Transcription
People are too soft these days. Too yeah, they have too many feelings. They take things way too personally. People have forgotten that just 15, 20 years ago, that’s how men bonded; it’s calling each other names, oftentimes even racial names.
I mean, health is going down the drain. Obesity rates are at an all-time high. I saw you talk about kids being obese; that’s child abuse, bro. Right? If you have an obese child, it’s child abuse. You’re feeding him horrible food, yeah, and you’re allowing it.
[Music]
Welcome back to the show, guys. I’m your host, as always, Sean Kelly. We’re here on the Digital Social Style. I got a very special guest for you guys today, Justin Waller. How’s it going, man?
Going well, man. Glad to be here.
Absolutely. I know you’re sick.
So am I, but let’s power through this.
Yeah, I got it four times.
Did you?
Yeah, bro. I have no idea. I don’t even get tested for it unless… the only time I’ve ever been tested for Covid was in Dubai.
Yeah, they made you?
Did you test so you get on the plane? It’s the only time I’ve ever tested.
Yeah, I usually just avoid it if possible. Yeah, but anyways, what you’ve been working on, man? So you’re traveling all over?
Yeah, man. So we’ve been doing a lot of podcasts; we’ve been doing three a day while we’re here. I think we’re doing six in two days.
Nice.
And then I shoot back to Louisiana; we have a real estate closing. Okay, so doing that, and uh, we have the construction company and everything with the channel and everything we’re doing with the real world. Yeah, trying to help those young men make some money, make their lives better, get them off to a good start. And uh, but right now I’m here, dude.
Amazing. And I was researching the construction company; seems like it’s doing very well.
Very well. On pace for 30 million this year.
Right?
Yeah, yeah. And that’s incredible. I mean, how were you able to scale that, dude?
Ten years. The first, I would say the first eight to ten years where it was really figuring out how to get it all put together, get the systems, get the right people, get everything in place. And uh, we’ll be in year 14 in March. And so, um, man, I have a really good management staff in place that that thing runs like a top. I’m super proud of it. Uh, you know, we build buildings, but we also built a business, right? And uh, I couldn’t be more proud of it; proud of my people. You know, we worked really hard at it, and we work hard at it every day, man. Yeah, we’re always building on top of it, always adding to it, but um, it has really good systems; the cogs are running; it’s smooth; we have the right people in the right seats on the bus, man.
Yeah. So it’s been really good to me; it’s my baby.
That’s incredible, man. So how do you balance all these businesses? Like, what percent do you give to each one, or do you go all in on one at a time?
Yeah, so I’m a big believer in, you know, water, water plant until it bears fruit. And so one thing that I think I really did right in my career early is put a large amount—I’m talking 95-plus effort—into that construction business. And um, once we got it to where it was really, really running, I was buying real estate, but I wasn’t buying it like I am now. Now I’m buying it in big chunks, you know, it’s big acquisitions now. Um, so I really focused on that thing until it was spitting off the money I needed to go buy that real estate, you know, and scale. And now the online thing. So for me, I believe that you can’t really manage more than like five or six people at a time, not directly. And so I have somebody that runs each of those businesses that I trust that are very competent, right? And I spend my time talking to them and maybe a layer under them. And then, of course, I love to spend time with my guys when they’re around, but you know, we work all over the country, so even like when it’s a Christmas party, it’s hard to get everybody in the same place because people live in different parts of the country. There’s guys in Texas, there’s guys from California that work for us; it’s not all Louisiana-based. So, you know, do my best to touch as many people as I can or providing a scenario where they’re direct manager, like our general superintendent, right, can spend quality time with them and make sure that, you know, he’s taking them to dinner, you know, being around them. We try to keep up with their birthdays, things like that. Uh, we definitely keep up with all of the superintendents, our foreman’s wives; nice birthdays and try to get their… impressive.
Yeah, man. Well, so the thing about that is, man, it’s like when you hire a man, you’re hire—you’re hiring his wife also, in a way. You know, if you don’t have her on your side, and you need him to go out of town for six months, all right, you could have a hard time, right? So acknowledging her, telling her, you know, just how important she is and how much you value and appreciate the fact that she lets her husband go on the road, you know, and and work for the company, I think is something that um is really important and critical for us.
Absolutely. No, just acknowledging that way because the truth of the matter is everybody thinks that like there’s a split between work and personal life, and I just don’t think that’s true, man. I’ve seen it way too much. God gets in a fight with his wife; he sleeps on the couch, or he goes and gets drunk over it, and he takes that to work the next day. Yeah, you know, if he’s got—if he’s upset about something, or he thinks he’s going to go through a divorce or something of that nature, or he’s having trouble at home, you know, he’s not the same man on the job, right? And this, regardless of the job that you have; it could be any job; you could be hanging metal buildings, or you could be selling insurance; doesn’t matter, man. If that woman has a piece of that man’s heart, then um, the best thing that could happen for us is that we have a good relationship, you know, collectively with her, and um, and that we support anything weekend for him to have a good relationship, right?
You know, I’ve said why I was on the road with guys before.
Yeah.
Oh, bro, yeah. God’s been on the road too long, man. We’ll fly his wife out there, you know what I mean? Yeah, it’s just—it just—it just makes sense, man. We’re just people. People, I really believe people make—make the mistake of separating the personal life in the business, and um, I believe that as long as you stay a certain size, it’s possible to, you know, beat that, right? I’m a big fan of that book *Small Giants*, actually, you know, where he talks—you know, he talks about keeping it small, keeping it in-house, you know, um, and and you can keep it kind of a family. You see the Amazons and things like that, which we don’t even compare to; it’s not even a comparison, right? But at the same time, we’re able to have that human factor, and I think for that reason we get people to get behind us in a different way. Yeah, so it’s been good for us.
A lot of people in their 20s and 30s see you as like a role model, right? And I see you give advice to them all the time about not getting—not having kids until 30, right? I think that’s probably a pretty solid, you know, idea; at least get to 30.
