033: Build Passive Income and Gain More Freedom with Daniel Alonzo

Welcome to True Grit and Grace, a podcast designed to empower you to claim your resilience and thrive through life's challenges. I am Amberly Lago, a mindset coach, fitness expert, and bestselling author. Each week, I'll dive deep with the world's brightest thought leaders and elite performers to share tangible tools and practical advice to inspire you to keep your eyes on the prize and forge ahead. So get ready to conquer your fears, heal any trauma, lead with your heart, and elevate your life with grit and grace. Hello and welcome back to the True Grit and Grace podcast. I'm so glad you're here because today we have Daniel Alonso, who is a wealth expert, entrepreneur, media personality, podcaster, speaker, and the author of Wealth on the Beach. He has been featured in Success Magazine, the Forbes Riley Radio Show, Tim Storey Live, and he teaches leadership principles to companies and corporations. He's also the founder of the Alonzo Academy and helps others achieve their lifelong dreams, become the best versions of themselves, and achieve financial freedom through massive passive income. Welcome to the show, my friend. How are you?

I am doing phenomenal. Life is really, really good. We are quarantined. But life is really, really good. So I'm so excited right now. I really am. I mean, I'm excited to be here with you, Amberly. You are just such an inspiration and it's an honor to be hanging with you.

Oh, thank you for being here. I was so excited when I saw your face pop up and you're like, yeah, you can ask me anything. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna ask you, how the heck does your hair look so good in this quarantine? That's what I want to know right now.

Well, I promised my hairstylist that I would not tell anybody because it's probably illegal to get your hair cut right now.

I told my husband, you know, my husband's a former lieutenant with the Highway Patrol and he's always had like a very clean cut. And this is the first time, we've been together like 15 years, that I've ever seen his hair long and it's growing. I'm like, you're turning into a hippie on me. That's the first thing I noticed. You always look sharp. And I have to say, thank you so much for continuing to show up and be such an incredible leader because man, you are on Instagram every day. You're sharing tips and tools and inspiring people. Before we get into so many questions I have, because I think a lot of us right now either lost their jobs Or our income is not the same because everything has changed. Our work hours have changed. But I want to ask you how you got to where you are, because this show is all about struggles to success, and you definitely had some struggles, but it led you to where you are today with your beautiful wife and what you have created for yourself and now share so openly with others so they can do the same.

It all started as a little kid, probably my journey to self-awareness and growth. I was 14 years old. I was hanging out with the wrong crowd. We were down in Newport Beach, California. Late at night, we would sneak out of the house at a friend's house down there. I didn't live in Newport, but a friend did. And we'd sneak out of the house.

Wait, was that the scandalous part? Was Newport considered that scandalous or what?

Not really, but we were scandalous.

Oh.

Obviously Newport Beach is beautiful, But we were scandalous and we were 14 years old. We'd run around the streets and do stupid things. We'd open up cars and, you know, steal change and sunglasses and anything we can get our hands on. One night I went out and I got a boombox radio. I stole a boombox radio out of somebody's van. And I still think that somebody was probably sleeping in the van at the time.

Oh, wow.

But I stole the radio and I ran back to Buddy's house and Looked in the tape cassette and it was a tape by Jack Canfield, you know, Chicken Soup for the Soul guy. And it was talking about self-esteem and peak performance. I was a bad kid growing up, one of the bad boys. I got in a lot of fights, a lot of arguments with teachers, hated school with a passion. And it really got me to start thinking about changing my life and asking really that one tape that I listened to probably 100 times, I still have the radio today. I still have the tape today, but it taught me how to ask for what I wanted and to go for my dreams. Wow.

Weren't you an athlete? Baseball? Yep.

