From The Pastor's Son To Teaching 1000's How To Invest w/ Finance Cowboy

I don't care about, like money and material things. For me that's not important. Some people it is, some they're prerogative. My entire journey has been freedom. I have set out on this journey to be able to say I wanna wake up every day and choose what I want to do, when you gotta enjoy the journey along the way, because that's where all the lessons are learned. But then when you finally take a step back and you're like, wow, I'm there, I'm telling you guys it's truths can be, when you're about ready to give up, just keep going, because those who keep going figure it out.

The journey to wealth is a long walk and some may walk quicker than others, but what good is sprinting to the finish line if you pass out when you cross it? On Walk to Wealth, we enlighten and empower young adults to build wealthy, abundant lives. They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and your first step starts right now. This is Walk to Wealth with your host, John Mendez.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Walk to Wealth podcast. If you're tuning in on YouTube or any of the podcast directories, make sure to do us one teeny, tiny little favor. Make sure to give yourself a follow, because I don't want you to miss out on any of the amazing guests I'm bringing on this year. And now, further ado, let's get right into this one. So, mr Finance Cowboy, for anyone who hasn't had the opportunity to get to know you, to get to meet you, to get to see your content on social media, yet, tell us a little bit about who you are and what do you do, man.

What's up, dude? If they haven't seen me on social media, what are they doing? Do they live under a rock? I mean seriously? No, I'm joking, I wish I was that big. Yeah, so I'm a normal guy from middle of nowhere, south Carolina, was raised as a pastor's son and grew up in a great home, was raised right, loving family, but we didn't have any money pastors unless you just pastor up a really big church, they don't make a ton of money. So now I'm into all this investing and I teach people how to buy real estate and my wife and I own a bunch of real estate. But that wasn't, that wasn't my upbringing. For me it was sports big time all the way through college. I got to play baseball through college and that was the real thing in my life that I attribute outside of my family. Sports had a huge role in the success I've had today. So I went on to play sports in college, came out of college, didn't know what I wanted to do, got into the service industry at a company called Sentos where I was driving a box truck around getting at the planet like four o'clock in the morning, delivering uniforms, picking up dirty uniforms. It was terrible, making like 45 grand a year, just grinding, and I was like, okay, there's got to be more to life than this. And so my wife and I went on a journey of, okay, how do we be different? We were 22 at the time and we had a lot of debt. I came out of school with over $60,000 of student loans. I had to buy me a jacked up truck and a wedding ring and all kinds of stuff. So we started behind the A-ball, like so many young folks do. But we made the decision right at the beginning of our marriage, when we were very young, and said we want to be different. So we started cleaning up our finances and 2013 and by 2018, we got rid of all of our bad debt, started buying real estate. Here we are, five years after we started buying real estate and it's totally changed our lives. We've reached financial and time freedom. And somewhere in the midst of that entire journey, I said you know what, why don't I start getting on social media and telling my story? I think it happened in July of 2021, started with zero followers, was pretty much talking to myself for months and months and months, and then, you know, finally called a couple big breaks, the brand grew and we're still obviously very small in comparison to a lot of folks. But it's been a blast. I get to meet a lot of people and help a lot of people.

Man, that's an amazing story and I kind of want to go back in the time machine a little bit and really asked about what was your upbringing like, being the child of a pastor, a child growing up in the church? From what I experienced, I grew up in a church as well, and for me, money wasn't always something that was talked about, and you always hear the old saying of money is the root of all evil, which is always taken out of context. But what was the topic about? Like wealth, like in your household growing up, cause you grew up in a church household. So what was that like growing up?

Yeah, I don't remember us looking down upon it Like, hey, it's a bad thing to be wealthy. I don't ever. I don't have that, you know, memory. It just was something that wasn't in grasp for my parents, like it wouldn't get to happen for us. So I mean, we lived a good life, middle class life. I got to go on vacation for a week out of the year. You know, everything was great. It just wasn't a conversation and it wasn't again. It wasn't a bad thing, like we didn't think people had money, we're bad. It just it wasn't happening for us, so it wasn't a big topic.

