Why Losing Everything Can Be Your Greatest Gift - Episode 95
In today's episode, I talk with Damien Lupo about how he lost millions and rebuilt his fortune multiple times. We dive into how setbacks can teach us important lessons about money and life. Damien shares how his mistakes helped him learn, grow, and eventually create a purpose-driven business that is changing the housing industry.
About our guest:
Damion Lupo is a seasoned entrepreneur who has launched and grown over 70 companies from $0 to $100 million throughout a remarkable 25-year journey. In addition to being a prolific author with 12 published books, Damion is celebrated for his extraordinary achievements in building multiple companies from the ground up, many of which have reached seven, eight, and even nine-figure valuations. Despite a significant setback that saw him lose a $20 million portfolio at the age of 30, Damion's resilience and determination led him to not only overcome homelessness but also rebuild his wealth beyond 9-figures. Today, he is a driving force in transforming the retirement landscape with his groundbreaking retirement plan system and revolutionizing the home and apartment construction industry through his pioneering work with Frametec.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema: [00:00:00] Damien Has launched and grown over 70 companies from zero to a hundred million throughout a remarkable 25 year journey. In addition to being a prolific author of 12 published books, Damien is celebrated for his extraordinary achievements in building multiple companies from the ground up. Many of which have reached seven, eight, even nine figure valuations.
Despite a significant setback that saw him lose a 20 million portfolio at the age of 30, Damien's resilience and determination led him not only to overcome homelessness, but also rebuild his wealth beyond nine figures.
Today. He is a driving force in transforming the retirement landscape with his groundbreaking retirement plan system and revolutionizing the home and apartment construction industry through his pioneering work with frame tech. [00:01:00] All right, my financially intentional people, I'm joined by Damien Lupo. We are going to talk about some pretty interesting stuff here. He has an incredible journey of losing millions, gaining millions back, Even if we aren't millionaires yet, I feel like we have something to learn from him.
So thank you so much for joining Damien, and I can't wait to get into your story.
Damion Lupo: Naseema, it's really great to be here. I'm really looking forward to unpacking and diving in and going on a journey with you.
Naseema: It. Let's get into it. let's talk about these millions that you've lost.
Damion Lupo: it's funny because looking back, I look at things as stories like they're like in the middle of chaos. I'm always thinking, this is going to make a great story one day. This is traumatic and painful and brutal. and then I go, but it'll be a good story. So I'm as we'll laugh about it now because life is short and you guys will try to smile in the middle of whatever chaos is going on.
But to the question so When I look back the last 25 years, I've lost all my money four times. And there was one [00:02:00] particular incidence after I started doing real estate, I went out and did a seminar, read a couple of books and said, I could be a real estate Baron and I can make billions. And this is my plan.
And I made millions, but. During that process, my ego and my arrogance got so big and out of control that I thought I was invincible and 2008 walked up and smashed me, drove over me and went from 20 million to negative five in about a year. And, I thought I was a superman.
and then I realized I was very mortal. And it was an incredible gift because going through that process, people asked me in the very beginning of my career, have you gone bankrupt yet? And I said, that sounds stupid. They said no, after you do it a couple of times, Ring us, call us, we'll talk about doing business.
And I thought that says, why would you want to do that? And nobody wants to, but the, but what you realize is that you learn a lot from it and people that, that are out there that want to do business with other people are oftentimes looking to figure out who you are based on what you've been through, not just how successful you've been, but.
what you're able to be resilient to move [00:03:00] through and all the stuff. And so I'm glad that happened early. I think it's better to happen early and probably not so often, but at least early. And so what going through that process, there was a process of several years of even acknowledging it.
There's this cycle of grief where you go through first off, you ignore it and you pretend it didn't happen like, Oh, it's fine. But then you realize, wait, I'm actually living in my vehicle. I probably did lose everything. And so then you start getting really mad and you blame everybody. Like I blamed the presidents and the economy and I blamed my ex girlfriend.
Like I blamed everybody. And then you go to a place of asking questions and there was a process of saying, okay what's really true. And I ended up working with a therapist who coached me and I wrote a book called reinvented life. To go through this process, this kind of cathartic process to pull all those lessons out partially because I wanted to learn what had just happened and not do it again.
And partially I thought it could be useful for other people that are on their journey and they can leverage off of my 10 years of going through this stuff. Because a lot of people go through a very similar thing that they're [00:04:00] creating, they're making money. And they don't really know how to process it.
It's money is as emotional as it is potentially physical. And it's, and there's a spiritual element to it. This is why you see lottery winners that they get 10 or a hundred million dollars. And then they're broke three years later in debt because their spirit did not match that level of money.
And and I saw that too. My spirit was, it wasn't an abundant, giving, loving spirit. It was a hoarding hedonistic douchebag type of spirit. And I had to learn through that. So that took me to a place where I started to reinvent myself and went deep into a space of, okay what's the purpose of this?
And is my job just to learn and make more money? Or is it, is there something else here? And that's when things really started to change. So that was like the first half of this 25 year journey was making millions and, having Ferraris and all that yada and then losing it all and saying, okay.
Now, what when you're the smartest person and you're the most sophisticated and you're the wealthiest person in the room, you're about to have a reckoning is what I've noticed.
Naseema: Definitely. I've been there. I [00:05:00] was part of that crash in 2008, 2009 filed bankruptcy and in 2010 I'm right there with you. I was like, the 1Million dollar area, not multi millions, but yeah, it was definitely a trying time.
Damion Lupo: And what's when sometimes I've heard people say, wow. That's I, like you just said, I, it was a million. But the reality is whether it's 20 million or a million, it's when it's everything and you have to start over, there's still this process, this painful, like gut wrenching process.
And one of the gifts around that, like you and I are sitting here talking today, years later, decade later. And what you realize looking back is these mistakes or these failures, if you will, they don't eat you. There's no dinosaur in the bushes. Like I used to, I grew up in Alaska and I've been to Africa and in both those places, I had to dodge polar bears and lions because they'll both eat you.
