How Does Ben Greenfield Actually Make A Living On The Internet?

Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield here. And this is honestly kind of a. Kind of a little bit of a weird podcast for me to be recording for you, because usually I talk about stuff as, you know, like fitness and health and wellness and most recently, sex and libido. And, you know, it's. It's kind of interesting because I also get a lot of questions from folks about what it is that I do. You know, how do I put food on the table, pay the bills, that type of thing. And the fact is that a lot of what I do is online. And sometimes it gets hard to explain how you actually make money online. How do you log into your computer and use the Internet and use a browser to actually do something like replace your day job or supplement your income or something like that. And, you know, I decided, rather than me trying to explain this to you myself, to actually hook you up with one of my friends. His name is Kevin Thompson. And the reason that I want to talk to Kevin is because his story is one that I think is super interesting, specifically in that he worked as an Alaska deadliest catch fisherman and, and had, let's just say, a pretty badass job. But he had some things happen as he was doing that that kind of drove him to be where he's at right now, which is basically putting five figures plus into his bank account every single month since he started into this scenario that he's going to explain to you. But let's go ahead and, and meet Kevin and hear his story. So, Kevin, you're here on the call, right?

I am here. Can you hear me? All right, Ben.

Awesome. I can hear you just fine. And you're not too far away from me. Actually. You're over on the other side of Washington state, right?

Yep, I am. I'm in the little town of Arlington, Washington, about an hour north of Seattle.

Nice. Nice. So I know that you agreed to take all of us on this guided behind the scenes tour of this business that you've been using to put more than 10,000 bucks a month into your bank account every month since the year, I think it was like 2000. So for the past more than a decade, you've been doing this, but before we even jump into that, I mean, how'd you get started in all this, man? How'd you go from being an Alaska Deadliest Catch fisherman to kind of getting paychecks online?

