Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
This is Wake Up To Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth. And now, here's your host, Brandon Brittingham. All right, what's up, everybody? We are back with another episode of Wake Up To Wealth, and I've got one of my good friends, awesome guy here with us, Jeff Smith, real estate investor, has done some things in the fitness industry, was in the military, and he's
Done a lot of cool shit, man. Appreciate having you today. Absolutely, Brandon. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So I've had the pleasure of seeing you speak a few times. And you spoke to my team before, which was super impactful. You spoke at events with me before.
And you kind of broke down some things that you learned in the military that you've kind of translated into business. And I'd like to unpack that, but kind of give us an idea of who you are and what you do and give us a little bit of your background.
Um, yeah, yeah, I, I don't want to do the whole origin story thing, but I was in special operations in the military, um, that I came out of there and went into your typical fucking corporate cubicle fortune 50 company where I worked for a handful of years. And then I opened a gym in Houston, Texas, um, which I owned and ran for decades.
12 years. And then now I do real estate investing and business consulting and run a couple masterminds personally. Yeah. And I know you kind of glazed over it, but you actually did some, you told, you at least told my team a story. You did something pretty cool in the military. I'd like you to share that with me. Yeah.
Are you talking about the capturing of Chemical Ali? Yes. Yeah, that's probably my number one claim to fame in special operations was, if you remember the deck of cards when we invaded Iraq, it ages me. I think those came out in 2003. The King of Spades was Chemical Ali, and I captured him.
in streets of Baghdad. So that, that, that would be my claim to fame. But my wife heard that story very interestingly. Um, cause she is a Arabic and Islamic Arabic and Islamic translator. She was, and, and, uh,
Not like a terp, but she's just a white girl from Kentucky. But she specialized in religious justification for suicide bombing. And she actually was studying in Morocco in 2006. And we were dating at the time. And she heard the story for the very first time over there because I had never told her about it. And so she fucking called me and was like, why in the fuck am I hearing this story about Kimiko Ali from this ranger group?
in Morocco who's telling me about my boyfriend. And so that brings it full circle. But yeah, that is my claim to fame. So, you know, not many people in this world make it to Special Forces and then make it to a mission that is as crazy as that. Like, what did you learn? First of all, take us into the mindset of
the person you have to be to get to that point, right? And then what did you learn that you've translated into being successful in business?
Well, I think the biggest thing was like, I enlisted in the military right after 9-11. That was the catalyst for me enlisting in the military, but I knew that we were going to go to combat and I had, so my trajectory kind of was, I had been looking at these special operations units in high school. Um, cause I was like a bad kid, juvenile delinquent, grew up without a dad, whatever you want to call it. But like, I didn't have a lot of direction and
And so I was looking at different things, but I was really good at football. And so my opportunities, I looked at the Navy SEALs. I was like, I don't really like all that water shit. They get caught on boats all the time and have to go out with the Navy and do all that. And I'm not really interested in that. So I ended up, I found...
Ranger Battalion. And I was like, that looks fucking cool. What do they have to do? Went through all their shit. They learned about it. And but when the time came and I was a senior in high school, it was choose football or go because I was offered to go play in college.
And so at the time I was 18 years old, I was like, well, I could go play football now and I could always go into the military. And sure enough, that's what fucking happened. I went into it. I went and played college football for a few years and then 9-11 happened. And before that time, I was already done with college and done with college.
playing football and I was working. And so when 9-11 happened, I was like, well, I'll just go in the military, like rekindle that dream, if you will. But the reason I went into special operations and volunteered for it was because I wanted to I wanted to run with the best people.
Because I thought we were going to combat. I knew somebody was. And if I had to get deployed, I wanted to be deployed with the best I could possibly be. Right. So like that was my mentality. So when I went from day one, I didn't have a guaranteed contract or anything. All I could get my recruiter to write me was a letter.
An infantry contract with a guarantee for an opportunity at airborne school. So and then they were like, well, you can volunteer to go to RASP or RIP, which is Ranger Indoctrination Program after that, because they select their candidates out of airborne school.
So I went ahead and went through all that shit. I went through basic training, advanced infantry training, airborne school, did all our jumps and shit. And sure enough, they came down and they were like, hey, who wants to volunteer to go through RIP? And I was like, sure. I raised my hand. They fucking come smoke you and like you, you go get held up in these barracks for a couple of weeks before you start. But they just start coming.
destroying you at that point in time and you wait for your slot in class. So when I started, um, that's a weird story because I went through twice, uh, because I went through the very first class and, um,
We were supposed to graduate the following day and there was a mix up in communication and I had no clean uniforms for some reason, me and two other guys. And so they washed us out, but we were like the best in the cycle. And so for some reason they pulled us in because I was like devastated. I mean, this is like 2001, like, wow.
there was barely cell phones and shit. So my family was like driving down from Illinois for graduation and they're like, you're done. And I'm like, holy fuck, man. I'm like going to Korea. Right. Like, like my dream is dead. And, um, after some, some,
devastating news of that, right? Like I'm trying to deal with it. And then they pull us in there and they're like, hey, we'll give you another chance. We never fucking do this. Like it's completely against our rules. But if you'll recycle,
And start Monday in the next class. It will give you that opportunity. But you've got to go through day one. And we were both like, well, let's do it. And so we started again. I went through the whole entire fucking thing again. And then 88 people started that class and we finished with 11. And I ended up soldier of the cycle the second time, which...
