Descriptions/Show Notes:
In a recent episode of the “Raising Private Money” podcast, hosted by Jay Conner, The Private Money Authority, acclaimed financial strategist Damion Lupo shares his extraordinary journey from losing a 20 million dollar portfolio to rebuilding and growing his wealth beyond nine figures. In an enlightening conversation, Damion reveals not only the mistakes that led to his initial downfall but also the indispensable lessons that fueled his resurgence and shaped his future endeavors. Here’s an in-depth look at the crucial elements discussed during the episode.
The Humbling Journey from Loss to Rebirth
Damion Lupo’s tale is one of resilience and determination. By the age of 30, he had amassed a 20 million dollar portfolio, only to lose it in the 2008 financial crisis, ultimately finding himself 5 million dollars in debt. Reflecting on the experience, Lupo highlights the significance of surrounding oneself with people who have weathered similar storms.
Isolated during this turbulent period, he battled fear and doubt, a common plight for entrepreneurs who face major setbacks. His key advice is to cultivate a network of mentors and advisors—those who have the wisdom and experience to provide sound guidance when times are tough.
Mastering the Art of Perseverance
Damion’s comeback wasn’t a quick fix but a deliberate, five-year period of introspection and strategic action. He explains the importance of not succumbing to ego and pride, instead focusing on gaining truthful insights from mentors who aren’t afraid to offer tough love.
This crucial period was spent not just recovering financially, but also re-evaluating what truly mattered to him.
The Importance of Clear Purpose Over Passion
A critical insight from Lupo’s narrative is the emphasis on having a purpose. He advises focusing on a mission that transcends personal gain. According to Lupo, passion alone is fleeting and can easily falter under pressure.
For him, the primary mission became freeing people from financial shackles, inspired deeply by personal experiences, including his father’s late-life financial struggles.
Frametec: Revolutionizing the Housing Industry
One tangible way Damion lives out his purpose is through Frametec. The innovative company aims to solve the housing crisis by using advanced technology to produce home components with greater efficiency and less waste. Frametec’s goals align perfectly with Lupo’s mission of creating impactful, positive change.
Frametec is committed to building houses that are 10 times better, with 99% less waste. The drive to serve others through groundbreaking solutions underpins the success of Frametec and fuels its ambitious expansion plans.
The 10-Year Millionaire Action Plan
To help others achieve financial freedom, Lupo created the 10-Year Millionaire Action Plan, aimed at guiding individuals to a solid financial footing without the ever-looming stress of monetary scarcity. This playbook is available through Turnkey Retirement, offering a structured path to a 10 million dollar net worth.
Damion’s plan is designed to build confidence and empowerment around investing and finances, much of which stems from his own firsthand experiences and subsequent successes.
Transforming Setbacks into Success
Damion Lupo’s journey underscores the vital importance of resilience, continual learning, and serving others. By sharing his story and the strategies that propelled his comeback, he offers a roadmap for others to follow. From his innovative work with Frametec to his comprehensive action plans for financial well-being, Damion exemplifies how turning personal adversity into a mission-driven career can create lasting success for not just oneself but for society at large.
Damion’s insights serve as a powerful reminder: setbacks are inevitable, but with purpose, the right network, and strategic planning, they can be transformed into remarkable comebacks.
For more episodes featuring insightful conversations with seasoned investors and financial experts, be sure to subscribe to “Raising Private Money” and visit the podcast’s website.
10 Discussion Questions from this Episode:
- Resilience and Growth:
How did Damion Lupo’s financial setback at around 30 years old shape his approach to wealth-building and resilience? What lessons from his recovery can individuals apply to their financial journeys?
2. Mentorship and Support:
Damion Lupo emphasizes the importance of having knowledgeable mentors and a support system. How can one effectively find and engage with mentors who provide constructive feedback rather than mere positive affirmation?
3 . Investment Strategy:
Damion Lupo discusses the pitfalls of trying to manage various real estate asset classes simultaneously. What are the potential risks of diversifying too broadly without a focused strategy, and how can investors avoid them?
4.FrameTec’s Impact:
FrameTec aims to revolutionize the housing industry with sustainable and efficient construction methods. How does FrameTec’s approach to construction address current housing crises, and what are the potential long-term benefits for communities?
5. Turnkey Retirement:
The episode mentions the “10 Steps to 10,000,000” playbook offered by Turnkey Retirement. What strategies within this plan can help individuals shift from merely chasing money to achieving long-term financial independence?
6. Building Relationships:
Both Damion Lupo and Jay Conner stress the importance of genuine relationship-building in fundraising and investments. What practices can one adopt to build trust and authentic connections within their investment community?
7. Overcoming Ego and Pride:
Damion Lupo highlights the issues of ego and pride in preventing individuals from accepting uncomfortable truths. How can one cultivate humility and openness to criticism in their personal and professional lives?
8. Decision-Making Criteria:
Lupo advises having a clear purpose or “North Star” to guide decisions. What are the potential pitfalls of pursuing opportunities solely based on passion, and how can a well-defined purpose help steer clear of distractions?
9. Coping with Financial Crises:
The episode discusses handling financial or life crises and the importance of forgiveness and learning from past mistakes. How can individuals develop resilience and a positive mindset when facing setbacks?
10. Impact and Legacy:
Inspired by figures like Zig Ziglar, Damion Lupo shifted his focus from personal wealth to creating value for others. How can adopting a mission-driven approach to business and investments enhance both personal fulfillment and societal impact?
Fun facts that were revealed in the episode:
- Damian Lupo has launched and grown over 70 companies from the ground up, reaching valuations of 7, 8, and even 9 figures.
- Damian lost a $20,000,000 portfolio in 2008 and rebuilt his wealth beyond 9 figures after being homeless for a period.
- Damian’s company, FrameTech, uses robots and AI for high-quality, low-waste housing construction, aiming to solve the housing crisis.
