Personal Bets
Small and Medium Businesses are the backbone of America. I interview those that chose to bet on themselves, and America is better because of them.
Personal Bets
Justin Maxwell: From Ditches To Riches
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We sit down with Justin to trace the long road from sweaty manual labor to building a life where he does not depend on anyone else to sign his paycheck. Along the way we talk about big bets, bad bets, and the mindset shifts that turn money into time, options, and freedom.
• cutting grass and digging ditches as early motivation to level up
• hitting the Calculus Two brick wall and pivoting into a business degree
• first trades that hooked him and losses that taught humility
• buying Google early and thinking in decades not days
• getting burned by corporate America and learning you are a number
• the COVID SPY bet, drawdowns, and why he stopped looking
• risk tolerance, overleverage, and staying calm in a big Meta swing
• a bourbon investment that got blindsided by tariffs
• why money is not the goal and how to work backward from expenses
• investing in people, trust signals, and the one-lie rule
• selling Google shares to buy a cash lake house with zero regret
• book picks for investing psychology and mindset
Mr.Moneymaxwell.com
ABOUT PERSONAL BETS
Person Bets is a podcast for the people actually running the business, not the investors, not the board, not the consultants on the sideline. Hosted by Chance Sweat, business broker at FitzGibbon Alexander, Inc. and founder of Foundry Leadership.
🔗 Personal Site: chancesweat.com
🔗 Brokerage Site: fitzgibbonalexander.com
🔗 Follow Chance: @itschancesweat
Backyard Cold Open And Set Up
SPEAKER_01Man, you don't know which way they're gonna go. I think they're they're just What do you think that's gonna happen?
SPEAKER_00Like, what's the worst thing that can happen if a lizard process is?
SPEAKER_01There's actually nothing I'm dripping instead of.
SPEAKER_00Would you like a shirt?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01You look like you're um people will know how hot it is because over the course of this podcast, my mustache will start to melt. The volume's perfect, man. Great. And we're recording. Uh I will say too, you're my first guess that if something was to go catastrophically wrong with the recording, I wouldn't feel bad being like, hey man, we gotta do this again.
SPEAKER_00Great. That makes me feel great. I'm glad to know that.
SPEAKER_01Uh Justin, what do you do for work, man?
SPEAKER_00So I love this job. Um which camera's mine, by the way.
SPEAKER_01You're speaking to that camera, but you're talking to me.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's great. No, I I I want to talk to them, okay? I trade the stock market for a living. See, I I loved I go to like these meetups. I love to go, I'm I'm an investor. I love it, it's all the same. So if you think like whatever your business is, it's all the same. Like you're all trying, we're all trying to do it. I go to these real estate meetups and I'm like, hey man, I trade the stock market for a living, and I always get the same answer. Well, you're supposed to laugh, first of all, but you're gonna lose all your money. Like that's what I'll so chess. I trade the stock market for a living, but that's like the main source of my income.
SPEAKER_01Okay. What's the main source? Isn't that your only source?
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, not the main source.
SPEAKER_01What's your other source?
SPEAKER_00So I have uh real estate investments? Like um, I believe in diversification. Okay, like they call it a horizontal income stream. So, like the average millionaire in America has seven to eight income streams. So my goal is to build seven to eight income streams across multiple sectors, multiple um some not so great, some not so great investments, but uh I think we all have those.
SPEAKER_01If you're comfortable, I'd love to talk about some of those not so late ones later on. But what I actually want to start with, and I didn't think I actually knew this until you brought it up recently, but your first job, I wanna I want to capture where you started your career, quote unquote, and where we're at now, because we're sitting in your backyard, right?
First Jobs And Learning Hard Work
SPEAKER_01So, what was your first job?
SPEAKER_00Okay, I don't know how many people listen. Do you think we have IRS agents listening? And if we do, do you know the statue of uh like was like limitation? So my first job, okay. My first job was I worked for myself. I cut grass like all over my entire neighborhood, and then I started getting jobs like across town, but I was like, hey, I'm already cutting grass. How much does a lawnmower cost? How much does a trailer cost? Bro, I cut grass in high school college, and I had everything paid off in two jobs.
SPEAKER_01Hold on, hold on, I gotta say, how are you cutting grass without a lawnmower?
SPEAKER_00I had to buy a lawnmower.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00So you paid for it in two jobs and the trailer. Like I didn't pay for the truck. Like I already had the truck. But yeah, that was my first like I tried to tell you what my first job was, and I started thinking about it. Like I was listening to your podcast and I was like, that wasn't my first job. My first job was working for myself. Cutting grass in the summer. It was kind of hot in the summer. Like I know Florida heat is interesting, but uh Alabama heat's hot too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So we're talking Birmingham, right?
SPEAKER_00This is Yeah, outside of Birmingham.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. A lot more country. Kind of like this, but more cows.
unknownMore cows.
SPEAKER_00More cows than this. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so that was your first job. So that's high school, man. And so you you went off to college, I know you did.
SPEAKER_00But you So before college, my real like let me pay taxes. My real let me pay taxes job was um I was a plumber's helper. And the reason I became a plumber's helper is because my dad was an entrepreneur and he owned a plumbing company. And if you want to know the best way to get your son, you have sons, the best way to get your son off his butt and motivated to go back to school, put him in some ditches. In Alabama, he like I wasn't on the backhoe, like he was on the backhoe and I'm in I'm in the the ditch, like shoveling. And um I don't know if you or anybody has experience like being the boss's son at work, but it's ruthless. Bro, like you get it from not only do you get it from your dad, but you get it from all the co-workers who think that you're like a nepo type baby.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, it was awful. Yeah, so um my first job, my first official job was minimum wage. Yeah, uh digging ditches in the Alabama sun, and that got me into college really quickly.
SPEAKER_01What was uh what was minimum wage back then?
SPEAKER_00I think it was like seven. Okay. It wasn't it wasn't terrible. I mean it was terrible for what I was doing, but uh it was good.
SPEAKER_01You uh you were telling me about some commercial jobs and how you can't turn off the water in some of these buildings as a as a plumber's helper.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. Do you have any It's kind of a crappy job, bro? It was kind of a crappy job and um we didn't do a lot of we did some repairs, but it was mainly new residential, so we didn't always have to deal with that. But like when a good client comes in and they need something fixed, of course, we would have to handle it. Like you don't cut off sewers. I was telling you, like when things flush in big places, you don't cut that off. You can't go, hey, um, you know, no one's allowed to use the plumbing for the next you know eight hours. Like that doesn't work, so it's been fun. Bro, like I I had to hold a five-gallon bucket right under like a desk while people cut water. But that was clean water. But the water, when you cut off the water, it still has to drain out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's a terrible feeling. And then like the lady's like, should I move? And I'm like, yes, yes. You should definitely be moving right now because there could be water. And you're sitting there and you're trying to figure out how much yeah, so um that's a great way to get your child like if your kids, I know they have a little, if they don't seem motivated, just get them working in a plumbing company.
