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The Personal Finance Podcast
How to Get Rich and Buy Your Freedom with Justin Williams
01:07:13
In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to talk to Justin Williams on how to get rich and buy your freedom.
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- [00:01]
Andrew
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- [00:30]
Justin Williams
Would you wear the same shoes for every occasion or rock the same outfit seven days a week? Of course not.
- [00:37]
Andrew
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- [00:39]
Justin Williams
Your investments could be too. CBOE Index Options give you access to.
- [00:43]
Andrew
Various contract sizes, global trading hours, and potential tax advantages.
- [00:47]
Justin Williams
That's a good look for any portfolio. If you're ready to invest in style, head to betterwithoptions.com There are risks associated with Sebo Company products. Review the disclosures and disclaimers@cboe.com USDISclaimers on.
- [01:00]
Andrew
This episode of the Personal Finance Podcast how to get rich and buy your Freedom what's up everybody and welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of MasterMoney Co and today on the Personal Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be talking to Justin Williams on how to get rich and buy your freedom. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the Master Money newsletter by going to MasterMoney co/newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or whatever your favorite podcast player is. And if you're getting value out of this show, consider leaving a five star rating and review. Now today we're going to be talking to Justin Williams who is the host of Millionaire University. And we're going to be going through Justin's story. And Justin's story is very cool. He actually dropped out of college with one semester left, went into debt, built up a business and did all of that starting from a negative $120,000 net worth. And he went from that negative net worth all the way to being able to become financially free by the age of 40. And this is really an amazing story. Now, Justin took a path that is different than traditionally what we talk about, which is why I wanted to have him on the show because he talks about some pretty cool stuff. He invested in real estate, he invested in crypto really early, which is a pretty cool story. He started a bunch of businesses and that's how he gained his financial freedom. And so this is gonna be something I think that a lot of you can learn a lot of lessons from there's a ton of business lessons, a ton of real estate lessons, and a ton of lessons about how to assess and take risks. And so definitely want you to tune in on this one. So without further ado, let's welcome Justin to the Personal Finance podcast. So, Justin, welcome to the Personal Finance podcast.
- [02:56]
Justin Williams
What's up, Andrew? I'm pumped to be here. This is, this is fun. I was listening to your podcast, like for hours yesterday at the gym. So to now be on it, it's kind of surreal. Is pretty exciting.
- [03:06]
Andrew
Well, we are so excited to have you here because you have such a cool story, but you're also really passionate about helping people learn to become millionaires, which is something that we talk about all the time on this podcast as well. And one thing I think that we align on a ton is building wealth for financial freedom. So we're going to get into that. But I really want to get into your story to start off, because you have a really, really cool story where you basically started off in debt at $120,000 in debt when you first started your business and you went all the way to financial independence, the age of 40. So that's kind of the punchline that I think a lot of people need to get ready to expect. You know, this is a really, really cool story of some of the stuff that you did. So let's talk through your journey a little bit more here. So what was going through your mind at that time when you were in $120,000 worth of debt and then what gave you the confidence to kind of keep pushing forward? Because a lot of people, I think when they're in that situation, sometimes they like freeze and they don't really know what to do. So kind of talk about your story and what happened there.
- [03:58]
Justin Williams
Yeah, so I dropped out of college with one semester left. Actually had a full ride football scholarship. So I was literally getting paid to go to college. But I was just realized, like, this isn't for me. I knew I wasn't going to be playing football anymore. I hurt my shoulder and I told my wife. I was like, hey, quit your job as a teacher. I know you mentioned that you were making that $30,000 when you first started. She was making like 25 or 20. I was like, this is crazy. Like, you're not, you're not making any money. Let's start a business is something I've always wanted to do. We will make a million dollars in the next 12 months. And I convinced her and she was all in. And we're like, yes, let's do this. So we got going and long story short, we ended up with $120,000 of debt within that year. I thought, we're gonna be millionaires. We end up with $120,000 of debt. And I could go through all the things of how that happened and whatnot. But what got us through it was, I mean, essentially we took on too much overhead. We, you know, our eyes got bigger than I was, like, we're gonna make this million dollars and we're gonna go out and recruit these guys to help us recruit other people. We're gonna get a big office, a lot of staff, and we're gonna make up for it in the summer program because all these guys are gonna go on sale and it's gonna make us a million dollars and it'll be fine. But unfortunately, like, not everything turned out that way. And my partner didn't really, I would say, do his part. I kind of had a coming to Jesus moment about that in more recent years where I take 100% responsibility. So I'm not trying to cast blame, but just pointing out what went wrong. And we had these recruiting managers that we were paying and they didn't recruit anybody. And so anyway, cutways with him, fired everybody, essentially moved to Bakersfield, California, because that's where Tara's brother and my brother were installing for us at the time and just got to work. So cut all the overhead. And every day I just went out and this was a satellite dish business. And, you know, they're not really common these days. Everyone has, you know, we don't have satellite dish a whole lot these days, you know, as in the house. So just went out and I sold every single day. And I know this is kind of getting into some of your other questions, but just went after it. And your question was, how did I, like, push through that? We had $120,000 of debt at this time. And I think we all have like multiple people inside of us. Not literally, but, you know, the mind. I think in the email they call the fat guy and the skinny guy. Sometimes you want to get up and work out, and other times you're just like, no, no thanks. And there were times when there was that voice of despair and woe is me. And going into this, like, victim mentality of these people screwed me over and like, what are we gonna do? Like, we're in trouble. I just got married not too long ago. We had a nine month old boy that were counting on me. And so that was hard. But I think in my mind, what I kept going back to was I knew that there were other people who had created wealth, and I knew at least some of them weren't that much smarter than me, weren't that much more talented than I. And I felt like I could pretty much identify the things that we did wrong. And so in my mind, I kept saying, and I've talked to Tara, my wife, about this all the time. I would say, okay, we have a roof over our head. We have food in our stomachs, even though the roof was not our roof. You know, we were living in what we call the bachelor pad with a bunch of other. It was a mess. But we had shelter, we had food, and we had love. We had each other. And so I said, we will be wealthy. Like, I've seen the people do it. Like, we will get there. It might take a little long. It might take a couple years, but ultimately, like, I could see that future, and I knew we would get there. So that just allowed me to get through that day to day, like, knowing we're okay. We're not being attacked by, like, a lion or tiger or anything, and we can eat. We're surviving. And if we just take this one day at a time, one step at a time, learning from the things that we had learned, doing the things that went well and eliminating the things that didn't go well, trying to get back on our feet, if you will, we can do this. And within six months, we had all the debt paid off and we were able to move out of the bachelor pad. And it was. It was a great feeling.
- [08:06]
Andrew
That is such a fast turnaround. And I think the amazing thing about this is what you did is you kind of focused on the things that you can control. So a lot of things started to spiral, possibly out of control. I know what that feels like. Anybody who is in business probably knows that things can start to spiral very, very quickly. And so you started to focus on those things that you can control, overcoming one challenge at a time until you got yourself out of this situation. And I think for a lot of people, when their back is against the wall, they really need to think through. We talk about all the time on this podcast is just focusing one step on a time on the things that you can control. And you mentioned, you know, a lot of people that you knew out there were building wealth and they were getting rich, but they weren't, you know, that smart. And I think this is something that a lot of people have a misconception about, you know, really wealthy people with is I know a lot of really wealthy people, and some of them just aren't that smart whatsoever. They'll say this to you. They'll say, I'm literally one of them. And it's. And it's one of those things. I think that they're not as smart as you think you are. So if you're out there and you're saying to yourself, well, I'm just not smart enough to become wealthy, that is absolutely not true. And I think for most people, they need to realize that. We believe, Justin and I both believe that anybody in this world can build wealth. And that's why we try to teach some of this stuff, which is so incredibly important. If you were going to go back to your younger self during that point in time, would you give yourself any different advice from what you actually did?
