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Shine On Success
Welcome to "Shine On Success," the podcast dedicated to exploring the journeys, challenges, and triumphs of today's entrepreneurs. Each episode from your host, Dionne Malush is crafted to inspire, educate, and empower you, whether you're just starting out or are a seasoned business owner.
Shine On Success
Turning Hardships into a Mission: An Inspiring Financial Journey
In this heartfelt episode of Shine on Success, host Dionne Malush sits down with Joseph Lombardi, a man whose life story is a testament to resilience and the power of financial planning. Joseph's path was marked by a series of devastating family events that began with his mother's struggles and continued with his father's business collapse after a severe accident. Despite these hardships, Joseph rose above his circumstances, transforming his pain into a mission to protect others from financial ruin.
Joseph shares his incredible journey from severe poverty to success in the financial sector, emphasizing the importance of perseverance, faith, and a positive mindset. His story is not just about overcoming adversity but also about the unwavering commitment to helping others achieve financial security. Through his work at Ironhawk Financial, Joseph aims to provide business owners and families with the tools and knowledge they need to navigate financial challenges and build a secure future. Tune in to be inspired by Joseph's remarkable resilience and discover practical insights on financial empowerment.
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Have you ever wondered how personal tragedy can ignite a mission to help others avoid similar hardships? Welcome to Shine on Success. I'm your host, dionne Malish, and today we have an extraordinary guest, joseph Lombardi. Joseph's journey into finance was shaped by a series of family tragedies that highlighted the importance of financial planning. His mission at Ironhawk Financial is to safeguard business owners and their families from the financial devastations he experienced firsthand. So welcome, it's so nice to have you on here. I've been reading about you and I'm really excited to have you, because you've been through a lot and you've pushed through.
Speaker 1:I mean, this is what this show is all about so let's just start at the beginning, and you know I'm sure everybody wants to know. Let's talk about your journey through your series of family events that were absolutely devastating. Can you share how these experiences shape your approach to your life today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I had a heck of a life. I published three books already on finance, but I'm building a memoir over what's going on. So yeah, I mean I started off. You know my mom didn't. They didn't want me, so she wanted an abortion.
Speaker 2:That's how I came into this world. My dad was pro-life or I wouldn't be here. My mom was never cut out to be a mom. She was a party girl, you know, drinking drugs, and she wanted the fast high life and so she managed to stay with my dad for four years. I'm shocked. You know, my parents got divorced. I was living in Clearwater, florida, after she took everything Cause back in 88, if you were the woman you just doesn't matter, you could be a serial killer. You get everything.
Speaker 2:So left my dad with nothing, you know absolutely nothing. And then she called my dad a month later, said you know, come get your son or I'll put him in an orphanage. So it was me, my dad, a truck, a blanket, a tv and 500 bucks. We drove to trumbull, connecticut, and we lived in an attic with no running water so we had like mattress. We had a toaster, a microwave, a tv, a bucket. You know so when you four, you don't really understand, you know. So I was eating noodles and eggs every day with ketchup and hamburger helper without the hamburger helper meat, you know and just grew up in severe poverty.
Speaker 2:About when I was nine, my dad asked my grandmother for a loan and you know, her husband died, her son died from the war, so she's like, don't expect me to be his mom, and so she was all depressed and stuff. So when the housing market booms, this was after my dad's second failed marriage and so after that started from there. We moved to the first floor of the same three family apartment and then literal crackheads moved upstairs and stole my Sega Genesis. Like 20 times I carved my initials into the black plastic in the Sega Genesis to let the pawn shop owner know that it's mine and to buy it for 10 bucks so that we can buy it back from him for 10 bucks. So it was pretty chaotic, you know, and I always visit my mom once a year. She didn't really want much to do with me, she'd send me home over random stuff.