How did that play a role, do you think? Did it play a role? Do you think, later on into your life? What was the dynamic that that caused later on?

Yeah, I think you. Just you realize how money works if you decide to go on that journey. And yeah, I live in a small rural town and I saw a lot of people who just lived the same mundane life and it was because they didn't think that there was more out there that they could achieve, and so for me, I didn't want that. You know, there's nothing wrong. Anybody listen to this. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not talking down to anybody who does it. I have so many friends who you know they get their blue collar job out of college, they make their certain salary for the next 30 years, put a few bucks in a 401k, work from nine to five every day, get their weekends off, get a week or two of vacation and they go about their lives and they're happy and that's fine. I just realized, okay, money is easily accessible and I don't care about the actual money, it's what it can do for you and, if used correctly and invested correctly, it will lead you to a life of freedom. I know your audience is younger than I am. I'm 31. In my mind I'm still young. You guys are, you know, 20. So you're probably, like this guy's, an old fart. But yeah, I feel like I just started on my journey at y'all's age and just know. You know, if you're listening to this podcast at this age and you're younger and you're in your 20s, you're ahead of the curve, because most people aren't spending time learning and taking any information on. Okay, how can? How can I change my life through whether it be real estate or just financially in general? So kudos, kudos to the listeners.

Yeah, I appreciate. It's one of those things where I kind of came to the same realization. For me I read rich, sad, poor dad. That was my epiphany and From there I was like all right, they got something here that's not being taught up or brought up in school or my environment but, more importantly, in my household at all, and so for me it was kind of just like sheer curiosity. It's like all right, what is this guy in this book talking about? Is there more of this information out there? And that's when I kind of stumbled into, you know, a bunch of podcasts and One of my favorite books is I will teach you to be rich by Rumi Tethi. That book really got me started into personal finance and I point some miles on credit cards. And then a Richest man in Babylon was another big one that I read and that was like all the like the beginning of my journey. And so for me it was during like my sophomore break Uh, between winter and fall and spring semester, where I was learning how that stuff, and for me the decision To get into this entrepreneurship road, it kind of became a no-brainer because it was the middle of the pandemic. So my reasons for calling the college will wipe out, because I didn't have a quote-unquote college experience anymore. It was just all taken away. And then I started learning about all this stuff that wasn't being brought up in school and I was like, all right, man, I gotta get to the bottom of this. There's more out there. For me, it's like, with the whole world being paused, it's like I might as well go find it out and figure out if there actually is more out there. And from what I found, there's a lot more out there to be had. And so let me ask you, because later on in your journey, you, as you know, you ended up getting into real estate. So for me it was because I told you, before we hit record, I bought a $500 wholesaling course and that's what kind of taught me about real estate a little bit and got me interested in it. What was that for you? What was that epiphany that made you realize, all right, real estate is going to be the vehicle to act you without of all the million other ways to make money out there.

Yeah, I'm pretty simple guy. And so I said, okay, what is an asset that's been making people ridiculously wealthy for a very long time? And when you look at real estate, that's what it's done. It's not a speculative asset for centuries and centuries and centuries has been making people rich. So if you buy real estate the right way and you hold it over time, you pretty much have no other option but to get wealth. And I said, well, that sounds like a good plan. And then you have to cross the bridge of oh well, that's complex, is that too hard for me to do? And then I'm just dumb enough to say, well, all these other people have done it. If they can do it, I can do it. And so I think it started there. And then I had people in my life who got into real estate when I did, and seeing the impact. My best friend his name is Gast he started, you know, getting into the real estate game right out of college and then started buying rental properties a few years after that, by the time he was 27 or 28, he's a multi-millionaire because he owned rental properties and that was before I had started investing and so seeing the impact it had on his life. At that point, you know, knowing what history had shown and then seeing in the present what it was doing For my best buddy, I was said hey, I got to get in, I got to get into this ASAP.

Yeah, and then. So you started seeing that and then eventually you got into it right and then finance cowboy. So what was the the origin story of that? Like, what made you the finance cowboy? Do you you just genuinely like cowboy hats? Do you happen to be wearing one one time and got the nickname and, just like you know, turn that into a whole thing?