- [09:20]
Justin Williams
There's the practical part that I would tell myself that would keep me from getting in the trouble, right? I would just say, hey, just slow your roll just a little bit. I love that you are taking fast action. I love that you had the idea of starting this business and you got into it, but maybe hold off on the business partner just a little. The business partner that you think is going to be awesome and come and save you, but who is actually going to sleep until 11 every day, isn't going to do anything, is not going to contribute in any significant way at all. Like, believe in yourself. Don't just think he's just going to be this person who's going to save you. Number two, I wouldn't have gotten the big office space before we needed it, because the office space then came with this big $10,000 telephone system and furniture, and you had to fill the office space with employees. And it seemed like the more employees we hired, the less got done. They were just talking, talking, talking. And then we hired people and paid them salary to recruit other salespeople and they did nothing. So our bank account went from. We started the satellite dish business because I was selling satellite dish on my own and making like $100 per cell. I'm like, oh, I can make 300 if I do it on my own. That made sense. So I was going out making three times the amount. I tripled my income, which was already really good for a just, you know, out of college student. And then I had my brother selling with me. So I was making 200. Every cell he got and one of his friend and another guy, and it was like, okay, this is pretty cool. Like we could have been making. And back then, this was even More money, like a cool 10, 20, $25,000 a month and kind of stashed some of that money away and grown into this thing. But my eyes were just so big that I went out and wanted the office. I knew that this partner would be amazing. I knew that all these guys would bring in all these people and the truth is they didn't. And I took my eye off of the sales machine ball. I read EMYTH at the time and I was like, I'm gonna go create this perfect system. I was all into the systems, right? I've always been in the systems. That's worked out for me in the end. But I was trying to create this perfect system without really keeping my eye on the sales machine and making sure the revenue was coming in, making the money before we spend it, right. I wasn't this guy with a Harvard MBA and was gonna go do this startup or I had done startups and I knew I could go raise like tens of millions of dollars and be successful, right? No, this was like our hard earned money. We borrowed money from friends and family to go into debt. Like we had to pay this money back. So looking back, it was just kind of stupid. But also it made me more money than anything I've ever done because I learned so much by doing it. So I see people out there that they hesitate to do and that's a mistake. But then I see people who get. We always taught our students over time like scale, but scale responsibly. You can have a risk mitigation system or process or at least thought process in place. You're not going to lose money that you don't spend and you can make a whole lot of money without spending little to any money. So just some basic things that I would have learned. But what I would have said to myself, like mentally is just. I think what I was already telling myself, I think that's what kept me going is I was reaching out to future me. And that's how I created current me, was by believing in future me. So I feel like I was doing that part already. I was saying, you're gonna be okay. But at times when I really wasn't sure, just knowing I was gonna be okay. If I could have shown my wife a crystal ball, it would have made things easier. There would have been a little less crying when I went upstairs one night. When we were pregnant with our third child and couldn't pay our rent, like that could have been avoided. But hey, we've grown from that too, so.
- [12:59]
Andrew
And it just makes the story all that much cooler, which I think, which I love. And a lot of people who are entrepreneurs out there who have kind of gone through this, you know what it's like to feel that stress and that weight, uh, and it's a really tough thing to go through. And it's that resilience and the ability to kind of get through that time is one of the most powerful things you can do. Because a lot of people make mistakes during that time. But if you can get yourself through that just like Justin did, I think it is so incredibly powerful.
- [13:20]
Justin Williams
One step at a time.
- [13:22]
Andrew
Exactly. And so eventually you started to, you know, have this business, but then you started to get into real estate. So how did that kind of get going and what drew you to real estate and flipping houses and doing some of that stuff?
- [13:33]
Justin Williams
So growing up, my parents were always in, like, MLMs and stuff, like multi level marketing things and always doing side hustles. My dad graduated in 1980, the same year I was born, with a kind of construction management degree. And if anyone knows anything about the early 80s, like, it was not a good time to be in that, like, interest rates through the roof. So I just remember every day, like the prayer I had as a boy was like, please don't get laid off today. Because my dad would get laid off, like, quite frequently. Right. So we grew up just tons of like, my mom, I think, created the side hustle. Right. We were doing everything. So what? One of their MLM meetings, someone told about the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Right. And I was very into making money. I was like, I don't want to be poor. Like, I know what that's like. I know how to hustle. Because we've had to hustle to pay for anything we wanted. We were selling candy bars at the store and, you know, for a fundraiser that was to pay for us to be able to do anything in life. And so I was very into making money. Rich dad, Poor dad sound like a great title. So I read that book. I didn't read books, by the way. Back to the time, I'd read like one other book in my life, which is crazy to think about how I got away with that in high school. But read this book and was just kind of like, wow, like, this is amazing, the principles in this. So I remember when I was dating Tara and I was just sharing with her. Yeah. Like, you know, like we were talking about getting married and I was like, yeah, we're gonna buy these houses. Like, I didn't know how to buy houses. I Knew nothing about it. And then, like, cash flow, and the goal is to have more of those than we have expenses, and then we're financially free. And I guess she was just like, who is it? Like, I think that's why she married me, because I tricked her into thinking that I knew something. But in my mind, I thought I had a bunch of money to do that. So I was like, okay, let's go start the business, make some money, and then eventually we'll, like, figure out how to invest in real estate and do this thing. So by then I had realized, like, oh, like, I talked to enough people. I read a couple other books. I think Robert Allen books, no Money down and Multiple Streams of Income. And I had a friend that did a little. He dabbled a little bit in real estate investing. I talked to him and it occurred to me, like, oh, you don't have to have a ton of money. At least we didn't have the debt by now, so we could at least, like, try something, right? So he was telling me about the seminar he was going to in Atlanta, Georgia, and he said, oh, there's a call about it tonight. We got on that call, and I was blown away. Like, at this time, I didn't know about any seminar. There's no, like, YouTube or Google. Maybe there was Google. Like, I look up things and learn things online. The other business I had, I never had a coach, never had a mentor, didn't even know people would teach you. Like, why would some guy teach you how he's making all this money? Like, I don't understand what's going on. But we were gone. We were in Atlanta, Georgia. This guy was talking about, like, short sells, and we had no clue. He was talking about. I understood, like, 10% of the words they used at the seminar. And then he offers, you know, a $12,000 program, which today would be a $50,000 program. And he said, whoever wins the competition, they're having. Whoever's, like, the best student will win a car. And we're like, we're going to get a car that's worth 25,000, pay 12,000. Like, this is great. We're going to learn how to make millions. We're in. So we signed up for that, and then we got back and we just hit the ground running. Like, we had no clue what we were doing. Wrote down a list of everything we thought we heard, and then we started to number it. It was like a big old piece of paper we taped on our wall, and we started to go through a numbering. Okay. Like, where do we start? 1, 2, 3, 4. And we just got to work and I went out knocking doors. My wife's like, what are you gonna say when you get to the house? Like you're trying to buy someone's house, you have no clue what you're talking about. And like, I don't know, but I think something will come out when I get there. And sure enough, you know, it took us eight months but we started buying these houses and buying. And we actually started not buying them. We did wholesaling, so we got them under contract and would sell the contract and it started to work out. So anyway, that's long winded answer as to how got into real estate.
