there's not a good example of somebody that just saves money in a

savings vehicle that gets wealthy.

At best, they're going to keep up with inflation at worst,

like a checking account or, you know, even a savings account.

They're losing ground as it relates to inflation.

So it's like termites in your money.

It's not actually going to help you get to wealth.

True wealth is through cash flow.

And so I always have to take whatever the savings dollars I have and put it to work.

What would your life look like if you stopped trusting Wall Street and started

building wealth on your own terms?

On today's episode of Seek Go Create the leadership journey.

We're joined by Joey Muray, founder and partner at Wealth Without Wall Street.

Joey is a faith-driven entrepreneur with a mission to help people gain financial

freedom while living with purpose.

With a background in mortgages and a passion for relational

leadership, Joey brings a powerful blend of impact, integrity, and

generosity to everything he does.

Get ready for a conversation that challenges the status quo and offers

a fresh perspective on leading, giving, and building lasting legacy.

Joey, welcome to Seat.

Go create.

Oh, Tim, so glad to be here with you.

This is gonna be an awesome time.

that you're here too.

I'm always, excited to talk to people that are from the south because

we shouldn't need a translator.

But you don't have an accent.

You're not from there, are you?

I am from the south originally, I was actually born in the South, but my

parents were both from Buffalo, New York.

So I think there's just this kind of tension always in my, my accent.

So that's, that's where that comes from.

Yeah.

you need a nickname like Bubba or something, don't you?

Well, it's Italian, so I'm the Italian stallion is my nickname on the podcast.

there you go.

No Bubba here.

Oh, very good.

So, first big question then we're gonna dive in.

I like to go into the deep end pretty quick, but any.

Time I'm interacting with people from Alabama.

I've got to ask the question, Alabama or Auburn, do you have

a flag for one of those or.

When I moved here in high school, I had so many people put me on the spot

with this you for Alabama Auburn Boy.

And I just, I'm, I'm the kind, like, if you push me too hard, I'm just gonna

say neither one, I'm not gonna go free either one of 'em 'cause that's crazy.

But this place is the college football hub of the world.

I remember years ago I was in a client's office and he was showing

me, he worked for one of the big cable companies and they were just getting.

Like the college football channel or whatever it was, it was some

big deal around college football.

And he said, man, I'm just really stressed out right now.

I mean, we just got the word that we got, we are, we're

getting rights to this channel.

And I was like, okay, well why is that such a big deal?

he showed me a heat map of the nation and Birmingham, Alabama.

Was this just.

Hot red center compared to all the other places in the country.

And I thought, oh, okay.

I get it.

That's why people are so crazy here.

So anyway,

it is pretty, amazing.

We, that's not the purpose of our talk here though.

That's just other stuff.

So, Joey, I'm curious if,

if

were to ask you, which question would you prefer, this is kinda

like my get started question.

Would you prefer to ask the question?

What, answer the question, what do you do?

Or who are you, which would you prefer?

And go ahead and start answering

You know, what I would say, what do I do is easier because it's

simpler to, you know, just in general conversation, what we do.

And what I do is, and I'm driven.

To impact the world.

And I guess this is kind of both, right?

It's who am I and what we do.

I'm driven to impact the world so much that when I was in the mortgage

business, for 11 years, I got compelled by this concept that we now

teach at Wealth Without Wall Street.

So much so that I was at a conference and I was just like, wow, why do

more people not understand this idea of taking and stewarding wealth

as, an owner, not as somebody who abdicates that to somebody else?

And it was almost, it was one of these rare occasions.

I'll go ahead and say that I felt like God put his thumb in my back

and said, why don't you do it?

And I thought, oh, well, because my wife is pregnant with our fourth

daughter, we have five, but at the time was our fourth daughter.

She doesn't have a job.

I'm the sole provider.

I'm making over $300,000 a year.

I'm comfortable in the mortgage business.

Those are the reasons why I wouldn't risk it all and go, you

know, try to teach people this.

But man, it was so compelling that I said, people need to know this system.

They need to know what the importance is of not abdicating the responsibility for

your finances that God's entrusted you.

And then how to then turn that into financial freedom.

So that's what we do.

We're about freedom and it starts with spiritual freedom, but then

it leads to financial freedom and all that comes along with that.

that, that's good.

I mean, anytime people make statements like.

I want to impact the world.

I have these two things that go through my head, Joey, so I'm gonna share

'em and I'm gonna let you respond.

First thing is usually a Wow, that's pretty awesome.

I want to know more, which is part of my question.

And then the second thing that goes through my head is impact the world.

You're right.

Come on.

You know, kind of this, really that's what it is, because I think I've

had similar things in, in my head.

Has that kind of always been on your mind?

I mean, like going back to, you know, kid on the playground or

when did that crystallize for you?

You know, I would say in college I was very much impacted by a

ministry called Campus Outreach.

And I'm not certain if everybody's familiar with 'em.

They're mostly.

in the southeast, on college campuses and mostly smaller

campuses, although they're definitely growing into bigger schools now.

But there was the concept of discipleship that was taught to me

that man, Jesus impacted the world by literally spending time with 12 people.

And those 12 people he didn't even spend all of his time with.

