FROM NAVY TO NINE FIGURES ft. Douglas James | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

27:23Right? So I do the same thing in business. I brought my good friend Oscar here that apparently knows everyone in your office because he's an OG in the mortgage space. I bring people with me. I'm not going to come here alone. So that whole mentality is the same thing because I know if I put out enough goodwill, that's going to come full circle back to me. So again, scrutiny and expectations, it's a part of what's going to happen. But as soon as I started to make money, like I said, what happened? people were like, hey, the master chief, you're making this money. I'm getting out military next month.

27:59Will you teach me? People start to expect things from you, right? And because you know this now, like Jack is out of the box, right? You know, people are going to scrutinize your expect things from you. That's just human nature. But it allows you to now discern and make the choice. Am I going to be pissed off at this hater and get upset over my the comments people are leaving on my Facebook ad? Or am I just going to let it go and have compassion for these people because they just don't know any better. They don't have, they're not, God is showing me, not them. Right. So this might be an opportunity for you to educate them, but give at the minimum, pray for them and give them compassion.

28:35Right. So I love that. Now you've spent millions on Facebook ads. What are some of like the biggest failures and lessons that you've learned from running ads for your own business at such a high level? Not every platform is made equally. So I ran ads on TikTok, Facebook, you know, Instagram, YouTube, we've done native ads like Taboola, things like that. Every platform in LinkedIn, every platform has a certain way that audiences are there. There's a reason why they're on that platform. Right. And if you understand why they're on that platform, you can craft content that matches the reason why they're visiting those platforms.

29:21For example, if I am on YouTube, I need to make how-to content because YouTube, you go there to solve your problems and learn how to fix things. If I'm on Facebook, it's a very passive audience. On YouTube, I can actually target people that are searching on Google for local carpet cleaning services or local, uh, a mortgage company. Right. And I could go show them how to get the best rate on for their home when they go apply for the loan. I can actually do that. Right. Because I know they'd searched on Google and I could put videos in front of them on YouTube on Facebook. I can also do like an interest-based targeting.

30:03However, it's more, it's more passive. They may not be in the market right now. It might be based off of search they've done in the last six months. but if the offer is right, they just might click, right? So with Facebook and Instagram, it's more of family. It's more lifestyle. It's more, Hey, I'm here to kill time. I'm not here necessarily to do business. So you have to meet people where they're at. So you have to be more entertaining, a little bit more educational and attention grabbing on YouTube. You can be a little bit more forward as to what the, what the thing is, right? TikTok is the same way.

30:40I think TikTok is now how to, but extreme entertainment, high dopamine, scrolling every two seconds. I don't like this. Boom, boom, boom, boom. So you need to be really quick on how you grab attention and what your hook or angle or edit is in that one second, because they're going to flip right off your video. So understanding like all these different platforms, if I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn because I am searching for an executive that I can connect with that can bring my business from A to B or an employee, or I'm hiring people, right? So you can see through Sales Navigator, their job title, how many, we could go on your Sales Navigator right now on LinkedIn and see the job, the number of employees, your position, everyone that works here in the office, right?

31:25That's what we're doing on LinkedIn. So if you understand these different reasons why people on these platforms, you have to craft content that matches, meet them where they're at. That's what people get wrong most in marketing. They don't meet people where they're at. They're me, me, me. We're really selfish. We're human beings. We're all built for survival. It's a part of our human nature, right? But you have to keep it what's in it for them, right? Meet them where they're at. So I think that's been the biggest thing, right? So when I'm creating content, right, and I'm talking to veterans, and I'm talking to single moms, and I'm talking to parents and I'm talking to doctors, right?

32:01I'm crafting messaging that is exactly who the avatar is that I work with, but I'm also presenting it to them in a way that is aligned with the type of content that's showing on these different platforms, right? So for me, that's the best way to utilize these social media platforms. And I will say this also, you asked me like at a high level with some lessons I can pull out of spending millions on ads. Um, you know, obviously when you're spending money on ads, you're trying to spend a dollar and make three,$4 out, right? That's, that's the whole point or more. And, uh, what I've noticed is you can have the best marketing, you know, uh, you can have the best, the best ad that's bringing attention.

32:45But if your funnel system, when you, when you drive traffic from these social media platforms, you're sending them to an engine, right? It's a system. Every system is designed to get a certain result, right? For example, the tax code, right? The IRS is looking for their nut every year, okay? You made whatever you made last year. Someone makes$1 million,$10 million here. They're coming for 30%, 50 % of that, right? So we can't get away from the tax code. That system is designed to make the IRS money, right, and whatever else that money goes to. Well, we can change the inputs into that system, right?