- [17:25]
Andrew
But I love that because I think you did it pretty much the same way you did your first business as you started to kind of, you know, enter and get educated and then you started to get scrappy with it and do some door knocking. And I used to do that all the time. I would do Driving for dollars and then I would actually hand write a bunch of letters.
- [17:39]
Justin Williams
Real estate.
- [17:39]
Andrew
Yep, exactly. And so there's a lot of cool things like that where if you could find off market properties, you can find some amazing deals. And so I love that that that's kind of how you got started. Because even I've read all those books too where you kind of go through that. And Rich Dad, Poor dad was the first one I read too. That just honestly the only way I can describe it is it kind of like lit a fire in my brain to try to pursue this more. And he's a little crazy now, but I think it's just one of the best books out there for sure. Yeah, it's interesting, um, just to even get you started in your mindset going and all that kind of stuff. But the first time you and I talked, we were talking through and you said, you know, at your peak you were doing, you know, hundreds of transactions a year. So how did you go from starting to flip those houses to going to those hundreds of transactions per year? And like tactically, what did you do? How did you build those systems and scales?
- [18:23]
Justin Williams
Yeah, so I mean, just to keep it real, like 100 to 120 we did for like a few years. I don't want to say hundreds per year. You don't want to over. But yeah, so the way it kind of happened was we had some ups and downs, we made some mistakes. We moved out of Bakersfield, like, oh, we're making money. We didn't want to live there anyway, long term. Is just kind of the goal is to be there for a few months, but ended up being there for two years. And once we made some money, got some traction, we're like, we're out once again. We should just hung on a little bit longer this time. At least we didn't get a bunch of overhead. But instead we decided let's go move down by the beach and start spending more money, right? So we lost our networks, we're spending more money and we like short sell. The industry was changing, right? I don't know, I think I'm a decade older than you, so you probably came after that. But so it was like this perfect storm of like, oh crap, you know, like once again we were good, but now we're starting to see maybe we're not quite so good. So we moved a little further inland. Tara's brother had this insane house like an hour inland. And we're like, oh what? We can get this. Like, okay, let's go rent a house inland, save some money and try to reinvent ourselves. So by now that's when we're having. Our third kid was on the way. I remember going upstairs, Tara was crying. I'm like. And that I think is when the mindset started to jack with me a little bit where I'm like, really? Like this is happening again. Like Tara counted on me, she believed in me. She quit her job. I'm like, we're gonna go do this. And now I'm letting her down again. So that was pretty brutal. But I remember we got into like bank owned properties and we're like, okay, like we're gonna actually buy and flip this house. Like, and I remember buying one of them and being so scared and it was only a seventy thousand dollar house and wasn't with our own money because we had to borrow the money from my dad. Like the guy that worked with my dad and I was so scared of losing his money. Every day I was stressing out like, what if we don't? What's gonna happen if we lose money and all this stuff? So we have money to lose and we, you know, we ended up making $12,000. I was like, I can't do this, like what am I going to do? Like I'm unemployable. Like I still believe in entrepreneurship, but I don't know what to do. And I was talking to a friend of mine who actually I started, I was going to real estate investment clubs and started to learn a little more about rental properties and I started hanging out with a friend of mine who he was like, yeah, I'm just buying these rental properties. So I was like, okay, like will you teach me? And he's like, sure. And so we got buying rental properties and that was a lot like, ah, made me a lot more calm. But the money, it took a while to make the money, right? So we ended up buying 12 houses over a three month period, which was like insane to us. Like we never bought that many houses before in that short a period of time. And they were like $50,000 houses, you know, nothing crazy. And we were starting to get our rental properties, but then we were totally out of money. Like our investors, we didn't have any more investors to go to. Like we knew now we had the houses we knew we could buy, we knew how to buy them, we knew the rental criteria. But we're like, dang, like we're out of money, like we don't have to pay our bills. So we looked at some of those houses and we're like, oh, I think some of these like we can make money from, we can make a profit from. And so kicking and screaming, not wanting to sell any. Cause I was like, I'm gonna hold these houses. We sold four of those houses and from that we made more money than we needed to live for a year. And at that time that was like amazing. Like the relief was just like, okay, you know, we had our emergency fund as you talk about, and it was just am financially free for a year and that's not gonna buy more rentals. But then it hit me, it's like, what if I made more money every month than I needed for an entire year? Like that would be pretty cool. Like in a few months I'll be good for five years. You know what I mean? It just this thing got going and so we started doing that. But I was like, what was the difference? The difference was I was so freaked out before, couldn't sleep at night, this one house, and now it was fine. And it was because I had my, you know, risk mitigation as I call it, strategy I now call it in place. And in my mind I knew I was like, I'm just buying rental properties, just buying rental properties and I'm gonna flip them as well. But if they don't sell for whatever reason, I got my rental properties. And that's what I wanted initially anyway. So it's like this big, huge win win. And so we got doing that. And I'm a big believer in systems come from taking action, not the other way around. It's good to have a vision and a general idea of what you think you're doing and how you think you're going to do it. But just like Pocahontas says, you can't see around the Riverbend, Right. Like, you don't know what's coming. Information comes from taking action. And so we started buying these houses. Then we started to see the issues we were coming to. We needed more money. So I found a guy that had deep pockets. He understood returns. By then, I was understanding returns. I didn't understand anything about returns before. And I came to the realization that, oh, every house we buy, it's taken us four months to buy rehab and sell it. And we're making about 15 to 18, 20% return on the total capital invested. Even though it was an hour capital, the total amount of money, if we put a hundred thousand dollars into a house, 80,000 to buying it, 20,000 into repairs, we were making like 15 to $20,000 on that, right? So 15 to 20%. I'm trying to make these numbers easy, right? So they. Yep. So everyone understands, I'm saying. And then if you do that for three times a year, because if you can do it in four months, you can turn that money three times per year. So it's like, okay, that's like 45 to 50% annualized. So we've realized that. Which meant we knew if we were borrowing money at 12%, that's a. Like, we're making like 38, you know, 30, 40% on someone else's money. Like, how cool is that, right? It takes work. We are doing the work, right? So then I approached this guy who had millions of dollars, knew about real estate. We kind of had a relationship. I showed him the numbers. We went and drove, and he looked at our houses and he's like, hey, you got an open check for me, Basically. So he just started funding all of our deals because in his, we gave him half the profit, right? Which isn't ideal, but it's also ideal because now we solved the money problem. So. Because we understood our numbers. So I preach to people all the time, like, under. In a business, you want to understand the potential roi because everyone says, oh, it's hard to get money. It's not hard to get money. Money follows the deal. And that's any business. I'm talking about real estate right now, but any business, money follows the deal. If you come to me with a pickleball business, right? And you're like, hey, this thing, like, can you show me, like, the ROI and you're like, do you want to invest and you can make this much money? I'm like, okay, sure, right. Let's