The Journey to Freedom Podcast
Journey to Freedom serves as an exclusive extension of the Living Boldly with Purpose podcast series—a platform that inspires powerful transformation and growth. Journey freedom is a podcast hosted by Brian E. Arnold. The Journey to Freedom is an our best life blueprint exclusively designed for black men where we create a foundational freedom plan. There are five pillars: Identity, Trust, Finances, Health and Faith.
The Journey to Freedom Podcast
How a Tech Entrepreneur Found His Way to Goat Farming
Dominic's remarkable journey from Angolan immigrant to multi-faceted entrepreneur offers a masterclass in resilience, diversification, and authentic success. After arriving in America in the late 1990s, he navigated the challenges of assimilation while carrying the weight of his family's expectations to create opportunity from their sacrifice.
While studying at Penn State, Dominic's entrepreneurial spirit emerged as he built websites for small businesses to help pay for his education. This side hustle evolved into Global Computers and Networks, expanding into cybersecurity and government contracts worth millions. But success wasn't linear – when a major client unexpectedly went bankrupt, Dominic faced a pivotal moment that would reshape his entire approach to business.
Instead of doubling down on technology, he embraced diversification. His entry into real estate began with a brilliant house-hacking strategy in Austin, living in one room while Airbnb'ing the other three for positive cash flow. This success fueled further real estate investments across multiple states, from single-family homes to apartment buildings.
Perhaps most fascinating is Dominic's unexpected venture into agriculture. A chance conversation with a struggling Texas goat farmer revealed a market opportunity – connecting farmers with underserved communities who valued their products. Starting with just four goats, his operation has grown to nearly 200 animals. This passion for agriculture led to purchasing a 400-acre farm in New Jersey, despite the regulatory challenges compared to Texas.
Throughout his entrepreneurial evolution, Dominic maintains that true success comes from aligning work with personal fulfillment. He consumes educational content voraciously, focuses on building systems that allow balance, and views his wife as both partner and best friend in his ventures. His approach reminds us that the entrepreneurial journey isn't about reaching some financial destination, but creating a life that reflects our authentic passions and values.
Follow Dominic on social media @AskDom for practical advice on financial literacy, small business strategies, and motivation without the typical entrepreneurial hype. His story proves that with resilience, strategic thinking, and willingness to explore unexpected opportunities, we can create success across multiple domains while remaining true to ourselves.
All of a sudden, one of our larger clients. That client went bankrupt and unexpectedly. Hindsight is clearer than 2020. Hindsight is the most obvious thing in this world because, as we were working on this client, they were always late on their invoices.
Speaker 2:All right, welcome to another edition of the Journey to Freedom podcast. I'm Dr B, I am your host and I am, as always, just so excited to be talking to folks that are making it work. You know, it was funny. So Dominic and I were talking before the show and he was asking me well, what is Journey Freedom? Why is Journey Freedom important? What does it have to do with the things that I do and the businesses that I own? And so, dominic, just to kind of give you a glimpse of the show and what so, about a year and a half ago, I went to a seminar in Minnesota and the seminar was called the Trusted Edge and it was about how do we lead with trust, how do we trust each other, how do we trust ourselves and how important it is to be able to trust. And I'm going to ask a whole bunch of business questions in a little bit like how do you trust in business, how do you obtain a business and know that the people are selling your writing? So I go to there and I look in the room. There's 500 people in the room and there's about 30 people that are people of color and I'm going. Ok, so this information is incredible. This information is great. How do I get this into the hands of our community, into my community? And so I came back and through some prayer and some other stuff, you know, I realized that I was saying, god, do you want me to work with people of color? And he said, no, I want you to work with Black men. I said, but I don't want to work with Black men. God. He's like no, this is what I want you to work with. And so last year I was able to. Because you can't argue with God, right, you can't. You could try, but you're not going to get away with it for very long, right? And so last year I ended up interviewing 105 black successful men from all over the country. We've got another 40 this year. You're in that mix, somewhere where we're getting able to talk to a mental, so other of us can see that what it takes to be successful.
Speaker 2:Yesterday I went to the state capital here in Colorado. I'm in Denver, colorado, and we were talking about, you know, with all the crazy stuff that's happening federally in our country, and I'm sure you're in DC now so you can kind of understand all the things and the taking away of DEI and all you know wherever you stand politically, and you know, one of the things I was saying is, whether it's Trump or Elon or whatever, they're not going to steal my joy and they're not going to stop us. You know, opportunity is the key for our success and as long as there's opportunity, we're going to find ways to be successful. You can take away just about everything, but as long as you don't take away our opportunity, we're going to find ways to grow and be successful.
Speaker 2:And there are so many people that I met and talked to in the last few weeks that have this attitude of fear, where you know fear and lack, where there's not enough resources and there's not enough out there. I'm sure, being from Angola, you kind of understand the amount and the plentiful of resources at least that we have here, an opportunity that we have here. And when we approach things with lack, it's like the God that I serve is a God of abundance and a God that allows us to have opportunities. And when I see you, dominic, and I see, hey, I have a ranch in Texas and then I have another ranch in New Jersey and I'm living in DC and I'm a businessman, and I make it like happen that tells me right there. It's not the opportunity to survive, it's our connection or access to it, or the understanding or the education that allows it to do that. And so you get to be on.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm honored to have you on this show because I get to glean and when I'm saying get to, that was meaning me I get to be selfish and I get to learn more about what it takes to be successful from your eyes, and so I'd love for you to tell your story how you got here, how you were able to purchase and buy businesses and become a successful man. I don't believe you're 80 or 90 years old. You don't look like it. If you do, then I want to know what that secret is. But I think you're younger, so you've been able to do that at a young age. So thank you for being here, thank you for being on the show today, and please go ahead and tell us your story.
