High Level People

Removing Shiny Objects & Focusing on the Main Thing with Jaben Makings

PJ Crescenzo Episode 17

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In episode 17 of High Level People, PJ Crescenzo III interviews Jaben Makings, founder of Onnix Investments, as he discusses the challenges he faced as a young entrepreneur, including the pitfalls of shiny object syndrome and the importance of focus in achieving success.

Tune in for an inspiring conversation that serves as a playbook for achieving your own goals and climbing to new heights.


TIMESTAMPS

[00:01:07] Transformation from small town.

[00:05:50] Shiny object syndrome in business.

[00:06:27] Diversification for multiplication.

[00:12:09] Entrepreneurial growth and mentorship.

[00:15:51] Company vision and revenue goals.

[00:16:13] Future office vision and growth.

[00:20:03] Purpose and entrepreneurship shift.

[00:24:17] Accountability in leadership transition.

[00:27:40] Belief and empowering truth.

[00:29:15] Faith vs. Instant Gratification.

[00:32:27] The essence of the soul.

[00:36:25] Setting ambitious revenue goals.

[00:39:03] Future revenue projections.

[00:42:51] Family mission statement.

[00:45:12] Future generations and blessings.


QUOTES

  • "You're never going to be extremely successful unless you just lock in on one thing." -Jaben Makings
  •  "Oftentimes the thing you don't want to face is the same thing you have to go through to get to where you want to be." -PJ Crescenzo
  •  "It doesn't matter the era or the time, the human soul never changes." -PJ Crescenzo


SOCIAL MEDIA


PJ CRESCENZO III

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pjcrez3/?hl=en 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-crescenzo-iii-11679065


Jaben Makings

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaben-makings

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaben_makings/



WEBSITE:


