Digital Social Hour - Avoid This $20K Mistake: Diversify Your Investments Now! | Justin Donald DSH #601

Starting point is 00:00:00 The wealthiest people in the world, they grow their assets through diversification. You make it one way, you maintain and grow it another way. The older you get, the wiser you get in most cases. And I think early on in life, I chased bigger returns. I did riskier deals for bigger returns. Now I'm at a place where I don't want to chase the big returns. I just want to know that I'm not going to lose money. Wherever you guys are watching this show,

Starting point is 00:00:32 I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe. It helps a lot with the algorithm. It helps us get bigger and better guests, and it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot. Thank you guys for supporting, and here's the episode. All right, guys, here with a fellow podcaster, MetaMap, Jim News Mastermind, Justin Donald. Thanks for coming on, man. All right, guys, here with a fellow podcaster at MetaMet, Jim Dues, Mastermind, Justin Donald.

Starting point is 00:00:46 Thanks for coming on, man. Hey, glad to be here. Actually, glad to have you here in my studio. This is fun. In Austin. Yeah. Welcome. Welcome to Austin.

Starting point is 00:00:54 Absolutely, man. You got a really cool show, too. Well, thank you. I love, just like you, interviewing really cool people that know a lot about the world, know a lot about things that I don't know as much about, and I just, I want to learn from everyone. It's so fun for me. And you've shifted my paradigm because even though we only talked for 10 minutes about that mastermind, you told me what percentage a year you aim for with your investments and also how you're saving on taxes. So I can't wait to dive into it with you. Yeah, let's do it. Because typical people are telling you to aim for 7% to 10% a year. Yeah. And you were basically saying that's not enough. I mean, I think for some people it can be enough. I think it depends on how long your runway is. But

Starting point is 00:01:30 I mean, if you're playing the game of public equities, that's generally what you're going to get. That's pretty common. Now, we've been on a little bit of a tear here recently, but if you average it out over the life or even over the last 10, 20, 30 years, it's going to end up somewhere around there. But on the private equity side of things, on the alternative investment side of things, it's very rarely do I have a deal that is that low. Usually they're a lot closer to the 15 to 20% range, which is great because that's double, sometimes triple the average. That's right. That's right. And there are a lot of these groups and sponsors that have been doing this for decades. So they have a proven track record. I mean, the one thing

Starting point is 00:02:10 that you got to be careful of is there's a lot of new people in the space that the last 10 years was really frothy and everyone seemed to do well until they didn't. Right. So now you're seeing, you know, as Warren Buffett says, when the tide goes out, you see who's swimming naked and you're seeing a lot of people swimming naked right now. Especially in real estate. That's right. Yeah, because real estate was so easy the past five, 10 years. Yeah, and that's the problem.

Starting point is 00:02:32 People thought they were actually good at it. When they weren't, it was just a good market, right? So now you have people that invested with new sponsors and are now realizing, oh, I probably shouldn't have done that. I didn't realize how exposed I am. Yeah. I made that mistake when I got some money. I invested in a bunch of different things at once with guys that didn't have a track record and they just pitched out a mastermind. So I trusted it and then lost it all. Yeah. And I hear that all the time. Well, I hear it all the time and I know all the masterminds that do that. I'm familiar. You

Starting point is 00:03:05 know, we don't have to say any names, but I'm familiar with what you're talking about. And you're not the only one. And it is upsetting to me because we live in this world today where I think people don't understand what a real, like a successful high quality sponsor and deal looks like. So most people are like, oh, they have a big social media following, therefore they must be an expert. No, that's not accurate. The experts generally don't have a big social media following, right? So someone has a big social media following, they may be really good at marketing. They may be teaching things or have content in a way that is getting out to the world. But most of them who have deals

Starting point is 00:03:46 that they're actually not very experienced. They're very new. And so a lot of these social media influencers are offering these retail deals at unfavorable terms that people don't even know. And then they get in and they realize, oh, we're in trouble now because the market's not as frothy as it was a few years ago. It's so funny you say that because, yeah, that used to be a sign of trust for me when they had millions of followers and they're pitching investment deals, but now it's actually a red flag. It is, and it should be. I love that you see it that way. I mean, that to me is the biggest red flag. If you are good at what you do, it is really easy to raise money. So you don't need to use social media to raise money.