Well, you know, it's kind of interesting is that the whole reason I started fishing up in Alaska in the first place was so that I could save up money to start my own business. That was the goal. And I spent seven years doing that. And actually, when I take everybody on the tour of this business, I'll share a little bit more of that story because it is a pretty crazy story. But long story short, I started that job in 1988, and my last year in Alaska was 2005. And that final year, I almost lost my life. And I was very fortunate that I did not die. And like I said, I'll tell the whole story when we take everybody on this tour and stuff, because it really does relate, because my dad, he raised me with this work ethic to be a really good worker. And he always taught me. He's like, you know, Kev, the harder you work, work, the more successful you'll be. And I believe that for the longest time. And even though my father passed away when I was only in 10th grade, even when I was fishing in Alaska, I was, you know, I always thought to myself, boy, my dad sure would be proud of me, because, man, this is some hard work. But after almost losing my life, I decided, okay, you know what? You've got enough money together. Let's just, like, call it a wrap on this section of your life. And I finished up my contract and came back home here to the Seattle area, and I started my first business. And for me, quite honestly, Ben, I started a carpet cleaning business simply because I knew this guy who was in that business, and he made pretty good money at it. And I thought, well, gosh, you know what? That's what I want to do. I want to have a business where I make good money. So let's get into carpet cleaning. And I'll tell you, it was for all the wrong reasons, which, I mean, you know, Ben, that's why most people get into business is because they think they can make money doing the thing they're going to do. It has absolutely nothing to do with this whole idea of actually being passionate about what you do. They're like, oh, wouldn't that be awesome if I could have a business built around that? You mean, I can get paid for that and I can be the hero? You know, and most business owners don't get into business for those reasons. A few of us do. And when we do, we excel. I mean, look at you. You love doing what you do. You love the role and the place that you hold for all the people that follow you, all your clients, all your subscribers, all your followers. You love doing what you do, and of course it shows, and you get compensated for that. And like, everybody wins, but most business owners, they don't do that. And with this carpet cleaning business I did the first year, I was actually failing miserably. But the second year in that business, I met this guy, Joe Polish, through a trade publication for that industry. And he did show me how to turn that business around. And in three short years, with his help, I found myself at the top 1% in that industry. And of course, it's all relative. The top 1% in that industry make maybe gross sales of 250 to 300,000 a year, but you got so much overhead, you're not netting very much. And I was like, you know, this is not what I want. Because I was working my tail off. I was working 14, 16 hours a day. I was working six and seven days a week. And finally one Sunday morning, I just lost it. And I was in my office once again on a Sunday morning doing end of month book work, paying bills, whatever, when I should have been at home with my family. And like I said, I just completely lost it. I'm like, you know what? If this is what business is all about, I don't care how much money I can make, this is not worth it, because this is not what I want. And for the first time ever, I took out a piece of paper and I started to write down what I really wanted to be true of my life. And for a few things, I didn't want to work more than 40 hours a week. I wanted weekends off. I wanted to be able to have time for my family and for other things that were important for me. I wanted to hang out and spend time with inspiring people. I wanted to get a lot of satisfaction from my business. And of course, I wanted to live the life of a millionaire. In that moment, I didn't really know how I was going to accomplish all that. But for the first time ever, I felt so good. Because at least now I was clear on what I wanted. And so the hope that I could actually maybe get that now, for the first time being clear, at least I felt good about that. And quite honestly, it did. It didn't take long. It was later that same year, in 1999, I actually found myself attending a seminar down in Phoenix put on by this guy, Dan Kennedy. And I met two people at that event. I met this guy, Perry Marshall, and I met another guy by the name of Yannick Silver. And both of those guys were doing some amazing stuff online, using the Internet, using technology to leverage their efforts. And I was just like, wow, maybe there's something here. For me, I started playing around. I started my very first website. I took what I knew from the carpet cleaning industry and I started this little website called getmoldsolutions.com and that's the website. That website is still there, still in place to this day, still putting money into my bank account. And that's the website I'm going to take everybody on a behind the scenes tour of. And I'll tell you, not an exciting website, but I will tell you what, if you have a mold problem in your home or in your place of business, or if you're concerned about mold and you end up on my website, you are all about what I have to offer. And that website, like I said, and of course nowadays one thing's led to another and to another and to another. And in the process of doing what I do, in 2003, I had the opportunity to start showing some other people what I was doing. And that was my first foray, if you will, into. I can't believe I just said the word foray. Wow, where did that come from? My first experience in teaching others this stuff. And of course along the way I have purposely and intentionally structured my own business so that it completely supports the lifestyle that I want to live. And because I've gotten so good at doing all that, I've also gotten very good over the last 10 years plus of teaching other people to do the same exact thing. And of course, Ben, you and I both know, because we've both experienced it, that the Internet and technology, they are incredible tools that allow us to leverage our efforts to get our message out there in a big way, to be able to serve a whole lot of people, to do what we love doing and provide value to other people, the people we serve in a way that only we can, even though we might have all kinds of competition talking about the same kind of topics as we are, we're the only ones doing it in the way that we do it and we have unique value to offer. And of course, when we do this right, and we are able to provide that unique value to other people, they gladly compensate us for that and we get paid really well for doing what we do. For me, having been able to spend the last 10 plus years of my life teaching this kind of stuff to other people, I mean, it's been a dream come true for me because I just live it in my own life and to be able to teach it and share it and now and have the opportunity to share it with some of your folks is just really exciting. To me. And I'm very honored, humbled, but also excited to be able to take everybody on the behind the scenes tour that we've got coming up and show them just some amazing stuff and just totally rock their world when they see what kind of stuff is really possible.

Yeah, I think it's gonna be cool and that, you know, when you were telling your story, I mean, you know, for almost a decade I was personally running personal training studios and gyms and loved it. Like, I loved my job a lot. I helped people out all day long, lose fat, you know, do triathlons and run 5Ks, get nice looking muscles, fit into their, their fitted jeans and their tight T shirts. And I, you know, I loved watching people's bodies change. But for me, you know, it was like five years ago when my kids were born. That was basically, you know, my impetus to realize that going to the gym at 5am in the morning and leaving at 8pm Wasn't going to cut it. Like, I, even though I loved my job, I had to figure out a way to actually still make a living but be able to spend time with my wife and, you know, my family and my kids. So, you know, I kind of moved almost completely into the online sector after that and found a way to still be able to help people out, you know, doing what I do now. But, you know, basically spend a lot less time away from home and fewer hours working. So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's one of those things where I think, and I think this is the case for a lot of people out there, Kevin, that it's not. And this was the case for me too. It wasn't as much about the money. I mean, granted, and I know you're gonna show this to us when you take us behind the scenes, but it's not about necessarily the money and you know, whatever, you know, making five figures a month or something like that, as much as it is, or at least as much as it is the time, you know, like being able to see your kids grow up and whatever, do what you want to do, play guitar, drink, drink red wine, you know, learn how to cook, just like enjoy some other things in life. So.

