Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - FROM NAVY TO NINE FIGURES ft. Douglas James | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

Douglas James is a Navy vet turned entrepreneur who’s helped thousands of people build real businesses online. What started with helping barbers and gym owners run Facebook ads turned into a coaching program that’s generated tens of millions in client revenue.In this episode, we talk about how he made the leap, why most people fail in the digital space, and what it takes to scale without losing your soul. No hype. No BS. Just real insight from someone who's done the work.Top producers at E Mortgage Capital are earning more per deal—with faster closings, better tech, and no junk fees.👉 Learn more: https://join.emortgagecapital.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Most people leave the military and struggle to find purpose again. Douglas James? He built a multi-million dollar business while still in uniform. This guy didn't just transition out of the Navy. He rewrote the rules on how to do it, from hospital corpsman to high-ticket coaching mogul, from sleeping in chaos to flying clients into penthouses, from almost losing it all to building lead FI,

a company that's changing how we qualify leads before the call even happens. He's been broke. He's been battle tested. And now he's on a mission to help other Christian entrepreneurs build legacy through faith, business, and radical transparency. This one's not just about marketing. It's about miracles, mindset, and money that means something. Welcome to coffees. But thanks for coming.

Thanks for driving down from San Diego. It's been great to meet you. great to collaborate with you on various masterminds and you know we got so many more years of collaboration opportunities coming down the pipe so thank you thanks for uh this partnership that we have and uh doing this show with me so i'm going to dive right into it i'd like to start the show off with the same question i asked everybody and Doug what's your morning routine my morning routine um let's see as soon as i opened my eyes i thank god for another day that was the very first thing Thank you for the air in my lungs.

Thank you for my family. Thank you for the food we're about to eat. Thank you for all the blessings. And that said, I wake up, obviously. I have a note taker on my phone, so I basically just write down some affirmations, a couple of things of what I want for me and my family here over the next day to five years. And just kind of vision where I'm trying to go. I think if you don't have targets on the board, it's hard to know where you're going, right?

So I do that and then I immediately go into my daughter's room and get my kids and hug them and tell them I love them. And that's it. Roll over kiss my wife, obviously. And yeah, that's kind of how I start my day. Beautiful way to start. No cold plunges or anything like that. You know, it's funny. Because I always have founders and CEOs on the show.

Everyone's a founder's CEO. And coal plunging is a big thing. A lot of guys do that. Like probably, I would say 30% of CEOs are coal plunging or, doing some sort of elaborate morning routine. So it's always fascinating to see. But starting with gratitude is an amazing way to start the day. And, you know, God's always in our midst, right?

So we're going to lead with the spirit. I always use that as a catalyst here. And, you know, it's just God continues to bless this encounter, the people who I bring on the show. Now, you're a 10-year Navy vet. It's a 10-year Navy vet? Yeah, 10 years. Man.

So how is the transition going from the Navy to entrepreneurship? Yeah, it was quite the journey, right? So I served in a Navy as a hospital corpsman, got to do, see, travel all over the world, do amazing things. You know, I built schools for kids in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Philippines. We did a whole bunch of humanitarian work.

And I just remember it was like 2015. I come back from that deployment. And I'm like, I just made E6, which is like a high-ranking supervisory position. It takes the average person 12 years to make E-Sy. I did it in five years. Wow. Yeah.

So I kind of like was like, man, I want to get my time back. I want to, you know, start a family. I want, you know, time freedom, location freedom, kind of like all those things. So I started thinking about what life would be like after the military. And I didn't have a plan. I just knew I needed to do, I wanted to do something different. So I ended up finding, like, digital marketing, right? I found digital marketing and I figured out how to, you know, help businesses get new customers

from the Internet using paid ads like Facebook. and Google, right? So that's what I got into. And the transition for me was pretty easy because I had not, it was easy, but with like a lot of challenges and roadblocks, right? So I, about six months into starting my journey as an entrepreneur while still active duty, I ended up making my annual salary on the monthly basis from the military, right? And I did that for about four years before I could even get out. So I was making a lot of. lot of money while I was in, but I was still expected to show up in uniform, shine my boots, stand at attention, right? All these things that you got to do when you're in the military,

a lot of sacrifice. So I continue to build my business, and what happened was there was a lot of, I noticed that there was a lot of people in the military that were going to be retiring soon, that we're looking for, hey, what's my next chapter? When you're in the military, you go through a class called TAPS. It's about a week long, right? And TAPS is, built to help you transition to the civilian world, right? How to fill out a job resume, how to have a LinkedIn profile set up so you can get a job, how to interview for a job, what are ways to go apply for jobs, right? And that's what they do. And, you know, that system, although it's there to help, you know, active duty transition out to civilian world and find a job, it's, it's imperfect,

right? So I'm sure it's probably dated too. And yeah, very dated. And, you know, so I had a lot of people looking at me. I was at a hospital with over 6,000 people, I would drive, you know, on base with like this $200,000 Mercedes. They're like, dude, where are you making the money to like do what you're doing? $200,000 Mercedes on base? Yeah, you know, I was, I, my pay should not have been, you know, I wasn't making enough to afford the car, right? And I definitely made some, you know, semi-dum decisions with money early on. But, you know, I was very proud. I like to, you know, have the finer things in life. But I, I just remember I had a mass. Master Chief come up to me. To be a Master Chief, it's like E-9. It's the highest ranking active duty

position you can go. He came up to me while I was in uniform and he's like, hey man, I've heard about you. I saw your car. I heard you're making money. Like I'm 45 years old. I've been in a Navy for 25 years. I'm getting out next month. Can you teach me what you do, how to make money? And I was like, yeah. So I went home. I recorded my whole process, how to acquire local business clients, how to run Facebook ads to get them customers, you know, how to set up the whole client acquisition system. And I put it in a Dropbox folder. It was the worst course you've ever seen your life. And I gave it to him. He's like, dude, thanks. Here's 900 bucks. I'm like, great, thanks. And then next weekend, he landed a client paying him a thousand bucks a month. So that was

my first client. And that's when I realized, wow, people are willing to pay you just for like what you know, like, you know, knowledge. And I was like, wow, that's cool. And now we know a lot knowledge. Like, why did Jordan, you know, Michael Jordan reached his heights? You know, people even like, you know, Tony Robbins, you know, he was coached by Jim Rohn, right? So we all have coaches. If there's somewhere you want to be, go latch on to people that are already doing it at a high level and pay them, pay them for their time, right? Because they've obviously earned that right. So I got into coaching and consulting then. So then I created a program where I was helping active duty transition to civilian sector, but as entrepreneurs, helping them start these local

marketing agencies. And today we've helped over 15,000. 15,000 military veterans veterans and active duty you know I've had people that were on deployment on my coaching calls in uniform you know so it's it's yeah it's been amazing we've helped a lot of them but we also helped just regular people the the bartender TGI Fridays the you know construction worker that's tired of being on roofs a whole slew of people in a medical field real estate mortgage a lot of different verticals but through that journey you asked me like how did I transition over it was from a financial standpoint it was easy because by the time

I got out I was already doing six figures a month right and I had had found this whole new respect and understanding for the value of my time I was like wow I can work an hour in the military and make 40 bucks or I can work an hour outside the military and make 4,000 bucks it was like a complete paradigm shift So, and I had already started to make such impact with my program. I was doing amazing things and I was like, it's time for me to transition out. So I ended up going all in. I finished out my time. It took four years.

