Hey guys, what's going on? This is episode 8 of the unprofessional podcast. And today I've got Johnny Lee on the show Johnny owns a number of businesses, including a handful of restaurants in La as well as being a stock investor and an online educator think you're going to really enjoy this episode and be challenged to think about your personal finances when it comes to investing. Let's Jump Right In. So Johnny, thanks for jumping on the show. I'm excited to hear from you and chat with you all things business andVested how you doing today? Pretty good. I had a flight that was really late last night. It was delayed, but I finally got home and I'm tired today, but there's too many things going on. So I can't I can't really rest that much. Yeah. Yeah totally kill. So for those who are less than the only movie introduce yourself on share a bit about what you are involved in. Yeah, so, my name is Johnny. I go by Walton the street and maybe I'll explain that later. But yeah, I live in Los Angeles. I'm a I'm a business owner or multi business owner or whatever you want to call it. I have been working in television and film I've been working in technology. I've been trying a lot of different Industries for very long time. As a guess as a career path to whatever you want to call it. But yeah, I like trying a lot of new things if there's something I see out there that I feel like I can add value to or maybe have a slightly different Vision that could use something I try to use the skills. I have or the skills. I think I have to bring In value to things so if a friend says hey, I have this idea and this is how far we've gone with it. What do you think and and I love I love when that happens because I can use what I know and use what I what I think can be used well to to help somebody and businesses. So beyond my own businesses, I've helped in various capacities launched a lot of other businesses for four friends and It says over the past ten years. So nice kills you you're out in your own sort of spin or flivver to those kind of existing businesses as well as being involved in your room. Yeah, you know I started with doing marketing and this is before s MMA was such a big thing. No, you know like these days on Instagram ten-year-old kid says, I'm a marketing genius, you know, I'll get you whatever you need, you know, like it's You see zillions of them and and hey more power to em, you know, everybody learns doing it a certain way and doing a some kind of thing like that. And then later on they realize oh, it's kind of funny that we started that way and they find themselves in much better places just because they decided to start something. So I did a marketing business a while back and I just felt like some of the I put too much or not too much but I put a lot of heart and passion into it. So when people would say Hey, how do we Market this product? I would I would really like bend over backwards to figure it out for them and you give them a whole plan and you give them a whole like layout and project management, but it really comes down to the owner themselves. A lot of times. The owner themself wasn't a type of person to execute those ideas, you know, so if someone says hey I have I have this product. I have 5,000 of them. Them like how do I Market it or what do I do with it? And a lot of times I would lay out this thing and spend hours and hours saying this is like how to do it and I think it'll be successful. If we do it this way or at least it has a chance of success. If we do it this way and a lot of times they would say wow that's amazing. But you know, they're not cut out to really be that way. That's why they asked me to help in the first place, right? Yeah, so I felt like I was giving away too much of my Energy and maybe some of my ideas to people that I didn't that I realized cannot really execute those things. Yeah, and you can't you got to have both if you're going to be alone. Sorry gotta have both got to have the ideas and the execution and a lot of people had the operation ability, but that doesn't you know, I can make a hamburger, but that doesn't mean I can sell it right. So yeah, I I decided you know what I'm going to do it myself and I find that a lot. I find that in real estate. I find that in just So many Industries, you know you work for a company and then you go. You know what I should just do this myself. I'm I'm one of the you know, I'm doing well in this Arena might as well. Yeah. Yeah, like putting 40 hours or 50 hours in for this company and they're doing great and partly because of your success. Why not, you know Branch out and put 80 hours or 60 hours or whatever 10 hours a week into your own thing and see where it can go and so I did exactly that and and yeah, I feel like a it it has really helped me learn a lot more and now I find my self in this place where I'm kind of this consultant to any small business that needs help. You know, they tell me this is what phase I met, you know, whether its funding or location searching or or some question about construction or you know, should I go with this guy or that guy, you know, yeah, so people a lot of people end up asking me for help and I just They DM me and I just give people help. I just say this is what I would do. This is what I think and and you know, if it doesn't work come back and let's try something else. So yeah, nice one cool. Yeah, I've read obviously under Instagram and also on your LinkedIn and stuff that you have your hand and a couple of restaurants and I think actually I check one or two of the might notice that you've been featured on on the res mm large food blog. Or whatever and I think it was a pizza and the pizza just looked in C and like it was Dripping cheese and I was like, I want to go there. Hey, yeah, so you want to maybe just talk about your your restaurants or yeah, you know restaurant business and it's probably similar to pretty much everyone in the world restaurant business is one of the essential small businesses of the