Starting point is 00:04:26 Your results will speak for them. Yes. You don't have to run out. Your investors will keep re-upping with you. And providing friends. That's right. Yeah. And that's what you do, right? Because you got tens of millions you're managing now. Yeah. And really, my story is a little different because I'm not a money manager. I just find really cool deals that I want to do myself. And I bring our lifestyle investor mastermind community in on those deals. And so because we aggregate more funds collectively, we get really preferred terms. And, you know, when I say preferred terms, I mean, like reduced fees, increased returns, increased preferred returns specifically. Hey, Prime members, are you tired of ads interfering with your favorite podcasts?

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Starting point is 00:05:46 You know, different side letters for different terms that really take care of us as a community. Nice. Lower minimums, like all kinds of things like that. And so, you know, we have groups that just really want access to our, you know, investors. We have very sophisticated, high, we'll call them highly successful entrepreneurial group, about 80% entrepreneurs and about 20% like highly paid executives of some sort, you know, whether maybe it's a C-suite or maybe it's like attorney doctor, but 80% are entrepreneurs had a business either running it now or sold it, or maybe around their second or third business. And so it's a group of people that anyone that

Starting point is 00:06:22 has a fund or anyone that has a deal wants to get in front of. And so it makes it really easy to negotiate terms on behalf of our entire group. Absolutely. So how many deals have you brought to the group? What percent worked out and what percent failed? So we, at this point, are probably right under 150 deals. Let's call it 140 in the last six years, seven years. That's a lot. So good number of deals. Luckily, knock on wood, we've done very well. We've got one deal that was a goose egg and that's a really unfortunate situation. We have two that are trending that way. We have, you know, probably another six that are not performing to the pro forma. So, you know, let's call it somewhere between eight and 10 of those deals are maybe not where we want them to be. But I still think probably seven of those deals are probably going

Starting point is 00:07:22 to work out just fine. They're just a year or two behind because of COVID or because of whatever it is. And then we've had a ton of deals go full cycle. So we're probably averaging somewhere around 95, 96% of deals that are either gone full circle with great results at or above pro forma and other deals, the rest of them that are, you know, pacing with the pro form. That's the best I've ever heard because with VCs, they aim for the opposite. They aim for 10% success. Yeah, and VCs are a lot riskier.

Starting point is 00:07:53 They're on the earlier side, right? So that's early stage companies. There's just a lot more risk there. We do very little of that. One of the things I like to do is study what the wealthiest people in the world do with their money. And if you look at, I've looked at all the reports, whether it be UBS, JP Morgan, KKR, Goldman Sachs, there's a bunch of family office aggregators. They just, you know, collect all this information. And so if you look at like the 200 wealthiest families, you've got, you know, the stats say across the board that about 50 ish, 59 percent is the highest I saw anywhere from 49 to 59 percent of their net worth is in alternative investments. Wow. Which is pretty funny because the word alternative suggests that it's not the main thing. Right.

Starting point is 00:08:43 Right. So for all these wealthy families, the stock market is actually what's alternative for them. The main investment is actually alternative investments, private equity, real estate, private credit. And so when you look at those numbers, it makes sense. Now, also when you look at those numbers, they're know, four to 10% in venture investing. So venture capital, again, riskier side earlier to mid-stage companies. So if you have four to 10% of your net worth in it, I think that's a pretty safe place to be just based on what all the other most successful wealthiest families do. So for us, we're the same way.

Starting point is 00:09:24 We try to have our deals be a lot more sure things. We have deals that, uh, are, are so low basis that it's hard to not make money deals that are so protected with collateral. Um, and, and so, you know, our deals are, are not risky deals. And I mean, every now and again, we'll, we'll do some and we'll, you know, let people know these are riskier deals. Um, so every now and again, we'll do some and we'll let people know these are riskier deals. So mind your asset allocation. But if we keep a smaller percentage on the riskier ones and we keep a larger percentage of our focus on cash flowing deals, deals that have tons of upside, very limited downside, it really allows us to outperform.