Yeah, but actually when I started the brand, um, it was the million by 30 coach, when I first created an instagram account and then I started thinking, you know that that kind of boxes me out of being able to help people who are already over 30, you know. So, while it is good to niche, I think I had niched down a little too far and so I was thinking, okay, what can I change the name of this brand to? And my wife and I were going on a date one night. I'd been thinking about it for a week or two and I was putting cowboy boots on to go out on our date. I was like finance cowboy, you know, because at the time when I started the brand, I was still spending a lot of time Not only talking about real estate but also personal finances, and if you follow me, you know that finance cowboy You'll. You'll see that I still talk about personal finances, because anytime you're talking about investing, personal finances have to go hand in hand. Um, because we got to have a strong personal financial foundation to be able to invest. But as I progress, the brand is pretty heavy on, you know, residential real estate investing Now. But yeah, that's where the name came, came from, and we live on land. My wife grew up on 200 plus acres with cattle and horses and we got chickens and for me I was like you know what that's? That's catchy. That's catchy and not many people are wearing a cowboy hat when you scroll through instagram, so hopefully I'll make some people stop.

Yeah, and it's definitely good marketing play. I had something similar so when I started so my company stopped in stair media. How that came about is so before I cut my hair, I had like maybe quadrupled the amount of hair I have now. Like my hair was like I had a Full head of curly hair. You could not miss me. And so I was actually teach a marketing class on social media back in January of last year and I was in this real estate group. It was a free group and they just figured, because I was like a third of the age of most people in there that I had to be some Social media genius. And they were like, hey, john, can you teach a class? And I was like, no, I never thought of class before. And they were like, um, john, let us know when you want it scheduled. And then from there, I ended up deciding to schedule a date and so I'm licensed with color williams and they had their first family union for in a long time, in 2022, because the other ones got cancelled because of the pandemic. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna teach this the Friday before because I knew I was going there, and then that when I go there. They were having a network and I met for all the people in the group. I was like, all right, I'm gonna go there. And I got a free shirt. Oh no, it was 20 bucks Uncustom ink that says stop and stare, just don't touch the hair. Partially no, it's just a big of pet people mine but like also partially because I knew it would get people to pay attention to me, and so I taught the court. That was the free class. Then the next week I went to family union with my hair out and I wore that shirt and then eight months later ended up trying to turn into something. But that's where the name originated from, which is because everyone kind of knew me by my hair and, um, it's something that I already had. So it's like I make it harder for myself to brand myself. Then it has to be, and I got something already that people like. So, um, I love your story, man, and not kind of just segue into the main topic of today's conversation. Now that I've got the backstory, we know a little bit more about who the finance cowboy is. So, real estate investing man. A lot of people talk about real estate investing. There's tons of people from bigger pockets. Right, there's tons of people have their own real estate, investing courses and stuff like that. How did you find your niche and teaching it Like? What was your, I guess, your unique strategy or your unique way of teaching it? Because a lot of people tend to over complicated and Most of my audience don't know what any of that cash on cash return stuff or All that stuff means. It's like break it down for us residential real estate. Why that versus all the other vehicles that start there?

I think you have to choose which direction you want to go in. Anything you can, whether it's real estate, business, whatever. There's so many different options and so you have to decide. Okay, which one am I going to do that? You got to put blinders on and you got to go do it. And so for me that was residential real estate. And there's there's a number of reasons why you know I started with that is you know, it appeals to the masses. I think any good business person looks and say, okay, how can I own a product that appeals to as many people as possible? Right, you can buy it and sell it to Investors. You can sell it to the general public. Think about what's the American dream. The American dream is to own your own home. Well, as an investor, if I can own homes and then I need to offload it, I got a whole plethora 350 million people in the united states that I can sell these properties to. Then they're easy to buy because they're so you know, there's, they're, they're everywhere. Their banks are used to lending to single family homes and then they you normally get better tenants. I mean, think about the people who want to live in a house compared to an apartment not morally better people, but just a lot of time. People who rent a home out are trying to plant roots somewhere and and treat it as a home, and so for me it started with just okay, I had to choose a vehicle and then, as the brand grew and my experience grew and I've done tens of transactions, just over and over, just tons of transactions over the years, I said, okay, I know what the roadblocks are, I know what people are thinking, I know what's holding them back, I know what is confusing to them, because I've just been through it in this particular asset of residential real estate. And so how can I put something together that is going to be able to break down the barriers quote unquote that are in their minds and give them solutions to their pain points? And that's essentially what we've done in our program called the rental academy, is we bring people in and we simplify it, break it down, teach them exactly how to go out and buy it, depending on which strategy is best for them, because there's a lot of different ways that you can buy this one asset, and so it's subjective per person, and we work with the folks and help them accomplish their goals. Yeah, that's amazing?

