Playing Injured
Playing Injured reminds us that life challenges us all—athletes aren’t the only ones who play hurt. Whether it’s setbacks or unexpected curveballs, our response defines who we are and how we grow. This podcast explores the universal journey of resilience and perseverance, inspiring listeners to face adversity head-on.
Ranked in the top 2.5% of podcasts globally, hosts Josh Dillingham and Mason Eddy—entrepreneurs and former collegiate athletes—deliver over 100 episodes featuring diverse voices. They explore mindsets, uncover strategies, and motivate listeners to thrive and play through anything.
Playing Injured
Unlocking Financial Freedom: Building Wealth and Trust with Jordan Stiefel (EP 124)
Unlock the secrets of true financial freedom as we sit down with Jordan Stiefel to explore the transformation from a sports enthusiast to a passive income expert. Discover how his journey through business analytics and sports management led him to recognize the pitfalls of a traditional career path and embrace the opportunities within passive income. We unpack the importance of surrounding ourselves with trustworthy mentors to navigate today's complex financial landscape and find authentic opportunities for growth and success.
Building trust and fostering deep relationships aren't just buzzwords—they're the foundation of any successful partnership. Jordan and Mason share their personal experiences of moving from skepticism to collaboration, emphasizing the role of predictability and integrity in developing meaningful connections. They highlight the crucial elements of creating a legacy through passive income, achieving freedom and flexibility, and the invaluable guidance supporting personal growth and realizing long-term goals.
It's not just about the money—it's about building systems that work for you and finding passion through service to others. Jordan and Mason share insights into leveraging existing systems for wealth, stressing the importance of mentorship and learning from those who've paved the way. Whether it’s balancing personal commitments with professional ambitions or embracing the challenges of self-discovery and personal growth, this episode is a call to action to align your actions with your values and find joy and fulfillment in both work and life.
Follow Playing Injured on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playinginjured/
What is going on? Plain Injured community. This is Mason coming at you. I am here with a really good friend of mine, a comrade, a business partner, I don't know what else. Are you to me, Jordan? A lot of things, and we're here to have a discussion. Jordan Stiefel, you know we'll share a little bit of his background. Maybe that's where you can kick off. Jordan is just sharing a little bit of your background, your history, our history, kind of how we met, and we're here to have a discussion. A lot around kind of wealth development, developing residual passive streams of income and some of the things that we've learned together and some of the mindsets that we have. So, Jordan, I'll kick it over to you.
Speaker 2:Sounds good. Thanks, mace, I appreciate you having me on and I was just chatting more with you and it's always a pleasure to get time with you. So yeah, a little bit of a background that I have for myself. So I actually I grew up kind of not too far from me, I guess, in kind of the Wisconsin area near Madison, and grew up and went to school and college out in Iowa. I double majored in business analytics and sports management.
Speaker 2:So my dream right I always learned this growing up right was to if you find something you love, you never work a day in your life. So I love sports and not being six foot five or not having the physical traits to help me out make it professionally right. Decided I'm going to use my brain. So decided I would kind of use both the majors and degrees to kind of help me get into the new evolving sports landscape where there's a lot of hype around analytics and trying to competitively be the best we can be, and so decided to pursue that route. I had a great time, had some really fun experiences working with some college basketball teams an MLB team just working a little bit around that and dabbling just working a little bit around that and dabbling and, yeah, coming out of school I actually didn't pursue going into working with a professional team and part of the reason why and this just never really clicked with me in college is I had a lot of fun but I just was super blessed growing up to have my dad around and sports and I always valued family time and never really clicked with me that working you for a pro or college team meant I was going to be working nights and weekends. So I decided to still stay in sports work actually for a footlocker corporate, coming out of school and did some fun work with athletes and running their social media pages and a bunch of different stuff. But yeah, that actually kind of led me to the story and where I was able to meet you, mace was in college a bit.
Speaker 2:You know I was kind of always interested in passive income, had a little bit of an interest, you know right, in developing other streams of income, but never seriously really looked into it. And you know, once I kind of hit my let's just say, my honeymoon ended right a little bit of coming out of college and making a paycheck and then realizing with student loans and all that that you know the paycheck really didn't get me too far, that I started to value passive income more and so really started to really pursue that. Obviously, you know, kind of, like I said, was dabbling a little bit, but that's kind of the area where I really pursued getting to know you more and getting to kind of hear my story, and I I just was very fortunate to that. You let me into kind of your life and your background and what you were like, and I was a little bit let's just say I was a little bit hesitant to always pursue you or people, because you know I learned growing up, right, that it's important If I want to learn how to throw a football. You know really well, and I had the opportunity to learn from Pat Mahomes versus Dan down the road. I'm going to pursue Pat Mahomes, right, you want to surround yourself with people who are some quality people, and so it's hard though, because it's hard in today's society and I don't know if you feel this way too, mace, but you know it's.
