When we leave the conventional path, we become – whether we think of this way or not – our own trailblazer.
We have to find what works for us.
In the classic, hero’s journey, we then want to help others who might be on a similar path. In this episode, my guest, John Mendez, shares his remarkable story of doing that.
Some of the things that we cover are:
Serial entrepreneur, realtor, investor, podcast host, and social media expert, John Mendez, is deeply passionate about helping other like-minded individuals achieve a life of abundance. Through the power of the mind and social media, John Mendez is empowering others to obtain financial freedom and build the lives they’ve always dreamed of living.
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmendezofficial/
https://www.podpage.com/walk2wealth/
Follow Bobbi at:
Sign up for Bobbi's free newsletter, Find Your Forward and receive her free guide: Thriving Forward: Master Your Inner Game for Greater Happiness, Well-Being and Success: https://www.bobbikahler.com/newsletter
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbikahler/
When we leave the conventional path, we become – whether we think of this way or not – our own trailblazer.
We have to find what works for us.
In the classic, hero’s journey, we then want to help others who might be on a similar path. In this episode, my guest, John Mendez, shares his remarkable story of doing that.
Some of the things that we cover are:
Serial entrepreneur, realtor, investor, podcast host, and social media expert, John Mendez, is deeply passionate about helping other like-minded individuals achieve a life of abundance. Through the power of the mind and social media, John Mendez is empowering others to obtain financial freedom and build the lives they’ve always dreamed of living.
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmendezofficial/
https://www.podpage.com/walk2wealth/
Follow Bobbi at:
Sign up for Bobbi's free newsletter, Find Your Forward and receive her free guide: Thriving Forward: Master Your Inner Game for Greater Happiness, Well-Being and Success: https://www.bobbikahler.com/newsletter
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbikahler/
[00:02] Bobbi: Welcome to UnYielded: Thriving No Matter What, where we talk about how to make your next chapter in life your best chapter. I'm your host, Bobbi Kahler, and I believe that the best is yet to come. When we lead the conventional path, we become, whether we think of it this way or not, our own trailblazer. And that means that we have to find what works for us and also what doesn't work. Now, in the classic hero's journey, we then want to help others who might be on a similar path. In this episode, my guest John Mendez shares his remarkable story of doing that. Some of the things that we cover are how do we move through our own fear. And I love John's approach to this. We also talk about the value of building real connections, not just building a database of names, the role of choice, and how John found his mission and his fire in life. So a little bit about John before you meet him. He is a serial entrepreneur, realtor investor, podcast host, and social media expert. He is deeply passionate about helping other like minded individuals achieve a life of abundance. John is empowering others to obtain financial freedom and build the lives they've always dreamed of living. John, welcome to the show.
[01:26] John: Hey Bobbi, thanks so much for the opportunity to be here. Super excited to just see where our conversation takes us today.
[01:32] Bobbi: Yeah, me too, because we never know, right?
[01:34] John: Exactly.
[01:34] Bobbi: Let's just jump in. So hey, why don't you tell a little know, share a little bit about your backstory.
[01:40] John: Yeah. So a little bit about where I grew up. Right. So my name is John. I grew up in Connecticut, in the southern Connecticut and Stanford. I was born and raised in the projects. It was nine of us in a two bedroom. So money growing up was very tight and financial literacy and entrepreneurship and all these other things that I talk about on the regular weren't something that weren't topics that were brought up much in my household. And my mother, she suffered from mental health issues. And my father, I could probably count on one hand each year the amount of times I would see him. So he was pretty abstinent for lack of a better way to put it. And so growing up, not really having a role model, it really forced me to take the good parts of people and try to apply them into my life. And the bad parts I would always try to leave out. I was always trying to figure out my way around the world because I didn't have really someone to look up to. My grandparents filled in where my parents didn't on my mom's of the family. So I grew up Dominican, a very Dominican stereotypical household loud by chatta music playing every day. It's just a very rambunctious household. Fast forward a little bit. As I said, we grew up, money was super tight. We had section eight, we had food stamps. And growing up, I wasn't in school. School always came easy to me, and I got into 13 schools, and I ended up choosing to go to Yukon. And during my time there, the pandemic took over the world. So now my college experience that I was having, I said I was loving it. I had it. Three, seven, eight. I was in tons of clubs, a couple of fashion shows, and just like that, it was swept from underneath me. And so now I'm in my sophomore year pandemic, I'm taking classes from my bedroom, and I stumble across rich dad, poor dad. And from there, I realized that there was another way of viewing the world that wasn't being taught in schools, wasn't being taught in my environment, but more importantly, wasn't being taught at home. And so I dove into this personal finance rabbit hole, this entrepreneurial rabbit hole. And that whole winter break, I was just watching YouTube videos on double speed. I was listening to podcast, reading more books, and when I came back that spring semester, we were still online. So now it's spring semester 2021, and it's like, man, I just spent this whole past two months learning more about life and stuff that matters in those two months than I did in my entire years of schooling. I can't unsee this. And so with the whole world being uncertain, the only thing I was certain of was myself. So I decided to drop out of college, sign up for my real estate classes that same week, and I never looked back.