I kind of want to actually too, because with real estate I'm sure you've had tons of opportunities to invest in other deals, especially as your brand started to grow and people started to get more awareness as to who you are. How do you kind of keep the blinders on and stage focus on your vehicle that you chose? Because with real estate there's so many things to hear and you listen to all these different podcasts and it's like, oh, this one guy is doing SCR, is one doing SCR arbitrage, one guy is doing Hong-Charmundals, one guy is doing XYZ, and it's like it never ends. So once you get started in a vehicle, what did you do to make sure that you stay focused for all the people? I think it's a lot easier as you're still relatively super young compared to most people out of the state, but, as you know, it's very easy to get a shiny object syndrome and just be a little squirrel when you start getting into the space, because on top of the real estate investing, then there's always in most days it's pretty easy to get a real estate license and it's like, oh, shouldn't I get my license and I want to be an investor, because then I get access to the properties on the market and stuff like that. So how did you stay focused on the vehicle that you had chosen?

Yeah, you realize, as you go through life, you chase the shiny object syndrome or deal like you just most of us do it and then you realize that it ends up just making you spin your tires. And so, as you, as for me, as I've gotten older, I realize, okay, I got no. What happens when I lose focus? When I lose focus, I move backwards. When I stay focused, I move forwards. And could I potentially miss out on other opportunities over here because I'm so focused? Yeah, but I'm also still going to capitalize on the ones that I set out to capitalize on and ultimately reach my goals. And you know there's not to get into the weeds of real estate, but there's lots of things that you can do with a property. You know there's five core principles that you got to know if you're going to be successful in real estate investing. You got to be able to choose a market. You got to generate leads in those markets. You got to be able to analyze leads in those markets. Once you've analyzed them, you got to be able to fund those deals. And then you got to be able to manage those properties, whether you're managing rehab or whether you're managing tenants. And so if you can figure out how to do those five things which I spend a lot of time teaching our students on. Then you can go out and you can do long term rentals. You could do short term rentals, you can do fix and flips, all within the residential space. But because we know those five pillars, it's given us the knowledge and empowerment to be able to go find those good deals and then choose what we want to do with them, based on what our goals are.

Yeah, so the five repeatedly in front of me. So you said, man, you got to find the deals right, you have to analyze the deals, and once you analyze them, you got to remind me the other, you manage them. What was the other two? Were not mistaken.

Yeah, so choose a market to generate leads or find deals, analyze those deals, fund those deals and then manage the properties or the rehabs. Are there any students?

What's the problem? No, the one I wanted to focus on primarily and I think, the one that's probably most beneficial to the young crowd or people who are less experienced, let's say is the one about generating leads or finding deals, because that skill, regardless of wherever you go, will be extremely valuable to anyone, whether you decide to invest for yourself or decide to help someone else invest. So it's like how do you get the knack for, how do you get the eyes for figuring out what's good and what's not? Because a lot of people they'll drop some numbers and they'll look good on paper and it never plays out that way how they originally drew it up. So how do you kind of get the knack for generating deals, pretty much almost on repeat, yeah.

