How to Find Your Purpose

[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:00] Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Really excited to have my good friend, Justin sets her on with us today. Uh, he’s a former pastor and he really has a great framework to follow. A lot of us that are in real estate are doing this for kind of freedom and for a bigger calling. It’s not always about more money for the sake of money.

At least there’s nothing wrong with money, but we’re today. We’re gonna talk about a framework that you can follow to kind of help superpower, uh, your, your charge and why you get up every day and do what we do. professional real estate investors know that it’s not really about the real estate. That real estate is just a vehicle of freedom. A group of over a hundred of a nation’s leading real estate investors from across the country. Meet several times a year at the investor fuel real estate mastermind to share ideas on how to strengthen each other’s businesses, but also to come together as friends. And builds more fulfilling lives for all of those around us [00:01:00] on today’s show, we’re going to continue our conversation of fueling our businesses and our lives. I’m glad you’re here.

Justin: [00:01:15] Hey

Mike: [00:01:15] Justin. Welcome to the show.

Justin: [00:01:16] Hey, Mike, thanks for having me.

Mike: [00:01:18] Yeah. Good to see you, buddy. I’m so excited to talk about what we’re going to talk about that because I, as I told you, um, I’ve been looking for a framework to kind of follow myself. There’s a ton of them out there. Right. But I’m the type of guy that I like to, uh, I don’t like to.

This may seem a little counterintuitive because we’re creating a podcast right now, but I don’t like to recreate the wheel. I just often like find something that works and then make it my own or follow, find a framework that works. And just like that works for me. Uh, and I think probably a lot of people are like that because we’re not as, uh, you know, uh, why recreate the wheel of something Hardy works.

Right. So, uh, excited to like, learn about your background and the framework that you use. Cause I think a lot of other people could benefit from that. Um, so Hey, before we, before I. Talk us [00:02:00] to death here. Why don’t you tell us about, uh, you and kind of how you got into real estate investing?

Justin: [00:02:05] Yeah. So, like you mentioned, um, I was in ministry, um, is, are this 25 years old?

Um, actually became a lead pastor. I was 29 and single, which is unusual, but, um, what happened is, uh, when my wife and I got married, we, um, Um, I know how else to tell, but to be honest. So am I, uh, when you’re a minister, when you’re dating somebody that somethings you can’t do that you typically can do when you’re drinking.

So we figured out a way to keep ourselves busy and we asked ourselves 500 questions. Literally we went through 500 questions and one of the questions was when you get older and have kids you want to be, would you like to, um, both parents to work or once they home? And I was totally surprised because my mom worked hard my whole life and she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.

And what we realized when we got married was. That we needed to be out of debt to make that happen. The problem was when we got married, we had three homes, two rentals. So we already, [00:03:00] or three rentals. We already own real estate. And we yeah. At home that we lived in, so that was our beginning stage was, uh, we had some rental properties and then over time we ended up fixing up and selling them.

Um, so we could get them the place. So my wife could, uh, reach her dreams, which was being a stay-at-home mom.

Mike: [00:03:18] Yeah, that’s great. And I, and that none of that’s hard as a pastor to, uh, it’s not like you have a great income, uh, to necessarily be able to allow your wife to be a stay at home mom, right?

Justin: [00:03:29] Yeah. I mean, it’s that negative, but yeah, in some ways you’re living

Mike: [00:03:34] servants and teachers and people like that, they have very noble professions, but they just don’t pay that well.

Right. I mean, there’s a, there’s like an emotional paycheck that comes with it, but that, that doesn’t that emotional paycheck doesn’t pay for. Yeah necessarily, right?

Justin: [00:03:48] Yeah. So the, uh, the benefits, we’re not typically in that position or other, like you said, public servants is definitely not in the, uh, salary that comes to it.

So yeah, we were looking for other ways and, um, you know, [00:04:00] other ways to, to make things, um, yeah. Of happen besides just my, uh, my weekly paycheck, um, from ministry.

Mike: [00:04:08] Yeah. Yeah. And I know now, so now you’re, uh, you focus full-time on real estate, obviously a member of investor fuel mastermind as well. And, um, and you, you know, the great thing is, is, and I think that’s one of the great things about our group is everybody wants to make more money.

