Digital Social Hour - He Went From Military to Making Millions With Automation | Joseph Carter Digital Social Hour #104

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

On today's episode of Digital Social Hour, we sit down with Joseph Carter to talk about how he transitioned from the military to entrepreneur and made millions doing so. BUSINESS INQUIRIES: [e-mail] APPLY TO BE ON THE POD: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 SPONSORS: HelloFresh: https://www.hellofresh.com/50dsh AG1: https://www.drinkAG1.com/DSH Hostage Tape: https://hostagetape.com/DSH Digital Social Hour works with participants in sponsored media and stays compliant with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding sponsored media. #ad --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/digitalsocialhour/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So the Marine goes down. If he gets shot, if he gets injured, if he gets dehydrated, if he needs his temperature checked, which is pretty interesting. Usually we'll do a temperature check by sticking a thermometer up their butt. We were out in Japan once. We were doing jungle warfare training and Marines would bet each other $5 on who could eat a lizard without throwing it up. And the problem with the lizards out in Japan, they have a neurotoxin and some lizards can kill you if you eat the wrong lizards. So I would literally have to give briefs to my Marines on things not to do. Stuff you would think you would tell a five-year-old, but now you're telling an adult man. all right welcome back to the digital social hour i'm your host sean kelly i'm here with my

co-host wayne lewis what up what up and our guest today joseph carter what's going on how's it going man great great to be here thanks for having me on. Absolutely. Mr. Amazon pays. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. One of the many ways I've been able to make money in my life was using Amazon, using someone else's platform. Automation is extremely great for it. Yeah. Automating everything, automating my knowledge, you know, trying to find places where I could gain as much knowledge as possible without having to spend hours in a book. You know, that's the goal. So before Amazon and before making millions, you were in the military. Yeah, that's right. I was in the military for six years. I was a Navy Corpsman.

I went into the Navy. I was attached to the Marine Corps for six years. Just for those people who don't know, a Corpsman is basically like a medic, like an EMT. The Marines don't have medics. What they'll do is they'll borrow from the Navy. As a Navy Corpsman, I'm attached to the Marine Corps unit. Basically, we provide all the medical coverage. We do everything a Marine does. is they'll borrow from the Navy. So as a Navy corpsman, I'm attached to the Marine Corps unit. And basically,

we provide all the medical coverage. We do everything a Marine does. You know, carry a weapon as well. Provide tactical training and then also provide medical coverage. So if a Marine goes down, if he gets shot, if he gets injured,

if he gets dehydrated, if he needs his temperature checked, which is pretty interesting. Usually we'll do a temperature check by sticking a thermometer up their butt. Really? And that will be enough motivation to keep a Marine hydrated. Wow. We have a running joke in the Marine Corps.

Basically it says, you know, if you're not feeling well, change your socks, drink your water. Basically at the end of the day, if your Marine has good socks, his feet are taken care of, he can move, doesn't have any issues. If he drinks his water, he stays hydrated long enough to get from point a to point b so that's basically a the basic uh goal of a doc is to keep the marines hydrated and keep their feets good keep their feet good do you ever have to provide coverage for someone getting shot or injured so uh i got all the training and luckily i did not have to go to the sandbox. But there were a couple times when we were out in Mojave Viper, Mojave Desert, doing desert warfare training.

Unfortunately, it's a big issue in the military. 18-year-old took a round right to the brain from his own weapon on purpose. And we had to go and clean that up. And it also provides basic therapy for all the other Marines around. So sometimes, yeah, we'll see things like that. We'll get Marines that do stupid things. We'll play with their K-bar knives. They'll sit 10 feet across from each other, legs spread open,

and they'll toss their knives up in the air and try to flex their leg as the blade goes to hit their muscle and not let the blade go into their leg. How successful is that? I mean, you know, you'd be surprised. You have to hit your leg at the right angle for the knife to go in. But there were a couple times where the knife went in and I didn't know about this until it actually happened. And I had to spend my Friday afternoon stitching up a Marine's leg.

