In this episode of "Beyond the Paycheck," Paula Christine dives deep into the topic of passive income with her guest, Joey Muré from Wealth Without Wall Street. Joey shares his journey, starting in the mortgage business and making a significant income but realizing that increased income didn't equate to freedom. He mentions the importance of understanding the difference between active and passive income and the impact it can have on spending time with family.
Paula and Joey talk about the significance of setting clear financial goals, emphasizing that everyone's financial goals are unique based on their current expenses. We touch upon the idea that financial freedom is achieved when passive income exceeds monthly expenses. Paula relates this concept to her own experiences as a business owner and the balance between work and family life.
Joey explains the GPS model, which stands for Goal, Plan, and Support, as the key to achieving financial freedom. He highlights that having a clear vision of what life will look like when financial freedom is achieved is crucial. Understanding the importance of a well-thought-out plan and the role of a like-minded community in providing support is key.
Paula underscores the importance of having a structured process to develop passive income, and Joey mentions an upcoming book that will provide more detailed guidance on this subject. He also directs listeners to resources on their website, including an investor DNA profile assessment and the opportunity to talk to one of their coaches.
Joey has an exclusive website for listeners of Beyond the Paycheck. To get access to the DNA profile and a free 15 minute chat with one of their coaches, visit: wealthwithoutwallstreet.com/beyondthepaycheck
If you would like to contact Paula, you can reach her at paula@paulachristine.com or visit her website at paulachristine.com.
Paula: [music] Hi, and welcome to Beyond the Paycheck. I'm Paula Christine. In the last couple of months we've been talking a lot about passive income and how to generate passive income. The guests have been great, but I still am stuck in how to even get that started for myself. I've asked Joey Muré from Wealth Without Wall Street to join us today to even talk about it further. Welcome Joey.
Joey: Thanks for having me, Paula. I really appreciate it.
Paula: Tell me about your background in finance and passive income.
Joey: I actually started my career in the mortgage business in helping people set up what I thought to be their greatest asset. In fact, most people would even say, your home is the most expensive asset you ever buy, so on and so forth. I had a lot of success in that world. I started making well over $300,000 a year in my 20s.
Paula: Nice.
Joey: I thought, "Wow, this is what financial success should be like." In fact, the opposite was true, with success and with increased income, I didn't experience freedom and I think there's a delineation there that I had to experience to understand. I had read the Rich Dad, Poor Dads of the world and it was a great idea, but it didn't sink in until I started making that money. I had my wife and I have five daughters. Paula, I don't know if you knew that.
Paula: Oh, wow. That's a lot. Plus your wife that makes six women in your household.
Joey: Yes. They tell me what to do on a regular basis. It's an amazing blessing, but these are my favorite people in the whole world. As you start making more and more active income, it was taking me away from them. I'll give you a couple examples. Number one, I was actually a branch manager leading 25 loan officers at the time. I would go on vacation and I would tell my wife and kids, "Hey, you guys go on down to the beach. I'll be right behind you. I just need to take this one last call."
What happened? Three hours later, I'm walking down that boardwalk behind the condo, getting ready to go to the beach, and there's my family walking back on the same boardwalk with this just hissed look.
Paula: Well deserved.
Joey: Like, "What are you doing? You're on vacation, you're physically in the same location, but you are mentally light years away." To me, that was like a wake up call. It's like, "Wait a minute. Increased income doesn't equal freedom." Something needed to change. I didn't know exactly at the time, but I knew that there had to be some a change because this was not giving me the results that I was looking for. Does that resonate?
Paula: Yes, it does. Only because I own my own business and I know what that's like, but I don't know if it's different because I was the mother that I was there for the baseball games and stuff like that because my now ex-husband, he was at work during his job and he could do that. One of us, I don't know if it's just because I was the mother that that fell on me. Does that make sense?
Joey: Yes. I think so many people are in that same boat. They think they're working so hard for their family and yet their family is slipping away. Those things, like you said, missing out on life, missing out on the things. Actually some friends of mine were talking about this actually this morning. They're like, "Do you realize when the last time that you will hold one of your daughters in your arms, you'll always look back and figure out when that was. You never know when it is at the time."
More income isn't the answer. More active income because that is the income that requires more of you. You are the asset producing the income. In order for you to gain more freedom. We didn't create this. We're just literally robots. For Robert Kiyosaki said, "Financial freedom is when your passive income exceed your monthly expenses."
Paula: Okay, but how do you get the passive income?