Timestamps:
00:01 Entrepreneur rebuilt wealth and revolutionized retirement and construction.
03:40 Severe financial loss followed by a five-year recovery.
07:24 Value truth, embrace humility, avoid self-deception.
11:04 Opportunities evaluated by mission alignment and purpose.
16:20 Empower individuals with financial confidence and overcome regret.
19:38 Teaching tax-aware investing with retirement funds.
22:15 Invest based on trust, not greed. Build community.
24:44 Actions speak louder than words; show care.
28:01 Big mission and tactical resources create value.
33:51 Future building technology detailed on https://www.Frametec.com.
37:16 Franchise model: scalable, efficient wood-structured plant.
38:18 Innovative employee welfare initiatives in the blue-collar industry.
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Transforming Financial Setbacks into 9-Figure Success with Damion Lupo
Jay Conner [00:00:01]:
Welcome to another amazing episode of Raising Private Money. I’m Jay Conner, the Private Money Authority, also your host on the show here. And this is the show where we talk about raising private money without ever having to even ask for money. This is also the podcast where I have amazing guests come on here and talk about their story and their journeys as to how they’ve gone about raising lots and lots of private money for their real estate deals. Well, my guest today, he’s launched, he’s grown over 70 companies for goodness sake from the ground up. From $0 to 100,000,000 throughout a, quite frankly, remarkable over the 25-year journey so far. In addition to that, well, he’s got 12 books already published that he’s written, so he’s a prolific author. And he’s got a lot of experience in building multiple companies from the ground up.
Jay Conner [00:01:02]:
Many of these companies have reached 7, 8, and even 9 figure valuations. Well, not everything has been roses, and smelling the roses throughout his journey. If you’ve been an entrepreneur, entrepreneur for any length of time, you know, we always have setbacks and that is the resilience and the determination that keeps us moving forward. Well, my guest today has got a very, very big story about how when he was around 30 years old, he lost a $20,000,000 portfolio. And we’re gonna hear his story. You’re gonna be fascinated as to how he went through that, how he overcame being homeless and went on to rebuild his wealth beyond 9 figures. Well, he has today revolutionized the retirement industry with what he calls the groundbreaking retirement plan system, and he’s also changed the whole landscape of how, the home and apartment construction industry, through his company and his pioneering work that he calls FrameTech. So we’re gonna hear all about that.
Jay Conner [00:02:12]:
So in just a moment, you’re gonna meet my amazing guest, Mister Damien Lupo, right after this.
Narrator [00:02:22]:
If you’re a real estate investor and are wondering how to raise and leverage private money to make more profit on every deal, then you’re in the right place. On raising private money, we’ll speak with new and seasoned investors to dissect their deals and extract the best tips and strategies to help you get the money, because the money comes first. Now here’s your host, Jay Conner.
Jay Conner [00:02:50]:
Well, hello, Damian, and welcome to the show.
Damion Lupo [00:02:53]:
Jay, it’s good to be here. Good to see you.
Jay Conner [00:02:56]:
Good to see you too. My Lance, you’ve raised personally over $200,000,000 in private money. Can’t wait to hear the story on that. The audience is already sitting on the edge of their seat even while they’re driving their cars and tuning in and listening in. So we definitely wanna hear the story, your backstory that led up to when you were around 30 years old. You had built a portfolio of $20,000,000. You saw that go away and then continue the story as to how in the world did you persevere through that and then build it all back even bigger than it was before?
Damion Lupo [00:03:40]:
You know, it’s funny that it was not a continuous process. That’s one of the things about losing your butt, $20,000,000 going I was negative 5. So it was a $25,000,000 turn from 20,000,000 to negative 5 in 12 months back in 2008. And it it wasn’t an overnight, I’m back, and I’m doing something. It was about a 5 year time outbox. And that’s that’s one of the hard parts because when you get beat up that bad and life kicks you in the teeth, it there’s there’s a process of being afraid of your shadow, and that was that was the the hardest thing. And there I think one of the reasons it took 5 years and not 5 months or a year or a lot of lot quicker than it could have was because I was isolated. And anybody that has ever gone through something, you’re gonna go through it a lot faster if you’ve got people around you.
Damion Lupo [00:04:20]:
And, unfortunately, my ego thought that I was all by myself and that it was just me. Nobody else had gone through it. I wrote a book about it in 2012. After the book was published, it was called Reinvented Life, people said, you know what? I went through that same thing, and I thought, man, I wish I had known you, you know, 4 or 5 years ago. We could have commiserated and moved through this. So it was but I needed it. I can tell you that the guy that I was 20 years ago was a guy that I wouldn’t wanna meet today and you wouldn’t have liked. And so I’m really glad that I went through it.
Damion Lupo [00:04:48]:
It is when you lose everything, you end up homeless. It shifts the focus on what matters. You tend to be more external to other people after you have gone through a process of being hedonistic and focused on money. So I’m grateful for the process. I don’t wanna do it again, but I’m grateful that I went through it.
Jay Conner [00:05:07]:
So what real estate asset class or classes were you in, when, of course, we had the global financial crisis, in 2007, and 9? I had my wake-up call in January of 2009. So you and I have got a lot in common as far as 2,009 goes. But what was the asset class?
Damion Lupo [00:05:27]:
So here’s one of the great mistakes that people make. My answer was and is back then all. Like, I was doing everything. I had no focus. I was I had hundreds of houses. I was remodeling apartments. I was building condo towers. I was flipping 4, $5,000,000 houses on the Coast, East Coast, and West Coast.
Damion Lupo [00:05:43]:
So I was all over the place, scattered, fractured, and not focused. That was one of the biggest problems. I wasn’t I had no idea what was going on. I was just chasing everything, thinking, man, I could do this. Donald Trump did it. I could do it.
Jay Conner [00:05:55]:
There’s a right or downer right there. I’ve never heard the phrase fractured and not focused. Did I hear you say that right?
Damion Lupo [00:06:02]:
Sure did.
