In life, you have two choices. You can build a lifestyle or you can live a bullshit life, but you can't do both. Welcome to the “Freedom Lifestyle Experience”, where we focus on building the lifestyle you want—and now here's your host, Michael Burns.
Mike: Welcome to the Freedom Lifestyle Experience. I'm your host, Mike Burns. Appreciate you guys tuning in today.
We all want to make a bunch of money. We want to have an attractive partner, wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever it might be. We want to have that cool watch, the big house, the vacations, awesome circle of friends. We want to be jacked in excellent shape, health and fitness dialed in, spiritually connected, everything that I'm talking about with this lifestyle. But you're not going to have any of that if you don't have a foundation that you're building it on.
Today I want to talk about setting yourself up to win, and how do you do that? For me, without a good foundation, without a strong foundation, you're not going to be able to build anything, and whatever you do build on up of a shitty foundation is, at some point, going to crumble and you just can't build. You can't build something great and worthwhile on a shitty foundation. [01:09.4]
How do you get the strongest foundation? How do you set yourself up for success? It's going to be the core values that you're operating your life from, your business from, everything that you do. We all have our values, our morals, basically our core values that we're operating from, but I think a lot of people are just cruising through life and they don't really know what those are.
Without your core values and the foundation which you're trying to build this lifestyle on, how are you going to actually build this lifestyle that you're looking for, whether it's the business, the relationships, the money, the health and fitness, whatever it is?
Without these core values, you're just not going to get very far, or you're going to go down and you're going to start building and maybe you're going to have certain things going well, like your business is going good, but your relationships suck, or business is going good and your health and fitness sucks, or your health and fitness is good, but your business sucks, or you're doing all of that stuff, but you're not spiritually connected, and you're winning and you've got all this stuff going on, but you have zero fulfillment—and that's everything that I'm talking about with the lifestyle. [02:13.4]
Circling back to this foundation and the core values is really going to be your guiding principle through life and business. I wanted to share my core values with you guys. I've spent a lot of time and money with different masterminds, coaches, seminars, books. You name it, I’ve done it. But core values really set into me because it's not a sexy thing.
Everyone knows about core values and it’s almost in every success book or business book, or people put it in their speeches if you go into a seminar or whatever it is, but I think it's one thing that just gets a little overlooked because, again, it's not a sexy thing.
But, for me, core values really stuck when I joined Arete Syndicate. It was a $70,000-commitment for 12 months, $6,000 a month. It’s run by Andy Frisella and Ed Mylett. [03:02.0]
If you don't know who they are, Andy Frisella is the owner of 1st Phorm, which is a large supplement company. I don't know, they probably do $500–600 million a year in revenue. Ed Mylett is probably the greatest speaker on Earth. He has got multiple businesses. He's worth, I don't know, $700 million or $800 million, but both really just high-level guys.
I was sitting in there and all excited, ready to learn, we're going to get all the good shit I'm spending all this money here. Andy, this guy that's making, his company is doing 500 million a year, what is he going to talk to us about? What's the secret sauce? And his foundation was core values.
They literally run their entire business on core values. They hire on core values. They fire on core values. They don't reward their people off sales numbers. Everything they do, hiring, firing, rewarding, it's all based on the core values.
I got to go to their new headquarters in St. Louis earlier this year at one of Arete Syndicate Summit meetups and it was really, really cool to see this really high-end facility—I mean, the nicest building I’ve ever been to—but they had their core values all throughout the building on the wall. [04:08.4]
It was just really eye-opening to me that core values are so much more than just, Yeah, I'm an honest guy. I do the right thing. I work hard. I'm talking about next-level core values, like core values that you run your entire life off, if you're a business owner, everything that you run your business off.
For me, I’ve always had my core values, but I never really took this seriously, so rolling out Lifestyle Realty and Lifestyle Lending are our two companies and Freedom Lifestyle Experience is my podcast here, but everything that I’ve been pushing is about this lifestyle.
