How This Entrepreneur Became A Millionaire in His 20's @alex_albarran

Welcome back, Alex. It's been some time since you've last debuted on the channel, so happy to have you here. In today's session, we're going to be diving into your personal financial framework that's helped you become wealthy and continue to build wealth at such a young age. Alright, we're both young guys. We've been in business now at around the same time since seven years, probably a little bit longer, you a little longer than me, but roughly seven years we've been working together at this point. So we're now past 90% of the businesses that fail within the first five years. We're in that, I'd say that 10% that is past the five year mark, still profitable, still growing, still, you know, making an impact and wanting to, to expand. So with that I want to give you the floor, Alex, to just give us a few updates in terms of your progress, the social media, your channel, your new marriage. Congratulations by the way. And anything else that you'd like to share?

Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me on. It's been, I think two years or something like that, maybe even, maybe more. A lot's happened since then, a lot of amazing things and you know, thank you so much and likewise, I think last time we made a video neither of us were married and now we are. That's everything has been going extremely well but I think there's always been still challenges and, and learning lessons and I've been progressing with that. I feel like now we're in the place, you and I, to make a video like this to really be able to say hey, not that we're on the other side and we're this, like this is the biggest we're going to grow but I feel like we're able to have a different conversation about money, entrepreneurship because sometimes people don't realize how cohesive those have to be. Somebody's thoughts, mindset, ideas around money and at the same time their ability to start and, or grow a business. Sometimes people think those are separate ordeals, but the older I get and the more experience that I get, they, they're more and more cohesive. They have to be like if somebody has a bad mindset on money or they think a certain way in terms of scarcity, their business is going to go the same exact way. If someone has massive abundance growth and they just want to scale, even if it's on the money side or like that's how they think on the business side, it's going to be the same exact thing they're Going to think I need more people, I need to help more people, I need to grow and scale. So I think we're at a good place to have this type of video. So I'm excited. Thanks for having me on again.

Yeah, absolutely. So talk to us about in and you can share what you're currently working on now in your business and how you are, are serving. But the first question I have for you is how do you make your money? Right. How do you generate value in the marketplace, get paid? Right. I want to start there and then I want to kind of peel back a few layers as to like, how did you get to this point? Because there's a mindset that comes with it and how you were able to catch on to it at such an early age. Because I. I'm talking to clients that are in their 40s, 50s, even 60s, and a light bulb went off after they watched one of my videos or someone else's. And they're now stepping into either the world of entrepreneurship or anything outside of a normal W2.

So I feel like I was blessed in that. I mean, I had a job in high school, you know, I was a basketball scorekeeper. But even in middle school I was selling Jordan sneakers, which at the time were like collectibles. And it was a huge deal. So I would, like meet grown men. I was 13, flipping shoes and making deals. I'd be like, hey, dad, drop me a McDonald's, I gotta make a deal. And I would like, sniff the shoe. I would be like, like, okay, the shoes are. They're legit. You know, it's. It would be like a movie. It's. It was funny, but it was great experience. And I think I always had that hustle and that dream drive from a very early age. But I just jumped in when I was 18.

Would you say you were born with it? Do you think it's something you're born with or.

I think it's something that is more likely in. Yes. There's a certain innate drive, I think, in hunger that people have.

Yeah.

But I also think that upbringing is big. I mean, and I don't. I have two, you know, fluffy dogs. So I don't have any human kids yet. I have some fur babies. Fur dogs. But as a parent, a future parent, and you know, my dad, my stepmom mom, my mother in law, now my father in law, like, I have a lot of great role models and examples and I would say the number one commonality is that if you just give a kid everything, like why, how and why would they have hunger? Because hunger is. You're. You're starving maybe. Right?

Like literally, in some cases.

Literally.

Yeah, right.

Like literally not knowing where the next meal is coming from. I grew up on food stamps. Growing up sometimes and sleeping on the floor, no mattress, like literally no pillow, nothing. Right. And like, just different situations like that, like that can't leave you to a certain extent, even as you have some level of success. So I think yes, there is a certain born innate drive or hunger. But I also think that a lot of people maybe have had that upbringing, but they kind of just leave it in the past and they try not to think about it. But I think looking back, sometimes it can give you motivation of, hey, like I've been through a lot, I've overcame. Because I think when sometimes people become adults and maybe they get a little comfortable, they get a job or they start a little business and they, they achieve a certain level of comfort, they can get too comfortable and forget where they came from. And sometimes it's like, hey, like, I'm able to overcome challenges. I was able to grow and figure things out. And again, when I was hungry and I had, I was resourceful. Even though I didn't have resources, I was able to make things happen. But I think as people get comfortable, sometimes they feel like they don't have that ability anymore. But I think again, if, you know, if you just give a kid or give somebody something and they don't have to do anything in return, that's where I feel like it's environment where I wasn't given things. I had to earn it and go figure it out. I bought my first car. It was a piece of junk I fixed, kept having issues. I sold it to fund my business. So when you have no safety net behind you, when your back is fully against the wall.

