Digital Social Hour - Leaving Wealth & Power Behind: The Inspiring Story of John Singson | Digital Social Hour #22

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

Welcome to the latest episode of the Digital Social Hour podcast. I'm thrilled to have John Singson as our guest today. John comes from a political family in the Philippines but left everything behind to make his own legacy in the USA. John's grandfather was a well-known and notorious Kingmaker and gangster who served multiple terms as governor. His family has over 20 members currently serving in government positions. John has an interesting business where he builds bomb-proof vehicles due to the dangerous conditions in the Philippines. He also owns a museum of stuffed animals in his backyard and has a personal liger. He comes from a wealthy family, and his grandfather owns six private jets. Despite all this, John chose to leave his family and wealth behind to make his own name in the USA, where he faced many dangerous situations due to his family's political ties. John believes in pushing oneself out of their comfort zone and into the unknown to grow and succeed. We discuss John's fascinating life journey, his views on open relationships, the value of family, and his real estate investments. He has a unique perspective on the use of social media and believes that AI is the next big investment opportunity. Join me as we dive into John's world and get a sneak peek into his projects, daily life updates, and words of wisdom. Listen to the full episode now! --- 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

All right, welcome to the digital social hour. I'm your host Sean Kelly and I'm here with my guest today John Singson. How we doing? Hey man, doing good. Nice to meet you. Pleasure to be here. It's good to have you again, man. Thank nice to meet you pleasure to be here it's good to have you again man thank you thank you uh so last time we didn't get to dive into your story could you give everyone a quick intro on who you are um john singson for you guys that uh don't know me i came from a very political family in the philippines but i didn't want to shadow on that success so i came here in 2008 and um started started here in the united states and you know start making my money here and my own footprint here nice yep so your grandfather was nicknamed

the kingmaker the gangster governor how long was he running the philippines he did a lot of um terms i think uh i don't remember the exact numbers but um he's been a governor there for a long time and his brother's serving now but um we have a 20 plus family members that are in the government currently sitting right now wow yep they call it a dynasty but i wouldn't say that it's just like whoever's performing well and that's good for the government it doesn't matter if it's dynasty or not you know it could be an undynasty and like a fucked up government right and you mentioned it's super dangerous there one of the things you started building out is bomb-proof vehicles right yes yes yes so

it could literally take a bomb to the straight to the vehicle and it wouldn't straight to the vehicle it won't explode it wouldn't even move wow it won't even move it wouldn't even move so you could shoot an rpg at the vehicle right yeah we could try it let's try it when i when i go over there it's tried and tested that's insane maybe it moves an inch or two that's still crazy yeah yeah yeah so because i've heard of bulletproof but bomb proof is like another level yeah it's a bomb proof vehicle another thing your grandfather does is hunt yes so he would go to africa he would hunt animals he would get permission of course yes of course and i guess regions were facing overpopulation issues right yes yes so he would go there what animals have you seen him hunt oh i've seen him hunt the top five rhino um lion tiger elephant and um hippopotamus i think whoa yep and go ahead how do you take down

these massive animals he's weighed thousands of pounds um i think he uses a couple of uh shotguns and different types of um so he gets close yeah he gets pretty close yeah he actually did he actually waited five years to be on the list to be able to hunt in that type of dimension. Did he have any close calls where he almost got screwed? No. No. Okay. No.

And then you take the dead animals and you put them in a museum in the Philippines, right? Right. We have our own museum right behind our backyard where he lives. And all the stuffed animals are there. Wow. The ones he killed have you gone hunting with him no sounds pretty dangerous man it is he goes there alone like no backup no there's uh there's tourists of course i mean like uh hunters that tours you

in there and it's like a it's uh it's actually like a program they have in africa but only um the people that's like exempted i don't know how they manage that but um it's picked you know not everyone gets to go i think even angelina jolie and brad pitt waited longer than my grandpa grandpa did wow yeah so they went and did the hunting as well they did the hunting as well yep i don't know about angelina but i think uh brad pitt and his crew did right and you also have some interesting pets that I want to get into. Oh, yeah. So you own a liger, right?