[04:01] Bobbi: Wow, that's a big jump.
[04:04] John: Quite. Yeah. And I was a golden child in my family. I was first generation college student. I was supposed to be everyone in my family. A lot of my cousins stayed back. I never stayed back. School always came eat as me. I grew up in a church. I was the one that the family had all their marbles bedded on in terms of finishing college, right? And for me to go against that, my grandparents were opposed to it. But I knew going in that they weren't a part of my college making decision, going to college decision, because I didn't want them to have to rely or worry about me financially because they're retired already, so they wouldn't have had the money to afford me to go to college. So I made sure to have my FAFSA, right? I finished my college application by junior year and my college essay by junior year. So by the time senior year came around, I would just send it in apps, just send it in apps, boom, boom, boom. I got approved for 13 school, as I said, and I made sure that they didn't have to worry about any step of the process, because, worst case scenario, I knew going into college, the only things that mattered were networking and learning how to live on your own, like that college experience. Because the degree at that point in time, from the 1960s up until when I was graduating high school, which is like 2019, the cost of tuition has increased somewhere like 66%, and the cost of wages has only gone up close to about 20%. And so I knew that disparity even before I went into college. So I knew before I went in that paper that everyone strives for was the wrong reason to go to college. I was like, all right, I'm going to network live on my own. That's it. So when the pandemic swept the rug from underneath me, I was like, well, the two reasons I came here are now gone. No point in being here.
[05:46] Bobbi: Yeah, that's a really good point. That did take away those reasons. First of all, I have to say, I love how you said that. Something like, in the uncertain world, the only thing you were certain of is yourself. That's a big statement. That's awesome. How did you navigate that, though, with your family? Because I'm sure they were kind of like, wait a minute, dude, what are you doing?
[06:07] John: Yeah, they were extremely opposed to it. Not only my grandparents, but my mom. All these people that, one, haven't been to where I want to be, and two, aren't currently there. So all their opinions personally, it sounds rude to say, but I honestly could care less what they had to think, because one, God has already blessed them with the opportunity to live their lives. So how I decide to live my own is entirely up to me. And I'm not some rebel child. I'm not some rebel child that's out and doing whole bunch of bad things. I'm still on a good track. I dropped out of college for good reason, and I had a great grades while I was there. It wasn't like I dropped out because it was hard. College was actually easy for me. I dropped out because I knew the opportunity cost of staying in college, knowing what I knew now, after reading all those books and podcasting, that was just at the beginning of my journey. And I was like, If I could learn all this stuff now, look at home, at all the stuff I could do. And by the time my friends are graduating, which is literally now, like, my roommate at the time that we're recording this is graduating this week. So the guy I went to college with, who my freshman year, that I roomd with, he's graduating now. The amount of connections I have and it's not that it's a race. Everyone's in their own race, right? It's a merit then, right? And not comparing my journey to his journey or anyone else's journey, but the amount of people that I know that I can call on, that are millionaire, real estate agents, that are super successful entrepreneurs, not spend a day with a billionaire. The people I'm connected with now it's like, there's no way on this planet I would have been able to make all these connections and build this rapport and build these relationships with all the people that I have now had I stayed in college.