do. Let's do this. So anyway, I know you have pickleball businesses. So for anyone listening who doesn't know, Andrea, I'm sure you know, but. So anyway, we solved the money problem. This guy was just giving us the money that we needed. And then it was like we were buying you and more because we now knew where to buy the houses. We knew the criteria. We had our risk mitigation plan in place was it wasn't stressed out about that. We had the money and now it was okay. We're like going at this time. Like, I was never like a swing the hammer guy. Like, I just, I tried it a couple times, but I am not good at it. I knew it was above my pay grade. So I had contractors working for us, but I noticed we kept like, what is. Some of these things are just taking so much time. And one of those things was like, trying to pick out, like the paint and the carpet. I'm like, I don't really care as long as it sells. So we just came up with like a list of all the paint we're going to use for every house and all the carpet we're going to use for every house. And we would change this list from time to time. But for the most part, we were buying in the same area. I mean, we didn't want every house in the neighborhood to be the exact same. Right. We changed from time to time. But basically our contractor would go buy the paint. And also, like, I didn't want to go to Home Depot to pick it up for him. So we set up an account for him and a credit card and he would go and get the stuff. And what we did was we were paying for the materials. And the other thing was taking a long time is contractors going back and forth on their bids. So we came up. I'm like, at the end of the day, we're all this haggling and negotiating, but we're paying about the same price for everything. So we came up with a price list. And I said, this is what we'll pay you per square feet for paint, for carpet, for everything. So it's pre negotiated. Like, you know, you're going to get to work. You don't have to stress about it. You don't have to bid like five jobs to get one. You're going to get the work. You have to agree to this ahead of time. So we did that I also had my agents, I gave them authorization, I taught them our criteria for buying houses because one of the biggest things was taking time was making offers on houses, getting houses under contract. So I never even looked. I mean, first of all, I never looked at these houses physically, but I never looked at even the numbers of a house until it was either under contract or very close. They're like, hey, should we accept this? I gave my assistant and our agents authorization to make these offers for me. And the truth is, like, they knew the criteria well, so we didn't really back out, but we could if we needed to because we had an inspection period. So, you know, it's pretty, pretty simple stuff. But what's the lesson here? First, take action. Have like a risk mitigation plan. And you don't need to like, don't over plan, just in your mind be like, okay, I'm not going to spend money, I can't afford to lose type thing. Like keep it super simple. Next, take action on your plan and then look for the things that are taking you a long time. This is because at some point in your business, first you got to take action, but at some point you want to use leverage. That's how you scale. You got to insert some kind of leverage. So you want to look at all the things that are taking a lot of time and are easy to train, right? That's the low hanging fruit, right? So you want to outsource that, systematize that. That's like where you start and then you just keep going from there. I think the first thing though is like intent. I don't know of anyone who has automated a business that didn't try to automate a business every day. That's what I look at in all my businesses. I've automated just how every business, even the podcast that we currently have that is currently bringing in, you know, we're into our third year and we're doing 30 to 40, 000 net profit and we're on very few of the episodes even we have people doing our interviews for. It's like we have someone editing the podcast, we have someone publishing it, right? Like I'm constantly just thinking of what is everything that's going on in the business. Start with the low hanging fruit. What takes the most time, what's the easiest to systematize or outsource and then going from there and then not can you outsource these things, but how can you? And there might be things that you love doing, give you a ton of energy. You want to Always do. Like, maybe you, like Andrew, like, loves doing interviews, let's say awesome. But your leverage is media, right? So there comes a point, you take action and there comes a point where you got to insert a form of leverage. And I know I'm diving down to all these other questions you sent me, but there comes a point where it's like, okay, if you don't want to remain stagnant, if you want to get to that seven figure plus business, you've got to the definition of sanity's doing the same thing, expecting different result. What got you here won't get you there. You've got to insert a form of leverage, whether it's media systems, money, people, and there's another one, tools, anyway, there's several. Right. But you got to do it.
- [29:33]
Andrew
And what I love about this too is I'm the type of person and this is actually wrong. And I, I, because I agree with what you're saying here, is what I typically will do, and it's because I'm type A, is I will try to start to develop the system before I take action and I'll do it beforehand. And I think it is every single time I do that I have to redo it every single time because I have to take action first and now.
- [29:51]
Justin Williams
Start doing something again and again. Ye.
- [29:53]
Andrew
And get. Exactly. Then you got to go back in there and reiterate and do something. And so for a lot of people out there, if you're trying to scale a business or you're interested in real estate, or you're trying to do a side hustle and you're trying to grow that over time, I think it's just taking that action first is so important for most people so that you can learn what you need to start to systematize. And if you've never read the Myth or if you've never read Traction, those two books will kind of take you through how to systematize things. But this is an amazing way to kind of think about this is you have to take that action first. Otherwise you have no idea what problems are going to come up. You have no idea what issues are there. And I love that you kind of came in and this is how I did my real estate business too, where you had the same exact paint for most of the walls. You had the same flooring for everything. You just had a template list and people could go in there and start to utilize that. And that's a great example for a lot of people because you can do this in any type of business. Everything needs to be done in a very systematic way so that you can scale that business. It's impossible to scale if everybody's just running around all over the place and calling you all day long saying, hey, what floors do you want in this property? Or what carpet do you want in this bedroom? And every single time, you have to take a bunch of phone calls. Instead, you're doing it by making sure that they understand, hey, this is what goes in each and every single room. This is the kind of faucets we use. It's broken down all the way to the minuscule details so that you can scale this business. And that is why you were able to do so many properties every single year. 100, 120. That is not easy to do whatsoever. And so that is an amazing example of how you were able to do that. Now, the cool thing about your story is that you start to build wealth in a bunch of different ways. Now on this podcast, I have said a bunch of different times that crypto is not my forte. It is not something that I have loved since the beginning, but obviously it has outperformed most investments, if not all investments, over the course of the last couple of decades. Now, my argument was always, hey, crypto doesn't have intrinsic value, meaning it doesn't have, like a balance sheet. It's similar to gold, where, you know, whatever somebody else is willing to pay for. Exactly. And so for a lot of it, it's maybe, you know, 3 to 5% of my portfolio. It's a very, very small percentage. And it's something that I just dollar cost average, just like I do in the stock investing. I just dollar cost average every single month into just, you know, bitcoin and kind of have the big coins there and that's it. But you got in really, really early. And I think this is the interesting thing, because what convinced you to kind of start buying some bitcoin? And what price did you buy bitcoin at? Because I think this is going to blow people's minds.
