Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - He Slept in His Car. Now He Runs 34 Offices | Manny Soto | Coffeez with Joe Shalaby Ep. 320

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

Manny Soto, founder and CEO of The Financial Architects, is back. Mentored by Ed Mylett, broke at 29 making $8 an hour, sleeping in his car for two weeks rather than calling home, and now running 34 locations with zero debt. The $4.2 trillion California wealth transfer, why he’d take $1 million cash over $10 million in assets, the save 30% rule, the biggest lie the middle class believes, why he wouldn’t buy property right now, and the long-term care hack nobody tells you.New episodes every week. Pour up.

One, two. I'm excited, yeah. I'm your barista, Alyssa. And you're Manny, yes? Mani, yes? Man. Wonderful. What can I get to today?

I like the honey citrus tea. Beautiful. Okay, honey citrus tea. Why not a coffee today? Coffee's for closers. I don't know if I'm closed. We know you're a closer, so you don't even need to prove that, right? Well, I'm a little bit under the weather, so she's the best route.

Yeah. We need to get you right. Yeah. Mani, you can't be closing all these deals. Well, you're obviously, you're, you're, Your identity is obviously you're doing good, everything is great, it's all about the attitude. But you're having the tea is just going to make me a little bit better. Amen.

I have your tea ready here for you, but I want to also ask you to pick some chocolate if you like. Are you good to eat some chocolate? No, I'm fasting, but I have a sweet tooth, so I'll take this one. Okay, sweet tooth. Then we all follow me. I'm going to lead you over here to Joe. Awesome. I know you guys have it before.

Yeah, Joe's my buddy. Good to have you. local. All right. Mani, my boy, good to see you again, brother. Hell you. Glad to have you back on the show. Thanks, Alyssa.

Of course. Oh, man. Sorry under the weather, man. Oh, it's all good. You're going to bring your game. I know you will. Always. What's up, everybody?

Welcome to another episode of coffees. I am your host, Joe Shelby, and today we are sitting with my dear friend, Mani Soto, founder and CEO of the financial architects, and he is making a very big impact. in financial literacy and the financial space in general. Please welcome to Warren.

Dean, Mani so. All right. What an intro. Right off the top of my head. Come on, baby. I didn't need to read an intro about you. Strong. I just like to, you know, with it.

You know, Manny, we haven't talked to a couple years on the show, so, you know, we don't get to ask this question much. But my first question to you, what's your morning routine? Has it changed since last time we talked? It changes sporadically. Obviously, everybody's got a different relationship vibe about themselves. They live in different areas, et cetera. Tony Robbins talks about six needs of people.

So I'm one of those in his six needs of people. I'm one of those guys that are kind of a loose canon. So I'm not very go with the norm. So obviously, every day we wake up and we take a shower, we wash the same body part every single time. But when I wake up, I have right there on my wall grateful. because I want to be grateful for everything that I got. So right out of bed, I do that.

I got that grateful vibe. And then I do my stretches, of course. I see my incantations. And then I got my business plan on my mirror. What are those? I'm an incredible father. I have so much money. I don't know what the fuck to do with it all.

I have incredible kids. They're athletically pertinent. Or no, athletically patient is what I put. All right. Just things like that. I like all your affirmations. So let's get into it. Like myself, you grew up poor.

you came from nothing and you built a company your family never thought was possible. So at what point did you realize you weren't just working to survive, you were working to be a vessel for other people to thrive? There's a book that a friend of mine recommend one of my mentors, Ed Milet,

he recommended to me. It was 177 mental toughness secrets of the world class. It's by Sebalt. And in the book, it talks about working just to get by being basic, like underperforming, and then someone that's just an elite performer. So when I get into the industry of financial services, I was introduced, man, 23 years ago,

I just needed an opportunity. The real opportunity is having an opportunity. So imagine people in Gaza, they don't have an opportunity. They can't go down the street and go, oh, hey, can I sell something to make more money? They're worried about staying alive. I mean, what? We have, like, almost one-third of the world's GDP. There's opportunity all over the place.

So when I was given that opportunity, I was like, get out of my way. So coming from nothing, I mean, everything was good. Every day is a holiday. Every meal is and feast. My mom is from nine brothers and sisters. My dad is from 12 brothers and sisters. I want, like, 12 kids.

There it is. I got four. There it is. You got four, right? I have four. So now when I got into that industry, you know, yeah, you're right. I didn't come from anything, but anything that was thrown at me, I wanted to give it an opportunity. So even then, just to give you a gauge of how financially great our family was, I was making close to $80,000 W2.

And I think I was the most successful cousin out of everybody. I mean. The most successful cousin. Like 400 people. Exactly, dude. I think we had close to 100 cousins, dude. So, you know, it was a little bit rough growing up. So when I was given that opportunity, I took advantage of it.

Now, at what point did you realize that that kind of opportunity even existed for you? No, I was 29 years old. Man, that's old to start an opportunity to exist. I know. I had a job for jobs for about 11 years. I remember working in telemarketing collections. I got paid $8 an hour and I thought I'd made it. I was like, man, I'm set.

I could put a boom box in my back seat. I can move out and rent a room. I was like, man, I'm set. You know how you have different levels of I'm set? $8 an hour. I'm set. $12 an hour. Oh, man.

Now I'm really set. Salary, $2,700 a month. I'm set. I can rent a two-bedroom, two-bath, and La Mirada, and I can wild out and have a Honda accord. Maybe I could even lower it. You know, I'm set.

So in 29, I'm thinking I'm set until this dude, Ed Milet, walked in the room and said, what are you doing to become successful? he had a vein pop out in his neck he had veins popping out in his head i mean the dude was super passionate he can make you laugh and cry within five minutes so when i heard a guy like that speak and he had his tailor-made suit on because i had never seen a tailor-made suit at that time i was like yeah i'm set but this guy's crushing it whatever he's selling i'm buying so that was 23 years ago i got involved with a network marketing company and that's how i started

and my let was selling network marketing at that time he's still in network marketing Sorry, Eddie, but he's still in network marketing. So he still represents World Financial Group, which is one of the larger insurance and financial firms in the United States. And that is a network marketing company. They recruit to recruit to recruit to recruit. That's right. So he's still with WFG. Absolutely.

Well, from what I understand. So I was there for almost nine years. I flown a little jet, in a Learjet with him, what, seven, eight times. I was down the hallway with him in Chino Hills when he had his office out there. I mean, I text messaged him a week ago. So he's still a buddy of mine. I'm still very grateful to him besides my dad. He was the, he was the number one person and changed my life.

That's amazing. So you'd consider him a mentor for you? The number one mentor besides my dad. Yeah. Absolutely. So you met him at 29. I remember you talking to him and I know you have a pretty decent relationship with him. Sure.

How has that relationship? molded you as an entrepreneur. And what's the best lesson you've learned from Ed Milet? Man, what a mouthful. I could sit here and talk for days about the lessons I had learned from the man. You can give me some of the top three if you want. I'll give you the number one. Biggest lesson that I learned from Milet was to love on people.

If you notice these podcasters, these highly inspirational, motivational people, they love on people. And it's not fake. They legitimately love people. My other guy, I met him in WFG, was Patrick Bet David. And now Patrick's doing some incredible things. If you'd have told me that he has double the followers of my let 10 years ago, I'd have to bet anything I had against it.