So I could spend days teaching on this. I'll try not to get too far lost here. But it starts with choosing a market and then, within that market we've got to choose particular areas and then, once we choose those particular areas, we just start farming. It's just like farming We've got our ground now. Now it's time to pull these properties up, and there are a number of ways that you can go about. It Depends if you want a low budget or it depends if you're going high budget and you're wanting to bring in a bunch of deals. The majority of the deals I've bought I've never paid a diamond leads for, so I'll buy them. I'll find them on Sillow. A realtor will bring them to me off market Whole sellers will bring them to me off market Property management companies will bring them to me. Other investors will call me. So that's how I've generated the majority of my leads. Then you can get into the whole paid lead type situation where you're doing cold calling and you're doing mail outs and you're running radio ads, which I think lends itself work. If you're setting up a wholesale business, I don't think if you're trying to build a rental portfolio, you necessarily need to do that type of marketing. But then, you know, elwing, once we generate that lead like should we buy it or should we not? You know, I kind of work backwards. I look and say, okay, what is the after repair value in this area or this type of home, what are the concepts recently sold? And then how do I go find a deal that's undervalued based on that? So, in the simplest form, without going way in the weeds, it's buying, you know, the worst house in that best neighborhood and we're not going to go buy real estate in the best neighborhoods. But you know, in those B to C class neighborhoods which just mean not the best neighborhoods in town, not the worst neighborhoods in town. So how do we find the worst houses in those B to C areas, make them pretty, get them rented out, hold them over time and then decide what we want to do with them down the road, whether we sell them. 1031, exchange, cash out, refi, all kinds of stuff.

Yeah, that's amazing. And then, once you got good at those five skills, you started using those to invest in your properties. Now, to kind of move on a little bit once you started investing in properties, at what point did you realize, like, all right, I could not do anymore and I'll be good, I'll be well off for at least a good amount of time? At what point did you realize that? When was it like? When you realized it?

Yeah, I started buying in 2018 and I would say by probably 2020, maybe the beginning of 2021, I realized, all right, if I never bought another property again, I've changed my family tree. You know, not in a sense of private jets, you know Beverly Hills mansions, but in the sense of freedom Doing what we want to do kids go to school where I want to go, wanting to go to school, me and my wife doing what we want to do. It's a pretty good feeling. Man, I mentioned this earlier. I don't care about, like money and material things. That for me, that's not important. Some people it is, some that's you know, they're, they're prerogative. But my hope, my entire journey, has been freedom. I have set out on this journey to be able to say I want to wake up every day and choose what I want to do and when you Actually get to that point, it's pretty powerful and you got to enjoy the journey along the way because that's where all the lessons are learned. But then, when you finally take a step back and you're like, wow, I'm there, it's pretty amazing.

So I think a lot about this is how to feel. And they say, like one of the most important days is Like the day after success, and that's where you realize that someone will really make it or not, because most people get that first taste and they think they put off the gas. When you get there to that point where, like as I said, you could take your foot off the gas reasonably and still be okay, what does the game become like then? Because, as you said, you're not doing it for money. You have enough to, you know, be well off with your family and do what you want to do. It's like what does the game become like? What's your purpose or playing? Once you get to that point, how does the game change?

Yeah, I think it's just it's. You know, I feel like a lot of people are probably everybody who's had success as a driven person, and so when you reach quote-unquote, where you want to go, there's only so much Satisfactions. Like you ask the guy how much money is enough, money says, when I get just a little bit more right, mm-hmm. And so it's like, and whether it's money or whatever it's, for me it's just, it's just dry. So I've got the real estate thing down. I've had a successful career in the corporate world. Well, now I'm on my new challenge of building this brand and, more importantly, you know business. We got full-time employees that work at finance cowboy. I've never done this before, mm-hmm. And you know, there's some days I wake up and I'm like why don't I just delete the account, fire everybody and just go play golf? See, you know, yeah, but then the majority of the time I'm like no, that'd be too boring. This is fun, I enjoy, I get to help a lot of people and build a team. So for me it's the new challenge, it's hey, what's next? And you know, maybe you reach a time in your life and I think I will like, as my kids progress and get older where a lot of my time will go into Whatever they're doing, a sports whatever, like I don't miss anything. Now I take them to school, I take them to practice, I'm at every game my coach, but like really you know Training with them if they're an athlete or if they're a musician or whatever, and so I'll probably pull back the reins of my involvement in different ventures as I age, but you got to keep moving forward one way or the other yeah, hundred percent, and I've.

