How I Created Financial Freedom on My Terms (Problems to Profit Podcast) – EP 240

Preston Brown: Welcome back to Problems to Profit. Guys and gals, family, friends, I'm so excited. I have to be honest. I have somebody that I admire on the show today, and you are going to get a level of value that is going to blow your mind. Now, this gentleman, Justin, we were part of a mastermind and it's nice and it's fulfilling and it's wholesome. When you're in a group of people, you know all of them are wildly successful, you don't necessarily know about them, but when you walk up and you talk to a guy and the first thing he talks about is not business, it's not money, it's not wealth, it's not investing. He starts talking about the things that are important. He starts talking about his faith. He starts talking about his family. He starts talking about what his interests are in those areas.

And I can tell you this, this is just one of the truths that I've found to be immutable in my life. Every time a conversation starts that way, you are meeting one of the greats. You're meeting one of the people that is absolute magic that is life changing, that is a world changer. And so, I had this great conversation with this guy. I don't even think we got into business. I don't think we got in any of it.

Justin Donald: We didn't.

Preston Brown: And I walked away and somebody's like, "Do you know who you were talking to?” And I was like, "Yeah. His name is Justin. He is really, really cool.” And they're like, “Yeah, dude. He wrote The Lifestyle Investor,” and I'm like, "Wait a minute. What?” And so, I'm going through my Audible and I'm like, "Yeah. I think I read that, like, when did I read that? I mean, a while back.” And I'm like I went and reread it again because this is one of the books that formed my way of thinking about investing. Okay. And of course, now the conversation's over and I'm like man-crushing a little bit. I'm like, “I want to go back for more. I need to go hit up Justin.” And so, Justin, dude, thank you so much for coming on. Guys, Justin Donald. Like, thank you for coming on to Problems to Profit, bro.

Justin Donald: Well, thanks for having me. And what a kind buildup and a kind intro and I love that the first things we talked about and the first things out of your mind were family and fun and epic experiences. And so, this slices both ways. So, I left our conversation. I'm like, “I want to get to know Preston better. This guy's fun.”

Preston Brown: I like to joke that I put the F-U in fun, and so I'm glad you didn't get that piece of it. But part of Problems to Profit is I like to showcase the self-made aspect of winners and leaders and you're one of these guys that you've developed a wildly significant net worth. You've done deals on companies that most of the people that watch this show are going to know the name of. Okay. So, you've done hundreds of transactions but you didn't start as this trillionaire guy. You didn't start with just like money bags out of the womb with you. You started somewhere else and you took your problems and you turned them into your profit to make yourself the profit in the business space you are. Can we hear a little bit about your story before we go into some of the lessons?

Justin Donald: Sure. Yeah. And by the way, I love that you take your problems and you turn them into profits. I mean, that's very catchy and that really is what it is. I love that. I was raised by an incredible family. My parents are wonderful, good Christian family, and just hardworking, relationships always mattered, but very blue-collar. I'd say, at best, we were middle class or median income, but probably more likely a little bit under that. And I remember in seventh grade, my parents were like, "Well, if you want money, you got to go get a job.” And all my friends, their parents were giving them money and my parents were like, "You got to go work if you want money. We don't have money. What do you think, this is the Bank of Donald? Like, go get a job.”

So, at seventh grade, literally, I decided to do this job selling newspaper subscriptions door to door. I have no idea why I decided to do it. It was maybe one of the only places that would hire me. It was a 100% commission job and I was not good. So, I worked for weeks trying to sell newspaper subscriptions that no one wanted because a lot of these weren't even like the best paper. They're like a little no-name paper. And I'm telling you I had doors slammed in my face. The word ‘no’ just became regular commentary, regular vernacular, and correspondence with people. But it was interesting because, at a certain point, I started becoming a little callous to it like it didn't bother me.

At first, I was like, "Oh, man, they don't like me. This hurts. They said no. They don't want to buy a subscription.” And then later I just learned after enough reps and enough getting poor results, I was like, “I'm just going to get good at this.” So, what would it look like if I showed up confidently? What would it look like if I just had a script memorized, if I knew what they were going to say?” And at this point, I did and I knew how to handle each of them. And I did it with tons of confidence, and that's really when things changed when I made that commitment. Now, all of a sudden, I became one of the top sales guys on the team, ended up making a ton of money.

And my seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, I mean, all through middle school and high school, I sold newspaper subscriptions. And by my senior year, I had my own crew out running and dropping them off in neighborhoods and they would sell coupon books, subscriptions, magazines, all that.

Preston Brown: I love that so much. And there's actually a common theme that I'd love to just bring up before we go into the next part of the story. Entrepreneurship tends to start young. Like, the labor laws don't really let you get a job until you're 16 so you have to go into something like either entrepreneurial or commission-driven. I mean, talk about a perfect age, right, as your mind is developing to start learning something like sales. I mean, I think they should teach that in school.

Justin Donald: I do too. A hundred percent. Those are the soft skills that are going to be the game changer way down the road.

Preston Brown: Yeah. We don't teach about sales, we don't teach about budgets, we don't teach about taxes, we don't teach about any of that stuff. Gender ideology might be something we need to pump into our fifth graders’ heads but not sales, right?

Justin Donald: More personal finance to make matters worse, like two of the most important things. Communicating with people, sales, personal finance, investing, like none of this is covered.

Preston Brown: And it's some of the stuff that is maybe the most important. Because if you want to hit all the other items, like we had this thought with the mastermind that I was a part of that we've talked about and we said faith, family, fitness, finance, these are the four cores to the human experience. And like four fingers held up on your hand, they may not be the same, but they're all tethered to one another. And if you want to have the time to honor your faith, if you want to have the ability to go and get to know your wife at the highest level, you have to give her presents. That takes a lot of time. You want to take care of your fitness. You might need half an hour, an hour in the gym every day. It would be really nice to have the finances to be able to afford to buy back enough time to get there.

