Welcome to Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur Podcast. Join the podcast mogul Phil Better as he interviews successful entrepreneurs that make their living in the digital world. Now let's join your host, Phil Better, and your special guest today on Invest in Yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur Podcast. I am, of course, your host with the most feel better, and I'm so happy to introduce our guests today. They are the managing partner at IronHawk Financial known for their deep commitment to providing financial security and education, especially those those in the blue collar industries. Our guest journey in finance is personal, stemming from their family's financial hardships, which they have turned into a lifelong mission of protecting others from similar faith. Person after my own heart. Our guest is also an Amazon, Arthur on top of it. They they have titles such as There's a Better Way Than the 401 ks and Being Your Own Bank. Who doesn't wanna be their own bank, right? So now without further ado, let's extend a great big digital entrepreneur welcome to our guest, Joseph Lombardi.

Joseph, welcome to the podcast. And thanks for having me, Phil. Joseph, we're gonna jump right into it because I I'm interested in this. I read your bio to the audience. Why did you decide to help people

Mhmm.

Become their own bank in essence? Become an entrepreneur. Why did you become an entrepreneur?

Yeah. I mean, I don't wanna sound cliche, but, you know, I didn't choose this life. This life chose me, you know, based on my reality of growing up. I mean, came from a divorced household, grew up in poverty after my parents' divorce where I was 4. I lived in the attic with no running water. Then my dad's business took off. My grandmother gave my father alone to really grow, Jamie Lombardi builder. And then the nineties, if you had a hammer and a truck, you were making 6 figures a year, when the housing market exploded.

So then my dad became very reinvested a lot of his profits back into his business, grew a, you know, a $100,000 a year business to, tens of 1,000,000 of dollars of, value. Then one day, he's in, Connecticut in Greenwich, and he falls off a ladder, 3 stories, and loses everything. And, this was a guy with 3 $1,000,000 in a Bain Weber account. He had, many trucks, many workers, bunch of real estate, rental income. And within 20 months, he was literally flat dead broke. So what I found is that, you know, that lot of people, especially business owners, they, believe they're Superman. I mean, again, they need some of that positive energy, but you also have to have a fire plant. You know? So shortly after that, my mother, dies at 52 years old from cirrhosis liver from alcoholism.

She had no life insurance. And then, another, what, 10 months later, my grandmother has a stroke. And then 6 years later, she loses $4,200,000 from her dementia to a nursing home. So it's it's it all came together. I was bartending in in Connecticut at a very high end place, and the CEO of Northwestern Mutual came in and said, hey. I was 19 years old. And he's like, hey. I want you in this business.

What do you study? And I said, well, economics and finance. I'm paying my way through college, hence I'm working full time, going to college full time, and maintained a 3.66 GPA. So it all same thing. Together. Yeah. It all it all it all came together. I was supposed to be in construction. I was supposed to be a contractor.

I you know, I was j All in ad in the business. Yeah. It was JV Lombardi Builders and Sons, and I was supposed to be the and Sons, and there was no business to join. So I, definitely just went into, protecting contractors. I started off chasing trucks on the highway. They used to call me the dog because all the construction trucks are on I 95 in Connecticut, especially in Fairfield County where there's a lot of money down there. So there's a lot of construction and roofing and masons, electricians, plumbers, etcetera. So, I used to chase them all, give them a call.

Hey. My father was JB Lombardi Builders. He fell 3 stories off a ladder, lost a $25,000,000 construction company. Can I buy you a cup of coffee? Make sure it doesn't happen to you and your family. And that's what I did probably 8, 9 times a day every day was just drive on the highway. I was driving 70,000 miles a year, and I would follow people to Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts, buy them a cup of coffee, and give them my pitch. And I got a lot of clients that way. I had a lot of referrals, joined the HBRA Home Building Remodeling Association, joined the, BNI, YPN, you know, just just network, network, network, network, and and, really kept growing, kept growing from, you know, somebody with 4 clients.

And now I have 1600 clients and over a1000000000 dollars of protection and rollovers, and I'm licensed in all 50 states. So if I