Ep 3 Invest in Your Soul

Summary

This conversation explores the journey of navigating life choices, from college decisions to career paths, emphasizing the importance of understanding one's locus of control, the role of support systems, and the necessity of embracing fear and creativity. The discussion also highlights the changing landscape of employment, the potential of real estate as a path to financial freedom, and the significance of investing in one's future to achieve peace and stability.

Takeaways

Confidence can be misleading in decision-making.

Understanding your locus of control is crucial for personal growth.

Support systems play a vital role in navigating life changes.

Embracing fear can lead to personal empowerment.

Creativity is essential for envisioning a fulfilling life.

Building self-reliance involves creating multiple income streams.

The corporate contract has changed; reliance on jobs is risky.

Real estate can be a viable path to financial independence.

Investing in assets is key to long-term stability.

Finding peace is a personal journey that varies for everyone.

00:00 Navigating College Choices and Life Decisions

03:04 Understanding Control: Internal vs External Locus

06:09 The Importance of Support Systems

09:19 Embracing Fear and Taking Risks

12:04 Reclaiming Creativity in Life Choices

15:08 Building Self-Reliance and Multiple Income Streams

18:14 The Corporate Contract: Shifting Expectations

21:13 Real Estate as a Path to Financial Freedom

24:11 Investing in Your Future: The Power of Assets

27:07 Creating a Life of Peace and Stability

30:15 The New Reality of Employment and Income

33:09 Finding Your Peace in a Chaotic World

36:04 Investing Your Soul: The True Value of Life Choices

54:02 NEWCHAPTER

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

So the wider point I want to make. I was talking to one of my my cousins, and she is just now starting university. So she's senior in high school. Well, she's she graduated high school. And so she went to these colleges and she was like listening to the people like talk to her about advising her on what she should do. She wants to be an architect and so on and so forth. And and the way she was saying she was communicating the course of her college career was with so much confidence yet uninformed. It was like confidently uninformed. Now, some of the information that she was saying was factually correct, but not accurate as far as her particular situation. So meaning they're like, oh, the advisors were saying, oh, you can only do 15 hours. Well, we've all been to school. We know that ain't true. But they tell you that because they don't want you to flunk out in your first year. So they want you to only do 15 years. But if you come in there and you sign a paper and say, I'm good, they'll give you 20 hours. They don't care. The point I was trying to make is we have to understand. Like, and I uh I was looking at her and I was like, that's an example of how we live our lives. We just assume and we just go with what the decisions that the the normal decisions that are made. Well, I gotta sell the house. Yeah, exactly. I've gotta do this, I've gotta do this. No, you don't have to do anything. And when you realize that you don't have to do anything and that you have if you if you just think through it the way you nor like if you think through what you want to do, there's always a way for you to do and move how you want to move. That isn't tied to a have to.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

And so somebody else's have-to, by the way. It could be it could be somebody else's have-to.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Because who says, like, who says you have to leave? Who like, I mean, that's the uh like I think that's to Jermaine's point. The first decision you made was like, okay, I gotta go. Like, uh no. You so you're telling me out of Houston, Houston's what, the fourth largest city in the country? Yeah, exactly. Um, with I mean, there's various.

SPEAKER_04 2:49

I can't do anything now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Now, unless you want to go or you're less, like you're saying, hey, it's a great opportunity. I like the company, I've got upward mobility. Um, and like Jermaine's saying, you take some time, and I didn't mean to interrupt you, Jermaine. I apologize. No, you could, please. Um if it's something that you want to do, then great. Again, this all goes back to you and Sonny coming together and saying, okay, here's what we want this to look like, and then go from there. Um, but yeah, man, there's a lot you're gonna put on your shoulders that's undo. Um you don't want to undo stuff on your shoulders. But I think you and I talked a little bit about um having about internal and external locus of locuses of or loci of control when we were in Portland and we were talking, and that's I'm not I don't want to focus just on you, but this is also something that um people in corporate America don't always have is strong internal locai of control, meaning they the outcomes that they desire they know are more determinant on themselves and their internal abilities and their uh internal forces, internal influences, than those that have more external locae of control, um, who tend to feel that their current situations are a result of external factors, um, like luck, fate, um, the company that I work for, where I live, the school I went to. Um the people that have strong external look I have control tend to focus on those things as determining factors of the outcomes in their lives. So with you having and developing a stronger internal look I have control, you start to say, okay, like Jermaine's saying, I got the skill set, I got the decorated resume, I've done this for X amount of years, I have the experience. There's nothing that says I can't find or make or create the situation that I want to be in. I don't want to be in a situation, you don't want to be in a situation where you've been somewhere for 20 years and then they say, okay, we're closing the location and you got to pick up and move everything to Charlotte. Like what? Who wants that? Nobody. So then you start to think, okay, now what can I control? And I have a lot more control than I think I do. Which is where you are. You got a lot more control than you think you do. And Jermaine and I ain't gonna let you be like, oh, well, I don't have no options, man.