You are familiar with the. I think the Netflix documentaries think it's called like the weight of gold. Have you heard about or seen it?

No, I've heard about it. Somebody told me I got to watch it. I haven't. I don't do a good job watching shows, so I got me either, but I got the general summary of it.

So I didn't watch the watch it either, but I got the summary from someone else. So I'm not the best for shows either, but pretty much in the Weight of gold pretty much talks about how most people I actually aren't scared to fail. They're scared to succeed because of the responsibility that comes from. There's fear to grow because, as you said, now you had employees, so now it's not just your life. If you did decide to delete the account and go play golf, well, I mean, of course you'll be straight, but what about the people who relied on that job? And there's a lot and that's just Owning a business. But just put most things in life, because once you start winning, you're held to a different standard. Now you have to keep that up and they you get almost you can feel as if you never get a chance to backtrack or slip up, cuz like, oh well, I succeeded now and now. This is my minimum threshold, now at the very worst I could have to do at least up here. And that threshold just keeps on raising as you keep on succeeding and winning and so you feel like you're Almost. You're always getting chased by a shark almost eventually, and the shark just happens to be yourself in your own thoughts. But have you felt anything like that? Words like you started winning and you started to realize, all right, I got a lot more weight that I have to bear, that I didn't really intended to sign up for originally, like, did you ever come across that point, or no?

Fantastic question the. I have experienced it more with this brand than I have in anything in life. You know, there's a, there's a point where you feel that with your family, you know I got a wife and four kids and so that's the first, first hurdle you go through is you know, these are the people that are relying on me. So I know they're not employees, but I got them denied. And then you know, then it moves on to employees and you overcome the family thing. You realize, hey, everybody's gonna be okay, we've got a good thing going, we've reached the financial freedom, all that good stuff. I got one of my buddies here right now joining us on the podcast Speaking to kids. But then you know, I think, as you're building a business because first time I've built a business you you really start to feel that and if you're not careful, you'll never get out of that Cycle. You'll always feel like you're being chased and I think that's where it's important to have Systems and build out systems and put people in place who can run that business for you. So I'm the visionary, so what I need, my next step in my business and my journey is the integrator. Yeah, and that's, that's what'll allow me to just be free to do the things that I enjoy, knowing that the business and day-to-day stuffs get ran. How?

it should now hundred percent. And by any chance, have you read the book that you may free visited so?

I read it probably two years ago and I'm in the middle of it right now as a refresher. So funny, you say that I haven't pulled up on my Kindle, right, he's awesome under there.

I read it for the first time About a week and a half ago, maybe two weeks ago, and I was like, oh my goodness, I've been doing this entrepreneur thing as an employee for pretty much forever. I mean, I'm not, I'm pretty new into entrepreneurship in a grand scheme, but they only been doing this about, like you even have now. But it's like for me, I didn't even realize what I was doing until I read that book and I was recommended by someone else and I was like this big, like book makes so much sense and yeah, so let me ask you, because most people, especially young people, a lot of times they just don't want to work for someone else. So not even because they want to start up a business, they just don't want to clock in for someone else. They don't want someone else to tell them what they have to do and they don't want to boss. They have the answer to just like screw that f you. I'm doing my own thing, I'm gonna figure it out and start my own business right, because it's so easy to like this literally almost no barriers entry. And so it's like what stops a lot of people and I'm really saying investing too. It's a business a lot of people on treated as such, but I it just business in general. What do you think stops most people from starting to get some traction going and how can they overcome that employee mindset that a lot of us Enter into, because a lot of us that are newer and younger get into this entrepreneurship game. We don't have entrepreneur experience.

Yeah, it's uh, you know it's a tough. I think it's tough to work through because you hear people talk about working on your business, not in your business. But everybody who says work on your business, not in your business, worked in their business for a very long time to be Recalling their business, and so I called bullcrap when they told me I think that is where you need to go. But if you are at that place where you just have become an employee to yourself and it's like not fun anymore, you just aren't working for somebody else, but you're still just as busy or more busy, there's probably two things number one, you haven't generated enough income to be able to bring in an integrator. Or number two, you have and you're just too stubborn to bring an integrator and you're gonna make your life miserable. And so I want to encourage you. You know, go ahead.

