Taking Over Businesses and Finances: Importance of Investing

with guest Justin Donald #MakingBank S5E28

Most of the time, people think to focus on the connection between building business and money. Entrepreneurs are always trying to create better businesses and services while keeping themselves financially afloat and their employees’ taken care of. Investing can be overlooked and misunderstood, but it can be an important aspect of being an entrepreneur.  

Justin Donald, a master in investing, is a recent guest on Making Bank. When he first started his career, he realized how much power he didn’t have. From there, he became an entrepreneur so that he could do what he wanted. Soon after that, he realized further that he barely had control over his money – which led to his path in investing. He has invested heavily in real estate and owned several profitable businesses, such as Orange Theory, multi-family rentals, and more.  

Learn how Justin managed to take control over his entire life, and the important criteria that he follows when investing. 

Taking Control of Life and Money 

Justin didn’t always know exactly what he wanted to do. Starting in the finance industry, he realized quickly how unhappy he was earning his money. He wanted to do something that would support the lifestyle he led while giving him more control over his own life. Justin says, “I wanted the privilege of getting to work and working on my terms in areas that I’m passionate about with people that I’m thrilled to work with. So more than anything, I just wanted to live life on my terms versus someone else’s term.” 

After Justin started looking into his career and looking at the money he made, he discovered something that changed the way he viewed business. Breaking down the world of financial services isn’t always cut and dry as it might seem. Justin says that there is conventional investment advice with people that know what they’re doing and good at what they are doing. But on the opposing side of that, there are a lot of people that aren’t good and can manipulate money. There is a lot of manipulation built around who has your money.  

“I had a wakeup call also, where I got a bad taste in my mouth and just the way that the financial services industry works and how what I thought I was earning, I wasn’t earning. I had some extra motivation too because when I thought I was making money, I wasn’t. So, I had to take some things into my own hands.” Part of taking it into his own hands, Justin wants to help others realize this.  

Whoever has your money, makes the most money off of your money. And to Justin, that didn’t sit right with him. He didn’t like thinking about how these banks and investments didn’t have his best interest at heart, and he wanted to change that. When he researched his statement quarters, he realized that he was losing money.  

“And I just said, you know, no more of that. I’m going to be in control. I don’t have any access and control with my money this way, and I need to take it into my own hands, and I need to become educated and I need to become resourceful in investing.”  

10 Commandments for Investing  

Entering the world of investment might be scary. Justin has some guidelines that help him stay on track. “So, to me, I don’t want to invest in a way that’s incongruent with the life I want to live. I don’t want to invest in a way where I’m buying, let’s say, certain types of real estate that so much of my time, that I don’t have freedom of time.”  

When it comes to investing, Justin wants to take the balance that he has in his life to his investments. When he thinks about his 10 commandments of investing, the first one is a lifestyle. By having his lifestyle reflect his investments, he’s taking more precautions for better outcomes. He built a team to allow him to work in real estate but allow him to have free time in which he could allow him to act on truly passive investments. 

Another criterion that Justin follows is not to lose money. He sets up his investments in a way that they protect the risk and downside the possibilities, but they also present a nice and lucrative upside possibility. Ensuring that a failure in investment doesn’t hit 0 is something that Justin keeps in mind – he might lose some but never all of what he’s got. This ties directly into his next rule that he follows; which is looking for the invisible deals.  

These are the deals that the public or general people might not know about on the market. Justin uses conversations and negotiations to make deals that previously weren’t heard of or even thought about. By going out on a limb and creating his opportunities, he provides himself with plenty of unique investments before others get the chance to know about it.  

After this, his next principles and rules are aimed to create cash flow on day one or immediately as soon as possible. This is a cycle that allows him to successfully find a way to invest and find manage his money. “So if I invest, let’s say I get it back in a year…I still have equity in the deal and I can take that same money and invest in another deal just like it, and get more equity, get more cashflow until I get that money out.”  

All of Justin’s commandments ensure that he’s making the right decision for every aspect of his life. With new innovative ways of thinking about investing, Justin proved that successful investing can be just as successful as building up your own business.