Liger, yeah. It's a mix of a lion and a tiger. How did you get one of those? That was also from Africa. Okay. Yep, yep, yep. So how did you fly the animal back to the Philippines? We actually chartered a plane.

Really? I mean, we have our own planes, but we had to rent, like, bigger planes to get them in there. Wow. Yep. And your grandfather owned six private jets, right? Yeah, six private jets. That's insane. So you guys got a lot of wealth over there.

Yeah, I mean, it's up there. But you left that life. I'm curious why you left your family and all that wealth to move to the States. Well, for me, it's like building my own legacy, right? I didn't want to shadow on their success. And, uh, like I mentioned before, it's, uh, when everything collapses, only you can help yourself. I mean, the more spoiled we get, the dangerous it is for us. So I kind of like, you know, managed my own thing here in the United States and, uh, go from there. Right. So you said it was dangerous. Were you facing a lot of

sketchy situations when you were living over there? Of course. Yeah. Cause being in the political world, political family, um, I wouldn't say we were targets, but you know, uh, when your, um, rivals are also in the politics, it could be dangerous. But I'm lucky. So far, so good. Wow. So people are making threats at you, basically. Oh, yeah.

Yep. There was one time that they were threatening me. I don't know how they got my phone number, but they were telling me like, hey, we're just around the corner. If I were you, don't go out. I'll be like, okay, let's see. Where are you at? They never showed up. I mean, a criminal would never do that, right?

They wouldn't give you a heads up. Yeah, they wouldn't give you a heads up. So, you know, for me, I'm going to give them a heads up too that I'm coming. So your grandfather had 20 plus girlfriends, over 40 kids. What did you learn growing up around that environment i learned growing up about that environment i would say is um if you can provide why not you know but at the same time i mean it's up to the girl too right if they're giving permission i mean there's nothing wrong with it i mean when i i feel like having open relationships gonna be the new thing

in 50 years not for me because i'm but you know it's gonna be like a good ratio but people doing that so you're you're an advocate for open relationships you think they could work i think they could work for some certain people because we are it's already going on right now with certain religions right so which religions uh i think buddhism you know and some i didn't know they allowed the interesting muslims because christians believe in monogamy right yeah they do they do so um it's certain certain areas yeah i don't know which ones but i had a couple of friends that uh perform it like that. And they're healthy. They're in a healthy relationship. And I don't see myself doing it.

But if it ever comes down to it, I feel like it would be more problematic for me. I just see so much drama. Yeah, so much drama and negative energy. And things can go wrong. And imagine your girlfriend being banged by another woman. I mean, sorry, by another man. I mean, if it was a woman, it'd be okay. Possibly.

Yeah, I don't know. It depends on the woman. Depends on the woman. If it was a man, definitely not, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely not. Yeah, definitely not. But yeah, you mentioned like they'd be at the same dinner table with each other.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they all knew about each other. Yeah. Sometimes I would just come over and they would just eat all together. Wow. Getting along. And they're all provided for. They all have their own houses. All his kids go to like very nice private schools.

And like I said, if you can provide, it's, can provide, you're not leaving the child in the street. That's better, right? Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. You also own 27 giraffes. Yeah, 27 giraffes. They also came from Africa.

Actually, it was like a five-year wait. Our family, well, my grandpa ordered them, but we had to wait a long period of time for them to get shipped because they were being hunted and also the permits and stuff and the licensing it's not a joke you know so this is all legal yeah yeah it's all legal i'm curious how do you feed a giraffe uh you feed them with trees so you have to literally buy trees and then plant them exactly so in our backyard people the tourists, the people that we have there, our guests we welcome, they can feed them. Wow. It's kind of like an Africa style.