Speaker 1:Dr B, thank you, yes, very excited to be here. Thank you for having me and your audience. Thank you for sharing this hour of your day with us. So I'm excited to let you guys know a little bit about me and my story and hopefully I can provide some sort of value to whatever journey everybody else is in. What I kind of start off, where I start off, is I'm 35, just so that you know that's out there. I'm not 80, but I'm 35.
Speaker 1:But I was born in Angola, africa, and I came here early 90s or mid-90s, I'm sorry, or late 90s, 1996 or 7. And that was strictly through the efforts of my parents, obviously. And my father studied hard. He was into satellite telecommunications engineering and he had a skill set that allowed us to leave a situation, a war-torn country, and make it here in a more prosperous environment.
Speaker 1:Albeit still had its challenges. Obviously, the history of Black Americans was very prevalent still, but everything that we knew about America was that it had opportunity, like you said. So throughout the 2000s it was a little bit tough and difficult being an immigrant and being an African immigrant, especially just in the form of self-confidence and how people interact with you and learning a new language and just learning a new culture. But I did. What so many of us try to do is try to assimilate, try to blend in, try not to stand out. I wanted to not be known as the African kid or the African you know. I wanted you to not notice me to my detriment, as I would find out later on in life. Where it pays to stand out, where it pays to stand out. And so throughout high school and everything, I just knew I was different, but not strictly because of my upbringing or where I was born, but also because of the upbringing, because I was reinforced in the thought that you know you are a guest here. Right, I have my opinions in politics and social economics and so many things that we as a community can do better. But I've always realized that you know nothing here. My time here isn't a given. I'm a guest here and I do have a community back home that I owe the you know the tutelage of doing well here in some degree to bring up my you know my community as well, my home. So it's like don't focus on party while all your friends is running around partying. Remember, you got to keep your head straight. You got. Your journey is different, your story is different and while you I grew up in Philadelphia, so you know, black kid in Philly, of course was was around certain things.
Speaker 1:That that's just what I knew. I never got in trouble, but that was almost a struggle in itself to stay, staying away from some of the, the trials really of growing up in the hood, to be very honest, but it it was really. I really reinforced that to young kids now, and people who have young kids make sure that they know that life is greater than those first 15, 16 years, right, like there's so much more. And sometimes we didn't see that until I got to college, penn State. That was the first time.
Speaker 1:Now, coming from, remember, I came from Africa, went to philly, I lived in in the neighborhood which was 90 black, you know, um, and everybody was just struggling and we were all just it was a collective struggle, um, but we were making it. And then I went to a majority white school and I'm like, wow, these brads and chads are very like, know, seems like they're doing pretty all right. I mean like the conversations were different. Now we're talking about you know, just, I started to realize, you know, their family's journey and story is not better, it's not worse, but it's different, and I my parents had instilled in me that I needed to make my own path, that I needed to be financially savvy and literate, and and I came from a system Angola is known for corruption. The continent is so rich with wealth, but it struggles to maintain it, and it has it in the hands of a select few, so it's like nobody's going to give you anything right, and you may get more from where you're at as a guest than you will from your home country. So, as I'm talking to these guys, I'm starting to understand how some families you can read it in books all you want, but until you start seeing it that, oh wow, people have used this generational wealth to advance, and how this person here now is getting college paid for or subsidized or helped in some way by the savings of his parents, and the next generation is going to snowball into that success snowball into that success.
Speaker 1:What was happening for me, though, is because I had. You know, I was an immigrant. I was having a hard time getting. I didn't qualify for federal grants at that time, so I was having a hard time even trying to figure out a way to pay for school. So I was trying to find little jobs here and there, paying for school out of pocket, because I just didn't have too many other options, and what I decided was I was taking a web development course and an application development course and that was the start of what later would become my technology company.
Speaker 1:But I started just doing websites for $500 for a small business or a friend who had a project that they needed a website for. So I was doing these websites $500 here, $500 there, and it was just helping out. Eventually I got pretty good at it and I could charge $1,000 or $1,500. I started doing that so much that I formed a company that just focused on that while I was in school. And then all of a sudden we started growing a little bit. Global Computers and Networks is the name of my technology company. We ended up growing and doing government contracts. We not only focused on websites but we did cybersecurity, we do network design. And then we started getting clout because I had a fervor and just a passion where you couldn't tell me no, whatever you needed from a technology standpoint, I was chasing it. I was hungry. Google, ibm, the Darden Group which is the who are those Olive Garden Red Lobster and those guys. So we were managing their local network. Even though they have a national team, we were their on the ground team.
Speaker 1:And then we got into the world of government contracting and I was just reading incessantly, like how can I get into government contracts? There was a point that we were doing just several million dollars a year in contracts and government contracts in technology and logistical engineering government get material from one place right One vendor that's in one city to another and mixing these vendors together. And that might be a project that we did. Was you know, robotics? We did robotics for the government. Obviously, our company designed, coded and built certain robots, but really there's a lot of companies involved in that. There just wasn't me and my staff, it was six, seven other companies and that was part of what the contract is to really mesh all that together for a final product. So we were getting into that and this could be a whole podcast just about government contracts, the highs and the lows, because it's great when it's great and it's just bad when it's bad, as some vendors are finding out right now. Oh, I bet.
