Overcoming Fear and Creating a Life of Fulfillment: Wealth Strategist Justin Maxwell’s Journey

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 This episode is a really good one. We chat with Justin Maxwell, Justin is a wealth strategist. Tax strategist with big Life Financial, and he's co-owner and partner with that company, and we talked a lot about how he took a long time to figure out kind of what his path was in life. He was a school teacher for years, he was a gym, teacher phys, ed teacher, and Not that we're knocking teachers in any way, shape, or form. But for him, he found that he had consistently taken the safe path in life and always chose, you know, the choice that where failure was not going to happen. In other words, he didn't want to be overly successful and then fail and have the spotlight shine on those failures. So, what he regrets is not taking action earlier outside of the safe path. So it's a fascinating discussion with regard to what I think a lot of you can relate to a lot of all of us can relate to with introspection, figuring out what you should be doing with your life, what your best version of yourself is and how you can create the most impact for others? We talk a lot about their business and how he came how the business came about, how his partnership came about some stresses that occurred with regard to. You know, running a small business while you're working when you have a family with small kids and how difficult that can be and how challenging that was with regard to Justin's family in particular, and then we dive into a lot of the lessons. He's learned along the way as well as what their business offers. Their business serves the small business owner and person who makes three to five hundred thousand dollars a year and could be saving a lot in taxes that Not aware of. So they do a lot of tax strategy, tax planning, and then they also incorporate more creative strategies such as the infinite banking concept, and they also have access to a lot of attorneys and a lot of investment operators and a vast Network that they can bring to help solve your problems with regard to saving money and putting every dollar to work in a better way. So that you don't necessarily have to grind quite as hard and you can look toward creating family, family Legacy, and that kind of thing. So, it's a fascinating discussion. Think it's a very relatable one, it's all about becoming the best version of yourself, taking ownership being intentional, you know, money as an important tool in your life, but not the end-all be-all. And so, as you can tell, I really enjoyed this one, and I know you will too, welcome to the form adversity to abundance. God cast, are you an entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur? Then this show is for you. Each week we bring you in Paxil stories of real people who have overcome painful human adversity, to create a life of abundance. You are not alone in your struggle, join us, and you will experience the power of true stories and gain practical Knowledge, from Founders, who have turned poverty into prosperity Tea and weakness into wealth. This podcast will encourage you through your health relationship and financial challenges.

Speaker 1

03:37

 So you can become the hero in your quest for.

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03:40

 Freedom. Take ownership of the life, you are destined to live turn your adversity into abundance. Welcome everybody to another episode of the form adversity to abundance podcast. I am your host Jamie Bateman, and I am thrilled today to have with us. Justin Maxwell. Justin is a partner of Big Life Financial Justin. How are you doing today? I am doing very well, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity here. Thanks. Jimmy, absolutely, I am excited. This is going to be a fun conversation you and I were chatting, briefly beforehand. And I listen to another podcast that you were on recently, which was Kind of piqued my interest in sure. And I am excited to go down some angles. You didn't get the chance to talk about on that show? So I know you're going to deliver a lot of value for our, for our listeners out there. Justin, who are you and what are you up to today? So I am a tax and wealth strategist and is what I helped. My primary focus is helping the small business owner, keep more of the money they're making and then make Deliberate decisions about where they put it, so they can grow safely and maximize their value and their contribution to the world. I have been able to help business owners around the country save tens of millions of dollars in taxes and in just unnecessary spending. I think we're we have I think we might have crossed the 50 million threshold just recently. So we're we saved people a lot of money and it's not about trying to save people money too. To, to be greedy or to spend money on things but to save money so you can deliver more value. Be more present with your family and just be a better contributor to your circle of influence. I love that. I mean, I thought that I will entrepreneurs and small business owners were just greedy selfish jerks who like to hoard money and you know, count it all day long, but apparently not. So that's me. Being sarcastic. Know I love that. It's awesome because I totally Fully believe in that concept and that Principle. As far as you know, showing up and becoming the best version of yourself as an entrepreneur or small business owner or investor that just overflows into other aspects of your life and you're able to impact more people. And I truly believe that, you know, small businesses is a the backbone of our economy and as a Force for good. But will save my rant for another nother episode. It's good. We're on the same page, then absolutely. And so Justin, I know you haven't always been doing this. It hasn't been all that long actually that you have kind of been on down this particular path or at least part of your, your path and your journey. So, let us jump back into your backstory, you know what's where would you like to start? I know you and I were chatting a little bit about this beforehand sounds like it. Some of the challenges you have been through. Actually, kind of started maybe at a very young age. Each so. Pick it up from there if you would. Yeah. So I think it will it's a good note for your listener to listeners to just know that I was a school teacher. I had a master's degree. I thought I was going to want to even go all the way to the doctorate degree and just be in the education Academia setting but I think it's important to note that I chose that. Because of my like my childhood and like what I but I think what will be beneficial as listening is. I chose that because I was a safe route in my entire life. I always played it safe. I never went for the big thing, but the concept I think is important is like as a youth as a child, I always felt, I had skills to go big and to be successful like at sport or at what I always felt like I could do it. Whenever it came time for form. I would always Do something that didn't allow me to shine the spotlight or out, hold back, or I wouldn't participate or I would, I don't want to say purposely fail because I don't think I would remember pursue failed, but I wouldn't do it. So, just as an example, this is just an example. I think you can relate because I used to wrestle in high school, okay? And like, I felt like it my senior year specifically that I got I was good enough to actually start like actually having some success but when it came time to performing, like there is this internal fear. If I became successful and then failed, like, I would be seen as a failure. So my thought process was, if I never truly, became truly successful, I can never be seen as a failure. So always just do things where I can succeed, but, never push beyond that. So I, whenever anything that I did, I never pushed beyond the point of failure. So it's the whole life. There was never It was never getting past that point where I would actually truly fail and I don't know if that makes sense but that's why I chose to teach because I knew that I could succeed in teaching and teachers it's hard to get fired. It's hard to fail.