Yeah. And you can only go forward, magical.

Things start to just happen. I say magical because like you're the fairy that figure things out. You're like, oh, well, I have no other option besides success and figuring it out. I have no safety net. So I think that that in itself is a blessing. So again, I think a lot of people, they've had challenges in their life, but they then over time just get a little too comfortable and forget that, hey, like, I'm capable, I'm strong, I can make things happen.

Yeah. So then fast forward to now. It's 2025. You're running a business. How do you currently serve people today? What do you, what do you do now?

So I think now I tried My best to give entrepreneurs, business owners, a roadmap from where they're at right now and where they can get to. And, of course, how do we make that happen in the middle? I think a lot of people have a big vision. They have goals, they feel like they can do something, but they don't know the steps on how to do it. It's like building a house. A lot of people can say, oh, yeah, I can design it, and, like, it's going to have five bedrooms and a game room. And they can think of, like, the fun stuff, but it's like, okay, so now go do that. It's like, well, that's kind of complex. You know, there's permits and foundation windows, drywall, fans, electricity. Like, I don't know how to do that. So I think that's like building a business. There's so many little steps that you and I kind of figured it out on our own to a certain extent, and it worked out. But we were young, didn't have a lot of responsibility. We had time to spend because we didn't have money to really get that, like, the help that we really needed. Whereas a lot of my clients, they have maybe the resources. They don't want to waste time, they don't want to try. They want to get the proven plan, get the accountability, get the help to say, let's bridge this gap as quickly as possible and as efficiently as possible. And again, that's why they have the resources, so they can save the time. And I learned this actually from a friend of ours, Stephen Gardner, because last week we went to Disney World, and in Disney World, a lot of people don't know the wait time for, like, a general ticket can be three hours long for one ride, and that's.

That goes the whole day.

How they have the whole day with one or two rides, right? So we're talking about it's time or money. Like, people are spending one or the other. If people have money, they can do the VIP tour where they go in the back and they wait one minute, but they're spending a lot of money to get a lot of time back. People that don't have that money, they have to spend the time to have the same experience. So I look at starting or growing a business like that. You can invest your time, not get a coach, not get a mentor. Figure it out on your own, and you could make it happen. But you're going to make a lot of mistakes that are avoidable, and it's going to take more time inherently. But again, maybe that's what works for some people like us. But a lot of people have the money and say, let me trade this money for getting my time back, getting a proven, clear system, and again, just overall giving themselves the best shot at success in less time. So that's essentially what we do.

Okay. And we're in such a unique time because although you're young and you may be talking to people that are double your age, just like most of my audience is double my age. But we seem to be living in a time where all of the original frameworks for making money, keeping money, investing money, business growth has all been disrupted in the last decade. I would say really since the start of social media, but I would say really in the last decade, we've seen this massive shift in the customer's attention, who they're trusting now, who they're relying on. And we seem to also just be in an overall blessed position where we grew up with this technology and we got engaged with it early when it didn't cost a whole lot of money and you could get on social media and share your ideas and test things out to the point where you started to really document or see new blueprints, new roadmaps being created just by watching other successful entrepreneurs make that shift. And then here you are. Would you say in terms of like a title that you're in the coaching business, consulting, business, coaching arena, Would you say like that's where you would put yourself? And then what you're mainly doing is building these new blueprints, these new roadmaps that are relevant to how a business can market, can scale, can make offers and obtain clients at a much faster pace due to the fact that guys like us were that got in early, essentially, not necessarily early in business because there's people that are much older than us, been in business much longer than us, but those same people don't know the new business frameworks that are really in operation today and have a proven track record, even though not necessarily a long track record of success. Right. It's kind of like a really long winded question there, but also pretty jam packed. Help us, you know, uncover this a little bit. Is that where you're coming from?

