hey gang my name is Michael Lush and I'm on with the real Jason Duncan his podcast and in this episode we talk about the root of all success what does it mean to be an entrepreneur in today's Marketplace what are the obstacles how do we view that what should our mindset be and this was a great conversation I've been very honored and privileged to be on Jason Duncan's uh podcast the real Jason Duncan not the fake ones out there so if you also want to know the root of all success please chime in not only on this episode but every episode subsequently these entrepreneurs collectively give you golden nuggets of how to achieve that that success and what is the ultimate root of it take care God bless welcome to the root of all success with the real Jason Duncan a podcast that explores how the world's most powerful entrepreneurs unlocked success and how their stories can help you do the same a successful educator turned entrepreneur Jason has built multi-million businesses that have been featured in Inc magazine and Entrepreneur magazine his life's Mission now is helping entrepreneurs live what he calls #the exit lifestyle introducing tedex speaker mastermind leader author entrepreneur cigar fishing anado motorcycle Enthusiast and host of the root of all success the real Jason Duncan real Jason Duncan welcome back to another episode of the root of all success I am your boy Jason Duncan the real Jason Duncan you can call me JD I'm here today with Michael Lush on the show and this guy is it's really interesting how I met him and what he is going to be able to share with us today on the podcast is probably going to change your life forever at least your financial life because this stuff is what we all deal with it's like how do you get your mortgage paid off in as little as five to seven years and without having to make any more money but before I get into this information about Michael and do a full introduction of him I want to let you know that how grateful I am that you watch and or listen to the show if you're just listening to this on Spotify or iTunes wherever you're listening to it know that I've got a YouTube channel at youtube.com/ theal Jason Duncan and there's a playlist dedicated specifically to the root of all success that you can T tag in there anytime and watch any of our shows that I've done and this is episode number 207 so there's 206 more of these guys you can go back and listen as I interview very successful entrepreneurs about how they became successful and then more importantly how you can use what they've learned to make yourself more successful so let me tell you about today's guest Michael Lush is the founder and CEO of replace your University it's an education firm that specializes in real world tactical Financial strategy iies that teach thousands of Americans how to get ahead and stay ahead and he works with people like executive pastors CEOs of major corporations Bank Executives mortgage Executives bestselling authors like yours truly uh and most of all a lot of bluecollar wonderful American people right here around around you and around me so before he dedicated his full-time efforts to Leading results uh re leading replac your University he was a 17-year veteran of the mortgage industry he's loan officer senior executive and as he's going to tell in his story today he he had a really interesting runin with a billionaire who kind of schooled him on this this thing that he now says that a mortgage is financial crack to Middle America so are you addicted you probably are so he is the bestselling author of the book replace your mortgage how to pay off your home in five to seven years on your current income and he's going to tell us all about that today he's a dedicated family man he's got five boys has a small Farm here in the Middle Tennessee areaa loves hanging out with them teaching them about faith family finances and freedom you're going to learn all about Michael Lush and I'll talk about how I met him in just a second let's welcome Michael to the show Michael good to see you my man thanks for having me well uh so so I'm a member of The Standard Club in Nashville and I was down there one night oh this is several months ago and um got to talk with a g a guest of one of the other members and your name came up because they know that I'm a business coach and I speak a lot about money and different things and he said' do you know Michael Lush I'm like no never heard of him and he said well you really need to look into him and he started giving me this pitch about how to use helocs home equity lines of credit to pay off your mortgage faster and I said that's very interesting I don't know anything about that and so from that day forward I've been trying to seek seek you out and find you and so we finally got introduced um and here we are I was on your show you got got a podcast you talk about a little bit but uh now here we are talking about this in front of my audience so I love the way stuff like that works and we're right here in the Nashville area together too so so how's how's life been for 2023 for you man it's been our best year yet um you know it it always comes with a double-edged sword because you know when you you look at things you're like okay best year yet you should you know look at that with joy and and some people may even look at it with complacency but I kind of look at it like there was a lot left in the tank so good year for us best year we've ever had 2024 is probably going to be even better um but still a lot left in the tank and a lot more that we can accomplish well by the time this airs we'll we already be a couple of weeks into uh 2024 so you have been doing replace your University what we're going to be talking about today for how long when did you when did you start this idea of teaching people how to use helocs yeah it was 20 2014 uh really I started doing it prior to 2014 because I was doing it myself three years prior to or really two and a half years prior to 2014 so I was telling friends families co-workers and whatnot about this but it wasn't a business it didn't become a business until 2014 um and it started actually started off as evict the banks um and I still have a domain evict the banks.com which I've just redirected to replace University and as we started you know getting some affiliation with banks they weren't too happy with that name um so like okay we need to come up with a different name so we came up with replace your mortgage and it's still replace your mortgage it's just one subsidiary underneath replace University replace university has replac your mortgage replace your employer replace your Banker which is now being rebranded to replace your retirement which is an insurance agency replace