Joey: I thought you'd never ask Paula. I'm going to give you the exact steps to do it. It's only because I lived through it and did these things and I did them imperfectly. I'm going to go ahead and tell you like Russ and I, my business partner and I, we share in our podcast how we went from $2,500 a month of passive income. We've reported it in June of 2020. In 2020, "We said, this is what we are making passively right now."
Within 18 months later, we were reporting over 50,000 a month. It wasn't until we looked backwards and realized there were some very key steps that if we had done them much faster, we would've gotten to this number and to this freedom much faster.
Paula: What's step number one?
Joey: Well, think about it this way for a second, Paula. In our book we talk about the GPS, that the GPS model. I know that's potentially a somewhat played out visual, but it never ceases to amaze me. You hold out your phone and that day when you could pull up your phone and you could say, "I want to go to this destination." You type in the destination and you hit get directions and it tells you literally step by step what to do to get to where you want to go. It says how to get there the fastest way possible.
That was a huge day for me to understand that that was possible.
In order for us to get to financial freedom, we have to have that same thing. We have to know where we are right now, what the destination is and what steps to get there. That's why we created the GPS model because it really is a journey and we have to know where to start, where to begin, and then where to go. You asked the first question, it's goal. Out of that GPS model, it's goal.
Speaker 3: Like your goal to have $50,000 in passive income. Is that the goal, or?
Joey: Well, the goal is what are your expenses right now?
Speaker 3: Okay.
Joey: There are people in our community that need like $5,500 to pay all of their expenses every month. There are people in our community that need $35,000 a month to cover all of their expenses. They're at different stages of life. There are different positions in life. That's their goal depending on what their expenses are per month.
Paula: Joey, if I could jump in here for a second. This goes back to the equation that you gave us earlier. The goal is different numbers, as you said, for different people, but it's to make more in passive income every month than you have in expenses. That's the goal, right?
Joey: 100%. Because think about that for just a second. I don't want it to just be a formula because formulas are lame. They're just like numbers. Think about this for a second. If tomorrow you woke up, you walked out to the mailbox and there was $10,000 sitting in there and your expenses for the month are $10,000. Now I want you to pull up your calendar. What is on the calendar for this week?
Paula: Whatever I want.
Joey: 100%. There's literally nobody dictating to you what your next hour, your next week, your next eight hours, whatever the case may be. We've been accustomed to thinking my 9:00 to 5:00. Well, why do we call it a 9:00 to 5:00? It's because someone has dictated to us that there is 40 hours a week that they now dictate what you do with those hours. If you don't do them properly, you go work somewhere else. Do you no longer work for that person, that 9:00 to 5:00 is now someone else's?
If you have that passive income that exceeds your monthly expenses, you literally look at a blank calendar and you fill in the blanks. Who am I going to spend time with? Where are we going to do it? When are we going to meet. When are we going to-- All of that is 100% in your control.
Paula: This could be of any age too. It doesn't have to be like, if you're thinking about retirement, it could be someone in their 30s, 40s.
Joey: 100%. There are people within our community that are in their young 20s all the way into their early 60s that have accomplished this. They've done it for various different reasons. That's why I say that goal. There's a monetary number. You very clearly stated out like what is that number? It has to be your monthly expense number. Everybody's number's different. The second thing is, man, what am I going to be? What am I going to do and what am I going to have when I reach financial freedom?
Paula: Be more, have more, do more.
Joey: Exactly. If I can specify what those things are, now I have a vision, I have a goal of what is my life going to look like if and when I reach financial freedom? Without that, I'm going to be honest, Paula, none of the other things matter. It seems kind of weird. It's like, isn't this a financial thing? Wealth Without Wall Street, don't you guys make money when people do financial things? Well, yes, but if you don't have your vision straight, knowing what to invest in is completely off the table.
Paula: Whatever I want to accomplish in my life, I can do that. I can get up every day inspired to go about my day. If it's volunteering, if it's just meditating or if it's just going for a walk, I can do that without having to worry about, are my bills going to be paid? I can be the person that I want to be and do the things that I want to do.
Joey: Exactly. The goal is so important, but it always has to be supported by this plan. In the second the GPS, the G is the goal. The P is the plan.
Paula: I thought the P was the person you wanted to be.
Joey: No, that's still under goal. Don't get ahead of yourself with that.
Paula: Well, I'm writing it down.
