0 (2s):
Light that spark, Fire Nation. JLD here with an audio master class on becoming a lifestyle investor to drop these value bombs. We are brought to Justin Donald on the mic. Entrepreneur Magazine calls Justin Donald the Warren Buffets of Lifestyle Investing. He's a master of low risk cashflow investing specializing in simplifying complex financial strategies, structuring deals and disciplined investment systems that consistently produce profitable results. His ethos is to create wealth without creating a job today. Fire Nation, we talking about what a lifestyle investor is, who can become one Justin's 10 commandments of lifestyle investing and so much more.

0 (45s):
When we get back from thinking our sponsors online training is skyrocketing across every industry and thousands of entrepreneurs just like us are using Thinkific to create market and sell online courses, launch your own online course and share your knowledge with the world today. Get started at Thinkific.com/EOF that's THINKIFIC.com/EOF Fire Nation. Since 2012, I've interviewed over 3000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs. I identified the 17 core foundational principles. They all share in created a revolutionary 17 step roadmap. I then spent 480 hours turning this roadmap into a book, the common path to uncommon success, visit Uncommonsuccessbook.com to learn more about this book and start your journey to financial freedom and fulfillment today.

0 (1m 40s):
Justin say what's up to Fire Nation and what's something you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 49s):
What's up Fire Nation. It's great to be here and JLD thanks for having me. You know, here's the thing. I think people think when you have success, fame money that you end up being this greedy mean horrible pretentious person. And I just think that that's not accurate. I think that money and success are a magnifier of who you really are deep down. And so to me, sometimes I feel like that the default is, Hey, you know, they must have done some bad things or dirty things to get to where they are to have the success they have. But I think the reality is most people just find a way to add more value to the world that propels them and their success.

1 (2m 32s):
It propels the income that they make and then that income and that success really just magnifies who they are deep down at their core. And I like to default and think that most people want to do really good things with their success.

0 (2m 46s):
I love that message. And I'm a big believer in the people that say that money can't buy you happiness. My response is always, have you ever been able to hand a blank check to a charity or a cause that you truly believe in love? Because if that doesn't really make you happy, I don't know what will, and that can happen when you have the ability to do something like that in Fire Nation today, we're talking about becoming a lifestyle investor. So let's just get right to the meat and potato. Justin, what the heck is a lifestyle investor?

1 (3m 18s):
That's a great question. In fact, it's a very common question cause I coined the term and a lot of people don't know what it means. So I think if you really think about it, you probably have, you know, the gist of what it is. But to me, it's living a lifestyle that is where you buy your time back. You basically have freedom of time to do what you want instead of making money by spending your time. You make money by your assets and by your capital. And so you have cashflow that comes in a day in day out, week in, week out. And it happens whether you're actively working or not, whether you're sleeping or not, whether you're vacationing or, or not. And so to me, it's the true liberation of your time in exchange for money.

1 (4m 0s):
And it's letting go of the handcuffs that most entrepreneurs find themselves being shackled to their business. It, it started innocently, right? So you, you leave a job and you're like, I'm going to start a business. And you know, most of the cases people want freedom and they want autonomy and they want to be able to, you know, just gain more agency in their life. And so it starts with a business, but that business they're, they're a slave to it. And this happens nine times out of 10 because they don't know how to scale. And as they scale, they're the bottleneck. But as they work harder, they're making more so they can justify that exchange of time for money. But at a certain point in time, most entrepreneurs find themselves really tied to their business in a way where they can't remove themselves.

1 (4m 43s):
And so, you know, to me, it's really about buying that freedom back and working. When you want to work, it's not about not working. It's about having the privilege and the opportunity to work on your terms wherever you want. As long as you want, take off as much time as you want work. Only with people that inspire you work only on projects, that interest you work on, things that are using your true gifts and are in alignment with your purpose and your passion in life. To me, that's what being a lifestyle investor about is about, is it's getting clear on what you want and living a life by design and really planning it versus a life by default and going on auto.

