EP 88. Mindset Matters: Unlocking Financial Success.

Join us as we sit down with Savannah Sanitoa and Damian Vaitautolu, financial experts from Global Financial Impact, for an enlightening conversation on mastering personal finance. From life insurance to retirement planning, they unveil strategies to transform financial goals from good to great. With personal stories and poignant insights, they address cultural barriers to financial literacy and the imperative of mindset shifts. As they empower listeners to take charge of their financial futures, this episode offers a roadmap to financial freedom and security.

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Transcript

 Welcome back to another episode of Behind the Lavalava, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the vibrant people and cultures of the Pacific Islands. I'm your host, Michael Tan, and joining me today are Spencer and Milford. Before we get started, a quick reminder to our listeners to follow, subscribe, and leave a review if you enjoy the show.

Now let's jump straight into it. Today, we will be chopping it up with Savannah Sanitoa . And Damian  Vaitautolu. Talofa Savannah and Damian. Talofa Michael.  Talofa Willow. Mr. Milford. And everyone. So, let's start off with Savannah. Can you tell us about your upbringing, your humble genesis, where you came from? 

Sure. Uh, good evening, everyone. My name is Savannah Sanitoa. I was born in LA but then we moved, our family moved back home to American Samoa where I was raised until I graduated high school, came back out to the States for what we call the American dream to look for better education, better opportunity, ended up going the traditional route to college.

Realized it wasn't for me. Uh, so I had the opportunity to join, uh, the military. And so I went active duty army for about six years.  Uh, and did that. And I loved it. Uh, I was in Intel. So of course, you know, military Intel is an oxymoron.  Exactly, exactly. Spencer. And then I ended up getting out cause my daughter was turning double digits.

Um, so I wanted to actually just be home more, you know kind of focus more on her went back to school. You know, thank you government and thank you army. I got to use my GI bill to finish up my degree. And then try to just figure out what exactly what I wanted to do with my life. Ended up getting a,  what I thought was a great job at the time at the airport.

Uh, and then made my way all the way up to management position.  Uh, I got told I got capped which.  It's kind of heartbreaking for me because I'd been there for so long. Well, for me, six years is a long time. And so I didn't really want to leave, uh, and go find another job and start all over. And then an opportunity presented itself to me to own my own business, make my own hours, become an entrepreneur.

And I ended up taking that leap and. This is where I'm at now. And I absolutely love it. How about you, Damien? Love your story, man. So, um, I was born and raised in Samoa. My name is Damien Baito Tolu. I was raised in Ka'afunga. I went to Leone high school. I did carpentry after high school and they were only paying me about 200 a week.

So that, you know, 200, it's not enough back in, back at home. Right. So, um, I decided to join the army when I was 17.  And then, uh, I deployed about. Three times in the army. Now I'm 18 years in, I'm a recruiter here in Los Angeles. You know, now, you know, I got hurt in Iraq and now I'm here talking to our kids about doing the military. 

You know, just expanding their careers. Um, if school is not it, if, you know, working in the civilian world is not it, if they're trying to change their lives for the better, just doing something great, you know, I'm here as a recruiter in LA now, I, uh, another opportunity was presented to me where just like Savannah, right?

So it's, it's about owning your own business, how to become an entrepreneur. And because they don't teach some of this stuff in schools, right? So I joined in the business, in the financial industry. Which has not only changed  my life, but I'm out there to change our, not just our small, small community, but just everyone, uh, when it comes to financial literacy.

So, um, it's, it's a huge change in my life. So I just want to spread the word out there that there's, there's a lot of things out there that they, you know, we could educate them and, you know, just to get ahead of financially. So, yeah, I appreciate that. I appreciate you guys hosting us and, you know, um, and sharing our story.

So that's about me. Thank you.  Yeah, thank you very much for joining us today. We're very excited to dive into the topic of finances and talk about your business. Can you tell us before we hit the business side of things, we want to target.  You're, you're a military background because it's our podcast kind of focused on veterans.

Both of you have been  in or currently serving in the military. Can you tell us about your experience being in the military?

So I loved what I did.  I have a criminal justice background went to the army recruiter and asked him to help me get something within that field. And he was, it was kind of funny. Cause he was like, well, do you want to be a MP? And I was like, nope. Uh, and he was like, do you want to be a paralegal?

And I was like, Absolutely not. Um, and then he's like, well, you know, those are the things that have to do with criminal justice. Uh, but I have this other opportunity for you. Um, it's called the human Intel collector. Right. And so it's just a fancy term, fancy terms for you're going to be an interrogator.

And I was like, Oh, let's do it. Right. So I have the opportunity to, to obviously go to Fort Huachuca and get that training, um, become an interrogator or 35 Mike, for those of us who know what it is out there.  Uh, I did get to deploy twice. I got to deploy once to Afghanistan. I absolutely loved it. And did a year there and then came back to,  uh, Fort hood or now that I know it's called Fort Cavazos.

That's where I spent the majority of my time when I was in the North.  There you go. Welcome to the great place. That's what I'm talking about, Spencer. Uh, it's funny cause Damien will also probably share cause me and him were both there at the same time. Um, and he was about to leave when I first got there.

And then right before, I think I was probably a little over 18 months out from my ETS date,  I was set on getting out. Um, and then I was on vacation for Thanksgiving on leave. And then I, of course I got the  and it said I had orders to go to Guantanamo Bay.  Um, and so that was my last deployment. Um, of course it was a deployment because it was a joint task force, but if you're in the army, it's considered a deployment, uh, it's considered a PCS if you take your family there and you stay there longer than a year, so I ended up going by myself instead of taking my daughter. 

And my family did a year over there. And as soon as I got back is when I got out. So I love my time in the military. You know, I'm not saying that there weren't hard times because similar to anybody who is brand spanking new in the military, you, you hit that first and 15th every month and you don't know what to do with it, you know, and you know, I, I knew how to save at that time.

And I, I thought I had, I mean, I'd not have a daughter, but, um, you know, At that time, what I thought was responsibility really wasn't because, you know, I knew for a fact I was going to get paid on the 1st to the 15th every month. So, you know, just kind of living that, that private brand new to brand spanking new to the military type of life, going out of Fort hood, Texas, buying a brand new car, you know, kind of just living the military life.

You know, your whole family thinking that you're rich when you're on a Private first class salary, which is really nothing.  Um, so, you know, uh, I would have stayed in, I would have stayed and continued on my career in what I did. But like I said, I made the hard decision of getting out to just wanting to be present more, cause I knew that, especially within my job and the different offers I was getting, uh, I was going to be deployed a lot more, uh, and be attached to a lot of different regiments and units, uh, especially with my type of background, Damien on to you.

Uh, appreciate you, Savannah. Um, Yeah, but I've been in about 17 years. Oh, 18 years going on, uh, 19. But I, I joined the army and in 2006, I do logistics. So I've been deployed 3 times. My 1st duty station was, uh, for the Texas. Um, and then I went for, uh, Leonard, Missouri. And I'm, I'm here in Los Angeles. So I only been to three places.

Okay. But I was supposed to, you know, this is the only thing that I knew. Right. I joined when I was 17 and I would hate to get out, especially with our economy. I'm scared that the economy might go to crap. Right. And, um, I don't want to be one of those civilians that are not, that are jobless. Right.

So that's why I would have stayed in for 30 years. But when the opportunity presented itself, when it came to the financial industry it has paid me more than I make in the army. Let's just put it that way. Right? But, but it's 1 of those subjects that a lot of our community are lacking on and I want to do, I want to ride my 20 years in the army so I can retire.