Speaker 2:I bet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it costs a lot of money. The government is such a big consumer that they have their rules and unless you're a big company that wants leverage, you're not making any demands. They're telling you we're going to pay you this. When we pay you and it's typically you know it's scheduled out. But if you're doing a multimillion dollar project, which we were so happy and elated to get these contracts you got one, get these contracts. You got one or two contracts. Well now, I didn't put two and two together right away. I mean, you have some sort of notion, but you're out millions of dollars for a couple months.
Speaker 1:I'm like whoa, the government's not funding you money. They're like, no, we're going to pay you, whether it's a net 30 or after the performance, the performance after the delivery. It's like, wow, there's, and then there might be one vendor that just wants their money right then and there. Or it's just so many complexities and large companies, um can modify their contracts, can, can leverage, and a boeing is always behind on their, their deliverables, and um, google and and aws can always change their terms of their contracts. Me, no, they didn't care what I had, what issues I would have. So that was very telling um, where I thought I had hit a gold mine, literally and figuratively, and ultimately it was like, oh man, maybe this isn't. I'm not doing something right here. Right, like, I know companies are making a lot of money from it, but we don't want to over leverage ourselves here. So, as I'm noticing that, and now my company is growing and I'm having these debates on what we should do with our government contracts and figuring it out, because it's just national contracts, you're everywhere, we're flying everywhere, working with international vendors.
Speaker 1:It was very challenging, but all of a sudden, one of our larger clients, like I mentioned, we were doing some larger projects and we were the ground support for a lot of national brands. That client went bankrupt, and unexpectedly, and hindsight is clearer than 2020. And hindsight is clearer than 2020. Hindsight is the most obvious thing in this world because, as we were working with this client, they were always late on their invoices and if you run a business, everybody might be different, but when you're running a business and you're focused on something you're so intently I'm an engineer by trade, so I was just focused on the engineering aspect of running my business, where if somebody's behind 15 days 20 days, it wasn't you can't focus on everything right, like okay, we sent the invoice, they'll pay, we know they pay, they're late, but now they're 15 days, but they paid before. Okay, now they're 30 days late, but they paid before. You know, then they got to once. You're like, how did we let them get to 60 days late or 70 days late before?
Speaker 2:Oh my.
Speaker 1:God Right, like before, because. And then you start to realize if you haven't been challenged that way before you know, we were still doing work and we were. You know they were paying little by little, but not never the large invoice amounts. But we didn't want to give up the work.
Speaker 1:And then you start getting challenged into realizing well, what do we keep trying to work with them or do we stop doing the work? Even if you stop doing work now you have all these outstanding invoices. Do you send a demand letter? Do you get a lawyer involved? Does that? Will that sever your business relationship? You know, like I said, this is like these questions that you're asking. Or is it just? Is it just the lapse in their business Because they're such a large company that you think no, maybe we're just a small account, but for us at that time we were. You know every dollar helped.
Speaker 1:And when I realized that we were over leveraged with that client by a couple, you know, over a hundred something thousand dollars. And I'm in my early 20s running the technology company, that this company is growing but our margins are low and a lot lower than they should be for technology. But you know, I wanted to make sure that we were always profitable. But we're not seeing this startup success story that we hear about so much in Silicon Valley and all these startups where overnight they're worth millions and tens of millions of dollars. No, we're profitable, but I had some technology employees making more money than I did. I was like man, how yeah, and that's very common for founders, where you have this equity but your cash flow is poor. So with that hurdle and this is around the year 2014, I was trying to figure out all right, where could we do better? We over leveraged a little bit because we were allowing a lot of outstanding invoices that we couldn't control. So we needed to tighten up there and I linked up with a new accounting firm and bookkeeper in-house to make sure that all the work that we did was actually getting paid back to us. And then we had to understand we didn't want to get crushed under our own weight and in our growth strategy. So we couldn't take on contracts that were too big and I had to extend out too much because it was just like a want to get crushed under our own weight and in our growth strategy. So we couldn't take on contracts that were too big and I had to extend out too much because it was just like a domino effect. So I was really just wondering what I was going to do with the company.
Speaker 1:It was an existential crisis for us and we were working. We were working on on just the clients that we had, and I was working day and night making sure I was after our support team. I was no longer able to maintain overnight support, so I decided I'm going to take those calls at night and I slept with my laptop open. Right now it's for one of our overseas clients, or 24-7 clients ping me at night. I just wake up and jumped on that chat like yeah, we'll fix this issue, and I knew that that wasn't sustainable. But it was just a life raft that I was looking for an answer to a problem, for an answer to a problem In that in that I was working with one client of ours.
Speaker 1:It was a law firm out of Philadelphia and they really liked how we managed their Philadelphia office and we're young, energetic team. And the owner came in one evening and they were seeing everything that we were doing and I was working late. It was way. I mean, the building was closed at the time and he was just surprised that we were just so headstrong I mean me in particular so headstrong on getting their project done before their deadline and their launch. And to me I it didn't matter that it was 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night.