your dollar which gets into day trading how to profit profitably and with reduced risk trade the markets uh and then replace your mindset which is probably one of my favorites Believe It or Not uh which is more of a I wouldn't really call it business coaching it's more of a mindset coaching um whether you're a business owner or if you're an entrepreneur if you're you know CPA or financial planner or anything just somebody that you feel like you you've kind of Hit the mountain top and now you've gotten complacent um we have a program that kind of pushes your your limits or what you think your limits are and what your limiting beliefs are and pushes you further so uh there's five subsidiaries underneath replac University so 10 years man congrats decade decade do this that's that's a feat that most people never ever accomplish and I don't think people like us who have businesses that are over 10 years old don't we don't realize how big of a deal that is because we don't hey I'm just doing doing what I do every day how do you think you were able to make it for 10 years you know I I I stumbled into my passion um which is weird because I was just talking to a college buddy of mine he was a college teammate of mine and you know I'm helping him out with with a couple things and I was like man do you remember the name of our corporate finance uh professor in college and he told me the name and I remember the last name but I didn't remember the first name I was like I wonder if he's still around he's like I don't know I was like he would be baffled that one of his worst students is now essentially doing this as a living because I had to take it twice the first first time around uh fugged it miserably uh but yeah the second time around ended up passing but uh I gave him some some issues because I I just didn't pay attention and and quite honestly in college I did just enough to stay eligible High School is a little different straight A student but in high school or I'm sorry in college it was uh yeah let's just do enough to stay eligible and uh yeah so he would be amazed at what I now do for a living is uh what what he used to teach which quite frankly be somewhat transparent and honest about this what what I teach I I didn't learn in college it kind of gave me the foundation from a mathematics standpoint how to investigate stuff um but it it you know this this these things are not taught in college so uh yeah I think he would be somewhat proud and we've always heard the same you know your a students become great uh employees and your C students become good uh CEOs so here I am I was the C student at best it's like what they say you know do you know what they call do you know what you call the um the guy who graduates at the bottom of medical school doctor no oh yeah true yeah that's a good point it does matter man as long as you pass it's all good you know how we lasted this long is it it became a passion of mine and you know I I have so many people that reach out to me and say you know I'm I'm thinking about starting a business or getting into business ownership and Entrepreneurship you know what is it do you think I should get into you know because they're looking for things that are high profit margin or passive lease resistance and I always give the same advice is what are you passionate about and whatever it is that you're passionate about you will find yourself working away on it and it won't feel like work it's because it's fun it's it's what your passion is and I think that's a testament to how we have survived it hasn't been all you know sunshine and rainbows throughout those 10 years we've had our ups and downs and we've had our our Touch and Go moments um like I think it was 2019 2020 that was really close to like all right I either need to figure out a buyer for this or or give it up and do something else but I was like no no this is my passion I really enjoy talking people I really enjoy helping people I really enjoy impacting people and it's the testimonials that I get back that really keep me invigorated and just push through so perseverance and and finding a passion you know there there were times that I was working on this until 3 4 o'clock in the morning heck I've had multiple occasions where I'm working on a project and I just tell my wife I was like I'm just going to work through the night and you know next thing you know you look up it's a couple days and your body takes over it's like okay if you don't get some sleep then bad things are going to happen but you know if it was something out side of this that I just looked at it from a profit margin standpoint what it can only do for myself for my family I wouldn't have worked that hard and you know if you want to succeed in in Life or in business you just have to push through those barriers and it's a lot easier when you're having fun doing it well we're going to get into for the audience sake how to pay off your mortgage in five to seven years without any additional income stay tuned we're going to be getting to that but I want I want first because we're talking about with you Michael a business that you started on the hills of a corporate career um you've now been in business for a decade if you had to boil down all of the success that you've been able to achieve in that decade to one key like what is the one thing you would look at and go this is what allowed me to be successful um I I didn't take no for an answer um any setback I looked at as an opportunity so you know we had our trials and tribulations as any business does trying to grow trying to scale uh trying to reach more people it comes with its obstacles and every obstacle is an opportunity um so I don't you know I've tried to I don't go to a psychiatrist uh but you know it would be interesting to try to do a deep dive and some introspection of why I'm wired this way but anything bad that happens I look for the lesson in it where a lot of people unfortunately most people look at obstacles and roadblocks as a sign you know either from God or or what you know a sign from the market place that okay time to give up I look at it as course correction it's feedback it's like okay this route didn't work but there are other routes that I need to figure out that might work so I think it's just really looking at it as feedback versus failure and trying to determine what is the best way to course correct and keep moving forward so how do you Define the word