And it wasn't without meeting scrutiny either. You know, my superiors when I was in the military, a lot of them had a hard time, you know, accepting that there was someone below them in the ranks making all this money, right? And I had superiors that put me up for a captain's master. or brought me to like the head honcho of the hospital and said, hey, this guy's unauthorized to have this business or go make this money. And I had to go through the whole ringer with them. And they tried to get me throwing out the Navy and put in the brig and take my money and pay for me. But, you know, I persevered.

I went on the board and it actually got thrown, last minute got thrown out because there was no written military instructions saying that an active duty member can be an entrepreneur. So active duty entrepreneur was a new thing at that time. and there was no restriction on that. So did you create the active duty entrepreneur? Did you coin that phrase? I think people like me, because I wasn't the only guy overall.

We're talking about military-wide, but at my hospital, I know it went up really high in the chain of command, and now there is formal regulation now on what you can and can't do in the military, which it didn't exist before. So yeah, I like to say that. You set precedent.

I did. I definitely set president. And we're in a new time and age right now. Everyone has a phone. Everyone has chat chit on their phone. When I was in the military, we were in charge. We had to write our evaluation. Like every year, you had to submit a piece of paper that basically said why you're

entitled and why you should be advancing to the next rank. Right. And on the block, on the back of the paper, there's like a long paragraph you got to write with all your accomplishments, why you're deserving. of advancing to the next rank. And there were so many writers and people, people would have writers that were like overseas that are stationed in other parts of the world that were like these expert writers that were serving active duty and they would pay them hundreds of dollars to write the block for them. And I'm thinking now, I'm like, you don't need to do that anymore,

dude. You could just chat TBT. We'll write that for you. Right. So a lot of things in the military and the government are obviously dated and, you know, and we all have social media and anyone can go live on their phone right now and share their story, share their heart, and that message is going to attract an audience. And if they have awareness and audience, well, now what solution are they offering to solve those people's problems? And that's how they could obviously make money. So we all have access to this technology.

We all have access to the ability to earn from home and ourselves. And that's been the message that I've shared with thousands of people up until this point. It's amazing. So one thing you've done that's unique is you've, you've become like the high ticket client guy. So what sort of issues or what sort of like, you know, conflicts did you face in creating like a high ticket offer? Because that's a hard thing to really offer. It is. And so for local businesses, right, I would sell packages like they would sign up, you know, Doug, hey, we run a dental clinic. We want 400 new leads a month for people that, you know, want Envisaline or whatever the service might be.

We would just say, hey, we're going to charge you 50 bucks per lead, right? So if you do the math on that, that's, you know, per per 100, that's 4,000. So 400 would be 16,000 a month that I would make from that one client, right? So, which is pretty high ticket, but the direct value that I'm delivering them is, okay, you're giving me $50, but I'm also giving you someone that's raising their hand saying, hey, I want to come in and do this business with you, which if that person buys, it's going to be exponentially more than the 50 you gave me, right? So in local business, that's the base model that I ran with. But when I got into coaching and consulting, I was able to craft offers because if you're doing courses, info products,

coaching, teaching people how to do things, my favorite way to model it was modeling it after, you know, institutions or colleges, right? If you sign up for an accelerated online university, right, which I did when I was in the military, I got an associate's degree. I don't have a bachelor's or PhD or anything. But it's eight weeks. It's one class a week, right? And that's how you go to college when you're working a job. So I just modeled that same thing. I said, I had already had my course, here's a bunch of videos, give me a few grand, go the videos, you know, run with it. but people wanted more access, right? They wanted to jump on live calls.

They wanted to jump on coaching calls. So what we created was a done with you model, which was like the accelerated university, we said, hey, we're going to hold class every single week. It's online. You're going to come to the class. The instructor's going to go through all the material for that week and what you need to implement to start and grow your business.

And you're going to be with us for eight weeks, right? And for that package, I charge you 10 grand for. You're basically getting a skill set that you can go into the marketplace, and start to immediately make cash. Where it is in college, if you paid for that one class, well, you got to go take 100 other classes and then you have a bachelor's degree that you're 40 grand in debt for, and you're not even guaranteed a job after that, right? How many people do you know my wife's got a bachelor's degree?

And at best, she was working merchandising it, you know, for Target or, you know, all to beauty, right? So I know a lot of people that are, and you probably do, that have bachelors that have degrees and they can't get a job nowadays. I mean, a bachelor's degree is worthless now. Even, like, I mean, I'm going to, for our kids, we want our kids to get degrees as kind of like a right of passage. But I have them in these coaching classes at 9, 10 years old. I got my 9-year-old boy doing coaching calls with adults trading cards.

You know, paid for the coaching class. I'm like, this is better than school. Like, I don't even care if you actually, you know, like the fact that he's liking it and trading cards and understanding how, like, the sport of trading cards. Like, business is a sport. this is where you make money. School is just like, you know, social and understanding, kind of like just helping you mature. Yeah, and like we all need nurses, we need pilots, right?

You need doctors, of course. Those trades. Go to school for those. But for the majority of people that aren't in this fields, I mean, at the end of the day, you go to school because you're trying to get an education so you can take care of your family, and that system's completely outdated at this point.

That's why the coaching industry is growing by the billions every year, right? So this is not like an, a message that, you know, anyone listening this needs to go start a coaching business, but just understand that I think that there's better information that you can get from somebody that's going to build amazing companies and done all these amazing things. And if they're saying, hey, I'm willing to teach you what I did for a few grand or whatever, it costs to learn my skill set to basically get the roadmap. I think if you're passionate about doing that, and if the person's credible and real,

be careful of the gurus. If there's a Lambo as, you know, if there's a lambo in the video, you might want to think twice, right? But then verify. I think that's a better way to go about getting your education out. That's why YouTube is huge. You go on YouTube. It's a how-to platform, right? People are going on there.

TikTok is blowing up huge right now for that. Actually, I predict that TikTok's going to be the new way of solving your problems because our attention spans really short, right? Like, we want to consume these 30, 60-second bytes. YouTube is cool. You'll get a five, 10 minute, 30, an hour-long video. Like, long form is cool for podcasts, but what do you do with the podcast? Yeah. You chop it up into these short form bite-sized chunks where you're getting these little

value nuggets. And that's what people are doing on TikTok right now. Hey, how do I change my tire? Hey, how do I make an English muffin, right? All these different little things. In 10 seconds, you can learn to change your tire or make an English muffin. Exactly. It's funny you mention that because I know a lot of, like, specialized doctors.

and they, like, specialized surgeons, dermatologists, whatever, and hanging out with them, they've referenced, oh, I just saw this medical video on TikTok. Like, doctors, specialized doctors are referencing TikTok as the place where they're getting their updated education. So, I mean, it's changing every landscape of professionals. So your programs, they offer, you promise, in these programs some significant returns yet you know some some of the critics have labeled them as like

they're expensive um how do you address concerns about the value proposition of your high ticket offerings and how are you addressing like haters that's a good question i haven't asked i haven't actually been asked that uh directly um so i sold packages all the way up to 50 grand right like my top package was 50 grand 50 000 dollar ticket offer like that's expensive yeah yeah But that's like fly out to my penthouse in San Diego. Spend two and a half days with me. Our team builds out your entire business and turns your ads on and have sales calls rolling by day two. And then we'll have dinner.

We'll have wine, you know, all the things. You'll meet my mentor. You'll get to meet other people that I'm doing business with, right? How many people bought that package? I probably sold about 200 of those. 200 of those? Yeah. Yeah.

But your hands-on for two days straight. Yeah. Hands-on for two days. We did that event, we do that event probably like every six to seven weeks, roughly. The core packages people bought was like 5K, 10K, 25K, and the 50K was only to verify buyers of the 25K that were qualified to go into that package. But here's the thing. Look at what I'm solving. I'm helping people that are transitioning careers, right?