I mean, but it’s not. All about the money. It’s like, once you get to a certain point, you’re like, well, what, you know, what am I going to do with that money? Like what, what is the tool that, that allows me to, uh, I mean, you know, what does that allow me to do with it? Right. And so, and I think for you, you know, you have the insight and I think we’re all this way too, is we all want to work less, right.

And have more life balance and stuff. So talk a little bit about kind of your w w what your goal is, I guess, and then let’s kind of get into how you. Keep yourself, uh, on the path to

Justin: [00:04:57] what your long-term goal is. Yeah, [00:05:00] so, yeah. So with the real estate, like I said, I was in ministry for 13 years. Um, and during that time I, um, I really focus highly on purpose.

Um, I learned how to create a life plan where every single week of my life, I read over, um, like key areas of my life. And, um, and one of them was my finances. Um, That I, that I would read over every single, every single, every single week. And when I got caught, I got actually got caught on a minute. She, I was walking to the beach and like from weather, July 4th, 2018.

And I just knew my spirit, my season ministry was over. I didn’t do anything wrong. And, uh, then I, then at the end of the day, I got to do something. And what was interesting is my, in my life plan, I review it every 90 days and I was. Um, praying over my financial area. I started getting into flipping and that’s kind of how it all started.

It was me on a park bench, overlooking the water in Florida. And I was like, I’m going to do five flips for a year. I’m going to make 150 K compared to a pastorial. His salary was [00:06:00] like, you know, a huge jump. Uh, when you get into real estate that you realize that there’s definitely room for, um, increase over that.

And, um, that’s how I kinda got into it. And, um, I started on myself and yeah.

Mike: [00:06:13] Yep. So how do you, so what’s the framework you felt? Cause a lot of, you know, people set goals, we’re coming up here on, um, the new year. So a lot of people are going to set goals and you know, the statistics, a lot of people, those, those like new year’s resolutions will be dead and like, you know, 10 days.

But I think what helps is when people we’ll have a true vision, some of that they really put some thought into and then they remind themselves frequently, just like you talked about of. Why that’s important to them and what their goal is. So talk a little about your, you mentioned up front, this kind of VIP framework.

Let’s talk

Justin: [00:06:48] a little bit about that. Yeah. So when I was doing, um, coaching, um, so when I was doing pastoring, I end up hiring a coaching company. I started learning the idea of, um, like business planning. And then over time I created like, um, [00:07:00] while standing on the shoulders of giants, I started creating my own system, which is like 60% mine at 40% of what I learned.

But what I realized for a lot of people is, um, one of the greatest things that they’re missing is they’re missing clarity. Like you wake up in the morning, you’re up and you’d like, you’re doing well. Maybe in lot of the real estate guys are doing well, but you like have this nagging, feeling that something else is kind of missing that you’re not like checking off all the boxes.

But what if there was a way that you didn’t have to have that feeling, but what, there was a way in the future that you could have it. And there is, and I’ll like Mike said, I have this, a framework, um, that, um, part of it’s purely created by me. Maybe, maybe somebody else came up with it, but they don’t know about it is for life and business planning.

Um, I focus on like, uh, this is individual for me, for you might be different, your success. Um, you know, faith, family, friends, fitness, fun, and finances. And, and that, I also have a separate section for business. Um, but what I do is I create a framework. I take a key priority area. It’s an area in your life.

[00:08:00] That’s important to you. Um, mine may be different than yours, but there’s three to five areas in your life that if you were to have, make some simple changes would give you. Incredible. Um, great momentum. So, uh, for each year I give two sections. The first one’s VIP and these dance dancer, vision and vision is a clear mental picture of what could be fueled by the conviction that, that it should be that’s actually from another person saying, but what it means is is that there is a vision for each individual area of your life.

And there is a vision gives you clarity of what it could be, but also vision shows you that it should be like for me, Um, my vision for my wife is always that I’d have an ear to hear what my wife would say, that she would always know that she’s second in my life only to God. And that’s a vision of what could be, I think you guys would agree that that should, I should have an ear to hear.

