The Cameron Brown Show
Where people, ideas, politics, culture, science, and the unknown collide. No limits. Just conversation and discovery.
The Cameron Brown Show
Why Making More Money Won't Fix Your Problems | Financial Advisor Explains
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
He tells clients money is just a piece of paper - and he MEANS it.
Justin Chastain is a financial advisor who says most of his industry has it backwards, and he's here to break down why chasing more money can actually leave you poorer in the ways that matter.
Justin built his career around what he calls the "five forms of wealth" and a "profit first" mindset that puts value before dollars. Along the way he's given up alcohol, stood on stage doing stand-up comedy, and rebuilt his outlook after losing his mother.
We also go cover:
- The "money illusion" that convinces people they need more than they do 💰
- Why the average person is three years from retirement with NOTHING saved
- Why he thinks most financial advisors are BORING 🙄
- The blunt answer to "what is money, really?" 💵
- How the device in front of you is quietly killing REAL conversation
- The twisted reason the IRS invented payroll deductions…
- Why lottery winners go BANKRUPT faster than broke people expect 🎰
Justin isn't selling comfort. He's selling honesty, and it shows.
-----
The Cameron Brown Show is where people, ideas, politics, culture, science, sports, and the unknown collide. No limits. Just conversation and discovery.
Listen to other episodes: cameronbrownshow.com
-----
0:00 The Lottery Trap, Dumb Money, and Why Justin Sees Money Differently
1:31 The Lost Art of Conversation and Being a Professional Listener
5:03 Meet Justin Chastain: From Bluecollar Roots to Wealth Adviser
6:22 Losing His Mom and the Silver Lining That Shaped His Career
8:32 Why He Talks About Money Differently Than Other Advisers
10:49 What Is Money at the End of the Day
14:14 The Progressive Tax System and Why Advisers Miss the Boat
15:00 The Five Forms of Wealth
15:46 The 500K vs 1M Example and the Money Illusion
18:26 Financial Security vs Wealth: The Two Questions Justin Asks Every Client
20:23 More Money, Different Problems
22:23 Everybody's Wired Differently and Time as Justin's Priority
25:03 Cameron on Freedom and Speaking Openly
26:03 Advice for Those Stuck in the Accumulation Phase
27:04 The Brain as a BS Detector and Living Authentically
28:50 Accumulation vs Distribution: The Two Phases Most Advisers Miss
29:57 Pay Yourself First: The Profit-First Mindset
32:44 Why Lottery Winners Go Bankrupt
35:20 Why Most People Retire With Less Than 150K
36:57 The NIL Athlete Who Was Scared To Have Money
39:33 The Well-Advised Podcast and Justin's Educator Mission
42:07 Why Most Financial Advisers and Podcasts Are Boring
45:04 Speed Round: Is a 401k a Scam?
48:39 Is Property Ownership Still Freedom for the Next Generation?
51:57 Talking to Those Frustrated With How We Discuss Money
53:37 Growing Up Without a Silver Spoon as a Superpower
55:50 Commit to Your Goals and Surround Yourself With the Right People
59:58 The System Is Bigger Than Us: Learning to Play Within It
1:04:12 Start Small and Learn Fast: Rejecting the Idea of Failure
1:05:22 Advisers Aren't Perfect and Final Words on Wealth
-----
#JustinChastain #FinancialAdvisor #FinancialWealth #ProfitFirst #WealthMindset #MoneyMindset #PersonalFinance #FinancialFreedom #FiveFormsOfWealth #Retirement #MoneyIllusion #Entrepreneur #BusinessOwner #StandUpComedy #MentalHealth #SelfImprovement #TheCameronBrownShow #Podcast #YouTubePodcast #DeepDiveInterview
If you were to win the lottery, what do we tend to do with things that we don't have any skin in the game? We tend to abuse it, overuse it. Human beings are going to spend the money that they think that they don't already have. We don't delay it. It's why so many people that win the lottery go bankrupt. It's not money they've earned. These are real people with real problems, and life is eventually going to happen to these people. I don't want them to have to worry about something as stupid as money when those life moments hit.
SPEAKER_00I don't get the same vibe from other financial advisors in the sense of it's like, oh, literally money is everything. Whereas your approach to it is talking about how dumb money is at the end of the day and how ridiculous it is that you have to worry about it or think about it.
SPEAKER_01In my profession, people will ask, what do you do professionally? And I say I'm a professional listener. So my role is not necessarily to navigate somebody away or into something. Money is finite and it's just a tool. So we have to understand whatever you value, my role is, let's maximize that. I don't believe in failure. I believe that when you give up or you don't try, that's failure. We're teaching kids, hey, you got to make an A in this nine-week semester, or you're a failure. No, screw you. It's about if I didn't do well on this exam, it might take me four years, it may take me 10 years, but I'll be good at it. When we understand how you are wired around your money script and your psychology of money, it's gonna make perfect sense.
SPEAKER_00So you've done a number of you've done podcasts. Yeah, I mean I have, yeah. You've been teaching for a while. Yeah. And so this is this is like second nature to you. Pretty much.
SPEAKER_01This is like it's just well, it's just having a conversation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01At the end of the day, I mean, that's really what it boils down to.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's a conversation with a another client as well. Yes. Potential client in the future. There you go.
SPEAKER_01So I mean the the mindset is pretty much just let's have an open conversation. If it comes up, you know, it it's all about conversations and and having the ease of listening. Yeah. I think a lot of times in my profession, people will ask, what do you do professionally? Right. And I say I'm a professional listener. We've lost the art of conversation along the way somewhere. I I don't know what it is. I won't even try to explain it. We we don't have enough bandwidth to explain it. But I do think that the power of conversation, the art of conversation, is listening way more than responding. Agreed. Looking for a response.
SPEAKER_00I would say unfortunately, today you're gonna have to respond a whole lot more. Yes.
SPEAKER_01I mean, and and and that's fine.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because we are here to to do the podcast with you. No, I I agree I agree though, and I think it's like it's in sales, it's in everything in life, though. Like we don't we don't listen very well anymore. And nobody does. Um and frankly, it's because of the device that's recording you right now, right? Like I look at it all the time. I mean, I have one in front of me, there's one behind you. It is kind of impressive, though, like to live in a world, though, of all these devices and all this technology and still be able to listen and potentially like actually understand what somebody's trying to get across, even though we have all this stuff in front of us and around us. Um, I know that's not at all really what the podcast is about necessarily, but it also fully encompasses what the podcast is about and what you're accomplishing as obviously, you know, a financial advisor as well.