And now he's just scaling crazy. But my let taught me to love on people. And if you notice, and if you know Pat specifically, he loves on people. He looks at you. You talk for two seconds, and he'll say something special about you. He'll tell you exactly what's special about you.

It was almost like a sign over your forehead saying, make me feel special. Make me smile. Tell me I'm the anointed one. Tell me I'm great. And that's the number one thing that I learned from. Number two and three, I'd say, don't put all your eggs into one basket.

I didn't learn that from my life. that, but I learned that, I caught that. It wasn't taught. So some things are not taught. They're caught. That was caught. So I was loyal to World Financial Group for almost nine years. And I think I was four, maybe five years overdue. I should have left earlier. I'll never regret being a part of the company, but the comp structure sucked. The Better Business Bureau had a meant F. And even though I was great at financial planning, I didn't know everything about financial planning. And it took me leaving to get really good at it. And then third is family.

The most important part of your, the gift that you have that God has given you is your family. So don't waste that away. I spent almost nine years and my two older boys, I think I spent too much time on the business side versus with my kids and trying to spend as much time as possible outside of business with my kids.

So many, what did growing up poor teach you about, survival. Nothing's given to you. Everything's earned. That's the number one. Even now that I have some money, my kids, they earn everything they got. I don't, I try not to give my kids anything. And I still learn lessons, of course. We're fathers. We know lessons are hard earned. I have a 29-year-old son. I have a 27-year-old son. And I remember back years ago, we're having a barbecue. And I told both of them, I go, hey, dad's going to try and spend all his money. Just less. you know. I told them I'm trying to spend all my money and when they were 13 and 15, I sent

them doorknock. Okay. And my son, Maddie had a script. It said in an effort to learn the value of money, my dad is put together a script for us. And he asked us to earn money through washing cars or doing yard work. Which of the two would best interest you? So they were turning into closers. Yeah. My sons are one of the best communicators you'll speak with, and they're not college educated, even though my son, Manning went to the Navy, and he's earning his bachelor's degree right now at 27 years old, but he spent five years at the Navy. But I put that kid up against any great communicator because I taught him at a young age how to overcome objections and earn everything. Yeah. About his first house four months ago in San Antonio, Texas. I'm proud of him, but I'm more proud that, they now are great communicators. They could lose it all and they can start over again. And as long as you have a mouthpiece and great communication skills, you'll make it.

You'll make it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I have all my kids doing the same thing now. I got them working. You know, we do it through a different business, but, you know, they know how to communicate. They know how to grind. They know how to, you know, negotiate. And they understand the importance of margins.

And it's, you know, we do it through cards. But, you know, this weekend we're setting up at the show, the Orange County Card Show. and they'll have 100 grand pass through their physical hands. You should reach out to Bashir. Bishir is heavy in them. We're going to Miami into this mug, and we're going to be meeting up with a pretty high-profile guy that you definitely know.

But on the card side, that's a big business. I mean, I sent the video to my some friends yesterday about Kevin O'Leary's purchase of the O'Tonni $11 million card. It's just insane. It's an insane market. That's stupid. But I look at it like the same. I had a guy on the podcast who made millions selling watches. And that's what the card market is now.

It's the margins of the same like watches. You know, you buy a card. I mean, we made this weekend, me and my kids like seven grand flipping a card. And they were there for the whole transaction to buy the sale, the trade, that everything. See, that's what I'm talking about. You getting in that mode is irreplaceable. They'll never forget that, bro. They'll never forget that time with their dad.

man we made seven racks I bet you when they're 52 years old they're gonna bring up that story to their kids they're gonna bring it up there because they saw it you know what's funny I have a story to tell like it'll take 30 seconds check this out it's hilarious okay

you know as entrepreneurs when we're growing up and it's tough right we're eating cup of noodles and we're making spam tacos with cilantro we're doing all this different stuff right just to get by right spam tacos she's still entrepreneur

I got spam brah spam tacos are legit a f okay you see spamlita i like that okay so so uh a friend of mine in wfg he was he was getting up to tell his story and so i'm you know i'm at the edge of my seat i'm like all right i gotta hear this because i love hearing about people's challenges right how they overcame and how they became super successful like that's why these podcasts are so um inspiration inspirational, absolutely. So I'm getting up,

and I'm leaning forward in my seat, and he's telling his story, and he goes, yeah, man, times are tough, and during Christmas time, one year, we had to put the kids' gifts on credit cards.

I was like, is that it? The hell? Like, that was his version of the tough times. But it's so crazy because now millennials and Z-Genners,

they're inheriting everything. They're like, like, hey, well, it's expected, okay? Like, I am, I should have more. Why? Just because, no, that's not how it works. You've got to earn your way. So I try not to give, you know, too many things, even to my employees or my agents. I don't want to give them too much because then they're on the bottle and they don't know

how to really struggle for it. Yeah, we got to keep teaching them to fish. Agreed. And it's such an important lesson for people. but yeah, this generation, Gen Ziers are, they're lazy. They don't grind. They don't got the same work ethic like our generations. What's harder for you?

Making money or keeping it? Definitely not making money. At this point, we're printing money. Like whatever we touch turns to gold. Might as touch, baby. Absolutely. So if I go into a company or I speak with an agent or a client, nighttime, they're either going to become a client.

or they're going to become business partners with us. The reason why is not me being cocky. It's we just have failed more than every other person out there in that field. Keeping money, I still, I'm a great saver. Like, people just don't know that I'm a great saver because I still sport the Louis Vuitton and doing things like that. But I would say, I would say the latter making money is easier for me. Premisa.

Would you rather have a million-in-grat-old? cash or 10 million in assets one million dollars in cash you can flip that quick yeah if you have 10 million dollars in assets i'm assuming that you're saying that nine million of it is a debt if we're if we're coming out equal i don't like debt so my company no debt we have no loans um i didn't borrow money to make money in that scenario matter of fact i don't like borrowing money to make money even though i know that most wealthy people do borough. I'm the same way. I think it's just because I grew up poor. I don't want to have debt. Same thing, dude. I had an IRS problem in 04.05. Okay. So I get it. So I get flashbacks.

And I'm like, oh, no, we ain't going down that route. So things like that. So I'm, I'd rather have the million dollars in liquid cash. Yeah. I'm writing, I have a book and I'm writing a second book right now contractually going through like negotiations, right? So the guy that interviewed me, he brings me it was like a three-hour interview and now AI does books yeah so you just do an interview and then you do your book there's the book right so he talks to me after he goes hey bro have you ever talked to somebody about the shit that you've been through I'm like yeah I had like a couple counselors but what for like why would I put my negativity in someone else's basket like they got their own problems you know what I mean and I really learned from his statement

I'm very comfortable in trauma situations. Like right now I'm doing terrific. Why don't have to go by and be in another building? Why do I have to do a, why can't I just chill out? And from what I've read, it's your upbringing of who, like how you performed as a kid and how you had to make it happen as a young adult. Now that trauma is still within your mind. mind. So, so I'm just constantly active, but I'm constantly doing stuff, even though I don't need to

anymore. I like it. It juices me up. You became a father real young. What did that teach you right away once you became a dad? I was at, uh, I was at the vault, um, week and a half ago, week ago, ish. And, uh, we have the CEO section. There's like 700 people that paid 20 grand for a ticket. And one of the guys there, he was 24 years old, he's in the same industry I am. And he's asking me all these questions. And he goes, what's the number one thing that you would do? I'm like, don't get a chick pregnant, bro. Everyone at the table like dropped their sauce, brother.