Starting point is 00:10:04 Nice. That's cool that you just follow the money. It's not rocket science for you. Yeah, for sure. And by the way, some additional deals are going to go bad, right? So it's not like that's the end number, right? Some are still mid cycle. Some are, you know, beginning a cycle, some are towards the end of the cycle. So, you know, there will be other deals that exceed projections. Some will be right at projections, some will be below projections and some will miss. Some will just be bad deals. But the goal is not to win everything. The goal is to win, you know, it's not to win every battles to win the war. And if you have a nice asset allocation across multiple different asset classes, then you're protected in different

Starting point is 00:10:40 markets and different, you know, economic seasons. And I think that's important. What's hot right now? Because I know a lot of people talk about AI, but is that actually trending for you? I love AI. But, you know, it's interesting to me that, I mean, AI is the huge craze right now. I've been investing in AI for like 10 years. Wow. So I like getting into things. My goal is, can I get in before it is mainstream? Right. Can I, can I find a trend that that trend eventually becomes mainstream, but it's not quite there yet, but it's enough that I feel like it can be good. And so I did that with mobile home park investing when that wasn't cool. When people thought I was crazy. I did that with single family home rentals when that,

Starting point is 00:11:22 I mean, that used to not even be a real estate asset class like Airbnbs. Like, yeah, I mean, whether it be short term or long term, but actually having a collection of of single family homes in your portfolio, you know, as an actual asset class. Right. That wasn't even a thing. That wasn't even a thing. That wasn't even a tract. That wasn't even tracked. It is very normal, right? But that's the thing, like being early on that, being early on, you know, cannabis, hemp, CBD type of investing, you know, and there are a number of other ones. So AI being that robotics, you know, there's some really cool deals that we did that, you know, are pretty, you know, they're today it's you see it and you're like, that's so obvious back then. It wasn't so obvious, but, um, I think that that has really served us well, served me

Starting point is 00:12:11 personally in my portfolio really well. Yeah. Cause you can maximize the returns if you're a little earlier. That's right. That's right. Now, I mean, the danger is you might be too early. You might, you might miss it. It might metaverse. Yeah. Right. Exactly. But if you pay like my belief is if you follow where the majority of the wealth is, you're probably going to trend. Right. So, for example, the largest wealth transfer in the history of the world is about to happen. Really? Yeah. So in the next, let's call it 10 to 20 years, maybe even starting as soon as five years, you've got the baby boomers that are passing down their wealth to the millennials. And some experts have it at $80 trillion. Some have it as high as $100 trillion. But think about it in this state. So US, wealthiest country in the world. The second wealthiest country in the world. Okay. The second wealthiest country in the world, China, about 75 trillion. Okay. So this wealth transfer is greater than the second wealthiest nation in the world. Okay. Just to put it in a perspective. Okay. So if you want to figure out what trends are going to be in the

Starting point is 00:13:17 future, well, what do millennials spend their money on? How do they live? How do they shop? How do they recreate? How do they want to do light? And you can see some of the trends that are happening. One of the trends that we haven't seen in forever is even this drinking less alcohol. And now you're seeing a lot more non-alcoholic beverages come onto the scene. And I could give tons of trends like that. Even people tracking their health, right? Aura, which is a, you know, which is a company I got in really early and- You invest in Aura? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:13:48 Wow. Yeah. And so I just think that, and by the way, this, you know, these wearables, this technology, like this is going to be huge. Like I knew that long ago. You know how I knew that? Because I wanted that data. Interesting. So if I felt like, so in that instance, it's like, well, if I believe in it, there have to be other people that believe in it, right? Like I want access to that data, uh, to improve my own health. You know, right now we're in like this, you know, peak season of like

Starting point is 00:14:15 health and wellness and biohacking and longevity. And so like, these are going to be great things, but then flip back over to the baby boomers, You know what else is going to be in style? Well, whether it's in style, it's going to be, you know, in demand, whether it's in style or not, it's going to be in demand is housing and care. Right. Elderly care, health care side of things. Yes. So I don't know. There's just ways to see what is coming if you really pay attention to it.

