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Billy Keels runs First Generation Capital Partners, is originally from Columbus, Ohio and has an extensive career in the tech industry and currently lives offshore in Spain.
Billy was a successful tech sales executive that was following traditional financial planning advice by investing in his 401k and the stock market. He did not have the time nor understood that there was a better way to intelligently invest his high income in an alternative approach. Then, through a series of events Billy made a decision to challenge himself to learn everything he could about all things money and investing.
His mission was to turn his high wages into financial freedom. Eight years later, Billy achieved and created a monthly passive income that met all of his expenses. Now, Billy’s mission is to guide you to your own freedom!
When Billy realized that saving was actually investing, his life changed. Not only did he have more financial freedom but also a newfound sense of independence and self-control in all aspects that mattered both personally as well as professionally.
“Cashflow is the bloodstream for the body”, shares Billy and stresses how tax benefits work to keep more revenue for yourself and create financial freedom.
Make sure you don’t miss this opportunity to hear an amazing episode with Billy Keels, he will walk you through the process of creating your financial freedom in this episode!
In This Episode
- Billy’s background and how it all started for him.
- Billy’s business today and how it has prospered.
- How financial freedom changed Billy’s life.
- Billy’s personal wealth strategy.
- The biggest risk in investing.
Hey everyone, and welcome to today’s show on Wealth Strategy Secrets! Today, we’re joined by Billy Keels. Billy runs First Generation Capital Partners. He hails from Columbus, Ohio, has an extensive career in the tech industry, and currently lives offshore in Spain.
Today, we’re going to dive into the details of Billy’s journey into building wealth, what that truly means to him, and how he’s been helping others on their own journeys.
So, Billy, welcome to the show.
Hey Dave, thanks so much! Every time I get a chance to speak with you, it’s really awesome. And now, knowing that there’s a whole bunch of people watching and listening, it takes it to a whole new level. I’m really looking forward to this.
Yeah, likewise! I think people are really going to enjoy this. You’ve got such a cool story, and we both share a passion for living overseas, learning different cultures, and everything that comes with it.
Let’s kick it off with a little bit about your background. How did it all start for you?
Yeah, sure man, happy to jump into that. So, and we enjoy, as you said, the la bellavita.
Here’s one of the things that I do want to ask, Dave, because, and I know I’m a guest, and so I probably shouldn’t do this kind of stuff, but hey, these things happen sometimes. I know that your podcast is absolutely rocking it. I know you and your team put a lot of time and effort into it, and the people that are listening to us, if they have not had a chance yet, just take a couple seconds to leave you an honest written review as well as a rating.
Because that’s going to also help you to get to more guests that are going to ultimately help you, as a listener and a viewer, to get more of the content that you want. So, take just a couple seconds, leave that honest written review as well as a rating, and I know it will go a long way with Dave and his team. So, hopefully, you’re okay with me doing that, Dave, but just kind of as a background.
So, one of the things that I guess, if I look at it now, 21 years later, I’m still living in Europe. I’m a guy, as you mentioned, from Columbus, Ohio, that I never ever even thought I was going to get to California, Dave. Never thought that, because when I grew up, I watched my parents do what they were taught, which was, you know, you go out and you want to work harder because you want to make more money, and you work harder, not necessarily smarter.
I watched them do that for their entire lives. And, you know, work hard and do that, and we lived in different states. So, even at an early age, by the time I was 12, although I was born in Columbus, we lived in Texas, we lived in Colorado, and also my parents ended up having some, well, some marital problems, and eventually divorced. Probably a lot of that had to do with the financial stresses and things that they had. I’m sure there’s other stuff that happened along the way, but while I watched them do those things, I learned work ethic, right?
And so, working harder took that to my books, studied hard, was that typical A student. So, I got really, really good grades, and because I got the recognition and the accolades, they always taught, hey, if you study hard, you get good grades, then you get a lot of recognition and reward. That even carried into college, where I was set up to continue to go out, and I was ready to, well, go get my dream job.