Usually sounds like a good thing, but I think I had an advantage because I had already went through it once. Besides being broken physically, I was ready for everything that they threw at us the second time.
That said, I mean, that's really like been my mentality always. Like I put myself around people. I mean, that's why we know each other. That's what I mean. I put myself around the best. I want to compress time. I want to, I want to not make all the fucking mistakes. Um, yeah.
That's just kind of been my mentality always. And it was my mentality when we went into the military too, because I mean, the military is a mixed bag. There's some fucking douchebag assholes in there that are fucking lazy and fat and everything else, right? Just, it's just like society. But there's also like,
cutting edge fucking savages. Right. And so I wanted to be with the group of savages when it was time to fucking go to war. And so and I feel the same way about business. I think it's important to have be surrounded by the best of the best so that you can operate at the level that you want to and get the results that you want to. I mean, it's a long answer to it.
No, I mean, that's you unpacked a lot there. A couple of things, if you wouldn't mind, just because I've heard it before and I think it's so impactful, but you kind of broke down like two or three kind of tactical things for me before of like.
kind of how you learned how to run a team and work within a team that you learned in the military that you've translated in business. You don't have to give us all, but, you know, kind of give us a couple because, you know, there was a lot of shit that when you spoke to my team that I took and immediately implemented. You know, I don't know that I ever told you this, but after the one time you talked about
You know, we really doubled down kind of on our pod leadership of out of some of the things that you talked about. I mean, fuck, you just saw two of my guys crush it today. Yeah. You know, because I was like, God damn, that makes the most sense in the world. The military special forces does it. Why wouldn't we do it?
Well, I think what I discussed with them, the biggest thing is like Jocko refers to it as decentralized command, right? Everybody has to understand the mission ultimately that you're trying to drive towards. And each person up and down the chain should be able to execute on that mission should no one else be able to finish it, right? And like, I think that's the biggest thing that we lose track of as business owners is we don't communicate well.
The the overall mission and so that your team never gets bought in at the lower levels because they think they're just paper pushers or they think their role is insignificant. But ultimately, if you can reframe that thought process to be like, hey, motherfucker, if all of us are dead, could you still drive this company to a billion dollars without me here?
And like, if you can rewire their brains to think that way, hey, you are a really valuable asset on this team. You need to know the roles of him, him and him down the line and be able to execute on their roles. You don't have to be as good as them necessarily. But if we're going to this point,
You have to be able to operate each and every position on the team to an extent. Absolutely. Yeah. Which was so powerful. I'm going to switch gears for a second because I think this is one of the reasons we're aligned to. Besides all that you just said, you teach people about wealth, right? And you teach people about how to get and generate wealth.
And I think that's so powerful because I call this show Wake Up to Wealth because I believe that we've all been taught wrong about money and we've all been put into the matrix. And once you break the cycle of poverty by understanding money, you can get out of the matrix. So, you know, that's how did you transition from special forces in the military to being
I want to figure this wealth shit out because that's a different transition. You don't hear that a lot, right? Yeah. Well, my parlay or foray into the corporate world was with insurance and financial services. And so like Series 6, Series 7 type shit. And I grew up
In a tiny Midwestern town, my wife or my wife, my mom was a school teacher for 38 years. I learned conventional methodology. Right. She has a master's degree. My goal was to go to college, get a degree, go work at a company for 40 fucking years, just like everybody else. Right. Contribute to these qualified programs where they take your fucking money and you can't control any of it at all.
And that never sat well with me. So like I didn't follow the model. I went through a little bit of college, never got a degree, didn't finish, went into the military. I immediately when I went into the corporate world and they're like, you need to invest. I've always been a great saver. I can accumulate and amass a bunch of money like that. That has always been a thing of mine. But like I never really liked the traditional model.
And the qualified programs just never made sense to me because I just grew up with a distrust for authority. And so giving someone my money for them to invest for 45 years with the promise that they're going to give it back to me when I'm 65 just didn't fucking compute to me. Right. So...
That said, I took my own money, didn't contribute to my 401k. When I was 26 years old, I bought a seven-unit apartment complex. And that's where I kind of cut my teeth in real estate. I hopped in there very early on. And then I started buying stuff from that point on.
But I do teach people about wealth because the biggest thing that I unlocked that I didn't unlock for another 10 years was overfunded whole life insurance. Like that's my like high early cash value life insurance policies are really what I consider the 401k for entrepreneurs. And if we buried a shitload of money in those from the time that we were first
15 to 30, there would be no workforce. That's why you don't learn about these things. And that's why I feel like they don't teach certain things.