[07:46] Bobbi: Yeah.
[07:47] John: So although out the gate, they might be making some more money per year salary wise because they landed a job, this is the year that I'm starting to catch my stride. And once I get going, we talked about before we press record about Shiny object Syndrome. Now that that's starting to fizzle away, and I'm actually a lot more locked in and focused. Man, it's a rocket ship from here.
[08:12] Bobbi: That's right, because you've got a lot going on before we get to that because you've mentioned the connections, all the connections that you've made. And for me, like podcasting I started in 2020, I have been amazed at the connections that I never would have met most of the people. So how did you make your connections?
[08:33] John: Yes, as I said, I knew college going in, networking was the big thing, so I always had a big emphasis in my life in networking. And so I went into college, and I was doing all the alumni and residences. So they would bring in alumni. You can get have a one on one with them. So I was already honing my networking skills while I was in college. Then while I got out of college, I was like, well, I don't have any of these networking events anymore. It's like, all right, how can I meet more and more people? So I started off I when I signed up to start my real estate class, I was about a month or so in, and I looked up top real estate agents in Stanford, and a list of people popped up. And I cold emailed each and every one, pretty much saying, like, hey, my name is John. I'm a sophomore in college. I just started my real estate classes. I'm about a month in. I seen that. I've been studying you. You're one of the best agents in the area. I'd be honored to get on a quick 15 minutes phone call to hear about your journey and how you made it to where you're at. And I got on a phone call with all five of them. Right. So, boom, I started networking. Then early on, and then from there, after I dropped out, I started working close to like 70 hours alongside of studying for my real estate classes. So I wasn't doing the most networking there because I was just like, all right, locked in. I would just stack and save. That's it. That was my mindset after dropping out because I'm not in college somewhere, I got to get to it somehow. I got to figure it out somehow, give myself some sort of cushion while I'm figuring this stuff out. And then once I actually got licensed as a Realtor, I got licensed two weeks after I turned 20. I was in every training, every room I could be in, every class I could be in. And then I came across an agent named Donna. She sent a couple of links to a couple of mastermind calls and I hopped on those calls about a month after she originally sent those links. I hopped on about a month after, but then I got connected to even broader network. And then around that time is when I started my podcast. And then from there I was doing some solo episodes but I knew I wanted to get actual interviews going. And then with the podcast it was like local people I met from these real estate investor meetups I was going to because I was big on going to meetups and different events locally and I was networking at all these different events, all these different trainings, everything. I can go 2022. I started going to conferences, I didn't have the money but I started going to them anyways, going to these conferences, going to meet these people. And as it progressed my podcast started picking up and then people started reaching out to me to hop on my show. And then one day I found out about Pod Match and Matchmaker FM and Guestio and all these different things. It was like a span of like a week and a half when I found out about all these little different matchmaking podcast, guest platforms or whatever. And then that's when the floodgates opened up and I had people from all the way out of left field reaching out to hop on my show. And from there, as I said, connecting with all these different people, all these different conferences, all these little local networking events, all these different podcast interviews, it's like I'm always in a state of networking and meeting new people but also cultivating the relationships because it's not about their quality and quantity, it's about the quality. So a lot of times when I go to these meetups and these conferences, sometimes I see the same faces, sometimes I'll spend the whole conference or the whole event talking to just familiar faces and deepening the relationships with the people I already have and then make like a couple new connections. But I'm really big on you don't need to know everybody, but if you can have a solid connections, like really solid connections in your corner, that could take you a really long way.
[12:07] Bobbi: Yeah, it's very important. It's not about who has the most business cards or the equivalent of those.
[12:13] John: Anymore.
[12:16] Bobbi: It is about the relationship. So I love that.
[12:20] John: Sorry. So many people get networking wrong. And I said, I'm at all these events and all these conferences, and people bring, like, business cards with a chocolate or like a business card with a magnet, like a business card with a sticky note or a key swab or bottle opener and all this stuff. And it's like that's not networking. That's not marketing. That's just hand out stuff, honestly. Because by the time the event is over, people are going to forget. And these people there was one time I was at a networking event, and this one person, I don't know who they were because they showed up so early, but they filled the seats with their business cards. By the time they got there, the business cards were on the seat. It's like things like that, it's like, man, you're not doing anyone any good by doing that. You're just wasting time and wasting.