So one of the reasons why and make significantly more money or income for their family, right? So my biggest thing on how I was able to scale and sell those products is I was talking to the nurse practitioner that was in hospitals for 20, 30 years, that was running the floors, taking care of patients. And her back's hurting. She's getting older. She's tired. But she has all of this medical experience and all these things, you know, that in her head that she could share with other people. in the medical field, you know, private practices, doctors, you know, that are all generating patients that need cash-based patients to come into their clinic or use something like care

credita for their high-ticket services. So, or the roofer that's been roofing for the last 20 years and he's tired, right? So I would go to them and I would say, hey, you are an expert and your subject matter expert in your field. You've been doing this for 20, 30 years. What if you, you know, pause that part of your career and shifted your whole model to be in the go-to lead provider to everyone else in your industry. So now the doctor or the nurse practitioner or the roofer can go to every other professional in the country that owns a business doing what they've been doing the last 20 years and said, hey, I can speak your language. I've done what you've done for the last 20, 30 years. Now I can also provide, I know exactly how to get these patients booked on your calendar, get these jobs

booked on your calendar, and I'm just going to charge you a small fee for every time. So that is really how I scaled my bigger packages by just working with these professionals. When I did my penthouse events, I would have, you know, CEOs show up that were doing, you know, eight plus figures a year. I had a spinal surgeon that was doing about $9 million a year, and he, something happened as a hand, he got in a car wreck, and they were basically going to take his license away to perform spinal surgery. and he's, you know, 50 years old, and he's got another probably 70 plus years. Like he wants to work for another, no one really wants to retire at 50.

This guy was a motivator, right? So he came in with me. We basically made him the go-to-lead provider for everyone in private practices, right, to come to him to get patients. So. It's scary if you're a surgeon in your hand gets hurt. Like, I've heard it from surgeons like, this is my moneymaker. Yeah.

And this is like the most fragile thing you got. You go to school 20 years. and your hand's gone, your toes. And that's every surgeon, by the way. That's it. That's every surgeon. And there's many stories like that. It could be the hand.

It could be like you can't walk anymore. You create some, over time, you get some kind of disability that doesn't allow you to work anymore, right? So there were a lot of people like that that we were able to help and transition into the online space. You know, so I was not just teaching people marketing. I was transitioning people from what they've been doing in 20 years. I was breaking their back to getting into a more productive. sustainable, online income by just doing what I've been doing,

learning my skill sets, right? And what is that worth to you? What would you pay for that if you were in that situation? You couldn't work for the next 20 years and you were going to be jobless. But you had a million dollars or a few million dollars in the bank or even a couple hundred grand in the bank. And I'm saying, hey, I'll devote this amount of time to you.

I'll teach you this skill set. Our team will do all of these things for you. We just need you to pay, show up, and execute. right that's why the education space is so big right so I think when the value I think when the pain of not solving the problem is greater than the pain of having the problem prices like what is price you know I'm saying it becomes priceless so and I mean to the haters of charging high ticket you just you've never sold high ticket I've worked with I've consulted so many businesses that have been selling a $500 thing their whole life or a $500.

$50 thing. Like, they're like, oh, my gosh, my audience will never pay five grand for something like that or 20 grand for something like that. It's like, have you tried? You know, if you're able to get somebody from A to B and it's going to be, you're providing a better lifestyle for them, they're healthier, they're more fit, they're making more money, they're having better sex with their wife or their husband, or whatever the case is, if you're solving for that, people will pay money to solve these significant issues.

So if it's anything around health, their money. or their beauty, aesthetics, why do women pay 15 grand to get a boob job, right? That's high ticket. Why do people pay 20 grand for rhinoplasty to have their nose fixed? Because they probably have, they were probably picked on as kids or felt, you know, self-conscious. That's something that they want that boost of confidence for the next 50 years of their life. So they'll go pay big money to get it fixed, right? So that's, to me answer my question, to answer your question,

I think if the value is exceeding that pain, then, you know, price is irrelevant. And the haters just, they don't know how to sell high ticket and never tried. And they're always going to exist. And matter of fact, they're a catalyst for your success anyways. So they've got to be there to help you grow anyway. Exactly. I always look at, I love haters. I welcome them.

I thank them. You know, they're the ones who get us to where we're at. They're the ones that usually don't have money, haven't really achieved. much and look at other people and are truly envious, right? And, um, and also, honestly, I have compassion for those people. I welcome, I welcome it. And I don't look at it like, oh, F you made this comment. I actually had a mentor. His name, his name is Rainy Massengale. He was the senior advisor to Bill Gates. And he says that, uh, there's two tyrants of leadership. There's scrutiny and expectations. So every time you elevate yourself and create space between you and other people,

people get really uncomfortable, right? Because they know you like this. Like, that was my boy. We used to go to the bar. We played ball together. You know, we used to date the same girls together, blah, blah, blah. Right. But when you elevate yourself, they're like, oh, my gosh, what happened to what happened

to Joseph? You know, that used to be my boy. Now he's off here doing this mortgage company, right, going to college or whatever. You know, I read a little bit of your, your backstory. You graduated in 2002, I think. Yeah. Right. So, you know, they get uncomfortable with that.

So they start to scrutinize you. say, hey, man, what are you doing? This is not you. Like, come back, right? And they try to pull you back down to where you once were. But once you start to make money, you start to have success, right? How many people came so said, hey, man, what do you do? Hey, can you teach me?

Hey, can I get a loan, right? Like, personal loan. I know you do mortgage, but like, hey, your mom needs a butt. You know, mom needs a new car. Mom needs a new house, right? People start to expect things from you. That's exactly why I got into coaching. You know, people asked me, why do you?

you teach this stuff? Why didn't, if it was so good, why not just go out there and make a whole bunch of money and not share it with people? Like, you know, first of all, my mom raised me well, like, sharing is caring, right? You got to remember that when you were four years old, five years old? Um, sharing is caring, right? So if there's something that you know that can impact someone else's life, it's my belief that it's your moral duty to share that information with that other individual, right? If it's going to help better their life or even save their life, you would be selfish not to share that with them, right? And number two, I genuinely love helping people. What people may not know about me or that follow me know this, the only reason why I was successful

in the military and successful in business is because I believe in helping other people get to where they're trying to go. Because I know that there's a quote that I read from Zig Zig Zig Zieg, Zieg, when I first started looking into business, marketing, all this stuff. I looked into Zig Zig Ler, Tony Robbins, all these moguls. And Zieg, Ziegler said, help enough other people get what they want in life and you'll have all you want in your life. Right. So when I, the reason why I made E6 so fast in the military is because every time I took on a program, project, went on deployment. Anything I did, I ran the command, I was a command fitness leader for thousands of people. All these things, I brought junior sailors with me. I said, here, here's what we need to do.

Here's the end result and here's how we're going to go do it. I need you here, here, here, here. And people ran off. They accomplished the mission, right? Who got the award at the end of the day and the additional rank and recognition? I did. But those were bullet points that they were able to put on their e-val. So when it came time for them to make rank, they said, hey, I work with HM1, Doherty. Doherty's my actual last name.

James is my middle name. They were able to see that, hey, they were a part of all these programs that I led, and they made more rank, which means they made more money, which they were able to give their families a more comfortable lifestyle, right? So I do the same thing in business. I brought my good friend Oscar here that apparently knows everyone in your office because he's a OG in the mortgage guy in the mortgage guy in mortgage space, right? I bring people with me, right?