Like, whoa, they're waiting here like, you should get the CRM, you should do this, you should learn sales. I go, don't get a chick pregnant. No matter what, you're going to be okay. Because when you make a mistake like that, it changes your life for the rest of your life. It's not something that you could just get over. It's something that... But bro, you kept doing it.

I mean, one mistake equals two mistakes, but learning from your mistakes is number two. So when that happened at a young age, yeah, I was a young father. And I doused college. I went three years into college and then I quit. I'm in college drop out. I went to USC, but I went there for a party once. I didn't actually go to USC, you follow. I went to Cal State Fullercher for three years.

Then I left early, so it was fun. But, you know, yeah, having a child at a young age is not fun. Now you described a stretch where you were homeless, but still showing up every day in a suit. How did nobody know that? I want to, I want to let. everyone know it wasn't homeless for like two years like being homeless should be a temporary thing yeah and it wasn't like homeless i didn't have anywhere to go you got 24 fitness to shower at

i showered at alley fitness so that's part of me being homeless i wasn't actually homeless homeless well a lot of people are homeless and just shower at the gym i'm talking about spending the night in your car for almost two weeks because you don't want to call your mom and go hey can i can i go back home. Spending the night in your car for almost two weeks because you don't want to call your dad and listen to him, tell you that. You should get a job. So yeah, you know, I suited. If anyone remembers in my trunk, I had my whole wardrobe. So my suits were hung up. So I would stay the night in the car. Ravens Park blown away right now. I would stay the night in the car. It was cold sometimes. So you already know that it was in November-ish. And I'd be like, man, you know, I've, I've, I'd,

I got to do some appointments. I didn't have a car, got my car repossessed from my ex because she was a co-center. And I remember borrowing my car, borrowing a car from my cousin, Andrew, going on appointments. I remember buying a 1963 Covair and parking it down the street for my appointment. No power steering, okay?

It was primored out. I parked it down the street. And if you ever went to the field with me, I was like badass, bro, because I was aggressive. So I remember leaving clients, houses and they're like, let me walk you to your car. And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm good. You know, and I'd walk like down the block to go to my car.

So it's things like that that humbled me. But even at 29 and 30 years old when I was a young entrepreneur, I knew that there was going to be something gold at the end of the rainbow. I had absolute confidence in myself at what I could do. I love that. It's that confidence that allowed you to thrive, you know, despite the circumstances. 100%. Like even you, bro, like you see.

me, you, others that have been through shit and back, and then they see like where you're at today and they think, oh, I was going into it. Yeah, Joan never went through that. His parents gave him money and it's because he's this, it's because he's that. I used to be that same dull, disillusioned little crybaby

too. I used to be like, oh, it's because he's Asian. Oh, it's because he got an inheritance. Oh, it's because he's white. You know, I used to come up with every excuse there was in the book except for it's because he's outworking me and kicking my ass. came from financial insecurity and you chose financial services as your career. Talk to me a

little bit about that. So your brain's like this, right? If you, yeah, like this. So if you don't, if you don't add to the brain with more questions and answers to the questions, it stays the same. You're going to be the same. I remember. Back then I got written up at my job, I was making $78,000 W2. I was doing collections. If you ever need to find anybody's car, I was incredible at it. So I did auto collections. And at that time in my life, I never even thought about being an entrepreneur.

But I feel like God turned me to being an entrepreneur. So it wasn't something that I chose. I just happened to be invited by my cousin to a cult meeting, one of these multi-level marketing meetings. They put a red name badge on me, and I go, okay, this was meant for me. So when my let got up and spoke, there were three presenters that day. It was my let, this guy, Brian Arnold, who had a double master's degree, and this other guy, Dan Charlieh, who was an ex-military Marine drill instructor, 6'4 black guy.

And after that presentation, it juiced me up so bad because I remember, I must I said about $1,200 in my checking account because I was four flat tires away from being flat out on the street. So I don't think it was something that I made a choice with. It was something that was, that opportunity fell in my lap. So when it came to financial services, we used to talk about for years in that company, the wealth transfer. There's going to be a great wealth transfer in 2020 to 20 to 20 to 2042, major wealth transfer. I'm knee deep in the wealth transfer now. I can't get out of that.

I got to take advantage of that. So it wasn't really something I chose. It was brought upon me. That's the best blessings when they're bestowed upon you. Who brought that blessing upon you? Well, my cousin Sam called me. Coincidentally, I just talked to him in Vegas a week ago. And he said, hey, come down to this meeting.

And I go, what meeting? is it? What's it going to be? And then he said, he got Diary of the mouth. And, uh, and uh, there you go. So you, the Latinos, they ask questions, but they're like, once you pull family, they're like, all right, I'll be there. So he said, you're my cousin. Just come. And so when I went and met him at Grandma's house, uh, that's the guy that introduced me. But there was something in it for him. It wasn't something that he was like, I'm going to bless him with this opportunity. He thought, man, he's a stud. He could sell shit. I'm going to, I'm going to introduce him to the sales business. And I think it's going to be good for all of us.

Your business is built on changing people's behavior. But first, you had to change your own. What was the first money habit that you had to unlearn? Stop spending and start saving. Great question. We all tied to our church or lots of of us tied to our church, 10% were told. I see some really religious people that will tie more. I see some really religious people that I don't tie that all. Then the next step is saving money. In that industry, we were taught you need to save at least 30% of what you make.

I didn't do 30%. I started doing 10%. And then from that foundational point, I started saving more because it made me feel good when I walked into the room with at least $2,000 in my pocket. Now, again, that was a learned skill because I didn't have anything originally, and I lost everything. So the first money lesson was to save money instead of spending it. And I took that like a fish to water after I started making some checks,

because it took me one full year to make my first check. I read somewhere, heard somewhere that you told people to save 30% of their money. Yeah. My daughter's taught that right now. My sons know that. Why do you say so much? That's not a lot, dude. I mean, let's talk about financial independence. Let's talk about goals for a second. Like, let's say my goal is to become financially independent. Okay, well, what does that mean to you? Everybody is different. So financial independence to me was $50,000 a year, net income.

So my mindset was, well, I just need to save $500,000. And, earn a 10% interest rate to become financial independent. So once I saved 500 grand, I was like, what a weak goal. And I started, you know, going up above and beyond. But let's say my goal today is $12,000 net. Now, if I were to save 30% of my money and put it into various investments, crypto, stock portfolio, insurance, or the lack there of, real estate, I have all my assets, gold, silver, et cetera, invidia.

So all these things are in my asset bucket. If I were to save 30% here, by definition, I'm financially independent after, let's say, 11 years with my $12,000 goal. So I don't think it's enough. I think people's goals are what drive them. So if I have a regular guy that works a job that makes $78,000 a year, I go, how serious are you about hitting your goal of financial independence in 16 years? I'm very serious.

Save 60% of your money. Okay, I ain't that serious. Okay, how much can you save? I think I can manage 40% right now. Okay, let's put you on a budget. Let's get you there. Because now, think about it for a second. If I accomplished that in 16 years, when I accomplished that,

and I'm 51 years old, I've reached my goal. So it's really about the sales guy creating the futuristic path for them to get there to put that, again, your brain's like this. To put that inside of your brain so it expands. And now you have the opportunity to get there. So I don't even think it's that much. You do this all the time. You're a financial architect.

Yes, sir. What's the biggest lie? Middle-class families believe about money? Biggest lie that the government's going to take care of you. That's not middle class, though. That's lower class. No, that's middle class. The middle class is pretty much ousted out right about.