Sometimes we have like a breakfast area in our hotel and the giraffe would just put his head in the window and then you could just feed it while you're eating breakfast too. That's crazy. Yeah, it's pretty nice. I've also seen you pet a lion so you have pet lions as well yeah and you don't get nervous when you go to pet it not really no wow nope because i've i just feel like they could snap at any moment you know yeah i'm more scared of a black panther to black panther because it could be like it's really unpredictable you know i've never seen one of those yeah it's a it's a rare breed interesting yep what's your next animal that you want um for me i don't know i haven't thought of that yet i don't know we have almost everything in the in our zoo so that's crazy yeah um so you also also helped bring Miss Universe to the Philippines, right?

How did that happen? Yeah. So in 2016, we negotiated it with certain countries. And my grandfather put like a million dollars down on refundable. And they could still back out, you know. But after that, it went through. It almost didn't go through. Because I don't know what was going on then.

What year was this? 2016. Okay. So he was called. He had a sash saying Mr. Universe. It was cool. That's crazy. It was one of the biggest events in our family, in our life, because we're big advocates of uh tourism we believe that if we did that which we did um

it would bring back a lot of money and the more money we have the more capacity of uh help we could do to the community right yep so would you say it's safe living in the philippines outside of the political scene just in general as long as you have a bomb-proof vehicle you know i don't think anyone could get that yeah no no um it's safe it's pretty safe i mean with the with the president now and the recent president it's uh they run the country pretty well and certain areas it's just like here yeah you know it could be anywhere could be in beverly hills and blow your house up right right but philippines is third world country, but it is the happiest country from what I know and what I feel and what I see. I think I'm going to retire there. Nice.

Yeah, it's interesting. Certain parts of the world have a lot of happiness, even though they don't have wealth. Exactly. Like my story, my dad's side, I'll be upfront, they're very, very wealthy. They have all this crazy background and unlimited wealth. But then my mom's side, she grew up kind of poor, like just an okay, you know. And sometimes I'd feel happy just hanging out with my mom versus my dad,

my grandfather. Sometimes the president might just be coming over and I have to act a certain way, get dressed and be stiff. But with my mom, as long as we eat three times a day, we're good. You valued family when your mom started. I see that as a blessing, both sides. Being in the middle gave me that equilibrium right yeah so how do you want to raise your kids do you want to be the strict parent or do you want to be

like your mom more lenient um i want to be like the strict parent to a certain extent but also give them the opportunity to you know discover themselves because a lot of us don't even know our capacity and who we are that's why we limit ourselves on the daily yeah so i want them to just be who they are and discover themselves later on yeah sometimes i don't even know myself you know i'm still uh trying to figure figure out what my capacity level is i keep pushing every day right and sometimes you feel like this is your level and you can only be at this level but the more stress and the more business that come come your way the following days it makes you stronger and you didn't think you could survive right you know that's why problems are

good i agree i like putting myself in uncomfortable unfamiliar territory exactly the more comfortable most people run away from it exactly exactly i think comfort leads to depression yeah for sure it does it does that's why i try to do like uh try to be uh manageable in different ways yeah yep i want to talk about how your grandfather built up manny pacquiao's legacy can you walk me through that story yeah so when manny was young um of course he didn't have money he was poor he was in the streets selling uh what he could sell like fish like a different i think newspapers or um cigarettes whatever he could sell for like a peso

two pesos three pesos and that's like maybe half of a cent here in America. Wow. And sometimes he would just have water to sleep because there's not enough money for food. So I salute Manny Pacquiao very much because he's one hell of a fighter in and outside the ring. And he weighed so light, I think 98 pounds or something. And there was a tournament that was, I think you have to be 105 or 102 or something like that. So he had to put little metal pieces in his shoe to qualify. Wow.

Yeah. That's how hungry he was for boxing. And that's all he knew how to do. And, you know, growing up up my grandfather would help him connect to the higher-ups and um sponsor him in many fights wow and from there we just stayed uh connected with him and now they're uh they were they work in the government before because manny is the senator yeah and my grandfather was a governor wow and uh yeah that's good how did he find him just on the streets, right? Yeah.

Just like maybe Manny's team looking for sponsors and money and just being connected to the right people. And they just bonded. And from there, they just clicked. Wow. Yep. He went on to become one of the greatest boxers. Greatest boxers. That's why I'm at the MGM a lot.

