0 (2s):
Boom shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Inclusion and Marketing. Today we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down how to become a lifestyle Investor. To draw these value bombs, I brought Justin Donald into EOFire Studios. Entrepreneur Magazine calls Justin, the Warren Buffett of Lifestyle Investing. He's a master of low risk cash flow investing, specializing in simplifying complex financial strategies, structuring deals and disciplined investment systems. And today financial we'll talk about how Anyone can be a Lifestyle Investor, but who will take action and make big things happen.

0 (44s):
And Take action immediately take some form of action. Take a step towards financial freedom, whatever that manner is in for you, and so much more.

The Sales Evangelist (53s):
And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Justin and our sponsor Sales Evangelist hosted by my friend Donald Kelly, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Each week Donald interviews the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales. Right now, a recent episode you should definitely check out is The Five Ways to Do Daily Outbound with LinkedIn. Listen to Sales Evangelist, wherever you get your podcasts.

Thought Leader (1m 24s):
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0 (1m 45s):
Justin say, what's up to Fire Nation? And what's something you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with?

1 (1m 54s):
Well, what's up Fire Nation, it's great to be here and JLD, thanks for having me. You know, here's the thing. I think people think when you have success, fame, money, that you end up being this greedy, mean, horrible, pretentious person. And I just think that that's not accurate. I think that money and success are a magnifier of who you really are deep down. And so to me, sometimes I feel like that the the default is, hey, you know, they must have done some, you know, bad things or dirty things to get to where they are to have the success they have. But I think the reality is most people just find a way to add more value to the world that propels them in their success.

1 (2m 37s):
It propels the income that they make, and then that income and that success really just magnifies who they are deep down at their core. And I like to default and think that most people wanna do really good things with their success.

0 (2m 51s):
I love that message and I'm a big believer in the people that say that money can't buy you happiness. My response is always, have you ever been able to hands a blank check to a charity or a cause that you truly believe in love? Because if that doesn't really make you happy, I don't know what will, and that can happen when you have the ability to do something like that. And Fire Nation. Today we're talking about becoming a lifestyle Investor. So let's just get right to the meat and potatoes Justin, what the heck is a lifestyle Investor? That's

1 (3m 23s):
A great question. In fact, it's a very common question 'cause I coined the term And A. Lot of people don't know what it means. So I think if you really think about it, you probably have, you know, the gist of what it is. But to me, it's living a lifestyle that is where you buy your time back. You basically have freedom of time to do what you want instead of making money by spending your time, you make money by your assets and by your capital. And so you have cash flow that comes in day in, day out, week in, week out. And it happens whether you're actively working or not, whether you're sleeping or not, whether you're vacationing or, or not. And so to me, it's the true liberation of your time in exchange for money.

1 (4m 5s):
And it's letting go of the handcuffs that most entrepreneurs find themselves being shackled to their business. It it started innocently, right? So you, you leave a job and you're like, I'm gonna start a business. And you know, most of the cases people want freedom and they want autonomy and they want to be able to, you know, just gain more agency in their life. And so it starts with a business, but that business, they, they're a slave to it. And this happens nine times outta 10 because they don't know how to scale. And as they scale, they're the bottleneck. But as they work harder, they're making more. So they can justify that exchange of time for money. But at a certain point in time, most Entrepreneurs find themselves really tied to their business in a way where they can't remove the so, and, and so, you know, to me it's really about buying that freedom back and working when you wanna work it.

1 (4m 55s):
It's not about not working, it's about having the privilege and the opportunity to work on your terms wherever you want, as long as you want. Take off as much time as you want, work only with people that inspire you. Work only on projects that interest you. Work on things that are using your true gifts and are in alignment with your purpose and your passion in life. To me, that's what being a lifestyle Investor about, is about, is it's getting clear on what you want and living a life by design and, and really planning it versus a life by default and going on autopilot.

0 (5m 28s):
There's a lot that I love about what you just shared. One thing I wanna pull up for you, Fire Nation, I wanna repeat this because man, I was just like, yes, when you said it was true liberation from living a life of trading time for money. I mean, who doesn't want that type of liberation? I mean, Fire Nation, you're listening to the wrong podcast. If that's not you, let me tell you. So let's talk about the who, who JLD can become a lifestyle Investor. Well,

1 (5m 56s):
Really it's anyone that can, it really is gonna come down to who is gonna take action. So a lot of people read things, they learn things, they hear things, and there are people that take action and they make big things happen. So in my world, you know, I see Entrepreneurs as being a great market because Entrepreneurs have already taken action. They've already made the move to start something and gotten outta their comfort zone and have gotten comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown to the point that they've been able to do things that most of the world has not been able to do. So do I think Anyone can be a Lifestyle Investor? Sure do. I think entrepreneurs though, have the general framework and, and the makeup just out of the gates that give them a little more of an advantage.