SPEAKER_04 5:34

Right. Yeah, that's that's that's letting that's letting them kind of dictate the narrative a little too much. No, it ain't even a fall victim to it, you know?

SPEAKER_01 5:46

It ain't them. It's you just it's it's it's us saying just falling into the wave. Accepting the river. Yeah. Like it's it's a you're on a boat and the river is moving in a direction. And you can go that river, but you have a big ass motor strapped to that boat. Yeah, yeah. You can go upstream, you can go downstream. That's true. You you can go through a little inlet, you can dock at a harbor and chill, you can get off the boat. You can stay on the boat. So there's so many decisions that are made even before the key, the key, the key decision, the key focus is do I got my ride with me? I.e. the missus. If we are moving in one direction, we're gonna be good. We got it. That's a good point.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

That's a good point. Especially with the wife that you have, Joseph. Especially with the wife you have. I mean, there's like there's men that are that are like that have women that are literal balls and chains. They can't move, they can't, they don't have the bandwidth to think, they don't have any confidence in themselves because the women don't build them up. Their ideas get shot down, constant negativity. Like, but you know, having that's not what you have. Yeah, dude, you got rid of it.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

From the job, from high job.

SPEAKER_04 7:21

Yeah, this is, you know, we damn near 25 years in the game, man. And you know, started from the bottom, now we hit. You know what I mean? I I I I tell all the time, sleeping on my friend's floor, watching roaches crawl by my wife's face, and I'm like, Yeah, nonsense. This, this, this can't, this can't happen. But she was there for it, man. She said, Well, I believe in you, and I know this is temporary. And she believed it when I didn't believe it, you know, but she's the type of woman that that'll make you believe, you know, and then you know how it is, it feeds itself. She she tells me I can do it, then I definitely want to do it for her. And then, you know, that cycle just repeats until we're in a good spot. And I think the fear of losing that good spot by trying something different or new or of my own volition is is wanting to keep me on that river in the boat that I and the problem is it's an illusion of safety. You know what I mean? It's an illusion. Um, I can do all this, cross all the T's, dot all the I's, get up there, and the company says, I'm glad that you did that, but we're still gonna let you go. You know, it can it can mean nothing. It could just mean there's no guarantees there. AI. And so, yeah. That's uh that's something I definitely know for true.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yep. AI, you're done.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah, but I mean Yeah, so that's what we're trying to we're trying to develop, or we are developing here is what are the components to more self-reliance? However, that looks for any given person, more self-reliance around like, okay, I don't need to depend on XYZ. That may look like multiple streams of income for somebody, that may look like a business, that might look like investing, that might even just look like, you know, stepping up your skill set stack or stacking up your skill set, however that term works. So our thing is okay, what we're doing here is so we can chip away at that reliance over a period of time. And so it may be whatever that range, that date range is, and then we're talking Joseph was like, okay, well, yeah, maybe we got five to seven years, and then it was looking three to five years. Now they're telling you you got you got to a win. I came quite 45 minutes uh to figure this out, guys. Were we just we were just talking about that? What like Saturday, last Saturday or something like that?

SPEAKER_04 9:56

Yeah, it's it life comes at you fast. And man, boy, it's uh it's interesting. It is interesting, I'll tell you that, man. It's but you know, it's it's one of those situations where you don't know you can do something until you're forced to do it, then you're like, oh, I had this power? Oh, okay. I could do this, oh okay. You know, it's um it this will this will be one of those empowerment moments. Um but for me, every empowerment moment starts with the fear of of believing in myself, you know, and I think it's a natural process like that, where it's like, ooh, can I do this? I better do what they say. Then it's well, I don't know if that's actually necessarily the best for me. Then it's well, what is the best, you know, and then like you say, you know, help from brothers like you who like, well, slow down a little bit. Let's let's let's take it one step at a time and and figure it out. And like you say, thinking through the situation, thinking through what I want, I'll find a way to get that in the best way for my family, the best way for me. And um, yeah, I I I definitely think this will be a very interesting situation to learn about myself and my power. The the me that I claim to be. We'll find out pretty soon. We'll we'll find we'll find out pretty soon. So good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Well, let me can I uh submit something? Let me submit that it's not even about power, it's about creativity. It's the creativity to imagine and we don't do that a lot as adults. Once we we stop right around like university. Like right when we get into the grind of the corporate America, the you know, we're almost I don't want to say stripped of autonomy and and and creative thought, but it's not rewarded in our in the in the corporate fields or or promoted unless you Yeah. Or promoted. And so what happens is and it's shunned. It's it's it's shunned actually. Because if you get too creative, you get to say you get to questioning. Yeah, you get it. You get to asking them why. Well, what is this? Yeah. And so a lot a lot of what we're doing here with each other is taking back that ownership of that creativity. I mean, Jared knows I was not a l uh I didn't like I didn't want to do no landlord, no tenant, no nut. I don't do real estate. We start talking, and really it's not that I don't do real estate, it's I didn't have the creative imagination to think about how it how I can do real estate for my life and for my family.