I played baseball. Uh, I was going to college at the time. Only reason why I was going to college was to play baseball. I never would have went to college if it wasn't for baseball. But I hurt my knee the first semester. Actually, I hurt my knee really, really bad. My baseball career was done. Came back home. I felt like a loser. I felt like, I mean, everything was gone. That competitive spirit was gone. Again, hanging out with the wrong crowd, doing things probably wouldn't tell my kids about. And then a buddy of mine came up to me and he said, hey, I think I have an opportunity for you. And I said, okay, I'll go check it out. It took me about 4 months. I didn't believe him. Took me about 4 months to actually come around. But he just wouldn't shut up about it. And he said, you don't got to go to college for 4 years. You got to take some classes. You got to learn some things, get some licenses, things like that. He said, but you don't got to be in school forever. And I said, I think that's something that I'd like to check out. And the rest is history.

I think sometimes when we're going through situations, it seems it's so hard and we don't know, like, why am I going through this? And then everything that we're going through is leading us and building up our resilience to exactly where we are supposed to be. I can relate to your struggle with blowing out your knee as an athlete. That was actually my worst fear as a dancer was, I don't want to ruin my knees because then I won't be able to audition. I won't be able to work. I won't, you know, and then I literally get hit by an SUV. Instead, then my whole leg was gone, you know. But those struggles that we go through, I now can look back with gratitude because all of those struggles are actually helping me with what's going on with the economy today, with what's going on with just life in the pandemic and quarantine today. The skillset that you have and the knowledge and wisdom that you have would really be so beneficial to so many people that are struggling out there today because You basically learned a long time ago. I mean, it took you a while to build that up, but you learned a long time ago how to make that passive income. So you could be sitting right here talking to me and still making an income right now so that you can be on the beach and still making an income. Can you please share with us, like, what does that even mean? Because a lot of people, Or like, well, what does that even mean? Passive income? Like, I've always had to work really hard to make minimum wage, or I've always had to work really hard for hardly anything. Or some people have worked hard for years on trying to build a business and haven't seen anything come in because they're busy helping to pay other people that are helping them get that business off the ground. Can you tell us, what does that even mean? Passive income?

Early on, I realized that if I did things the way that everybody did it, then I was going to have an average and ordinary life. Give me anything but an average and ordinary life. I don't want an average and ordinary life. I think one of the, the reasons why I didn't like school was because they were always telling me what to do. They had so many rules, rules about everything. There was a little bit of that rebel in me, always looking for something different because trying to push back on what society kept telling me to do. You know, do it this way, do it this way, do it this way. Now I'm thinking there's got to be a better way. I was at my job making $7 an hour. I was about 21 at the time. I was making $7 an hour and I used to overlook this golf course. I had this big window. The great part about the job is the guy left me alone a lot and I had a big giant window that I could watch people play golf all day long. And so it was a great job. I just remember thinking in my mind, why is it that my parents have to get up when it's dark in the morning and go to work and work all day long and have to pinch pennies? And my mom had to cut coupons. And now I wasn't broke by no means. I mean, my parents, we were middle class. I have great parents. They gave me an incredible upbringing. The truth is they had to keep working for their income. And so I'd look at these people on the golf course and I would see the same people playing golf every day. And I would be thinking, wait a minute, why is it they get a great life like that? How come they're not working? There had to be a better way. And that's when my buddy came to me and said, hey, you know, you need to take a look at financial services, at the financial services business. Of course, I didn't know anything about financial services. I never sold anything in my life. I never Matter of fact, part of the reason why I left college, one of the college campuses that I was a part of, was because of math class. I was never the greatest at math or anything like that. Now today, because of computers, I'm an expert at math, right? I am a genius at math. Early growing up, I was scared of that. When this opportunity came to me, I was nervous and I was scared. But I just want people to understand that passive income Residual income is available to every one of us. It's just that we've been programmed as a society that there's one way to make money, and that's by getting up and going to a job, going to a factory, going to a cubicle, and earning income. And that's it. That's the way that 95% of America makes their money. When this shit happens, like the pandemic that we're going through right now, when this hits us, I mean, this is why it's hitting us so hard. When you're a waitress and they shut down the restaurant, you have zero income. It's all gone. That scared me. And that's what kind of was my first steps of the foundation of me searching for a better way of earning income.