He really focused on three, but just from those relationships in three years

of ministry, there's a reason that you and I are talking about him today, and

we're not in Jerusalem, like you're in Arizona and you're all over the country,

but I'm in Alabama and I am impacted by what happened over 2000 years ago with

Jesus affecting three people or 12 people.

How can I impact the world?

Well, I can do that here.

Wherever I'm at, I can spend time with people and pour into their lives that

then they can continue to do that.

I now get the opportunity through this media, right, through a podcast, there are

people, there are thousands of people that listen to our show all over the world.

And so for me, I didn't necessarily know how, but I knew that that was

always a drive since I got really impacted with that idea of discipleship.

you know, there's some words I'm gonna bring three concepts together

and then ask you some questions.

I believe that people of faith

I.

have at times different thoughts about money or wealth and, and

sometimes they're not good.

And correct and biblical and the right thoughts.

So we, we will kind of have that as a foundation.

But then I love the word love that your word brought up the word

discipleship because I think that that's what we're really lacking a

great deal of in the kingdom of God.

I think it's really something that we have a lot of people maybe

saying things, but not people may spending time and discipling and

walking people through things.

So, three things.

People of faith, the challenges or issues that they have with money,

and then kind holding someone's hand and discipling and working with them.

I believe that you guys are working on all three of those and, and I think you've

got a community, you've got podcast.

I think podcast is a good portion of it, but to me, community coaching

and different things like that is like one next level thing.

So I, I guess I'm just kind of throwing three words at you.

Faith.

Money or wealth and discipleship, and I'm, discipleship.

I'm just gonna let you

respond.

Sure.

Well, I'll just tell you, I'll kind of sum it up in to those three.

So one, faith, we don't have any sort of a statement on our website that says you

have to be a Christian to engage with us or that we are going to share our

faith with you when you engage with us.

But I can tell you there's been numerous opportunities.

For people to engage with us that maybe would've never stepped foot in

a church, that now they're thinking differently and asking questions.

And we've even seen some people come to faith.

One of the guys that works for me right now became a Christian because he brought

up a very simple, question one time.

He was sharing his story and telling us about what happened.

He said, well, I know you and Russ are religious.

And I was like, no, we're not.

We're not religious at all.

And he said, what, what are you talking about?

I said, we have a relationship with Christ, but if you think religion is

gonna save anybody, you're sadly mistaken.

In fact, I learned these things.

I'd love to share 'em with you at some point.

And if you wanna do that.

So we just engaged in a Bible study He became a Christian through that process.

And so, yes, faith is super important.

It's not something that we require of anybody to engage with us,

but it's super important and it's the foundation for how we think.

And I would say that that leads into, stewardship, which is how the church, how

the world thinks about money, what drives everything in our mind is stewardship.

That you are not the owner of anything, but that God is the owner and he entrusts

to you All of life's resources that you've been given, including your time,

including your body, including your money, including your relationships,

your experiences, all these things are things God's entrusted to you.

And we have not only a requirement, but a privilege.

To be able to steward those things in a way that reflects God's glory.

And the biggest challenge we hear from people of faith, people in the

church, outside of the church, is that they have a really bad idea

that money is the root of all evil.

Money has all these negative connotations.

Like, oh, well, even, you know, the rich are, it's impossible for a rich man to

enter the, the, the kingdom of heaven like a camel going through the eye of a needle.

There's so much context missing from those conversations, but it has

embedded in their minds a scarcity and almost like a fear, for money.

And so I find that the church is one of the, like most, Atrophied or like

really struggling to become abundant.

And, and you know, it's not just about having more money that is abundant,

it's about seeing money as a tool to be abundant with others within your family,

within your community, within your church.

And I can dive into more concepts around that if you want, but

that to me is like a foundation.

And then the last thing on the discipleship aspect, I would say what

drives me in what we do is to say, man, there are things that we've learned

about money and passive income and financial freedom that I want to model.

So there's a reason why Russ and I share our personal passive

income report every month.

It's not because we're bragging, it's because we want to model what's possible.

We show people our actual system that we use to perpetuate passive income.

Because it's a model.

It's just like Jesus modeled to the disciples how to interact with people,

how to, share about the kingdom of God, how to engage with the lost.

All those things are models.

Well, we do that within our business.

We help people, we come alongside in a discipleship type process where we

coach people, they set the system up, and then they graduate into, how do I

get my first $500 of passive income?

Well, there's a 12 week process that they are engaged with.

They have to apply and qualify and all that, but they get in and they then

have a group that also has an individual coach that's helping them to get there.

So it's, it's not perfect and I don't, I never wanna make a claim that.

It could be similar to Jesus's process, but it's based off of the principles

of what we've seen in that example.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Yeah, that, that's really good.

And we may circle back, I do wanna look at some practical things in just a few

minutes here, but there's something that I, this is just a question that

I always have when I'm speaking of

speaking

someone with, that's in these industries I think, Joe, I'd like

to frame it in a couple of ways.

Number one, I'm curious about your faith journey growing up.

You mentioned in college, you were around, the organization there,

but I also would like to know your relationship with money growing up.

I think you mentioned you were in the mortgage industry and maybe

we can chat about that briefly, but talk about your journey.