Speaker 2:How do you know you're not like getting scammed by someone? How do you know you're not? People don't always have their best interests in mind, and you know so for me. I think I just really took some quality time to get to know you and learn more about you and who you are and your values and know. Once I really pursued you, I I realized, yeah, like you guys got the lifestyle I want, I really follow up and so that's. You know where we're at today, has been able to kind of just get your back pocket and learn a lot from you and we're grateful for your time. How you're, my wife, my kids and you know myself obviously grateful for your time. But you know I'd love to you know huss high a little bit about that uncomfortability right as trying to figure out where to go, who to follow, and I think that's a huge area. I'd love to pick your brain a little bit on that too. Absolutely, man.
Speaker 1:Well, so so good. And I think you know, arguably for a lot of people, there's a pretty large percentage of people that are love sports, loves professional sports. I mean, we're in the middle of football season right now, so football is just yearning for your attention. Uh, remember, uh, this is a key point around attention. These people are paid millions and millions and millions of dollars. They're professionals to grab your attention in life, right, yeah and so and you come from an athletic background, like I do, and so I think, a lot of ways data, analytics, sports management you were chasing what I would call a dream job for a lot of young, young athletic men. Yeah, and so I.
Speaker 1:You say you were skeptical of me. I was equally skeptical of you, bro. I'm like, why would you want to do anything else? You're, you got the dream. Like you were skeptical of me. I was equally skeptical of you, bro. I'm like, why would you want to do anything else? You got the dream. Like, you're chasing the dream. Yeah, you know what I mean. Like you were a high caliber athlete all the way through college. Right, you played, did you do multiple sports when you were in college?
Speaker 2:Primarily focused on track, Dabbled a little bit with trying to get into football but realized I wanted to keep my body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, but you're, you're an athlete and you did like badger sport, you know, you did all of that. You're, you're, you know, involved quite a bit. And so sometimes I think I heard Steve jobs say this he said people don't know what they really want until they know what they can have. And I think you and I were probably similar in the light that we both realized that our, our life, we didn't want it to be dictated by somebody else's decisions, by somebody else's you know, somebody else's, somebody else's ability to promote us or somebody has to leave the company for us to get to the next spot. We wanted to be in a position where we could have autonomy, and that takes a level of maturity. And I think when we first met, transparently, you weren't there, right, you were young, you were still going through school, and so we had more of a very passive relationship in the beginning for the first few years, and that was fine, because I wasn't, you know?
Speaker 1:we were feeling. You know, it wasn't about that. To me it wasn't we were trying to get anything from anybody, we were just we were trying. And then there came a point where you're like man, I'm really serious now, and you went from being just curious to like I'm serious, I want to make some changes, and um, and so here's what I found back in the day when we were, when, when back in before the internet, what used to happen is you would shake somebody's hand and you were trustworthy until proven to be guilty. And ever since social media and the internet and I'm not saying this is necessarily all bad, it's just the reality you are now guilty until proven to be trustworthy. So true, and so it took time for us to bridge that relationship. And here's what I think.
Speaker 1:What worked for us is there was one thing that you and I both know knew. We knew we trusted our own decision-making process. We trusted that. I know when I see major, major red flags from somebody and I'm going to run, but we trusted the decision-making process that we had and that allowed us to to to build it. Did we agree on everything? Absolutely not. I remember multiple conversations of disagreement and struggle. Still today, we disagree on things occasionally.
Speaker 1:Right, and you're. I mean, you're a thinker, you're a processor, you're a data guy. Right, You're like a deep, you know you can. You can overthink a lot of things if you want to. Right, and I'm kind of an action guy. I like just go get it done, and and. But we balance each other out well actually in that way. So, um, but over time, I think that relationship just started to deepen. So it takes time.
Speaker 1:Trust can't be built in one conversation online. Trust can't be built in one one interaction with somebody at a store. Uh, trust gets built over time. And here's what has to happen for both ends Uh, your word is your worth and your worth is your word. There has to be consistency behind things, and here's what I've seen from you, Jordan, Multiple years you say what you're going to do, you say something. You're not perfect, you might miss the mark in terms of the exact goals you're trying to hit or the exact things you're trying to execute on, but you give the effort. Or, if you're going to be somewhere, you show up, you're predictable, and and that's that builds trust in all relationships. And I find wealthy people, people who've created high levels of success, want to help a lot of people. The problem is, most people are unpredictable. How can I help somebody who is unpredictable?