Jay Conner [00:06:03]:
Yes. So what are some of the big, big lessons or takeaways from that experience, of losing a $20,000,000 portfolio? And, another way of asking the same question is if you knew then what you know now, what would you have done differently?
Damion Lupo [00:06:26]:
Well, the first thing is whether whether somebody’s listening or watching and you’re thinking, man, 20,000,000, I only got 20 or I lost 50 or it doesn’t matter when it’s all you got, it’s all you got. I have friends who are going through bankruptcy right now. They were syndicating apartments. They were going through a process of building wealth, and now they’re going through chapter 7. And when it’s all you got, it’s all you got. So first off, if it’s all you got, there’s a psychological process. The thing that I look back and wish I would have known was you you gotta have people around you that are 10, 20 years down the road that are bald or grayer than you because you don’t know what you don’t know. And the moment that my ego and pride took over I said, oh, I know everything.
Damion Lupo [00:07:01]:
I’m the smartest man on the planet, 10 feet tall and bulletproof, and all that nonsense. That’s when I got in trouble. I had those people around me for the 1st 5, and 6 years, and then I shifted into a place where I was paying for people to be my friend, whether it was a mentor or other people telling me what I wanted to hear. And that that’s that’s like the kiss of death. You gotta have people around you. They’re one job. This is what therapists do. It’s the right coaches and the right mentors.
Damion Lupo [00:07:24]:
When those people are around you and you’re you pay them to tell you the truth and they’ll tell you the thing that hurts, the medicine that you need to take, that’s what I stopped doing, and I’ve seen that a 1000000 times with people and their ego and their pride. That’s probably the number one thing. Make sure you see the truth, and you’re not swallowing and smoking your exhaust. That’s what people do because they think they’re they’re so smart. And the reality is, as you know, been out there for a long time, we don’t know everything, and the older you get, the more you realize you don’t know, and that’s the big wise moment. Oh, wow. You thought you knew everything at 20 or 30, but the reality is where it’s it you you need to always remember there’s way more that you don’t know, and having people that’ll point out your blind spots is key.
Jay Conner [00:08:05]:
So would you say you have more of a humble outlook as to the way you look at life and the filter that you have as you see things?
Damion Lupo [00:08:17]:
I there’s a there’s a thing that I did when back in the day, and I say the day. I’m talking about early 2000. This was the beginning of the 25 years. I was mister optimistic, man. Rose clothes colored glasses on everything. And if you said it can’t be done, I said, I’m gonna show you how I’m gonna do it. I told you I would tell you I could build a great wall of China in a week. No problem.
Damion Lupo [00:08:36]:
I’m gonna figure it out. And it was always about how I do this versus whether should I do this. And that there so there’s a humility in realizing that there’s some different type of thinking. There’s realistic thinking, pragmatic thinking, and pessimistic thinking. All those things are important. There’s a great book called Thinking for a Change that everybody should read, and I don’t see that lightly, but it’s it’s key. You have to understand how to have different thinking when it’s appropriate, and sometimes you need to be able to carry the same thought from different sides of your brain that are thinking about it in different ways. And then that’s also when other people around you, ask them what’s what’s the worst case, the best case, the most likely case, and you start thinking through these things from an appropriate brain versus whatever delusional emotional state you are as an animal. Basically, what is what happens?
Damion Lupo [00:09:21]:
We get excited or scared or greedy or whatever. And and that was that was the the big shift. It was now I could look at things. I look at life, and I’m not just mister optimistic. Things cycle. Things go up. They go down. They go left to go right.
Damion Lupo [00:09:32]:
You have good times with people, and you have time for people who are trying to kill you, hurt you, steal from you. So there you have to be realistic about a lot of those things. That’s a big shift, and that’s a part of wisdom going through it and knowing that at your core so that you’re not looking at things as Pollyanna or some other delusional state because it’s always the same way, which is what a lot of people think, I think.
Jay Conner [00:09:53]:
I like the question that you asked yourself that you shared a minute ago. And you said the question to ask yourself, it’s much better to ask the question, should I do this versus How can I do this? So when you have an opportunity come along your way, and we all do. I mean, for goodness’ sake, all of us entrepreneurs fight, shiny object syndrome. I mean, we’re just we are cursed. We are cursed with shiny object syndrome. And so when you have these opportunities come along, and I’m sure they do all the time, what’s the what’s the criteria that you use to decide whether you should or should not?
Damion Lupo [00:10:38]:
This is the question about people who focus on passion, and they say, well, I have to find my passion. And my answer is wrong. Don’t find your passion. Make sure you’re on purpose first. Make sure you have a purpose at North Star. Passion is cool, and you should I think it’s great to have passion and purpose. But when you have a purpose and you have a North Star, it’s easy to say no to most things. My North Star is 1000000 people that are that have their financial shackles broken and are not living under modern-day slavery, which I believe money is.
Damion Lupo [00:11:04]:
And so when I look at opportunities, my question is, is this going to help the mission? Is this gonna help my big why? And if it is, is it gonna support what I’m already doing, or is it gonna distract me? Almost everything is gonna distract me, and it’s gonna derail me, and I have no skills or talent around it. So when you have something very clear and clean, this is everything that I’ve bolted on over the last decade that’s, you know, started with one thing, and other things got added into the point where we’re at with FrameTech. Everything has to do with freeing people from those financial shackles. And if once you find that purpose, you can start figuring out what your passions are that will help that. But the problem is that if you just have passion, when it gets hard, you look for the other the new shiny object. You’re like, oh, well, I wanna go find something else I’m passionate about because this stuff sucks. And there’s a big shift when it’s purposeful, you’ll grind and you’ll do the hard things, and you’ll wake up early and you’ll jump in the cold plunge of life. You’ll do those things no matter what because the North Star is pulling you.