Onnix Investments: https://onnixinvestments.com/




Support the show

Welcome to the High Level People podcast with your host, P.J. Crescenzo. This is the show where every week we go inside the minds of modern market leaders. These are world class entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and ministry leaders who are making a generational impact on the world today. The question is, if you're going to compete, why not compete at the highest level possible? And that's what this show is designed for, to give you a playbook for your life so that you can continue to climb levels week after week. This is the High Level People podcast and welcome to today's episode. Welcome to the High Level People podcast today. I'm super fired up to have Jaben Makings on the show. Jaben has an incredible story of transformation growth. He's a high level entrepreneur. We got an organic introduction from an amazing mutual friend, colleague, and somebody that's helping us both grow. So Jaben, welcome to the High Level People podcast. Hey, excited to be here. Thanks for having me. My Man, where do I begin? Yeah, so I run a wholesaling company here in Scottsdale, Arizona. I grew up in a small town in Nebraska of like 1,200 people and moved out to Arizona when I turned 18. I had my eyes set on starting a pool company, which is the whole reason that I moved out here to Arizona. I moved out here a month after my 18th birthday, started working for another company, kind of learning the ropes. And as I was doing that, I realized that I didn't want to do that forever. Right. And the main reason was that the owner was in his 60s and he was having to go out and clean the pools when guys would call out sick. And I was like, there's no way I'm going to be cleaning pools when I'm 60 years old. And fast forward, knowing what I know now, if the business was set up a little bit differently, that probably wouldn't be the case. But that put a really bad taste in my mouth. So I'm like, what is the best way I can go out and get rich quick and make a ton of fast money? I'm going to go be a real estate agent. Right. I didn't know anything about it. So I went and got my license. And that couldn't have been further from the truth. Right. It was harder than I thought. It was more boring than I thought. And very slow money. So I did that for a couple of years before starting Onnix Investments, which I run now, which is wholesaling. For those of you guys that don't know, we go out and put properties under contract, and then we'll sell them to an end buyer for a higher price. I love that. Okay, so a couple of things from what you shared. What was the biggest personal transformation you had from going from a small city to Scottsdale? How did being in a bigger market help you evolve as a man, entrepreneur, leader? Yeah, it was it was a completely different world. Right. I grew up drinking with my buddies in a small town. Right. We had Omaha somewhat nearby. So there's a little bit of that. But there's a whole different world out here. I'd never really seen anything like it. I came out and visited one time before I moved out. So it was crazy getting to know a city. And I fell in love. Right. I was like, there's no going back. And the opportunity here was amazing. I was meeting great people. So after I moved down here, there was there's really no looking back. Did you have a strategy when you got to Scottsdale of how are you going to build relationships in a new market? Was there any, you know, specific intentionality of how you wanted to move and operate to develop organically? So I, I was young, right? I had no, no idea what the next few years are going to hold. I was like, all I knew that is, was that I wanted to start a pool company at some point. So I just came down on my, I'm going to go work for a guy for a little bit and maybe start a pool company. So I had no idea what would evolve or what in the world I was looking for, looking to do. I didn't know anything really about business. So it was Well, what birthed the inspiration for Onnix? Either the name, the company, that type of niche and lane in real estate, Yeah, so I knew that my long term goal is to always own real estate and get into the investment side of things. And while I was a real estate agent, I I knew about wholesaling and I think maybe wholesaled a deal or two, but I thought it seemed really cool, right? And a couple buddies and I had planned to start a wholesale company kind of on the side while we were agents and it never panned out, right? And then finally I was like, I kind of want to just do this thing myself, I want to go all in on it. So two and a half years ago, I made the switch, I never looked back right away, all in on onyx, I kind of threw all my real estate agent business to the wayside and just got super obsessive about learning this game. And once I got into it, I realized I got into it thinking that I could just cherry cherry pick the good deals. And then make some quick cash on the other ones. But after I got into it and did it for a little while, I realized that this is actually a real sustainable business. And there's guys out there doing million plus dollars every single month. So then I just locked in and I'm not even worried about touching anything else like such as investment properties and stuff. I just want to scale this thing as fast as I can first and then I'll worry about that stuff later. And that kind of brings me to another point like my biggest struggle when I was a real estate agent was what's called shiny object syndrome, right. And for those of you that are listening and don't know what that is, it's where you're constantly switching around and jumping to the next big shiny thing. And for me, it was like, every few months, I would see something cooler, like Amazon, dropshipping, solar, like you name it, I had either thought about it, or I probably tried to start that business. I really learned a good lesson when I started Onnix that I can't be bouncing around and trying a million different things because I'm going to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. You're never going to be extremely successful unless you just lock in on one thing. One thing that really got me was I would see these Instagram posts and it said the average millionaire has seven streams of income. I was like, okay, I got to go out there and get seven streams of income right now. What I learned later on was that all of these millionaires made a crap load of money in one thing, right? They were just so laser focused and locked in on that one thing. Then once they had the money, the time, the resources, then they started investing in other things. So I learned a really valuable lesson there. So when I started Onnix, I said, I'm not going to touch anything for at least three years, right? And we're coming up on three years. And I think I'm probably going to extend that another couple years, because there's always so many different distractions coming in a new way to make money over here and over there. But you've just