Speaker 2:so here's a couple thoughts yeah, no, it's so true, I, I love it and that's, I think, part of it too in my mind. It's just it's about legacy, right, like you, you you have one life right, so you know you might as well try to give it your all. And you know, I think that's, I think that's a huge thing and I, I realized that a lot too, like, just like, eventually, you know so, when we first met, like you said, like I was kind of just trying to figure things out and explore, and I think part of it too, it's just, I was on a really solid path of living that dream job Right, and and I think, uh, I never really realized the gravity, uh kind of behind building passive income in your 20s and 30s and just how it obviously takes time to scale stuff and you know, if you can build it at any point, right, like it's going to be a little bit harder too, but the flexibility that allows for you to have, right, and you you've been able to see that too, obviously with your family and you know, having that that flexibility and time to be able to kind of hang out with Liam and obviously you know, um, another one here any day. So, um, you know, I think that's just one thing that I, thankfully I I came to realize right now. A lot of that's props to obviously just talking to people like you or just asking for help.
Speaker 2:Um, I think that's that's hard sometimes as a as a guy to to ask for help. I think that's hard sometimes as a guy to ask for help. And I'd love to pick your brain a little bit on that too, of just like, how did you humble yourself to ask for help, to want to? Because I think, right, as a guy, we want to know the shortcut and what's the best way to do it. We don't want to seem weak, we don't want to, we want to figure things out on our own and we, we, you know there's pride behind it, but in reality, like I would never be where I'm at if I, you know, didn't eventually realize, all right, mason, mason for me in my life and where I want to go was honestly kind of the solution to be able to ask. So I'd love to pick your brain also on that a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well. Well, it's interesting, you know we have. You and I both have toddlers now, right, and what do we? What do we want a toddler to do? If they're really struggling with something is to ask for help. We're teaching, hey, ask for help, right, but what's the human nature? Struggle. The human nature is to struggle and then get frustrated and get angry.
Speaker 1:And it's a small imagery of what I see it for 30, 20, 30, 40 year old adults doing. They hear here and I'm just being pretty blonde, but like here, they want to spend more time with their family here. They don't want to struggle with the bills, they want to travel, and what they're doing is they're beating their head against the wall with a job and they think this job is going to give them their charity, their fulfillment, it's going to give them their passion, like you said it's going to be. I'm not going to feel like I'm working a day in my life because I love what I do. And we had to challenge you on that thinking right, that was a big paradigm for you and it's just not fair to a job. A job is not designed to do that. But here's what is designed to do that Wealth, wealth in relationships, wealth in finances, wealth in your health.
Speaker 1:When I think about changing the way we see the world, it's about changing from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset, and so, for me, I think what drove me to go ask for help was more of a fear of what I didn't want than a desire of what I did want. I'll be honest with you I, still today, typically won't ask for help from my mentors and, by the way, that's a big point. Please never seek mentorship from somebody who isn't gaining mentorship in their life. Please never get counseling mental health counseling from somebody who isn't getting mental health counseling themselves, marriage counseling from somebody who isn't getting marriage counseling themselves Right. But I'll be honest, I do not seek help until it hurts. Still today, jordan.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Still Guilty a little bit too.
Speaker 1:It takes pain. And there's this old story that you and I have talked about of a dog sitting on a nail. And this young kid comes up to grandpa and he's like, hey, grandpa, and they're talking, and he's on the porch and this is a grandson, grandpa. And he's like hey, grandpa, uh, and they're talking and he's on the porch and uh, this is a grandson and he's talking to him. And all of a sudden the dog yelps and uh, and the kid kind of looks over and they keep talking. The dog yelps again in a little bit and eventually the kid's like, grandpa, why does? Why does the dog keep yelping? And the grandpa's like, oh, oh, the dog's sitting on a nail. And the son's like, uh, okay, why doesn't the dog get up? And the grandpa says because it doesn't hurt bad enough.
Speaker 1:And I think that is when I decided I'm going to start getting help. And still, in my journey of where we are today and the areas we want to grow in and the things we want to develop and the things we want to improve in, even though we have created some level of success in a lot of areas, it takes pain for me to really want to go seek that perspective and seek that help. Now, fortunately, some of the things that we've put in place in our relationship is systematic counseling sessions, touch points, and because of that now it's like, hey, monthly we're going to have a touch point, or weekly we're going to have a touch point. So it kind of creates, curates a little bit of that. So I think you can also build systems in your life for help. You can just say I'm going to set a cadence and I'm going to consistently do that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, there's a fear of unknown, there's a fear of being exposed, there's a fear of you know. We should know by now. How many times have you and I talked about that? Right? Yeah, but I just I guess I want to normalize it for everybody listening hey, it's okay, that's it, that's a normal thing that if you feel all these things, we've all been there, we've all sit in that.
Speaker 2:We just choose to move past that. What are your thoughts? Anything you want to add in there? I mean, it's so good, so good. It's funny too because, relating a little bit to you, we talked about how it took me a little while to realize, hey, I really wanted to be serious and really leverage you and what you know to be able to build something.