Speaker 2:So you know it was tough. You know, I always wanted my mom, I always wanted a female to love me. You know, it was just one of those things when you're a kid, and you know, and then, because I had no mom, you know, I got really fat and then we moved into, like the rich town in Fairfield and my dad's business, jb Lombardi Builders, started really picking up and then I was made fun of and bullied every day, you know. So it just gave me tough skin and I have two options, you know.
Speaker 2:I can say woe is me and, you know, let it destroy me. Or I can say I'm going to take this adversity and everything that God has thrown at me and I'm going to use that to become stronger, you know, and then from there I started joining the football team, the track team, basketball team. I lost tons of weight. I was running 10 miles a day. I had a six pack. My dad's business was doing good. I went from like the loser in school to like one of the most popular people in school, but it didn't affect me. I didn't treat anybody different. You know, I was always friends with the skaters different types of high school people that used to be politically correct to say.
Speaker 2:It affected me a lot, I'm sure, but it taught me that no one's going to save you especially being a man. You know like nobody gets a butt so here I am, you know, I'm 15.
Speaker 2:My dad remarried again and this is now number three. Yeah, so my dad was in aa in uh 91. That was when mad came out mothers against drunk driving. So my dad, my dad, created damn drunks against mad mothers, oh no, and he realized it was just you know, me and him. And if something happened to him he used to like grab manhattans every day, go to the corner store, put his gambling bets in and uh he realized that if, like, something happened to him, I had nobody right my own grandma didn't want me, my mom didn't want me, nobody wanted me, right?
Speaker 2:so?
Speaker 1:how old were you when that was, that, when you were 15, I was I was, uh, born in 84, so maybe seven turn an eight.
Speaker 2:You know, june 3rd 92 was his last drink. You know, 32 years plus. So you know that was was a defining moment to say my dad could be. You know, alcohol for me, you know that was admirable, you know. So here I am.
Speaker 2:He gets third marriage and the stepmom she was acting really weird. You know, we didn, we didn't know, like she would give me the middle finger behind my dad's back. She crashed the truck, said it was my basketball that hit it, when it was on the wrong side of where I play basketball and we didn't really know what's going on with her. So, to make a very long story short, she got pregnant with my younger sister and she was acting really weird. And then she ended up my, my daughter or or my daughter I call her my daughter because I almost raised her my sister came out two pounds seven ounces for the alcohol syndrome.
Speaker 2:So we did, we found out through the divorce. So she kept a purse in the back of their closet that had all the receipts and she bought vanilla extract and Listerine. That's what she drank because my dad was in AA and she knew that he would know the smell of scotch or whiskey Right. So we found receipts where she went to stop and shop one day at 10 am to grab two bottles of each, and then go to Big Y at one o'clock that day to grab two bottles. This is while she was pregnant.
Speaker 2:Oh no, yeah. So shortly after that happens, my dad is, you know his business doing really well. He's working in Greenwich, one of the richest cities in the country, in connecticut, and he's working for the ceo of coca-cola, ceo of the nfl, ceo of apple, you know, redoing their house. Everything was great and they were putting in, like this huge six-figure mural in one of the mansions on this road in greenwich which if I knew the name, you can google it. It's just crazy houses.
Speaker 2:And he was getting frustrated because his workers couldn't get it to line up to put into the house after it was framed. So he gets a ladder and he climbs up and he's directing the frame. Die because he's paying a thousand bucks an hour for this crane to be like on the roof of a mansion, right? So make a long story short. It tilted, he jerked off, he fell three stories off a ladder, a bone in his foot disintegrated into a thousand pieces and within 20 months he lost everything. And guess who I had? I'm 15, I'm lettered at football, track, basketball, I'm running every day. You're now going to take care of your sister, who's one and a half years old, because you're not 18 and she's not 18 and both of you are once dcf if you said oh, so now this is a lot of adversity.
Speaker 1:You're not even an adult yet. I'm not adult yet. No, this is a true story.
