What's up guys people? I'm your host Jay Will. This is Inspire Guys people where we balance faith and business to guide you to your purpose. Welcome to episode 190 where I'll be interviewing my guest JV Ana.
Jay is a really cool guy that I met on Instagram. He's doing some amazing things. He's all about helping Christians become good stores of their finances via the glory of God. So that's exactly what we're about on Inspire Guys people.
So if you're a person out there that is looking to learn how to plan for your finances, how to budget, like why do you need to be a good store? What does it even mean to be a good store? And then even how to invest? As you know, we've talked a lot about investing and finances on this show.
And in particular, how being a good store of your finances is necessary as a believer. And guess what? The best part is it doesn't matter how much money you make, how much money you have, you will be able to apply the principles today. So I'm looking forward to meeting Jay, talking to Jay, understanding what his story is, how he got to where he is.
And we are going to pull as much wisdom and information out of him as we possibly can today on episode 190. If you are a person that's been rocking with us forever for the past four and a half years, I just want to say thank you to my Apple podcast listeners. You all know we're on YouTube right now at Inspire Guys, people. So please like share, subscribe, all those type of things.
But most importantly, I want you to sit back, relax and enjoy the inspiration. Guys, people, we are back. And this time we got Jay, Viana, Jay, how are you feeling today? I'm very excited, man.
You give such a good build up. I'm ready to talk about this, man. That's what's up. Yeah, man.
I'm ready to dig into. You know, first of all, just thank you for jumping on the show and bringing your wisdom and your insight to the Inspire Guys people audience on behalf of the audience, because I get a lot of these interviews as well. Just want to appreciate you personally for a month here. Let's kick this conversation off Jay.
We're going to jump right in. This is a sidebar right off the back, but this is something I asked my audience today on Facebook. And I'm just curious what you think, would it be in the top of the year? Are you pro New Year's resolutions?
We're not. I don't want to say anti, right? But talking to people, there seems to be a lot of people who are like really for it and they jump in. And honestly, man, like, there's a lot of people out there that they do not like New Year's resolutions for various reasons.
And I'm just curious what your thought process is on that. I love it, man. I am a New Year's resolution junkie. And if I pull up my phone right now, my notes, me and my wife will like to join resolutions together with like check marks and like hyperlinks, right?
So like I have a general one and like stuff we want to fix around the house, stuff I want to read and then hyperlinks to the book list and then list of stuff around the house. I mean, I'm heavy for it. And I think that if you can kind of set the goal and dedicate time towards it, you'll definitely get to that. I think a lot of people don't like it just because they end up disappointing themselves.
Can you unpack out a little bit and they end up disappointing themselves? Yes. What do you mean? Life gets in the way, right?
And then you're sitting here with this list that you never get to. It just gets kind of depressing, man. You never like knock it off any other goals. You set out to, you know, reach all these purpose goals for the year and don't do anything.
So then you disappoint yourself, you know, in that book that James Clearwell, the Tommy Cabins, it talks a lot about that. And you set these micro goals and then you go after those because a lot of people underestimate what they can do in a year and entirely overestimate what they can do in 10. So it's like, yeah, yeah, people are just underestimating themselves because they think or actually do this, no right, that this massive goal instead of setting up tangible, you know, small steps that they can take on a day basis. So kind of like realistic expectations, you know what I'm saying?
Like because, you know, I was, this is something I always kind of talk about where it's like, I'm a big goal setter. And if I'm being honest, I've gone back and forth on specifically New Year's resolutions, only because I always talk about having a new day mindset. But I will be honest, whether I like it or not, whether other people like it or not, there is something about the air to feel of like when the calendar turns, I don't know if it's that we're all doing it kind of in unison going into the new year. But there's something about it that makes you want to have a fresh start.
So I do, I think I'm leaning towards being like pro New Year's resolutions, if you are truly committed and kind of willing to see it through. Yeah. And I don't think it's just a New Year's resolution. I would take that even a step further and just call it goals.
Just do 2023 goals. I love it. I think it's just a new election. However, you want to word it right?
As long as it's a here's who I want to be. Here's what I want to achieve for 2023. Here's I'm going to be different, you know, across the board, write it down and then you have something that you look at every single day. I think you just gave me a new, a new outlook on it because maybe the problem with New Year's resolutions in particular is that it's so specific to the idea of the New Year that once the New Year wears off, so does the resolution versus if you have a year long goals and you're calling it a 2023 goal, then it's already you're my all year long.
You already have your mind made up. these are the things I want to accomplish in 2023, even when the new year wears off. So, okay, you got me, I'm with you. Yeah, in our church, we're studying just to like the Jewish calendar, which is I know super random, but I'll type again.
They actually celebrate this mindset of like new or this reset several times throughout the year. So they'll be like a new harvest, and that to them, they'll celebrate it like it's a new year. So because there's so much emotion in Titan to like new year's resolution, and by the end, the third week of January, everyone's kind of over it. You're already back to your day-to-day life.
The gym's as empty as it was, you know, before Thanksgiving. So if you look at it that way, you're kind of setting yourself up for this woman. So just take that out of the equation and write down goals. I love it.
Goals, not resolutions, people. We got to have a long term mindset to get through the entire year. So thank you for that, Jay. Now let's learn a little bit about you, Jay.