[13:10] Bobbi: You. Unless you meet that person and have a conversation with them, you'll be like, I don't remember meeting this person. Well, you didn't meet them. That's why you don't remember it. Yeah. The other thing though, John, what really stands out to me too, is how much you're willing to put yourself out know, making those cold calls. Not everybody. I used to teach sales, and I used to coach sales managers, and I did a lot of work in that space. So many people are afraid of putting themselves out there. Do you ever feel that fear or does it just not even occur to you?
[13:41] John: It doesn't occur to me ever. I'm a rare breed, but for anyone that I'd say would struggle with this because it's something and I know most people do struggle with it. So I'm not going to act like it just doesn't exist, because in my mind it doesn't exist. But I genuinely believe that mentally, this is where it all begins. And so perspective changes or perspective shifts. Paradigm shifts could really go a long way. So it's like, how do you view it? Is it, hey, I'm scared of what this other person is going to think? What are you more scared of? What that person has to say or the pain of not achieving your goals and getting to where you want to be? And so it's like what you anchor it against makes whatever you're worried about sometimes very small in comparison. So it's like, let's say you have to make sales calls and it's like, oh my goodness, I got to talk on the phone with strangers. I really don't want to do it. I'm uncomfortable on the phone. I don't really like selling on the phone. I like being a person, whatever it may be, right? Instead of being scared to hop on that sales call, anchor it to something bigger. All right, so let's say what happens if you don't do any sales calls? Well, then you're probably not going to get paid. Then you might get fired, and you won't be able to use your money to pay your mortgage, and then you might lose your house. So do you want to lose your house or do you want to call a stranger that doesn't care about you? Either way, right? It's like, what's worse, calling a stranger or losing your house and being homeless. So anchoring it to something that's bigger and scarier, but also a realistic possibility is something that could definitely help someone get over that fear so that they can make the calls despite and it's not getting rid of the fear. Courage is feeling the fear and doing it anyways. This is not a strategy to get rid of fear. It's just what are you more scared of, right? Not making a phone call or going homeless and then leveraging that.
[15:40] Bobbi: I mean, when you look at it that way, it's kind of a no brainer.
[15:44] John: Yeah.
[15:44] Bobbi: You know what I mean? It does make it simple. So you've got the podcast going on Walk to wealth, right?
[15:52] John: Yes.
[15:53] Bobbi: Okay, so tell us a little bit about that. And I know we talked offline, you started a whole YouTube channel, just high level what's going on there?
[16:01] John: Yeah. So with the podcast Walk to wealth, the whole story about that behind that is so one of my boys around August now, this is the time when I was still studying to get my real estate license. And he was pretty much saying, like, hey, John, we're talking about life all the time and goals and things we want to accomplish. And other people are I think this would be a dope conversation. We should start a podcast. I was like, you know what, man? I think that'll be a good idea. So let's do it. Let's figure it out. He ended up going back to college. I was getting licensed to become a realtor at that point in time, so our schedules wouldn't have a line, and I still wanted to move forward with it anyways. So after about three or four months of procrastinating, I finally came up with the name Walk to wealth. And the whole story behind it is for the 99% of us that aren't overnight sensations, it's a long walk to wealth, and some may walk quicker than others, but what good is sprinting to the finish line if you pass out when you cross it?
[16:55] Bobbi: Very good. I love that because so many times I think I listened to it on one of your episodes, you talked about that like the overnight success, man. That's kind of an illusion.