SPEAKER_01I couldn't agree more. And, you know, I always tell people just because you're making noise doesn't mean you're playing music. True. And I think a lot of times that silence makes a lot of people uncomfortable, but a lot of times learning and being able to position yourself valuable, and we'll we'll kind of talk a little bit more about it as we define certain things, but I really feel like one of my favorite quotes of all time is from Albert Einstein, and it said, strive to be a person of value. And I really think that's our life goal and our purpose and our mission in life. Right. If if we strive to be a person of value, then no matter what we choose to do, we're going to increase our wealth because we're going to be connected in our social circles better. Right. We're going to be connected to our physical, our mental health better. And then ultimately that's just going to align at some point financially because we can be more intentional. But that comes from being silent, being grounded, and listening, not just to others, but to yourself. So I think getting back into a level of it's okay for silence. It's okay not to have an immediate response. That's where you're going to learn and grow the most. Seems like our politicians could learn that the best. They don't get paid to listen that well. They just don't. They don't get re-elected if they just listen like the beginning. No, they don't. So I mean they have to make a bunch of noise. Yeah. So I mean, no, they it and and it and it is funny. And I mean, we won't go down that road, but are you sure we can't go down that road? Well, we can go down that road. We absolutely we absolutely can, but uh it's gonna be a bumpy ride. But yes, I I I do think that a lot of our representatives could use a lesson in just listening better.
SPEAKER_00Right. Agreed. Agreed. I want to just in with your experience with your background, with your past, let's just start there before we talk about the well-advised kind of uh come up and the the creation of the well-advised podcast, which you'll be launching and starting here soon. And I want to spend a good amount of time talking about why you were going in that direction now and why you're starting to present this content and this information and why you see it as being valuable, especially at this time. But uh, where'd you come from? What's your startup come up story? Why are you where you're at right now? And also as a follow-up to that, what do you see as value? Because uh you already mentioned that, so I have to ask that question at some point.
SPEAKER_01So, where did I come from? I think that's that's a a big philosophical question that we would be here all day. But the reality of it is we're still trying to determine 23andMe. My dad's not happy about it. We think it's from the UPS man, that's why we always got FedEx to the house. Uh but no, uh had a great set of parents, grew up in a very blue-collar family. My dad was a business owner, mom was an accountant for a large company here in the upstate of Greenville, South Carolina. But if you were to ask me what shaped my mind, I have one younger sibling, and we got along phenomenally. We had a wonderful childhood, and it was built with a lot of wealth, and I'll talk a little bit more about how I define that. But I would probably say 15 years ago, something rocked my world that drastically changed my thought process forever. We lost my mom very unexpectedly. It was a really a medical misdiagnosis, malpractice. We had a phenomenal financial planner at that point. But during that time, I had to really grow up very quickly. There was a lot of things that I had and I was doing in my 20s that my friends just had zero, and I'm thankful that they've not had to experience that. But there was a lot of growth, there was a lot of hurt, but there was a lot of joy in this process when when my mother passed on, what I realized is if somebody didn't have a plan in place, when life happens, they would have had to worry about something as stupid as money. From that moment forward, there was multiple things that I decided that I was going to do. I was going to be intentional with my time, my mental and physical health, my social circles, because I think that's drastically important in how we're shaped. And then lastly, my financial health. And I said, that's the career that I want to do. I want to work with people that are just higher high achievers, and I want to help them accomplish their financial goals and their wealth ideas. And in that process of losing my mother, there was a silver lining there. And my ultimate goal, even as I build my practice out, I want to be able to give back and create legacy and foundation funds in my mother's name. And I and I believe that when we pass away, you your physical body might not be there, but that does not mean that that person is not there. I can't tell you how many times I've had a conversation with my mom, you know, and and and she's been physically gone for 10 years, but she and my father and my family have been the foundation to how I've grown my business and everything that I do. And I think about that as I work with my clients. These are real people with real problems, and life is eventually going to happen to these people. I don't want them to have to worry about something as stupid as money when those life moments hit.
SPEAKER_00So this is what I appreciate about um our uh like conversations up to this point, too. A lot of financial advisors talk me. I don't I don't get the same vibe from other financial advisors in the sense of it's like, oh, literally money is everything. Whereas your approach to it is more so from what I've experienced, literally talking about how dumb money is at the end of the day and how ridiculous it is that you have to worry about it or think about it when your life should be spent doing and building and creating and being yourself and being around loved ones and experiencing that time around loved ones. Um so you've done a really good job of articulating that to me. I would love for us to go just a step further and just kind of talk about how you came to this point though. And I wouldn't say it's even like marketing your business this way, but you talk, you just talk about it differently, right? Whereas everybody else is like, oh, I've got to, I've got to make a whole bunch more of it. I have to think about it all the time. But your thought process seems to be more so, I want to help you so you don't have to think about it anymore. But can you just kind of dive into how you got to that point, though, in this process?
SPEAKER_01That's a great point. And it and I would it's kind of sad a little bit, but it is a differentiator for me in the fact that let me make no bones about it. Money is important. But if your primary goal and that's the only thing that you're focused on is money, when will it ever be enough? It's it it never will be. And the other thing is what are you gonna use the money for? Money is a tool, right? So if we're not leveraging it, if we're not doing things with it, what is it all for? Right. So that you'll just leave behind a chunk of money for people to fight over and you to never enjoy, to me, that is not true wealth. So it really defined myself, my family for my client. When I'm looking at this, it's not to say money is unimportant. What I'm saying is let's take the sting and the stress out of this tool that we're using and leveraging it to things that we value. Right. And the whole slogan around dumb money came around. You hear people, you know, in in in fraternity houses, hey bro, that's dumb money. I hear business owners, I want to make stupid money. Yeah. But there's also a play on that to say, let's take the sting out of what everybody's stressing over. And I'll leverage this question back to you, Cameron. What is money at the end of the day?
SPEAKER_00So that was actually going to be my next question. So I was like, money, currency, whether it's fiat, whether it's, you know, you're holding wealth in the form of like heavy or metals, um, or you're holding money in crypto, or you're like, what is to your point, what is money? I for me, it's like, I would like to think that money is something that allows me the ability to go and do other things, right? It gives me leverage to be able to go out and potentially buy a business, or buy a nice car, or buy a nice watch, or take my family on a nice vacation. But it's it at its simplest form, in my opinion, is literally just something that allows us to go and do what we want to do in order to, in this particular economy and society, be able to provide some form of payment for the value that somebody else provides to us in some way, shape, or form. But it also gets to the root of what's frustrating for me nowadays, with money in its current form, we talk about money in the form of like a dollar being printed into oblivion by our, you know, by the Federal Reserve and then handed off to the government. I think it also frustrates people when you think, okay, we're being taxed dramatically or our money is being printed. Why would what what is the point of going and earning anymore? So I want to get into that philosophical like conversation as well, because I think it's really important for people to better understand and talk about it too, when it almost leads people off this like uh emotional, uh anxious, depressed cliff of why am I making this money in the first place? So I think I kind of gave my understanding, my thought process behind money, but I would also like to know what is the point of making this money, in your opinion, and as a wealth advisor, if in the society we live in, money is almost fiat currency, especially, is being printed into oblivion. Why make it in the first place?