33:23So if you want to pay less taxes, what do you do? You buy assets. You write things off. So with Facebook, Instagram, and all of these other systems, we're running traffic to an engine that is designed to convert awareness into ultimately a sale at the end. So if there's incongruencies from when people see your ad to when they see the initial landing page to when they opt into your landing page to get their video, the webinar, or the product to when they actually go book a call to when they speak with your team, if there's inconsistency in the congruency of the initial messaging at any point in that funnel, they're going to drop off and think, hey, this is a scam.

34:05They told me this thing, but now they're saying this, right? You should always reference the last page, the last thing that they saw, and set expectation of what is going to happen in the next step of the funnel. And that's how you build congruency, right? So people get this whole thing messed up. They're like, let's just jam a whole bunch of traffic to a book a call. Okay, great. You're getting$30 book calls. Congratulations, because the industry average is like$200. Congratulations. But these people booking our encounter have no idea what the heck you're trying to sell, what your mission is, what's in it for them.

34:42They just booked a call because they were bored at 12 a.m., right? So you have to really indoctrinate people, right? You have to give them the exact next step that you want them to take on that journey. You don't rely on them to just say, hey, here's a funnel. Let's just see what happens. You have to indoctrinate them. You have to put certain copy and videos within the whole funnel to pull them through all the way till the end. That's awesome. Congruency is tough to maintain, too, if you're creating so many various ads and referencing them correctly. And we're dealing with that now with some of our optimization of our recruiting strategy here at New Mortgage.

35:21So I totally understand all that. And what I do is also high ticket because I convince people the same thing that you do. But I don't coach them. I offer the product for free, which is I convince them to join our organization, leave their mortgage company that they started, and leave it to join our ecosystem, our platform. So it's the same kind of concept. so it takes a lot to convince someone on high ticket offers even though my high ticket offer effectively is free yeah wow yeah it's free but you know but it's also like i'm dealing with ego you know like hey i'm gonna leave my company i built to go to your company yeah and white label your solution like yeah you're gonna make a lot more money yeah and you know what's interesting too about high ticket too you talk we talked a lot about concurrency these sales don't happen with one call usually no like yeah sure there's the one percent or whatever less than one percent that will like here's the credit card boom whatever right but you usually do need a back-end educational process to put people through so that they feel confident in their decision that they feel comfortable moving forward right so okay back-end educational process like right now is mine's are just mine is just video ads various video ads in just like a couple minutes but like and webinars, but I'm always looking to increase and implement new effective educational strategies.

36:44I'm starting a coaching platform too just to help kind of navigate, help people navigate or enter the mortgage industry. Yeah. People, you have to build a know like trust factor, right? So people need to know who you are. They need to know what you do. They need to know how to do it and they need to know that you've done it for other people, that there's other people that are successful working with you, right? So you can accomplish a lot of what I just said through a funnel pre-appointment or at the appointment of book a call. But you have to go deeper after the initial call. That's all, by the way, accomplished, everything you said, through brand strategy.

37:20People know that from my brand or the podcast or the size of the company. That's all easy. But convincing them mentally to make that paradigm shift is tough. Because in my space, I deal with ego. ego is a tough thing to overcome in your space you're you were dealing with people that are like i don't have a choice you know like i'm my hand's busted i can't do this or i'm i'm an ea i'm ea6 i got a year left how would you overcome like let's say that the doctor's still practicing how would you and he's like i'm gonna go to you and make less money my hand's fine so that's the how would you overcome that barrier you know well to leave that and his hands still working like I can show you how to make more ten times more coaching here yeah so it's the money is more significant on this side but then there's also okay how many how much how many hours are you spending at the hospital yeah okay okay you're working ten hours a day you're on call four days a week right you're in there six days a week someone's always calling you or texting you about work okay are you married do you have kids yeah got three daughters oh how old are they they're you know three six and ten oh what kind of sport are they in the sports what's great what grades are then oh you know they play soccer they do this but i'm always missing it because i'm out freaking working i'm on call and i'm always got to take a call right well how are you married your relationship with your wife yeah we're married but you know we're in counseling we're having you know issues at home right okay so you're telling me it seems like there's an imbalance here well how tell me about your faith.

38:59How much time do you spend with God every day? And so I start to get into what their day-to-day is and how much time do they spend scrolling social media or are they watching Netflix? Who their friends are? What are they doing after work? And if you go through the average person's schedule, I guarantee you, if you wanted to build a business while working a full-time job, there's at least four to five hours in there a day that you're just you're wasting right that you could be given to your family or you can be given to another uh passion project right so when you start to break all these things down and you start to help people realize wow my marriage is struggling i'm not connected to my faith i don't have time for my kids you're offering me a solution to make more money and get all my time back man that sounds amazing right so that's the path that I would take with most of the people that I've worked with in my coaching business.