Well, because then you have to understand too, man, it’s like I’m not gonna tell a man that’s not fully set himself up to have kids and be able to step into that role properly, because I’m still learning myself at 30. At 37, I’m still learning myself now. There’s a point where if you can get yourself financially kind of set up, you’re stable; I think that’s the time to have children. And I think a lot of people don’t, and then that little bit of extra effort can kind of get in their way to becoming what they want to become. Now I will say I don’t think it’s acceptable to blame any lack of success on a child. Like I look at that as a cowardice thing to do, because if you look at the math of it, right, let’s say you have a kid at 24.
Yeah.
On accident. Okay, boo-hoo. Why? If you actually hit the goal that you’re setting out to hit, you could have had ten kids at 24 and it won’t matter. You’re saying—I’m saying like, so if you get yourself in a place where you’re actually financially successful, that child would just be a little bitty bleep in your budget, you know? So never—so for all the guys out there that have had kids at a young age, I would just tell you, man, it shouldn’t stop you; it shouldn’t stop you. If you actually get to where you want to go, that child won’t be a huge burden on you at all; in fact, it’ll add to your life, right? You know, and I’ve also seen you speak about putting children on medication, and you’re not a fan of it.
Bro, it’s child abuse, straight up.
Yeah, that happened to me. They tried to put me on ADD medication when I was 8, 10, I think.
Yeah, I got—I got put on it uh, in elementary school. I might have been like—I put on riddling at like eight or nine, yes, or ten, some early age like that.
Yeah. And um, you know, they—they have these curriculums in schools where little boys don’t want to sit still, and they want to tell them they have ADD, and then they want to pump drugs into them, and then they create this construct in their mind that there’s something wrong with them mentally. It’s just—right, you know? And um, it’s kind of like the whole transgender thing; it’s like why—why are you going to try to affect a child that’s still trying to figure out, you know, so many things about what’s even going on…
Yup.
…in life at such an early age? I watched a—a video this morning of a kid; his dad sat him down at a table, and he put ten thousand dollars cash on the table, and he put two Oreos on the table, and let the kid pick what he wants.
Kid picked the Oreos.
What? Yes, he did. And so to think that you’re gonna let that same kid, that same age, choose to cut their genitals off, if that’s—dude, if that’s not child abuse, I don’t know what it is.
Yeah, you know? And I also find it disgusting that parents build social media platforms over their child’s transition.
Really? I didn’t know.
Oh, man, I’ve seen it, man. I’ve seen it on TikTok, man. Like, wow. Oh, we’re going today, and you know, they’re smiling with their kid and all this nonsense; they want attention, you know? It’s just—it’s disgusting.
Yeah, it’s awful. Absolutely disgusting.
So are you worried about raising kids in America?
It crossed my mind. I’m more worried about public schools. Yeah, the way I look at it, man, I don’t think my kids are going to go to school, right? Uh, they’ll home school; they can learn how to read at home, and all the math they need to know they can learn from Daddy. You know, there’s a bunch of math I learned in school… You know, financial education is the math that they need to be learning, right? It’s just like we’re talking about, you know, taking out debt at zero percent for 18 months and the fact you could put it in a short-term T-bill; it’s like that’s real-world math. I couldn’t do an algebra problem right now to save my life. Go and read a P&L. Yeah, you know what I’m saying? And I understand a work in progress and building excessive cost—cost and assess a billing in my Construction Company; there’s cash flow; there’s things like Robert Kiyosaki talks about the balance sheet, you know, the P&L, you know, statement of cash flows, all these different things, man. So my goal is to give—give my children a real-world education in every avenue and set them up to be graceful and give them the tools they need to win, give them the competencies they need to win, right? And then from there they can do whatever they want; I just want them to have choice.
I love that. Absolutely. And I know you’re strict on not doing business with your family, right? But will that change with your kids?
Um, I don’t know if I said that or not, but I’m open to doing business… so much.
Oh, you are?
Yeah, yeah. I feel like if most people that aren’t willing to do business with their family, they just—they can’t get along with anybody enough to make any money, right? You know? So uh, I’m—I’m open to that. Now my—my family, maybe not, but that has nothing to do with the fact that they’re family; I just don’t think that we would be good partners in business, right? There’s—there’s not very many entrepreneurial people in my family.
Yeah, because you grew up, you know, in a trailer park setting, rough environment, and you kind of left that behind, right?
Yeah, man. Um, in fact, if you were to put me next to all my siblings, you wouldn’t think they’re my brothers and sisters. I stick out like a sore thumb.
Oh, man. How do you stick out? Uh…
Well, you know, I’m—they’re pretty overweight.
Oh, yeah. This is South… man, so morbid obesity at a minimum, right? You know? And uh, you know, I love them; nothing against them, but we live completely different lives; completely different lives. You know, a lot of times in life, I feel like people see what’s going on, and they either go one of two directions; they either become what their surroundings are, or they decide that’s what they don’t want to be. And in my situation, I decided that’s not what I wanted to be, and I—I’m not saying I’m better than them; I love them so much for that, you know? I have no beef between me and any of my siblings, but I will say that we are quite different in the path that we took, and I love them where they are. And if they ever call me, I’m there; I’m oftentimes a bank. Yeah, but um, you know, I chose that path; I chose to be the man. Yeah, and with that comes a great opportunity of loving people, sometimes maybe even when it doesn’t make sense, you know?
So when you were in that setting, what was that turning point for you mentally? Like, did you see a video or something that really inspired you to want to leave that environment?