Justin Donald: That's right. And to be able to afford the highest quality type of services, right? Like, if you want health to be so important, well, let's look at who the best in class is, and let's have the means to be able to afford it.

Preston Brown: So, we've started this episode off, which I can already tell is going to be good with a lesson in history because I don't know very many entrepreneurs that are at your level that didn't start learning to sell young and maybe also a parenting tip for people with kids. That's great. Anyway, continue.

Justin Donald: Well, from there, my parents had said, "We want you to go to college.” My parents didn't graduate college. No one in my family had graduated college. So, to them, it was going to be really let's call it a success if their child or children, I got a brother too, younger brother, if we can graduate from college. And so, at that point in time, my parents didn't really have the means to put me through school. So, I had to figure out how to do that and I was going to go no matter what. I wanted to be the first person in the family to graduate. I wanted to figure that out. And so, that's when I found this company, Cutco. And that's really how I paid for my way through college.

I sold kitchen cutlery and cookware on an in-home appointment basis, starting out with friends and family, getting leads and referrals from there. And did really well. I ended up making enough to pay for college, graduated debt-free. I mean, I made a lot of money but I worked hard. I mean, I put my head down and it helps to have a great quality product. Before, I was selling newspaper subscriptions, which I'm going to argue is not a very high-quality product. Maybe some people like them, but we are selling inferior products, right? It makes a big difference when you have the highest quality product out there with this incredible guarantee, a forever guarantee.

So, as a youngster, I can have confidence sharing this with people that are twice or three times my age that they need high-quality products in their kitchen. And so, that was a great step forward for me. Again, soft skills, sales, meeting people, talking to people older than me, looking people in the eyes, shaking hands, all these things. And then I decided that I really wanted to get into management because I actually enjoyed leading people more. And so, I learned how to build a team. I learned how to hire receptionists and I learned how to recruit people and get insurance in place.

Preston Brown: Is this also at Cutco?

Justin Donald: This is also at Cutco.

Preston Brown: Okay. Wow.

Justin Donald: Yeah. And so, we ended up being one of the top offices. This is why I was still in college. So, in between my junior and senior year, that summer, I opened up an office and we did great. And I had such a good time. We had two of the top reps in the company. Out of the top either 50 or 100 reps, we had two of them. And so, I was so pleased that I could actually be good at this at coaching people. And it was fun. It was a lot of work, but it was fun. And I just went on to continue moving up and building a big organization under that umbrella for years before I transitioned into more of the consulting role that basically all the skills that I learned, coaching and teaching people, building leadership teams, creating comp structures, ongoing training, retention, leadership development, I mean, all those things.

I was then able to teach other companies in an advisory or consulting role for the next iteration of really what I would call, we could call it my second business, but I would say like my first real business on my own, right? With Cutco, there was fulfillment, there was a back office. Like, I didn't have to do everything. I did a lot, but I didn't have to do everything. So, my first real business on my own where I had to do everything was that.

Preston Brown: You started in consulting?

Justin Donald: Yes.

Preston Brown: So, not typically a super high margin business where it's easy to get through and probably at a point in time where everybody on Instagram was also a consultant, right?

Justin Donald: Yeah. Tons of people. But again, it's a business where if you offer enough value, you're going to retain your clients. You're going to help them grow. They're going to see things pretty quickly if you know what you're doing. So, there are a ton of people, but a lot of them will fizzle out. A lot of them won't get hired on. A lot of their contracts will get terminated early.

Preston Brown: And it makes sense that you came from a world like Cutco because you understood the value of brand and you understood the value of delivering a quality product. It wasn't just the sale and the flash in the pan. You had to follow through with all the other pieces. And I only bring that up because having done consulting myself, that is not an easy industry. That's one of the hardest industries.

Justin Donald: You have to deliver.

Preston Brown: Yeah. Or you're the easiest person to divorce.

Justin Donald: Yes.

Preston Brown: Yeah. That's so cool. Okay. Well, we've gotten you through college and we've jumped kind of to the consulting and I don't think you ever really stopped consulting because you're still in many ways a consultant today, but you moved from consultant kind of to investor to syndicator. Was there a path or a journey through that or to that, that you…?

Justin Donald: Yeah, certainly. I mean, so what started happening is sometimes instead of a consulting gig, I might get offered an advisory gig. And so, instead of taking money today, maybe I'm investing some stock or maybe I have an opportunity to invest in a company at some preferred terms. And so, I'm starting to see the power of, "Oh, maybe it doesn't make sense. Like, if I believe in this team and these people, maybe it doesn't make sense to take money today. Maybe I shouldn't be working off of a retainer and some ongoing fee or maybe it's part that and part equity.” And so, that was interesting to kind of look through. But at the same time, I also was kind of on the precipice of, do I continue trading time for money or do I actually buy assets that produce income so I don't have to be on the clock?

Preston Brown: What was the shift there? Like, where did that question come from? Because I think it's a question a lot of people have, but maybe they put it aside. Where did that question come from and how did you come to the point where you were like, “This is going to be one of the formative questions of my life”?

Justin Donald: Well, I'm a big reader and I've read a lot of books over the years and Rich Dad Poor Dad was one that really kind of got me started down this path and really Cashflow Quadrant, Robert Kiyosaki's second book, like that's the one that really stuck. And I remember thinking, "Wow, I need to be doing things differently than I am based on where I want to go.” And then the people I'm surrounding myself with, they're doing it on the slow lane, right? I need to do it on the fast lane. There's another book, MJ DeMarco’s Millionaire Fast Lane. I'm like, “I've got to surround myself with other people that are playing the game of business and life and wealth creation at a higher level than me.” And so, that's when I really started like leaning on mentors, trying to find people that would mentor me up, and find a peer group that could help me elevate my game.