39:58What I do today is I work with a lot of business owners that are actually generating a bunch of leads. They've done seven, eight, and even nine figures and 10 figures in other industries, but they're having issues with dealing with the normal flows of the market, of people opting in and maybe not be financially qualified for things. So that's why I got into the software space because now I can basically help people give them 100 % certainty when somebody says, hey, I'm interested in your product or service. They give you their name, email, phone number. How many times that happens and they book a call and they no show or you take the call and they're not financially qualified, right?

40:39It's a waste of time, money, and energy. So what our new company does that I'm focused on now that I'm sure we'll probably get into, it basically identifies exactly who's financially qualified to buy from you before you even talk to them. Right. And so it's the same. It's it's it's just a different vertical now. Now I'm solving business problems for busy entrepreneurs that are that are doing a lot of money. So you've now we'll just dive right into that for the sake of time, because I want to make sure we talk about lead five. So you still have the coaching company. It's still a revenue generator for you.

41:11Correct. But you're just not as passionate about it as this new project. Well, I'll tell you this. I am actually still very passionate about it. I'm actually shifting my whole model to lead with Christian faith because I feel like that community has been really underserved from an entrepreneurial standpoint, at least from my end. There's other programs and people doing amazing things like my friend Oscar. but I actually want to help more faith-based entrepreneurs find entrepreneurship and get the skills to be able to grow not only in their faith and marriage but definitely in business using my marketing and sales experience.

41:47So I'm shifting my whole model to lead with that and then we'll get into the actual marketing and sales side of things. So yes, to answer your question, I'm still passionate about it. I'm just shifting how I'm going to be focused on that going forward But Leetfi, my software company, is literally 95 plus percent of my time now. It's a SaaS product that I just developed, and I'll just go right into it. We started working on the technology just about a year ago. I met my partner, Eric. He has been doing underwriting for banks for like 15 years, has like a 15-year relationship with the credit bureaus.

42:23and he was working on some kind of tech similar in the financial sector to deliver pre-approvals. But when I first found him about a year ago, I mean, my company had already done significant numbers. We had already done over 100 million in revenue. We spent like 30 million on ads to do that. But through that journey of me spending all that money and scaling that company, I had to overcome a lot. And over those years, I had over 100 people on payroll, right? And there was, and I don't, there was months where like, shoot, I don't know if I'm gonna make payroll, right? I mean, I look at it's like, there's 100 people, but there's, that's really 100 families, like they're, they're moms and dads that are trying to feed their kids.

43:09And if I can't come up with payroll, this is going to be some someone's child is not going to eat tonight. And I, that was a lot for me to bear on my shoulders, right? And I hired every conversion rate optimization guy sales, salesperson, marketing person, technology, AI, marketing attribution softwares, trying to figure out how do we get certainty and predictability and sustainability in our business? Because we're spending at 1.30 grand a day on ads, a million dollars a month. And I'm losing 1.2 million in a month, losing half a million this month. It got to the point where like, because I was selling such high ticket at a high level for so long, I couldn't look at my P &L month to month, right?

43:54Because I knew, okay, it's going to be a shit month, right? Month two, I know I can't look at that. It's probably going to be a shit month. But month three over the quarter, we'll have this crazy spike. And okay, the quarter looks good now, like we're all good. And I operated like that for a number of years. But then about a year and a half ago, almost getting closer to two years ago, it wasn't like that. I would look at the quarter. Oh my God, we're red. Okay. Month four, shit. We're still red. Month, month five, month six, two quarters straight in the red. Something's wrong. Right. So, and, and that's, I went in a slew of trying to figure it, figure it, solve it, um, book a call funnels, webinars, low ticket to high ticket purchases, you name it.

44:37I did it. I did it all. And, um, I think I was just, I think I was just drinking some coffee one day. I was like, man, I want to know exactly how much money's in someone's pocket right when they opt in. Like these people are going to run me into the ground. I'm going to go bankrupt. I'm going to lose everything. My wife's going to think I'm a piece of crap, you know, whatever, whatever story I was in my head. And then I met Eric, you know, and then we got together. He was developing something. I was like, dude, I mean, I'm out of masterminds, by the way. No, I got, I got randomly thrown into a text message with him.

45:11He's like, dude, this guy is doing something. And I think there could be something here with you guys. And, uh, yeah. And we jumped on a call. I'm like, dude, I've done like nine figures. I'm doing everything that I can in my brain to find certainty. And I left this out, but I did have, um, a sales, my, my sales director and my two sales partners at the time. um i found out that they were like shaving points and like taking money for me yeah funneling money and some of my customers were promised stuff that i didn't even do i had to refund a bunch of money right and we were trying to make sure we were compliant and all those things luckily everything's good but i had to let them go and i was like crap i'm gonna have to like rebuild this from the ground up and um so i just i just shared i poured into them like dude, this is where I'm at.