She should have a great level of priority in my life. So that’s vision like vision is future, like where you’re trying to go. And the second part is inspiration, and [00:09:00] this is different depending on your, uh, your values, but I give three different options. So when options for everybody is, um, a scripture, a quote, or a person.

So, you know, for scripture, for me, it was to love my wife as Christ loved the church for somebody else, something else, or it could be a person which is somebody you admire, maybe somebody in your mind, somebody has a really good business and you admire what they’re doing. The business. Maybe somebody really good in health.

And then the final part is purpose. And this is the big missing key. So when my wife told me she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, we had our second kid and I had three mortgages and I knew that I had to get a hundred percent out of that on a very small salary. I, I knew I needed something greater and that thing is purpose.

I think one of the biggest missing pieces in people’s lives when to really achieve the greatness that God has created them for. And if they do not dive deep enough in their purpose, even finances, I think you can make a ton more money. If you had a purpose behind you driving you absolutely for the [00:10:00] right cause and the right directions, you could wake up every morning on fire, ready to move forward.

So the framework for me for purpose is. As this. And when I write my teach, this my train, this is my purpose in my let’s say family. You know, my wife is to be out a day so that she could be a stay at home mom, because that was her dream or in my health. I had this for a long time. My purpose. Is to take care of my body.

So that one day somebody will have to take care of me. I don’t want to be a slob when I’m older, I don’t want to have somebody else to take care of me. I’m walking around with a Walker at a young age, you know, unless something, God forbid happens like a stroke or something, which we can’t that. So having a clear purpose and, um, for me, every single week I read this, my vision, my inspiration and my purpose.

And then there’s a second part, but I don’t know what might be best if we need to stop there.

Mike: [00:10:53] Yeah. So the, from our purpose is it’s interesting because I, I struggle with this myself. I find myself sometimes, like we have [00:11:00] several businesses. They do well, we live below our means, like I’m not, when I first started in real estate investing, it was about survival.

Like we need to pay the bills and stuff like that. Right. We’re not at that point anymore. So, and I often find myself saying to my wife or myself, like. Why are we doing this? Like, what is this for? Like why, what is the purpose mind is? And it’s, it’s not all money. And sometimes it’s, sometimes it’s things that just aren’t making money either.

It’s like, what’s the point of this. But sometimes even when you have money, it’s like, well, I’m inspired. I’m, I’m, uh, I’m always like looking for something next to tackle. Like, I always want the challenge of that, but then it kind of pulls me in it’s like, why, why would I take that risk? Or why am I doing that?

And I think a lot of people, I think that’s why a lot of, um, Real estate investors and probably all entrepreneurs kind of plateau because you get to a point and you’re like, Hey, um, you know, you were a pastor. It’s not hard based on what you said in real estate to make many times more salary than what you made and you get there.

And you’re like, well, I, I was able to survive on that before. I surely I could survive on [00:12:00] five X. This it’s like, what’s my purpose, or what’s my drive to take me beyond that because I don’t, I don’t need that to live on. Is it just okay. I won’t say greed, like mad at greets, greets on a bad thing. Is it just drive?

Is it ego? Like, what is it that’s driving me there. And I think those things can drive you there. But I think a healthy thing is to have a purpose of what you’re going to do when you

Justin: [00:12:21] get to that next level. Right? Yeah. And especially if you can really, the what’s interesting from a psychology point of view, a lot of people know Maslow has like a hierarchy of needs.

Right where it’s like, you have to survive with like food and shelter. And then they used to think like the top thing was like, you reaching your best, but they actually realize that it’s actually more transcendent than that, that like for you to reach your highest purpose and feel fulfilled, uh, that greatest hierarchy of need they realized was that you basically trying to help other people reach their purpose and like helping others.

They realized that that was like, And whether innately like a strong human need and like waking up and starting to look at others, like, can you be others focused? Like, yeah, I’m real estate, [00:13:00] if you do well, if you’re wise, I mean, you can crush it. Right. You can like the sky’s the limit. Like if you don’t have a mindset issue at least.

Right. Um, but I think, yeah, I think the purpose is like a huge, huge, huge, huge missing piece for a lot of people. And, um, yeah. And there’s a couple of different exercises that I’ve done to help people try to like. Uh, think about and kind of uncover, um, a little bit on that side. There’s a couple different things you can do.