world because you know, it covers one of the basic things that we need. Need in life. So, you know, that's why real estate is such a big thing because it's shelter. We for the rest of our lives. We will seek it. We don't even think about that. If you if you have a full-time job and you're doing pretty decent you're probably paying rent somewhere or you're paying a mortgage somewhere. You'll seek after shelter for their life. Nobody goes through life and says, you know what? I'm not gonna I'm not going to live anywhere anymore. You know, nobody think nobody says that no one thinks that you know, yeah, but but you know, Small business in restaurants for me is really about fun. You know, I I open a burger shop called meet Zilla and I didn't expect it to you know, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I hardly ever approach anything that way just because it puts too much pressure on myself and what I what I think I'm doing I feel like it's better to say, you know what I want to try this I'm going to have fun. I'm going to learn a lot and if it works great if it Isn't I still take away a lot from it? Yeah, it's we ourselves parents. Yeah, and also I love Burgers. I don't know. I'm trying not to be the what is it as quintessential American here. I am Korean American but I'm trying not to be the most American person of all time. But but yeah, I love burgers and burgers and pizza and ice cream and all that kind of stuff is is working class food and and the way I know that is because Pizza you can and poor people eat pizza, you can go and have like a fancy Gourmet Chef made pizza at a fancy restaurant for you know, 30 40 dollars and it'll taste amazing or you can go to any pizza shop around the corner and it's like two to three dollars per slice or something like that or if you go to New York really cheap pizza there, you know, and you can have that too and there are people of all socioeconomic backgrounds that Eat at those places, you see people in suits and you see people just you know, young kids just go in there after school. You see them in all different places. So I love working class food personally. I just feel like you get diversity in that you get so many people thinking about owning like a fine dining place especially here in Los Angeles is is just the most Dreadful sounding thing to me. I'm not saying it's not there's not people very successful doing it because there clearly is but the middle ground where people are just breaking even That pretty much makes up the majority of the people that are in that restaurant business. It's just you get by you get you you break even and you do the best you can and and that's the case for a lot of businesses. So restaurant business is tough as nails, but I'm having fun with it because you know, we've been on a lot of media outlets and I've never been on TV so many times in my life for a burger or for a pizza, you know, and you know it and it's not about for me personally speaking on. On food, it's not about making something viral just for the sake of making a viral. I want to make something that's viral. But I also want to do something that tastes good in one regard and then also the ingredients so like our Burgers we don't use anything frozen. I have nothing against Frozen places because I've been to places that have a really quick Frozen, you know Patti and they they throw it on a grill with tons of wool. I've had that kind of burger before and I like that kind of murder but I didn't want to do that myself. So we use Hundred percent fresh no Frozen Angus Chuck beef. There's no and it just tastes better. That way. We season it freshly right before we throw it on the grill. There's no pre that sort of stuff. We hand had them down and everything ourselves. And so and yeah, I just I don't try to just do it run-of-the-mill and I think people appreciate that and if even if it was frozen patties people would still love it, but it's just more of a thing that I want to do personally. I could probably make more My money if I didn't choose to do it fresh, but it's not necessarily about money. It's it's about doing something fun. And and I realized it has brought a lot of public trust. You know, there's a lot of people online that on Instagram or YouTube. That's like hey, you know, check out my book or check out my ebook or check out my this or that and there's nothing else on the in the world about them except for that. Yeah people who live in Los Angeles or In the states or for nearby enough for who know, Los Angeles they go. Hey, I want to learn from you because I see what you're doing. I saw you on TV, you know, so it brings credibility I go. Yeah. I'm just I'm just a regular guy and but you saw me on TV because I was able to do something successful enough to be there whether that's food or whatever. And so there's public trust they start they trust you and and and that barrier is the hardest thing you can sell the most. Honest product but until people trust you. You're just another person to them. So that's why I like restaurants. So yeah, I'm actually just a fondling but I was talking about it's the meat seller you call it, but he's on Food Network. You don't thought well, that's right. I can see that. It's like a almost like a pizza burger. Yeah. So, you know II had a this is kind of cliche and dumb but it's just the truth when we were opening the restaurant I said, you know what? I had this dream last night that we can we can make the bun. We take the top bun of the burger flip it over add add add a house-made sauce at a house and an egg cheese and then we hand-cut little these little mini pepperonis. I'm sure the way we do it is labor intensive, but that's just the way we've always done it so we can cut out these little mini pepperonis out of large pepperonis and and we toast it and we put on top of the burger and you it's called meatza style and you can get that. On any Burger you want nice and I'm sure a bunch of Stoners and a bunch of young high school kids have