success I would say the pursuit of happiness it's not you know there's this illusion out there that once you get to a certain level then that's it there's happiness I don't think that's depending on how you're wired I don't think that's happiness for me I I feel like I've got to constantly be pursuing something um you know I've had multiple conversations over the years of you know 5 10 years down the road if you sell this thing and make buku of money what are you going to do you just going to sit back and I honestly if I were to answer that question I think it would be tough for me to sit back and just relax for six months um life would be different no doubt I wouldn't have to worry about money anymore but would I sit back and do nothing and just toil away on the farm no I would find another project and another passion to Pursuit so you know it's it's just uh I feel like happiness is the pursuit of it and it's it's finding happiness inside of the Journey of trying to accomplish whatever audacious goal that you have that's where I'm most satisfied um honestly it gives me anxiety to feel like okay if I ever reach the Mountaintop and let's say we sell the company or partner up with Venture Capital firm a bank or whatever it is um it gives me anxiety because then it's like okay what do I do next where I'm most happy is in the pursuit of it so by that definition the pursuit of happiness is Success do you consider yourself to be successful depends on the the circles that you walk around you if I walk around with my old high school buddies or even sometimes my old college buddies yeah you know it depending on how you look at success if you look at it from a monetary standpoint yeah yeah successful depending on those circles but I also have you know other people that I lean on that I now call friends mentors consultants and U wow they they would feel broke you know I've got one buddy Ryan probably worth 750 million like I mentioned I had a mentor back in 2009 that uh is a billionaire U they wouldn't look at my monetary success as success so it's all relative right um you know now there's multiple forms of success it's you know being well-rounded not just from a financial standpoint but are you fit uh do you have spiritual success are you grounded in your faith uh your relationships are they successful your relationships whether it's being marriage your kids or you know other relatives friends and Associates do you have are you successful in establishing relationships and building and maintaining those relationships so you know it depends on how you define success it's broken up into all these different categories but it's hard to for me to to get to the point where I feel like I I've achieved ultimate success because again my passion goes back into the pursuit of it so if I ever get there then I just feel anxious that no there there there's you're you're always chasing Perfection I don't think you've ever achieve it yeah I I agree I think for us as entrepreneurs and I know that the listeners would agree with this too is that you can set a goal let's say back in the day your first goal was I want to make six figures man I want to make 100 Grand a year okay you made 100 Grand a year what now oh I want to make 200 I want to make 500 okay then you're like well I want to make a million so every time you set a goal and you achieve it that doesn't mean you're done you're always going to set that next one so I think your definition that success is the ability to continue to pursue that happiness I think that's that's really good so with that now let's let's kind of move into some tactics so you're the guy that figured out kind of accidentally what the super wealthy knew which is that mortgages are cracked for Middle America they're not good for us we're addicted to them but you are in the mortgage business when you found this out which led you to develop the big business you've been doing now for a decade and teaching people how to use use this hel loock as a way to pay off your mortgage quicker so tell us the story of how you figured it out but I'm more concerned about the tactics but I think it's interesting to know the story but tell everybody that story and then let's get into the tactics let's take a quick break to thank our amazing sponsors for making this podcast
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this in high school uh we don't even learn this in college in United States but in in Australia they call it a money merge account so they have the highest rate of Second Home Ownership uh and the reason being is you know if you were able to pay your home off in five to seven years are you looking for a vacation home probably real estate's a good investment for the most part so you know that that's kind of the next logical progress for Australians is they buy two homes now the average Australian can pay off two two homes in average of 14 years that's what the data and stats U support however the average American doesn't even pay off one home in 30 because we tend to chase interest rates not rate of interest so we're constantly refinancing either to pull out Equity or chasing a lower rate to lower our payments and we start the amortization schedule all over again so the average America doesn't even pay off one home in 30 years where the average Australian pays it off in 14 years so I don't want to take credit for the strategy it was is something that I dove into it's like holy crap you mean there's alternatives to financing real estate than the archaic inefficient death pledge of a mortgage yeah and and it it was a billionaire mentor of mine he actually uh owns a hedge fund still to this day own owns a hedge fund or partner of the hedge fund uh and was back then so I was um a senior executive for the ninth largest lender in the country prior to 2007 uh we were doing really well at my office in Charlotte North Carolina it was July of 2007 we were doing somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 to 600 units a month and you fast forward two months so you're not having to fast forward a whole lot you go two months later we were scratching uh trying to scratch by just on 50 units so we had plummeted 90% just because the subprime market completely dried up and we were a company that we didn't do a whole we were a subprime company labeled as a subprime company because we could do what's called Al a document or Al income verification sometimes it was stated but less than 1% of our loans was actually those types of loans that you hear about in the media that caused the collapse of 2008 and in fact I remember wouldn't call it a scalding but you know the CEO coming in and saying we're leaving a lot on the table because I'm I'm looking at all the paper and we're doing all this full income verification paper but we have all these other programs out here that stated or no income no no no job we called them ninja loans no income no job no assets uh we have all that that we could still do um but we're not doing them and the Reason by reason we didn't