And in reality, most of us think somehow there's a lion or a bear or something in the woods. And that's because we've been trained that if you make a mistake, you're going to die. You're going to be, you're going to [00:06:00] fail. You're going to be ostracized. You're going to be thrown out of the tribe, the people, and you're a loser.
And the truth is in the real world, if you can get 30 or 40 percent you didn't fail, you're probably a billionaire or a hall of famer, or, you're changing the world. That's the key. And so this idea of losing money or making mistakes, not doing everything right, if you will that's how you get to tapping into your potential.
That's how you find fulfillment versus the success of making money or getting all A's or being a, being this perfect specimen of no mistakes. And that's the part of the reason that we have to go through these things. Like I said, And when you embrace that and you stop worrying about it, it's incredible because you go, wow, you know what, I just got smarter.
I just got better. I got more, I got humbler. And it's not just more money. It's literally more wisdom and more power to be able to do things that you're supposed to do. And what I learned was that it wasn't about me making more money. It was me. It was about creating more impact.
So instead of saying, I'm going to go make a billion dollars, I'm like, okay, I'm going to impact a billion lives. How do I start with that? What do I do? I figure out [00:07:00] who I am and what I was watching while this was all, I was going through this process with my parents retiring and watching them who played and they made money and they put their money into 401ks and I watched both of them retiring broke and then I watched my dad retire.
Not just retire, but die broke. And I think probably die earlier than he would have because he was running out of money and didn't want to be a burden on my family. So I've, I'm watching that. And that's very personal to see people go into that traumatic experience. And I thought, God, there's gotta be something I can do about this.
And what is that? I can help people take money out of the equation. Help them leverage off of what I went through, help them with them, help guide them through their money stuff. You hear a lot of people talking about how they have financial advisors, or you hear about people that are financial advisors saying, I manage money and The real power, the real place of financial freedom is not about a big pile of money.
It's not two or three million or 10 million in the bank. It's not a hundred thousand of passive income. It's the confidence that you can create that thing. And [00:08:00] once you have that, like your experience of bankruptcy and my experience of losing everything, once you understand that you can create it and you trust yourself, there's this incredible freedom that you own.
You can take everything I have away from me and you can't take away my wisdom and my experience. And I'll go out and create it just like back then. One of my mentors said, don't worry about it. You just lost all this money. And I'm like, are you kidding me? I want to go strangle some people. Like I am pissed, like people stolen from me.
He said, it won't matter. Just give it time and trust yourself and do the work. And so that confidence and that trust, and you can leverage other people's trust and their confidence is what really creates the financial freedom. It's not, I have a high paid job or I have these assets. It's that confidence and you have to go through the things and you go through some things and you leverage off of other people's things.
And that's what started happening in 2012, 13, 14 was, okay, how do I help as many people as possible and get to the point where they have the confidence, which means they're going to ultimately have the freedom. And we can take money out of this, out of there, the equation of happiness and peace so that they go, [00:09:00] okay, I may be broke, but I'm not poor.
That's the difference. When you have this abundant spirit with this confidence, you can never be poor again, you might be broke, but it doesn't really matter. And that's the shift that I'm driven for the mission to free a million people from financial bondage. It's the financial shackles that keep us trapped because we don't trust that we have the ability to create wealth.
Naseema: Yeah, I literally just did a podcast recording before this, where we talked about that. What's the worst that can happen, like running through like the worst case scenarios. What if everything that I have, I lose everything. And the thing is I know I can build it back because I have done that.
I've started over in my career. I've started over with my finances, but. Now I'm starting over with so much more knowledge than I had in 2009, 2010. So yeah, I'll build that back. And I like you said that you've done it four times over, which is a lot of lessons. So talk us through like the other three times and what happened and, how you've [00:10:00] rebuilt, what is that process like and why four times?
Damion Lupo: So here's the goal. When you lose everything, the goal is to not do the same loss process. So you want to at least lose it from a different thing and learn a different lesson. If you do the same one, you're a dodo bird. At that point, it's you're just not paying attention. The universe is a great example.
And I'll tell you about those three times of losing it all. I've gone skydiving four times. The first two times I lost my arms, they got pinched and I lost my biceps. So my arm was hanging for six months. The second jump, I lost my other arm for four months. The third jump, my shoot failed, got twisted, almost hit power lines, had to use the reserve shoot.
And then the fourth jump, because I'm apparently dumb and I keep doing the same thing when the universe is like, dude, stop jumping, it's not your sport. The fourth jump, the space shuttle exploded over me in Arizona in 2003, when it crashed into Texas and Louisiana. And every time that we have a lesson, there's an opportunity for us to go, okay, and course correct.
And if we don't get the lesson, the universe, God, whatever you want to call it, will give you a bigger lesson with more pain [00:11:00] so that you'll pay attention. And eventually, if I jumped again, probably be thermonuclear war.
Naseema: this is like insane. That is unbelievable. First of all, I'm not jumping out of nobody's plane. I get a ball. You did it four times and every time it was catastrophic. Like what? Yeah.
Damion Lupo: and then a plane lands on you. And so that's not my sport.
Like I hike now and I ski gently through the trees, so I'm not insane, or at least I realized I'm mortal and I can die. The money stuff was interesting because the first time I had a stock tip and I invested all my money for my childhood. I had 10, 000 put it into a stock went dropped by 97%.
And so I went from 10, 000 to three to 300. I was like, okay that's sucked. And then and so I learned don't just take a tip and go with it Like do some research and get smarter and don't bet everything on something you can't control And then the second time I learned about [00:12:00] leverage taking then again, this was stocks I borrowed twenty thousand dollars off of a twenty thousand dollar portfolio of stocks bought more the thing Corrected and I got called the margin got called and so I lost everything in one day I went, oh, so margin, it actually can hurt you as much as it can help you.
Usually, more often it
hurts. And then the last time, the most re recent time, I, I did a launch for my retirement account company and ran outta money within 18 months. And
so it was, not only did I run outta the money that had been put together to build the company, but so at that point everybody left.