Now, the higher, the upper class, upper middle class, let's say, they might be in the know. But even then, I've met some guys that don't have a clue about money that make millions of dollars every single year. They just like what they do and they stay capitalized on what they do. The middle to lower class, if we're sectioning off just two different classes, the middle to lower class, they think the government's going to handle them. and they hate wealthy people. They see you driving a Porsche. They see you drive in a... Think about it for a second.

Like, you're from... Because I've been there. You're middle class, the lower class, let's say, financially. I'm not talking mentally. I'm not talking family-wise. I think that's terrific. I want to get behind that.

But let's say financially you are. You look at people that are driving the G-wags and all these different cars. And then you can't wait to hate on them. You're like, This guy thinks he's all bad. Oh, man, he's got his Louis Vuitton belt on now. All that stuff is deductible that they don't know about.

The G-Wagon, 6,000 pounds, that's deductible. They might own a building, but the only reason why they wanted to own a building is because they're going to pay the government in taxes instead of that. There's such a lost perception of the lower middle class to the upper middle class. And it sucks. There should be some type of notification going, hey, don't hate on these guys. Just try and get better. And the upper to middle class, they should be like, hey, don't talk down on these guys. They just don't know.

They're ignorant to some of the information that you have. So I hope that somebody can create something like that. Who knows, Joe, maybe it might be you. Hollette you boy. One last question. Before the coffee break, what looks like wealth from the outside, but is really financial weakness. Buying a nice car or watch or clothes before you've gotten there. This is arguable, obviously. This is definitely debatable. Some might say, go buy a Lambo so you get flashy and you

attract more business. I disagree, but some people may say that. Some people might say, buy a nice belt. That way you're noticeable in your pictures. I disagree. I think it should be a savings threshold, honestly. In Alyssa's case, let's say her financial independence is $2 million, meaning she hits $2 million in savings. She now works because she wants to, not because she has to. Manifest that. Manifest it, definitely. See, she picked up manifest here real quick. So the $2 million she has saved now, now she goes and buys the Louis Bell, or now she goes and buys the nice car, etc. Up until, you know, if it's tax deductible, then again, that's arguable. Because you can put it in IRA and deduct it instead of buying a nice car, nice shoes,

et cetera, et cetera. But some people might say 20%. Me personally, I'd go 5, 10%. If you got 5 to 10% of your Finn, financial independence number, $2 million, let's say you saved $100,000. Now you go out and buy some of those, some gear. Hi guys. I'm hijacking Joe's chair today. Don't mind me. You might recognize me. I'm your favorite parista, Alyssa, here on Coffees with Joe Shallaby. And I want to ask you something. Do you think that you have a story that belongs here on coffees? You don't need a publicist, a booking agency, or marketing firm to reach us. All you have to do is go to our website, click Apply to be a guest, and submit your story directly to our production team. All of the submissions go through. through our formal vetting and editorial review processes, we reserve a limited number of complementary editorial opportunities, while applicants not selected for one of those opportunities may still be considered for our paid featured guest media partnerships.

Tell us who you are, what you've built, and why our audience needs to hear your story. We can't wait to hear from you, and I hope to see you at my coffee shop. At some point, Mani stopped thinking about his own clients and started building a company that could serve people without them. When did you realize you weren't supposed to just be a great advisor? You were supposed to be a real company. Yet again, it wasn't taught, it was caught.

And I grew up in a network marketing company being an entrepreneur. That was my first taste of being an entrepreneur. So I think it's kind of like a raccoon when he grabs something. He just won't let it go if it's food. and I got into that recruiting model. I had recruited almost 1,000 people in WFG over the course of almost nine years. Do you still get paid on that? No.

I thought you're supposed to. You are, aren't you? Oh, man, I would have a grip at WFG. Yeah, there's a contractually, they have you sign like a 40-something page contract that pretty much says you don't own your recruits. You don't own at that time. I don't know what it is right now. I don't want to get myself sued. But at that time, you don't own your recruits.

You don't own your book of business. You're pretty much a slave to our business. And you paid something called Aloi, or AloA, I should say. In the insurance world, Aloay means the company will cut you checks. So I got checks from World Financial Group. So it's their book of business. Getting directly appointed with the carrier, you own your own book of business. So now my agents that contract with,

me they're contracting directly from the carrier so they own all of their book of business it hurts my bottom line and hurts my sellability of the company but it's not about me at this point so yeah I did transition out of it I still service clients now I have not to be boozy or anything it's really about timing or excuse me time so my like wheelbarrow client is someone that's net worth is of $5 million or that makes over $300,000 a year. That's my poster child to do business with Bandixoto. But when it comes to like agency reps, like brokers, like I told you, we have 34 offices,

almost 400 representatives in our company. That transition was just built through failure. Again, I just failed more times than everyone else. So we started 12 years ago, the financial architect. And yeah, it was a boutique. It still is somewhat of a boutique company. But through time, I started earning more and more clients. And the way that I funded the business to grow so aggressively was through my personal commission.

So I still take down clients. I still do great. Yeah, you still sell. I'm going to sell your ass in the next month or so. So I'm still out there grinding, making it happen because it's still the juice for me. And I love what I do. And what's kind of cool is you're from the loan industry. You know what I'm talking about.

Build relationships. The relationships are priceless. Not just that. You don't have to charge everybody three points now because you've made it. Now you could go to your cousin and go, hey, dude, I'm going to charge you 50 bibs. What? Dude, that's awesome. I would argue people that go to you will get better deals.

Of course. Respectfully than the guy that is out trying to pay for that Maserati payment that we just talked about. So yet again, it makes me easier to market because I take tons of commission off the table. I don't make half of what I used to on my transactions because back then, I was trying to make my car payment, mortgage payments. So it was a little bit more difficult. Yeah, I mean, I'll do a deal just to maintain a relationship or, you know. Yeah. I still service my older clients.

I got a call today from a client of mine that I wrote up like 17 years ago. And she's like, I need to meet with you. I'm like, okay, come by the office on Friday. You know, I saw those relationships. I'm not going to make any money on that transaction. I'm just going to show her some things that she should be doing different inside of her investment portfolio. But transitioning from a personal producer to a recruiter builder, I don't think I ever got out of that mix. I struggle with this one.

What's the hardest part of going from just a salesperson to a CEO? Great question. cost and investments. So salesperson thinks it needs to be provided to me. I don't need an assistant. My brokers should have an assistant for me. I don't need to pay for an office. My broker should have an office for me.