Oh, my God. And, you know, there's just little things. We were out in Japan once. We were doing jungle warfare training, and Marines would bet each other $5 on who could eat a lizard without throwing it up. And the problem with the lizards out in Japan, they have a neurotoxin. And some lizards can kill you if you eat the wrong lizards. So I would literally have to give briefs to my Marines on things not to do. Stuff you would think you would tell a five-year-old,

but now you're telling an adult man. But I love my Marines. Just had a blast hanging out with them. The best brotherhood you could ever be a part of. You know, I always say a lot of people choose a fraternity, but for me the greatest fraternity was being part of the military. You know, because you meet so many veterans all over the place. So let me ask you this.

Would the military still have been an option had you known what you know today before you signed up? That's a really good question. Would you still have went in with that same knowledge and still built those relationships? Or would you just went head head on with you know the automation and amazon and everything so i asked myself that question i got out of the military because i spent most of my adult life in in the service and for me i needed it because i was this naive

little christian boy who thought i could trust anybody who said they believed in god uh you know it it was um you know from from age of, I grew up without a father. So I got introduced to the church when I was 15. And I got kind of, I went really down the rabbit hole of being a, you know, Bible thumper type of Christian individual. Yeah. And you don't really learn too much about the world in church. You learn more so like how to be a better individual, how to forgive people when they,

you know, commit sins, how to not sin, all this other stuff. And so long story short, the military balanced me out. When I went into the military, my eyes were open to the world. I was open to, you know, how man actually can act. And it took me from being this naive individual to somebody who had a greater sense of what humans were capable of on the good and the bad and that was extremely important for me i don't think that i would be as successful as i am today if it was not for the military but i will tell you this you still would have went then i still would have went okay but i would have went on the different on the mindset of i would have went to travel and i would have went because you know um can you still have

an amazon setup in the military yeah you can make money in the military you would have just had an amazon yeah there's a lot of guys in the military that have their own businesses oh really they're making you know a million dollars a year or more in the military in the military what i never knew yeah i thought they took away your phones no no no no no they don't mean boot camp they do but when you get out of boot camp you're pretty much like you know you're a civilian with a job, essentially. You show up. You report in for certain training, basic training.

You go and do admin work. Some military members have an office that they have to go to. Some military members are on a ship or out in the field. For me, I was never on a ship because I was with the Marines. I was always out in the field doing some type of training, warfare training, jungle warfare training, desert training. You know, we spent some time in Japan during the wintertime, and that was pretty awesome because it was negative five degrees and you're making igloos and trying to survive and stay warm and you're like huddling up to your brothers.

And, you know, there's a saying called misery loves company. And I never learned that until I actually experienced misery with other right um there's something about a group of people being together that are miserable up you know holding each other accountable and and you know staying strong and going through the the challenges that this you know moment in time bring you but yeah those little things that you'll learn little things you learn in the military it's not you know rambo ruined it for me i'll tell you that i thought it was not coming out the water i thought it was going to be awesome like rambo right like you're covering yourself in mud you know you're hiding in the woods you're you're you're doing all these fun fun missions and i'll tell you there is nothing great about playing rambo in the woods you know you got to

think there's no places for you to go to the bathroom when you're out in the woods you know you have to go and dig a hole uh you're going to take a shit, right? And while you're digging this hole and while you're taking this shit, you have to worry about mosquitoes in the front of you and mosquitoes behind you. And so while the mosquitoes are trying to bite you, you imagine squatting over a hole, you're trying to protect Mr. Johnson in the front. Meanwhile, the mosquitoes are flanking you from the back and stabbing you in the ass.