I had one person that stayed and I was using my credit card. To take out cash advances to make payroll. And about six months later, I was negative net worth. And I was like, okay, I've literally gone back below zero again. And the difference this time, and this was like six years ago, the difference that time versus previous times, there was a mission there.
When that happened, I had 132 people literally a lot of families, just like normal main street people [00:13:00] that had said, Hey, I'm going to I'm buying into what you have and it's the EQRP. It's basically where you take your 401k money and you get to choose what you want to invest in. It's like real businesses and real estate and Bitcoin and gold.
And I had people that said I want to do that and basically it was my job to help them. And I said, I'm not going to quit this thing because I've got 132 families and I've got single moms and I've got single dads and I've got people that are retired. And they're like, Hey, I, I need you. That was my promise.
And I said, okay, it doesn't matter if I'm broke, I'm going to keep going. And so I kept pushing through that and just ground. Like I said, the only way that I quit is if I'm dead. And so I'm like I'm here, I'm still breathing. So that was me saying, okay, I'm going to push this.
And I pushed it and used just resiliency and energy. And ultimately that grew and it kept growing and the community became thousands of people and the, and it evolved into asking how can I help them become more free? I've given them a tool. They have a vehicle, but what are they going to do with the vehicle?
They got to put things in it. And that evolved into starting another [00:14:00] company that helped. Find the actual investments for people. And that led to frame tech, which is like this incredible thing that looks like an overnight success story. We'll talk about it. Took, it literally took 30 years of 70 companies that I had started to get to a point where I was ready to be a part of that and help guide that.
And it's, and not only is that helping investors with an investment, that's going to help them become financially free, but it's literally changing society for the better by, by solving the housing crisis. And this is good for everybody because the housing crisis reason houses are so expensive is because there's not enough being made.
And when you have supply and demand inequalities, you're going to have prices go up. That's how you solve it. But if we can produce more, which is what we're doing, all of a sudden that puts pressure down, which is good for society. Deflation is actually really good for society, contrary to what they tell you.
Naseema: Yeah. . I love that. But so when you are saying that company failed, that you had all these everyday investors investing in, did [00:15:00] they lose their money or eventually it grew. Okay.
Damion Lupo: Now that the people that were there, so the original company, the EQRP company was a place where I gave people a tool. The tool was a self directed 401k so they could go invest in things and they were relying on me to help give them support to make sure that their vehicle was okay.
Were still in charge of putting stuff in it.
So it was just a function that I wasn't running the company the way it needed to be run. I was having too much fun figuring out how to make new espresso drinks and not focusing on finding more customers and serving them. And so it was, it's typical tech startup. You get all excited, you got some money and you make some decisions that are like, you got to figure out how to create revenue.
Like this idea that you can have a company or an investment where it can just lose money for 10 years. Yeah, that worked with Amazon, but they had billions of dollars from Wall Street. When you're starting up, you got to figure out how to do something of value and create that exchange. And I wasn't doing it fast enough.
And it's one of the things about money is it can make you really dumb and lazy. You go, Oh, I got plenty of money. And then you start thinking your money is your solution for everything, or you just make really [00:16:00] dumb decisions and the money goes away. And then you go, Oh. I better start hustling again.
And that's always treating yourself as if you're broke is very effective. Not to the point where you're homeless. Cause I think that creates too much tension and friction, but having too much cash sitting around, it's very easy to go off and just start wandering, playing, vacationing, going hunting for six months, like all the things that people do and they literally have an affair on their business and their investments.
They stop paying attention. And guess what? If you have an affair, it's just like with a marriage. If you have an affair. Usually your spouse leaves, same thing with your money. Your money will leave if you have an affair on it. If you stop paying attention, it's going to go away. And that's consistently what happens.
So, there was a shift and it was like, okay, I'm going to become obsessed. I was very Grant Cardone, be obsessed or be average. I'm like, screw average. This is all about doing something that matters. People are counting on this and not just the ones that were customers, but the people that hadn't heard about this or didn't know, Over the next six years, people come in and they go, I had no idea I could do this.
I thought I was stuck in the [00:17:00] S and P 500. And then my life was going to be a wall street roller coaster ride. And I was always going to be afraid of it dropping. And you've given me this power and control over my life where I can predict my financial future, which drives almost everything else.
Regardless of all the politics and all the things that are going on, the one thing that's consistent for everybody is their money. And when the, when they, when you don't understand the money, or you don't have the feeling that you control it, you're literally afraid all the time. There is nobody that says, I have no money and it's fine.
Yeah, you're still hungry. And so either you're begging for money or you're begging for food, or you're going out there and trying to figure it out, but it does take your mind space. So the goal here is to get everybody confident enough so they can focus on things that really matter. When you get money out of the equation, that's awesome because you all this time and space to pursue things.
Money should not be the goal. That's disgusting. It's terrible. It's a worthless life. That was my twenties. Money is the goal. And I went oh, okay good. I got that lesson. I don't need to skydive five times. I don't need to go after money a second time I need to go [00:18:00] after the impact.
I need to go figure out how to serve other people I'll be fine as long as i'm serving enough other people My life will absolutely be whatever it's supposed to be in a beautiful way like ziggler used to talk about So that's how the evolution happened. And then what?
When you stairstep on all these mistakes and these experiences, things keep growing in terms of impact. And what's interesting is impact, the bigger the impact, typically the bigger the side effect money. Shoots out the side and you go, Whoa, that's like, where did that come from? It's when my mentor said, don't worry about the 5 million that, that was just literally stolen.
Don't worry about it. It won't mean anything. And I was like, what? 15 years later, it doesn't, but it took time and it took more companies and it took more grit and more resilience and more pain. And that's the thing. I think most people just quit too early or they just don't even know where to start.
So the goal here is to give everybody something to start with and then know that in reality. Wherever you are, if you've got a vision and the willingness to work, you can go wherever you want to go.