It goes from being part of a company to actually being the owner-operator of a company. So the culture that I've built at the financial architects is one that they need to treat the company as if it's their own because it is. So there's no free lunch. So when I have an office available, I put it out to my squad,

I go, I have an office in my Chinole Hills office, it's going to be X, who's interested. And then they have an opportunity to participate. If they want to be coached and mentored up to a point where they have a branch, I'll coach and mentor them, but it takes cost. So when we get the initial person involved,

it's either they're a referral partner, they're going to become a client, or they're going to become an agent or broker with us. So if they choose to become an agent or broker, it's at what level they want to have that choice. You want to limp in as an agent and I'll house you. I'll play Big Daddy. You know, you could be in the shallow end of the pool

with the little floaties on and you could be one of our agents. I'll put you on a 70% comp or an 80% comp. Come on in. The water's warm. Or you want to be a broker, a bad boy that's going to build a Corona office or the Newport Beach office out,

no problem. I'll coach and train you to do that. I'll give you 100% comp, a broker comp, but you got to pay to play. You got to pay for my time. So the initial investment is $15,000 if they want me to coach and develop them to own that piece

of that location, if you want. A lot of companies deal with this. What nearly broke the financial architects while you were growing it? Was it market conditions? Was it mindset? Full disclosure. It wasn't marketing or market conditions. We're good in any economy. So when there's a recession, we'll roll over more money because people are losing their jobs so they could roll the 401k over into their traditional IRAs. When there's an uptick and expansion, you know, right now we're a 17-year bullion.

market. We've never had a 17-year bull market. But we're heading toward a recession right now. Completely agree. Completely agree. I'm glad you said that. We can get into that ball of wax if you'd like to because I got some facts. But we're on a 17-year bull market. We've never had an 11-year bull market. So is there going to be a crash or correction, my opinion? Absolutely. It has to be. Otherwise, inflation takes over and people are paying $3,000 for their Nike tennis shoes. They're not going to want to do that. Inflation has taken over. It has. And it's not. not stopped, but what's happened? The government has manipulated the numbers on inflation. Of course,

they manipulate numbers on unemployment. They manipulate all the numbers for society to think that everything is good. You and I both know the numbers are wrong. So go back to that question, though, what put me out? I had $13,000 in our account. My chief operations officer will tell you the same thing. He stressed, like, how are we going to make payroll? Our payroll is like 30 grand a month. So I'm like, Raven doesn't even know this. So I'm like, what's, what's a big deal? I'll just go make money again. So I went out and I did some personal production and I made, I did pretty good in one month and I just refilled the bank account. So it's never about market conditions. It's always more about like operations, cost of operations from our standpoint.

We have no lawsuits. And like I said, we have no loans. So we're completely solid. Income gets all the attention. Your job is to look under the hood and ask whether somebody's actually building wealth or headed for broke. What's the difference between a high income earner and a wealthy person? Again, perception.

Everybody has a different perception. If I told Elon Musk that I'm going to make a million dollars this month, he'd be like, Annie, how you'd live on that? Perception. So everybody's perception is different. So if I, let's say, come across a client that makes a quarter million dollars, I know that he is in the top percentile of incomeers, which should blow you away. L.A. County, average median household income is $90,000, both husband and wife. Orange County, the average median household income is $115,000, husband and wife. That should blow your doors off.

That's crazy. Well, I mean, I saw a set like to live comfortably in Newport, you need to make $600. To live comfortably in because you miss is $350. So where they're getting the money from? Legacy wealth. And this is our music, man. We want to deal in legacy wealth. There's $4.2 trillion in California being passed out from one generation to the next.

of people that are 65 and older, 4.2 trillion, 65 and older. Do I want a piece of that? You better believe it. Do my advisors want a piece of that? Absolutely. The great wealth transfer is here. The total United States $124 trillion worth of wealth being passed down for one generation to the next.

I could have a high school diploma, which I do, and still get into financial service and get licensed and a business pointed with different carriers and take down all this money long term. It's fat. Yeah. How do you take down that kind of money? Like, how are these guys making money on the wealth transfer?

It doesn't even make sense. You do an analysis. The first part of financial planning, it's kind of like taking a trip. So if you and I go to Aruba, I just went there a couple months ago. And let's say, Alyssa is the pilot. She goes, good evening, everyone I'd like to welcome everyone to our flight. We're going to Aruba today. I want to let everyone know that I have no directions on how to get there.

That'd be a stupid flight. That's like somebody respectfully saying I save money. Okay, where do you save it? What's your goal? No idea. They're lost. 99.9% of the population needs us based on that metaphor. So now I go, okay, let's think about it.

Let's map it out. Where do you want to be? Alyssa goes, I want to retire about telling him I'm 60. Okay, cool. How much money do you? you need to retire on. I'd like $10,000 a month. And I functionally manage it based on a 3% inflation rate. So I work out her fin, her financial independence number. So there's something called the rule of 200 where I take the $10,000, multiply it by $200. That's $2 million. That's

her fin. That's the goal. Now I go, what's your paycheck right now? Well, I make $12,000 a month. Okay, we're going to save this much money to get you there. I first need to figure out where she's at currently. So if she's taking off from Santa Ana Airport to Aruba, that's different directions than if she takes off from Tempe, Arizona, to Aruba. I need to figure out her location. So financial services-wise, the client, husband and wife or a single person, sits down with me and they give me all their data.

How many houses do you own? What's the payoffs? what's the interest rate, how much income do you make, how much you put in your 401K, how much savings you have, what's your life insurance, do you want your kids inheriting the properties, are you planning on having other kids? The questions go on and on, bro. Like I could be here for three hours telling you about everything that we go through. It's awesome. So now I have their location where Alyssa's at, let's say, you plan on having kids, you plan on being married, all these questions are built in. And now we figure out a savings

plan to get there. What's wild is that the space shuttle is off course 80% of the time. This is facts to get to the location. They do minor course corrections to their trip to, let's say, the moon. She will have course corrections. Course correction is, oh, shit, I got married. Course correction, I just had a kid. Course correction, I make $23,000 more at my job. These are all minor course corrections. So it allows me as the advisor to revisit with her and come up with a new course direction. I agree with you, bro. That should blow your mind. Like everybody needs this, but nobody talks about it. So when it comes to market share, like I said, I got a strong closing rate because I ask questions that they're not used to and I make their brain from this to this.

Easy. Absolutely. Now entrepreneurs are good at making money. That's what we're blessed with. But We're bad at building a financial life outside the company. So what's the dumbest thing successful entrepreneurs do with their money? Yet again, they buy high-end things too soon. They screw it up. They could have a successful day. They could have a successful year. They could have a successful month.

They screw it up by buying too many high-end things too soon. They need to wait. I think I was 41 when I got my first Gucci shoots. I mean, they weren't even that comfortable, to be honest with the Irish show. I wish I would have bought some of the dance. I'm going to buy one and be like, I think I was 45 when I bought my first Gucci shoe. I shop with the Nike outlet, bro. I'm all about that, dude.

Get some discount items. That's what I do, man. I had the CEO of Travis Matthew on the podcast, half off Travis Matthew for life. That's dope. That's dope. What's one financial decision founders make for tax reasons that hurts them, in the long run. Name it. Buying, again, buying a building too soon, buying a car too soon, paying for that.

I made a mistake doing this. I paid for a chief operations officer with a double master's degree. I have a photographic memory. All that stuff does not matter unless you got your ducks in a row. So all those things can really collapse your business, big time. That's crazy how dumb entrepreneurs are sometimes. Yeah. I mean, you look at a building. You could get a building with a one-year interest only, and that can get you in some major trouble right now.

If you go SBA, it's a lot better, but you know the deal. My job is to help people buy real estate. Your job is to ask whether the loan fits the rest of their life. When should someone not buy the house that they qualify for? I just did a seminar on this. Just did a seminar. A whole seminar on this question. Yes, one hour and five minutes, two days ago.

We had stats crazy. The stats that I went through, check this out. So right now we're in a 4.4% unemployment rate, which is somewhat low. In 1952, our unemployment rate was 2.9%. In 2009, our unemployment was almost 10%. So that's a leading indicator on economics, by the way. If you guys are going to ask me, if you're going to ask me in a second, my opinion of when the correction or the crash happens, it's going to be directly associated

with unemployment. When you see unemployment go north of 5%, get ready, there's going to be some good buys. Okay. Also, what's the interest rates that are going out? So right now, I think prime is like 6.8%. The bond just hit 4.95, the highest interest rate market we've had in years. There you go. Nobody wants U.S. bonds anymore.