already thought of this long time ago, and I'm probably sure that it's somehow came from my childhood as well, you know, because it's you know, you're combining stuff and you know, who what what person doesn't think that that's crazy but delicious but it seems heavy at first when you look at it, you know, it looks like this microwave or this toaster oven pre frozen pizza. That you would get at a at a grocery store, but it's actually not it's actually the top bun which is it actually really soft and Squishy. So I'm looking I'm looking out of right now. I'm glad I haven't had dinner yet and it's make me hungry. Yeah, it's really good. And you know, we have a burger called Kim Park lie, and it has like a Korean barbecue beef called bulgogi on it, and it's really really good. So and and I tribute a lot of this to my Are his name is James? And yeah, he's not a you know, he didn't have any formal Chef training. We know how to put ideas together and just throw it out there and if it works it works and if it doesn't it doesn't but for the most part all the ideas we've put out there and not just our ideas but some of our staff the ideas they put out there, you know, we give them free rein. You have a cool idea. Let's do it. Let's make it the burger of the week. You know. Yeah, and they'll just do it if it sticks. This will bring it back or we'll keep it on the menu. I'm always open to it. I don't have to be the chief Visionary and creative person. Yeah, it's whoever killed and I realized like having something creative makes people more creative. They look at our pizza burger and go. Wow, anything is possible and then it spawns a whole world of people. So the there's a hashtag called pizza burger and because that's what everybody called what we were making. Now you see restaurants all around the entire world who do who are doing just almost the exact same thing they and and you know, we see them they follow us on Instagram. And then we see them rolling that out temporarily or permanently on their menus and and you know, it doesn't offend us at all. We think it's we think it's great and we think it's hilarious. Yeah. I love it. That's who kills who I did you did you haven't run interesting restaurants when your growing up or how did you initially actually get your foot in the door? Because I think a lot of people have been listening to this podcast will want to know like Heidi acted get into launching and own in and being successful in an actual restaurant. You know, that idea right through the carving it. Well. Well, it's my it's how I bring it's how I bring value. I think it really comes down to that. So, you know someone who's listening to this who say in their And they're like, yeah, I'm working full time. I want to start my own business and and they did and they're not talking about business. We're like some kind of a side hustle that they have to like put in a lot of marketing work, but they lot of people just want to open a restaurant a lot of people just want to open a shipping store that carries all the major carriers that you know, people just want to run small businesses small business is the backbone of the entire world, right and it's really value so I'll tell you the quick story of meat Zilla and and you know, I rarely tell this story but basically my partner and I and we weren't Partners at the time but my you know, we were talking about opening a like a burger pop up in our part-time and we didn't want to do a food truck. And so, you know in certain Financial districts in in Los Angeles and pretty much all over the United States and probably all over the world these Financial districts closer. They don't they don't stay open after like 3 or 4 p.m. Because you know these people these people who work in accounting and lawyers and and Financial Banks and stuff. They go home they go home and eat dinner at home or they have dinner later tomorrow. So since like lunchtime Traders and yeah exactly it's like a lunchtime place. So I found a lunchtime place that was run by some some immigrants and they like to close early and I was thinking in my head. Hey you guys close literally at two o'clock like you start cleaning at 1:00, 1:30 you You know when your lunch rush is a getting close to over and they close about 2:30 3 o'clock every day and they can be flexible. They'll if there's no customers. I'll just close that too. Yeah, so I asked them. Hey, could I take over from 4:00 to midnight in your kitchen? I will give you so basically you do nothing. We will clean we will you know, obviously some of your equipment will have more wear and tear but but we will pay you some rent money or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, every Burger we sell you're going to get 25% of it, right something like that and they love that idea because they're like we don't have the energy or time to do work that long and we don't even have the know-how or anything to attract enough people to stick around to justify those hours. And that's where I said I do. I know how to make a product in terms of food. I wouldn't say viral because things get viral and they die. I quickly but something that can last so something that can be like exciting but last a little bit longer whether that's a year or two years or little so I think it's adding value to them what they saw is not knee proposing. Hey, let me have your stuff. Let me have a handout. Let me do something. Let give me something it was more like hey, I'm going to give you more money sit back relax and watch the money come in and then I'm going to have a lot of fun and my partner's. Have a lot of fun doing our own concept and it's going to be out of the same place. Yes, when win yeah, they do breakfast and different types of items in the morning. And then we move some of that stuff and we do kuber so that's the idea. And if anyone's listening to that that's like the biggest hack I could share with anyone is that look for people that have underutilized assets that you can put in place