[17:09] John: Yeah, it's one of those things where the overnight success happens after 10,000 nights of hard work. You just don't see the other 10,000 nights because it's usually in the dark, because the middle game kind of goes under the radar. Right. The beginning, everyone claps their hands, at the end, everyone claps their hand, but the middle, everyone just kind of overlooks, and that's where all the work gets done. But also why I chose that story behind the name is because a lot of people wait until they're successful to start giving back. And for me, knowing that none of this stuff was talked about, for me growing up oh, yeah, there's a saying, and there's a book called the One that got away. And it's about this I think it was like a bank robber or something, like some criminal guy. And he escaped the cops for tons, for years, I think, or something like that. And he ended up pretending to be a college professor and taught like, a sociology class for a semester when they finally caught him. Like, how on earth did you teach a sociology class? And he was like, I always made sure to read one chapter ahead. And so it's like, you don't have to be the most successful person on the planet. As long as you're one chapter ahead, you can become can help others, and no one will really question you. And for me, it's like I was one chapter ahead. I happened to read some of these personal finance books and personal development books sooner than some other people my age would have. And so I was like, well, let me set a podcast around it, sharing and documenting the journey of me, literally trying to figure out as I navigate the entrepreneurship world and the big differentiating factor between me and a lot of other people. A lot of people sail off to sea and then they make it and it's like, hey, everyone, come out. The waters are clear, the waters are fine. Come on. For me, I'm still at the dock right now loading up the cargo before I take off. And I'm telling people like, hey, come on, ship. We're going to have an amazing journey. Come on. I'm still at the dock kind of type of thing where it's like, I haven't really set sail yet, I haven't really taken off, but I'm still letting people in in my world, showing them the behind the scenes as I get ready to embark on my journey. And I'm technically on my journey already, but as I progress, I think that's.
[19:12] Bobbi: A great point too, because so many times we talked about Pat Flyn before we started recording. Pat Flyn is, you know, a great podcaster, has a lot of courses and everything. And one of the things he talks about is how you have expertise that could benefit someone else. And this goes for so many people. So many people have expertise that could benefit someone else, and yet we think, well, we don't have all the answers, or I haven't really polished it up yet. And he's like, but they could still benefit from you. And so I love the fact that you're not letting that stop you. You're just like, hey, because it is helping other people already.
[19:51] John: Yeah, and there's a quote that I love, too, that kind of goes alongside with this topic. And life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you. And it's hard to really get a grip of that quote and internalize that quote, especially when life can throw some very heavy curveballs at you, like, very hard stuff. It's like, how on earth is all this trauma, all this abuse or whatever it may be that you went through. What do you mean? It's not to me. It's for me. How could this potentially be for me? And the answer to that is that you've gone through the other time you survived, you made it out alive. And now there are other people that are either a going to go through those times, or b are currently in those times. And those people don't see either what's coming or they don't see the light at the end of the tunnel because it's so dark where they're currently at. It's like you survive. Now you could take your journey, your experiences, your lessons, and help the people who are either A, about to get into this, or B, currently in whatever you're going through and help them through it so that they don't have to go through all the hiccups and the mistakes and the bumps and the trauma, whatever it may be. All the pain and suffering that you've gone through. So it's like that mindset shift right there just makes you want to more willing to share. And it's something that's helped me a lot, because as I said, life can get pretty hard at time. But knowing that, it's like everything that I go through. There's another quote. It's like, if life was easy, it wouldn't be worth living. God gives his best soldiers the worst missions. It's one of my favorite quotes. And it's like, well, if I know that this is a hard time, I must be a good soldier because I'm prepared and qualified to get through this. And then once I do, then help everyone else through it. And it's not saying that you have to know, as you said, everything. You don't have to have all the empirical knowledge. You don't have to know every stat. Statistic be the most well spoken. You just have to know you. That's all you need to be qualified.
[21:53] Bobbi: That's right.
[21:53] John: Help the people who are like you.
[21:55] Bobbi: That's right. And especially you were talking about the financial literacy piece. Man, that's so missing. It really is. I just love how you put that. That reminds me of something you said in the episode I listened to. You said, from the age that you're able to make conscious decisions, everything that happens to you falls on you.
