From Door-to-Door Sales to Multi-Million Deals: Justin Colby’s Brutal Entrepreneur Truths

Tu mereces flutartos favoritos por menos. Ja sel na Big Mac, McNuggets, or a sausage, egg and cheese, McCriddles, pie tuento hocomo un meal, and a horra.
Oof, nava comodarto un gustaso por tam poco.

Los extra value meals están de regreso. Gana por la mañana con el extra value meal, sausage, mc, muffin with egg, hash browns, yun cafe alien pequeño por solos se dolares.
Bara ba ba ba.

Preses y participación pueden varía. Los preci de la promosión pueden serminos que los de las comidas.
I literally came to the table with a $550,000 condo with three grand to close the transition.

Isn't that insane? You guys are fired.

They're lying. I think in the next 18 to 24 months, the government gets back there.

Trump just put something out saying, Yo, I'm going to try to pass this bill to surpass Congress so we're able to expedite this and one little hack.

If people start paying their mortgage twice a month, you will save yourself a lot of money. I'm going to go full steam vulnerable.
All the dirt and the wars I'm in, I'm going to expose it.

Here's what happened.

Here's the reason it happened.

Don't do the reason.

Hey guys, and welcome back to the Level Podcast. This is Paul Alex.
Guys, we are currently ranked top three in all categories, and we are currently number one in business because of you guys.

the viewers and the listeners. Guys, we are trying to reach 5 million downloads this month.
We have some special guests coming on board as well, some special interviews.

And it's all because of you guys, okay? I'm pretty excited about this. People that I've never, ever would have been able to talk to if I didn't have the podcast.

But once again, it's all because of you guys. With that being said, I want to introduce you guys to a very special friend of mine.

He's kicking ass right now in his own podcast, which we're going to be talking about. And just in life in general, guys.

As you guys know, we bring special people that come from special backgrounds that are going to inspire you and help you level up in life. Justin, welcome to the show, brother.

Man, I'm excited to be here. This is going to be good.
No, it's going to be good, dude.

So, Justin, for my listeners and viewers that do not know you, who are you, brother, and exactly what do you do right now? Yeah, I've been in the real estate space for almost 20 years.

I'm 44 years old, so it's funny to say that, right? You don't even go to school for that long. So, I've been doing real estate since I got out of college.
Went to UCLA, born in the Bay Area.

So, you know, I love that lid the second I saw it. That's it, that's it.
Went to UCLA, never used my degree ever.

Went straight into door-to-door sales, selling, selling credit card processing love it

and so wish I knew you then

I would maybe not even be in real estate yeah yeah but uh yeah so then I went I've been an entrepreneur through and through my childhood was difficult as many people have it I had alcoholic mom dad and stepdad moved out when I was 14 so I have the story but it's not a woe is me I hope people hear some of that and can relate and say okay my I can make it I can get there

and so I've always had this entrepreneur like I need to go make it myself yeah So as a kid, I would borrow money from my mom, borrow, you know, like I would say, hey, mom, let's go to the credit card, or not the credit card, the baseball card store.

Give me 20 bucks. I'll be back in 20 minutes.
So she would. And I'd buy a box of cards that was only $20

then. Now it's like $300 or something crazy.
I would open it in front of the store owner. wholesale him, wholesale prices the cards he wanted so he could sell them at retail.

And I would give my mom $20 back and I would have 20.

And I didn't realize then what I was doing and I was just hustling, but I had this like entrepreneurial spirit. On the day of recycling, I would go drive my bicycle around.

I would take the cans and the bottles. I would take them from all the neighbors instead of the truck.
I would go drive them down to the recycling bin. I would get the penny or five cents for it.

And I have all these different stories of how I did that. And so when I got out of college, I realized I wanted to go create.
It was like I didn't have a dream to have a W-2 job.

I didn't want to be an accountant or whatever. And so I went into sales.
That led me into the real estate space back in 2007, which was a tricky time to get started in real estate. Oh, yeah.

And but here I am now in 2025. And so I've done thousands and thousands of real estate transactions.
I've been teaching how to do that for over a decade as well.

I run several different companies, a tech company, and I have a bunch of different entrepreneur ventures that you and I were talking about off camera. Yeah.

But through and through, I've been real estate forever, I'll always be real estate. And my real passion is people.
So stuff like this.

My podcast, just like you know, has made so many introductions, opened up so many doors, brought me so many places. And so now, like, I'm all in on the podcasting thing as you are, right?

Like, you're number one, I'm number seven. Like, it's great to make this much impact on people and see what comes from it.
No, it's huge, man.

And I like that. Very,

you basically summarized the entire interview, brother. All right, we're done here.
No, we hope you guys liked it.

Which is good, which is good because it gives us a lot of things to talk about. So, let's start off with like you as a kid actually taking that step as being an entrepreneur, dude.
Yeah.

Did you have anybody like mentor you or tell you to actually take those actions as a kid that led you to become an entrepreneur? Yeah, I didn't.

None of my family really did anything big, right?

I don't want to say we were like broke or destitute. Like, I always always had Christmas presents, right? Yeah, but I didn't come from money either.
Right. Right.

There wasn't like extra money for vacations and extra money for nice dinners. The things that you and I now as adults were able to provide, I didn't have.
Right.

And I think it was that drive, that chip on the shoulder of

I just knew there was more. I just, I was like, this isn't it.
Like, you know, coming home in the middle of the day at school and your mom's passed out drunk on the kitchen floor at 2 p.m.

Like, this isn't it. there's more and so it just kept driving me and the chip on my shoulder created this like

it started with like I wanted to be loved right as a kid like I want to be seen yeah right like I was never seen as a kid again this is not a woe is me like I know everyone has a story it's just that's where I came from through a lot of therapy I realize this uh right and so it was like okay I want to be seen so I wanted to create something to be seen right

and then you know I was never the smartest in school I know I went to UCLA but but I had to work my face off to get there, dude.