I mean, did you just kind of come out of the womb saying, yeah, I've got

a healthy relationship with money.

I don't, I don't think about it too much, but also don't ignore it, or was

there a journey involved with that?

What can you share

I'll say the reason why I'm so, kind of acutely aware of how the church has

just brutalized this whole concept is because I was a, I don't wanna say a

victim, but I was a result of that.

And it was, you know, I remember conversations with my parents.

we grew up going to the Salvation Army Church.

My parents actually worked for the Salvation Army for 40 years.

They just recently retired.

They never had money, and they always spoke of it in a negative connotation.

Like those with money were not necessarily serious about their faith.

those with money were almost like sellouts in a sense because

oh, well they're the rich people and this and that and the other.

And I never, and so I kind of adopted those same things.

Money wasn't something I saw.

It wasn't something that I understood.

It wasn't something that I really ultimately wanted.

I equated somebody who's sold out for Jesus is going into full-time ministry.

Somebody who's not, oh well they're in the business world and you know, whatever.

That kind of thing had a really, really bad idea of that.

And then in college I was, faced with some businessmen that I met that were giving

and generous and proactive and very like, responsible and desiring to impact others

at a point that I'd never experienced.

And they had the means to do things that were required to send people.

I started to see God's economy.

As not only people who are willing to go, but people who are called

to send and that God's economy doesn't work without the other one.

Like both of them are required for the kingdom to go forth.

And so, I started to pursue going into full-time ministry

with that kind of understanding.

And God switched paths.

I literally was going and starting to raise support to become

a college kind of minister.

And doors just kept shutting and shutting and shutting.

And it was just one of those weird moments where I was like, God, I thought

this is what you wanted me to do.

And he'd redirected me to the business world with this new kind of, passion to

say, I want to try to live so below my means that I can send with a passion.

I want people, when they talk to me about raising support.

I want to be like, how can I support you?

I want to be like, how can I trust the Lord to increase what he's given me so

that I can pass it on, not so that I can just keep increasing my lifestyle.

I want to keep increasing the capacity to give.

And man, that was a drastic change from how I grew up.

and again, I think it was just understanding the bible, understanding

what Jesus said about money and taking it in context versus the Christianese kind

of, cultural like view of these things that were just quite frankly just wrong.

Yeah, and I wanna say this, this is not throw our parents under the bus, talk

here, but they had scriptures to back up their thought process about money and

the context is extremely important to bring into when Jesus is saying things

about money and who is he speaking to and what are they doing at that time,

that would be a great conversation.

Let's don't go there.

but, and I'm always fascinated by this.

I cannot tell you, Joey, how many people that we've had here at Seek go

create that thought full-time ministry.

There were people of faith and they felt like they were called, that's

another Christianese word if you ask me.

They were called to go into the ministry progression, you know, youth

pastor, assistant pastor, whatever.

And you know, the ultimate, which is a missionary on foreign, you

know, foreign soil Somewhere.

And then they, and then when they leave that they go through this, oh my gosh.

You know, they're getting messages from friends.

Oh, you're backsliding is everything okay?

but it sounds like that happened with you early on.

Did you, were you, did you go into the mortgage world immediately or were

there some other stops and starts along

the way?

Yeah, actually it was, it was just really the lord's kindness.

I was meeting with some of those businessmen who I'd gotten connected

to, and I was just kind of lost and I was like, man, I really thought for

sure I was going into ministry and now I'm trying to pivot and figure

out where in the business world I fit.

So I met with several of them and just asked them, what do you do?

Like, how does, how does it work?

I, I just really haven't had experience.

And one of those guys was extremely strong believer who owned his own mortgage

company, and he was just sitting with me and just telling me what he did.

And I thought, man, that sounds really up my alley.

Like something I would really enjoy and I'd be gifted at.

And he said, you don't have any experience, so you, no, I don't

hire people without experience.

I'm like, what?

I mean, you just sold me on this whole idea.

I'm ready to go.

He's like, look.

Go find anywhere that will hire you, a bank, small bank, and just even

if they let you process mortgage loans, just to get your head

around how does it work and get the experience, that's your first step.

Well, at the time I lived across the street from a bank, little tiny bank, and

I said, well, I'm gonna take his advice.

I walked across the street with my resume and a plate of cookies and I sat with him.

I said, look, I just need to get some experience in the mortgage business.

will you, will you hire me?

And the lady was so hungry that day, her stomach was growling in the interview.

And I was like, look, I, I brought some cookies.

You know, they're out there in the lobby, like, help yourself.

and they thought that was the funnest thing that anybody ever done.

So they hired me.

And when I say they hired me, they put me on a hundred percent commission and

said, go, go see what you can kill.

I made no money for like three months, but I got experience and started

to get my hands around it, and then I went back to that original guy

and said, Hey, I did what you said.

I got experience.

Six months in.

He was like, okay, you can come work for me now.

So you're off to the races now.

I think if I did my timeframes right when I was looking at your background,

you were in the mortgage industry during that incredible awesome time of 2008.

we do not wanna spend much time on that, but just gimme a little bit of

what, what, how did Joey do during that?