That's free. That's a free paycheck, right? So I'm gonna do 20 years. I'm gonna get out, do this full time on my own business, run my business and help as many people become financially literate. Right. And not only it, again, it pays us a lot of money, but I think it's more rewarding, right, to help more people get ahead financially, especially when it, when it comes to money.

And especially our community, they don't teach this back at home. Right. So. Shame on us for having our license and not having a platform to go out there and help people. So I enjoy my time in the army, but it's time to hang out, hang up my, uh, my flag. So I appreciate the question, brother.

I just wanted to comment. It's like, uh, you know, thank you both for your service. Appreciate what you've done. And, you know, I mean, you guys got to share your secrets with me because, you know, we had your time, but you still look so, you know, vibrant and youthful. You know, like I've been in, I joined in oh four.

I'm not too far off from Damien and I did a lot of logistics work, but I'm 37 looking like I'm going on 50 sometimes. So I don't, I don't know what the secret is, you know, uh, moisturize better or something, but for reals though, like, thanks for your service. Cause I've had, you know, different, but similar career paths and, uh, you know, what you're doing, like, just thank you for that description.

It's actually, uh, it's a very important service because I'm only realizing this. Far too late in my army career and I'm on the reserve side. That's why I'm all scruffy right now. So, you know, you know, throw shade if you need to, but, uh, I would have a profile, a shaving profile. But, uh, the, uh,  uh, the thing is, it's like, there are a lot of opportunities that soldiers that are at the fingertips of soldiers and specifically on the military side.

I know you're helping people in this business, not exclusively within the military, but even within the military side, there are financial tools available that I just didn't know about. Or I was given very bad information about where it's like, I remember I went to ALC a few years ago and they, you know, somebody, one of my instructors is like, how many of you think that the military is underpaid?

And like, everyone in the classroom raises their hand  and he says, the thing is, is like, you say that because you don't know what. You have available to you. He says, if you understood the tools and the benefits that are available to you, you would probably think you're overpaid. And that's the first time I ever heard somebody in the military talk about being overpaid.

You know, this man was a E6. He was trying to get his warrant. But I was like, man, what? And he kind of schooled me on a lot of things. So. What the service you guys are providing, like I said, it's not exclusively in military, but it's a very valuable one because it's something that a lot of people military oriented, non military oriented, they just don't understand.

And like, I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. So, you know, I think that's a good direction. And thank you for not just getting that knowledge, but we being willing to help spread that because it's a very valuable service.

Thank you, Spencer. I actually just wanted to Comment on that before Damien does from the veteran portion of it. You know, like when you in process to like a new unit or like, right, they, they make you go and do all of these checkoffs, right. For all the in processing, right. Financial brief, right. Make sure you have CIF brief, all these things.

So even me as, you know, a prior first class, when I was, you know, getting started and getting stationed when I was at Fort hood they don't. Take it as serious as at least for me and all of my battle buddies that I was getting stationed there with like Didn't we didn't take it as serious as we needed to and then even more so there's not enough emphasis on Financial literacy or financial education when it comes to any of our units, right?

so I mean I  we could talk about it all day, but when I when I Think about it now. And in terms of like leadership, if I'm going to have soldiers under me, you know, we have to always do the vehicle inspection, you know, at the end of, at the beginning of every four day, right. There's all these different inspections.

But very little, is there an inspection on like, Hey, how are you Damien? Like, how are you and your family? Like, are you guys okay? You know, like, have you been paying your bills? Like just to kind of do a check on that. And. I know that finances is usually like that type of,  just like this little thing kind of lingering out here that nobody ever wants to talk about.

I was like, no, no, no, I'm good, man. Like, you know, until something comes up, right. Where you have to get an AER loan or S1 or you know, a loan place calls your command because you're behind on a loan, right. Or they come in, they repo your car, right. It doesn't become an important subject until something happens.

So it's, it's like, we're more reactive a lot of times than we are proactive. You know, when we get those briefings and that's, that's kind of what it brought me back to. And so now as a veteran, when I talk to people who are out now or who are getting ready to transition out, Damien will talk to the ones who are still currently actively in because he can relate to them.

I start to catch them as they're getting out and making sure that they understand, Hey, did you get all of these things in line and making sure that they understand what they're now going to get themselves into. Ensuring that where they're well prepared, like how Damien is, they're well prepared to get out and understand what they're, they're, they're going into and the environment they're about to, to go into.

It's not going to be immediate. They're not going to get their first and 15th check every month. Right. It's, it's now going to be a disability check or it's going to be a GI bill check or evoke rehab, like it's, it's going to be a completely different environment, but they have to make sure that they're ready for it.

It's a caveat with Savannah saying, right. Um, I believe that it's, you're the silver spoon. You're responsible for your own finances, right? That's you going to learn everything on your own What's the pros and cons right because I know when I first came into into the military I sat down with my this finance finance professional and she said hey, we're gonna open up a TSP for you Right instead of telling us what we're gonna get how about teach us what we're getting ourself into Which is why a lot of veterans right are retiring with no retirement Because we're told what we're, you know, we're pretty much told what we're supposed to be doing. 

When I, when she said, how much are you going to, are you going to contribute to your 400 bucks. Right. She said, all right, forget it ever existed to not do not touch until you're 59 and a half. Me as a 17 year old joining the army, I did exactly what she said. Right. And if someone presents to me the opportunity about the business, she sat me down and educated me on my, about my retirement.

And then she gave me a solution on how we, how we can help with that retirement going from good to great. So guess what happened from 2008 and 2018, I lost about 91, 000 in my TSP. Why? I had no idea where I  was putting my money because I was just told to just put it in there and forget about it. If I didn't, if I didn't check it in 2018, I would have lost a lot of money, right?

So in our business, we'd like to educate our clients, especially our veterans because they deserve them. They deserve the best, right? If we're going to serve our country, how about let's take care of our soldiers. Right. They do our PHA dental, all that stuff every year. How come they don't have an annual, annual review when it comes to our finances, which is why there's a significant number of veterans.

When they get out, they're all broke. Some of them are homeless, right? Because they didn't go and seek the resources that was given to them. A lot of them is because we're not as leaders. We should have put them in the right direction and tell them, Hey, you need to go do this. Right. As leaders, we need to.

Point them in the right direction where they can get ahead financially, not just for them, but for their families. Right? So it's, it's, it's the education piece. That's really important to me. And I think that our veterans deserve it. Right. Cause if we're not going to teach them, I guarantee you, they're just going to sit on their butts and not do anything.

If I tell them, go read a book about how to get ahead financially, I guarantee you, they're not going to do it unless you force them as a leader to do what's best for them. Right. So but I can get into the subject. There's even portions of when veterans are getting out, right.  What's the first thing that you're going to try to claim when you get up VA disability, right?

The VA, what happens if you get a hundred percent on your VA disability?

You're going to get the paycheck, right? You're going to get that paycheck, but here's what it does. If you love your family so much, get life insurance before you get your a hundred percent disability, or you're not going to qualify.  Now, if you pass away, only 50 percent goes to your, uh, your spouse. If something happens to you, 50 percent of what of your pension. 

And let me tell you that right there.  Your, your families deserve more than that.  They're not 50%. Okay, and that's why I always want to talk to my veterans before they get out. Let, let me help you be, while you're healthy, before you get out and claim 100 percent disability. Now you're, you're going to make all this money, which you're, while you're alive, but you're not going to protect your family if something happens to you too soon.

So, sorry, that was all passion, brother. My bad. But I appreciate the question, brother. Yeah, military breaks that passion out for sure.