0 (5m 23s):
There's a lot that I love about what you just shared. One thing I want to pull up for you, Fire Nation. I want to repeat this because Matt, I was just like, yes. When you said it was true liberation from living a life of trading time for money. I mean, who doesn't want that type of liberation? I mean, Fire Nation, you're listening to the wrong podcast. If that's not you, let me tell you, so let's talk about the who. Who JD can become a lifestyle investor?

1 (5m 51s):
Is anyone that can, it really is going to come down to who is going to take action. So lot of people read things, they learn things, they hear things, and there are people that take action and they make big things happen. So in my world, you know, I see entrepreneurs as being a great market because entrepreneurs have already taken action. They've already made the move to start something and gotten out of their comfort zone and have gotten comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown to the point that they've been able to do things that most of the world has not been able to do. So do I think anyone can be a lifestyle investor? Sure. Do I think entrepreneurs though, have the general framework in the makeup, just out of the Gates that give them a little more of an advantage?

1 (6m 37s):
Yes. And not to mention entrepreneurs likely have some sort of cashflow coming in from their business that is going to help create and supplement the investing that they want to be able to live on that cashflow.

0 (6m 51s):
Now you have 10 commandments of lifestyle investing, and I want to go through each one. I want to go through each one very quickly and efficiently because again, Fire Nation, if you want to get these 10 commandments in full, you have the opportunity to pick up Justin's book, the lifestyle investor, which by the way, I am a little over halfway through and it's getting some really good parts right now. So I'm excited to chat with Justin actually after I finished the book, but let's go through these 10 commandments JD one by one go.

1 (7m 20s):
Sure. Well, the first one is lifestyle first. And to me, it's really important to invest in a way that supports the lifestyle you want. And so, you know, in this commandment, one of the things I do is I, I really try to encourage the reader to dream and vision and then capture in writing what the ideal life would look like. You know, what are all the details? I even have a checklist in four different categories of, you know, freedom of time, freedom of relationship, freedom of purpose and impact, and, and really just helping people instead of just living life, going on autopilot, but actually planning and designing and creating space to create what it is that they want. A lot of people spend their time to create income.

1 (8m 1s):
That's the majority of the world. And I just believe that when you can do it in a different way, where you're not sacrificing time for money, then you can invest it with the people who matter most, you can have Epic experiences, you can live life to the fullest and you're just full of passion. So lifestyle first means not compromising the lifestyle that you have for the investments that you're going to have, right? So there is a trade off of time and money here. There's a trade off of, Hey, do you want the best return? And you're willing to put a little time into it, or do you want to put no time into it and get the best return you can get for that a little time, right? That to me is what lifestyle about.

1 (8m 42s):
So it's getting clear on what it is that you want and then figure out a path that supports it. But just knowing that you can buy assets that produce cashflow that supports your expenses and your number two, reduce risk. Warren buffet famously said, don't lose money. It's the number one rule of investing. And so I take this very seriously that I need to reduce the risk and find ways to make whatever investments I do. Less likely that I lose money. So either I'm making it so that I can't lose money or I'm making it so that if I do lose money, I can only lose a little bit of money. I'm not going to lose my whole investment, but at the same time, I can still structure the deal to get a good return, the risk and the reward don't have to be linked.

1 (9m 32s):
Like many people have heard in the past. So, you know, a few fun strategies that I like to do. There's something that I put in a lot of my contracts, that's called a put option. And maybe you're familiar with this in, in stock market terms or in trading. But one of the things you can do in an actual contract is you can have, you know, a mechanism that basically says you can get your money back at any time, for any reason at all, with a return, with interest tied to it, because you're just feeling uncertain about the investment. And I have lots of people that agree to these terms. And so they can, they can take that investment. And if at anytime I want to get it back, I can get it back and I can have them personally guarantee it.

1 (10m 12s):
So that would be one strategy. There are many strategies, you know, in the book I go through, countless of them, number three is find invisible deals. So this one is really fun because these are the deals that are off the beaten path. These are deals that the general public is never going to find out about. These are off-market deals, or maybe it's a new trend. Maybe it's an emerging market. Maybe it's in a network that has deal flow and you can only get access if you're part of that network, or if you know, certain people, or maybe it's having access to institutional deals where they vetted it to a degree that you never could as an investor.