No, I'm gonna say no, I'll you just say you're spot on, because For me it's like I have uh, I think it's maybe because I I'm young and I'm energetic, I think I could do everything, and just it's just gonna work out because I'm young and I have energy. So, and this, like your last year, yeah, I was put on my face so many times my life because I thought I could do, because I have the podcast thing and I was teaching a social media classes and like, my podcast isn't for real, just for, like, young people. There's a entirely different target audiences and on top of that, I also have my license as an agent, so I was trying to do that as well. That was like man, oh, the folks got none. No, I mean, man, I'm hard working, I'm ambitious. I got drive if I'll go, come together. And I was like man, that's not how it's laid out at all.

No, I, uh, I feel you 100%. It's hard, it's very hard, you know, and there's things you can do. You know, if you don't have money to bring on somebody and pay them, you can, can bring on that, you know, partner as an equity person. But then you got to make sure it's the right person, because then you're married to that person forever. You know, starting a business is hard, being entrepreneur is hard, and that you know it sounds very simple. It's not always simple. Is you got to generate income, whatever you do, why you have to generate and nothing else matters other than selling. At the beginning you got to be able to deliver on your product, obviously, but you have to be able to create that income and profit, not just revenue. We got to have profit. That then allows us To put the people in place to allow the business to scale. You know, and it's hard to get there, and my biggest advice and oh, it's so cliche and I didn't believe it, I promise, I didn't believe it at y'all's age, I didn't believe it till recently, but I'm telling you guys, it's true, as can be, when you're about ready to give up, just keep going, because those who keep going figure it out Most people give up. But it's gonna get really hard at some point. It's gonna get really hard, but if you'll keep going, keep pivoting, keep innovating until something clicks. Do you know how many side gigs I've done before finance cowboy happened? I mean, I've had a pressure wash in business, delivered fruit. I've taken pictures for Google like in-cap pictures and I've done so much stuff. I've done events at our church that grew and none of it stuck. But it all led me to the brand I'm building today. That has stuck. It's here to stay. It may not happen right away some people it does but most of the time it's a journey. But you gotta take all the nuggets that you learn along the journey and then just know, if you stay at it, then one day it's all gonna click and your life will change.

Let me ask you, man, do you have a Bible verse that helps you go through tough time, or a favorite quote, or something Like what's your fall back? What's the thing that you could lean on when everything just hits the fan and you feel like nothing is going your way, no matter how much you work on it? What's the thing that keeps you going?

You know I'm not a big quote guy. I obviously read the Bible. I'm just quotes don't motivate me. Motivational speakers don't motivate me. I hate it. So you know I think. Sorry I can't answer the question in a good way. You know here's a quote for you that I do enjoy, and then I'll tell you what really motivates me. You know you can either pay now or play later. You can play now or pay later. The earlier you figure that out in life, the more successful you'll be. You know you got to choose which one you're gonna do. So that's a quote that stuck with me. But I attribute my resiliency, my resolve, to the sport that I played through college baseball. You are playing a sport where if you get a hit three out of 10 times in the major leagues, you're a hall of famer. So that means you're failing seven out of 10 times if you're one of the best players. And so I spent my entire childhood, teen years and young adulthood playing a sport. Every day that beat me into the ground and you're walking away and you just failed miserably every day. So I learned to fail. And so now in the business world and life and real estate and anything I do, I am legitimately numb to fail. I don't even I've lost sums of money off of failed attempts that if I said them, people would be like, oh my God, how are you still survive? How could you do that, you know, but I just, I don't even like, I don't harp on it, I just move on. It's not done, the game's over, game's done. We got another game tomorrow. And I go back to how that was instilled in me. I understand everybody doesn't have that experience and so they all can't relate, but you know, that's what's pushed me through the tough times.