These are the little things that people don't really talk about before you go into the front. Meanwhile, the mosquitoes are flanking you from the back and stabbing you in the ass. You know, these are the little things that, you know, people don't really talk about before you go into the military. These little experiences that kind of suck over time. But yeah, you know, it has its pros and cons. It definitely made me a better man in general. Like I said, awareness was the greatest thing I think I learned in the military for sure. How did growing up without a father figure impact your view on the world? So I basically grew up with TV as a father, you know, full house, family matters, you know, learning, you know, you learn from these family episodes of what family means, why family matters, you know. And luckily for me, I had a grandfather that was like a father figure for me. But, you know, I'm not going to lie, you know, up to the age of 15, I was this uncontrollable little teenager that was that lacked self-discipline, wasn't in control of his emotions,

was quick to get angry, always want ready to fight, had no problem lying. You know, there is those discipline factors that I lacked without having a father, without having somebody to teach me these things. And then, like I said, when I was introduced to church at 15, I kind of flipped the switch. I learned I learned how to be a better individual because I did have a stepfather that was a part of my life for a little bit. But he wasn't a father figure. He was a bum. Basically stayed at home, lived off my mother, physically abusive, verbally abusive. You know, and I was I eventually became grateful that he was part of my life because I learned how to be the exact opposite. You know, it's turning a negative interaction, a negative situation

into a positive by just learning, like, how can I not be like, I'm grateful that I got to see what your life looks like as a man, because I know I don't want to make those same mistakes. You see what I'm saying? So I had to learn a lot of these things. And then, you know, after you introduce the church, then, you know, YouTube came around and I was introduced to a couple of people like Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins. And that ultimately was what changed my mentality state on how to look at life, how to find self-improvement, how to think outside the box.

Just how to be a better individual as a whole by looking at people who had the lifestyles that I wanted. I learned really quickly, you know, you don't take advice from broke people because what's that going to get you? It's going to get you broke, right? And for me, every day I would look in the mirror and I kept telling myself advice. And I'm like, I got to stop talking to myself because I'm giving myself broke advice. I got to start listening to other people who have the lifestyle that I wanted. So I stopped listening to myself and I started listening to people that had everything, that had the money, that had the house, had the cars, had the freedom. And that ultimately is what, you know, helped me realize that this life, this successful life is possible because, you know, it really

starts with your mind first. There was a saying i heard you know you can either close your mind or i'm sorry close your eyes and replay your past and relive it or close your eyes and pre-play your future and live in that and i found that as long as i would envision where i was going my emotions overall were better. I felt empowered. I had confidence. And where I currently was at in life no longer mattered. It didn't matter that I had no money in the bank. It didn't matter that, you know, I didn't have that many friends. It didn't matter that I wasn't driving the car that I wanted because I was able to visualize myself having those things. And now I'm walking around with this

level of confidence. I'm walking around with this level of energy. I'm walking around with a plan in mind. And I am now technically living that emotional state, which eventually got me to that present state. So that was something that was life changing for me. It was just, you know, close your eyes and preplay your future instead of reliving your past. So when did that learning curve actually start? When were you like, okay, cool, I want to make a lot of money. Yeah. But of course you didn't know how to do it.

So where did you go first? So long story short, I got out of the military in 2014. I had $800 to my name and there was a friend of mine who was in a network marketing company and he was making about $250,000 a month wow so and I found out about this because he came across Google because I was googling how to make money from home without getting a job and I knew this guy back in 2006. It was 2014. I'm out of the military now. I haven't talked to him since 2006, 2007. I called him up. Somehow, I still had his number saved. And his name was David. And I said, David, I just saw this article and you're making $250,000 a month,

man. Is this true? And he's like, yes. Yes, it's true. I was like, there's no way. How is that possible? Because this guy was just as broke as I was when I went into the military. And so he said what he did was he changed what he saw on a daily basis. He changed what he listened to on a daily basis. And he changed what he told himself on a daily basis. And I was like, David, why are you giving me this hippie talk, bro? Give me the truth, right? Because in my mind, the only people that were rich were people that were part of the

or people that were NFL ball or ball players or people that won the lottery you know that's what broke people think right you don't know money is this esoteric thing that you can never reach when you're broke so he simply told me he goes that when he changed his mindset he he changed his life overall so he said get this book called the magic of believing by claude and bristol and i, well, I'm a horrible reader. I read a page, I read it 10 times over again before I go to the next one. But it's not a problem. Yeah, get an audio book.