1 (10m 52s):
And so you can piggyback off of what they've already done for research where most of the time they don't let small dollars in, you know, institutional money. This is some of these institutions that I invest with their, their minimum investment is a 50 or a hundred or $500 million investment. So to have access to these deals, it's all about knowing the right people and invisible deals are where a lot of the fun in investing actually is. Let's move on to another one of my favorites, which is commandment four, and that's getting your principal back quickly. So in this one, most people don't even think about this as a possibility.

1 (11m 32s):
Most people don't even think, well, I could actually get the initial principal or the initial capital that I put into a deal out quickly, because most people are conditioned to invest for the long haul. I put money in the stock market. I don't touch it. I put it in a qualified plan. I can't have access to it until I'm at retirement age. I put money into a real estate deal. Nothing's to happen for 10 years, I put money in a venture capital fund. I'm not going to find out for 10 years what the return is, where as for me, I actually like to structure deals that are on a one or two year term or that I can somehow like in the real estate world, get a refi in one to two years. And so I have my money in a deal. I get my equity, I get my money back within one to two years, I can reinvest that money again into another deal, get more equity, so on and so forth.

1 (12m 22s):
So in, in my book, I talk about the velocity of money. And one of the examples I give is instead of putting one investment in one deal, that is a 10 year term where all my eggs are in one basket and I hope it works. I could instead do what I do, which is fine. Two year terms have five different investments with the same amount of money, but equity and all. So it diversifies my portfolio. It increases my likelihood of good returns, but it exponentially does it because I'm in five different deals. And if one goes bad, I've got others to balance it out. Commandment number five is to create cashflow immediately.

1 (13m 3s):
And this one is important to me. I'm a cashflow investor. So I want to know on day one that this thing cashflow. So I don't buy businesses. I don't invest in opportunities unless I know that there's cashflow or as long as I have the cashflow that I need for my lifestyle and for all the things that I want to do, then I could take some of my surplus cashflow and maybe invest in something that isn't cashflow producing. But to me that's foundational. That's number one. I don't want to subject my money to equity deals or to the stock market or to anything that fluctuates a ton or there's a long-term payout, or that there's not a lot of control until I have all my expenses covered, which I do through cashflow.

1 (13m 46s):
And I've done this in a lot of different ways. It can be structured through debt. It can be structured through real estate. It can be structured through operating companies and, and private equity. There's a lot of different ways to do it.

0 (13m 57s):
Fire Nation, these 10 commandments are all in the lifestyle investor. And by the way, you're gonna be able to go into much more in-depth when you get into the book, obviously, as I'm in the process of right now, we're going to be talking about maybe a couple more of these. We'll see when we get into the next level, but I actually am gonna move into something that I think is very fascinating about how Justin broke seven figures for the first time and then eight figures in his net worth. Cause you know, I'm obsessed with transparency, Fire Nation. As soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors with the COVID 19 pandemic, still ongoing and with businesses needing to adapt, entrepreneurs are moving to online courses more than ever with Thinkific, the best platform to create market and sell an online course.

0 (14m 39s):
It's easy to pivot and create an impactful course for your business. With Thinkific, you get total control over the structure, price, and content of your online courses, and you don't have to be tech savvy to get started. And we speak from personal experience. We've been our courses on Thinkific since 2017, our students rave about how easy it is to follow our content, thanks to Thinkific readily available themes and templates, and then a world where spending hours online can get exhausting. We know that we are delivering an experience for our students that is both user-friendly and engaging, allowing them to succeed and reach their goals. Whether you're a guitar teacher or an executive business coach, Thinkific can help you expose your business to millions of people worldwide. Join the thousands of entrepreneurs, creating, selling their own online courses and start monetizing your skills today at Thinkific.com/EOF that's THINKIFIC.com/EOF, Fire Nation.