Did the Lord just lift you up and you never had any pain or discomfort?

you notice how I was sort of joking about the lift you up, not total rapture,

which I'm not a huge proponent of, but just lifted you up so that you didn't

have to go through that tribulation and then set you back down gently in

around 2011, 12, or was there another

story?

Well, you know what's super crazy is at the time I was working for

Wells Fargo and we serviced, they serviced all of their loans and.

You know, 2008 hit and most people see from the real estate person's

perspective how bad it was.

And if you ask me how many purchase loans I was able to do

during that time, it was very few.

'cause people weren't going and buying new houses.

But what they were doing is the rates went from the sixes down into

the fours and all of a sudden I got inundated with refinance loans.

People that I had done business with for 5, 6, 7 years at the time.

Now they needed to refinance at a much lower rate.

And there were some government programs even that were allowing them to do it

without, you know, having to show as much income and all this kind of stuff.

I actually grew my income in my business during that time because

we had so many people looking to take advantage of those lower rates.

So.

it was actually a blessing and most of my real estate friends struggled, but

in terms of the mortgage industry, it was a great, actually time to be in.

Interesting.

Well, I'm one of those that went from whatever, the palace to

homeless at all during that season.

So I actually appreciate stories like that because sometimes we lump, every EMS

says, oh yeah, it was tough, tough, tough.

So

So I think that's awesome.

so this is my shift into, wealth without Wall Street.

I've got 1, 2, 3, 4, maybe five browsers pulled up on my computer here.

And obviously you and your partner Russ, y'all have

have really

leaned into.

The wealth without Wall Street, message, because I see podcasts, I see YouTube,

I see books and, scan through, listened to, looked at all of those, over the

last few days as I've been, you know, researching all things that are.

Joey, tell me about, I bet there was a transition as you moved into that.

Tell me a little about the transition, and we're gonna be moving into, the

last good bit of time we have talking about what's wrong with Wall Street,

what do we need to be looking at, passive income, things like that.

So start it.

Tell me about how it kind of got started.

Wealth without Wall

Street.

well, I'll tell you the baseline of our entire thing and the thing that

compelled me, to switch careers from the mortgage industry into what we do

now is, there was a book that I read in 2009 that Russ actually shared with me.

We were friends from church, that's how we met.

And he said, man, I'm gonna start sending you referrals as long as you understand

the concepts I'm teaching my clients.

It's called Become Your Own Banker by Nelson Nash.

And as I read that book, it's only 88 pages.

Very small, big print, you know, easy read.

I was just shocked that this was the thing I had always like, was looking

for, but didn't know what it was.

This was the mindset shift that took me from blindly just keeping my head

down, working 50, 60 hours a week, putting money away into my 401k.

Into IRAs and just hoping for retirement at someday.

And what he shared in that book was that I needed to take control of my

finances, And actually, Nelson Nashville was a strong believer before he passed.

I would say that it was becoming a steward of what God had given me and

not abdicating it to somebody else, which is what we've all been duped.

I say duped or encouraged or manipulated to think that, man, you know what,

Tim, you're just not that smart when it comes to financial matters.

And you didn't go to school to become a financial planner or a

market analyst or what have you.

You just don't have time for that.

So you just give me all your money.

And I'll be the one to manage it for you.

Now, a manager in any other situation actually has ownership or requirement

or liability to what they're managing.

But in the financial world, wall Street, they have no liability.

In fact, your accounts can go up or they can go down and

they will get paid regardless.

And they will encourage you that, Hey, you know what, we

just can't control everything.

Like, you know, this is what happened.

The market did this, the market did that, and you are literally stuck

on a rollercoaster at that point.

If the market goes up, you don't wanna sell because what you're gonna miss out,

there's this FOMO of it could continue to go, you don't, if it goes down.

You don't wanna lock in your losses and sell because now you're so far

behind, like what are you gonna do?

You've just really lost.

So you just continue this up and down, and Wall Street profits with today's dollars

on your money every single month where you are putting your money into there

with the hope that it's enough when you're 65, 70, whatever the case is, it is the

biggest scam that we have been told of all time, and people willingly give that money

over to that system every single day.

What Wealth without Wall Street is all about was born outta this concept

called the infinite banking concept, which takes all of your cash flow,

puts it into your control, into your economy, and then it begs you.

To become an investor.

And that's really where this whole thing came.

We didn't know what to invest in.

Tim, I'm just being honest with you.

If you asked me in 2008, I would've said, go buy like a piece of

real estate, a rental property.

That's about all I could think of.

But we started the podcast in 2017 because we had all these clients

doing this infinite banking concept.

They had all this cash that they were putting into their system

and it's a high cash value life insurance kind of system of policies.

And they're sitting there, Hey Joey, Russ, what do we do with it?

And we're like, I don't know.

What do you think?

I mean, so we started interviewing people that are passive income, real

estate, online entrepreneurs, people that could know what to do with capital.

And it was all off of Wall Street.

So thus the name Wealth Without Wall Street controlling your

cash and the end result.

Being, when your passive income exceeds your monthly expenses, you're now free.

I mean, as Tim is shaking, is nodding his head 'cause he

knows what we're talking about.

But as you listen to us, I want you to think about your calendar right now.

You pull up your phone, I got my phone right here.

You pull it up, you look at the calendar.

The question is, are the things on your calendar dictated

by you or by somebody else?