Speaker 1

08:47

 Like you could suck, you could be good. You can.

Speaker 2

08:49

 Succeed. Yeah a teaching safe it was going to the income. I was going to be seen as success to everyone around me people. Appreciate teachers, people love them but for me, That was safe spot and that was exactly what I have done. My entire life. Got it interesting. And obviously, we're not going to, you know, they're, you know, we don't have to dive into the reasons why you think that maybe lack of, it sounds like you just didn't want to take that, that risk. Consistently had that you had that fear of failure, basically is what it sounds like, it boils down to fear of success. But really is a fear of failure, or of fear of being spotlighted, you know, as a Here again, I am just playing right therapist here. Yeah. And so, you know, for probably numerous reasons that fear was there at a young age and to be clear, teacher serve in. And I am sure you would Echo this with teacher servant valuable, you know, role in our society. And, and my, you know, I have a, my family, there are a lot of teachers in my family. And, you know, that's, it's not that we're knocking. The teachers here in any way shape or form but for you it sounds like you tell me if I am wrong that in the end, you weren't really living up to your full potential. You thought there was maybe, you know, just more or you this wasn't really the plan to the best use of your own talents and resources. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I think that's a great way to say and I just, I need it. I have myself needed to do more. It wasn't that teaching sucks, so that teach you teachers can be successful on it, honestly. I could have pursued and done more in teaching like, I could have started entrepreneur things with inside of teaching and done in. But for me, I had to exit teaching to fully realize my full potential so teachers. I am not you don't have to exit teaching to share the like, reach your full potential but for myself, like teaching was like the embodiment of all, of the things that I would always done my entire life. And so, for me, I had to push past that I do my deficit to shoot prove myself that I could actually choose to Well, and choose to be successful. That was my journey to get out of that if that s. Absolutely. And I had a have used this one referred to this a few times on the show. But I had a college roommate who was a power lifter, and he would talk about, you know, people would he would squat like seven 800 pounds and people would say that's very risky. That's terrible, for your knees, and he would say, well, would you rather rust out or wear out? You know, and he'd rather wear out because, yeah, it might, it might do some collateral damage and but would you really when you look back? Would you like to say, I never really gave it my all? I am not sure I could have squatted 850 but I didn't try, you know? Right. So yeah, I love that. And of course everyone's journey is different but for the listeners out there, how did you dive into its I am guessing you did some serious introspection and you know kind of self-discovery if you will along the way. I am sure this wasn't an overnight process but Talk about how you approach that with regard to understanding who you were first, not so much. You know who you were trying to serve yet? But just how did you determine kind of your own makeup and DNA if you will? What did that process look? Like? Yeah, that's a great question. So for me it all was triggered by an event. So I listen to someone speak. So someone was speaking, his name is Garrett Gunderson like he's an extraordinary Financial thought leader in. Like if you haven't heard of him, he's he provides a lot of value in the space. But yeah. As I heard him speak like it, just triggered in my mind that I don't have to be afraid. Or I don't have liked I can, I can do things for myself and still bring a lot of value to society. It's not like I have to be a teacher to bring guide a society, like, I can do things that can benefit society and my Lee simultaneously, I don't have to sacrifice, mmm, wealth, or success, for the name of society, or for the name of playing it safe, like I can go and do more, so that triggered it and I didn't that was just like the triggering point. It didn't mean I had all solved or did the introspection right then but that at least triggered that, you know what I can, pursue something more. Like I can do this. And so it just started me on a journey of small action, steps of. I am going to try this, and I am going to take a little bit of action is imagining Read this book. I am going to go to this conference, I am going to study here, I am an associate or network here and all of these cumulative events brought more clear picture of like this is the path. I need to be on and it started to piece together all these missing pieces and I never knew were missing until that's really cutting point. So tell me what at that triggering point, what give us a little more context? You know, what was your life? Like at that point where we're married, how old were you? You know what? Yeah, we don't realize So, I was, I was teaching the school. I was a physical education teacher. I had been, I think that was your, for of teaching, maybe your 3. And so it was just like this, I had been teaching on a terribly, long time, but I have been teaching for a good chunk of times. I had my legs, under me, I knew how to teach a new. What to do. I wasn't like, overwhelmed, I had, I was married. We had one son and I think the second son might have been on the way or really close to being on the way. And I mean, like my wife did not work, so we just had a teacher salary and if anyone's familiar with teacher salaries at the beginning, they're not a fabulous. So they're not very good. So we were living just an apartment just living. We were like grass, like we always stayed within our means, but like you're not really like, you're just, you're living paycheck to paycheck. You're looking. Yeah, he's not a thriving Financial, you're doing, you're not in poverty or on the street but You're not really killing it, correct? Yeah. So that's where I was and so, It just was a just an or I guess you could almost say it was very typical American life where you just live life your have enough to eat. You're not stressed about, like losing money, I am not upside down, but there's no, we couldn't go on vacations. Like we could drive to campaign events but that's about it. Like it wasn't like anything. Like the experience of life was At that moment, which is what I think most people live is parents Americans live. That. Yeah. And I think they're just, you know, there's a time to take things in general. Well, it's a good thing to approach life day by day and enjoy the moment, right? It's not. We're not saying you should never enjoy the day or live in the present of course. But I do think too many Americans get caught in the cycle of busyness and don't actually take the time to step back and then reflect and maybe project reflect and look forward as far as what am I trying to be intentional about what do I want my life to look like? So, you know, it is important. Create that space to be able to kind of listen to a Garrett Gunderson or somebody like that and receive that message. So then so walk us through the kind of subsequent years after that triggering moment. Yeah, so I decided, you know what, I am going to try and figure out if I can create an entrepreneurship Journey that will allow me to leave teaching. But that was what I decided I was going to do because I felt like I needed. That was going to be my quest to get out of teaching not. Now again, we already talked about why, but that was what I was going to do so that triggered it. And so, I did a lots of things. So, I tried some sales things. I tried real estate investing, like, I flipped some houses. I even, I even did some, I brokered performing note, once like I did all sorts of things in real estate, like I even tried to wholesale, like I was just trying to find something in the reason I did that is I had a neighbor who was in real estate, and so we were doing it together, and we were just on his journey. So I didn't I wasn't doing a blind either. I did have some education, I purchased that was a big step, so I did purchase some real estate education. So I wasn't going to make drastic mistakes, but I still failed a lot even with the education, like, I didn't, like I lost some money on a flip. Like the flips, never went the way. They were supposed to go to. Like they were, it was harder longer more money than they were all every single time. What year was this approximately? It was 17. 