is you know loan officers take the path of lease resistance and they're going after programs that have the lowest interest rates so if you could prove income then you got a lower rate than those that didn't prove income so that that's by and large one of the reasons why it was that way but uh you know it was uh September of 2007 we just kind of saw the writing on the wall that oh my goodness um how are we going to turn this corner and came up with a plan that we're going to switch from all this subprime stuff because we couldn't we couldn't sell the paper anywhere it completely dried up heck even the company I worked for owned a wholesale company we couldn't even offload our retail paper to our own wholesale company there just no Marketplace for it um so we decided to try to flip the switch and do nothing but government loans FHA VA USDA Fanny and Freddy and that when you take thousands of loan off officers Nationwide and we had probably 20 some odd branches across the country and thousands of loone officers and you know I remember if I talk to somebody on a Monday say it's at the end of the month and I talk to them on the Monday at the end of the month I could get them closed by Friday and now we're having to switch it to okay you talked to somebody at the beginning of this month you may not get paid until 45 60 days later it was just too much of a mind trip for our loan officers to comprehend and we weren't getting the job done and actually it was on my birthday in 2007 December 2007 the company filed bankruptcy um let everybody go no severance nothing just said hey wish you the best and um I had a I'm from originally from Nashville Tennessee and at the time I'm living in Charlotte North Carolina I was like you know what this is a great opportunity to uh move back home uh because one I need some shelter because now that the company went bankrupt between me and my wife we were killing it you know all the way from our early 20s to to this point it was um Mid six figures and you know when you're 22 23 24 years old and collectively you're making mid six figures um I don't know about everybody else but I can tell you for me not a good Steward of money um so bought big houses fancy cars Lexus uh Denali Escalade so I had a Denali and Escalade at the same time like you can only drive one vehicle but some reason I bought two uh I had a custom motorcycle a chopper I had bought that I bought a four-wheeler so just not a good Steward of my money had lots up coming in just assumed hey I'm going to continue to rise through the ranks and now making mid6 figures collectively I wasn't myself I was probably 270 to 300 personally and then joined with my wife's income because she was a top loan loster with the company as well uh you know we were making close to 500,000 lost your job at the same time what's that did you guys both lose a job at the same time to the same company same every everybody got laid off so when did you make a billionaire though like when did that happen when did you say hey this is a new thing I can do so it was about a year later after I moved to Nashville the company had called and said hey we're going to resurrect and we're going to get the team back together under a new umbrella we're going to do government loans and we want to bring you back as director of operations and we want you to open up our Nashville operations I said cool because I'm kind of wasting away in a dead end job I'm laying tile for a buddy of mine owned a tile company I'm also went on board with a broker shop that was also floundering too and um yeah I was just like wow I can't believe I go from here to here and it was broke I mean Broker Than broke we had to move in with my parents my parents had a a recently renovated vacant house on the farm so we moved into that th foot house could not afford internet uh didn't have TV and you know a lot of people look that like man those must have been some depressing times and and it wasn't and this is why as an entrepreneur I'm so willing to take the risk that I take today because I'm not I'm not deathly afraid of poverty I've been there and it didn't steal my joy and in fact it was some of the greatest learning moments of my life and growth moments because we didn't have internet we didn't have TV uh didn't you know peruse or browse on my phone you know yes I had an iPhone but you know he's still not really surfing on it uh because you had data limits and all that on it so you know I got books so I read books on financial literacy because I was I went broke I'm like okay how how do you make all this money and now you fast forward you have nothing to show for it you know if I'm going to get back on top of that mountain I I need to become a better Steward of my finances so I started diving into all kinds of books in fact even taught um Financial Peace University at my church uh in Franklin uh which is a bit of an oxymoron compared to the way that we teach things now but anyways um it you know it it would also grew the relationship with my wife too because you know instead of being distracted and talking about business now we were playing board games we're doing things to entertain ourselves and and you know going on walks uh and hiking and stuff things that didn't cost any money so our relationship grew so again I'm just not deathly afraid of poverty like most people are because been there and you know to be poor in America is a whole different story than being poor in Guatemala or somewhere else right I mean you're not really poor you still got shelter you still got food to eat you still got Transportation it just you may not have the luxuries of life so they called and said yeah you know we'd like to get the band back together again I said absolutely because I'm Broker Than broke and um the owner so where they got their money was from a hedge fund out of Connecticut uh they pledged $25 million of operating capital for us to resurrect and the owner of the hedge fund his parents lived in Nashville so from time to to time he would come into Nashville to visit his parents and knew that he had a branch there that he could pop into and you know really check up on his money but sometimes Mentor me as well and it was one visit where I had hid him with it and I said listen John you're you're worth at the time $600 million and birds of a feather flock together so I need to know what you know and if I could get in your sphere of influence I'd love to do mortgages for them because if they're doing mortgages they're doing big mortgages big mortgages are big paychecks a lot of profits you get your money back F and uh he said that's all well and good he said be honest with you Michael we just don't do mortgages I was like it's kind of what I thought you