SPEAKER_04 12:56

What does that look like for you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

What does it look like? And so all of these decisions come once you get the fact, the fact that things are changing, once that fact is entered, then it's just a matter of, well, what do I do with that fact? It's not even how I feel about it. It's what do I what do I am what do I want? What is the the the life that I want to leave in three or five years? It's the same things that we do in corporate America where they're like, well, what's your goals in five or three to five years? Great exercise, wrong application. The application should be thinking about for your own life. What do you want your life to be in three to five years? What do you want it to look like? What time do you want to have? What freedoms do you want to have? What uh what what rewards do you want to have? What what like what do you want it to look like? And that's a very difficult thing because A, we tend for one, we tend to live in the negative of, well, I don't like that. It's harder to to point to what you do like or to imagine what you do like than to say what you don't like. And then it's also, like you said, it's the fear factor. But anything that anywhere, anytime I see fear at the door, I know that there's opportunity on the other side of that.

SPEAKER_04 14:26

Yeah, you know, fear breeds bravery. You know, I tell my sons all the time. Um, the what bravery is, is is being scared and doing it anyway. I said, every time you think I'm being brave, I'm also scared, but I do it anyway. I said, brave people are not, you know, are just you know, they're they're also scared, but they take that fear and they say, Well, I can eat that though. I can, I can, it's not gonna stop me. The fact that I'm scared is not gonna stop. And that's what I like. And on the other side of fear is opportunity. On the other side of fear is that growth. Um, and especially when it comes to, I think, corporate fears. Like the first time you ask for a raise, and you're like, uh, I don't know quite how to do it, and then you get in there, you negotiate, you're like, oh, that was it. That fear can't exist anymore. You know, that's one thing I like about facing fears is boy, when you really face a fear, it doesn't exist anymore. And I like things that can have a finite lifespan like that. And so even things that are that I'm fearful of, I know it that'll only be fearful until I conquer it. And then it can't be fearful anymore. And or I won't be fearful anymore of it. And so, you know, like like every emotion is is healthy in the right doses. You know what I mean? So I I you know, I love I love shame, embarrassment, all those things are needed. Fear as well. I think it's a natural process, and I think especially for me, I work well embracing that fear to learn about me, using that knowledge that was probably already there, but I chose to ignore it or I chose to minimize it for whatever reason because it's easier again to the boat analogy, it's easier just to chill in that boat and let the river just take me, man. That's real easy to do. It's it's harder to turn on the engine, make sure I got enough gas in there, control. That's a little more difficult. Especially when I'm already halfway up the river, man. It's like, well, you know, I'm already I'm almost there. But generally, when you take control of a situation, it turns out much better than than you than you imagined, you know. Well, I'll I'll say it if you do it the right way. Um I believe that there's a way to do things that's wrong. And especially in America, you can kind of fail and still survive. And so sometimes it's hard to make sure you're doing that right thing, especially when you're fearful, especially when it's new. But those are the risks, right? I mean, that you're not gonna gain anything without risk. And so I really can't let that sort of stuff stop me. And I also can't let it influence what I see. Like you talk about the creativity to see what I want, that gets clouded by all that junk, to where it's easier to still then focus on the things that can't happen. And well, what if I can't find a job? And what if I can't do this? And what if I but that exists right now. That's not something that just popped up only in this situation. You know what I mean? Like that's that that always exists. I I choose when to oh now it's an issue. Oh, now I'm actually afraid. And it's like, nah, let's let's it's easy to get trapped. I I trap myself constantly, which is why I love talking to y'all because giving advice, I'm you know, secret time giving it to myself. You know what I mean? Like it's and so it's it's good to be able to bounce that, to hear it out loud, to give myself the confidence of like, nah, I I control much of, like you said, I control much more than I think that I do. And I have to make sure that I understand that, and I have to make sure that I utilize that. Because again, you know, as soon as this sort of thing happened, then you know, then my boss is reaching out, and how do you feel about this? And and they're throwing out little feelers to see who's gonna stay, who's gonna go. We're gonna put you on an about-to-be-fired list in about 20 minutes. So it's like you see the whole game happening, you see the whole thing, and it's like, man, why we gotta like I I hate that we have to play this. You know what I mean? I hate that that's where we are right now. And but it's easy to get caught up in it because as y'all well know, right? Yeah, you gotta play that game sometimes, you know? When when she asked me about it, oh yeah, a little disappointed. I would hate to have to do that, but I'm definitely willing to. Like, you know, I love, you know, you gotta, you know, I'm not gonna tell her, like, what? This is horrible. How do you think? How would you feel? Like, what are you thinking about? How does it make you feel that we're gonna close your office and force your family to uproot? Like, it feels awesome. Like what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

So it's like that, that sort of it's it's disingenuous, yeah, which which makes me not want to like I don't want to help you succeed when you're doing things like that to me.