And props, man, because I always tell people, like, college, don't knock college. You know, when I have my kid coming in like two months, dude, and like, he's going to go to college.

Like, it's mandatory. Like, if he wants access to me,

he's going to have to go to college, dude. I'm like, yo, okay, we can start a business after, or we can do whatever the hell you want.
I don't care. Yeah.

But college, it's just to me, it's the principle of it. I love it.
It's a flex, dude. Well, and it's especially in today's world, right?

It shows that you can accomplish something, if nothing else. You're disciplined enough.
Right. That you did it.
Right. And so

to me, then it was a function of all my friends were going, like, I had the smart friends. So they went to Stanford, UCLA, Brown.
Yep.

Like, and then I ended up going to a junior college out of high school because literally my GPA was like a 2.8. Yeah.
So then I felt bad. I was like, oh, I'm the dumb friend.

So that put a chip on my shoulder. And let me show them all I'm not the dumb friend.

And at the age of 18, when you're getting out of high school, to be separated from her friends, dude, that gives you more encouragement because you're like, why me?

Everybody else was able to do it, but I wasn't. Yeah.
Yeah. And it gave me that chip.
So now I kind of have these two chips on my shoulders, which explains my journey.

But like, one is I want to be seen. I want, I'm like, I want people to notice me.
Two, I know I can go achieve it. Let me go show them I can.

And so I started this like, I'm worthy like drive and it just never stopped. And so once I got to UCLA, then I had to keep grades at UCLA, which is brutally difficult.
Right. Right.

And then I had to graduate UCLA, which is another fun story. My last final, so I was an English major.
My last final was like a 15-page paper.

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Savor responsibly. I was done, bro.
I was like, all right, I don't care. It's my last, like, I'm graduating.

I fully plagiarize it. Word for word.
Now, I thought I was trying to be smart. So how I did it was not from the internet.
I went to the library.

And I took books, real books, and I wrote down word for word. So I like try to be smart.
Like they're not manual, right? Yeah. I was like, they're not going to catch me.

All that software is for the online stuff, right? They're not,

bro. I'm in Europe.
Like on a

UCLA had this thing, when you're poor enough, you get like grants. Yeah.
So they had this grant for like summer education, whatever. So I took them up on it.

So I'm in Europe, like having a great time. And I get an email from the dean.

asking for to come into the office. And you don't get emails from the dean, bro, unless you're in trouble.
So what happens at that moment?

That day, dude, you you get that email you're just like oh shit you're probably sick i freak out i literally like lose it because i know exactly like the dean does so i know what it's for so there was a sense of calm like i got caught right like okay i know what it's about yeah but like just my whole life you think you're over right at eight or whatever i was what 21 like you think it's over like i'll never get a job no one's gonna want me this back to no one's gonna want me yeah i'm not seen now i'm the idiot that played like you literally think it's catastrophic and it's not nothing happened they basically said hey we're gonna fail you take the class over again

okay so i did that actually helped you out dude right because it could have been worse right and and so it gives you a learning lesson to say it's not catastrophic you can make it catastrophic like i could have went in a tailspin and turned into a full idiot and whatever i didn't could play the victim why me right and start drinking and draw I didn't.

I just said, okay, let me just go do the class over again. It kind of sucks.
So,

but that's a fun story. And then

I just have always had that, like, I got to show everyone I'm good enough. Yeah.
And I've always had, I mean, even as I sit here today sitting with you, that chip doesn't really just go away.

No, it doesn't. And so it's, um, it's always there.
It's, it's even something that like today I still want to push harder and go bigger.

I'm more mature now and I realize internally what it is, but I still have that. No, which is good because you, you, you know what makes you.
And I always tell this to like my wife, dude.

I'm like, babe, I know exactly the type of man that I am. If you would have met me in my 20s, because she always says, I wish we would have met earlier.
I'm like, no, you don't. No, you don't.

No, you don't. Because I was a completely different person when I was 21, when I was 25, even when I was 28, dude.
I didn't start changing and really started having some real common sense into my 30s.

Oh, wow. And I was, dude, I was a detective.
I was doing all these great things. Yeah.
But I'm telling you, like, I just, I didn't know myself, dude.

I I was hiding behind my work.

I was avoiding a lot of shit to help myself level up.

And a lot of it, a lot of people need inner work. I needed a lot of inner work.
I need a lot. I still need a lot of inner work, dude.
It's a continuous job to do, right?

So,

okay, that's good, man. So out of college, I mean, you, you go ahead, you take the class again, you graduate.

What does your family feel about you being a college graduate? Especially from UCLA. So they were so proud.
And one of the things that I I loved, right? So my mom passed early.

My mom passed when I was 22. So pretty good.
Yeah, but she saw me graduate. So that was big.
Oh, that's bad. So that was great.
Okay, okay. So I really loved that.

And it gave a sense of pride to my family. Like, wow, like literally my family to this day, like my aunt and my uncle, like, we were just so proud.
Like, you got to UCLA.

Like, we did not expect that out of you. Like, I was never a dumb kid, but like never a high achiever either.
Yeah. So to hear my family even just say how proud they were.
So that was really good.

But to kind of go all the way way to the point of, did someone give me an example? There wasn't that. And it just came from like, I knew I wanted more.

And then just like when my friends got into colleges that were really hard to get into, it drove me. So to some extent, my answer is this.
Like, I saw them do that. I'm like, I could do that.
Yeah.

I can do that. They did it.
I can do it. So I did.
Then I went to UCLA. And then we graduate college and I go into sales because I don't really know what I want to do.