46:05This is what I've done. He's like, bro, I've been looking for somebody like you. This is what I'm doing. I don't know the high ticket online space at all. So we partnered, we got together and, um, we created, uh, lead fi, which is the only identity verification technology on the market that is able to take a name, email, phone number, and, uh, basically give you exact credit and financial information on someone by soft pulling them, right? So we get the name, email, phone. We own the patent to the technology that goes through a true identity process. We acquire fields of information like address, date of birth.

46:42We know who their kids are. It's kind of weird on all the data that we get, but this is all public stuff. And we do it compliantly, legally. And then because of our relationship with the bureaus, we just solve pull from Experian TransUnion Equifax real time. So now we know their exact credit score, exactly how much money they can spend on their credit cards right now in their wallet, annual income, debt to income ratio, we can see if they are qualified for debt resolution, if there's any contingencies, like anything like that. And then the real secret sauce here is we have a proprietary system called automated underwriting system, AUS.

47:16And so we take the credit report, and we're able to underwrite how much additional capital or funding we could get for this person as well. So when we deliver that data through the API in real time, you'll see, okay, they can drop 50 grand right now, but they're approved for another 100 grand, right? And we took, so we took that same data and that same credit report, and then we started to feed in, okay, what can we do in the mortgage space? Freddie Mac, right? And we use CoreLogix to do analyze properties, right? And we use Freddie Mac to get basically all the underwriting criteria, right? And we basically go through and deliver pre-approvals with just name, email, phone.

47:55So if somebody wants to buy this house with this address, we can basically tell you, okay, they're not only pre-approved, but we can basically actually give you the exact term loan, the interest rate, what their payments are going to be per month. If you factor in the property tax, the HOA fees, everything. And as you know, I mean, borrowers will pay probably, I don't know,$60 to$80 to see if somebody's approved to buy a home or pre-approved. 80 to 120 but 80 to 120 right and if there's a co-borrow it's probably gonna be soft pools are even you know pretty expensive but how can that apply to self-employed people because you can't deduct that data if someone just writes everything off I mean we use bank statements for that information yeah so we actually have an algorithm where we're actually able to pull everything from them so we're able to do their personal we can actually pull all their assets we can see their investable assets.

48:53I can see the 401k, IRA, stocks, bonds, CDs, all their open accounts. We can't see bank accounts. We actually can get bank accounts as well. So we actually get the full picture. We get all the mortgages that are currently open on their, that they have open right now. So you can reason the data and analyze 12 months of deposits from that same? That's right. All real time, just name, email, phone. And instead of paying 100 bucks, you'll only pay 20 bucks and you don't need all this information you just need an email phone basically so that's the underwriting that's insane that's on the mortgage side so i told you we broke into that market about three months ago my use case was it for for it was the high ticket coaching space or people that sell high ticket products or services right that's what i was going after because i was looking to solve my own shit right all this other amazing stuff we're talking about happen after the fact.

49:49So, you know, so people that sell like a 10,$20 ,000 package, right? It could be rhinoplasty for nose jobs. It could be boob jobs. It could be a$10 ,000 coaching package, whatever it is, right? When somebody opts into your funnel, your website with name, email, phone, boom, now, you know how much they can spend on their cards and how much additional capital you can raise for them through credit cards or buy now, pay later, like Klarna or affirm after pay. And then boom. So the sales team gets the data real time. Okay, John Smith can afford our package. Let's prioritize him and get him on the phone ASAP to put him through an indoctrination process faster, instead of wasting time on the 80 % of people that can't buy, right?

50:2970-80 % of people that raised their hand and say they want to do business with you, they might put on their application, hey, this is my income, this is my job, these are all my things. We actually found out that 50 % of all of that data is inaccurate. People with money typically don't want you to know they have it. People without it want you to think that they do. So they won't fill out the application 100%, right? And then you're over here trying to make strategic marketing sales decisions on data that's half accurate. It's like LeFi now just gives you that information right when they opt in.

51:03So you could actually remove restrictive applications asking all these questions and probably drop your cost per call or app by as much as 30 or 40 percent because usually people, they get cold feet when they get into those questions anyway. Right. So we're able to basically just create more efficiency and the whole marketing. So we can even feed back the data to Meta and Google and supercharge your targeting. So now you're getting in front of more people that are like 700 plus credit score or high net worth, high income, whatever you want through the API we build. So, yeah, man, it's been a huge game changer.

51:40We have like over 107 to nine figure brands now. Some of the people that you probably look up to and follow and authors use it. And, yeah, it's been going great. I would probably say the average result, like results are cool, right? So the average result somebody sees from it, we're actually able to help people increase the number of qualified people booking into their funnel by as much as 40%. This just means 40 % more people can move forward, whereas before LeadFi, these 40 % would have been tire kickers. And average revenue is somewhere around 30%, but I do have people literally doubling their business because they're doing all the things.