And so, I had a friend that got into real estate and then the largest private owner of that asset class, specifically mobile home parks, became my mentor, took me under his wing. And so, I got started in that years ago, probably 15, 16 years ago. At first, lending money to a buddy, more like a hard money loan so that he could buy them. And then I saw how well he did buy in these mobile home parks. I was like, "Man, you're making a really good return.” I saw the financials so I'm like, “Why am I not doing this?” And luckily, he is a good friend and he is like, "Well, you should be. I told you, you should be. But since you weren't, I was just borrowing money from you.”

So, that's when I decided, "All right. Well, I'm going to do this.” And I bought my very first property and that property replaced my wife's income. She was a teacher at that time, and our schedules didn't really line up great. And so, that single purchase bought her time freedom. She retired and that's when we started our family.

Preston Brown: So, how many years ago was this point in time?

Justin Donald: Yeah. So, we're around 15 years ago now.

Preston Brown: So, 15 years ago, first large purchase, and it empowered you to start your family?

Justin Donald: Yes. Yes.

Preston Brown: How many times do we hear different guests, different amazing people say that one decision that was life-changing? I love that story. You told me that story I think maybe the second time we talked. And it's such a good story. I'm so glad you're sharing it here.

Justin Donald: Well, I love it because originally I was looking at, how do I replace my income? But that wasn't the right answer. The right answer is, how do I replace my wife's income? Like, that was a better answer for us as a family. And it was an easier hurdle because I was making more than she was at the time, and her time was more restricted than my time. As a teacher, there's very little flexibility. So, that really became the path. And then shortly thereafter, we bought another park and that replaced our survival income. And then we bought one more and that covered our lifestyle income. So, from that point on, every other property we bought, every other investment we made was all surplus income. It went above and beyond what it cost us to live.

Preston Brown: Now, from my perspective, you wrote one of the books that is it's almost an investing bible. Okay. Now, I don't want to defame the Bible, but like it is a very good book that every investor out there should read. I mean, it was formative in my way of looking at where do I put my money. I mean, I love business. I think money is created at the highest level in operating a business well. But once you have the money, putting it into things that cash flow is just one of the most important understandings that anyone can have. Where did that, I mean, at what stage of the journey in the last 15 years did that book hit and you're like, “I need to write this down. I need to document this. The world needs this”?

Justin Donald: Yeah. Thank you for the kind words on The Lifestyle Investor book and I love hearing that it was a pivotal book for you and for me. I had this in my head for a long time. I mean, I had friends for years saying, "You need to write a book. You need to capture these ideas. The world needs to know these things because it's not taught.” And I just remember thinking, "Yeah, whatever. It's not that big of a deal.” But I had one of my buddies out here in Austin. We've got this lake, I mean, it's actually the Colorado River, but it's damned and we call it Town Lake or Lady Bird Lake now. It's been renamed.

And we're walking around this lake and my buddy says, “Hey, I've been talking to you for probably a decade about writing a book. You've made no moves. What happens if you die and your daughter doesn't learn all these things you know about investing and money and compounding your wealth?” And that literally is all it took. Like, I felt like I got punched in the gut. I felt like the wind physically got knocked out of me.

Preston Brown: That's a good friend.

Justin Donald: Yeah. And I said, “John, you're right. I need to do this.” And the next day I started writing it. And actually, I say write it. I actually recorded it. So, I just walked around that same trail with a microphone on my phone. I literally just dictated ideas for days and weeks and months and transcribed it and put it in order and added to it and subtracted from it. And that was it.

Preston Brown: And we're going to put the link to the book in the show notes. So, we will make sure that is there for everybody. So, you could pause the show and go click the link or keep watching and click the link at the end.

Justin Donald: Well, and something else really cool about the book. So, it started off, I didn't have high expectations. I had a friend say, "If you ever sell 10,000 copies of your book, you're one of the top books out there.” Like, most people don't even get to 10,000 copies. So, I decided that my lifelong goal would be to hit 10,000 copies. And if I did that, that'd be really cool. But we sold 10,000 copies I think on day two and I was like, "Oh my goodness, this thing went viral.” So, anyway, it ended up becoming a number one Wall Street Journal bestseller and USA Today bestseller.

But, moreover, now it's the top 1% of all books ever sold, period, out of every book based on volume and all the proceeds go to fight human trafficking. So, this book is now responsible for hundreds of thousands, really soon it will eclipse a million dollars in actual money donated to help people that are disadvantaged in this.

Preston Brown: I think you have told me that, but I've forgotten that. That's awesome. Like, kudos, bro, because you're not doing something and taking all the profits back. You're turning that revenue into something that's changing lives, changing the world. That's beautiful, bro.

Justin Donald: Well, thank you. The idea is we can help people through the content and the education of the book to buy financial freedom, but the dollars of the book can actually buy real human life freedom.

Preston Brown: Yeah. It's not win-win. It's win-win-win.

Justin Donald: That's right.

Preston Brown: Yeah. Man, we have gotten parenting advice. I think we've got some marital advice on you need to set your wife free first. I mean, that's real man sh*t. Like, that's beautiful. We've got some business hacks. We've got access to a new book. I mean, I was reading. I mean, I like to ChatGPT people. Okay.

Justin Donald: Even though you do now.

Preston Brown: Even though I knew you, I ChatGPT’d you. It's like over 200 successful deals. And also, it says way too much about your net worth on ChatGPT. So, now everybody's going to ChatGPT you.

Justin Donald: I try to scrub that, I'm telling you.

Preston Brown: But over 200 deals, like can we talk about some of the deals that you've done? I mean, I want people to know who they're listening to. I know but it's different when you've been close to somebody in shared proximity. I want them to know because you hear the ending of a story and it's real easy to judge, "Oh, they got lucky. Oh, they got this.” Well, we've now heard the beginning of your story. Like, we've heard, hey, middle-class guy and I've inferred that you're a king of kings. But let's hear some of the details of the ending. Now that we've got the build-up. I want to let them hear some of that.