pay cash for everything he goes no he said understand what my business model is it's a hedge fund we are the kings of making money off of other people's money so we still leverage other people's money he said we just don't use a mortgage um the way that you think we would and I was like okay I was like what do you use he says simple interest lines of credit he's said a good example would be a home equity line of credit you could use business lines of credit commercial lines of credit but any kind of simple interest open-end line of credit that's what we use to finance real estate and I was like that doesn't make sense I said because a HELOC is a credit card on your home and all I'm doing is regurgitating the way I was indoctrinated when I in my upbringing in the mortgage world so everything was scripted out we had some of the best sales training I still know the seven steps of the first call the six steps of the second call the five steps overcoming an objection I know what the the five benefits are payment cash tax term deferral I mean I can recite it all just because it was ingrained in me like a boot camp uh but one of the things that would we would also tell our customers is oh you've got a HELOC on your home we need to refinance get some cash out to pay off that helck because that's like having a credit card Associated to your home and credit cards are bad so I was the complete yeah I was the complete opposite back then than I am now because it's almost like being in the Matrix you got two pills you got the red pill and the and the the blue pill and I don't remember what color it was that you take that that kind of opens you your eyes up but that's essentially what happened to me in 2009 because he hit me with this he said to be honest with you Michael mortgages are Financial crack to Middle America the poor can't afford them and the rich don't use them understood the poor comment because I wasn't getting people qualified that were poor and couldn't have the ability to repay they couldn't prove their ability to repay from an underwriting standpoint so I understood the poor part I was like the rich don't use them I was like and so I started investigating this whole HELOC thing and I I I uh hired a CPA an actuary and a buddy of mine who's now a partner in the business today his name is Matt Workman and just said this is what the rabbit hole I'm going down and it's totally against the grain because this guy just basically called me a dope dealer right he's like you're a financial crack Dope Dealer that's what you're doing but it's profitable it makes us all a lot of money and yeah I'm sure you're helping some people out along the way and and I thought I was you know you know if if you get somebody alone even back in the subprime days we had what was called a net tangible benefit test so you had to be reducing their payments reducing the term giving them some cash there had to be some kind of financial benefit for them to get that loan um so somewhat responsible there but if you know how it really works you're like yes I might be improving your situation a little bit compared to where it was but compared to where it can be it's it's a game changer so um yeah he told me I was a dope dealer and me and and a small team went to work on it to investigate it and it took about a year maybe a year and a half and I was just like I can't poke any holes in this this makes Financial sense this makes mathematical sense it's completely logical and so I convinced my wife uh so after we were broke we finally got back on our feet and now we can buy a house again so we buy a house and I wait six months um after we bought the house because that's how much seasoning was required at the time or at least what I thought at the time is you needed six month SE seasoning before you could refinance your home and so I contacted all these Banks and said here's what I want to do I want to take my home that only have 10% equity in and I want to refinance the entire mortgage into a home equity line of credit and I can't tell you how many it was at least 10 Banks and and and every time I contacted a bank I'm talking to a banker then I'm talking to the branch manager then I've got to talk to an executive at that bank before somebody can understand what I'm talking about and finally I got this one credit union on board they're like oh okay because they every Everybody hit me with the same thing it's like you know when you think of a home equity line of credit you think of a loan just on that Equity portion of your home nobody thinks of it in first lean position something that can just completely refinance your existing mortgage you know I give an example let's say people have an FHA loan that they closed on that has mortgage insurance but now they've got 20% Equity you refinance that mortgage to a conventional loan to drop the mortgage insurance it's not based on the 20% Equity you had they just literally substitute your existing mortgage with a new one hence the name replace your mortgage so I finally found a credit union that would do this and convince my wife here's what we're going to do now I know this sounds totally against mainstream it's totally against what Dave Ramsey talks about but here's what we're going to do we're going to refinance our mortgage with this Credit Union and make it a line of credit and then this bank account that we keep putting our money into our savings accounts and all that we're going to abandon that we're going to keep them open we're not going to close but we're going to stop donating our money to the bank at 0.24% for them just lend it back to us at 56% at the time I said instead we're going to dump everything into this home equity line of credit and we're going to operate out of this home equity line of credit now I I will also be blunt and transparent that after I got back on my feet making more than the average American obviously I was director of operations for a decent Siz lender um good salary good overrides and bonuses so not killing it not setting the world on fire are probably in the neighborhood of 185 to 210 depending on the year um so I was cash flow positive I say that because not everybody can execute on this you you have to take the first step in personal finance and understand what your budget is and not have more going out than what's coming in in fact you need to have a margin of what's coming in versus what's going out if that's the case then this works beautifully if that's not the case then you should not entertain this uh but that that was the case for us that we were cash flow positive I lived on a budget and have been ever since because I went broke I'm like I'm not going to do the whole cars and fancy homes and all that stuff again