got to Bro, that's so good. So, so many things that I wanted to extract from that. I could see why we got connected because I can relate dramatically to the young entrepreneurial journey of how am I going to diversify income? It's like, you're trying to take two grand and multiply it by seven. It's like, maybe that's 14 grand rather than just making 50 in one vehicle. And then say, no, okay, if I get the cash flow, right, I'll have the opportunity to diversify my wealth. I think another thing people don't realize is that diversification is for multiplication, not for the actual earning. Like people think I want to make more money, so I need to diversify. But earning is actually like the speed of the vehicle you're in. And you'll never get the speed up to where you need to get it on the odometer to where you even have enough resources that you need to steward and manage and multiply. And that's the actual purpose of multiple streams of income is the diversification of the cash flow you built. But you'll never need to diversify if you never have a pot that's full anyway. What are, who, well, I'll say two things. So one, what does the journey look like with Onnix, right? So you're coming up on your three-year contract that you made with yourself that you're gonna renegotiate and give yourself an extension. What does the journey look like? First 90 days, first six months, first year, first, second year, like just walk me through kind of the mental and, you know, physical journey of building this wholesaling company. Yeah, so I started it a little over two and a half years ago. And it was just myself out of my bedroom, obviously, like most businesses start. And it took me about 30 days to get my first deal, which I was super fired up for. And then about a month, no deals. And then got one that next month after that. And so it was up and down. It was like this roller coaster for the first six to 12 months. And fast forward a little bit to December of 2024. I was talking about this at the Christmas party. about how I was kind of bummed about the revenue that we did, right? It was decent revenue, but it wasn't where I wanted it to be. And like the 12 months prior, so in December of 2024, it was just myself and a virtual assistant. And I had rented or leased an office space down in Tempe, Arizona. I had this blue carpet, low ceilings. It was an old medical office. Yeah. So each office had like these sinks in it. I was like trying to get, get going at hiring. But it was just myself and then a virtual assistant over in the Philippines. I couldn't really get anybody to stick in that, you know, old smelly office. And we four X our revenue over 2025. So like anything, like any business that you get into, even like a sales job, I talked to these guys about it all the time. It's like a hockey stick where it starts off. super slow, like you picture the base of a hockey stick, your growth is like that. And then all of a sudden, everything starts to take off because of all the repetitions and all the work that you put in. It grows really slow and then everything starts to compound and take off. And I jumped, yeah, I jumped around from, or not jumped around, I've moved up to several different roles within the business, right? So when I first started out as a solopreneur, it's just me and I'm doing sales, right? Then I hired the virtual assistant to help me with paperwork. And then when I started going all in on hiring, then I'm doing management and sales. And then I was finally able to get out of sales for the most part late last year. So that was that was interesting and jumping into more management role. And then now more CEO role where I am focused on growing the company and hiring and stuff. And I was getting it was weird because when I switched from sales to management, I was getting super burnt out. Right. And I wasn't working a ton more, right. A little bit more. And what I realized was that I was that I didn't have any more as much structure as I used to when I was in sales, because in sales, I'd wake up. At a certain time, I would make calls, I would do follow up at a certain time, cold calls at a certain time, I would run numbers on properties, make offers, right? And switching to management and dealing with other people, I was at their disposal all day long, right? I thought that was the way that it had to be. And so I'm answering questions, I'm putting out fires, and I was just getting super burnt out context switching and never being able to get into a deep, flow state while working. And so I had to go back and restructure it and get everything back into my 60 to 90 minute time blocks and say, hey, look, you guys can wait for questions until I get done with my deep work block here or whatever I'm doing now. So once I switched out, a lot of the burnout definitely went away and Two questions. The first one is how much of the reduction of burnout and the fatigue you were feeling? So part of it was the shift in structure and regaining a flow, but how much also was the vision that you had for the future? Or was that a piece of it? Did vision have anything to do with you being able to overcome or sustain some Yeah, absolutely. That's everything. That's what gets me fired up. I don't get burnt out as often, but it's still a very common thing when you're growing a company fast and you're dealing with people constantly every day. It comes up and the fatigue comes up. And the best way I get through that is just re-looking at my goals. And then I just sit there and envision them, envision myself doing those things in my goals that are 10 years down the road. And that usually gets me super I love that. Who's been an influence for you? And actually before I ask that, how old are you? I'm 24. I'll be 25 in June. I bet you look like a season 33 year old entrepreneur. So that's incredible. You're crushing it. All right. So 20, 24 years old, who has been your go-to either online resources, personal development, like what, what knowledge have you downloaded in the last two years is living in a new city and being an entrepreneur to help give you some frameworks, concepts, building blocks to Yeah. So I learned everything I know about wholesaling, right. The actual business that I'm in from, um, a guy named Austin Zaback, he owns a company called one roof. And so I learned everything from him and his, his partners over there. And then I took a lot of that stuff and I'm implemented, um, a lot of stuff from Dan Martell and Matt Verlack who are big software guys. They've scaled up, you know, a bunch of companies, um, super fast. I've taken a lot of their systems and frameworks and implemented those into my business. So that's been a huge, huge help. I What's one thing you've learned from Austin that you either reflect back to often or that you still think about or just one I think he re-emphasized, right, if you chase two rabbits, you're going to catch none. Right. So going after two things, I think he struggled with a lot of what I struggled with as well. And so he helped me remind he helped