Absolutely. Well, you know, Ben, you get it because, you know, you and I, we are both entrepreneurs. And so we get this because, you know, as entrepreneurs, there's four specific reasons that we got into business for ourselves in the first place.

All right, sorry, sorry to interrupt folks there for a second. We actually lost Internet connection. So if ironically, as we talk about making money online, so If Kevin's voice sounds different here for a second, it's because I called him back on his landline. So you were launching into the four things, Kevin.

Yeah, we both get it because we are entrepreneurs. As entrepreneurs, we get into business because we want to be able to have complete control over four specific areas of our life. Those four areas are how much money we make, how much time we're going to work, who we're going to spend our time with, and then also how much fun we're going to have. And for me, in my life and in my business, I've structured things so that all four areas of my life in that space, gosh, I rate everything on a scale of 1 to 10. I mean, everything's like a 9 or 10. And to be safe, kind of put everything at about a 9, because I think there's always room for improvement. But I'll tell you what, long story short, it's pretty dang good being me. I got to know just from what I know of you, it's pretty good being you. We've structured our business this way, and essentially, that's what I show people how to do. If somebody is interested in becoming an entrepreneur or being able to take control of their own financial situation, be able to do things on their terms the way that they want to, all of that kind of stuff, and get into, you know, kind of doing what we do and creating our own personal economy, well, you know, that's what I get the pleasure of doing, is showing how. Showing people how to make every one of those four areas of their life at a nine or a 10 on a scale of one to 10. And so, you know, when we get those four areas taken care of, I mean, man, life just flows. Life just flows because, you know, we're in control of how much we work, but also, like, you know, we enjoy our work so much. Like what you were talking about, you enjoyed your work before you switched over to using the Internet and using technology to leverage your own efforts. You enjoyed it before. But I can tell you from personal experience, and I know you agree with me on this, that if even though you really enjoy doing what you do, if you wouldn't have made a shift, if you wouldn't have made that change, and you would have not been able to have the kind of relationship with your wife and with your children that you wanted to have, even though you at that time enjoyed your work so much, eventually you would have been, you know, gotten to the point where you didn't get satisfaction from anymore, because now there's this push and pull going on now. There's like this, this. This push and pull that, like when you're at work, you're kind of feeling guilty because you should be spending more time with the family. And then when you're with the family, you're like, dang, I got all this stuff at work I want to be doing. And. And when we structure it the way that we structure it, there is no push and pull. It's just our life. It's what we do. And we enjoy our work as much as we enjoy our time away from work. And quite honestly, I don't know about you, Ben, but for me, there's not really any distinction between when I'm at work and when I'm not at work. It's just my life.

Yeah, because you're doing what you love doing. Now tell me a little bit more because I know that we're going to right now. This is obviously, I know for folks listening in, this is. This is just kind of a teaser almost in terms of the content that we want to give folks as far as like the step by step way to put together like an automated online business. So you've mentioned a few times this behind the scenes tour that you're going to do. So tell me a little bit more about this. And while you're telling me about it, by the way, for people listening in, I'm going to be sure and put links and everything up over at BenGreenfield Fitness for you to be able to get access to this, but fill me in on what exactly it's going to be, Kevin, that you're going to hook my listeners up with.