Justin Donald: Sure. Well, one thing I will say is I am very risk averse, so my goal is to not lose money. So, I have a small percentage of money that I'll take big swings with but the larger portion of our net worth and of our assets, I really like them to go into deals that should work out. So, that being said, I got started kind of in hard money lending and then I really liked that. So, I did more investing in that private credit space. I mean, my real big start, our big first win was in mobile home parks. And then from there, we just continued to add. So, we have one of the largest portfolios in the US.

But I wanted to diversify so we started getting into some industrial deals, which is probably our second largest holding. Those are my two favorite real estate asset classes. Then we got into self-storage.

Preston Brown: You probably did real well over the last few years then.

Justin Donald: Yes. They've done really well. So, a lot of these are going to not necessarily be like a household name, but it's like the asset class people would know. So, I've done retail, I've done office, I've done land. I mean, unless it's super obscure, I've probably done it in real estate. And then I never wanted to do anything risky with my money. So, most people, if you work for someone else, you probably have the majority of your money in the stock market. And if you have a business, you probably have the majority of your money in the business. And then from there, it's like you have a smaller percentage that maybe goes into something else, like entrepreneurs think because they're good, they're eternal optimists, they're going to figure it out. So, they think that they can do the same thing in investing.

And that's just not the case. It's two different mindsets. That chasm is too big to cross. You need skills, you need discipline, you need reps. And so, I see a lot of entrepreneurs making these risky bets in early-stage companies, but that's most likely not going to work. Generally, it's like one out of a hundred, maybe you're one out of 50. I mean, the professionals are like three out of 40, you know what I mean? Like, those are the best people, maybe four, right? So, I don't like bets like that, but when I do make bets like that, I want it to come from surplus cash flow. I don't want it to come from what I need. I want it to come from the extra.

And so, I do have a part of my asset allocation about 1% that will go to early-stage deals like angel investing, seed, pre-seed like super early. And my anticipation is I'm going to lose virtually all of it except for one or two or three deals that hopefully will make it. But the power law tells you that if you don't have the numbers, and if you're not 100 to 400 deals, you're probably not going to have that happen. It's probably they're all going to be losers unless you're lucky because it's a numbers game there. So, I don't like investing in these big name companies unless they are big name because they've done well, because they're more profitable because they're later stage,

right?

And so, I'm a huge fan of AI. A lot of people like, "This is the thing in AI.” I mean, I've been investing in AI for like 7 to 10 years. So, it's not like this new thing that just came around. And so, I've gotten into all the big companies early. I'm in Anthropic and OpenAI and Cohere and xAI and Perplexity. I mean, you name it. I want to have a piece in those. And again, that's all surplus income. That is all coming from cashflow that goes above and beyond what it costs me to live because I still know that those are high risk. Some of them should pan out, but not all of them are going to pan out.

Preston Brown: But if you've been going for seven years, you're probably riding a pretty good high right now.

Justin Donald: Yeah. I've got some really good positions in those. But keep in mind, this is just paper money. Until a company has a formal exit, it is not real. On paper, it looks good, and I just always warn people. This is why net worth is such a funny thing. People always inflate their net worth because it's fickle. It's based on today. It's based on your opinion of what your company's worth, typically not someone else's valuation. And so, paper money, I'm always really careful with because it might've been marked up a lot, but that only is realized if the company goes public or somebody buys them or maybe you have a chance to sell in a secondary market.

Preston Brown: That's a really great point. I'm interested in diving into that too because, I mean, there are so many ways we can go here. This is so good. This is such gold. I almost did an ESOP and I'm glad I didn't because the company's just taken off since then. And had I ESOP I would've sold way before the upside hit. But I got a $105 million valuation on the company on my ESOP. And I was so excited that I listed that on my financial statement. And you know what I got afterwards? A lecture from all my bankers because my balance sheet did not look like $105 million.

And so, like net worth is it's one of those question mark things that you can't go and just put a number on it. You almost have to go figure out what the relationship looks like and work it from there.

Justin Donald: I think passive income eats net worth for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, right? Because the more passive income you have, the natural byproduct is going to be that your net worth grows. But now you have utility today, you can actually use these dollars. You can do something. You can live life today while growing your net worth. So, to me, before I was ever a millionaire, I had financial freedom because my passive income exceeded the cost of living. So, to me, that's way more important than net worth.

Preston Brown: Passive income should be the focus. Now, you've done hundreds of transactions. Can you give us a few secrets of like how…? I mean, and some of the transactions you're doing, like real estate transactions, they're not always that easy to find. How are you doing hundreds of transactions? And they're not small-scale. This is not flip homes.

Justin Donald: Yeah. It's interesting, so in my book, I talk about the 10 commandments of really just cashflow investing for passive income and financial freedom, and it's my 10 investment criteria. It's like my primary investment criteria. And the third one is finding invisible deals. Because if you can find deals that are off-market that aren't being bid up via competition, that in some cases, you're just talking to an owner that wasn't even sure if they wanted to sell, and you may talk them into selling. Like, that's the type of sale that I like. I mean, that's the type of invisible deal that works or you notice a trend, right?

So, I talked about getting into AI early. I got into robotics really early and that has served me well. I got into mobile home park investing early before private equity wanted a huge piece of it. I got into single-family home rentals, SFR, before it was ever a real estate asset class, right? So, it's like you find these things. I got into cannabis investing, cannabis lending early. And so, there are so many niches that if you can just find them early, but you have enough data to show where it's going to go, and you're confident enough that it can get there, well, there's outsized returns in that.