18:19 in that radish. Okay, yeah. Got it. Okay. So you're new, you know, you're teaching isn't your long-term play, but you haven't quite found your footing yet outside of teaching. Yeah. And so and I do, you know, it's like people do have to try different things and that's most people learn by doing, right? So, it sounds like you were not being throwing caution to the wind. You were you invested in education? You had someone you were working with so you weren't just trying to stuff blindly but you just haven't quite found your, you know, footing, if you will. Yeah, and I was trying to I think this kind of happens a lot with entrepreneurship as you try and chase money. So you here oh that's a great Avenue. And so everyone this the success story of some of that succeeded in this Niche or this Avenue. It was like well I think I can do that. That person doesn't look too different for me. So I was like chasing that but then when you get into that you like their like, Like the they have were seen a tip of the iceberg. They put in a whole bunch of work underneath here that led to this success and so like when I got there as I don't like this work, I don't like this Avenue like just because I am not wanted to chase money and grind through all this crap that I don't like doing maybe this person had success like doing it but it wasn't for me. So like that was a part of the failure process for me is as I was going through like finding a deals and doing the work and doing the due diligence like that and dealing with contractors like that wasn't Invigorating to me like I didn't feel like I was making a difference. I felt like I was chasing money and chasing money as a losing game at least in my mind like you're not going to find fulfillment and chasing money. So that's why I tried so many different things as well as like well maybe if I tried this or that I can find a different Avenue and I will find fulfillment. I will find this is showing me but I never found it in real estate as a job or profession like I like invest in real estate but for as a job where I am like the day-to-day manager, and I am running the company That wasn't what I was thinking. Yeah. I mean the fact is that the types of Real Estate Investors, I will put investing in quotes that you mentioned. It's not really investing, and I am not putting it down but it's transactional. You know in my opinion fix and flipping is not investing. It's just a business, you're in real estate is a business and then real estate and it can be a very lucrative business and real estate is a great place to invest in run a business. I mean That's not really, you know, a great long-term played. So if you don't enjoy the day-to-day grind, as you said and hustle and the transactional, all, there's a lot of behind the scenes work. Yeah. Maybe you don't want to commit your next few decades to that, right? So, okay, so now at this time, I mean, were there any other kind of how else were you approaching the introspection as far as figuring out really? What you would like What You're Made Of kind of thing or was it, was it pretty much tried that's heavily in books and reading and then just listening to thought leaders, like, trying to get perspective on. Like how do you find Your thing like in? So there is a ton of books and just a ton of reading and ton of listening to just different people like I have bounced around from I everyone I think a lot of entrepreneurs always attract a Tony Robbins because he's sure it's a lot of insides and power around. Like, how do you find fulfillment and how do you find what you're looking to do? So, like, going down those roads and studying those type of philosophy, I guess you don't call them philosophers or philosophies. So, just those thought leaders, that you can see the big themes. You can think of On the path of like, really get into what Garrett Gunderson was producing talking about. It was just all like it's a whole bunch of information and it takes a lot for me. It took a lot of to soak in. Like it took it in just like oh I know what I want to do. It was like soaking in and eventually like it was just happenstance but because I think there's an important lesson here, hmm, there's two important lessons I think you would you listen to the album is number one is, Because I was doing all of this and teaching it was putting a strain on my relationship with my family because I was doing so much outside of teaching trying and figure this out, and so I do want to put a word of caution. Number one on as you do go about this recently. If you're trying to leave a full-time job don't just become this grinder. That just is like someday, honey, then we will be okay. Like it's not that. You got to still focus and be present with your family and find a way to either wake up really early, or find a way to build it into your schedule where you're not just deserting your family or bring your family into the business. It's like you're doing it together because that, that was a time when like it did cause a pretty frictional relationship for a little bit season. If you would you know, we don't I am not going to pry too much but I think it's an important piece because, you know, we just gloss it. With as you said we talked we focus on the successes of our that everybody has and Entrepreneurship is so sexy these days and you know and The fact is most of us are working from home, and we're running we're if you're an entrepreneur you're in charge and so it's really hard to create boundaries. And I am speaking from experience from for as far as day to day hour by hour boundaries and you know and kind of you're in charge I mean it's you wake up. No one's telling you what to do. And so you got to there's pressure to produce on that side but then, you know, it can really the pressure and stress and work. It all can overflow in a negative way into your, your family life, your mental health, which I want to talk more about on future episodes as well. But this is something very relatable for entrepreneurs and small business owners who especially if they have a family. So was it a bad day you had or what? You know what? I am being a little bit you know flipping possible. What did that look like? Yeah so it honestly was me just Thinking this is for the benefit my family, I am going. If I want to do this, I have to dive full in. And I have to put in time. I have to go to these networking events. I have to be talking to people have to be reading these books. And so, it just became I get home from school. I would spend about probably an hour or two with my wife and then, I would be gone to the rest of the evening. She put the children to bed and then I would come back home. We do are just like, hang out at night and then same thing every day. So here's what it felt like to her, even though in my mind it wasn't I wasn't trying to This way is sure. All of these other things are way more important than the family and way more important than her. And so because I was spent the time spent was greater obviously because you spend more time doing those things, but it's time that we were together wasn't high quality there. Like it was I was tired because I was doing so much so it was a lot of me just like I need a rest or I need a stomach pouch. Can we just sit down for a second and just kind of chill and be lazy when?