It's like they do not trust us. They think we're a debt country, which we are. There's some dangers going on right now lurking. I would not buy a piece of property right now, respectfully, unless it was a building here in California. We did a comparison through L.A. County versus Orange County. The average median household income, like I told you, was $90,000. The average property value is $891,000, if I remember correctly.

Please tell me how your property in La Penta, three-bedroom, two-bath is going to be worth $1.5,000. and your average California is going to afford that. They're not. That's an $8,000 mortgage. They can't afford it. They can't even qualify with a bank. $228,000 is what your combined household income needs to be to qualify for that $891,000 home.

We did all the stats. You know how many people can qualify to buy, sell, or invest in the real estate right now? 12% in California. So you got a realtor banging down doors with an 88% losing rate. What a horrible industry to get involved to you. And by the way, if you're in real estate, you maybe might be able to deal with six or seven different cities or two different counties,

depending on your driving distance. If you're a lender, you can go nationwide. I would want to be in the lending space if I had to make a choice between the two. That's my analogy to everybody who's like, should I be a lender, should I stay in real estate? No, bro. One, you're geo-targeted to a couple cities.

Us, we're nationwide. One, you're just knocking on doors for houses. Us, we're telling you if you want money. How many people want to sell it by a house and how many people want money? We lend money. Let me fan that fire for a second. I'm in financial services. I do life insurance, annuities, AUM, rollovers, commodity trade, all this financial services-driven stuff, okay?

I'm in Mexico months ago. I closed the transaction, close to 50 grand on Zoom in Mexico. I don't need to be there shaking their hand. Look at the vaulted ceilings. I think the swing sets included in the backyard. I don't need to do any of that stuff. So when it comes to business ownership, what a... I'm going to be on blast for sure on realtors,

but what a horrible opportunity. Again, I would get into something where I have more of a functional selling tool. I know that living trust, 68% of homeowners don't have a living trust. Why wouldn't I get in the living trust game knowing that there's 68% success rate on selling them instead of an 88% losing rate. And by the way, the 12% that can afford a house,

no, they're like you and I. We're not buying a house right now knowing that something's gonna be correcting pretty soon. So the 12% really isn't even 12%. It's more like 5% or 6%. That's true. Don't give me on a soap dish about this, bro. How much debt is healthy

before leverage becomes a liability? Debt before leverage. leverage becomes a liability. Again, everybody's different. You know, some people like OPM, some people want all cash. You and I are more all cash driven. I can't even put a factor on it. I need to know their business operations.

There's some people that are asset heavy, and there's some people that are cash flow heavy. Asset heavy, I have a friend of mine. He's probably got $30 million in assets, but his cash flow is shit. He's not making any cash flow every single month. He has assets, but he's in danger zone. And the reason why is because he's leveraged too heavy.

I don't know what percentage it is because everyone's kind of private when it comes to their personal business. But I'd say not more than 30% if I had to take a stab in the dark. I don't like to be insecure with my buying opportunities. So at that point, once the market shifts, it makes your buying opportunity mindset limited. And now you're governed by your debt. you're not governed by what's a smart move. Got to be whole. Congrats on that, by the way.

You got 34 locations. I love that. At that size, the product isn't financial planning anymore. It's leadership. So what's harder for you? Getting clients or building leaders? By far, building leaders.

Getting clients is very easy. I think I gave you the example behind that. Like, everybody should have a financial plan. Even if it's horrible, you should have a damn financial plan. And if you don't know where you're going, how you're going to get there, right? Building leaders is the juice. I've been in so many different rooms.

I've heard so many different leaders across my career of 23 years. The great ones, too, the Milats, the Robins, the Bet Davis, I mean, all these guys I can throw names on. But building leaders is so difficult because you don't know who to trust initially and you don't know who to pass the baton on long term. So I'll give you an example. I have a friend of mine. I call him my brother. He's my little brother.

His name's Omar. Omar Sanchez. He's my chief operations officer. Twelve years ago, he was making $2,000 a month in, what do you call those guys? Like, in a warehouse. He had a salvage vehicle. Part cost him $500. He was barely making it.

He comes to one of my seminars. I had 17 guests at that. seminar just trying to take down clients he comes to me afterwards and he goes hey i really think i can learn a lot from you are you hiring now this was at a time for me where i was just done dealing with people because i got backstabbed i got people scream me over for money the so-called rider dives or the temporary guys um so i didn't want any part of it i told no i'm not i'm not i'm not coaching or training people anymore the next day one of my good friends reaches out to me because he knew or he goes, hey, you should spend some time with him.

I think he's worth your time. So anyways, I bring him on board. He goes from 28 grand the first year, I think 30 grand the second year, 50 grand the third year, and then he cracks 100 grand and makes a quarter million dollars, fifth year in business with me. He was one of our brokers. He runs a website called insurance latino.com. Okay. He was selling policies like it was going out of style, life insurance policies.

He just did life insurance, though. Okay? That was his bread and butter. He is a ride or die. He took a step down from being a broker to running my operations now. I gave him a fractional ownership share in the company. Him and I are the only ones that own the company. He is a fractional share of the company.

Ever since I made that smart decision and bringing him on as cheap operations officers two years ago, the company has leaps and bounds. I no longer have to worry about websites and funnels and all these other complicated things that I just honestly don't understand. But he's great at it. AI, we put like $30 million into a new AI system within our company. We are rocked. We've got things that are just maxing out now. So he is a leader.

People respect him as a leader. How long did it take me to build the leader, though? A decade. We had another guy that came on board. I thought he was going to be the next Omar. He was with me for a little over five. five years and he ends up talking shit about me behind my back. I gave him, I gave him people to override. He was making a great income and he screws up and has a brain fart and just does something

wrong. In that minute, you know that you can't trust those people. He's still with me. I, you know, I still contract with him. I still override him. I still want the best for him, even though he's younger. He might have made a young mistake. I've made young mistakes. I have other people that are leaders in company. I have a guy, Rolando, who is scratching 300 grand in August. He made close to 300 grand in August. He has two people on his team. He does estate planning seminars. So he opens the door to live miles. Yeah. So he opens the door to living trusts. Now because of the living trust, it opens up and sees everyone's assets and then he can make a sale based on what they have an asset call. Who needs a living trust majority of the time? People over 60.

That's their that's their eardrum. They're like, I need a living trust. It's a must. I want to know who's going to be inheriting all my estate, my properties. And then along with that, majority of people that are older have money. I mean, why do I want to respectfully? Why do I want to talk to a 28-year-old that's barely getting it going? And I can save $200 a month.

Majority of the guys that can save $200 a month, by the way, are the ones like, where's my money going? What kind of stock portfolios is in? and how did it do it? I'm like, bro, you got $200. Like, you need to do some shit with it. Like, who gets into it down? Just put it somewhere.

Like, put it in a freaking sock drawer. I don't care, but you got to save $200, right? So I don't even want to talk to those guys anymore because they're like, okay, just get out of my way, please. It makes sense. It's like that, by the way, with borrowers too, who want to buy real estate. Yeah, I heard. They do any FHA buyer. You're like, okay, I don't want any piece of this.