I typically like to start these conversations off, understand in like who you were growing up, what was your reputation, you know, what was your childhood like and so forth. And I open up with a super open-ended vague question, purposely to allow you to touch on whatever are the important things from your childhood that you would like to kind of let the folks know about out there before we jump into the conversation. Yeah, absolutely. I guess, so obviously I was born and raised in Brazil.
I still speak Portuguese. I'm in Spanish, my parents were, I mean, church rats. We were church every day. I sleep in a church and at times they forget me at church and have to come back, we evangelizing and have communion.
That's how I was raised. And in Brazil, the spiritual realm is very impactful. We see things down there that you don't see up here. From angelic situations to demonic situations, everything in between.
I mean, I've seen guys that are, you know, a quarter of my size toss people around the room. And I mean, that's just one example, but we've seen, like I grew up in this stuff. Right, so like, that was my childhood. You get here to the US, very different.
We were considered, obviously I'm still considered immigrant, although I'm an American citizen, I'm not from here. So you come here to do missions and it was very challenging, learning and doing language. The first word that I learned in English was shut up because it's actually a medicine in Brazil. Because any Brazil is watching, I don't know what to say in it.
It's like, they will. Shut up, definitely. I love it. The kids would come up to talk to me, I didn't know what to say.
Right, so I'd just be like, oh, shut up and walk away. That was my childhood, man. Until I started playing basketball football in school, got integrated, started going to church. Again, my dad was called up to be a pastor and started evangelizing.
Ultimately, men, we traveled the country. Right, so we landed in Dallas, Texas, stayed there for about eight years. We moved to Florida for two or three, went back to Texas, went to Ohio, went to Virginia. I decided that I had came to Tracy around.
I got school, I got to set myself up, came to Florida, and I've been here since. Okay, I was gonna ask, you know, when you get to go around Texas, Virginia, hitting all these places, but Florida's the spot. Okay, that gives me a reason to look at, actually, whenever I get to the point where we get a secondary spot, like we're thinking Florida, that's where I think we want to be able to come for the winners. Even though, honestly, winners, I'm in Michigan.
I mean, we in the 30s, man, and like, that's good. Like, it's good though, because like, I know you can't even, you can't even understand how I'm talking like that, but it's like, in Michigan, what ends up happening, we've had a couple of mile winners where, you know, when you get down to the teens, it turns into like, bitter cold, where like, you can't even really, you don't want to go outside. So when it hits the 30s, honestly, you know, you get a nice cold in a hat and you actually are like, oh, I'm not bitter cold, it doesn't hurt to be outside. I'm good, but we definitely want to jump into maybe something like Florida or somewhere hot.
Now, you talked about like, you know, how were you when you got here? So eight. Eight years old. So you came here eight years old, didn't speak English, had to kind of adapt to that.
What do you think that did for you as an adult? And I'm asking specifically because I'm always intrigued by immigrants from the standpoint of like being thrown in somewhere that you don't understand. And quite frankly, to be honest, I felt that living in America, like coming from the community I come from, and then, you know, like now I'll be in an corporate world for 16 years, but when I first got here, I was like, I didn't know what to do in corporate America. I can only imagine how that is from another country, but how do you, how did that impact you, whether it's positive, negative, or just, you know, neutral, like what are the ways that being an immigrant and being, you know, exaggerating, saying being thrown in a country, but you kind of being thrown in an environment where you, you know, it wasn't your daily.
So I mean, I think a couple of things happen. The first one is that I think the Lord used the opportunity to mow my heart. I am not, I don't forget where I come from. And I haven't come from like an American, I guess, background, like a lot of times in Brazil, we didn't wear shoes, you know, just I didn't own a bicycle.
You didn't have iPhones and technology. You didn't have any of that. That's not how we grew up. That's not how we were raised.
So you get here and the materialistic culture was something that I don't think actually penetrated me. I'm not, I don't care about that stuff. I never have, right? You're never gonna see me rocking a Gucci belt.
Because I'm not looking down on people who do. I'm just saying like, that's just not me. Yeah, I'm the same way. I just can't imagine the prices don't make sense to me, but go ahead.
Yeah, no, but that's what I mean. I think so. I think the Lord like really helped me because we went through so much struggle and difficulties and different challenges. And the other thing I think it did, it really gave me a lot of courage to understand, like, hey, look, if I can do this, there's a multitude of people behind me that are much more capable than I am.
That could be a lot further in life if they had someone to teach them what I wish someone had taught me when I was 15 when I was 17. Like, and that's where I'm here. A lot of my, that's why I started what I'm doing. I had a lot of my friends, family, people in my church, they still have no idea about anything we're gonna talk about, about planning, about budgeting.
They don't. So I got to the point where I'm like, okay, the Lord's giving me some grace to understand this topic and to speak about it. At some point I have to follow my purpose. And where did that love develop though, Jay?
So all right, like help me connect that doubt of like coming here as an immigrant, growing here, like coming into this culture. And like you said, seeing a materialistic nature, you said something really key earlier about like, over in Brazil, the sensitivity to the spirit. Right? So you come in this culture and, you know, there's not that sensitivity to the spirit, but there's so much materialistic and really things that are non-substance that people focus on.
Where did you develop that love for talking about finances and business? What was that journey like? Yeah, so it was a new world for me when it kind of started. I, after I moved to Ohio, I started studying.
I'm studying at the one of first semester at OSU. And I was working, was doing a part time. And I was working part time at office people. When I was working on office people, some guy comes into the store and he like, I can do business cards, I make his business cards.