And you know what? I think that this is going to change the way— well, I hope it changes the way a lot of people Think about their futures, think about their children's future. For me, I always had a second or third or fourth income. Like I never just had one job. When something like this comes up, I'm like, okay, so I may not be able to do in-person one-on-one coaching the way I did, but I can rely on other sources of income from book sales To the mastermind, to online courses, I've always had a backup. I always think, what's my backup plan in anything I do? Better have a backup. And I think that's because I struggled so much when I was 23 and I was a single mom. And there were times, you know, I would shop at the dollar store and get canned goods to eat and think, oh my gosh, how am I going to pay my rent this month? And barely be able to make ends meet. to make that happen. And I thought, I will never be in that position again. And so that motivated me to search for different types of income and how I could make income while my daughter was taking a nap. Or, you know, because you're right, right now I've got friends that are fitness trainers and they maybe had a month's worth of savings, but now they're not training clients. And I asked them, I said, well, why aren't you training them through Zoom? Why aren't you thinking of putting a program together and recording everything and you can sell that? Like there are so many different ways to think outside the box in order to make income and not just survive, but really thrive and enjoy life. And I think when you're doing something that you love, you can make those things happen even more. What were some of the first things you did when you started thinking, aha, I've got it? I can be playing golf. I can be out there playing golf and having fun and sitting behind the glass watching them do that. What were some of the first things that you did to start to have the life that you have right now?

Believe it or not, at 21, I went into financial services. I went and got my life insurance license. I got my investment license. I got my annuity license. And I studied everything that I could get my hands on when it came to money, finance, debt elimination, anything under the sun. If it had to do with money, I just wanted to learn everything. Kind of like with you and fitness and dancing. I mean, you watched videos and you got mentors and you got coaches and you got all, you know, same thing with me. I attached myself at the hip with some of the most successful people that I could find, and I started to pick their brain. And I started to figure out, I started to see a couple things that were pretty good for me. Is number one, I could build a team. Because a lot of guys, when they go into financial services, you see them, you know, it's like Joe's Financial Services on the corner.

Mm-hmm.

And it's just Joe by himself. It's just Joe hanging out. If you want to buy some insurance, Joe will give you some insurance. If you want to buy some investments, they'll give you some investments. The challenge with Joe's business is that if the economy goes bad or if Joe hurts himself or Joe gets sick or something like that, his income is gone. And so what I figured out early on, I'm like, hey, wait a minute, I am going to actually build a business where I can recruit hundreds and hundreds of people that work with me. I will support them, coach them and train them and mentor them and be there for them when they need me. And my intention though, was inevitably they were going to be independent.

That's exactly what I did with my business for training. I taught teacher trainers preparation for getting certified as a trainer. Teaching this course and teaching people how to get certified, I then could handpick. I was like, oh man, they're awesome. I want to work with them. So I handpicked this team of people. I had a program where they worked for me every certain amount of sessions that they trained a client. They got a pay raise and a pay raise and a pay raise until those clients became theirs. And so we worked well as a team because they wanted to keep working for me because they knew I was going to keep giving them referrals and they knew I was going to keep giving them raises. So when I was hit on my motorcycle, already had a team to cover me.

That's the key right there, is having a team, having a support system with you. Because again, when you're just a lone ranger all by yourself, think about the cash flow quadrant, right? Robert Kiyosaki cash flow quadrant is a great visual for people to understand. You have people that work jobs, you have people that are self-employed. Well, look, if you're working a job, you're all by yourself. If you're self-employed, you're self-employed all by yourself. If something happens to that job, it's over. The right side of the quadrant is becoming a business owner and becoming an investor. So, if you're a business owner, you have employees, you have agents working with you. I mean, and so, to me, I always thought about it in terms of like, I think about McDonald's, right? When Ray Kroc started McDonald's, he franchised his business out. to thousands and thousands of people. If Ray Kroc is out playing golf, somebody is selling hamburgers. And so, it was my dream to one day have multiple locations. Today, we have 47 locations now. They're all independently run by leaders that run it. They don't need me. I don't pay any overhead. Now, think about this from a business standpoint. I have 47 locations. But I only have 2 employees that are on my payroll. All these agents— there's 1,500 total licensed agents in those locations, in all of our locations. And so they're all 1099, they're all independent contractors. But every single time they produce a sale, whether it's an investment sale or an insurance sale— we do auto insurance, home insurance, You know, legal plans, we do life insurance, we do IRA accounts, college funds, you name it, right? Every single time a transaction happens, they make money. But I also make money. And that is what has created the organization that we have today. And again, that's massive passive residual income.