I'm doing door-to-door sales, selling credit card processing, all this stuff, right? What made you go into sales, dude? Did you have like a friend at the time?

I was was like, hey, bro, I'm about to go to sales. You want to go? And you're like, you're like, fuck it.

My buddy at UCLA was going to go start a real estate brokerage, but his point was like, let me go learn it first. Don't just, let's do it together because I don't know what's going to happen.

Yeah, smart. I was like, all right, that's fair.
Proof of confidence. I was like, just go get a job for a little bit.
Like, go get any job.

It doesn't really matter because then we'll start this brokerage together. So I kind of didn't care what job I initially got.
And so I went and interviewed for this company who basically was like a

training company to start your own company. Right.

And basically, they give you the the clientele, you run your own company. Yeah.
And I loved that. And that kind of started this, like, oh, bro, I can go build it.

And it can be about me back to the ego and the like chip on your shoulder. I can do this.
And I can. And so I did that really well until I didn't because that also brought me to Boston, Massachusetts.

Try going door to door as a California boy in Boston, Massachusetts during the winter. They ate you alive, bro.

Bro, well, bro, I'm wearing tights, thermals, wool suit, wool jacket, like door to door all winter.

And so it was brutal. I caught pneumonia.
And of course, at the age of 24 or whatever I was, like, I didn't have health insurance. Yeah.
And the doctor's like, bro, you're, like, you're in deathbed.

Like, you need to be revived. This is not a joke.
Like, you're not going to outlast it because you're young. And so basically, I let go of my company, moved back home to California.
How'd you feel?

I mean, at the time, like, just trying to survive. Well, like, the world was ending, like.
Yeah, again, back to that, like, not victim, but like

why me

like i didn't make it exactly dude damn it i didn't make it a soul crushing and it doesn't have like it doesn't have to be forever right so one of the big things that i i talk about a lot is like nothing's permanent yep so i went through it and part of that was because i was also sick so i was just like

like i weighed 170 pounds No way. I'm 6'4, bro.
Dude, I was gonna say, you're a pretty big guy, bro. Like, my family was like, fuck, you are not good

so that took a little while but simultaneously this is where god works bro the god works so good god is so good like that same friend i talked to you about had no idea i moved back to california really hauls me like a 30 days into me like recovering hey dude you ready to start this real estate brokerage he doesn't know i'm there i'm not talking to anyone i'm like literally recovering and he says i'm ready for to make it happen I go get my license, we go do the thing.

It's still one of the best or highly recognized boutique brokerages in Northern California, still to this day. I love that.
And so I got my start then, but as we just talked, the market crashed. Yeah.

And so then I go through another dump. So then I'm making all this money.
I buy my first home. I buy my first $100,000 car.
Things are rolling.

Market crashes. At what age were you when the market crashed? 25, 26.
25, 26? Yeah. That's a good age to be in, man.
And then at that time, I still remember that time.

I ended up buying my first condo at that that time. Yeah.
Yeah. That's what I did.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. FHA or no? Yo,

I don't even think it was during the 100% financing days. I literally came to the table with the $550,000 condo with three grand to close the transaction.
Isn't that insane?

You guys are probably listening to this. Like, they're lying.
No.

That's not the truth. It was pretty money.

And by the way, the scary part, because I'm still in real estate very heavily.

Yeah. I think in the next 18 to 24 months, the government gets back there.
Bro, no, yes. No, No.
No, they're going to get back there. No, no, no.

No, because Trump just put something out saying, like, yo, I'm going to try to pass this bill to surpass Congress so we're able to expedite this because they're saying there's a home, a home crisis.

Oh, it's a huge crisis. Yeah, there's a home crisis.
Dude, I actually got blessed that I got my house sold, bro. It's actually closing this Friday here in Miami.
Thanks, bro. But I was scared.

I was scared, dude, because I had just moved to Puerto Rico like five months ago. And I was just like, dude, I got to move this house.
Like, no one's living in it. It's just collecting dust.

I'm assuming it's a nicer home. So that's why that's what helped me.
And that's my real estate agreement. Because the people that, yeah, because the people that can afford it can afford it.
Correct.

So if I saw it, I could go buy it. Correct.
It's the more challenging part is in that 300,000 to like a million price point. Yes.
Those people want it, but they can't afford it.

Because the interest is so high. So high.

It's saying that a house that's $400,000 in value right now with interest in the way it is, dude, over the 30-year span would be like $1.2 million to $1.5 million,

which is insane. Yeah, paying like triple the price.
Yeah. Well, and one little hack, as you say that, if people start paying their mortgage twice a month,

so if your mortgage is four grand, pay two grand on the 15th, two grand on the 30th. Yeah.
You'll actually reduce the amount of mortgage payments by like a boatload.

You will save yourself a lot of money. Dude, which is great advice, but let's be honest, Justin, who right now, if they're looking at houses around the 300 to a million range,

could afford? No, that is the challenge. That is the challenge.
That is the challenge. The crisis is very real, right? Exactly, dude.

i like and i know now we're going to real estate which is great because that's my strong suit but yeah i think trump's next 12 months is going to cause a lot of pain continuously 100

needed in my opinion we need to go through this pain right it is a it is we are not rectifying but we are adjusting to what needed to happen right

but then what i think is going to happen is he'll get done some of the good things people will be able to afford the houses again yes we'll kind of get out of it the challenge with that is after trump is gone what happens?

Because he will make it all right through his term, and then he'll only have one term, and then what happens? So that's where it gets a little question mark for me.

But I think we have another 12 months of some financial pain. I think a lot of people are feeling it.
I don't think the government or the news are talking about it right now as much as they should be.

Of course not. When I go out and I can't go to a normal dinner with my wife for less than $200,

and I'm not talking about all night, I'm saying food, glass of wine, glass of wine, like $200.