Yeah, Well, I think scale is how any business is going to impact a lot of people and make a lot of money is scale. You've never been to a casino or a hotel or somewhere where you can, you know, have an experience and there is one hotel room or one restaurant, one blackjack table, you know, you go to Vegas or there's a hard rock. In Hollywood they have a thousand rooms or I think Las Vegas, like on the strip, there's like 15,000, 20,000 rooms or something. Like it's scale, it's like how can we impact a lot of people? But when you impact a lot of people, you make a lot of money. But instead of having to spend a billion dollars building a hotel or something nowadays, you can do it on YouTube.

Right.

You started in your, in a room with a phone and a whiteboard, literally.

And a mic you gave me.

Yep, right. Like that's the foundation of a multi million dollar business these days. And like you're saying we did kind of get in early because. And now is still the time to build a personal brand and build this. Not this business exactly, but taking advantage of the scale of again with YouTube, we're doing this interview, it could get one view, it could get 1 million. It costs us the same amount of time to record this interview and add value. But back in the day we would had to have said, hey guys, we're hosting a seminar at 5 o' clock Eastern on August 10th or whatever and you have to take off work, have someone watch your kids and your dog and go show up and drive and pay for parking and everything. So even if we want to do that, the skill would be limited and your ability to get value would be limited. Whereas now again we can do this video from my home office, Denzel's home office. And again that's great for us, but it's also great for you because you can go on YouTube, you can learn so much faster. Because our ability to scale our information and adding value is easier. There's no barrier. Essentially we all have laptops, we all have phones, that's all you need. So I think when somebody has the roadmap to also then combine that with YouTube, social media, even AI now that's the difference maker. Where even 10, 20 years ago it wasn't really an opportunity like there is today. So that's the exciting thing is you can scale a business and have two employees. You know, you don't need to again go build like a big roofing company or some cleaning company and have so much staff and it's going to take you 50 years to, to build it out. You could do it not in a year or two, but you can do it a lot faster and more efficiently with a lot less risk as well.

Not only that, would you also say when it comes to gaining the experience to be able to speak on this even at a young age, like Us. Would you also say that you, unlike in, traditionally speaking, one would think, okay, I need to go get a degree. I have to go borrow money, get this degree, four, five, six years, whatever it is, education, then I need to go intern with someone and work under somebody. And then, and then, and then, and then, and then finally start the business. How did you go about gaining the experience and the amount of time shrunk to get yourself exposed to the right information?

I just did. I just, I took action. And there's a bit of that optimism. Slash. I was naive. And even with some things now, I would say I'm a little bit naive. I just dive in and I'm like, I'm gonna figure this out. If they can do it, I can do it. That is not the most philosophical and detailed answer, but that's the truth. Any entrepreneur, they just say, you know what? If this guy can do it, I can do it. I'm just going to dive in and let's see what happens. And of course there's books, there's YouTube, there's videos like this. But you have to start with that intention of, I'm going to figure it out no matter what. So even if this podcast is not this podcast, but if I watch some other podcast and it doesn't really, like, answer the question I have about a certain aspect of my business, or if I, I read this book and it wasn't really valuable, it doesn't really matter. Like, I'm going to read another one, I'm going to re watch another YouTube video, I'm going to go on TikTok, I'm going to look on, on YouTube. So, and I'm still going to like, actively work with real clients and figure it out. Because a lot of people, they go to college and then they get their masters, then they get certifications, then they get a PhD and they stay in education mode. And theoretically they know a lot of stuff, but they've never practiced it. It's never been executed in real life. So then at a certain point people get scared because they're like, well, I have all these credentials and I spent all this money on these degrees, but what if I do it and it doesn't work and they don't have the confidence because you and I can watch basketball. Michael Jordan, we could watch him on YouTube every day and study and like, we're educating ourselves. We're not going to become Michael Jordan.

Right?