But to answer your question, like how do I get so many deals, how do I find these deals? So, these are the deals I like best because they're not marked up or because you can really negotiate a good deal. But the best deals that I have gotten over the years really stem from the relationships I have. A lot of people think that my superpower is investing and I am a good investor, but my superpower is actually relationships and networking and getting to know people and actually adding more value to them than they're adding to me in, like, hopefully in tidal waves more, and not so that they hook me up later. But there's this reciprocity where people are like, “I want to get you back. I want to help you out,” and that has shown up many times through and through in my life.

Preston Brown: You know, like, this is something and it’s profound. I mean, I love guests where we can go in a million directions and we can go in a million directions. We have so many things we can talk about, but I mean, we might need to look at this direction because so many of the listeners listen to this show and probably most business and investing podcasts, they’re in this hustle and grind phase of their business. And the hustle and grind phase has a tax. I mean, it has a cost.

Justin Donald: Oh, yeah.

Preston Brown: And some of those costs are maybe the relationship with your wife, the relationship with your kids because you’re giving your time to something else. You’re losing friends and family. Years ago, I joined the Tony Robbins Platinum Partnership and I mean, it was fun. Like, we were dancing and jumping and hooting and hollering and getting motivated and getting inspired. But as I got to know everybody, I realized we were all there for the same reason. We’d unlocked a lot of the secrets about money. We chased everything the world had taught us was important. We’d made it our God. And we had alienated everybody else, so at least we could be together there. And I’m not criticizing the people there because the people there are beautiful, but what are they all craving? Why are they spending oodles of money to be in that mastermind? Relationships, the thing they burnt down. Let’s pivot in maybe a little relationships direction. And I want to hear, like, what are some of the key themes that you’re looking for and kind of that heart to heart, that human to human?

Justin Donald: Yeah. One thing I want to touch on right before we transition into relationships is this idea of work ethic. I think work ethic is incredible. I think it’s valuable. I think it’s super important. Early in my career, I didn’t have the skills to really get ahead, but I had the work ethic to get ahead and I could outwork anyone. And so, for me, that was my only path at that time. Well, once I started focusing on my skills and sharpening my skills, using my intellect more, using relationships more, peer groups and mentors, shortcuts, I started recognizing that I shouldn’t be grinding the way that I’m grinding, that that’s actually the lowest grade way of running a business or being in business. Maybe you work for someone else and you’re grinding that same way, which we can make an argument might be a lot worse because it’s not yours, right?

But knowing what I know today, if I had figured this out, so I’m glad that I’ve got good work ethic and I’m glad if I ever need it, if I ever hit hard times, I know I’ve got it, I know I can do it. But that actually held me back from really accelerating because it’s the skills, it’s the precision, it’s the relationships, it’s the learnings, it’s the education that can really let you kind of level up. And so, I don’t want to fall back on work ethic. I want to fall back on intellect. I want to fall back on the things that can really move the needle.

Preston Brown: Like, that’s gold. Let me just repeat that back to make sure I understand it because I think, if I want to hear it right and make sure I’m understanding it right, I know the listeners need it too. The thing that might have been the thing that got you started and got you to the launchpad to turn you into who you were was also the very thing potentially holding you back. That can only get you so far. That work ethic can only help you build the launchpad, but it’s not going to flip the switch and set the rocket going.

Justin Donald: That’s right. I know a lot of people in construction that work harder than anyone else I know, but they’re not getting ahead, right? They may be doing better than what they could be doing. They may be getting more hours. But for me, that realization of like, I need to work smarter, not harder. I need to surround myself with people playing the game of business and life at a higher level than me. I need shortcuts. I need their education, I need their mentorship like that. That is the key to leveling up. And so, I was able to make exponential jumps there that I would’ve never made if I just kept working hard. And I can make the argument, I worked way, way less hard and way smarter, and I got more done, more of the things that mattered the most and in less time.

Preston Brown: Well, and that speaks– I mean, that speaks so much to kind of your style too. When I first met you, you had this calm, reserved confidence, not like a lot of the hustle and grind entrepreneurs that you meet, like, I mean, I get along with them because they’re like me, like, “Let’s go, come on.” But you came with more of a calm presence. Like, you ever seen that meme? It’s like, the one bull’s like, hey, let’s run down the hill and get all the calves. And then the old bull’s like, let’s walk down. Like, you’re going to get one. If we walk down, we’ll get all of them. Like, you kind of bring that energy to the table. And so, what stage in your development did you kind of have this? And what was it that pushed you over the edge to learn that?

Justin Donald: Well, I remember it was a weekend, I think it was a Saturday night. It was a Friday or Saturday night. It was probably 10:00 PM. I was still at my office and I had been grinding. And my goal is I wanted to be the best at what I did. I wanted to outwork everyone and I would put in the hours. I was not afraid of the hours. I was single at that time. And I remember my friends were reaching out, they’re hitting the bars or hitting the city and they’re like, “Are you coming? When are you coming? When are you getting here?” And I’m telling them like, “I’m still at work,” and they think I’m crazy.

But it was in that moment where I said, hey, I’m actually very comfortable with the sacrifice I’m making today, but I’m not going to work this late when I’m married and I’m not going to work this late when I have a daughter. This is a life for right now and today, but soon, I’m going to put it in my rear view and it’s going to look totally different. So, how much longer do I need to work this hard before I can work smart enough to figure it out, where I can put the people in place, put the systems in place, really dial back all the things I’m doing and focus on maybe the top 20% of the things that I do that actually move the needle the most? And how do I get people involved that just culturally, they want to be there. They don’t have to be the best at what they do, but they’re coachable, they’re teachable, they’re trainable. And that was a big pivotal moment for me where I was like, hey, I’m actually at peace with where I am right now, but if I’m here in a year, I’m going to be really disappointed.