But how long did it take you to do that?

Okay. That's what I was going to talk about.

Because I want, because it's a lot of work and it's hard to build up a team of people that you can trust. I'm sure you've had some times where people have, I hope you haven't, but maybe screwed you over. But how many years did it take that to get there?

It didn't take very long, believe it or not. My exact story is I came in at 21. By 24, I was earning $100,000 a year. It took me about 3 years to kind of figure this out where I could really make a decent living to provide for my family. I was telling somebody the other day, I think the year was 1996 when I got started originally. So in '96, I only made like $15,000, but I worked hard. So in that year, if you were to really think about it, I was underpaid for my efforts. '97, I made, I don't know, $25,000 or $50,000, right? I was underpaid for my efforts because I worked like I should have made half a million that year, right? Then I only got paid $25,000. Within a couple of years, I was making— even at $100,000, I was probably underpaid. The year after that though, it started to get fun.

Hmm.

The next year I made $170,000. The next year I made $250,000. The next year I made $350,000. And the next year I made half a million. And those are consecutive years. By the time that happened in 2003, I think I was 28 years old at that time. I looked back and I said, all those years I was pretty much underpaid because I was the one killing it. I was the one working. I was the one after it. I was the one office till midnight. I'd hold emergency meetings with all of our guys. At the end of the month, we would be down at LAX taking all our last paperwork down to fly it out to the company the next day. So all our business hit for bonuses and things like that. And all that stuff, I was underpaid. 2003, I woke up making $500,000 in passive income. But the best part about it is all through those years, Amberly, I saved my money, I invested my money, I lived below my means. I had $1 million saved at that time. I was 28. I had $1 million saved. in cash or in my investments at 28 years old. I was done. I was financially independent. I went to one of my top guys and I said, look, it's 2003. I'm 28 years old. I'm done. I'm semi-retired at this point. You take the reins, go for it. Hallelujah. Have a good time. And I literally, from that time till maybe a couple of years ago, when I kind of re-engaged myself because of the social media and all the different things, people are obviously calling me, wanting to come into business with me all the time. I've re-engaged myself at this point. But I've been semi-retired, Amberly, since I was 28 years old.

But you know what? That's so important to talk about is that you didn't live this champagne lifestyle on a beer budget. You know, you really saved your money. And that is so important because I tell you right now, there's going to be a lot of people that are driving around fancy cars and like, holy crap. What do I do? Because I can't pay my rent or mortgage. I've got this fancy car. I work and work and work and I always have a little saving, like a nest egg for emergency. Because God forbid, well, we learned the hard way about life insurance and having a trust and all that and having a joint bank account. My husband and I didn't even have a joint bank account. Oh my goodness. When I had my motorcycle accident, I was in a coma and he couldn't pay the mortgage. He couldn't pay the bills because the bank, it was in my name and I was in a coma. And so we learned so much about finances and trust and insurance and a living trust and all putting our, you know, getting everything organized. But I think so many people, especially in LA, live beyond their means. They— it's all about the show. It's all about the purse or the car or the, you know, the bag or the fancy belt or watch. No, you gotta save for exactly— not that I'm like saving because I'm living in fear. I save because I have been to a place where I didn't know how I was going to pay my mortgage, and I never want to be there again. I love that you have this That you can share with people when people are struggling right now and they're like, well, I want to start a business. I want to have a team of people, but I don't know how to get started. What would you suggest for them to do?

They got to reach out to a mentor. They got to find somebody in a field that they enjoy, right? I mean, if they're going to become a fitness coach, they need to call you. You know, they need to have a conversation with you and say, Amberly, how can I do what you do? They can't be embarrassed about that. They can't be like, look, at 14 years old, when I stole that radio and that tape from Jack Canfield, when I listened to that, he talked about how the universe rewards consistent bold action. You have to ask, ask, ask, ask, ask for the things that you want in life. From a young age, I just figured out that I'm going to ask for the things that I want. I think you got to be bold right now. I mean, again, People are struggling. When the desperation meets inspiration, that's when great things start to happen. And that's where people are at right now. They're desperate right now.

