The Power of Forced Innovation | Justin Freishtat

I've learned to trust my gut more than anything. Um, I used to ignore it. You start making excuses for people, and, um, now when somebody shows me who they are, I believe them the first time. I don't think it's ever happened one time that somebody showed me some sort of a red flag that I, I passed up on, that it didn't get worse. You have to get better at, at trusting the authenticity of, of the feelings that you get from people.

What do you got going today? Man, I think, uh, it's the end of the year. Um, lots of changes in several businesses. Um, got new ones starting. I think it's-- I think, um, what's on my mind mostly is just being able to handle change and, um, things that, you know, in the past...

You know, if you do one thing for a long time like I did, I did one thing for twelve years, um, and then, you know, you exit that company, and it's like a total panic of you have all these thoughts of, "Can I do this again? Was I a one-trick pony? Do I only know one thing very well?" And then here we are three, four years later, and I've already been involved with like six other businesses that have outdone that. Um, so it's a season of change right now.

Like, I left a board a couple days ago, um, s- and, uh, I left another company that I was managing, a, um, a private equity fund, to go launch a new one that I'm starting in January. So it's just like a season of, like, changes, and used to like really be tough on me, and now it's just exciting. It's just a different mindset. I don't know. That's what's on my mind.

Yeah, I, no, I love that, and actually, I went through that in '20. The end of twenty twenty-three, I exited from the company that I had started, and it's funny, you, you have these moments and, you know, they're happy. You know, they're happy moments to a certain extent. But at the same time, there's like a loss of identity, and I, and I had the exact same thing happen, and, you know, we're, we're getting close to, to three years removed now, but it... Man, it, it lasted.

That, that lack of identity or loss of identity or what- however you wanna ca- call it, that persisted for much longer than I thought it would have. I thought that would be like a month or two, and then you'd kind of find the next thing and roll. And man, even, even though I was working and, you know, I had projects going and different clients and, you know, I was, at that point, 'cause I wasn't really sure what I was doing, I was taking client work and, um, even six to twelve months later, I was still feeling this tinge of like, man, that was such a great project. We crushed it, you know, this four-year turnaround and, um, you know, what, what the hell do you do next? Like, how did you start to recalibrate your identity and figure out where you wanted to spend your time?

Um, I think I just tried a lot of things. I just kept moving. Um, the one thing that, you know, in hindsight, you think you're gonna exit and you're gonna chill for a minute, it was the opposite. Like, I was in complete panic mode, like in startup mode. Um, but I think you just keep trying things.

You see what clicks, and it's gonna be super uncomfortable because you still feel like you're this other person. Like when someone says, like, "Who are you? What do you do?" You've been saying the same thing for ten years. It's like, "That's not who I am anymore."

And, and you start to step into this, this new thing. Even though it's working or you're having success right off the bat, it still doesn't feel right for a while. Like, you've gotta really settle into that thing, and there's that imposter syndrome of like, you know, I had an organic food company for ten years. It's like now I'm a hedge fund manager. It's like, like what qualifies me to do that?

Who am I to do this? You have all these thoughts even though you're having success. I mean, we built a twenty million dollar fund in less than twelve months, my first one, and I still was feeling like, do I deserve to be here? It's like a very strange thing to go through, but I think the difference is everybody feels like this, and there's always somebody further along in the journey, but your ability to just show up and do it anyways and fight through those thoughts is just the difference. Where did you pick up that character trait? 'Cause I think a lot of people stay places that-- Well, I know for a fact that a lot of people stay places that they, they, they, they're unhappy.

There, there's this grinding, daily, dull friction that they deal with, and it c- comes out in all these different places, whether they're overweight or their relationship with their spouse isn't great or their kids or whatever. But, and they know they're not happy, but they won't make the move because of what you just said, that identity part. You know what I mean? The, the, the lack of, you know, who am I? How do I present myself?

Like, how did you work through that to, to come out the other side and, and sit here today? Obviously, you, you, you know, you, I know you said it's a time of change, but obviously you're also very confident in where you are and the projects you're working on. So, so h- what was it that allowed you to do that and, and work through it? I wish I could take credit for it, but this is-- I'm gonna write a book about this. It's gonna be called Forced Innovation.

We had a pandemic that blew the company up. You exit out of nowhere. I was forced to go figure it out. If that hadn't happened, I would've just kept cruising, right? Like, how many people lost their jobs during the pandemic and then panicked and then found themself in a way better place?

People created generational wealth out of being forced to innovate. So the concept is, is like if you get lucky enough to have forced innovation happen on you, then you'll get it. So it's like, how do I get myself now to force myself to innovate even if the marketplace isn't making me? It's the hardest thing to do, right? You max out a vehicle, and now it's like, cool, let's coast here.

The hardest thing to do is to say, "Okay, I have a new skill set. I can see a new mountaintop. I'm gonna burn this one down to go to a whole new level." Most people will never be able to do that, myself included, unless the marketplace forces you to. So because I went through that experience, now I can feel it when it's time to just force myself to innovate again and go for something that's a higher level.