I'm going to keep our burn rate low compared to our income uh long story short it took three and a half years to pay off that house so in 2014 I was being interviewed early 2014 I was being interviewed by a I think it was mortgage success it some kind of magazine it was like a a radio interview that they would post on their website and they were interviewing me because I was a senior vice president for a federal bank and I was growing branches around the country and so they wanted to know the secret sauce to recruiting and growing branches and being successful in the mortgage business and um you know 45 minutes of that very mundane nobody would want to listen to it I mean it it's terrible it's mind-numbing information unless you're actually in the industry however they hit me with one question you know in the mortgage industry there's probably nothing new Under the Sun but is there something out there that people don't know about and probably they should and again I'm still making a living doing out mortgages so I'm like this is not going to serve me by spilling the beans on what I do personally but I was like you know what fine you got me on in the moment you've got my back my you got me against the wall and now I've got to say something so I was like well I don't I don't technically use mortgages in my personal finance what are you talking about I like no almost three years ago I've refinanced my entire mortgage to a home equity line of credit and at the time of this interview like we're within months of having the whole thing paid off like really how does that work and so I go into it for 15 minutes so they called me after the fact and said listen we're going to be honest with you the first 45 minutes absolutely sucked it was my numbing you didn't have any passion I was like yeah I get it like but the last 15 minutes never heard of that before most people don't know about it even to this day which astonishes me because we've been at this for 10 years I can't believe how many people don't know about this um but we noticed your energy level was entirely different and you're passionate about it have you ever thought about turning that into a business I was like no not really you I was telling friends and families this but I never thought about turning it into a business a Consulting business and teaching people how to do this and so I hired a mentor and we went down to boa ratton for a week and honestly spent money that we didn't have um I wasn't at the time huge fan of credit cards now I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of credit cards but I can I see how they can be properly utilized for a financial game so we put his fee on a credit card and uh spent a week and what was cool about him was he said once you're here we're not only going to build everything out but we're want to make money while you're here and that was the God's honest truth actually as we built it out I picked up three clients that more than paid for his fee uh while I was down there and I was like this is awesome I I love talking to people about this I love the light bulb that goes off when I talk to people about this and he's like yeah you need to start a business doing this and I did and the rest is history so let let's get into tactics just for the final few minutes of our show so from a high level the idea here is let's say you bring in $10,000 a month in income you know just we use that number it's easier and instead of depositing that $10,000 into your checking account that isn't paying you any interest what you're you're doing is you're depositing and then you're essentially paying down your helck so you get your helck first position you pay your helck down 10 grand and because the interest is based on average daily rate and it's not it's not annualized then you're paying interest on $10,000 less on that balance and let's say you only need to spend as you said that Gap you're only spending $8,000 well now you're interest your he helck is is $2,000 less than it was the month before and if you keep doing that it compounds super fast and that's how you can get paid off within 5 to seven years is that right yeah to a certain degree it's a little bit more complex than that and I don't want to make it overly complicated but it's actually more advantageous than that so another thing a HELOC does that a mortgage doesn't is it recasts automatically every single day for free now in the mortgage world you some lenders will allow you to recast your loan what recasting means is let's say you got a $300,000 mortgage and you had a piece of real estate you sold for $100,000 profit you're like you know what I'm want to chunk it onto my mortgage but what I want to do is recast not not necessarily refinance I want to recast the imization on the existing um terms back to 30 which lowers the payment right so recasting is highly protected by the mortgage lenders some allow it not many but when they do allow it they only like for instance Wells Fargo will allow it but they only allow you to do it twice over the lifetime of business with them and when you do it it's going to do you see the balloons yeah you've got your you got your your your camera turned on to where you do when you do certain finger gestures that oh really I don't even know
how happy Birthday everyone anyways um so they protect it and it it will cost you hundreds of dollars to recast however a Helo will do that every single day automatically for free so what that means mathematically is you start with $100,000 balance and you put 10 grand in tomorrow the bank is assuming your or charging you interest based on the 990,000 not the 100,000 it's not an amortization schedule a mortgage is an amortization schedule where you know let's say you do a 360 month amortization schedule on a mortgage month 242 it's already spoken for of how much of your payment is going to go towards principal and how much is going to go towards interest the downside on the mortgage is one it's very front-loaded with interest all mortgages are even 15 10 year terms they're still loaded with uh interest that's where you're paying the bulk of your interest most everybody knows that on a 30-year mortgage it takes 18 years before your payment is actually affecting more principal than it is interest right so all 10 grand of your deposit into a hel loock went to principal first then your interest is calculated on a mortgage when you put money in Money goes towards interest first then principal is calculated so we're flipping the script right that is interesting doing this I'm gonna get some balloons but anyways um so yes you it's every single day and there you can gamify this and get more strategic too where it's like okay if I know that money going in