SPEAKER_01There's some some manual labor, I think, is a definite uh motivator. I don't know if I've ever shared this story with you, but when I was a dive instructor, uh, you know, when I first took the job, I was like, man, this is gonna be great. I'm gonna live on a yacht in the Caribbean, I'm gonna be diving all day, and there's that fun stuff too. Um, but then there's the the the point of those marine heads where the macerator breaks and stuff gets stuck in there. And the only way to get it unclogged is to go underneath the boat, diving structure. I have to do it, and you've got a scuba tank, and you have a valve, and you just put it up there to the the out, you know, the the seacocks, what they call it, and you open that up, and you've got someone standing inside on the marine head with a bucket over the toilet as it all comes back. Thankfully, I always drew the the long straw and have to go underwater and uh I'm pretty sure we just lost all of our viewership. I still have some wastewater stories, but we'll yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think we should probably maybe you should save that for a different guest. Okay, like I've I've moved on from uh poo from the crappy jobs. Well, I still do plumbing from time to time, but it's from your own plumbing. Right, from myself it feels better when it's your own. You like, you know.
SPEAKER_01I've got a great story I'll save for later. I had to get my buddy James on. He's a residential contractor, custom homes, that kind of thing. I had him come fix the toilet at my house once. Oh that's a great story. Anyway, uh, so you go to college.
College Pivot After Calculus Two
SPEAKER_00Where'd you go to college? I went to the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Yeah, not the real one. Just uh not the real one? Yeah, but we uh we barely had our own um football team because politics, I don't know. It just um it was uh I enjoyed my school. Okay, but um You played football, didn't you? I played football in high school, but um that was it for me. Like I I knew I knew my balance. Uh never really liked school. Never really I've always been that kind of guy that you have to you have to get the degree, you have to do all the things that now we've realized you don't have to do. But it was just it felt different back then to me at least. And um maybe I fought a lot differently back then than I do now. And so you went to school for so I started off, man. I wanted to be a computer programmer. I thought, man, this is great. This is the greatest, man. I can like write code. This is way before like I my first my first um first assignment was Hello World. I don't know if you've ever done programming, but you just basically a basic output of Hello World. I thought, oh, this is simple, this is great. And then I realized there's a lot of math involved in uh and and arrays and building all these imaginary numbers, and um, so I went to um long story short, um changed my major, no offense to all the the business guys. I know this is a business podcast, but um, I found out that um calculus two was my brick wall. And I didn't know what a brick wall was, but I went to the professor and I was like, hey, um I don't understand anymore. Like I you've lost me. And he's like, hey, you see that it we were standing right behind me with a brick wall. And he's like, you see that? He's like, everybody hits that eventually. He's like, you hit your brick wall. And chance, I found out a D in college is passing. I got a D in Cal 2, and I've never been so proud of a D in Cal 2. But then I realized um business is the way to go. So I got a business degree with a focus in software development. Yeah, so if you can't make it in computer science, just get a business degree.
SPEAKER_01What's that old adage, right? If you can't do, you teach or something like that. And I always thought that was terrible because if you can't teach it, you don't actually you have to actually truly need to understand it in order to teach it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I I I really understand what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, I've had a lot of really interesting professors. And coaches and mentors and uh sure. Yeah, yeah, it's great. So you you graduate college, you realize that C's and D's get degrees, and uh where were you going with your life after that? Did you like had no idea? No idea.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I like technology. I thought uh I've always liked technology, and um, I got addicted to stock trading back when I was actually college age. I didn't even remember, but I went and I met with one of my buddies. Um we hung out all the time and in college we were I guess classmates. It was a little different in UAB because it wasn't like an on-campus experience type experience. Like some people were, like they have a good medical school there, so like those people come in from different areas. But um, he's like, Do you remember all those times you would sneak away to the computer lab? And I I know a lot of you guys might not realize this, but we didn't have like there was not internet on phones that like there was just barely like I guess it would be edge network now to where you could like pull up a basic website. Unfortunately, Google wasn't even around back then, but um, he's like, Do you remember all the time you would sneak away to the computer lab and you'd start making trades? I was like, No, I don't remember that. I don't remember any of that, but he reminded me of it, and then I started thinking, uh, you know, technology is really cool, and I love software. I know I can't be a computer programmer because like it's just not for me. I would I would be miserable. So I was like, I'm gonna get a job in tech. I don't know what tech is, they didn't even know what it was, but I was like, I'm gonna get a job in tech. So there were like three companies, maybe two companies in Birmingham that were doing technology. And they were notorious for bad work environments, just terrible work environments. And um couldn't get it like an interns. Internships just they were really hard to get. Yeah. So I was like, man, I gotta find a job. So I just started throwing my my applications out everywhere, and I ended up of all places at a laboratory company.
Corporate Reality And Sticky Keyboards
SPEAKER_00And something I never learned in school was the very first day on the job, I had to learn how to type on a keyboard wearing latex gloves.
SPEAKER_01I didn't think that was a skill that needed to be.
SPEAKER_00No, no, I you should, like all of you should go get a pair of latex gloves and just go to a keyboard and just type on it and just see what it feels like. It feels so much different. Is it just a sensory thing? It's a sensory thing, but then like kind of going back to the plumbing days at a laboratory, like it's blood testing and all kinds of bodily fluid testing. You start looking at that keyboard, like just think about the number of specimens that one keyboard goes through in a day. You're talking like five, six hundred. You start looking down, you're just like, man, is this what my college degree has got me? Like I'm typing, like I never learned how to type on a keyboard that's sometimes sticky, sometimes it's just like gross, and you're wearing gloves. Hey, can I get some of that PPE? Uh you know, can I can I have a can I have that lab coat that all the no no that's just for us. I'm like, oh yeah, so so that was my job. I um I spent 20 years, well 19, 19.75 years in corporate America. And uh I just I thought that was what you should do. I went up the chain in corporate America.
SPEAKER_01I wanna I want to ask before we go there, your your college buddy reminding you that you would sneak off to the computer lab to make trades, where did that what was do you know your first trade?
First Trades And Early Market Lessons
SPEAKER_01What was your first I do remember my first trade?
SPEAKER_00What was it? Xerox. Xerox. XRX. Is Xerox still publicly traded? No, I no idea. I bought it, I still remember. Bought it $3.73. Sold it $15.25. Wow. Yeah, I got addicted.
SPEAKER_01It was great. Do you think that there's people out there that when their first trade goes that well, that they're just they're hooked, right? Because it's a like almost almost feels like gambling, the you know, sure money. Yeah. But it's also a bad thing.