Speaker 1

24:29

 She wanted to go. Be.

Speaker 2

24:30

 Engaged and do things hiking and walking and going and bikes and doing the park but sharing it was hard to do all those things. And so this is a really big Paradox that I think you have to kind of overcome as every entrepreneur has to kind of come at arrival. At what is more important, what do you actually value in life? And how do you balance this in a way that you can still be really present and still be really impactful in the time you have with your family? Sheridan, still have the energy to go do this stuff and I think you have to pull sometimes back from business and spend more time with your family and be Intentional but I think for me that I get really put a strain on it, like it was not a good guy. I had to make an introspective decision. Like what's more important? Yeah. Like do I just need to go back to teaching only or can I make this work and bouncing out? That was this, it was just but just to kind of before we move on was it a six-month period? I mean I know it's not a direct answer, there's no answer that. But how long was this like strain on the family? Yeah, I mean like out for ice Say it was over a year of God. I didn't like it didn't start out, like, is fully being strained because in the beginning it was like, there's this is kind of we have experienced this, but as the friction continues to build, share time, it builds up and gets bigger and bigger. So understood. Yeah, I have interviewed a very successful people on this show who is a one stands out in my memory where she said that she came from extreme poverty and abuse and very, very difficult. Circumstances on a Kelly believe, but she You know, she made it really big, she's very, very wealthy. Now like very successful and one of the things she said was maybe I could have taken my foot off the gas a little bit and reached X dollars, two years later and did a little more present, you know, with my family. So you know, I think that's a it's still Noble to have that drive and you know it's okay to chase wealth and you know, success in my opinion, right? But you got to keep it in perspective and it's not easy. Be in, everyone's journey is different. And there is, I think a requirement for hard work, you know, it doesn't just show up in your lap, you know, just magically, you know. So it's why it's a paradox like, because you can't work. You can't just have it. Doesn't this happens to you. So you do have to work hard but I think you have to be really intentional with everything you're doing. So you have to be really intentional. With the time you spend at work, you have to be really intentional to time. You stay with your family, and then, you have to purposely plan things to do with your family. We absolutely it's like as the work is going to happen, no matter what. So you almost have to insert. We're going to do this with my family on this day and no work is there. And so as you do those type of purposeful things that helps because then everyone feels involved and then you can bring people in it just it helps with everything and it relieves the tension of stress. But one thing that I think that while we're in one dimension when you just for talking was something I have really discovered recently is we have a lifetime So we're everyone seems to want to race X go like typically like the W2 person that doesn't really entrepreneur. They're racing age 65, or they're trying to maybe the winter tires are racing age 55. So everything is about getting to that point? Yeah, but then those are just like most people are probably live to age. 90 85 like, they're still going to live 20 years. You're racing to something that's arbitrary. It doesn't matter, but I sure don't, there's no winning for gain age, 65 with x amount of dollars, or x amount of wealth, or success. It's not you have a lifetime to live life and achieve everything you're doing. So you can wait you can put your business on pause for a day and go spend time with your family and you're going to be just fine like because you're not there's not a there's not an end goal, it's your life you're living and you will have to measure cell from other people's. Yes that's really good and the fact is like you alluded to once you hit that goal it's going to be exciting and you know but at the end of the day, tomorrow comes and then nobody. There's like it to be honest with you. So, you know whether it happened on Monday or Tuesday. It's not going really going to matter too much. That's really good. So, it you got to be able to stop and smell the flowers, and it, but bigger. And more importantly, I think be intentional about like you said, carving out that time or scheduling the vacation ahead of time because it's not just going to materialize on its own. So I think if you look at somebody's calendar and how they spent their time, that's He telling with, as far as what, what's actually important to them, so fast-forward, you know, too today. I mean, how did you get with two big Life Financial and, and how did you become a wealth strategist and tax strategist and when you were a phys, ed teacher, how did that, you know, how does that work? Yeah, that's a great question. So in that process of experimenting, like I just kept flying back to Garrett Gunderson. So Garrett Gunderson is an extraordinary Financial thought leader and it just kept seeing Like I can, I was just drawn to that, like, I have always loved math and I know I was phys, Ed teacher, he wouldn't really associate math with phys-ed, but like math has been my pride my best subject overall, like my entire life, like I get math, I can do it really quickly. Numbers are very, I just I didn't I pursued engineering slightly in college and I didn't want to do engineering. And for some reason, I thought engineering was only thing associated with numbers, and so I just stepped completely away and went with it. But it's funny. It's funny. You say that because I actually I am going into college at I didn't know what to major in my mom said, well, you're good at math and science so do engineering. So I said, okay, so I started down the engineering path as well as doing mechanical engineering, ended up. Actually technically getting a bachelor's in sports management, so we don't have totally different stories there, but it's just funny because they, I was good at math but I didn't know what that what to do with that Rob. So finance and math. You're drawn to and your money. Yep. So take it from there. And so, kept relating to what? It was talking about just like I just complete happenstance like just as like because I was that this is an important point because it goes back were talking about. For if you're going to find success, you still have to work and you start to put action in. And I kept taking action on just different events and different learning experiences and at one of those learning experience that happen to encounter by now business partner, Derek. So