Speaker 2:I think for me it's because I hit a level of that pain, right, and I, you know I tell people this all the time of. You know, I was a single guy in my 20s who was making money pretty decently and having several promotions and moving up right, like kind of the the story right, like things were good. And as soon as you know it, I, you know I'm really quickly, I'm married, uh, have a couple of kids right away. And you know, you get to the situation too where you send kids off to daycare and you watch them, you know, cry at the door and uh, you know, you watch how your wife my wife's a pediatric nurse, right, so no business background but you know she's around kids who are puking all the time and all this and, you know, currently just caught a bug from something else she's dealing with.
Speaker 2:And it's that pain, it's that watching of man. If, if I had built stuff sooner, when it was not, when it was more comfortable, but I wasn't willing to push myself Right, it's, it's, it's realizing instead of working out and trying to stay healthy, you're waiting until you're you know you're overweight and obese and you're told. You know you have health issues and you need to start fixing it now.
Speaker 1:Exactly, it's the, it's the principle right. Dig the well. When do you dig the well? When you're thirsty. Hopefully not. Well, you can't, you won't be able to, you're done, you're going to die digging the well. You dig the well before you're thirsty.
Speaker 1:You dig it when you don't need it, you do it in advance. And here's the other thing what so? What I got caught up in and I see a lot of people in their 20s especially get caught up in this is they'll start something or they'll consider doing something on the side, but they, because of the the way we're taught in the school system to think about doing things, they think they have to have it all perfect before they start it. They think they have to have everything in a line. They think they have to have the best idea possible. They think they have to have this perfect fit and this perfect game plan, this perfect outline right. What they don't understand is the value of failure and learning and developing a skill and how that can compound in your 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s.
Speaker 1:What if you spent your entire 20s just learning developing a skill set of how to build residual income, passive income outside of your career, with some guidance in your life, with good mentorship? What if that's all you did? You didn't create any results. Your results all came from your job, but you just learned and developed the skill set. Well, now, by the time you're in your 30s, even if you do have kids and even if you are in a situation and I'm saying this because this is exactly what you did the point now where you have the skill and the knowledge and the mindset and the attitude and the resources and the relationships all set up in your life.
Speaker 2:so, even though you have, but you have three kids, right, yeah, three potentially more common oh, yeah, right yep, you just moved into your 30s, not even actually yeah, yeah, so by the time you're in your 30s.
Speaker 1:You now can build wealth based on the prior skills you developed, and so many people measure wealth only by money. But it's a muscle. Here's a great thing that I think would be really helpful, and then I'll kick it over to you to share and maybe pivot if we want to. Here's a great thing to think about.
Speaker 2:Here's what I see a lot of people do.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't have the capital to go start something. Okay, because when they secure passive income, residual income, they think go buy physical assets. They think go buy properties. Nope, actually, that's not at all what Jordan and myself have done. So then they say, well, if that's not the case, I'm going to just go pay off all my debts. Okay, hey, I respect that. We're huge believers in debt freedom. We're a huge believer in paying off debts. But here's the issue If you spend the next, let's say you spend your 20s just paying off your debts.
Speaker 1:What you've done now is you've gotten debt free, but you haven't grown your wealth development muscle at all. In fact, it's not been developed. It's like you haven't lifted a weight your entire life and now you're going to go to the gym and start lifting weights. It's like you haven't lifted a weight your entire life and now you're going to go to the gym and start lifting weights. It's going to take you another decade to build the muscles up. So what I would encourage people to do is run them in parallel pay off debts and build the wealth development muscle simultaneously.
Speaker 1:Here's how you build the wealth development muscle simultaneously. Though you build it part-time, you get around the right people who've created results and you do it through little bits over time and you be consistent and you don't worry about their results. You don't attach your identity, like the job, world and school teaches you. Your identity is all about the results and the title and the status you have. You attach your identity to who you're becoming, james clear. You attach your identity. I'm a learner, I'm developing a mindset, I'm developing well and I think if you can do that, man, can you set yourself up great for the future yeah, so true, I, uh, I love your point of the perfectionist.
Speaker 2:I'm not everyone's perfectionist, but I think, uh, you know, in school it's very easy to grow up and, you know, expect an a. That's something I'm actually talking a lot with my 10 year old right now. Right is, you know, we get tears because we, we have a b and it's like, hey, buddy, I know a lot of people are pushing you or making you redo things, but like, did you try your best? You know, did you try your best? Did you learn? Like, what have you learned? What did you, you know, from this experience, how have you grown?