suppresses the balance thus suppresses the interest and the time that it takes to pay this off well then I also know the inverse is true when I take money out to pay bills then my balance is going back up and I'm going to pay more interest so there's ways to get very strategic about this of of making sure that your money goes in as quickly as possible and comes out as slow as possible and it's called offset accounting and it'll actually speed up the process another 10 to 15% so at replace your university.com you have opportunities for people to hop in there sign up for courses watch videos Etc what is kind of the primary way that people can reach out to you to say I want to do this I've never heard of this before I want to learn how to do it what what's step one what's the best way for them to do that yeah go to the site replace your university.com or just straight to replaceyourmortgage.com if you go to replace is going to show you a carousel of all of our five subsidiaries but what we're talking about today is replace your mortgage just go straight to the website we have tons of free information so you can sign up for a free account and we're going to have hours upon hours of free education for you to watch so that you understand this and then once you understand it you're like you know I want to see if this is a good fit for me then there will be a button there to book a discovery call with one of our account Executives and where we will analyze if this is a good fit for you because I've got a partner in the banking industry um that he's got a really good saying that's not politically correct but anyways it it really makes the light bulb go off for a lot of people it's like this is like yoga pants everybody can wear but not everybody should and you know there's 70% of the people that we talk to that we don't recommend this at this time because unfortunately most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck they're not saving a single penny but for the other 30% that they I wouldn't consider it mastering their budget but they make more money than they spend then we analyze here's what it's going to look like in your situation and the math is the math you can you can dispute hey Dave Ramsey said this or somebody else said this I shouldn't do this just investigate the math it is what it is and it's not hard math we're talking third grade level math here um you know and the thing is is you look at how we've been indoctrinated for a long time and I'm not talking about 10 20 years I'm talking centuries that we've been indoctrinated of how to look at things that are are being offered to us as consumers um true story I went to business school McCall School of Business which was named after Hugh Mcall Hugh Mcall was the founder of Bank of America and now on this side of school looking back all they were teaching me was ways to sell products that Bank of America wanted their consumers to consume right and what's most profitable is mortgages so we have been focused look at all the market look at all the advertising look at all the the promotional stuff that Banks and lenders do what is the thing that we always gravitate towards out of all of the interest rate yeah because it's the lowest number so we we go after what what we think the lowest number is but nobody's dove into that and really looked at now you have what's called a loan estimate and on the third page of the loan estimate there's this number on there it's called tip total interest percentage now prior to this regulation coming out and kind of transforming the mortgage I used to call it rate of interest so if I were to ask you Jason what is your rate of interest you would spit out 3 and a half% well no that's your interest rate your interest rate dictates your payment time in Balance dictates how much interest you're actually going to pay so what is the rate of interest that you're paying and nobody can answer that but it's being disclosed to us on the loan estimate and on the last page of the loan estimate at the top it says total interest percentage let's say you got a 4% mortgage it's going to say you're paying 62.5% tip total interest percent that's how much it's costing you to finance that house now if we were to buy a car and say hey this car is 30 grand but you're going to pay 50 for it that's the value of the car 30 grand that's the sticker on it but if you're not paying cash then we're going to finance it for you and it's going to be 50 Grand how many of us would be like oh heck yeah sign me up for that no not if we think about it that way but unfortunately we don't think of it that way we say oh it's 30 Grand at what interest rate what's the payment okay it's $700 a month okay that fits inside of my budget and we buy it we have to think differently and start looking at how we finance things differently so this isn't just real estate this is car financing can be done the same way College can be done the same way everything that we Finance can be done entirely different not just real estate and we need to start looking through through the eyes that Australians do South Africans do Europeans do when they look at a house that says oh it's $450,000 sticker price but if I finance it on a 30-year term it's going to cost me close to $900,000 is that home worth 900,000 no not buying it in America we do because we look at it and say $2,500 payment cool yeah fits theide my budget let's do that so we have to start thinking like they do we also have to start thinking like Banks do so if we start thinking like a bank then we start earning like Banks to this is uh this is fascinating to me I I know you've helped me directed me to a couple of your your guys that can do to do these and I I made a couple of calls to those folks and so I'm actually looking at buying a house and I want to use this HELOC as a first lead position so I am one of your uh your fans and it'll be trying to do this on my own uh Michael I want to thank you for being on the show today I want to tell everybody make sure you go to replace your mortgage.com to learn more about this and uh Michael I don't want to I don't want to obligate you to this but I really would love for you to come to talk to my Mastermind the exitor club and do some uh just small group coaching on this because I think all of us would want to do that so maybe we can talk about that after the show about you coming to do this and that'll be a teaser for anybody if you want to know more about this you can look at the exitor club as a way to to learn how to do this but you can always go directly to the horse's mouth as they say to replaceyourmortgage.com also go follow him on Instagram at theore real Ryu theore real Ryu and Ryu stands for result or replace your University