. So Savannah and Damien, can you tell us about your business, the name of your business and what services you guys offer?

So we're with global financial impact. Uh, we're basically financial profession, um, brokers for, um, different financial companies. So we help our clients with anything that has to do with life insurance. Tax free retirement. We do college funds for kids. Living benefits and I what else? We pretty much provide services where we can take someone's financial goals from good to great, right?

We take our clients  financial goals when it comes to like these old government, old traditional government plans, right? Like TSP, Roth IRA, or 401ks.  Knowing that these, these plans are tied to the market and eventually pay taxes in the future, we can help our clients protect their money from market drops.

And to never pay taxes at the front end when they're getting ready to retire, because a lot of people, they don't care about retirement now, but the question that we should all ask ourselves, do you think tax is going to go up or down in the future? It's going to go up, right? A lot of people don't care now, but 40, 30 years from now, once they're getting ready to retire and they're go look at their account and it's going to be this big guaranteed Uncle Sam is going to take a majority of that chunk, right?

Then they're going to live off that money.  And then once it's gone and it forces them to do what go right back to the force workforce.  I can speak for my family to my dad and mom are still working to this day because they don't understand  the rules of money. Right? How to save for how to save for retirement.

None. They don't understand none of that. Right? This is where so we come with a solution to help our clients when it comes to stuff like that. So, um, especially life insurance, especially in our small community, whether they know it or not, they need it. Follow up is real. Fall out of love is real, right? A lot of them say, well, it's a scam.

You don't need life insurance. Okay. Until the day it comes, they're going to start asking, Oh, did we get a policy? It's like, Nope, because you thought it was a scam,  right? Because a lot of people, because imagine if, if someone was to get life insurance on their family, I could turn around all the donation from my family members and say, Hey, I don't need that money.

I went in, I went ahead and protected my family. Thank you for your support, but you can take your money back. Can you imagine doing that to, to, to At your family funerals, just to say, just to tell your family members that I took care of mine. You don't have to take care of mine.  Right? All that stuff.

Right? We bring out a lot of problems because these are real, real problems. And then we just come with a solution on how we can help those. If you want a caveat to that, Samantha, I know you got a you can't, I know, I know Savannah wants to piggyback off of what was just said, you know, my man,  um, it was funny cause I was actually watching one of you guys episodes and had talked about how you guys were talking about family, father, love is right.

And what is your, what is your guys input on, you know, how our culture is. And, you know, it's a beautiful thing that our, our families and our culture are able to help one another. But it's. To caveat off of what Damien is saying, like, how can we, if we really, truly say that we love our family and being able to protect them first.

Right? So you know, and I know Damien will probably go into this, but 1 of his biggest stories and why he even joins the business to begin with to even get into finances is because it happened to him. Right? His grandma died. He was the favorite. Right. And a favorite of his family. And yet, all of the siblings and everybody was looking to him. 

Are you gonna, you know, but a year before that, his mom had asked him to take over, uh, for his grandmother's life insurance policy. At the time, she's really old. I think she was like probably over 80. It was like 500 a month. Right. So obviously it's going to be expensive. Right. For a couple of hundred thousand dollars in coverage at that time.

Right. And he tells it all the time, which is very, very inspiring for me because it also happened to me. He didn't have it. So he's like, mom, I can't do it right now. You know, it wasn't of value to him at that point. And then a year later, of course, his grandma died. Right. Of course he goes back home, but what does that Because he didn't do that, he started, obviously, he didn't have all of the money at the time.

So, of course, what are we going to do? Get an AER loan, right? Actually get a personal loan, right? Because not only is the flight back home, obviously, like two grand, right? Round trip.  But if you're going home for a fall out of love it, what else do you have to take? Everybody thinks that you're coming from the States, so you can't just go based off of like 2, 000, right?

For a funeral, right? You're going to have to pay extra, right? All these other things that you guys probably know this, right? All these other extra expenses started to come up. And I know you guys know what I'm talking about, right? So it's where, hey, who's going to make the food? How long is grandma's funeral going to be?

Is it going to be one day, two days, three days? You know, how many Matai's or how many chiefs or how many pastors, right? How many, anybody who's has a role in the church, how many of them are going to come? Cause what do we usually do? We give them an OFA, right? We give them a gift. Thank you guys so much for coming to support my grandma, you know and being here So all of these other expenses come on top of just that small little two grand Only to come to find out that it was way more right?

But if he would have if he would have actually taken over his grandmother's life insurance plan Boom, it would have been done and done and done right? but because He did it and now he now he's on like a mission. We're on a mission to be able to kind of share that not even just with our veteran community, but even more so with everybody in our community, our Polynesian community and understanding that, you know, how important is that?

And it's, it's finances is something that we don't even talk about. Entrepreneurship is something we don't talk about in our community, right? It's very rare, few and far between, you know, with all of the episodes that you guys have done, you guys have, you guys are, you guys are starting to see more and more.

But still that's like a 1 percent or even less than 1 percent of our entire community. It's super small. Our community doesn't want to talk about finances. It's cause just, they're just not used to it. So it's going to take us to be able to kind of help change that and be like, Hey, if we're sharing this financial literacy, if, if the Balinese people are doing it, why can't we do it?

Okay. If we came out here to search for a better life, what we call the American dream. Why can't that also add in financial literacy? So just a  caveat on that, right? Our, our, our, our, um,  when we help our clients, it's absolutely free. When we strategize their financial analysis, they're all free. So we sit, we sit down with everyone and we structure their policy and their financial plans that, that strategize them on their financial goals.

Complete free, right? We get paid based off referrals. So I think that's more rewarding than getting paid by just literally just by helping everyone for free so that they could get ahead Financially and one of the things that I love hearing is once I help somebody two years later down the road something happens They can reach out to me and say d thank you for believing in what you do because you helped cover my family And you know Now that it happened, I have the money because you actually spoke to you know, gave us the insights on why it's important to have life insurance.

And we're just not talking about just life insurance, right? We're just talking about financial literacy in general. So I appreciate that question very much.

So kind of going a little bit off topic from the business. So I have my own theories, but  why do you think our people, the Pacifica people have a hard time? Dealing with their finances or trying to get help with their finances.  I know Savannah covered this a little bit. I think it's because of the way we're taught, 

from the, the older generation, the elders, right?  It's,  Whatever they were taught, whatever they were taught back in the days, they're pretty much teaching us now, right? But they also don't teach it at the schools in, in American Samoa, to be honest, right? And I don't blame them, right? But then if you come to America and you,  you have the opportunity to go learn all this.

And honestly, I have learned more in the financial business. Because I read more books,  right? So I took the initiative to go learn things that would make me better. But I, but I, ultimately it's, it's, I think it's, it's because we're taught from back, back home and, and now we're embranding it to ourselves and now we're, you know, sending it to the next generation.

But I think it all starts with us and by changing ourselves first so that we can  spread financial awareness. In my opinion, and I think it's just a kind of add on it's just the way that our culture is right where we're so used to just taking care of one another. Right. And so if not trying to get historic or anything like that, but like how Damien was saying, it's what we were taught that way.

It's because in our families, we take care of our own.  But it's one of those, like, don't ask where we got the money. We're just going to be able to take care of our own. Right. And so going back to like, fall out of love is right. It's like, if somebody, if something happens, whether it's a wedding, whether it's a funeral, whether it's, you know, a sulfite, any of those things that happen, you know, we're most of the time we're told, Hey, your uncle's cousins, brother's daughter's son is getting married.