Starting point is 00:14:44 That's really cool. That way of thinking is long term. I think attention to it. That's really cool. That way of thinking is long-term. I think people think more short-term, but I like that way more. You know, do you stick with in the U.S. mainly with your investment? Yeah, I'm primarily U.S. I do have a small percentage of my portfolio that is overseas. And I do think that it makes sense. I mean, even from the standpoint for me of like having the ability to go to other countries, to live in other countries, you know, we're we did the golden visa for Portugal. So we've got a bunch of investments in Portugal. And so if we ever needed to go there, you know, we've got banks there and that gives us access to all of Europe. Right. To the 27 Schengen region, you know, interconnected countries, borderless, uh, access.

Starting point is 00:15:27 And then, you know, uh, Antigua and Barbuda, you know, having citizenship there, you know, it just, it creates a lot of other opportunities, um, a to just live life, but be like, if anything ever goes down as a plan B, uh, you know, having places that you can go, having a passport that can get you into places where sometimes the U.S. passport is, you know, frowned upon. During COVID, a lot of European countries blocked U.S. passports. That's smart. I need to start looking into the backup passport in case a civil war breaks out. Yeah. And hopefully it won't. But, you know, I mean, I like to plan for the worst and just hope that it never happens. But I want the plan in place. Speaking of planning for the worst, did you see 20 banks in China crash, though? I did not.

Starting point is 00:16:13 And there's talks that there are some U.S. banks I might go under. Well, that doesn't surprise me. So I don't know the China, you know, banks or markets as well as I know the U.S. ones, the U.S. were poised for more, I believe. I think that what we saw was just the start of it. And I mean, too many of these banks, like if you look at the solvency ratio of these banks here in the U.S., it's appalling compared to banks around the world. Why is that? Well, we think, you know, as Americans, like our banks are the best and we just have such confidence because we've never had, you know, a real bank run situation. We've never had like, you know, huge failures in the banks outside of like, you know, 2008 and what has recently happened. Right. And all of that was was fine.

Starting point is 00:17:00 Like we were able to prop that up. But if you look at the solvency ratio and how, I mean, basically how risky the banks are with your money, um, what they have to what they owe, uh, you will see that it is a, a slim margin. So it is, I mean, I, I mean, I, I like life insurance companies well better, far beyond what I like banks. And I keep very little money in banks because I just don't trust them. And I don't keep anything above the FDIC limit. 250K, right? Yeah. Also, the interest is low in bank accounts. That's right. That's right. I mean, right now we're in a time, and this is also unprecedented to have such high treasury rates, such high treasury yields, but it doesn't make sense to have money

Starting point is 00:17:46 in a bank account unless you know you're going to be spending it here soon. You might as well have it sitting in treasuries. I mean, you can have a laddered account. You can even do it yourself, right? You do these 28-day T-bills and you put in, let's say that you want to put 100K into it, okay? You can put 25K in week one, 25K in week two, $25K in week three, $25K in week four. Well, now every single week, you're going to have money coming due. You have $25,000 you can either reinvest or draw and use for whatever expenses you need. So there are ways that you can, you know, kind of create your own liquidity at a much higher interest rate. Now, there are also high yield savings accounts. And if you work with some of these big banks like, you know, JP Morgan and Morgan, you know, Morgan Stanley, like there are some groups that have some pretty favorable terms if you can get in, if you are the right fit where they'll pay you, you know, at or close to those numbers. But 4%? Yeah. Doing it yourself, you're going to have the lowest fee, lowest cost, lowest everything, finding ways to go

Starting point is 00:18:53 treasury direct or go through your own account with Schwab or whatever. I need to start doing that because I have like a million in the bank, so that's kind of stupid, right? Yeah. You could be earning a lot of money every year. You could be earning actually right now, 5% on that money. That's virtually guaranteed and short term with plenty of liquidity. Yeah. That's 50K a year for doing nothing. That's right. Yeah. So at a minimum. Yeah. Yeah. So you could do like a one month, three months, six months. I mean, you figure out what liquidity needs you have and you can spread it out. But I mean, to me, there's no reason to not just, you know, ladder, you know, what, your one month and then you always have access to money in a week's notice.