Derek is started, big lie Financial prior to us meeting, and he already had a vision for what we were trying to do, and he was already in the even more happenstance. That's Derek is Garrett, gunderson's brother-in-law. As I like he was already connected, and he was trying to build a similar business off to what Garrett was doing with a little bit more focus on tax. And so it was just like this, perfect. Melding point is I was really attracted what Garrett was doing. I had no idea how to get into that space happen to meet Garrick and just bloomed from there, and we went like, I have dived into hours and hours of training on like numbers and math. And like what is what works? What doesn't work The best Wasa fees, but still keep it in mind because Garrett's big thing is, is it, you have to? It's not about the money. The money is like the least important thing, but you still have to solve the money problem here to experience everything else you want to do. So, the money is not important, but you still need money to experience life to have the finances to have, however, relationships to have good health, to even like typically, oftentimes to have a good relationship with whatever Faith here involved in by chair. That's not solved all those. Those things typically suffer. So I just think that's not most important is needed, solve the things that are most important. And so that's like the connection point that we really thrive on is we want to help people Solve the money problem, so they can focus on what's most important. Yeah, that's something money is definitely important. It's just you know, but absolutely I agree with you. It's not the end-all be-all, it's not the end goal, it's not going to solve all your problems if you're just chasing money or wealth in and of itself, but it's critically important. If you know, I just said the other day, your bookkeeper, your tax, your CPA, they know a lot about you or know a lot about your business. They got all the answers are there as far as You're actually doing with your business. So you know, just the numbers don't lie in that sense and money, I don't think it's healthy to bury your head in the sand and not learn about money. Not, you know, understand how money Works. How it flows, so? Okay. And so, Derek Van Ness is your business partner, right? So, how did that go, come to? So, you just immerse yourself in learning, all this stuff and sounds like you. Hit it off with Derek. What would you say about? Kind of how that evolved and for the listener, if they're thinking about starting a business with someone, or they already have a business, and they want to bring on a partner. How did that go for you too? And what lessons were learned with regard to Business Partnership? Yeah, it just started out with him. Like almost being a mentor, the base isn't base level of like him. Here're the resources, I want you to study. Here're some things when you help me do and The best way for me to describe it is I brought a lot of value to him. So I just kept bringing value over and over again. And I was just my own, like, I had my own business, and I was just like a contractor with him and got it, assisting him with things and it got to the point where I brought I guess you could say enough value that. He felt like this is someone I want to partner with and so that it we don't because we have been working like in the mentor, he's type relationship. He's like let us just watch his form something together. Just go together instead of I love that you work. Not It wasn't working for him, but I was being like a contractor for him and doing things in his behalf and to the company. So that's how it's developed and I think I don't think that's normal, but I feel like if you're you, if you're bringing Partnerships on to kind of get to that question, you had, I think you have to have someone that you like that, it brings you value, that they're doing something that you don't do well. So like they're the other side of the coin of what you're not good at. So, Derek is really like, I am very little person, and a very numbers based person and like, very people call me stoic and like, that type of Personality Derek is almost on the other side of the coin of me, he's very artistic, he likes numbers and stuff but his personality is much more on the Sammy other side at the creative and the that side, that side of things. So it's been a good melting point because we have different strengths and different things like that. Now I think it's important also to note that you do need to make sure legal things are in place as you set up Partnerships because legal things aren't in place with Partnerships, and they dissolve in a relationship dissolves, it can be really messy for people, so don't just make Partnerships without legal help because yeah, I have been exposed to some really nasty business divorces that are they ruined that? I did ruin the business and it ruins cash flow ruins like, it ruins relationships between parties and it doesn't still be that way. What was that? We won't dive into specifics, but, but was that in the real estate phase of your career? Well, no, that's with the now, the people that I have been working with now Catholic as we that we serve a small business owner in some of their habitat Partnerships and Now, as we have been apart of that relationship and servicing them, I say we have been a part of their divorce. God. I see, I see a seed. So, not something you have personally, you have been very close to it but not you weren't one of the partners. Correct? Yes. Got it understood. You had a front-row seat. Unfortunately to the business. Divorce got it. So now before we get I do have a some questions to throw at you but Talk a little bit more about the business, how your business is structured? What who it is? You serve specifically you have already talked about it a little bit, but how do you approach your clients? What do you actually do for them? Because, you know, for the listener out there they understand its taxes and wealth and saving money. But what does that really look like if a client comes to you, who you serve and what does the process look like? Yeah. So we primarily serve successful, entrepreneur, business entrepreneurs. So these are people that are when I say successful, you can success as many different ways, I am talking financially successful, they're making at least two hundred thousand dollars a year all the way up to Millions. But most of our people fall between 200 and about six hundred thousand dollars a year in taxable income and these are people that typically don't have large accounting teams. They typically just have one accountant and that's about it. Maybe they have one financial advisor and that's it. And we're coming in to see is, can we bring value here? Can we help you save some taxes? That your accountant isn't? Bringing to your attention. Can we help you potentially grow your money? Little safer by not necessarily