Had a strange feeling about the guy. Memorized all his contact information, very strange. The guy calls me after he comes to pick up his order. And he says, hey, look, J, you seem like somebody who has more potential than office people.
I don't want to talk to you during work hours. If you're interested, give me a rig after. Sounds like that was, that was strange. Call the guy, because that's just too serious.
I have to figure out what's going on. So I call the guy, he says, come to my office. He's got this like penthouse office downtown Columbus, Ohio overlooking the park, if you guys know the city. And he says to me, this is what we do.
We take financial advisors that are working at one of the state of the Maryland Bank of America. And we move them to, you know, another bank. So JP working, J's or any other credit, three school in sacks, that's all he does. I like to offer you an internship position for one year.
This is not paid. You're going to hit the phone, you're going to call a hundred of these guys per day, very like Wall Street movie type fives. He starts asking me, like, what do you do? And I was like, well, I'm a Christian.
And he's like, well, let me stop right there. Christian is don't make money. Whoa. You got Joe Osteen, and he said specifically, guys like Billy Graham and TD Jakes, who make it, but that's not for everybody.
And I was like, that, that, that, they just instigated something to me. Yeah. Like, what are you talking about? The Bible is loaded with people who are extremely wealthy.
You read book of Genesis, you got Abraham Isaac, Joe Jacob, all of them extremely wealthy. You got Joe, who was the richest man in time. Like you got David, you got King Solomon. I mean, what?
Yeah. That didn't resonate with me. And then I accepted the gig anyways. After about a month, I offered me a job I left.
Once I started working with financial advisors, I realized there's a lot of them that are Christian. They're a Christian community. So we find the actual advisors that are taking the assets that they manage and doing it for the glory. God, so I'm like, wait a minute.
Everything that I kind of considered was wrong. And I'm taking, because a lot of people Christian, we're going to take the first, you know, the root of all evil. It's like, no, no, it's the love of love. There's a very key difference.
Word there, yeah. So that to me just like clicked. And I was like, all right, well, if I'm going to have the opportunity to live my life and be poor in a Christian, but I have another opportunity to just understand finances, the Lord wants to allow me to prosper, right? I'm going to be a Christian anyways.
So if I have the option, come on. It's like, I really want to earn $15,000 a year for the rest of my life. Do I want to learn on how I can do better and serve people better? Because that's what it's all about.
And I know that you've titled this plain budget invested gift. All of it is focused on gift. It's a love it. So it's literally like, here's kind of where you start.
Here's the end goal. It's about giving. You're planning budgeting and investing to allow you to give. And look, I love that, Jay, because we come from different backgrounds, but there are a lot of similarities in the fact of like, I grew up in inner city Detroit, surrounded by poverty.
Steel from a mindset perspective, just to be honest, like friends, family, whatever, people, steel, it's very hard to get out of a poverty mindset. Even if you make a little money the way you spend it, you talk about the Gucci belt, the things that we idolize. And for me, it's about like, why do you think people idolize poverty? Christians in particular, I think there's a mindset a lot of times with us where maybe we're just uncomfortable.
Like you said, whether it's misrepresenting the scriptures or misunderstanding them. But there's a reason that that guy said that to you about like, Christians don't make money. And also, I think there's a reason why like, man, I'm surrounded by Christians. And I'm constantly having conversations just trying to get people to be comfortable to understand how to properly think about money.
Because I think in a lot of ways we idolize poverty. And I don't know if I'm articulating that well or not, but I'm curious. I think Christians have this way of victimizing themselves. And they think that if they are poor, that means they're more blessed.
That means they're more Christian. That level of holiness is better than those of people that have money. And that's not the case. They're poor people that are Christians that are not very prosperous because of just laziness, because of lack of knowledge.
It could be a million things, right? Just because someone is rich, it doesn't make them non-Christian or a bad Christian. Just like if someone is poor, it doesn't mean they send. Jesus talks to us, right?
So if you're going to apply that if someone is not doing well, it's because whatever the situation is, they need to take that and apply to the other side of the spectrum too. That it could be that the guy is very Christian. I'm sure there are rich people that are infinitely more Christian and have a much better relationship than any of us. I would agree.
And I think too, like, so for me, from a personal standpoint, one of the things that have a bunch of things happen, but when I was in college, showing your senior year, I worked at a bank, a credit union actually. And there was one on campus, but on weekends, I bounced around a different location. So as you can imagine, you have the college campus and credit union where the students are coming in. So I'm seeing a couple things.
I'm seeing students that have on Gucci, all the J's, all this stuff literally come in and they're account and have $5. And then I'm seeing a student come in, shoes curling up, clothes don't look like much of nothing, $25,000 in a bank. For me, that was A, like, wow, that was culture shock because I hadn't really ever thought about, I never had insight to like, you see people you think they have money or you think they don't. I never had true insight.
And then on the weekends, it got crazier because, this credit union was in nice middle class, neighborhoods, upper middle class. So on the weekends, I go around to the other branches and work and there will be individuals coming in and I'm looking at like six and seven figure accounts from like random regular looking people coming in. And I was the one and the first times as a young adult for me that I started thinking like, okay, something isn't adding up. And you know, and there's so much more of these people can do with the resources they have.
And for me growing up in poverty, Jay, it was like, I can't impact anything that I want to impact. So that's why I couldn't stay broke. I just couldn't, I was like, I can't stay like this because I will always be dependent on someone else to get me out. I just given me any gifts and capabilities to get myself out.