Because when you go to college, you got to have your dream job, right? And for the very first time in my life, Dave, I had to deal with rejection because I studied, I got really good grades, and my dream job was to work at Procter & Gamble. And I got rejected once. And so, I didn’t really know how to deal with that, but I have a really good friend of mine named Andy, and Andy lives in St. Louis.
And I decided before that, that I was going to go overseas because there was this program to go overseas. I decided to go back, I got a second degree, because I told myself that, hey, listen, I’m going to get a second degree, I’m going to go back and get this international experience, and I’m definitely going to get the job.
So, I went overseas, I got the experience, I started to try to learn Spanish, but not so much. And eventually, I went back, and I went to the process, the interview process for the second time, sure I was going to get it, international, speaking another language, and I got rejected again. And so, for the first time in my life, I had to really understand, like, what was going on.
And then bring that good friend Andy of mine back. When I was going through, like, this kind of really dejected phase in my life, he told me about these people that were working and traveling with Fortune 500 CEOs. And the good fortune that I had, in 1996, they were hiring for the Olympic Games.
And so, about 6,000 people applied for roles, I was one of 26 people that was selected, and my life completely changed, Dave. Because I worked for that company for five years, and the things that I experienced in that five years and 58 countries while I was working there were absolutely amazing. Changed the whole way that I saw life, and that I challenged myself, and the things that I thought were right.
When I met people from different cultures, different languages, realized that, hey, maybe this was just the world perspective that I had. And so, after that five years, 58 countries, I’d missed a lot of things in life as well. You know, weddings, friends of mine, and children, their children being born. And I just was kind of tired. I got a little bit jaded.
And so, I decided that I did not want to go to get a normal, quote-unquote, nine-to-five. So, I took a one-year sabbatical, and I got accepted at a university in Paris called the Sorbonne. And I wanted to learn French language and culture. I wanted to learn more about wine, believe it or not, and I wanted to learn how to salsa dance.
And so, I did learn French language and culture. I drank some wine, that helped my salsa. And along the way, not only did I live in France, in Paris, I moved down to a town called Montpellier, where I met a really cool, awesome woman who today is my wife.
I lived in Italy, as you know. Well, I lived in Sardinia, in Cagliari. I got into the IT space there. It was when I was in the hardware side of things, then I got into the software side of things. I moved to Barcelona because my wife is from here. And then the last 16 years of my corporate career, I spent working in an enterprise software company, leading business across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
We got married, we have two wonderful kids. And I kind of joke a lot, you know, you never know what happens when you take a one-year sabbatical. Could end up 21 years later, a marriage, two kids, three countries, and four additional languages.
So, it’s a little bit high-level about this guy who started in Columbus, Ohio. We haven’t even talked about the investing kind of stuff, but that’s just a little bit of my background and some of the reasons that you and I both love the la dolce vita.
Yes, such an inspiring story, Billy. You know, I love how you were able to just, you know, see and kind of create that vision for yourself. And really, be again, you know, comfortable with the uncomfortable, right? In different foreign countries, learning different cultures, as we know, that can be very challenging—trying to understand the language.
But man, you just really embraced it and went after it. And I think, you know, that really goes to show how important it is to create that vision and understand your why. Because that’s really at the core of all of this—investing and everything, right?
Because, you know, you could pick a number, right? If you had 100 million in your account tomorrow, how is that going to change your life? It’s all about really having that vision.
So, I think that’s an awesome backdrop. Tell us what you’re doing today. Tell us about your business today.
Yeah man so, you know, and I think just because I love the way that you talk about the whole holistic wealth strategy and being able to think about that and everything starting from the vision and definitely tell you about kind of where I am today. I think also one of the things that happens when you come from a background like mine where I wasn’t surrounded by people that even knew about investing up until probably my very first real corporate job—Dave, I didn’t even know the difference between investing and saving because savings for me, the way that I grew up, that was actually investing.
And it wasn’t until much later because people, you know, when you had money at the end of the month, then you were actually investing. Well, that was not investing, but that was the context that I had. So I realized that as I started changing the context, I started changing the questions that I was asking. It also helped to raise the bar and helped me understand, like, “Hey, listen, I don’t necessarily need to do what everybody else is doing. I can actually create my own path.”
