, this big of an investment to better yourself overall. I was a skeptic. And actually living that life, being here beside you two, I am no longer a skeptic because I know for dang sure it works. And it's not just a business decision, you know. At the time, it was business decision purely. It wasn't for any other— we didn't seek out a relationship counselor or anything like that, or a self-help person. It was just, okay, how can we scale our business? That's all it was. And we went into it with that, but we got out a whole lot more. And that's why it's so important to pick your mentors wisely, how you were so selective with who you wanted to learn from, because like you said, you want to learn from one person that you could reverse engineer and don't have 10 lines of how to get from point A to B because you're going to have so many different paths, which they may all work, but you're going to have a mumbo jumbo of them all. You need that one person that's going to say this, this, this, and apply it to your own industry. So when you did that, you know, picking someone that was a Christian person that had a beautiful marriage that actively saw out you know, how to better themselves, themselves had amazing mentors above them that they're actively living the same life and asking people to make an investment, but they're doing a much bigger investment ahead of them. That just shows it works because they are so successful in life and you see it over and over again and they're living and breathing what they teach.

Yeah.

And that I think even just, you know, the business is a great thing. That's what we went in for, but to come out a better person, a better— being better partners for each other, and then continuously being around that people that are like-minded, what you want to be like. You want to be a good husband, so you're around good husbands. It's hard to be a good husband when you're around a bunch of friends from work that cheat on their wives. Yeah, that's not— it's, it's a— that's dang hard. You're going against the stream. So I think that that's a beautiful thing, and that's what it's grown into. Yeah, I didn't see all that money. It wasn't just monetary, it was everything else.

It was a transformation. People pay in these circumstances for transformation. They don't just pay for transactions and I get this. What am I paying for? Oh, this is what I'm getting paid for. I don't just see that one thing. It's not a price tag to a TV, it's It's not a product. It's not a product. It's everything of the experience of the TV. It's watching, being able to watch something in 4K high definition, big screen, the full immersion because of the surround sound. It's the experience, the transformation that, that TV is going to give you as the viewer.

Yeah, it's almost like if you build your own, like you said, entertainment center, you appreciate much more. You be— you came out a better What do they call craftsmen that work with wood?

Craftsman.

Woodsmith? I don't know. Anyways, you've gained a lot more skills. You gain patience and you appreciate the beautiful entertainment center that you made. You enjoy every— well, you don't really enjoy it, but you see it walking in. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And that's so much more valuable, that experience you had. And now you see the outcome rather than just paying someone $10,000, hey, build this, it's up next weekend. That's, that's a transactional thing and you're not going to appreciate it nearly enough because you're like, I can make $10K elsewhere. Like, yes, that's good for certain things. Like, that's a whole other separate conversation. Yeah, but just saying analogy, you get a lot more in, more out of it than you thought.

Yeah, a whole lot more. And that's why I took the plunge and did it because There's only so much you can continue to think about of the what-ifs, but you have to put those what-ifs into actions. And I'm all about putting my money where my mouth is because if I'm unhappy, I can't make the decision or I just can't do it on my own. I'm just going to stay stuck and stay complacent. That's why I want us to go to church. I wanted us to bring God into our marriage, into my life more, to then give me the clarity to be able to make the decisions, to make the change into my life, to then make the right investments for investing into myself, to build something that's beyond myself, to be able to use my gifts of the intentions of wanting more and know how to do things to make and create more. To help other people who are in the same situation as I was, to make them even better, to make their homes better, to make themselves better, to then make their community better. And the domino effect of the same thing that people way before us and our leaders have done and our mentors have done that made them get to where they're at. I want to be a continuation into that. When I was a kid, I was always thinking about, I want to be remembered or I want to do something great. But I can never, I never knew what that was. And I never, I always had this feeling inside, like, I want to do something so great. I want to do something that's, that shifts minds and makes momentum move with great speed, but with happiness and speed of true success. I never, I never knew what that was.

Like, what it, what is that? That what's that vehicle?

Yeah. What is that vehicle? What's that outcome? What, what am I doing? Who am I to say what's my title? You know, when it comes to making let myself be that person. And I just continue to journey through life. And it's all in God's timing on when things happen, when you have that shift in your mind. But you also have to recognize when God's called, when God is calling for—

Your accent's coming out.