I made my core values I’ve had, but I’ve got a core value for each letter in “lifestyle” that I truly live by every day, and I can say the more that I’ve taken these seriously and committed to it, the better my life gets, the better my business gets, the better my surrounding gets, because I have a core set of guiding principles and it just makes life so much easier in making decisions and who you're going to let in your life, who you're going to cut out of your life. When you've got your core values that you're operating from, it makes things very black and white and it's much easier to operate and grow. [05:19.4]
My primary core value is to lead by example. If I'm leading by example, then I'm being held accountable to myself, but also, if I'm trying to be a leader and I'm leading by example, then my actions across the board, no matter what it is, either I'm leading by example or I'm full of shit and I'm not leading by example, so if I'm doing stuff that's not being a leader and it's not being an example and it's not leading by example of these core values that I'm preaching and talking about, then I'm full of shit. Leading by example is my first core value that I have here. [05:55.7]
The second one is integrity. Without integrity, you don't have anything. My dad, when I was a kid, I grew up in a small town, family-owned business, and it was the greatest gift that I could have ever had. But my dad, he has always told me since I was little and this has stuck with me and he has told it to me my whole life, which is, “Son, in this world, all you have is your name and your word,” and that has been burned into my heart and how I operate, so integrity is hugely important to me, my name and my word.
Just a quick story that I have. A couple months ago, I closed the deal and one of my primary investors who invests in a lot of my deals, his name is Greg, I’ve probably got a couple of million dollars of his at any given time, and I'd sold a property that we flipped. He lent $490,000 on this deal, but when he had sent in his payoff to the title company, he had his principal loan amount at 480,000.
The deal was closed. It was done, probably wrapped up. It had been a good week, maybe two weeks, and I just happened to be going through all the documents, kind of closing the deal out on my end, running numbers, getting an idea of what we’d made on the deal—ended up being the largest flip I’ve ever done, which is just a side note, I guess, a little brag there. [07:13.5]
But I was looking through it and he had put in there that his principal loan amount was 480,000 and I was almost certain that he lent me 490,000. I called him up and, again, the deal was done. This could have been my little $10,000 secret, but I called him up and I said, “Hey, Greg, do me a favor. Just reviewing this deal that we closed a few weeks ago, I think you shorted yourself about $10,000. You had on here that your loan amount was 480,000. I'm pretty sure you lent 490 on that. Do me a favor, check it out. Let me know.”
He said, “Okay, cool.” He called me back, I don't know, probably an hour later and he said, “Michael, you were right. I did short myself 10 grand.” He proceeded to say, “Most people wouldn't make that call, and thank you so much. I really appreciate that and that says a lot about you.” [07:59.7]
But he’d already known that because we've been doing business together probably for, I don't know, six or seven years now, but that could have been my $10,000 secret. No one would have known, but that's not how I roll because my name and my word and my relationships are important to me, and I operate from integrity.
Because I operate from integrity, the people who are in relationship with me like this guy, for example, I could text him, Hey, I need $600,000 for a deal on Monday, and if he has the money, he texts me back, Okay, sounds good. Then he'll wire the money to the title company. Obviously, there's paperwork and stuff, but that's it.
Integrity, and that's just one example that just happened, and I'm not sure a lot of people would have pointed out, Hey, you shorted yourself 10 gees. Anyway, integrity is a big one for me.
In “lifestyle”, I’ve got two for “F”—one is family and one is freedom. I couldn't limit it to just one. But starting with family, I mean, family is family, I think that goes unsaid. We all know what family is. You’ve got to take care of them. Some of us, we've got toxic people that are in our family. You can't tolerate that. [09:04.5]
But if you're not going to be there for your family, that says a lot about you and your core values. If you can't step up and show up for your family, then what are you going to do for people who aren't family? It's just family is family.
One thing that's really cool for me in our situation and our business is that my whole family, not my whole family, but a lot of my family, is involved. Prior to us opening Lifestyle Realty and Lifestyle Lending, we went by the Burnz Team Homes & Loans and I worked with my family. In the mortgage business, me and my brother are partners. On the real estate brokerage side and the investing side, both my mom and my wife work with me.
It’s just really cool to, one, be doing it with family, but, secondly, to be creating the opportunities that I have in my business, and to be able to share that with my family is a really important thing to me—so everything that I do is for my family and my circle of people who may not be blood, blood-related, but they're still family to me. [10:02.8]
Then, freedom. I mean, fucking hey, this is the United States of America and freedom is the one thing that we have that is so unique about this country and why so many people risk their lives and do crazy shit to get to this country, just to have a taste of that freedom and what we have here in America. You can literally who and whatever you want to do and be, and we need to protect that. We need to respect that and we need to appreciate that.