Starting point is 00:19:34 Yeah. Or a week's time. Yeah. That's not bad. No, I'm similar to you though, where I'll keep most of it in crypto or other assets. Yeah. And, you know, you can make a really good argument. Why not hold it in Bitcoin? You know, I mean, if you think Bitcoin is going to go up for the long haul, it's it's still liquid. And I mean, right now it's creeping down. But I mean, if you believe that long term it's 100K or it's more than 100K, then you can make a very compelling argument that part of it. I mean, I wouldn't put all of it, you know, all of the liquid money there, but part of it, certainly that could be part of the plan. Right. Maybe it's like, you know, 20 of the liquid money there, but part of it, certainly, that'd be part of the plan, maybe it's like 20% there and 20% each week in treasuries or whatever, however you want to do it,

Starting point is 00:20:14 but I think it should be definitely a consideration for most people. I think Michael Saylor will be either the greatest investor of all time or the worst. Yeah, well, there's no doubt he is one of the smartest people alive. I mean, I think that guy's brilliant. Now, whether he gets it right on Bitcoin or not remains to be seen. I tend to think that Bitcoin is just going to continue to go up. I think he's right. I think he is smarter than just about everyone out there. But what's interesting about him is he doesn't just have a position. He has methodologies.

Starting point is 00:20:54 He's, um, he's got such a unique way of talking about it, explaining it, like helping people understand, um, through analogies and just the guy is truly a brilliant guy. But what's cool for him, you know, he obviously has money that he's, you know, putting his own money in. He's putting investor money in. But I love with his company, with MicroStrategy, like they, you know, have their treasury in it, right? Like they, you know, run their business through it and they run their liquid cash there. Yeah. He does seem to have some sort of plan because he buys it every year or so, right? Yeah. Well, and many times a year and in large volumes. And what is really cool is he's teaching

Starting point is 00:21:37 a lot of these other high profile founder CEOs to do that with their own company. So there's a lot of companies that haven't come out publicly to say it, but I mean, he's talked to, you know, a hundred of the, of the largest companies, um, CEOs and, and in some cases founders, um, about how they can do this. And so a lot of these companies, I, my understanding is there's at least 50 of the biggest companies out there that have, have done this part of their treasury is in Bitcoin. Wow. Yeah. That's probably looking good on there. Some have come out and said it, but a lot of private companies don't have to share that. Private ones, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Do you have Warren Buffett as the goat for investing? Yeah, I think he's most certainly one of the goats. Is he the all-time greatest investor?

Starting point is 00:22:26 He's up there. He's definitely up there. It's an honor to even be mentioned in the same sentence as Warren Buffett, but I think that he's done some incredible things. What I will say is I want to say this in a, in a respectful way. Cause I have the most respect and admiration for him. My understanding is he may have trumped and put, you know, that investment, uh, you know, what he's doing at Berkshire Hathaway as like the top of the pedestal. And I think, you know, his family suffered from that. So I hold him in a high regard and a high esteem, but you know, for me, I don't want business to ever, I don't want family to be sacrificed

Starting point is 00:23:17 because of business. And if I end up making less, but I invested more, uh, in my family and in those relationships that to me matters more. And that's a much, to me, a much better investment of time and energy. Yeah. I can a hundred percent see that. I saw his documentary. He still lives in the same house, drives the same car. I think I just meant purely from a numbers. Oh yeah. But yeah, when you factor in everything, yeah, there's much more to factor. Yeah. It's hard to have too many people in the same category as him. You know, I, I have my heroes in each category, Sam Zell, who I had the chance to meet before he passed away. I mean, he's the greatest real estate investor to ever live. Um, I mean, certainly

Starting point is 00:23:54 of our time, but, uh, you know, largest, uh, commercial real estate owner, largest multifamily owner, largest mobile home park owner and damn any soul category yeah well it's hard to be the biggest in any in even one of them and he was in all three of them holy crap and guess what holdings he never sold out of all of them mobile home mobile home park yeah a lot yeah so i learned a ton from him he's from chicago i'm from chicago i got into mobile home parks early like he did so uh and i still, you know, he today says his greatest investment he ever made was in, I think it was either 1982 or 1983 and it was buying his first mobile home park. Wow. And I would say the same thing for my story as well. Have you looked into any section eight deals?