Yeah, I think it's hard times bring out the worst in us or the best in us. And I think we really have to reflect on what is going on in our lives right now. And it's a great time to decide, even if you still have your job, is it sparking joy or are you a slave to your goals?

But right now, more than ever, this could bring out the best of everybody. You could literally be in a situation right now where you have nothing going on. Somebody can DM me and have a conversation. Let's just say somebody's interested. They're like, you know what, I'm interested in financial services. I like the fact that insurance is not an economy-driven business. I like that you can still sell life insurance, you can still sell investments when the market is down. Matter of fact, a lot of people Like to buy when the market is depleted. So we're having more investment sales right now and more insurance sales, believe it or not. Let's just say somebody goes, you know what, I'm interested in what this guy's talking about. Maybe it's right for you, maybe it's not, but if you don't ask— My best advice to people right now is find somebody out there that may be able to give them that spark, that opportunity, that chance. And look, you might have to talk to 10 people. Maybe the first person is not the right person. Maybe the second person is not the right person. But maybe if you talk to 10 people, you might find one that you say, you know what, I want to work with that person. I want a coach. And by the way, the thing that changed my life more than anything in the last 24 years was the fact that I was accountable to a mentor.

Yes.

I found a millionaire mentor. Again, I attached my hip to this guy and I'm like, dude, I'm not afraid of working hard. I'm very, very coachable and I'm gonna be so accountable, you're gonna get sick of me. I told him, I told this guy, I called him for 5 years straight, kept myself accountable to him. I woke up and I was financially independent. It's amazing what a good mentor and a good coach could do to help you change your life?

I love what you said. It's willingness to get up and do the work. Accountability is huge because I am accountable to someone every single morning. I believe in our good habits and our consistency. For me, I have a morning routine, and one of the first things I do is I read out of either a spiritual book or a self-development book. One of my many jobs is To capture something that really was meaningful to me that day, whether it was a quote or a passage in a book, send a screenshot to who I'm accountable to, and write out what 3 things I'm grateful for that day. And that helps me mentally. And then I've always had a coach or a mentor, whether I was an athlete and running track, I had a coach. When I was a dancer, I had the head dance coach, their dance teacher. And then we had a company where we had the big-time dancers that would, you know, and I was an understudy and I worked hard to be in the main company. And then when I became a trainer, I always believed in find somebody who you want what they have, meaning you want the life they have, or, and I'm not saying to like be in comparison, but when you see somebody who is like, oh my gosh, they seem so So happy. They are together. They are leading people in a time of crisis. Yeah, I want to do that. That's whatever they're doing. Give me a dose of that. That's what I'm talking about. I believe in having a mentor or coach, but the first thing is they have to be willing to do the work. I had someone come up to me just the other day and say, you know what? I really want to be a trainer. They were actually in the financial industry. And they're like, I'm really just tired of hustling. And you know, I like working out. I'd like to be a trainer and earn like 6 figures by next year, but I'm just tired of hustling. And I said, you know what? If you want to be successful at anything in life, you're going to have to work hard for it at first to get it going. And then like it took you years to get to where you had the passive income, it takes a willingness and some hard work to get to that point. That's what I want people to understand is that it doesn't just magically come, that they have to be accountable and show up.

You got to put in the time, you got to put in the effort and the work. And then you got to have a process though. You have to find great people, but then you've got to put people into a process, a system of leadership, a system of where they can Follow it. Again, just like the McDonald's system, I try to look at my business as the McDonald's of financial services. That's how I kind of compared it because I thought in my mind, I said, wait a minute, every time they make a hamburger, there's something that they do that's the same every single time. Part of our process of how we recruit 300 people a month, we probably transact 500 transactions, whether it be investments or insurances, things like that every single month. How that happens is because everything is a process. So we sit down with the client and this is what we do, and then we do this next, and then we do this next, and then we do this next, and then we ask these questions, and then this is how we overcome the most common objections. And we teach and we train and we coach and we mentor people so that it becomes reflexive.