SPEAKER_04 19:30

But at the same time, I don't want to stifle my ability to generate for my family because I d ideologically I don't like what you're doing. And that balance there, I need the freedom to not have to make those sort of balanced decisions. That's what this is kind of this is that's what I want this to lead to. I don't I don't ever want to have to make these sort of decisions, man. You know, because it sucks having to do it. And so if if we can provide the tools to one another to break away from this sort of uh uh entrapment that that tends to happen with corporate America, that would that would be amazing because you know you talk about all the stress, the extra stress that this is gonna pile up on me. Even in the best situation, I'm gonna be I'm gonna stress about this, you know? And man, I would just rather not have that. You know, like everyone. You know what I mean? I I it's uh it's one of those things where I, especially when it comes to the real estate, something that I never even gave a second thought to, that actually has a lot of merit and opportunity available, if I'm being honest. And it's it's one of those things I think where because I haven't done it, I don't think it's possible for me to do it in a way, you know, like, oh, real estate, don't you have to have licenses? Don't you have to know that? And it's like the answer is yes, but you can just know it. You can just study, you can just find out, you can just get licensed. Yeah, like yeah, you yeah, you're right. It's it's a task, but an a not an insurmountable one, you know? It's and then for it to better, because like, you know, the the the casual way that's yeah, I just got another house, I gotta put somebody in there, but it's like you're like you're going to the store. It's such a casual, but to me, I'm like, oh man, I've just had to buy another house. It's such a large undertaking for me when I think about something like that. But that's just perspective. You know, like I said, you there there are people you I mean, you speak of it as if, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes you gotta get another house, then you gotta get another house.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Sometimes you gotta get another house, you know.

SPEAKER_04 21:52

Hey, hey, sometimes you gotta get two. Sometimes you gotta get two. Yeah, I gotta finance my life, baby. What am I doing? So it's like, oh yeah. Yeah, you know, the the the perspective shift of something like that needs to happen, you know? Because I'll just feel so stimulated by the the quote complexity I think is involved here that really isn't involved here. You know, I I'm creating this monster in my head.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

And uh yo, let me let me let me tell you. There's a couple things you you you said. One, I tell you, the lady that calls you, as as one who's had to like making those make those calls, just know there's two things that they're either she is feeling the same exact thing as you feeling, pissed, the office closed, or she is so bought into it that they don't have the same cares for their family and for the movement. They're just I'm here, I I'm bought into the to the corporate America, and so if corporate America tells me I need to move, I'm going to move. I know plenty of those people where it's like, hey, we need you to move to Dubai. Okay, Dubai. Hey, we need you to move to uh Germany. Uh-oh. Okay. Yeah. And then it's and it's no big deal. It's no big deal because they don't even concern themselves with the externalities that are there. So I hate to break it to you.

SPEAKER_04 23:29

It's it's worse than you think, brother. My bosses and stuff not even here. They're in Dallas, they're in RTP. Like that's it's even worse than you think, man. They they don't have a care in the world. It's only on my team, there's only three people here in Houston for my team. The rest of the team is spread in those other places. And so she she can't even come at me with any sort of real empathy for the situation because she ain't in it.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Well, chillin'. Well, well, well, well, let's let's say this. She's not in it now, but but if she's at a at a different level, if she if she's at that managerial level, she knows that it's not far from her. I mean, she could be the next person that's having the move. So I mean, I mean, but don't let that dissuade you from um, you know, making the decisions that you want to make. Whether because whether you feel like whether we're first of all, we you know, you should we work just because we want to do a good job, we want to help people, yada yada yada. We want to do our best, right? We we want to learn the skills that we want to learn, right? And so we're not working for people, although as one who works for people, I get it. I get it, I 100% get it. And you know, getting out of that is is gonna be the best thing for growth for you because A, it disassociates you from the job, it pulls you a well out of, pulls your emotions out of that job and says, I come here, I give them some time, they give me a check. Boom.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Very transactional.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Very transactional. It's not we're not friends. I mean, maybe we're friendly. This ain't a family. This ain't a family. I got one of them already.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

They ate the I can't stand that.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