[22:18] John: Yeah, I wish I could pinpoint where on Earth I came up with that or where I got that from, but I adopted that mindset so early on in my life. It's to the point where I almost think like it was just embedded in me at this point. It's one of the things I realized early on I genuinely believe. And as I got older, I feel like I've been able to articulate it a little bit better. But this isn't how I thought growing up. But as I said, that's how I originally thought. And as I've grown up, I realized that every ceiling we have put on ourself was also secretly built by ourselves. Now, the reasons why we built them may be external, but nevertheless, it is our hands that built them. So every ceiling that we have to break through was made by us. And so we're the only things in our own way because we are limitless. There's nothing that we cannot do. There's no limit to where we could take it. The only thing that limits us is the indoctrination is the conditioning, is the trauma, is the parents, is the grandparents, is the friends and the family and the strangers and the haters and the naysayers. All these things are, like, telling us, hey, you can't do it. And we at some point in our life, whether we realize it or not, allow that to creep in and seep into our beliefs, and we start building these ceilings and getting in our own way. But I haven't come across a child who has not yet been tampered with by the world, right, who hasn't experienced something crazy. There's no child that I know that's just like an innocent child and has limits. Their dreams, their imaginations are like, what on earth are you talking about, kid? Are you on mushrooms? It's insane crazy. But that's how we normally are. And then I feel for me what I've realized too. It's like there's a quote that I love when we're born, we look like our parents, and when we die, we look like our choices. And realizing that every choice that we make is either going to get us a step closer or a step further away from where we want to be and where we want to end up. And as soon as we're able to decide, then we have to take accountability and responsibility for how we end up in life because there's no other finger to blame but at ourselves. No matter who we want to blame, it at it's always going to fall back on ourselves.
[24:35] Bobbi: Yeah. And I love what you said there about the ceilings, right? Because we do and do we mean to build those ceilings? No, I don't ever even think we're necessarily aware of the fact that we're doing it, but I completely agree with you. Okay, so on your Pod match profile, one of the things that you said was achieving a fulfilled life with just one change.
[24:57] John: Yeah.
[24:58] Bobbi: What's that? Change.
[25:00] John: So if I'm not mistaken, it's finding your reason for being, if I'm not mistaken. And it's a concept that I learned during the time we mentioned offline too. They were talking about shiny object syndrome and feeling distracted and putting too much on our plates and for me, so I was a licensed Realtor. I was teaching social media classes via Zoom to hundreds of Realtors across the country. I was doing my podcast. It was about 40 Ish or so episodes in, and I was dropping weekly, and I was still working about 20 to 25 hours a. Week at a restaurant. So it's like I was swamped. And I thought because I was hungry and young and an entrepreneur and charismatic and had all these quarterly traits of an entrepreneur that I could just build Rome and the Leaning Tower of Pizza and the Great Wall of China all at one day on my own with no one else to help me, right? I thought I could do it all and then some by myself, and I was very naive to think so, because entrepreneurship is a very hard game. It's probably the hardest game. More people fail at entrepreneurship than anything else, right? That's why so few people are entrepreneurs. And yet entrepreneurs are the people that drive innovation, that drive all the change. Right? And this is a big calling to take on, especially when you're a naive kid that doesn't really know what he's doing, that didn't have any role models to look up to or didn't have a game plan to follow. So for me, it's like when I found this concept called ikigai, it came from a know culture within Japan or whatever, and the people that live there have one of the longest life expectancies. And so essentially, how you find your Ikigai is the intersection of four circles. So circle number one is what you love to do. Circle number two is what the world needs. Circle number three is what you can be rewarded for. And circle number four is what do you have the aptitude to be good at? And when those four circles intersect, you find your icky guy. And of course, I could go a little bit deeper if you'd like, but that's the icky guy concept in a nutshell, and that's how I was able to really start gaining clarity and gaining alignment in my life.
[27:14] Bobbi: Yeah, so what's the intersection for you?