Speaker 1:I was going to get it done and I had a conversation with him while he was in the office. He says man, you've been managing our Philadelphia office with such zeal. How do you think we can do that for our other offices in Texas? Can you help us find whether it's a vendor there or whatever in Texas? I was like, man, okay, yeah, fair enough, we can do that. I don't have my team in Texas, but maybe I can come and help for the time being and again, I'm saying this confidently and with poise, but I know I have a cash flow problem with my company. So I'm like yes, we'll take any contract Send me anywhere, all right, like we will figure out how to get, especially when it's in our lane, when it's something that we know how to do. We didn't know with some of our other contracts that we were doing, there were new problems. Every time, especially with the government contracts, they were presenting new problems and so it's hard to engineer the solution on the spot. But I already knew, if you just want somebody to do the same thing we're doing for your office here but for a couple other offices, yes, we can. So but he let me know that they're doing an aggressive push to grow the company and the firm and he wanted to know if I could. And I don't know that he really realized that I owned the company because he mentioned how soon can you get there and how soon do you guys need us? And a week later I think that day, I mean less than a week later I'm on a flight to Texas with a backpack and a carry-on and I told my manager up here hey, you're managing the office over here. Let me go and check out what we can, if we can expand into a Texas market, because we were looking to expand Anyway, and I went out to California, went out to california, um went out to california.
Speaker 1:I didn't like the uh, the culture out there per se at the time in san fran, it was just more expensive than I would like. Um. We looked at all opening our office in dc um because we were still out of philadelphia, but the talent, the talent pool in Philadelphia for technology and the opportunities just weren't there. But DC, since we were doing a lot of government contracts, was something we were heavily considering. So I was already looking to move to DC, or at least our office and our operation to DC. So when he said Texas, I'm like well, we haven't signed a lease yet. So let me go check out what you guys got. Well, let me. We haven't signed a lease yet, so let me go check out what you guys got.
Speaker 1:And and I flew to Texas, stayed in an Airbnb, which I was very used to because I traveled a lot for work at that time, so I was used to Airbnb. I was like you know, okay, great, I got there and we worked out where. Now, fast forward, I'm the technology director for the law firm. So now I own my company and I'm a director for this law firm, and I did decide to downsize the size of my company a little bit because we were growing, like I said, the money in my pocket was not reflective, so I downsized and became more profitable. We just, yeah, and we stayed focused on just the thing that we were really good at, and so we were operating out of Philadelphia and Texas and I started a team there as well and we started now just focusing on certain things like building applications. So it wasn't everywhere we weren't installing computers and we weren't every. You know, we weren't doing AV and cybersecurity. We were just really focusing on building applications and that came into play later and building applications for companies and enterprises.
Speaker 1:So as that, as the wheels were turning and things were getting smoother, I didn't want to make the same mistake that I made before, where I was over leveraged on one thing. So I didn't. And again, you know, being an immigrant, it's not the easiest thing to go to the bank and get a $2 million loan. I literally I don't know what I thought this was going to be, but I remember going to Wells Fargo with a signed contract from the United States Department of Defense for a couple million dollars. I said I have 60 days to complete this contract.
Speaker 1:Can I get a loan for a couple million dollars? I don't know, I left out of that thing. No, that was going to go smoother, but they looked at that like I. I, you know, had drawn with crayon on a white piece of paper saying man needs money right yeah.
Speaker 1:So I was like all right, let me make sure that I don't just put all my aids in one bath. You know technology thing, and now we're stable. So what do I want to do? Well, like I mentioned, I was staying in Airbnbs my entire time there and I knew I was paying decent money, my company's paying me to to stay in different places as I travel and so forth. Um, and what I wanted to do is I and I was listening to a lot of investment podcasts and everybody's talking about real estate, getting into real estate, blah, blah blah.
Speaker 1:And what people know me as just so your audience knows is I'm a serial entrepreneur. I'm a serial entrepreneur and it started with as many as you start. Yeah, exactly, and I encourage it. I'll tell you this you'd probably be richer just focusing on one thing, but I think it's more enjoyable. I get more fulfillment in exploring multiple things that I enjoy. And I was reading a lot about real estate and listened to a lot of podcasts, and I found this house hacking strategy and ultimately, I bought a property in Austin, texas. I just felt that the city was going to be growing. All the indicators said that this is going to be a city that's growing. So in around 2017, I bought a four bedroom home. Right, I stopped and typically my apartment was I was paying $600 for an apartment at a time, or an Airbnb for a room. I was just renting a room for $600 per month. And now and they were surprised they're like Dom, don't you own a company? You're seemingly more successful than them.
Speaker 2:I'm like, yeah, he had a million dollar contract.
Speaker 1:He had a million dollar contract with his next-door neighbor and it was really like that I'm talking to, you know, officials and generals, and you know some of my clients were rather big and we, you know they'll send out a plane for us to travel just to fix some technology problems. And it's like, wow, this guy is something, he's growing, but he's paying the $600.
Speaker 2:Iugal frugal, please don't ever see me.
Speaker 1:No, um but um. From there, I bought a, a house in austin, texas. I felt that the city was was going to to really explode and grow, because I saw the technology that was coming in from California, from other places, and I was like, man, let me set up some roots here. And, as we have our company here too, I ended up buying a four bedroom house and maybe the second month after I have it, I painted some stuff, cleaned it up. I just can't see myself ever buying a brand new home. I need to add value. Value is the number one thing, and I started Airbnb-ing the other three rooms right away and I started making. It wasn't crazy a lot, but $2,500 in cash flow every month, just extra, and I just put that aside and from there I'm like, wow, this is great. I didn't even put it towards my mortgage, because when I bought the house, I bought it with the expectation that I could pay the mortgage without anybody being in there. So I put it just towards the savings, because that year I used that for a down payment for my second home.