1 (6m 43s):
Yes. And not to mention entrepreneurs likely have some sort of cashflow coming in from their business that is gonna help create and supplement the investing that they want to be able to live on that cash flow.

0 (6m 57s):
Now you have 10 commandments of lifestyle investing, and I wanna go through each one. I wanna go through each one very quickly and efficiently because again, Fire Nation, if you want to get these 10 commandments in full, you have the opportunity to pick up Justin's book, the Lifestyle Investor, which by the way, I am a little over halfway through and it's getting to some really good parts right now. So I'm excited to chat with Justin actually after I finish the book. But let's go through these 10 commandments, JLD one by one go.

1 (7m 26s):
Sure. Well, the first one is lifestyle first. And to me it's really important to invest in a way that supports the lifestyle you want. And so, you know, in this commandment, one of the things I do is I, I really try to encourage the reader to dream and, and vision and then capture in writing what the ideal life would look like. You know, what are all the details? I even have a checklist in four different categories of, you know, freedom of time, freedom of relationship, freedom of purpose and impact and, and really just helping people instead of just living life going on autopilot, but actually planning and designing and creating space to create what it is that they want. A lot of people spend their time to create income.

1 (8m 6s):
That's the majority of the world. And I just believe that when you can do it in a different way where you're not sacrificing time for money, then you can invest it with the people who matter most. You can have epic experiences, you can live life to the fullest and you're just full of passion. So lifestyle first means not compromising the lifestyle that you have for the investments that you're going to have, right? So there is a trade off of time and money here. There's a trade off of, hey, do you want the best return and you're willing to put a little time into it, or do you wanna put no time into it and get the best return you can get for that little time, right? That to me is what lifestyle's about.

1 (8m 47s):
So it's getting clear on what it is that you want and then figuring out a path that supports it. But just knowing that you can buy assets that produce cashflow that supports your expenses and your needs. Number two, reduce risk. Warren Buffett famously said, don't lose money. It's the number one rule of investing. And so I take this very seriously that I need to reduce the risk and find ways to make whatever investments I do, less likely that I lose money. So either I'm making it so that I can't lose money, or I'm making it so that if I do lose money, I can only lose a little bit of money. I'm not gonna lose my whole investment, but at the same time, I can still structure the deal to get a good return.

1 (9m 34s):
The, the risk and the reward don't have to be linked like many people have heard in the past. So, you know, a few fun strategies that I like to do there. There's something that I put in a lot of my contracts that's called a put option. And maybe you're familiar with this in stock market terms are in trading, but one of the things you can do in an actual contract is you can have, you know, a mechanism that basically says you can get your money back at any time for any reason at all with a return with interest tied to it because you're just feeling uncertain about the investment. And I have lots of people that agree to these terms, and so they can, they can take that investment and if at any time I want to get it back, I can get it back and I can have 'em personally guarantee it.

1 (10m 17s):
So that would be one strategy. There are many strategies, you know, in the book I go through countless of them. Number three is find invisible deals. So this one is really fun because these are the deals that are off the beaten path. These are deals that the general public is never gonna find out about. These are off market deals, or maybe it's a, a new trend, maybe it's an emerging market, maybe it's in a network that has deal flow and you can only get access if you're part of that network or if you know certain people, or maybe it's having access to institutional deals where they vetted it to a degree that you never could as an Investor.

1 (10m 57s):
And so you can piggyback off of what they've already done for research, where most of the time they don't let small dollars in, you know, institutional money. This is some of these institutions that I invest with their, their minimum investment is a 50 or a hundred or $500 million investment. So to have access to these deals, it's all about knowing the right people and invisible deals are where a lot of the fun in investing actually is. Let's move on to another one of my favorites, which is commandment four. And that's getting your principle back quickly. So in this one, most people don't even think about this as a possibility.