Preston Brown: The goldmine, I think, that you have in this understanding of relationships probably starts with the relationship you had with yourself because it’s real hard, I think, to figure out who you are and more often than not, at least what I’m looking at, who am I? I’m more looking at who am I not, because I know who am I not might change like every year. Like, I’m not the same guy I was last year and I wasn’t the same guy last year that I was five years ago, right? But you seem to have a very keen, intuitive look into you because it’s not easy to make those internal shifts. Like your identity can be who you are, but it’s also the prison of who you have to be for most people and…

Justin Donald: Certainly.

Preston Brown: I love that you’re bringing down and simplifying the work ethic piece, and thank you for sharing the story of how you changed it. I mean that actually resonates with me. My mom, at one point, we were driving down the street and it kind of relates to your story. She pointed out the homeless guy and she said, “You see that guy? Is he lazy or hardworking?” And I, of course, am a kid, “Lazy.” And she’s like, “Nope. He wants to be lazy. That’s why he has to work harder than anybody else in the hot sun holding that sign all day long.” And I’m like, “Ooh.” And so, it’s almost a paradox.

Justin Donald: It is.

Preston Brown: Like, talk about the first. Wow.

Justin Donald: That’s good.

Preston Brown: You just gave gold, bro. Like, that’s gold. I mean, if people get nothing else out of this podcast, which, if you’ve got nothing else out of this podcast, you really need to get a Q-tip and fix your freaking ears. But that’s gold, like that can change somebody’s life.

Justin Donald: Well, thank you.

Preston Brown: Let’s talk relationships. What are you looking for? Because I mean, we live in a transactional world. And I think the transaction has been demonized a lot in popular culture, people will be, or presidents do transactional, but I also think on the paradoxical side of the transaction, it’s what creates human relationships. Like, it’s a transfer of action if we go to the root of the word. And so, it’s critically important even though we demonize it, which is foolish. What are you looking for to find that compelling relationship, because I guess what, the difference between conditional love and unconditional love is conditions, right?

Justin Donald: Yeah.

Preston Brown: But even if we want to say we unconditionally love our spouse, we can ask, were there vows in our marriage? And are those conditions?

Justin Donald: That’s good.

Preston Brown: Which means we have to start looking at like, what is a relationship really? I’d love for you to kind of dive in and define the word relationship and then we will grow from there. To you, as it is to you, what is a relationship to you?

Justin Donald: Yeah, I mean, a relationship to me is just, it’s two people that are being fully honest, fully transparent, earning each other’s trust, and having a fun time doing life together. To me, it’s like transactions are going to happen no matter what. So, I actually want those transactions to happen with the people that I love and appreciate the most and the people that I have the most respect for and the people that have earned my trust. So, I talk all the time about, I love to do business with the people that I do life with. Like, that to me is just a great practice. Those are the people that I trust, so why not do business? Why not figure out ways that we can both win? I do think it’s important to not treat a relationship like a transaction, right? I think that’s dangerous, but in my practice, I am trying to give more than I receive. I love when I have friends that do that same thing, right? And I can see that behavior, but I still want to outgive them, I still want to outdo them in a way, not for me to be better, but in a way where no one can ever question that my intention is to help them.

Preston Brown: I love that. Can I tell you what I heard? Because I mean, you said, I’m looking for people that are honest, that are transparent. I want to do deals with the people that I’m doing life with. But I heard you say, I’m looking for a set of values in a person that aligns with me. And that’s like, transactions or I mean, they’re interesting. I’ve studied transactions. I love transactions. Like, I mean, a transfer of action if I unconditionally transfer action to you, it starts with me, it goes to you, I’ve created a line. A line has a beginning and an ending, right? So, it’s finite.

But if I do that same line to you and 10 other people and I have no condition set on that transfer of action, and you come back, and maybe it’s not even in kind, just give me a hug and a thank you, what have you done? You’ve reciprocated on my transaction. You’ve created a circle instead of a line. There’s no ending to a circle. So, you’ve created a relationship. So, like, I mean, I think transactions are the foundation and formation of human society, so people often demonize them, and I don’t think anything should ever be transactional. But I heard you say, I look for values where I can transfer action safely and productively with people. Did I hear that?

Justin Donald: I think you hit the nail on the head. Yeah.

Preston Brown: What are you looking for? How do you start a relationship? Like, where do you go to meet people? Because one thing that I’ve found as an entrepreneur, and I think this is going to be value for the people out there hearing it, I am terrified of people because my first thought is, you want something from me? And I don’t necessarily have a problem if they want something from me, but before you want something from me, I want you to want me.

And so, like, I’m– and this sounds so not masculine, right? Like, but whatever, I’ll be vulnerable. I want a safety. Like, I want to go and I don’t care if you’re worth a billion or 10 billion or a million or like, probably my best friend in the world is a dentist. And I could buy his practice with my spare change. Okay? Like, I mean, I’ll take him places because he can’t afford to fly on the plane. But I don’t care because he loves me. Does that make sense?

Justin Donald: Yeah.

Preston Brown: Like, what are you looking for in a person to find it? Like, for me, I’m just looking for the safety of I want to be around you. What are you looking for?

Justin Donald: Yeah, I mean, I think I’m really gauging like, do I want to do life with this person? Do I enjoy their company? Are they fun? Are they funny? Do they tell me the truth? Do they tell me what I need to hear or what they think I want to hear? Like, I want to know, I want to be in a real relationship, not just some fake propped-up relationship. So, I want people to call me on stuff, like a good friend should call me when I’m in error, if I’ve been rude or whatever, like, I want to be called on that. So, that’s important to me.

Now, I will tell you that I have been burned a number of times trusting wrong people or fine tuning my skills on who to trust and who to befriend, but never for a second am I going to question whether that’s the way I want to live life, meaning like I could live apprehensively and I could look at everyone like they’re trying to get something from me and that’s going to create a pessimism or it’s going to create just an energy that I don’t think I want to be around. And so, if I give people the benefit of the doubt and I say, this person seems great, I’m just going to open up, I’m going to– I will be vulnerable, I will be open, I don’t have to be on guard, I don’t have to paint a certain image, let me just be me, I may get burned, but the value of the relationships I get from that that don’t burn me is so worth getting burned. So, to me, that’s the world. I just want to assume that people are great and I can learn otherwise and I’m a quick learn, so I’m not going to make the same mistake again, but I don’t want to go into something with that skepticism or that energy.