Speaker 1:And the second home that I bought I knew that was going to be again just a rental, because I saw how successful my first one was. And when I bought it it came with tenants. And now I bought this property that's coming with tenants. I got a pretty good. We got an aggressive deal because the person the previous owner needed to leave. So we got an aggressive deal and at that point, because of all my research and business on how to get credit, I understood the down payment requirements and all that Long story short. When I came out the closing, I came out with a check for my first month of rent. I said wait a minute, I just bought this house and you're giving me money.
Speaker 1:You're giving me money to own this house. This is amazing. And then, every month after that, that house has not been vacant. Um, now it's. Now I've. That was 2017, so eight years later, and it's such a hot market and I priced the rent so competitively that we haven't had a vacancy in that house for more than more than five days six days, just to turn it over.
Speaker 2:Really, oh, it's been a great place then, oh my gosh, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like to. I'm a stylish person, so I like to, you know. Yeah, we had five, six days really blistered painted cabinets, did everything and tenants were super pleased. And there's long-term tenants in there and I made it a mission. Once I got that which fit by this bug.
Speaker 1:Now I'm like, okay, the first, which is good and bad, because the first deal I did I was cash flowing. The second deal I did was cash flowing. Why would I I'm doing it again Roll the dice again? So I got into more properties and I decided to just start buying properties, and not only single family homes but multifamily homes in and around the area. The house that I bought, for example, was they're always nuts to strategic locations, whether it's a large office complex.
Speaker 1:In Texas we have the Dell Diamond where all the Dell people work now, but you have UT that the students are some of them coming from very wealthy renting these homes. You have a lot of hospital systems. So you need to be strategic about it. You can't just roll the dice and wish for the best. But I bought everything from single family, multifamily and eventually got into apartments. I bought an apartment building and now I have apartment buildings. I bought an apartment building out in the Poconos and PA, so a little ski area and still you know grab, grab on with that.
Speaker 1:But of course there is this goods and it's bad right like because now I'm taking the cash flow that I'm getting from my business. I have technology business, I have real estate and I'm just from my business, I have technology business, I have real estate and I'm just reinvesting. But again now I'm like I don't want to ever get to that state. What if the market crashes? Now I'm holding all these assets in the same asset class. I may take a really big hit. So I diversified again, got a laundromat and a restaurant. The restaurant didn't do so well at all. I probably would have never do that again, but it was a learning lesson no food no food, no food at all.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no I learned a lesson. It is more vanity than anything, and just you know of love, I loved the. If I wasn't losing money on it, I would have loved it.
Speaker 2:Everybody who owns a restaurant, right, they all. They do because they love the food, they love the atmosphere of a restaurant, they love bringing the folks in. But very few restaurants long-term make a lot of money. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I don't know where it was, maybe just because my upbringing. Food is very big in a lot of cultures, but in so many African cultures food and organic and having your own garden. So all of these things played into who I was growing up. That was all the things that I've had growing up. So when I was able to see a little glimpse of expanding on that, I did so. I started a garden and I wanted to do this restaurant chic blah, blah blah, and it didn't work. But we came out of there with some lessons. It wasn't terrible, but what I? I made some connections. I made some connections like with understanding how to buy meat and understanding, you know, like chefs and restaurant managers were doing. And there was once I I don't even fully remember how I got into this, but oh yeah, yeah, I did One of my clients. After that I got a client in Texas. That was a ranch and this ranch had these beautiful animals and now I'm out there a lot of the time and I'm seeing these animals and they're also doing. They have a restaurant at the ranch and I'm telling them about my experience with the restaurant and one thing that came about is that they don't eat goat.
Speaker 1:A lot of Texans don't eat goat. I grew up eating goat and I said, man, you guys should try it, we should try it. And there's a lot of goat farmers in Texas, a lot of goat farmers in Texas. There's a lot of goat farmers in Texas, a lot of goat farmers in Texas.
Speaker 1:And I don't remember exactly how the conversation came about, but I, as I was going to this ranch, I passed a goat farmer but I noticed that he didn't have any goats anymore and I was just like but the signage was there. The sign was there and I was like, okay, and I just got out because I was like, hey, I'm interested in buying a goat for us to cook. How do we buy a goat? And I talked to him. He didn't have any more and he was telling me how hard that business is in Texas, texas. And it dawned on me that the problem that so many of us have, that he had this asset and this resource, which was a goat, but he didn't have the market for it, because a lot of white Texans don't eat goat. And this was a white farmer and he's just like man no, we don't need it, I don't know, excuse me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's asking what am I supposed to do with these goats? And you just like man, no, we don't need it, I don't know, excuse me. I said, yeah, you're talking, what am I supposed to do with these goats? And you're like, I got a whole group of goats.
Speaker 1:I got a whole community that is searching for this and you know, like man, you can keep the goat soaps and all that other stuff. But yeah, so he's like all right, man, I don't. So I said, okay, look, I don't have the time. I would love to get into this, but I'm not going to make the same mistake that I did with the restaurant, which is just dive in head first. You seem to know how to take care of goats. I would like to maybe explore this business a little bit. And how would you say I get started. I'm just picking his brain.