Well, man, what you have to understand is, you know, I was—I was going through school, you know, in the early 2000s, so YouTube wasn’t really a thing, right, for us the way it is now. Um, but I used sports to get into the other kids’ house. So I would be really good at sports, particularly football, um, and baseball. You know, I did play basketball as well, but it was mostly football and baseball that would get me into the other houses, other neighborhoods, that gave me more consciousness. And so I say these people were probably middle-class people, but it was a substantially different setting than what my home life was, right? You know? So, um, you know, I don’t—I don’t look back at my childhood or my upbringing and think it’s anything special; I actually think it’s quite common. Most people, especially in 2023, are struggling, you know? Of course, there’s broken homes; there’s probably a bit more violence in my childhood than maybe a normal person, right? But it also gave me a really strong view of reality. And so everything that’s ever happened to me that the world might deem as negative, I feel like I’ve been blessed to be able to turn that into a superpower for me in my understanding or how I choose to frame it or the relationship I have with it. And I think that when people can change their mindset from, you know, “this happened to me” to “this happened for me,” and this is how it serves me now, is really how you can start to change that whole mental programming into what, you know, like a positive momentum, right? And I think if you can get there, man, there’s not a lot you can’t accomplish.
I agree. Mindset’s so powerful. Um, when did that sort of change for you? Because I assumed growing up you didn’t have that positive mentality, right?
Yeah, man. When I was a kid, I was just sad and upset and didn’t understand why things were happening the way they were, right? You’re a kid. Yeah, as a grown man, I can look back at it and say, you know, how people are always like, “Oh, well, this happened to you as a kid, so you must have these traumas.” Yeah, I don’t feel like I have traumas. I look back at it; I say, okay, that happened; what was going on in that scenario, you know, maybe between my mom and my dad? My dad didn’t understand female nature, you know, not his fault.
Yeah.
You know, he came up in a family where if you go to church and you marry a woman, you stay with her forever. There’s no social media; there’s no—there’s no permission… you know, promiscuity in his family, right? Between his mother and his father. And so we married a girl that was 19, in the wrong phase of her life, and that’s a little bit… you know? And uh, and he married her twice, bro.
And twice?
Yeah, man. He divorced her once and married her again, bro. That never works.
Yeah. She’s got skills, bro. She’s a master of what she does. But um, you know, every generation has a new set of problems and opportunities, right? You know? And most of the time the generation that came before the generation that’s like in their prime now will talk badly about it.
Yeah.
You know? And um, and the way I look at it is, you know, like maybe my generation looks at the generation right behind us—how old are you? 26, right? So I could look at you and be like, oh, you know, you didn’t come up like me, pulling trailers, running forklifts on jobs; you started off in this digital world; it—you know, you don’t understand hard work. That’s—that’s not true; you had an opportunity that is going to give you a new set of challenges and problems that you’re gonna face that I didn’t face, right? You know? And who am I to say that if I was 25, 26 years old when crypto came around, that if I could have caught a pomp at 25 that I wouldn’t have took… I’ll tell you right, I would have took it.
Yeah. You know what I’m saying? So every generation has new sets of problems and new sets of opportunities.
Yeah. You know, um, I have a little sister in high school, man. I couldn’t imagine having social media in high school.
Yeah, I couldn’t imagine. I caught the tail end of it.
Yeah.
Yeah. Instagram came out when I was in high school.
Yeah.
I look—it didn’t exist my freshman year of college. I was seeing this girl; I was in the girls’ soccer dorms. Yeah, I had like a little girlfriend that played soccer, and she made me a Facebook, and I was in college, man. And Facebook wasn’t—wasn’t even really like the thing yet.
MySpace. MySpace was…
Yeah. And so we were all making MySpace pages and all this other stuff, but you know, it was about who’s in your top eight, you know? And it seems like a hundred years ago, and it’ll change a hundred more times in the next ten years.
Yeah. TikTok’s blowing up now. TikTok’s crazy.
Yeah. TikTok’s crazy; like people coming to me all the time like, “I saw you on TikTok.” I’m like, “Cool. I don’t even have a TikTok.”
Exactly.
And people used to make fun of it when it came out.
Everyone.
Yeah. So do you think social media has been a net positive on humanity? I mean, we make a living off of it, but how do you see it overall from a consumer perspective?
I think—I think people made a lot of money off of it. Yeah, I think it’s been good for people to actually get real-life information on what’s going on. I think it’s horrible for marriage and relationships; I think it’s very bad for that. I think it’s good for uh, keeping up with people that you used to know, right? I don’t find that to be a very positive thing; like I don’t really go—I don’t—I don’t watch people’s stories, really. I don’t watch stories, and I don’t like scroll to see how the people that I went to high school with are doing. If I open my Facebook, I tell you…
What I just wrote a comment, and I try to do this just because I'm doing it for me. I'm doing it for my soul, but uh, one of my college teammates, Josh Boudreau, uh, he'll he probably won't see this, but he played tight end with me, and it's his birthday today, so I'm like, "HBD brother," you know, whatever. So I'll go in there and try to love people up a little bit, but I'm doing that for me, you know.
And then as far as like keeping up with people a whole lot, not really, man. I got to do—I don't watch stories; I don't scroll Facebook very much. It's hard enough to manage my inbox, yeah, you know, with opportunities just like you—you. I'm looking for guys like you that are gonna reach out to me and say, "Hey, let's do some work, let's collab, let's put some ideas in the air and see if we can help some people see things in a better lens, or, you know, promote what we're doing to help people, etc." You know, I'm not really going to go in there, you know, to see what my buddy from high school is right doing on vacation. Just don't.
Yeah, it sounds like like you have control over your social media, but for most people, it's the opposite, right?
Yeah, what do you think, the way they designed it? I think they hired the best people to make people addicted, you know what I mean? Like they do with anything they're good at, and you know what? I don't even get mad at businesses.
Yeah, bro, there are times where I'm out of business, and they will do something that locks me in to spend more money, and I'm like, "Touche."
Yeah, yeah. And I think people should think like that also. Yeah, so instead of getting mad at the business, pay attention to what they did. I'll give you a great example, like um, The Wall Street Journal went from however they—I think they probably paid somehow—but they went subscription-based.
Yeah, okay. So now you're locked in to pay a subscription that you'll likely forget about even if you don't use—am I gonna get mad at The Wall Street Journal for that, or I'm gonna be like, "Touche, that's a good move."