Yeah. O- one thing that I talk about a lot is, uh, there's this philosophy that I picked up from Jordan Peterson called act as if. And I know it's probably not his, his original idea either, but it's who I took it from. And in, in his case, he was, he was referring to his relationship with God. But I think, you know, for my own purposes, I've extended it to so many places.

Like, I wanted to move from being, you know, a relatively small, obscure podcast to starting to rank in the top two hundred for the US, right? So I had to start acting differently. I had to start asking questions differently. I had to start approaching guests differently. I had to start publishing differently, distributing differently, right?

Acting as if I already had that show. And that exercise has allowed me to work through a lot of these things, but I think so many people, they're just, they're unwilling to take that step, and this kind of leads me to my next question, which is do you think most people should? Right? I feel like when we're on, when we're not having conversations like this, it's so easy to be like, "Take that next step. Reach out into the unknown," whatever.

And I honestly believe, this is my take and then I, I wanna hear yours, is that there is a large, and probably the majority of people, they are just better suited to deal with the dull, you know, f- like little bit of friction pain that they deal with every day versus the, the nail in their hand that they might get if they go out into the real world. Couldn't agree more. I think there's a big genetic component that we don't understand about brain wiring and why some of us are like this. If you don't lose sleep over what potential you could unlock, like if you're not willing to suffer at a deep level and go through really hard things just to find out what's on the other side of it, it's kind of a twisted, um, delusional confidence that some of us have against all odds. You literally have to be able to flip statistics on, on their head and say, "Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be the exception to the rule," knowing you're gonna go through so much pain and suffering to get there.

So no, most people I think would be much happier with stability, without crazy amounts of adversity. You gotta like literally want it that bad to go into it. 'Cause there's a lot of people who will dabble and then they get punched in the face once or twice and they're like, "I'm out," you know? So I think just, just knowing that that's what's gonna happen. And the higher you go, what I've noticed of all the people that I look up to, my biggest mentors, anybody further along in the journey than me has more pain than me, more losses, has gone through way harder things than I've gone through, and I've realized that every terrible piece of adversity I've gone through is just the qualification of getting to this place that, you know, I was so obsessed with getting to. So if you don't feel that way, like don't have the imposter syndrome.

Like if you're not willing to go through what it takes to get there, like get rid of the goals. Like s- don't punish yourself. Just be happy with the life you have. Yeah. I, I think there's a conversation that needs to happen more often, especially on shows that are geared towards business or entrepreneurship, et cetera, around just like maybe your purpose isn't your job.

That's completely okay. Maybe you're an a- you're just a great amateur golfer and you're part of the league and you, you play twice a week and you're teaching your kids and you go out with, for love golf with your wife or whatever. And like you hate your job or you're just meh on your job, but it allows you to live this golf life that you, that you love, that makes you so happy. So yeah, are you showing up every day and you're crushing it and selling big deals and posting them on Instagram with your, you know, your Ferrari behind you and, you know. No.

Right? You're stamping TPS reports and sliding them across the table and, you know, whatever. But you get to live this life that you actually love, and there's nothing wrong with that, and I feel far too often we, we kind of almost like backhandedly admonish that life. Like, "Oh, oh, you're choosing just to like be a state worker and play golf? Like there's something wrong with you."

And there's literally nothing wrong with that, and I feel like we just need to say it more often. Couldn't agree more. I mean, the happiest people in my life, um, when I look at friends and family, um, over the years, are people who are not complex in their thinking of what they need to create in the world. Like it's, it's, it's definitely a burden, and it's okay. It's okay for us to be like, "This is what we want to do with our lives.

Like it is what I wanna do with my life." Most people don't, and that's ... They shouldn't. Like it's like the story of the guy, like the rich guy who goes on a trip, char- charters the boat, um, there's a guy there and takes him fishing. He asks him what's his favorite thing to do.

It's like, "Oh, I love to go out, do this, catch a fish, take it home, and, you know, spend time with my family and, and cook the meal." And he's like, "Well, if you..." He's like, "I'll invest in this. I'll help you get more boats. You can get more fish.

We can hire people, and then you'll be able to sell it, and then you'll be able to go spend time with your family." And it's like he already has that. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

So it's like- Yep ... you don't need to create massive things to have the life you want, and that's the problem- Yeah ... with social media is it's like now it's like, okay, cool, you got an R8? Well, it's not a Huracan. Oh, well it's not an SVJ. Well, it's not... You know.

Like there's no end to that game. Yeah. It, it's funny. You know, so that, that's a, a Mexican parable that you just shared, which I think is really powerful. The part of that that I, that, and this is just conjecture I guess, but I've always found lacking in, in that particular example, I think it's very powerful, is like I do think there's an argument to say living the, living the non-scaled life, let's call that kind of option A, what the Mexican fisherman is currently living, and then the scaled life, option B, where ultimately you end up at the same point.