Naseema: Let's go there because first of all, [00:19:00] I'm in the San Francisco Bay area, so we know all about the startup life. here,
Damion Lupo: Yes,
Naseema: and then . But like, where do people start? Because that's the number one question that people ask me. Like, how do I get started? Let's go there.
Damion Lupo: The first thing, before anybody should figure out how they get started, the question is where do you want to be and where are you? This is, people say this in a lot of different ways, but the truth is you shouldn't start anything until you know where you're going. Like you can get in the car and hit the gas and you'll get somewhere.
But the question is, were you actually intentionally going there? And if you're just wanting to wander, then, stop listening to this show, because this is not a wander. This is called financially intentional. There is a reason that your show, like this is why you're listening, watching this.
And so the first question is where are you going and where are you and what's your trajectory? People go I want to be here. I want to be financially free. I want to make this much money because I want the things that the money will do. And then you go you're literally going backwards.
Every year you're spending more than you're making and you want to be a multimillionaire. That is the opposite of the formula you need. So there's this clarity and I call it the system [00:20:00] called the map, the millionaire action plan. And it's really about starting there. Okay. Where do you want to go?
Where are you and what direction are you heading? And when you're really honest about that, we tend to lie about our money and we tend to want to hide from the truth. So we don't tell other people. And then we sit there and bang our head in a dark room against the wall, trying to figure out where the door is.
And we've done no idea. And so usually the first step is asking somebody for help that is actually rich and free.
And people that have created a lot of money by influencing on YouTube. We see them pitching and teaching and they have actually never gone out there and done the real world thing.
And what you should do is if you want to become an influencer, you should follow them and their model. But if you have another idea that the key is find people and then start absorbing their stuff. Like whether, 25 years ago, I was devouring tapes, all the wisdom of these people.
And that's who I hung out with. it would sound lonely, but the reality is I was surrounded by Tony Robbins and Zig Ziglar and Jim Rohn and all these real estate gurus. And I was learning by being around them. If you're around the same people, That you've always been around.
You're just going to be like [00:21:00] them forever. And they're probably not going to change a whole lot. Most people don't. So if you have a different vision, you're going to have to start influencing yourself. And that's something everybody can do. Two things, your environment and your people. What environment, if you're in a very poor environment.
Where it's just it's dilapidated and it's dangerous your brain is going to stay in that space it's not a good thing if you're in a
terrible job, you hate it. You're going to be miserable You're not going to be thinking about that's in the middle of being miserable every day So it's the environment and then truly the influences of people that are around you.
What are you turning on? Do you have the television on that is full of pharma ads and political ads? And it's brain damaging brainwashing is brain damaging you every freaking day about every three minutes So it's being conscious of those influences Listening to this, these type of shows and then saying, okay, so I'm shifting what I'm being, what the input is what external was source.
And then you say, okay I'm picking the ones that are actually that the model. So if you start modeling, it's the ultimate thing. Like people don't go into the gym and say, I'm going to make everything up. They have [00:22:00] coaches every success story in the world in sports has, there's always a coach.
And it's because we can't see ourselves swings. You got to have somebody that's there. And people say I've got my cousin. I've got my spouse. I've got my so and my neighbor. I'm like no. You've got to have somebody that's going to tell you the truth. You got to have somebody that you're doing things and they say, what about this?
And you have enough trust in them. And usually you have trust in somebody that you're paying. So find somebody that you will invest in. And why are you doing that? Because we tend to pay attention to what we pay for. So if you have a pain price, you're like, man, I don't know, this is like a thousand dollars a month to have somebody talk to me for an hour.
And that seems like a lot. The question is it because if you're committed, that thousand is worth a hundred times that, but the people, when you, if you have a question about whether or not something's worth it, you're probably just not committed enough. So once you're committed, so it's the first thing you do is make sure you're committed, make sure you know where you're going and then figure out who you're going to have influencing you and then shut up, listen, and do the work.
And it's not about, I'm going to trade stocks or I'm going to buy real [00:23:00] estate, or I'm going to start a business. You got to start with these fundamental things first and then here's the secret. It doesn't matter It doesn't matter if you're going to trade stocks or what business you're going to do or what you're going to invest in Because anything you're doing I can promise you that there's a model to become financially free It doesn't matter and even if you do this thing and it doesn't work.
It doesn't matter because you're getting better
So the key is starting and how do you start you got to have these fundamental pieces And that's what launches everybody into the space. It's not that you said, wow, I had this idea. And 15 minutes later, I was a millionaire. No it, there's a process to it, to your original question.
That's where you start. You start with the end in mind. There's a great series of books by Stephen Covey, that he wrote. And one of the key principles was start with the end in mind. And that's how we need to start. We're the only species, which is crazy, but true. Humans are a little bit weird.
I guess we're like 97 percent of the same DNA as a banana. So maybe we're not that unique, but it's, we were the only [00:24:00] species that is able to look into the future. Everything else is present. Now, I don't know if that's good or bad because humans could use a lot more presence, but every other animal is thinking about what it's doing in the moment.
It's either feeding or fornicating or something, but it's all in the moment. There is no past. There's no future. Humans are bizarre. We're anxious about the future and we're. We're like stressing depressed about the past, but we have the ability to focus our frontal, our brain towards the future and then create it.
And that's the key. Focus on that and then get the things around you that are going to help support you and grow you in that direction.
Naseema: like that because that's exactly what I tell people to change their circle of influence. Listen to the messages that you're taking in because we are inundated with messages, political messages as far as like you said, but overwhelming messages to be consumers and spend money on this and do that.
But not a lot of messages that teach people about building wealth. And as far as like getting in the right spaces and getting [00:25:00] coaches and all that kind of stuff. And also, like you said there's no limit on influencers that'll tell you do X, Y, and Z to get rich and all that kind of stuff.
How do people know how to find the right coaches that are going to lead them on the path? Because I think that makes the biggest difference. I want to talk about like how you found your people that you learned from Because we're on different playing fields. Okay. You're in a whole nother realm.