competing or take away from your other advisor, but do you want to allocate some funds over to another Arena? That isn't in that what this advisor can bring or do you happen to have loans in different ways? Like we help a lot of most of them. A lot of our clients are in the medical space. So they have student loans, can we help you more efficiently? Pay off the student loans to keep more money over time. Our goal is our thought process and our philosophy. Is that you have delivered value to your customer you have been rewarded with by delivering that value with money, but oftentimes a lot of that money that you have been rewarded with will disappear from you unnecessarily. So if you could meet a criteria in the tax code that would allow you to keep that dollar you have unnecessarily paid it. So often times, the people were working with could have done something to keep that dollar. Instead of going the government, they didn't because I didn't know it existed. So if we can help you keep 20 or 30, A Thousand dollars every year that was going to go to taxes, but now gets to stay with you that's twenty or thirty thousand dollars. It can go back in your business or go into a family fund or go into a future wealth opportunity. And but because you have kept that rate of return on those dollars, is far bigger than trying to chase huge rates of return to the market, or in other Investments. So, now, you don't have to take excessive risks because you're being super efficient with the dollars. You have already earned. And I think I remember you on the Creating wealth simplified podcast talking about. Essentially you all plug in as another team member. Is that fair to say, I guess what I am getting at is, you know, the natural push back is no, I already have my CPA already have my attorney, you know, they're not going to, you know, I don't need that to be replaced. So how do you work with the current professionals? Who are already working with these, these clients? I think one of the biggest mistakes that people make is that they and it's not their false but it's just Society tells us when he's just going to start a business, find a good CPA, find a good attorney, but then we stopped there. So as our business grows, as we become more successful, we just assume I already have my team together. My tax G, my turn a team that's already set. I don't need to add additional people, but the that's out of all of the experience I have learned is that's an incorrect. And it's going to lose you money proposition. So, the role that we play is we fill the role as a new team member. We're not trying to replace in accountants or any attorneys and your team, but we can bring a lot of additional value to People by joining your tax team, joining your because we have attorneys to that, we refer to because there's some legal things and trust and things like that, we can help, people set up that are really tax-efficient or ways to protect assets, that they might not have access to, but we also let us join as a wealth advisor. Team, not replacing your current person. If you don't want to replace them. But just work, we can bring value that we could almost guarantee is not being delivered to you currently specifically for that client that we serve, which is the successful Financial business owner between 200 to about a million. There's a really low chance that there. Receiving the, the services and the strategies, and the things that we're bringing to the table for or the glove for them. So, sure, that makes sense. I, you know, I have got my CPA who I have worked with for, I don't know now, eight or nine years, maybe longer I have, I like working with them with him and his team and I have no intention of replacing him, and he's got it's just easier to keep it with him, right? But the fact is he's backward-looking, he's not weird. Not actually meeting and doing a whole lot of and most CPAs are like this. They want to save you money but it's all reactive and it's just what actually happened last year that I can you know help save you on taxes. There's very little planning and intentionality that goes into that side of things for most business owners I would say. So you're, you're joining alongside that CPA not working in the, you know, in their office. But your part of the new, your new part of the team, if you To add more strategy planning intentionality with regard to tax saving and what other besides saving money on taxes. What else does your business offer? Yeah, so we can say to my own taxes, we can help you capture the savings because one of the big misconceptions out there is, this is why lottery winners. When they get a huge chunk of money, like it disappears, they go bankrupt. It's because there's a security that comes with a large amount of money. You just go into this unconscious spending mode because you feel like the money's there. I am secure enough, I have enough in the bank, I can spend it. So is what we help people do is we separate new income and saved income away from them out of their spending account. And we create automation still, they can still spend in an unconscious way but the save dollars get captured. So they can bacon deliberately choose to either consume those in the form of spending or get them working for them back in their business or their other investment opportunities. That's a key point that I think a lot of This is just because we save you money, doesn't mean it's going to be automatically driven towards a new wealth opportunity, because oftentimes conscious spending will take it away from you. Like you can unconscious. You spend it. So we stop that from happening or can we slow it from happening? You can still spend it if you want but at least you have a choice around it versus it just being an unconscious thing. Sure. So you're not just saving on taxes but actually saving it over or putting those dollars to work at it with another investment opportunity. It's interesting. I yeah, I am in, I am in a mastermind group that I think you would really, like, the group members were all about this type of thing. It's called the passive income Mastermind, and we use infinite Banking and different strategies. But of course, it's really at the end of the day up to each member in the, in the group, to kind of put this into action, so K and tax savings, and then kind of stopping the wasteful spending of those tax savings. So it sounds like saving money on taxes. Saving money after saving money on taxes. If you will, and, and being able to put that money back to work. And I know there are a lot of other angles that you all approach this problem from, but I think what might be helpful is if we talked about maybe a case study, if you can kind of walk us through, you know, talk about a client, you don't have to name names. But how give us a real life of real world. Example of how you have been able, how you, and your business, and your Been able to help somebody with that with these issues.