All S all very simple.

Mike: [00:13:27] Do you, could you, I know you can’t go into a lot of detail, but could we spend a couple of minutes on that? Cause I think that there’s probably a lot people that are listening right now that have businesses that are doing well. And sometimes they struggle with like, you get to a point too.

You’re like,

Justin: [00:13:41] What

Mike: [00:13:41] does it all for? Like, why what’s my next, like, I want to go to the next step, but

Justin: [00:13:46] yeah. And obviously, you know, for me, it’s obviously based on my page, I’ll always honor the guys the high purpose. But even beyond that, I think we each have like a part to play in and loving people in like to try to uncover your purpose.

There’s a couple of different like processes, almost [00:14:00] like very simple. And all you’re trying to do is uncover it for you specifically. And yours is going to may be quite different than mine. And your state of life and relationships. But, um, one of the ways is like, is, and this actually came out of, um, the book.

What got you here? Won’t get you there. You know, you don’t come up. Yeah. So let’s one of them, a lot of things I didn’t learn. And what they do is like, you ask yourself why you’re doing something and then you just keep going until you hit something like, Oh, I’m doing it. So I make good money. Uh, Y uh, you know, I want to buy a nice car, but why I want to have stability.

Why I want to make sure my kids are okay. You know, when they’re older, like you’re hit some gold and then the that’s one of the other thing you need to do is you need to really watch yourself when you notice that you’re having like some kind of, um, emotional experience. Like what’s making me laugh, cry, like, cause like all of a sudden I’ll be listening to something and like, I’ll hear like this ministry in Los Angeles bought like 10,000 presents for kids.

I’m like, I’m [00:15:00] like in my heart, something’s touching me. Yeah. Like you have to realize that there’s something else beyond yourself. And, um, you know, if you can learn to live a life beyond, if you can learn to live a life, that’s not all about you, your life is going to live beyond you. And that’s what you want.

Like, if you’re not all about yourself, all about what’s your in now, if you can learn to do that, you’re going to live a life. It’s like leadership people, one person who said, if leadership’s not all about you, Oh, go way beyond you. Um, so learning to live, um, I really other centered focus and I think, I think if you are a person who is very blessed, I think to whom much is given much is required.

I think like you have a great influence and you have a great ability to help, um, people, you can’t help every single person. That’s not a good idea. Um, but I think that your purpose and your calling has a lot to do with like using what, you know, what you have. Um, to help others and you will definitely reach, be most fulfilled when you learn to live a [00:16:00] life that is like focusing on helping and encouraging others, even if it’s just like being a better husband, like, um, you know, being a better father.

Um, you know, like for me, see, when I go through the process of creating this life and business plan, I have vision inspiration purpose, and then I have my. My my, the way I set the goal is path primary goal on, please keep me accountable when I do it. And then my habit that helps me to get from where I’m currently at to my vision and my goal.

Like recently I lost about 30 pounds. Uh, one day my wife was like, Hey, let’s get a little harder to put my arms around you. I was like, Oh gosh, I wasn’t very pleasant. So. Um, so any way to

Mike: [00:16:40] say it,

Justin: [00:16:41] yeah. Was hard. She’s a very, a great, my wife’s a wonderful women. I’m blessed. She’s one in a billion, not one in a million, but one in a billion, uh, for sure.

And, um, yeah.

Mike: [00:16:53] Yeah, I think, uh, you know what you said when you, when you have, and when you have it written down too, it’s like affirmations, right? If you read it regularly, you’d look at it. [00:17:00] It’s front and center all the time. It just starts to, because it’s real easy to write down goals and put them in a notebook somewhere, or, you know, stuff in away, file away somewhere, type it in somewhere.

And it’s kind of out of sight out of mind and you, you forget about it. Right? And so I think the benefit of having these things that you review. Whether it’s daily affirmations or weekly, or certainly monthly even. Um, then it just, we, we all pick up bad habits, right. We like go down this path of like I’m on track.

And then all of a sudden this happens or this happens and you’re just start getting out of whack and you kind of need these almost like tune-ups to come back to the line, right?