Is it your business that is owned you, that you literally have no time

to do anything outside of because it's really dictating to you?

Or do you work for somebody else in a W2 fashion that your majority of your life is

being owned and dictated by somebody else?

The financial freedom formula, when your passive income

exceeds your monthly expenses.

That means money that is at work on your behalf coming in monthly

exceeds what it costs you to live.

I then get to dictate what goes on the calendar, and that could be

exactly what God has created me to be.

I don't know what that is for you, but that is the end result that we're

trying to accomplish and everything we do is centered around that very concept,

I am sure.

With a message.

Wealth without Wall Street, since Wall Street is the norm or the

standard, or the propagandized, way, whatever term we want to use.

I think I might've shown my hand there.

Darn it.

I was trying to ask this in a different way.

it's what the masses believe.

Now it's interesting the masses don't necessarily participate in

it, but they believe the headlines.

I can't pull my phone up, it's my camera.

But if I go to any financial headline, they will be reporting

on, today, you know, recording this sometime in April, something that the

current president did that caused.

The market to go down 500, up 500, whatever you, but what are, what's

some of the pushback or arguments you get from people when you say that you

can create wealth without Wall Street?

Because

there's probably some that are going through a few people's minds listening in.

Let's go ahead and hit a few of those.

And then I wanna talk about passive income in general before we get to

some specifics.

Sure.

So number one, people are, I'll just use 4 0 1 Ks as an example.

They're like, Joey, I mean, I, you're telling me not to put money in 4K.

Like, that's dumb.

I get free money for my employer.

I get a hundred percent match.

That's like a, it's free money.

It's a hundred percent return.

I don't have to pay tax on that money.

Right?

It's a tax deferred type of opportunity.

Why wouldn't I do that?

And, and here's the thing that it comes down to,

if we're keeping score the same way, if you truly do want financial

freedom today, okay, and I'm talking to somebody who's 30 to 50 years old,

let's just say that that's the window of time that we're talking about.

And you say, I wanna be financially free today or as soon as possible,

then by putting money into a 401k, you are actually reducing your ability

to become free today because you're, you're purposely and voluntarily.

Putting money into something you can't touch until you're 59 and a half.

You say, okay, that makes sense.

But what about the, the match?

Does the match it the matches your incentive, your enticement to put your

money away for the next 20 years, 30 years, whatever, however old you are, is

that going to keep that, that could be keeping you from what your actual goal is.

So if you, now if you are like, you know what Joey, I just

want to go towards retirement.

I don't want to think about it.

I just wanna be on autopilot.

This is not your message, right?

Because you just keep doing what you're doing.

But for the person that says, you know what, he's right.

I want to spend time with my family today.

I want to be more active in my church family.

I want to be more, available because life is owning me.

Then the answer is, I have to take back control.

I have to be in a position to become an investor, to buy back my

time by creating passive income.

So people push back on the four one K until we have that conversation.

Because if your goal is different than mine, then we don't

have anything to talk about.

But if we have the same goal, then you have to objectively agree no matter

what the internal rate of return is, no matter what the tax benefit today is,

by the way, there is no tax benefit.

'cause 30 years from now, there's no telling what the taxes are going to be

when you actually start to pay them.

But if we're talking about financial freedom, there is no denying that that

is the worst vehicle to get you there.

And so that's one thing.

And then I'd say the second thing is people just don't want to be different.

They want to be just like everybody else.

They want to stay safe, they wanna stay.

Comfortable in the herd.

And for that person, I can't help 'em either, because you have to

be willing to do something that no one else is doing to have the

results that no one else is having.

And if you're not willing to do that, then you need to just kind of

reorient your expectations to not be surprised when you end up exactly in

the same place that everybody else is.

It's like somebody going to, you know, a really overweight personal trainer.

They've already proven that that's the result.

Why would I go to them?

They don't have the result that I'm looking for.

But it's just the same as going and following someone else.

Your, your, you know, your peers, your friends, your family who's telling you

all these things to do with your money.

And you look at their life and you say.

Actually, that doesn't really match up for me.

I wanna do something different than them.

But yet you're doing the same things as them with your money.

Those things do not coexist.

You cannot do that.

You have to have a reality check and say, I need to go find a

different personal trainer.

I think what you said earlier is pretty powerful.

I want to bring that back up again, that we're not abdicating.

Someone doing something with our money.

They just don't wanna think about it, don't wanna talk about it.

They, you know, they don't have the conversations like we're having here.

I love talking about money.

I love talking about wealth.

You know, it's, I've never had an issue with it.

in fact, I might.

At times should talk about it less.

But, anyway, so, so I do think they sort of UI use the word abdicate it.

They shun it, they resist it, and I like the word stewardship.

We've used the word stewardship here.

We're on 300 plus episodes.

That word comes up quite a bit

And

really an understanding of.

The gifts, talents, you know, whatever that God has given us, we steward over

those and I believe we have to give it back in a better condition than when we

received it as part of that stewardship.

Now, something that comes up though that is, I think a stumbling block for people

is this, this passive income or passive money because we're programmed to go to

work, get paid, go to work, get paid.

and I actually at times can be cynical about passive income because some

of the hardest work I've ever done is in the pursuit of passive income.