Yeah, you know, I'm not mad at them, and if they're valuable, you don't cancel it. So if there's an equal exchange of value, then I'm cool with it. And in fact, that's one thing that like, let's say I'm talking to a sales guy, and he's like, "What's your budget?" It's like, "Bro, I hate that question. I hate the question." I'll tell you why: is because I would rather spend 200% of what I was going to spend and get 100% of what I want than spend half and get 90% of what I want, because that 10% is going to get on my nerves, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah. And so asking me what my budget is—why don't you show me where the value is, right, and let me spend the money accordingly? I love that. You know, I hate that question, man. As soon as I get asked that, it's such a turn-off.
Yeah, like they're just trying to get every dollar out of you. "What's your budget?" You know, "What's your product, and how can it help me?" Yeah, you know, "What is it gonna do for me?" And I think that people forget that too, you know. I get all these all these messages, and this guy's talking about, you know, "Hey, I want to do, you know, a business, or I think that this will happen," but they don't ever tell you, you know, when when they want to partner with you, what's what's in it for you, right? What's your return gonna be?
Yeah, if I like—I have a call um Sunday with an investor from England. He's going to invest in one of my real estate deals. I'm not going to get on the phone with him and ask him what his budget is. I'm gonna get on the phone with him and tell him, "Hey, man, when you give me this million dollars, these are the projections of the returns you're going to get. This is the internal rate of return; here are your cash flows; you know, right? This is what you should expect in a seven-to-ten-year time frame, yeah, you know, over the course of that project. Here's the long-term whole play; this is what you should expect, not, you know, 'Man, you really should do this,' and like be vague about them. Be very intentional about what I'm telling him with real numbers and math," and I'm sure—and my goal is to show what's in it for him, you know. And um, people forget to really dig into that when they're either selling or trying to persuade someone to do something with them.
Yeah, and I think it's it's a mistake. I think it's an innocent mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.
Yeah, I mean, people probably love that you're so straight up with them, you know, because so many people beat around the bush.
Yeah, right, man. Look, in business, to me, being honest and just tell them exactly what you want is one of the best things you can do. Absolutely. And the same thing with women, and the same thing with friendships, and the same thing, you know, with your relationship with your family and people you care about is, look, you just tell them, you know, and and I find that oftentimes people find it refreshing, yeah, you know, and they're like, "Well, at least I know the truth," you know, because if not, your relationship is is oftentimes 80% because, you know, they're telling you 80% of the truth, but you can feel that 20% that's under a veil. Yeah, you can feel it from them. And people and people call it your gut. I think it's your subconscious picking up on micro-expressions, for sure, you know what I'm saying? And they know that there's something more there, and for that reason, they can't fully commit to you. For sure.
So you don't believe in lying, even if it's to kind of help someone? I think there's a level of Machiavellianism that it could sometimes make sense to have, right? But only if a person—only if you know the person can't handle the truth—powerful if they can't handle it, right? It would just destroy them, and if it destroys them, then what's a net positive? It's kind of like the "tree falls in the woods" thing.
Yeah, yeah. You know, but I can't think of a scenario where I'm gonna lie to somebody.
It's tough to think of one.
Yeah, I can't think of a lie that I have out with somebody right now, right? You know, where I'm like, "Well, they can't handle it." Maybe there's things about my life that I don't put on social media because I think that the people in the comments can't handle it, you know, because as you know, people can be ridiculous.
Right. You know, even saying that word triggers some people.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Grow up, right? You know, people are too soft these days, too. Yeah, they have too many feelings; they they take things way too personally. You know, I—in fact, if I can't call you and not have to worry about how you're going to respond to it or if you're going to get butt-hurt about it, yeah, then we're—I don't look at you as an actual friend of mine; I look at you as an acquaintance. You know, I can't tell you how many of my friends would call—not on camera—but would call me all kinds of names, you know. I've got friends that call me all kinds of names, you know, and and we're saying that to each other.
Yeah, but people have forgotten that just man, 15, 20 years ago, that's how men bonded—it's calling each other names. Yeah, oftentimes even racial names, you know.
Yeah, when I was a kid, I caught yeah, I caught the tail end of that, yeah, like back in the 80s and stuff, and and not even to be offensive, you know, they're slur names for all kinds of different—like there's not just the n-word; there's things for Spanish guys; there's things for white guys; there's things for um, you might call some like say a guy has a certain sexual preference that's not really true.
Yeah, we all know—like guys know.
Yeah, locker room talk, or even guys that are at war together, fighting and bleeding together for their country, they're calling each other names all day long, for sure. And nobody's hurt about that; nobody nobody has to write a hurt feelings report.
You know, we actually have a hurt feelings report—I think I'm a construction company—has anyone ever done it?
Yeah, we've done it.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Men can be chill. Like, adults are nothing but children with money. Yeah, you have to remember that sometimes people stop developing at an early age, and you know, they'll finish high school, and they don't—they decide to stop developing, and they work, and they don't work on themselves. And so you can have a grown-ass man, 45 years old, and a 15-year-old mind, you know, and he'll act that way. And part of being a leader is being able to have the patience and the grace to navigate them through that and, you know, set some of those guidelines and boundaries. But um, I think the generation are where we are in society right now is championing hurt feelings, you know, I think. And also think that children are finding themselves quite confused over the fact that we're making heroes out of people that either have a certain sexual preference or want to go a certain direction with their gender, yeah, instead of who's performing. And the best thing about America is that we used to—and in some way, in many ways, still do—pay the people and acknowledge the people that perform, and that's what makes a country great. Yeah, that's what would make a school great; that's what makes a classroom great; that's what makes a team great. When we start taking the performance and the accolades of people that are working hard and doing their best to achieve things and replace it with things like sexual orientation or gender or pronouns, we're teaching the kids that the way to get attention, the way to move up the ladder, is by is by something that has no basis of worth in the world, yeah, you know. I don't give a—if you're gay. I really do care if you're good at your job, though, you know what I'm saying?