Plus, there's a lot of scam artists out there, and they rip people off, and they set up the policies incorrectly, so they get a bad rap. And there's guys like Dave Ramsey shitting on them all the time. And if you find them where they can be written through the right companies the right way, they're the most powerful fucking tool for wealth building you can ever imagine. Essentially family banking. Yes. Because it provides you with...
what Kent Clothier talks about all the time, which is uninterrupted compound interest for fucking ever at six and a half percent. And you can't beat it. And what they tell you is they blow a bunch of bullshit up your
ass about 401ks returning 10%, 11%, whatever, but they don't tell you all the fees and the taxes and everything associated with that. So at the end of the day, you don't touch your money for 45 years and you're getting about an aggregated rate of return of 6.5% too. So if you just get in these
Correct policies. First of all, you've got a death benefit set up for your family. You're buying your net worth for your estate, essentially. And then you also have access to the fucking cash anytime you want. And so that allows you to accelerate the cyclical rate of money. And so like that's one of the biggest concepts that I teach people because it's so basic. Anyone can do it. You don't need a ton of money. You can get started with a thousand dollars. You don't need fucking money.
six figures of savings to get started. And like that is the powerful tool that you can use to buy your freedom over a few year period. Now, if real estate's your thing, which it's ours, like it, and that's the next asset that you're putting it into. Great. You can cycle it again into a different asset that will make more money. But if you're super conservative and your risk tolerance is not there, you can just chug along at six and a half percent and keep feeding it.
Like, so you really have a lot of choices with it and it can really change the trajectory of a family. And that's important to me. I think you just explained it in the simplest way I've ever heard it explained. Because anytime anyone tries to explain it, it's like, what the fuck are you talking about? Yeah. Like, and anyone that sells it when they try to explain it, I'm like, what the fuck did you just say? Yeah. Yeah.
If you don't understand what he just said, go back and listen to it because it is one of the most powerful tools you can have. I have them set up for me. The minute I learned about them...
And I found someone that I could trust to do it. I've done it. And I've literally used it to buy. I borrow money against it. It earns me interest. I buy assets with it. You know what I mean? And I've got an eight-figure death benefit on it today. Do you know what I mean? So it's an amazing, amazing tool. If you don't know about it, to his point, there's a lot of scam artists that are out there. So you got to be careful. Yeah.
but used correctly, it is a powerful tool to build wealth. No fucking question about it. Yeah. Because as long as you can delay the gratification, you can literally lend yourself money at 0% for your entire life for anything you want to buy. And it's a pretty incredible tool. So you impact a lot of stuff here, which I'm very appreciative and grateful for. So the one thing I always ask people is,
And everybody's version is different, right? You believe in fitness like I do. But what is waking up to wealth? What does that mean to you? And there's no wrong answer. Just what is your version of it? Oh, man. Yeah.
It's funny, the speakers today, because that resonated with me so deeply, because I say you are the asset all the time. You are controlling yourself, controlling your mind, controlling your vices. When you can take control of all of that stuff, everything else just becomes easy. So when you said the money part is easy, I say the exact same thing all the time, because it's getting control of your shit.
Which, if you can control what's between your ears, then you can... If you can lead yourself well, you can lead your household well, which allows you to lead your teams well, which allows you to impact your community well. And for me, wealth is just making a broader impact and improving people's lives on a regular basis. And I think...
That if you go into Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like we've got enough money to eat. We're pretty comfortable with that. So where you're saying this, because yesterday, not to cut you off, but I have to say this. So yesterday I trained all of the Apex. By the way, we're in the Apex building today. We just got out of a vent. I trained all of the Apex sales team and all the phone sales team to
And, you know, one of the things that I talked to the Apex sales team about was I said, you know, the second thing in Maslow's hierarchy of needs is community. Right. And you guys are selling a fucking great community. And then I also transitioned it to if you want to lead people, you have to build community. Because if you don't know about Maslow's hierarchy of needs and your leadership, you need to learn about it. Because right underneath food and shelter is what?
Community. That's why I built my inner circle. That's why I teach men to be more powerful leaders within their families. For me, being great husbands, great fathers, and making a fuckload of money is like, that's my mission. That's what I teach people to do. That's what I talk about. That's what I'm interested in. That's what waking up wealthy means to me. If I can change more families and impact more guys to fucking step up and
lead their families well and be who their wives need them to be, who their families need them to be and be the example for their children while making a lot of fucking money. Cause I think you can just make a broader impact the more money you have. And so like that, that's what speaks to me.
Awesome. Well, brother, I, I, this has been a long time coming and I am super thankful and grateful that I got here with you today. And thank you for pouring into us. Thanks for having me, man. Anytime, anytime, you know, I can help you any, any way I can let me know.
Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Wake Up to Wealth. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcast. This way we'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review on Apple Podcast and tell your friends about the show. It is how new people find us. Until next time.