But, you know, there's a market for it, you know. building wealth is only half the job your business also handles what happens in life taxes living trust retirements and then boom death interrupts the plan why do people obsess over making money and then procrastinate on protecting it good question um i think it goes back to our childhood i think it goes back to the money making part of things and by protecting it You're talking about insurance, right? Yeah. I'll give you an example.

Like an annuity is really just a fancy word that says that they're insuring your money. That's it. So when you take your 401K, let's say you got $500,000 in your 401k, and you're 68 years old, and you know your RMDs are at 73. RMD stands for required minimum distribution. You are required to start pulling out that 500 grand by the time you're 73. If you're not, you're going to be penalized 25% on distribution, plus average an ordinary income tax. So if you grab your 500 grand of 68 and you retire and you roll your 401k into an annuity,

the annuity is insuring the money, meaning that your 500 grand now has no more risk on basis. So the 500 grand, you could get a bonus of 20%. Day one, you have a $600,000 amount of money. Now you could start dipping from that on a guaranteed basis. So to your point, that is insurance on your money. Now, one factor that most people don't pay attention to is that cancer, 39% of Americans will have cancer in their lifetime. That's a fact. I have a four-in-tent chance of having cancer.

So my sister has leukemia, okay? She can't get insurance. Yeah. So the insurance company goes, they go, okay, what's the density of their zip code? Are they married? Are their homeowners? What's their heightened weight look like? Do they have diabetes?

Do they have high blood pressure? They do this underwriting process to get insurance. If someone had cancer, normally you have to wait five years to even apply for a policy. Okay. knowing that four in ten of Americans will have cancer in their lifetime, wouldn't you be like, I need some protection? What if I go down? I can't do my podcast anymore, that's for sure.

What if you have a stroke? You lose the left side of your body and you can't move your left side of your body and you need help bathing yourself or cleaning yourself or transporting yourself. These are all basics to me. But everyone else is not in the industry, so they're not talking about it. But I am. you have a 40% chance of having cancer. You have cancer tomorrow.

What's your action step? Tomorrow. Most people go, they look, husband and wife, I get them together. They look at each other and they go, yeah, we don't have a plan. Here's what's going to be a shocker. Okay. Close to 70% of Americans will have a long-term care need. You know what long-term care is?

Of course. So us Latinos, when grandma goes down, she has a stroke, and she has to, she's bedridden. Normally the brokest relative goes and takes care of grandma. Well, they got to lift her up, give her a bath, got to do things like that. I don't want that. I don't want my sons to come over here and take care of me

when I'm 87 years old, hypothetically speaking, and I go down with the heart attack. So all of these factors are insurance-driven, and here's the wild thing. Let's say you go, I don't believe in insurance, I just want to build assets. No problem, build assets. Now you're 68,

years old and you have 2.7 million in assets, then you go down with a stroke. Guess what you got to grab? Your assets. That was real smart, buddy. So you grab some of your assets now to pay for the long-term care, which is abominable by the time you're 68. And you end up bleeding out your asset column to go through all the get your help back. You went through all this health challenge to get wealth.

Now you go through a health challenge two days. diminish your wealth. Not smart. So why do they do that? Ignorance. They're just not educating. They need a guy like me on a YouTube channel, which we have into YouTube to go, hey, you have a 40% chance of having cancer. Would you like to be proactive or reactive? You have close to a 70% chance of needing long-term care. Would you rather be proactive or reactive? And let the chips fall where they may. Information is key, but if you don't make action sets, on the information. You're just...

Long-term care insurance is super expensive, though. It is, but there's a hack. You can have long-term care inside of your life insurance policy and it won't be as expensive. Only a guy that sells both long-term care

and life insurance would tell you that. You started as a young father just trying to survive, and now you've spent a career talking about legacy. What was the first purchase where you thought, man, I actually made it?

I talked about this too in two days ago. I, I don't think I made it, but I thought, man, I'm on my way. When I was 25, I bought a four unit in Upland,

and I bought another four unit in Montclair. Who did? Horrible decision. I sold both of them, but I sold my Upland one a year later. You want to know why? Why? Because it cost me $200 a month to maintain.

What a donkey. So I bought that house, I bought that property for $247,000 in 2001. It's worth comp. I just pulled it up $1.1 million. Just to see how stupid you were. Yeah. I bought another house in Eastville. So that was dumb I didn't hold, right?

Buy and hold. We all talked about that. 2005, I bought a house in Eastville for $600,000. Okay. I got an option arm, of course. In 2007, it recasted, and my new payment was inflated heavy. So I had to sell that property ASAP. That same property that I bought at $600,000 got foreclosed on with someone else in 2012 for $318,000.

And I tell this story as preface to what I'm about to say. When I feel like I arrived was when I had my own business and my residuals, Financial services is a residual business. So I got mailbox money. I retired tomorrow. I'm pretty good. I'm set financially. But the arrival only takes place, in my opinion, when you build leaders to run your business no matter what.

You're at home, sleeping, chilling out. Your business is running. You ever seen the owner of a McDonald's out of McDonald's? No. No, I've heard McDonald's is like. like $1.2 to $1.5 million on purchase. And the profit margin is about $80 to $100,000 every year, which is horrible. So my business shits on that.

I mean, I have a business. I don't have to worry about hamburgers or COVID happening. I can run a business from my backyard. I don't really need an office. All of my sheets are not tangible. So I send you a stock portfolio with a little pie graph on a statement. That's not tangible. People can't touch it.

Houses they can touch. they're more emotionally bonded to that house. Their financial stuff, they're not really tangibly felt, if that makes sense. So on that level, that's where I think I've, I had arrived when I had about 10 soldiers, I'd say. If I have 10 guys making $100,000 a year, that's a million dollars a year. If my average spread is 20%, I'm making $200,000 a year residualially, just doing nothing. our spreads, on average, our spreads about 30%.

Let's talk about your book real quick. It's called I Can Be Bought. Now, what should money never change about you? What should money never change about you? I actually think I'm one of those believers of money just magnifies who you really are. So when I was busted out, I was broke, I was still, you know, servicing people.

I was still helping people out. I had more time than money at that time. So I help people move furniture and shit like that. So when I was a younger guy, that's what I would do. When I own a business now, now I have more money than time. Like after I'm done with the podcast, I probably have 30, 35 text messages to return. I had more money than time at this point. So now I'm trying to buy that time back.

Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. So what should it change? What should it not change about you? Nothing. I think that money in the magnifying sense may be you giving back to people more. I think that would probably be a major change. But as far as not changing anything, I don't think it should be anything besides your broke-ass mentality.

There are some broke-ass fools, dude. They get out there. Like, I was one of them. That's why I could speak on it, dude. I remember I went to job and me being at an auto collection company. And I ordered the footstool thing. It probably cost me $20. But I didn't need it.

I ordered it so that the company can come out of the pocket and they could serve me. What a loser. What a loser I was back then. I remember my boss, I would gossip about her on my 15-minute break, on my lunch break when I was in the bathroom. I would purposely go to the bathroom for 10 minutes longer just so I could go, got you. What a hater. What should it not change? That's something that you should change.

but as far as not all the good stuff, take it with wealth, but all the bad stuff, leave it behind, like your broke-ass mentality. Oh, man, I'm going to go hang out at the corner of the pool with this little six-pack.

Well, I got a four-pack. Nah, get bottle service now. I want to afford this Honda cord that is, it's got the rolling down windows. This is old school. Rolling down windows instead of the automatic ones just to save a buck.