But, and I think that's a product of the people that you choose to learn from. Yeah,
Damion Lupo: okay with learning from the wrong people and then saying, Oh, it'd be, and using discernment and saying, oops, like there's, there is a process. And I've gone through plenty of people that were, I thought might using my theoretical discernment and wisdom at the time, this is a great mentor.
This is a great mastermind. And then you go through it and you go, Oh, maybe not. And so part of it's instinct. Like when you're, you make a choice and you choose something just like you choose a business and you go, that was a terrible idea, but I'm going to learn something from it and move to the next thing.
I don't know that it [00:26:00] matters if it's not about perfection. This is literally about taking those steps. At this point, I can look at people, I can look at businesses, I can look at investments and instinctually, because there's an emotional intelligence because of the experience of doing things, I can look at things and I'll know and have an instinct about whether something's a yes or no, whether it's hiring somebody or putting money into something or a business decision.
Those decisions happen faster because it's emotional because there's this baked into my DNA experience and wisdom. Where did that come from? That was not a book. That was going through all the things that didn't work and then going, Oh, okay. And so I'm not consciously thinking about that every time I'm making a decision.
My instincts are kicking in and that's what takes time. And unfortunately, Most people are just taught, like you said it earlier, like everything is it's now it's instant gratification. We're our streams. We see highlight reels of people's lives and we go, Oh, that's what I want. No, you didn't see.
It's whether it's Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift, like everybody goes, wow, overnight they're worth a billion dollars. No, they were playing guitar at three [00:27:00] years old and they've done it for 15 years. There's this backstory that we're not seeing. And here's the cool thing. Instead of saying, I just want the outcome.
I just want the money. Figure out what you can fall in love with. If you can fall in love with the process, you've already won. And then all of a sudden the side effect happens. Like the process of building this manufacturing plant that we're doing here in Arizona. This process is amazing. And yes, like this plant will be worth six, 700 million by itself when, in a year, it's been, Two and a half years since we started that for some people, that's their outcome.
They're just like, Hey, just give me the money for us. We see this thing. And we said, there's a huge problem. We've got a housing crisis and we're going to grind and hustle our asses off for as long as it takes 18 hours a day for as many years as it takes to solve this thing. And so we're in there and it's coming to life, but everybody that's there, that's physically there is absolutely obsessed with the process and each other and making this thing work.
And that is different than the mentality or the energy of somebody that says, I just want to make 20 percent of my money. [00:28:00] That is disgusting in my mind and not fun. It doesn't mean you should want to lose money, but if that's your obsession, then you're going to end up being let down. It's just not, and quite honestly, you'll never be happy.
Naseema: how did you shift from basically have an investment platform to being into physical manufacturing for this frame tech company.
Damion Lupo: The mission started off close to 10 years ago to free a million people from financial bondage.
And when you have guidelines and you have guideposts and you have. This mission, and basically it's easy to say no to things you're like, Oh, that doesn't fit. If you don't have any type of framework or context, or if no rules, then you'll see yes to everything.
And the problem with saying yes, is that you fill your space and you don't have any, there's no space left for the things that really do fit something that means something to you. It was saying, okay, what is that? And it's the million people financially free, no more shackles. So each thing that comes into my life over the last decade was there was a yes or a no, or I want to go further [00:29:00] based on, does this fit that mission?
So ultimately a few years ago, when this thing came to me and I was looking at this opportunity to build this, I said, Okay. You know what? This is really cool. I don't think this is true. I think this is BS. there's no way that this could actually be real, that we could produce this.
And so I did what every normal person does. I just basically threw it away for six months. And then I went back to it and I kept getting bugged by the people that had brought it to me. And I said, okay, fine. I'll look at it deeper and met with the people. And I realized this is true. This creates more freedom, more prosperity for society.
It's good for the environment. Okay. Has almost no impact on the environment. It's renewable resources, solar. It's going to create incredible wealth for people, making them 30 plus percent of their money. So it's truly, it's normally you go to wall street and you're like, I hope I get eight or 9%. We're creating this wealth and we're providing housing and jobs, hundreds of jobs and creating this culture.
And I was like, okay, Now I'm in because all the stakeholders are winning here. Everybody in this whole thing, [00:30:00] like it's a kind of a cliche thing. Like all the stakeholders, like stakeholder winners or whatever. The truth is everybody, the employees, the investors, the environment, the community, everybody was winning.
We're doing stuff that's unheard of. This is a blue collar manufacturing plant. We're putting in not only a cafeteria onsite, we're putting in A daycare center for our families that work. So you know what happens nowadays? You get two people in a household. They can barely make ends meet They're like one of us is working for the child care
Naseema: That's it.
Damion Lupo: right.
We're like, what are the pain points? So we said the pain points are people are eating crappy and they're and so we can solve That they're stressed out about their kids are like, I got to get to the childcare place because if I'm one minute late, it's 10, half an hour late. I just paid, I just worked two days for being late.
So we're like, okay, we'll put that next door. They can see their kids at lunch. And then we're putting a, you'll love this in your field. We're putting a wellness center staffed by medical professionals on site. So not only do we have. People there to take care of injuries, but this is wellness.
So it's meant so that people can go [00:31:00] there and they're not just going to their primary care and saying, Hey, I'm sick. Give me a drug. They're going there to stay well. So we're getting ahead of it. We're investing in their wellness and their families and their kids. So the idea here is not only is this good for them, but when you think about taking care of people and treating them like your family, guess what they're never going to do.
They're never leaving.
They're always, so it's good for business. And most businesses have turned into this whole weird space of how do we shrink our expenses and treat everybody like a cog that's disposable and expendable. And we don't look at it that way. So this is not only a disruption for the construction world and creating housing, but this is a new model for business.
It's how you should look. We think how you should look at humans, how you look at communities, how you build things together, how everybody wins together. It doesn't have to be win, lose. That is a bullshit type of thing. That concept is nonsense. You can absolutely have cooperation and we win together. And that's what we're doing.