Starting point is 00:24:38 Cause I get those ads every day now. I do. I have. That's not my cup of tea. I think it is. I know a lot of friends that do. I have friends that are in that space that do very well. It is a lot of work. And I have decided for our model and what we do, it probably is just not a fit, but I know it can work. I do think it is more work than what a lot of people make it sound like. They don't mention that part. Yeah. Oh, I got 400 units, but okay. How much time are you spending on that? Yeah. And for your audience who is unfamiliar with that, I mean, it's basically where the government is paying the majority of the rent payment. Right. But what you find when people don't own their own place and you know they're putting nothing or very little towards it is there's a lower respect for the property so what ends up happening is you know the property damage is pretty high yeah there's a lot of yes yes yeah a lot of the pair a lot of rehab yeah when it comes to investing i feel like you want as little stress and work as possible

Starting point is 00:25:44 because you already work so hard to get the money initially. Why would you want to work that hard? For sure. You know what I mean? I'm with you. Yeah. So that makes sense. Do you find now that there's a lot of money that the returns are lower? In what specifically? Just because now you're dealing with millions of dollars, right? So to get 15% on that, do you feel like it's a lot harder than if you had $100,000? Well, you know, I think temperaments change over time, you know? So like for most people, their wealth is created through concentration, right? They have a business, they got into real estate, whatever it is. They made their money from one avenue.

Starting point is 00:26:23 And then most, you know, the wealthiest people in the world, they grow their assets through diversification. So you make it one way, you maintain and grow it another way. So it's two totally different strategies. I also think that the older you get, the wiser you get in most cases. And I think early on in life, I chased bigger returns. I did riskier deals for bigger returns. Some paid off, some didn't. Now I'm at a place where I don't want to chase the big returns. I just want to get good, solid returns. I don't need the best returns. I just want to know that I'm not going to lose money. Yeah, that makes sense. Because you got kids now, you got people to take care of. That's right. You don't want to know that I'm not going to lose money. Yeah, that makes sense. Because you got kids now, you got people to take care of.

Starting point is 00:27:05 That's right. You don't want to be losing everything. That's right. Yeah, I feel that. I'm at that in-between stage now too. Yeah. Where before I would chase like 100x returns. That's right.

Starting point is 00:27:14 That's right. And by the way, I still think that there's a time and a place where you can chase the big returns. You just have to limit it, right? So, you know, my studying of the wealthiest people is that they got about 1% of their asset allocation or one percent of their net worth where they will still go for some moonshots and, you know, and go for, you know, 100x and see what happens. But if you don't land those, one percent doesn't wreck your life. If you do, it's a significant bump to your net worth. And so that risk reward profile makes a lot of

Starting point is 00:27:46 sense. So for me, I still will do that, but I cap out at 1%. Yeah. You also invest in film deals, which I want to talk about. I've never heard about that. So how does that process work? Well, film in general is probably a losing game, a losing proposition. A lot of these films, you spend so much money on the film and you just don't make what you used to make. I mean, even today, it's like less people go into the theater, so less box office sales. There's a different price point typically from the box office to when it's on Netflix or when it's on, you know, Amazon Prime or whatever the streaming platform is. There's still opportunity there. What I like

Starting point is 00:28:32 in film is that there are so many tax advantages to doing it. And if you can structure it the right way, you can invest in a way where you don't even need the film to return a good return because you get so much tax write-off from that. So most of my investments, not all of them, I've done some with some big name producers, actors, people that are household names, that the tax play wasn't as advantageous. But the best deals I've done have been great tax plays where I invested in this killer film with Dustin Hoffman and Sissy Spacek and Skylar Fisk. And it was just an awesome movie.