And, you know, you have to, you have to give them something. I was like, okay. Um, so in our minds, and I think most of the time it comes to with our,  our older generation, just because that's how they were taught with their, their parents, their grandparents, their great grandparents is, Hey, there's a set amount,  right?

And I just had this conversation with a couple of the Pope on our, uh, what do you call in my family? It's, there's always a set amount. Hey, uh, D, uh, each family is going to give 500, you know, Hey, Michael, you know, each family is going to give a thousand. And you're like, I actually don't have that, you know what I mean?

But, but there's like all this, sometimes there's, there's like the family pressure upon like, Hey, you're going to make our family look bad if we don't give the, you know, if we don't give that thousand dollars or, Hey, our family goal is to give 10 grand to this, uh, but we are only at eight. So there's now there's pressure on, you know, my two brothers, Michael and Spencer, who have better jobs for them to.

Fill in the gap, right. Or Damien's in the military asking for another grand, even though we were only supposed to get a grand. Right. So I know that sometimes it can come with, with our culture and our history and our traditions, you know, when it comes to, uh, how we were raised to, but and with our families and our, especially with our parents, cause I, you know, my parents are still working as well.

Right. And it's, it's one of those things where that's all they knew the American dream for them, if you think about it. Yeah. The way that the world works, the American dream for them was, you go to school. You get good grades, right? You get, uh, you go to college, you get a degree, you get a good job, a good paying job, you retire, right?

And that's, that's literally like the, the form of the American dream. Nowhere in there  do they say, Hey, go be an entrepreneur. Hey, go learn about finances. It's just, Hey, you got to go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, do this. And you have to figure it out on your own. So if you start to step outside of any of that process, it becomes a You know, what are you doing?

And I'm like, is that going to make you money? Like, shouldn't you be going back to work? Like, why don't you have a job? Like, you know, so it's, it's, it's just something that people, especially within our culture, we don't, it's not a huge topic of discussion. Like how Damien said, it wasn't taught back there, but to be completely honest, finances, even here, I mean, I'm in the state of Oregon.

Like.  There's one personal finance class at my daughter's high school, one, and it's, it's not mandatory. It's an elective and it's only taught once, like once a quarter and it's one class for the whole school. So it's like, it's, it's not even a thing now for it to be mandatory. It's just like, Hey, if you want to take that class, go take it just in case you want to learn about finances. 

So now it just becomes an even bigger topic, you know, that obviously we can go on and on about when it comes to, in terms of finances. But  again, it just kind of goes back to our culture. So thank you guys for that question.  Another reason that I think is because mindset where we're kind of stuck in that generational mindset that we're broke and we're comfortable living paycheck to paycheck,  you know, it wasn't until we started this podcast.

And we started entering entrepreneurs, small business around that. I started to think heavily about my  finances and all that. So,  uh, I believe once we start to  basically level up our mindset, thinking about, you know, our finances, that's when we start to improve our situations. Uh, because when I know back in the islands in America, Samoa, everyone's comfortable with living paycheck to paycheck.

We're basically on that  poverty line when you're comparing it to here in the U. S. So that's kind of my theory of why our people have a hard time. Getting their finances straight in contribution to what you guys have already said,   I was just going to add on to it's that's the number one.

That's the number one thing that  we had to learn first in this business  was mindset, just like how you said. So I'm, I'm even glad that you brought it up. Right. And, and teaching, how do we teach our elders?  How do we teach our, it's okay for us, right? Because now that you, it clicked for us, right. It's, it probably took a minute for it to click, but you know, we're still probably working on it.

We're doing our self improvement, right. Our self development, our reading the books, listening to podcasts, being around different entrepreneurs is lifting us up, but, you know, In a mindset way, how do we help our elders also tell themselves, Hey, you know, you can't necessarily tell them, Hey, go listen to a podcast.

You know, I'm pretty sure my dad would be like, what'd you say to me? Thinking that I'm like cussing at him, you know, he's like, oh, you know, he's like talking to me in Tamil and like, you know, what the heck is that? Like, what, why am I going to go listen to some podcasts? Right. Like, okay, whatever, nevermind, you know. 

They're all more about like, you know, don't worry. God will provide for us. You know, God will provide. I was like, yeah, but God also tells us to meet him halfway. Right.  Or faith without action, you know, or faith without works is dead. Right. So, but with them, it's how do we, how do we help them with their mindset and we have to change ours first, right.

So that they're able to see us and they're like, oh, okay. Cause just like you said, Michael, it's. We have to be able to manifest that, hey, I'm gonna be a millionaire. Not someday, you know, not one day, it's You know, I'm going to set a date, you know, having timelines or deadlines, right. And having, so if I believe it and I truly understand it, then I wholeheartedly believe that when the people that are around you will also feel that same thing too because if my mindset's dead, there's, I would not be on this podcast if my, if Damien didn't help me to, to kind of shift my mindset, um, and me and him go way back to, we, we kind of grew up together when we were in Samoa.

So to see the change that we both have come from is just, it's kind of inspiring because it's like, Bro, when we were put back in Samoa playing baseball, we would have never thought, you know, we would have never thought that we're going to be business owners and we're on track to be, you know, multimillionaires and being financially successful.

Like, we would never have thought that. Right. So it is all it all starts with with mindset. So I appreciate that. Yeah, when you I'm glad you mentioned that, Michael, because I actually trained on it last Thursday with my team when it comes to mindset. Right? There's 2 type of mindset that I trained on last Thursday was growth mindset and there's fixed mindset.

Right? Fixed mindset is a mindset that you're going to go through something and then you fail and then you're going to fixate yourself by staying in that same place and not move forward because now you're comfortable. Now you don't want to fight to be better when it comes to growth mindset. You always want to  grow through stuff, right?

Don't just go through it. Grow through it right when you go through obstacles. Hey, get up back on your feet. Get back up, you know, and if it's a failure learn from your lessons from your failures and then always try to do better. Always try to do better. Always go around the obstacle. It's not go through it.

Right. But a lot of and I always compare the two right when it comes to income. Do you want a fixed income or do you want to growth income,  but it all starts where. Learn Mindset so if you want to fix income, then you stay at fixed fixed mindset But if you want a growth income, then you have to have a growth mindset, right?

So it's all about mindset I'm glad you brought that up because a lot of people fail because they always have those self talk and they tell them if once they fail they just Become a victim and now they just stay where they're at and be comfortable with their right. So I think my says important thing to have, especially growing through life.

So that was that was great. Mike, 

 so my personal experience with that is like, you hear about these people who hit a jackpot or a lottery and they like the popular thing to say is that a lot of them, like 90 percent of them are broke again within a year.

Because they didn't make financial decisions that led them to wealth. They just got lucky and because they don't know how to gain or maintain wealth, they make the same mistakes and they go back to basically overspending it and that's it. And so like my own experience with that, my jackpot, my lottery was my deployments.

And every time I deploy, I'm like, Oh, you know what? I made this mistake last time, but this time I'm going to save my money. This time I'm going to invest wisely. Uh, I've had four shots at this and I get, you know, basically I back at square one within a year after I get home. And so  I still am in that point where I'm trying to figure out, man, how do I get?

Well. And hold on to it, you know, so like, you know, that mindset, I'm still in that mindset where it's like, no, dude, you, you don't, you don't know yet. You got to do your research. You got to do what Damien said. Go read some books, man. Sort of talk to people who read the books. Stop thinking, you know, that how to maintain wealth because I broke again after every lottery.