Speaker 2:And I think, you know, obviously running a business now has helped me change that mindset, because I, you know, I was a 3.99 guy in GPA and I was a kid too that if I played like a Madden season, right, and I ended up losing a game and I had a 14-0 record, like season's done, 14-1, I don't want to be a 14-1 team. I needed to quit the season and start all over, right, because it was all about perfection and seemed like the best he could be. And it's a dangerous game to play. It really is. But game to play, it really is. But, yeah, I'd love to pivot a little bit to here, mason, ask you a little bit because I think you talked a little bit on this of kind of like where you've been able to go or where to go, and I think one thing that held me back was being that perfectionist image a little bit. Is I needed to have the right idea to do something, I needed to know what to do, or I needed, like you know, this wake up in one morning. This is what I'm doing, is I'm going to scale this.
Speaker 2:You know, I think a lot of times too, that holds people back or has held me back, was, you know, potentially and yes, I had a little bit of a business background, but not feeling super comfortable of you know, hey, I don't feel a hundred percent sold that I know how to leverage this alley or this platform, and I'm not, I'm not ready to go Right. So, no, I I'd love if you'd take just a couple of minutes and explain to like, um, you know, first off, like what, what? Just the background, what, what was it that you guys are obviously doing? And then helping us be able to mentor uh and be able to do uh, and then, how have you overcome, because I'm sure you've had these thoughts too of you know it's. You know I don't have that good idea how to overcome it, you know I don't have the best business background, but still leverage it, you know, and obviously getting a little bit more into e-commerce too and just kind of like why that route?
Speaker 1:Great question, yep. So yeah, just to pivot right from where you left off, is e-commerce was the route we took? Now, e-commerce is a massive, massive trillion dollar industry Think Amazons of the world, so Alibaba's, if you're going global, like it's a massive space. Okay, and there's a lot of different business models in there and there's a lot of noise out there around e-commerce. But at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:E-commerce is products being sold online. First thing I want to help people understand when it comes to just that venture alone you selling products online is not going to get you wealthy. You developing, trading your time for money won't get you wealthy. What gets you wealthy is building systems that produce for you. I don't believe we need to go make money. The money's already made. You need to build systems for money to come to you. You need to produce that, and so when we think of e-commerce Jordan and Jordan obviously knows this but what we've done is we focus more on building systems that products flow through. We don't own the products and therefore it produces a residual type of income. Okay, so that's that point, but let me backtrack on that thought process. Here's where it comes back to.
Speaker 1:For me, it started with who I met. It started with meeting people who had the life that Mason wanted. That was it. I read the rich dad, poor dad, stuff. I watched YouTube videos. I was on social media. I saw all the things about becoming financially free, retiring young, all of that stuff. I had never physically met somebody until I was in my mid twenties, and when I met somebody who actually was living the life that I wanted. They had the marriage, they had the relationships they had the time they were young, they were healthy, they didn't worry about money. And then I said, okay, teach me everything you know. It wasn't teach me e-commerce, it wasn't teach me you know this specific investment strategy. It was teaching me everything you know that got you to the life that you have today. And, to be super honest with people, if Craig, who's one of my mentors, would have told me, mason, I want you to go start broccoli farming, I would have been like that's effing weird. I don't like broccoli that much. That doesn't make sense in Wisconsin. But, ok, got it.
Speaker 1:Going to go do it. Got it Going to go do it. I was I. Once I met people, it created the life that I wanted. That was so different than corporate America. That was so different than any pro athlete I'd ever seen and seen in their career. I'd seen a life that I could actually emulate and wanted to live that then. Then I said, man, just teach me everything you know. And it happened to be in the e-commerce space.
Speaker 1:That was kind of the starting point and it took time. It took time to get educated. It took time to learn. I had to have a very growth mindset. I had to learn. There's a lot of terminology. I had no idea that what they were talking about. I have a business background. My wife has a psychology background. We had to.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you, business school prepared me zero for running a business. Business school prepared me zero for building the life that I actually wanted to create. It didn't prepare me for that. And here's what I realized and this should hopefully help a lot of people.
Speaker 1:I don't know a single wealthy person that retired, became financially free in their 20s and 30s, who did not leverage an existing system to get there. It's not the people that go reinvent, create these new great ideas that become financially free in their 20s and 30s. The people that come up with these the Elon Musks and all these people in the world that come up with these great business ideas they're meant to be entrepreneurs. They were 18 to 20 something. They were already in the game, playing the game. They were meant to do that and most of them didn't come financially free.
Speaker 1:They don't care. They'll live in their car in the street. They don't give a rip. They got an idea. They're going to run it through the end. Most of us aren't that way. Everybody I've met and I have dozens, if not hundreds of people and you've met a lot of them, jordan who've become financially free in their 20s and 30s. You're my witness. This isn't folklore. This is real people, real relationships. They all leveraged existing things that were already out there, didn't reinvent the wheel, took somebody else's knowledge and experience on how to do it and duplicated it and scaled it no, exactly, yeah, those people all breathe right, they're all alive, they're, they're real people.