[27:19] John: So, for me, the intersection at this phase of my life is podcasting. Right now, that is really the intersection. My mission in life is to enlighten and empower young adults to build wealthy, abundant lives. That is my mission statement for my life personally. And so majority of it's like, how can I help other young people like me just figure out this entrepreneurship game? Other people that want to take the untraditional track, that grew up inner city, that grew up in broken homes, that grew up telling with the ODS stacked against them. It's like, how would people like me get into entrepreneurship and succeed in life and build a life worth living, a life by design, a life with no bounds? And I'm just walking through life trying to figure out how to do it for myself and documenting the journey in real time and for me, so what do you love to do? So for anyone that needs help with this is think about all the things that you can do and time fades. Like, for example, I don't know how deeper into this podcast, maybe 20 or 30 minutes, but I can't really tell because genuinely, I'm enjoying this conversation. I love connecting with people. I love talking to people. It's just something I could talk your head off if you left me, right? I'm just a talker. I'm one of those guys. I could talk your head off. Aside from podcasting, I could talk your head off since I genuinely enjoy connecting with people, making new connections, having deep conversation, that's something I love to do. Time just fizzles away when I'm doing it. Or find the things that you would do for the rest of your life if no one paid you. Those are the two ways to get a handle. This is what you would call your, quote, unquote, your passion, right? What are you passionate about? Find those things that you just genuinely love to do. The second circle is what does the world need? So for me, as I said, the financial literacy thing, seven out of ten Americans or eight out of ten Americans live in paycheck to paycheck. Almost two thirds of Americans can't afford a $500 emergency expense. Credit card debt is literally just reached an all time high. People are struggling with their money and their finances. It's not something that talked about, especially me, in my household, it was slept under a rug. It's something that was taboo to speak on. So it's like, I know people need financial literacy help, but if you don't know what people need, I say start with asking, what do you feel compelled solve? What are the things that you kind of feel drawn at? Like, what's kind of tugging at your heart when you see and you're just like, I don't like how they did that. What are some of those things that tug at your heart when you see other people doing them, and it just doesn't sit with you the right way? The second way of viewing it is kind of an inverse way, and that is what annoys you. Instead of figuring out all the problems you want to follow, figure out everything that annoys you, because sometimes what annoys you is because you care about it for whatever reason, right? There's someone waiting in line one day at the grocery store, and most likely, this is like, this sucks. And boom, now we have self checkout. Now, I'm not sure if that's the actual origin story, but it's probably something along those lines. Like, someone was like, man, good guess. I don't want to wait in lines anymore. That is annoying. How can we do it better? What annoys you? Because that may be a signal that your body is telling you to head in that direction. So that's circle number two is what does the world need? Circle number three is what can you be rewarded for? So of course, volunteering and charity is great. Of course it makes you feel better. Of course it fulfills your heart. But you still have to keep the lights on, you still have to put food on the table, and you still have to make ends meet regardless of whatever it does that fulfilling you. So you have to find ways for monetization, whatever it may be. And with podcasting, it's like, you can do ad reads, you can do sponsorships, you can do so many different things. Right now, my podcast currently isn't monetized, so I'm growing up my marketing company to help fund my mission, right. So I'm coming at it from a different angle. If the thing you're doing doesn't directly monetize, it isn't directly monetizable yet find other ways that you can monetize so that you could fund your mission that you can continue doing so. Right. And then the last circle is, what do you have the aptitude to be good at? And I modified this because before it's, what are you good at? But especially for younger people or people that don't really have self love or self confidence, we tend to discredit ourselves. And there's a quote that I love, and it's the fish is always the last one to realize it's in water.
[31:38] Bobbi: Yep.
[31:38] John: And the reason I love that quote is because the whole reason why this whole podcast thing started was because my friend was like, hey, John, we should start a like that's. What sparked that? The whole reason why my marketing company started and I told you offline is because one of the hosts of the Mastermind Calls that I was in, I made a quick Facebook post with like five quick tips on creating videos or creating content, and I posted it in the Facebook group. And then the host asked me to teach a class on it. I told her I never taught a class before. She said, John, when do you want it scheduled? Ended up getting over 440 people to sign up for my first class. And it's all because someone seen something in me that I didn't see in myself. Someone seen skills and talents and features that I had in myself that came second nature to me. So I didn't value them. I didn't appreciate them as someone from the outside looking in. So sometimes you need that third party to, you know, john, you're really good at this. Or hey, Bobbi. Really? Actually, I love when you do this. Or if you don't have someone to go to that you feel comfortable asking, try to reflect on all the times people ask you for advice. What are people normally coming to you for? And that may reveal some things, because if people are coming to you for negative reasons, that may tell you something about yourself that you may need to work on, so do so at your own caution. Right? And so those are the four circles. What do you love to do? What does the world need? What can you be rewarded for? And what do you have the aptitude to be good at? And when you have those four, the intersection of all four is your Icky guy. And once you do that, you will find a lot more clarity. And even if you don't have something that hits all four circles, you have a giant laundry list of things to start trying out. So you have more than enough things to take up all your time. Now go start knocking things off the list until you get further. And as you progress, the next turn will appear. Similar to GPS, just keep your end goal in sight. And as you continue moving along, as you continue to progress, the next turn will appear. The next turn will show up. So just keep on progressing.
