1545: Financial Freedom with Finance Expert Justin Buonomo

Robert Plank 0:00 Justin buonimo is the CEO and founder of journey to financial freedom. You can find him at journey to financial freedom.co they are a coaching company that helps faith based individuals build wealth through biblical wisdom, proven financial strategy and intentional stewardship, and we're here to find out about the secrets to money and faith and being a good steward. Justin and his team have helped hundreds of clients take control of their money, break generational cycles and create a life that honors both God and their goals. Exciting stuff, especially if you have been struggling with money, or it's just this, this wild beast you can't tame. You might listen to this show and say, dang, where has this guy Justin been on my ding life? So Mr. Justin, glad to meet you. How the heck are you?

Justin Buonomo 0:51 Thank you for having me, my friend. I am doing well. I'm doing well. I'm really excited to be here. You just seem like an incredible human being, and I'm sure your audience reflects that character. So thank you for having me.

Robert Plank 1:01 Happy to have you. And you know, it takes some momentum, right? It seems like the the natural state of being is to just be a grump, to be negative, and then you have to kind of take some intention in your life, and then make sure to be grateful and keep, keep the the ball rolling down the hill and say, hey, you know, I'm gonna choose to be here. I'll be excited, and I'm excited to talk to you. And so what are you all about? What would you say makes you unique? What makes you stand out?

Justin Buonomo 1:26 Thank you, man, I appreciate that. I It kind of sounds like my day woke up a little grumpy, took some took some momentum to get me going, and definitely feeding off your energy right now. And so I have had such an interesting story like the rest of us, but I always say God has put me through and probably myself a little bit of self inflicted as well, but I just have this beautiful blend of successes and adversities in life that have just come with this asset of wisdom that I absolutely just love sharing with other people, specifically around finances. I didn't grow up around money, even though my parents made a good living. I experienced a couple of bankruptcies in my childhood that really split my family apart, caused us to lose just about everything, down to my house, our cars, my childhood dog, which we had to give away when we lost our home. And you know, then fast forward to 18 years old. I got my own settlement, or my own little pot of money, about $80,000 we're getting hit by a car when I was 13, and Robert it literally that on 1201 midnight of my 18th birthday, got direct deposited into my bank account, not my parents, not my lawyers, not a financial advisor. And I grew up around financial chaos. I grew up around, make a whole bunch of money, spend more than you made, right? Make 100k spend 110,000 right? And so all I did was just mirror what I saw growing up. And to say that I blew that money would be a compliment for how I spent it. But it taught me a lot of things. It taught me a lot of things. It taught me, at least for a short period of time, before it was all gone, what financial security could look like by having money in the bank to be able to live, you know, in a comfortable manner and not have to constantly stress about money, but it also taught me a ton about managing it well. And so fast forward a couple more years, 23 years old, finished my master's degree, worked for Johns Hopkins Medicine for a while on the business side of the hospitals, and I was making a really good living. And I was also doing finances for a living. And so I decided to step up and start managing my money with some wisdom based off of what I was learning. It's a bunch of podcasts and books I was listening to. Definitely haven't been perfect over these past 1011, years since, since that moment, but have learned a ton. I've been blessed over the past six or seven years to own a company, JFF, or journey to financial freedom, when we do financial coaching for the faith based, without all of the outdated, fearful and restrictive feelings that finances usually brings on people, and I take a lot of pride to use my gifts that God has given me to teach a very complex topic in a very easy and understandable manner, and to make sure that we're very accurate and Biblically sound and what God actually says about money and wealth and helping free believers from financial bondage that they normally walk in without these teachings. And so, like I said you before we started, entrepreneurship is a game of solving problems that creates more problems. So it's definitely aged me, but it's been a very, very rewarding. And so, you know, we take the what makes us different, we take the the unnecessary fear and restrictive and negative emotions out of finances and make it easy, and, dare I say, fun, to really dive into your finances. And thankfully, by the grace of God, very effective.