SPEAKER_00No, I think it's the greatest thing in the world. To win on your first trade? I think the stock market is the greatest thing in the world. And I don't think it matters if you win or inevitably you're gonna get punched in the face.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You're gonna get I remember my second trade. I guess I can say uh I traded this company called HealthSouth.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Okay, HealthSouth, um, allegedly, their CEO came to our our um business school. He was a C he was local to Birmingham. Um, he was accused of massive amounts of fraud. And um apparently there's this term called cooking the books. Uh allegedly, he like cooked the books. But anyways, I I found out my second trade, I found out what pink sheets are. So a pink sheet is when a stock, you can buy it at like, I don't know, $15 a share because the CEO comes and tells you how great it is, and then it goes down to two cents. Yeah. So that was my second trade. And um you most likely lost everything you had made off that first trade. Uh no, I I I I didn't do it that way. So I was lucky. Uh I it was fortunate and I was fortunate that I didn't lose. I lost everything in the tech bubble.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. When the tech bubble came and uh like the stocks, I I kind of joke about it now with some of the guys that I'm I coach now. Um I coached these guys and I'm like, hey man, these these um semiconductors kind of feel a little bit like the tech stock, the tech boom. I don't know, we don't probably want to get too much into stocks, but like there was a stock it's called JDSU. It's JDSU in um I don't even know what they did, but the acronym was just don't sell us. Because the stock went from like $30 to $60 overnight. And then it went from $60 to $180. And by the end of the week, like you'd buy the stock at $30 and it would be $300 by the end of the week. And it was the greatest feeling in the world. Like you're talking about better than any drugs you can ever imagine to grow your account from like $300 to $5,000 by the end of the week. Yeah. And then they call it a bubble for a reason because the bubble pops, and then you're left with like uh if you started out with 300, you might be lucky if you had a hundred after it was over with, you know, if you're lucky. Because you never want to get out, right? So that was my second trade. But at the same time, I started realizing that the stock market is the best way to make money. And I I it's passive income. And you're like, well, is it really passive? And it is, because I also invested my entire life savings in this new company. I don't know if you've ever heard of them when I was in college. It's called Google. Okay. Google was um when I was in school, like we had to do research papers, and the you'd have to go to the library and like they had card catalogs. I'm I'm sorry, you probably know. I actually do know what that is. Okay, okay. I don't know. But we had to go to the card catalogs and we had all these search engines, right? So um I I still remember like the best search engine when I was going to school was called Dog Pile. Dog Pile? So Dog Pile would go to all of these different sources and it would grab like I'm type psychology, whatever it is, like whatever topic you don't really know about, it would go to all these different sources and it would grab them. And it was pretty cool until this other company called Google came along. Google was a new company, like they were doing all this kind of cool stuff, but it wasn't quite put together yet. It was just like the bits and pieces. But enough to excite you, though. Well, I saw how useful it was compared to what I was doing in school. For what I needed from school. Like compared to DogPile, Google was four times better. Dogpile was little, literally dogpile. That's probably why I went out of business. But I put a huge investment of my money into Google when it went IPO, right? And that's part of the reason why we're sitting here today. What was uh what did IPO at? I I have no idea, but I know that I took what my savings account was. It was like six grand.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And I put it in there, and I know that it returned really well over the last.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'll say that's a reasonable amount of money for a a college grad. It's a lot of money. Recent college grad? I was still in school. You were still in school.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So $6,000 to someone to me now, $6,000 is a lot of money to to to throw after it's relative to an IPO, right?
SPEAKER_00But that was probably one of my I know this is called personal best. That was probably one of my first really large bets on something that wasn't me. Yeah. Right? Like giving someone else that much money didn't feel scary as much as different. But if you believe in it, I'm of the opinion that if you believe in something and it goes wrong, that's better than listening to somebody else. Who's like the way I got into Xerox, my best buddy in college, his dad was an attorney. He's like, buy Xerox. That's no way to make a bet for me. Like, I if I see how a company is working and I know how the fundamentals kind of work, I don't even need to know all the numbers. I just need to know what are they doing, do I like it, and where is it going to be in 20, 30 years? And if I think it's gonna be substantially higher, then I'm gonna take that move. And it worked out really well for Google. Yeah, I mean, we talked about something that don't work, Hell South didn't work out so well.
SPEAKER_01So okay,
Corporate Burnout And RIF Wake Up
SPEAKER_01so you graduate, you end up at Lab Core, and you start climbing the corporate ladder. Sure. Now you had I had that entrepreneurial bug early on. Was there any times where you felt like you needed to go out and do something on your own, or was the the market giving you that entrepreneurial itch up or scratching that itch, I should say?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I never was really happy. Um it's not that I don't like to take orders from other people, but I like to feel appreciated and that I'm actually making an impact. And for me in corporate America, it it's really hard to not just be 87703. Like, you know what I mean? Like just a five-digit number. Because that's kind of what you are. Was that your employee number? No, I changed it up a little bit. But yeah, it was pretty really close to that because uh I was like the eighth, I guess I'm the eight thousandth employee of that company. But man, like um, I I went just a quick example of why I didn't not like corporate America is um I spent 20 years there and and we had like this audit from corporate that came down, and um I was the actual all-star of the division on Thursday, and on Tuesday, I was getting a paper that said I was part of a reduction in force. And I just came to my mind that I'm nothing but a number. Now on the following Wednesday, I got a call from the C uh the CFO, or I guess it was a CIO, and they're just like, hey, would you like a job with corporate? And dumb me. I should have just taken the package and said no, thank you. But I was like, oh, the CIO's calling. Yes, I'd love to work for you. Felt important. Yeah, I felt important. It was one of the mistakes, I don't know if it was a mistake, but it kept me in corporate America for another five, eight years, eight miserable years. Because I you just move up. Like you just move up and and you think that you're getting more power, but you're not getting more power. You're not really making that much m more money, you're just getting headaches and stress and nightmares that just don't go away. They go away eventually. Yeah, just for people that get riffed, they they do go away. But yeah, so that was I I was day trading for my desk every day. I don't know if I'm supposed to say that or not, but um in a management position, like you can be on a conference call, you have a lot of extra time. So I'm just sitting there like in online chat rooms talking about stocks, meeting weird people who now have podcasts in online communities, and uh, you know, talking about people's boats and saying, Hey, I want to move to Orlando, and then they don't think you really want to move to Orlando and you do six years later. Yeah, it just took a while.
SPEAKER_01So let's let's shift there.
Online Trading Group Turns Real Friendship
SPEAKER_01So you and I were in a trading group together. A disc with uh no slack channel. Sure.
SPEAKER_00Slack channel.
SPEAKER_01We both paid to be in there. And um I can't remember what the oh no no it was it was during COVID because I had just bought my my little fishing boat and that was my one of my first that was my covet my smallest COVID impulse pie. Because I later bought a business which we can talk about. And I think I posted a photo of my boat in the Slack channel and then I just made a trade that paid for you know three months worth of payments or something like that. And you direct messaged me.
SPEAKER_00I don't remember anything about the the trade but I remember the boat like you had a boat. Pretty sure it had a nice really nice cooler and there was a dog.
SPEAKER_01Yep my dog was there same color as my my truck red yeah I remember that red color and we were up on the sandbar and it was like a Thursday or something like that. We had the day off for some reason. Okay. I was still incorporate. I posted the boat because I just had a trade close it might have been on Apple or something like that. AMD I don't remember. Yeah but and then you dropped in my DMs and you're like I want to move to Florida. Yeah. I want a lake house in Florida. I want a lake house in Florida is what you opened up with.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that started a friendship and they tell you you shouldn't talk to people in online chat groups.
SPEAKER_00I know um but I don't make a habit of meeting other guys in chat rooms okay like this is not something that happens very often but uh I think it's worked out alright.
SPEAKER_01It's worked out alright.
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah there's been some some fun uh stories that have come from this oh yeah and you're at a lake house yeah we have a lake house it's pretty nice you have a lake house not we have a lake yeah okay but we're at a lake house right now we're at a lake house yeah so you get into that group and it wasn't was it just before that or just after that that you left corporate no I was in that group for a while and uh I was still part of that group through uh through leaving so I was in there uh I don't know a couple years maybe three three years but but you left corporate before or after you and I started a friendship after um I so so I left the corporate world after COVID okay because like when you talk to people like like we start off this podcast when you say I trade the stock market as my main source of income people are always gonna say well you're gonna lose your money and then I finish up with the sentence of well I've traded through 2008 I've traded I've traded through 2017 which is kind of a rough year and I traded through COVID and I made money in all those so when when COVID hit I still remember this like vividly I I like to watch I know people don't really like CNBC I know people don't like Jim Kramer whatever I don't care I like to watch it and I I was watching and the guy on television said hey um zombies could really be coming soon and he was serious like he was a guy in a suit and he was talking about zombies and I said you know what I've always heard that nuclear war is bullish I mean because like either we're going to all die in a nuclear fallout whatever it's called see that's what's gonna get you um whatever that's called or we're gonna live and they're gonna overreact so I was like hey if zombies are really coming I mean we are washing our fruit and vegetables with Clorox wipes so like maybe they are coming but I was like I'm just gonna make the same bet that I made on Google.