I'm not going to come here alone, right? So that whole mentality is the same thing because I know if I put out enough goodwill that's going to come full circle back to me, right? So again, scrutiny and expectations. It's a part of what's going to happen. but as soon as I started to make money like I said what happened people were like hey the master chief you're making this money I'm getting out military next month will you teach me people start to expect things from you right and because you know this now like jack is out of the box right you know people are

going to scrutinize you're expecting from you that's just human nature but it allows you to now discern and make the choice am I going to be pissed off at this hater and get upset over my the comments people leaving on my Facebook ad? Or am I just going to let it go and have compassion for these people because they just don't know any better? They don't have, they're not, God is showing me, not them, right? So this might be an opportunity for you to educate them, but give, at the minimum, pray for them and give them compassion, right?

So. I love that. Now, you've spent millions on Facebook ads. What are some of like the biggest failures and lessons that you've learned from running ads for your own business at such a high. level. Not every platform is made equally. So I ran ads on TikTok, Facebook, you know, Instagram, YouTube. We've done native ads like Tabula, things like that. Every platform in LinkedIn, every platform has a certain way that audiences are, there's a reason why they're on that platform.

Right. And if you understand why they're on that platform, you can craft content that matches the reason why they're visiting those platforms. For example, if I am on YouTube, I need to make how-to content because YouTube you go there to solve your problems and learn how to fix things. If I'm on Facebook, right, it's a very passive audience. I can, on YouTube, I can actually target people that are searching on Google for local carpet cleaning services

or local mortgage company, right? and I could go show them how to get the best rate for their home when they go apply for the loan. I can actually do that, right? Because I know they'd searched it on Google and I could put videos in front of them on YouTube. On Facebook, I can also do like an interest-based targeting. However, it's more passive. They may not be in the market right now. It might be based off of search they've done in the last six months.

But if the offer is right, they just might click, right? So with Facebook and Instagram, it's more of family. It's more lifestyle. It's more, hey, I'm here to kill time. I'm not here necessarily to do business. So you have to meet people where they're at. So you have to be more entertaining, a little bit more educational, and attention grabbing on YouTube.

You can be a little bit more forward as to what the thing is, right? TikTok is the same way. I think TikTok is now how to, but extreme entertainment, high dopamine, scrolling, every two seconds. I don't like this. Boom, boom, boom, boom. So you need to be really quick on how you grab attention and what your hook or angle or edit is in that one second because they're going to flip right off your video. So understanding like all these different platforms, if I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn because I am searching for an executive that I can connect with that can

bring my business from A to B or an employee or I'm hiring people. Right. So you can see through sales navigator, their job title, how many, we could go on your sales navigator right now on LinkedIn and see the job, the number, number employees, your position, everyone that works here in the office, right? That's what we're doing on LinkedIn. So if you understand these different reasons why people on these platforms, you have to craft content that matches, meet them where they're at. That's what people get wrong most in marketing. They don't meet people where they at. They're me, me, me, we're really selfish. We're human beings. We're all built for survival. It's a part of our human nature, right?

So, but you have to keep it what's in it for them, right? Meet them where they're at. So I think that's been the biggest thing, right? So when I'm creating content, right, and I'm talking to veterans, and I'm talking to single moms, and I'm talking to parents, and I'm talking to doctors, right? I'm crafting messaging that is exactly who the avatar is that I work with, but I'm also presenting it to them in a way that is aligned with the type of. content that's showing on these different platforms. So for me, that's the best way to utilize

these social media platforms. And I will say this also, you asked me like at a high level with some lessons I can pull out of spending millions on ads. You know, obviously when you're spending money on ads, you're trying to spend a dollar and make three, four dollars out, right? That's the whole point or more. And what I've noticed is you can have the best marketing, you know, you can have the best, the best ad that's bringing attention. But if your funnel system, when you, when you drive traffic from these social media platforms, you're sending them to an engine, right? It's a system. Every system is designed to get a certain result, right? For example, the tax code, right? The IRS is going to, is looking for their nut every year. Okay, you made,

whatever you made last year, someone makes a million dollars, $10 million dollars here. They're coming for, 30, 50% of that, right? So we can't get away from the tax code. That system is designed to make the IRS money, right? And whatever else did they, you know, whoever else that money goes to. Well, we can change the inputs into that system, right? So if you want to pay less taxes, what do you do? You buy assets.

You write things off, right? So with Facebook, Instagram, and all of these other systems, we're running traffic to an engine that is designed to convert awareness into ultimately. a sale at the end. So if there's incongruencies from when people see your ad to see when they see the initial landing page to when they opt into your landing page to get their video, the webinar, or the product, to when they actually go book a call, to when they speak with your team, if there's inconsistency in the congruency of the initial messaging at any point in that funnel, they're going to drop off and think, hey, this is a scam. They told me this thing,

but now they're saying this, right? You should, you should, always reference the last page, the last thing that they saw, and set expectation of what is going to happen in the next step of the funnel. And that's how you build congruency, right? So people get this whole thing messed up. They like, let's just jam a whole bunch of traffic to a book a call, right? Okay, great. You're getting $30 book calls. Congratulations, because the industry average is like $200. Congratulations. But these people booking our encounter have no idea what the heck you're trying to sell, what your mission is, what's in it for them. They just booked a call because they were bored at 12 a.m., right?

So you have to really indoctrinate people, right? You have to give them the exact next step that you want them to take on that journey. You don't rely on them to just say, hey, here's a funnel. Let's just see what happens. So you have to indoctrinate them. You have to put certain copy and videos within the whole funnel to pull them through all the way till the end. That's awesome. And congruency is tough to maintain, too, if you're creating so many various ads and referencing them correctly.

And we're dealing with that now with some of our optimization of our recruiting strategy here at the mortgage. So I totally understand all that. And what I do is also high ticket because I convince people the same thing that you do. But I don't coach them. I offer the product for free. No. Which is I convince them to join our organization, leave their mortgage company that they started. and leave it to join our ecosystem, our platform.

So it's the same kind of concept. So it takes a lot to convince someone on high ticket offers, even though my high ticket offer effectively is free. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's free, but it's also like I'm dealing with ego. Yeah, like, hey, I'm going to leave my company I built to go to your company.

Yeah. And white label your solution. I'm like, yeah, you're going to make a lot more money. Yeah. And you know what's interesting, too, about high ticket, too. We talked to a lot about concurrency. these sales don't happen with one call usually. No.

Like, yeah, sure, there's the 1% or whatever, less than 1% that will like, here's the credit card, boom, whatever, right? But you usually do need a back-end educational process to put people through so that they feel confident in their decision, that they feel comfortable moving forward, right? So, okay. What's your back-in educational process? Like right now, mine is just video ads, various video ads in just like a couple minutes.

but like yeah and webinars but i'm always looking to increase and implement new effective educational strategies i'm starting a coaching platform too just to help kind of navigate help people navigate or enter the mortgage industry yeah people you have to build a no like trust factor right so people need to know who you are they need to know what you do they need to know how to do it and they need to know that you've done it for other people that there's other people that are successful working with you. Right. So you can accomplish most of what I just, a lot of what I just said through a funnel pre-appointment or at the appointment of book a call, but you have to go deeper after the initial call. That's all, by the way, accomplished everything you said through brand strategy. Like,

people know that from my brand or the podcast or like the size of the company or that's all easy. But like convincing them mentally to make that paradigm shift is tough. You know, because in my space, I deal with ego. Ego is a tough thing to overcome. In your space, you were dealing with people that are like, I don't have a choice. You know, like, my hands busted. I can't do this. Or I'm an EA, I'm EA6.