1 (11m 37s):
Most people don't even think, well, I could actually get the initial principle or the initial capital that I put into a deal out quickly because most people are conditioned to invest for the long haul. I put money in the stock market, I don't touch it, I put it in a qualified plan. I can't have access to it until I'm at retirement age. I put money into a real estate deal, I, nothing's gonna happen for 10 years. I put money in a, a venture capital fund. I'm not gonna find out for 10 years what the return is, where is for me. I actually like to structure deals that are on a one or two year term or that I can somehow, like in the real estate world, get a refi in one to two years. And so I have my money in a deal, I get my equity, I get my money back within one to two years, I can reinvest that money again into another deal, get more equity, so on and so forth.

1 (12m 27s):
So in in my book I talk about the velocity of money and one of the examples I give is instead of putting one investment in one deal, that is a 10 year term where all my eggs are in one basket and I hope it works. I could instead do what I do, which is find two year terms, have five different investments with the same amount of money, but equity in all. So it diversifies my portfolio, it increases my likelihood of good returns, but it exponentially does it because I'm in five different deals and if one goes bad, I've got others to balance it out. Commandment number five is to create cash cashflow immediately.

1 (13m 8s):
And this one is important to me. I'm a cashflow Investor, so I wanna know on day one that this thing cash flow. So I don't buy businesses, I don't invest in opportunities unless I know that there's cashflow. Or as long as I have the cashflow that I need for my lifestyle and for all the things that I want to do, then I could take some of my surplus cashflow and maybe invest in something that isn't cashflow producing. But to me that's foundational. That's number one. I don't wanna subject my money to equity deals or to the stock market or to anything that fluctuates a ton or there's a long-term payout or that there's not a lot of control until I have all my expenses covered, which I do through cashflow.

1 (13m 51s):
And I've done this in a lot of different ways. It can be structured through debt, it can be structured through real estate, it can be structured through operating companies and, and private equity. There's a lot of different ways to do it.

0 (14m 2s):
Fire Nation, these 10 commandments are all in the lifestyle Investor. And by the way, you're gonna be able to go into much more in depth when you get into the book, obviously, as I'm in the process of right now, we're gonna be talking about maybe a couple more of these. We'll see when we get into the next level. But I, I actually am gonna move into something that I think is very fascinating about how Justin broke seven figures for the first time and then eight figures in his NET worth. 'cause you know, I'm obsessed with Transparency Fire Nation. As soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors Happy 2024 Fire Nation. New one is here and that means new goals, more growth and upgrading your day-to-day workflow. While most sales folks are stuck in the mud of manual scheduling, digging into data and tracking down leads, let me share a better way to win so you can get a jumpstart on your year.

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0 (15m 35s):
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0 (16m 22s):
Visit ThoughtLeader.com/fire. Join Taylor for his free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart, and out into the world where it belongs. That's ThoughtLeader.com/fire Justin. We're back in. Something that's I've kind of become known for in the industry above and beyond a daily podcast is income reports. I have published now 89 monthly income reports in a row show all our revenue, all of our expenses, the actual net worth, sorry, the actual net income that we make. And I even have a percentage of gross revenue to net revenue every single month. And I'm always looking to be above 70 and hopefully above 80. Twice I've been above 90%, which is obviously awesome.

0 (17m 5s):
But I wanna talk about your transparency. Talk to us about how long it took for you to break seven figures in your life and then that seven to eight figures and actual net worth. Talk to us about that transition. It's

1 (17m 19s):
An interesting transition because every time you hit a milestone, I think it's really important that you celebrate it. I love that you publish your financials. I think that's really cool. I've, I've dug into your numbers as well and that's awesome. So, you know, for me, I was able to hit seven figures as, you know, And A as I guess a business owner and entrepreneur. And so I had confidence that I could do it. It, it wasn't a matter of can I do it, it was what was the strategy to do it. And I did my first investment deal in real estate. I actually invested in a mobile home park, which replaced my wife's income. And then the second mobile home park that I bought really covered our total expenses, like at a minimum.

1 (18m 1s):
So not lifestyle, but like survival expenses. And then the third one that I bought covered all of our income at that time. And so, you know, our cost to live and survive was $120,000, but we had the luxury of having cashflow that exceeded that $120,000 per year. So that really was kind of the, the first mark was with these cash flowing investments. And that happened around the age of 34 or 35. And then we were able to then kind of double up through other passive investments and, and some of them happened to be in the real estate space.