Because the first, probably, let’s call it 16 years of my corporate career—of the 26 years—I was doing what everybody else was doing. You know, people, I was investing, putting all my money in the 401(k), and then in the IRAs and then some mutual funds. And I realized that I had no control because in 2000, when that hit, I’d been working for like five or six years, and that was the dot-com bubble. Then in 2008, I lost 33% of the value of my portfolio, and I thought, “I have no control.”
But I didn’t know anything else. And that was the time when I took that little purple pill. At least, I picked it up and started it. I didn’t actually finish it. It wasn’t until some years later when I missed my son’s third birthday, and my heart was completely broken because I was in a business meeting in Frankfurt, Germany, while my wife and our young son were celebrating with my in-laws. And I realized that I had to do something different.
So I then spent the next 10 years really starting to get educated—learning about the things I’d seen in the Rich Dad Poor Dad book. And then I started reading a bunch of different things and watching videos and becoming a theoretical ninja. And then I knew that I had to put that into practice. And as I mentioned, when I missed my son’s third birthday, that was the time to take all this theoretical stuff that I was actually learning to actually gain more control over my life.
I started investing in smaller multi-family. I started investing in a mobile home park. I was then exposed to the world of ATMs, the world of accredited investors. I didn’t even—I was an accredited investor for a number of years, Dave, I didn’t even know that because I wasn’t surrounded by people like that, or we weren’t talking about it. I didn’t elevate the way that I was thinking about things.
And so along the way, I became a more informed investor and developed better criteria in terms of the things that I’m now looking at and investing in. And also, I have played both the active investing game, the passive investing game. I’ve looked at a number of different assets. And, you know, that’s everything from all hard assets typically now. That’s the things that I like—they actually produce cash flow and provide tax benefits, which is very close to your heart as well, I know.
And so today, the thing I told you about my son’s third birthday, I actually left the corporate world after 26 years because my dad got really sick. And he got sick last year, and I recognized that when I was with him—so he—I know you and I talked about this off-camera, but he got really, really ill because he had some issues with his heart. And today he’s doing much better.
But while I was with him in the ICU, Dave, I realized that I liked the enterprise software space, but I wasn’t actually living out my life’s purpose doing that. And because I had been working for the previous decade buying these assets, including them in my portfolio, increasing my level of not just education but also support, it allowed me to have the freedom—right—which I know is really important to you as well. The freedom to be able to say, “You know what? I’ve liked this job. I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve gone here probably four years too long.”
Because like in high school or like in college, I was studying hard, getting the good grades. But I mean, I was hitting my sales quota over and over, leading teams of people, going to Hawaii because I was a top achiever, part of the Catalyst program, or the high-performance program and things like that. But it just wasn’t enough.
And I realized that when I was with my dad. And so it’s a long-winded answer to your question, but since then, I continue to invest passively. And I’ve now, from a professional standpoint, I am bringing people together to help them in syndication-type fashion and really focusing on that person who is a first-generation accredited investor, very similar to me. And being able to help them not only create consistent returns but also keep more of their money so that they can do things with them—not for money’s sake, but like you and I both know, Dave—it’s to be able to have the freedom to choose what you want to do.
Because now I have the freedom to do what I want to do, with whom I want to do it, and when I want to do it. And so that’s really where my focus is today. It’s a little bit about the background as to how I got here.
I wish I could say everything was money, but I realized missing my son’s third birthday and my dad getting ill are the things that actually clicked—made me get into action more than just worried about going out and making more money. So, which is a very different place than I thought it would be, growing up in the way that I grew up.
Yeah, such a powerful story, Billy, and you know really appreciate you—the transparency and really opening up to the audience. I think that’s great. And you know, we oftentimes hear, right, how many of these stories do we see at a TED Talk or on a podcast where people had to go through some major life events, like loss of a loved one, maybe a chronic illness or something, for them to have that light bulb moment that just really re-prioritizes their life, right, and they get really crystal clear on what it is that they want to actually achieve.