Robert Plank 4:30 Ooh, very cool. And that last bit about the decoupling of the emotions for money that, I mean, that's huge. That's underrated, right? It's like, why do people get into debt to buy the jet ski or impress the people they don't like. It's all this, this weird, stupid emotions attached to it. And you're making me flashback to, like, early 20s, when I was, like, playing around, grow my money, play in the stock market. Man, if the if the stock went up $1 or $2 it would have an effect on my day. And it's like, that's a ridiculous way to live. Life, right? It's literally your money is owning you instead of you owning your money. But as far as like these, these breakthroughs, ahas you've had from your own adversities and helping others, is there any like modern day money lesson that you think is maybe underrated or deserves some attention?

Justin Buonomo 5:19 Yeah, I think actually the first one that comes to mind is budgeting, right? I budgeting, right? I'm a big believer in budgeting, and I think just the reason why people feel maybe so adverse to it or turned off by it, is like there's just a lot of times it's been taught to people in a manner where it feels restrictive, it feels like financial time out or punishment, right? And it feels like it limits your opportunities. But when it's taught, I think, by the right person with the right manner, with the right intentions in mind, it should actually increase your opportunities, it should increase your freedom, it should decrease your stress and anxiety. And so I think oftentimes, I made a post about this other day just out of love, but I said a lot of times you see other financial gurus preaching about like, you don't have to budget. I really just truthfully think they're either a projecting their limiting beliefs on other people, or B, trying to monetize on people's laziness and avoidance, right? And so I just think that if you think about budgeting from a perspective of just management or measurement, it's hard to improve something you're not measuring Right. Or it's a, it's a, it's the major tool or plan for you to accomplish all your financial goals. And so I give people, I always use fitness as a parallel analogy to teach finances, because it's just easy to teach off of as like a metaphor or analogy, right, or a parallel. And I always say, like, if you had these fitness goals, to lose 20 pounds, put on 10 pounds of muscle, get a six pack by summer, whatever insert your fitness goals, you would probably follow a workout plan and a diet plan to accomplish those goals. And if you weren't accomplishing them by and you weren't following a plan, you probably wouldn't be too confused on why they weren't happening, right? And so all of us have these financial goals, and the major and most effective plan to accomplish those usually, it's just a quality budgeting system. And so I think that, unfortunately, it just got a bad stigma out there, and I understand. I've seen the other systems out there. I've been on different systems. I've even possibly taught it in my own time, you know, in a way that felt a little restrictive or off putting to people. But I think once you're taught by the right person with the right intentions in mind, with the right strategies, it really does open your mind to the possibilities, and that's the possibilities and the necessity of it to get best results.

Robert Plank 7:27 I like it so budgeting, even though it's scary boring, take your pick. It's such a necessary tool to measure so that way you can improve. And you know, with the this whole idea of like, the like wrapping, the faith and money, like Dave Ramsey always comes to mind, right? And and they something once that was like, Well, if you don't tell every dollar where to go, then it will decide, and it'll go and, like, run away from you. And you'll be like, where do I have my money go? Because you didn't assign each one a place to go. And then, so I can only imagine that, like you mentioned about, like, fitness, right? You You say, Well, I'm gonna get in shape, and I'm gonna do all this stuff. I'm gonna run five I'm going to run five miles a day. And the cliche is, people quit, right? They buy the clothes, they buy the equipment, and then they start on New Year's Day, and by February 1, then it's all out the window. And it seems like the people that keep going are the ones that have some kind of, like, community, right? They have like, coach, to have accountability. It's, it's like, it's acceptance that, well, if I tried to solve this problem as an individual, then I'm almost guaranteed to fail. But if I have, like, just a little bit of support, a little help other people that think the way I should be thinking, other people who have done it seems to, like, carry me. So would you say that's accurate? Just as far as like, if people come to you and your group and they say, Oh, I'm so bad with money, I'm not good with math. And you say, Well, hey, there's, it's not just about the facts and figures, but the like, the emotionality and the people that you're surrounding yourself with, like, they'll uplift you, correct?