Speaker 1:And it came to pass that he had a problem now because he had this land. He didn't have the market to sell this generation some of these guys are generational farmers he didn't have the market to sell the asset or the commodity anymore and the prices didn't make sense. But he needed to figure out a way to pay for the land still. And there were so many learning lessons there, because we think when we see somebody with a lot of land, that this is wow, this is amazing, and they're like man, well, I don't know what to do with it. Right, Like it's too dry to farm. You can't, I can't pay to irrigate it. It costs millions of dollars to maintain equipment, large scale equipment, and so you want to start in a small scale, and a lot of these large farmers aren't even thinking about starting small. Everything they know is these big.
Speaker 2:Everything's big in.
Speaker 1:Texas. I said man, look, I have a couple people that would probably enjoy eating some goat. We're not too far from Houston. I used to frequent Houston a lot, a huge African population, a huge Islamic population out there too. So I'm like, look, why don't we go in this together? You have the knowledge and the land, I have the market and I can bring in the goats and we can just partner in on this and it won't take you any more time, or, you know, I'll buy the feed.
Speaker 1:So ultimately I ended up leasing his land, starting off with just I think we started off with four goats and just for me to really, you know, for for me, friends and family, so to speak. That was it kind of scaling it down from the restaurant, where before I loved having friends and family at the restaurant for a while, and then I started resenting it because I was like, oh gosh, these are losses that I just got to keep taking. But I still wanted to create that atmosphere. And when we just started off, but it was like there was a stop loss, I knew how much these things were going to cost me Not not a, you know, not a crazy snowball of debt. So we, we agreed to it, and that was now.
Speaker 1:I was four three years ago or something like that, and it went from four goats Now we're getting close to 200. Yeah, so part of me um. Yeah, so pardon me, yeah, but the mark, the demand, is what we're, and you start to realize I was like man, these things really multiply then the demand that we're selling it and we're um, so we're, and now that they're breeding flop because they're selling it um to people.
Speaker 1:And once you solve the problem and it almost looks like man, how was he able to solve it without you know? And I wasn't able to. It seems so straightforward and so simple. Once you do it Like, oh well, no, you were just looking at the wrong demographic.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I mean, if you're going to have goats, you got to go where people want goats. That's where it's going to count Exactly, if you're going to have goats, you got to go where people want goats.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. That was the thing. So now I have, essentially, my technology company still. I'm a director, I'm doing technology and my real estate portfolio is growing and I have these goats and I started just thinking, all right, what's next? I'm like, how do I expand these goats?
Speaker 1:But there was one thing about Texas my wife and I our family is in the Northeast and we knew that we wanted to come back. I was enjoying these things in Texas, but I really wanted to, as you're starting to have nieces, nephews, kids, people are being born, people are dying. We wanted to make sure that we appreciated the time that we did have with family. So we made the move back to the Northeast, where I was investing in real estate as well, and here in Washington DC, where we moved to, investing in real estate as well, and here in Washington DC where we moved to. But while we were moving back, we may have stayed in Philadelphia and the New Jersey area. That's where our family is. I was always telling them about these goats in Texas. I was like, yeah, these things are awesome and now I have the business for it.
Speaker 1:Texas is really dry and arid, so the um doing the vegetable farming probably wasn't going to work out. But I wanted to continue that and I wanted to extrapolate more out of what I can do with um agriculture and that's how I got into okay, well, you know what I think I figured out how to work it down in texas and that's been really successful for me. I love what we're doing down there, um, and we've actually even increased the I said we have, yeah, close to 200, but we've added cows too. Right, but that's been slow growth. We didn't go from one to, you know, 200 overnight. It's been a couple years and now it's like, oh, let's add cows, let's add feed.
Speaker 1:We know, you know, we kind of understand that system and we decided I decided to do the same thing here in new jersey, where I have some friends and family and make it um the name of the farm is deca farms a family journey, because, yes, I do look to make a profit, but really I tell people that you, you should, while you can enjoy the journey, all right, of course, there's going to be somebody that's going to tell you how to make a million dollars overnight. They're going to tell you how to make 10 million dollars overnight all right, they're going to sell you something. But and then you start to wonder, if I was in that person's shoes, if I was boasting about my private jets and doing this and doing that, would I really be still flying all over the country doing conferences and speeches and going into all this? I know they're showing they're on vacation, but, if you've ever, I'm a content creator myself.
Speaker 1:I like to vlog, and I do it for a job more than anything. So, though, don't judge me, but no, I, I would really enjoy the fruits of my labor with the people that I love. So it's certain some things that these guys aren't telling us, um, and a lot of investors and successful people really aren't as successful. They kind of come off to be right. So, yes, I did want to. Of course, there was a time that, and we all have big eyes and want to be very successful, but I started redefining what my vision and my definition of success meant, and, for me, I really love being outside. I love, you know, agriculture, I love horticulture and just everything about animal husbandry, even though and I say this knowing that I do it from a distance, knowing that I do it, I do it with self, I do it with people.
Speaker 2:I love when y'all put your rubber. Love when you're walking in the mud.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you'll see me out there with the compost, with the. You know I get my hands dirty, but I do have somebody that knows what to do and I'm listening to them and I'm like okay, and so I don't try to pretend like I'm the smartest guy in the room or have all the answers, especially in things that I don't know. But so that's how the farm came about. So we bought a property that came available to a 400 acre farm out in New Jersey and now just introducing it to the community, getting some ideas, some challenges there, a lot of challenges, and doing business in New Jersey.