I got a year left. How would you overcome, like, let's say that the doctor's still practicing. How would you, and he's like, I'm going to go to you and make less money? My hand's fine. So that's, how would you overcome that barrier? You know? to leave that and his hand still working like I can show you how to make more 10 times more coaching here or do that so it's the money is more significant on this side but then there's also okay how many how much

how many hours are you spending at the hospital yeah okay okay you're working 10 hours a day you're on call four days a week right you're in there six days a week someone's always calling you or texting you about work okay are you married do you have kids Yeah, got three daughters. Oh, how old are they? They're, you know, three, six, and ten. Oh, what kind of sport? Are they in the sports? What's great? What grades are then? Oh, you know, they play soccer. They do this, but I'm always missing it because I'm out freaking working. I'm on a call and I'm always got to take a call, right? Well, how is, are you married? Are you married? You know, we're in counseling. We're having, you know, issues at home, right? Okay, so you're telling me, it seems like there's an imbalance here. Well, tell me about your faith. How much time do you spend with God every day? Right? There's, and so, so, I start to get into what their day to day is, right? And how much time do they spend scrolling social media or are they watching Netflix, right? Who are their friends are? What are they doing after work?

Right. And if you go through the average person's schedule, I guarantee you, if you wanted to build a business while working a full-time job, there's at least four to five hours in there a day that you're just, you're wasting, right? That you could be given to your family or you can be given to, another passion project. So when you start to break all these things down and you start to help people realize, wow, my marriage is struggling. I'm not connected to my faith.

I don't have time for my kids. You're offering me a solution to make more money and get all my time back. Man, that sounds amazing. Right. So that's the path that I would take with most of the people that I've worked with in my coaching business. What I do today is I work with a lot of business owners that are actually generating a bunch leads. They've done seven, eight, and even nine figures and ten figures in other industries,

but they're having issues with like dealing with the natural, the normal flows of the market, of people opting in and maybe not be financially qualified for things. So that's why I got into the software space because now I can basically help people give them 100% certainty when somebody says, hey, I'm interested in your product or service. They give you their name, email, phone number. How many times that happens and they book a call and they know show or you take the call and they're not financially qualified, right? It's a waste of time, money and energy. So what our new company does that I'm focused on now that I'm sure we'll probably get into, it basically identifies exactly who's financially qualified to buy from you before you even talk to them, right?

And so it's the same, it's just a different vertical now. Now I'm solving business problems for busy entrepreneurs that are doing a lot of money. So now we'll just dive right into that for the sake of time because I want to make sure we talk about lead five. So you still have the coaching company. It's still a revenue generator for you. Correct. But you're just not as passionate about it as this new project. Well, I'll tell you this.

I am actually still very passionate about it. I'm actually shifting my whole model to lead with Christian faith because I feel like that community has been really underserved from an entrepreneurial standpoint, at least from my end. There's other programs and people doing amazing things like my friend Oscar. But I actually want to help more faith-based entrepreneurs, find entrepreneurship, and get the skills to be able to grow not only in their faith in marriage, but definitely in business, using my marketing and sales experience. So I'm shifting my whole model to lead with that, and then we'll get into the actual marketing and sales side of things. So, yes, to answer your question, I'm still passionate about it. I'm just shifting how I'm going to be focused on that going forward. But LiDFi, my software company, is literally 95 plus percent of my time now.

It's a SaaS product that I just developed, and I'll just go right into it. We started working on the technology just about a year ago. I met my partner, Eric. He was been doing underwriting for banks for like 15 years, has like a 15-year relationship with the credit bureaus. And he was working on, he was working on. he was working on some kind of tech similar in the financial sector to deliver pre-approvals. But, you know, when I first found him about a year ago, I mean, my company had already done

significant numbers. We had already done over 100 million in revenue. We spent like 30 million on ads to do that. But through that journey of me spending all that money and scaling that company, I had to overcome a lot over those years. I had over 100 people on payroll, right? And there was, and I don't, and there was months where like, shoot, I don't know if I'm going to make payroll, right? I mean, I look at it, it's like there's 100 people, but that's really 100 families.

Like, they're moms and dads that are trying to feed their kids. And if I can't come up with payroll, this is going to be someone's child is not going to eat tonight. And that was a lot for me to bear on my shoulders, right? And I hired every conversion rate optimization guy, salesperson, you know, marketing person, technology, AI, marketing attribution softwares, trying to figure out how do we get certainty and predictability and sustainability in our business? Because we're spending at one point 30 grand a day on ads, a million dollars a month. And, you know, I'm losing 1.2 million in a month, losing half a million this month. It got to the point where like, because I was selling

such high ticket at a high level for so long, I couldn't look at my P&L month to month, right? I knew, okay, it's going to be a shit month, right? Month two, I know I can't look at that. It's probably going to be a shit month. But month three, over the quarter, we'll have this crazy spike. And, okay, the quarter looks good now. Like, we're all good. And I operated like that for a number of years. But then, about a year and a half ago, almost getting closer two years ago, it wasn't like that. I would look at the quarter. Oh, my God, we're red. Okay, month four. Shit, we're still red. Month five, month six, two quarters straight. in the red, something's wrong, right?

So, and that's, I went in a slew of trying to figure it, figure it, solve it, um, book a call funnels, webinars, low ticket to high ticket purchases. You name it. I did it. I did it all. And, um, I think I was just, I think I was just drinking them coffee one day. I was like, man, I want to know exactly how much money's in someone's pocket, right, when they opt in.

Like these people are going to run me into the ground. I'm going to go bankrupt. I'm going to lose everything. My wife's going to. think I'm a piece of crap, you know, whatever, whatever story I was in my head. And then I met Eric, you know, and then we got together. He was developing something. I was like, dude. Did you mean a man of masterminds, by the way? No, I got, I got randomly thrown into a text message with him. He's like, dude, this guy is doing something. And I think there could be something

here with you guys. And yeah, and we jumped on a call. I'm like, dude, I've done like nine figures. I'm doing everything that I can in my brain to find certainty. And I left this out, but I did have a sales, my sales director and my two sales partners at the time, I found out that they were like shaving points and like taking money for me. Funneling money. And some of my customers were promised stuff that I didn't even do. I had to refund a bunch of money, right? and we were trying to make sure we were compliant and all those things.

Luckily, everything's good, but I had to let them go. And I was like, crap, I'm going to have to rebuild this from the ground up. And so I just shared it. I pour it into him like, dude, this is where I'm at. This is what I've done. He's like, bro, I've been looking for somebody like you. This is what I'm doing. I don't know the high ticket online space at all.