So, you know, one of the things that just drives me every day is I want to help people get inspired and motivated to make that decision, right—take control and make that decision today. Don’t wait for that life event or chronic illness to hit you before it’s smack in the middle of your face. Take control today, you know, start getting clear on what it is you want.
And it is kind of interesting, right, as you do some deep thinking and you go through this process yourself. I mean, just like you pointed out, like being your son’s birthday, spending more time with your dad—some of these things don’t even revolve around money, right, right. It really doesn’t. It’s just like living an intentional life and focusing on the things that are important to you.
So it can be quite powerful. Yeah, you know, it’s interesting.
So, and I, one of the things that inspires me about continuing to get to know you more is with the very first time that you and I were introduced to one another, you were on this hiatus in Italy, and I was like, wow, this is the coolest thing ever. This guy’s gone, and he’s not coming back. I’m like, I definitely want to meet this guy, want to hang out with him more because what it spoke to was the ability to have your life designed in such a way that it allows you to be geographically free, right.
And so, that’s something that is also a big deal to me because I’ve recognized now, having had the good fortune of traveling to 86 countries and being able to have the enriching experience, the way that it keeps your mind open to being a beginner because you see things and do things in a different way, you start to appreciate it even more.
You know, I just got back. I literally flew back to the U.S. for five days because, number one, I was able to do that because I had the time freedom because I’m no longer working in a corporate role. Financially, I have the freedom to be able to select the type of flights that I want and be where I want. And you know what I did, Dave? I sat on the couch with my dad on Saturday—well, sorry, on Saturday we drove to see my sister—but we sat on the couch at my sister’s place, watched football, and then on Sunday, we sat in the house and watched football all day.
And to me, being able to do that—arriving on a Wednesday night, flying back to Europe on a Monday, and spending the weekend watching football with my dad and my little brother, seeing my sister—those are moments that I’m appreciating so much more now because I know that I don’t live in the U.S., I’m not with them every single day, so I appreciate every single moment that I’m able to spend with them.
And knowing that the decisions that I made a decade ago are the ones that are now allowing me to really enjoy life and have the type of lifestyle that I want, that my wife wants, that we want with our kids, it’s just a very—I feel very fortunate. Hasn’t been always easy, right, because you have to make some tough decisions at times. But if you don’t make the decision today and start today, then how much longer would I have put off being able to do this, right.
At a certain point, I recognized that I had to stop just theorizing on things, and I actually had to start doing, being not afraid to make some mistakes because I made some mistakes. I’ve lost a lot of money because I was very careless, and sometimes not so careless, but you just have to learn things.
But it is a matter of being able to take action, take it today, and then recognize the things that usually are not related to money, but you need some financial resources to be able to do it. But more importantly, the freedom to also be able to make decisions and not have to worry about somebody else.
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100 percent, and I find that it’s quite this interesting transition from really going from this time-and-effort type—you know, we live in a time-and-effort economy, right. So most employees, like you said, you had a 26-year career, right, where you’re going to work every day, every hour is accounted for, and you kind of know what you’re doing, right. But, you know, back to the point that you had made, that I was able to take some time off this summer, you know, and go to Italy, spend some time with our family, with our friends, and really learn more about the culture and all of those other things.
But it’s really fascinating, right, because as an entrepreneur, you are focused on the performance-driven economy, right. So if when you create value to the world, that’s how you get compensated. If you don’t create value, you’re not compensated, right. But it’s a very interesting transition, right, because when is the last time you had a creative idea sitting at your computer or at your desk, right. It oftentimes comes when you’re in a different environment, you’re traveling, and you’re in a different country and everything.
So it took me many, many years to let go of these things, you know, even from my military background and everything, that I was hanging on to all these things that said, okay, I got to be the first one to work in the morning, I got to be the last one to leave, I got to be doing all these things. When in reality, right, the most valuable time is my morning routine, where I have time to think, I’m journaling, I spend time meditating, and I focus on all this time as well as the days off that you get where you can come up with those really creative ideas that really move the ball forward.
Yeah, I love what you did.