Speaker 2:I think, uh, you know, I think I think one thing that's that's challenging too, that I always see, and everyone's got their own passions right, and I think, uh, you know, e-commerce might have become something that you've become a lot more interested now that you're kind of in the game, right, you kind of know it more, but initially you're, you know, you weren't thrilled, whether it was just e-commerce or broccoli farm or however.
Speaker 2:Right, like you just wanted the end result and I think, you know, I think it's a huge perspective shift because it's, you know, I know we're using a lot of analogies to like working out right, but like you know, it's it's wanting that six pack and doing what it takes to get the six pack, whether that means you're doing a ton of curls or you're doing right, like, like things that are like really challenging you or pull ups or that type of stuff, or just like right, like whatever you're supposed to do to get that, rather than be like you know, I'd like a six pack but like I got to only do it via planks, like that's the only way that I can get them.
Speaker 1:You know 100. You need to be passionate about the life you want to create or the life you don't want to have in five to ten years from now, and you need to be tied hard to that and you need to be really flexible on the path to get there there's not a single person in the gym that has the body type that most people want to have, that I know that.
Speaker 1:Doesn't try new things all the time, switching it up, doing hard things, doing things that are uncomfortable, because if you do the same workout over and over again and you just keep doing that, your body will actually start to break down because it will hurt. That's why baseball players throwing pitchers are bound to hurt their shoulders because they're doing the same motion over and over again and that, in its way, is not healthy. So, at the end of the day, you're so right, jordan. You just need to be so flexible on the path. When you know the outcome, be passionate about the outcome. Now, here's what I'm pretty blessed with. Maybe you're starting to become this and you can speak for yourself.
Speaker 1:I have become passionate about the methodologies that we've used to develop wealth and here's what I believe, the reason I became passionate about it. I played soccer my whole life. Why was I passionate about soccer? Because I worked so flipping passionate about it. I played soccer my whole life. Why did I? Why was I passionate about soccer? Cause I worked so flipping hard at it.
Speaker 1:I think we become passionate about things we work really hard at prior to meeting your wife? Were you passionate about the marriage you have today as passionate as you are today? Nope, you're more passionate about your marriage today than you were in the past. Right, why? Because you're working really hard at it, things that we, the science behind passion is. You don't, you're not born with it. You go work at it and you create passion.
Speaker 1:As you work hard at things, you get really good at things and you put you invest blood, sweat and tears in something. You become passionate about it, and that's why people say crazy things to me, like I love my job, I'm so passionate about it, and I get where they're coming from because they invest they've invested a lot of hours of their life into it, so I get where the science in their brain is telling them they're passionate about it. Here's the question, though is it getting you the life you want? Are the things you're passionate about today going to create the life that you actually want and the actual passionate life you want to build? And if they are, then keep doing what you're doing. But if they're not, man, you might need to shift. You might need to gain some perspective. You might need to get some help. Find some people that have created some of those things yeah, I, I think, uh, it's.
Speaker 2:It's funny Because I think sometimes too, as you become an expert, right, or you become very knowledgeable in something, I think our human nature is we'd like to give back. I really do think a lot of people like to help others because you have a special feeling. That's why charities are so big. That's why you look at some of the biggest, wealthiest people in the world and they just don't keep it all to themselves. Right, because there's a bigger vision At some point you can't have.
Speaker 2:You know you can't buy everything and you know money doesn't truly, you know, buy you happiness. It does. Like, you know, money is a good reward, right, because it does allow you some flexibility and stuff, but at some point, like the truly the true top 1% of the wealth, right, like they like to give back and I think part of that comes because of they know they have an expertise that they can share with the world and benefit, and that's something that I've seen a lot from you too, mason. It's just like obviously wanting to help you know, mckayla and I, and then obviously I've seen you obviously help other people, like there's a there's a something special to giving back to people and watching people grow and I almost feel like and that's something for myself, like just it's like a mission to want to help people and want to see families change and the life's change that they have, you know.
Speaker 1:I share a little bit of a go ahead From a business perspective that might be helpful for people. I a hundred percent agree with you 1000%. The most fulfilling work we'll ever do is helping people give me back 1000%. Here's what we need to do. We need to get out of the selfish business. That again, being harsh here, that it's to draw a point. It's to be polarizing that the school system and work system teaches us to have, which is me, me, me, selfish. How can I climb the corporate ladder? How can I get to my next position? How can I grow my career? How can I make a bunch of money? Right, we need to get into the serving business. Let me ask you a question and I'll play this off of you, jordan, because I know a little what. I'll play this off of you, jordan, because I know you'll what's the greatest asset in any company, the greatest asset they have, the greatest asset in any company? You name a company, the most high technological company what's their greatest assets? It's the people, people, it's the people.