because chances are people don't have tons of money laying around just to open a restaurant because restaurants first of all are extremely hard businesses. Yeah, and then having the capital to just risk risk all that is really really difficult. You have to make very very calculated risks and I feel like that's one of the most calculated things you go somewhere go. Hey, you know what? This old couple is there they're sort of like winding down and they run like a small shop during the day. What if I can turn that shop into something for the last like four hours of the day and do some kind of cool like quick quick service like Spot or late-night spot they will get more money. And as long as we keep it clean the relationship keeps going and and then after a month we can say hey, we love this pop-up. Can we make something more formal? And and you know, we'll keep giving you the same deal and but let's just extend it and they'll say of course, we love ghetto money. We wake up in the morning. Everything is clean and and we'll make it more money doing less, right? Yeah. So that's one of the ways I approached it. I just felt like that maybe AdSense I looked at this place and I said it's underutilized. So I walked to another place and I saw this burger shop and it was and I just casually had a conversation with them and I said how much money are you guys making Revenue every day? It will how about we attempt crease that and they said well, how are you going to do that? And I said, well we're going to have a different menu in my opinion a little bit better to the changing tastes and of the area, right? A lot of young people in the area I live in and and I can take that and and really do something with it and they said so the sales will grow and I said, yeah, but the popularity will grow as well because we know how to do marketing we know how to bring in Instagram we know how to do all this these kinds of things to do that and we can literally apply those things the principles and all the stuff we've learned about that. We can apply it to anything products or food or whatever it is. And so they agreed they said Okay, so let's do Do it and so I partnered with them and we basically took over there their spot. And and we the first year we just did crazy numbers. It was it was amazing. They've never seen numbers like that before and I and I gave him what I was able to sort of promised to them. I said look you're going to get more Revenue but you don't have to do as much and and yeah, I didn't here's a here's a secret for everyone. I spent not a gold dime on that Also weird I didn't spend any money on it because it didn't make sense to you know, if I'm going to spend a bunch of money on and really do something. I'll just do it on my own but I saw an opportunity I said, hey we're going to put in nothing, but we're going to bring something that will bring you more money. So it's just adding value to their life, you know. Yeah. It's like one of those consultant guys who goes to somebody and says if you just give me if you just give me a part of your business I Turn your business double. Yeah, I mean who's gonna say no to that especially if that person has credibility and I was able to show that credibility through the through the marketing that I did with my marketing business. So that's where that really tipped it over they looked at and go. Okay so we can be popular on on on social media and I said, yeah and and and I was right we were we did really great and we're on all these things local news national news and and like you said food work and so that's really worked. Well for us does that mean the business will stay open for 5 years? No, it doesn't mean anything. It just means that we can enjoy what we have now and do our best and and if it doesn't work out we move on and if it does we just we just keep going, you know, and we're having fun with it and and you know their struggles so it's not all fun. Of course their struggles are there difficulty, but you find really good people find out what they're good at and then and then bring them in and and and plug them in. I'm Good at cooking. Yeah, I don't know how to make the burgers in our place. I know the ingredients but I don't make them if I try to do it I will delay our delivery orders. I will delay our whole operation. It's pointless to try to do that yourself. A lot of entrepreneurs try to do that. They go like I'm a I'm a jack-of-all-trades. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this and and they end up making not a great product because they're quite frankly just not good at that part of it, you know and restaurant owners, especially here in Los Angeles. They are not great with Instagram or with Facebook or with whatever it is. So that's partly why there's so many of these s MMA, you know, social media marketing agencies that are just run by some 22 year old kid. We will finish the names Instagram and marketing. Yeah, and and they do and they do great. Like I have my colleague who's my marketing business partner. His name's Andrew. Shout out to Andrew he's and he came to me last year. I met him in the summer last year and he goes. Okay. What do you do? He did the typical which is really smart. He goes. Hey, I want to buy you coffee, and I want to know what you do and we talked and then he said I want to do marketing. And I said are you sure do you really want to do it? Because if you really want to do it I'm going to we're going to do it and he said I really do so I said, okay, you better be ready two weeks later. We got our first $13,000 or twelve thousand dollar contract and he's been running it ever since so nice quality. So in terms of In terms of food. Wonder if you have any insight on what are the major sort of trans or upcoming, you know popular foods if you like La correct me if I'm wrong, but it feels like it's maybe a place where these kind of Trends all sort of kick off. Is that right or what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really New York