Speaker 1:I'd probably rethink that if I had to do it again but very different from Texas, I'll say that but opening up conversations on all right, how do we pivot? We wanted to do this. This is not possible right now. What can we get? Let's not just throw it all right. How do we pivot? We wanted to do this. This is not possible right now. What can we get? Let's not just throw it all away. Right, we can't farm what we want, or there's infrastructure costs. It costs a lot to set these things up and it's a lot more than I was expecting, but we still are pushing forward Now. That's where we are today. I think we start off the conversation with you asking what am I most excited about?
Speaker 1:I'm like man we made some great improvements on the farm this week, and spring is here, so we're going to be growing and all that. So that's-. So you and I are going to live out by?
Speaker 2:do you want to live out where there's rural, or do you still want to live in city and then just take care of rural?
Speaker 1:No, no, yeah, we're going to live in the city for now, but I would love to maybe split time right. But I do know that my wife in particular is a city girl and, no matter what, I got gotta figure out a way to keep her happy. So she, she's been along with me and kind of allowed me to explore these things and supported me in it. But, um, we're going to try to figure out a way to split time. However, that's where the challenge does come in, for for us to comfortably live there, there's a lot of infrastructure challenges on um, on the 400 acre property just to get, oh, electricity out there, um, or some pretty large checks and water wells and, you know, sewage tank, all that. So we're still some some times away from that and when that time does come, maybe she'll be. We got to start off with hey, we'll spend a weekend out there, then I'll bring her back for two weeks, then we'll see.
Speaker 2:I'd love to know, because you are a serial entrepreneur, you got your hands in technology, you got your hands in agriculture, you got your hands in real estate. To me, that means that you are doing stuff all the time. How has that worked out in your relationship with your wife, with all the time you're spending doing, doing, doing? Is she okay with you being gone? I mean, how do you guys work that out where you're, you know, or how do you work it out where you have time with your family to to be able to do stuff another?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, it's definitely so. With everything in life there's a balance, uh, and you have to understand your priorities and you have to make sure that you put in systems in place. So the, of course, if I were just there's somebody that's just doing one of those things or one thing that's putting in a lot more time, focus and call it dedication than I am on all three or four Right. So I know what I want to put in. Now here's a couple hard truths and realities of life. Most people don't work as hard as they think they do. If you have ever really intensely put a good eight hours of work in a day where you're just locked in, cutting away the social media, you're locked in. You're going to come out of that day, even though it's behind the computer. You're going to be tired.
Speaker 1:You're going to say, wow, locked in, you're gonna come out of that day, even though it's behind the computer. You're gonna be tired, right? You're gonna say, wow, that's and a lot of people. And now, having had employees and I'm like what do you do all day? All right, like you, you realize that their output just isn't that much. So once you start appreciating, once you start appreciating how much time is in a day, all right. Start appreciating how much time is in a day, all right.
Speaker 1:And understanding that this is a journey, not a sprint, and the destination, of course, is important, but that's always changing. You don't have to feel like you have to do everything at one time. So I compound my priorities into something that is profitable. I don't feel like the farm needs to make me millions and millions of dollars. I'm doing it because I love to do it and I like to do it. So even if I wasn't working let's say I was retired early, as it might be I might still find myself at a farm. I might still find myself at a farm, right, I might still find myself walking. We have trails out there and like it's kind of a beautiful place. So I do the things.
Speaker 1:The reason that I got my hands in these things is because these are the things that I like to do. I understand I'm still young enough that I can still have and I need some sort of job and income. So I can't just enjoy these things with money going out without it returning something right To fill the pot. So that's where I changed my mindset to is okay, what's the break-even cost? If this thing could just be self-sustaining, that would be a great thing. Then you start to get into profitability.
Speaker 1:But there is a certain number I don't care, not what most people say and maybe look, life is dynamic. So, as your audience hears me today, I know this is a Journey to Freedom podcast Maybe in a year or two years I might say you know, I want to retract that statement, but I've been a lot. I've been around a lot of wealthy individuals, and when I'm talking wealthy, I mean wealthy private jets, $50 million homes and and plus there is a level that you get to financially where it just doesn't matter anymore. Yes, you know, we hear I want to make six figures Great Matter of fact, and I think that number for a lot of people, believe it or not, I would say and I hate to throw out numbers because it can be conflated sometimes if you live in New York versus if you live in the middle of the world.
Speaker 1:But $200,000, call it that. If you're making $200,000, call it that. If you're making $200,000, you're not at the top of the food chain by any means, but you're not at the bottom either. You're not struggling per se, unless you want to live in New York and in a penthouse. Then you're going to feel like you're struggling, but you can choose. Those are choices.
Speaker 1:There's somebody out there that's making $20 million and still having to hustle because they're choosing to fly private everywhere instead of a business class. So for me, I'm starting to realize, okay, do I want more? Yes, but what I want, I want to make sure that it aligns with what. If I have a limited time left on this earth with the enjoyments and fulfillments that I really want to get out of it, and not just chase the money to get to a hundred million dollars and then look back like, okay, well, now what? All right, like let's, yeah, a little bit. I want to live without regret. So I say that to say, as far as the time, yeah, I invest my time into becoming successful in business, but really also just enjoying what I do.
