In this episode, I interview my client, Wojtek Starakiewicz, a devoted listener and successful investor who shares his inspiring journey from Poland to the US, where he has built a successful life and business.
Wojtek discusses how an abundant mindset and strategic investments have helped him achieve financial freedom, while also highlighting the importance of taking imperfect action, building the right network, and continuously pursuing personal growth.
Want to live the free life Wojtek talks about? It starts by taking our Passive Income Calculator: https://bit.ly/4ergHOi
TRANSCRIPTS
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Is nothing more powerful than abundant mindset. Early on in the journey, I have realized that true investors, true successful people are not about their net worth. It’s not about 401k and all this nonsense. It’s about
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hello, my fellow Ripples. This is Chris Miles, your cashflow expert and financial advisor. This show is for those of you that worked so hard for your money, but you’re now ready for your money to start working harder for you today, not 30 or 40 years from now, but you want it now so you can live that life that you love doing what you love, but it’s not just about getting rich, but living a rich life. Because as you’re blessed financially, now you have more passive income and more financial ability to do so. You can bless the lives of those around you, creating that ripple effect that ripples not just for your family, your community, but across the world. That is a ripple effect I’m here to create with you guys today. Thank you for tuning in and being a part of this today. I know that each of you guys are here, not just because you’re trying to get rich.
(01:10)
You really do want more passive income. You want more freedom, more time freedom so that you can really truly live that life that you want. Hey, guys, if you haven’t done so already, go to money ripples.com. There’s lots of great things you could check out there, including about infinite banking and how does that really work? How can get your money pay you twice even about passive income? Lots of great things you could keep on your journey and your learning experience by checking that out right now@moneyripples.com. So I’ve bring on a guest here today. So I’ve got VO tech with us today. Now VO tech, interestingly enough, I think he actually started listening to this show a little bit. I know he has been part of other groups as well. I’ll tell you, there are no accidents. I believe that everything happens for a reason. And it was funny because I remember vtech even telling me, he’s like, Hey Chris, I’m going to send you an interview I did on somebody else’s podcast, and it was actually mutual friends of ours.
(01:58)
And he said, he’s like, one of these days, Chris, I’m going to be on your podcast doing the same thing. And just recently I said, you know what? Let’s do that. Let’s actually fulfill that promise right now. Even better, let’s even do it. Maybe put some years in between to see kind of the progress along the way. But Voya Tech, if you guys we’ll talk about this in his journey, born in Poland, moved to the US, was a D one tennis player, not to mention has a wonderful wife and three kids all under the age of six that he’s raising right now. But definitely want to talk about him and his journey. What has he learned? What can you glean from what he’s taking and applying right now that you could apply in your life to give yourself some more time and financial freedom today? So Voya Tech, welcome.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Thank you very much, Chris. Really appreciate it. It feels so fun to be inside the episode. Like you said, I’m an avid listener. I love everything you do. I love the videos and podcasts and probably been listening for past 40 50 podcasts. Haven’t missed one yet. So thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
That’s awesome. That’s great. See, you’re already a binger. Just like we talk about, it’s not just service. You’re one of those binges too, huh?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Amen. From the inside and from the outside, it all looks great.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, that’s good to know. Well, tell us more about your background. Like I said, you were born in Poland and then you moved over here. What brought you to the States?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yes, sir. So growing up in Poland, my dream was to become a professional tennis player. Unfortunately, through some little injuries and perhaps also just not being good enough, I wasn’t able to quite make it. So at the last moment, I pivoted and managed to come to us for opportunity of the D one scholarship and the rest is history. I love us. I wanted to stay. I was privileged enough to through the career, to earn a green card and then become a citizen three years ago or so. So here we are today.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Congratulations. I know it’s not, I mean, despite some popular belief, it’s not easy to become a citizen of this country and they make it a pain in the butt even do that. So congratulations. You just went through probably almost more headache and hassle than we did growing up here in the US
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Perhaps, but it was all worth it. I was, again, in college, I met my sweetheart. We got married now, which has celebrated our nine year anniversary. She’s from Indonesia, so we are both a hundred percent immigrants, no family here. So I feel honored to hopefully start a legacy right here in the US and built something new. Contrary to many stories, I did not have to leave Poland. Fortunately, I have amazing parents, amazing family. Both of my sisters are very successful in Poland as well as my parents. So that was a hundred percent choice. But from the moment we came here, everything I have, everything we built, we built together with my wife and yeah, excited to keep going.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Now, I wasn’t planning on asking this, but it kind of brings up a good point because you said you could have stayed in Poland and probably had a pretty good life. Obviously your family has a great life there. It’s not like you escape poverty or anything like that. I mean for you from your outside perspective versus some of the spoiled brats of us that have lived in the United States our whole lives and then we think that we don’t have enough favors and things like that. What’s your perspective on the United States, the financial situation and even just opportunities and things like that? Is there really that much better? What are your thoughts on it?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
It’s a great question. I truly believe us still gives us incredible opportunities, the biggest in the world. I was extremely blessed for tennis to travel a lot. Before age 20, I was probably in 30 plus countries. I had the chance to live in a few different places, at least for parts of a time. And one thing about us always stuck out was that this is still contrary to what people say. It’s a land of huge opportunity. But again, as Benjamin Franklin said, we just have a chance to earn things it was not supposed to be given. We have a freedom to earn it. We have a freedom to express ourselves. And as an immigrant, I see it, I feel it. I was from the first moment, extremely thankful to build things coming from a different country, using it as my second language. I’m still able to build a business.