Can I ask both of y'all a personal question real quick? Both of y'all, both of y'all married with someone? I'm not married, but I have a, I have a partner.  All right, well, let's just say y'all single or let's just hypothetically speaking, if your partner was horrible with their finances and you gave them, you know, all the imparted all the wisdom and knowledge that you have now, and they were still horrible with it.

Would that be a red flag or a deal breaker for you to.  I'll answer first. She gotta go. Sorry. She gotta go. If actually i'm, you know, i'm gonna give them a shot and see if they actually learn from me and because ultimately if you settle down her her, uh, their Their debt is going to be your debt, right?

So I think it's important to to get them on the same page as you because you don't want to go through the same struggle if you already have gotten out of it, you know what I mean, so but if They don't learn from that. And I'm sorry, it's just, it's not cut out for me,  in my opinion. So, I know Vanna's married, so she can  say her.

Again, it goes back to mindset. Right, T? Because it's, uh, And I love that they both of those questions kind of came up right one after the other it's because if you're in the right mindset of, Hey, I'm on this growth level of saving my money, you know, using, you know, Spencer's deployments.

He's like, man, I'm, I'm so excited to start implementing all these things that Damien said, you know, kind of saving my money because if you're faithful and little, you'll be faithful and much. So if you're faithful in how, how small, like if you're only getting paid your regular E six or E seven pay, right.

And you're still living paycheck to paycheck, then there's something wrong. Right. And yet you're, if your expenses, sorry, if your income is  more than your expenses, then you're there's somewhere good. But if your expenses start to outgrow your income, there's something wrong.  And so.  For, for you Milford, right.

And how I would answer is that you're  similar to Damien. I would give them a shot, but in understanding that they're in all of any financial meetings I have, they have to be there. They have to be there. Well, in terms of like Michael, when he talks about mindset, it's like, it's, it's a mindset thing.

Cause I can't be like, I'm, I'm all growth, growth, growth. And then if my partner is all fixed, fixed, fixed,  there's going to be an unlovable. You know, unlevel education there or unlevel mindset because  my, my partner is not going to want to change, you know, they're just like, you know, kind of tunnel vision and I'm like, bro, I'm on like a 40 foot level vision right now.

Like I can see us being millionaires in like a year. And my partner is like,  and just starts laughing. And I'm like, no, what do you mean? Like, come on, we have to be on the same level. And so, which is funny, you brought that out. I part of how we help people and we, we show them is we give them stats. So the most recent statistics is 40 percent of marriages end in divorces,  literally solely off of finances, 40%.

I know that might not seem like much, but if you take an even small, oh man, if you take an even smaller, right, uh, what do you call it? Metric of like military, right. Military you know, marriages other than obviously an equity or, you know, all that other stuff,  part of that is finances,  right? Some people get into marriages because of finances to begin with, but then they don't know how to handle it.

So then they ended up departing because of finances. So you have to have, for me, honestly, it's, it's, you have to have the same mindset. You don't necessarily have to have the same goals, but if you decide to stay together, your goal, both of your goals have to be on the same level. You know, if your partner wants to do this and you want to do that, Hey, if it's on the same level, great.

Which means that you guys are both growing together in, in your finances, because finances is going to be a huge, huge conversation that you have to be able to have with your partner. Sorry, if that was more than what you asked for.

No, that was a perfect answer. Thank you. Um, and then just going back a little bit, backtrack into your early times,  since you scored high enough on the ads, we have to be Intel,  uh, where you always like Did you always have some kind of awareness of your finances? I mean, of course,  growing up, uh, being born in LA and then going back to Samoa, I know you've had some kind of  consciousness on it, but just, you know, hearing you guys speak about it, I know Damien had his, but for you also being the mother, like what, what made you really hone in and zone in on this  field?

Honestly, it was living paycheck to paycheck,  even after I was getting raise after raise, I was, I had my disability on top of that. I had my GI bill on top of that and I was still broke,  still broke. Yes, I had, my mom is one of those people, you know, she loves, she loves, she's a lawyer, but she loves shopping at, you know, she was, she grew up on. 

Salvation Army, Goodwill, those are her things. Although she thinks Goodwill is super bougie, which is funny. But, you know, uh, yeah, I know, right? But she taught us to be frugal with our money. Hey, if we don't go and eat out at McDonald's every day after school, we save up all our money. We can go on a bigger vacation to like Disneyland or something, right?

So that was my mom. She taught us how to budget. But when I had a kid, obviously your, your focus changes to where, yeah, All of my money went to her, right? And my partner, right? So it's like they all went, that's where all my money went, but I was still broke.  Why? Because I didn't have,  you know, the concepts of pay me first,  you know, or pay my tithe, then pay myself, you know, which means, you know, what am I going to go do?

What are my savings? What are my retirement funds? Things like that. That's what I mean about paying me first. And then I can give them all my money to go and spend and do whatever. And so for me, Honestly, joining this business, which was literally just a couple years ago, I thought I was pretty comfortable with my, you know management level job.

Again, I had my GI bill, I was getting disability, still living paycheck to paycheck. Which is crazy. Cause I don't live where that guy lives. The email lives in California, obviously I'm in Oregon, so it's not nearly as expensive. But I was, for me and in my, where I'm at, I was like, I was pretty well off.

I was slowly paying off my debt. I was kind of chilling, still living paycheck to paycheck. So it wasn't until I joined this business that I literally had to shift my mindset, like how Michael brought up because it was like, dang, how come I I'm making all this money, but I'm not ever seeing it. It's going to bills.

It's going to all this other stuff. And. Even when you, you know, it goes to sit with like a financial professional and you're like, you have half of your paycheck going to freaking fast food all the time. And I'm like, it still didn't do anything for me. Right. It, so I had to be able to shift my mindset and okay, I need to get freaking crack down on this in order to be able to You know, if I really, really want to be financially independent, financial literate, you know, financially successful, I need to be able to crack down now in order to be, um, successful in the future. 

So thank you.

So, so what are some biggest challenges that you guys have come across or currently facing right now?

Well, um,  I don't think it's a challenge. It's actually, maybe it is a challenge, right? But it's, it's just.  You wouldn't believe the amount of people that we sit down with and don't see the value in what we do and literally just say no to what we're trying to, trying to do, right? If we can help  and, you know, we sat with people that had, that were really good with finances, right?

But we always tell them it's, it's always good to get a second opinion on anything, right? If you're going to go buy a car, you always go to three different dealerships and see what, you know, what's the best price that you get on. But, you know, literally we just want to help families or people just going from good to great, right?

But I think the challenge is, is the education piece and people are, are, Not willing to learn new things because they're so comfortable with where they're at. Oh, no. I trust my financial advisor that I had 20 years ago. Excuse me. Do you know your financial advisor? Do you know their kids? Do you know their mom?

Whatever. Do you know their birthdays? Like you don't know them, right? Even us sitting with the people that we know, they wouldn't even sit down with us  because they trust their financial advisor, but literally, they don't know that their financial advisor is literally getting paid to manage their money and still lose money from the market if they have their, if they have their money in their retirement.

Still,  because when I lost money, I went back to my financial advisor and I asked her, hey, what am I paying you for if you can't manage to protect my money when the market drops?  Oh, it's part of investment, right? You lose some, you win some. I don't want to hear that, right? But then when we come in and we offer the solution to help our, our clients to say, Hey, look, these are the things that we can offer.

We can offer protection on your money when the market drops. We can offer a tax free growth. We can offer when you access this money, it's all tax free because not, you're not buying into this. You're buying into the tax code that's tied to it.  Right. But they're not willing to learn that. And those are some of the, uh, you know, the struggles that we go through, especially when sitting down with clients, right?