So he said, get Bluetooth headphones, get an audio book, and listen to it for at least an hour a day. Also, write down your goals from where you want to be six months from now. And look at those goals daily. Have it up on a wall. Look at those goals when you wake up in the morning

and look at those goals before you go to bed at night. One of the goals was to make over $20,000 a month. Something obnoxious to me. Something that was like if this works, you know, this is going to be wild. But I'm going to put this obnoxious goal here. $20,000 a month was my goal. Six months from listening to that book. Six months from the day that I started those goals.

From listening to that book an hour a day over and over again, I think I made a little over $32,000 that month. Wow. And for a long time, never made less than that. And it was really because I had to, I had to change my power, you know, my mindset of where, of where I thought that this reality can go. And that power alone gave me the confidence to become a better human being, a better man, and the confidence to move forward in life. Because otherwise, when I got out of the military, like most military men, we're depressed for our first six months. We no longer have a goal or a mission.

We no longer have somebody telling us what to do. And when you have a life with no goal no job no structure idle hands they say are the work of the devil right and I mean at the end of the day I think that idle hands will just eventually sabotage yourself yeah so you know it all it all changed when I got personal development it changed when I went to YouTube and I found Zig Ziglar Jim Rohn Tony Robbins you know and it changed when I wrote down my goals and I, and those goals stared at me in the face every day. Love that. And that's when you started automation pays, right?

Yes. Yeah. So I basically, so I started first thing, first things first is I made money selling items on Amazon. I was doing this method called drop shipping. Uh, drop shipping no longer works on Amazon. They stopped allowing, allowing that to happen about, I want to say about a year and a half ago. Now the best way to make money on Amazon is FBA or a private label. But I started making money dropshipping on Amazon and I started sharing my success on Facebook. And eventually people started inquiring about how you're able to make money on Amazon. And so for the longest time, I was teaching people how I did this. I paid somebody a couple thousand dollars to teach me how to make money on Amazon. And so naturally

I just charged everybody else the same price that I paid another individual. Over the course of a couple of years, blew up, did well. But what I learned was 85 percent of the people that buy your courses never do anything with it. Right. They just, life gets distracting, right? They have a family, they have a job, or they have their own business. Lack of execution. Lack of execution, lack of discipline, lack of confidence, right?

So they buy it, they do nothing. And then 15% of the people will actually do something with it. And after time goes on, people started asking me like, hey, can you help me with this? Can you assist me with this? Can you do this for me if I pay you more money? And for the longest time I said no. And eventually I realized that there was a good model here of just basically setting up some structure, hiring some more employees and having these things done for your clients. And so automation has really been, I think it's a new industry for the masses. Like, think about this.

You know, would you rather clean your house or have somebody come and clean it for you? If you had the money. Yeah, it's automation. Right? Would you rather

take your car to the car wash or have somebody come and clean your car for you? You know, before you start your day, they come, you know, say you start your day at eight in the morning, you can have somebody

come to your house at six in the morning, clean your car, and by eight o'clock it's ready to go, right? You know, people are already automating things without automating things without even thinking twice about it. Not even realizing it. Basically.

So because most people are distracted or they have jobs or families, the automation service is really where it's at. So we have an automated service with Amazon. We have an automated service in Airbnb. We have 44 properties that we manage in Florida currently homes never a portfolio of over 30 million dollars in homes that we currently manage it's a lot we have automation credit repair because you know a lot of people want to learn how to fix their credit but then you know it's time-consuming three to six months

for them to repair their own credit yeah when you can have somebody do it for you yeah and so after we get somebody credit repaired, we go ahead and we have an automation funding company where we get them funding. So we can get clients up to $200,000 of credit cards, business credit cards at a 0% interest rate. And so now they have $200,000 at no cost to them where they can now use it for their own business, invest in their business, buy courses, buy coaching, whatever have you. But it's done for them.