Speaker 1

44:14

 Yeah, no, absolutely. So here's just a very well, this will just going to go with just Avatar of someone that makes five hundred thousand dollars a year. We offer kind again, we can still help people less than that. And not saying 500,000 is a good point because typically, they're paying six figures in taxes. And it's a good share point for us to just highlight that we do this o is what we do is we do an analysis of where they're at, is there anything that's missing? So, for example, a lot of medical problems, Practitioners often times miss the research and development tax credit. Like its something that they qualify for oftentimes, but they don't claim it. So that's something we can go in and help them claim and apply to their taxes and oftentimes we can go backwards and have the IRS, send them a check. So most of our medical practitioners that we help are going to get somewhere between five and ten thousand dollars every year on the R&D credit and it's a credit. So it's dollar-for-dollar reduction in taxes. So we can go backwards to, and we can have the IRS, send them a check. Like let us just say in 2020 they qualify for the R&D credit but didn't claim it. We can amend their 2020 taxes and the IRS will send them a five thousand dollar check.

Speaker 2

45:18

 Well I see.

Speaker 1

45:19

 And so, that's where we start is can we bring money back from the IRS first? Is there anything we can get back that? We have at the you missed need that. You should have claimed back then. That is actually because most things you can't go backwards. On sure. The R&D credit is 1 so we go backwards first. Can we recover money from the IRS? That is yours, but doesn't need to be, but you don't have Currently then we look for how can we be proactive? And how can we Implement things prior to the end of the year? So that you pay less in text. We typically approach that from just a few perspectives of, can you invest in something that has a tax break? So a lot of like you're familiar with real estate has tax breaks sure, can we help you get into a real estate opportunity to save taxes, energy sector? Can we help you get into the energy sector? So you say taxes, can we help you invest in a donation strategy? So you can create a tax Patrasche where I had to pay a dollar, but I am going to save to in taxes, so I am plus $1. So we look in apply all of these different areas so that when we get to the end of the year, their tax bill is less and oftentimes, it's significantly less, it's going to be hundreds of thousands for the 500,000, a hundreds of times, but 100,000 fish, their taxes for the 500,000 dollar person. And then we are going to look to then take that savings and use that for the next year to help accelerate all those things again. So you are investing in. Or things that save you more taxes, but also going to have a rate of return in back in a donation. So we're using save tax dollars to save more dollars into the future. And often times, we use what you mentioned with that infant baking type whole life policy as our share. Take off point for that because it's more efficient than taking off from a bank. So we have the money flowing through their the tax savings flow into the whole life policy. In the you take from whole life policy to go stake or taxes and save taxes. Come back in the whole life policy. You just keep doing this process. Over and over again. And then eventually you're going to be able to. The goal is like, for most of our clients is once we have saved them in this cycle for a while, we can start peeling off some of the savings and investing into their business or into other opportunities, their growth opportunities that will help them continue to accelerate their wealth. But the goal is to make like a self-sustaining tax savings, Circle.

Speaker 2

47:31

 Got a system. That's, that's really good. And I love what I was thinking about. Was you it really helps the client, not grind more. So speaking of the lesson we talked about earlier which is kind of being more, you don't necessarily have to sacrifice time with your family to be a successful entrepreneur. Well if you're taking an intentional and efficient approach to wealth management and tax savings and investing then you don't actually have you can make more money with the with your current amount of work and your current business, right? Necessarily have to grind harder, you can probably actually work a little bit less if you're being smarter about how Approach things. So tell me. What does this look like? You know, is it a? Do they have a? Does your client have a quarterly meeting with you? All? How does this actually play out? You know why can't I just do this on my own? You know, I know that's two different questions but right you know what is it the accountability piece or is it your the network that you all have or you know, how does this actually play out and why do you find most clients? Do better working with your business versus not working with you.

Speaker 1

48:39

 All? Yeah, excellent question. So I will start with how often we meet no answer the survey. Why is it? Why is this something you typically my teeth by do it on your own? Maybe but why is it the way we drive as much successful? What's the benefit of working with us and working with us? When we first start with people, we meet pretty regularly because we have to figure out, where are your currently, allocating your money. Like, what do you currently investing in and do we have to peel off some of those to then invest in something that will save taxes or input your money somewhere? That will help you save taxes. So, we have to get a clear picture, and we have Meet regularly throughout the year. When we first meet with someone more than we normally would. Once you establish with someone, it's once a quarter that we have people and just give us a snapshot of where they're at because this is this fluctuates. You're going to have up years and down years and you might not need as many Tax Strategies. One year as you need another year because you might have a slower year or something might be going wrong or you might have purchased a lot of equipment. So you have a huge amount of deductions. So we're not just like guessing like, we're trying to be really deliberate about where they, where you go to fall. All the AGI and can we help lower that? So what we meet quarterly sometimes, even on the back, end of the year and the September onward, we might meet even once or twice more to if there's a new opportunity or new thing that we need to do to pull the trigger.

Speaker 2

49:57

 Before the end of the year, right? And correct. Yes. And I have to get.

Speaker 1

50:00

 They have to get out of but there's some due diligence, and they need to understand what's going on because we don't want this is a This kind of goes to your question of like can I do this myself? Yeah, our goal is to enable you to be able to hectically go on do without us, but were they accountability? And we are going to introduce you to more opportunities along the way where the connection point between all these opportunities you can technically go find them yourself if you wanted to write, but we have them already in house, and we can just offer them to you. Yeah, but aren't because relationships disappear business relationships, people move, we lose contact our goal. To make it so that you could technically do it without us. So, we are very educationally based and you understand the principles, you understand the philosophies so that you could maybe take it to your account and maybe your accountants really gung-ho and make these connections for you, and then you'd have just your accountant. We feel like we'd be bringing up value to the situation that people stay with us. And we're enough of an accountability partner and help that were not dragged, or a deter deterrent for the situation.

Speaker 2

51:05

 Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Awesome. Well, as we start to wrap up here, Justin, I have got some rapid fire questions for you. You personally, what's one thing that people misunderstand about you?

Speaker 1

51:19

 I think, people think, because I am so stoic that I am hard to talk to, and I feel like I am pretty good at holding the conversation. I can have some entertainment, like people have a maybe it's myself. I need to be more going on. I struggle with that, but they there's I think some people think oh, he's too scary uses Finance, guys. All About numbers is not fun or enjoyable to talk to, but I like I enjoy talking about sports and outdoors and all that stuff.

Speaker 2

51:43

 Yeah. So I understood that's a good one. What's one of your biggest failures or regrets in life?

Speaker 1

51:50

 I think regret is not trying is taking so long for me to go big and actually put myself out there and be a leader and I thought and like try and reach for being willing to fail.

Speaker 2

52:06

 Awesome. Not it's not awesome that you have the regret but yeah you know it's great answer. If you could give yourself your 18 year, old self some advice, what would it be?