Speaker 2:I dropped out of football, track and basketball that I was lettered in. I was varsity in one of them and I started working at Child's Garden down Mona Terrace. It's a daycare that was right near my house, so I used to walk. Thank God I walked to school. I used to ride my bike, but at this point I would walk to the daycare, drop her off, walk to high school, go to high school all day, go back to the daycare, work there until six o'clock. So we said help from two to six and then I used to walk down Tunx's Hill and go to like a Burger King and just grab some food and then walk back up and do my homework, put her to bed, and you know so.
Speaker 2:It was a really big transition from being like you know you're a high schooler, you know, trying to get a girlfriend trying to do good in school, playing sports, and now, hey, you're a full blown dad taking care of your sister. It greatly affected me. You know, we're Italian, so it's family first. You know, it wasn't a question, it was just like that's just what I'm supposed to do. Yeah, that's how it all started. So why I want to get in this industry is when I was 13, my dad went into one of those mansions mega mansions and he goes go play with one of the owner's kids while I priced the job out. So I end up going down this elevator. In a house like this is this different. I'm going to elevator doors open up. There's a baseball field. They must have dug down 80 feet into the ground to build this baseball field under a mansion. It was crazy. I had a ball. Let's just say I had a ball. It was like Chuck E Cheese on steroids, right yeah.
Speaker 1:I get back to the car.
Speaker 2:You know my dad, I'm like what does that? Guy do. He's like he works on Wall Street, so I'm like all right, I know what that means but I want to work on Wall Street because I wanted the way that God set my life up, from different events to how I handled it, to how I responded to what then he brought in next.
Speaker 2:It was almost like this was my destiny to be in a field that I work with. You know blue collar business owners and high income people like my father. To help protect them and build them foundational strategies that make sure that something happens out of their control. Financially they're safe.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about your dad again. So did he get back into business. What happened after his foot healed? What happened? So he comes out?
Speaker 2:right, he's in the hospital for over a year, rehabilitation surgery, rehabilitation surgery. His trucks are gone, relettered. You know his workers, you know Valentino Javier. They all rellettered to new businesses because they had families to feed and they had the keys to everything. And all those tools were stolen, the backhoes, everything was just gone.
Speaker 2:He lost it all and yeah, he had a bunch of real estate too. He came back to like 600 checks that aren't cash and after 30 days they're worthless. All his houses got foreclosed on. Yeah, it was a tough time, you know, from being poor, very poor, to being wealthy, to then being poor again. Yeah, you know, all within six years.
Speaker 1:How is your sister doing? How did she?
Speaker 2:She's doing good now, but you know she has a smaller head from the fetal alcohol she's. You know she's a little bit smaller, as you would assume, but she just had her first baby, A little smushy, my little niece.
Speaker 1:I little smushy, my little niece. I love her so sweet. She's doing good. Yeah, so this show is about facing adversity and pushing through to the other side. It seems like that's all you've been doing your whole life I didn't even get into the half of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure I mean, I'm sure there's a lot more.
Speaker 1:So what is the key to get you to the other side? What is it that makes you get up every day and keep pushing?
Speaker 2:well, right now it's my children. You know I have. I have three children 14, 11 and nine. My daughter just won regionals. We had to go to nationals in New Jersey, which she finished six out of 18. She's first year ever dancing and she's amazing. You know my boys, I coach them. You know they play lacrosse, football, basketball, winter football.
Speaker 2:What kept me going was I always wanted to be successful. You know, when you're a kid you think it's money. So I always strive to make a ton of money, which I always did, and. But I'll be 40 in two weeks and getting older. It's not about money, it's about God, it's about evolving your soul, evolving your purpose. It's all about, for me, it's just just trying to do the right thing on a daily basis, and you know there's a lot of adversity you're going to have in marriage, in parenthood, in business. Nothing is easy, but it's worth it, you know. So it's getting through the struggles and the pain without complaining, without living in the past, because that's depression, without living in the future, because that's anxiety. It's all about living in the present and say what can I do now to make my life easier and help other people?