1 (18m 46s):
I did end up buying more rental property because that's, that's really a space I know well. So I bought more mobile home parks, but I got into other things. I got into multifamily, I got into storage units, I got into a number of different cash flowing investments. And so the accumulation of these assets is what really put us into the eight figures for the first time. And so it took a little bit of time to do that. You know, it took, you know, for my wife to be able to replace her income that was instantaneous. You know, the moment that we, we signed it, she was only making $36,000 a year as a teacher. And once we signed that, that was done, that happened, you know, kind of month one her, her income was replaced and then it took, you know, a couple years for me to replace my income and then it took a couple more years to really get into that eight figures.

1 (19m 33s):
Let's

0 (19m 34s):
Talk about specific advice Justin that you have for somebody who is dreaming right now. They're listening to these words we're talking about, they're going back over those five commandments we've talked about. They know there's still five more commandments they need to implement in their lives as well, and they're dreaming about living on passive cash flow. What's your advice for them? Well,

1 (19m 55s):
My advice is to Take action immediately. One of the things I say in my podcast at the end, every episode is Take some form of action. Take one step towards financial freedom in whatever manner that is. If it's reading a book, if it's meeting someone for coffee, if it's just getting into a, a, a circle of people that you wanna be in, I mean, your peer group is so important because peer group is, is really like, that's the influence, right? That that's where you change your thinking. And, and once you're chin your once your thinking changes, your habits change and your behaviors change. So to me it's who are you hanging out with? Are you hanging out with people that play the game of life at a higher level with bigger stakes in a way that you want to emulate?

1 (20m 38s):
And then I also think coaches and mentors, do you have someone in your life that's pouring into you in an area and they're gonna give you the real deal. They're not just gonna tell you what you wanna hear that makes you feel good. You, you probably want someone that can do that as well. But I think you want someone that is gonna have the tough conversations and is gonna help you think in a different way than what you're probably accustomed to. Most of us adopt a mindset and beliefs from those that were most influential. It's true usually our parents, right? Or, or other family members or people that we spend a lot of time with. And so it's, it's important to recognize how much influence others around us have on us and what their mindset means to our mindset.

1 (21m 20s):
And so for me, I just didn't have a whole lot of people in my network that I wanted to emulate. So I took to reading, I just found authors that were doing it and I devoured their books and I would go to courses and seminars and I would meet people and I would go to business networking events and I just wanted to play the game of life at a, at a higher level. And so I was really intentional about meeting new people. And for a long stretch of my career, and I still do this today, is I take someone out for a coffee or lunch, at least one new person a week. And this is a tremendous habit that has been one of the most beneficial and successful keys to my success, is that I have gleaned a lot of wisdom from a lot of people much smarter than I am because I was intentional about setting up time to get outside of what the day-to-Day was for me.

1 (22m 16s):
And, and really kind of get top level on what is it that I want in life of

0 (22m 20s):
Your first five commandments. My personal favorite is finding invisible deals. And one thing that I've recognized over the years is that it takes money to make money. Fire Nation, like it was really hard for me to go from zero to a hundred thousand dollars because I had to earn every one of those dollars. To go from a hundred to a million was not easy, but it was easier because I had some money now I could do some things, invest in myself to go from a million to five that was quite a bit easier. And then go from five to 10, like I'm not gonna like lie like it wasn't overnight, but kind of felt that way. I was like, almost. I'm like, whoa, I'm, I'm already into eight figures right now. Like, because it takes money to make money now I have these investments in different areas.

0 (23m 2s):
You know, I was able to invest in a company called Gimlet Media that was then bought by Spotify for $233 million, huge payday. I was able to invest in the stock market, has had a huge bull market all these years. And so I'm making more money And A lot of times in these investments that I'm making actually into my business. And I'm just seeing this exponential compounding growth. And listen, these invisible deals are available when you have the money to jump on them, to know the right people to make 'em happen. So all five of those first five commandments are obviously awesome. But I wanted just to share why I love number three spec specifically. And I'm recognizing that right now in my situation in life. It's awesome to find and to have the opportunity to do these invisible deals.

0 (23m 42s):
Let's end with a bang Justin of the Final five commandments. Just pick out one, maybe your favorites of the last five. Doesn't have to be though, just one you think would be a good one to end on and then we'll say goodbye.