Like, there's not a lot of people that can just do that, dude. You know what's crazy?

You're gonna laugh. So, I had just made a post probably like last week, and

you know,

it's not an allowance, like my wife's a kid, guys, but that's the way my marketing team put it out there. Sure, like he gives his wife an allowance, yeah, yeah.
So, anyways, you know, I hope

don't get it twisted. I have a

text right now, hey, honey, can you throw me some money? I'm getting my hair done today, yeah, and that's just the way we are, guys. We're providers, right? We're husbands.
We love our wives.

They're our best friends. So we want to go ahead and let them live life by design as a man should, right?

So

on the reel,

we got so much hate for this, dude. Check out the page after and then look at it and you're going to be like, what the hell?

People said it's not realistic that my wife spents $200 on going out to eat for one dinner. And I just said it right now.
You just said it right now. Yeah.
Isn't that insane? It's insane.

The belief of some people, the reason why people can't afford their own house is maybe stop eating out so much, dude. Okay.
You shouldn't be,

especially here in Miami. I call it the Miami tornado.
Oh, yeah. Dude, I had one of our guys, and

not to stop your story, dude, but we're going to dive into it. And I just have to put this out there because I'm thinking about it.
One of my young guys, he's like freaking 20 years old, okay?

Doing great. He's such a killer in sales.

He's like, hey, dude, I'm I'm going to have to move back home for the next three months. And I was like, why? You just got here.
You just moved to Miami. Yeah.

Dude, and you're making multiple tens of thousands of dollars a month in commissions. What's wrong with you? He goes, I'm broke.
I was like, how are you broke?

And he tells me, dude, I spent $40,000.

the past 45 days on just living out here. And I was like, I look at him and I'm like,

are you stupid?

There's not much else to do. I was like, bro, what the hell are you spending money on? He goes, well, going out to eat.
I bought some shoes.

Keeping up with the Joneses. He probably bought a couple of nice things.
His shoes probably weren't $80 Nikes. No, they were probably a stupid freaking $2,000 Louis Vuitton shoes.
Probably

junk like that. I'm trying to keep up with all the people in Miami.
Yeah, dude. But it is very real.
I would argue, like, and I know there's a lot of people that don't make this kind of money, but

if you make less than 500 grand a year in Miami, you're going to struggle. It's not.
Now, I know there's a lot of people in Miami that don't, right? So obviously it's doable.

I'm just saying with, in relative to being able to take your wife out to dinner for my wife to get her hair done, like these things, obviously, if I didn't make the money I made, then I can't do that.

And we can't do this. But like.

To have that life by design and create it,

you got to be making 500 grand or more to really have that level that you want. And it really goes back to what we were talking about, guys.

And they're like, well, why is Justin and Paul talking about this? Well, it goes back to exactly what Trump's doing. Okay.

And I'm not trying to push the agenda here getting political, but it's just what it is. It's current right now.
Trump

stated that to live in these major cities like New York, East San Francisco, dude, like freaking Miami, it's like almost 8X

the amount of anywhere else in the United States. That's right.
So something has to change, right?

And it's crazy, man. But yeah, it's going to be very interesting to see what goes on in the market.
I think the best thing, in my opinion, I know we just talked about your kid going to school.

I'm going to take a little different approach.

Because I did go to school and it did nothing for me. Right.

It did push me. So I don't want to say that.
It did a lot for me. It didn't do it in the traditional sense.
Like I didn't get a W-2 job and that kind of thing. Right.
But it did a lot for me.

That's why you would have your kid go to school. Do you know if it's a boy or a girl? Boy.
Okay, okay. And I didn't know if you were going to announce it on here.
So congratulations. No, thanks, man.

Yeah, no, yeah, it's been on the socials for a bit. Marketing teams, like, so what's going on in your life, bro? You know, you tell them, you know, I'm having a kid.
Okay, cool. You got pictures?

You got video? That's how the marketing works, guys. They want to know you.

That's it. They want to know.

And so, but what I would tell you is, I'm going to, I have two kids. I have a year and a half old boy and I have a four and a half old girl.
Nice, man.

My girl is smart as a whip. Like, I already know, like, I'm going to need to bring her inside of my entrepreneurial life quick so she can learn the real shit.
Yes.

But I'm going to let it be up to them. Yeah.
And I'm going to say, listen,

but I'll also say, if you decide not to go to school, then here's what you're going to be doing, right? You will be going and getting a job and you will not be living off my dime. And, right?

So there'll be some like, you get to go to school or you don't have to, but if you don't, then this. Right.
If, then, then this. Dude, and that's the approach I was talking about.

Like, you know, I'm going to tell my kids, go to college, and I'll, dude, I'll take care of your bills. I'll finance it.
Yeah. Like, I'm going to take care of it.

Just focus on like the certificate or the diploma and whatever. Just

to say you did it. Yeah.
You know? Why not? I mean, it's my story too. Yeah.

And I would tell you, just like we were just talking about, like it forced me to level up my education because my friends got into an incredible college.

So I didn't want to go to the state college or whatever because my friends didn't. So then I'm like, I have to get there.

So then I worked my face off, proved it to myself I could, which is huge confidence boost. It's huge.
Huge.

Like, I just got shivers thinking about that because I don't say that a lot, but like proved. Brother, if you're not using that in your marketing, I know.

You're leaving money on the table. Team, if you're watching this.
I'm just saying because I have a mentee. He went to Harvard.
Yeah. And, dude, ultra-successful guy, he's in his 40s.

Came to me six months ago and was like, hey, dude, I need to work with you. I was like, cool, sit down, man.
He's a Miami local. And then he goes and says, so what's your background?

He goes, well, you're probably not going to believe me. I went to Harvard.
I was just like, okay, that's cool.