Preston Brown: Gosh, I love that. Okay, so you’re looking at people with a framework of, I’m going to assume you’re great. I’m going to assume you’re safe. Like, you’re not coming at them from a perception or perspective, if you will, of fear of getting burned. You’re taking the risk of getting burned and opening the door and allowing people in. And dude, you are honoring like maybe one of the most important laws that I try to honor and literally fail at every day because I’m scared and I’ve got to honor you. Do you know how you measure love?

Justin Donald: No.

Preston Brown: Suffering. Christ was on a cross. How much did he love us? Like, suffering. You cannot measure love. That’s why they call unconditional love, unconditional love, because you have to suffer to f*cking get, break your conditions to know that you still love them, right? Like, you love as much as you’re willing to suffer for another person. You are doing like, maybe the most and frame it in for whatever listening religious context you want. I’m Christian, you’re Christian, so you and I can use this frame, but you’re taking a Christ-like approach. That is so cool. How do you do that? How do you turn off the perspective of the previous burns? And I’m not asking for the listeners at this point, I’m asking for me.

Justin Donald: I just think that…

Preston Brown: They can listen too, though.

Justin Donald: I want to give everyone their fair shot, right? So, it’s like, yeah, I was burned in the past. Like, if I just go from a logical standpoint, so does that mean this person’s going to do it? No, actually. Could this person do it? Sure. But if I’m on guard, is our relationship going to be as strong or is it going to take, maybe just takes a long time? Or what if I just go all in and we figure it out right away? And now, I’m a little bit wiser with my time. Is this someone I want to keep spending time with or is it not? So, to me, it’s like, why not enter with that frame? If I get burned, that’s a lesson. If I notice things about it, maybe there are enough tells that I can figure out with other people, I can learn it sooner, but I just think people innately are good, right? And so, that’s the frame I’m going to enter in.

And one of the things I’ve done for years, I mean, over 20 years now, is I’ve taken someone to either a meal or a coffee, at least one day a week. I even do this on vacation. I’ll meet people and just connect with them, go grab a coffee, whatever, at some resort, whatever. I mean, I love meeting people, but my goal is to learn something. And so, everyone that I run into, I know I could learn something from them. It doesn’t matter if they’re a great investor or not or a great entrepreneur or not, there’s something I can learn. And I’m also very intentional with the people I want to learn from and I try to get them in the books for coffee and pick their brain. But this has been a ritual for me that has added up to thousands upon thousands of hours now, and often it’s more than once a week. But I now have reps on people and time and relationship and I’m a quicker study of who’s got pure intentions, who doesn’t and how much time am I going to spend with someone, am I going to repeat, are we going to get time again, that sort of thing. But I do want to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Preston Brown: You’re allowing everybody to mentor you in something. We’re assuming they might have something that they can mentor you in.

Justin Donald: Yes.

Preston Brown: That’s beautiful. What are three traits? I mean, you gave me honesty and transparency. What’s a third one that you’re kind of looking for in the people you’re looking to do life with? Because I think that’s a frame that people also need. You should have values-based relationships.

Justin Donald: Yeah. I would say kindness. I look to see, are you treating other people around you well? Are you treating me well? Are you treating the waiter/waitress well? Are you treating people that just come by? If we have someone that jumps in and interrupts the conversation, what does that look like? I think that that is really important. And then I also look for people that like, I like being around people that are really joyful. And I think that, generally speaking, when people show up and they have a lot of joy, they probably have made some good decisions in life. They probably also have some good relationships in life. That is something that really aligns with me.

Preston Brown: Joyful. I like that. This is gold, Justin.

Justin Donald: Thank you.

Preston Brown: This is gold. I love that I’m sitting here talking to one of my higher net worth friends with a resume of deals that’s done like all of it. I mean, you’ve done real estate, you’ve done business, you’ve done angel investing, and we’re talking about relationships and we’re talking about what you look for in people and I hope that all of the listeners are hooking into the gravity and importance of what that means. Speaking of relationships, and one of the ways you and I connected, you have a mastermind, right? And at the time when we first met, I had a mastermind that I was running around with and I’d created. You had a mastermind. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what you do? Because I mean, that’s a large relationship pool that you’ve created as well, right?

Justin Donald: Yeah. It’s interesting because for a long time, I did coaching, and we didn’t get into that at all, but coaching’s a very linear relationship. And so, you look at a mastermind, well, now, you got all this web of different interconnection with people and it can be exponential. So, to me, like masterminds and communities are the way where you can really level up. And so, I have been in a bunch over the years. I mean, I’m still part of probably 14 different masterminds and I have three of my own, right? I don’t go to everything. My wife would kill me. But I pick and choose wisely. And my whole thing is like, I don’t have to go to everything to get the value. I need to get something great for the one or two things that I go to, right?

So, the way I look at ROI is probably different than most people. Like, I don’t have to have a 100% attendance to ROI. I could go to one event, meet one person, have one conversation, have one mindset shift, find one strategy, one thing could make a $30,000 or $50,000 or $100,000 group worth it, right? And so, I’m very open to that and I’m very intentional when I go places that I will get that ROI. And so, I wanted to build a community that to me, served in what I was looking for. I went to all these groups and I couldn’t find exactly what it was. There were things I liked, things I didn’t like. I was like, well, what if I just build my own group? And I didn’t know it would get as big as it got. I didn’t know it’d become one of the top-rated masterminds out there, but it’s an incredible place for me to have community.