MGM Mansion is where we stay. And yeah, it's a nice place what about ryan garcia how did you get close with him ryan garcia um his team reached out to me because i'm very good friends with mike tyson um i invested in tyson wretch um which happened to be like a little bit of challenge but uh that's the weed company right yeah but we earned the relationship and from there they reached out to me because they knew I knew a little bit of celebrities. So when they were setting up the podcast, I would just kind of bring in guests in there. And from there, we just we just clicked.

Nice. Yep. Tyson and I have been friends for maybe, I think, 2017. How did you become friends with Mike Tyson? Investing in Tyson Ranch. Okay. Yep. So how did that investment come on your desk it was brought to them by

their team I got an email from a sphere of influence and I met them that day a week later I studied the numbers and the numbers didn't make sense because me doing real estate I'm used to fast money but but i invested because of the relationship you know it's it's worldwide right you know so um that's how that happened yeah deals like that you'll make way more just having the relationship oh yeah yeah and off the actual deal yeah yeah yeah a lot of people would pay millions just to know like let's say the prince of saudi arabia and not expect anything back yeah you know, what that will give you in return is way more than your money. Yeah.

So a lot of your friends own private jets, but why did you decide to own a private submarine instead? The submarine, man, that's a, I don't even know. We like, you know, we're just like, we just buy things. And every time we get some type of money, it's just, you know we're we're just like we just buy things and every time we we we get some type of money it's just you know our hobby yeah have you been in it yeah i've been in it underwater in it no not underwater it was you don't trust it no i don't trust it it's like a it's like a it's like a cubicle i can't breathe you know it's not too big but you know a submarine

is a one hell of a different vehicle that can um it was pretty cool but i've never been in yeah underwater i would uh i would get anxiety i think yeah i know yeah it's kind of like flying but worse because i'd rather because if you die while you're flying it's going to be instant right right but if you die under there you're going to drown to death that's what my wife always say you know if the plane is gonna crash and this is a weird prayer to jesus but she always pray crash it in the mountains not in the underwater yeah yeah you know so that's probably one of the worst ways to go out to drown imagine that because it takes you at least what 10-15 minutes of pain yeah right rather than just blow up and yeah done i mean

it's crazy i mean wow i. I want to touch up on the real estate stuff. Cause that's how you make a majority of your income, right? Right, right, right. So how did you first get started in it? Um, first I got started in it by, um, well, I, growing up, I see my dad's side, you know, building a lot of, uh, developments in the Philippines and it motivated me to like, oh wow, you know, real estate is really the key because that's how they got rich, you know, our family. And from there, I got my license in California. And every time I would buy real estate, I would just flip it in the market and keep

it on going, keep it on going. And then I would just diversify it and invest it in different other things. Right. And businesses. So, yeah, I started with flipping houses. So like quick flips under a year, right? Yeah, quick flips under a year, like I mentioned before in our podcast. And were you buying the house in full or were you putting like 20%? Some of it depends on the price range. 20% down mostly in the beginning.

But later when I had money, it would be cash. Wow. Because you'd get a bigger discount yeah of course I mean you're paying 10 points a year 2 points up front when you get the loan right there you're 12 points down the drain and if your margin is only 30% you're already giving away half so cash is really king

that sounds common but nothing beats cash but cash in the bank is trash right it depreciates yeah it depreciates yeah and now there's some banks going bankrupt too oh yeah exactly because cash is trash yeah yeah so what's your strategy with this upcoming recession do you see it hitting the real estate market hard uh i think so it's gonna hit it hard i mean we have brokers meeting almost every other day and um my strategy is to keep my reserves, keep my reserves, because I mean, what are the odds for the past 60 years? I mean, 40 years, maybe with the studies we did, recessions only last two years. your certain bills every month for your mortgage and for all your expenditures right and you already made the money prior to that uh life will come easier you know because it won't catch you you

already have money for the future so um that's my strategy kind of like uh cons be conservative on the investment side but again if i see a good deal uh the rates for me doesn't really matter you know because you could buy a property in the shitty market but as long as the price is right but you know you're good are you scared of the u.s dollar collapsing um no because uh it'll teach me how where to put my money you know it's like saying, are you scared of the weather or the rain? When it rains, I'm going to get my umbrella. So that's how it goes. So you're not worried that China dropped it, a few other countries dropped it?