Okay. Okay. So what we're going to do on this behind the scenes tour that we're hosting is I'm going to share a little bit of my own personal story. And the reason I do that, it's definitely not to focus on me, because I know our focus here in doing this, Ben, is to focus on your people that are interested in doing this and this is all about them. This is certainly not about us. But the reason I do share my story is because I'm going to be sharing some pretty amazing stuff and I want to be able to put it all in context to let everybody know that, like, hey, you know what? It wasn't like we were just raised under some golden sun or whatever, that we actually figured some stuff out here. And now because we've actually figured some stuff out, we were able to change our lives. And like I talked about my father Raising me with this work ethic and thinking that like, you know, that success had to be followed up or had to be predicated by hard work. And it had to be, you know, this give and take of really hard work in order to have success. And the thing is, it's not true at all. And it's not that I don't work, I do work, but I enjoy my work. It doesn't feel like a four letter word, if you will. That's what I want to show people on this. What we're going to be doing is I'm going to take them behind the scenes of one of my businesses, my Get Mold Solutions website. I'm going to show them all the nitty gritty details of how this stuff works, how we actually go about building a subscriber list, how we go about maintaining the relationship. We start by making an incredible offer for people so that they want to give us their name and email address and begin the relationship. So I show them how to structure an offer, how to find, and we really kind of start in the real beginning. It's like, okay, why do you want to do this in the first place? Why do you want to have a business of your own? What's attracting you to the Internet in the first place? And it needs to be more about, I want to become an overnight millionaire. Because the fact is that's not realistic and there's a lot of people that tout that it sounds good, but it ain't going to happen. I'm here to let you know if that's where you're at, I'll let you know that I'm not even your guy. Don't waste your time with this if you think that's really possible, because quite honestly, it's not. We're going to start from the standpoint of I want to put you on a firm foundation. And yes, I will show you the money, but let's do this right. I want to put you on a firm foundation. I want to show you how to build and structure a business around your passions, around your already existing unique abilities. By the way, everybody's already got this stuff. I mean, on the surface people might say, oh, I don't, I'm not passionate about nothing. Trust me, once you start getting into this and when you really start to realize that, you know, what if I could do something big, a great way to look at this is start thinking about if money weren't an issue, if you were making plenty of money and that weren't even an issue, what would you be doing, if you could be doing anything you wanted to be doing and you were really enjoying doing it and you were providing value to other people and get compensated really, really well for doing it, what would that look like? And start giving that a little bit of thought because that's the rabbit hole I'm going to take you down and then I'm just going to show you just some of the how to kind of stuff, of how we make an initial offer, how we attract people to us, how we build a subscriber list of people who have raised their hand and said, yep, I want to hear from you, and then how we build on that relationship and how we use technology to do all this stuff. Because, Ben, like we've been alluding to, when we start using the Internet, we start using technology. The cool thing is, you know what? I am still no geek. There is so much I don't understand about technology, but I know enough to do what I do and get by. I'm going to show people a lot of this kind of stuff and how fun it can really be. Because the great thing is that when we leverage technology like this, and quite honestly, the big promise that I make that I'm going to show people on this tour is I'm going to take you on a behind the scenes tour of my business that has been putting 5,000 to $10,000 a month into my bank account since the year 2000. But the reality is, and I don't usually tell this to people up front because when we start talking about what's really, really possible, a lot of people, they, that five to $10,000 figure is even a stretch. They're like, oh yeah, whatever. You know, you're, you must be ripping people off because it's all perspective. If you've never made that kind of money, you kind of like, is that even really possible? Can you do that without ripping people off? Do you have to be illegal to make that kind of money? Well, I got news for you, Donald Trump, whether you like the guy or not, I mean, you know, he's a pretty ethical guy and there's lots of people that make a lot of money and they do it very ethically. The way that you make a lot of money is by serving a lot of people. And the more people you can serve, the more money you're going to make. So the trick is being able to use technology to leverage your efforts so you can serve a lot more people while not having it take up all your time. And that's where the technology part comes in. And that's the part that I get to show you. And that's what we're going to do on this behind the scenes tour.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, I'm stoked to just teach people a little bit more about how to do what it is that I'm doing that you're doing. And again, it's not something that I really talk about much because this is a health and a fitness podcast. But the more time that you create for yourself, the more time you are going to have to devote to something like health and fitness. Whether you're training for an Ironman triathlon, whether you're trying to, you know, get a better body, whatever the case may be. I think that this is actually, you know, something that makes sense, even though I haven't really talked about it before to people. So what we're gonna do is over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com right there in the show notes for this episode, there is going to be an article from Kevin, and it's also actually a pretty helpful article. I'd recommend that you read it because it delves into some of the. Some of the aspects and the mentality and the tools behind making money online. And there'll also be a link there to be able to get in on this behind the scenes tour that is going to happen on Tuesday, May 14th. And so what we'll do is put a link to that. And Kevin, if people are like working or busy or anything like that on Tuesday, May 14, if they go there, is there going to be a way for them to get access to the replay or whatever if they can't actually attend the call?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So what we'll do, what you need to do is just go there even if you can't make it live register. Because that way, if you can't make it, I'll be able to send you the recording of the behind the scenes tour that we're going to be taking everybody on and still get you the information. We'll leave that up for a couple days so that you can access at any time during that window that you have time to be able to go ahead and grab that recording.