That's true, man. Being a kid, there's so many harmful things you gotta dodge. I feel like between public education, between social media, just seems like it's easy to fall into that trap, you know what I mean?
Right. Without the right guidance.
All right, 1000%. Man, yeah, because even like movies these days, like Hollywood movies, that can kind of leave some impact on someone.
Yeah, man, that's all—I said this on a podcast recently. I was sitting in Romania with my friend Andrew, and uh, this kid sends me a poster—uh, it's a picture of two posters; it's in his room—one of me, one of him. And I show it to him. I said, "Bro, this used to be a Rambo." He goes, "Bro, seriously." And when I think about the things that we say online, I don't think it's—like for me, it's common sense, you know, like, "What do you mean? Of course you're supposed to work hard; of course you're supposed to be kind to people, but not care about things that don't matter," you know.
Yeah.
Um, so it's a different time we're in. I feel like we're working hard to do our best to shine a light on it, and um, I think that's why we get the following we get, but at the same time, if if nobody does these things, I just think society would be in a very rough place.
Yeah, man. I mean, health is going down the drain; obesity rates are at an all-time high. I saw you talk about kids being obese—that's child abuse, bro.
Right. If you have an obese child, it's child abuse.
Yeah, because that's your parents' fault, right? Yeah, he doesn't have a thyroid problem—like you're feeding him horrible food, yeah, and you're allowing it. "Oh, it's expensive to eat healthy." No, it's expensive to have an obese child that gets picked on and never has a chance at life. When a kid is obese before his life even starts, his whole headspace is going to be messed up, right? How he feels about himself, he or she—how they feel about themselves inside—just because you didn't achieve it doesn't mean your kid can't turn it around, and maybe you should turn around for your kid so it can be a good example. Yeah, so yeah, when I see an obese kid, you know, I I always say it's child abuse, and I think you should be punishable by court; I really do. Yeah, it's a reflection of the parenting. You could take that same kid and put him in a tribe somewhere, and I promise you he wouldn't be fat there; he won't—he won't have the Little Debbies to eat. You know, your kid doesn't—your kid doesn't have a metabolism problem; you're feeding them sugar.
Yeah, it's pretty bad, man. I mean, when I was growing up, there was a few, but I feel like now it's just what—like 30, 40—something crazy.
1000%, too. And you—it's really an American—a Western World thing, you know. All these guys, they talk about going to Eastern Europe—"Right, girls are so much prettier in Eastern Europe." No, they're not; they're just not fat. There are beautiful women all over America, and you'll never know it because they're under 40 to 60 pounds of extra fat, and you can't even see their jawline.
That's true. They're not prettier women over there; they're just not fat. Yeah, period.
I agree. You also talk about—speaking of travel—the importance of travel and how it shapes your mindset, your perspectives. Why do you advocate people to travel the world?
I think it's really important to get out of your hometown because you can break mental constructs, you know. When you grow up in one place, and all you—it's kind of like you're in the weeds, and you can't see the bigger picture of things. Yeah, so I didn't travel internationally a whole lot until, you know, a few years ago, but I was going to California, Miami, New York City—like I was definitely traveling America a lot within my 20s, and I'd leave a couple times the states. But what it allows you to do is see that the world is such a bigger place than what was presented to you, right? I think that getting out of your hometown can inspire you; it can show you other opportunities; it can show you that there's obviously people out there that might accept some of the things that you don't agree with in your hometown. So I think it's very important to get out and see those things so you can have that greater understanding of the world and how it's so much bigger than that little town you're from.
Absolutely.
So when you joined the War Room, was that the first time you left to go internationally?
No, I've done it a few times before.
Okay. But it really ramped up with the War Room because, you know, we're doing events and things like that. And yeah, and you know, getting out there, and of course, the podcast and everything that we do, it's nothing for us to, you know, go out 30 days and hit five or six countries and do a bunch of podcasts and things like that.
Nice. You know, as a part of work, but it's it's a—or car rallies, you know.
Yeah. I think last year, the year before, we did London, France, Spain, Portugal to Marbella. We went to the White House, Nikki Beach.
Yeah, beautiful.
Yeah, so it's like getting out and seeing those different parts of the world and seeing how other people live is really amazing. And I tell you, when I go to Europe, I tend to come home leaner.
Hmm.
I could eat pasta every day. It's what's in the food—there's the ingredients are real, you know. And um, I think the ingredients are are really—are the things that are put into foods like the MSGs and things like that, those are the things that really kind of set it up for it to be hard for somebody to stay healthy and and not be, you know, overweight, you know. So um, I really like that about Europe and Dubai as well.
Yeah, I feel like the same thing. You love Dubai, man. I see you there all the time.
Yeah, I like it. You know what? I don't know that I like Dubai more than I like, you know, Spain and Europe. Okay. I really appreciate the architecture and everything—everything that's broken about it makes it beautiful. It's kind of like New Orleans in a way, yeah, you know. The buildings lean in a bit; there's a crack, but there's a, you know, a flower or something growing out of it. It has a—it has character, right? You know, and and I believe that cities have souls, you know. Like Vegas definitely has a soul, bro.
For sure.
So you can feel it when you land.
Yeah, yeah. It's an electric—right? And so there's there's some places that I've been that I really feel like have souls, you know. Like I like Marbella a lot.
Where's that?
It's in Spain.
Um, yeah, I haven't heard of it. A really cool place. Um, Columbia is cool. Um, what else do I really like? I mean, I do like Dubai; I like Romania when I go—
Oh, you did?
Yeah, but you know, in that situation, in all situations, I will say it's not really about the city; it's about who you're with. I always say, "I don't care about the boat; I care about who's in it," you know. You go to the coolest, most lit city in the world—you come to Vegas—if you don't have your people with you, it's nothing.
Oh, yeah. I've done it; it sucks.
Yeah, it's trash, man. Yeah, so I love that. And how much did joining the War Room—joining a mastermind—really impact your life?