Speaker 1

52:18

 Do more figuring out what you wanted to do. Like try and figure things out more don't just like pursue business like dive deeper. Like it goes kind of backed up for failure but like pursue other things like try and figure out other things besides engineering and physical education. Like that was like my two choices like that. Is that tried engineering? I didn't like it. So I just went this direction. Like, I should have explored more. I should have died. Cuz honestly, I feel like I would have probably if I had Taken the gun backwards. I probably would have gone in and turning around like God my law degree and going all the way to like being a tax attorney. And being that level of bit of a, because I didn't pursue those things. I didn't go down that route and maybe someday I will do that as my time, freeze back up, but I missed out on that opportunity because I didn't, I didn't know was available.

Speaker 2

53:07

 Well, that's why we're bringing the lessons to The Listener out there, so they can write, you know, not make that mistake. If you were given ten million dollars tomorrow, what would you do? No, no strings attached and it's not a tax question or is just for you or your family or what would you do?

Speaker 1

53:23

 With it? Yeah, I would almost for me just because I understand how much money is needed for the future and how much I would invest almost all of it and some of them never because they that would create generation I has the potential to create generational income and with some of the other things that we didn't touch on as we can help bridge the gap between money and deliverance of teaching your children, how to handle money and making the Legacy actually have sustainability potential incident is being spent. Like, I know that I can create that structure. With my family. So I would use that to create a generational wealth.

Speaker 2

54:00

 So that people you all work on that piece of it a little bit as well with your business. The kind of the family Legacy, part of things.

Speaker 1

54:09

 Yeah. Because it's like the last piece that people want solved, they want the initial solving of saving taxes. And that's a nice big. That's a big wet. That's a neat initial like Instagram hanging fruit. Yeah, hanging fruit but the bigger impact that we want people to realize. Is, is that? You can teach these principles and have these principles last through your children and your grandchildren or great-grandchildren so that your Generations, aren't you have all the success and then it falls off a cliff. It's just of all success in your children, take off from here, and then they have and then it keeps so perpetuating. The knowledge and perpetuating the values and perpetuating your ability to create value in the world is something that's missing that's like the final piece of what we bring to this conclusion. Awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 2

54:55

 I mean I know I Had someone on the show, and he does his clients. That's what he does. But his clients have 500 million dollars or more and so that's a different client Avatar and there's a huge need for that and the kind of under 500 million, which is what most of us fall, right? So I love that in your opinion. What's one, important personality trait that's required for someone to be successful in your, in your line of work could be In general, or your specific business, just a personality trait, you think is necessary.

Speaker 1

55:31

 I am gonna give to because they're kind of they're different, but I feel like there, I feel like both of them are needed. Summer one is just grit the ability to grind, grind through failure, and not give up, not saying you grind your time away, but grind through failure in the learning process and not just giving up because you hit an obstacle, like you're not going to be successful in business, if you give up when you hit the first obstacle, that's I think Really important. I think creativity is really needed. Like you have to create a creative abundant type mindset of problem solving even if you're a logical person like myself like you can still be creative with your problem solving and I think that's needed as an entrepreneur. That's something I think I kind of maybe didn't completely understand, and I am sure there's more to understand with that. But yeah, I am more logical like you. And, so I never thought of myself as a creative person. But if you're adding value and Or solving problems you're creating, you're creating value creating solutions for people. That's creativity. So think any successful entrepreneur? I agree needs that creativity. What's one challenge that you are facing in your business right now? Trying to have enough back-end support so that our systems can, so we can still deliver on what we're trying to do with the increase of clients that are coming our way. So the back-end support train those up so that it still feels seamless and were able to fulfill our promises like in a timely manner. Got it.

Speaker 2

57:02

 Yep. Every business has challenges that's for sure so that the but that's a good sign. You have more and more clients coming on board. What's a book that you could recommend for my audience?

Speaker 1

57:17

 Okay. So for because we have a business owner audience, I feel like the book yourself. Solid by Michael Port is an extraordinary resource for business owners specifically in the service space but it could be for the non service-based like product-based. But it's just a leaf or service-based. Entrepreneurs, book yourself. Solid gives you really good actionable steps that you can take to act like do exactly the book, says book yourself, solid.

Speaker 2

57:40

 Awesome. I have not read that off to check that out. What's one question you wish, I would ask that I haven't asked.

Speaker 1

57:48

 I don't think we got it. I think I don't have one. Yeah.

Speaker 2

57:51

 We do. I mean, someone, we did a good job. Yeah, we did just in this has been fantastic, man. We have covered a lot of ground. I appreciate you being vulnerable, and sharing about some of your, your own kind of shortcomings or, you know, regrets if you will and but just, you know, nobody's path is a straight line to success. So, I know that our listeners are going to be able to relate to your story for sure. So, thank you so much for spending your time with us.

Speaker 1

58:20

 Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. You have a good rest of your day.

Speaker 2

58:23

 And just real quick work in our listeners, find you online.

Speaker 1

58:26

 Yeah. The easiest way is LinkedIn and just go to LinkedIn. Justin Maxwell tax strategist. I think is what it is and then or you can be want to talk with me getting on my calendar is a great way to and the easiest way to do that as good, a big life, financial.com / T RP and you will go right. To my calendar and what we can have a discussion.

Speaker 2

58:46

 Awesome. Well, Justin Maxwell. This has been fantastic. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. And to our listener out there, thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us and that is your time. Thanks everyone. Take care investors. Have you ever experienced challenging communication or the headache of tracking taxes and insurance meet by Phi a Loan Servicing Company, founded by investors forum? Investors with an expert team and best-in-class vendors by Phi will partner with you to service your loan from start to exit, visit by Phi, L s.com to see how you can get started today. That's bi fil s.com. Thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us your time. Thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us your time. If you like the show, please share it with your friends and fellow podcast listeners, one entrepreneur to time. If you like the show, please share it with your friends and fellow podcast listeners, one entrepreneur to time. We can change the world. We can change the world. See you next time. See you next time.