So but I will say that the goal is to educate them and it's what they do with it. It's, it's, it's what matters. So if they don't want to do anything, Hey, at least I did my due diligence and the information was given out,  but if they don't want to take the help, Hey, that's, that's your fault. I guarantee you what I just did.

I planted a seed. I'll be the first person you're going to remember.  Oh, the market dropped. Boom. Oh, Damien talked about not losing from the market. Let me reach out to him. Now it's all too late.  Right.  Better late than sorry. Let me protect what you what you have left, right? So, um, I've seen people go from 0.

I mean, from 100 to 0,  because they just kept delaying it. I've seen a lady who had 1. 8 million dollars in the retirement. She said, I don't want to do it because she trusts her financial advisor. 6 months later, it was at 1.  28 months later, 900, 000. A year later, 500, 000.  Boom.  I only moved 500, 000 versus the 1.

8 million  that I could have saved. Right? So the struggle is, is, is, is, is, you know, when the clients don't see the value because they, they, they trust what these financial advisors are saying, but not educating themselves on, you know, the different types of products and the financial strategies that are out there.

So, Mines is just options, right? Educating them on their options. That they know that there's more out there, right?  Cause no matter what, no matter what you ask people, I mean, obviously in the military, they're going to, you ask them, Hey, do you know what your retirement is? And they're like, yeah, it's our TSP.

I was like, do you even know how it works? I can guarantee you probably half of them, if not more than half. I'd be like, isn't that just our retirement plan? I put in, you know, it comes out of my check, out of sight, out of mind. They don't know how it works. So I, I pushed you along with Damien. Like we, I push so hard when it comes to like financial education. 

You know, one of the very first questions I ask when I meet with clients is,  You have a retirement plan? Like, Oh yeah, I got a 401k or I have a Roth. I was like, cool. Have you checked it? They're like, no. I was like, how long have you had it?  And they'll be like, Oh, a couple of years. You know, I just, you know, I just max it or I'll do like 2 percent or 4 percent on my check every, I was like, do you even know how it works?

And they're like, I mean, no, I'm not even supposed to touch it until I'm 59 and a half. And I'm like, okay, so I'll challenge them a little bit. I know Damien does this too. And like, cool. So you're okay with not knowing how much it is. So that in 40 years, when you're getting ready to retire. And if you're surprised that it's only at like 50, 000 or 100, 000, you're okay with that.

They're like, no, why? Isn't it supposed to grow? It's like, that means that you don't know how it works.  So when we, when we literally say it's about educating first and, you know, making sure that they understand their options, you know I'm happy if they have a 401k. Hey, congratulations. You thought about your retirement.

A lot of people that we talked to don't. I was like, now let me just educate you on other options that are out there that can protect your money more. Not only that, it comes with a couple of bells and whistles. It comes with life insurance. It comes with living benefits. It comes with a lot of other things that literally can help you get your money faster.

You don't have to wait until you're 59 and a half. Literally, right? So educational piece for me and option making sure that they know that understand their options is very, very big for me because I didn't have that Damien didn't have that. And so that's why we push it so much. But that's, that's kind of 1 of the challenges is people just no, I'm good.

Michael.  I'm good. Spencer. Thank I already know what I'm talking about. Right? When in all reality, we're just trying to tell them, Hey, we literally just want to sit down and show you. That's it. You know, I'm not asking for you to switch over or do anything. I just want to show you exactly what I do. If it really, really means a lot to you and you really want to know more, cool.

We'll just set up another appointment and then you can, you know, I can tell you more about it. That's it. So, uh, one thing I want to throw at you guys too, and it's like, you know, I'm not trying to get you guys to give away all your business secrets here before people come look you guys up. But so it's kind of last question from me is like, uh,  would you say that there's a cutoff, is it ever too late?

To basically turn things around because I, yeah, this, I say, you know, like, you know, because of this, this or another, I'm at a weird spot with my career, especially on the army side of things where I'm like, you know, we get break for lunch. I have my junior soldiers running off driving miles out so they can go get, you know.

You know, McDonald's or Jack in the Box or something. And here I am, the platoon sergeant, and my broke self is sitting in my truck eating the MRE. You know, I'm just like, man, where did things go wrong that my juniors can afford fast food? And I'm just taking the MRE. I had this cool guy, he's a motor sergeant.

He's a really cool E7 guy. Very financially stable. He's giving me some advice. And he's like, well, Hey man, look,  he's like, you're divorced. I'm like, yeah. He's like, you have any kids? No. It's like, do you have any debt? And I'm like, no, I'm pretty much debt free, but I'm still living paycheck to paycheck. He's like, he's like, bro, that's great.

That's fantastic. You're basically where you were when you were 18.  I'm like, that sounds horrible. Like what? Like, he's like, no, he says, no, no, no. That's good. Because you're smarter than you were when you were 18, you've got a position in the army, you've got a degree, you've got a job. So now that you're basically, you know, resolved where you're like, you, You're basically at a good base where you're smarter than where you were before.

And he called me upward. And so he was like trying to give me some good advice. It's like, Oh man, plus guys usually hit their peak with their earning potential between ages 45 and 50 dog. You got this. Well, blah, blah. And I was like, he's got me fired up, but I'm like, look, I've got a long ways to go. So like point is, like I said, I'm in towards the end of my army career, late thirties.

Is there a point where you would say it's too late to turn things around? Sorry, long winded there. Nah, I don't, I don't think anybody's late to turn things around. I think it's, uh, I tell everyone, you know, life is not expensive. We just don't make enough. It truly is, right? And if we're living paycheck to paycheck, then we're only, we're so comfortable with where we're at, right?

I used to think like that, but if you, I sat down with this millionaire, my millionaire  mentor, and I asked him, how many streams of income does he have? He has seven,  right? But if we're fixated with our salary, which is fixed,  And we're so comfortable where we're at is exactly where, why you're at work because of that.

Right. So a lot of people are not inspired to go seek other opportunities to make more income. Literally what it is, right? I, I, I, I, I, I'm still employed by the army. I make six figures because I'm stationed here, California. I make six figures here in the business, but I also own a couple of a few properties in Texas, which I also gained, um, income, right?

So that's just three income.  Now I'm working on trying to get to my seventh. When you say seven, that's my goal is to get seven, which is, you know, I got a long way to go, but if I don't  inspire myself to go do more and do better, then I'm going to be exactly where I'm at 10 years ago because I didn't take the leap of faith, take the opportunity to go seek more opportunity to make more income.

You know, and every time I sit down with people and they say, Hey, all right, you know, it's too expensive, blah, blah, blah. It's like, try to open up a business. A lot of people fail, but in order for you to go through success, you got to go through all the failures to know what, uh, what's a success feels like.

You know what I mean? So I don't think it's ever too late. I just started in business five years ago, and I'm glad I started five years ago. Cause if I started now, then I would have been five years too late.  Right? So it's, it's all on the person and their mindset. Like right now, if you know. That you're at that position right now.

I think you have a mindset issue, not a, not a money issue. Okay. So it's never too late, brother. I'll just add on to that. I'm pretty sure me and Damien are not far off from you, Spencer, um, in terms of age. And. It's just been the new found love. I thought I was too late. I'm, I'm, I'm like a year older than Damien and I was like, dang it.

I wish I would've started when I was in the military because I probably would've been a millionaire by now, like multi millionaire, both me and him. Right. But it's just so funny that you asked this because we have business partners who are in the business. They're in their sixties and seventies.