52:17They're running ads with it. They're prioritizing high-value prospects right when they opt in. right there. Um, you know, if you run a, if you run a funnel, right, you got an opt-in, usually have a video they watched, then you got an application, then you got to book a call, right? So that's a basic funnel, but every page has a conversion rate drop-off point, right? Not everyone's going to go book a call. You might have a hundred people visit your opt-in page. Then you might have 30 people that get to the video page, but then you might have 15 people get to application, but then only seven people in a book and a call.

52:50So out of a hundred people, only seven booked a call. Dude, that's 93 people in your funnel that your sales team should be outbounding and calling. But what most sales teams do is they'll call all 93 people and waste time on 80 % of people that can't buy. So now they're setting all these calls, jamming up their sales team's calendar with 80 % of people that can't buy because they don't know anybody. They're just setting calls. Setters get paid to put calls on calendars. With LeadFi, you run it on the opt-in, boom it immediately reveals the 20 to 30 percent that can actually move forward you just focus on those people give them the time as immediately as possible do you charge per record or just charge per record it's a soft pull per record basically and you're charging 20 bucks per record or how you doing on the mortgage side yes for the coaching and industry side we don't need as because on the coachings on the mortgage side we're actually providing a full credit summary all their open accounts like like literally everything with mortgage you know there's more data points over the get.

53:49But if you're just selling simply need to know the buying power. And for your high ticket product or service, there's a lot less data points needed. It's a couple bucks. Yeah, it's just a few. Yeah, a couple few bucks. But here's the distinction. So when you do mortgage, right? It's a it's a prequel. So whenever they give up their name, email, phone, they check the checkbox, hey, I agree to a soft pull, right? So on the mortgage side, yes, you absolutely need to do that for FCRA compliance. But if you're selling high ticket and you just need to know the buying power, we're pre-screening leads.

54:24We're not pre-qualifying. We're pre-screening them, right? For a funding option, for like a pre-approval for a credit card, right? So how many times have you gotten a pre-approved credit card in the mail? I mean, every day. Every day. My wife got one yesterday. I got one yesterday. So our credit's being ran nonstop without our consent, right? So we're being pre-screened nonstop by Chase, Wells Fargo, all these different banks. So we're basically doing the same exact thing, but just in the online space when somebody gives us their phone number. All we have to do is add some simple language to our privacy policy, and as long as the coach or the business owner follows TCPA, which is the checkbox, but the checkbox is only for saying, hey, I agree to have my phone number processed, marketed to I can opt out at any point which is standard practice if you generate leads then you're in compliance Right, but if you're pre-qualifying someone someone has to definitely say hey, I agree to the soft credit check So that's the distinction Now pivoting a little I want to ask you a couple questions because we're gonna talk about some goals here and and Also, I want to talk about your family.

55:37You got two kids, right? Correct. Okay. Now one of the things I always bring up with entrepreneurs who are successful and I know you probably don't you know grew up different than your kids so you come from you know more humble roots how are you instilling that same level of grit and that mindset that winning mindset that you've had and you continue to have in your children today given that they're they're in a world of abundance yeah well here's the interesting thing about me. Um, yeah, when I grew up, when I grew up, um, there was times I didn't know I was going to eat. There was times I went to bed hungry.

56:15There was times that I didn't know if my dad was going to kick my door down and maybe beat me or, you know, go after my mom. Right. So I grew up in a household where there was, it was very, very chaotic environment, physical, verbal abuse, abuse of drugs, alcohol.

56:43It was tough. It was a really tough upbringing. I saw and endured things that no kid should see. so I think my whole life I've been searching for predictability because I didn't have it for so long for 17 18 years of my life it was very chaotic uncertain right and so when I joined the military the military instills discipline integrity respect for other people and they give you structure. Here's how to fold your sheets. Here's how to iron your uniform. Here's how to put your ribbons on your uniform. You know, here's how to greet people in the morning. Here's how to be a good human being basically.

57:25Right. And I did well in that because I strive for that. When I was 16 years old, I approached my dad and I'm like, daddy, I don't agree with your behavior. Like stop treating my mom this way. Stop bringing drugs and alcohol into this house. stop being physical and verbally abusive. And I confronted him one day and he took a swing at me. And ever since that moment, I left. I was 16 years old. I moved out. Went and lived with my best friend's parents at the time and eventually moved to my grandparents. And then I found the military. So going through the military and then going into entrepreneurship and doing what I've done today, I've always wanted to have a family.