Jay Conner [00:11:59]:
That is fantastic advice. So let’s let’s dive into no. No. Let’s not dive into it yet. I was gonna say, let’s dive into what, I mean, really the details of your purpose and how it is that you’re serving other people. But let’s let’s not do that quite yet. So you said it was a 5-year sort of turnaround from the time you lost everything until you, you know, really started having things built back. When someone is going through a financial crisis, perhaps not to the degree that you did, or quite frankly, it could not be a I mean, maybe it’s not a financial crisis.
Jay Conner [00:12:37]:
Maybe it’s just a life crisis, you know, that that you that you just, you know, you feel like the rug has been pulled out from underneath you. You’ve lost your confidence. You’re scared of your own shadow as you said. What advice can you give someone who perhaps is experiencing that right now? How do they get back on their feet?
Damion Lupo [00:13:01]:
I’ll tell you the story about a conversation I had with a mentor back when this was going down when I was everything was falling apart. I was running out of credit lines. I had 1,000,000 charged to my credit cards, and then I was told no. My American Express was being turned off like things were happening. And I remember going to him and saying, hey, here’s my biggest problem. I have a partner who has effectively stolen $5,000,000 from me, and I want to hurt him. I hate him. I like this guy, I trusted him.
Damion Lupo [00:13:26]:
He was like a brother, and this can happen in a lot of different ways for people. He said it won’t matter. And I said, how in the hell are you what do you mean it won’t matter? It’s $5,000,000. I need the 5,000,000. He said it won’t matter. In a matter, there will be a point, and he didn’t say it was gonna be 5 minutes or 5 months. It ultimately ended up being a decade and probably a little bit more than that, but that 5,000,000 didn’t matter. I had to get past that because what happens, I’ve seen this where people will spend a decade just mulling and being irritated, being pissed and saying that’s no good scumbag bastard, you know, and they and they get stuck and they never progress.
Damion Lupo [00:13:59]:
It took me several years to get to that point where I started progressing again, but it was a shift into trusting that my purpose and the reason I’m here, and my opportunities were gonna lead to something that was beyond that. And ultimately, 5,000,000, while it’s something, it’s not nothing, I’ve gone so far past that because I let it go. And that’s where people have to let go of the stuff. You don’t forget it. What you do is you forgive it, and you learn from it. And there’s a big difference. And if you don’t if you don’t remember it, you’re gonna do it again in probably a more painful way because the universe tends to give us lessons over and over again, but they make them harder, more painful if you’re not paying attention. So that was that was the process of of saying, okay.
Damion Lupo [00:14:37]:
I’m gonna forgive and move on, and then I’m gonna lever from that, and I’m gonna go and I’m gonna focus on a mission. Before it was about Damian’s money. How much money can Damian get? After that, it was about how much value I create for other people and help them be financially free, which was what Zig Ziglar taught me 20 years ago. And when I did that, then 5,000,000 literally and not just this is a pie in the sky. That 5,000,000 became almost a rounding error from the businesses that I’ve created and helped run and build and my net worth and everything else. But it took that shift, and it took my willingness to let go of that stuff and not be a victim for the rest of my life.
Jay Conner [00:15:12]:
Victor or Victor or not victim mentality. You just said someone’s name that was one of my big heroes and still is one of my big heroes, Zig Ziglar. I got to meet Zig twice. I was so blessed. Did you ever get to meet him?
Damion Lupo [00:15:27]:
I did. And he and and Jim Rohn were 2, formational, foundational people in my life. And I did meet Jim, and I spent some time with him. And, I mean, he was those 2 guys are like the OGs, man. Tony Robbins and everybody else learned from those guys. It was those 2 guys that were kinda it’s like the core source material. It’s those 2 dudes.
Jay Conner [00:15:46]:
Yes. I love it. So let’s come back around to where I was going a minute ago. So let’s dive into your purpose, that you’re, you know, just laser-focused on, and tell us to tell us some details about that.
Damion Lupo [00:16:02]:
Well, this sort of this started about 10 years ago. I was I got a call on Thanksgiving in 2013, and it was my dad and it was a voicemail I got on Thanksgiving weekend. And he and he said, hey. Just wanted to say hi. I got some tests back, some results back, and I’m in stage 4. Hope you had a good Thanksgiving. I love you. And I went, oh, man.
Damion Lupo [00:16:20]:
That’s not good. And I went back. I flew up to Alaska a couple of days later and had the last real conversation with my dad, in this conversation, we were sitting there at this coffee shop, and he said, you know, there were so many things that I wanted to do. And then we just both cried. And it was me realizing he was feeling the pain of regret, and it was being seared onto my soul, my heart. And I realized the money stuff that he never figured out kept him afraid and trapped, and that’s where most people are. So I started unpacking this and understanding that the biggest lever and the biggest impact I could have on people is to take money out of the equation, but not giving them money, not just saying, here’s the path, but helping them with the path of building confidence. Because once you have confidence around money and investing and finance, not nobody can take that away.
Damion Lupo [00:17:08]:
You can go bankrupt, but if you have confidence, you’ll whip right back. And so it it was it was from that trauma and the pain of watching my dad retire with a small amount and then just being afraid he’d lose it and then dying, basically, not having lived out the things he wanted to do. It was really that as a leverage point for me to go out there and say, I’m gonna help as many people as I can, and that’s gonna be the seminal work of my life.
Jay Conner [00:17:31]:
So how are you helping people achieve that?
Damion Lupo [00:17:34]:
So it’s it started with giving people some clarity that there’s more to it than just whatever Wall Street or whatever their school has told them in terms of you can invest in all sorts of things and money. If you don’t understand it, you’ll be a bitch. Like, you are gonna be stuck and trapped by it. So what I did is I said, okay. Here are some other things. I started selling some gold and silver educating, wrote a book on gold and silver that led to starting a company where I was teaching people how to how to use their retirement accounts to invest in things outside of mutual funds, You know, taking IRAs and 401ks, investing in real estate, and nowadays, Bitcoin and private lending and all sorts of cool stuff. And what was happening was people were becoming empowered. And so as I said, with the mission, everything was centered on that mission, giving people confidence, and power.