I wanted to do that. 100%. No, that's the culture today too. It's all about showing that you have it versus having it.
Yeah. It's about showing it's because if you don't show it, you don't have it. It's just like when there was this hashtag trending, I still remember it's like, if you don't post it, you didn't go to jail. Yeah, yep.
Like if you go to jail, you got posted it or it's not really what it happened. So I feel like the same thing with money man. People think that if you don't flash it, then you don't have it. I think what's interesting about that, I was randomly, I typed this on my phone.
I think yesterday or today actually, is like we chase the status symbols irregardless of whether we have the status or not. So it's like we are literally living in a culture where people are actually more intrigued by the symbol than the status. So it's like, hey, if I can get the Gucci belt to walk around and took him to my shirt and show everybody like, look here, I have a Gucci belt or I have on Gucci loafers. That symbol of status means a lot to me.
But if I can't do that, but I actually have some status, some substance of some wealth. I'm actually doing things behind the scenes off camera. That's not as appealing to people. And I don't quite understand it, but it's a very intriguing idea to me that people would rather look like it than actually be it.
Yeah, and you know, the other things, I think we're probably gonna know this a little harder. So let me just switch the angle a little bit. And I think you're gonna agree with me. I don't think it's wrong.
You wanna rock Gucci and Louie? Do it. 100%. But if you ever read the book, British dad, Poor Dad, one of the one thing that you have is for you to buy assets and not liability.
Yesterday Forbes released the richest person list. Elon Musk is no longer there. It's this guy who owns the Louie group. So when you are buying Louie stuff, that's where that guy's going.
That's where the money's going. It's over the market. Yeah, so all I'm saying is like, you wanna buy it, set some money aside, buy it, but set some money aside. Don't take money out of your 401k, potential pension, your future self, your future family to buy something that, like Jesus, but it rust is gonna come.
How long did Gucci's loafers really gonna last? Yeah. If you bought a position in Louie's Louis Louis with on stock, like, you know, it's gonna be wise about it. That's a great angle.
And I do agree that for me, it's about prioritizing. So I was talking to a family member this week and literally having this conversation about, you know, what it means to be financially free, financially free, so on and so forth. And I was like, well, it's about prioritizing first and paying the things that need to be paid, right? Getting rid of the debt and all those type of things, taking care of the responsibilities, but then the hard parts comes.
And I'm gonna be like super, I like to be like, I'll call myself example man, sometimes on the show, it's like all examples, but like for me, it's like, I had never had money. And I'm just being like super little, like so now I'm even talking about a high amount, I'm saying let's you say $1,000. There was a point in my life, 12 years ago, I never even had $1,000 in the bank saved up. But the problem was I was in this cycle, Jay, where I had debt, credit cards, whatever, didn't pay bills on time, very lazy with stuff.
I had to prioritize paying the bills, paying off the debt. Long story short, I got to this point where all the bills were paid. And now nobody had ever taught me how to have the money. So now I'm in a situation where, okay, bills are paid, I have money, I don't know what to do.
Jay, I actually think that's the point where people sometimes go to the Gucci and the Louis, because it's like, I don't know what else to do. So I like to transition a little bit. Like you said, you know, you're all about planning, budget, invest in it so that you can give. Can we talk a little bit about that person now, you have money?
What do I do with it? How to be successful, how to have good money, how to be a good student, what that means. I know we talked a little bit about planning with the goals versus resolutions, but can we just start there and then build towards giving, like just starting with the planning where I have money, Jay, what do I do? How do I find my way now?
Yeah, no, of course. And I think everyone starts with debt. Me and my wife, we paid off $57,000. Like that's a sum of money, we did that in three years.
But again, because no one told us what to do, how to do it. So when we came into the realization, like, oh my God, if we keep this up, we're gonna have six figures of debt. So everyone starts that way. And I think a lot of people, like, they think they have so much debt, it's about just forget about it, it's never gonna change.
But if you are listening, just so you know, you can do it. You can pay off your debt, you can change that habit, you can change that cycle. And then you move on to this next phase. So when you're planning, the reason I put planning there is because I think a lot of people will try to write a budget and then never do it.
So really, you have to plan to then budget, because budget almost is like, it's almost a plan in action at that point. It's not necessarily not actually investing, or taking very specific actions. But if you don't plan to do it, it's never gonna happen. And it takes time, right?
For you to budget, you're gonna need to go get data and bank statements and all this. But Jesus says that, not sorry, not Jesus, there's a proverb, I think it's a proverb in chapter six where he says, look at your flock, take count of your herd. Riches don't last forever and a crown is not generational. So he's literally saying like, look, you need to understand how's your flock doing?
How are your findings? Like take an overall picture, zoom out, how does it look? And that's literally where you start. It is just really understanding, take a pulse, where are things at?
So once I do that, and I think that's definitely fair, like because a lot of times when you're just frivolously spending money, you're not, you have no plan. I tell people all the time, money is like, you know, if you don't put it in its place, it'll do what it wants to do. And so you'll just be emotionally spending. So I love the fact that like, first it's just that awareness to playing and you kind of touched on budgeting.
I think a lot of people are afraid of the word budget. I think it feels overwhelming to people. Maybe there's a little bit of laziness mixed up there or fear. That's where people push back is like, no, you're not gonna put my money.