So I think sometimes people, they, they feel like they're busy, they're researching, they're, they're Watching things, They're getting degrees, but are they really taking action and, like, making their target outcome happen? Or at least are they making progress? Most of the time, the answer is no. I went to college because I love my father. He said, please, like, go to college. At least if this business doesn't work, you'll have college. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do it for you. So. But I learned nothing in college. And that's not just me saying that. It's. I mean, even now, my dad's like, oh, yeah, that was a waste of time. But hindsight's 20 20, you know, so. But I think, again, people need to get out of just thinking and learning mode and start working with people and work with clients for free and be like, hey, I'm starting my business. I don't really know what I'm doing yet, so let me help you for free. And if things work out, give me a case study. You know, give me a testimonial. Like, I've been in business for almost a decade, and if you go on my client testimonials page, it's like, a lot of really, like, transformative success stories. But that's after almost 10 years. I think sometimes people, they. They want to do that in six months, and if they don't, they feel like a failure. But it's just. It takes time to become good at something, then it takes more time to become great at something, then more time to become the best. Like, people just don't give themselves a fair shot because they watch people like you and me, and they're like, oh, Denzel and Alex, they're so young, and they have it all figured out. And, like, I'm not going to do this. It's like, we've. But we. We are in the trenches still, and we've been in the trenches for quite a long time, and we're still learning, and we're not seasoned at this point. So I think people just need to give themselves time and some grace to say, relax. It's going to take time. It's going to take patience. And I think people just. They get a little bit of that jealousy or like, oh, I see this guy and that girl. They're getting results so fast. Like, I need to be like them. And they don't. Look at the truth of. Denzel's made thousands of videos. I've made thousands of videos. And even now, we probably make videos, and we're like, oh, that wasn't that good. Delete. We still make mistakes, and we still we're not perfect, but we gave ourselves time to evolve and figure things out.

Okay, so just to kind of recap here, there's. When we're looking at financial frameworks, people are interested in making money. They want to become wealthy because they're trying to get rid of problems in their life that they have. And from what I've gathered so far, like step one is your mindset. Because if we look back at your origin story and how you got into everything, you are recognizing there's a blessing at the fact of like timing, age, upbringing, environment. You had those elements, but you also had the elements of suffering, of hunger, of trauma, of pain. So there's others listening that have experienced the same thing but haven't yet taken that action. And then I tried to, in a way, almost peel back another layer or almost like debunk what you've been able to do by saying, okay, well, what, what, what experience? How much time did you put towards experience? Because that's usually the next objection that comes up was, okay, you have the idea you're making money by serving business owners, people who are already in business or have a desire to start a business, and you're providing a roadmap. You're providing a proven roadmap, not just based off what you've done, but you're leveraging what's being done in the marketplace. And then you're just delivering that value on a one to one basis with, with people. And then to scale that business faster, avoiding having to go through the degrees and having to maybe study under someone or do an internship here. You just said, I'm just going to figure it out by doing it. Yes, I'll read the books. Right? You're not opposed to reading books. You're not opposed to getting a coach and mentorship. You're not opposed to any of those things. Those are great. But you're saying, I'd rather just be in the mud. I'd rather just get on the field as quickly as possibly even if I know nothing. And then you obtain a client and you're willing to say, hey, I'll work with you for free and we can work out a deal. Like, if what I'm saying works and you make all this money, then you pay me X, or we do this together, or you give me a testimony, you refer me to others. And so that creates this expedited approach where you can simultaneously start a business that puts you in position to make the money while getting the experience at the same time making mistakes, knowing that was a mistake. Having awareness around it and then figuring out how to not make that mistake again. Now you are, I would say you're moving at 2x speed or 5x speed to the person that did not take the action, tried to study it first, then do more studying, then do more studying, then you know, let's get a certification around it and do more studying. And do more studying. You're paying all this money all this time, but you never even got on the field and now it's a decade later and that's where you feel like you're behind, whereas you essentially flipped it. So there's a, so there's a mindset part to it where I think you have to develop. Either it's already in you. Those that are watching you have this natural drive. And if you don't have that natural drive, it can be developed. I would say for me, the natural drive wasn't always there. It just wasn't. And I got exposed to people like Alex and others and I developed a drive where I was able to reflect on my life and then say, yeah, no, I don't want to be a part of this. You know, I don't want to live like this no more. And then with that natural drive, where Alex and I are in alignment is this figure it out mentality where you're like, I don't care what it costs or how much time. I don't care that I'm 29 years old, 25 years old, 23 years old, I don't care how young I am, I don't care how inexperienced I am, I'm going to figure it out. So Alex and I are in alignment there because I have that same mentality. And then you also mentioned patience, like you were like, relax, yes, we need to move, but have the patience that these things are going to come together because you have the right mindset and you're taking action, right? So now that you shared with us, you know, today, 2025, because as you said, you've made money selling shoes, right? You've made money in the health space, you've made money on, on social media, with marketing. So you've made, you've been developing all the, all these skills and now kind of packed it all together. And you're now in a position, a decade in business and you're offering a much higher level service now for business owners in the, in the coaching, consulting realm where you're holding these people accountable to their goals, building the roadmap, holding them accountable, check ins and strategies, et cetera, et cetera. So as you're making the money now, this means that Alex is on the business side, right? And everybody, for the most part, knows the cash flow quadrant. So Alex is over here. So he decided to move from W2 over to the business side. So Alex is building the business. This is where Alex makes his money. This way. Now, I'd like you to walk us through how you steward money once you make it. How are you managing your finances today based off everything you've learned so far?