58:08I've always wanted to have girls or kids, whether God gave me boys or girls. I wanted to cultivate an environment for them and a lifestyle where they didn't have to worry about if they were going to eat. They wouldn't have to worry about if their dad was going to yell at them or beat them or hurt their mom, right? So for me, I think we're all here to raise kids and pass on our legacy to our kids, right? Like for me, I can't, you can't take the Lambos when you leave, right? You can't take the money. You can't take the yachts or whatever people aspire to have, even though these things are so cool in the flesh and you should own a yacht or a Lambo for sure.

58:48I, you know, I would love to have a massive boat one day, which I can probably get, but you know, my wife will probably be not to, which is other things that we want to accomplish first. But when I'm dead and gone, and people ask me, what's the legacy? What's the thing that I want to leave behind? Or what do they want to think of me when I'm gone? My only answer is, the only legacy I want to leave behind is the stories that my children are able to tell about me when I'm gone. And if they're able to share and articulate the impact that their daddy had on their life and the people around us, then that's all I need.

59:28I want that story to be positive, profoundly positive, right? And I don't care about what other people have to say, their opinions of me or anything else to me. It's what my two girls, the example that I'm setting for them. So, because I know if that story is good and locked in, then that tells me, okay, most of the things around me in my life are locked in. So that's my barometer of success is what my kids say about me and what they think of their dad love that love that now you know it's it's it's amazing because i get a lot of entrepreneurs in here and it's like they all a lot of them most of them come from humble beginnings or beginnings where they suffered and it's like i'm always looking because i'm i'm a father of four you know it's like i want to give my kids the best life but i also want them to suffer which they're not you know like and it's finding that balance where i want them to grind really hard just like me but i don't want them to suffer and it's like and i don't want them to be spoiled and it's something i'm always on a quest to learn and to become a better father a better parent and just a better teacher and coach to them yeah i i do feel that my kids are going to we were all kids at one point, right?

1:00:49We all made... You're still a kid. I don't know what you're talking about. Hey, I agree, dude. I agree. I'm still a kid at heart. I laugh at the silliest stuff and make the dumbest jokes and laugh, and everybody's like, well, who's this guy? You know what I'm talking about, right?

1:01:04So our kids are going to go through that too, and they're going to make some dumb decisions. And so the only thing I can do as a parent is not put restrictions on their life and control at a young age, for sure. Hey, baby, don't peek over that bridge. You might fall over. Like I'm going to hold onto it. Right. Simple stuff like that. But when they get older, they're going to go through their own struggles and go and learn, make their own decisions. And the only thing that I can feel I can do as a parent is say, all right, baby, you want to do this? Well, here's the potential outcomes. Let's risk mitigate this.

1:01:36Right. You know, what is it you're trying to solve? Is it really that worth it? Because this, this, and this could happen. Right. And And that's the only thing that I can do as a parent. Now, as far as the business and the success, right now I'm teaching my daughter the value of money. And every single time we have to go and there's something that she wants, like a toy or anything like that or an experience, I'll be like, all right, baby, I'll break out some money. I'll say this is how much this is going to cost. And I teach her what type of work or effort do you think is necessary to make this kind of money that's on the table?

1:02:14right and then I would give her I give her little tasks I'm like all right let's go in the yard let's pick up all the pine cones let's let's mow let's make your bed right and I would I tie time and effort to certain levels of money on the table I was like all right baby you did this many tasks today this is how much money you made right and she'll say okay she'll count it but that's not enough to go to Legoland I was like okay we got to do more tasks so I I'm doing things like that to now instill the value of money and hard work, right? Because it takes a lot, man. Like after coaching so many people and going through a time where if I worked nine to five or showed up this many hours per week, I get this check.

1:02:54But then in the business world, it's like, shit, if I don't show up, I don't need it. People don't get paid, you know? But my income could be exponentially higher. so it's a crazy mindset shift that you have to go through and I think fortunately for us like we're having kids they're going to see that and they're going to be exposed to a whole new world where they look at other people and other things it's funny, we live in Little Italy in San Diego and I have this 7 ,000 square foot penthouse I didn't get it to be like I wanted to have experiences I wanted to bring people together I saw it as an opportunity to help a lot of people and we live there too and we're walking little italy and my daughter three four years old we're walking through little italy and my and she goes mommy daddy can we go back to the penthouse and we're in this busy busy place with all these people all these people like penthouse who's this kid like four-year-old penthouse right and so she and every time we fly first class you know so like she's getting these experiences that i never got as a kid but um it's now now it's coming to the point where like hey baby we have to really you have to understand where we are in life then the work daddy has had to do to have us give us bring this is life right and you know to be honest a lot of that goes back to faith God and our commitment to our Lord and Savior and you know giving him and honoring him every day and then and then the work behind that because God does provide but he's not gonna provide if you just sit on your hands you have to get and do the work.