And I find that's been a much more successful model to go with versus having somebody spend three to six months of their time learning how to do something. Right? So you think the quickest from point A to point B for most people is going to Google and learning. Whereas now it's even quicker because you just pay somebody who already has the knowledge. And you think about it, they want that knowledge more than they want that money. Right. Right? So let's say it's $1,000 for this knowledge.

They're willing to give up the $1,000 so that way they can have that knowledge. Because now they know that knowledge is going to, you know, propel them. Make them more than $1,000. Yeah. Exactly. That's the goal at the end of the day. Or they'll pay you a little bit more than $1,000 you just to do it for them so now they can still live their life they can still be with their family they still go down to the beach right and in my case you know

time freedom is everything when i got in the military the first the most important question i asked myself was not how much money i may want to make not what i want to do but when am i the happiest this is the most life-changing question for me. And you learn that the quality of your answers isn't what matters. The quality of the questions you ask yourself. So you ask yourself when you're happiest. Well, I'm happiest when I'm at the beach. I'm happiest when I'm doing jujitsu. I'm happiest when I'm talking business with people. I'm happiest when I'm talking to people about God and the universe and what this life is that we're living, which is we're literally living on top of a blue ball

that's spinning in space being kept alive by a giant fireball in the sky. And nobody freaks out about that. Right. Like it's wild. Like that is our current reality. And so when you figure that out, you learn that, hey, I need to build a life around my happiness. Right. And so how do I make money and still pursue this life of happiness? Well, it's definitely not an office job. No. It's definitely not construction.

For you. For me. Yeah. For me, it was not. Right. There are people that find great fulfillment with that, which is important for them to know. Like a lot of people's happiness comes in security.

My happiness doesn't come from security, right? A job, a career gives great security and great happiness for people knowing that that check is going to come in every month regardless, as long as they show up and do what they enjoy. For me, I'm a risk taker. So your happiness comes from risk? From risk because security is boredom right security is depression risk is a form of security no because it is so it is it's your security see everybody's

security has a lot of different variables so your form of security is taking a risk because you know what your roi is someone else form of security is going a risk because you know what your ROI is. Someone else's form of security is going into work because they know what their ROI is. That's very, very true. I know what I'm capable of. Right. So there's your security. And I know that. Your security is you.

Correct. My security is me. As long as I can stay alive, I can do everything I want. And that is what I've told myself. So in situations where, you know, I've made millions and I've lost millions. Hard truth. So how it lose a million feel you know when you lose it to you how does it when you lose it it's done it's gone it's like um yeah but you can't just say that i know you went no i'm gonna explain i'm gonna explain i'm gonna. It's done. It's gone. Yeah. And in that moment, you can choose to fold like a cheap tent or you can choose to go back out there and make another million because you know how to make a million dollars.

Right. And how many times have you lost a million dollars? Whew. Breaking his heart. Yeah. It's not a million. It's multiple millions. Jeez.

Twice. But I also have the confidence that I can make it back. Right? And in that process of doing so, I only have that confidence because I've made it once. If you made it once, you can make it twice. Yeah, you're desensitized after the first million. Basically. Basically.

And you have to be. Because otherwise, you fold up like a cheap tent and go into a corner. Right. You cry and you realize no one's going to come to save you. Yeah. Right. And then you remind yourself that, hey, you're still alive. It's only over when you're dead.

I always say that's the difference between entrepreneurs and athletes is that entrepreneurs know how to make a million dollars. Athletes are paid a million dollars. So athletes always come to entrepreneurs after their career or during. They come to them to make money. They come to us to make money. Because they don't really technically know how to make money. Correct. They know how to be paid. Obviously, they've been paid a lot of money, but they don't know how to make money.