The difference between those two, and I think this is an important part of this, is th- the scaled life most likely has some sort of war chest, so if you have a really bad day, right, you get that life back. Where the unscaled life, if you're not, if you don't at least have some sort of base, right, retirement or asset or something, right, one bad day can take you out of the game. So I, I do think there's an argument that like you gotta handle your business. I think today there's a lot of young men in particular that are not handling their business. They, they're taking these half-hearted moonshots on some bullshit app or faceless YouTube video strategy.

It doesn't work. They fall back. They're unhappy, no purpose, and like it's ... They're just not, they're not taking like ... In general, I have this feeling that, that this generation, while, while very interesting and dynamic, and I'm not one of those that they're all lazy or whatever, because I think that's a stupid argument.

I do, however, think that they, they lack a long-term vision for life in general and, and like that's, that's where that, the pressure of that scaled life to me i- is the m- ... is the option that I think you should give more credence to only because even if you get part of the way there, you're still gonna have some sort of backing, some sort of war chest or skill set that allows you to live through your worst day. And maybe that's the insurance guy in me. I, I grew up in the insurance industry. But, like, I don't know, I think it's a conversation that needs to be had more often. Yep.

Guess you're hitting all the buttons of why I do this, right? Like, that's-- But that's, like, the why is, like, not everybody's wired to say, "Well, nobody else in my family is getting wealthy. So when someone gets cancer, who's gonna pay the bill?" Like, these are the things I think about, right? Yeah, yeah.

Me too. You know? Like, there's gonna be no better reward for your hard work than when you can help people you love. So for me, it's, it's putting yourself in a position to do that, and then it's the how. It's like, okay, we're gonna get together for Christmas, but how are we gonna do it, you know?

What experiences are we gonna get to have because of what was built? These are the reasons why I do it. It's for the experiences and the things that I can provide for other people that are extremely fulfilling. Love that. I love that.

It's, it's taking on responsibility in your place in the family and friend groups that, that, that you should rightly have, and the pressure that comes with it, but the reward is so good on the other side. So, so you're, you're an executive at Heartland Foods, and as you said, COVID hits. Used to be. What? Used to be.

We, we, we sold that company. Yeah, yeah. Used to be. That's what I mean. Yeah.

Used to be, right? And COVID hits, and, uh, that business gets sold, and you decide to go from that life to venture capital. Um, why? What, what, what, what was the impetus to say, "Uh, I'm gonna become an investor. I'm gonna run a fund."

Like, this is what I wanna do as the next stage of my life? So Heartland Foods was a great business. Don't get me wrong. I mean, any business that, that gets sold is a good business. Uh, but the biggest lessons from that were, you know, when you're dealing with food and trucks on the road and monster utility bills, walk-in freezers, uh, you know, salespeople crashing cars into people's homes.

Like, you, you have logistical nightmares, small margins, and you can build a very big business that is not very profitable, so. Um, and it was profitable, but I'm splitting hairs. Like, the PTSD that came out of that for me was, okay, what is the next vehicle I could choose that is much lower headache, much larger margins, better recurring revenue? I wanted to squeeze the most, you know, juice for the effort, and there's nothing better than the capital world, especially going fund to fund. Someone else is managing everything, or if I bring in partners that are great at real estate or private equity and I raise the money to the deals and just manage the investors, now I'm working from my laptop anywhere in the world with no employees, and I'm making a ton more money than I was before.

So for me, it was how do I redesign a better lifestyle than being stuck in a brick-and-mortar type business that's a logistical nightmare, seven days a week in the office or in homes building sales teams? Like, all these things that were great to do in the first business because the skill sets that come with learning all of this, um, positions you to do something that's a better vehicle. So for me, I just went into that world because it was, for me, the, the absolute best vehicle to create wealth fast with the least amount-- I don't know. I, like, I think I identify as a lazy workaholic now. Love that.

That's a, that's a fantastic way to describe yourself. That is probably more often the truth of entrepreneurs, um, but no one wants to admit to that 'cause they don't want that lazy mon- That's probably 'cause you're just kind of always working, but maybe not, you know, not always grinding, and I, I love that. Um, that's a great way to describe yourself. So maybe just, just for the audience who isn't as familiar, you know, I think a lot of people hear VC, PE, private, you know, they hear all these different, these, these capital mechanisms that we can, that you, a business can raise money from. But I don't think many people necessarily understand exactly how those companies, uh, make money.

Like, what, what is the actual mechanism in which that business model? Because I think, I think at a high level, I think the audience can understand the difference between, um, kinda that low margin, uh, tons of physical assets, tons of people business at Heartland versus, versus the fund business. But, uh, maybe just break down that model a little bit more to kind of juxtapose between the two. Yeah. So I mean, there's so many different asset classes, and they're all different.

Let's take the basic ones. Our, our first fund was a trading fund, right? Um, so we're raising capital into a fund. We're trading equities. We're trading currency pairings.