I can't stand it either. I can't stand it. It's just we're we're here to transact. And so once you're able to do that, once you're able to disassociate like that, it makes it easier for you then to be selfish in in thinking about okay, do I want to be here? Do I not want to be here? Is this serving me? It's not even do I want to be here or not want to be here? Is it is this serving me? Yeah, is the time I'm giving to these people serving the intentions that I'm trying to put forward? I mean, me and Jerry, we talk about this all the time. We're both I I I'm getting to a point now where the the where if you if you keep progressing, you will pay in blood to progress. Those directors, those VPs, those SVPs, they uh they give their blood to the corporation. They give their their their hearts to the corporation, their minds, their bodies. They sacrifice for the corporations. And so the question isn't are you smart enough for those, or are you intel intelligent enough, are you competent enough for those positions? It's are you willing to sacrifice for those positions? Are you willing to miss the things that you you want to be at to be in those positions? And if you're not ready to do that, you can be a genius, and you will not you will not be successful, nor will you be able to progress in those positions because it the monster wants blood. It doesn't want the mind, it wants your blood.

unknown 27:14

You're right.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

You're not wrong, brother. I mean, yeah, comrade is here, comrade is here today. Hey, Jared knows I get on my comrade ness. I mean, I'm I'm I'm a capitalist all day long, but every once in a while, I'm comrade, bro. Yeah and it is. It's it the the monster wants you, it wants to consume you. It does. It does. And if you and you'll look up and you've given your whole soul to the monster, and the monster's moved on. Yeah, exactly. Consuming other souls. Exactly. He said that was good. Next nummy nummy, on to the next meal. And so when you're when you're free from that and you realize you, oh, uh, I know I need to chase titles. I'm chasing this bag, getting this transaction, and I'm gonna build my kingdom outside. I'm gonna build my kingdom. What does that kingdom look like? Looks like a little real estate, looks like a little stock investment, looks like a little side hustle using the skills that corporate America has given me to build me a little kingdom here. And before you look up, the problem is before you look up, you've got a whole kingdom that's supporting you. The problem is, and the people why and the reason why people get so discouraged when they get hit with them 30 years and now you out kind of positions, is they didn't invest in their chickens, they kingdom. They didn't build the kingdom outside. So when they get kicked out, they're in the wind. They're not if I get kicked out or or Jared gets kicked out, or you get kicked out, you want to be able to be like, well, I I'm gonna go make a little kingdom, I'm gonna scale, scale these things up, and I'm gonna be just fine. But I have a base to work with, I got momentum over here to pull out, pull from. Man, we we I I've talked a bunch.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Jared, hit it. Tag. Ooh. I mean, y'all, y'all hit y'all hit on so much, and I I mean, there's not a whole lot me to uh for me to add to it. Because if if anything that I would do is just is just take the conversation a step for a step further and um ensure that a component of the conversation is the what do we do about it kind of thing. It's like, okay, we know we've seen what's happened over the course of X amount of years as far as kind of corporate, I wouldn't necessarily call it corporate hostility toward employees. It's just a lack of, you know, yeah, lack of empathy, a lack of any kind of complete stakeholder awareness instead of um, so yeah, we get it. Corporation exists to provide shareholder value at um as a priority and to continue as a going concern. That's like the sole purpose of a company or corporation, not to employ people, not to um better society, not to progress humanity. Some have those as like mission statements and stuff, but that's not the core of their existence. So I think to Jermaine's point over time, you used you you used to be able to rely on a job or a career to provide the most important things in your life, your ability to provide for your family. If your kids get sick, you can pay for it. You need to buy a house, buy a car, um, provide food, clothes on their back. So, and and a stub a level of stability that gets you through the longevity of life, however that is, 70, 80, 90 years old. Um, but since we can no longer rely on that, and the things that we do rely on corporations on are so important, because there's been such a nonchalantness to the severance of that type of relationship. It's like, hey, company, I'll give you 30 years of my life if you give me 30 years worth of ability to live. That was the that was the contract. Now that contract doesn't exist anymore. Yeah. But we're still giving 30 years. To a degree. If you we still give our career 30 years, maybe not at one company, maybe not in the same industry. But yeah, you're gonna have to work. I mean, there's no free lunch. So there's you know, there's a way you're gonna have to to transact, but um it's more so the dependency no longer has to exist. You no longer need to have to depend on a corporation for your income, especially for the longevity of your career. Um, there's got to be something else. That's why in Kiyosaki's book, when he was talking about the income that you receive, needs to be spent on assets that generate income, because either you can't or you won't be able to generate an income for as long as you will need to be able to until you get like your 70, 80, or if you depend on your quality of life and all that kind of stuff when you get older. So we have to be very intentional on understanding that that contract has changed between employee and employer over the last five to ten years. I don't know if if the pandemic had anything to do with it, probably. We can make an argument. But um when you start to talk to people at the job and they start to kind of process what's happening, everyone's gonna be coming from left and right because everybody's got a different situation. Some people got kids, dependents, wives, houses, some people got parents, yeah. The parents