remind me to just stay laser focused throughout all of this. And he really taught me that it's going to take a lot to get through it. You're going to get punched in the face a lot, but you just have to continue to go. And that couldn't be you know, closer to the truth, right? It's a constant battle being an entrepreneur or a business owner. You constantly get kicked in the teeth, and it's just all about getting I love that. One rabbit, perseverance. Those are two great principles. What about Dan Martell? What are some systems that you've downloaded from some of his frameworks, coaching, teaching? What's one thing you've implemented into your business that Oh, man, there's like too many. I could go down the list with those. Like one thing I've I love is the one, three, one rule, right? Which is I was, I was really struggling, right? Like I was talking about earlier where I'm constantly at everybody's disposal and I am answering questions. And one thing I implemented was one, three, one rule. So they bring me one problem, right? They have to bring me three solutions. And this is for anybody on my team if they have any type of questions. So one problem, three solutions, three viable solutions, and then the one that they recommend. And When you do that, it makes people really sit there and think through the question themselves instead of you just being the backstop, and they just come to you immediately without thinking through it. And plus, they're gonna stop bringing you as much stuff because they're like, well, I gotta think of three solutions now before I go to Jaben. So they'll just think of something and implement it, because we're all about. Implementing stuff and and speed, right? That's one of our core values over here at Onnix. So we'd like to implement stuff as fast as we can. And if it's wrong, right? I'm OK with that, right? As long as you made a quick decision and we're right. Most of the time, like I still make mistakes constantly, constantly learn from those. But I implement stuff super quick and then I learn from my mistakes super, super That's awesome. What, what does that, one thing you mentioned is, Hey, when I just think about where I want to be in 10 years, it gets me fired up. It keeps me locked in. What does this vision look like? Like, just so you know, cause I've been in this place, this is a judgment free, massive thinking 10 acts. say goals that are so outlandish, there's no limit because I know what it's like to be an entrepreneur where you're like, do I really say what I really want to achieve? Like, can I tell this person my income goal is 10 million without them being like 10 million? It's like, yeah, bro, I have big goals. I want to get after it. So I'm going to encourage you as a young entrepreneur who's already done some things that 99% of people never will, which is move to a new city, bet on yourself and start a business. So congratulations on doing those three things. Let's dream, like cast a vision. Where does JV want to be at 34? Where does he want Onnix to be? Yeah. And in the next couple of years, we talk about this every Monday in our company meeting, our all hands meeting, because I think it's big to always be selling the vision and sharing the dream with all the team members. But in the next few years, I want to get to a million dollars a month in revenue. That's our big North Star. We have it written on the whiteboard. Right. We're going for that. And then 10 years down the road. Right. We talk about this all the time as well, but we want to have a massive office right here next to the Scottsdale Airport, right with the hanger on it. And we want to have a hard money company within it. We want to have a massive wholesale division. So we're doing acquisitions, dispositions. And then we want to have a commercial division where we're doing we have pretty much the same thing, acquisitions and dispositions. And then I want to have a private fund where we're investing in a lot of different commercial real estate. And then, like I said, hard money, we're doing loans, bridge loans, hard money loans, like you name it. I So one thing that I'll encourage you in, which you're already doing, write a letter to your future self with the date on it. Say, dear Jaben, it is February 19th, 2029. You are standing in your all glass class A office next to blank in Scottsdale. You just finished a month where you did 1.5 million in revenue. You netted blank. You just purchased blank. You just launched blank. Write a letter to your future self and hold yourself to the I love that. I'm going to do that as soon as we get off this call here. All right, let's go. All right. So we talked about Dan Martell. We talked about Austin. Maybe just go a little bit deeper on what is your system today for personal development? Is it, Hey, I'm in group coaching. I'm reading books. I'm doing podcasts. Like what, what does Jaben do to get fueled up as a 24 year old entrepreneur? And then I'll, I'll piggyback. Oh, well, we'll start with that. I always have like multiple questions that are coming to mind, but let's just start with what has Jay been do today to fuel his mind and his body and his soul to stay fired up, to grow and grow Yeah. So I, number one is I wake up and I go to the gym almost every single day. Um, I try to eat as clean as possible and it wasn't always like that. Right. So if you're listening to this and I'm about to tell you my morning routine, you're going to be like, this guy's like crazy. And if you're, you're drinking all the time and not eating clean, you're not going to the gym. Like, don't worry. Cause I was there two years ago. Right. But I'll wake up at four in the morning. I'll go cold plunge. I'll go to the gym. Come back, read, shower, get ready, and then go to the office. And I'm usually in the office between 6.30 and 7.30, depending on the day. Work all day and then just go home and hang out with my wife and dog before we go to bed. Yeah. That's awesome. Congrats on the marriage, bro. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. That's awesome. How did you meet your wife? And when did you meet your wife? We kind of grew up together. So I knew her from elementary back in Nebraska. And then she moved down to Texas, like seventh or eighth grade. And then we stayed in touch and we always, we tried like talking and dating, but she was living down in Texas and we're like junior high, high school and long distance never works. And so we tried that multiple times and never worked. And then finally I move to Arizona and then she moves back up to Nebraska. And a couple years ago, I'm like, let's just let's try and make this thing work. So we did dated long distance for a bit, got engaged and then got married last August. Let's go, bro. Congrats. That's awesome. Yeah. How much. And there's different seasons. So just to fill you in, I'm 28. I got married at 23. So we got engaged at 22, married at 23. We have two kids now at 28. So our journey is pretty similar with like entrepreneurship, young marriage. Once you add two kids, we'll