SPEAKER_01And I love the fact that you bring up a definition like a fiat currency, because there's probably some listeners out there that's like a fiat, yeah, it's a really cool car. I put it up there with the Mazda Miata, which is probably the sexiest car ever built, and the Geo Metro. Nobody talks about it enough. Objective or is that that is my life goal is to be in a Mazda Miata or a Geo Metro. All jokes aside, but money's just a piece of paper painted green with a bunch of old dudes on it with bad mullets. Not even the John Stamos mullets that really valid. I mean, when I when people mock the mullet, I'm like, Stamos rocks it, and we should bring it back.
SPEAKER_00That's why I'm wearing the hat right now. I'm I'm heading towards it currently.
SPEAKER_01I mean, listen, this is you see the Carolina waterfall coming in nicely here. But while we still have it, yeah. All that aside, it it's just paper. The ultimate goal is have another business, create other entities, create an opportunity for your offspring, or in my opinion, charity organizations that you believe in, whether it's animal rescue, whether it's cancer research, that's the ultimate goal. Now, wanting more of it, and I know there's different listeners out there that'll say, Oh, I've heard my whole life from a religious perspective that the greed in the love of money is the root of all evil. Wanting more money or a profit first mindset is not greed. And I'll give some explanations to that because you brought up a great point that most people overlook. This is our tax system. We live in a progressive tax system. The majority of my clients that come to me don't have a cash flow problem. They're going to have a tax problem. I do a lot of tax planning in my practice, and I would tell anybody if you're only looking at a financial advisor in terms of what your return is, and you're not netting that of taxes or a state tax or gift tax, you're missing the boat wholeheartedly. We have to put the tax system in our overall returns and get ahead of that game plan. And there's definitions between tax filing and tax planning that we can talk about. But the reason that you need to be profit focused first, and this is where I tell anybody what is profit-minded. When I define wealth, wealth comes in five forms. It comes in, first and foremost, your time. Time's the most valuable asset that you have, it comes in your physical health, your mental health, social health, and lastly, financial. But the reason that you want to be profit-minded in all of those, you've got to be in a position to say no more than you're saying yes, because you need to be intentional with all of those forms of wealth. But secondly, you need to create more top line revenue because everybody's getting their hands on the bottom half of that, especially Uncle Sam when it comes to the financial aspect of this. So taxes play a big portion of it. And I'll leverage it to you like this. If I came to you and I said, Cameron, if you could make $500,000 a year, you would be a static, and you're like, oh, I might not be motivated by money. That would support my life goal. But I said, well, what if you could earn top line a million dollars? And you're like, no, I don't, Justin, I don't, I wouldn't need a million dollars a year. This is what you're overlooking. If you're only, if you're making $500,000 or a million, you're pretty much in the same tax bracket. So guess what? 40% at a minimum is going to Uncle Sam. So now you've got to look at, you're not living off $500,000, right? You're living off roughly $250. Is it easier to live off the half of a million or half of the half a million dollars a year? The answer is it's easier to live off that million after tax, if after everything is paid. That doesn't make you greedy because you would want to earn a million dollars a year. We have to net everything out of tax. Because most people don't look at this, and we call this in our industry the money illusion. And it sounds like, oh my gosh, that's what David Copperfield or some dirty magician's doing in Vegas to turn some money. The money illusion just means we only look at the top line number, our rate of return. We're not netting it of tax. We have to be aware of what we're making and earning of taxation.
SPEAKER_00So I hear this often from financial advisors, people in the wealth planning space too, just from a lot of the clips and stuff I've watched online, where it's it, there's kind of this comment of like, you just kind of need to go make more money to a certain degree. Like I get it. I think that's easier said than done to a certain degree. However, with the right person behind you and supporting you, you no longer have to think about the taxes, you no longer think about as much, right? You don't have to think about being greedy. It's just literally like, hey, we're gonna go build this business to make more money. So I don't have to be as greedy at the end of the day, and I can allow my money to work for me instead of against me. And I can also focus on bringing more value and providing more value. I think there is something to be said about like I spend a lot of time thinking about how can I avoid this or how can I not pay this or how can I not do this? Whereas if we really just focused on, once again, say easier said than done, providing more value and making more money than and allowed the professional to support us in, you know, in the other stuff, we wouldn't have to focus on it as much. It would be a lot easier at the end of the day. So how do you, I guess, help a client make that mental shift and be like, oh, just go make a million dollars instead of $500,000, instead of just saying, oh, make more money because it's easy.
SPEAKER_01I ask every prospect and client the same two questions when we start our meetings. Now it changes as the relationship grows. But the first question is I ask everybody, I want you to define what financial security would look like for you. The second question I ask, define what wealth means to you. So back to my previous point. For if I came to you and I said, Cameron, after tax, if you made $500,000 top line, roughly, I mean, I'm not taking out expenses, we're keeping this very high level. But if we just net out of taxes, you're you're keeping $250 a year. And you say, Justin, you know what, I am a okay with $250. My advice to you would be, then Cameron, you don't need to go and make a million dollars a year. You just don't, because your lifestyle is determining what is your financial security blanket or your wealth blanket. Right for the client that says, Justin, I'm spending $250,000 just in my property assets alone. Well, then we have to create some strategies to increase our top line, or we're gonna have to sell off some of our lifestyle opportunities there. Right. And I think that the biggest differentiator, because I get this a lot, well, what's the difference between financial security and wealth? Financial security is I can live comfortably. All my bills are paid, and I've got a little left over to do what I want. Wealth is I am maximizing my value propositions around those five forms of wealth I talked about. Your time, your physical health, your mental health, your social health, and your financial health. Those are being maximized and you're not worried in the least about money. But you bring up a good point. How do you get to that point? Because we all have some worries around it, and and life changes. The more money that you earn, I think this is the biggest thing people don't understand. They just assume if I earn more money, all my problems go away. You're gonna be the same problem, and the same problem, and the same problem, but your problems are gonna be maximized. They're gonna be a different set of problems. There are problems of not having cash flow, of how do I keep my electric bill on? How do I afford food? Those are pretty harsh problems to work through. But when you earn a great living, the problem is how do I keep money in my back pocket and how do I distribute it to the things that I want to be distributed to, that profit first, that wealth mindset versus taxes getting a hold of it first. And you can say, well, the second problem doesn't seem that big. It gets very complicated. Our tax system is a very complicated system, intentionally. Right. But the great news about it is if you're working with somebody while you're on vacation or you're doing things you want to do, you don't have to be at a computer number crunching worried about it. Right. You can leverage an expert that has the confidence, the team, the staff, the systems, the approach to be able to maximize your value systems. So when you do retire or you get to a point where you're tired of the rat race, as they say, you can just go and live your best version of you.
SPEAKER_00When you go through this process of asking somebody like what wealth means to them, um, do you oftentimes see it as like people will oftentimes say that? Freedom andor time like time freedom or ability to spend more time with their family. Do you see that as the majority of the response, or do you oftentimes see it like maybe a little bit of both with some people being like, I just want to make more money? Um, and you maybe try to guide them towards being more on board with time freedom and freedom in general, or do you typically just take what they say and you go along with it? I'm just curious to know, is that the the approach?