My money is not gonna put the limits on me. It's like, no, no, the limits are a good thing in this case, it's the exact opposite. If you have these limitations here, it means you don't have to have limitations elsewhere. Got you.
So it's really, again, like to me, it feels like I prioritize and understand and like, like you set these boundaries so that you can really expand your territory in another area, but you are, I think one of the things we have to realize when it relates to finances is that you are always making a decision. And there is some type of effect that is gonna come from that decision and there's no way around it. I think sometimes we are seeking in our culture this utopia where there are no problems and everyone is, everything is just perfect. And I'm a believer, I'm more of a realist of like, hey man, like, it's life, it's part of the beauty of life is growing through something.
So limitations with budgeting. Now, now we talk a little bit about planning and budgeting. I really wanted to pick your brain about investing. I know you have, you have a video I'll link it in the description of the show for the people listening on Apple Podcasts and watch later on YouTube.
You have a video about like teaching people how to specifically invest in crypto, kind of a beginner's guide to cryptocurrency. I know that there's a lot going on in the macro economy, there's a lot going on within crypto, a lot of liquidations and all types of things from lawyers or associates, FTX. Let's talk a little bit about crypto. I want to start with like, where, when did you get into crypto?
How did you get into crypto? And like, what was that kind of intro to crypto like for you? Yeah, yeah, of course. So getting into crypto was an interesting kind of journey for me.
It really started right now in the head of marketing for a company called Space Ventures. And what they do is essentially allow anyone to invest in space companies, space startups, right? A lot of the users and investors are people that are like into Ethereum. So from a hand, you didn't know my users, let's get into it.
This was a couple of years ago. So starting getting into it started really loving concept, understanding it more and more. But like, I'm at the point now where I realize I don't understand nearly enough about crypto to go in as aggressive as I was before. So I think and also kind of a pro against the two.
So right now, crypto is not going to win your point. If anyone's like scared because of FTX or whatever is going on the news, you have to flip that mindset. When this went, the stock market where crypto is at a low point, that's when you get in because it already, your risk is minimized at that point. When it's at an all time high and people are like on the hype, that's when you should not be bought.
Like, don't follow the hype. Follow your instinct and what you know. So personally, I invested in like very niche crypto stuff. The coin Ethereum, I had no dough coin.
I didn't get into that. And then one of the things that I love about crypto currency and blockchain right now is there's this website called lofty.ai and they'll buy a property. They have a ton of vision by the way. So they'll buy this property and they'll tokenize it.
So that just means you got $100,000 house. They will split it into a hundred or a thousand pieces of $100 each, let's call it. And then you can buy a share in that property. I love it.
Literally everything is happening on the blockchain. And two phenomenal things about this that I haven't seen anyone else do the first is that they allow you to participate in the ownership conversation. So the tenant is lagging on his right. They literally send out an email and you can vote on what you want to happen.
You want to charge away if you want to kick him out. So if you don't have that whole $100,000 to buy the property, literally you can start getting some ownership experience just like this. The other thing is that they pass on tax depreciation to the owners. So a lot of the funds don't do this.
And one of the biggest things about investing in real estate is that you get to depreciation. So you can literally you get like an immediate write off. So they do allow for that as well. They pass it on to the owners.
And in my case, I have invested in several properties. It allows me to do the following thing. One, if I go visit that state, I could write it off because I have an investment in that state. So I go right off to everything that I have is stored in a solid wallet.
So it's not a website. No, I can steal it. It's on a hard wallet. So I mean, it's like cryptocurrency in blockchain used phenomenally.
I'm not like I'm not an affiliate of this company. I just generally level. No, no, I love that. And I like talking about it, especially as a believer, like I'm heavy in the crypto.
I'm, you know, pretty well versed, even though I never call myself an expert on pretty much anything because there's always something to learn in crypto is so new, right? That there's so much more to expand and learn. But you talk about something important and it's the mindset of an investor. This would apply whether it's crypto, whether it's the stock market or real estate, whatever it may be.
And there's this mental block where people follow the crowds. And as retail investors jump on, I call them real roads and roller coasters like some folks just jump on a roller coaster at the top, right? And it's like, that's when everybody use everybody screaming, everybody's excited. Exactly.
And they write it right down, right? And so you go from a roller coaster to a railroad where it's flat. And so you said something important, like now is the time to, at the very least, I've been trying to urge people. Now is the time to learn.
If you were ever going to learn about crypto and investing, now's the time to do it. I jump into like a lot of the I follow like almost everything in crypto, but I like I like the gaming, of course. I do have an X account. No, I didn't.
Ironically, because I have a lot of crypto accounts. FTS will give you wisdom. Exactly. It's one of them I didn't, but I do have others.
So I mean, I got some of the others that were like Celsius, Voyager experience, liquidations, and I did have those accounts. So I didn't make it completely out, but like you, mostly all of my funds are on a hard wallet. So, you know, you got to move that stuff right away. But what I really want to talk about from an investor's mindset was this ability to jump in early.
So what we're talking about now, even as you think about a J, you jumped into that internship, right? In the finance industry, unpaid. And there's something to be said about people who have, who step out on faith in this way, where they have the ability to see value in something where value isn't there yet. And I just would love to hear your thoughts on how faith in particular has played a part in your journey through business.
Well, that's a loaded question, but because the way I look at it, and if you're going to be serious about your money, first thing you understand, it's his. It's not your money. It's his money. It is not yours.