And, I'll bring this up from the book.

I think y'all have something called the PIOS Passive Income Operating

System, which to me, operating in passive is a little bit of an oxymoron.

So I'm gonna call you out a little bit and make you really talk about it.

But anyway, jumbo shrimp, passive operating anyway.

But, talk about, people that need to overcome the hurdle of no passive income.

You, you can't do that.

It's not a real thing.

And, you're always gonna have to do work for some type of financial

reward.

Yeah.

Well, so I'll just say, you know, spoiler alert, passive income

requires active engagement.

In order for it to ever be passive.

Okay?

So for instance, and this is where I think most people get the bad idea, I can become

a poor investor by passively throwing money at things and not ever spending any

time in due diligence or understanding what it means to be an investor.

You have to put in the time, you have to put in the energy, the effort to be

able to know what good looks like, okay?

Otherwise, the very first thing that you look at is gonna look

fantastic, and it's a dog.

I'm just gonna tell you, you haven't looked at 10 deals.

You looked at one and one looks amazing.

You look at 10, and that one may be the worst of the 10, but the reason that

you don't do it is because you didn't get active as becoming an investor.

the second thing is whenever you are even looking, let's say you've become

an investor and you are knowledgeable and understanding, when you are

looking at deals, you have to actively engage in a due diligence process.

This is the stewardship aspect.

Hey, this pitch deck came by me, my office, and I look at it and

it looks good on the surface, but there's some due diligence items.

Like who's the operator?

What's the asset type?

Does it fit my investor?

when does the capital actually start to come back to me?

Is it quick?

Is it three months?

Is it six months?

Is it 12 months?

Is there a stabilization period?

Is it geographically located in a place that I want my money to be, stored up in?

Is it in like looking at the macroeconomics of the world?

Does it look like it's in a place where it's gonna continue

to grow or is it shrinking back in terms of the market itself?

these are all things that, as an investor, you actively engage with that

opportunity before you passively invest.

And so to your point, passive income does not mean uninvolved income.

You have to be an investor and you have to take the time to not just

blindly throw money at something.

if you do, you'll become an investor by learning the lessons the hard way.

but it is a necessary step to become that.

Now to answer your passive income operating system.

The operating system is the active flow of cash in your economy, and most people

never get out of what you just said.

Get paid, pay the bills, get paid, pay the bills, get paid, pay the bills.

That's the rat race.

That's the rat race that we get stuck in.

The Passade operating system connects a whole different side to that.

I get paid, I pay the bills, and there's whatever's left over,

gets into the right hand side.

We call that the wealth, accelerator side.

And that's where we tie in the infinite banking concept.

That's where we tie in this never ending compounding machine that is

passively growing for you, but it is all a part of the active, controlled

environment that you put your cash flow through so that it can create the

passive income that will then free you.

Good.

And we've already established earlier that

this is not necessarily easy.

It's not.

I think there's some simplification.

We're gonna talk about that here in our last bit of time together.

we're gonna simplify what that looks like so someone can understand.

there are steps along the way that people have to do a little extra, I think is the

way I heard it as we're going through it.

I think the first part, you just brought it up actually, you said it at the

very beginning, is that you chose to live below your means and have extra.

I actually think that a large percentage we could.

Probably find the math pretty easily of people.

This is a, we go all over, but let's just talk about the us.

They are not living below their means.

They're not living at their means.

They're living above their means, which means this is gonna be a

tough conversation for them, right?

right.

I mean, because this is not some kind of magical, get rich quick, you

know, you snap your fingers and all of a sudden you're still gonna have

the same cars and the bills and the credit card debt, and this is going

to magically get you outta that.

That's not the case.

I've actually been around a lot of people of faith that have that philosophy too, by

the way, um, that God's going to somehow, um, wipe everything out and all that.

So let's talk about, let's assume that someone's listening in and they've got

some extra, and they're intrigued by this.

They've got extra money.

Let's say they're in that age bracket that you talked about

earlier, and they go, you know what?

I'd like to start creating this.

You called it a system, I'll call it a bucket, that they wanna start putting

something into this bucket I've heard

life

I've heard contracts with life insurance.

I've heard.

Then I start investing.

Let's take just a few baby steps and walk people through the, the basics there.

So

sure.

How does it get started?

So the first thing is the passive income operating system is getting your goals

aligned with what you do with cash.

If my goals are to become financially free, to get my passive income

exceeding my monthly expenses.

I'm no longer gonna put money into 4 0 1 Ks than IRAs.

I'm gonna stop the flow of money into those vehicles, which means I now have

more money in my bank account at the end of the month, assuming I don't

allow my lifestyle to creep, right?

Number two, I'm gonna stop paying cash for everything that I do.

Cash is the most expensive way to pay for anything, and most people will

challenge me on this and say, well, Joey, I mean there's no cost to cash wrong.

There's opportunity cost that you never get a bill for.

What do I mean by that?

If I go and put a hundred thousand dollars down on a house that I'm going to then

use as a rental property or a second home, or what have you, whatever you wanna call

it, that a hundred thousand came from my bank account, which at that point doesn't

have any ability to earn another dollar.

Until I replace it back, right?