and la and and places like London and Tokyo and you know places that are already heavily Instagram. Places that are already heavily put on Snapchat and Facebook they are already that so everything they're already gets that exposure. So it's a great place to launch. That's why everybody moves here, you know, they start getting like 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 YouTube subscribers, whatever the topic of their channel is and then they and then they are moving to LA because you know YouTube is here and they have a lot of support here and in the community is Big here, but the competition is very high. For me, I like to take what already exists. And try to do it in a different way like that sort of thing like the burgers or the or the pizza, you know, people come to my pizza restaurant and and I remember my partner at my pizza restaurant, which is a different partner. His name is Henry went when I said, hey, we're going to do this onion fried onion bloom thing on a pizza and he said he looked at me and Korean it's called healing which means big brother. He looked at me and goes basically said big brother. I don't think this is a good idea. Are you sure and he Couldn't visualize it. So we made it and I looked at it. I said okay make it one more time make it twice. So we made it a few times and I said that's it. And then we squeak. He said let's squeeze squeeze this delicious like house-made white garlic sauce on it and we put it all over it and and we tested it and now almost every other table orders it well, but so it's what I it's for me, it's sometimes like it's what we come up with is the trend, you know, like that's what people need to think about a lot of people see Trends and go. Okay, how can I Mark how? An I capitalize on that and it and that can work or you can just be the person that says I'm just going to make a trend and tell people that it's the best and the greatest and and make them that Trend and I have more experience making something a trend rather than capture went on the bandwagon. Yeah, because a burger is a burger. So I just yeah I said I just want to make this more exciting I regular burger. I still love I've never had a burger. I didn't like that goes with pizza and tacos right now in La tacos is having a another tacos is Been popular, but now it's just extra extra popular. But you know what's happening here and then I'm sure it's like that for many of the Metro bigger big metros in the world vegan food. Mmm food, but but not just like a vegan restaurant right? Because if you had a vegan restaurant it can be I don't want to say intimidating. It can be a little like daunting because you don't you don't know you don't know what stuff is made a lot of vegans. Who go there. They go there and they go okay. Yeah, I've seen this this is what this is made out of this is this kind of thing, right? But if You're not vegan or you're thinking about being vegan or vegetarian you go to these places and it's like okay. I don't get it. It's very it's expensive and I'll get so I think the next big thing is vegan niched foods. So for instance vegan burger shops that are just Burger shops. They're not, you know, they don't have vegan salad and vegan like, you know this and that stuff made out of tofu or specifically something specifically something and I feel like That's happening in fourth. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to sound Visionary. It is happening are opening a vegan burger shops that look just like your here and here and here in California. It's called in and out or they they look like the same presentation of Shake Shack. So it's like give me Shake Shack visuals for my Instagram, but give me vegan because I'm vegan. Yeah, and and they're just combining that so so a lot of Restaurants have vegan pizza. They have like a vegan burger and they have like vegan salad and they have like 3024 ever amount of items that are all vegan. But that's a vegan restaurant. I'm talking about make a burger shop. That's also vegan that just happens to be vegan so that everybody can enjoy so there so I don't know the statistics, but I feel like a lot of people who go to those vegan burger restaurants are not vegan. Yeah, but they might be people who want to be a little bit healthier. So they assume that it's a little bit healthier, although it's not necessarily healthier. There's a lot of sodium in that stuff. But but but yeah and you know, beyond meats and impossible food Beyond me. It's just had their IPO three weeks ago and four weeks ago and they're obviously kicking bud and their market cap is gone ballooning crazy. But but yeah, I mean, it's clear that there's a need in a demand for it in another way and then as the world is more like conscious to plant-based and you know, we got to take care of our oceans and you know, that's everything's getting bigger and more. People are getting more. Where are people doing more about it. I don't know but at least people are becoming more aware, you know, if you throw this plastic bag in the ocean this Turtles gonna like choke on it, like people are becoming more aware of that. They you know, you kind of always known that stuff but like, you know, it's now in your face all the time and we're problems. Yeah. Yeah, and so I'm one thing that doesn't exist in La is that that I know of is a is a something that's so popular right now is hot chicken right like spicy. Or yeah, like really spicy chicken, you know, you go to the South and in the US and obviously that's always been a thing but it's becoming more popular in La like it's been around for the past few years in La hot chicken like you open another hot you can shop you're gonna come it doesn't matter if it's good or not people still come because they just want hot chicken. So my idea is to bring that to vegan food, right? Yeah, and I see people starting to do that. They don't own brick and mortars, but they own like Up shops and food trucks and I feel like whoever is the first to do that and