You don't manage it. It is his money. He manages it. The only way you can find out how he wants you to manage it is if you ask him.
And I'll give you a couple of stories slash testimonies. The first one bought my first rental property with my wife. So market, obviously you saw it in the past two years, skyrocketed. I mean, literally I was able to like the money that I put in to next it.
So I had the option. I was like, I'm sneaking myself from me and it's getting risky out here. The higher it goes for me. That's when I get nervous.
Yeah. So I was like, it's risky. I talked to my wishy, do she's like, I don't know, sell it. Don't sell it.
Sell it. Don't sell it. Thank you so much for your help, babe. So I went to the Lord, man.
And I was like, what would you like me to do? And how do you want me to play this? So praying, I'm fasting, don't hear nothing from the Lord. And in my personal experience with him, if I don't hear anything, it's a no.
If he wanted to be a yes, he'll tell me it's a yes. If not, I'm asking the wrong question. So the last day of my prayer, fasting, I have the stream in the stream. I'm sitting in the community, like in where the friends are properties at down here in Florida.
And I look up and I see this massive like bird coming down. I'm looking up and I'm seeing this bird come down. He starts getting closer. This thing is huge.
I'm talking like a size of an airplane. It's a dragon, like completely possessed red eyes, breathing fire. He literally lands and smashes like one of the houses on the block. Wow.
And then I see him just like, read and fire destroying properties. So I'm like, freaked out at this point. You know, I look back up. I see hundreds of them coming down.
You know what I do? You know what I do the next day? What? Unless the property, I love it.
I'm like, I'm praying. I'm fasting. The Lord gives me a dream like that. There's no way I'm holding onto that property.
So I saw that it's gone because I'm not I'm not tied to the money or to the property itself. It's not emotional. It's not mine. It is.
I love it. And we have to be the other thing that speaks to us, we can't be greedy. And one of the reason I like talking about this type of stuff, J, is because when this show would it be in a faith and business show business, we know that finances and money are an important aspect. And one of the things that I'm always trying to like get people grounded in, it's kind of like we talk about early.
The reason I'm comfortable talking about money is because I literally have seen it in the Bible and I believe it's biblical. So I'm not afraid of it, but I also am very intentional to talk about it the right way. Like you're doing in this idea that like we cannot be greedy. I tell people out of time, don't be a scammer.
Don't get involved in things to make quick money because when you have that mentality, then that dragon bird is coming down and it's going to take you out of entry. Yeah. The Bible has more passages on stewardship and finances that you know, you got something like peace and hope that's mentioned 365 times, 66 times you got heaven and health a couple hundred times. And then you got money, finances, stewardship over 2000 times.
Why do you think that is? Because it got to be such an important aspect of our lives, literally like one of the very first sins that we see, which is Cain and Abel, it's regarding stewardship. A lot of people think stewardship is about two things. It's about just money and it's about just giving.
That's not the case. Stewardship just means you're managing something that's not yours. So when we are good stewards, we are good stewards of our time, our relationships, if you're married, your family, you are good stewards of literally anything the Lord gives you. So like that's a story, you're the good steward of your finances.
Then you're talking about managing God's money. There's levels here, right? So there are people that are good stewards of their time and there's phenomenal Christians that have written books on this. You know, you got the ruthless elimination of hurry, which is a phenomenal book about time and productivity.
So you take the example that I mentioned earlier, Cain and Abel, bad stewardship on what the Lord had given them. And a lot of people, including myself, I never understood why the Lord rejected Cain's offering. It's just the Bible is not clear. I'm not getting it wrong.
What do you do wrong? Right. Right. It says that in time, Cain brought an offering to the Lord.
But what was Cain's offering? It was fruits and veggies from the land. And let me ask you something, you have a banana sitting around for a few days. It's not right.
And then you have Abel who actually went out, like, you know, killed a lamb on the very same day, very same time offered it to the Lord. So literally he was a bad steward of the fruits and veggies that the Lord had given him simply. And again, back to becoming a good steward. It's just like the Bible is overloaded about this because it's important.
And, you know, like in scripture, man, to your point, it's there so much. But I also believe that finances is one of the things in scripture that is explicitly specific. Like people will ask you stuff like, you know, can you do this? I don't even want to start giving examples and going on rabbit hole.
But you know, like people will find something that is not specifically in the Bible, literally written a certain way. And then being like, you know, hey, the Bible doesn't say we can't do this. Well, when it comes to like finances, finances are so specific. Like even as an example, like I have put up Proverb 6 when you were mentioning it, just to take a look at it.
And so Proverb 6 and 6, it says take a lesson from the ants. You lazy bones learn from their ways and become wise, though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work. They labor hard all summer gathering food for the winter, but you lazy bones. How long will you sleep?
When will you wake up a little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest 11? Then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit scarcity will attack you like an armed robber. That's random. I literally you mentioned Proverb 6.
I like, you know, as you're talking, I'm like, was trying to like pull it up and I lifted it alone, but I saw that and it's like, there's so much that where it's specific in the Bible about finances. For me, you mentioned Cain and Abel. Is there another particular passage or is that the passage for you? Like, was there something that maybe you a passage that you just never forget as it relates to being a good steward or having finances that you would share with people?
I have one I'm curious what yours is. So I mean, I don't think I have like a particular one, but I think laziness is massive because a lot of Christians use that as an excuse, right? So a lot of times I'll give the end where someone's like, Hey, can you please pray for me? I'm going to avoid right now and I got bills to pay or if you could send me some money.