- [32:10]
Justin Williams
So at the time, like, we were starting to do pretty well in our business. It was before we moved back down by the beach and we were getting close to like making that seven figures, and we hadn't yet flipped our first 60. The first time we flipped 60 houses and we flipped 100 and then 120 anyway, and it's like, oh, we're doing pretty good. So now we have a little extra money. And I've been watching, like Shark Tank at the time, and I knew that there were investments out There that you could invest in, and you have a really good chance of losing it all, but you also have a decent chance of like 100xing, right? Like, it's possible, you know, and looking back, like now hearing, like, about the businesses that did well in Shark Tank and not. I don't think I was aware of how few have done well, but I didn't know what I didn't know at that time, right? So in my mind, like, I was looking for this kind of investment, but not actively. Just kind of like, in my mind, I knew I wanted to do that because I understood returns. And the way I thought and I still think was I'm like, if I can potentially have a chance of getting like a thousand percent return, like, maybe even over a few years, maybe there's just like a 10% chance of getting the thousand percent return, or maybe there's like a 30% chance of it blowing up, 30% chance of it doing nothing, and 30% chance of losing it all. And I do that multiple times. Like, ultimately, I'm going to get some. Potentially get some huge returns. Now my mind, I was like, I will only do it with money that I can totally lose. Don't need whatever, right? So this guy comes along that was actually, you know, I talked about the fifth, the one guy that lent money to us. So then another guy, like, came along who he's like, man, like, I'd love to invest with you guys. And so he was investing with us. And I knew this guy had made, like, some good bets in the past, and I knew he was pretty smart. I'm not smart. I never heard of bitcoin or crypto anything. And he calls me one day. I remember I was at, like, the habit with my kids that were really young, and they were like, all over the place. And he's like, you got to buy this thing called bitcoin. And then he goes on to tell me these disclaimers about how there might be illegal things that I just got to give you some disclaimers. They might use it for all this illegal stuff. And I was like, I don't know. I don't want to support whatever black market or whatever it is. He's like, but ultimately, I think it'll be a good thing. And I could tell he knew what he was talking about. And other people I would hear after that a little bit talk about it. And, oh, these people don't know a lot about it. He does know a lot about it. And then within one week, so he told me about it when it's at $50, and I was just kind of sitting on it and waiting and then went to 75. And so I called him, and I'm like, yeah, okay. How do I do this? So I sent him 25 grand, and he's like, hey, I'll take care of it, you know? And then, like, it went down, and I'm like, ah, whatever. And, like, they don't worry. I just didn't worry about it, like, for years. And then all of a sudden, like, I started to look at it, and it went up to, like, it was going like, 15, 16, 17, 18,000, you know? And I was like, what the crap? So I call him. I'm like, hey, like, how do I get that bitcoin? Luckily, he told me how to get it. Like, he had it all, like, in his name. Like, he just.
- [35:10]
Andrew
Oh, wow.
- [35:11]
Justin Williams
Well, because I didn't. I was like, yeah, whatever. I don't know what I'm doing here. Okay? I trust you. And I didn't know how to invest in stuff like that. So anyway, he told me, like, how to do it and all this stuff, and we're just like, what? So anyway, yeah, we bought. I mean, if we held on to all of it, it would be worth $30 million right now. We bought into a. But at that same time, we bought into a bunch of other cryptos that most of them have gone to nothing. You know, I heard you kind of talk about this, like, all the different coins, because everyone's like, yeah, buy them. Like, okay, now we're gonna do this with all the other ones, and they're all gonna, like, thousand X. And look. And that was, like, dumb. And we invested unintentionally in some crypto Ponzi scheme, lost money there. We were doing some trading on this one place, lost a bunch there. And then ultimately, we ended up using some of it to buy, like, this mansion we bought a couple years ago in Rancho Santa Fe. But, you know, it had gone down by then, so we sell anyway, bottom line. Maybe I'm divulging too much information, but we have, like, 40 bitcoin still, which is cool. 4 million. And then probably at least another million in other crypto and stuff.
- [36:20]
Andrew
And that's the incredible part about this, is that even though you held a portion of it, which I absolutely love, and then at the same time, you also had this just amazing rise. I can't even imagine what that rush feels like for it to rise that quickly if you get in at $75. For those listening who don't know. Right now, the time recording this bitcoin is at $96,207 per coin. And so getting in at $75 is just absolutely amazing. And so it's something I think that most people probably would, you know, dream to go back. You hear all these stories of people, you know, who got in and then got out, but you actually held on to it, and I think that's a really, really powerful thing. Was there ever a time that you wanted to sell all of it because you're like, man, this is rising to a thousand dollars.
- [36:58]
Justin Williams
No, I never did. And that's what's interesting. I know you asked the question about, how did you. Hold on. I'm like, I don't like to lose money. And so to me, like, logically, it's like, I didn't need. Once again, I invested money I didn't need. And then to me, if it's going down, like, why am I going to sell when it's like, I flipped too many houses to know I don't want to, like, I want to buy a house low and sell it high. I don't want to sell a house for left. I have to. I will. But houses are different, right? Anyway, so I guess if I, like, needed the money to, like, feed my family, maybe I would have. But it never made sense to me to sell. Except for times when we divested into other things we thought were going to blow up. And when we wanted to buy this house, it was like this dream house. Like, it's like a. It was insane. Like, never in my million years I dreamed of living there. Right? Like, I mean, we lived, like, in the same neighborhood as, like, celebrities and huge business owners. And funny story, I went to a mastermind that we ran in one of our businesses three years prior to that. And I'm not very good with geography and where I'm at at times. And I had a guy. My COO was planned at all and stuff. But we get to this house, and in my mind, I'm like, I want to have a house like this someday. So I had no clue. And literally, it was, like, two miles away from this house. Anyway, that's. I'm getting distracted here, so. But holding it for me once we. I'm like, okay, I can't eat bitcoin, right? I can't live in bitcoin. So I believe in using your money to enjoy life. So there did come a point where, like, oh, I like, we'd like to have this house. So even if Bitcoin, like, 10 X's again. It's like, I don't care if I die with $100 million worth of Bitcoin. I'm not that guy that just wants to, like, make my kids filthy rich. Like, no, I work hard so I can enjoy my life and have security. Right? Like, it's not just for my kids. They might get some scraps here and there. But anyway, we're like, okay, let's, like, use some of this. So anyway, the cool thing is the house went up, like, almost $2 million. We sold that, traveled around the world for a year. Anyway, I feel like we're getting very distracted on the whole bitcoin thing. But the point I want to make is, did we get lucky? Absolutely. But we also thought maybe we would. You know what I mean? It's kind of like the whole. You create your own luck. And I mean, it's like, literally like a thousand X. I'm not saying our investment has a thousand X, because we did sell some along the way and stuff, but we've done this, like, multiple times in different things, like just shooting for those, like, 10x returns. And some of them have, like, yeah, like, startups that we've invested. Some have gone to, like, nothing. Right? And it's like, I convinced some people to invest in it. It's like one of the big scars of my life where I was like, oh, I just want to go back and not do that. But we've also done some other things that have done really well or look like they're going to do really well. And once again, I think it just goes back to the philosophy that we talked about. I'm not saying I don't think most people should go out and invest money that they can't afford to lose. Like, not have any savings, not. You know what I mean? Like, we're gonna roll the dice. Like, the way I look at it is if you have money that you know you can lose and if you understand returns and you feel like, hey, there's a 50% chance, this can do really well, you can kind of start to run the numbers, and you realize it only takes a couple of these, like, to really hit it big. A couple good investments, you know? So that's the way I look at it. I don't buy. Like I mentioned to you, like, we just bought, like, our first stock. You go, the stock guy. Like, it's funny that we bought our first stock and I was going to invest in S&P 500, but I'm like, I think that's Good for most people, but it's like we're. We've already, like, won the game, if you will, like, and so now it's just more for fun. So I was talking to some guys and they're talking about all the tech coming out with Tesla and the automated stuff and the AI that could come out. No one know, like, people think Elon Musk is crazy and they're like, it's not going to happen the time. I'm like, but if it does. If it does. And I talk to this guy that I know has done really well. Once again, I don't know anything about the stock market. I don't know a ton about Tesla. We have one, but I don't know a ton about it. I know a lot of people have opinions on if they like Elon Musk or not. I don't care. I just want to make money. And the way I look at it, like, if this guy is right, he thinks it'll like 8x in 5 years. And some people are like, no, that's not going to happen. What? I don't care. It might. It probably won't, might not. I don't know. The odds are it won't happen. Who cares? But if it does, that's a great return. If it goes to zero. Oh, well, like, we haven't. It is what it is. But, like, if there's a 50% chance, let's just say there's a 50% chance that 8x is 50% chance it goes to zero or. And it's not gonna go to zero. Right. But if it gets cut in half, like, those are pretty good odds in my opinion, because I can afford to lose it. Does that make sense anyway?