are taken care of and stuff like that. So everybody's gonna be coming from everywhere. Some people are gonna have um a very uh abundant mindset, and they're gonna be like, oh yeah, this is a great opportunity. Um, even if they're not staying with the company, they're like, it's a great opportunity. This is exactly what I needed. I needed something, that's how I felt. I was like, I needed just something to kind of just jolt me out of place a little bit. Because I was getting I was comfortable where I was. I wasn't complacent, but I was very comfortable where I was. I was like, yeah, I can ride this out. Um, but just needed something to knock the dust off. And then, like you said, Joe, provide a backup against your wall. Because some people, if they don't have their backs up against the wall, they don't make any type of movement or progress toward anything. There's nothing forcing them to do it. Um, so like you're saying, they're just riding the current and they're coasting. So it's like, hey, look, it's an opportunity. I got a back against my wall. I got a I got yeah, I got a wall against my back and my back against the wall. I have a deadline in which I need to make a decision. I gotta, you know, wipe the crust out of my eyes and get to it. Like dust off the boots and get to it. Um, so we start to think about what we want moving forward. Ultimately, what we all want is peace. I I just I don't think there's much else. Happiness is can be subjective, can be fleeting. Um I think peace is something that most people can resolve to in any situation need or want. And believe that. However that looks, um, that doesn't mean everything's going right in your in whatever your eyes right means. It just means that you have a contentment with whatever the situation. Yeah. And so that's peace. So if there's that doesn't mean that's an an amount of money in the bank. That doesn't mean that's amount of time you spend um doing a certain thing, a hobby, spending time with your family. It could mean all of those things, it could mean none of those things. It could mean a combination of a couple or more. But um, we start to think about what is it that brings you peace? What brings me peace is not the same as what brings Jermaine brings Jermaine peace. Like Jermaine, he can like you can be like, okay, I got a new job in New Jersey. We're moving New Jersey. Okay, got a new job in Iowa or wherever that was, removing the family to Iowa. And you know, wherever you were, so that's not something that would bring me peace. But it's it's something that he's content doing and getting his have having the ability to get his family to uh buy into it as well to a degree. So all those factors aren't something that caused stress to him. Right. But that would cause stress to me. Me, I'm like I need a little more stability when it comes to that area of life. Right. That area of life. Um so once we have in our heads what that ultimate goal is, if it's peace, stability, um, you know, sometimes it's it might be a money thing, a certain number of income, a certain net worth. It could be just, hey, look, I just want my family healthy. I don't care where I live, what things look like, what kind of job I have, as long as my family's good and they're healthy, all is well with the world. Right. Um, I think that's fine. So we need to start thinking about how do we reduce our reliance on something that is no longer, like Jermaine said, adding value to our life or is no longer doing the thing that it used to in our life. So if we're giving our life and our energy to it, it needs to be giving um, it needs to reciprocate equally back to us. And that's what we're trying to build here. So this will become at least one additional stream of income for the three of us that we then will need to figure out together or individually how we make it two to three. So as we're spitting game to each other, okay, boom, the first thing that came up was real estate. So, Joseph, you own your house? You or you have a mortgage on it? Yeah, yeah, I got a mortgage on it. So you own it. Um, well, technically the bank owns it, but you own it. So you have an asset, and whatever amount of it of equity that you have in it, um that's what you own. So that's a little piece of equity that you that can gen that can generate income. Now, when we talk about real estate, you're already you're already a real estate investor. You bought a house. That makes you a real estate investor. You have invested in real estate in the real estate market by purchasing an asset, not a stock, not a bond, but you purchased a home. So you're already a real estate investor. Now it is how do I get that asset? Because you bought an asset. How do I get that asset to generate income? Because you've been working. We've been working. I've been working, Jermaine's been working, we've all been working. We've all been getting a salary, we're getting an income. Um now we have to think about how do we turn that income investing it in assets and making sure those assets can generate income so we no longer have to generate that income. Right, right. I gotta go to the corporation to get an income. I got this house over here that's generating what I need. So, like I said, I'm trying to get to about 10 homes. I feel like if I can get to 10 homes, I'll be straight. That'll cover all your cover it. And the first two to three houses are the hardest. Once you get going, it gets easier, and then it gets easier, and then you go from three to five, and then five to seven or eight, and then eight to ten or twelve, and you however you want to do it. But it's like grinding in the in the beginning to get that first thing. Jermaine, you're keeping your house in Jersey, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:52

Well, yeah. Yeah, you say you keep it. Bro, it's being rented. Uh well, that's why I'm going back and forth now, is getting it ready.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

And right now, and in that transition, because I know we're do we did it a little differently than what you did. Like, Jared, as you were in there, you were kind of fixing it up, fixing it up, fixing it up to the point where you were ready to rent it out. Me, we've been shotgunning it. Like, we moved everybody out, and man, I've been I've been painting and packing, packing and painting for the last three week, for the last two weekends.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