Wow. So I open all my DMS, all of them. And I'll ask them, Oh my God, I'm so sorry here. It's always tough when you can't get a job.
How many resumes have you sent out? Well, it's been two months. I said, I'll wait for nobody's call me back. Right.
At that point, I'm like, conversation is over because when I was an employee, I was an employee. I was an employee. I was an employee. I was an employee.
I was an employee. I was an employee. It took me by the time when I got married, I was an employee for about six months. Probably sent out with 3000 resumes.
So a lot of the electricians were like, just be lazy about it. So the reason that that is so it resonates with me, Jay. Back in, let's say, 2014 ish, I had a fashion brand called Bill Weather Fashion. Number one design, depth to laziness.
Number one design. That was before before the introduction of algorithms online, I could post a picture of a T-shirt in the ship and internationally all week long, just off of a picture. And depth to laziness was one of those. And for me, the scripture was Proverbs 12 and 24.
And reading the word, it was like, I got the Proverbs 12 and 24. New living translation says, um, work hard and become a leader. This resonated with me because I want to become a better leader every day. That is my goal to grow as a leader, both personally and professionally.
Um, one of the number one things in my life is leadership. But then the second part says, or be lazy and become a slave. Now, in particular, because people are grown, you know, people here slave in the Bible and they misunderstand, this was talking about a tribute and a tribute was simply a payment that you owed someone every month. So it was saying work hard to become a leader and be in control and in charge of your finances or be lazy and become a slave by way of debt of growing someone, something.
And that scripture led to that T-shirt led to a song that I wrote called Def to Laziness in it's something that I live by because of what you just said. And I want to go back to it. I got you. I got you.
I'm going to send it to you. Um, I want to go back to something you just said from a business perspective that I think is really important as we're talking about laziness in a part that it plays in this in this picture. You know, you said you open every DM. Now you have like 374,000 on Instagram and I'm not even tripping about the number.
That's not the focus. But the reason I'm pointing this out is because I have about, I have two Instagram accounts that are like 18,000 altogether, right? So that's crumbs compared to what you have. And I get overwhelmed with people reaching out to me asking me how to start a podcast, how to do this, how to do that.
The fact that you said you open everyone, which I do as well, but I think I don't want people to overlook that because what I'm looking at is the fact that I know you're getting a lot of DMs and you're not being lazy as it relates to being a steward of your business, a steward of your platform. And I think as we're talking about stewardship, some of it is about you have to be motivated, energized up to the job. And you can't just sit back and say I applied at four places and I didn't get a job. Where Jay, I know you talk about your childhood and stuff a little bit.
Where'd that come from? Where'd that initiative and you come from to be the type of person that is on top of it that way from a business perspective? So I think two things I think the first one is my dad, my dad has always been the top person. And then even from my grandfather where you're going to do something, you do it correctly, you do it the first time.
That is just like that. That was the rule that our house will. So extremely disciplined being raised in Brazil. My parents were not afraid of using the rod where the proverb language here.
Yeah, my word. I'm with you. Yeah, very generous. And the other passage is, you know, there's a person's scripture that says you do the work at hand as if you were doing it for the Lord, because there's a lot of tasks that we're doing that someone is going to their lives could literally be changed.
Got to literally do literally anything to touch someone's life. So I understand my calling, my purpose. And there's someone on the other side of the world who's sending me an Instagram. I don't know who that person is.
But who knows? Maybe I helped that person invest a couple years on other persons, a billionaire. They're funding colleges for kids and building churches across the world. Like you never know.
So I feel like it's my responsibility that if I have the time and if I have a resource as in the Lord has called me to do this, I need to be a good student of those relationships and of the account, right? People are entrusting me in building relationships. It's my responsibility to do it. I actually I'm not there reading them all myself.
There's like automatic answers. I have a person who helps me with social table printings, but by the way, and she's phenomenal. She's got over here. Yeah, she's been helping me for about a year.
So if there's something that's like urgent, it comes to me. But 50% of the time it isn't actually responding and reading it. And that's look, and I want people to even understand even with that, right? That's still I still stand by the fact that like that's part of planning.
When you like that stuff doesn't just happen, right? Getting built in a team, setting up, you know, automatic messages. Look, when you are running the social media platforms, I told you before we jumped on that, like I'm new to video, like we've only been doing video a few months. We've been doing audio for four years and it's a completely different world.
Just turning on a camera. I'm on my secondary camera today because for the first time ever, you know, my other expensive camera just decided not to work in my point is it is a lot of work. And I was having a conversation with my wife today because some of our goals are around the way we eat. And, you know, she's kind of leading that, you know, I leave like the business stuff and the finance and the decisions and she's taking like the home stuff and managing like what we eat in and how that works.
And we were talking about the fact of like I told her, I was like, well, I'm excited where we're starting, but it's going to get hard. And so I was like, we have to be prepared for when it gets hard. And I gave the example of like, I'm like, I'm less than a hundred videos or maybe at a hundred if you include YouTube shorts into doing videos. And I tell myself I can't quit until I do a thousand videos.
It gets it gets tough, man. Cause I'm like, I work at a fortune 50 organization. I'm super busy and I'm balancing this, but we have to be committed. So I commend you for that.
And Jay and I don't have kids. I don't have kids. I respect like you're kind of going into the last thing I really want to ask you about was actually your family. You've alluded to your wife and your family.