- [41:31]
Andrew
It does. And I think that's the same mentality you've had over and over again to kind of take those risks and have that risk tolerance to be able to kind of take on some of these investments. And I think this is really why I wanted to kind of go through your story on this episode, because so many people hear me talk about the traditional, you know, nine to five path to retirement. You. You start that path, you kind of figure out what your retirement number is, and you start to just save in your 401k and your Roth IRA. That's not the only way to do this. And I think that that is what is so cool about your story, is you did it. And like you told me on your show just recently that this is your first stock investment that, you know, you started last week and you are completely financially independent. You're selling your business to real estate to now having that bitcoin. And so you did it really, really cool way by taking on some additional risk. But it's paid off. And you've talked about this where you've had, you know, some businesses that didn't do as well with just angel investing or whatever else, but you were willing to do that and the ones that paid off allowed you to achieve financial independence. And I think that's a really, really powerful thing that is really cool about your story. So switch to Verizon business and get more from your Internet without paying more for your Internet. Get LTE Business Internet starting at $39 a month when paired with a business unlimited smartphone plan. That's unlimited data and with it unlimited possibilities. Start saving today with Verizon business ranked number one in small business Internet customer satisfaction by J.D. power. Starting price for 25 Mbps Internet plan with savings plus taxes, fees and economic adjustment charge terms apply for J.D. power 2024 award information. Visit JD Power.com awards sergeant and Mr.
- [43:01]
Justin Williams
Smith, you're gonna love this house. Bunk beds in a closet.
- [43:06]
Andrew
There's no field manual for finding the.
- [43:08]
Justin Williams
Right home, but when you do, USAA Homeowners insurance can help protect it the right way. Restrictions apply.
- [43:15]
Andrew
Since you're new to H and R Block, we'll look at your returns from the last three years for any money your last guy might have missed for free. I could get money back from last year. You could. We'll find any mistakes.
- [43:25]
Justin Williams
Could have really used that two years.
- [43:26]
Andrew
Ago when I dated that mistake stake for five months.
- [43:29]
Justin Williams
Don't leave money on the table. Switch to H and R Block and get a free second look review. Second look is included at no additional cost with the purchase of tax preparation. Results vary. All tax situations are different. Fees apply. If you have us file an amended return.
- [43:44]
Andrew
This episode is brought to you by bank of America. What if your business could see beyond what is and into what can be? And what if you had a partner as visionary as you are, bank of America gives customers access to trusted experts, real time insights and digital tools to make every move matter. What would you like the power to do? Visit bankofamerica.com banking for business. Bank of America is proud to be the official bank sponsor of FIFA World Cup 2026. You retired at the age of 40 and what does financial freedom kind of actually feel like? Kind of talk about that like the first day you retired and then what is in your portfolio to allow you to be financially independent so we've kind.
- [44:25]
Justin Williams
Of retired, like, semi retired a couple times, then retired, like, sold our business, our real estate investing, education business. We sold that, like, a few years ago. That's the 40 you're talking about. And then, like, retired, retired. And then we kind of started another business anyway, so there's lots of retiring and retiring. But, yeah, we've been financially free, if you will, for a while, especially once we sold that business, and we were before. But once we sold that business, like, we're financially free and we didn't have anything to do, you know, we weren't. So. But it was a very interesting experience. I believe that money, like, I'm sure people, you've heard this, but kind of polarizes not only who you are, but where you are. So I think if you're struggling in a relationship, your marriage, whatever, and you get a bunch of money, I think you'll struggle more. Like, I know it sounds crazy. So I think it's really important to realize, and I know you, a few episodes ago, you talked about, like, the five different kinds of wealth. You really don't want to, in your mind, just be like, someday when I get here, everything's going to be okay. Because when we sold that business, like, at first it was great. I want to learn what pickleball was. And I was playing pickleball for four hours a day. And in my mind I was like, I'm going to, like, serve. Like, what's better to, like, be financially free. That's the whole goal. Like, serve. So I started, like, serving in our church and started going to, like, the PTA meetings. So they gave me, like, stuff to do. And before you know it, all my time was filled. But it was, like, stuff that wasn't super fulfilling to me, so I wasn't super fulfilled. My wife, like, she started working on a bunch of different stuff. Somehow we, like, weren't that connected. And I think we've been connected off and on at different times. But I think we kept thinking, once we get to this thing, it's going to be great. We're going to be able to travel, and we're just automatically going to be connected. So there's nothing more frustrating and, like, infuriating and disheartening than reaching this financial freedom, having all this money. And then it's, like, depressing, right? So I'm not saying I was depressed the whole time, but I went through, like, we went through this depression. We almost got divorced, right? So I'm only sharing this not because now people are like, oh, I'M not going to go get financially free. No. Like, I love having, like, I love being financially free. Like, it's one of the greatest things ever. But that really was a true blessing, actually. I think everyone should go become financially free, number one, because you do develop along the way. But try to, like, just realize, like, it's not gonna really isn't gonna make you happy. I know it's cliche, but that alone is gonna make you happy. Like, it will release some stress and it'll be good, but make sure you're good. Like, be good at the relationships now. Like, don't wait. Right. Like, be good at your health now. I hear you talk with us too. Like, don't wait for those things. You're spiritual, all these different things. But it was such a blessing because realizing that, like, we, in a way, we hit rock bottom when we were had the most, more money than we ever had or ever needed. And so it caused us to really dig deep, do a lot of development, a lot of self development, a lot of inner work. And now, like, we're not perfect. We still struggle with things, but we're more connected than we ever are. I'd say we're happier than we've ever been. And, like, not only that, but, like, we see the real goal. But, yeah, I always say I would rather live in a shack and be happy and in love and at peace than have all the money in the world and feel how I felt like at that time. So. But part of that is I started, like, doing all this service, which I'm a big fan of doing service, but I realized, like, oh, I'm essentially doing all the things that I don't like to do, which is why I started the business because basically people are telling me what to do, and I'm knocking doors for the PTA, making $10 an hour for them for a fundraiser. And I'm like, I hate this. I'm not in charge. So anyway, you got to know your personality and what you, like, do. And now I realize, like, the best way I can serve is actually making money is having a business. And that's kind of the whole circle what got us back in to starting a business again. Because I. It was fun taking time off, but, like, I started to not feel that fulfilled. And I'm like, okay, you can serve, you can make money. But just we did in a different way. So.
- [48:25]
Andrew
And this is, I think, a really important conversation because a lot of people who listen to this podcast are trying to pursue financial independence or financial freedom, and they think, oh, everything is going to be amazing. It's going to be peachy once I hit that point in time. And what they don't realize is if you don't work on some of the things that are issues in your life right now and if you don't get those established, like you said, it's going to amplify when you have more time. Because a lot of times more time just means you're not as busy to have a distraction from what is actually going on in your life. And so I think it's a really important conversation for a lot of people because the grass is not always greener on the other side. You got to make sure that you are kind of working on yourself at all times. It's not just waiting until financial independence. And I think that's really, really important. What role do you think business ownership plays in fast tracking your path to financial freedom?