I
Naseema: I love that. I love the disruption and you are 100 percent right. These organizations, especially [00:32:00] right now are being ruthless. And everything you said, I'm like, not in my head. I literally have a second job just made for child care because it's 4, 000 a month. I have 3 kids and I'm a single mom, and.
And my child care is an hour away from my job and if I'm a minute late I literally almost had an aneurysm the other day stressing to get home in traffic to make sure I can pick up my kids and on time it's not a game. And I think that a lot of people overlook that especially because, a lot of industries aren't.
Family oriented, right? It's not. And love that you're so many things that is wrong, but I think that goes along with what you said with your mission. My mission is not my bottom line. My mission. Is to serve as many people as I can and to make as many people financially free as possible.
And then as a side effect, the money just comes in and that [00:33:00] shift in thinking is what a lot of people just don't understand. So I'm glad that not, you not only shared that, but you exemplify that and your business. So kudos to you. Yeah.
Yeah.
Damion Lupo: What's really cool is you get so into something and you realize time and space sort of changes. You don't even notice that years go by because you're so into this you're in love with your life,
Naseema: So it's not even work.
Damion Lupo: It's really it's not it's a lot of work, but it doesn't it's just when you're on purpose that there's a flow state that happens.
And when you have work, that's meaningful and matters, it ends up being a lot of your life is flow state. I had a lot of this experience with my martial arts background. When you're in flow state you could almost levitate and you can move and it's a very strange experience that happens with deeply meaningful work.
Unfortunately. People don't start with that. They don't say, okay, I'm going to go do something meaningful. They go, where's the money. And then it turns into Brewster's millions or some crazy, I don't know if people, whatever people, some people have seen that, but it's like all about the money. And that's very Western.[00:34:00]
That's it's unfortunate because. Like we're not money bees or honey bees, if you will. There's, you think about your focus. The money is a 90 percent offshoot. What is the focus? Like in medicine. Unfortunately, I've heard a lot of people say medicine's great because there's a lot of money there.
And I'm like, man, you're in the wrong thing. If it's just about the money, there's I you never really want I don't want to go to a doctor that says I got into this because I want to make A lot of money. I'm like wow. So you're going to be making decisions based on that. So that freaks me out,
Naseema: Yes, a hundred
percent.
Damion Lupo: It's the same thing with anything when you're Like I see a lot of businesses where people say i'm just building this thing just to sell it off And we'll sell this company eventually and that's part of the process like when you have hundreds of investors That's part of the model But we're doing something.
What we're doing is we're creating something that's going to help society in a massive, transformational way,
And that's what I'm hoping for everybody. Take what you've seen, learn and heard from me and from frame tech and go apply that to your life. Go build something, become a part of [00:35:00] something.
And like one of the things that I did to you asked, like the first step, I consolidated sort of all this stuff into a place called turnkey retirement. Cause people generally are freaked out about. Outliving their money. And so I thought, okay how could I get people to a place where very quickly they said, okay here's the path.
And that was where a turnkey retirement came. It was, it blossomed and came out of thin air. I was like, okay, where's the one place people should go to start? Cause there is way too much information. We're drowning in information and we're starving for wisdom. So what this is, it's like the consolidated place where you can download your, basically your guide and my experiences.
So very quickly you go, Oh, turnkeyretirement. com. You're like, Oh, I got a first step. And, that was meant because there's so much stuff. Like I could bury people in information. They're like, I need a nap because I'm overloaded. And it's very exciting. Obviously I'm pretty excited and passionate about it, but there also needs to be a step because
otherwise, it's what we call mental masturbation.
It's okay, great. That was really exciting. And now it'll.[00:36:00]
Naseema: Yeah, it's so much that people can learn from this that. So I wanted to talk about you did mention just a traditional route of retiring and you mentioned that, your parents, Ran out of money by doing everything right. And for most of us that's all we know. Like, how do you walk people through that? Okay. Yes, you've been doing all the things you've been saving for retirement. You've been, putting your money away. You've been working hard all these years, but it's not going to be enough. So
Damion Lupo: So the first thing to realize is that the system is set up against you, like saving money that you're told to save. The system is printing money faster than you can save it. So saving money is not going to help you. You're literally just going backwards. I'm not saying you shouldn't save. I'm saying you got it, there's another step.
And the next step is saying okay, what do I do? You? The biggest thing that's missing is saying, it's my life. It's Larry Wingat has a book [00:37:00] called it shut up, stop whining and get a life. Your life is your own damn fault. This is true. Like your life is your fault. And so taking responsibility for your money and saying, okay I need to do something different.
If I want a different life, if I don't want to be in the rat race forever, I need to make a different choice. So what, what do you do? What truly do you do? And you have to get around people that are doing something different. Like it's, I'm going to say it a million times.
It was like Elon at a, he was talking about voting. He's you got to go vote. I'm going to say this a million times. You got to go vote. And it was hammering the point. You got to get some different influence. What'll happen is you'll start acting differently. If you hear the things over and over, cause you will subconsciously pound it into your brain and then you'll start talking differently.
Like I lived in Alabama for a while and I was watching, listening to myself. Like I am literally talking with a Southern accent. It's not natural, but I was doing it because I was adapting. And that's what we do with money. We adapt to people. We'll make decisions differently. If all of our friends are investing in apartments, We're probably going to start investing in apartments.
Like we'll just [00:38:00] do it because we naturally want to fit in. If all of our friends are 400 pounds and have Kentucky fried chicken, every meal, we're probably doing the same thing and we're going to have a heart attack. If all our friends are fit and running triathlons, we're probably going to be fit and run triathlons.
So with money, there's no difference, but we tend to make it so it's like money and sex. So taboo, we don't talk about it. And then we were all jacked up about both of them. So if you can say, okay, I'm going to be honest about this. And, I'm going to ask other people and I'm going to get around other people.