That's believable. He goes, but you're not going to believe what I did out of Harvard.

He's like, I flew out with one of my fraternity brothers that I met in Harvard that was part of this secret society club in Harvard called the Phoenix. Sounds right.

The co-founder, the CFO of Facebook was his best friend. Stop.

Then, when he graduates Harvard, he calls one of his billionaire Harvard buddies.

He hooks him up with staying in Shanghai in China. Wow.
They open a nightclub, which was the only American nightclub that plays hip-hop.

He got to meet all the celebrities, the basketball players, everybody you could think about. I think he even got freaking,

he showed me a photo of a Kobe dude. I was just living probably everybody, everybody, especially the Olympics over there, right?

Comes back to Miami, opens a bunch of pizzeria chains, ultra-successful guy, and then tries to break into digital marketing.

And he goes, Yeah, dude, you know, I saw your, your, your concept, and I'm like, dude, I just, I don't know, I need to be around you. And I was like, all right,

so what had happened? Why is he in my realm?

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His lack of motivation just dropped.

And I was like, why do you think is that? And we had this conversation over the weekend because he was in Dallas.

And he goes, dude, I'm a big, big believer in healthy competition. So when you talk about healthy competition, I'm like, yes.

Some people need it. Yeah.
Some people need it, dude.

And you know, it's another level of this? And I just realize this now is I tell my story.

I also create some level of a downfall

so I can prove to myself I can get out of it. Yeah.
And I, and this is what my therapist has told me at least. Yeah.
And I do that.

And I even think about like where I'm at today and where I'm at in business and why am I not at wherever and whatever is because that cycle continues to exist somewhere in my life where it's like, I don't just go here because I want to create an issue that I know I have to force myself to get out of so I can build the self-confidence.

Like, look at what I just was able to do. Exactly.
That's not healthy, by the way. I'm not suggesting you guys go create, you know, chaos to show that you can get out of chaos, but it is part of me.

But that competition, right? So

I love being able to level up to where the people want to go. Like, you know, him well.
And Grant Cardone challenged me, right? He says, Colby, what the fuck? Yeah.

And I'm like, he's like, why are you playing so small with a single family bullshit, bro? So what did I go fucking do?

Bought four apartments in the next six months. Yeah.
Like just went because I could. Yeah.
Right. Now, when you just go the way I go, that's not always perfect either, right? Because

then you got to go, you got to go make it right. But then it goes back to this.
Now I'm making it right to prove to myself I can make it right. So then I can, right? And so

I say all this to say, like, being able to have something that you want to go. chase after is really important.
It is.

Very important. And it gives you the purpose like your boy was talking about.
It's like,

I have a purpose to go be as smart as my friends that went to Harvard and Stanford and UCLA and all these places. Like, I'm going to go get there.

I had a purpose and a chip on my shoulder to show everyone I can make it, even though I wasn't viewed as a smart kid or whatever that was, I can become bigger than you guys. Yes.
Right.

And that gave me purpose. Yeah.

But

there's a, it's a double-edged sword. Yeah.
Right. Because it also could take you sideways, dude.
Right. Yeah, it really can.
And I think I was blessed because of my,

what's the word I'm looking for? I'm very grounded in that sense.

Like, I know it can take me left, so I do everything I can not to go left. Well, you probably learn from experiences.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I've learned everything through experience.

I'm hard-headed, dude. Yeah.
I'm a Capricorn. I'm stubborn, bro.
Yeah, dude. I'm stubborn.
I haven't met one entrepreneur that's not. I mean,

we're all stubborn in our own way. Yeah.
But realistically, I've learned from my experiences, experiences of my friends, just like I was telling you, like a couple COOs did, did some shady stuff.

But at the end of the day, dude, I know myself. I'm at the stage of the game where I know myself so well.
I know exactly what levers I need to go. And I think it's the same thing for you, dude.

Because you went ahead and you took the imperfect action to learn the experiences. And now you know what to do because you've been through it.

And I always tell people that. It's like, I'm not looking, especially when I'm looking to work with people.

I'm not looking for the best of the best in every single niche, every single industry or i don't i don't even look at people's resumes sometimes dude i look at more of like okay

what have you been through yeah because if you haven't been through like adversity if you haven't been through like actual like real life pain dude business it is one of the most painful things and experiences you will go through for sure bro it will break you you are speaking my language right now yeah bro i made a post a week ago, two weeks ago, whatever it was.

I literally said, if you don't have scars to prove it, I don't trust you. Yeah.

If you're going to tell me how good business has been, you're this great, and you don't have scars of the wars that you've been in, I will not trust you and I won't do business with you.

And to the point, right this very day, as I'm sitting here this morning, my team said, do it. And what that meant to me was,

I'm going to go full steam vulnerable for my social media. Yeah.
You should. All the dirt and the wars I'm in and what I'm doing and the bad side of being an entrepreneur.

I'm I'm going to expose it. Not because I'm exposing somebody.
No. I'm exposing reality.
Yeah. What really happens when you play at our level? What do you really go through?

What mistakes really happen? What does that look like? It's huge. And the reason why I'm going to do that is because I was told recently by my good friend, my mess is my message.

And people will endear the fact that you're not perfect. Yeah.

Because if you're out there and you're looking for a coach or a mentor and they don't have scars and they're not willing to tell you that sometimes shit gets real, do not hire them.

This man will tell you shit gets real. Hire him.
Yeah. Right.

But if someone's going to be out there saying, I'm going to sell you this coaching or come follow my community, whatever, and they haven't had a shit sandwich or 10,

don't trust them. And so my team this morning said, go.
So I shot it. You'll see it.