Justin: [00:17:37] Yeah. So like, for me, like every single week I read and honestly I did it for like years straight. I kind of threw it off, honestly, and for me it happens to everybody.

I’m back on it. Uh, pretty consistently like reading my life plan every week. And every quarter I take two hours off or three hours off and I re ramped the whole thing. Another thing that really helps me, and this is not in there when I’m trying to hit a goal and an area that I have typical [00:18:00] bad habits, all of us have bad habits.

Like all of us is I asked myself a question, like for instance, like with my wife, my desire is to serve her. So when I want to do something that’s selfish or not nice. I asked myself the question, how does it serve my wife? So I asked internally all the time, how does this serve my wife or for, for business, you can ask, how is this moving me towards my goal?

Like, you always want to be getting yourself, like asking yourself questions, getting accountability, which that might be a lot of people’s problem. You want to be this Island to yourself? It’s very clear that goals are hitting much better when accountabilities, um, added to it. Like some you need like come out of the dark and like get somebody to keep your towel.

And for fitness, that might be a personal trainer. Or if you can afford that or, um, for business, you might need to get a coach. If you try and get it real estate, uh, you can, you know, I know, or like join a mastermind where people are loving and once in a while, and you know, the, Hey, you gotta, uh, you can step it up here a little bit.

Would you need that?

Mike: [00:18:57] Right? Yeah. That’s awesome. Powerful [00:19:00] stuff. Awesome. For, for folks, um, that are, maybe give some guidance because we’re, we’re right at kind of the new year, uh, type timeframe for pho and this, this stuff is important. Even if you’re watching this later and it’s like, you know, October, don’t wait until new.

Year’s like, you should put it in place immediately, but any kind of words of wisdom for folks to kind of get started on, um, I guess you would probably advise like following a proven framework. Right? Because sometimes people don’t really know, they kind of know what their goals are. They know what’s important to them, but they don’t like have a framework to kind of plug it into, but at any kind of words of wisdom for folks to help ’em.

Get this down and actually use it.

Justin: [00:19:37] Yeah. Yeah. I think you want to follow a framework because if you have to like, make your own framework and make goals, and honestly, the reason why you want to use other frameworks is because you want to use something that’s like proven to work. Like you don’t want to just like, you know, um, you want to, you want to like take something that’s, that’s proven to work.

So I think what you need to do, and this is just my opinion is you need to get out of your day to day, like you’re [00:20:00] caught in some kind of each one of us is caught in some kind of rhythm, some kind of habit. You need to get some time off. And my encouragement is to pick three areas is of your life. If you’ve never done it before, don’t try to do every area.

Don’t try to do 10. Don’t try to do a hundred. You’re going to overwhelm yourself. You’re not going to do it. You can get frustrated in two weeks. You’ll be okay. I’m with it. Uh, pick three areas like for me, like I said, I look at the success and then my business too. So three areas and you got to do one, like if you’re in real estate, you’ve got to include that around because they’re intertwined.

They’re not separate, you know, Um, so if I pick three areas that if you make a huge difference, we’ll have a great impact. And then, uh, decided and where you want to go. Like, what does it look like? Like close your eyes or think about like, if you were like hitting a home run in this area, what does it look like?

Like how does it feel? What does it seem like? And then just write it, like, like if you would describe six months from now or a year from now, if you weren’t like exact place, you’d want to be, just write that down. And then, then, then figure out something that inspires you. And then, like I said, um, you have to [00:21:00] have a purpose.

So I think pick three areas, you know, for us, me, faith, family, and friends, fitness, finances, and fun. Honestly, for me, one of the biggest changes is, is fun. I, I do great in my relationships by like, I was like needing an outlet. So. For me, it’s boating or that people like to go to the gun range or whatever.

For me, the only thing that gets our mind to shut down is like just being on a boat on the water. It’s like, otherwise my mind goes very quickly. I’ve been wired with a very fast mind and a lot of areas. So, um, I think getting away, picking three areas, when you come back, get some accountability, put it on your schedule.