Just how you put that together, right? Because when I think about my corporate experience, I was very fortunate. I was always in sales and sales leadership, and the beauty of those types of roles is that everyone cares about the output—what is the result? No one was ever asking me if I was in front of my computer for five minutes or five days, but what everybody wanted to know was, at the end of the quarter, did you hit your number, or did you overachieve against your number? If you didn’t hit the number, what were you doing to actually get things back together?
That was the positive part. The negative part of being in a sales and sales leadership role is that when you don’t hit your number, you’re usually the first one out the door because you’re not producing anymore. On a very positive note, I’ve been used to this kind of environment, and I was traveling a lot and seeing clients.
At the same time, Dave, and I’m nine months removed from this corporate role, what I also realized is that there was so much busyness in corporate. I was somebody who really enjoyed my corporate role. Even my motto on LinkedIn for a long time was “happy corporate employee.” You realize that there’s so much busyness, and you feel like you always have to be doing, doing, doing, but there’s very little time to actually stop and think.
You just mentioned this, like combining travel and not having to be so busy, and even in this process of learning to enjoy the silence that’s happening and being able to make the most of it. I’m one of the people that you know, I’m a big believer in Savers and the whole thing. I’ll rise in the morning, get my day started. But I realize now, nine months removed, how busy corporate life kept me from being able to really enjoy the ability to just be silent, create, and do things.
I recognized that the other day when I was flying on the plane. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t have a million and a half things to do.” I have a lot of things to do, but it’s about building infrastructure, contacting clients, and things like that. But there’s just a very different feel and now recognition of being able to embrace the silence, use that time to think strategically, and then have the time to also execute—either myself or someone on my team being able to execute against it.
I wish I could say it was super easy for me, but like I said, nine months removed, I think I’m finally starting to get into the groove of being able to balance the times and spaces and things like that.
Yeah for sure that’s really enlightening. So do you have a personal wealth strategy Billy?
Yeah, so I do have a personal wealth strategy. I don’t know how much you would say it’s defined down to a specific metric, but it’s very similar to the things that you like to look at. I guess I really look at two primary things.
Number one—and this is something that I realized because it changed the way I was doing things when I was investing in a 401K, IRA, and the stock market—none of that was producing ongoing recurring cash flow. What I realized is that cash flow is like the bloodstream for the body. The first thing I’m looking at, even though I’ve invested in things like development projects and things like that, is cash flow. I know what the differences are now, but I tend to lead with looking at cash flow.
Number two—and this is also because I love one of the things that you do—is I’m looking at the tax benefit component. For a long time, I didn’t understand the tax benefit aspect. I just heard “taxes” and thought they were all the same. But you and I both know, Dave, taxes are very, very different. So, I lead with cash flow, followed closely by being able to keep more of my revenue and as much of it as soon as possible, because that creates freedom to do things on the back side.
Those two things are really what drive my investment thesis. If there’s a possibility of a pop at the end or appreciation, I will look at that as well, but the first two tend to be more of the drivers in terms of where I place my investments. Hopefully, that answers your question.
Yeah absolutely, and so for you know, what would you say is the biggest risk out there today in terms of investing? Right. It’s a really crazy time that we’re in right now so what are you thinking?
Yeah, so I mean there’s a lot of different ways to answer this, but I always try to keep it as kind of basic as possible. I think the biggest risk to anyone investing right now is investing in something that you don’t really understand what it is, is lack of education.
And I say that because there are a lot of different things that people can maybe take a sound bite and they may get distracted and say, “Hey, listen, you know, the inflation is really really high, the dollar continues to get stronger, so that’s going to be, you know, difficult for the rest of the world that wants to consume goods from the United States,” and all the collateral effects of that could happen. But sometimes those are so macro, the concepts that it’s difficult for someone like you and I, that’s just investing at the front-line level, trying to say, “Okay, well, do I want to invest in multi-family? Do I want to invest in storage? Do I want to invest in oil and gas? Do I want to invest in whatever?”
But you and I have both probably seen, um, I know I have from first-hand experience, unfortunately, because I tried to keep up with the Joneses, that I invested in things early on in my career that I didn’t understand. And whenever I find that I invested in things I didn’t understand, that was the greatest probability of risk because I didn’t know how to control the inputs that were coming from the things that I invested. And I specifically invested in a very specific, um, stock strategy that I didn’t understand, but I only did it because a friend of mine, who was also a high-net-worth individual, had done it.