Damion Lupo [00:18:20]:
And so it was a lot of education. It was a lot of 1 on 1, and then that scaled giving building a community. So then they were people were teaching each other, and then, ultimately, that led to sharing ideas around investments where people could start investing in things using their money and then getting them actively involved so they were learning while they were investing. It wasn’t just, that I was handing my money to an adviser. I hope it works out, but having hundreds of people come out to Arizona and being at a manufacturing plant that we built with their money this last year, ‘s getting people to the place where they feel like they’re in control of their life, that they have a life by design. It’s not some default system that they hope they won’t run out of money before they run out of years. And that and that’s that’s what it’s it looks like now. Thousands of people feel like they actually can choose their life, and their future is theirs.
Damion Lupo [00:19:06]:
It’s not somebody else’s telling them what it’s gonna be.
Jay Conner [00:19:09]:
Well, I tell you, Damon, you and I have got a lot in common because my wake-up call in January 2009 was when I was cut off from the banks with no notice. And, there’s no fault of my own, but, I mean, we know what was going on. And, that’s when I learned about private money. I’ve never heard of private money, and I’m not talking about hard money, but I’m talking about private money. And so I did the same thing that you just shared. You know what I did? I put on my teacher hat.
Damion Lupo [00:19:37]:
Yep.
Jay Conner [00:19:38]:
And I started teaching people exactly what you just said. I just started teaching how they can use retirement funds to, invest and get either tax-deferred or tax-free income depending on the type of, you know, retirement account they got. And I went about it that way because I knew instinctively that if I was out there trying to pitch deals before people even understood what private money was and how they could get high rates of return safely and securely, I knew I was gonna be making a big mistake. Because, as I say all the time, desperation’s got a smell to it. And the worst time in my experience to be raising private money is when you need it for a deal that you’re trying to close next week. That’s terrible. And so I went about, and so I just first started in my network teaching people, what private money is, how they can get involved, teaching them the program. And you know what you just said reminds me of the handwritten notes and the hugs from so many of our investors, our private lenders, saying how we say we, my wife and my wife, Carol Joy, have changed their retirement years, and they’ve been able to do things that ordinarily they would not have been able to do without in getting involved with us.
Jay Conner [00:20:57]:
So that’s that’s very interesting, Damon. I’ve taken the same approach. You’ve taken the same approach as me of leading with a servant’s heart and knowing that you’re gonna make a big impact in these people’s lives. You know, people sometimes, they’ll say, Jay, I’m fear of rejection. And you know what I say to them, Damien? I say, how can you be rejected if you’re not asking anybody for anything and you’re simply putting on your teacher hat and offering a way to make an impact? I’m so glad you shared that part of your philosophy because it takes all the pressure off. There’s no pressure going on here.
Damion Lupo [00:21:31]:
Now you’re you’re 100% right. When people people ask all the time because, I mean, it’s it’s it’s a significant number, a couple $100,000,000. People say I have a deal. I’m trying to raise 5,000,000 or 10,000,000 or 1,000,000, and they’re stuck. And I go, the reason you’re stuck is because you don’t have a big enough list of people to trust you. When people trust you, when you’ve built a network, it takes time and it takes effort. You don’t just get that because you put an ad on Google. It’s it’s not something that happens overnight.
Damion Lupo [00:21:55]:
And so you’re right. You don’t go raise money when you need it. You go what you go is you build relationships. But the problem is people have read Tim Ferriss, and they go 4 hour work week. How do I raise money in 4 hours? And I love Tim’s book. I love all his books. They’re great, but people are applying it to the wrong thing. When you’re talking about doing investments, you’re talking about raising money.
Damion Lupo [00:22:15]:
You have to go to the you you go to people. People invest 2 ways. They base their investment on things where they trust somebody, and they go, I’m investing in you, or they invest based on their greed glands. Like, those glands get all swollen when they’re like, oh, I’m gonna make 20 or 50 or 100%. Guess what? Most of the time, they lose their money. But the trust is where, like, you can go pitch something and say, I’m gonna give you a guaranteed 25%, and you’re gonna have a whole bunch of people that are gonna give you their money, and you’re probably gonna blow up your deal because it’s not real. But the other part that’s sustainable is when you build a community when you build a network, and that’s when you what you just said, you lead with a servant’s heart. You don’t go out there with slick marketing and just try to get people on a list and then tell them what they wanna hear.
Damion Lupo [00:22:56]:
Like, you are there figuring out how to make their life better in your way of doing that, giving yourself completely. And that’s what people generally don’t wanna do, and the people that are making it happen, most likely, they’re that’s what they’ve been doing probably for longer than a month or 2. It’s probably been years, and then all of a sudden, it looks easy. It’s like, how did we raise? We raised 14,000,000 on one deal in 4 hours. Why? Because people trusted us, and we had a solid deal that we were putting a lot of our own money into. That made it easy, and that’s how things get done efficiently. My buddy, Kenny McElroy, he’ll throw a deal out there and, I mean, tens of 1,000,000 of dollars in minutes or hours because he built a reputation, and he’s got people that say, whatever you’re doing, I want in. That’s how you raise money.
Damion Lupo [00:23:36]:
It’s it’s based on relationships and those take time.
Jay Conner [00:23:40]:
At my live events, which are called the private money conference. In my live events, we’ll spend a whole 2 hours or 3 days just talking about building networks. How do you build your network? So we don’t have, we don’t have an hour and a half or 2 hours, but I want us to at least take 2 or 3 or 4 minutes and dive in on that topic because I get that question all the time, you know. You know, and that’s true. I mean, all of us are gonna run out of our network, you know, either quickly or eventually. We’re gonna run out. So in your experience, Damian, what are some of, your your favorite ways to grow your network and to keep your network connected with you? Well, one
Damion Lupo [00:24:25]:
Of the things is you gotta be authentically real about what you’re bringing to the table. If you go in and you’re like, man, I’ve known you for 20 years. I’m doing this thing. I don’t know what I’m doing. The wrong approach. Like, you gotta go out there and build some scar tissue around something. Then when you show up to build your network, you’re talking about your experiences. That’s very different than reading a book and saying, I got a great idea.