SPEAKER_01The reality of it is is everybody's wired differently. So there's no right or wrong. How you're wired, and you know, if somebody comes to me and says, Justin, I just want all designer clothes and I love to travel.
SPEAKER_00But are you trying to help them to gear away from that is my question? Or you it's not your what you're saying is it's not your job to decide.
SPEAKER_01That's not my job to decide. If that is what they value, and let's not hide behind it. Like there's nothing wrong with somebody saying, I'm bougie. I think that might be a rap song, but I I don't know. It's used in a lot of rap songs. Correct. It's a great word, though. I'm bougie and I'm not afraid of it. Okay. Let's maximize your bouginess, if that's even a word. Hashtag Max Bougie. Max Bougie. Yeah. Which would be a great baseball player's name. Max Bougie would be bougie. And then you that would be a great lead up song.
SPEAKER_00He's got to drive a Ferrari, though.
SPEAKER_01He has to. Or a Mazda Miata. They have the same engines. But if somebody's not wired that way, I'm not, personally. I'm just not. You and I have had these conversations before. Time is my biggest wealth piece that I'm that I value. Who who am I spending that time with? How am I spending that time? How I work out, how I eat. I'll be honest with you, my grocery bill in terms of how I buy food, I don't even look at the receipts at this point because food is what I use to fuel my body. Watching my mom go through what she went through, I'm trying to prevent that at all cost. Right. So I'm not going to go out and be motivated by a luxury brand car. Now, that doesn't mean that that's a bad thing and or I'm going to discourage somebody from it. But money is finite and it's just a tool. So we have to understand whatever you value, my role is let's maximize that. Right. But in order to be bougie, you have to have a plan to reduce taxes, to be able to manage your money wisely, or else, guess what? When you start earning or stop earning that income, you're not going to be able to afford the luxury brand items. Right. So my role is not necessarily to navigate somebody away or into something. It is how are you wired? And then if we're going to spend more money on Prada or Gucci, that might mean that we're not going to be traveling as much. Whereas for me, travel and learning and education are my non-negotiables. Got it. So I'm going to spend a little less on the designer things, but I'm spending a lot on the food, the travel, and the memories.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. My thing is being able to be 100% authentically myself, talk about whatever the hell I want to talk about, and not have anybody come, you know, shut me down because I don't have enough money to be able to fight back. That is literally like my life goal is be able to talk about anything at any given time. And literally nobody can come and tell me what to say and what not to say. Um, now, as radical as that may sound, that is like a form of freedom that a lot of people don't have because they're in this phase of accumulation, which we talked about earlier. And I'm still definitely in that phase of accumulation as well. And I'm I'm a younger lad. I'm still working towards a lot of these goals. Um, but there are a lot of people in our country, especially around the world, of course, but in our country that feel kind of left out of the system, right? Because they don't feel like they have the ability to accumulate because they feel like the, you know, the system is against them. To your point earlier, it's a very complex system. So I just wanted to talk to that, that group for a little while that feels like feels kind of hopeless right now in their accumulation phase and is trying to figure out what to do next. What is, even though that's not necessarily like the ideal client for you, um, just speaking plainly here, what is your your suggestion to those folks that are trying to get out of this either debt hole or this you know earnings hole and they want to make more money? Um, what do you suggest to them as a good starting point first for taking that best next step financially in a broken system and getting themselves out of that hole to be able to start accumulating properly and working towards freedom, whatever that is for them? Long-winded question, I know.
SPEAKER_01But but a very important question. And I think this is foundationally what we all have to define. Right. What is your freedom? And you could you could interchange that. What is your value system? Right. Because you know, even when you're talking about I want the ability to say what I want within reason, that gives you freedom. That gives you a purpose. I'm I'm just gonna be as honest and as transparent as I possibly can be. One of the best books that I've read was around behavioral finance. And the psychologist was talking about your brain. Your brain, more importantly, uh than anything that it serves is a good bullshit detector. So many times people will give you an answer that you want to hear, but it's not who they are. Right. They're not being true and genuine to themselves. I think there's a level of authenticity that we've neglected in society because it's like I have to look perfect. I have to be this because society thinks that this is the view that they want of me. My mother used to tell me this all the time, and it has stuck with me. She would say, Justin, it is better to be disliked for the human being that you are than to be loved for the person that you're not. That's how I live my life. You may not like me, and that's cool because I'd rather you just go and tell me, hey, I don't like you, and then we can move on, and we don't even have to pretend. Yeah. So if you're in this accumulation phase, and there's and just to define it, accumulation in in the society that we live in has become more automated. There's people out there that's probably working with companies that have 401ks or retirement plans. You automate your savings. There's uh exchange traded funds and there's money management systems that we've gotten really efficient. We could argue the effectiveness, like Robinhood and other platforms that people don't know what they're doing, but they're like, oh, I'm in the market, but they don't understand how that aligns with their value system. But it's still a step in the right direction. With the distribution phase, because there's two phases to planning. We have an accumulation, which most people are going to be in while they're working. But even for somebody like me that never wants to retire, there's gonna be a moment where I'm like, all this money that I've accumulated, I need to spend. Wealth without spending it and enjoying it is not wealth. You're just hoarding money at that point. So the distribution phase is where it gets really complicated. And most people's financial advisors are not well versed in that. And I would say, even early on, ask a financial planner as you start working, are you well versed on the accumulation and distribution phase? Because the two go hand in hand, but distribution is where it gets most complicated. Right. But for somebody starting out, here's my best piece of advice: start small and learn fast. Get invested in your 401k plan. If you're an entrepreneur like most young people, start one within your own company, even if it's you. You can do something like a solo 401k or start a Roth IRA. It does it, even if you can't max it out. Right. The one thing that I also say is who's the most important person on payday? Should be you. That's not being a narcissist. That's not being greedy. It goes back to what I said, profit first. Right. Treat yourself, if you're paying Verizon Wireless more than you're paying yourself, you can tell me you love yourself all day long, but I'll go back to your brain. It's a good bullshit detector, right? If I'm paying Verizon Wireless $200 a month and I'm saying I can't save $10 a month towards my Roth IRA, let's go ahead and tell our brain, hey, Verizon Wireless at this point's more important than myself. What you'll notice is the psychology changing. Because it might not mean that you're like, no, I I love Verizon Wireless. I'm going to get it a Christmas gift at the end of the year. But your brain is saying, no, we love Verizon Wireless more because we're paying them more. Once you come to that conclusion and you say, okay, how do I change this relationship? How can I get to a point where I am paying myself more than Verizon Wireless, more than Gucci Prada, et cetera? Right. That's true wealth because now you've maximized your profitability. You've prioritized yourself on the balance sheet to be numero uno. Right. And you didn't know I was well versed in Spanish either, but I do speak multilinguage, Spanish, English, and Southern. And I would just recommend for everybody out there, start small, learn fast, but prioritize yourself. And then lastly, automate those savings. Don't wait. Just like people don't realize this about the tax system. But before 1913, we didn't have a federal tax system. Now that we do, do you know even before we had the IRS and things like that in place, do you know how people paid their federal income tax? At the end of the year. Do you know why the IRS was established? How many people do you think had money to pay the IRS? Not many. Not many. They they spent that money. So what the IRS said, hey, if you're earning an income, why don't we just deduct it out of their payroll checks? So they treated it like a bill pay. That's what we need to do with ourselves. Treat yourself like a bill. And and and should we delve into the legality of that though? Well, we we absolutely could or could um I would argue that it's probably from a legal standpoint not the best methodology, of course. I do think that we could argue that, but what we can argue on the financial side, don't delay it because human beings are going to spend the money that they think that they don't already have. Right. There we don't delay it. It's why so many people that win the lottery go bankrupt. Yeah. It's not money they've earned. And we can that's the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00If you win the lottery and win a billion dollars, though, or whatever it's gotten to now the crazy hundreds of millions of dollars, and you go bankrupt, there is something seriously wrong. And I think more than anything, it's like they should immediately attach like legally a financial advisor. Like you have to work with financial advisor, unless that's already in law, but they they really should start doing that maybe forward.