There's no overhead. Literally no overhead except your accounting, your auditing, the platforms, and, and you're taking performance fees off of the growth of the money you're trading. So, you know, you... It's, it's fast money. It's also, you have a bad month, you make no money, right?

So it's a different type of world, uh, but that's how, that's how trading funds make money, and off an annual management fee of 2%. So, you know, you raise 100 million bucks, you make, you make two million for breakfast whether you work or not the whole year. So these are, you know, things you think about when you build funds, and there's a lot of money out there. Um, private equity is a totally different thing. Um, early stage, that's the venture side of things.

I don't play in that space. Um, it's just not my identity. I don't wanna make 100 investments for one to work out. Um, we do have a late-stage private equity fund. I like that, that sweet spot because you're getting in private after all the big money has come in, and the, the failure rate is very low.

And, and you're getting in at a discount before it goes public. Like, we were in, um, we go fund to fund with Innovation X. We're talking pre-IPO on Palantir, Spotify, Airbnb, Lyft, SpaceX, Flexport, um, access to the, the unicorn billion-dollar companies privately before they go public. I like that niche. So, um, raise a lot of capital into that, and we make money off the exit.

So, um, you don't make any money on the way in on, on one of those, whereas like a trading fund, you make money every month if you perform. This is a longer game. So, you know, we're talking two to five years for the exit and, uh, but it's a big chunk, right? So I think when you're designing your fund strategy, you wanna think about it as, like, fast money, medium money, s- slow money Um, you know, we gotta get paid today, but we want monster checks out of equity in the future, and it's the same with real estate Yeah, I'm, I... That was gonna be my next question, is when you have a fund business, do you then layer, are you, are you considering the payouts and how you're layering together these funds and, and putting together your portfolio? 'Cause like you said, like, it's great to know you got into SpaceX at, you know, 200 million and it, or 200 billion, and it's about to go public for over a trillion.

That's great, but that still might not happen for another 18 to 24 months. We'll see, you know, when it, when it actually gets, when the regulators come through, and, you know, that's a long time to wait to recoup your capital when there's no cash flow coming in. So that's, uh, that's a tricky- Yeah ... strategy. So it's just like, you know, if you go to a financial advisor as an individual and they put you in this diversified portfolio to build your retirement, that's how I build the fund structures, right? It's, we need to have these different buckets, um, different periods of time.

Like real estate's just been awful the past few years, but, you know, our private equity, we have a debt fund, we're paying out 16% to our investors with monthly cash flow, and then we go buy e-com businesses that are spitting off 30, 40% and keep the spread. And that's cash flow to the c- you know, to the overall bigger picture while we wait for big exits. So I think it's diversification within the different private placements. Are you bullish on the roll-up M&A business model still? Yeah, people are crushing it.

I think- Yeah ... I think I'm bullish on everything if you do it right. They're... Like, we don't asset discriminate. I think that's the most important highlight here is, you know, people are like, "Is it a good time to buy stocks?

Is it a good time to buy real estate?" It's always a good time to buy all of it if you can buy it right. Yeah, and if your timeline's long enough, right? Yeah. Or, or sometimes it's, it's a spread.

Like, we'll put something under contract here and then flip it to another B company, and, and we'll be in a deal for 30 days. Huh. So you guys will- So you don't always wanna hold it, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

So you essentially are just packaging, like you found it, you packaged it up and said, "Actually, there's a better fund over here that's a better fit," and you'll just flip it to them and, and put a VIG on it? Or, or you can get a piece of raw land. Like we, we just got one on, on the water in, uh, Tennessee. Got it at half the value. We decided we're gonna do the horizontal development, just put in the water sewer, chop off the lots.

Um, it's next to a country club. It's got a five-year wait list. The builders want that land. There's a $25 million house being built next to our four lots, which we'll sell off to builders. It'll take, you know, about a year to develop the land, so that's a quick exit in real estate.

You know, one-year development, probably net those investors somewhere between 25 and 50%. Keep your head around all these different asset classes when you're making a decision. Partners. I don't underwrite, I don't source deals. Any deal flow that comes into me, I send to the team.

I, I don't deal with any of that, and I think that's why when people are like, "Well, how can you, you know, be on the board of this company, and, you know, you have a social media marketing business, and then you have all these funds and different partners in each of the funds?" I think I'm just strategically, um, what I've realized my skill set is just stay good at what I'm good at and then partner with the rest. What explicitly would that be? Operators. Like I'm finding the, the niche best people at what they do.

Like the... We're launching a, a new equities swing trading fund in January, and I believe that this quant team and these traders, I mean, they've got 25 years plus on Wall Street before leaving. Their performance is audited and speaks for itself. I mean, it's so good that I literally told them, "I need you to like lower the returns 'cause it's gonna be really hard to raise capital into something that did over 1,000% last year." Yeah.