open like a fried chicken hot, you know vegan place. Yeah, that is just like a burger shop. But just that you know, like a Chick-fil-A. I don't know if you have you get together. Yeah, actually we don't have it here. But any time I'm in the state's. Yeah, I'll make a boil and it's like the Chick-fil-A of vegan chicken, right like vegan like a vegan place that's like that whoever does that first I think is going to really do awesome and I Lee, you know this is this is between us and all your listeners, I'm personally looking for a business that is doing that and doing that well, and I'd love to partner with them to bring their current, you know, if it's delicious of course, but if to jump in and go hey you guys do this. Well, I do this. Well, let's partner and see what we can do. Well together right so nice. I'm I'm currently on your Korean Time Pizza Company and scram. Yeah, it's making me even hungrier. I wonder can we maybe jump topics completely? Yeah, I kind of followed you a bit and consume the bit of your content the Rind investing and I've enjoyed kind of watching the Clips that you put up on, you know, thinking through actually what you consume in in terms of products services, and I think your latest film was that, you know, everyone goes to the article in America like your Supermarket or the mall. Yeah the malls right, you know everyone goes to the mall, but actually, you know, there's these companies or maybe rear its or whatever that accion these models and that you write a sneeze and actually not just be a consumer but you know invest in the companies behind it and capitalize you know, and right they'll go to the mall, but you know generally touch on that briefly. Yeah. So so I feel like people who have approached me individuals all over the world, right? And I know you get this to you get probably just zillions of DM. People just what do I do? How do I invest in you know, and and I think people are even if you teach them they they stop because you know, I can't expect them to go. Here's how to invest and then for them to just do it. I want to the rustler life. Yeah, you want them to but then here's what they do. They go on Instagram. They go on stock twists. They go on Forbes. They go on any news and and And then they just get so confused because it's like okay. This guy Johnny on Instagram is telling me to invest into real estate and specifically maybe this company or whatever and and then they read articles. It's like oh this company might do bad next year. Yeah, or you know, there's just so much opinions. Yes is so costly. Yeah. Listen to too many opinions. Yeah, listening to many voices and getting consumed by Yeah, and I all the news exactly and I think that's the problem. They step they walk themselves into mud or quicksand and they get stuck and then they just go you know what this isn't for me. I'd rather keep my money safe in the bank and I tell them look these articles in these news places. They're written to get your attention so that you can click their buttons and and give them advertising dollars. I will share the Little they'll write anything if you look at if you go to Google news and type anything about any stock type Google half the Articles will say Google stock is is is obviously great and here's all the good things about Google and then half of them will be like, oh Google is its they have they not innovating they got nothing anymore. They're terrible about abla like it's crazy and then people go. Yeah Google and they start to believe that and I go what are you talking about? You use Google every you give them your eyeballs every day and you give them money every day in the form of advertising dollars for their advertisers. Every single day like multiple times a day hundreds of time for me like 10 15 20 50 times a day. You know, I'm always given them my money, you know and are given them my eyeball so that they can profit from their advertisers, right? So it's weird that people down that so that's why I'm starting kind of big I'm not saying hey build a portfolio out of like five companies, but I'm telling people. Hey, just think about it you go to malls you spend money at malls and somebody owns this Ginormous place that may be staring at a fountain, you know enjoying the food Corridor or you know, some kind of a thing they're doing their right? Yeah, and you're just people watching like literally people go there get some air conditioning people watch and they go to a store and they just oh I Spend some money doing it and the way I think of it as like okay you like Gap close Gap clothing. Okay, maybe buy some Gap stock. If you think they're doing. Well right do some research check it out. So when you buy the clothing you're also profiting from it you're profiting from it. Let let let the company gaps growth. Give you money that you can buy the clothes. But who is Gap paying rent to write Gap doesn't own that or they're paying rent us a bunch of dudes bunch of people bunch of families and companies and investment Capital firms, right and vet. So one of the biggest ones in the united the definitively biggest mall owner in in United States and one of the largest in the world for malls specifically or shopping center specifically is is Simon right. And so that's why I said I said don't just don't just shop at malls invest in them because if you're going to go to malls for the rest of your life, like I see young people at malls and old people they've been going to malls that our whole life, right? You're going to be doing that somebody's profiting from that and it may as well be you because you probably have money sitting in the bank get away. Right and it's and so I just I'm trying to get people to see it very simply like here's a mall somebody's making money from a mall. You can make that money to great give if exposure to it and see what happens and and it blows people might I get messages from people going. Oh my gosh. I never I never thought of it that way. I didn't even know you can