They have multiple businesses already. And you, you would never be able to tell that they're 70 or 60 years old because they act younger than us  just because of how much they're living life. Right. Uh, I just so happened to see a post on Instagram. And I hope it's inspiring for you because does anybody know how old Jeff Bezos started when he started Amazon?

He was a young Colonel Sanders when he started KFC. He was Colonel Sanders when he started KFC.  Pretty old,  right? There was one more. Oh, Ray Kroc.  Ray Kroc. He was over 50 when he started to franchise McDonald's.  So he was just getting started.  Our CEO for our company, for Global Financial Impact, He just turned 40 last year and he's just getting started. 

It's never too late for you, brother, right? I know it's going back to the question that you asked me. It's like, how do you guys stay so young? I was like, bro, you look young too. Right. And it's just, it's just a new take on life. Like I, I didn't think that I was ever going to, I kept telling Damon when I first came into the business, I was like, bro, I feel like I'm a lot older now and I just don't, I don't want to have to do all this other stuff.

And he was like, what have you been doing before? What were you doing before? You were just going to work, coming home. You know what I mean? Like  Doing your regular routine. It's like, you need a pattern interruption. That's what you need, Spencer, right? You need a pattern interruption, meaning you've been doing the same thing for the past, you know, 10, however, 20 years that you you've been in, not even just in the military, but in your life.

So if you step outside of your comfort zone, like how Damien was saying, right.  Yeah, you could probably fail, but what if you don't,  what if you don't? And it just, you become a Jeff Bezos, you become what do you call our mentor who makes, you know, multi millions of dollars, right? Or you become a Ray Kroc and you start to franchise, you know, behind the lava lava with Michael and Milford, right?

Like it's,  you know, you don't even know what you're, you're capable of until you try it  or even like just put for, for faith in it. And, you know, you guys already got amazing thing going on right now. Like we would have never been able to meet you guys on this platform. If you guys didn't. Take the step to, to move forward with this idea.

Just start talking to veterans and talking to people in our community. So congratulations to you three for, for giving us a platform to even talk to this, to talk to people like us, not even just veterans, but people in our community. And giving us a platform to share our story. Because.  You think that you're in the same space, Spencer, look at where you're at right now, bro.

You're helping Michael and Milford run this platform. You're already a step ahead, brother. So congratulations to you guys. Let's see. And I meant that as a joke earlier when I was like, I'm 37 going on 50, but no, that's actually a, that's actually a peek into my mentality. That is my mindset. I'm always like looming doom.

I'm like, Oh, the good old days are all gone. And you know, it's all just like kicking rocks from here on out. And I got to change that around. That negative thinking.

 I mean, it's March, Women's History Month,  so we'll, we'll go along this line. Savannah, I don't want to assume, so I just want to ask, was there anything in the Army,  uh, that you picked up on, or  that helped amplify you and your roles as a mother, and then vice versa? Was there anything, you know, from motherhood that you picked up on that helped you in your role? 

Thank you, um, Milford for that question. I'm an athlete, right? And in growing up in Samoa, uh, so of course I'm not a dancer. I'm not by all means, super like elegant. I'm not that type of person. So coming from the States and moving home my dad instilled into me playing baseball. Right. And I loved baseball.

I, I, I probably would play baseball. I probably would still be playing baseball to this day. That's another reason why me and Damien also click, um, is because he played baseball with me. And the reason why I say that is because I was always up for the challenge cause I was always the only girl.  So in, in back in Samoa, it was like a huge culture shock for me when I got home and they're like, Hey, we don't have softball in like regular league.

We only have baseball little league during the summer. And I was like, That's heartbreaking for me. Cause I only play softball. I was like, well, you're going to have to play baseball now,  but I'm the only girl.  They're like,  all right, we'll figure it out. If you don't want to play, then don't play. You know?

So I'd always had that challenge for me of, I have to go up against all these guys.  And I have to prove myself. So that's what also kind of gave me the drive to want to join the military in the first place is it's not, it wasn't even a challenge for the girls. Honestly, I always knew I was a bigger girl.

I know you guys can't see it on the camera, but I'm a, I'm a bigger girl. I would prefer to lift than to run.  I hate cardio. You know, for anybody who's in the military,  I know you guys Marines are like, you guys love to run and the Air Force loves to run and officers love to run, but no, I'm not that person, but I did have the force myself.

And so it helped me in my drive and being in the military of making sure that I was challenging anybody, any of the guys who were around me. Right. And so in terms of motherhood, that challenged me even more to be a lot more compassionate. Uh, with my fellow soldiers. So my culture and my drive to be,  to stay afloat with all the guys and stay on the same level.

By the way, I would never run a group. If you guys are a group runners, I was never an a group runner. I was never a B group runner. I was.  Okay, well maybe in my prime prime when I was younger I was a C group runner, but I was like one of those riding on the lines D group only had to run like a mile because the A group had to run around four times in order to catch up with us like that was me.

Okay.  But it, it helped me in my mindset because it helped me be mentally tough when it came to raising my daughter and teaching her the different, you know, paths that she was able to like, Hey, I need you to be ready for,  excuse my language, but for some hard crap out there. Right. Uh, and I'm not, I'm not talking about like the other stupid, nasty crap I'm talking about.

Things are going to be hard. I want you to be able to be mindful and ready for it when you go out there, because that's what I had to go through. Right. And so I'm not even talking about promotions. I'm talking about when at any point in time, if you feel like you  are not treated the same because you know, you don't have muscles or you can't run the fastest or, you know, you don't look handsome, but you look pretty and, People will only see you for your beauty and not what your works are like, I want you to be able to know that again, it goes back to mindset that you are beautiful and teaching her, Hey, you're, you need to be confident in yourself and know that nobody else will be able to, to do what you do, except for you.

Right. And you have to tell yourself that constantly. Nobody can judge you. Nobody can judge you harder than you judge yourself. And so taking that and flipping it. In terms of being in the military,  I got along with a lot of my, my peers that were there. Right. And I just, like I said, I had a lot,  a lot of people thought I would kind of not necessarily fail and being an interrogator, but it's because I was, I had compassion a lot.

I'm more of like a social butterfly. So they would always ask me, you know, like, how are you going to talk? To terrorists, how are you going to interrogate terrorists and be mean on them if you're so nice and you're like a mom, you know, I was like, what are you going to do, hug them to death? And I'm like, whatever, like, whatever.

Okay. No, but you know, that's, that's the role that you have to step into. Right. I had to play a role when I was an interrogator. The same thing. Here, but instead of stepping into a role, sometimes I had to step into being a mom all the time. Right. And so, but in order for me to even do that, I had to take care of me first in order to be able to give her the best of me. 

So thank you for the question Wilford. I appreciate it. 

Thank you very much for sharing Savannah.  Do you guys have any closing remarks or and where can people find you guys if they want to reach out for any finance issues or want to want to  better their finance situation?

  They can reach out to me at 254 251 6836. Just know all the consultation. The financial consultation is completely free. Just for everyone that's out there that's seeking to, you know, that wants a free consultation.  Savannah, you want to put your number out there too, but also, I would like to ask you guys a question if that's okay. After. So my number is 2 5 4 7 0 2 8 4 9 2. Uh, and we'll also share our, our flyers and information with emails and stuff with, with Michael, Milford and Spencer, so they can put it, push it out to you guys, um, if they need to get a hold of us so that they also have that information they could push out to you guys as well.

Yeah, go ahead and ask us questions if you got some for us. Yes. So this, this is all for just all three. It's just one question, right? It's, it's all about, uh.  You know, what's one thing you will tell your 20 year old self with what you know now, what would, what would, what would be something that you would tell your 20 year, 20 year old self, what would you fix?