COVID All In SPY Bet
SPEAKER_00I'm just gonna make it on SPY the SP 500 the largest 500 companies in the United States so I'm not gonna tell you the amount of money that I put into SPY. I don't think that's relevant just doesn't matter but the amount of money that I put in was all of my savings. Again I'm like hey if the top 500 companies of America go out of business you got bigger problem money's not going to be a problem and within um I think it was seven or eight months we had a V-bottom recovery and every all the experts said there's no such thing as a V-bottom recovery. There's never a V-bottom recovery there'll never be a V-bottom recovery there was a V-bottom recovery and I made double my salary from that one bet in the stock market than I ever made working this I would say 40 hours but it's more like 60 hours weeks that I was I was in all the stress I was like I don't need lab corp anymore when I have the stock market when I have other passive income streams because the thing about money and it's it's horrible to say but when you get money it's so much easier to make more money you get so many more opportunities you pay to get into rooms that you normally wouldn't pay to and a lot of people can't understand this and like hey I don't I can't pay my bills and I understand but if you can start cutting out certain expenses and you can start buying assets that build you more assets like SP 500 or whatever it is like business loans it whatever you can start building the passive income that everybody wants they might want a lake house like this one day and that's how you can be here on a random I don't even know what day it is Tuesday a random Tuesday and it's Tuesday. Yeah you can be here on a random Tuesday and say hey somebody wants to be on a podcast you want to be on a podcast sure I don't have I don't have a lot of I had a couple coaching calls and now I'm talking to you yeah I love that through the stock market yeah I um in hindsight obviously it was a great trade during the course of those six seven months was there any fear oh yeah man I uh I put in that amount of money I still remember the exact amount of money I put in that amount of money and I watched it just deteriorating for like because you didn't you didn't pick the bottom oh I anybody who says they picked the bottom they got really lucky or they're just liars but no man I didn't pick the bottom I didn't even get close to the bottom there was like weeks it felt like month it was just weeks but like every day you go and you just look and like oh well there's another 5% gone up there's 10 wait am I down 25% and then eventually you just stop looking you just stop looking and that's what I did like what was I gonna do I put it all in like that was it that was it that was my bet like what am I gonna do I'm gonna but I still have my W-2 job yeah which is like I think a lot of people if we get like birds coming in this is gonna be great. This is gonna be so awesome uh but if we um thank you Mr. Bird I don't even but if we get like a bad thing happening and you put all your bets in then you just still have the W-2.
SPEAKER_01Some people don't leave that W-2 job they they're so afraid of the security of a W-2 job and then you realize hey here's your rift paper that you don't really matter you could be the top salesman of your company and I I you know like you you have I've been there you can you can hit all the metrics and doesn't matter and you know this this same topic is why I I've encouraged so many people with who have options for employee stock purchase plans what was that that water bottle you're okay oh thought a bird dropped something on us um all these people who participate in employee stock purchase plans right is that you're already technically net long the company stock by having a W-2 job which yeah man you can use that for your advantage and I did I I used my employee stock purchase plan I sold out of those shares and bought the Pepotique um and I never got back in and I'm I mean it worked out just fine for me.
New York Meet Up And Meta Drawdown
SPEAKER_01Do you have any um I I wanna so we meet in probably was April March April May of 2020 and we meet for the first time in person in October of 2021. Do you remember this? Oh yeah you didn't think I was gonna show up I know you I didn't think you were going to show up the the broker that we were trading through had a uh a talk in New York City was it bad trader? Bad trader I think so it was about making bad trades. Yeah and I was like I really want to go to this and you messed back like hey I'm gonna go to this like do you want to meet up in New York City? I hadn't been in New York since I was a kid I'm like let's go it's the finance hub of the world like this excites me. And um literally show up never met you before in my life and I think you were afraid that I might be a serial killer.
SPEAKER_00Oh I was terrified to go to New York City are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01Got from Alabama like that was so intimidating yeah and we we walked 20 30 thousand steps every single day. Yeah trading the market uh during the course of that and I hope you don't mind me bringing up a trade that you had on at the time oh yeah let's talk about all my bad trades well I think this is helpful for people who because people when they hear stock market coach they think that you're a financial advisor and you're given financial advice but you're working on people's mindsets you're never telling them what to trade or how to trade it doesn't matter it could be anything it doesn't have to be the stock market it could be real estate it could be uh your business yeah somebody else's it doesn't matter like all investments are the same it's just a V It's the vehicle and the mindset that's all it is so you had put on a couple weeks before a couple months before a trade on Facebook it was still Facebook at the time I don't think they had converted to the meta ticker yet oh I don't know because um I I specifically yeah I I put on a fairly large trade on meta Facebook and um Mark Zuckerberg he wouldn't shut up about the metaverse like he this is before the cool mark okay like this is the nerdy mark and I was like if this nerd doesn't stop saying the word because every time he said metaverse the stock would just drop another 20 bucks.
SPEAKER_00Well he was spending billions of dollars like he was throwing every dollar he had like pretty much like like how I'm throwing every dollar I have well the stock market didn't like it and um I took the bet because I was like hey like I didn't even use I didn't even use Facebook that's the funny one I was like hey man this sounds like a really good opportunity you know let me generate some passive passive income on this one and uh yeah so you and I were walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and uh I looked down at my phone because it was a Friday I specifically remember it was a Friday and every Friday I know you guys aren't nerds but every Friday I had to roll options you know this and uh I looked down I was like man I'm down like 50k in meta and it's a paper it's a paper loss. So I because you own the shit you were own you own the share. I I had ownership like it's just like if you own a real estate like commercial real estate and it just has like a a little hiccup in the area or something. So like I knew that there was an asset there. Like I couldn't see it you can't you can't feel the stock market but you can it's the same for me it's the same as a business like you knew in the pet shop that you know you own this building you actually have clients you can't see the clients but you know they're gonna come in next week so I kind of knew it was there but man I was walking across that Brooklyn bridge and I was thinking man this really this really sucks it really really sucks but I was like hey I hope it works out I think it'll work out like if I lost $50,000 my life's not going to be that much different than it would be if I was up a hundred thousand yeah and I I don't say that to brag but that is like part of how you can keep yourself calm is just know your risk tolerance and don't overleverage because it's the same way in any any investments I mean you're a business broker you know this but overleverage is what's going to kill the most amount of people yeah so don't overleverage and be ready for really bad things to happen and just plan ahead and if they do you're just like hey I I just have to hold on I've just got to get through this business deal transaction it was just a transaction for me let me get through this transaction and hope that it works out.
SPEAKER_01I think it's important to note there too that you weren't betting your entire year's worth of no income on that one trade.