The more they drop it quicker and sooner, the more we could strategize. So if we have to buy gold, we buy gold. We have to buy Bitcoin, we buy gold. We have to buy Bitcoin, we buy Bitcoin. Yeah. You know? What are some good investment opportunities you see over the next few years other than real estate? AI. AI?

AI. I think that's going to be number one. It's going to damage us a lot in a certain way, but I think that will be for the next 20, 30 years. You know? What are you doing with AI currently? Nothing. It's just like the things that I see right now that gives convenience to a lot of people.

The more convenience you sell, the more money you make. And I see it help a lot of people and it created a lot of diversity too with other investors that want to invest in that space. And I think robots will beat humans. It already is. In what sense? As far as being tired.

Can you work 24 hours a day? No. That's what I mean. Fucks. Yep. Are you scared of AI entering the real estate space and taking over again if it takes over um i'm gonna diversify into different things that i think i can make money on real estate's not the only thing out there right right so i've seen people like like you right you you made a lot of

money on the mass and you never thought when you were what 15 years old you never thought you would do that right so it's just the adjustment when the storm comes and adjustment is a very very important to my life and yeah i could adjust pretty well that's why i try to make all the money now so later on whatever happens i have that backup to you know diversify and attack it in a different strategy right so uh we'll see it's just like you know for example i'm a boxer fighting a ufc fighter i'm not gonna do that i mean but if i train ufc i can beat them it's it's it's just adjusting right yeah i i noticed you said a lot of your family went to private school yeah uh do you plan on sending your kids to public or private school they already in uh private school okay and why

did you decide that because i feel like um that's a good question that's a very very good question i feel like it i want to have them surrounded in uh how do do I say this? Better community, I guess, because, you know, people in private schools, obviously their parents have better jobs, better careers. And if my kids are around that atmosphere, it'll help about 20, 30%. I mean, it's still who they become when they are adults, but at this young age, it's very important for them to be at a certain habitat. Right. And how did you vet the school you sent them to? How did I what?

How did you research the school you sent them to? Oh, we did a lot of research with different private schools just online. Okay. And picked the ones that are top rated. Got it. And we'll see how it goes you know um sometimes i the only thing i don't like about school systems are you know they tell your kids when you can't take vacations or you know when you can so i was considering doing a

private school all the way but they've been to private tutors too but we're still weighing our options got it yep yeah public school i mean i didn't learn much i went to public school yeah but they've been to private tutors too, but we're still weighing our options. Got it. Yep. Yeah. Public school. I mean, I didn't learn much. I went to public school and then I went to university, which is a whole nother debate. That's really expensive. And, uh, I'm not a fan of it to be honest. Why not? It's, uh, you learn at the same pace as everyone around you. Right. But some kids learn quicker. Some kids learn slower some kids have different learning styles entirely like i'm a very um hands-on learner so i learn better with like a mentorship or actionable stuff i don't like learning from textbooks gotcha gotcha

and i like learning from videos so i just didn't learn much in school and also the topics they teach are not relevant to business yeah yeah they're not because they try to keep you in that gray line. Yeah. You know, that's why teachers are like, man, they are the government. You know, if they teach you how to make money, there won't be any student loans. How are they going to make money? Yeah. So they have to keep you in that certain bound, you know.

But for me, I like going out of bounds. Yeah. certain bound you know but for me i like going out of bounds yeah you know it's like uh i try to become on the gray line and you know try to be like uh not manipulative but i can kind of like a um strategize yeah you know in a different way and try to adjust adjusting is number one like i mentioned exactly yeah that's why i dropped out of college too i wanted to go out of bounds a little bit wow what were you taking? So it's funny. I couldn't get into the business school because my GPA was too low. Wow.