It was incredible for me, man, you know. I had done a lot of like business groups—like this stage and things like that—yeah, and I just felt out of place, you know. They'd be like crying and boo-hooing about, you know, their wives or, you know, something with their kids. It's just—I didn't enjoy it; I felt like it was soft; I didn't feel like it was very realistic, yeah, you know. And if if I'm gonna be truthful—sometimes I'm truthful to a fault—enough to piss people off or upset people, yeah, but I have a hard time turning my head to things that I don't agree with, and if they feel like it's—if I feel like it's—I have a really hard time not saying that it is, or at least trying my best to respectfully tell them that it is, yeah, you know. So um, I have nothing against that particular group, but the War Room for me was a really good thing, you know. I I quite enjoyed it. Um, I think I was, you know, when I started, I think I was, you know, there it is peak, but um, it's doing great now as well, and um, we're doing events all over the world. We're about to do an event this month—this coming month—in Miami.
Oh, nice.
So we're gonna have a feast and bring a bunch of guys into Miami and do a um a day or two of, you know, interaction courses, some teaching things like that.
I love that.
So um, it's going to be exciting, man. It's really good. Yeah, I recommend every entrepreneur to join a brotherhood or mastermind because it changed my life when I joined my first one, honestly, because I was so lonely before that. I couldn't relate to anyone in New Jersey; entrepreneurship's not that big there. But when I joined that first mastermind, I made like 10x my investment, and I met some life-changing friends.
1000%, man. And that's one of the really good things about joining a group. If I join a group or I go to an event, all I'm really looking for is one or two people, and oftentimes, the other 99% of people I probably won't connect with, yeah, and I'm okay with that. Or I'm looking for that one thing that I learned that I'll have in my tool belt for the rest of my life. And I feel the same way about books, courses—I still take courses, still read—yeah.
Wow. I'm not done developing; I'm never done.
When is it—when is it over?
Never.
When's enough enough?
Never.
The fun part about life to me is is the growth—money, not really.
Oh, cool. I got a couple watches; I have a Lambo, G-Wagon, big houses, and stuff. Building a big house in Dubai right now. That house—you know—like I was lit a cigar in a Lamborghini the other day, and I had my buddy with me. He goes, "Bro, you can't smoke that here." I'm like, "Bro, this car—" you know what I'm saying? Like, and and man, the truth—the truth is um, if I didn't like the game so much, I wouldn't do it. I could retire right now.
You know, I wouldn't live a life the way I live, but you know, but you know, I could. I could go pay out, you know, one of my houses off and get an RV, travel the country all the time, to do whatever the I want. I like it; I like working; I enjoy it. All the happiness in my life has always been climbing the mountains. I agree, and I always say the most dangerous thing that you could ever do is get to the top of a mountain and not have anywhere else to go.
Yeah, you know, when I hear guys talking about millions of dollars on on one deal or a hundred million dollars, I I don't look at them like, oh, you love me. I'm like, I get inspired by it. I'm like, man, that's awesome.
Yeah, you know, because I grew up in a place where the Consciousness wasn't a million-dollar company that you could make online. You know, the goal, the best goal that I could think of in the neighborhood that I was growing up in would be a guy that would build houses or have a construction company. You know, that's not the best business model, no, to to make like Ben Shapiro money, yeah, or to, you know, to make this big money. Right, there's better business models out there. What I always say is like the only way we knew how to make doctor money was in Boots, but then you get to the point where doctor Money Ain't Enough. I'd be pissed if I made doctor money; it's not enough.
No, or the president, you know, what do they get? I think they get like 400k; that's not enough. I would be furious. You know, and again, it's not it's not about the material things. You know, I always say this about online: it's like I can have as many haters as they want to throw at me; I'm completely cool with that.
Doesn't get to you ever?
No, bro, because my real life is so good. In real life, my real day-to-day life is so good that I could never let it affect me. My my identity is not tied to my social medias right at all, you know, so I'm completely cool with it, and I and you know, one thing that I think people forget in life is that it's not really about how many people like you or don't dislike you; it's about how many people love you for who you actually are. If there's eight billion people on the planet, I'd rather have seven billion people absolutely hate me and have one billion people that actually love me for who I actually am.
100. No Mass, no Veil, nothing. I love you for you, right? And if I can get that, man, I'm successful.
You can't please everyone, yeah, because most people don't have anybody that actually love them for who they are because they don't even show who they are because they're scared of the Judgment in the first place, right?
I say those people can get… yeah.
So it seems like you really found your level of comfort and happiness, and for most people, money's really high up there, but for you, it doesn't even seem to be top three.
I think there's buckets, yeah, you know, I think that you could fill buckets in life. I'm inspired by the opportunity to make more money, but I wouldn't put it in front of my fitness or my health. I wouldn't put it in front of the relationships I have while making the money, but you know, I I wouldn't trade a relationship I have to snake somebody to make more money, because what would the fun in that be if I can't do it with the people I love?
Yeah, you know, and and yeah, they might not be family by Blood, but they're family to me. So um, I think it's it's about keeping things in perspective in regards to how you want to make your money, how you want to have your relationships, and making sure that you're being true to yourself all the way and allow the people that don't want to agree with you not agree with you, but find the people that will love you for who you are, because then you can live a very free life. There's a whole lot of weight that will come off of a person's shoulders when they can just be who they are and live by their truth and have the people in their life either accept it or not, but there's no there's no hiding anything. I sleep like a baby at night because there's no skeleton in my closet, bro, right? You know, you didn't put anyone over, no, and I ain't lying to nobody; I'm not tricking them.
Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And so for that reason, man, I feel like one of the luckiest men on the planet. You know, I've never been happier in my life.
Yeah, you know, and it's always a journey, and it's never enough. You know, I have that voice in my head just like everybody else, no matter what I do, is you know, that voice in my head say, well, you could have done this.
Yeah, you know, good. It's also my biggest it's also one of my biggest gifts.
Absolutely. I love that, man, because so many people try to fit in, right, and they they really aren't themselves; they're putting on a mask, and that's like everyone I went to high school with, honestly.