And then you start learning, okay, this is. This is the type of person I want to be around. I like this person or man, this is a terrible book. I don't like Dave Ramsey. And I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm saying like, that's he's one of those guys. I've beat up Dave Ramsey a lot over the last 10 years of shows.
And the reason being because I 100 percent agree that everyone should be on a path to being debt free. That's awesome. But there's a next step because you cannot eat the equity in your house. Like great you own your house free and clear then what you're gonna see tom selleck on the tv saying Get a reverse
mortgage eat the [00:39:00] equity in your house.
My son of a bitch. Don't stop telling people that is not a good plan That is not a good plan Like what the plan is taking responsibility, learning about financial literacy, and then going out and building the muscle around it. And so it's one thing at a time, maybe it's buying an ounce of silver, maybe it's buying one share of a stock, maybe it's investing in some crowd starter with real estate or getting a rental house.
There's a million things. It doesn't make any difference. It's doing something that gets you in the game and stops. You from doing the thing, which is what you said, we're all told to work hard and save money. Okay. So you save money and you're for years, we saw zero percent, you're making nothing or making five, but real reality is inflation's at eight, nine, 10, 15%.
Working hard doesn't cut it. You got to do hard work and you got to do something smart because hard work. Do you see any ditch diggers that are millionaires? No, like you just gotta, you gotta really be thoughtful about the programming. Cause we've been told our whole lives work hard, get good grades, go to college, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And that stuff is not enough. That keeps us in shackled by people like the Rockefellers that [00:40:00] said, we want people that are part of the cog system that we can basically enslave them. Money is modern day slavery. And that system has been in place and getting worse for the last hundred years. So you've got to break out of that system and you've got to say, okay.
I need to know what I don't know. So who do I start with? And because they're going to have some information the information is out there and so it's sifting through it And eventually you just resonate with certain people and you go You know what? This really resonates and a lot of it has to do with do I trust this person that's real and has actually done it If people haven't done it stop listening to them because all they're doing is theorizing That's you go to college for that.
Most people in college haven't done crap They just read books about it, got a PhD and now they're teaching it. I hate that. Go find people that have done it. Those are called mentors.
Naseema: I agree. Ha. I 100 percent agree. But, there's a lot of that out there and it's hard to weed through it. But like you said, trial and error, you'll start to get a sense of, really who you can learn from, who your mentor should be. What kind of people have been [00:41:00] your biggest mentors?
Damion Lupo: So the biggest mentors have there's such a variety. I've got mentors, like my accountant is one of my best friends and one of my mentors, and it's because he doesn't just file taxes. He literally. We talk about life and about all the stuff with money. And it's very interesting. And so I, my mentors tend to be people that are doing things that are not normal.
They tend to be people that that I have a lot of respect for that are actually taking action and are not doing the Monday through Friday thing with football on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. There's, I'm not saying I don't like football. I like, I watch football, but there's, it's people that are doing things different.
And I just, I think it's more interesting. It's like why people listen to podcasts or watch videos. There's something interesting and compelling. So mentors I tend to have, I want people that are way down the road, 10 to 20 years. Beyond because they've gone through cycles. They have less hair.
Although at this point I'm bald So I have to you can't have less hair than me But there's a gray factor like they've got some [00:42:00] wisdom from the experiences I want to have that because it gives me a look into the future And that's really what it takes look into the future and then start modeling and then saying, I like that.
I don't like this. And then you start picking and choosing versus making absolutely everything up yourself. Find those people, I think you need three people in your life. You need people that are 10 to 20 years in the future. You need peers that are basically a similar age, similar phase of life.
And you need people that are 10 to 20 years behind you that you can mentor, that you can teach from your experience. That creates this well rounded experience of as a human, because if you're always teaching, that's really. Not probably the healthiest thing. And because sometimes you end up with a God complex.
It's I'm the smartest thing. That's probably not good. And I just think that there's value in, in all these phases and in leveraging where you're at in life. So those are the, I tend to find, you can learn a lot from people that are 20 years younger because you're like stuck in your ways.
And then you're like, you're doing what with AI.
Naseema: that part.
Damion Lupo: It's unbelievable. So keeping [00:43:00] this variety of people around you, it doesn't matter how old you are, whether you're 20, 40, 60, just have that variety. There's like Warren Buffett's in his nineties, so you could be 70 right now and say who do I go to that has more decades?
There's Warren Buffett, there's Barry Switzer, there's all these people that are in their eighties and nineties, so there's a. It's really just asking the question instead of saying, I couldn't do that. Just ask, how could I do that? And your brain will find all these options and solutions.
It's like the coolest thing. The brain is the ultimate supercomputer and we completely limit our ability because we don't ask it the right questions.
Naseema: I know a lot of people out there at a point where they feel like they haven't made the best money decisions. They're not where they want to be in life, but they're in their 40s 50s and they're like it's too late. What message do you have for them? Yeah. Yes. Yes.
Damion Lupo: the biggest thing is, it's not about getting to a point. It's about being in the process of that, whatever it is. And so whether you're [00:44:00] 40, being in a process, you also when my dad checked out and he stopped really creating, and he was really staring at a dwindling amount of money, his spirit was dead.
And it was a matter of time. If you're creating something, you why do you have people are the guy that created the frame tech All the patents and everything else that we're doing guy's 81 years old and he runs circles around almost everybody And i'm like i'm looking at why because he's got this deep purpose So people that say I just want to retire and then go live at the beach I'm, like, you know what the whole point of retirement is the universe says.
Oh, you're done good. You're consuming resources We're done with you. That's why the average male in america is dead in less than three years according to social security We don't last, if you're not contributing, if you're not building, if you're not teaching, if you're not doing something.
So the question is, what could you do that is really feeding your soul and your soul because you're serving other people. And so that, that's, that is the key. It's finding that, and if you are in the wrong place, really reconsider whether you should shift so that your process is fulfilling in terms of life giving.[00:45:00]
Naseema: that. I love that. And do you work with people to help get them on the path? Or are you just like out here preaching your ministry? What's going on? How do you help?