and then you can also find them at replace your University on Facebook Michael I'm going to give you the last word today and I want to ask you this question what is your number one piece of advice for entrepreneurs don't give up that's that's the thing about entrepreneurs or would be entrepreneurs is you know some people are wired this way some people like I don't necessarily yeah I guess I could be honest and say I I am wired this way because you know athlete competitive and whatnot it was just it was tough for me to get give up or have something get the better of me or have somebody get the better of me uh I've just always been competitive but that's the thing about entrepreneurship it it's not this straight line for most people 99% of businesses you don't go from zero to 100 million in a straight line it rarely happens that way what typically happens is you go from zero to 10 grand to neg5 Grand oh now you're at 5050 now go negative 100 that's what it looks like as an entrepreneur and after the first maybe even the second obstacle most people fold like a lawn chair they just don't have that perseverance um and mindset that hey this is not failure this is feedback the marketplace is telling me something I need the course correct what could I be doing differently and it's scary you know my wife she won't get on a roller coaster just because it's scary right most people won't take that leap of faith because it is scary but that's where I find the most growth and that's where I find Ultimate freedom is through entrepreneurship and it's also where I find excitement that's that those down years those months where it's like you know the other thing about entrepreneurship there there's been times where as as a company and executive team it's like all right let's start looking at Yachts I got a buddy that he's buying his second jet uh his first one's a g450 but it's he's got to wait 18 months for it to get built so he's like I still need one so I'm going to buy a challenger 350 now too so just to get him by to his next jet there are months like that where you're like all right let's start looking at some boats and some planes and there are other months where you're like what all can we liquidate and most people can't live that way and you just got to be wired a little bit differently to find that exciting that's where you grow is when you hit those down months that's what tests your limits that's what test your capacity and now it's time to go to a different gear that's where you find growth it's not in the the great months so that's the issue with entrepreneurship it all starts up here with mindset and most people go into it with the wrong mindset well Michael thank you for that advice thank you for being on the show today and I look forward to talking to you again real soon thanks Jason all right well there you have it a wonderful story about a man's perseverance through a lot of ups and downs and I hope that you go back and really listen to what Michael said about this journey of Entrepreneurship this up and down up and down I say this a lot um that an entrepreneur has this invisible horizontal line in their life and the closer you get to that line the closer you are bankrupt out of business you know done but you as the entrepreneur the only one who knows at any time how close you are to that line it doesn't always feel good to be an entrepreneur so what he started with in our show was I asked him what is the one key to success he says don't take no for an answer you know setback are opportunities Fe it's feedback it's not failure and then he ended the show with his advice which is hey how do how do we as entrepreneurs survive we survive by not giving up so if you're in that struggle right now if you're in a struggle you don't know if you're going to be able to make payroll you don't know what's going to happen next you don't know if bankruptcy is actually looming on the horizon don't give up this is the life of the entrepreneur and no matter how bad it is you're probably not going to die as a result of whatever is causing the problem and if that's true then man like you could survive this it's going to go on so I'm big thanks to to Michael for coming on the show go follow him at theore real Ryu on Instagram go look up replaceyourmortgage.com and as an entrepreneur if you are a male entrepreneur business owner and you are interested in looking at a mastermind that can help you level up your experience and get you out of the weeds of daily operations so that you can focus on what's most important in life I want to invite you to take a look at the exitor club we've made some huge changes for the the exiter club for 2024 and I think it's right up your alley if you're a male entrepreneur owning a business and doing somewhere between 2 and 5 million on the low end up to 10 or 50 million that's who we serve in our club and we do amazing content amazing coaching amazing trips and Adventures and exciting things that you're going to learn lots of content about how to get yourself out of the weeds and continue to build a company that can provide your family a legacy so if you're interested go to the exitor club.com if you're watching this on YouTube I've got my a sweatshirt on today says the exitor club the exitor club.com and exitor is exit t er the exitor club.com check it out apply for membership let us talk to you and maybe we'll have Michael come on to do a private little teaching on the exit for the exitor club on this idea of how to how to uh pay off your mortgage in five to seven years once again big thanks to Michael Lush for being my guest on the show today please tune in again next time going to talk with yet another very successful entrepreneur about his or her journey to success until then remember I am the real Jason Duncan and as always Jesus is King attention business owners attention business owners feeling burnout from running your business uncertain if you're nearing burnout take our free 10 question business burnout test at business burnout test.com to discover where you stand with just 10 quick questions you'll learn how to immediately begin making changes to regain freedom and success cut your daily operations time in half improve your quality of life and prepare your business for your future exit without losing revenue or profit visit business burnout test.com now and take the test thank you for listening to another edition of the root of all success with the real Jason Duncan if you've enjoyed this week's episode visit the root ofall success.com to access the show notes and other helpful resources follow Jason on social media at the real Jason Duncan see you again next time here on the root 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