be tied in the next five years. But I'm curious, how has marriage shifted Mental filter as an entrepreneur It's it's been like one of the best things in my life because it's now I have a massive purpose All I was chasing before I met her was just money, right? That's all all I wanted I didn't really give a crap about anything else and as soon as I met her kind of put Purpose into my life almost she brought me closer to God religious before Yeah, now we go to church every weekend, read the Bible almost every day. So she's brought me closer to God. And then now I just have a big why somebody to Let's go. Well, bro, if you guys want to come out to Telluride, I don't know if you know this, but I live in Telluride. And the market, so Telluride is a top 25 ski resort in the world. We're about six hours from Scottsdale. It's in the San Juan mountains in Colorado. So we came out here because my wife's bucket list dream when we met was to live in Telluride. Like we met in Charleston, South Carolina. She's like, I always want to live out here. Just to put this into perspective, the average sale price on real estate in Telluride is 7 million. So, wow. Okay. All right. Yeah. Let's live in Telluride. Sounds great. Um, well anyway, bro, but like through divine intervention, we ended up getting housing here. We're living in Telluride. We came out for ski season. And I had this mental block. This is kind of just like bro moment, but I'll share this with you. I was like, can I really build from here? Like, because I think as you're an entrepreneur, you go through all these levels, but all of it, all you're doing is fighting battles against limiting beliefs. Like even when we think about spiritual warfare, like we don't fight against flesh and blood. We fight against powers and principalities. Like everything is a war within the mind and a war within the spirit. It's like, everything's created twice, first in the mind and then second in real life. So anyway, I'm sharing this journey with you, which is going to lead to Scottsdale, but I'm out here in Telluride and I'm like, Remember billionaires like literally multiple billionaires out here and okay we've had some success as young entrepreneurs really bro this is different territory like there's a big boys around here and then i started to ask myself like. Well, what's the difference, right? Like if another man can, why can't I? And then I actually realized the thing that I didn't want to confront, oftentimes the thing you don't want to face is the exact same thing you have to go through to get to where you want to be. So then I flipped the script. I'm like, you know what? We're turning this into headquarters. I'm like, instead of like tiptoeing around, I'm like, we're about to build an empire in Telluride. And I'm saying all that to say, I started looking at the cities that were around Telluride, like 45-minute flights, Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, Salt Lake City. I'm like, okay, so I can get to Phoenix, Dallas, Denver, and Salt Lake City within an hour. If I can't build from here, I suck. Like I just- You're right in the middle. Bro, I'm like, exactly. I'm like, if I can't make it work here, then I'm trash. And then an hour to Santa Fe, New Mexico. So all that to say, if you and your wife ever want to go skiing or snowboarding, we got a spot in Telluride. You're welcome to come out. It's freaking gorgeous. So we can do scripture and snowboard or ski anytime you want to come out. I love that, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure. A real offer, too. All right, so married, we got revenue goals. What does it look like building the team? Like what was some of the biggest shifts you had to go to from sales to management, sales to leadership? How did you shift that identity and execute Yeah, I mean, I'm still learning every day and I by no means have it perfected But my biggest mistake that I made when I first started bringing people on last year Was that I wanted to be the cool boss, right? I grew up working from a young age and like I always thought like when I had a boss that was cool It was like the most awesome thing in the world. So I'm I want to be a cool boss and I people took advantage of that, right? So I had to implement accountability, right? So if you're thinking about hiring, or maybe you do have people on your team, you need to do two different things, you need to define outcomes, right? So what does good look like? What does winning look like? For example, for the sales guys, it's minimum daily metrics. It's following the scripts, right? That's what winning and a good outcome looks like. And then there needs to be consequences if those things aren't achieved, whether that's termination or being written up. So those are my two things that I had to really implement instead of just throwing people to the wolves and saying, hey, go make some calls here because How have you handled holding people accountable? Were there some tough conversations in that when you first started to do it? How did you find yourself evolving with holding your staff to a certain standard and overcoming that initial, man, I'm not the cool boss anymore, and now It's been tough making that transition, but I've found since doing that, it actually makes things a lot easier. It's one of those things where people constantly chase the comfort. The comfort usually in the short term produces pain in the long term, and then pain in the short term produces discomfort in the long term, right? And it's the same thing with these hard conversations with people on the team. If you avoid the conversations and push them off and push them off, push them off, you're going to be in a lot of discomfort later on because they're not doing what you want. There's going to be resentment built up. Whereas now I just try and nip stuff, stuff in the butt. For example, I had a girl that just started this week and she was late on her second or third day. And normally I probably would have just like let it slide. Wouldn't have said anything like that. And then I walk in there and I'm like, Hey, we're not going to have an issue with you. You getting here on time. Are we right? I just nip it in the butt right away and have that slightly uncomfortable, weird conversation because it's Yeah, so good, getting ahead of it. I love that. What are your non-negotiables heading into 2026? You mentioned a lot of really good habits, right? I'm waking up early, I'm getting movement, I'm gonna read, I'm gonna get to the office by a certain time. I think that would be maybe not the perfect day, but an ideal version of the perfect day. Hey, this is when I'm crushing it. Let's say chaos is breaking out. We're dealing with the in-laws, somebody's dog's dying, some employee didn't show up to work, like in a chaotic week when Jaybin is fighting to be into a flow state. What Yeah, so I will, the gym is number one, like I do that most days. And then the Bible is also another big thing that brings me back and grounds me. And then just deep work blocks in the