[33:49] Bobbi: Totally agree. Action is so important because then future actions kind of are revealed along the way. So real quick, can you repeat your mission again?
[34:00] John: I loved that my mission in life is to enlighten and empower young adults to build wealthy, abundant lives.
[34:08] Bobbi: Love that. And now how did you come up with that?
[34:11] John: So it all stems from a quote back in twelveTH grade year of English class. My English teacher would go on random, and I mean random philosophical tangents. Like I'm talking totally off curriculum, like we would get into philosophy. And one of the times we were talking about Plato's Allegory of the cave, and in Plato's Allegory of the cave, he talked about the duty of the enlightened is to enlighten the unenlightened. And ever since I heard that quote, I adopted it as my life, my core central mantra, whatever you want to call it. As soon as I heard that quote, it stuck with me. That's the only thing I remember from English my whole twelveTH grade year. And partially because I skipped, because he ended up getting sick. And so we had to sub for the whole second and third quarter. So I skipped the whole entire second and third quarter. But that one quote was enough to change my whole perspective and outlook on the world. So thankful that I was there for that class and I didn't skip. And as I said, that quote, just like it shifted everything for me. It shifted how I viewed the world. So it's like everything that I do, it's like, how can I put more people on? How could I share this information with more people? How can I help others implement this? How could I bring this to light for other people? And it's like, that is my life's duty. I need to do that. That's the responsibility that I bear from knowing, right? And so it's like, I'd rather not turn a blind side. I'd rather share. And although adopting responsibility comes with a burden that's too much to bear for most people, for me it's like, throw it on me, throw it on me. And that's just kind of always how I was. And then once I found that quote, it's just like it made it simple and then, as I said, once I read Rich Dad, Poor dad, and I started getting to personal finance and entrepreneurship, that's how the wealth and abundance part came into it. And wealth for me, I learned very early on that there's a difference between wealth and riches, and wealth is more so about abundance in all your areas of life, whereas riches is strictly like the monetary side of things. And so that's why I said rich and not like seven figure entrepreneur or seven figure millionaire or whatever. It's like a wealthy, abundant life, because that's also subjective depending on who defines it. That's how I came up with my mission statement.
[36:23] Bobbi: I love that. I love the statement, and I love the passion that you have behind it because that's really evident, and what a great story about how it came about. You never know. It's like you never know. Sometimes it's that one random thing that someone says when you're around, and it just completely changes things for you. So why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about where they can find you, how they can learn more about you, that type of thing?
[36:49] John: Yeah, definitely. Well, first, before I get into that, I just want to say thank you again for the opportunity. I genuinely enjoyed our conversation. Me too. For anyone that found what I said valuable or interesting, go check me out at www dot walkthenbertwealth again. That's walknumbertowealth. Walktowealth.com. You could check me out there and you'll find all my episodes. That's how you can get in contact with me there. All my social medias are on the website as well. And stay on the lookout. We're hitting episode 100, literally the week that we're recording this, and I have some pretty big guests lined up on the way, so make sure to definitely stay tuned because you don't want to miss out.
[37:27] Bobbi: Nice. Thank you so much. And I'm just so glad we got to have this conversation. I hope that you love that conversation. John's enthusiasm and his passion is just kind of infectious, so I hope that you enjoyed that. I know that was a great reminder for me in so many ways, but especially his connection back to his mission. I'd almost say it's like his fire in life. So that wraps up this episode. Thank you so much for subscribing. And by the way, if you have not yet hit that subscribe button, you might want to so that you never miss another episode. I hope you have a terrific week and that you continue to thrive no matter what.