buy into to property company like that and get a piece of the action whether it be small or big, you know, I just never knew that and and you know, it's the same with cloud cloud technology is everything right now. We're doing this this call on anchor because it allowed right. It's all As a cloud where are all those data centers because they're not actually in the cloud. They're all on land somewhere and they need redundancy and they need multiple centers in multiple points who runs all that. I think I think Google technically doesn't run all yeah, right. It's run by somebody that Google pays. Yeah, totally I think yeah. My mind said is shifted kind of towards just what you're saying. They're over the pastor of year or two, maybe even three in terms of like know wherever I go whatever products I buy. Or Services, I consume I'm like who's actually behind this and maybe it's even just yeah, it's just such a like a mindset a mindset shift. But like whenever you go to the grocery store and you buy like, I don't know like toilet roll or wipes or you know, and I think yeah end up like looking at the packaging and being like Oh, it's like, you know Procter and Gamble and it's just like it act like actually messes with your mind you start to like not actually look at the prices of things but actually like Company behind them exactly. I'll say two things to that one is people go the recession is coming and I said, okay, but nobody stops wiping their ass. Yeah. I mean, I hope I really am not they people are going to you know, use the restroom the exact same amount they would whether there's a recession or not. So investing in the companies that make that product or own that product or own that company that's Like awesome this the second thing I want to say is I'm just like that. I'm just like you when I was and I told this to few people when I was at a mall. There's a Japanese retail company called unique Uniqlo, right and and I saw t-shirt it was $14.99. I said, I really like this t-shirt. It's got this cool like character on it and my wife's like just buy it and when I looked at it I said, you know what? No $14.99. I can buy one share or two shares of this stuff. That I know right now. And and by the time that growth is done, I can buy a couple outfits in this in the store that I really like and that shirts going to be on sale in. Yeah, and because whether I wear it now or not is not going to make a difference. It's a tee shirt. I can wear it today or I can wear it next year. It's not going to make any difference to the way. It's right. It's going to be exactly so many burgers. Yeah, or exactly are if you told me Bird. Yeah. Well, that's good. It's a shirt and you're going to want it. You're going to like it later to you know, hopefully and you don't obviously you never even going to end up looking that's how I see every now I I see it. Everything is opportunity cost for investing. You know, I go if I don't do this, I'll save five bucks. I'll put that towards this and that five bucks. We'll multiply by itself. Yeah, and so I maximize it, you know Nile between us well and everyone who's listening to this a lot of people asked me how much money should I keep in my bank versus how much I shouldn't Because the number one question are one of the top five questions is how much should I start with? And I said, I don't know but but make sure you're you're you're getting to a place where you're seeing you're seeing purpose in your Investments, right? Because a lot of people throw money out into stocks and then they don't see purpose. They they're just hoping they're nervous. Yeah, they're thinking about it a lot. They're like should I I don't know. Should I just keep my Tesla stock? What what am I doing? And and they're making themselves nervous investing shouldn't it is a risk, of course, but it Don't be like this thing where every day you're like, oh my gosh, what am I doing? And they're biting their nails and the biting litter up trying to figure I said dick. If you're you're suffering, you're like killing yourself for your Investments and makes no sense. You're supposed to invest so that you can enjoy your life later on by making some good good investment. You know, that's that's more important lesson for like panicking on. Yeah and to you personally if you're looking to share and are you more sort of dividend income type investor or do you just go, you know index funds? Is or are you a better mix or you just like absolute proof stocks? Check this out? It all started for me with this thing called I call offsetting. It's not a it's not like a hard concept. That's just the best word. I can call it. I have to pee AT&T a hundred and twenty bucks a month for my family plan. Right? So I tell myself I want AT&T to pay for that. Yeah, so naturally, right we both know you got to put a certain amount into AT&T. Now it look you'll realize oh we have to put like ton into 18 to Break, even with with that dividend right but but that's not the way to see it the way to see it as hey. I'm getting money from the company that I pay right? So if I just don't 20 bucks, yeah, like I'm getting a discount like people always ask for Discount. I'm getting a discount because when when everybody's paying AT&T, they're paying out somebody to write in and obviously it's dividends and it's cut up and it's chopped up, but I got to a place in my life where all of my dividend income pays for 100% Aunt of all of my expenses of my family nice it pays for everything well, so what do you do with all that excess money you're making from your businesses or your full-time job? Well, you just invest more and invest more so there's a so then there's this like, I guess I don't know. I'm just going to make this up or know there's this Golden Cross moment. Right, right. Yeah where it's like, okay, my dividends paid for all of my expenses, but now it's going That amount. Yeah, right. I'm getting more from dividend taxes and I actually need in terms of offsetting. I have this I