SPEAKER_00No that was just a I mean it was a lot would I have not would I have preferred to not leverage as much as I did yeah hindsight and it's not a big mistake if you learn from it so I learned from it I was like hey uh you know maybe instead of selling like was it six or seven of those maybe it should have been two yeah two or three to them just half like hey man what is it really worth that risk and it came out fine it like I ended up buying a Tesla and paying cash so I went from a $50,000 loss to like $85,000 profit. It's a heck of a swing and it took a little while it took some patience and there was a lot of options selling that you have to know what you're you have you kind of have to know what you're doing you have to hold on but even if I didn't even know a thing I just held on to it like could you imagine if I still had those shares today I was just uh speaking to a buyer of mine and uh he was talking about he was talking about missed opportunities right yeah he has an opportunity that you know just he's being prudent doesn't make right sense to make that call right now sure but it made me think about the time we bought Costco shares yeah I was walking I was at SeaWorld I've done a lot of business while walking around SeaWorld of all places well you're just in SeaWorld a lot I think you're just in SeaWorld a lot of things I try to you and Shamu yeah yeah um R I P uh Oh is Shamu gone?
SPEAKER_01I think the original Shamu's gone um but uh we bought a hundred shares of Costco for a dividend play yeah and we collared it so we we didn't have a ton of risk on the table and I what was the share price $556 sure and it's trading eleven hundred dollars right now sure I think we were excited to get out for a three or four thousand dollar profit hey man a win's a win a win's a win a win's a win um I want to talk about a few more bad trades and investments before a questionable one and then a great one um if you don't mind um do you have any other bad trades or investments that you I feel like you're you're insinuating something like what are you saying I don't I don't know maybe a beverage oh yeah so um this
Bourbon Fund Surprise Tariffs And Patience
SPEAKER_01one still might play out I mean it could like um yeah I um so I like to say yes to a lot of things because I think that um I'm glad you said that because that's actually what I'm trying to get at here it's not actually the investment that I'm yeah yeah so I I love to say yes to things because you never really know like um maybe your buddy tries to get you to try jujitsu or whatever it is like I'll I'll say yes even if he doesn't believe that you're going to do it um so yeah I uh I pay a lot of money to get into rooms with people who have similar mindsets like investors like I I I mean just this week I spent I'm not even gonna talk about it because it's a gross amount of money to get into a network with other people who have a similar net worth and have a similar mindset.
SPEAKER_00And I found that when you pay to get in those rooms you get opportunities you never expected. So like I I went to um I went to Kentucky there's this thing called uh bourbon trail like I don't even drink well I drank that time I don't even drink man actually think I've ever seen you drink an alcoholic beverage I don't drink yeah I don't why unless I'm in unless I'm at the bourbon trail but you were sampling the oh no no yeah yeah you're sampling but like it's like 30 to 40 samples and yeah man they make this uh this bourbon that you can mix in with um root beer it's like a uh like a float oh it's the you can put in your car um so I was like hey uh I had this opportunity to like it's kind of like a good old boy network to where only the people from Kentucky they want to keep it real real um tight yeah so you have to have connection so I I got a connection they're like hey um we're gonna start a fund and um love for you to give us a contribution you know we're gonna buy some bourbon at a discount and we bought bourbon at a discount we got a we got a good price on our bourbon like I was in the very first one the guy had never done any kind of syndication like this so I was his first and I feel better about that because is this your first syndication as well?
SPEAKER_01No no no okay um I've already been inside at this point I had real estate syndications.
SPEAKER_00Okay that's right yeah and um uh mobile homes yeah mobile home park uh I don't care Brandon Turner he he worked at great great guy um I love bigger pockets I don't know if the viewers watch but um just got out of that one recently um so that was my first syndication this was actually it's not really officially a syndication it was kind of you have to know each other I don't know the technical term there's there's different kinds of syndications where they can't advertise a certain way for tax you're an accredited investor so there's all your caveats so um anyways we got like a 30% discount on our bourbon but then we didn't know like people talk about underwriting and it's probably not great for like a business broker but when you go to underwrite you don't know everything and you never will so unfortunately or fortunately however you want to look at it we got a president who decided that he was going to enact tariffs and that's something that we never thought about in a bourbon investment but it had really negative connotations for the demand of bourbon from outside of the US which caused the price supply demand I mean business um so it caused the price of bourbon to decrease by 60% so if you get a 30% discount on your 1200 barrels of bourbon which I got to drink my bourbon the first year we got it it was like rubbing alcohol bro like rubbing alcohol I mean you might as well like that was the cool part we got to taste our bourbon and uh we uh nail polish remover whatever it was and then we got to taste actually really good bourbon at the end and uh I don't but yeah so I'm in a bourbon investment I don't know I my buddy Chance I don't know if you guys know chance but he hears about this all the time like oh you're still talking about this bourbon investment because it's it's been like five years now that we've been talking about bourbon he's like are you still in that and I'm like yeah yeah because I feel like every time I'm with him like I'm if I have my phone I'm surprised I probably get a message in the WhatsApp group about bourbon every time I'm around him like I get a message so like hopefully they'll tell me that we're gonna sell our bourbon for a really nice profit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah but again that's an investment that you did some due diligence on and then I did the best I could the best you could and I thought it was a good opportunity. Because you don't know everything right and I don't think anybody does you can't know everything about a DLC dumb people do. Yeah you can only forecast so much.
SPEAKER_00But as long as you build in some sort of moat like Warren Buffett says some sort of margin you can sleep comfortably at night or more comfortably yeah right we're not talking about my sleep score but yeah but I'm saying if the bourbon never panned out it it would of course it would suck that it's a loss but it wouldn't ruin you no if you're going to do something that ruined you you better be really if I were ever to take that kind of risk which I don't have to anymore it would have to be something that I was so confident in myself and the end result. Like that's the only for me it's it really is the personal bet. Like if you want to make a personal bet you better you better believe in it more than anybody else and you never know. But if you believe in it more than anybody else then you're gonna you're gonna get through those hard you know discipline equals freedom like if you have the discipline to get through the hard times then I think that would be that would be the only time I would take a true personal bet. A true big bet would be a personal bet.
SPEAKER_01Of that magnitude yeah I think uh the way I like to think about this is like you know if I was young no wife no kids and I had $50,000 to my name right I I would feel comfortable putting all that on the line. Right? But now I I don't know if I would make a bet as big as I would have to now to put everything on the line because I got too much there's the the risk doesn't outweigh the reward or the risk outweighs. You know it's like you're not making those kind of bets anymore because what kind of I mean the leverage you'll be getting is insane. Take a risk like that.