morning, right? I get so much productive stuff done in the morning where I'm not distracted. I'm not answering questions. I'm not at everybody's beck and call. I can just focus and get my deep work done. So those are kind of my big priorities, my non-negotiables every single day. I What's one thing that you thought about religion or your relationship with God or one limiting belief or false belief that you thought was there before your wife brought you closer? So as you got more intimate, as you got proximity, what's one I mean, when I, I wasn't super religious because in my eyes there was never like a definitive proof. And it was weird, like I struggled with that for a long time. And it was funny, I was praying to God. This is probably early last year, maybe late the year. year before, I don't remember. But I was praying to God, I'm like, can you just give me some sort of proof, just so I know, right? And sure enough, I saw something on Instagram the next day. It was like NASA confirmed the eclipse, or the lunar eclipse, whatever it was, on the day that Jesus was crucified. They backdated it and said that there was something there. And then there was another guy, literally the same day, where his baby had drowned. in the pool and the baby was under there for a couple of minutes. They pulled it out, took it to the, the baby starts coughing up the water. And then a few days later, like the baby should have been dead. But a few days later in the bathtub, the baby is saying Yeshua, which means Jesus in Hebrew. So like those two things, like probably the same day, I was like, okay, you just answered my prayer and showed me the proof enough. Like I'm committed, I'm all Well, you know what's so powerful? And it's kind of this concept, so you can take it spiritually and you can take it into sales that my wife actually corrected me on this the other day. So we were talking about some friends we matched and we're like, oh yeah, they're not believers. And she's like, well, you know, really everybody's a believer. Like there's no such thing as a non-believer. It's just, what are you believing in? And really like Tony Robbins is somebody else that I've looked up to for a while and read a lot of his books and listened to his audio tapes. Like the power of language is so powerful because we say things every day that we don't, take as if it's life or death, like the power of life and death is in the tongue. So we'll make a comment, but it's not the truth. It's a cliche, it's a phrase. It's like, no, you gotta be so crystal clear with your language. But I say that to say she was talking about an unbeliever and she's like, no, they believe in something. And then once you realize that everybody believes in something, it's okay. If I'm gonna believe in something, is the thing that I'm believing in the most empowering truth that I can have? Because this is one of the best questions to ask. It's like, okay, if we're wrong, what did we lose other than producing way more fruit in our time on life because of the way our belief system teaches us how to value other humans and be a So what do we lose? Nothing. What Eternal bliss. Then you look at the other side, okay, what do you gain by not believing? a much more painful life, a life with a lot more striving and a lot more strife and a lot more pressure and a lot more anxiety and a lot more doubt because you have to be Yeah, exactly. So what do you get? You get instant gratification. Now, what do you get if you're wrong? right? Like, and, and when I'm not in healthy seasons, I would like to say I'm not a gambling man, but I absolutely am a gambling man if I'm not healthy. So praise God, I haven't gambled in a year. Um, and since I've been saved, the gambling has definitely been a lot healthier, but I am, I like adrenaline. I like putting it all on black. I like seeing what happens, but you want to talk about the highest risk reward gamble your soul. I It's crazy. And I didn't know. So those were the two things that really got me believing I wasn't super heavy, heavy into it yet. And then by reading the Bible. Every day I did the Bible in a year last year. Yeah, it was great. Like if you're watching this and you're kind of struggling with your faith, you don't, you're kind of in the same position that I was where you don't know whether it's true or not. I would just, I would say to just start reading the Bible because your mind is going to be blown. You're going to be like, how does, how is something written so many thousands of years ago still relate such so perfectly to today? It's like, it's baffling. It doesn't, it doesn't make sense. There's, It's just unbelievable, bro. I think that it's the toughest thing to get somebody to do because they're like, read the Bible. But it's so powerful when you actually get into the word, because I'll tell you, bro. So I was born Jewish. Then my mom converted to Catholicism. Then in high school, she got saved and started going to non-denominational church. So I went from synagogue to Catholic church to non-denominational church. Then when I got to college, my roommates thought the world was a computer simulation and I have like a radical come to Jesus moment. So I started abusing drugs. My roommates thought the world was a computer simulation. We're doing acid, doing LSD. I ended up getting robbed at gunpoint from selling weed, get shot, like literally get shot in the back of my head. I have a notch on my skull, June 4th, 2018. And then I was sitting in the hospital bed and I heard an audible voice that told me to go to church. And I haven't been to church in three years. Like I literally just heard as clear as like... Times New Roman font on a PowerPoint, go to church. So I thought that, and then I also thought, I'm about to be a loser. Like, if that was my last moment in my life, I was a loser. I got nothing done, I got nothing accomplished. So it started this transformational journey where faith has been the anchor of everything. Built a house on rock and it couldn't stand any storm. But I tell you all that to say, growing up Jewish and learning, you know, the Judaism, the beliefs of Judaism, then going to Catholic school, getting my confirmation, then getting exposed to non-denominational church. The number one most underrated player in the Trinity, the one that wins no MVP awards, but by far scoring 30 points a game is the Holy Spirit. So it's that aspect of the Trinity, right? Like we have our heavenly father. We know that the faith is to believe Jesus was and is who he said he was, but it's this Holy Spirit, bro. When you think about all the Eastern religions, right? Like Nirvana and enlightenment and like, bro, even people out in Colorado, like people actually practicing witchcraft. It's a real thing. Like, I didn't even think that was a real thing. There's literally people here that practice that as a religion, witchcraft. Same here in Sedona, Arizona. Okay. All right. So like, I thought that was a joke. It's not like people are actually like practicing witches. So what they're trying to do is