SPEAKER_01I mean, you don't ask a barber if you need a haircut, so you're probably you know, you're asking a wealth and tax advisor if you need obviously you need let you're like let me be that yeah, I'll gladly take care of this. Yeah, I agree. Let's you know, let's uh let's put that into law. Absolutely, I think it should be mandated or person dated or whatever the terminology is.
SPEAKER_00Somebody should be supported so they can't literally like lose it all. But it's also at the end of the day, it's their freedom, that's their decision. But it's the same thing with all like uh pro ball ballers, too. You're like, man, like y'all need some help across the board.
SPEAKER_01Well, let me play devil's advocate here for just a second, because I do think that that is the common theme. And I agree with you. To the outside, you're like, how would you go bankrupt? But now let's think about it. So in the world of behavioral finance, there's this thing called mental accounting. If you were to win the lottery today, that billion dollars in your mind should just really go into your bank account and it should be the lump sum that you're getting from your regular business. It should not be any different. What you will do with it though, whether it's conscience or subconsciously, you're gonna put it into another box and say, Oh, I didn't earn this. What do we tend to do with things that we don't have any skin in the game? We tend to abuse it, overuse it. Right. Because there was no skin in that game of obtaining it. Right. So now the problem becomes oh, it's it's it's excess money. People will spend it down. But the the other thing people aren't netting out of that billion dollars are tax. Now you can say, yeah, but Justin, I mean, i if it's at a billion, they're still getting five hundred million dollars. Right. But let's go back to this. If somebody goes from living paycheck to paycheck, never having a financial wealth advisor, not understanding generational wealth, not understanding the tax system, they literally go from a 10 or 12, maybe a low 20% income tax bracket now to 40%. Your brain has to be rewired. It brings up a lot of interesting things. There was, don't quote me on the the data for this, but right now the average person retiring, now, this isn't the outliers that most of us work with, but the the mass population three years away from retirement, most people have less than $150,000 in their 401k in retirement accounts. And you're like, really? But let's go back and think of the psychology behind this. Do you know when the Roth IRA got established? I want to say like the 60s, 70s, 80s. It would have been nice, the late 90s. And it was, as you can imagine, going back into politicians, Mr. Roth. So that's coming up right around 30 years. That's not even a blink of an eye on the time history of our working history. Right. And then you go back, okay, well, when did the 401k get established? We're talking in the 70s. We've not had enough time because before that, let's think of what traditional retirement looked like. You had pension plans and you had family farms that people supported. That's gone away in a very short amount of time. Our brains have not adapted to understanding saving for that rainy day because we had pensions, social security, all these things to keep us up. And our brains have not transitioned into I own this 401k. I need to save. It's up to me. It's my responsibility. So I understand where you're coming from. I understand to the outside, but I'll give you a prime example to this. Before I was running my own business, I worked for a bank out of North Carolina, and we were doing a lot of presentations around wealth, helping uh student athletes with NIL. There was a gentleman there that signed a lucrative deal, and he came and we were having a conversation, and he said, Justin, I am scared to death about having a lot of money. And he said, All of my friends are telling me that I'm crazy. And I looked at him and I said, When we understand how you are wired around your money script and your psychology of money, it's going to make perfect sense. This gentleman laid out the scenario. He came from a one household, one parent family. And this particular guardian of him told him that everybody that had money either screwed somebody or did something evil to have it. So I'm saying, this makes perfect sense. In this gentleman's mind, the moment he has money, he's trying to get rid of it because he's thinking I'm a horrible person. So I had to flip the switch. After listening, I asked a very simple question. Are there bad people that don't have any money? And he said, Yeah. A lot. I said, Are there people that do good things with their money that have a lot of money and give them to charities? I said, So it's not the money. It's the person. Right. And that's where you kind of learn to walk through it. But here's the thing, going back into what you said, do I steer navigate? Now that I know this person's terrified of having money, we have to take the sting out of money. We have to talk about how dumb it is. It's just a tool. What do you value? How can we give to charity? But it's okay to set up for your retirement. Right. And defining what wealth means to this individual. It's fascinating to me, but the majority of my job is not talking about financial markets. I mean, I do a lot of that. Yes, we talk about a lot of financial assets. The majority of it is I'm a professional listener and I feel like Dr. Phil. I probably sound like him, but it is. It's literally talking people through how are they wired? How can we structure a plan around their wiring? So we're not just trying to reroute all of this hardwire because here's the reality you are who you are. We've got to set up boundaries to help you live in a healthy environment around those boundaries.
SPEAKER_00I love it. Uh there are going to be plenty of conversations in the future between the two of us about finances, wealth, value, life, purpose, et cetera. I'm very excited about those conversations. Um, we don't have necessarily enough time today to dive into all of that, but I do want to hit on just as kind of a concluding, whether this is five, 10, 15 minutes, um, what you're you're planning on doing with the well-advised show, well-advised podcast, um, you know, your you know, your time as a financial and wealth advisor as well. What are your goals in in the future personally for providing value to clients and also providing value to the content that you're going to be creating as well?