1 (23m 57s):
Well, I really enjoy commandment six for a lot of reasons. It's called find an income amplifier. But this is where you can really kind of make the deal exciting. This is where you can find something that makes the return better or enhances the terms in some way, shape, or form. So I go into a lot of details here, but this could be something as simple as an equity kicker where you're in a debt deal, but you're able to negotiate a piece of equity for free. It doesn't cost you anything. You still get a balloon of your investment back at the end of the term, but you now have equity upside, or it could be accelerated distribution schedule. So a lot of the time I'll invest in operating companies and I'll say, Hey, I am happy to make this investment.

1 (24m 40s):
I want you to be able to use it to scale, but I also want to be paid back quickly so that I can get that capital out of the deal. So I'm going in, in an equity position, but the return is more similar to a debt position and I can have enhanced payback. So in some of my deals I get paid back 80% of, you know, the, the profit or the distribution or 67% even though maybe I'm only a one third partner, I'm a 20% partner. So, you know, those are a couple cool ones. And then for anyone in my, you know, mastermind, my investors club, my private clients, one of the things that I do for them is I negotiate these sidecar agreements where I get special and preferred terms. I get a reduction in fees, I get a reduction in the minimum investment to make it more palatable for, you know, people that maybe don't want to put as much into a single investment.

1 (25m 31s):
and we might even get an enhanced kicker on the returns and maybe we get some extra equity or warrants in a company. There, there's a number of different things I've been able to negotiate, but I love being able to set this up ahead of time and then take care of everyone in my network because I just let 'em kind of carry on and, and, and piggyback off of my terms. I don't have a separate set of terms. So whatever I go in at, I just offer those same terms to the rest of my group. And anyone who wants to go in can, but no one has to. It's a, it's a very laid back approach. but there are a lot of different ones that, I mean, one of my favorite deals is a revenue share. It's a top line revenue share where I have a percentage of revenue, and I've done this in many deals, but one of my all time favorite deals that was the lowest cost, the least amount of exposure.

1 (26m 18s):
And when I say the least amount, we're talking like less than $10,000 of an investment got me a percentage of top line revenue from this company that has been, you know, over a, over a 10000% return,

0 (26m 32s):
10000% return. I mean, Fire Nation, these are the kind of opportunities that come along when you are a lifestyle Investor and you keep your eyes open, you shine yourself with the right people and you do the right things. Now is that gonna be the norm? No. But every now and then these opportunities are gonna come and you can pounce jump on these things. So JLD, we're taking off brother. Give us the best way to connect with you. Any call to action you have for Fire Nation, then we'll say goodbye. Sure,

1 (27m 0s):
Yeah, I, I mean I would love to connect with anyone that wants to learn more. You can find me at lifestyle Investor dot com and for anyone that would like to get a book that is free plus shipping, you can go to LifestyleInvestor.com/book. And I've got a bunch of free bonuses, bunch of cool offers for that and all the proceeds of the lifestyle, Investor all go to charity. They're supporting a charity called that. I'm just a huge fan of, it's called Love Justice International. And they really are a group that they're in 17 different countries in the world and they stop human trafficking and this is predominantly kids. And so, you know, it's just a, a great organization.

1 (27m 43s):
So again, anything that you do, the proceeds are gonna go there, but I've got a bunch of free stuff on, on my website and then I've got a bunch of other cool offers like an online course and, you know, different masterminds and Investor clubs. So feel free to peruse and, and see what works best. But I can guarantee the book can be a one-stop shop for making some serious game changing moves in your life.

0 (28m 5s):
Peruse, Fire Nation, invest in yourself, invest in your future, become a lifestyle Investor and you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And hello, you've been hanging out with JD and JLD today, so keep up that heat and head over to EOFire.com type Justin in the search bar. The show notes page will pop up with everything we talked about today. Best show notes in the biz Justin, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge, value with Fire Nation today. For that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

1 (28m 35s):
Thanks for having me. This was amazing.

0 (28m 38s):
Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Justin. And one thing I've identified over the years, successful entrepreneurs are productive. They're disciplines, they are focused.

The Mastery Journal (28m 47s):
That's why I created the Mastery Journal. It is a gorgeous full of the Journal that will ensure that you master productivity, discipline, and focus in 100 days. Fire Nation. Up until my book The Common Path to Uncommon Success, it is my best work ever. Visit the masteryjournal.com, use promo code PODCAST for a $15 discount. And thank you for listening to my podcast and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side.

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