(06:32)
I’m able to purchase properties, I’m able to invest. I’m able to join mastermind groups and always felt welcome. And I still feel this is a country you can truly go like this and you can build a tremendous legacy within one lifetime, contrary to, for example, Singapore, amazing country, amazing country to live in. But it feels like when we were there, your progress is like this. Yes, your kids will have better, their kids will have better, but you cannot quite skip the process. And as much as I want to live legacy, I want to live that during my lifetime, not just think that, hey, in the future my kids will have better. So us is still it.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I love that, man. Well, and I wish more Americans would have your perspective too. Not just because coming from the outside, but what you had just said when you’re quoting Ben Franklin, it, it’s about what we earn, right? It’s not about what we’re entitled to trying to earn that. And you’re definitely evidence of that. That’s why your life is changing. That’s why you’re creating that legacy for yourself now and also for your future generations to come too.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Well, awesome man. So I wish everybody would learn that example. Heck, I think my kids even need to hear that example sometimes too. Well, let me ask you this. I mean, you mentioned obviously the financial opportunities. You’ve obviously been investing and doing things like that. Tell us about your financial journey. What even got you interested in learning down this path? I mean, you could have gone down the typical 401k route that everybody else has taught to do, but obviously you’ve been taking a different path. What inspired that?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So just to finish the other thought, one other additional thing, travel is a big educator. The more you can travel, the more you can expose yourself and study the local cultures. Not just spend time in the resort, but just go talk to people, talk to people. The more you can talk to, the more you can see what they do, how they do it, the more you can learn. But going back to the journey, I was doing the typical thing as everybody else, but for some random reason, I don’t really know. Still, I cannot pinpoint why, but about a year ago, our third child was born. I’ve been running my business for four years running. I’ve been rundown and I decided, this is just not working the way it needs to be working, right? We’re doing okay, we’re doing well, but this is not a path to anything to sustaining happiness.
(09:01)
That moment I took a blue pill, your references to Matrix a little bit always. And I decided to change something and I didn’t really know what I’m looking for. I didn’t know how to do it. So I did what I always do, which is dove as deep as I could. And in the period of 6, 7, 8 months, read over 30, 40 books maybe on self-development business and find an investment, and then listened to over 250 hours of podcasts, money Ripples, one of the best. Listen to it. And just from there, learn very quickly. Jay Helms, quick shout out to him. In one of the podcasts he talked about you got to start surrounding yourself with girlfriends, not just maintenance relationships and who, there’s so many sayings there. Of course, your network is your future network and all this kind of things. And I quickly took it to heart.
(10:02)
I looked around and I said, oh, actually it was a first syndication I was looking at. And I decided, okay, I have no idea what syndications are. I listen red, but I’m like, yeah, I’m not really feeling it right, or maybe it’s good, maybe not. Let me reach out to 30 people that I have surrounding me. And I am in tennis business, so I often work with very wealthy clients. I have some solid connections. So I said, let me send a mass email to all of them. Here’s the situation, here’s the syndication. What are you guys thinking? I got the one response from one lawyer friend and said that, yeah, it seems legal. That was pretty much, but not really an advice. And that moment made me realize this is just in a regular life. All these people who seem to be successful, they’re not really investors, so I need to find better people around me.