0 (15m 30s):
In 2012, I knew I needed to surround myself with more inspiring and successful entrepreneurs. This realization led me to launch entrepreneurs on fire. The first daily podcast interviewing the best entrepreneurs in the world today. Entrepreneurs on fire has over 3000 episodes published over 100 million. Total listens. Average is 1.4 million monthly listens and has generated over a hundred thousand dollars a month in net profit, 91 months in a row for what it's worth the strategy of surrounding yourself with the right people works. During the thousands of hours, I spent interviewing these amazing entrepreneurs. I identified the 17 core foundational principles. They all share, and I put them in chronological order and created a revolutionary 17 step roadmap.

0 (16m 12s):
I then sat down and spent 480 hours turning this roadmap. And two 71,000 words, which is a 273 page book called The Common Path to Uncommon Success. I also brought in 17 amazing entrepreneurs to share their genius at every step in the roadmap from Amy Porterfield to Pat Flynn, Jeff Walker, Russell Brunson, Billy Jean, Stu McLaren, Selena Soo, Hal Elrod, Ramit Sathie, Jill Stanton. I mean the list goes on The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the combination of the 3000 interviews I've done over the past decade. And this 17 step roadmap will deliver financial freedom and fulfillment to your life. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com to learn more about this book and start your journey to uncommon success today, Justin we're back in something that's, I've kind of become known for in the industry above and beyond a daily podcast is income reports.

0 (17m 2s):
I have published now 89 monthly income reports in a row show. All's our revenue, all of our expenses, the actual net worth, sorry, the actual net income that we make. And I even have a percentage of gross revenue to net revenue every single month. And I'm always looking to be above 70 and hopefully above 80 twice, I've been above 90%, which is obviously awesome. But I want to talk about your transparency. Talk to us about how long it took for you to break seven figures in your life. And then that seven to eight figures and actual network. Talk to us about that.

1 (17m 37s):
It's an interesting transition because every time you hit a milestone, I think it's really important that you celebrate it. I love that you publish your financials. I think that's really cool. I've dug into your numbers as well. And that's awesome. So, you know, for me, I was able to hit seven figures as, you know, as I guess a business owner and entrepreneur. And so I had confidence that I could do it. It wasn't a matter of can I do it? It was what was the strategy to do it. And I did my first investment deal in real estate. I actually invested in a mobile home park, which replaced my wife's income. And then the second mobile home park that I bought really covered our total expenses, like at a minimum, so not lifestyle, but like survival expenses.

1 (18m 24s):
And then the third one that I bought covered all of our income at that time. And so, you know, our cost to live and survive was $120,000, but we had the luxury of having cashflow that exceeded that $120,000 per year. So that really was kind of the first Mark was with these cashflowing investments. And that happened around the age of 34 35. And then we were able to then kind of double up through other passive investments. And some of them happened to be in the real estate space.

1 (19m 5s):
I did end up buying more a rental property because that's, that's really a space. I know. Well, so I bought more mobile home parks, but I got into other things I got into multifamily. I got into storage units, I got into a number of different cashflowing investments. And so the accumulation of these assets is what really put us into the eight figures for the first time. And so it took a little bit of time to do that. You know, it took, you know, for my wife to be able to replace her income. That was instantaneous. You know, the moment that we signed it, she was only making $36,000 a year as a teacher. And once we sign that, that was done, that happened, you know, kind of month one, her, her income was replaced. And then it took, you know, a couple years for me to replace my income.

1 (19m 48s):
And then it took a couple more years to really get into that eight figure.

0 (19m 52s):
Let's talk about specific advice, Justin, that you have for somebody who is dreaming right now, they're listening to these words, we're talking about, they're going back over those five commandments we've talked about and they know they're still five more commandments. They need to implement in their lives as well. And they're dreaming about living on passive cash flow. What's your advice for them or

1 (20m 14s):
Vices to take action immediately? One of the things I say in my podcast at the end, every episode is take some form of action. Take one step towards financial freedom in whatever manner that is. If it's reading a book, if it's meeting someone for coffee, if it's just getting into a circle of people that you want to be in, I mean your peer group is so important because peer group is, is really like, that's the influence, right? That's where you change your thinking. And, and once your chink, your once your thinking changes, your habits change and your behaviors change. So to me, it's who are you hanging out with? Are you hanging out with people that play the game of life at a higher level, with bigger stakes in a way that you want to emulate?