So we partnered. We got together and we created LEEDFI, which is the only identity verification. technology on the market that is able to take a name, email, phone number and basically give you exact credit and financial information on someone by soft-pulling them, right? So we get the name-email phone, we own the patent to the technology that goes through a true identity process. We acquire fields of information like address, date of birth. We know who their kids are. It's kind of weird on all the data that we get, but this is all public stuff. And we do it compliantly, legally, and then because of our relationship with the bureaus, we just saw pull from

Experian TransUnion Equifax real time. So now we know their exact credit score, exactly how much money they can spend on their credit cards right now in their wallet, annual income, debt to income ratio. We can see if they are qualified for debt resolution, if there's any contingencies, like anything like that. And then the real secret sauce here is we have a proprietary system called automated underwriting system, AUS. And so we take the credit report.

we're able to underwrite how much additional capital or funding we could get for this person as well. So when we deliver that data through the API in real time, you'll see, okay, they can drop 50 grand right now, but they're approved for another 100 grand, right? And we took, so we took that same data and that same credit report, and then we started to free feed in, okay, what can we do in the mortgage space, Freddie Mac, right? And we use core logics to do analyze properties, right? And we use Freddie Mac to get basically all the underwriting criteria, right? And we basically go through and deliver pre-approvals with just name email phone. So if somebody wants to buy this house with this address, we can basically tell you, okay,

they're not only pre-approved, but we can basically have you actually give you the exact term loan, the interest rate, what their payments are going to be per month. If you factor in the property tax, the HOA fees, everything and as you know I mean borrowers will pay probably I don't know 60 to 80 bucks to see if somebody's approved to buy a home or pre-approved 80 to 120 but 80 to 120 right and if there's a co-bowerer it's probably going to be soft pulls are even you know pretty expensive but how can that apply to self-employed people because you can't deduct that data if someone just writes everything off I mean we use bank statements for that information yeah so we actually have an algorithm

them where we're actually able to pull everything from them. So we're able to do their personal. We can actually pull all their assets. We can see their investable assets. I can see the 401k, IRA, stocks, bonds, CDs, all their open accounts. We can see bank accounts. We actually can get bank accounts as well. So we actually get the full picture. We get all the mortgages that are currently open on their that they have open right now. So you can reason the data and you know, analyze 12 months of deposits. from that same? That's right. All real time, just name email phone. And instead of paying $100, you'll only pay $20, and you don't need all this information. You just need an name email phone, basically. So that's the underwriting. That's insane. That's on the mortgage side.

So I told you, we broke into that market about three months ago. My use case for it was the high ticket coaching space or people that sell high ticket products or services. That's what I was going after, because I was looking to solve my own shit, right? All this other amazing stuff we're talking about happen after the fact. So, you know, so people that sell like a $10,000, $20,000 package, right? It could be rhinoplasty for nose jobs. It could be a $10,000 coaching package, whatever it is. Right, when somebody opts into your funnel, your website would name email phone, boom, now you know how much they can spend on their cards and how much additional capital you can raise for them through credit cards or buy now pay later, like Clarkner, a firm after pay.

and then boom. So the sales team gets the data real time. Okay, John Smith can afford our package. Let's prioritize him and get him on the phone ASAP to put him through an indoctrination process faster instead of wasting time on the 80% of people that can't buy, right? 70, 80% of people that raised their hand and say they want to do business with you, they might put on their application, hey, this is my income, this is my job, these are all my things. We actually found out that 50% of all of that data isn't accurate.

people with money typically don't want you know they have it people without it want you to think that they do so they'll they won't fill out the application 100% right and then you're over here trying to make strategic marketing sales decisions on data that's half accurate it's like leif i now just gives you that information right when they opt in so you could actually remove restrictive applications asking all these questions and probably drop your cost per call or app by as much 30 or 40% because usually people, they get cold feet when they get into those questions anyway, right? So we're able to basically just create more efficiency and the whole marketing cell. We can even feed back the data to meta and Google and supercharger targeting. So now you're

getting in front of more people that are like 700 plus credit score or high net worth, high income, whatever you want through the API we build. So yeah, man, it's been a huge game changer. We have like over a hundred seven to nine figure brands now. Some of the people that you probably look up to and follow and authors use it. And yeah, it's been going great. I would probably say the average result, like results are cool, right? So the average result somebody sees from it, we're actually able to help people increase the number of qualified people booking

into their funnel by as much as 40%. This just means 40% more people can move forward, whereas before LeadFie, these 40% would have been tire kickers, right? and average revenue is somewhere around 30%, but I do have people literally doubling their business because they're doing all the things. They're running ads with it. They're prioritizing, you know, high value prospects right when they opt in, right? They're, you know, if you run a funnel, right, you got an opt-in, usually have a video they

watch, then you got an application, then you got a book a call, right? So that's a basic funnel. But every page has a conversion rate drop-off point, right? Not everyone's going to go book a call. You might have 100 people visit your opt-in page, then you might have 30 people that get to the video page, but then you might have 15 people get to application, but then only seven people in a book and a call. So out of 100 people, only seven booked a call. Dude, that's 93 people in your funnel that your sales team should be outbounding and calling. But what most sales teams do is they'll call all 93 people and waste time on 80% of people that can't buy.

So now they're setting all these calls, jamming up their sales team's calendar with 80% of people I can't buy. Because they don't know anybody. They're just setting calls. Setters get paid to put calls on calendars. With LEEDFI, you run it on the opt-in, boom. It immediately reveals the 20 to 30% that can actually move forward. You just focus on those people. Give them the time as immediately as possible to get them on calendar.

Just charge per record? It's a soft pull per record, basically. And you're charging 20 bucks per record, or how are you doing it? On the mortgage side, yes. for the coaching and industry side, we don't need as, because on the coachings, on the mortgage side, we're actually providing a full credit summary, all their open accounts, like literally everything. With mortgage, you know, there's more data points over the get. But if you're just selling simply need to know the buying power and for your high ticket product or service,

there's a lot less data points needed. It's a couple of bucks. Yeah, it's just a few, yeah, a couple, a few bucks. But here's the distinction. So when you do mortgage, right, it's a pre-qual. So whenever they give up their name, email, phone, they check the checkbox. Hey, I agree to a soft pull, right? So on the mortgage side, yes, you absolutely need to do that for FCRA compliance.

But if you're selling high ticket and you just need to know the buying power, we're pre-screening leads. We're not pre-qualifying. We're pre-screening them, right, for a funding option, for like a pre-approval for a credit card, right? So how many times have you gotten a pre-approved credit card in the mail? I mean, every day. Every day. My wife got one yesterday. I got one yesterday.

So our credit's being ran nonstop without our consent, right? So we're being pre-screened nonstop by Chase Wells Fargo, all these different banks. So we're basically doing the same exact thing, but just in the online space when somebody gives us their phone number. All we have to do is add some simple language to our privacy policy. and as long as the coach or the business owner follows TCPA, which is the checkbox, but the check box is only for saying, hey, we're going to, you know,

I agree to have my phone number processed, marketed to I can opt out at any point, which is standard practice if you generate leads, then you're in compliance, right? But if you're pre-qualifying someone, someone has to definitely say, hey, I agree to the soft credit check. So that's the distinction.

Now, pivoting a little, I want to ask you a couple questions because we're going to talk about, some goals here and and also I want to talk about your family you got two kids right correct okay now one of the things I always bring up with entrepreneurs who are successful and I know you probably don't you know grew up different than your kids so you come from you know more humble roots how are you instilling that same level of grit and that mindset that winning mindset that you've had and you continue to have in your children today

given that they're in a world of abundance. Yeah. Well, here's the interesting thing about me. Yeah, when I grew up, when I grew up, there was times I didn't know I was going to eat. There was times I went to bed hungry. There was times that I didn't know if my dad was going to kick my door down and maybe beat me or, you know, go after my mom. Right. So I grew up in a household where there was, it was a very, very chaotic environment.

physical verbal abuse abuse abuse of drugs alcohol it was tough it was really tough upbringing i saw i saw and endure things that no kids should see um so i think my whole life i've been searching for predictability because i didn't have it for so long for 17 18 years of my life it was very chaotic uncertain right and so when i joined the military the military instills discipline integrity respect for other people and they give you structure here's how to fold your sheets here's how to iron your uniform here's how to put your ribbons on your uniform you know here's how to greet people in the morning here's how to be a good human being basically right and i did well in that because i strive for that when i was 16 years old i approached my dad and i'm like daddy i don't agree with your behavior like

Stop treating my mom this way. Stop bringing drugs and alcohol into this house. Stop being physical and verbally abusive. And I confronted him one day and he took a swing at me. And ever since that moment, I left. I was 16 years old. I moved out when I lived with my best friend's parents at the time and eventually moved to my grandparents and then I found the military.