Damion Lupo [00:24:44]:
Like, go out there and do something. And then when you’re building your network with that stuff that you’ve done, and it could be minor, you could apprentice with somebody for a month or 6 months just doing something. But the the thing that you gotta do is I don’t know if Zig said it or Jim said it, but one of these guys said it. Like, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And you mentioned those handwritten cards and things. One of the things I did for years, every person, every prospect that came in and I wrote a book about what I knew, what I’ve been through, and I gave those books away, thousands, tens of thousands of those books. Everybody who ordered a book for free on me didn’t charge shipping. I sent the book out, and I wrote them a card.
Damion Lupo [00:25:21]:
It wasn’t, hey. Thanks for the order. It was like, man. It was like something personal. What happens, is people realize, wow, you’re taking time. You can’t get that back. There is no leveraging your time. There’s no scaling 1 on 1, and that builds a tremendous amount of trust.
Damion Lupo [00:25:35]:
If you have a phone call with somebody and you’re like, hey, man. Just, like, I wanna know what’s going on with you and how I what just maybe I can figure out how to solve something for you or help you work through something. It’s those types of conversations where people go, wow. You’re not just trying to grab the cash out of my pocket. And to your point, when you’re serving, if you focus on serving people with an open heart and not just how am I gonna get like, I look. I’ve learned a lot from Grant Cardone, but when I hear him say, I wanna figure out who’s cash who’s got the cash in the wallet that’s gonna be in my wallet. Like, he has that approach. And I don’t think people can smell it, and you’ve got it.
Damion Lupo [00:26:12]:
There’s a big difference when you’re building long-term relationships where people are gonna say, yeah. I like you, and you got a deal you just told me about. Here’s a half $1,000,000. That happens because you’ve set the stage where people know that you are gonna be a good steward, and you’re gonna protect their capital, and you and you’ve got a relationship. They’re not disposable to you. That’s why you gotta think differently, and it takes time. Again, we’re back to that. But that that’s that’s the magic.
Damion Lupo [00:26:34]:
When you focus on somebody else’s success, you the side effect of wealth that that has been created in my world because so many other people have benefited from the work that I’ve done for them, and it’s a natural side effect, and it made me rich.
Jay Conner [00:26:50]:
I love you shared that you gave away your book. Don’t even charge shipping, etcetera. And I’ve got, I’ve got quite a few members in my community that have written their book, on private money. And, it’s just, I mean, nice books. It’s a great business card for them to share with people. But, logistically, how did thousands of people hear about your book or books that you could give away?
Damion Lupo [00:27:15]:
So there’s a couple of main things. 1 and then so it’s funny because you and I are doing this, and the podcasting world just continues to grow. I started doing that 9 8 8, 9 years ago, and I said, I wanna be on every show. And I was out there, and I was on tons and tons of shows. Sharing yourself, people start to get to know you. It’s like Joe Rogan’s long form. You and I are not this is not ABC News where we get to talk for 2 minutes, and it’s a sound bite. There’s there’s good sound bites, but it’s there’s stories and depth here.
Damion Lupo [00:27:41]:
So find ways to do that. The podcast is great. Live streaming is where you’re sharing yourself, and it’s not just a choreographed bunch of nonsense. And then for there’s several years where if there was a real estate conference, I was on stage. I was speaking. I was sharing. I was giving value, and and sometimes I was paying to do that. It was like everything I can do.
Damion Lupo [00:28:01]:
It was because there was a long game, and that’s that’s one of the things. The question is, what’s the vision? If your focus is, I’m gonna figure out how to make $100,000 or $1,000,000, it’s hard to show up with a big mission that people can go, Man, I wanna be I want you to be a part of my world, part of my conference, part of my it’s a different energy when you’ve got a big mission and you’ve got something tactically that’s useful. When I was giving people tools for their members to be able to go out and invest in real estate using their retirement accounts, it was valuable for everybody involved, whether it was the people promoting their events or it was the investors, and audience members. Everybody got value from what I was showing up with. It wasn’t just pie in the sky. It was actual tactical resources that could be deployed so people could start breaking those financial shackles.
Jay Conner [00:28:46]:
Damian, have you by chance, connected with David Meltzer?
Damion Lupo [00:28:52]:
I have. I was actually on his show about 2 weeks ago.
Jay Conner [00:28:54]:
Well, I was on his show about a month ago, and he was on my show about a month ago. Anyway, I thought of David. He’s he’s got a phenomenal story if you haven’t read his book. But he’s done the same thing. I mean, he has given away, done charge shipping or anything, 1,000 and 1,000 of his book, Connecting Goodness or Connecting with Goodness. So you were sharing your story and I said, man, David Damien, and David have got something, got something in common. So in the time that we have remaining, I want you to share what is it your, you know, your purpose now. You’ve got FrameTech.
Jay Conner [00:29:32]:
You’ve got actually, there’s 3 things I want you to dive into in in our time remaining. You got FrameTech, a lot of the world is that. You got the 10-year millionaire action plan that you’ve trademarked, and you’ve got turnkey retirement. So what in the world are those three things, and how do they serve other people?
Damion Lupo [00:29:52]:
So they all come back to the mission. And the mission is, how do I help more people break those shackles? So we’ll start with the end. It’s like starting with the end in mind, very Stephen Covey-ish of me at the moment. But, you know, you there there’s a plan. If you don’t have a plan, if you don’t have a vision, there’s a proverb that people will perish. And so create helping people create a plan, the millionaire action plan that I’ve been doing with people for many, many years, and, ultimately, turnkeyretirement.com where people can go and download this playbook, which is the 10 steps to 10,000,000. I think that if you’re not focusing on 10,000,000, gonna come up short and you’re always gonna be scared. And so I built this thing.