1 (20m 57s):
And then I also think coaches and mentors, do you have someone in your life that's pouring into you in an area and they're going to give you the real deal. They're not just going to tell you what you want to hear. That makes you feel good. You, you probably want someone that can do that as well, but I think you want someone that is going to have the tough conversations and it's going to help you think in a different way than what you're probably accustomed to. Most of us adopt a mindset in beliefs from those that were most influential, usually our parents, right, or, or other family members or people that we spend a lot of time with. And so it's, it's important to recognize how much influence others around us have on us and what their mindset means to our mindset.

1 (21m 39s):
And so for me, I just didn't have a whole lot of people in my network that I wanted to emulate. So I took to reading, I just found authors that were doing it and I devoured their books and I would go to courses and seminars and I would meet people and I would go to business networking events. And I just wanted to play the game of life at a, at a higher level. And so I was really intentional about meeting new people and for a long stretch of my career. And I still do this today is I take someone out for coffee or lunch, at least one new person a week. And this is a tremendous habit that has been one of the most beneficial and successful keys to my success is that I have gleaned a lot of wisdom from a lot of people, much smarter than I am, because I was intentional about setting up time to get outside of what the day-to-day was for me and really kind of get top level on what is it that I want in life.

0 (22m 39s):
First five commandments. My personal favorite is finding invisible deals. In one thing that I've recognized over the years is that it takes money to make money Fire Nation. Like it was really hard for me to go from zero to $100,000 because I had to earn every one of those dollars to go from a hundred to a million was not easy, but it was easier because I had some money. Now I could do some things, invest in myself to go from a million to five. That was quite a bit easier. And then go from five to 10, like I'm not going to lie. Like it wasn't overnight, but it kind of felt that way. I was like all of a sudden, I'm like, Whoa, I'm already at eight figures right now. Like, because it takes money to make money. Now I have these investments in different areas.

0 (23m 21s):
You know, I was able to invest in a company called Gimlet media that was then bought by Spotify for $233 million. Huge payday. I was able to invest in the stock market has had a huge bull market all these years. And so I'm making more money. And a lot of times in these investments that I'm making actually into my business, and I'm just seeing this exponential compounding growth in listen, these invisible deals are available when you have the money to jump on them, to know the right people make them happen. So all five of those first five candidates are obviously awesome. But I want to just to share why I love number three specifically, and I'm recognizing that right now, in my situation in life. It's awesome to find, and to have the opportunity to do these invisible deals, let's end with a bang Justin of the final five commandments.

0 (24m 6s):
Just pick out one, maybe your favorite of the last five. It doesn't have to be though. Just one you think would be a good one to end on. And then we'll say goodbye.

1 (24m 16s):
I really enjoy commandment six for a lot of reasons, it's called find an income amplifier, but this is where you can really kind of make the deal exciting. This is where you can find something that makes the return better or enhances the terms in some way, shape or form. So I go into a lot of details here, but this could be something as simple as an equity kicker, where you're in a debt deal, but you're able to negotiate a piece of equity for free. It doesn't cost you anything. You still get a balloon of your investment back at the end of the term, but you now have equity upside, or it could be accelerated distribution schedule. So a lot of the time I'll invest in operating companies and I'll say, Hey, I am happy to make this investment.

1 (24m 60s):
I want you to be able to use it to scale, but I also want to be paid back quickly so that I can get that capital out of the deal. So I'm going in and an equity position, but the return is more similar to a debt position and I can have enhanced payback. So in some of my deals, I get paid back 80% of, you know, the, the profit or the distribution or 67%, even though maybe I'm only a one-third partner, I'm a 20% partner. So, you know, those are a couple of cool ones. And then for anyone in my, you know, mastermind my investors club, my private clients, one of the things that I do for them as I negotiate these sidecar agreements, where I get special and preferred terms, I get a reduction in fees.