[laughter]
Joey: Within the plan, I don't know if you've ever had someone ask you this Paula, they say, "Our 401K's the good investment." How would you answer that?
Speaker 3: I would answer it as it depends.
Joey: Why do you say that?
Speaker 3: All the variables, the person, the goals, what you need to do, what kind of return you need and what the investments are going to do.
Paula: Well, liquidity, there's a lot of things that go into that question.
Joey: I would totally agree. Here's the thing that I would say, if we don't have their vision correct, then they can't answer that question. I know you see this every day. People get caught up in what's the rate of return, but the point is, is if the requirement of that money has to stay there until I'm 59.5 and I'm 30 and I want to be financially free in the next five years.
Paula: It can't be in your 401K.
Joey: It can't be in the four. I have to have access to this capital in order to create financial freedom.
Speaker 3: As the producer, I'm going to just throw the quick disclaimer in here. Paula and Joey and I are not saying that 401K is the wrong choice for everybody. For some people it may actually be the right thing to do, but for Joey whose whole model is Wealth Without Wall Street, they're talking about a different way of going about it.
Joey: Here's the thing, if people are not going to be driven to become financially free in the next 3 years, 5 years, 10 years whatever the case may be, and they just want to retire well, then 401K makes all the sense in the world for them. When we're talking about passive income to create financial freedom, today it takes somebody who is not average. They're not going to just kind of go with the flow and just retire. That retirement is not in their vocabulary.
Speaker 3: We're going to get to the S on the GPS now Joey, is that right?
Joey: All that leads to is man, once I know what my goal is, I now have a plan. I know who I am as an investor. My money is flowing in the right directions to support that goal. Now I need to be in a like-minded community. I need the support of people who have been there, done that, or at least on the process or on the path ahead of me so that I can start asking the right questions. I can learn from their experiences.
Paula: That is powerful because so many people tear down instead of left up. GPS is so you know what your goals are, and the goals should start off to be just cover your expenses, then you might need to have a plan. The plan is about understanding who you are as an investor, and then you have the support from the community that you guys have started, correct?
Joey: Absolutely. If it's not our community, find the support of somebody. There are people that are in your town that are thinking these things.
Paula: I like the way that you guys have this planned out and it's a step-by-step, but your book isn't out yet though. Is it Your Wealth Without Wall Street book?
Joey: It's not. One thing I will encourage you and your listeners to do is if you want to write a book, try not to hire a ghostwriting company that goes out of business in the middle of writing.
Paula: Oh, no.
Joey: It's not advisable.
Paula: No.
Joey: I'm just going to say it. It slows things down considerably, but despite those setbacks we hope to have it out here in the next 90 days or so.
Paula: I did check out your website. I know there's a lot of resources.
Joey: I'll point you to a one main place where you can get some resources, but if you go to wealthwithoutwallstreet.com/beyondthepaycheck, that's specific to your show. If people want to get access to that investor DNA profile, it's an assessment we created. There's a link on there. There's also a link to just talk to one of our coaches. A 15-minute call for free. Then lastly if you have questions about joining a mastermind there's a link that will tell you more about that on there. On our website there's other resources, and happy to go into as much detail there, but just grateful to connect. If you have questions and want to be supported in any of these areas.
Paula: What I like, I think is that there's an actual process, and will put you in the right direction to start developing this passive income. I think that's the part that I was missing. It's not so easy saying just go out and buy real estate, or mortgage back loans. It's just not that simple in my head anyways. No, I like the process. I like that you do have it all laid out and that's very, very helpful. I really appreciate you being with us today, Joey.
Joey: Well, I hope that it demystifies like you said, this idea of passive income because it's one thing for someone to get on a show and say, "Hey, look at me. I've done all these things. You can do the same thing too," but with no process, with no plan, it's really highly unlikely that someone's going to have similar results. For us it was important to basically create the exact blueprint. That if someone will follow these things, they will at least understand the steps it takes. Then it's about willpower. It's about, "Am I going to stay with this? Am I going to continue even whenever I have setbacks?" Because there's always setbacks.
For instance hiring a book company that goes out of business. Those are things you don't expect, but they happen. Man, if you can follow the process and have a coach who's been there done that, it really makes the risk of failure decrease and the chance for success to increase.
Paula: I agree with that 100%. It's always good to seek out knowledge. Again, thank you Joey. If anybody would like to get a hold of me, you can reach me at paula@christine.com or you can check out the website at paulachristine.com.
[00:16:07] [END OF AUDIO]