Speaker 1:The number one investment you can make in your life is into yourself. The number two investment you can make is into people. You want to build wealth. Invest into people. That's it. It's that simple. People are your greatest asset. No AI will ever beat people, will ever beat people. Why? Because people are what move. People are what move organizations. It's their dream, it's their vision, it's their work habit, it's their passions. All of those things are moving. So, at the end of the day, if you want to build wealth, you have to start thinking about. It's a paradox, right? Oh, I want to become financially free. I know you do. You know what you need to do. Stop worrying about yourself so much and start focusing on how you can empower and help and add value to other people. I call it instead of being the go-getters of the world, which is what the corporate world teaches you, be the go-givers of the world.
Speaker 2:Go, add value to people's lives lives yeah, it's like any good sales book you read, right, it's not about any quality sales books, not about thinking about how to convince people or anything like that. It's about actually listening to people and what they they want from products and right, right, like that's how any good salesman or anything like that real estate, any of that. But, um, one thing I wouldn't mind talking a little bit too about Mace. I know we're kind of wrapping up here on time here shortly, but you know you talk about passion and obviously how you've been able to build passion via this, because it's kind of been the route that you've been able to take and you've become and love and write, like helping people and stuff, but realistically, like you have a family, family, do you ever see your family? Or are you like like what's what's your time like, what's your schedule? Look like, like, you know, I think for me one of my big things was I'm busy.
Speaker 2:Right when I first met you, I was very busy. I was in, you know, college, I was running track, a double major, I had multiple internships, like had a very impressive profile and obviously now I have three kids. You, you know, work, job, scaling this. I coach three of my kids sports. You know, I, I, I'm busy man. So, how you know, are you only doing this and, with that being said, to like to get into the game? How much money did you need, like cause? I think one thing that a lot of people don't always understand is they expect that you took out a massive loan or anything like that, and they didn't understand the value of sweat equity.
Speaker 1:So good, such good questions and so practical, such practical questions, jordan, because what you're doing for the audience is you're you're, you're picking apart the things that they're thinking because you've been in their shoes and you're like, hey, this is the stuff I was struggling with, so this is this is helpful. Heck, no man, I spend way more time not doing this than I do do this. I spend way more time. Hey, listen, my wife and I were talking about this morning. We sleep set. We spent seven hours to eight hours maybe six hours, depending on your life in our bed every night. Right, this whole, I'm all. I don't do anything unless I'm a hundred percent committed to something. Okay, that means you only can go to the bathroom today and that's it. You're a hundred percent committed to go in the bathroom, because if you need to go to the bathroom, you can't have to go to the bathroom. You got to be 100%. No, here's the reality.
Speaker 1:The reality of my life today is, I believe, that there's going to be seasons of chaos. No matter what you do, there's going to be a season of chaos. And what wealthy people do, what successful people do, is they learn how to manage and navigate through chaos, not by their own strength and willpower and discipline, by who they associate with, by mentors in their life, by community that they have around them and surround them, that speak life into them. That's how we've gotten through chaos, okay, but here's the beautiful thing. Chaos, okay, but here's the beautiful thing. If you can learn how to manage through that, if you can learn how to navigate through chaos, you can build a life where you now, emotionally more than anything, can be a calm and peace in all things. And there'll be stuff going on around you. You might not know it Dogs barking, kids crying, things are happening but you can be at peace, okay, and it takes learning. I believe it takes learning how to build wealth in all areas of your life.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what does my life look like today? Well, I do some consulting still today. Okay, so that's more of a, that's more of what I would call an active income. Um, I have a, we have a toddler, we're raising kids, young, young I call them adults going through childhood, um and uh, and so I spent a lot of time with them. We have another baby on the way, um, and I take care of my health and, uh, I'm invested into that and we got a house that we need to take care of and got family we need to take care of, and then during nap times and during bedtimes is when we, when we give back and we help and we and we mentor and we coach and we develop people. That's that's our passion and it's become a passion through, through our results. So those are, those are a couple components of just the mindset.
Speaker 1:Now, in terms of what does it take to get up and running, here's the thing. There's different types of money and wealth you can join. There's something called asset-based income. That's where you throw large sums of money at something, but if you want to build more of a residual-based income, you can actually do it with your sweat equity. Stifo Jordan, we're working on a venture right now that you're investing less than $300 a month to scale a venture right now in terms of capital that will produce a professional income here in the next year or two, capital that will produce a professional income here in the next year or two that will produce and residualize that, and you're doing it in between everything else you're doing.