When you're examining a business w- and you're looking at the leadership team, what are you looking for in their personalities, right? Not necessarily what they say or do, but like, are there any personality traits or quirks that either are immediate red flags or that, you know, toss up a green light that says, "Man, this, this guy or gal, m- m- it may be go time with these"? This is the hardest thing in business, especially the higher up you go. The bigger the stakes, the, the sharkier it is, and the problem is, is people that are n- don't have ethics and don't have integrity that are at the top are just as polished as the people who do. And, and that is unfortunately what I've learned, is you can do all the vetting in the world, you can, you can do all the due diligence.

Sometimes the people with the most integrity actually have blemishes on, on their record. Um, and what I've learned is if you've got a perfect track record, I don't really trust you. Like, it's a, you know, when I, I, I went through my first big loss, um, you know, awful, awful fraud that happened to us. Some people didn't know if I did it or if, you know, whatever. It didn't really matter.

I thought it was gonna ruin me. I thought my reputation was done. People were writing on Reddit, and it was going around the internet, and I'm like, "I'm done. Like, no one's ever gonna do business with me ever again." Um, actually, what it did is it qualified me to play at the level with the people who have actually built things and, and they got broken.

And, you know, they, they didn't do anything illegal, and they recovered. Um, so it actually helped. So I think that's a, a really positive principle to put into your brain. Like if you haven't had any incredible, like life-changing losses that are just, you think you're gonna get destroyed and you're never coming back from it, there's an empowerment on the back end of that that's gonna make you go further, faster, harder because you realize that, um, there's just nobody who's built anything big that didn't have losses along the way. Yeah, I used to say to my HR team, "I, I only want us to hire people that walk with a limp." 'Cause, like, when shit gets hectic, you have to be able to operate, speak, execute in a way that isn't always clear, it isn't always ... politically correct.

It isn't always nice. It doesn't mean you can't be those things or that you should strive to not be those things, but when, when shit's going on and you're in the foxhole, you need to know that you got someone else there who's, like, been in the foxhole again. You know, not that a first-timer can't make their way out, but man, you feel a lot more comfortable when the person who's got your back, you know, you know they've been there and they've survived it already. And I, I think your point about the dis- the people that you, you can't trust looking, feeling, dressing the exact same way as the people who are trustworthy, are, are, uh, kind of on the up and up. I think that's a really good point.

How do, you know, what, how do you start to pull them apart? Like, like, if you have these two people, same suit, same look, good-looking, you know, good-looking person. They got the thing. They, you know... How do you figure out which one of them is the creep and which one of them is the killer?

Number one, I've really learned to trust my gut more than anything. Um, I used to ignore it and say, "Oh, no, it's, it's..." Like, you start making excuses for people. And, um, now when somebody shows me who they are, I believe them the first time. I think that's, that's enough principle in itself.

Um, I don't think it's ever happened one time that somebody showed me some sort of a red flag that I, I passed up on that it didn't get worse. So you gotta, you gotta trust your intuition there. And, you know, give everybody a, a fair chance to show you who they are, but they, they will. And you have to get better at, at trusting the authenticity of, of the feelings that you get from people. But at the end of the day, you just don't know what you have in a business partner, in a marriage, like anything, until you go through really hard times together.

And, um, you know, I've found rocks of partners that I will be with for life because of what we went through together, and nobody bailed. Everybody dug their heels in, and, um, that's where you really get to find out. So in a, in a weird way, people are gonna hurt you. You're gonna lose money. You're gonna get stolen from.

I like going through those processes because without that, I wouldn't be able to find the real ones. Yeah. Yeah. And, and you couldn't have that gut feeling if you hadn't been through all the nasty shit beforehand. Um, I was having this discussion with a friend of mine who's, uh, we were talking about, you know, good and evil, and, uh, and he's, uh, we were talking about, uh, in this case, um, you know, our relationship with God and our religion and that kind of stuff.

And, you know, I said to him, like, "Dude, you can't know good if you are incapable of evil." Like, how do you know what good looks like if you don't know that inside you is also the ability to be a complete raging A-hole that would screw someone over? Like, if you've never had that thought in your head, then you don't, you can't know what good looks like. It doesn't mean you act on it. Being good is not acting on the murderous thought that, that rolls through your head, right?

That's being good. But if you just sit there and you, you never take a chance and you're always safe and you're always put together and you're always, you know, perfect in your mind, you actually don't know what the world looks like. You don't know what it's like to just get punched in the mouth f- you know, and not know where it came from or, you know, it... You, you just don't know. It was wild to me that he, he had never considered that, right?

In his mind, he was this good, upstanding, you know, two kids, my wife, we're still married, uh, and, and he's a great guy. I love him to death. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm, uh, he's probably listening and he's going, "You son of a gun." Now, now you know what evil feels like is the way you're feeling now that I've been talking about you, dude.