have this excess. Yeah, and now you can start getting into different stuff, right, but I feel like for everyone who's listening and doing like the long-term stuff get to a place where of course you're crushing your debts, of course and doing all that, but get to your place where you're collecting really good dividends and and collect them every month, you know, not just not just quarterly. A off a few make sure you make a calendar where you're getting it every month whether whatever that's through right and and use that money towards your expenses. Don't don't go don't buy two cheeseburgers just because you have double the money now right as make any sense. And and so for me, I'm all about long term dividend growth stocks. Also just long-term dinosaur stocks, you know, I'd Blue Chips, right? Yeah, but but also there's a side of me that does a lot of that wants to do more real estate and wants to do or Continues to do day trading. Yeah, I have day trading like goals that I like that and what do I do with that money it I put it into my long-term system, right so that I can feed it a little bit faster. So, you know, some people get a paycheck and they pay all the expenses. They go I only have a hundred bucks left to put in my to put in my stocks. That's I'm not going to get anywhere. It's going to take me like 20 years to get somewhere. Yes. I tell them well. Well, if you have a risk appetite and you do want to get it faster and you have this intuitiveness that might help you. With day trading or something that might help go for it saying, you know saying, oh, it's just too risky. I'm never going to do it that doesn't to me that doesn't make sense. You should at least try it once and if and if it totally scares you and it was the worst experience of all time. Okay fine. Now you have a really good reason. Yeah, but if you've never done it and just you know, your grandpa said don't ever do it. I'm over here trying I doing it and and you know, you don't win all the time or else I'd be a zillionaire but but you win enough where it's like you're You're able to put money in to really accelerate the growth of your dividend stocks, right? Yeah, a lot of people go. How do you how do you have enough money to have that much dividend? So well, what are you doing? If you're just working full-time and watching Game of Thrones at home after that. What do you what do you really expect? You know, you got it you have to you have to you know to shift of - yeah, and then I have and then you and I both have friends who make probably cry. I have friends who make crazy money, right? And then and then they add to it they just have crazy money, but they have I've no idea how to multiply yeah, so it's just sitting in a bank for me between us. I don't have I have three hundred dollars in my savings account. Yeah. The rescue what what it what if there's an emergency and I say well ask yourself it. Does your credit card stop working during emergency, you know? Yeah. Do you have enough liquid assets where you can just pull it out and put it right back in your bank in five days, you know, like what what's the what's the issue, you know and it really comes down to do I trust my investments enough and that comes down to do I trust myself to invest my own money and that's where it really stems from death and I trust myself enough. So I just go what why should I give it to my bank? And I only have $300 because that's a minimum were all still penalized. That's how stupid. Yeah, that's how stupid that is. They'll penalize you and when they penalize you, you know, I think 2018. I think it was the banks in the u.s. Collected 30 something billion dollars of fees something like that. You know. Yeah and what do they do? They give their CEOs a big boost, but they also collect that towards their growth and then their stock goes up and I profit from yeah. I love it man. I feel like you've got Off of knowledge on not only invest in but business, but I think we'll wrap it up there. Thanks so much for jumping on the podcast for sure people want to kind of follow up with you or just follow you. Where's the best place to do that? You mentioned Instagram. The best places is Instagram because email is so difficult and it's in it's not it's not it's not chatting right email is not chatting email is just you know, you go back and forth and expect someone to respond to you within a couple days, but feel Like with Instagram people can actually chat with me slightly as the a nice questions. Yeah slide into the DM. So it's at Waltz in the street. You know, the street would be Wall Street, you know, and I like dancing on it. So nice Waltz in the street. Hit me up and I really really appreciate now. I really appreciate it. I some kill thanks so much John have a good one to go eat. Go eat. Have a good one brother. Nice, huh?
"Somebody is profiting from that and it may as well be you." In this interview, Niall talks FOOD & INVESTING with Johnny Byul Lee aka @waltzinthestreet on Instagram, a multi-business owner based in Los Angeles. Johnny shares about his experiences in a wide range of industries and how "adding value" has been the key to all of his success. He reveals how he got into the restaurant business and why he thinks everyone should be investing for the long term! Get hungry both literally and figuratively for more in today's episode! Find Johnny here: Instagram:   https://www.instagram.com/waltzinthestreet/?hl=en Businesses: @koreatownpizzaco @meatzilla_la @milkandt @lasa_la @ktownforall @fruitcraftsandiego   ____________________ Welcome to the Young Professional Podcast - my name is Niall Lawther and I’m hugely passionate about business and entrepreneurship. I started this podcast because I wanted to connect with and learn from successful entrepreneurs and business owners, and share their stories and insights. I hope these episodes allow you to learn, grow and level up in your life! Thanks for listening - please consider subscribing and leave a review, it'll make my day! 