And we're getting ready to leave the country when we were packing, dude. We were the deadline of the end of August. Right. It was like, all right, we're gonna be moving up out of here, so we gotta get all this shit up out of here.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

But but the but the one thing that I've had to tell my wife and help her coach her through this whole process is remember, this house ain't ours. This house is a business now. It's a it's our business. And like every business, you have to feed it. You gotta feed it your time, you gotta feed it your money, you gotta feed it your attention. But once it it's going, right? Once I get a tenant in there, once it's good, once it's it's good. It's running. It's it's a business that has a process. And so and and the money that I've put into it, I'm gonna pay it back because I'm getting income, I'm getting profit, so on and so forth. As long as I make good decisions around I don't as long as I don't put glass toilet, uh, you know, gold toilets in my in my house or put marble everywhere or anything, I'll be able to recoup my investment into this property. And I have a substantial amount of equity in that house already. So even if I need to leverage it, I can. So you start speaking in business terms rather like that than just like, oh, this is my house and it needs to look pretty. It's like, no, that paint, off white, paint it. Okay. The the the the the the carpets, put that regular stuff in. I don't care what color it is, regular. Um, you know, you you think about not what you want, but what will make money exactly and what will be profitable. And so so part of it is just realize, I mean, you you said you said one thing where you're like, oh, I gotta finance my life. And so, yeah, that's a big thing. And like all businesses, you've got to pour into it, and it and it and it hurts. Like me and Fran, look, I ain't gonna hold you. We we running red right now. It's she just she just she just left her put her job. I just started this job. Like, the money is funnier, it's laughing back at us, bruh. It's chuckling, it's it's looking at me, and I'm looking at it and it's laughing. But I know that A, I've got enough equity, I have assets. I have assets that that will help me that if I need to leverage them, I can. And most importantly, I got my team, you know, the missus. She's on board with riding. And so the more I help her comfortable in the boat, become comfortable in the boat and get through the process. It's just nothing but time to get us to the other side.

SPEAKER_04 43:34

Right. Right. I mean, that that's it. I mean, the effort is there, the the movements are happening. That's I I would I would argue that the hard part's been done. You know?

SPEAKER_00 43:44

You've acquired the asset. That's the thing. That's that's what most people are struggling with today is they can't they can't even get the first step of just saying acquiring.

SPEAKER_04 43:54

There's a lot of thirty year olds who don't have homes, man.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

Yeah, and um can't save down payments. Exactly, interest rates. Yeah, it's tough.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

I want to say real quick, I was I was reading up on um the tax bill and um the big beautiful fat deficit building tax cut for me, make everybody poor bill.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

I need that, but but here listen, listen to me though. And this is when I come on, this is when I I move a little bit closer to you on the on the conservative side, at least at least from a fiscal standpoint. At least from a fiscal standpoint, because in there, not only in there is 100% bonus depreciation. So when you start, when you when you eventually move out of the home and you put a tenant in there and it becomes like Jermaine says a business, you your taxes switch up a little bit. So more money, more problems. So you got to figure out the tax side of things. But it's the is a massive tax benefit. There's also um an increase to uh tax write-offs for commercial properties, I think also residential properties. It's like a 20% increase in the the uh your ability to write off expenses. So some of those things that you're doing, Jermaine, wait till you get a tenant in there, wait till you move out and get a tenant in there. I know you pretty much are already there, but um, only until you're out of there and it's not your primary residence anymore, can you write all that stuff off? So you can so then your your perspective on spending changes. It's like now I have to spend this money or something taxed on it. Because when you're not when you initially when you don't have that type of thing to expend uh capital on, it's just money out of your pocket. You know, like okay, I gotta work, I gotta work an extra few hours for that, I gotta work some OT to repay that. Now it's like I gotta get a refrigerator, oven, like the oven and the microwave combo thing. And um I was told my property manager, Nikki, I was like, hey Nikki, you know, like I'm not we don't have a lot of expenses because the house has been going good for a while. Like at first we were like Jermaine and Fran. It was red. We first getting the house ready, putting a tenant in there, getting her her settled. Uh just it's called getting the house seasoned. So we just try to get the house seasoned. Okay. It takes a lot of money. But um, like Jermaine said, you'll recoup that and you'll be able to write it off on your taxes. You'll be able to write that off on your personal income taxes because that house is in your name, it's not in the name of an LLC. I see, I see. So you can continue to make more and more money in your job. That house will continue to make more and more money, and you just have to find ways to find expenses. So put in new appliances, upgrade stuff.