Justin Buonomo 8:56 Yeah, it's such a good point. I I just made a post recently about that too, as well. But I think just kind of going back to, like the sustainability of things for one, finances don't need to be quantum physics, right? They're really not that hard. It was made. They were made to sound hard by the financial industry years back to confuse us on purpose. So we seek them out, and they take advantage of that confusion, right? So finances, as I got into it, about 1011, years I'm like, wait, this really isn't as hard as I thought it was. And so I think our budgeting system, right only requires our clients one to three minutes a day to maintain and get best results, right? That's like telling you all you got to do is work out one to three minutes a day to get six pack abs. That'd be the easiest make. We probably take a quick intermission to to get that workout in. And so I think that's the first thing, right? It doesn't have to be quantum physics. It shouldn't be hard. It shouldn't be this long, mundane thing, right? And then the second thing is, accountability is really important, right? If you wanted to get best results with your fitness, and you've never really done it well on your own before, you would hire a coach account. Ability support and customization of information is really what people pay for. Like, a lot of the things that I teach, you can watch my youtube and listen to my podcast or buy books and listen to it. But why do people pay for coaching? Right? It's accountability, support and customization of the information, right? And so and help with implementation. And then when life, life's one you need to pivot, like also the help of pivoting. And I think the biggest needle mover though, the biggest needle mover in your finances, anybody listening to this, right? The biggest needle mover in your finances, or anything in life. If you want to get true long term results, we must address things from a belief level, not a behavior level, right? Because our behaviors are just a direct result of our beliefs. And again, I'll use the fitness industry again. This is why the majority of people that are probably listening to this, you probably had been on some type of fitness or nutrition program before, where you crushed it for 60 or 90 days and you've fallen off track, and you've been getting back on track on Monday for the past three years. And that's me 1,000% me. But it's nothing that's specifically wrong with those programs or the fitness industry. It's just because a lot of those programs, they only address things from a behavioral level, right? You can only manage and manipulate behaviors for so long into the beliefs, right, that are behind those actual limiting behaviors, the old bad habits start to root their head back through and so I always say, with finances like your external wealth just a reflection of your internal wealth, right? And so if you truthfully want to get real long term results in anything in life, specifically finances, we must address what's going on inside the limiting beliefs and work hard to work through those. And ultimately, that's what creates long term change.

Robert Plank 11:34 And we started with that right when we introduced you this idea about those limiting beliefs and the childhood trauma. It's like, man, it always, it always stems from that I always, probably have in life. It's from what happened to you when you were seven years old, when mom or dad thought about money, and then we mentioned introducing you about, like, breaking those generational cycles, right? Great grandparents struggle with money and then pass it down, pass it down. And it's like, hey, now we're at this pivoting point where we have all this knowledge, right? We have podcasts, Google, AI, we can we finally, we have the tools to to make the change for the first time in centuries, if not forever. And it's like now it's up to us to either squander it or let it pass us by, or say, oh my gosh, like I need to hear from Justin. So can you help us out with with that just really made us your problem of like, breaking 1000s of years of generational trauma, like, how did you rewire these beliefs and how do others do it?