Speaker 2:Well, and then what I'm hearing in you know, as I'm reading between the lines is you do well with your time of spending the time on the things that matter and not spending a whole bunch of time on distractions. Whenever I hear somebody who's being successful in several areas, I ask what distracts you? And it's not the same thing as it distracts other people. I don't see you going home watching soap operas on TV or spending time at the water cooler talking to I mean, what is the? I guess what are some of the distractions that would take you away from what you're doing and your goals or things you're trying to do yeah, you definitely need some distractions every once in a while.
Speaker 1:I don't very much get distracted uh, very easily but Now I do like to spend time with my wife. She is my best friend. We love hanging out, so that's crucial and pivotal because we don't have kids, so we have that flexibility and she gets involved in the things that I do, whether she likes it or not, or whether I like it or not, whether she likes it or not, right, or whether I like it or not. Also, she bears some of that burden and celebrates in the success. So she and I spend quite a bit of time together. And what distracts us? Yeah, if I watch a show, it's because she's watching it. Right, like I don't watch too much TV, but if she's watching it, I listen to podcasts a lot and a lot of audio books.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I like to do that to clear my mind, because you can't just be so honed in on something all the time. You're going to start to get depressed, you're going to get stressed. You need a way to just clear your mind. Need a way to just clear your mind. Now, granted, I do have.
Speaker 1:Probably, if I want, if I really had to change it, I'd probably spend more time on social media than I like on the Instagrams and TikToks not really TikToks, but Facebooks and all that but not how people think I spend more time looking at farm stuff. I spend a lot of time. If you look at my YouTube history, it is all farm how to raise goats and the next thing I'm enjoying taking in all that farm and agriculture information, also technology information. I listen to it when I'm on my phone. I'm watching other entrepreneurs or technology or real estate content, so that uses that as a distraction. I think it serves a dual purpose where I'm learning, but it's also very passive learning so I can enjoy the content. But as far as just frivolous time spent, not so much.
Speaker 2:Well, here's what I really see. You know, there's a split between education and what.
Speaker 1:No, I said I like to write. I'm sorry, I like to write. Oh, you like to write too, okay perfect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a split between education and entertainment, and what you've kind of done, where your goals are in your process in life right now, is you're saying my education and entertainment are kind of together. I'm being entertained by being educated, whereas a lot of people that are distracted I have to be entertained, I have to be entertained, I love to be entertained, but when do they get to be educated? Right, and then they wonder why they're not moving forward because they're not investing in themselves to learn more, to be more educated, and so, for right now, I love the fact that you're doing it all together, which is neat, and you're doing it with your spouse and your wife and it's just, it's just amazing. What do you want folks to know? I mean, you're on the podcast today and I'm loving you're on. We got a few minutes left.
Speaker 2:What did I do? Oh, this was amazing because it was an insight into business and and how to be successful and how to get unstuck and how to take risks and all those things that you've been able to do. Is there anything else that you want to share? Websites or anything like that you want to have people know? Or you're giving of yourself, which I so appreciate, but what do you want us to know as we depart today? What do you want us to know as we depart today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on social media I am Ask Dom that you can follow me there. My platform is all about financial literacy, self-help and motivation small business and entrepreneurs where it's practical business advice. I'm not trying to over fanaticize the world of entrepreneurship, so I get a lot of people asking me their questions. So if you have any questions, just feel free to ask Dom that on any of the platforms.
Speaker 2:One thing I'd love to ask you would you be willing to come back at some point and do a financial literacy of things you don't know or things you weren't taught like? I want to ask, dom, what does it really mean to have financial literacy instead of what? The little bit that we don't get in school and then even more that we don't get that's practical, on how to run our lives? Because it seems like you figured this out, even when I think of this man walked into Wells Fargo and asked for $2 million. So there's got to be something in your mind that's way different than other people's mind. You're like, hey, give me $2 million, yeah.
Speaker 1:I would love to come back and talk specifically about financial literacy and all the opportunities that you don't even realize are out there and certain that there's so much contradictory information.
Speaker 1:As somebody who consumes this information and somebody who's in these rooms learning from people, I can talk to one person that tells me, for example, just as a way of an example, get into these vehicles, investment vehicles of life insurance and annuities, and I'm like, oh okay, that guy was really convincing. Then the other guy says, don't do this, this is historically bad. I'm like whoa, it's almost like how could two convergent things work, so understanding the principles behind it? And I really would love to talk to your audience without having a stake in it, your audience without having a stake in it, right, like being a fiduciary to some degree, because so many people that we speak with have some sort of incentive to, you know, to steer us one way or another. And, and that's always just bothered me when I do talk to people and all I can do is tell you what's worked for me and what hasn't worked for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I would love that. I know our audience would love it as well, and so I'll get with my assistant and have her make sure she talks with you. We'll have you back on. Thank you for sharing your story today. Oh, my gosh, I'm excited because, you know, my grandpa had a farm when I was growing up and I was out there and milking cows and doing all that stuff, and I ran away from that as far as possible, but I like to see that there's somebody doing it from a distance and being successful at it. So I love it, I love it, I love it. Thank you for being on today. For those of you who subscribe, you're going to want to know when we have this next episode that comes out. Hey, don't forget your God's greatest gift. He loves you, if you allow him to, and we will look forward to seeing you on the other side of this. And so, again, I mean thank you for being on. We're going to have you back and have a wonderful, this incredible day.