But, um, uh, but this idea of, like, it's almost like you, you wanna, like, is, should it be early in your career? I, here's, here's the question I wanna ask you. I have a lot of people, we'll say 37 to 45, that will reach out to me who are in the second or third phase of their career, right? Like, they had the first job, usually corporate or, or some kind of, kind of strict family job, and, and now they're starting to explore entrepreneurship. If that, if someone at that age, right, who, who I'm also going to assume has some sort of family, some sort of obligations, probably a mortgage, they can't just live that couch life, what are your recommendations for that individual who wants to start to get, who has that entrepreneurial bug that they're not, they know they're not gonna get rid of?

So let's say it's a real, they have a real entrepreneurial drive. They have the mentality kind of that you discussed earlier to be an entrepreneur, but they're in that moment of, "I haven't done this before, but I also have a mortgage and a spouse and two kids, and I can't just be living on a couch if this doesn't work." Like, h- how does that person break into this life? That's a family decision, in my opinion. It's a family decision, right?

What can you live with? If you go to your spouse and say, "Hey, I'm going for it. It might cost us our house. It might whatever, but it might also give us everything we've dreamed of." Are those shared dreams?

Like, this is, this is just a reality of why they call it a starter marriage. A lot of times you grow differently, and that's a decision that the person, individual has to make. Like, you know, and if the other person's not down for that journey, you've got a decision to make, right? I think it's... There's no right answer to these things.

It's hard. These are the hardest dichotomies of life. You know, are you growing together? Are you rowing together? Are you changing?

Is it, is it gonna work? Like, what can you live with, you know? And then maybe there's a, a threshold. It's okay, we've saved this much. We're willing to go like this.

If it doesn't work, we're gonna stop here and I'm gonna get a job, right? There's, that's one way of doing it, and then save up the money again, take another shot. It's not the way I would do it, but I don't think there's a right or wrong way to do this stuff. I think you start your business while you keep your job. Like- You want lower stress?

Like, that's the number-one thing that drives me nuts is when people reach out to me like that, and I'm like, "Why do you have to change anything? Just start the business on top of it." Yeah. 'Cause if you can't work two nine-to-fives on top of each other, you're not gonna make it in this world anyways. Dude, I had this guy reach out. He's a good guy, um, and I know he meant well, but he was asking this question.

He wasn't the impetus for this, but then when you were answering, it hit me. And I said to him, I kind of gave him m- not exact- I actually like the way that you positioned it better, but, you know, basically I said, "Look, like, if you... This thing that you're telling me you want, based on what you've described, this is something you can at least start either at night or in the morning." And he immediately jumped back with an excuse as to why he couldn't work on it in the morning or at night. And I said, "Just so you know, like, my advice is, like, the first couple months.

One, if this thing works the way you're telling me you think it's gonna work, you're gonna be working mornings, all day, and night on this business in the very near future. So if you're telling me you can't do that today, like, like you said, this is a conversation you wanna go back and have some thoughts about." And I, I also think that there is an unfortunate reality that for some people you just miss your window. Not saying that's the case. I'm not, I'm not saying you can't.

That's not what I'm saying. But I think if you're unwilling to make the sacrifice, you're unwilling to get rid of the country club membership, or you're unwilling to downgrade from the, you know, suburban premier, you know, $85,000, you know, SUV to a, you know, RAV4 for, for a few years, you're, you've missed your window. You've missed your window. I took a HELOC out of my house to start my first fund. I, I bet half the house on it, you know?

It's just, I think everybody wants to think they can live in both worlds, but if you want a new life, it's gonna cost you your old one, period. You can't have both. If you, if you, if you want a new life, it's gonna cost you your old one. It's, it's so simple, so straightforward, but it's 100% the case, and I feel like it's a reality that we almost intentionally avoid. Like, it...

Like, when you say that logically, everyone who's listening to it goes, "Yes, that makes complete sense. If I wanna be this, and on this thing over here today, I gotta change to get there." But I think the emotional time, the time that you spend with, with what's actually going on in here, we don't actually... We wanna be the same person we are today. We just want more freedom, more money, and more visibility or whatever, right?

It's, it's, like, it, it doesn't work that way. Yeah, that's the disconnection of why most people are unhappy. They, they can't accept, um, what they have because they won't go for what they want, and it's, uh, it's the worst zone to be in. I spent some time there, uh, and this is why you gotta train your brain, work on your personal development first. You gotta become the person before you're gonna go create the thing.

And that's the other thing, too, is everybody wants to, like, make their personal brand after they did the thing. It's like, you've never... Like, if you haven't done something, you don't know how to do it. None of us do until we go do it. So you're always gonna be going in blind.

You're never gonna have the answers. And if you can live in a perpetual state of comfort in that and train your brain to identify what you're feeling and just push through it, like, that's the only way to, to, to be an outlier in this world. Yeah. I wanna get a little tactical for a second. So you are part of a lot of different businesses.

You, you've said that. Um, you said that this is a time of change, of evolution. You're, you're considering new projects. Okay. How...