Starting point is 00:29:18 I was so proud of it. It was called Sam and Kate. Killer, killer movie. And I got a chance to meet them and it was cool being involved and part of that process. But the tax write-offs I got from that deal were massive. So if I make money on the film, great, but I don't need to because I'm already in the money. So that's the way I like to do those. That way it's low risk. Yeah. The tax game is insane. Amazon pays zero in taxes, right? Amazon? Yeah. I mean, a lot of people are like, hey, you know, it's funny when I do keynotes and, and, um, you know, I'll speak periodically.

Starting point is 00:30:09 I don't speak as much as I used to, but, uh, I always have fun. And I, I'll ask the audience, you know, one of the first things I say is, you know, hey, do you want to hear the, the, the best investment I've ever done? And people are always like, yeah, what is it? And, you know, it's like, well, what do you think it is? What, you know, everyone's,? Everyone's guessing different types of investments. And I say, actually, the best investment I've ever done is getting really great tax strategy because I've made more money on great tax strategy and saving, keeping money that belongs here, doesn't belong to the government than I have in the other deals I've

Starting point is 00:30:42 done, even great deals that I've done. Wow. Yeah. And taxes are 50%. That's right. And it compounds over time. So even if you find ways to mitigate it and you're, you know, you pay 40, 30, 20%, whatever, uh, that's still a lot of money. And, you know, I think that if you have, so most people they're reactionary in, in their tax response, even CPAs. And most of them, they're just tax filers. They don't, it's not for them, like they're not doing tax strategy, right? You want to be proactive. You want to be on the other side and you want to be thinking about this ahead of time. And what are the things that you can do? And there are tons of strategies you can use there. You know, for people that don't use tax strategists, I think it's a huge missed opportunity. My tax

Starting point is 00:31:25 strategist directs my CPA. And there's so many things that my CPA, and I've had many different CPAs over the years, but there are so many strategies. My original CPAs had no clue what it was. And I felt like I was going to them with all the strategies and they'd never heard of them. So I was like, I need to upgrade here and get some people that are proactively looking out for my best interests. But, you know, that adds up, you know, if you're saving $30,000 a year and you do that, you know, over 10 years and you're making about 15% on that money, you know, that's around a million bucks, you know, 2 million bucks, maybe. I mean, it's, it's a lot of money. If you do that over 30 years, you're talking about $13 million. Crazy. That's a lot. It's a ton. So that's what I mean. And like for people that aren't making tax strategy a

Starting point is 00:32:20 priority, it's a huge missed opportunity. Yeah. And I think business owners kind of see it as like, let me just hire a bookkeeper and a whatever tax person, but they don't see, like you're saying, being proactive with it. That's right. Yeah. They're reactive. That's right. And yeah, the compound interest on that of savings is crazy. It's big. I like your strategy because a lot of people say to move to Puerto Rico, but then you're sacrificing your life style. That's right. You know, I mean, if you love it there and you can live more than six months, six months on a day out of the year there, right, then maybe that's a great strategy for you. I think that, you know, my wife, you know, jokes about this and she gives me a hard time sometimes where, you know, I mean, at one point in time, I was like, hey, would you ever consider moving to Puerto Rico? We could save a lot on taxes.

Starting point is 00:33:08 And she's like, wait a minute, I thought we were working hard and doing all this stuff so that we could be financially free and we don't have to worry. Like we could just pay the taxes because we want to be in the driver's seat of life. And I was like, hey, great point. And I duly noted, touche, you win this argument. I have friends that have done it. I have friends that are there that really love it and they swear by it. And I have other friends that it was hard for them.

Starting point is 00:33:36 It was grueling for them because it is not the same U.S. as you get on the mainland. It is not as developed. It is not your level of produce is different. Your options, like how much you get, you've got some nice aesthetics in terms of beach, but you have a lot of unde you know, undeveloped, underdeveloped areas. You have just a lot of buildings, a lot of equipment that's not state of the art.

Starting point is 00:34:15 So I think it's a big, you know, learning curve and let's call it like a shock to the system for many. It's hard to beat Austin. It's hard to beat Vegas. Whatever city people watching this are in, it's hard to beat Austin. It's hard to beat Vegas. Whatever city people watching this are in, it's hard to beat that amount. I've traveled the world and seen other cities. Yeah, I love traveling.