SPEAKER_00It depends on your goal. Because
Defining Freedom And Your Real Number
SPEAKER_00for me money's not the goal. What is your goal? For me the goal is more about building relationships having really cool experiences and not having to ever depend on somebody else to sign my paycheck because when I have to depend on somebody else I can never 100% trust them right so so my goal is to be able to go to the lake anytime I want like I start my mornings in a kayak. That's my goal every day. Yeah I mean is there not any other way like is that not what like I don't think a whatever your your so the the problem with money as your goal is it never ends. Like I'll leave my job when I get a million dollars well I tell you you'll get a million dollars and you'll say that's not enough I I know that like I know this firsthand and I see it like in in my accountability groups in my coaching I see it every day it's like one million turns into three million and before you know it you're gonna tell me you want a $50 million fund. You need a $50 million fund of assets under control whatever the term and I'm not a business I have a business degree I don't know you have to have $50 million you need an executive assistant you got to make all this money I'm like hey I know that I just need to pay my utility bills I need to be able to have food it'd be nice to turn on my air conditioner when you live in Orlando Florida but I know what my expenses are to have a life of freedom and so there's a decision that has to be made do you really want money or do you want the things that money can provide you for me money's a tool to get me the things that I want would like to have but I need what do I need how much do you need to live off of and if you do the bat if you do the math backwards more than likely you can probably live on sixty thousand dollars it depends how much your kids eat I guess but you could probably live on sixty to eighty thousand dollars a year. So do the math backwards and figure out how can I make sixty eighty thousand dollars in passive income or active whatever you want to do and then build the life of your dreams and stop waiting because too many people are waiting on this this Tom, I mean tomorrow might not come, bro. Like it doesn't not guaranteed. So you gotta work backwards. You gotta figure out what do I actually need or want? What's that number? And work back because it's not 50 million dollars. Like, I don't know if the guy's gonna listen to this podcast, he knows who I'm talking about, but like it's a it's a real conversation that I have every week. Yeah, I'm like, you don't need 50 grand, you don't need 50 million. You don't. No one, I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't say no one needs that. Maybe that's maybe that's not accurate. Maybe certain people do want that kind of a lifestyle, but for me, I'm fine with a simple, I don't know if you call this simple lifestyle, like a lake house. Like that's my dream, it's always been my dream. Like it's been on my vision board for however many years. How many years has it been? I don't know. You said six, so I'm gonna say six. Is it 2026? Yeah, so seven.
SPEAKER_01It's probably seven years, seven or eight years. So there's one more trade I'd love
Lending On Trust And Avoiding Fire Sales
SPEAKER_01to talk about. We can skip over that one if you like. Go ahead. So in 2024.
SPEAKER_00You're telling me, man. Uh just tell me the story. Uh act like I don't know it.
SPEAKER_01I called, I got a call from my banker, and we've been discussing a refinance out of our SBA loan of our of our shop. And we own the building and the business that we had, as well as a mobile green business. And he's like, hey man, if you don't get out of this loan, you're gonna be in some real deep doo-doo. Right to go back to your plumber's helper analogy. Um, you gotta do something. He goes, I can't tell you what to do, but like we've got some different options out there. You know, you need to start exploring this. He goes, you need to do the math to figure out what you need to do. And I realized that I needed to sell a portion of my business and give equity in my building in order to make this loan happen in order to keep things moving. And I called you and asked you for advice. Remember what you said to me?
SPEAKER_00Not a clue.
SPEAKER_01Oh, come on. I wish I could tell you. You asked me how much did I need. Oh. Sounds about right. And I said, I need a hundred grand. And you said for lack of a better term, you goes, where do I wire the money?
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's probably how you remember it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You asked for some basic details. Your underwriting was all of it.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I don't do like calculus too. I feel like underwriting and and I shouldn't say this if my if my business partners are listening. But they already know, because that they do the math. Um, yeah, I don't like I don't like spreadsheets. So I'm sure you probably sent me some kind of spreadsheets, and uh, I'm sure that they had numbers on them. Uh I I just knew I mean not to sound weird, but I think we probably if I had to guess at the time, we probably shared 40 to 50 messages a day. Yeah, maybe so I do deals not like they have to make sense to me. I have to understand them, but I invest this is common. I invest in the person more than the deal. So if the deal makes sense and I just know like I could be wrong, I could have been wrong, I wasn't wrong, but I just knew that the person I was giving the money to would do everything in his ability to repay me. Everything he could. Like, would he sacrifice his wife and kids? No, no, no. Family first, but he would do everything after after my family's gotta be healthy, my family needs a house, he would do everything he could to repay me. And if he couldn't repay me, would I be upset? Sure. Would it have made a huge difference in my life? I don't know. I don't think so. But it's the it wasn't so much um the return on investment, it was the investing your capital in somebody you think has enough potential. Maybe that it'll turn out like Google. Or I hopefully it didn't turn out like Health South. It didn't, right? But maybe it turns out like Google. But if it could change the direct direction of their lives, their family, like, do you want to see them head in a bad situation when they just needed like when you think about it in stock market terms, like a margin call? Like if people over-leverage, the brokerage is gonna make sure they protect themselves. So they're gonna margin margin call you, they're going to sell your assets at the worst possible time, and they're gonna benefit from that because they're gonna take that capital and recycle it to somebody, and somebody's gonna get a heck of a deal. Yeah, so I felt like the phone call that we had, you were in a situation where either you were about to have a fire sale and then load a business at a crazy price, which would have all kinds of repercussions. I don't even know the kind of repercussions, the personal fire. I'm sure you probably had personal guarantees and all these things with your lenders. I'm like, that's gonna be a really painful journey for somebody who just needs X amount of dollars. Right? The business, variable, how are variable rate loans when interest rates are going up? Not very good, right?
SPEAKER_01Fantastic when rates are zero.
SPEAKER_00Hey, man, when they're going down, like one of my investments right now, we have a variable rate loan. I think about your deal all the time. I'm like, hey man, this is great right now. Interest rates are going down. Hopefully we have the FOMC coming up, and hopefully the interest rate, but it's in the back of my mind all the time. And my business partner knows this. Like, we have to keep up with this interest rates on a variable rate loan, or you end up in a really bad situation. So for me, it wasn't that hard of a decision because I just knew that I had a really good feeling. I didn't know, but I had a really good feeling that you do everything in your ability to repay that loan.
SPEAKER_01How do you business is ruthless, right? And people in business can be ruthless. You've I think experienced both sides of that track of working with people as an investor, as a hard money lender, syndications. What do you look for in people?
What Justin Looks For In People
SPEAKER_01Like, is there any telltale signs? Is there anything that you're like, or is it just feeling? You just you know, you get in a room with someone, you're like, I don't know if that person's being genuine.
SPEAKER_00If I ever, if they ever lie to me once it's over.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because I'm just like, if you're gonna, and it could be the dumbest thing in the world, but if you're gonna just lie over that, then if you're gonna like whatever reason it could be something really minor, but if you're gonna lie over something really minor and I catch you in the lie, if you admit to it, hey, that's cool, maybe a second chance, but if you're like, hey man, let me lie to your face. I I need to trust the person, first of all, and how do you figure out how you trust the person? A lot of it's gut feel, like you don't know. Like I've I've had I felt really good about certain people, and I realized, hey, you never put anybody on a pedestal. Like, no, no one ever gets on a pedestal, and you kind of want to be like, keep your hero, keep your heroes just out of reach. Like, don't meet them because I've met so many of my heroes, yeah, and I was just like, man, that's a of all the things you have to say to me, you know, like I'm not even gonna say. I'm just like, man, I went all the way to this trading convention, you're gonna tell me that. I'm just like, man, just dagger to the heart. So feel it. It's just it's a gut feeling, and it's the same thing. It's the over if you're gonna, if, if you're gonna over-leverage, and if you're gonna start having these weird feelings because you're over-leveraged, and then you you push it on to like if if that loan was really that big to me and I was bugging you about it every single day, that's gonna start impacting the business, it's gonna start impacting the way you run your business. So I have to make sure that it makes sense for me and it feels good. If it doesn't feel good, I here's the cool thing about this there's so many opportunities out there. Like pet grooming shops, it doesn't matter. Like, even if you wanted to start a business, like people want to start business all the time. I guess you talk to them, but there's so many opportunities. Why would you put somebody in a bad deal when you know 17 more deals are probably already out there or they're coming tomorrow? Yeah, so it's like just figure out the ones that make sense
The Unseen Grind Behind Dog Grooming
SPEAKER_00to you. And if you don't want to go groom dogs, I mean I I visited visited the shop once. They they actually wouldn't let me touch the dogs. I think they were afraid that I was going to either injure myself probably myself or the dogs. Like they didn't want to workers' comp. People really care about their dogs, okay? And they're like their pet, they're they're they're their child, so they didn't want me to injure someone's child, but I got to see what the business was like, and uh I was like, hey, there's another job I don't want to do. Hey, this is actually a business I wouldn't want to run this business every day. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that, but I wouldn't want to run this business every day. Yeah, but I've met two people who actually thought they did at one point. I don't know if they still, I guess they didn't, they sold it, they ended up selling their business, but I'm like, man, I wouldn't want to do that. Like, what's the return on that one? Like, I don't I don't know. Like, how much how much do you make turning over dogs? Like, that's that's a rough job, bro. Like, they had this huge dog. Fur went everywhere. It was like I've never seen so much fright in my life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, we had a we we specialize in Samoids, which are like big huskies. Just think polar bears. We would change our air filters the day before and the day after those dogs would come in because we would go through so much. Things I never thought I'd have to think about in the world.