Justin Buonomo 12:29 It's hard not gonna lie, like I was just telling my team recently, like, we, we don't market in a way that makes things sound easy. We don't hide anything. I like to be straightforward, because one of my favorite quotes is finances that take or finances that work take work, right? And there's no quick solution, right? There is a decent amount of investment of your time, money and energy that needs to be put in to make real change, especially when it comes to these belief level things I have been managing my finances a lot better. Took control about 1011, years ago. Business has been in business for about six, seven years. I work with close to 1000 people. Got over 100 active clients right now, and got a team of 10 that work for me. And becoming known in the online space is the new and improved, younger version of Dave Ramsey, right and by say all this to say I still struggle with a lot of the lingering issues that were caused through my childhood traumas. Rob, I could look at my bank account, have six figures in and still get the fear of thinking that I'm going to lose it all, because that's what happened in my family when I was 10 years old, right? And so the the significance of our childhood trauma is deep when it comes to finances, particularly a lot of things in life, but when it comes to finances and to kind of finish my little bit of a quote that I said earlier, I said our behaviors are just a direct result of our beliefs. And our beliefs were formed through our traumas and our experiences in life, and about 95% of the things that we say and do are almost automatic that come from our subconscious, and our subconscious was formed and completed almost be time between ages seven and 10, right? Some studies show like the subconscious was completed at seven, others show up to 10, right? And basically it's kind of like saying that, like we just after seven years old, after 10 years old, we just kind of are who we are. Is. Is a simplistic way to explain that, right? Unless you do very intentional work to go back and undo that lid on your subconscious and just say, Why am I the way I am, and why do I do the things that I do, what happened to me in life, to make me this way, specifically around money. And so it takes an investment of our time, our energy and our money to really go back and figure that out. And it's tough. It is very, very tough, and you know you have to do it from, like, a neutral, non judgmental standpoint for yourself and for other people. Though it's very hard to do that not get frustrated with yourself. It's very hard for you not to get frustrated with my parents, like, why were they so dumb with their money? And why did they do this to me and to us? And I see it in my sister as well. Oftentimes, you. There's the traumas that still linger, and it just it takes a lot of work to go back and just simply ask yourself, Why am I the way I am, and why do I do the things that I do, and why do I believe the things that I do around money? And getting a little bit more nuanced with that, it's like, what are some limiting beliefs that I have around money, or some beliefs that I have around money that are limiting, ones that don't serve me, that are not true that probably didn't come from the best source rights of of someone to teach me around money, and I'll give you a very common one in the faith space, is one of the most, if not the most misconstrued Bible verse of all time, where people say money is the root of all evil. That is coming from a verse in one Timothy where the full verse actually says, For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And if you dive into the translation of the most important part of the Bible verse, which is missing, which is when people misquote it, which is for the love, right? It means when you when you dive in that translation, it means to idolize something. To love something means to idolize something, right? Or idolatry. And you can only idolize one thing at a time, right? So if you're idolizing money. Guess you're not leaving room for God, right? And so in the Bible, money is never the problem. Greed is idolatry is what actually has your heart is the problem, not money or wealth itself. And so I just use it as an example, because a lot of us were raised on these limiting beliefs, whether we were told them directly or seeing them acting out indirectly, like another one, like, oh, rich people are bad, right? I hear that all the time from, you know, family or in laws and stuff. I'm like, that is just so inaccurate. I always stop. I'm like, oh, so are me and my wife or me and more bad people, right? And it just stops them in their tracks, you know? And just, unfortunately, that's just what we're brought up around a lot of us, right? And we don't realize how much it actually impacts us. So advice to the audience from a knowledge, judgmental, neutral standpoint, just sit back and just audit what you've been told, what you've learned, directly or indirectly from your upbringing, from people around you. Just ask yourself, Is this serving me? Is this true, right? And that's that's just a great place to start. I love put your phone down, go for a 30 minute walk in nature, sit with that question and see what comes out.

Robert Plank 17:05 Yeah, break the pattern, of course, and kind of dive deep into that and say, well, these things, I believe that I get stuck in my head 95% of the time, and repeat like, is this serving me, or is this something that's just stuck and you know, you think about the that we're all running the outdated human brain software, right? It's we're doing what worked for us 100,000 years ago. If you're age seven to 10 and you had to learn how to throw the spear or slash the knife and and cut open the wooly mammoth, you didn't need to learn anything after that, right? That was your skill in life. But now, hopefully in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and all that, you're, like, expanding, evolving as a person. So it's like, well, now we need to kind of do that harder work. And it's just it doesn't come natural to us, but that's what we live in this world now to do. And you know, there's the money aspect, and there's also the entrepreneurial aspect, which is, like, it seems like the the fear and the emotional problems times 10, right? And like, there's so many things I wish I know. And like, you know only take, like, 10 30% of the money out of your business, or, like, with the progressive tax plus self employment tax, you really like 40% of your money goes out the window, so you have to, like, work that much harder. But like, what do you think? Is there an insight or two that you've come across in your own business, building entrepreneurship journey that's worth talking about.