Those are two different concepts. Correct. No, it's very true. And two different belief systems. So I invested money into a business once that went belly up, belly up. And it was all the money I had. And I was extremely, extremely scared. Right. You have that gut feeling where it's like your gut turns and goes into knots. Yeah. And then in a split second, the fear went away and happiness came to me because I realized that

I know how to go back and make that money. Now, it may take me some time to make that money, but I will still be able to go back and make that money because I have a certain skill set. I have a certain knowledge. I have time on my side. I have belief in myself. It's different if somebody gave me a million dollars and I lost a million dollars you're done right yeah go ahead and file for unemployment there's no there's no escaping unemployment yeah I mean like if you have if you go to zero after a million what are you gonna do you gonna go down to Publix and get a job hopefully not you're gonna try to figure out how to get that money back some way or another right what was your

next like what was your next step like okay cool i lost the meal so here's how here's how i'm gonna make it back so here's what i did when i lost a million dollars plus um i i realized that i need to get money quickly so what i did was the very next day next week the next week the next week oh so you took a week to kind ofur a little bit well i was in a great deal of depression for a good minute um and then i had to remind i had to talk to a couple friends and i had to remind myself that wait a second you you know how to make this money you just need some time on your side right so the greatest saving grace for me is i had good credit so because i had good credit now i could borrow money leverage leverage because you're either going to go to a friend and ask them for money and you risk losing that friendship

right right because either way they're going to feel some type of way about you if they have to give you money and you're going to feel some type of way about them if they say no to giving you money right so your best bet is getting that money on your own so what i did was i went out and i got a bunch of business credit cards and i stacked those credit cards up and I use those credit cards to now buy me a course to get me in front of some new coaches to pay for a business trip to go and get in front of clients. And within two weeks time, I think I made a little over $250,000 off of that. Quarter of a million. Because all I had to do was get out there and provide value to people that I know needed it. You know, the quickest way to make a million dollars is to find somebody that is a multimillionaire that has a problem that you can solve.

So if you know somebody that has millions of dollars, ask them, what problem can I solve for you? You know, because just off that alone, you'll make a good amount of money. Wow. And that's really what it comes down to. So if you have no money, instead of going to your multimillionaire friend and saying, hey, can I borrow a half a million dollars? You know, hey, I got taxes I need to pay. Hey, my you know, I'm going to miss my mortgage. Hey, you know, I'm in I'm in debt. You know, instead of doing that, go to them and say, what problems do you have that I could solve? You know, I had this one guy, multi multimillionaire. He bought twenty two million dollars worth of property in Florida and he was looking for a builder that could build those properties at a wholesale cost. And so I called

him up and I said, you know, what can I do for you? And he shared that with me. I went and found him a builder the next day. Wow. The next day. And that alone made me a good amount of money. He gives you he basically gave me like, you know, thank you money. It's like at the end of the day, because I'm now saving him millions of dollars. And that's really, you know, it's really simple, a simple of the day because i'm now saving him millions of dollars and that's really you know it's really simple a simple come up just find somebody who has more than you that needs a problem solved and you charge them you know after you deliver right because they're of course they're going to thank you for that i had a tax account he saved me uh five hundred

thousand dollars on my taxes yeah so i naturally well, naturally, he, he said his fee was going to be 10%. Fine. Pay that all day. It cost me an extra 50 grand. But do I, do I pay the $500,000 to uncle Sam or do I give my tax account an extra 50 K for saving me money? 50 K all day, every day. You got 50 K every time you do that. So, and so that was, that was really what saved me from that level of debt was just figuring out how to provide value there's more people out there that you can provide value to you know then um then what you can do selling a simple service right so the goal is to get get all the eyeballs on you the more people that know you the more people that can buy from you basically is is the name of the game nice

love it man joseph what are you working on next and where can people find you? Yeah. So basically our main goal here is to educate people and also provide an automated service for them. So our automated services are Amazon FBA, Airbnb, where we help people get houses or do rental arbitrage. We help people repair their credit and we do funding. We have an automated funding service. So as long as we have a credit score of 640 or higher, we can get you up to $200,000 in business lines of credit because we know how everything works. And we know

how to do that for you within about 30 to 60 days. So you can follow me on Instagram at Automation Pays or Amazon Pays. Those are my two Instagram profiles. Fire handles. Wayne? This is a lot guys make sure you guys follow up and thanks for watching thanks thanks for tuning in guys see ya appreciate it