It's on this morning about some of the damage that was done in 2024 because of a contractor and the shit and the trickle-down effect that this fucker did and the stuff I'm dealing with still today

because of this, right? Yeah. But I'm also laying in there the message of what I've learned.
So the idea isn't to like just say, oh, this shit got fucked up. It's here's what happened.

Here's the reason it happened. Don't do the reason.
Yeah. Right.
So in my example, there was two main reasons. Trust but verify.
So I trusted, but I didn't verify. Right.
And inspect what you expect.

I expected the result, but I wasn't inspecting it. Yeah.
You assumed. And so because I trusted.
And so those two main core principles in business, and you know, we talked about this already.

These are the core principles. You trust, but you verify.
You inspect what you expect. So I trusted, so I didn't verify.

I didn't inspect because I trusted. And by the time I realized what was happening because of my trust and the leash I gave him, the damage was already done.

It was over. And now for the last nine months, I've been working basically to repair the damages.
And I probably have another nine months involved.

And that is because these two main core principles, after 20 years,

that's the shame I have. It's like, bro.
That's not just

a shame, dude. Well, it's just shame.
Like, I know better, bro. Like, that's crazy for me.

I feel like it happens to everybody. It's happened to me, dude.
It's happened to me where, like, you know, I've had vendors screw me over, like, like, rolls.

and you know they like they've literally bent me over and i've had to pay i think an excess of over seven hundred thousand dollars that's not a fun day dude out of my own personal funds like like not even company funds because if i was to go ahead and just let the company pay for it deplete that company right

but at the end of the day i'm a big believer that things come around yeah i'm a big believer in seasons and dude like like you said we're the same person yeah dude you need your

world's good for them bad dude that's why we're that's why we're here that's why we're here

but but yeah you you need to go through those seasons dude and and now you know better because you know what god is creating something bigger for you dude i mean you have so much energy i can't believe you're you're even over 40 bro you look great

but but yeah it's not to gas you up by the way guys it's not to gas him up but he does yeah no he looks great but um no dude i mean like i think you're you're a very intelligent guy i think with everything that you're doing you're doing it right yeah and now you know who you are and the biggest thing is like you're a family guy, dude, and you got good morals.

And yeah, like we said, trust era is everything right now, dude. It really is.
It is. Because especially in the online space, there's so many people out there, dude.
We've seen this.

You've been in the game for like more 12 years now. 12 years educating.
Yeah. 20 years.
12 years in the online game, dude. So you've seen it all.
You've seen it whenever you've seen it.

Wow, Wow West, all that shit. You know, and the leader, one of the leaders in our space, specifically in residential, Pace is going to be here.
I know he'll be on. So sorry if I broke the news.

No, no, no, you're good. You know, but bro, I watched him start.
I watched him go basically bankrupt. Yeah.
He wasn't Pace the way we all know Pace. Yeah.
Yeah. Right.

And he, I remember the day he came up. And so when I say I've seen this, it's because I've just been, I'm like the OG.
Yeah. Like he came, he knew exactly who I was.
Hey, what's up? My name's Pace.

Jamil knows me, whatever. And I met Pace that way.
Yeah. And fast forward six years, bro, and he's by far the biggest name in real estate by far.

And in large part, one of the biggest brands out there. Yeah.
Right. And so I've seen it.

and and he keeps going and i love that and i i support and i'm his biggest fan because he does it the right way because he gives to the people

he cares that's cool like he genuinely cares and there's a lot of other people in our space that just want to sell yeah yeah and people are tired of that i have uh I have one of his guys that is in his sub-tube community, Christopher Craig.

Shout out Chris. What up, Chris? But Chris just crushed it at my event in Dallas, dude.
And he was telling me about, you know, Pace's sub-tube community.

And he was just like, yeah, dude, sometimes Pace,

he'll freaking show up to the community all day, every day, and do, he's like, I'm not shooting you, Paul, a two to four hour question QA with his audience. And I'm like, how's that possible, bro?

He's told me he's making it happen. Oh, dude, he told me, he was like, Colby, don't, don't.
I'm a lunatic. So I was, we are, we did this road trip together.

Him and I were keynoting at an event, me, him, and Jamil,

South Carolina. So we all flew into Enlightenment are like, let's just go bro out and road trip.
So we jump in a car. And so we're just talking business.
Yeah.

I'm like, bro, what, like, what are you doing right now to have this meteoric, crazy success, right?

Like, I'm watching it, but like, what do you, he's like, Colby, I'll, you're not going to do what I do.

He's like, you can do what I do. Not doing anything special.
You're just not going to.

I'll jump on a Zoom on a Sunday from eight in the morning till four in the afternoon,

all day with my community. Yeah.
Q ⁇ A, deal case study, whatever, whatever. Like, just he does this stuff.
Yeah. And I just love that about him.
I genuinely love it about him.

Like he's just a robot in the greatest way. Right.
So anyways, I say all that to say, like, I've seen everybody. I've seen their goods, their bads.

I think the marketplace is tired of people just selling shit. Yeah, of course.
I think the marketplace needs trust and they need the connectivity. Like, they do.
I will hold your hand.

Come to my office. I will work with you.
Like, I am not letting you go. It's huge.

And that is what's going to separate me and you because I know you do that for the next decade because that's what people need. They need to be able to trust somebody.
100%.

You know, a lot of the big names, you know, one of the biggest names in marketing, Hermozi. Yeah.
They just started doing that when they opened their office in Vegas, the acquisitions workshop, right?

That's right. Where they got.
basically almost every single marketer to go in there, dude. But they know because they've seen that trend.

They're like, dude, we need to get people indoors in front of us so they know that it's real.

You know, I'm pretty sure you've gotten this all the time, but have you ever met, and I'm pretty sure you've met hundreds because you've thrown a lot of events, but you've met a client that you've enrolled into your coaching program and they're like, dude, I didn't think you were real.