So I would say that that’s the number one risk: investing in things that you don’t have the education to be investing in, nor have you taken the time to get educated. And maybe not the answer you’re looking for, but I think that’s the big.
It’s a really valuable point. I mean, yeah, I think one of my biggest losses was actually investing in the Indian stock market many years ago and thought it was a sure play and a good team. And, uh, exactly like you said, I just didn’t know enough about it and completely lost my shirt on that one. Yeah.
And you know, I was really, really fortunate at the time because I did not lose money, but I learned a valuable experience, and that is, I will never invest in anything that I don’t ask every single question, even the ones that may seem offensive to the person who is, if I’m investing passively, or if I’m looking to go into business with someone, right, or an operating partner. I ask every question because if I don’t ask those questions, then I’m not making an informed decision.
And the worst thing that I can do—like, I can lose money, but if I at least was informed, I understood the risks, I knew that that was possibly there, then, you know what, I lost money. It’s not the end of the world. Probably many years ago, I’d have felt that it was the end of the world. But what I realized is that if I don’t ask those questions, then I’m not doing myself or the person that I’m investing with any favors.
Because the first time that something happens that I didn’t ask the question on and then I overreact, it’s like, well, you never asked the question, Billy. Why would you be upset with this person when you didn’t ask the question? You wanted to ask it, but you didn’t feel comfortable. So, I make it a principle to minimize any risk factors and ask the things that I should be asking, number one.
And also, because I have a support system, if it’s in an area that I’m not comfortable with, I will reach out to the person that has more experience in that area and say, “Hey, listen, I’ve just talked to this person. This all sounds great. What are the things that I should be thinking about?” And hopefully, that person has one or two other things that I can go back and ask.
If I’ve asked all the questions that I knew how to ask and the things that were asked of people that I knew, then I’ve done the best that I could to be informed to make the decision. And, you know, I can’t get upset with anybody else, which is also why I don’t invest any capital that I wouldn’t be willing to lose 100% of.
Are there any asset classes that you particularly like right about now?
Yes, well, there’s one in particular that I really like. I think it might be close to your heart as well, but maybe just to paint a little bit of the backstory, one of the things that I realized when I was investing in real estate specifically was I kept hearing, Dave, that real estate was going to provide cash flow, it was going to give you great appreciation, it was going to give me equity buildup, and it was going to lower my taxes. And so that’s what I heard, that’s what I would see, that’s what I heard, that’s what my mind also interpreted.
It took me about five years, Dave, of the first decade that I was investing in real estate. And like I said, I bought a mobile home park, I bought these small multi-family properties, I started investing with other people, and I soon realized that, hey, listen, the tax efficiencies of the cash flow that was coming off of these investments in real estate were fantastic. And this little line item kept growing on my IRS form, the returns, but I didn’t pay attention to it about year five because it got into the mid-double digits, and I thought, well, what in the world is this? And this thing’s called passive activity losses.
I was like, okay, well, what is this all about? I didn’t understand it, but what was happening, the reason that that was ringing a bell, was because at the same time that I was getting this tax-efficient money from real estate, I was also paying 40-plus percent in income tax. And so I realized that, well, hang on a second, I don’t understand something here.
I then invested money with my CPA, my tax strategist, and he explained to me the difference between non-passive and passive income. Not giving anybody tax advice, but you’re asking me a question, and I think it’s important to give you the context as well. And so once I realized that these were different types of income, because what I was working in my day job, that was one type of income, and that was non-passive, or active income, as a lot of people would call it. Then the stuff that I was investing in with other people happened to be passive streams of income as well.
I got kind of frustrated. I wasn’t really happy, so I started looking for a solution because I was making a lot of money in my day job. I was working for the company that I was working for, and the people that are at the top end of the spectrum, there’s a website called RepView, and the top reps at this company were making 1.2 million dollars a year. So imagine if they’re in a state like New Jersey or California, they’re paying 50% in tax. That’s a $600,000 tax bill approximately, right?