1:04:33So I think faith, business, these are things that we're still in our kids, right? We're starting to. My oldest is five and a half. My youngest is two and a half. So, but yeah, I'm excited. Being a dad is, it's the thing that I've always wanted to do and I'm doing it now and I get to kind of, I think I have a second chance at childhood, right? Like when you become a parent, you get a second chance at childhood, right? So growing up, I didn't have the best childhood. Now I'm reliving that time with my kids but correcting a lot of things that are wrong. It's beautiful to see the smile on their faces and the life that they have.

1:05:12Incredible. Beautifully said. A couple last questions for you. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself, a business goal that you have for LeetFi and the consulting company, and a family goal that you have for the family? You could answer those in any order. Yeah, I can probably go in order. I would probably say a personal goal right now. There's two quick ones, and I'll cover them. Number one, about a year and a half ago when I was going through all this before I found Eric, I literally, I was not in my faith. I was not praying. I was not even going to church. I was trying to do it on my own, and I just remember I fell on my knees in my office and just said, God, this is all you.

1:06:00I surrendered everything. to him. And ever since that moment, I watched, you know, I have red candles and green candles in the stock market. I was at the bottom red candle, basically fully liquidated. And then I got this massive green candle that I'm on, I'm sitting on right now. And if it wasn't for that, I don't feel anything would have corrected because I immediately started to build the blocks that have led me to finding what I am doing today. So I think continuing my faith is really big for me, right and which it you know should be for for a lot of people if you haven't connected everybody for everyone right and you don't know how bad it is until you hit rock bottom when when you hit rock bottom you think oh shit this rock bottom and then something else happens right it's like where our friend we were just with Dave Meltzer last week and one of the quotes that really hit from him when I was at his house last week he said you either humbled or you're about to be it's like dude you think you got it all figured out no God's gonna come along and be like, no, you don't.

1:07:00Boom. Here you go. Deal with this. Now you have a challenge. Get out of that. Right. So stay humble. Oscar says, stay humble and hungry, you know? And I think that's, that's what's keeping me going forward through everything I have. So faith, number one, huge. Number two, personal. I want to give you this because I think it's fun to talk about. Everything starts with your gut, man. Like I found out, I have a friend, Mike, that is like an expert on gut biome, did a test and everything. He told me all these things about my digestion. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's why I can't get results in the gym.

1:07:34That's why I'm bloated all the time. That's why I can't sleep, right? You know, having issues in the bedroom with my wife, like all these things, right? And we fixed it, and my life is like, boom, just like that. What was the – I mean, everything does start in the gut. Yeah, so I basically found out – Does he work for Biome, the company Biome? No, it's a different – Gut Biome was like a study of your gut. I just did the gut test. I think the clinic he works with is called Everwell. It's out in Arizona. But I found out that my pancreas is not secreting digestive enzymes. So every time I eat, my body is basically not getting the nutrition from the food that I'm eating.

1:08:10So that's showing up in everything. My mood, my clarity, my thought, my results in the gym. So now I've gotten on a stack of peptides, supplements, no drugs, all natural stuff. And it's like completely night and day. So, so continuing to focus on my health, starting with the gut and then, you know, getting back into shape. Cause I used to be like, when I was 25, I was like walking around 12 % body fat. I'm not trying to be like that now, but, um, I'm just trying to really trying to optimize to have a fit body to keep up with my kids. Cause they're running around like crazy. Right. And that sports haven't started, you know, like where you're training with them, like when they're in baseball or football or basketball, whatever sports you're going to do, you want to be playing with them.

1:08:53Yeah. Tennis. We're going to do tennis and soccer. She's in ballet right now and swimming, so we'll do tennis and soccer soon next. So that's when you're active. You've got to be really in shape. Yeah. I've got to be ready. I've got to be able to cut. And I had ACL surgery in 2009, and sometimes it bothered me, so I've got to be careful with the cuts. But, yeah, business goals, we repackaged, relaunched. We're going to launch Kingdom CEO, which is my new coaching consulting company towards the Christian community and we're going to help them scale their businesses online with with our experience so really excited about that right now it's just a matter of we just want to help as many Christians and that well you know God says to there's nothing wrong with you know monetizing and making money he wants us to have fortune but also feeding that back to purpose so for purpose business with Kingdom CEO we're gonna be helping a lot of people we're gonna be helping veterans pay off medical debt we're gonna help build schools for kids in Mexico with pencils of promise and do a lot of good stuff like that and then for lead fi my goal at this point you know we is to basically get about a four or five X where I'm at right now to have a hundred mil valuation and then seek an next strategy i'm already getting offers right now but um i think that there's a lot more we can do with the technology you just start and you're getting offers yeah so sit tight yeah build it and they'll come they'll keep coming yeah and and for family dude it's just i want my kids to have a great life dude i want to wake up every day see them and and and my wife Me and my wife have rebound big time over the last year or two because when I said I hit rock bottom, everything was rock bottom.