Perfect. Perfect. All right, cool. Well, folks, I hope that you really get something out of this. Again, I'm kind of going outside my own comfort zone talking to you about something aside from fitness and triathlon and fat loss. But when I met Kevin and I saw what he was doing, I saw that he's actually a guy who's doing this ethically because there are A lot of kind of unethical Internet marketers and spammy people out there. Kevin's doing this right? And he's a good guy and I stand behind what he does. So go ahead and head over to the Show Notes and you'll be able to access the behind the scenes tour that Kevin and I are putting together. You're going to get to hear a little bit more about Kevin's story, from being a deadliest catch fisherman to a carpet cleaner to finally going on and leading a really, a really, really fantastic lifestyle. So Kevin, thanks for coming on the call today.

Oh, you bet. You bet. You know, I'm going to share a quick little story since it perfectly ties in with what you're talking about. I've actually got a client right now who he's a finance guy down in the Bay Area down in California. And he never had used the Internet or technology for growing his practice at all. And he's also a triathlete, but it's just a hobby for him. And he's a father, he's got two children and all that kind of stuff. And when I was talking with him, he was telling me how, you know, he'd really like to compete more because I've got a friend who's a triathlete and of course you are, Ben. And we were talking about, you know, Jesse and his wife being over in Kona and you guys compete over in Kona and stuff at the Ironman. And I was got to talking with my client about that. I was like, do you ever go, you know, have you ever competed at Kona in Ironman or anything? He's oh, no, no, no. He's like, I, I don't have time for that. He's like, you know, he's like, because you got to do some serious training for that. He's like, I just do some little small stuff. And, and, and he's like, you know, the thing is like, I got my business to run. He's like, I'm a father. And, and he's like, and in order to train for something like that, something's got to give. And anyways, long story short, we start talking about this and we start like laying this thing out for him and he comes to the realization, he's like, Kevin, you know what? He's like, now that I'm able to automate a bunch of this stuff in my business and apply it to what I'm already doing there, he's like, I'm freeing up my time. He's like, I'm Finding myself with a bunch more time. Now he's like, I think it's time for me to man up. And he's like, I think I'm going to go for this Kona thing. And I'm just like, you know what? What an awesome, awesome testament. Because before, it's not like that desire wasn't there before. He did want to do it, but he just didn't. He felt he didn't have the time, didn't have the resources in his life to be able to put in the training in order to even go there in the first place. But now that he's got that extra time, now he's realized that, you know what? This is something that is important to me, and I'm going to man up and I'm going to do this Kona thing. And, like, how cool was it for me to be able to have a small role? Because, like you said, it's way more about the money. This isn't about the money. This is about him now. And he is so fired up about this. That's the kind of stuff we get to do. That's the kind of stuff that we get to do. Ben, you know what? Yeah. You went out on a little bit of a limb here, but I will tell you what, I am looking so forward to doing this, because anybody who participates on this tour with us, in the end, you're going to be the rock star, Ben. And they're going to be thanking you for hooking us up and stuff, and it's going to be my pleasure to kind of make that happen for you. And so when you guys, you know, when you register for this tour and afterwards, you know, let Ben know what you thought, because I guarantee you, Ben, you are going to be the rock star.

Well, I'm gonna be happy if I just have even. Even a handful of folks who are able to write in or leave a comment under this. This show, or let me know in a podcast that. That you're making, you know, whatever. An extra. You know, maybe it's an extra 500 bucks a month. Maybe it's an extra 1 to 2k a month. Maybe it's an Extra 5 to 10,000amonth. But, you know, for. For me, I think it's going to be pretty dang cool when I. When I can start getting feedback from folks and know that, yeah, maybe I. Maybe I did help you spend a little bit of extra time out there training for Ironman Triathlon or whatever you're doing. So cool. Thanks for sharing that story, Kevin. That was good and all right.

Well, hey, it was my pleasure being here, and we will look forward to speaking with those of you who join us for this tour on Tuesday. And I will talk with you guys. That cool.

Thanks, Kevin. Talk to you later.