- [49:10]
Justin Williams
I mean, I think, I know we talked about like the bitcoin and the Tesla, the different style, the different startups you can invest in, but to me there is no faster way to create wealth. And I don't want to say guarantee wealth, but like, for me, like I feel like it can almost be guaranteed than starting your own business. And we could have, you know, 20 more podcast episodes right, talking about this, but I'll like really quickly. And I know this might be some of what we're going to get into, but I'm actually currently working on a checklist because like you mentioned, I believe anyone can create wealth. Like, you know, my focus is like it's a build my money machine, right? I don't even like to I use the word business because that's what everyone else uses, but I like to think of it differently. The reason why we say build my money machine is you mentioned e myth and traction and I've read both those books, I think they're great, but I think they also mess a lot of people up. And I remember when I first started my first business, this guy comes over and he's teaches business school and all this stuff and he's like, hey, you gotta figure out like your ideal target customer. And then you gotta have like a mission statement and this business plan and he's going through all these things and I'm just like, I just gotta go knock doors and get cells, you know, and it was so confusing to me and it kind of messed me up for like a week. And then I was like, okay, I just gotta put that to the side. And I mentioned emyth I read Emyth and I'm sitting in my office, like making this like, perfect, like every system to the T while my business is going down the tubes, right? And then Traction, I've done the traction thing and I think it's great. But literally we interviewed a guy from Traction on our podcast and at the very end she's like, so what like, size business is this good for? It's like, usually you want to have like at least 10 employees, you know, so it's like most people that are starting a business, unless you're buying it. Like, I know you've mentioned you have 100 employees, which is crazy. Talk about another time. But they don't have any employees. Like, so if you're going out and you're trying to do all of these things, trying to create this perfect business plan and create this mission statement, like most of the books that you read out there or publications that you see are about these, like, billion dollar companies or even like, I love, like good to great and stuff like that. But it's talking about these big, huge businesses. But most businesses are not big, huge businesses. Like, we hear about Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and all these guys. But like most people, that's not what they're trying to do. Like, it doesn't take a lot to create a business that brings in 10, $20,000 a month of passive income, right? So I call it Build the money Machine. So some of the quick steps, and I know we can dive into each one of these another on other episodes, but it's like for a lot of people, like, the number one things that holds them back is some kind of mindset. And we have like, there's like 10 different, like, angles. I'm like, is it this, like, go through this checklist and like, it's like getting your car diagnosed. Like, where do you think you're off? Where are you not taking action? So after that it's like a little more practical. Like, okay, what's your business idea? Do not. If you come to me and you're like, I've got this great idea, like, I've never seen it done before. Like, I'm red flags, man. Like, it's not rocket science. Like, go out there. There's like a hundred different, like, home service businesses you could start tomorrow, that if you really just get after it and just put in the time day in and day out, you don't have to have a big plan or a mission statement or change the world, this or that and the other within a few years. You can have a seven figure business, right? And you mentioned agencies. Like if you know how to market or you want to learn how to market, like you can create or any kind of agency, right? Like what are the things that you're good at? What are the things that you're familiar with. Have your risk mitigation strategy in place. Don't spend money that you don't have. You don't have to do that if you want to do E Commerce. My daughter just started an E commerce business. What is something you're passionate about? Like we live in the information age. Like you can literally look, it's so crazy to me. Like you can go online and see what other people are doing. You can watch them and they will tell you what to do. And then you just have to do it. Just do it, you know. Anyway, I could go on and on. I didn't cover all seven of the things. There comes a point where you got to put in some like let's say you, you figure out, okay, I got a model, I know I'm making a hundred dollars an hour doing plumbing, you know, like any one of a thousand different business ideas. Now I'm going to hire someone who does the work for me. Pay them 20, 30 an hour, right? Depending on where you're located, whatever. Like just take it step at a time. So anyway, and that's what I love.
- [53:36]
Andrew
And I think we definitely have to have you on to do a whole episode. Building a business 101 because I think too much. That is one I love. Like you have these steps all set up and you have a mapped out and I've even seen like on your courses that you have on your website and stuff, you have all these steps mapped out and like how to think through all of this, which I absolutely love. And I think that's what's so powerful about this. And if anybody wants to take your free course, by the way, where can they go find that?
- [53:58]
Justin Williams
Yeah, you can go to millionaireuniversity.com course or it's just all over our site. Go to millionaireuniversity.com and you'll, you'll see it on there because it's a great spot.
- [54:08]
Andrew
Like I think for a lot of people who want us to go in and get a business started and there's a lot of our folks who listen to this podcast who want to. I think it's a great spot to even kind of think through going through the process and how you actually do this and how do you even think through that? So I absolutely love that Portion of it, too.
- [54:22]
Justin Williams
And when we. When I finish the checklist, we'll send that to you as well. I was trying to get it done this week, and my wife's like, she's way smarter than I am. She's like, do you want to enjoy your week? Because we're going on a cruise next week and Disneyland with family coming. It's like. Or do you want it to be, like, just an insane week? I'm like, okay, so exactly, exactly.
- [54:38]
Andrew
You got to keep it. You got to keep it with the. Within the parameters. You're still financially independent, so you got to make sure you get.
- [54:43]
Justin Williams
Exactly, exactly. It's like, we don't exactly. Yeah. What are we doing it for? So.
- [54:46]
Andrew
Exactly. That's amazing. So I want to shift gears here because I think your story is absolutely amazing, and I want to shift gears here and kind of go through some of these rapid fire questions that we talk about, and you can expand on these longer. They don't have to be super quick, but these are just fun questions that we like to ask a lot of our guests. So what part of your work or life makes you come alive?
- [55:03]
Justin Williams
I love this stuff, man. I love talking. If I go to a family reunion, and that's why I'm doing, I believe when you start your first business or you're just trying to make money, you sometimes just got to do what you got to do. Do. What do you good at? What can you do? Like, go knock some doors if you, like, go make it happen. You won't catch me doing that today. Right? But I love talking about business. I go to family reunion. I love seeing where someone is right now and then being stuck. And that's all my brain does. Like, how can you, like, overcome that? How can you improve that? Some people don't like it, like, if they're not asking for it, but that's why I do a podcast. It's like, everybody wants to learn that. Right? So I just love. Yeah, it makes me alive just talking about business, helping people overcome and get to that next level of growth and anything.
- [55:46]
Andrew
So I think it's that entrepreneur mindset. A lot of times, if I even go to, like, a restaurant or something, I start to deconstruct the business and work, work it down, and I can't stop from doing it. And I'm the same way. Sometimes I give unsolicited advice, but that's. It is what it is. Which is. Which is awesome. What is your biggest fear when it comes to money?
- [56:02]
Justin Williams
You know, I saw that question and Like I don't really, that's one of my things I think that's helped me do well. I'm not smart, but I'm not, I don't have a lot of fears with money. I just think I kind of didn't know ignorance was bliss. I didn't really know what I didn't know type thing. So I would say my biggest fear is it like you could take everything away from me tomorrow and I'll be like, oh man. But like it would last five seconds and then I'll go out and like do it again. Right. Like I not even worried about it. But my biggest fear would be like my wife, not, not that she'd be mad, but just I know that there's been times when like money has been more of a struggle and that's been harder on her, but it's also been a huge growth thing and she appreciates it and she's grateful for it. But yeah, I think that would be my biggest, like not fear but concern, not fear of her wrath. But I don't like to let her down. I, who doesn't like to take care of their, you know, hopefully most people like taking care of their significant other and yes, that'll be my biggest like, ah, crap, I don't want to let her down again, you know, so.