You know, uh, one of the things that I've spent a lot of time researching is around focus and staying focused during the day, trying to optimize flow or your zone of genius, whatever you wanna call it. How do you structure your days or your time so that you're, you know, with all these competing, uh, projects, that you're able to give them kinda your full attention and effort, um, as much as that particular project needs without becoming, you know, overwhelmed or, you know, feeling like you're stressed out or you're not able to give the energy that you need to that project? Yeah. It's... I think this is one of the hardest things to develop, um, but, uh, the calendar is the most important thing to me.

I mean, t- if you don't have an organized calendar, you're never gonna be able to increase your capacity and then the efficiency in the capacity that you have, right? 'Cause then it's like, okay, once we fill up the whole calendar, it's like, well, there's still more time actually. You just gotta get more efficient in the blocks. So if you don't schedule everything, it's not all on the calendar, y- you're n- you're just never gonna get there. Um, you're gonna be kinda just squandering time and confused, and then you don't know what to work on. Um, so I'm very simple with that.

It's just my calendar starts at 6:00 AM every day. There's companies I'm involved with on the East Coast. Those meetings are really early in the morning, and then it's the Central Time and the mountain people and, like, wherever, um, and then there's international, right? So I mean, I don't stop, you know? I've just designed a, a life where I like to do this work.

I don't... I did in-home sales for a long time. I don't like living in the car and living in people's kitchens selling knives, even though I was the best in the world at it. It's like that vehicle maxes out at 300K. You can't make more than that.

But it's like now I actually work a lot more, and I enjoy it because I'm talking to people. We're having conversations that are gigantic with a bunch of zeros. It's just exciting. It's like, what else would you rather be doing? And I can do it on the beach.

I can do it here in my office, anywhere in the world. So I've kinda just designed a life where I want to be in it all day long. So I think that's what's important. But yeah, you're gonna have to grind skill sets. Like, y- this gets developed.

Nobody becomes this overnight. It starts with just being able to handle your nine-to-five and then being like, okay, instead of from 5 to 9, instead of going out for beers every night or, you know, playing golf or whatever you're... Like, I did all these things, and over time, it was the things I got rid of that made space for the next level of capacity to add on to do more. So it's just... I can't remember what the exact five are.

There's like five areas of y- of your life. It's like your friends, your family, your hobbies Your investments and, and whatever. It's like everybody's trying to have an equal amount of everything in their life. You can only be excellent at three categories at the same time. So it's like every time I've gone to the next level, it's been, okay, no friends for a year, or, you know, not gonna be seeing family much.

You know? Hobbies gotta go, whatever it is. One of the life lessons that I don't think is talked about enough, and it's certainly not taught to children, is this idea of seasons. We all have seasons, right? And like there's a season where maybe you are that corporate professional who has the, you know, Mercedes and the golf club membership, and, and that's what you do at that time because all your friends do it, all your coworkers do it.

You go to the same restaurants, and this is the life you live, and that's the season you're in. But if you find yourself with the entrepreneurial bug, right? You can't get this idea out of your head. You feel like you, you cannot move forward in your life without trying to make this happen. This is what you're gonna do, right?

We have to categorize that as an entirely new season, and in that season, you don't have the golf cl- or, you know, may- you-- maybe you don't have the golf club membership. Maybe you do... You know, your kids, you know, don't get to go to 17 different away camps this year, right? You, you aren't buying your wife the, her annual Rolex that you give her. You know, whatever these extravagant things are, right?

It's just a different season. It doesn't mean you're less of a person. It doesn't mean that you failed. Like we take on-- I think when we try to, we try to take one season and s- and smash it into the next, that's where a lot of this identity stuff comes into. It's like I wish that I could go back to, uh, like the end of 2023 and tell that version of myself, "Look, man, like that was a really good season.

Tons of fun. You learned m- more than you could have ever learned about starting, running, selling, exiting, all the things that you need to do to start and get out of a business, you know, and make a couple million bucks. That season's over, bro." Like I... You know what I mean?

Like I wanna grab that guy by the collar and go, "You get a couple weeks of like not knowing who you are, and then that season's over. Go figure out what the next season is. Like you're a c- you're a new person." I just didn't, as crazy as it sounds, like I didn't have my hands around this concept of seasons, and it's like that's the one thing I wish I could go back. Not do it differently, not change anything, just, "Hey, this is the period on this season of your life.

Time to figure out what the next one is. Go." And then you can almost like-- It's almost like this rejuvenating moment where you get to kinda like rebuild yourself, right? Like now you're, you're an in- you're, you're an investor. You are, uh, uh, you know, you, you have the marketing stuff.

You have all these different things. You have these different projects. You're international. You know, you have all these international connections. You're, you're this completely different person.

Um, not completely different, but y- you're this different version of yourself, which is allowed to have and do different things than the previous version. Work out more, spend more time on peptides and shit, you know? Like stuff that maybe wasn't in the previous season that you wish was there. Things you couldn't afford at one point that now you can because of the work you did. Yeah.