What we try to do is democratize what billionaires do, what a single-family office does on behalf of a billionaire client. So, what does their asset allocation look like? How do they invest? What are the tax strategies they use? What type of– and so, we do cool events and travel and networking and that sort of thing. And I do think like the connection, the relationships, we always talk about the four ROIs. How do you ROI a mastermind? And for us, specifically, number one is relationships and connections. Number two, tax strategy, you can ROI a tax strategy like that. I mean, one tax strategy for anyone that, I mean, the cost of membership, I don’t know anyone in our mastermind that doesn’t ROI just on one tax strategy. We have 70-plus different tax strategies from some of the world’s most renowned tax strategists. Not CPAs, actual tax strategists, meaning most CPAs have never heard of the majority of the things we do and that ROIs them.

Preston Brown: So, I like this and I need to frame this as importance, but I also want to make sure it’s categorized to the people that need it. The right tax strategy makes the mastermind free, I mean, well, or very profitable. Like, you can go pay 50, 100 grand to be in a mastermind and if they show you something that’s going to save you half a million dollars a year, you better rejoin next year. Like, you need to come back, right? And that’s probably the hardest thing for masterminds, either growing or keeping retention, is expressing the value. So, the finance piece is huge. All the other pieces are also huge, but they’re a bonus after the finance piece, because that’s the first thing people think about when they’re upfront in cash.

Justin Donald: That’s right.

Preston Brown: What size of net worth portfolio business do you need to be at to start looking at a mastermind? Because we talked mentoring, we talked coaching, I’m kind of with you. I’ve guru’d people and I’ve had mentors that took me wrong. I love the mastermind space. I’m in a few right now, and it’s beautiful because like, how we met, you get around people that are playing at the same level you are. And you don’t have to guru anyone. You’re just peers, but you’re still getting gold. What size of an entrepreneur, investor, employee, where does somebody need to be to start looking at a mastermind?

Justin Donald: I think you could be at any size and you start looking at a mastermind and you find the right fit for you. Now, that doesn’t mean they’d be right for Lifestyle Investor, but you don’t need to be in Lifestyle Investor. There are tons of masterminds out there, right? So, it’s like, if I’m going to spend my money, I want to spend it on, first and foremost, let’s say family and experiences, health and wellness, peer group and mentors. So, that to me is where I pour my dollars, and maybe we can just say peer group mentorship. We could have four categories.

And so, I actually give myself a budget every year. This is how much I will spend on my health. This is how much I will spend on masterminds. Like, I need to actually get to this number because I want to return on this. So, I think at whatever level someone’s at, your goal should be to be around people that play the game at a higher level, the game of business, life, wealth, creation, whatever it is, health, you name it. And so, any level, find a peer group. Any level, find mentors.

Now, for us, specifically, we deal a lot with entrepreneurs and very high income earning business professionals, probably 20% high income earning professionals that work on behalf of someone else, C-suites, attorneys, doctors, right, 80% entrepreneurs. And net worth really ranges from probably, I don’t know, $5, $10, $15 million to $500 million plus. So, it is a wide range. We’ve got a smaller group for those that are probably more in that $1 to $10 million range. And then we’ve got our young adults’ program for 18 to 35-year-olds that is kind of like an entry level point. But to me, find one. It doesn’t have to be Lifestyle Investor branded, just find a mastermind. because the peer groups, that’s where you can take things to the next level.

Preston Brown: Your reach in life is going to be directly correlated with your relationships.

Justin Donald: That’s right.

Preston Brown: And I’m going to put your website in the show notes so that people, because, and I love what you’re saying, go find one, and that’s beautiful. Yes, you should. But also, if you’re listening to this episode, go check out his, go make comparisons, go look around, because when you can hear somebody that has the results, maybe who you should be following.

Justin Donald: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.

Preston Brown: Absolutely. Justin, this is gold. I could pick your brain for hours or days, brother. But I also want to honor your time. Is there anything else you want to just put into the hearts, minds, spirits, and thoughts?

Justin Donald: Yeah. The thing I say at the end of my podcast every week is take some sort of action. Like, what’s one step you can take today to move towards passive income, to move towards financial freedom, and to do it on your terms? So, most people live life by default. How do we get out of default mode and move into intentionality, move into design, right, being proactive, not reactive? And so, that would be my challenge. It’s like you can’t do all this overnight, but if you do take a step each day, you’re going to be really far next year.

Preston Brown: I love that. Take one form of action today. Take one form of action every day. So, today, what I’d love for everyone on the show to do, go into the comment section and comment the action you’re going to take. Are you going to be downloading the Lifestyle Investor and starting a good book today? Are you going to be researching Justin’s podcast? Are you going to be going to my website posted in the show notes and getting all of your formulas for your business? What’s your action? Post your comment in the comment section. And guys, thank you for tuning in. This has been gold. Please share a little love in the comments for Justin as well and have an amazing day on purpose.

Justin Donald: Can I give them something for free?

Preston Brown: Absolutely.

Justin Donald: What I’d love to do, we have these strategy sessions for people that are trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B or point B to point C and we generally charge 500 bucks for these. What I’d love to do for your audience is give a free consultation for anyone that goes to LifestyleInvestor.com/consultation.

Preston Brown: LifestyleInvestor.com/consultation, and you’re giving $500 worth of free consultation.

Justin Donald: Yeah. Someone on our team will spend some time with you. We’ll actually do a strategy session with you and we’ve got a ton of things. I mean, you could go to the website and find courses and master classes and our blog and our passive income road map. We’ve got all kinds of free stuff and things at different prices. But this would be a great value to your community because these are all highly paid professionals that know their stuff, they know our world inside and out, and it won’t cost you anything, except some time.

Preston Brown: Oh, my gosh, I absolutely love that, bro. Thank you. You are way too generous. I would never even ask for that, but guys, this is absolute gold and more gifts to come. Take some action today. Have an amazing day on purpose.