they're conjuring up spirits. Like remember watching sports during COVID and it was dead. Like I don't even want to watch this because it's like empty stands, no energy. It's like, the mind, the body, and the soul, the soul and the spirit is the thing that's like, that's the connection, that's the legacy, that's the, you know, inheritance. And anyway, bro, I say all that to say, when you said I'm reading my Bible, the reason I'm going on this random tangent is people don't realize you're not picking up a book. Like you're picking up a living, breathing organism that was like downloaded from a spiritual author and a spiritual creator. And when you open that book and you're open and you soften your heart and you can soften your heart and be like, just like in sales, somebody's like, I already know the script. I'm good. I don't need to learn the script. It's like, bro, you've blanked on 30 calls. You need to learn the script, bro. Learn the script. And as soon as you can surrender and be like, all right, I'm open to learning. I'm open to reading this book. That's when the Holy Spirit, bro, can come into you like a vessel. And like you're talking about, you're like, yo, how's this book so old making such an impact on me? Because the soul never changes, bro. It doesn't matter. Actually, fire show for you and your wife. I'm just going on a random tangent. But my 15 month old daughter is in the living room. She grabs the remote. She doesn't even talk. She grabs the remote, turns the TV on, hits the Netflix button, clicks the up arrow to where all the random shows are on and puts on a show. And my wife and I just binged three seasons of it. It was fire. It was called A Way Home. It was about time travel, this family that's time traveling and meeting all of their ancestors, great, great grandfathers. But I say all this to say it doesn't matter the era or the time, the human soul never changes. So our creator, the person who designed us, if we're Ferraris, the Ferrari manufacturer hasn't changed the instruction manual. We still need premium gas. We still need to get our car detailed every 30 days. So I just don't think people realize that times have changed, cultures change, but who you are, the way you're wired hasn't changed from Adam and Eve to Jaben, PJ, and our wives. Same structure, same design for your life. So go to the instruction Let's go. So next 90 days, so we know, all right, next three years, million dollars in revenue. We're going to buy the office. We're going to launch the divisions. How are you moving towards that big vision and 90 day, six month, 12 month increments? Like how are you trying to measure that progress and chop down this Yeah, so I'm super focused on the next 10 months, I guess, 2026 here. And like I said, I kind of got out of acquisition sales for the most part right now. So I'm focused on stabilizing that base and hiring, stacking people in there. So we have a really solid foundation. And then step two is going to be starting dispositions. And for those of you listing, right acquisitions, as you go out, you find the deal, you put it under contract, and then you need somebody to sell it, right? You're not talking to buyers if you're doing acquisitions. So dispositions will be the guys that are talking to buyers literally all day every day. And so I do dispositions right now. And we're going to start hiring for that in the next few months once we have the acquisition side of things stabilized. I What would be a BHAG goal for 2026 revenue? If you're like, yo, if we could hit this, we absolutely destroyed it. And what's your floor? Would you like, if we don't hit this, I'm canceling, I'm deleting my mic, I'm Yeah, BHAG is 1.6 million in revenue. And then the floor, if we don't hit 800, I'd be I'd be really upset. Right? We hit four, we hit just over 400 last year. But that was right with a really small team. I think we should have no problem hitting 800 with a few solid acquisitions guys All right, so I'm going to challenge you, bro, because you're so close. Your floor is now a million. If I might as well, right? You might as well. Bro, so I'll tell you one of the most fruitful things I've done is literally in January. I've always been a shiny object syndrome with personal development, like book, like just jumping around from author to speaker, to Hermosy, to Tony Robbins, to Ed Milet, to Jocko Willink. I love personal development. It's like Jesus, number one, personal development, number two. download it. And this year I'm like, I got a new coach and I got my calendar in front of me for the whole year. My word of the year is focus. I'm like, all right, I'm only studying one person at a time. Everything I listened to, everything I read, like I'm going to study one personal development person at a time. And bro, this changed my life because I picked Ben Hardy, 10X is easier than 2X, and I read all of his books. So I read six Ben Hardy books. I listened to 30 hours of Ben Hardy. And the number one thing I took away from that, because Tony Robbins actually wrote the foreword for Science of Scaling, his most recent book, was the number one mistake we make as entrepreneurs is we don't set impossible goals on aggressive timelines. So what Ben Hardy teaches is you never set a goal more than three years away. Because like, bro, think about it. 10 years ago, I was 18, you were 14. We can't even like conceptualize how much growth we experience in a 10-year period. But when we set 10-year goals in the future, it's like arbitrary to us. We're like, well, I think in 10 years, I want to be here. But we don't actually realize the magnitude of how much we can accomplish in 10 years. So he says, the longest you're allowed to set a goal is three years. So whatever your 10-year goal is, you set it in three years, an impossible goal and aggressive timeline because then his other teaching, and this is a guy who like, again, he came up with the concept 10X is easier than 2X. All the big boys are using a lot of his frameworks to scale their businesses. He said, it's all about who you're becoming. So think about, bro, if you said, hey, we're going to do $12 million in revenue in 2028, how different would you be thinking right now? If you're like, we're going to do $12 million in revenue in the next three years. you're already leaning in that direction. But what it does is it means 80% of what you're doing today means absolutely nothing because the Jaben that's doing $12 million in revenue is not doing the things Jaben's doing with $200,000 a month in revenue or $100,000 a month in revenue. Like you're just a different person. So all it does is it forces us to do that sooner. You're going to do it either way. You're going to in six months, 12 months, two years, start to shift. So it's like, how do I aggressively pull that Yeah, I've done that actually. So our we had it mapped out. And I have to be careful with this because it sometimes I sometimes I get really discouraged by doing it too fast and like unreasonable timeframes. Because what I did last year was I