Starting point is 00:34:32 I think I've been to around 80, maybe 85 countries, somewhere around there. Try to go to a new country every year. Went to Greece again this year. Just got back from there a little bit ago. That was an epic trip with the family. Greece is top three for me.

Starting point is 00:34:48 Oh, yeah. I've only been here like 17, but I'm catching up to you. But Greece is incredible. Oh, top of the list. I mean, it is a blast. 6,000 islands. I mean, that's a lot of islands. There are very few countries.

Starting point is 00:35:01 I mean, I don't know if any, I don't know if Indonesia is up there. Maybe Indonesia is, but I mean, that's a lot of, that's, it's tons. That's insane. Greece has 6,000 islands. Yeah. So we got a chance to go to some of the less known ones, which is great. We spent time in Athens this time. We'd done a bunch of like the well-known islands.

Starting point is 00:35:17 Yeah. Yeah. Santorini. But this time we spent a week in Athens and then spent a week in Portaheli and went to the islands around there like Spetsis and Idros. Never heard of these. I mean, it was so cool because it's a lot of locals. Well, it's interesting. So that area, that's where Jeff Bezos was.

Starting point is 00:35:40 So his yacht was right there. We ate at a bunch of restaurants that he was at. So, I mean, we were literally in the same water, same area, you know, by him, by his mega, his $500 million yacht. He got it all the way over there. Yeah. I thought he kept it in the US. Well, he probably does. He probably has people that, that take it, you know, for him. And then he flies in on his chopper, chopper whenever, uh, cause they have the helicopter pad, right? They say yachts are one of the worst investments. Oh, I'm sure. At his point, though, I mean, it doesn't matter.

Starting point is 00:36:11 That number is so negligible, right? That sounds like the most money in the world to us, like $500 million for a yacht. That is a negligible number to him. That's crazy. Yeah, it's probably like us dropping a $100 bill. Right. It's nuts to think about. Yeah, it's probably like I was dropping a $100 bill. Right. It's nuts to think about.

Starting point is 00:36:26 Yeah, there's levels to the game, man. Justin, it's been fun. Where can people learn about your mastermind and your events coming up? Yeah, probably the best place is lifestyleinvestor.com. That has everything. I mean, we do everything from, I've got a book, I've got a podcast, I've got... And by the way, we just came out with the updated and expanded edition of the Lifestyle Investor. So the first book that came out in 2021 became a number one Wall Street Journal

Starting point is 00:36:51 bestselling book. And then same with USA Today. And then as of January of last year, it's a top 1% of all books ever sold based on volume. So the book has had way more success than I ever dreamed it would have. So we decided to come out with an updated and expanded edition. So there's about 20, 25% more content in this book, which I'm really proud of and really excited about. And all the proceeds of the Lifestyle Investor all go to fight human trafficking., every penny that comes in on that book goes out to do good and to earn human freedom back. So, you know, on the website, there's courses, there's, you know, we've got an online course, we've got masterclasses, we've got the mastermind, we've got all kinds of things, a blog. So there are tons of free resources, but what might be the most valuable for your

Starting point is 00:37:43 community is anyone that wants like a strategy session. We do these consultation calls and strategy sessions with people and it's people that are, you know, here at point A, but want to move to point B and aren't sure how to do it. Yeah. Or maybe they're at point B and need to move to point C and we just help them. So we do these, these calls are, I think they're 500 bucks, $497. But for your community, I'd love to do them for free. So anyone who comes in from this podcast, go to lifestyleinvestor.com forward slash consultation, and we'd be happy to do that pro bono and help your audience with next steps. Thanks a ton, man. You might have to hire a few more people for that one. I know this might be a dangerous proposition. So hundreds of those.

Starting point is 00:38:26 It's been a blast, man. Thanks for coming on. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for watching guys. As always. See you tomorrow.

Digital Social Hour - Avoid This $20K Mistake: Diversify Your Investments Now! | Justin Donald DSH #601

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