Damion Lupo: So one of the things that I did over the last decade was built a community and it was really a place where people could like, I have a mastermind that I just gave to the community and it was a place where I could share things and give people a chance to have time. And then we could conspire with their stuff and answer questions.
And it was a raw place for real conversation. So there's some of that stuff that's gone on my podcast that gets relaunched in november That was it's called fu financial underdogs So there's a place there where people can hear that the stuff that i'm talking about and being a part of it There's This all really starts at turnkey retirement.
All those things come together. Like the turnkeyretirement. com site is like here you go there and you're like, okay, I can find the people. I can find the messages. I can find the, I can find all the dumb things Damien has done. So I can avoid those. There's all this stuff that's really consolidated [00:46:00] and truly it's no BS.
Like I don't have time for it and I call it whatever it is. And sometimes people don't like that. People don't like the truth about stuff, but you ever heard that saying the truth will set you free. That's, it's never more true than in money. And so that's what we're going for. That we're going for the truth so that we can take money out of the equation.
And once that happens, all of a sudden it's like your life is whatever you want it to be. It's a life by design, not by default.
Naseema: And I love that. I love that you have this community, but also I feel like, a lot of people will listen to this and just be like it's easy for Damien. He's a white man in America and the system is not rigged against him. Do you say to people that think that you just.
Even though you shared all your failures and all this thing, that is just easy for you. Yeah,
Damion Lupo: I don't care what the background is I don't care what you know, if you're from poor or rich [00:47:00] if you're white or black It's for me. I see the money system as like when I said that i'm being serious I think money is that modern day slavery and because everybody that doesn't understand it's being used against them and then we're just We're grinding and it's stealing our life force It's like the matrix like our energy is being sucked out of this out of us by this thing and so yeah, Here's the great equalizer.
We all have the same 24 hours and we all have a brain that allows us to make choices. So if you're in America, I it's hard for me to say, Oh yeah. It just because of X, Y, or Z unless you're in prison, like that's hard okay, look, I'm not going to try to say that I have an answer for somebody in prison, but most people are probably not listening or watching from prison.
So if you're not in prison, then my thought is we all have free will and. And, it doesn't really matter where you are. The question is, where do you want to go and what are you willing to do to get there? And if you're willing to put in the work and say, okay, I'm going to take responsibility and do the thing, then there isn't really any limit except what you put on yourself.
And it's not like this happened and I said, oh [00:48:00] yeah, two years ago. I made this choice This was 30 years ago. And it's been freaking hard I kid you not about froze to death in my car living homeless
Naseema: Oh, wow.
Damion Lupo: Let's you know, let's talk about reality of where people are at most people.
They're like man. My life is hard Are you homeless living in a vehicle? Some people are, but they're probably also not listening to the podcast. Maybe they are, but I just, I don't do well with people's excuses about where they are, where they've been. My question is where you're going, because that's all you've got.
What are you going to do today? How are you going to think about it? I don't people get stuck in their story and then they swim in it and then they're drowning in it and I look at that I'm like Stop put your head above water. Go to the get out of the pool, but you're literally I think that unfortunately people find solace in their story and because people like to be victims they like to be victims because it makes them feel Like their life has meaning like this is my story.
You know what you can also create any story you want This is, we still live in a free country, so it's, there, there's a choice. Every day we make the choice. And unfortunately a lot of [00:49:00] people make a choice to stay in their past.
Naseema: That is a hundred percent true. So Damian, you have shared like a wealth of knowledge and are super motivational. How can people connect with you, stay in contact with you?
Damion Lupo: Best way to reach me is go to turnkeyretirement. com and grab the material there that's like literally it's what you're asking about. What's the next, what's the first step. That download that first step, you'll be able to go there and get that there's a downloadable guide on here. Here's what you do.
It's the stuff we've been talking about more tactical stuff and getting clear on it and then resources that you can keep following up with. But truly, you got to have some type of playbook, you got to have a guide. Otherwise, you're just all chasing. It's I always say it's like a drunk squirrel chasing shiny nuts.
You're just there. It's everywhere. They're shiny. That's everywhere. So we're bringing people down into this one place. Here's where you start and then take it from there and then learn. And don't worry about if you fall on your face, just get back up again.
Naseema: That's right. So many people are afraid to fail that they don't even start. And it's really devastating because I have learned my biggest lessons [00:50:00] through failure. And I hope, that's what I teach my kids too. So I appreciate all the knowledge that you shared. I learned so much your energy is infectious.
So I appreciate you. I'm definitely interested to see. See what happens with this business. Like I'm like let me see if I can invest in this because it seems like it's revolutionizing the game, not only for your employees, but as an industry we definitely need more housing, especially in California, that's another issue I
Damion Lupo: problem everywhere. It's crazy. And it's, and that's part of why I'm doing this thing with
FrameTek
Things in terms of how big of an impact can I have. And so, there's a lot of things you can do in construction. You can go say, okay, I'm going to be a custom home builder one house at a time.
Or you can say, I'm going to figure out how to make hundreds of thousands and millions of framed homes. That's a very different focus. And so I'm asking, could I envision that? And the answer is yes. Then I say, okay, great. How do I actually create it? And then you bring incredible [00:51:00] talent together. So, the question is, what can I do that has the ability to impact the most?
And that's not, it's not necessarily a thing that makes you money. It's the thing that, that has the biggest ripple effect. And that may be exactly what's missing for a lot of people. They just haven't thought about what might I do that could create massive ripples for prosperity and freedom for people in the world.
Naseema: And they're asking the wrong questions. A lot of people are just like, how can I make more money? Yeah, I like that reframe, but thank you so much, Damien. This has been an amazing conversation. I appreciate you coming on and I'll have all the links in my show notes for people to turn to check out Turnkey Retirement, learn more about Frame Tech.
Maybe I'll come work there as a nurse so I can have my child care next door.
Damion Lupo: The whole deal. It's all there.
Naseema: Yes, I love it. Thank you so much.
Damion Lupo: All right. Thank you for having me.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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