1:10:47There was a point where I don't know if my business was going to survive. My kids didn't know me. I was traveling. Me and my wife were very distant. And because of my faith and work, me and my wife now have a very close, loving marriage again like we did before. and so everything that I'm doing now is just to keep the family intact, right? Keep the family intact so that everything else could benefit, right? Because I could be thriving in business, but if my wife's upset or my kids are not taken care of, like what kind of, what's the point, right? So growing in our faith, faith, faith, faith, man, you've heard me say it for my family.

1:11:27That's the number one focus right now because I know all things will blossom from there. You know, we are only called just to plant the seed, then God waters, you know, Apollo waters right after. So one thing I live by is just like making sure that our family is always praying together and kids are going to church and just being as active as we possibly can in the church community. My whole life, you know, I came from Egypt as a persecuted Christian. and so I'm pretty vocal about faith just because I can be, even as a CEO of the company, it's like, dude, it's taboo almost. But just because I come from that community, I'm like, well, you know, we're in America, people raise their flags or rainbow flags or whatever, and I'm allowed to do that with faith just because that's how we were killed for that in Egypt.

1:12:25And here we are in America where it's like, we can just be as vocal as we want. So when you're a CEO of a company, you're just supposed to be like accepting whatever, but I'm vocal about it. So it's how I live and it's how God continues to bless. Well, last question. I ask everybody this question. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?

1:13:02I have like two things I want to say Say them both

1:13:10I think if I went right now I think that he Would accept And understand that I've been saved because I've surrendered, because I've repented because I've turned things around and I've given him the attention he deserves and which I've given to my marriage and the people around me but at the same time this is an everyday choice I'm 37 you know I pray that I around for another 50 plus years you know live to a hundred but I got to choose this lifestyle every day you know I have to choose to keep doing what I'm doing and it brings up a quote and the quote is from Virginia satire she says that most people choose a certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty and And it's like if you have two doors in front of you, door behind door number one is the miserable life as you know it, the same car job, the same body circumstances.

1:14:31Most people choose that door because they know what they're going to get. But door number two is there's uncertainty behind that door. You don't know exactly how that's going to play out, but you know all your goals, dreams, and aspirations could be behind that door. And unfortunately, most people don't choose that door because they can't handle the uncertainty aspect. But for me, I've lived my life taking risk, understanding that there's going to be times of uncertainty, that if I want to get somewhere, I have to be comfortable with uncertainty for long periods of times and not necessarily expect a result.

1:15:05And that's why time in business, time in the markets, you win if you can withstand the downturns, if you can withstand the darkness. so every day I have to continue to choose door number two because there's thoughts in my head every day even though I'm at where I'm at that tells me why I should not keep going forward and we all have those thoughts but we have to choose to continue to persevere and keep going the narrow road man exactly so I want to say the path that I'm on is is on the path that God is calling me to be on at this point the fact that that man is standing there right there is a big reflection of to where I'm at in my life because that is a man of God someone that I really look up to that I really love and somebody that you should definitely have in this seat in the future I love that so and then you right your story the fact that you're a man of faith so I think I'm where I need to be and God has put me exactly where I need to be so I need to keep doing what I'm doing and just follow his calling the fact that I've switched a nine figure company all the way to focus on Christian entrepreneurs why would I do that you know like so I ask myself these questions am I in line with what he's calling me to do And I feel like my story, my journey, the things that I overcome, a lot of people are going to be impacted from that over the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years.

1:16:46And, yeah, I might have a cool software that makes money, that helps people with business problems. But to me, helping men and women get closer to God, I think, is the one thing that I'm very passionate about. and I think that's exactly where God wants me to continue to pursue. And again, that will feed back to my kids. The legacy and everything will keep blossoming from there, man. I love that. That's the most important thing we teach our kids. It's like love God, serve God, do God's work, and then he provides. How does he provide? It's magic. I don't know. It just happens. He will always provide.

1:17:26And we wrap our heads around it. we try to think about like, how is this going to happen? Like how are my kids going to stay close to me? Inflation, this, that, the other, like, do I got to buy them houses? God, God will figure it out for us. Yeah. As long as we stay true and fervent and steadfast, it just happens. People want to connect with you. How do they find you? Instagram. Just go to Instagram. Type in Douglas James. Should be the first one with the blue check, but I think the handle is at the underscore Douglas James. and then my website for my company, Leadfi. It's leadfi.ai, so L-E-A-D-F-I dot T-I.

1:18:06Go there if you want to stop talking to broke people and focus on people that can afford you, basically. That's all I'll say. I love that. Thanks, Doug. Thanks for coming on the show. God bless you. I hope you have each and every one of your goals, and keep dominating, bro. Keep doing God's work. Love it. Love to hear it.

1:18:36We'll be right back.