SPEAKER_04 46:59

You you turn from uh I don't know if I want to buy to like, I gotta find something to put in this outfit.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

I gotta find something to buy, I gotta find something to spend this money on, or else I'm gonna pay taxes on it. Like, I could save it. I I've saved them the amount that I need to save just in case there's repairs, just in case you know there's vacancy. But anything above that amount, I'm like, I'm looking for stuff. I'm like, hey, you want to send, I need to send the AC guy over there again uh to do like the summer check. Uh and then when the garage door dude came, he came to a service of garage door. I was like, man, do you do anything else? I was like, I need I need something. He was like, Well, I know how to do AC ducts, he cleaned AC ducts. I was like, Cool, you can get up there and clean them AC ducts. And I was like, try to make sure alleviation on these taxes, especially when it comes to property taxes. Um, oh, it was the interest write-off. So right now, you can write off only a certain amount of your mortgage interest. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they increase the amount of mortgage interest. So even if you own two homes, three homes, however many homes you own, if you have mortgages on them, you can write off, I think it was something like 20% more uh your mortgage interest. So then those are the things that have me like, I can vote for the Republican Party on some of these things. But on the flip side of it, I have a Section 8 tenant in my home, and I'm gonna put a Section 8 tenant in this home. And what a Republicans tend to do. It is. But what Republicans tend to do, cut social assistance programs. Yeah. So it's like a it's it's like a give and take pushing. A little bit of a yeah, yeah. Um, but you you ultimately you want to. There's another another uh topic, but ultimately you want to be able to, to a degree, position yourself to benefit regardless of the administration that's in office. Sometimes it's difficult to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 48:57

Diversification, buddy. It's time for diversification. True, true. You know, I was I was you know, going back to the to the buying things over because of taxes, you think even strategically, three, five, seven years. I was talking to a friend on the house, and I said, look, we have we can build a t a tenant can finance uh the improvements on this house to the point where in seven years and ten years, if we once it's paid off, if we want to come back and this be our second home, like cause me, once the mortgage is paid off, it's just it's just property that I can I can I can mortgage it, I can rent it, it can be my second house. Right. It can be like you can you can make it so that people finance your lifestyle to what you want to be. Cause I love the Northeast still. I I I if if it were for all these kids, I probably would still be there. And you know, uh we're here and so let's let somebody else pay for pay the equity in that house. Pay the pay the pay for the improv. We need new windows in this house. Okay, well I'm gonna give it two years. And I'm um I'm gonna bl I'm gonna take a section of windows every day every year and put new windows. All right, well, I need new new bathroom. Okay. Well, after four years, the tenants out, I'm gonna the tenant time between two tenants, I'm gonna remodel the kitchen or remodel the bathroom and put another tenant and then raise the rent. I was just about to say, and then get more accelerating, and thus accelerating the process so that to the point where by the time ten years comes up, I got a brand new bathroom, I got a brand new kitchen, I got brand new windows, the house looks beautiful, and the mortgage just got$200,000 left on it.

SPEAKER_04 51:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:03

And oh yeah, by the way, I got another house that's got a duplex and it's paying that house off. So I can move there. That's my second house, plus the house that I have here in Dallas, when I build here, I can I can live here. Like, you you realize so many people like when you when you realize the vision that you want and what you really want, I don't want to I don't want to let go of the Northeast. I want to be able to have roots, but I need to be able to position my life in such a way that my income isn't based on a location that I'm in. It's based on what I what my knowledge and the value that I can give to per to a stakeholder. And so how do I position myself where okay, well maybe I do need to be in a location for a short period of time. Okay, well well, how does that look like? And how do I position myself in my life to where I'm I'm I'm I'm in the places I need to be when when I want to be there.

SPEAKER_03 52:13

I mean that's the vision, right?

SPEAKER_04 52:15

That's the that's that's the goal, that's the that's what we strive for because ultimately that'll bring you peace. And and that's what your peace looks like. It's uh man, that's such a powerful. I like something that you say, you know, you give your life to be able to live, man. I I like that a lot. Because that is that's definitely what you want. You want the thing that you're giving your life to to fucking live. You know what I mean? Like that's seems like a simple concept, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 52:57

You want it building something, you want it building something that you can reach out and touch and hold on to and thus will bring value. That's investment. You want to invest in something, you don't want to spend. A lot of people are using corporate America like they do consumer debt. They just spend and they buy something that that that lowers in value, that depreciates. Exactly. Which is the reason why I'm spending myself. Investing. Yep. You want to spend your soul, you want to spend your soul on an investment, not that's right. You want to invest your soul spend it.

SPEAKER_00 53:33

Ooh, invest your soul, don't spend it.

SPEAKER_04 53:37

That's gonna be part of the merch shirt.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

Invest your soul, don't spend it. Invest your soul, don't spend it.

SPEAKER_00 53:45

Okay, see.

SPEAKER_01 53:46

Look, that's it right there. We can end on that though. We can end on that. We can end on that though. Invest your soul, don't spend it. Hey, that that's the name of this.