We've got an American flag that flies in our office. I've got a big American flag in my backyard and I'm all about the red, white and blue, and the freedom that this country offers us, but, also, everything that everyone is doing. If you ask people, Hey, what do you want in life? People are going to say financial freedom.
Why do they want that? Because if they have financial freedom, then they can do these other things and these other things are going to be lifestyle. They want to take care of their family. They want to have experiences. They want to go on vacation. They want to not worry about bills. They want to do whatever it is they want to do. They want more time. But, at the end of the day, that all comes down to the freedom, your freedom to do and be whatever it is you want to do and be, and that's a huge part of this lifestyle. [11:10.2]
We all want freedom. That's the foundation of everything that I'm doing anyway and that I think most people want, and the foundation of the lifestyle that we're talking about building is freedom.
Experts at our craft. I take this very seriously. I want to be the best at what I'm doing, because if you're the best at what you're doing, that means you're going to be successful in it. You're going to be making money in it. You're going to have notoriety in it. Your clients are going to trust you. They're going to see that you're the best at what you do.
But, on the personal side, being an expert in my craft, that's really important, but, on the business side, for our clients, whether it's our mortgage clients, our real estate clients, or the loan officers and real estate agents that hang their license at our company, you want to be an expert at your craft.
People are making the biggest investment they're making in purchasing a home or you're handling the financing or refinancing the biggest investment people have in their life, or the people who trust us to hang their license at my company, they see me as a leader and I'm going to help them grow their business and help them just do better. I’ve got to be an expert at my craft to do that, so that's really important. [12:14.8]
Plus, if you're not an expert at your craft, your craft is how you make money. If you want to be successful and you want to build this lifestyle and business, because money is a huge piece of it, you’ve got to be an expert at your craft.
Self-improvement, which goes hand in hand with being an expert at your craft, but being an expert at your craft is more business-related. Self-improvement, I'm talking about across the board self-improvement, but improvement on yourself.
I can say the more that I’ve worked on the internal, and I’ve said this on the show before—if you follow me online, I talk about this all the time, taking personal accountability—but the more that you work on yourself from the inside, everything on the exterior will get better. But self-improvement, you're reading books. You're going to seminars. You're joining networking groups. You're going to masterminds. You're listening to podcasts. You're working on improving yourself every day, and that's not something you did. That's something you regularly do. [13:07.0]
Again, this is another thing that gets overlooked, but you hear these business influencers and this has been something that has been said by all the, quote-unquote, “gurus” from the end of time that, if you're not growing and learning, then you're dying, and that really is the truth. So, self-improvement.
Transparency. Transparency is huge. Are you transparent? Are you full of shit? Transparency goes kind of hand in hand with integrity. It's a little bit different, but for me being transparent is important. I don't want to be one guy online and a different guy in person, or I don't want to be where if I'm with this group of friends, then I'm this guy, but if I'm with these other people, then I show up as a totally different dude, or I'm really cool with people out and about, but then at home, I'm a piece of shit and I'm not good to my family or my wife or my dog or whatever it might be.
In business, are you being shady or are you being transparent? That goes back to that story of that 10 grand. Transparency is a really big deal and, to me, if you're not being transparent, it's only a matter of time before you get caught slipping and it's going to cause you problems. [14:12.0]
Yes, attitude. Attitude is the foundation of everything. Literally, everything that you're doing in life, no matter where you go, you're bringing your attitude with you, so your attitude is either good, it's bad, or maybe it's in the middle, but your experience of everything that you have in life, whether it's things or the experience that you have with people, or in business or whatever it might be, is literally going to start with your attitude.
Your attitude, enthusiasm is contagious. A positive attitude is contagious, but a negative attitude is also contagious. If you're not self-conscious and aware of your attitude and the attitude that you're showing up with, I can promise you, if your attitude is not good, at best, things aren't going to be going well and it's how you feel all day, every day, which is with your attitude. I want to have a yes attitude. I want to have people around me that have a yes attitude. [15:06.2]
Loyalty. Loyalty is priceless. For me, everything I do is relationship-based and, loyalty, it truly is priceless. You can't buy loyalty and it's one of the most important things to me. Especially, I take relationships so seriously. I'm so heavily invested in the relationships that I have, and once I let you into my life and my circle, there's nothing I won't do for you, and loyalty is a priceless thing and it's something that's really important to me.