SPEAKER_01So we didn't talk a lot about this, but one of the things that I do, I'm I'm I'm an educator at heart. I do a lot of retirement workshops in our community. I also teach for several universities around their lifelong learning program, but I'm an instructor for Dalton Education, which certifies certified financial planners. And as a portion of that, what I have noticed, and you and I have had these conversations, there is so much horse manure out there that's just totally incorrect. Their form and formality is just to get a bunch of clicks, a bunch of likes. They want to be influencers. That's not my role. My role is I want to put and provide the best possible education out there for people that are high achievers, that have a lot of complications around their money, and people that are like, I have no idea where I need to start. This is overly complicated. I want to provide education that simplifies the complex, adds value, and is a trusted source. That's really my ultimate goal. So that people, whether they use me or they're using another advisor, if it does nothing more than to bring up great questions to who they're currently using, that's what I want them to understand. Because what I've also heard from a lot of people, even that have taken my classes, well, I'm paying somebody and they've not even brought up this situation. I didn't know I was going to have to pay Irma in my retirement or Social Security tax. I didn't know that was a thing. I didn't know how to do Roth conversions. My goal is to take the sting out of that, provide education that people find beneficial, whether it's even business exit planning, and they can come to the well-advised podcast and get education that's mildly entertaining. And I'm going to have my sense of humor on it. I'm going to bring my personality to it because let's let's cut the brass tacks out of it and take the sting out of this. Most financial podcasts, financial planners and advisors are boring as shit. Thank you. And I and my apologies to any uh my apologies to any manure out there because manure at least grows grass. Yeah. I don't think financial advisors could even do that in a lot of cases. And that's not a knock. I mean, we all have our personalities, but I do think it needs to have a sense of authenticity. You know, you hear my accent. A lot of people will say, You have an accent. I never knew I had one. In my head, I sound like James Earl Jones. I thought it was the microphone or Apple products. Wrote several emails and they're like, buddy, I think you need to take that up with your mother. Maybe Larry the Cable Guy is my father. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I don't know if it's that bad or not. But even Larry the Cable guy was not being authentic because he in him in and of himself was being dramatic with his accent.
SPEAKER_01So it's not actually an authentic accent. No, it's not. Uh, and and that leads us, that could go into a saddest day of my life when I realized that.
SPEAKER_00I was like, what?
SPEAKER_01So he he actually got his start in Florida. That's a whole nother thing because I love stand-up comedy, and we'll go back into that. So bringing a sense of comedy to this podcast, laughter truly is the best medicine. I've learned that through going through trauma myself. If you can't learn to laugh at yourself, if you can't have a good time while you're learning things, if somebody can't come to the podcast and be mildly entertained, the finance is going to bore them. It just is. That's probably why they get frustrated with it when they're dealing with it themselves. Having fun and talking about this and making it exciting is my ultimate goal. And that's really my life's purpose. I go back to what my mom and dad always told me find something that drives you. This is my legacy. I'll leave some with my money and my finance, but I want people to. Remember me, hey, that guy taught me this. Hey, this guy brought this very complicated subject and made it simple to understand. Oh, and by the way, he's not really trying to sell us any garbage. He's just out here informing us with things that really probably our advisor should be doing. But it could be maybe the advisor's just really good in the accumulation phase and doesn't have the expertise in business planning and or retirement income planning. And there's no harm or foul in that. We all have the things that we're good at in our business. I mean, there's clients I meet with, prospects I've meet with, and I said, I don't think I'm gonna be the best fit for you. Right. That's my goal is getting people really comfortable to at least whether you're in that accumulation phase and starting out and saying, I don't think I'm gonna be a good fit for this guy because maybe I'm not ready. Okay, you're not. But can I give you something to start fast and learn quickly with? If you're in that retirement income phase, can I give you something to either ask your advisor or maximize what you're doing? That's that's the ultimate goal with it.
SPEAKER_00Cool. Uh I did this on the last podcast and I really enjoyed it. But fun little speed round of questions towards the end here. Um, once again, you can answer in detail if you'd like to, but I'm just gonna ask them. I'll kind of want to know what are the first things that come to your mind with these questions. So I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit. This will be this. Do it. I like it. I like being put on the spot. Um, so first question is a 401k a scam?
SPEAKER_01It is not. A lot of people have heard that it is or that it's going away, or the tax system. What I would tell you is it's how we choose to look at things. The biggest, I would say, miscommunication about a 401, people are not asking, does your 401 have a Roth opportunity? If it does, start taking advantage of it. The other thing that I see, oh, well, I'm gonna have to pay taxes when I pull it out. Absolutely. If that money went in what we call qualified or pre-tax, because you basically avoided it on the front end, it lowered your income in that current year. It grows tax deferred. Uncle Sam's gonna get his one way or the other. Most people that are listening to your podcast, they're gonna have to start taking required minimum distributions at 75. So they're gonna pay more tax towards the back end of their life. That's no bueno. That's not good. We don't like that because tax brackets are going to increase. Here is what I will tell you, because you brought up a lot, and and and I'll even share this a lot on my podcast. I'll try to give you some financial history. We transitioned away from pension plans to what we call contribution plans. And people have just been up in arms about it. Oh, pensions were the way to go. No. Pensions, if that company went belly up, where did your retirement plan go? It went belly down. So you didn't have anything. What you should take tremendous pride in, it is up to you to invest in these accounts. It is your responsibility. Start investing in them. Now, do I think that's the only vehicle that you should be investing in? Absolutely not. But your retirement account should at least set a foundation and a basis to maximize how much you can put in there. And it goes back to what I said. If we're only looking at returns in just what you're getting and not net of tax, you're missing the boat. You could put that money in crypto or a traditional brokerage account, but what are you going to pay? Capital gains and taxes. It's another conversation. But ownership of anything, Cameron, I would argue property, that's really kind of what helped our country gain the growth that it did was the ownership of property. It creates freedom. Same thing with your retirement accounts. Take pride in the fact that you own them and you can move them. We have to understand how the tax system. Now we can argue, do you think that's right? Do I think that's too much authority? That's another conversation for another day. But no, I don't think it's a scam. I think how people are viewing it is they're not getting the full information. Even myself, I'm a business owner. When I sit down in front of business owners, Cameron, just like one of our very first conversations, I have retirement accounts. If I thought they were a scam or that they were going away, or it wasn't a legal way to reduce my income and put money in tax-deferred status, I wouldn't use it. I would be that authentic and say, probably not the best use of funds. Now, anything could change tomorrow, but is it a scam? Absolutely not.
SPEAKER_00You mentioned investing in property as freedom just a moment ago. Do you still believe that investing in property, especially for our generation, is still freedom in the same sense that it was for our parents and their parents as well?
SPEAKER_01I think it's totally changing. Okay. What I mean by that, and this was a really good uh podcast that I was listening to a few days ago, and they were just talking about in the major cities of the United States, in San Francisco, New York. Now we can argue, is that where you want to live? Staying very high level here. The cost of tuition, even in a master's program in the early 90s, would cost you altogether for your undergrad and master's degree, maybe right around $100,000. You could get a house in those markets for right around $200,000. Right now, in these markets, a traditional education is costing students almost $300,000 to $400,000, and an entry-level home is almost a million dollars. That is tough. So what does that mean? Your parents had a better structure for affording property. The other thing to play into that too, jobs are nomadic now, especially if you're going to work for corporate America. I can't argue or even push back if somebody's like, I don't necessarily see buying a traditional home right off the bat. It's taking people a lot longer to have the down payment. But this is where generational wealth can really set your children apart because without, and this is what they described, the majority of people buying homes right now were families that are passing down gifts and inheritance to their children. So my advice is if you want your child to have that ownership of property earlier in life, like you did, gift and inheritance is going to be the way that they're going to do it, even with a good job, even with good schooling. Because think about even what schooling is costing now, even for in-state tuition. It's expensive. Generational wealth and being able to pass it down is going to be the way to fast track that. But no, we're we're seeing people buying their first home now in their mid to late 30s. It's taking them that long for a down payment and paying down student loan debt. So our parents had it just a little easier, and inflation and money went a longer way. Think about this. In the late 80s, early 90s, if you made $90,000, you were a baller, as the kids say. I mean, you were going to be on cribs with exhibit and you've made it. That same $90,000 salary, if we had to convert that today's dollars, would take almost $250,000 to do that. Are entry-level jobs paying that? No. They're not. Not in close. So there is there is a guide to that. I think we just need to be self-aware that having generational wealth is not a bad thing. And I'm also not saying leave all of your wealth to your children. You need to spend it and enjoy it and have fun. But gifting your children's gift in a tax-efficient manner can be a way to really spread wealth generationally and land ownership for families in generations to come.