Really? Yeah. I was in the art school. That's crazy. Art school? Yeah. You thought it was going to be easy way out? It was the only one I could get into.

So I was trying to transfer into the business school, but I couldn't pass calculus. Oh my God. You need to pass that to transfer. That's insane, man. And then last year I did a talk to all their marketing students. Wow. to business school but i couldn't pass calculus oh my god you need to pass that to transfer that's insane and then last year i did a talk to all their marketing students wow so everything happens for a reason that's crazy did you go to college no i'm not a believer of school either you know but i feel like for our kids the fundamentals and the foundation in the beginning and the discipline like you know it's good i mean but but as far as what they teach yeah it's not i mean why does a doctor have to go to art school

when they were young you know they could just be like an expert of what they've been doing since you know day one but they have to be a certain program where the government can make more money but because you know the more money they make on the student interest loan the better for them that's how we we uh live this life we're revolving on debt yeah imagine the country has so much debt right yeah so much debt so i feel like imagine this they're giving you a job let's say a teacher policeman they're gonna give you a job that pays you seventy eighty thousand dollars a year but then they put you in a three hundred thousand dollar student loan it doesn't make sense it's gonna take you years to pay that back at the same

time it's you know the control is there the government has to control you because once you become uncontrollable you know they don't like entrepreneurs because we pay the least taxes right right trump paid like zero zero yeah he might get a refund let me give him a call ask him real quick are you worried about social media and the media's influence on your kids of course yeah yeah how do you balance that um i balance that but right now i'm not allowing them to use social media at four and five they don't even know anything you know so you won't allow tiktok instagram um it depends it depends if it's

monetization why not you know there's a lot of people that became a doctor that makes three, four hundred thousand dollars a year. And there's tech talkers that make a few million dollars a year. Right. If they're making it in a in a good way, you know, why not? That's that's still a good thing to teach the kids how to utilize social media in a correct way. Right. But right now there's a lot of kids that's using the social media for with a slutty way you know they post their ass their tits their their whatever they have their piercing on and right they get they get paid by that they're selling the soul

but if it's correct marketing and it's formal and decent why not they can they can monetize it yeah do you believe there's certain celebrities and powerful figures that have sold their soul? Oh, yeah. I believe so. I'm not going to mention the names. Because they'll keep me in trouble. But, you know, it's very obvious.

Once they sell your soul to the devil, they deliver this message through the radio, through their music, get money back through that and you know they keep influencing our children with that wow you know that's scary man it is it's very scary i've heard a lot of uh a-list celebrities have done yeah this microphone right here is worth trillions of dollars imagine talking like this to 500 audiences everyone can hear you you can make money after that but imagine talking like this to 500 audiences. Everyone can hear you. You can make money after that. But imagine talking with this.

It can only reach one person. Right. So this microphone, the camera can keep you in danger. But at the same time, it can make you a lot of money. You saw it happen to Tate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's that's insane. Yeah. What do you think about Andrew Tate? I've heard of him only, but I don't follow him like that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What do you think about Andrew Tate? I've heard of him only, but I don't follow him like that. Oh, okay. Yeah. He just got out of jail, I think, but he looks like a change-up. Yeah, he served, right?

And they said there was no proof of what they were trying to blame him for. Yeah. But his voice is so huge, right? So that's why they try to keep the microphone off for the truth. Yeah. Yep. Well well what are you working on next man right now i'm working on many many things uh real estate will always be there but um a lot of a lot a lot different things with the government and um real estate developments

and working with these fighters and other businesses i try to focus on love it man any closing words of wisdom for the audience uh what should i say no no where can people find you they could follow me on instagram the john singston facebook john singston they can see my projects there and what's going on with my daily life all All right. You heard it here, guys. Digital Social Hour. Thanks for tuning in.

See you guys next week. See you. Thank you. Get 15% off a set of Brake Mess Select, Select Pro, or Import Direct Brake Pads and Two Rotors now at O'Reilly Auto Parts. O-O-O-O'Reilly Auto Parts.