(11:00)
So that’s when I started looking at the growth friends, started joining different mastermind groups. Third, surrounding myself with people that know much more than I do so I can continue growing. And as you know, part of it is joining your movement and your financial coaching, which has been huge within the last two months. Money ripples. So yeah, just learn a ton. We can fill multiple podcasts just with that. But from IBC, infinite banking concept to syndications, to short-term money lending, to investing in turnkey rentals and reading through all of those and why and what for and how. And then trying to apply it.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Well, that was the thing I was going to ask you is how did you bridge that gap? A syndication? I was a financial advisor. I didn’t even know what a syndication was. And then to just go really head first, you’re diving into this and learning about it, what helped you bridge that gap? I mean, you mentioned different masterminds and whatnot. I mean, what do you feel really was the difference? Were you just interviewing people, were reading up on things? Was it the podcast? What was helping you?
Speaker 1 (12:13):
That first one was definitely I tried to look, do as much research as I could. Left field investors have a great group forum so you can ask questions. And I learned a bunch from there. I kept searching, but ultimately it came down to realizing that listen, we spend so much money on education and we get in college debt, and that’s normal. A hundred K in a college debt seems to be normal and and my first indication was 10 K. But ultimately I thought to myself, listen, if this is going to motivate me to learn even more and put my money where my mouth is sort of and put a little fire under my behind to make sure that since I already put the money there first of all, right before I need to really learn as much as I can. But then when I put it, I continue studying, is that the best option? It’s been eight months ago I ended up with investing into two syndications, and both of them were kind of fractional investments at 10 K each. And I still look at them thinking that was great because it made me to continue that journey. So regardless what they do, they’ve been doing okay so far. They’ve been paying, but it’s quite low payments. But regardless, I knew the education and sort of pushing myself to not be in that path that everybody else is was huge.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah, yeah. You mentioned one thing I really like your perspective on was you said that when it came to college, right? Either people pay a hundred thousand or more or four to eight years or more depending on what they’re investing in into a university. And I love your perspective where you just said, you know what? This is my investment. If people have spent years trying to learn this stuff and money too of their time, why not put in 10,000 a little bit here? Or maybe it’s 25,000 or obviously you joined different masterminds like ours, you’ve been hired us as one-on-one coaches and things like that too. Not even close to what you’d pay for college education, but still all that. To learn what you’re doing now, which of course leads to helping you increase that income, doesn’t it?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, absolutely. So two thoughts immediately. First off, take that imperfect action. Maybe don’t go too big with the money, but take that imperfect action. Do first investment, whatever it is, just do investment. Try to make sure it’s not some kind of scheme, but if you read it enough, you read few books, you will know what it is. So either syndication or invest in the first rental or whatever it is, you will learn so much by taking that action. Ultimately, no matter how much you learn, you will never feel ready. I’m still not ready. I have no clue what I’m doing, but I’m just diving deep. I surrounded by myself, by people that know more than me, like yourself or Craig, your amazing coach. So I reach out if I don’t know something or I write on our forum if I don’t know something. But ultimately it’s like you just got to take the action.
(15:29)
And the second thing is that crazy perspective that when you are in your formative years, by 18, you make these big decisions on education. You spend this ridiculous amount of money on education and somehow that’s okay. But then you start working, you’re 25, 27, whatever it is, and somebody says, okay, this course costs $5,000, or this mastermind cost $200 a month. And you go, oh my, this is ridiculous amount of money. It’s like, what? If you think about the perspective of that, you are really going to learn a skill or something that you are actually pursuing and it costs you only $5,000 or $10,000 or whatever it is, or to plug into network like yourself at the knowledge of money ripples for whatever the amount of money this, it’s penny on the dollar compared to all the education we do during our lifetime. So it’s kind of crazy mentality. And I think we’ve been conditioned that you spend money on education until 22, and then, I dunno what you’re supposed to stop educating yourself and earn money instead of understanding that education later on. It’s so much cheaper and so much more directed towards what you actually will use for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
And you’re a little bit more mature to make those decisions. Where I think back when I was 18 years old, immature, inexperienced, and somehow I was supposed to make smart decisions about the money or the debt I was going to take on for life. Well, not for life, but for many years. Right. That’s a good point.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Correct, correct.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah. Well, I want to go back to your why, because you mentioned that especially after you had your third child, you said, you know what? Something needs to change. Tell us a little bit more about that. What was it that really says, you know what, this is not what I want. And then also, what do you want? What is that vision of what you truly want in your life?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
That’s a great question. So it all started with understanding that in order for me and for us as a family to start making different decisions, we need to become financially free. And that concept of financial freedom, the fire movement, that’s what I spend a lot. Also time early on was kind of understanding that, okay, you can only have a time freedom when you have that financial freedom. So this was the first sort of why that later on, I just learned that it’s just one out of many milestones in the journey. But at that moment that was like, it let us, let’s really focus on what our expenses are and let’s try to start moving towards getting that passive income to replenish, to replace the expenses, because that’s the only freedom you can really achieve. So I realize it’s not about their net worth. It’s not about 401k and all this nonsense.