Speaker 1:I feel like this is a better question for you, bro. Like, how are you figuring it out? Because you're figuring it out. You're figuring out how to put in outside of all the things you have with the kids and the sports and the job and wife's job and people kids getting sick you're figuring out how to still put in 10 to 15 hours per week. So I mean, if you can do it, I believe you're, you're. You're really eliminating a lot of excuses for people. I mean you're excuse. I mean I think that's your brand. In a lot of ways you're building, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it's. It's funny Cause I, I think, looking back at myself too, I wouldn't have believed that I ideally this was not the proper season to be building something right, looking back, you know, I think, uh, but it's funny because I've, you know, one of the things that's been huge and I've learned a lot from you guys and, um, just kind of the you know, our community of people is the value of educating yourself and growing yourself. And, uh, you know, I was, I think I was reading a book actually that last week and it blew my mind. It said 42% of Americans adult Americans obviously don't read a book at all during the year. That was me. I didn't enjoy reading, right, like, I think, kind of school and textbooks kind of turned me off from opening a book, right, or, you know, being a sports guy, I'd rather spend my free time watching sports. But if you look at CEOs they had surveyed it was like 40 or 50 different CEOs and most, like the average CEO, read one book a week. Wow, and I think that's a huge difference.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes when people look at successful people, they think that they are just smart, like they just know it, they just figure it out. Here's the difference. They educate themselves, they diversify themselves, they learn different methods, they learn who's the right people to associate with and learn from. And so you know it's funny because I think in this season of life, I actually handled time way better than what I used to do being a single guy. Because I, just in this season of life, I actually handled time way better than what I used to do being a single guy. Because I just learned that like, hey, like if I value my time, I look at things in our formats, right. So like every hour to go to get this done, so at 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock or one o'clock, like I'm getting this done, this done, this done, and just staying focused, and I, I, you know it's this current season of life, like that's how I handle things. And you know, does it always go smooth? Not always, but you know it's, it's, it's more fun. I think this way too.
Speaker 1:So yeah for sure. Well, I would love to just land the plane and just have you share a little bit on, if you could, if you could say, in terms of you getting in the game, getting something going, looking back, all the fears, all the doubts you had in the beginning. Now, looking at where things are today, you're headed the track, you're on. What would you have told yourself back then, and and and let yourself know, like what, what? What are you today, now, retrospectively, looking back, what would you have said to yourself and let's, let's land the plane there. I'd love to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was good, it's funny, I was actually gonna ask you that question. So, um, you know, I think, uh, looking back, regardless of whatever you want to explore in life, whatever avenue you want to go down, I think it's important to ask questions. That was one of the things I had the hardest time doing was.
Speaker 2:It's very easy to not want to seem stupid, right, like you're expected to know things and you should know this, and and I have this fear of this, and obviously I've voiced several kind of things that I helped helped me back, and so one thing I wish I would have done sooner on is just ask a lot of questions and, um, you know, for me, like it's, it's kind of a silly thing, but it it held me back. It really did, and it slowed me down a little bit. I don't regret it at all, like it's part of my journey and who I, who I am and I'm. I'm glad it happened, because I hope that I can add value to people and that, you know, whoever's listening to this podcast can learn and just be like hey, like that's, that's awesome. I want to go this route and I've learned this, and so, if I want to go this route, I should ask more questions and learn more, but I really do think, and one thing too in my mind was just having a doubt of just I can't do it.
Speaker 1:That's not who.
Speaker 2:I am. I'm different from the top 5% or you know, like that's just not my situation. You know I have. I'm different because I have a health problem. I'm different because I write like different things, because I really do believe that, like God makes us to all individually have our own stories and accomplish things that we all can do, and so I think it's very easy, if you don't surround yourself around the right people, to fall victim of who you are and not becoming who you're truly made to be. So, yeah, I think, just high level, that's just kind of things that I would tell myself, and I tell myself to have fun and smile along the way, because it's very easy, I think, to look at what you don't have versus what you do have, and it's important to look at your journey and smile and remember that, hey, this is fun and this is like you're going to tell 10 years from now. You can tell people what you're doing currently and might as well make it something that's going to be a fun experience. You know and learn from that.
Speaker 1:Amen, brother. Well, I am so proud of of, of not what you're becoming but, more importantly, who you're becoming, the man you're becoming the husband, the father, and the impact that you're already making on so many people. I know you. You go out of your way to serve people in your life and it's the it's the only way, it's the only thing I would ask for in our relationship, because you can never pay me, but you can pay it forward and you've done such a beautiful job. So I'm so proud of you and so grateful for you coming on the Planned Injury podcast today and thank you for the great discussion and I hope everybody has a great, great 2025 or whatever year. You're listening to this. I hope your year is fulfilled. I hope you get past trying to chase happiness and you start to find a way to chase joy through taking action on your values and what you believe and go through the struggles of life. Play injured, godspeed.