Damion Lupo [00:30:30]:
There’s a playbook for how I did this. How did I go to 10,000,000? How do I go to 100,000,000? Let’s start with 10 because it’s it’s something within reach for really anybody within 10 years. So it’s the 10 steps. It’s something that anybody can go do, and it takes you out of that place where you’re chasing money where you can start saying, alright. Money is no longer part of the equation. So you’ve got to think bigger. Part of the reason it’s 10,000,000 to 9,000,000, it forces you to figure out how to serve more people. So when I had a few a friend about 3 years ago reach out and say, I’ve got this opportunity.
Damion Lupo [00:31:01]:
It wasn’t named FrameTech. It was this opportunity to solve the housing crisis. I said, alright. I mean, you should send me the deal. And he said, no. I gotta fly to Dallas and hand it to you. And I was like, how old are you? A 150? What do you know of? Like, just email it to me. No.
Damion Lupo [00:31:13]:
He flew out. So he hands me this thing, and I look at it, and I go, something’s wrong with this deal. This is BS. This is fake news. And so I said, but I’m curious. So I flew out to Arizona and met these guys. And what they said was, we have a vision. We’ve been doing this we’ve been building trusses and and the bones for houses and apartments for for 50 years, and we have a different way of doing it that’ll help solve the housing crisis.
Damion Lupo [00:31:36]:
And we can create a lot of value here for a lot of people. And I said, you know what? I like this deal, but I would love you guys, and I can feel you. And over a post-lunch meeting, literally a 2 hour sit down, we said my partner and I said, we’re in. We will get you the $40,000,000, and they said, thank you. They walked away, and I’m pretty sure they mumbled under their breath. These guys are full of crap. There’s no way they’re handing us $40,000,000. We did do that, over the next year, and we brought went to our community and said, we’d love this thing.
Damion Lupo [00:32:05]:
We wanna help solve the housing crisis. We believe FrameTech, this deal where we’re using a new idea for building components, all the walls, the floors, the trusses, all the bones for housing. This is the bottleneck for building. And we’ve got millions of missing houses and apartment units in America, and they’re we’re just not building enough. So we said we’ve got a vision to do this. We’ve got a new way of doing it that’s 10 times better quality, 4 times faster, and, Jay, 99% less waste because of the automation, the robots. So they said great. People said we trust you.
Damion Lupo [00:32:36]:
Here’s $40,000,000. I mean, no joke. And then today, we have a plant that has that is online producing, and it is the model for what housing is gonna look like in terms of being built in America going forward. We’re building a second one, and we have a plan to roll these out. And what this does is it creates a win win win win win for everybody. The only loser here is the legacy thinking. It’s the old way of doing it that hasn’t served or kept up. So the communities win.
Damion Lupo [00:33:01]:
They have new jobs. They have more housing, and more housing is cool because people say, what about affordability? Well, when you have more supply, guess what happens to prices? It drops. So it helps the affordability. It doesn’t destroy the planet. 30% less waste. Like, waste for a house is normally measured in dumpsters. We’re measuring it in sawdust because of our technology, and it’s just a cool thing for the people to invest in because they come to the plant. They go, I’m part of the solution for a big problem in society, and I’m gonna make 4, 5, 6 times my money.
Damion Lupo [00:33:33]:
So everybody is winning here, and that’s that’s what lights me up. It’s why the purpose is more important than the passion because it’s hard work. Everybody is grinding, and we know why. Because it’s gonna help society, and it’s gonna solve a giant problem serving people all over the place.
Jay Conner [00:33:47]:
So, give out the website for Frame Tech.
Damion Lupo [00:33:51]:
Yeah. Frame Tech, tech.com, and it’s you’ll know you’re at the right place because there’s gonna be videos there, and it’s there’s a company with a TECH, and they’re in an in a similar space with metal studs, I think, but frametectec.com. You’re gonna see all about what we’re doing. And what’s funny, Jay, is that people will reach out and they’ll say, when are you coming to Montana? And we’re like, well, hey, you know what? This is this is we’re rolling these things out, but it costs 60, $70,000,000 to build a plan. So it’s it’s complex. It’s intense, and they’re gonna be this is the future of the building. It’s not having somebody go build a house on-site with a bunch of guys with hammers. It’s gonna be the way that we’re building it, and we can build houses, apartments, and we do as I said, this thing is exponentially different.
Damion Lupo [00:34:34]:
We’re not when I talk about changing your vision and you’re talking about 10,000,000, most people are trying to become a millionaires, and they go, yeah. But 10,000,000 is 10 x. Yeah. You gotta think 10 times bigger. So we’re thinking, how do we make houses 10 times better? How do we do things with 99% less waste? These are big ideas, and they force you to stretch. And when you stretch that much, you create incredible amounts of wealth and impact in a positive way for society, which is cool.
Jay Conner [00:34:59]:
So the houses are built in under a roof in a manufacturing facility. Correct?
Damion Lupo [00:35:06]:
That’s right. It’s a 120,000-square-foot facility under roof. We build the floors, the walls, everything that bones if you will, if it’s like a body. We build the bones and our our people, our trucks, our drivers take all these pieces out, and then our team puts the walls up. So a developer or builders comes to us and says, here are the plans. 2 weeks later, they have a house that’s framed, and all their subs, electricians, the plumbers go right in and they have the best quality product. There is no better quality product in the world than what we’re building for framing. It’s that tight.
Damion Lupo [00:35:35]:
It looks like furniture. It’s the quality that you would hope for but never get. And if you ever tear apart a house, people are like, man, it’s a mess because it’s sloppy. And our stuff is the best quality, and it’s the fastest. And right now, the pricing is the same as what you do conventionally. So there’s no there’s no chance somebody says, do we want anything other than frame tech. The whole industry is paying attention, and quite frankly, they’re going, oh, crap. We gotta start doing some improvements, which is cool because now they’re starting to figure out and think about ways to innovate, which is what we needed everybody to do in the first place.