So I was looking to try to solve this income tax problem. When I found that you could do this by taking a certain level of risk and investing in the oil and gas space, I thought, wow, I want to find out more about this. So I kind of went down that track, and I started looking for different investment opportunities. There was an investment opportunity that seemed to make sense for me in my context.
When I started realizing that although this was in the active income bucket, this was where me, as a corporate employee, high-wage earner, accredited investor, that’s where I was making the largest portion of my money or, sadly, seeing the largest portion of my money go to Uncle Sam.
Once I started realizing that, it was, you know, how can I continue to create consistent returns in this other bucket but also get the tax benefits that would allow me to keep more of that today, then move some of that into other tax-efficient streams of income, like your passive income investments? That’s when I started realizing.
So, it was the fact that this investing in the oil and gas space allowed me the opportunity to create consistent returns, keep more of the income, and then redistribute that income in the way that made the most sense for me, is one of the reasons that it’s one of my, let’s call it, preferred kind of investment areas. Something that every single day, like you, I’m continuing to learn about and see more about this particular space.
So, I would say that that is today the place where I’m putting most of my time and energy. Nope, unintended, or maybe so.
Excellent, so if you could just give one piece of advice Billy to listeners about how they could accelerate their own wealth trajectory what would it be?
Aside from getting educated, it’s really relationships, man. I know everybody says this, but once you get the education, it’s really about building relationships with people that can help open your mind. Like your audience that comes back and listens to you week after week here as a listener, you’re already taking action. You’re here, you’re investing time with Dave, you’re building that relationship, and you’re given the opportunity to really start to take action on different opportunities.
So, building the relationship, and quickly followed by taking action, are the things that I would say, without a doubt, are the most important and the things that can change the game the most, or they’re the things that changed the game for me the most. And so, let me put it in that context: I had the education, then I started building relationships and taking action. That’s what I would say changed the game for me.
Great. And from a personal development perspective, what’s the one practice that’s yielded the single biggest results for you?
It’s similar to what you talked about and maybe you already talked a little bit about this—being able to start my days off in the right way. I tend to use as a methodology or framework the Savers framework from Hal Elrod in The Miracle Morning, and the reason I say that is because it just sets the tone for the day. Every time that I’ve followed that practice consistently, the results on the back end are so much more productive. I can recognize them because I’ve started my day focusing on myself.
I think, as an ongoing habit, that is the thing that, when done consistently, makes the biggest impact. I’m focusing on myself, focusing on my priorities, and following my day the way that I planned it. I’m able to see at the end of the day where the results were compared to the priorities I set out. But it all starts for me with starting off the day right, and I happen to use that framework. It works for me.
Yeah, it’s an excellent insight. Having some type of morning routine is just.
So powerful. You really own the day once you have something in hand. So awesome. Billy, I really appreciate you coming on the show today. It’s been such a blast. I know we could go on for quite a while here, but we’ll keep it at this for today. If listeners want to reach out to you, connect, and learn more about what you’re doing, where’s the best place?
Yeah, David, like I said, man, I can’t thank you enough for the opportunity to share a bit of my story with you and your audience. You’ve also been a guest on the Going Long podcast with Billy Keels. I think it’s a great way for people to learn a little bit more about what we’re doing. For people who are accredited investors and want to find out more about the way we’re helping accredited investors, you can go to firstgencp.com/PaylessTax. Just some of the insights that I’ve learned as well will complement a lot of things you’re also teaching, Dave, from firstgencp.com/PaylessTax.
I also really love being able to connect with people on LinkedIn. Anyone who wants to connect on LinkedIn, I would ask that you leave a personal invitation and let us know that you heard Dave and I speaking here. I would love to connect. Dave, man, keep on crushing it. Really love the energy that you bring to this podcast and the things you’re doing in the holistic way you’re helping people create their wealth strategy. Awesome, man—keep it up, and thanks again for the invitation.
Awesome, Billy. Really grateful to have you here and to provide so much value to everyone. I look forward to doing this again sometime.
Awesome, man. Thank you.