What are two things that you would fix if you were to tell your 20 years? So now, because listen, because we're now we're, we're, we're, we're older, right? We're mature now. We've learned things that we should have learned long time ago. Right? So I just want to, I just want to. See where your thoughts are at.

Cause we're, we're all grown here, right? And life has taught us a lot of lessons.  All right. So that was my question. All right. Tell my 20 year old self, dude, she ain't the one. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, no, no, no, no, no. For reals, uh, this is something that I tell all my juniors, because it's something I found out way too late in my military career, and I'm still working on actually leveraging this, so what I tell my soldiers all the time is that when, if somebody tells you that you can't use your VA home loan, to flip towards real estate that you intend on renting out.

They're full of crap. That's bad advice. It gets pushed out a lot. And it's like, you wasted all this time where it's like, look, all you, you just, there are certain criteria and yes, it has to be your primary residence for at least a year. But even after that year, can you refinance that loan? And then use your VA home loan towards another property if you want.

But it's like, You could buy a four unit with that thing and then relive in one of the units as your primary residence and rent out the other units. I wish I knew this before, because I was told directly, you can't do that. And it was bad info. And I will have all these wasted years. So yes, that's what I tell my 20 year old self, like  use your VA home loan and like get on that real estate, bro.

I think I would have told myself to invest in cryptocurrency. When I was in my early twenties, cause I missed out on a lot. I invested too late. So I don't even pay attention to those things anymore because I lost a lot of money. That's, that's a lesson that we, that I learned. So,  but yeah, invested cryptocurrency  like Spencer invest in real estate.

And I think I would have told myself to start this platform around that age. But, it's never too late to start any ventures in your life.

Ah,  man. 20. What was I doing at 20? I was partying. Partying as a bro. We were partying in Okinawa. I think that's where we were.  Well so I joined, I was older than you guys, but I looked as young as you when I was partying with you. But I was, you know, Hawaii's not cheap in that party scene, so I was.

Rolling in the minivan partying as a broke dude but the mindset, I think that's, that's a great theme for what you guys brought up today. And I didn't have that mindset when I joined the military because. I was, I was loud and obnoxious before I joined, and then I sort of humbled myself, but then I put myself in the shell so much that I didn't speak up and I didn't really venture out and,  and question things like I had the ability to, you know, I could solve problems easily, but only problems that were put in front of me, I didn't really, you know, anticipate and try to, you know, Think forward, I was just waiting for things to happen. 

So I would probably tell my 20 year old self,  speak up and keep seeking self improvement, like we seen those in all the, whatever leadership traits that we see all around the military, you know, seek self improvement, but I never really let it ring inside my head to do that for myself back then. So I held myself back a lot from what I was really capable of.

So I'd probably tell my 20 year old self that.

Appreciate the answer. Um, the only reason why I asked that is because  not only do I wanted to know but also I wanted  It was a question to tell yourself  to learn from that so that you could do it now.  Right. And again, it goes back, it goes back to where it's never too late.  It's never too late. Right now is the time.

If you're going to tell yourself that 20 years ago, you're 20, you can actually do that right now. But that's the reason why I asked, because someone asked me that and I was like,  let me just start now. Right. Because if I start tomorrow, I'm tomorrow too late.  So I appreciate you guys answer guys. That's, that's  my question.

Thank you. Did you have a question Savannah? I did. It was actually similar along those lines is why out of all things, did you guys choose to do the podcast  instead of just like, obviously talk to yourselves on Instagram or post random tick tock dances or, you know, there's so many different things. But, you know, with three veterans, you know, who are Polynesians coming together to talk about, you know, different topics.

So, Why do the podcast? Basically, uh, for me, and I think this is kind of mutual with the other podcast members is cause we really like to support Michael, you know,  Michael's the visionary and he's the driving force of this podcast and it's no secret. But I mean, look, I was all too happy to jump in because I like being connected to the broader Polynesian and veteran community, and it's just an opportunity to talk about.

Issues that I may or may not be passionate about on the time at the time. And, you know, as, as the podcast has grown, I've really grown more attached with the other podcast members. And it's, at this point, it's something I enjoy jumping on just to catch up with my homies over here. So that's it. That's what it is for me.

It's about the same. I don't know if you guys ever, cause you know, all you guys back in American Samoa know each other.  I don't know if you guys know JP or Manu or Fatou,  any of those guys,  just. Just the fact that, you know, we're a hilarious bunch. I mean, of course, you guys got your own small circle and just since Michael brought it up,  I'm like, heck yeah, you know, we bunch of funny old dudes.

I'm gonna be a good old time. You know, just it'll be our way of You know, they ain't going to admit it, but therapy at the time or just to maintain contact. I've been grateful for it, you know, especially since we found out some things, personal struggles about Michael that we didn't know beforehand. So, so yeah, just to hang out with the  we, we basically started with eight veterans and now, now we're narrowed down to, to four  full time veterans. We had a cast member Visayawai Thompson. He wasn't a veteran, but he passed away from leukemia.  uh, RIP to Visayawai Thompson, but the main thing was it started from a gaming lobby.

We wanted to  find a platform to express ourselves. I pitched the idea to the guys. Basically I wanted to bring a platform that all of us can be vulnerable in and discuss topics like men's mental health,  the culture. We were never into business until we joined.  We became a business  so that  we never intended to become a business until we joined Matai.

But the main thing was that relationship between us guys. I want it to keep together and we've slowly evolved to something I think much greater than we are. Now, now we're starting a non profit that will benefit veterans and their families. So I'm excited for that venture.  Aside from what we're doing right now with our platform, we want to tell everyone's story. 

So that's why

I appreciate you guys all answering. Um, like I said before, it's.  It's very inspiring. And I know that Damien could probably attest to it. We have quite a few Polynesians, uh, who are also business partners of ours. And our energy is  like wildfire,  right? So I can only imagine when you guys obviously get together and you guys are talking to other Polynesians, right?

Or Islanders. Like it's, it's, it's kind of crazy. Uh, we have a really good friend of ours who's on our team as well. But she's like,  And she's always just asking, you know, like, how do you guys always like this way? Like, how do you guys even know what you say? Like, how do you guys even know what you're about to say or what you guys are joking about?

Like, it could be nothing and all of a sudden you're laughing. Right. But it's you guys are able to take that, be vulnerable with, you know, you guys. And I know it's women's, you know, women's month. But. For me and all on behalf of, you know, the women that I know, right. Uh, I do want to thank you guys for being that vulnerable to include Damien.

And thank you guys so much for your service. Cause it's not easy, you know, not even just being a man, but a veteran who's supposed to provide, who's also an Islander. So you guys have obviously a lot higher standards, uh, in our culture than us as women. So I appreciate you guys. Again, not just creating this platform, but giving us the opportunity to share our story and also sharing you guys story with us and our community.

Cause you know, whether it's zero to or a hundred people, or even just touching one person it all, it have all been worth it. So thank you guys again for, for this. We really appreciate you to Savannah and Damien for joining us today  and allowing us to,  to share your experience, share your story, share about your business, because people, our people, especially in the veterans in the Paso Fico community,  we need to get our finances in line.

We might not admit that we need help, but.  You two are out there to, to, to help people.  So thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you to our listeners for tuning into this episode of Behind the Lava Lava. I hope you enjoyed our conversation. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow Behind the Lava Lava, drop a comment and leave us a review.

And also make sure you hit up Savannah and Damien on their social media. This is Michael Tan and the team, signing off. So far, so far.