Speaker 1:That is so good, what you just said, and it makes so much sense, and I'm sure many people that listen to this are going to hear you and realize that that's what they're doing and how they're living every day. So you're doing this now to help other people. Tell me about your purpose, like, what is your purpose in your life? I know you said the kids, but there's something else which I've been reading.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, the purpose right now is I don't want to say that I, you know God spoke to me. It's so cliche, but recently, I say in the last six to eight months, I've had a shift in my whole life. I had a lot of demons. You know whether it was gambling. You know I'm on all the DraftKings commercials nationwide. You know that, right there tells you I probably gamble a little too much to be on all the commercials, right? So I always did everything 100 miles an hour, whether it was smoking, drinking. You know gambling. You know I got a vision, or just a feeling, I can't even describe it, but just something that touches your soul, like when I met my wife, you know, 22 years ago.
Speaker 2:It was nothing in my head, nothing in my heart, nothing in my you know, I just, you just know, I just knew in my soul like that's mine and you know same thing happened recently and I'm like I always looked at competitors and you know other financial advisors as like bad guys and you know I can't, you know, trust them and I can do a better job and I'm the best. And you know God's like. Help other agents, help other advisors and teach them what you know and what you did. You know what made you five star rated, what made you eight plus rated on a better business barrel, what puts you on the cover of magazines, a top 40 under 40 through 100 INC, what puts you on the who's who for construction through the blue book, all these opportunities that God has given me. Teach other agents. You know like, don't look at them as if they're bad. So I really started giving a lot, a lot of like my presentation, which you know I had a company that wanted to purchase it for me for millions of dollars and go around the country and teach their general agents my strategy.
Speaker 2:And when I stopped being selfish and I shed these demons I call them demons. They're heavy energy that sticks with you, that makes you do reoccurring things on a daily basis that may not be the best thing for you, but you feel comfortable with that demon. A demon makes you feel good for that quick moment, but long-term, that demon's going to destroy you, and so it was like just shedding this negative energy, shedding this, letting the light come in, shining the light brighter. I don't want to sound corny or anything, but it's like it is what it is. I would never talk like this a year ago, but it's just. It's something that really changed me. So so my why is to build for my children, to build a company, to build sustainable quality of life. My wife works very hard, but she's been staying at home now for 12 years and I just want to give my family what I never had, which is safety, security, love. You know, all the things that I always yearned for, that I never had. I just want to pour that into the people I love.
Speaker 1:Well, it sounds like you're definitely doing that, so let's talk about so. You said something about doing things over and over again, but do you have any daily habits or routines that can contribute to your success and your positive mindset, now that you've been through this?
Speaker 2:Wake up with a smile. That's what I do every day. I used to annoy my wife when she used to work. It's going to be Monday morning and I'm like whistling. I'm like woohoo, I get to go cold call for four hours and she'll be walking up on me and tell me to go find myself right. And she's always almost angry.
Speaker 1:What are you so happy about? It's Monday morning no-transcript.
Speaker 2:The center of the world, realizing that I'm put here to help people. And the more you help people and the more positive energy you give out to this world, the more positive energy comes back to you. And it's just a fact. It is a plain, simple fact. The law of large numbers says if you do good, you get good. If you do bad, you get bad. And it all comes down to a little engine that could. If you think you can, you will. If you think you can't, you won't. Either way, you're right.
Speaker 1:If you don't think you're going to do something, you ain't going to do it.
Speaker 2:If you think you're going to do something, you will do it. And the only way to lose don't quit.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter how many times you fail, you didn't lose because you're still here, you're still trying, you still do it.
Speaker 2:So it's that type of mindset that when you approach anything, approach relationship with your spouse, approach your children, approach business clients, your boss, if you have one if you approach with that mindset, your life is going to be so much peaceful You're not going to sit there again, not going to live in the past. Oh, I should have done this, I could have done that. I wish this happened. That's just depression. Or in the future, I don't know what's going to happen, who's going to be president, what's happened with the economy? That's fear, that's anxiety. Be where you are present. God has you here right now, listening to me.