Nobody's gonna send you a bill that says, Hey, by the way, Tim, that a

hundred thousand could have earned $36,000 over the last eight years

or whatever the timeframe was.

But that's the reality of what actually happened.

Now, why do we then use infinite banking or these, whole life insurance policies

designed for cash value because they allow you to not only store the capital, put

the money into these contracts, but then to borrow against them so that your money

always grows, never stops compounding.

So you never give up the opportunity cost, and you can repay it over time.

With these, there's loan provisions and things we could probably get into

if you want to, but the reason we just replace your checking account

with a better mousetrap, something that gives you more of what you want

it to do and less of what you don't.

And then the third thing that people stop doing when they're really actively

trying to get to this place of, building financial freedom is they

stop paying off their debts as the only design for what they do with money.

I love Dave Ramsey because he helps people who are living way above

their means get below their means.

He helps them psychologically to say, stop doing stupid things and trying to keep

up with people that don't care about you.

I'm glad Dave is, but when it comes to absolutely like, you know, the simplicity

of his deal is just pay off all debt.

All debt is bad, never get debt.

It's so bad.

Don't ever do it.

When you're trying to keep, tabs on this financial freedom formula, you

have to be objective about when do you pay off debt and when do you not?

It's just not this blanket.

Like if it's debt, you pay it off.

You say, man, I've accumulated $50,000 and I have two choices to make.

I can either, again, 'cause I'm keeping track of the formula, passive

income exceeding monthly expenses.

There's two sides to the coin, not just monthly expenses,

which would include debts.

And so I say if I have $50,000 that I've accumulated in my

system, what do I do with it?

I can either go put it into a passive asset, maybe it's a syndication, maybe

it's into a land flipping business, maybe it's into a private loan, whatever.

And let's just say that that would create $500 a month.

Or I can take 50,000 and I can pay off a car loan.

And let's just say that the car loan was $350 a month.

If I'm keeping tabs on this formula and I could either produce $500 a

month passive income or pay off $350 a month for my car loan, which one

is actually getting me closer to my goal to produce the 500 a month?

Right?

So although I could have paid off the car, it actually would've taken me

backwards on my ultimate goal of passive income greater than monthly expenses.

Notice that I did not say what the interest rate was

because it doesn't matter.

It's about the cash flow, which one is getting me closer to financial freedom.

And so if you can be objective about that and keep that as your main focus.

Now you have a system that you are consistently using those

dollars at the highest level to get you to your end result.

So that's kind of how the first step that people have to do is stop doing

certain things with money, start doing things with money that really uplift

and encourage your actual end goal.

And we can talk about steps two and three, but that's, that's

the number one thing in my mind.

Yeah.

And the big thing here is, if you're coming against Dave Ramsey, you may

have some issues you have to deal with because we won't say he's the 13th

disciple, but some people think he is.

And,

and,

and,

and I've known people that have come against Dave and it's like, Ooh.

And I pull for Dave and I agree in general with the debt thing also.

but there, there is ways of leveraging.

so you've got this system that I still think some people have a

difficult

wrapping their head around.

So I'm gonna get whole life policies, I've got contracts, and then from

those policies I'll borrow against the cash value so that I could

then go out and do other things.

I'm sure there's some people will say, you know, I think I'm gonna

just get the policies and let it sit.

That.

That.

That is probably fine, but it's not really maximizing what someone can

do.

Correct.

Well, think about it this way.

the policy is not an investment.

The policy is a replacement for your savings vehicle.

So you tell me, if someone says, yeah, I'm just gonna let the policy ride and

that's gonna be my, you know, long-term deal, well then the question would

be is how, how wealthy do you believe people that just save money become?

There's not, there's not a good example of somebody that just saves money in

a savings vehicle that gets wealthy.

At best, they're going to keep up with inflation at worst,

like a checking account or, you know, even a savings account.

They're losing ground as it relates to inflation.

So it's like termites in your money.

It's not actually going to help you get to wealth.

True wealth is through cash flow.

And so I always have to take whatever the savings dollars I have and put it to work.

Otherwise, I use the term it's lazy cash.

Lazy cash is not acceptable.

We have to keep it at work.

It has to be doing work while we're actively at work or creating

wealth, it has to be doing its job.

the policies just are the greatest holding place.

Nelson Nash called it Your Warehouse for wealth.

And I think that's a perfect analogy because what's a warehouse?

Do money come, things come into the warehouse, things go out of the warehouse.

Things come into the warehouse, things go out.

your policy or your system of policies has to be always in flux, always being used.

It's not something to just be sitting there, you know, picking up dust.

and so that's one thing we've really, really honed in on is the systematic

use, not just the, you know, the cul-de-sac, if you will, for your money.

Right, and that's where a lot of these, which I love these topics.

I mean, you guys have massive amounts of topics on your YouTube channel

and your podcast where you're really just gathering, it sounds like you're

gathering information to try to find ways of generating passive income because

you've got all of these mechanisms, these savings mechanisms in place that

people can then go out and do that.

There's one interesting thing that you do, and I think I heard it on the

podcast, I guess you probably do it on YouTube too, is that you and Russ will

state where you are currently at your key performance indicator of passive.

Income.

I want to ask you if you can say where that is here in spring.