Can you talk about the role that they've played in your life and who you are today? I can tell Jay, there are a lot of things I get from you. On the genuine sincere nature, you talk very highly of your father and your family that leads me to believe that now as you have a family, there's a certain amount of pride that you're taking into that because of the substance that your parents poured into you. So you talk about your family.
Let's show them some love, but also talk about their impact on you throughout this, you know, faith and business journey. So I believe that there's a specific blessing for each season of our lives. When I was a single man, the Lord would bless me with wisdom, with grace, that allowed me to learn easily. When I got married, there was a whole other door of blessings that opened.
I'm telling you, I don't know where resources came from. I don't know how our resources multiplied. I just know that they did. Then my wife got pregnant and I'm like, Lord, your child, I'm just a steward, a whole other set of blessings.
And I'm telling you, like, I've made it this far by the grace of the Lord. And it is he might might might think with like, my daughter, my daughter's name is Stella. There's only one thing I really want to teach her, like me, I don't want anyone else to teach her this and they can, but it's also going to come from me. And that's the love the Lord.
That's it. I want to be an example. I want to set the standard. So she's going to see me do my devotional.
She's going to see me pray. She's going to see me fashion. She's going to see me give. She's going to see me highlight my Bible.
I'm setting the tone. So when we're talking about work, when we're talking about managing finances, that's my responsibility. I am setting the tone because she can, if she decides that she wants to marry a bum and the Lord allows it, I hope not, but he does. He may not understand money.
She will. Got it. He may not have this idea where he highlights his Bible and puts little side notes and then goes pray about she will. That's my responsibility.
And I take that very serious. So when it comes to like what is being a good steward, especially our finances, what she needs to understand is what the Lord taught me. It's about just like a business, just like when you're analyzing business, you got cashflow, you got network and you got giving. Those are the three concepts that I want to teach her when it comes to being a bit store cashflow because that's short term.
That's how you check your pulse. Am I making more money? Is more money staying or coming in than is going out easy? Very simple.
Network long term goal. It's literally cashflow, your weekly cashflow or statement monthly cashflow, statement, or the course of a year, two, three. That's how you know if you're actually doing a good job over time, right? And then you got giving.
So you got cashflow for short term. You got network for long term and then you got giving for the eternal term. That's short, it's long and it's beyond long. If you can figure those things, those three things out, you're a good short.
And that is a whole different look, Jay, that is a whole different mindset. As we talk about why to have money, Jen said those are great things to pass on. Thank you, Jim. Let's love.
I love what I love, Jay, about this conversation. I'm going to let you get out of here, but I just want to say this to you directly. I appreciate you. One of the most amazing things where I'm in all of God since I've been able to do this show is that I get the opportunity to talk to amazing people.
I've talked to so many amazing people in these conversations. I'm like, the goal is to inspire guys, people in like to create a platform where where guys, people can take this information and almost feel sometimes I feel bad. I'm like, I'm getting all this like from free. Like, you know what I mean?
I'm meeting all these amazing people, but I want to just say thank you because you inspired me today and I know that you inspired someone else out there because of the intention behind what you do, but also the character and integrity in which you do it. Before we get out of here, I just want to give you an opportunity to tell people where they can find you. I know you have an ebook. If there's anything else people, by the way, if you look in the description of the show, all of the links to Jay's social media is going to be on there to link to the web, the YouTube page as well.
But Jay, I want to give you the opportunity to kind of talk about where people can find you and maybe what you got going on right now. Yeah, no, I appreciate your brother. So thank you so much for having me on. It's literally been a pleasure.
I can't believe it's been 50 minutes already. I know. I genuinely like whenever you come down in Florida, you're looking at that property. Let's connect.
I love to buy you guys coffee with your wife. I'm going to take you up on that. Yeah. Yeah.
So as far as for your listeners, I do have a biblical budget and guide. If they want to just the Emmy, tell me you've heard about it in the podcast. I love to send that to you for free. Um, I have other resources.
The guide came first because I was writing one on investing and Christians are always asking like, how do I get started with investing? I'm like, well, I'm going to money. I'm like, why don't you have any money? You're not budgeting.
What's the budget? I'm like, OK, I can't do this investing thing right now. We started in step one. Um, right now, man, I'm working on some really interesting stuff.
If you guys would keep in your, your thoughts, your prayers, I am writing a guide to people that are in prison so that they can get their finances set up so that then when they get out, they don't have to go back to that life crime to feed their family, feed themselves. It, I need a lot of prayer and wisdom on that one. So if you guys could pray for me, I'm working on the emotional that's going to be on the, on the Bible app. So again, I think there's a, there's a movement happening across the country across the Christian realm and we could do a better job of being a better story of our finances.
Jay, I'm assuming that you are familiar with God behind bars. I'm assuming that it's for them. Oh, yeah. They've been on the show.
Um, that's why that's why I was asking you. They've been on the show. Um, and now the guy's name. I'm so sorry.
His name is like not. I got to look at my phone. It was the director of innovation. Why is his name leaving me?
But he was a great guy. I did so many cool interviews before I was video and I got to get, yeah, I got to get them back. So that's amazing. I love that.
Like see the connections that that guy, um, that God bless his man. Um, I'm happy to hear that you're working with God behind bars. Well, Jay, Viana, you have been a pleasure. I'm going to take you up on that coffee in Florida.