So going through the military and then going into entrepreneurship and doing what I've done, today, I've always wanted to have a family. I've always wanted to have girls or kids, whether God gave me boys or girls, I wanted to cultivate an environment for them in a lifestyle where they didn't have to worry about if they were going to eat. They wouldn't have to worry about if their dad was going to yell at them or beat them or hurt their mom. Right? So for me, I think we're all here to raise kids and pass on our legacy to our kids, right? Like, for me, I can't, you can't take the LAMBos when you leave, right? You can't take the money. You can't take the yachts or whatever people aspire to have, even though these things are so cool

in the flesh and you should own a yacht or a LAMBO for sure. I would love to have a massive boat one day, which I can probably get, but, you know, my wife will probably be not too, with other things that we want to accomplish first. But when I'm dead and gone and, you know, and people are, people ask me like what's the legacy what's the thing that I want to leave behind or what do they think want to think of me when I'm gone my only answer is like the only the only legacy I want to leave behind is the stories that my children are able to tell about me when I'm gone and if they're able to share and articulate the impact that their daddy had on their life and the people around us then that's that's all I need I want that story to be positive profoundly positive right

and I don't care about what other people have to say, their opinions of me, or anything else to me. It's what my two girls, the example that I'm setting for them. Because I know if that story is good and locked in, then that tells me, okay, most of the things around me in my life are locked in. So that's my barometer of success is what my kids say about me and what they think of their dad. Love that.

Love that. Now, you know, it's amazing because I get a lot of entrepreneurs in here It's like, they all, a lot of them, most of them come from humble beginnings or beginnings where they suffered. And it's like, I'm always looking, because I'm a father of four, you know, it's like, I want to give my kids the best life. But I also want them to suffer, which they're not, you know, like. And it's finding that balance where I want them to grind really hard just like me. But I don't want them to suffer. And it's like, and I don't want them to be spoiled.

And it's something I'm always on a quest to learn and to become a better father, a better parent, and just a better teacher and coach to them. Yeah, I do feel that my kids are going to, we were all kids at one point, right? We're still a kid. I don't know what you're talking about. Hey, I agree, dude. I agree. I'm still a kid at heart. I laugh at the silliest stuff and make the dumbest jokes and laugh.

And everybody's like, who's this guy? You know, I'm talking about it. So our kids are going to go through that too, and they're going to make some dumb decisions. And so the only thing I can do as a parent is not put restrictions on their life in control at a young age for sure. Hey, baby, don't peek over that bridge. You might fall over like, I'm going to hold on to it, right? Simple stuff like that. But when they get older, they're going to go through their own struggles and make their own decisions.

And the only thing that I can feel I can do as a parent is say, all right, baby, you want to do this. well, here's the potential outcomes. Let's risk mitigate this, right? You know, what is it you're trying to solve? Is it really that worth it? Because this, this and this could happen, right? And that's the only thing that I can do as a parent, right? Now, as far as like the business and the success,

like, you know, right now I'm teaching my daughter the value of money, you know? And every single time we have to go and she, there's something that she wants, like a toy or anything like that or an experience, I'll be like, baby, this is, I'll break out some money. I'll say, this is how much this is going to cost, right? And I would teach her, I teach her, what type of work or effort do you think is necessary to make this kind of money that's on the table, right? And then I would give her, I give her little tasks.

I'm like, all right, let's go in the yard, let's pick up all the pine cones, let's mow, let's make your bed, right? And I would, I tie time and effort to certain levels of money on the table. I was like, all right, baby, you did this many tasks today. this is how much money you made, right? And she'll say, okay, she'll count it, but that's not enough to go to Legoland. I was like, okay, we got to do more test. So I'm doing things like that to now instill the value of money and hard work, right?

Because it takes a lot, man, like after coaching so many people and going through a time where if I worked nine to five or showed up this many hours per week, I get this check. But then in the business world, it's like, shit, if I don't show up, I don't, I don't, I don't and people don't get paid, you know, but my my income could be exponentially higher. So it's a crazy mindset shift that you have to go through. And I think, you know, fortunately for us, like we're having kids, they're going to see that, right? And they're going to be exposed to a whole new world where they look at other people and other

things. Like it's funny, we lived in little Italy in San Diego and I have this 7,000 square foot penthouse. I didn't get it to be like, hey, I want to live in a penhouse. wanted to have experiences. I wanted to bring people together. I saw it as an opportunity to help a lot of people. And we live there too. And we're walking in Little Italy. And my daughter, three, four years old, we're walking through Little Italy. And she goes, Mommy, Daddy, can we go back to the penthouse? And we're in this busy, busy place with all these people. All these people are like,

Pennhouse. Who's this kid, like four-year-old penthouse? Right. And so every time we fly, first class, you know, so like she's getting these experiences that I never got. God as a kid. But it's now, now it's coming to the point where like, hey, baby, we have to really, you have to understand where we are in life and the work daddy has had to do to have us, give, bring us this life, right? And, you know, to be honest, a lot of that goes back to faith, God and our commitment to our Lord and Savior and, you know, giving him and honoring him every day. And then, and then the work behind that, because God does provide, but he's not to provide if you just sit on your hands you have to get and do the work so i think faith business

these are things that we're still in our kids right we're starting to my oldest is five and a half my youngest is two and a half so um but yeah i'm i'm excited being a dad is it's the thing that i've always wanted to do and i'm doing it now and i get to kind of i think i have a second chance at childhood right like when you become a parent you get a second chance of childhood, right? So growing up, I didn't have the best childhood. Now I'm reliving that time with my kids, but correcting a lot of things that are wrong. And it's beautiful to see the smile on their faces and the life that they have, you know. So incredible, beautiful, beautifully said. A couple last questions for you. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself, a business goal

that you have for the Li-Fi and the consulting company, and a family goal that you have for the family? and you could answer those in the order. Yeah, I can probably go in order. I would probably say a personal goal right now. There's two quick ones, and I'll cover them. Number one, about a year and a half ago, when I was going through all this before I found Eric, I literally, I was not in my faith.

I was not praying. I was not even going to church. I was trying to do it on my own. And I just remember I fell on my knees. in my office and just said, God, this is all you. I surrendered everything to him. And ever since that moment, I watched, you know, I have red canals and green canals in the stock market. I was at the bottom red candle, basically fully liquidated, and then I got this massive green candle that I'm sitting on right now. And if it wasn't for that, I don't feel anything would have corrected,

because I immediately started to build the blocks that have led me to finding what I am doing today. So I think continuing my faith is really big for me, right? And which it, you know, should be for a lot of people, if you haven't connected. For everybody. For everyone, right? And you don't know how bad it is until you hit rock bottom. When you hit rock bottom, you think, oh, should, this is rock bottom, and then something else happens, right? It's like our friend, we were just with Dave Meltzer last week.

And one of the quotes that really hit from him when I was at his house last week, he said, you're either humbled or you're about to be. It's like, dude, you think you got it all figured out? No, God's going to come along and be like, no, you don't. Boom, here you go. Deal with this. Now you have a challenge. Get out of that, right?