We'll put a timestamp on this episode, spring of 2025.

But before I do, I wanna ask, if your parents are okay with you letting the

world know with the background you grew up in letting the world know how much money

you're making in your passive income.

Did they ever say anything to you

about that?

I'm curious.

You know what it is, it is somewhat of a concern that people are like,

wait a minute, you're putting this out on, front street here.

And my, answer to that, Tim, is we don't want to be thought leaders.

I think the world is hungry for authenticity.

Like they need to know.

I. That you're not just talking about something, that you're actually doing it.

That there is actual action being taken and that people

are eating their own cooking.

You know, that's how we say it here in Alabama, right?

Eat your own cooking.

We, we want people to, we need to be results leaders, and it is

uncomfortable at times, but what we always lead with is this is not

a boastful like, Hey, look at us.

This is, Hey, this is what's working.

This is what's not working.

By the way, we share those arrows in the back as well, and we've had some

pretty humbling moments on the podcast and on the YouTube channel, but at the

end of the day, it's to lead by example.

I, I told you that initially Jesus gave models.

This is a model that we can share with the world to say, we built the system.

We became investors, not perfect investors.

In fact, we've lost a lot of money and this is the result.

And if you want results similar, we can show you the way that's, that's

ultimately what this is about.

we don't share our active income.

We share our passive income.

And, our whole job is to inspire, educate, empower, and expose

people to what's possible.

Yeah, I think I heard ranges 30 5K to 50 and bouncing around

right is, I mean, those are

nice numbers.

Yeah.

It does not, it's not perfectly stable every single month because

certain things pay out in some months.

Certain pay don't pay out in others.

I mean, we have, lots of different areas that we ra, you know, have money in.

I'll give you one quick example.

We have have three cars on Touro that someone else operates, and last month

I showed a negative $900 because one of those cars came back with massive damage.

Two, two tires busted, or not busted, but the, the, the wheels were,

dented and a tire run in was busted.

It was just, they must have hit a curb or something and just didn't care, you

know, and there was also an alternator that went out, like there's maintenance

issues that go wrong, whereas the month before it was like $2,700 just with those

three cars and I didn't do anything.

It was, I was not hands on at all.

So there's ups and downs with each one of these things.

But on the whole, they average around 50,000 a month.

And, we're constantly just trying to think about what's the next thing or

what should we put more money into?

And, I think one of our biggest negatives is that we are the ones

that interview all these people.

And so we wanna try 'em all, you know, like we probably should

start to limit down our favorites.

what?

What's your

my favorite,

Yeah, I was gonna say, What's your favorite one right now?

Yeah.

I think buying and selling raw Land on notes is my favorite.

if you haven't interviewed the land geek.com, mark Podolski, he taught

us this method and he actually has a team that runs our business.

We buy land for 20 to 30 cents on the dollar.

We sell it to retail buyers on terms.

So I buy a property for 2,500, I sell it for 10,000, but the 10,000

may be a thousand dollars down and $300 a month for 30 months.

That's a perfect deal for us.

we just keep stacking 300, 300, 300, and that has, yielded over 30,000 a

month just in that one asset type.

I love it.

it's hard for that thing to go wrong because in any economy, people

are flooding to real assets like land and we make it affordable

for people to be able to do it.

they're not making any more of it.

So it's really a great, stable asset class.

and it's fully run by an operator.

Who's an expert.

Yeah, that's good.

There's probably so many more.

I recommend people, I think I see a bunch of 'em here over on the YouTube

channel and I'm sure the podcast.

So there's a lot of resources you guys have.

I think, Joey, this would be a great time to just share with the audience.

We'll include things down in the notes.

What's the best way for people to get in touch with you to get more info?

You know, you've got podcasts, you've got book, you've got

YouTube, where do you want

people to go to connect?

Well, I'll tell you, we made a specific page just for your audience.

if you go to wealth wall street.com, slash seek, go create.

So wealth wall streete.com/seek go create.

our contact info's on there, our access to our community.

I think we have some other free resources there.

Love for you to connect with us and let us know that you heard Tim and

I, having this, great conversation today so we know where you came from.

All right, last quick question.

One, quick tip.

We've covered a bunch, but like your quick rapid fire tip that

you could give before I wrap up

The one thing we didn't talk about is becoming an investor.

it starts with knowing your investor, DNA, go and find your investor DNA profile.

We have a tool that you can engage with us on, and it tells you how does your

personality, how did God create you, to see the world with your resources, your

experiences, your access to capital.

What out of about 16 different passive income strategies

line up the best with you?

Because you should just be doing the things that have the highest ROI.

Do what?

Lines up with your personality and you'll actually get, closer and faster

to financial freedom than anything else.

Excellent.

Yeah, I love that because everybody's got different mindset and I mean, there are

things that I'm comfortable with that you may not be and et cetera, so I love that.

So we'll make sure to include all that.

Joey Muray, thank you so much.

Wealth without Wall Street is all of their resources.

He gave a great link.

We'll include it down in the notes it's been a cool conversation.

I love it.

We've got new episodes every Monday.

I appreciate everybody joining in here.

Keep commenting, keep rating, all those cool things.

I greatly appreciate it.

thanks for joining us.

See you next week.