I know, I got these random accents. When God is calling you, you have to know to listen to it because you— God may be calling you. God probably called you forever ago, but you decided to close the window, close the door, close your ears. On what he was saying. And now you are unhappy and then you blame God on making your situation the way it is. Like, why am I in this situation? Why am I so unhappy? Why do I feel so unfulfilled? Why am I broke?

Yeah, and that's why it's so important to discern and not just religiously or godly, just in general discern your life. Are all my actions that I'm doing today making my life better? Because that could— an atheist can do that too. Is what I'm doing making sense for who I want to be? Yeah, it's analytical. It's simple as that. Are my inputs gonna create the output that I want? If it's not, change your inputs. Simple as that. And but that caused that— you need to be introspective. You need to discern. And in this day and age, we just, you know, scroll on social media, you know, mentally masturbate on certain things and try to fill our time with excess things, order excess things to give us those little doses of, um, joy to numb our lives. But you need to feel the pain. You need to feel the pain to make the action, feel the burn. You need to go to the gym and feel the burn and feel the soreness to make a change. You need to have a pain, a little pain. You need to have a lot of pain to get to the good thing.

No pain, no gain.

No pain, no gain. That reminds me of something I heard this week. And we go to school thinking, okay, we're gonna do this to get a good job, have work-life balance. Even right now, Gen Z is all about, okay, um, like the silent quitting, things like that. Like, you deserve better, but you gotta fail a lot. Especially, I wish more 20-year-olds knew, and I wish I— I mean, I worked a lot in my 20s. I I study a lot, I would say. But you, you need to know that it's going to be really sucky for a while before you get to the good stuff. And you need to be okay with that. You got to suck. Your life is going to suck. You got to put in a lot of time, a lot of grit. You got to take actions. But people want to just have a comfy life right off the bat. They want to have the comfortable life, have a 20-hour work week, or see these Lam people saying You know, invest in crypto and I get a Lambo, but there's no such thing as fast money. Fast money might be fast broke. Yeah. I don't know where I went off on a tangent there, but I was letting you do your thing.

I was like, where's she going with this?

Yeah. But I thought it made a lot of sense that it does.

It's all about investing.

You need to be okay with the pain.

You gotta be in pain. Yeah. Be okay with the pain. And then you also have to understand those investments because everything that you're doing is an investment. If you're not investing into making yourself better, you're investing in yourself on making yourself complacent and worse.

Yeah. And once you get that really enjoyable outcome, you're like, heck yeah, I'd go through that pain 10 times over to get that outcome. But you wouldn't ever feel that if you never even got through that pain.

Yeah, you got to go through stuff to be able to talk the stuff that you went through, to be able to help other people go through the stuff. I would normally say the S-word, but we're going to say stuff for the podcast. Yes, yes, family podcast, family podcast, PG. We are streaming off, especially if you're on audio on Spotify and Apple, we are everywhere. But yeah, this was a good conversation. It was nice to hear feedback about myself here because the investment was scary. But then once you do the investment, you allowed yourself the permission to be able to become more. And then you're also able to give yourself the permission from that initial limiting belief had you have not made the investment into yourself. And all I can say is, if you're in a rut, if you're struggling, if you want your way out, you just don't know who to talk to, how to get out of it. If you don't have a circle of friends, maybe you do have a circle of friends, but they're not the best friends. You got to trim the fat in your life in order to grow. And I'll let you know now, I was a guy who— I'm in every circle of life of different people of life that walk around. And all I did was not use my time wisely. And when you start becoming more wealthier and not just financially, but wealthier in your mind, you start valuing things a whole lot different. Time has become such a weird perspective that I value so much because as a person who's been in the medical field and seen people die in early ages or people who are older and I listen to their wisdom on what they wish they did better, it's always about something that happened back then, and it's about the time that they've had here because it goes by so quick. So value the time that you have, use the time wisely, and learn, invest to be able to gain that wisdom to become more sagacious. Big word right there. And don't be afraid to make those investments in yourself because you are your biggest asset. And in order to make yourself become more and to make your environment become more, maybe you have to be the leader that wants to do more. A lot of mores right there. Can't stress it enough, but on this page, we're on the same page on investments and investing into yourself. You guys like the podcast, like this episode, Leave a comment down below. What are you currently struggling with in life? If this did resonate with you, which part of the episode spoke to you the most? And are you willing to finally take the plunge if you haven't into becoming better for yourself and for those around you? Justin Page.

Cassandra Page.

We'll catch you in the next one. Stay tuned.

Oh, we're not on the same page.

We're not on the same page.