SPEAKER_00Pretty sure I still have wherever that shirt is, if I still have that shirt, it probably still has that dog's hair on it. Oh, yeah. Like that's how much.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. When I when we painted that build inside of that building, I did that myself to save a couple grand. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I did everything possible. I told you, I told you that one of those industrial leaf blowers. Yeah, I bet. And what you think the it's clean, and then you hit that and the dander comes off those walls. That's when I got that. This is so random. I got that, I had my headphones out while I was doing that. And I put my headphones in, I got that ear infection that ruptured my eardrum. Yeah. From that. But we can cut that part out. Alright, so now I want to talk about what I think is probably your best trade.
Cash Lake House Bought With Google
SPEAKER_01Your friendship with me. No, I'm just kidding. Tell me more. Tell me more. Uh this lake house on a third of an acre, half an acre.
SPEAKER_00Well, I don't know for sure, but I just bought an electric lawnmower. So I Googled, I was like, what is the acreage for? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Apparently, I have 0.6 of an acre.6 of an acre.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Beautiful house. You've got a house, uh, a detached garage, you've got an office space, extra rentable room upstairs.
SPEAKER_00I have a 40-volt push mower electric.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01You have a bit of an incline back here on the lake. But you got your dock, you got your boat. Uh you didn't have a W job. How the heck do you buy this thing?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I pay cash for all my stuff. I love cash. People say that um it's the dumbest thing you can do to pay cash for assets like this. And I think it's the best thing in the world because you have security. And to me, like, security is more important than anything else. Like, I don't handle str this might sound weird, but I don't handle stress extremely well. And I recognize that. Like, I would not do well, I do not do well in stressful environments. So if I know that I have a really large investment that can easily be taken, man, if one of these lizards comes on your back, I am gonna be the happiest person in my entire life. There, I'm sorry, these lizards are chasing each other, and um chance apparently doesn't like lizards, but man, I have dinosaur lizards. Um, I just know that there's a lot of value in this home that if I ever needed money, there's ways to get into it. So, like, I would rather have this as my capital, as my assurance, that if a zombie apocalypse comes, I'm just gonna be on the lake. Like, I do zombies swim? I don't know. But yeah, so this this house was purchased by letting go of one of my most prized trades ever. My Google shares. The ones you bought in college. Yeah. I've held on those things for 20 something years. I still don't I I don't have all I didn't have all of them. I started unloading a little bit of them as as time went on. And I don't know how many people follow the stock market. I mean, uh, maybe you have as well, but um I sold my shares at Google to buy this house. And if I held on to those shares of Google over the last 10 months, whatever, however long I've owned this house, do you know how much more money I would have had?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Do you know how much I care?
SPEAKER_01Zero.
SPEAKER_00I don't care. I don't care if I don't care. Well, I can still trade it. Like the cool thing about the stock market is like it's a couple clicks of buttons. The cool thing about a business is you want to get out of a business, go hire a business broker. I I know of one, but bro, it's a nightmare to get out of real estate and and business. And I click a button, I'm out. I can get right back in. Yeah, and you can get right back in. Yeah. So I've already gotten some more exposure to Google. I'm already back into Google shares. Now, am I gonna make a couple million dollars on my Google shares? Probably not. I probably won't live who knows, maybe, but I I probably won't live long enough to see Google go from 5,000 to like one and a half mil. I probably won't see that again. But maybe I'll see it at a different company.
SPEAKER_01What do you think that teaches people or could teach people about patience? 20 years, 20 years you sat on those shares.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I sold them once. I sold uh I I used to think that uh for some reason I always think people know more than I do. I don't know. But uh I was listening to this guy on television, uh doesn't matter, uh Jim Kramer, and uh Google had earnings and he was like Google's gonna report terrible earnings. Get out of Google. So I sold my shares, I sold all my shares because Jim Kramer said to. And uh this is a long time ago. Google gapped up four dollars on that earnings. You know what I did? I just bought them immediately. I was like, oh well, I missed that four dollars. But look at them now. So what did I teach you about patience? Um I'm not always great with patience, I'll be honest with you, but I think that if you have the right mindset and you just remember buy assets, stop buying like like that boat. I don't know if they can see the boat in the background. It's probably a little blurry, but that boat in the background, like you you had a boat, it's break out another thousand. Okay? Like you can buy, let's just say you buy boat for like 50 grand. I don't even know. Man, you can put a hundred grand in that boat. Like you can end up so if you want to buy catches the same amount of fish. Uh I mean, just to make it work, you have to keep paying for. So don't put all your money in a boat. Put your money in assets. Buy some shares. Like, people don't understand, man. Like $100 of Google or $5,000 of Google, it's still a lot of money. And the camera died.
Buy Assets Skip Toys And Learn
SPEAKER_00Bye.
SPEAKER_01It's still a lot of money. Recommendations on books, recommendations on podcasts. Where should people go to one learn how to invest, right? Where do they get started? And and the right mindset, I think, is the other question I'd love to ask. How do where do they go to start cultivating the right mindset for being an investor?