Because it's so important to me, that's the way I show up as well, so I give loyalty. I'm loyal to a fault. I probably tolerate a little bit more bullshit and mistakes and different things than I should because I am loyal, but loyalty is just a huge deal to me, and it's a two-way street. To expect loyalty, you have to first be showing up in loyalty.
And not only loyalty to other people, but loyalty to yourself as well. Really, that's more important. Being loyal to yourself is more important than being loyal to others, because if you're not loyal to yourself, you're not going to have this good relationship with yourself. [16:11.2]
If you're not loyal to yourself and you don't do the things you tell yourself you're going to do and you don't keep the promises you make to yourself, then you're going to think you're a piece of shit with yourself, and the relationship that you have with yourself all starts with the loyalty that you keep with yourself and the things you tell yourself you're going to do.
My last core value is experience. Everything that we're doing here on Earth is an experience. My podcast, Freedom Lifestyle Experience, I'm talking about freedom. I'm just now connecting those that freedom is one of my core values as well, but I want to have the freedom, everything that freedom entails, lifestyle, everything that the lifestyle entails.
Experience. It's the freedom lifestyle experience. What experience are you having here on Earth? And your experience that you have is going to be directly related to the core values and the foundation that you build.
You're going to have the experience of leading by example. [17:03.2]
Are you going to experience integrity?
Are you going to experience family and everything that that means, and freedom and everything that comes with freedom?
Are you going to experience being the best at what you do, being an expert at your craft?
Are you going to experience self-improvement? Are you going to experience constantly getting better and leveling up, and going to the next thing and the next thing, and getting better and better?
Are you going to experience transparency?
Are you going to experience a positive yes attitude or are you going to experience life in a shitty attitude?
Are you going to experience loyalty because you’re a good, loyal individual and that's who you surround yourself with, or are you going to experience lies and deceit and everything that's not loyal?
So, experience is everything, but also on the company side—I'm talking about that personally, but on the business side—the experience that we provide our clients, whether it's someone that's buying or selling a home, or someone that's getting a mortgage, the experience is everything that we're setting out to do. We want to provide a VIP experience for people where they're also our clients, or the loan officers and real estate agents that work at our company. Are they experiencing all these core values that I'm talking about here? [18:12.3]
Those are my core values that I operate off and, like I said, it's really easy to overlook core values and be like, Oh, yeah, that's cute, he's got a core value for each letter of “lifestyle” and go right over it. But this is a foundation of everything that you do. It's your guiding principles and it makes making decisions so much easier.
Either things are in line with your core values or they're not, and if they are in line with your core values, then that's an initial filter of everything that comes in. There’s all sorts of different shit coming in from all directions and all different areas of life, and this is a really good initial filter. If it's in line with your core values, then you can take it to whatever the next step with that thing is, but if it's not in line with your core values, then you can immediately dish it out and focus on the stuff that is in line with who you are and what you're about and what you're trying to do. [19:03.5]
Take out a piece of paper and write down all the things that are important to you, the different values that you have. Write down 15 to 20 different things and come up with probably four to eight different core values, and commit yourself to them and have that be a foundation, and set yourself up for success by having these guiding principles because you’ve got to have them, because without core values and without setting yourself up for success, you're just not going to get there, or what you on top of your foundation that you have is going to crumble.
That's what I’ve got for you guys today. If you liked the show, if you're getting value from it, please share it with your friends. Go, leave me a review. Like I said, this is Episode 3. I'm committed to doing this, and, hopefully, I'm going to get better with each episode as well, but if you liked the show, share the show, and shoot me a DM. I'd love to know what you guys want to hear about, different topics, what you like, what you don't like. I'd really like this to be an interactive thing. You can follow me on Instagram @Michael.Burnz. I'm on Facebook at MrMichaelBurns.
Thanks again. We'll see you guys next week. [20:09.2]
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