And, um, probably one of the biggest things is you have to, you have to like take, uh, if you play, add things to your schedule is there’s one thing that’s really wasting your time and your life right now. That’s a total drainer. You probably need to for a season to try to like fast that thing. If it’s social media, whatever it is.

Because like, if you’re really going to try to get you a new place in life and your business, there’s going to, there’s going to some bandwidth and you [00:22:00] probably already you’re at your max. So you got to like take some of it, something out, like something’s got to give. Right.

Mike: [00:22:06] And then you’ve got the up time to fit this in.

Yeah. Cause we all, we all are full for the most part, right?

Justin: [00:22:12] Yeah. We fill it in. Yeah. We fill in the gaps. Yeah.

Mike: [00:22:15] Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Justin, you’ve, you’ve been a member of investor fuel for a while now, right? I think coming up on a year right here. Yeah. So, um, would you mind just kind of sharing some of your kind of experiences and, and, uh, you know, what your thoughts are on investor fuel?

Justin: [00:22:31] Yeah. So, um, when I was in the, um, my last business and coaching, I knew that you always needed to get help. So like immediately on a full-time real estate, I was doing like a deal ish a month. I tried to call him. And then after I was like at like the level where, uh, you know, um, investor fuel would be like, yeah, this is a good time.

I immediately joined them. Honestly, I joined it like a month or two. You have to go into full-time real estate that’s because I hit the ground running. I set myself up financially where I could do that. And what’s interesting is, you know, you don’t know what you don’t [00:23:00] know. Um, you could be sitting there as an investor and like, man, I feel like I’m doing really well and you know, not being negative, but there’s things that you simply don’t know.

There’s other methodologies, other things that are effective. And until you get around a group of people who’s willing to share which investor fuel is probably, uh, it’s maybe the most apparent characteristic characteristic trait of investors fuel or culture is that it’s a giving culture. Um, You know, you won’t grow.

Like for me, if I did not enjoy an investor fuel, we’d probably be doing still like a deal a month. I’d be buying properties too expensive, not making as much profit. I wouldn’t have made to grow a team. You know, we have multiple full-time people now we’re doing, you know, we’re growing every month for growing and be blessed.

And, um, I definitely, um, whatever money I’ve invested, I’ve received at least a 10 or 20 X fold and any investment as well worth the money. So I think if you’re in real estate thinking about doing it, uh, you need help. You need, you want other people, you know, it’s a small investment for huge return, and I think it’d be foolish to join mastermind.

[00:24:00] I think investor feel is a very open, loving, caring group to help each other up. We’re also very honest and transparent. And you know, at the end of the day that you also get to build great relationships with other people and that person might be the one who you guys help each other a little bit of accountable.

You know, we have people that I talk with every week from investor field, so it’s great.

Mike: [00:24:18] That’s awesome, man. I really appreciate the kind words there. So yeah, a lot. Um, awesome. Well, you operate primarily in the Tampa area doing some stuff in the Carolinas. Uh, if folks wanted to connect with you in any way on social media or any other way, where would they go to learn more?

Justin: [00:24:31] Yeah. So either, um, that you can find me on social media, just on Facebook, whatever, just Justin Setser SCTE Z E R. Or email [email protected]. Um, if there’s anything I can do, if you need encouragement, I can send you an old framework I have for making a life and business plan. They all go together.

Love to help out, um, in that if I can.

Mike: [00:24:56] Amazing. Well, we’ll add a link down below for your Facebook page. So [00:25:00] Justin, thanks for spending time with us today.

Justin: [00:25:02] Thank you for having me

Mike: [00:25:03] with you, buddy and everybody. Hey, thanks. Hope you got some good value. I got good value, selfishly. I’ll be honest. I do this show probably more for me than I do for everybody else.

I just love to get together with investor fuel members and, uh, and, and hang out for sure, but I always learn something and I think just, uh, Justin is really amazing with it. Creating a framework to help you kind of play in your life. And if I think a lot of us have questioned a lot of things this year, especially of like, what is this all for?

What does this all mean? And kind of reflecting on what we want so that when we come out of this mess, that we’re in, we’re living a better life. And, uh, hopefully you got some, uh, some wisdom from that today that you can use in your life. So appreciate you all bunch. We’ll see you on the next show.

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