Yeah, a thousand percent, you know, and it's also very human, yeah, because because you know, at Homo sapiens, right, like we want to be accepted by the group, right? But the good thing about the internet is there's a group out there for everyone. So whatever you feel in your heart, whatever you think is right for you, the internet provides an opportunity for you to find those other people, and I think it's very important to find that people that your soul is align with that are like-minded that can actually love you for who you are, because if you have that, you'll have more family than anything. I can go in the war room right now and say I need a place to stay for the next year; I would get invitations from 70 plus countries.
Wow. Zero down. It's the best network in the world. There's people from everywhere, there everywhere. It's awesome, everywhere. And you know what, and the other thing about that is if I got that message from that person, I know what to expect because the culture is set up in a way where I know the cut of the man that I'm getting a message from.
You wouldn't have to be weirded out or anything.
No, it wouldn't be weird at all.
Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. One of your most viral Clips, which I saw you got a lot of hate for, was you said you couldn't be friends with someone unless you made money with them. Yeah, do you still have that stance?
I could be friends from a distance, you know, I'm not gonna be rude. Uh, I'm friends with my high school friends that I've been friends with 20 years, but you know, now I'm getting messages from people either that I went to high school with that I didn't even hang out with in high school, right, are people that I used to know, are people that I don't know that want to be friends, and if they are not and I am not adding value to their life, I don't think I'm a very good friend. I don't have time to go to dinner with you um just to chat, right, or to do fantasy football. So I very non-apologetically feel that way. How am I a friend to you if I'm not creating a better life for you, so you can be the man in your house, have a better life for your kids, have your wife look up to you, make you the hero of your own house? How am I helping you as a friend? I'm wasting your time is what I'm doing, yeah, and I don't want any any part of that at all; not interested in it. I'm not interested in fantasy football; I'm not interested in meeting you for a beer, you know.
Yeah, like we're either gonna get a bag together, become better together, create a better life for ourselves and the people that we love, or we're gonna wave and hug if we see each other at the store, but other than that, bro, we're not hanging out.
I like that. There's nothing like making money with a friend; it feels like being a kid on Christmas.
Yeah, and bro, I love speaking of Christmas, like talking like staying up with a guy and talking about business; it's like Christmas morning to me. Yeah, I love it; you know, it lights me up inside. You know, people talk about, you know, what are you passionate about? I don't know if I'm how passionate I am about it, like I don't I'm not still like trying to find my passion, but I do pay attention to what gives me energy, and I try to follow the things that give me energy, and I also try to set people up in my life to do things that we're working on together that give them energy. For example, if I have an employee that doesn't have energy for people but has a lot of energy for detail, they're probably going to work in accounting, you know, they're probably going to work in estimating. I'm not going to ask them to go do something that is counterintuitive to the Natural Energy they have for certain tasks. My job is to set them up to be graceful, and so I want to put them in a seat on the bus where they can do that, you know.
Yeah, and I also don't do it for myself. There's very many times when I step out of myself and I look at Justin and I said, what should Justin be fired from? And then I write the roles and responsibilities of whatever thing that needs to be done, and I hire a person that has the energy for it, and so I think it's really important to know yourself.
Yeah, you know, a lot of people try to swim upstream because they think they're good at it or they think if they were being responsible they would do this thing that they hate to do. I think that's I think you should find somebody that has an energy for it and set up strong systems with Statistics that are manageable so they know what the expectation is and then manage from there.
Yeah, you know, but just because you think it's an important part of your business and that if you you would be more responsible for doing it doesn't mean that you're actually going to do it. You could be the best one to do it; you could have the best skill in that particular area and not have an energy for it, and for that reason, you don't do it.
Yeah, and the way I look at that is if I can get a person to do 85 to 90 percent as well as I would have, and I can have 10 of them, then why wouldn't I do that, right?
Yeah, it's impressive you're that honest with yourself because most people think they're good at everything.
Bro, if if you really want to succeed and really want to notice like how to build, you know, the airplane that's going to fly you to the Moon, yeah, the rocket ship, one of the first things you need to understand is yourself for sure and really look at it, you know, like if I build an orb board, I'd never forget when I built the org board for my Construction Company, the way I did it is I made a list of everything I was doing every day, and then from there, I would put next to each thing like project manager, estimator, sales guy, accounting, you know, all these different things, and then I identified which of those things that either I did not have the correct skills for or I didn't have an energy for, and those were my first hires, and then I slowly and then you slowly build yourself out of it. I don't work in the construction business; I probably spend less than a the only way I could say I actually work in it is I talk to my people every now and then.
Wow. You know, every few days I might talk to them, but I get a daily report; I know everything's going on.
You removed yourself.
Yeah, I'm not even in the business; it's doing 30 mil without you, bro, like I don't…
Yeah, that's impressive. I'm not in there, but I'll tell you this: I have a report in the way the report gets made for each business because I get three reports a day from each business, and uh, the way you test it is imagine that you're in the Bahamas or you're on a you're on a an island somewhere on the beach drinking margaritas all day. At the end of the day, the gentleman that's been bringing you your drinks all day brings you a piece of paper; there's 5 to 15 statistics on that piece of paper. If those statistics can and you can look at them and you feel good enough about what they say because you know your business and you know what what those statistics need to be, if you can look at that and hand it back to them and stay another day, your business is running correctly, right?
That's incredible. And that's how you know you can sell it also, because a lot of businesses are unsellable because the entrepreneur is so attached to it.
That's right. And listen, it can happen in even if you're disconnected, because if if it's still all sitting on one leg, you know, then you still have a problem, right? Because it could it could be your your number one, you know, that turns into that for you. Yeah, so is very important to look at the business from a risk perspective and say, okay, what pillars in the business need to be multiplied because if I don't multiply this pillar and it falls, the whole thing Falls, you know.
Yeah. So a lot of people are one person away from, you know, that happening.