said, we need to hit three be hitting $300,000 a month consistently by September of this year. And then the next 12 months, we're gonna hit a million dollars a month. Right. And then 100k a month consistently. a few months ago was what I said to do. So then I get bummed out because we're not there. And I get so pissed off looking about the, the, uh, the progress that we've made. So I have to be careful and finding that balance. But to your point, it's definitely helped crunch everything in and make us laser focused on, on how we're going to get to that I love that. Yeah. I mean, bro, you're already doing things at 24 that most people don't do it till 44. So the other part of it too, which I think is tough for a young entrepreneur, but I heard, um, I heard Sean Bosnia is like in my industry and lending is the number one loan officer in the country. He runs a top five bank. He's like, you can't expedite a decade. Like with all of the strategies, with all of the tactics, like you can pay for all the coaching you want in the world. There's just a certain value to doing something for a decade. Like, and I think for both of us, right. Cause I'm, I'm in rapid scale mode. it's, we can have the greatest strategies in the world, but sometimes bro, it's just, it's the Lord's time. Like there's seasons. It's just like, we just have to go through spring and summer and winter and fall and just go through multiple seasons until it's spring and summertime to where we want it to be. And, and I definitely feel you on that one setting aggressive timeline. So what, what is the best way for people to connect with Jaben? And who, what connections are you looking for today? So if somebody is listening to this and they're like, Hey, I love your energy. I love what you've done. You've accomplished so much as a young entrepreneur. I want to work with you. I want to connect with you. What are some good connections for you today? And what's the best way to connect with you? Yeah, I mean, reach out if you're thinking about getting into wholesaling. I'd love to answer any questions that you have. I'm happy to sell your deals. And then if you know anybody looking to join a sales role here in office in Scottsdale, Arizona, so send me a message at jabin.makings and I'll answer literally any I love it. Let's go, bro. All right. So when it's all said and done, I know we're at the beginning of your career, but let's cast the ultimate vision, which is you just closed your last deal. You got a commercial division, a hard money division and acquisition division. Onnix is all over NFL stadiums as the premier wholesaling company. And you're like, I'm closing my outlook for the last time. It's the all said and done. What does Jaben want to be known for? What A family man. I love family men. Yeah. I want to, my wife and I, we went and did the, this retreat up in Northern Arizona for a weekend and it was great. So we talked about our, what we want, where we're going to be 50 years from now and then 30 years from now and really just broke it out and envision it. Like I always, like I was talking about at the beginning, just envisioning the goal, but I'm like, what are, what are we going to look like when we're 70 years old, sitting on our rocking chairs? What do we want our family life to look like? And it's really cool. And we came up with actually our family mission statement, which is awesome. If you haven't done that yet, I'd highly recommend it. It's just like a business mission statement, but for I love it. Well, bro, I just want to encourage you. What you've done and what you're doing is incredible. Like there's nothing in this world that you cannot accomplish with the amount of impact you've already had and the rooms you've been willing to step into without any proof of concept, just being willing to bet on yourself and learn hungry. There's definitely a favor on your life. There's an anointing on your life. you got the Midas touch, bro. I mean, I don't even know you, but just to know what it's like, because I've moved to a new city. I've started a new business for you to do what you're doing, getting in the rooms, asking the questions, present yourself in the way. Like I'm excited to see what you do over the next 10 years. I'm glad we got connected. If there's ever anything that I can do for you, bro, I'm here. Like I said, random town, you probably never heard of Telluride, Colorado, but we're only six hours away. So I, uh, I'm super excited for your journey, bro. Any prayer requests, bro. Anything coming up where you're like, man, I would just love some prayer for this or, or. anything Yeah, we found out we're expecting in July, a baby's coming in July. Let's go! We're super excited. Any prayers for that would be great. Okay, all right, cool. What's your wife's name? Briar. Okay, cool. All right, let me say a quick prayer and then we'll wrap today's episode. Dear Heavenly Father, I just wanna thank you for this time to have fellowship with Jaben. Lord, I just pray over him and Briar, over their marriage, over their home. Let it just be a house of peace. Let it be a place where your favor dwells. May you give Jaben supernatural wisdom and understanding for every decision he needs to make, for every conversation he has. Just let the Holy Spirit guide his tongue, empower him to continue to make an impact in Scottsdale. and in new markets that he doesn't even know exist yet. Lord, we pray over this beautiful baby for Briar. We pray for an easy pregnancy. We pray for grace. Anything that should be difficult, make it easy. Lord, I pray that this pregnancy be an opportunity for them to draw closer together. Give Jaben the understanding, the wisdom, and the discernment that he doesn't need to strive, and with the pressure to perform and provide as an entrepreneur, that he can partner with you as his co-CEO and you have abundance waiting for him. Let us continue to just both prioritize our families, future children, children today, so we can store it in our home as well. Because when we store it in our home as well, you bless everything else. So Lord, we love you. We praise you. We honor you. We thank you for this moment. And in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you, man. That was phenomenal. Yeah, my pleasure, bro. All right, well, bro, so nice to meet you. I'll shoot you a follow-up. Guys, check out Jaben, follow him, connect with him if you're in wholesaling. He's the guy you need to talk to. And I hope you guys have an incredible day. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of the High Level People podcast. If you've learned anything from today's content or if it made a positive impact on your life in any way, please feel free to subscribe on your favorite platform. More importantly, if you think there's somebody in your life who would benefit from today's episode, please shoot them a link. Encourage them to do the same. Encourage them to subscribe because every week we're committed to adding value. I look forward to seeing you soon. Hope you guys have a blessed day, blessed