Speaker 2:If you're listening for a reason, there's a purpose, there's a. I'm a critical thinker or a conspiracy theorist, because when there's something that has eight coincidences, it's not a coincidence, it was planned. Whether they want to tell you it was a coincidence and eight other coincidences, they're lying. And it's having that mindset to say you know what? I'm not going to solve the world's problems, but I'm going to solve my world's problem and that's my children, my wife, my kids, my dad. And it stopped worrying about all the BS that's spewing on you 24-7 on social media this murder, this rape, this kidnapping, this border crossing.
Speaker 1:I don't live in Texas.
Speaker 2:I'm in Connecticut. They crossed the border. I don't want open borders. Might I sit there and cry about it? There's nothing I can do. What am I going to go down there with a gun and start telling them go back to your own country?
Speaker 1:What am I?
Speaker 2:going to do Live in what you can control and you do the best at what you can control and if you don't get the outcome you want, do it again and do it differently.
Speaker 2:Because if you do the same thing over and over and expect different results, it's the definition of insanity and you are insane. So it's just doing those things from a positive standpoint and not letting all the devil. I believe we live in either the highest form of hell or the lowest form of heaven, and I believe we elevate each other, whether the way I look at it simply is like we're in the third grade, right.
Speaker 1:So we're in the fourth grade. If you do really good, where do you go? Fourth grade If you don't.
Speaker 2:You do okay, but you don't really learn everything. Where do you stay here in third grade? What if you do really bad? Well, then you go back to second grade. That's where I think our why we're here is to evolve our spirit, because it's just the way that you look at it from a standpoint of why are we here? Well, it's to become better. We're all God's children.
Speaker 1:What did children grow up to be?
Speaker 2:Well, human children grow up to be adults. God's children grow up to be gods. So if we are learning on this journey to be a better version, a better person, learn for yourself then I believe that that is what this is all for is to learn, Because they say, it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. So learn and have fun while you're doing it and make the best of whatever your situation is.
Speaker 1:So many nuggets in here, so tell me a little bit about your hobbies or some things that you like to do outside of work.
Speaker 2:I'm a workaholic, but I like which I don't do enough of. I like to spend time with my wife alone, but we have three children and they're always around, even though I love them to death. But I like to do sports with the kids, you know I like to go for hikes. I love doing yard work. I couldn't afford for somebody to mow my lawn. I mow my lawn. You know. I could always want to trim my bushes because in my business right, I'm doing all financial planning investments, insurance, annuities, iuls being your own, all this stuff. I don't see instant gratification.
Speaker 1:If I sell life insurance, I don't want you to use it. I don't want you to die If I'm selling auto or home. I don't want you to get to a car accident.
Speaker 2:If I'm selling disability, I don't want you to disable. If I'm selling long-term care, I don't want you to not be able to feed yourself or hold yourself. So there's no instant gratification.
Speaker 1:I'm setting up for retirement.
Speaker 2:I don't want you to be 67 and old, I want you to live your life now and have fun. So it's like a position, my office, or mow the lawn or trim the bushes or clean the pool, like I'll be in the pool for an hour, even though I have a shark that'll clean up the whole thing, or a dolphin it'll clean up the whole thing for me. I like to go down there and skim it and I just like to do things that I feel productive, because after a while I make a ton of money. If I get a hundred thousand dollar check, it's cool. I did what I was supposed to do, but that's gone like that. Oh my god. I made so much money, like once. You live in that world long enough because I've been doing this for 20 years. That's cool and that's a reward for me doing the right thing and helping somebody. But I don't get that instant gratification. So I like to do things that give me instant gratification. I love that.