Mm-hmm.

Once it becomes second nature, It's easy. And then you can repeat that process again and again and again and again. People get bored. I think one of the challenges with most entrepreneurs, I don't think they make it long range because they get bored. They get tired of, again, the grind. They get tired of the simple little things that they have to do over and over and over again. I've done 75, almost 80 podcasts so far. Not counting me being a guest on other podcasts. I've done countless lives every single week for what, a couple of years now? I've done—

But see, people can depend on you to be there and to show up.

And look, that's what people have to translate in their own lives. They have to be the rock. They have to be the leader. The leaders get paid all the money. If you want to make a lot of money, and I know a lot of your listeners, they want to make money. I mean, that's what they're listening to. They're trying to find some tip. They're trying to find a way. They're trying to find something to help them get to that next level. Well, let me tell you something. You're gonna have to be the leader. You're gonna have to step up and take the risk and take the chance because everybody wants what I have, but are they willing to do what I've done?

Exactly. That's exactly right. Being willing to show up when it's hard. When it's hard, it's not easy. I have so many people that say, I want to write a book. And I'll, you know, I'll get a DM. Uh, yeah, tell me how to write a book. I want to, I really want to write a book. And I'm like, I used to sit and talk with them and talk with everybody. And I'm like, you know what? It is a process and you have to get up every single day and be willing to write. Then the whole publishing process is a whole different thing. Do you want hybrid publishing, traditional publishing? You want to self-publish, that may take, you know, a year to a year and a half. If you go through a traditional publisher, when it gets hard, sometimes people give up. We just can't give up. You have to keep putting one foot in front of the other if you want to succeed, if you want more out of life, if you want to have freedom. To me, success is freedom. Success is being able to go play golf in the middle of the day. And I think there are a lot of successful people out there. I remember my mom came to visit in Texas where I grew up in this small town. Most people, I would say probably 95% of the people work 9 to 5 jobs. And my mom came to California and we went out to lunch in the middle of the day and she was like, don't any of these people work? Where are all these people coming from? You know, in Los Angeles we have a lot more entrepreneurs, a lot more people that are making passive income and doing other things. But there's so many people that could think outside the box a little bit about different ways to earn income. And I think this pandemic is going to help people to see that maybe you don't have to travel so much. Maybe you can do more from your own home. Maybe you can save money by cooking at home instead of eating out all the time. A lot of different things to look at in the equation of just being able to save money. Well, I always like to ask everybody on the show because I love learning more about resilience. What is your definition of resilience?

To me, it's determination to go get the things that you've decided you want. So just like I talked about earlier, the first step is the decision. You really have to figure out what you want because resilience is you not stopping When it gets hard, because it's going to get hard. And, you know, as much as we want, we all want a get-rich-quick scheme. I promise you, in my 24 years in business, I've looked at everything, I've examined everything, I've studied everything, researched everything, and I just can't find anything that is a real true get-rich-quick scheme other than the lotto, which that's kind of out of the question because I don't even play the lotto. It's just not giving up.

I would love for people to be able to go grab your book, check you out on Instagram, go look at your website. Like I said, thank you for showing up so much, doing lives on Instagram. And I love your podcast. You guys, y'all check out his podcast. I had the honor of being on your podcast and we were originally going to try to be in person to record before all this happened, but we'll get together and do something again when this is all said and done, but what is the best way for people to reach you?

Well, number one, Instagram. DM me anywhere else and I might get back to you one day. If you really want to get with me, DM me on Instagram because I answer that sucker every 10 minutes, probably. And then of course, alonzoacademy.com. That's where you can read about my story. You can find out about my coaching program that I do every Wednesday morning 9 AM Pacific Standard Time. It's called Wealth on the Beach Club, and I teach people how to sell. I teach people how to be better influencers. I teach people social media. I teach people about insurances. I teach people about investments, anything and everything under the sun. Matter of fact, we do a half an hour lesson and then we do a half an hour Q&A every single week. We do that Q&A until you can't think of any other questions to ask me. It's that personal and it's that real. And I love doing that. So check that out as well. The main thing that I want to say before we get off here, people have to start believing in themselves again and believing that the way things are right now is not the way things have to be. And I know it's hard and I know you're struggling. This is an uncertain time. And let me tell you something. I mean, This is going to go on for a little while. I mean, this is not something that's stopping anytime soon. So what you need to do is you need to make some choices right now, definitive decisions that say, okay, I need to learn something new. I need to master a new craft. I need to do something different. If you're out of work, if you're struggling right now, if maybe whatever, you know, look, think about it.