Yeah, I played baseball. I was my first official sport, like fifth and sixth grade. I played seventh grade a little bit and I sucked, couldn't have hit to save my life, but I could surely play shortstop man, I was official shortstop back in the day. And then I moved into football and basketball. Well, I ended up giving up basketball. I had a bad high school coach and he made me hate the sport, which I shouldn't have let him do. But I was young at that time and I was like, screw this, screw basketball. And football was right there calling my name. So I was just like man, I'll see where this goes. And but is it the same thing Like with football? You practice five days a week just to play one right, it's like every day. And then you have all spring football all summer. You know conditioning and then all you know pretty much a training camp To get ready to play that very first game. It's just like you rarely ever actually get to play. It's just constant, almost torture pretty much, especially in the summer. Man, them practices in the summer, them seven AM workouts at 90 degree weather, were not fun at all, if I say man, if I could go back and play it all back, man and a heartbeat. I would go back and just to relive it all and not to change anything. But definitely I think sports is something that helped me make me who I am and molded me into who I am. I definitely would have done anywhere near close as much without having all this stuff that football drilled into me and all the coaches drilled into me. So I love that man. So man. We had a great conversation so far. We talked about, let's say, domestic, we talked about life a little bit. We talked about, you know, just pushing through it entrepreneurship. Where could we find you at? I know it's super simple, so where could we find you at? We want to learn more about what you have going on and just enter your world to keep up with you and what you're doing.

Yep. If you're on Instagram at Finance Cowboy. If you're on YouTube, finance Cowboy. Twitter, finance Cowboy. Tiktok at the Finance Cowboy. If you want to learn how to buy real estate, cowboysacademycom slash. Learn the game and I would love to have you in the family and you know following the brand and help out however I can. That's how we exist, man. We exist to teach people how to gain financial and time freedom, yes, sir.

And so now it's time for our famous five questions, and I'm really excited to see a hero to say so. Question number one is what is the most impactful lesson you've learned in life? Oh, boy.

most impactful lesson that I have ever learned in life would be treat family like gold, and I understand that we all don't have, maybe biological family that you're close with, but maybe you have, you know, adopted family or really close friends who are family, the real ones in your life. I guess, if that's a cool term that the younger folks use, whatever it is like those people who are real in your life, treat them like gold. The older you get, there's not many of them and you need those people in your life 100%.

There's a quote I love. It's the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. So for all of you folks that don't have biological family, that you can call that. I always love that quote. Second question what is the most admirable trait your person can have?

Honesty. I mean, if you're not honest, you're worth nothing. I mean, I know it's kind of harsh, but you're not worth being around.

So you got to be honest. What is the legacy that you're trying to leave behind? You know?

the legacy I'm trying to leave behind is one that loves people, loves his family, enjoyed life and, you know, helped a lot of people achieve their goals. I can accomplish those things. I feel good heading under, heading six feet under If you had to change someone's life with one book.

Which book would you recommend?

Oh man, that's too hard. It depends on what area we're trying to change our life. But I would say, outside of the Bible, richest man in Babylon to me is one of the most fantastic books I've ever read and that's a financial, you know theme. So if you wanted to talk about something else, we could, but financial theme. Richest man in Babylon probably had the largest impact on me, more than rich dad, poor dad when I was young, and that's a man you might have to get a good reading level to read that book, man.

The old English is annoying to get through, but if you're gonna get through it, man, it is a definitely a great read. Yeah, and then the final question, man, for anyone that wants to embark on their walk to wealth today, what is the first step that you recommend they take? First thing you should do is create a budget.

A budget is the heartbeat of personal finances and you can't embark on wealth if you don't even know where your money's going. So get a budget together and you know from there. Find a way to decrease your expenses, get out of debt, increase your income. Once you're out of debt, have that emergency fund build up. Once that emergency funds build up, it's time to invest everything else. And if you do that, you'll grow wealth, and you'll do it faster than 95% of people.

You've now finished taking the first step. Now let us help you take the next one. Subscribe to our newsletter at walktowealthcom. That's walk, the number two wealthcom, so we can keep you moving on your journey. We'll see you on the next episode of Walk to Wealth with John Mendes. I'll see you on the next episode of Walk to Wealth with John Mendes.