1 (25m 41s):
I get a reduction in the minimum investment to make it more palatable for, you know, people that maybe don't want to put as much into a single investment. And we might even get an enhanced kicker on the returns and maybe we get some extra equity or warrants in a company. There's a number of different things I've been able to negotiate, but I love being able to set this up ahead of time and then take care of everyone in my network because I just let them kind of carry on and, and, and piggyback off of my terms. I don't have a separate set of terms. So whatever I go in at, I just offer those same terms to the rest of my group and anyone who wants to go in can, but no one has to, it's a, it's a very laid back approach, but there are a lot of different ones that, I mean, one of my favorite deals is a revenue share.

1 (26m 25s):
It's a top line revenue share where I have a percentage of revenue and I've done this in many deals, but one of my all-time favorite deals that was the lowest cost, the least amount of exposure. And when I say the least amount, we're talking like less than $10,000 of an investment, got me a percentage of top line revenue from this company that has been, you know, over, over a 10000% return,

0 (26m 51s):
10000% return. I mean, Fire Nation. These are the kinds of opportunities that come along when you are a lifestyle investor and you keep your eyes open, you're trying to sell with the right people and you do the right things. Now, is that going to be the norm? No, but every now and then these opportunities are going to come and you can pounce jump on these things. So JD, we're taken off. Brother, give us the best way to connect with you. Any call to action you have for Fire Nation, then we'll say goodbye.

1 (27m 19s):
Sure. Yeah. I mean, I would love to connect with anyone that wants to learn more. You can find me at Lifestyleinvestor.com and for anyone that would like to get a book that is free plus shipping, you can go to LifestyleInvestor.com/book. And I got a bunch of free bonuses, bunch of cool offers for that. And all the proceeds of the lifestyle investor, all go to charity. They're supporting a charity called that. I'm just a huge fan of it's called love justice international. And they really are a group that they're in 17 different countries in the world and they stop human trafficking and this is predominantly kids. And so, you know, it's just a great organization.

1 (28m 2s):
So again, anything that you do, the proceeds are going to go there, but I've got a bunch of free stuff on, on my website. And then I've got a bunch of other cool offers, like an online course and you know, different masterminds and investor clubs. So feel free to peruse and see what works best, but I can guarantee the book can be a one-stop shop for making some serious game changing moves in your life.

0 (4s):
Fire Nation, invest in yourself, invest in your future, become a lifestyle investor.

0 (28m 28s):
And you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And hello, you've been hanging out with JD and JLD today. So keep up that heat and head over to EOFire.com type Justin in the search bar of the show notes page will pop up with everything we talked about today. Best show notes in the biz. Justin, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge value with Fire Nation today. For that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks for having me. This was amazing Fire Nation today's value bomb content was brought to you by Justin and one thing I've identified over the year, successful entrepreneurs are productive. They're disciplined. They are focused. That's why I created the mastery journal.

0 (29m 9s):
It is a gorgeous, full other journal that will ensure that you master a productivity, discipline and focus in 100 days, Fire Nation Up until my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success. It is my best work ever visit the MasteryJournal.com use promo code podcast for a $15 discount. And thank you for listening to my podcast and I'll catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side. Online training is skyrocketing across every industry in thousands of entrepreneurs, just like us are using Thinkific to create market and sell online courses, launch your own online course and share your knowledge with the world today.

0 (29m 49s):
Get started at Thinkific.com/EOF that's THINKIFIC.com/EOF Fire Nation. Since 2012, I've interviewed over 3000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs. I identified the 17 core foundational principles. They all share and created a revolutionary 17 step roadmap. I then spent 480 hours turning this roadmap into a book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, visit UncommonSuccessBook.com to learn more about this book and start your journey to financial freedom and fulfillment today.