And then they meet you in person. And they're like, dude, you're actually like the person online.
This is all. And you're normal.
And you're easy to talk to. Exactly.
I get that all.

And it's actually the biggest. sense of pride.
It is. Because it just shows, like, I'm not wearing a mask for you guys.
It is the same reason as of this morning. It's probably already up.

I'm like, what are people saying? Like, I'm telling people my dirt. Yeah.
Like, that these deals didn't go well. Now I'm explaining what I could have done better so I can offer value in that message.

But it's because I want people to always be like, oh, he's the real deal. Yeah.
Whether you like me or don't like me. Yeah.
At least you'll know I'm being genuine, authentic. I'm not wearing a mask.

What happens in our space is people put on this mask and present it in front of social media and online and through their funnels. and then you meet them you're like oh you're you're not that yeah

right so it's always that like don't meet your heroes yeah i never want to be that hero that people are like damn i met him and he sucks yeah no no absolutely no absolutely man so

Let's get into helping beginners, dude.

Like, what would you say as being a real estate expert right now in your niche, dude, that what is the best possible path, knowing what you know about what the market's at right now, that a beginner should do with real estate go so I built it and this isn't trying to be a promo but reilive.co yeah is my community reilive.co I couldn't afford the M.

Yeah. Some bastard wanted like five grand for the I'm like I'm not giving you dot co.
It's reilive.co

people need to focus on finding the deal.

So I've been around long enough. Again, I'm on old head.
I have no hair.

The hedge funds are back and they're coming to me as of two weeks ago to say, I trust you to help us with the investment community. They don't love investors, right?

Institutional money would rather work with a realtor and just, right?

So I'm flying tomorrow morning to Phoenix to sit down with them again. Love it.
Because they really want to buy more. You and I just talked about the real estate economy.

There's nothing really for sale. Buyers are having a hard time buying.
But there's opportunity and they can't find it because the realtors don't know how to do what I do.

So what I would tell everyone, go find the deal first. So I created REILiveco.co because every day, this is a page out of Pace's book.

I go live with my community every day, live with them, calling homeowners, calling realtors, underwriting deals, making offers, putting them into escrow with them, done with you.

It is $297 a month. That's badass, dude.
Now, you and I both come from a high-tech background. You might be thinking, Colby, you could charge $3,000 a month for that.

I could. But what I want is I want them to get deals.
Yeah. Because then we can JV on deals and all that kind of stuff.
Smart. Go find the deal.
I'll do it with you, REI Lab.

And then you have people in my buyer's world in the hedge funds. They're back.

So if you can find the deal and understand that, just go hunt for them. You don't have to be the buyer.
Go personal shop.

You know, like if you go to these nice stores, there's a personal shopper you have that goes around and brings you all the clothes.

Go be a personal shopper for the hedge funds.

I'll give you the data. I'll give you the criteria.
All you have to do is go find it.

And I'll do it with you. It's not that hard.
We do it together.

Because right now, in the state of the real estate economy, the only thing that matters is the only thing with weight or value is the person that has the deal. You control it.
They talk about culture.

Yeah.

And then you can do whatever you want, whether you wholesale it, where you buy it, whether you flip it, where you keep it as a rental. It doesn't matter.
You control the deal.

And there's literally hundreds of millions ready to come into the streets from these hedge funds. They just don't have enough deal flow on the MLS.
So they have to start coming to us. Yeah.

So this community, literally, I'm sitting down Tuesday to basically say, hey, I'm going to slowly leak this out to my community because they trust me because I did a lot of these deals with them in Phoenix.

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I love this. They know me.
I'm a known entity. What they don't want is they don't want to just go why to every investor and then all these newbie investors.

Like they wouldn't go into a community that has 12,000 people to say, hey guys, go find us deals. It would like burn to the ground.

No, yeah, and that makes a lot of sense because with beginners, they make a lot of mistakes. they don't move of urgency, you know, success low speed, man.
So, what would you say, okay,

if someone who let's say has a nine-to-five, dude, I got a lot of first responders, I got a lot of nine-to-fiveers that listen to this podcast.

Yeah, um, how much time do you think it would actually take for them to land, like, let's say, their first deal based on like what you have on your community if they do the things that I would advise them to do, if they execute, dude, one to two hours a day, one or two hours a day, one to two hours a day, it's not bad, dude.

Now, I'm including weekends

because most homeowners and realtors are going to be more available during the weekends than they are Monday through Friday. Yeah.
Right?

Homeowners have jobs and they have things, right? So if you're able and willing to work one to two hours a day, every day, seven days a week, you can go get a deal relatively quickly.

And then combine that. Now, I'm really focused on these hedge funds because now that they're back, bro, I made it killing when they were in Phoenix

because they just have all the money, bro.

And they buy it numbers that investors, like the small small mom and pops, like, we might have money, but we're not going to underwrite something at like a 5% cap or like, you and I can go just go make more money.

They'll underwrite at a number that's not reasonable for the mom and pop. So they'll pay more.
That's all that means.

And so now that they're going to be back in the game, I'm just like, get into real estate one to two hours a day, consistently every day. Do not like not do it because it's not hard either.

And you'll have yourself a deal. Like every month, you'll have yourself a deal.
I love that, man. But it's the excuse.

You know, this is what, like, everyone gives the excuse of kids, wife, work, blah, blah, blah. Fine.
I mean, I will literally do this with you, but like, you still got to do it. Yeah.

And if you do it, you're going to do it. But anyway, so I'm fired up for what's to come.
This next 12 months is going to be all in, dude.

And then as far as that's your real estate side of your life, brother. But let's talk about your podcast, man.
When did you start your podcast? 2012, bro. So 2012.
And going for it.