I mean, that's so beautifully said, 'cause it... that is the way to look at life as seasons, and we're all trying to hold onto the season. It's like if you can just understand that nothing lasts forever. You know, maybe you did have a job for 10 years, and then you get laid off. Like these things happen. It's like, okay, great.

Like it feels terrible, but you're being planted. Like it's always the case, and you also, for like the hard-charging entrepreneurs, like a season of not working so much is nice, too, or not taking on so much so you can travel, and, you know, we've-- Like I, I have the opposite. Like I get guilty when I'm not working really hard, so it's, it's really hard to do that, but it's sacrifices. Just like, like when I was starting, um, you know, the, the Heartland days were very stable, you know, Range Rover, Mercedes, house, all that stuff, and, and then it was like, okay, like I wanna start something. It's, it's gonna cost money.

I need marketing spend. I'm gonna be negative the first year, I'm sure. So it's like I sold cars that I loved and like lost that like ego that people aren't willing to do to go try and build the next thing. Um, when you-- So you're coming across all these deals, and, um, this is where I'd like to kind of spend, uh, our, our final minutes together. You're coming across all these deals, talking to entrepreneurs, running into, you know, probably hundreds of just incredibly intelligent, well-connected people.

What are the areas of the marketplace that you're finding the most excitement around? I mean, obviously AI is a huge topic, but also, you know, crypto's kinda, crypto's on a downswing, and now all these people who are trying to sell you their latest crypto investing e-book are telling you to, you know, get into something else, and so like, i- w- is it, is it energy? Is it infrastructure? Like, like when you're coming across these projects, maybe what are the sectors that you're hearing the most excitement around? There's just so many levels to this conversation.

At, at the highest levels, um, you know, people deploying in the billions. Um, energy is huge right now. Nuclear, lot of capital flooding towards, um, how are we gonna power all these data centers and, um, you know, the whole AI thing. I mean, for me specifically, um, there's one specific company, it's publicly traded, it's called SafeSpace Global. Um, the stock ticker's SSGC.

I j- I was on the board. I just left, and that company to me is positioned to be the next AI unicorn that nobody knows about right now. So, um, without giving away any, you know, private information, it's-- I'm really excited about that space, and what it is, it's A, it's multimodal AI that uses cameras. Mm. So imagine, like we, we're solving some of the biggest problems in the world right now.

Um, imagine car drives into a parking lot at a school. The license plate gets read. It gets run across every database, registered sex offenders. It scans social media to see if there was anything written angrily in the last week or whatever. And then it can see through the car and see if there's any weapons in it.

And before someone can even get into a school, the AI uses mag locks and locks the school down, sends a, an alert right to 911. Like, all that happens before somebody even gets to get close to shooting a school. That's incredible. Do they call that a world engine? That's, uh...

Is that, is that what they're calling it? Like, the- I know that's not the technical term, but, like, I've heard this kinda, when, when we move from language models to video models, they're, like, referring to them as world engines, 'cause they can see, they can see, like, around corners and all this kinda crazy stuff. Like, so mu- so much can be done when they get to this level of understanding in these models. Yeah, the tech's incredible. I mean, I'm not a tech guy.

I'm, I'm, I'm on the capital stack. I, I was brought into the company to help with investor relations and, and raise capital, uh, about a year ago for the, the seed round. But, um, yeah, I th- I think that is what it's called. I don't know. I'd have to ask the CTO.

I mean, they've got a, a massive team of developers that are developing things, um, not just for schools. I mean, they're, they're in healthcare facilities, um, prison systems. Uh, you know, the addressable market for this is gigantic. I mean, we're talking any public space in the world that could use a camera to be safer. And then you look at of all the sectors in the public markets that you would wanna be in with the highest multiple, SaaS companies are trading around 10.

You put AI on it, you're at, like, 25 times potentially, or more if you're one of the big boys. So I mean, these are the things that I look at. Okay, what am I gonna get involved with? Like, that's a company I w- I wanna be on that train. Yeah.

I love that. Justin, dude, I could talk to you all day about this stuff. I, I love your journey. I love the way you think about this and explain it. Um, you've got an incredible Instagram for people to follow.

Uh, besides that spot, which we'll have linked up, where else should people connect with you to get deeper into your world? Really just the s- all the socials, you know? Um, yeah. Or, uh, from my Instagram you can click into all the different things, um, that we do. But, uh, yeah, I mean, I just...

Shoot me a message. I love talking to people. Like, we, we, we run everything through social media. Almost all, uh, all the capital I raise for all, all these companies and ventures, uh, most of it comes through social media with the exception of, you know, big checks that are coming in from family offices or institutions. But, uh, I just, I love social media.

I think people have just completely forgot what it's about. It's not about spamming the platform with your content. It's about talking to people. So, uh, if you land in my DMs, I will be the one answering it. I think that's absolutely fantastic.

I appreciate you, brother. Anything you got going on in the future, if you wanna come back, you got an open invitation. And, uh, just thank you for your time today. Absolutely. Thanks for having me.