SPEAKER_00Psychology of Money is probably the best book out there. Like, I love the psychology of money because it talks about money as a tool. There's another book called it's it's a little bit obscure. You can get a free PDF online. Killing Sacred Cows. Okay. Killing Sacred Cows. Here's the thing about books, and I'll have one other book after this. I never agree with every book I read. Like, I never agree with all of it, but like the psychology of money was really awesome. It was a really cool book all the way around. Um, killing Sacred Cows kind of talked about how everything we're thinking is wrong. It talks about how diversification is actually a bad bet. And Mark Cuban's talked about that as well. Like, he's like, don't ever diversify. Hey, works if you're Mark Cuban, right? And a lot of people probably thinking, hey, that works if you're Justin and you bought some Google. But it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily he's right. If you put all your money in the right thing that you believed in, maybe you're maybe that's yourself, whatever it is, like you're gonna make them more money. So I like to listen to those books like The Killing Sacred Cow, the um Psychology of Money is a great book. The best book that I've listened to recently that's really changed how I think about things is Die With Zero. And I told you about this, I don't think you read it, but it's uh it's on my shelf. Die with Zero changed a lot of my mindset. And I'm not saying I'm gonna die with zero. I'm not saying I'm not gonna give money. And the the title of the book is horrible, but I think he did it on purpose. I think he wants you to get a little bit upset. So you go, either you're really close-minded. Remember, I always say yes to everything. Like, tried tried jujitsu, Justin. Okay. Um, I got my first stripe and I got the heck out of that. That was the worst recommendation you've ever given me. Um, yeah, I think so. Um I always say yes, and I'm just like, hey, let's just see how this works out, right? So Die With Zero talked about some of the things that I've never been able to put into words in such a better way. Like, it's it's not don't give your kids money. It's actually what would happen if you gave your kids the money way before you died?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00How what if you wanted to start that charitable organization? What if you started it when you're 46 versus 73? What if you wanted to give three million dollars to cancer research? Whatever it is. Like, what if you did it right now? And why are you holding on to that extra 50 million that you're never going to actually really need? So Die With Zero was a really great book in terms of like those are my financial books that I think deal with mindset the most. Now, if you want to learn about stock market, just make it simple. Like, that's what I'm all about. Let's make it simple, let's keep it simple. Like, if you want mindset, you want mindset like the power of now, ekhartoli, greatest book ever. Greatest book ever, because you start realizing that you're not here. Like this, this isn't us. Okay, it's not like this is just a vessel holding us. And the only thing we have, like right right now, the only thing I have is this time sitting here with you. Like, that's the only thing that's guaranteed. I don't know what's gonna happen when we turn off this microphone and get up. I have no idea what's gonna happen, but there's a lot of power in right now. And then from a mindset perspective, maybe a little bit, I don't know, controversial, but Outwitting the Devil was a great book. I don't think I've heard of that one. Okay, Outwitting the Devil was a great book. The author might be might be a little questionable. There are some articles saying that he might have been a scam artist, which apparently I like attract, or maybe I'm attracted to people who like try to run scams on me or something, or cult either cult leaders or scam artists, but uh Outwitting the Devil was a really great book on abundance mindset.
SPEAKER_01I feel like there's so many of those books. What's the um oh my gosh, I'm blinking on the I wish I wish I wouldn't even start this cut this sentence because there's another really famous book.
SPEAKER_00Get the audiobook because he does an impression of the devil talking. So he like he's talking back and forth is great, it's the greatest book ever. You have to you have to get the audible if you're gonna do Outwitting the Devil. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Outwitting the devil.
Books Mindset And Where To Find Him
SPEAKER_00Okay, just where people can find you. So they can find me on the lake. Oh, that's probably not what you mean. Um, so I'm on the lake every single morning, and I'm also on a lot of social media, like I've always been opposed to social media. And like, if you were to ask me what my Instagram is, I don't even know. Is that bad to say? But um, I figured out that you can start making an impact. Like, what I do is so simple, it's so rudimentary that, like, I know your kids are a little too young, but like in a couple years, they would be able to do exactly what I'm doing. That's how simple it is. It's just a few clicks of a button. I was like, well, why should I keep this to myself? Why would I not tell other people? So um, I built a website, Mr. Money Maxwell. It turned into a trading community, it turned into a coaching business. So, like right now, I coach people, like right before this podcast, I coach three people today, and it's really cool because right now I have like five people that I'm coaching and they're all on the same day. So it's like I get Tuesdays, every other Tuesday, I'm busy, except for that one guy who decided he's got to have a vacation in two weeks. I haven't told you about that, but um, so now I'm gonna have to have one. But I have a coaching business, I have a website, Mr. Money Maxwell. There you'll find all my social media links because I'm really bad at social media, so I had to like hire somebody to help me with social media because um I don't really see myself as let me put myself out there for social media, but I figured out through helping other people, through like making really small changes and showing people things that you can make a huge impact. And I think everybody listening to this podcast probably has something where they could help. Help other people, and I think a lot of people don't see that in themselves, or they think I'll just do that another day. You know, that that's for five years from now. Oh, when my kids go to school, oh, you know what, I'll get around to calling him back whatever day it is, and Eckhart totally is gonna tell you that the power of now it means bro, it's right now. So um, that's why I I built a community, uh a trading community, I built a coaching business that some days I hate, just like every other business. But when you see the actual results, when you see somebody go out and not so much make money, but build a system that gives them the freedom to go overseas. Like, I know people who are traveling in RVs, I've helped them build systems to where they can like that's a nightmare to me, bro. I don't want to get an RV and go. They want to go over to Europe and spend months at a time, go down to Mexico and spend three months in Mexico. Like, we built them passive systems using the stock market to generate income. And so when I started seeing that I could do that on a small level, I realized that I actually have the obligation to help more people. Like, I'm I'm obligated to help more people because I know something so simple that if you have the money, you can just make passive income. And I think that's what everybody really wants. So, Mr.Moneymaxwell.com, head on over, check out my wonderful social media. I post uh pictures of ducks and turtles like on Instagram. Check out my store. If you're into turtles, ducks, I have a pet blue heron out here. He's not here right now.
SPEAKER_01He was earlier, he was a bluey this morning or earlier when we started.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. Yeah, he's he's just waiting for me to feed the fish. I don't feed him because he needs to catch his own. He's really bad at it. He's really bad, but um, yeah, so that's what I do. If you want to see blue, if you want to see blue, just check out my Instagram, check out the stories. If you want to learn more, like I write on Substack. I've been doing a lot more um bit avoiding AI writing a little bit more because um what I do is so different. I didn't realize it. Like nobody understands, like you can tell Claude to write it out, and Claude's gonna write out just it's probably the same way with all businesses, but he just writes out something that isn't really what I do. So I have to put that out there so people can actually see that the stock market can be for them, and you don't have to lose everything in the stock market. And man, please don't send me your comments of how you've lost your money in the stock market. Man, I I know, and like you said, like you said, if if you're out there right now and you have a W-2 and you have a ridiculous amount of shares in your company, sell them.
Final W-2 Stock Warning And Farewell
SPEAKER_00Just sell them.
SPEAKER_01Not financial advice.
SPEAKER_00Well, uh absolutely financial advice from someone who doesn't know a thing. Like I don't I don't have a clue, but uh, I've heard of this company called Enron. I don't know if you know it. If you don't, probably too young, just look it up. But these people put all their money in what they know. So real estate investors put all their money in real estate stocks. Hey man, there's other stocks out there besides your company. There's ways to make money in the stock market where you don't have to risk it all. You don't have to be a gambler, you don't have to spend hours there. And then if you if you really want to hope that a lizard falls on chance's head before this end of this, maybe it will. Like uh it's just right behind you right now. I'm so dumb.
SPEAKER_01Well, Justin, I appreciate you. I thank you for sliding into my DMs six years ago. Yeah, you're welcome. Because uh, one cultivated this amazing friendship. My kids call you Uncle Justin now, right? That's like that's how far a relationship can come when you invest in other people, and I see you investing in other people nonstop. Uh, and I am super appreciative to have you in my life and uh someone who pushes me, quite honestly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks, bro.
SPEAKER_01I can't wait.
SPEAKER_00Gator land tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01We're going to Gatorland tomorrow. Alright, man. I appreciate you.