SPEAKER_00There are going to be certain people that are listening to this podcast that are absolutely pissed off with the way that we talk about money in the sense of like, oh, like it just is what it is. It's just money, right? However, their situation is very different because they've got a lot of hardships that they're currently facing. They don't, they don't come from a lot of money. They're not making a lot of money right now. I go back to this mindset shift conversation earlier of how do we address that population in our country right now? How do we talk to those folks in a positive manner that helps kind of lift them out of that that um financial cage that they're in, where literally talking about money just makes them angry all the time.
SPEAKER_01It's one of the things that if I if I had something that could erase everybody's problem for being middle class or even and and and you could argue that even with the tax brackets now, the middle class is there's a further spread between the elite wealth and the lower tier. Absolutely. One of the hardest jobs in America right now is living in poverty. And the one thing that I would say that is encouraging, even though we're a young country, we're still figuring things out, there is opportunity and economic opportunity. We have to be very careful how we are positioning ourselves, comparing ourselves to others. Well, uh and I'm gonna butcher the quote, but it's comparison is the thief of happiness, something along those lines. There's so much false pretense right now in social media, in other areas of life, and I'll be honest with you, I went to Furman University, a lot of trust fund kids there. I didn't, I was not raised with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I'm gonna tell you what, I'm glad that I wasn't. So, from a personal standpoint, what happened to me is it my income ability did not happen overnight. But some of the things that I did early on was number one, starting small and learning fast. Anything that I could pick up around the tax system, creating businesses. I worked two jobs at one point in my 20s so that I could have side income and only lived off one. Not ideal. You could say, man, that was a tough sacrifice. But what I would tell people, if you don't have that silver spoon, that is not your Achilles heel. That can be your superpower, but it's how you choose to change your mindset, and either you're going to stay in mediocracy or you're going to choose to rise above it. So I'll I'll just give you a business plan of my own. It took me about six years to run a practice to where I got it feeling like it was my own business. There were many years I was driving and still do, still have the car. It's a 2014 Honda Accord. That thing was paid off. Now, is it sexy? No, it's not a Mazda Miyada. It's not. But it got me A to B, and I had to determine, okay, well, the money that I would have had in a car payment, what was better? Putting it in my Roth, maxing out my 401k? What did I want in life? What was my value system? Well, I knew that I wanted to run my own business, and it was going to take a while to get the wheels on the track. Keeping it on the road as a business owner, you feel like, hey, if I can keep it between the mustard and the mayonnaise, the yellow and the white lines, I'm good. But at a certain point, once I can steer the car, I got to have a direction. I got to have a navigation system. I got to have a braking system. You can't listen to everybody else out here that's going and buying a home at 22 because they did come from a trust fund and say, that's where I should have been. Oh, I should be married by 27. Okay, well, you know what? Here's my advice to everybody. I'm living in it. It doesn't matter when you get it, but if you don't commit to those goals, you don't write it down. You're not surrounding yourself with mentors that have built it, that can help you give you the advice, it's not going to happen. Look at who your friends are. John Bogle had one of the best quotes, it transformed my life. John Bogle created Vanguard, and he allowed a lot of people through mutual funds to get into the market at lower cost. He said, most people worry about where their kids are going to go to school, and that does not matter. Ivy League or a technical college, anybody can be successful. Most of your entrepreneurs don't even have a college degree, by the way. But he said you should be more concerned with who and whom your kids are surrounding themselves with and the entertainment they put in front of their face. That's who transforms them. So if you're around people that just constantly say, well, you know, uh, we're just not, we're not gonna get out of this track bracket, Jim, you know, and that's all right. You're not, you're not gonna get out of it. But also it goes back to what tax bracket do you want to be in? There are a lot of people that remain in the 22% tax bracket and retire wealthy because of what they're gonna spend, how they travel, what it is that they value. But if you're not writing your value system down, if you don't have a mission and a value proposition for those four or five uh forms of wealth that we've talked about throughout this podcast, it's gonna be difficult for you to obtain anything. It's gonna be fleeting. And you're gonna be on this treadmill of it's never enough, or the moment that it gets hard, you're gonna give up. I would ask anybody, this is a piece of advice that I would tell anybody listening right now. If you're in this hamster wheel, and I've been in it myself, you just feel like, why did I make this decision? Oh, I feel like a failure. Everything is just not going my way. Don't ask yourself when you're creating a business or what you're doing, or if if you're at this point, an inflection point, you're about to go to college, or maybe college degree's not for you. Quit asking yourself, what is it that I love to do? I would even say that with the partner that you're with. Oh, I just love them. I get all these butterflies. That's gonna last a minute. What you need to ask yourself and you need to be dedicated to, am I willing to fight for this person in front of me when they have nothing else to give me? When my backs are against the wall, are they willing to fight for it? Same thing with your business. There are days that I thought, how am I gonna make payroll? How am I even gonna save? I mean, I was making nothing. But I said, there's nothing else that I would rather be doing. And I can either feel sorry for myself or I can get up and stay motivated. And sometimes that meant getting a second job. There were things that I had to do that my blue-collar work ethic took me to that defined that. And that's not just motivational speak, but I'm telling you right now, earning money will not be easy. Earning a lot of money will not be easy. It I I've gone through a lot of different uh sessions and therapy myself to where my therapist has two nice beach homes for me. I get to stay in one rent-free at this point. But she told me one time, she said, Justin, what you have to determine. It would be if somebody had an alcohol problem, a drug problem. Whether you mean to remain on drugs or alcohol, it's gonna be hard. Whether you choose to remain on drugs or alcohol or get off them, it's gonna be hard. So hard is the sunk cost. What are you gonna fight for? That would be my belief system to them. It should piss you off. It should. And guess what? The system is bigger than all of us. You want to get into politics? We had this conversation off topic. Somebody asked me the other day, Justin, why don't you run for politics? I said, Because I love breathing. They'd run me out. They would probably, I mean, it I would I would have to have somebody a jester check that for hemlock. You know, make sure there's no poison in that tea. We have to understand, no matter what we choose to do, the system is gonna be bigger than us. But once we know we're not gonna shift the system, we gotta learn how to play within the system without losing ourselves. It can be done. I promise it can. But if you don't have good mentors, if you don't have financial advisors that truly understand this grit and grind, it's probably not gonna happen. And when we always use the term, I I'm not your ideal client, or it won't happen for me. Well, guess what you've told your brain? What is your brain starting to believe? The bullshit, the chatter. Yeah. We have to, in our brains, say, this is what I want, this is what I'm gonna strive to. And and I would be cautious of people saying, oh, well, Justin's just made it like, well, you have to have a trust fund to make it. That's not what I'm saying. I sure didn't. And I'm glad I didn't, because I had to go through the the grit, the fire, the brimstone. That blue collar's still in me. Even when I choose cities to go and visit, I love the grit. I don't like and again, I'm the there's no knocking bouginess. I don't want people to feel that. But there's a grit, there's an authenticity that I love about hardworking people. But we got to get out of our head that it's easy. It's not gonna be easy. It's also not easy for the trust fund kids because all they hear all the time is, well, you're a trust fund kid, you don't understand it. Well, that gets old too. Right. So I would just say surround your people or yourself with people that have your best interest. Won't make it easier, but you can operate within the system and get out of it. You can.