Justin Buonomo 18:27 Yeah, I think there's a lot. There's a couple of things come up for one, I've just realized in life, we ultimately get it right by first getting it wrong right. And I think that especially in entrepreneurship as well, like you learn how to do the thing by doing the thing. It's like, it's like jumping off a roof and building the plane on the way down, you know? And so I think that while, yes, that is a part of the process, it's also not a license to not learn from our mistakes. It's also not a license to not learn from other people's mistakes. I actually was listening to a podcast this morning as I was downstairs working out before this school of hard knocks, and they're interviewing Byron gold, or Byron golden, I believe his name is, and they talk, they were talking about mentorship, and they were saying mentorship is wisdom without the wounds, right, meaning that somebody else made the mistakes already, right? And when you get mentorship, they're able to help you not make those unnecessary mistakes, right? The unnecessary stress and anxiety, the unnecessary landmines you don't need to step on, and the unnecessary missed opportunities and so well, I think mistakes and adversity are God's best classroom, right? And there's a lot of things that we need to go through that's on his agenda for us that like is a part of our plan. There's a whole bunch of unnecessary mistakes and or self inflicted wounds that we put ourselves through, right? And though it all comes with this beautiful asset called wisdom from the experience, right? I think that one of the biggest things I've learned in entrepreneurship is like, do your best to seek mentorship, whether it's from books. Amazing podcast like yours, proximity paying for programs, right? There is so many people that condense timeframes for you. They can give you the wisdom without the unnecessary wounds. And you know, at times, I've probably been even a little bit too heavy on my mentorship, but I just feel like that's just been so important for me, and pride welcomes transformation. I'm sorry, pride blocks transformation, and humility welcomes it. And what I mean by that is pride is saying, I got this, I'm gonna figure this out. I can do this on my own. Humility saying, like, I don't got this, I might be able to figure a couple of things on my own, but I definitely need some help, and I'm not only going to seek that help, I'm going to

Robert Plank 20:39 invest in it. And something like that, like you said, it kind of it hammers the point home about how the the faith based connection to money is so important, right? Because you say, like, hey, here, here's this, here's this phrase, here's this lesson that stood the test of time that some like you might have, like, heard when you were in church 20 years ago. And so that way, that's kind of like the path to making it work. And so you say, Well, you know, in in this path to entrepreneurship, like you can't avoid failure, that's just playing it too safe. But there's for sure, like a map and all these landmines. And it's like, well, you could walk over 52 landmines, or you could get a mentor. Maybe you only have to walk across like six or seven landmines. And there's, there's no 100% like safe path to go, but someone else can maybe make sure that you you don't take those unnecessary mistakes, you instead take the necessary mistakes that you can recover from and pivot your business and rebuild the money and get to those other levels of success. And so you've really taken us on a roller coaster ride here. Mr. Justin, like my mind's kind of blowing it. You promise something good. You said, like, Hey, we got we got to keep up, or something like that, right? We have to both bring our a game. But in our final few minutes of our conversation here, do you think there might be a missing question that I should be asking you? I just don't know to ask you, hmm,

Justin Buonomo 21:59 I'm not sure. I'm not sure we've covered a lot today. I think you did a fantastic job. And so unless there's something that comes to mind on your end, nothing pops up authentically on my end.

Robert Plank 22:11 Well, what comes to mind on my end is, so if we've gotten our fix of some of these ideas, like we do on a podcast, right, we got some motivation. We say, All right, I've got a little scatter shot collection of a few little micro tasks I could do, but I'm missing the big picture. And some of these things that you mentioned sound exciting, right, the community and the program. So my question to you is, what's the next step here? If someone is intrigued by the Justin Baron mo world, how do we enter that world.