(18:35)
It’s about money coming in this month. What do I need to do to have enough money to spend, to earn or to get for this month expenses? And if I have enough that I don’t need to go to work or do whatever I need to do for money, then I am going to be first free. And then the why. So this is that second interesting part that I continue learning from the journey that the money piece is just a piece. It’s important piece. We cannot operate without money, but if you start surrounding yourself with great people like yourself, you can envision that within the next five years, four years, three 10, whatever it is, but very finite amount of years, you will achieve that financial freedom. So then what do you want your life to look like? So I continue trying to grow in that stage life vision.
(19:31)
What you mentioned is huge. So shout out to one of my main mastermind groups right now that I’m part of life Iner the movement, big focus there. And it is what it sounds like. Millionaire Ner, right? We believe in holistic success in life. So one of their big things is to create that life vision and then to make sure that your work or your financial pursuits fit into that life vision. So to make sure there’s no golf handcuffs and also not all of us want to or have to be millionaires and living the rich life is really what matters. And I love your sign back there, live your life. Now, that’s also life iner way of thinking. So it aligns for me. You guys are my primary financial decision making and support group, and I also have some additional thoughts.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
That’s huge. I’ll tell you, I actually just revamped my vision two weeks ago, just barely went, redid it again, because that’s the thing. Even as you progress along, you start to achieve that vision. Well then what? Right? What’s that next phase? Where are you really aiming for? It’s almost like as you’re rowing towards that horizon, you just keep going. It just keeps happening. You keep realizing there’s more horizon ahead of you. And as I did that, it was amazing how much more clarity and focus it gave me, even though I knew that. But still just I think that’s a so important thing to do to keep upleveling and keep progressing in life. You got to have that not just financially, but all areas of life.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yeah, exactly. And exactly. It’s all about having that map. I think we are all conditioned to just go through life without any map. And the only things that are sort of in stone is that it’s a nine to five, and that’s supposed to be nine to five or nine to whenever if you own, or seven to whenever. When you own your own business, and then you’re supposed to work for 40 years, and then you’re supposed to go into the sunset and maybe in between you will be lucky enough to buy some cars and have some trips, and it’s like, well, what if you want to raise goats in Guatemala? None of those things fit into that. You can do it today. If you love goats and you want to be in Guatemala, it really doesn’t cost you that much. Whatever it costs, you can set it up much easier. So understanding of what rich life, abundant life means to you is essential. So I also see it as I just finished my life vision. I’m going to constantly be using it, looking at it, but when the changes, it changes, it’s great. I’m going to revamp it. It’s all about just having some map. That map might adjust change. I might go somewhere else, but it’s having a direction is essential.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I love it. Great advice. Speaking of which, I know Voytek know we’re getting to the end of our show, but I just want to ask one last thing just really quickly. Any there’s any advice you would give to the listeners right now? What would it be?
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Abundant mindset. I know you talk about this all the time. There’s nothing more powerful than abundant mindset. Early on in the journey, I have realized that true investors, true successful people are all abundant in their way of thinking, in their advice. They share freely. They shared their time. I spoke to multiple millionaires. I spoke to billionaires. I was listening to interesting podcasts or read interesting books. I reach out to the people and immediately say, Hey, is there any chance you would ever find time for a call? Almost every single one of them say, yes. People want to talk. People want to share. If you want to join that circle, be abundant in your own circles, share with people, talk to people. And if the feedback you’re getting back is bragging or any other thing that is negative, that means you’re not surrounded by the right people. So just change your circle, but be abandoned in your life. Help others. They will help you.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
So great advice. And Voytek, definitely one of those guys too, attracts, there’s a reason that we like talking with you. You’re definitely an abundant minded person, so I appreciate you living that by example for all of us to follow too.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
I really appreciate it. This was amazing. Thank you, Chris. It’s an honor.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Absolutely. So you guys heard it here, great advice here. Be abundant minded. Focus on really knowing that vision that you want and achieving what you want. And yeah, income can help you get there, but ultimately it’s about really crafting the life that you want, knowing what you want, and then going for it, and being willing to invest in that, right? Being willing to go for it. I think that’s the thing that I’m getting from Voya Tech here, is that if anything I’ve learned from him lately is that he’s not afraid to take that first step. He might have some fears, he might have some apprehension, but he always takes action, even if it’s imperfect. Action. Guys, same thing can apply to you. Be willing to take action even if it’s imperfect. Make it a wonderful prosperous week. We’ll see you later.