SPEAKER_00It's a hell of a waiting the podcast. We're just gonna leave it there. And for our next episode, no, we're gonna have plenty more of these conversations. I'm I'm super excited about it. But uh, thanks so much for spending the time today talking through obviously where you've been, where you're at right now, what the future looks like, uh, and also uh just giving us some really good feedback and advice on all these topics. Because I think in a certain degree, we all think of, well, we all think of money differently. Um, and we all have our own kind of perspective on money based off of our own experiences, especially growing up. Um, but it is really important to think of it from like a holistic approach, in my opinion. Uh, and also understand that to your point, the system is it's pretty big. We're probably not changing it unless you are super involved in the political sphere and or have a lot of money. So frankly, work and get to a point where you actually can start having impact as well. I think that's also super important. You can talk about it all day long. You can share your you know insights online, but how much does that actually do at the end of the day?
SPEAKER_01That's right. And and again, it goes back to just being authentic within yourself and having conversations and understanding that no matter what way we choose, it's gonna be hard. But with the right people, the right culture, the right mindset, I don't want to sound like we're on reading rainbow or we need to put this in a Hallmark card because listen, it's not, it's hard as hell. I mean, there are days, even as a man, that you want to cry sometimes and you're like, I don't know. So you don't actually cry because I cry.
SPEAKER_00I cry from time to time.
SPEAKER_01I I do, but um I just recycle the tears. Um I so you don't I've been crying the whole episode. Uh you haven't been crying with me all the time. But but to that point, it is having a a grit and an authenticity to yourself is going to be key to it. How long it takes, nobody knows. Sometimes it happening quickly and overnight can be a bigger failure point than a success point.
SPEAKER_00If you don't learn any lessons along the way, you don't, you're likely to make large mistakes. Which is also just I I I said we're concluding this episode like twice now, but we're not concluding this episode because I think one point to make here is that through like the failures that I've had personally, I've learned so much from those failures. And you think about it, if I if I had hundreds of millions of dollars and I had made the same failures, I would probably be a miserable wreck right now, losing 90% of that on trades or business ventures, et cetera. You'd be like, I can't believe I didn't learn that lesson earlier with now the tons of money I had, I've now lost it all because I bet it all on one particular business and it didn't work out. So it's just it's good to have those experiences early on as well.
SPEAKER_01I don't even choose, and you know, when I use the slogan start small and learn fast, it it's it's a it's a deviation of start small and fail fast. I don't believe in failure. I believe that when you when you give up or you don't try, that's failure. As I said, I I love stand-up comedy. I I still do some of it, I write a lot, and it's because there's no more pure form of art that if you fail, it is like falling flat on your face and there is no first aid kit around. Nobody's gonna save you. We need to get to a point in society where we're educating our children. That's why I think the education system is flawed. We're teaching kids, hey, you got to make an A in this nine-week semester, or you're a failure. No, screw you. It's about if I didn't do well on this exam or this subject, it may have, it may take me four years, it may take me 10 years, but I won't ever be a master of it, right? But I'll be good at it, I'll be proficient at it. We're teaching people, oh, well, if it makes you feel uncomfortable, don't do it. Absolutely not. Be comfortable with the uncomfortable. And and I'll get extremely vulnerable, and we can't end on this. I I think with a lot of advisors and why a lot of people struggle talking with us, and I've talked about it, we're boring as shit. But then the second thing is people think that we're perfect. It's almost like going in, you know, and and then I'm not bringing in people's religion, but if you're Catholic, you you go in confession. If you're a Southern Baptist, you just keep backsliding so much, you're doing the moon walk with Michael Jackson at that point. But what I tell people is is this is that we're not perfect. And as I mentioned those five forms of wealth, even for me, there was a point in time in my life where I didn't view physical health as a priority. And I used to tell people all the time, oh, I can sleep when I'm dead. Well, guess what? If I would have kept that mindset up, that was going to come a lot sooner than I wanted it to. After losing my mom, that changed my mindset on, you know, uh and again, I know in our industry always say, I don't know who drinks more, lawyers or finance people. But for me, I I don't drink anymore. You know, I don't drink any less either. Bad joke. But that truly, I I don't drink alcohol. Now, I might have an occasional beer or non-alcoholic beer every once in a while. And when people ask, I want to be authentic about it. If I start letting my physical health go, I start not valuing my mental health. My mental health goes, guess what? My social circle goes. My social circle goes, my financial health goes because I'm just gonna start spending money on things that aren't valuable to me. Now, does that mean that I think because people do enjoy drinking or they go out and they drink or their wine or foodies or whatever that I think they're horrible people? Absolutely not. Go and maximize that. I'm just saying for me, this keeps me that discipline at the table sets my sleep patterns up, my business patterns up. And it's just not valuable to me. So if I did enjoy it, I wouldn't change that. Could I see there have been a problem going on if I continue? Yeah, absolutely. Not just with alcohol, but just with food in general. And it goes into working on yourself. Why are you drinking? Well, a lot of times it wasn't how much, or when you start drinking, it is, oh, I had a good day, drink. Oh, it's Arbor Day, have a drink. You know, it's president's day. Yeah, I like Ben, you know, I like George Washington. He didn't lie about the cherry tree. Let's have a drink. Okay, well, at a certain point, is it adding or taking away value? And when you start really viewing your life in the five forms of wealth, you're not reducing what you value, you're maximizing it. But it all comes from am I putting myself profit first? And how much do I value myself? Advisors are not perfect. I've made mistakes financially, personally, professionally, and I share that with clients. I'm gonna be an open book. It's the only way that I know how to be.
SPEAKER_00Well, Justin, thanks so much for the time. Thanks for having me. Look forward to having you back on in the future as well. Keep it going. Yeah, absolutely.