Wow. I actually have a business with that going on right now, and look, I'm not upset; I'm not going to lose that person. That person's at a great place in their in their career; they're in a life cycle um, I would say that the business is in Prime and that person is in Prime, but our main focus right now is not to replace them but to multiply them, and for that reason, we've been recording their day for the last 80 hours, last two weeks. We record everything they've done all day, like you sent a person to his house.
I sent a person to the office, yeah, to record that individual, everything they do.
Wow. And what we're gonna do that individual and I are gonna go back and do reaction videos, like YouTube.
Yeah, that's training and cut it into Snippets.
Wow. As a training. So smart. I've never heard of that because what we do like what we do in that particular business is very Niche, yeah, and it wouldn't make sense just to like go buy a course or something like that, so we're gonna have to do internally, but um, paying attention to, you know, what can knock the plane down, understanding how to read the dials, you know, and really understanding where to put each person in each seat is in a nutshell how I look at making a successful business, right? And systems are great; people are better, you know.
Yeah, like I think about it like this, like use Dion for an example, take the swag out of it, bro. You can look like an incredibly smart coach if you got all the best players, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah. So of course you have systems always, and you have statistics that you're going to measure, but it doesn't hurt to have good people. Particularly our first core value is intention; I'll take intent over everything because there are scenarios where some of your most talented people do not have correct intention, and they can be the best player on the team, but if their intent is bad and they don't make the grades or show up to class, if they can't get on the field anyway, right?
You know, we just had to let go one of our best guys. Yeah, he is an absolute Savage on the job site, but he gets drunk in company trucks; liability. What are you gonna do? I either have to get rid of him or keep him and continue to have that exposure for every other family that works for me, right? You know, I have over 200 men in this business, so that's quite a few families.
It's a lot.
Yeah, and you think if if each of those guys have two kids and one wife, it's a lot of people you're taking care of; a thousand people.
Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah, and that's just that one, and so I can't have this guy make a mistake that is going to make our insurance higher, that makes us less competitive, and now we can't win the work, and now the guys that we're doing what they're supposed to do don't have a job to go to anymore, right? Because we got beat by the guy that kept his his house in order, you know, and you know, when you when you fire somebody, there's a couple there's a couple of different ways that I might would let somebody go. The first one is protecting other families; um, the second one is I don't like to keep people that don't perform, uh, even if they're trying really hard, because there's a certain point if they can't do the job, even if they have intention, that because they can't do it is this constant feedback loop of them failing, and if you really care about them, you won't allow them to continue to suffer in that way, right? So there have been some people that I've let go that I did that out of pure love because I don't want to see them suffer over and over and over again failing at the task that they're trying to achieve.
Wow. So there's a there's there's definitely ways to love people even when they're on the way out.
Yeah, man, that's powerful. And you mentioned earlier you got a call this Sunday, so are you working seven days a week, bro?
I work every day; every day's Tuesday to me; no days off ever; no holidays; no no the holidays surprise me every time I get so far, bro. I'll call, dude. First of all, I'll call somebody; it'll be Sunday. My people know this about me, okay, and they're cool with it because I'm really good to them; I really good to them; um, they know I forget what day of the week it is; they know I'm like Cowboys. Yeah, every day's Tuesday to me, yeah, and be honest with you, man, like one one like checkpoint to look for, one buoy to look for in success is that out like if you forget what day of the week it is, I take it as a good sign for sure, you know.
Yeah, because it doesn't matter, no, you know, I'm gonna do the same thing every day. Now I might be in Vegas; I might be in Miami; I might be in Louisiana; I could be in London; doesn't matter; I'm working every day; I like it, and I think my people respect and appreciate it at a minimum, and I'll call my operations manager; I'll call Renee, and I'll be talking to her for 45 minutes. I'm like, okay, cool, then okay, just uh, print that out real quick and scan it to me. She goes, Justin, you know it's Sunday. I'm like, oh yeah, do it in the morning. She'll laugh, bro, you know, and and one thing that I love about that and her particularly is that her intent is so high; she's so in it with me that she didn't give a a Sunday.
Yeah, most employees would have been like, why are you calling me?
Yeah, they wouldn't answer the phone.
Yeah, you know, I don't call any of my people anytime and they're gonna answer. You know, you build a great culture.
Thousand percent. If I don't have anything, I have culture, you know, um, you know, like the boys that work on the YouTube team and do all online stuff, bro, they work 24 hours a day. In fact, there's two of them in my house right now; they live in Louisiana. No, they like they came into town; one of them's doing the recordings for the company I was telling you about, yeah, and the other one's just selling, and he's just there, and when I get there, we'll get right back to work. We all go back to Miami.
Nice. Yeah, I pull all my teams together a lot; I like to cross-collaborate to families because you already have the cost of doing the dinner and showing up in the time, so they end up cross-collabing, you know, my online team does a lot of marketing for my construction company, and my online team does a lot of property acquisition work, and so um, they are all separate teams, but they can kind of integrate and help each other in a lot of ways, and uh, we spend a lot of time together across all three businesses for sure.
Love that, Justin. It's been super fun, man, honestly a great interview. Anything you want to close off with or promote?
Yeah, man, um, for any young man or…
Any person, man or woman, anybody at any age, if you want to join, uh, the real world, there's 18 wealth creation vehicles in there. And there's somebody in there today, 24 hours a day, that has a business teaching you how to make money in that business in real time. And they actually do that work every day. It's the best school in the planet, and there's a lot of camaraderie in there, and there's a lot of community in there, nice and um, we see guys winning every day, men and women winning every day, and we'd love to have you there.
I don't think there's a better education platform on the planet, and not for, not definitely not for 50 a month. Yeah, you want to follow me? Follow me on Instagram: JustinWinWaller7. On Instagram: Waller7J. On Twitter, I have a daily newsletter on Telegram: J Waller Daily. And that should do it. Love it. Thanks for coming on, man. I really enjoyed it.
Absolutely. Thanks for watching, guys. We'll see you next time. Peace.