Speaker 2:So what is something interesting about yourself that most people wouldn't know? To courtside finals and you know front row games and concerts, and you know I really I don't think a lot of people know that there's a quality of life that you can achieve if you believe. Again, I don't want to sound like it's a corny Disney commercial or anything, but it's true. And the lifestyle I have, hanging out with Peyton Manning, I have pictures of me being with Kevin Hart dapping him up, you them up. There's all this cool, different life that you can live outside the mundane, nine to five, building somebody else's dream, when you could be building your own and not settling, and a lot of people what they do is they take the safe route because they're too scared to bet on their God-given ability. And once you get out of that fear which we're designed to live in, fear because we live in the United States of America corporation we're all slaves to the federal government. That's why they print notes on your future labor, which means you don't own your labor, which means they own you, which means you're a slave. It's really that easy. So it's like trying to break away from that slavery, because taxes is your mandatory slavery, but then debt is your voluntary slavery. It's like, you know, trying to get out of debt and trying to do the right things financially so you can live a life of peace. That's all I want. I just want peace. I want to be around people that you know want to laugh and have a good time and that's it. You know, I want my kids to be safe and healthy and happy and I want my kids to fail, because that's how they're going to succeed. There is no straight line, there is no coddling. It is what it is.
Speaker 2:Probably a lot of people don't understand the lifestyle. You know I just bought a new escalating cash. That's pretty cool. How many people do that? You know, for my wife, you know she wanted a new truck. I needed the ride off. You know, like just cool stuff like that that you get to do which the average person doesn't think, that that's even feasible. When I'll tell you what it is, because there's nothing special about me that you can't do.
Speaker 1:That's great. You know, I have to tell you, my favorite pizza in all of America is Lombardi's in New York City.
Speaker 1:And so when I saw the name come up, because I just had it last weekend. I was like, oh my gosh, how funny is that? You know so, uh, yeah, it's cool, it's so nice to meet you. I really am just blown away by what you've been through and, like you said, we don't know it all, but we can. We can sense that it's been a lot and a lot of people don't know what that feels like, but a lot of people know worse than that. Right, you worked hard, you got yourself through it's not luck, it's called hard work and you got yourself. You push through the adversity, you believe in yourself, which is humongous. In all of this and what you're searching for, that peace of mind is so critically important because without that, all of that is for nothing. You have to have peace within yourself.
Speaker 1:I love your message. I love some of the nuggets. I can't wait to read through it and, you know, write down some of the things you said, because it was really great. And you know, a lot of people do spend time building other people's dreams. You're building your own dreams and they're all yours and it's so awesome to see that. So thank you so much for being on here, thank you for your insights and you know. So let's tell the audience how can they get ahold of you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're interested in breaking free from the government of slavery and want to build your own tax-free pension. Slavery and want to build your own tax-free pension. I set them up every day, every day, all the day. You could reach me at wwwironhawkfinancialcom contact us button. If you would like all three of my books for free all the articles I've been in for free just send an email to joe at ironhawkfinancialcom. They're all on Amazon Kindle, but I will send them personally to you for free to the email of choice. Just write an email to joe at ironhawkfinancialcom. Just write free books.
Speaker 2:There's no expectation we don't have to meet. You won't put in any type of list. I'm trying to get this information out there to free these people that are investing in the government and, believe me, it doesn't benefit you long term. With IRS taking half and Wall Street taking half. You got to build your own bank, which is one of my books that teaches you how to do it, and this is what all the millionaires and billionaires do. It's a trillion dollar industry that the average American knows nothing about.
Speaker 2:So if you want to learn, about it and you want to free yourself. You know rates return last 20 years have been just under 15% compounding and it's liquid. If you want to learn about that, please either get copies of my books for free or go to ironhawkfinancialcom. Contact us. Fill out your name, email, phone number and I'll meet with you. It's no charge, absolutely free.
Speaker 1:That is so amazing, so also don't forget to like, subscribe and share Shine on success with all of your friends. If we can just help one person with every podcast, we've succeeded in what we're doing. So, have a great day. Thank you, Joseph. I really appreciate it. I'm so glad to have met you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for the opportunity to use your platform.