Yeah.

We live in Los Angeles and A lot of actors, a lot of actresses going on, right? Like zero jobs right now. There's a lot of people. But guess what? Maybe this happened for a reason. Maybe your calling is not to be an actor. Maybe your calling might be to go into a different type of business, to do something different with all the talent that you have right now. Maybe to do something different. I'm making the call to your whole audience. Really examine what you want, what you love, what you're excited about, but don't limit yourself. Explore everything. Talk to as many people as you can. Interview as many people as you can. Like, really ask people how they did what they did so that you can figure out if maybe, just maybe, that game plan might be right for you. And you might look back years and years from now. I wanted to be a professional baseball player. And believe it or not, I was in the movie Pretty Woman. I was down the road.

Favorite movie.

I was in the movie, but I was just an extra. I got paid $70 to do it. So nothing big. Where she spits out her gum on Rodeo. I was in that scene in the background. You literally got a slow-mo.

I am gonna watch that.

I was in white shorts and a gray shirt, I think. Bottom line is I had other dreams, right? Going into financial services was not my dream when I was 18 years old, right? I had other things I wanted to do. But guess what? In the end, doing what I do today has not only been incredibly financially rewarding, but it's been incredible because I have the opportunity to change so many more people's lives than maybe I would have if I would have done maybe something, uh, other, you know, something that I thought I wanted at 18 years old.

Before my motorcycle accident was training one person at a time, and now I get to work with, you know, when I'm on speaking on a stage, sometimes thousands. And so I wouldn't trade it for the world because I get to connect with So many people. And look, never in a million years would dream that I didn't even own a computer like 4 years ago. And I had to figure out a way to connect and do things differently because I was stuck in a hospital bed. I had to learn technology. I'm still learning. But that's why we got on here. I was like, you're tech savvy, so tell me what we're supposed to— It's all about like what sparks your creativity. And right now, what are some things that you can do that are bringing joy to your life? Like that make you feel authentically you? Maybe that's working with kids. Maybe that is writing a book. Maybe that's starting a course on whatever interests you. Like you said, I love that idea. And you guys, definitely, I'm always checking out your stories on Instagram and everything. So definitely reach out to— I don't know if you said your Instagram handle.

It's Yes. @danielalonzo. Yep.

If you're working out right now, or you're in a place where you can't write that down, just go check out the show notes because all his information where you can find everything, his academy, his Instagram will all be in the show notes for you. So thank you so much for being here and sharing your wisdom. And you are just such a joy to talk to. Your energy is contagious. Thank you so much. I can't wait to see you in person, hopefully sooner than later.

And I really do appreciate all your inspiration as well. You're an amazing woman, completely inspired by you and everything you've done to be where you're at today. And I hope your listeners never take that for granted.

Oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us this week on the True Grit and Grace podcast. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button, and it would be so awesome if you rated and maybe left a review. That would help too. And also, I have some exciting news for you. If you are ready to learn a mindset that will get you through any challenge, ready to really transform any limiting beliefs, And finally find the wellness routines that work with your lifestyle and keep your body healthy and thriving, you're in the right place. You're hearing this for all the right reasons because it's your chance, your chance to join right now. It's a 12-week course. It's so much fun because we're going to go live in a webinar with plenty of time for Q&A. It's called Your Unstoppable Life. Mastermind, and there's going to be a daily mantra and a like-minded community to support you along your way to reach all those goals. So head over to amberlylago.com/mastermind and sign up now. Okay, have a great week, and I hope to see you in the Mastermind.