So stay humble. Oscar says, stay humble and hungry, you know. And I think that's what's keeping me going forward through everything I have. So faith, number one, huge. Number two, personal, I want to give you this because I think it's fun to talk about. Everything starts with your gut, man. Like, I found out, I have a friend, Mike, that is like an expert on gut biome, did a test and everything. You told me all these things about my digestion.

I'm like, oh, my gosh, that's why I can't get results in the gym. That's why I'm bloated all the time. That's why I can't sleep, right? You know, having issues in the bedroom with my wife, like all these things, right? And we fixed it. And my life is like, boom, just like that. What was the... I mean, everything does start in the gut.

Yeah, so I basically found out... Does he work for biome, the company biome? No, it's a different... Gut biome was like a study of your gut. Yeah, yeah. I just did the gut test. I think the clinic he works with is called Everwell. It's out in Arizona.

But I found out that my pancreas is not secreting digestive enzymes. So every time I eat, my body's basically not getting the nutrition from the food that I'm eating. So that's showing up in everything. My mood, my clarity, my thought. you know my my results in the gym so so now i've gotten on a stack of peptides supplements no drugs all natural stuff and it's like completely night and day you know so so continuing to focus on my health starting with the gut and then you know getting back in the shape because i used to be like when i was 25 i was like walking around 12% body fat i'm not trying to be like that now but um i'm just

trying to really trying to optimize to have a fit body to keep up with my kids because they're running around like crazy right and Sports haven't started. You know, like where you're training with them. Like when you're in baseball or baseball or whatever sports you want to be playing with them. Yeah, tennis. We're going to do tennis and soccer. Yeah.

She's in ballet right now and swimming. So we're doing tennis and soccer soon next. So that's when you're active. You've got to be really in shape. Yeah. I got to be ready. I got to be able to cut. And I had ACL surgery in 2009 and sometimes it bothered me.

So I got to be careful with the cuts. But, yeah, business goals. we repackage, relaunched. We're going to launch a kingdom CEO, which is my new coaching consulting company towards the Christian community, and we're going to help them scale their businesses online with our experience. So really excited about that. Right now, it's just a matter of we just want to help as many Christians in that, you know, God says, too, there's nothing wrong with, you know, monetizing and making money.

He wants us to have. fortune, but also feeding that back to purpose. So for-purpose business with Keenham CEO, we're going to be helping a lot of people. We're going to be helping veterans pay off medical debt. We're going to help build schools for kids in Mexico with pencils of promise and do a lot of good stuff like that. And then for LEEDFI, my goal at this point, you know, is to basically get about a four or five X where I'm at right now to have 100-mill valuation. and then seek an exit strategy. I'm already getting offers right now,

but I think that there's a lot more we can do with the technology. You just started and you're getting offers. Yeah. So sit tight. Yeah. Build it and they'll come. They'll keep coming. Yeah.

And for family, dude, it's just, I want my kids to have a great life, dude. I want to wake up every day, see them. And my wife, we've, me and my wife have rebound big time. over the last year too, because when I said I hit rock bottom, everything was rock bottom. There was a point where I don't know if my business were going to survive. My kids didn't know me. I was traveling.

Me and my wife were very distant. And, you know, because of my faith and work, me and my wife now have a very close loving marriage again like we did before. And so everything that I'm doing now is just to keep the family intact, right? Keep the family intact so that everything else could benefit. right because i could be thriving in business but if my wife's upset or my kids are not taking care of like what kind of what's the point right so um growing in our faith faith faith faith man you've heard me say it for my family that's that's the number one focus right now because i know all things will blossom from there you know we we are only called just to just to plant the seed then god waters

you know paula waters right after so one thing i live by is just like like making sure that our family's always praying together and kids are going to church and just being as active as we possibly can in the church community. My whole life, you know, I came from Egypt as a persecuted Christian. And so I'm pretty vocal about faith just because I can be. Even as a CEO of the company, it's like, dude, it's taboo almost. Yeah. You know, but just because I come from that community, I'm like, well, you know, we're in America.

people raise, you know, their flags, their rainbow flags or whatever. And I'm allowed to do that with faith, you know, just because that's how we were killed for that in Egypt. Yeah. And here we are in America where it's like, we can just be as vocal as we want. So when you're at a CEO of a company, you're just supposed to be like accepting whatever, but I'm vocal about it. So it's how I live and it's how God continues to bless.

Well, last question. I ask everybody this question. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you? I have like two things I want to say. Same both. I think if I went right now, I think that he would accept and understand that I've been saved because I've surrendered, because I've repented. because I've turned things around and I've given him the attention he deserves in which I've given to my marriage and the people around me. But at the same time, this is an everyday choice.

I'm 37. You know, I pray that I'm around for another 50 plus years, you know, live to 100. But I got to choose this lifestyle every day. You know, I have to choose to keep doing what I'm doing. And it brings up a quote. And the quote is from Virginia satire. She says that most people choose a certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty. And that it's like if you have two doors in front of you,

behind door, number one is the miserable life as you know it, the same car job, the same body circumstances. most people choose that door because they know what they're going to get. But door number two is there's uncertainty behind that door. You don't know exactly how that's going to play out, but you know all your goals, dreams, and aspirations could be behind that door. And unfortunately, most people don't choose that door because they can't handle the uncertainty aspect.

But for me, I've lived my life taking risk, understanding that there's going to be times of uncertainty that if I want to get somewhere, I have to be comfortable with uncertainty for long periods of times and not necessarily expect a result. And that's why time in business, time in the markets, you win if you can withstand the downturns, if you can withstand the darkness. So every day I have to continue to choose door number two because there's thoughts in my head every day even though I'm at where I'm at that tells me why I should not keep going forward.

And we all have those thoughts. But we have to choose to continue to persevere and keep going. The narrow road, man. Exactly. So I want to say the path that I'm on is on the path that God is calling me to be on at this point. The fact that that man is standing there right there is a big reflection of to where I'm at my life. Because that is a man of God, someone that I really look. up to that I really love. And somebody that you should definitely have in this seat in the future.

I love that. So, and then you, right? Your story, the fact that you're a man of faith. So I think I'm where I need to be and God has put me exactly where I need to be. So I need to keep doing what I'm doing and just follow his calling. The fact that I've switched a nine-figure company all the way to focus on Christian entrepreneurs, why would I do that? So I ask myself these questions. Am I in line with what he's calling me to do? And I feel like my story, my journey, the things that I overcome, a lot of people are going to be impacted from that over the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years. And yeah, I might have a cool software that makes money that helps people with business problems.

But to me, helping men and women get closer to God, I think is the one thing that I'm very passionate about. I think that's exactly where God wants me to continue to pursue. And again, that will feed back to my kids, the legacy, and everything will keep blossoming from there, man. I love that. You know, that's the most important thing we teach our kids. It's like love God, serve God, do God's work. And then he provides. Like, how does he provide?

It's magic. I don't know. It just happens. You know, he will always provide. And we wrap our heads around it. We try to think about, like, how is this going to happen? And how my kids are going to stay close to me? Inflation, this, that, the other.

Like, do I got to buy them houses? God have to figure it out for us. Yeah. As long as we stay true and fervent and steadfast, it just happens. People want to connect with you. How do they find you? Instagram. Just go to Instagram, type in Douglas James.

It should be the first one with the blue check, but I think the handle is at the underscore Douglas James. And then my website for my company, lead fi it's um lead by dot a i so lead f i dot to i go there if you want to stop talking to broke people and focus on people that can afford you basically that's all i'll say so love that thanks to thanks for coming on the show god bless you i hope you at each and every one of your goals and keep dominating bro keep doing god's work love it love to hear it thank you