- [57:00]
Andrew
Oh, I completely get that. You know, you feel almost in the pit of your stomach if you, you start to let you know someone you love down, which is tough. How do you plan to level up your finances this year?
- [57:09]
Justin Williams
Well, like we mentioned, we're now buying stock. I'm like, we're buying stock market. How do I even say this? We typically like, we do a lot of private money lending, we do a lot of investing in commercial properties. Not hands on, it's all hands off stuff. We have like our passive income without like bitcoin and the startups is currently around like 50,000amonth. And some of that is like the know when I sold my business I sold some of it on seller financing and stuff like that. So we're pretty good, like we're pretty good there. But yeah, I think the two main things is starting to invest a little bit in the stock market. And the reason why we're able to do that, you know, because we have most of our other investments in out and they're bringing in good revenue and different things is because of the business that we started two years ago, Millionaire University, and it took a year and a half to get that business to profitability. But now it's like, oh, this is great, you know, peeling off 30, 40,000 extra per month, but also seeing the money machine component of it, Right? Like how we can spend a dollar to make a dollar fifty. And there's two different scenarios I'm thinking of. Or spend a dollar to make four or five dollars. Right. So that's where it just gets fun because you just keep growing it. And so those are the two main things we're focused on.
- [58:20]
Andrew
Exactly. It's figuring out that money machine, which I think is really, really cool. The way that your brain works with that is very, very cool. What legacy do you want to leave behind to your kids?
- [58:29]
Justin Williams
You know, I think about legacy a lot. Like, I genuinely, like, I do not care to have, like, a statue. I don't care to leave my kids money. Like, I want them to have knowledge and confidence, but I. I think that's about it. Like, sure, I want them to, like, have good. To remember their dad and think he was, you know, a good guy and. But more importantly is I want them to be confident and happy and peaceful. I'm so obviously, like, I'd hope that I could be a part of that, but if I could decide whether they have that without me getting the credit, like, I. I'd rather have them have it, you know, so as long as they have that, obviously, I know if I'm a dysfunctional dad, that's not going to be good for them. But, yeah, I don't know. Like, I don't feel like I care a whole lot about, like, legacy or my name on the wall or creating generational wealth and all that. I just want people to be good and be in a good spot. And trust me, I get plenty involved with my kids and too much so. But, yeah, that's. That's kind of how I think about it. I guess I love it.
- [59:33]
Andrew
And I think passing down knowledge is the most important overall. Specifically, you know, a financial education and all that kind of stuff is the most important thing, for sure. There's a. A study done in the book the Millionaire Next Door, where they kind of talk through all the wealthy families who actually kind of maintained the similar level of wealth with their parents. They had a great financial education, and I think that's really, really important thing and the most important to pass down to your kids.
- [59:56]
Justin Williams
And it's not taught in schools, so.
- [59:58]
Andrew
Exactly.
- [59:59]
Justin Williams
Yeah.
- [60:00]
Andrew
What is the best money advice you've ever received outside of buy Bitcoin at $75?
- [60:06]
Justin Williams
I don't. I. I saw this question, too. I'm like, I don't I feel like it's just an accumulation of little things adding up. Like I said, when I understood returns, I didn't start getting a lot of advice. I wasn't never coached. Didn't know that you could have a coach at the beginning. So certain things I thought were good advice at one time, maybe weren't as much. I actually am very careful about asking people for advice because what I found is, like, most people will give you advice and they don't. A lot of times they don't know either anything about the topic or they don't know you and your situation. And then people feel obligated to take that advice or, like, bad if they don't or something like that. So I take advice through podcasts and listen to people on coaches, but not so much, like, where I feel, like, obligated to take that advice from the person or if it's going to make it awkward or something like that. But that's not your question. I don't know. I feel like there's so much I don't know. I'm just a big systems guy.
- [60:59]
Andrew
Yep, that's the one.
- [61:02]
Justin Williams
I went through all these questions and, like, that's the one that I didn't answer honestly, so I'm just not sure.
- [61:07]
Andrew
Well, the last one is my favorite one because we get actual different answers pretty much every time, and some people have similar ones, but we do get some pretty unique answers on this one. So what does wealth mean to you?
- [61:17]
Justin Williams
So, I mean, you have the, like, financial wealth, right? Which to me is like, you can pretty much do what you want, when you want, with who you want, how you want. And I'm not talking, like, go to Vegas and do some crazy stuff. Like, that's not me. Right. But it's like, just to be able to go to, like, we bought season passes to Disney World this year, and we've already planned, like, multiple trips that we're going to go and do that and been skiing a lot. And, like, some of these things aren't cheap, you know, so it's fun to be able to go do those things and live where you want and feel that security and to know that if anyone in your family, like, has the medical emergency and you can take care of that when you retire, you're not going to get put in a home that, like, isn't going to take care of. Like, all these things are. They're important. Right. And I really like the feeling of knowing if anyone that we know in close proximity is in need, like, we can help with that. Right. It's. I won't. I'm not going to, like, share, like, oh, we've done this and that, but there's been some pretty cool things that. That we've been able to do that has been. Has been pretty amazing. Okay, I'll share a little thing. Like. Sure. Tara's sister, several years ago, like, they really wanted to have a baby, and they. They just couldn't. And they couldn't afford the. I don't know the technical term. It was like in vitro, and there's different things or whatever that they needed. And we were just in a spot. We're like, oh, it's only like, this much. Like, oh, yeah, no problem. Let's do this. You know, and so now I'm getting emotional. They have this beautiful baby boy. Not even baby boy. He's like, I think he's going to turn three or four years old here soon. Right. So, I mean, just to be able to, like, I don't know, like, sometimes, like, man, that's kind of messed up that, like, some people can't do stuff that, like, makes a lot of sense. And so to be able to have that freedom, to be able to do that kind of stuff, I mean, that's huge. But beyond that, I think it's like, true freedom is being happy, healthy, at peace, and especially with your relationships and with everyone. But for me, like, I work a lot on. I can be kind of reactive sometimes. You don't get, like, fired up. And so that's kind of my thing is, like, not that I'm out, like, you know, totally meditating every day and stuff and living Zen, but just trying to live in that spot and, like, analyze, like, why do I sometimes do that? And that, to me, is true wealth, like, being happy and living in peace, like, regardless of your circumstance and your situation. So that's true wealth to me.
- [63:46]
Andrew
Absolutely. You can have all the money in the world, and you could be stressed out all the time, and you could be, you know, having all these different issues coming up. And that is not a position anybody wants to be in. True wealth is, like you said, it's having that. That financial peace and having peace overall in life, which I think is really, really important. Well, Justin, this has been absolutely amazing. We'll definitely have you back and talking about. We definitely want to talk about some business subjects as well, but let people know where they can find out more about you. Your podcast, everything else.
- [64:10]
Justin Williams
Yeah, just millionaireuniversity.com and then millionaire University podcast. And, yeah, we have multiple hosts, co hosts, so if you don't just hear me, that's why. But they do a great job, and it's a lot of fun, so.
- [64:24]
Andrew
Well, awesome. Thank you so much for being here, and we'll see you on the next episode.
- [64:29]
Justin Williams
All right. Thanks, Andrew.