That's broke mentality. So level up. And sometimes you've got to force yourself to level up. When you walk away from all this, what do you want your kids, your grandkids, and all your baby mamas to say about Manny Soto's legacy? My son, Mani, even though he's in San Antonio, he calls me like every other day. I talk to him often. I love my son.

I want to go and visit him. I'll get emotional just talking about myself. I love my son of death. But I'm more about independence. So we do these estate planning seminars where we talk about Litting Trusts. And part of it, there's four bullet points that we talked about in the beginning. One of the bottom bullet point, it says, there's live on money and there's lead behind money. So I see with my kids and I tell him that story that I shared with you,

dad's going to try and spend all his money. I earned it. You didn't do anything as associated with it. Okay. So I would be ignorant to think God is going to tell me when I'm going to pass away. unless I have stage four cancer and I'm terminal, then I have some thoughts behind it. Okay.

So live on money is going to eventually turn into lead behind money. So what do I want my kids to know? Dad is not going to give you anything. You've got to earn it. And my daughter, she's 17, okay? So my daughter has, she gets 50 bucks for every essay that she writes and she can put it through chat, GPT, if she'd like to. and public speaking presents on it.

She gets 50 bucks. She gets 10 vocabulary words. Her grandma gives her the 10 vocabulary words. They have to be business driven. She's got to present on. She could make 50 bucks an hour. I'm in the process of teaching her. Women are different than men.

My boys, I taught them going out in the field and being men. Women, they're soft, and I'm softer on my daughter. I'll admit it. You know how many times she's done that ever since I gave her the opportunity seven months ago? How many? Four. She's earned $200 from me.

I told her, my bank account is open. You can earn as much money as possible. Now, her mom and I co-parent decent. Okay. Her mom says, I'm making all this money.

You don't give your daughter anything, but that's right. I didn't give it her shit. She can earn it. She knows what she has to do to earn the 50 bucks. So she tells me, well,

Breeland, walk to a Starbucks all the way. It was a long way and blah, blah, blah. And she didn't get the job. And I go, well, tough shit. I mean, she's got to try harder. Now she has a job at In-N-Out. She's making $21 an hour.

You know, In-N-Out, they do not play. Those guys fucking work. So this is the lesson that I'm trying to teach my daughter right now. And I go, Mi-Hah, that's great, man. I'm going to be in line. I'm going to go order a double-double. She laughs about it, right? She thinks I'm the funniest guy.

She could have been earning 50, bucks in air conditioning. Okay. Not even 1099 because I pay her a salary too and I put it in her account that she doesn't know about. So she could be earning 50 bucks an hour, but she's earning 21 on a W-2. So once she gets her checks at some time, I'm going to tell her, hey, take your dad to sushi. She's going to take me to sushi and I want to analyze her check.

And I'm going to go, what does this mean? What does that mean? What does this mean? My son did the same thing. Manning did the same thing when he was 16. He did a report. I go, I want you to do a report between the difference between W2 and 1099. You know what he said, bro?

Afterwards, I go, what's better? W2 or 1099? He goes, dad, W2 is way better. I go, why? He said, you get benefits, you get disability. You get up. I go, cool. I didn't say anything.

I go, cool. Then he gets his first job. He goes, I can't stand W2, Dad. I'm so glad that you taught me that. I'm so glad that you showed me the difference between W2 and 1099. I tell my two older boys, my oldest is 29 and my second is 27, okay? I have them in the back seat. They're 13 and 15 when they started grinding in the field knocking on doors, okay?

I go, Dominic, what's the key to success? He goes, working hard, dad. I go, Manning, what's the key to success? Manning says, just thinking about money. My son Manning makes about $7,000 a month. He owns the property in San Antonio. Nothing against Dominic. I still love Dominic.

He made me a young grandfather. But Manny doesn't crickin' work. He's like chilling, studying, doing his thing, right? He worked hard in the Navy, and he put it on there. But Dominic, guess what he does? He does hard work. He does hard. He's a blue-collar worker.

His back's already hurting. He's 29. Now, what was the key to success in their eyeballs? Dominic was working hard, Dad. And he guessed it. He attracted it. Mani, thinking about money. So it's a great lesson.

So as far as my kids go, all of them are taught differently, obviously, because they have different mindsets. But I have a certain strategy behind everything. And my 17-year-old is going through the whole thinking she's going to inherit properties and things like that. So she watched. She's going to learn. I'm not going to say it, but she's going to learn some shit.

Guess what, kids? Dad's spending all his money, all of it. But you guys can keep the house in Newport. But that's it. Nothing else. I'm telling you, bro, you give kids money. It doesn't help them. If we really want to foster independence,

we're going to have to teach to foster independence. One of my business partners, he was bragging the other day. He says, yeah, man, all my kids still live with me, and they're over 21. He was bragging about it. I was so blessed that they feel, that to be with their dad is such a blessing. I'm like, no, motherfucker.

You're paying all their bills. Of course they're going to be there. I ain't doing it. We're closing out with the game, Manny. You're going to love this, okay? I give you a scenario. You pick one of the two. You can say, it depends,

but then I get to challenge you. First question. A million dollars cash. Build a business. Or buy real estate. Oh, $1 million cash to build it. business for sure. Yeah. The only reason is someone would choose the ladder is because they're lazy. Because building a business is not fun. It's hard work. But I'm ready for that.

Second question. A $500,000 windfall. Stock market or a rental property? Stock market. $100,000. Invest it or use it as a down payment. Oh, invest it all day long. Fourth question. A 30-year mortgage at a great rate. Pay it off or invest the cash. Invest the extra cash. Every financial planner's answer. Yeah, easy. LITR.

Young entrepreneur. Luxury car for first investment. Our first investment property. That's a no-brainer, dude. Everyone's spot on. Number six. A $10 million exit, retire or build again? I'm a weirdo.

I build again because I'm a weirdo. I can't. I'll never retire. Me neither. Yeah, by definition. I'll never retire. Now, number seven, a competitor offers a huge buyout. Sell it or double down?

We've got to that already. VCs reached out, so double down. Market drops 30%. Buy immediately or wait? Buy low, sell high. Buy low, sell high. And hold your stocks for inheritance. They get a step up and basis on the capital gains.

This applies towards properties as well. Watch out for the new law in 2020, the Secure Act. when it comes to IRAs. So, for you listeners. Your business doubles over now. Hire fast or protect margin. Business doubles over. Hire fast.

Only weaklings. You can't build a business by not investing in time. Five million a year. Upgrade the lifestyle or reinvest? I'm a little bit of both. I'm a weird financial guy. I like the now too.

Last question. One word. Money is freedom, security, power, or responsibility. Yeah. With more, with more, there's always more responsibility. So if you're not ready for the responsibility, don't bother on even attempting to get more.

Mani, it's been a pleasure to have you back on on the show. You've been awesome. I always learn so much every time I sit with you. People want to connect to you. How can they find you? They can either find me on Google because I have a lot of platforms. So they can find me on Google or you can just Google the financial architects or you can go to my Instagram, which is money business mani.

We'd love to the opportunity to serve you and connect with you. Thanks so much for taking the time. If you guys got something out of today's show, make sure to hit the like and subscribe button. Also, please drop your biggest takeaways in the comment section below. I personally read every single comment. We want to keep bringing you bigger guests and providing you tons of value. God bless you guys.

We'll see you soon.