Jay Conner [00:36:06]:
So, the materials, and all the bones are delivered on-site. I suppose there’s still a general contractor, a local general contractor because they gotta finish it. Right? But your team puts it together. So is the cost of building that single-family house, for example, is the cost it’s much more efficient. It’s much quicker. Is the cost less to the general contractor?
Damion Lupo [00:36:37]:
Yeah. Ultimately, it’s and the reason it’s gonna cost less is because it’s everything is predictable and the time is compressed. So framing that might take 2 months is gonna take 2 weeks for the whole process. That 6 weeks per house saves a fortune in carrying costs, and the liability from things that are not quite built right virtually goes away because of the quality control. So, ultimately, this is gonna cost a lot less for the developer, and then they can pass that along. It’s so ultimately, we do better for less, and that’s that’s why everybody wins here.
Jay Conner [00:37:08]:
I gotcha. So how many how many single-family houses can you produce now, in whatever length of time?
Damion Lupo [00:37:16]:
So each each plant so these plants are a franchise model, meaning we like our second location, we’re gonna have 2 of the same plants, which makes it very efficient to go build. You’re not trying to reimagine something that’s 1,000,000 square feet. You just say, okay, we’re gonna do 8 plants next to each other. So each plant can produce 12 houses a day. So you’re talking about 3,000 houses a year, and that’s, you know, that’s not running 24 hours a day. That’s that’s running 2 shifts and and 5 to 6 days a week. So you’re and it’s very scalable, like, because it’s it’s so predictable. And this is for houses, apartments, hotels, anything that’s wood structure, and so you see this as a scalable solution.
Damion Lupo [00:37:52]:
We’ve we’ve lost a lot of the framers. Nobody wants to go out in the sun, in the rain, in the heat, in the freezing, and do these types of things anymore. So what we’re doing is we’re taking automation. Like, our whole plant is built around robots and AI, so people get to be doing higher level things and not getting smashed and losing fingers and saws. It’s highly automated. It’s patented. Like, what we’re doing is the future of framing, and everybody is starting to see that. And so we get to create a better quality of life.
Damion Lupo [00:38:18]:
I mean, we’re doing some stuff that would blow your mind for our people. Like, we didn’t even talk about the people in the plan. We’re building not only a cafeteria to feed them but also childcare. So people with blue-collar workers can have their kids next door taking care of them. We’re putting a wellness center in, so we have doctors taking care of these families. I mean, we’re doing stuff that nobody’s doing unless maybe it’s a Google campus, but we’re doing this in the blue-collar space, looking at our people as part of our family, not as a bunch of cogs in a machine. This is the face of what American business is gonna look like. So we’re we’re leading the way with a vision that’s sustainable and works for everybody.
Jay Conner [00:38:52]:
You know what’s funny, Damien, as you tell that story, my father, Wallace Connor, who just turned 91 years old, was the largest retailer of manufactured homes in the nation at one time, and his factories were 7 days a week, 24 hours a day with 3 different ships, just like, Henry Ford and the cars. I gotta have you back on my show to just talk about frame tech because I have about 25 other questions on that. And then let’s wrap so, for those of you that are tuning in and listening, that’s www.frametech.com. And then, Damien, wrap us up with turnkey retirement.
Damion Lupo [00:39:35]:
So the way over the last decades watching this whole space of money, people trying to figure out how to get more money, it’s kinda like the question. People say, how much Bitcoin do you have? Everybody says not enough. And so you’ll get that if you’re in the Bitcoin space. It’s the same thing with money. People don’t understand money. Turnkey retirement is about getting to the place where money is no longer part of the equation, meaning it’s handled. It’s done. You don’t have to worry about it.
Damion Lupo [00:39:57]:
You still think about it because, look, it’s it’s it’s like it’s like a spouse. If you stop paying attention to your spouse, your spouse is gonna go away. Same thing with your money. If you stop paying attention to it, it’s gonna go away. What I did is I took my experience. This is not fluff. It’s not a weekend seminar I went to, and I wrote a book or something. I said, here are the 10 steps.
Damion Lupo [00:40:14]:
It’ll take you 10 minutes to read this thing. The 10 steps that I did for going from literally negative 100 of 1,000 in debt to over 10,000,000 in less than 10 years. And it’s it’s that process. It’s not overly complex. It’s gonna require work, but it is a playbook. So turnkey retirement was about getting to the place where you’re not just sitting on a beach. You’re doing whatever you want to do without going, how am I gonna make my bills this month? That’s the goal for everybody. Take money out of the equation.
Jay Conner [00:40:41]:
So if you are listening to this show, go to www.turnkeyretirement.com. And, take the 10-minute, the 15-minute assessment, and, you’ll be on your pathway to following the vision of Damien Lupo. Damien, you are truly a visionary. Thank you so much for joining me in Raising Private Money.
Damion Lupo [00:41:05]:
Thank you, Jay. I appreciate the time. Appreciate everybody being here.
Jay Conner [00:41:08]:
Absolutely. God bless you. There you have it. Another amazing episode, as I promised you, here on Raising Private Money. And to make sure we have more and continuous amazing guests like you experienced today with Damian Lupeau. Be sure to rate review and follow, so you don’t miss out. And if you happen to be, watching on YouTube, be sure and click that bell so you don’t miss out on the next upcoming episode. I’m Jay Conner, the Private Money Authority, and I’ll be looking to see you right here on the next episode of Raising Private Money.
Narrator [00:41:48]:
Are you feeling inspired by the knowledge you gained in this episode? Then head over to www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide. That’s www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide, and download your free guide that shares seven reasons why private money will skyrocket your real estate investing business right now. Again, that’s www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide to get your free guide. We’ll see you next time on raising private money with Jay Conner.