Justin Buonomo 22:41 I love that. And so like I said earlier, finances that take that finances that work, they take work, right? And that's why we are very passionate about our program called the good steward program. And it is by we're by no means perfect, but at the same time, we got a lot of data to show that if people just step up and play their part, they get incredible results. And so if somebody is listening to this interested in like, willing, really willing to put in the work and step up and play their part, you can find us at journey to financial freedom.co, not.com.co and on there, it talks all about the company and the program. You can book a free consultation with one of my team members. Or you can find me on Instagram, where I'm most active, Justin underscore, buonimo, you can shoot me a DM. There's also a link in my bio to book a free consultation to see if the good Steward Program is the right fit for you. And I was just on my stories this morning talking about like, we work with go getters. We work with clients that have been successful at a lot of other things in life, right? And they know that if they just were taught finances by the right person with the right intentions, in mind with the right strategies in a simple, easy and effective way, and we're held accountable and given the right support and customization of the information, and they know that they'd be successful with finances too. And so like, if you're someone listening to this, who's been successful with a lot of things in life, but this topic of money just keeps hanging over your head, and you can't figure it out. You're not alone, right? You're definitely not alone. It's very normal but effective, a whole different conversation. So nothing changes, and nothing changes, and it is very biblical, and it's very honorable to seek help. And I advise you and and encourage you to do so. And I know I'm biased, but for the best in the world at what we do, and we'd love to welcome you With arms wide open.

Robert Plank 24:17 Very awesome. So it's a skill that can be developed like anything else, but you need that outside help to get it done, and your step to do that is journey to financial freedom.co. And you can find out about that good steward program, especially if you're dealing with financial stress, if you're tired of money controlling your life instead of you controlling your money, and you are ready for a system that actually works a system that honors God and builds real wealth. Place to go is journey to financial freedom.co. Go and check out that good Steward Program and the top navigation and book that pre discovery call to figure out if this proven four step system is for you. It helps vet pay. As individuals, master their finances and create their ideal personal and professional lives. It's the perfect blend of coaching and strategy. And we also said that you can find Mr. Justin brontemo on Instagram. That's Justin underscore, b, u, O, N, O, M, O, don't say that 10 times fast. You find them on Instagram, but we really want you to go is journey to financial freedom.co. So as we're headed that way, Mr. Justin, it's time for the grand finale of the podcast episode where I try to scare you stump you, put you on the spot by asking about a fun or interesting quote or lesson that has served you. So of course, you're a faith based man. I'm sure you got so many. But what comes to mind, as far as a fun or interesting quote or lesson,

Justin Buonomo 25:48 I love the quote that says, You'll never understand God's will for your life if you don't understand his heart. And I think a lot of us have his heart misconstrued when it comes to money, right? We think that God hates money or hates wealth, or wants us to be poor, and it's bad if we want to, you know, grow wealth as a believer, and it's just not true. It's just not true. And so, you know, there's a way that he wants us to go about money. He doesn't want us to idolize it, right? Which idolatry is greed, right? It's putting our worth in it, seeking it over him, or constantly fearing it, thinking that it's our source of peace or source of security, right? But he also doesn't want us to ignore and neglect ignore and neglect it, right? There's this happy medium, if you will, and he calls us to be a good steward of the money he has entrusted us with. And so I just encourage everybody here today to truthfully understand what God actually says about money, what he actually means when he says we He wants us to be a good steward of money, and when you start to understand his heart around money, you will better understand the Will he has for your life,

Robert Plank 26:47 mind blown. So more understanding and education is needed around this, the scary, spooky concept, which is a big, scary monster under the bed. But once we get more education, we're like, Okay, well, I this is something that I can get a handle on this, and I can live that life and business of my dream. So time to get to it, journey to financial freedom.co. And thank you so much, Mr. Justin Baron mo for making me get on my toes here and and keep up with you and just re examine so much about life and money. I'm really glad that you showed up.

Justin Buonomo 27:18 Thank you, my friend. I appreciate you having me. You.