And what is like the basis behind your podcast? So I have two. So I I have one called the Science of Flipping, all real estate, only real estate.
Yep.

So you will be on the other one called the Entrepreneur DNA. What I want out of that is the true shit about entrepreneurship.
What do we go through? Yep. Right.
Why? Why do we deal with it?

What are the wins? What are the losses? How do we hire? How do we, what happens when a CEO does you run? Like, that's the stuff, right?

Because what I want out of a podcast, I built my podcast for a platform for the guest, not for me. Very similar to why I'm here.

So I want this to be educational from someone else besides myself because you have a lot of experiences that I may not have, especially in the credit card game, the ATM game, and all these different verticals that you've had so much success.

Well, I want people to know that that's an option too.

And here's how you can go win. And here's my guy, Paul, that could probably help you go win.

And so I made this more of a PR branding play for guests so that they can actually go help others break out of this idea that they need to be relegated to nine to five. I love that.

There's so many options out there, whether it be ATMs, credit card processing,

you name it. I just interviewed this woman.
She literally got her degree in theology from Oxford,

has no business experience, had an idea about what AI could potentially do for customer service. put that idea to pen to paper.
She now has the federal government as a client.

A year and a half later, the federal government is her client.

Every large car organization, car builders and manufacturers organization, is her client. This woman has zero background in entrepreneurship.

She's a theology major, and within a year and a half has raised more money than you and I both can ever even imagine. Wow.
That is why I do this podcast.

So people can learn from her and from you and so many other greats, right? Like I just went and interviewed.

Ryan Serhant up in New York. Yeah.
He's in real estate. He's a real estate guy, but bro, this brother, when I tell you this, it blew me away.
I asked him, I was like, how much, how much did you raise?

Because he has Sir Hant and he has Simple and he has all these businesses. And they're legit, but these aren't like little.
No, he's been around for a while, dude. He's like, self-financed them all.

Yeah.

Who's that?

You want to get shivers. His

salary, but his payroll. Every month,

over $2 million of payroll. I love that.

i love that this boy is moving so that is like another level of like you want to learn how these guys build something like that because that is well beyond what i've built right so why not allow you to listen to someone like that yeah he's all over tv and netflix but he's not giving you what this podcast is going to get right so that's why i have it and it's so much fun and i love the opportunities like you and i are going to be doing business together period end of story hey what i don't know when and i don't know what it's going to happen right absolutely and we already talked about it when we first talked on the phone so it's just as a cool i would encourage all of you out there, if you have some level of success, you've been following this guy for a while, start a podcast.

Why not? It opens doors. You meet new people, right? You create opportunities.
Why not? Yeah. It builds the brand.
Him and I believe in one thing, brand above all else, right?

Like, go build your brand. It's huge.
It's everything. Huge.
It's everything, man. Especially now in 2025.
Like I keep saying, guys, trust era. People need to know you.
They need to know the real you.

100%. Right.

Cool, man. So what would be one piece of advice that you would like to tell my listeners and my viewers right now on how to level up in 2025 based on your experience, based on all your knowledge?

I mean, absolutely, what makes you great, dude? You guys ready? You guys ready?

There's three things.

Focus on your brand is the overarching theme. Okay.

I've interviewed several billionaires. You guys could probably all see it all over the internet.
They say there's two things that mean anything moving forward. It's your personal brand and it's AI.

Those are it. There's like not really any other, like that is what's going to make or break it.

So if you're listening to this and watching this and you want to be an entrepreneur, aspiring entrepreneur, you are an entrepreneur. You need these three things.
Let people know what you do,

who you are, and what you need.

If you do that on a consistent basis, your brand will explode because people will understand you. And people only want to do business with the know, like, and trust.
They will know what you do.

And then they will know what you need. And it could be anything.
In my world of real estate, a lot of times is raising capital. And people know, I can trust me.
They know I'm in real estate.

So they're willing to be a capital partner to me, right? In other verticals, it could be different stuff.

But if you are constant at putting out content, this is why I encourage most of you guys to get a podcast.

This will be chopped up 42 different ways for him and for me as content that took both of us an hour. And we will have content for another week out of this, right?

So, but then people will know Paul, Paul, what he does, and what is he looking for. If you just focus on that

over enough runway, you can create whatever you want.

If you try to shorten the runway and say, in the next year, I'm going to go do this thing and make so much money and be ultra successful, you're likely going to hurt yourself. So what I tell you,

be very aggressively patient with your level of success, but focus on content that creates the brand of you, that says who you are, what you do, and what you're looking for. I love that.

And guys, that is the level up with Justin. Justin, where can they find you, brother? Instagram is going to be the best.
It is really me. So I'd actually encourage you to reach out to me.

Let me know you saw me here. The Justin Colby.
Say, I just saw you on the level up podcast, the Justin Colby. And I'll say what's up.
And it's really me, and we'll chat. Well, there you guys have it.

Guys, that's another phenomenal interview here on the level up podcast with Paul Alex. Leave a five-star review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube, guys.

We are currently ranked number one in business on Apple Podcasts and number top three in all categories because of you guys. So let's get to 5 million downloads this month.

What month are we, Emilio?

We're in September right now, guys. September of 2025.
All right. So it's going to be a good, good quarter four for this year.
It's going to happen very fast.

And we have, like I said, a lineup of special guests coming on here because of you guys. So I'll catch you guys on the next one.
Peace.

This next one's for all you CarMax shoppers who just want to buy a car your way.

Want to check some cars out in person, Uh-huh.

Wanna look some more from your house? Okay.

Wanna pretend you know about engines? Nah, I'll just chat with CarMax online instead. Wanna get pre-qualified from your couch.

Wanna get that car.

You wanna do it your way.

Wanna drive? CarMax.