The number one, maybe one of the top things I've learned is if you don't give when you don't have a lot of money, you'll never have a lot of money to give. Meaning a lot of people think, oh, yeah, when I'm rich or like, when I have money, I'm gonna be, like, very generous. It's like, no, you're not. Because, again, like, it's. It starts with the mindset of, like, if you're not generous, then you. You're. You're restrictive. You think, oh, no, no, I have to hold on to this, you know, this little amount of money that I have. And, like, this is all I'm ever going to have. So, like, I can't give, but I'm going to have a lot at the same time. And I just made a video on this and how a lot of people, they want to grow financially or in their business, but then they also have the scarcity mindset. It's a vegetarian who also loves red meat. It doesn't. That's not real. Usually you have to pick one or the other, and most people default to scarcity. So if you give when you don't have a lot, and this could be like, I would, you know, go to. I sold my car. I would ride my bike to Starbucks. So I would work on my laptop seven days a week to, again, like, take action, figure this out. So I would get lunch at, like, IHOP Fresh Market. You know, cheap stuff. But sometimes there'd be a nice old lady behind me, and I'd be like, Jen. She would have, like, a little, like, piece of cake or something. And I had maybe 100 bucks to my name, but her thing was 5 bucks, so 5% of my net worth, you know, so I'd be like, let me buy that for you. And she'd be like, no, no, no. Like, let me buy yours. And I'm like, I'm feeling good today. Let me buy your little cake or your little snack. Snack or whatever. If they had a whole grocery cart, I'd Be like, in the future, not right now, I can't afford that. But I'm like, hey, let me give a little something, you know, or like a very nice waitress at, like, a little pizza place. Like, just like, it's not a lot of money, but it was a lot of money to me at the time. And like, that, I'm telling you, looking back, that was a big shift because when I got out of that scarcity mindset of like, oh, no, no, no, I, I can't give. Or like, I, I can't do that, I can't. Then that also bleeds into, oh, I can't go grow my business. I might as well get a job. Like, no, no, no, too much risk, too much that. And people think, oh, yeah, when I have a lot of money, then I'm going to think like that. But you have to start thinking that way and act as if. And again, just. Even if it's giving a little here, a little there, and it's not like you have to then give all your money away or something, but it's just, again, it's something where you're not restrictive and tight around money because, you know, I'll give this because I have more coming my way, things are going to work out. And that's, again, very simplistic. But if you talk to any person that is doing well, they'll say that that's very important. Obviously there's the, the rare person that's always been stingy with money, and yeah, now they have a lot of money, but maybe they're 80 years old and they, yeah, they, and they never really enjoyed life or like, really, you know, had great experiences. And yeah, now they have a lot of money. But I think the growth and abundance versus the scarcity, people need to get over that or any of the logical strategies that we'll discuss where they'll see on YouTube, they'll be meaningless.

I agree. And you also need to, as a, as the viewer watching, you need to look at the strategy someone's presenting to you or the mentality or the way that person's operating. Say, for example, the person that's operating out of scarcity, even if they end up with a lot of money in the later years in life. You also then need to measure, well, how much time do they have to experience that money or have experience and great memories with that money, how happy is this person? How much joy do they have? How many friends do they have? What are their relationships with their family, their spouse looks like? Because then you start to analyze Other things around the money or like, I don't know if that's duplicatable. I don't know if that's attractive. I don't even want to be around that person. They just become people you don't want to be around. There's no fun. Even if, yes, they have the money. There's just no fun. So there's that element. So on a fundamental level, when it comes to stewardship of your money, before you even get it, and when you have it, you have this mentality of giving first. So to try to like illustrate the flow of money for you, a, we know you make money via a business. You're not a W2 anymore. You founded your own business, you built it up from scratch, it now produces money. When it comes, when money lands into your business checking account, you've got this give first mentality. From there, what's the next move that occurs when. When you receive money, does it for you? Does it go to one business checking? Do you spread it out? How does that work for you?

Yeah, so I think the biggest thing for me is I always pay my credit cards and I like credit cards because especially business credit cards. You know, you get the points and then you get to use it on stuff. So I like using credit cards, but that's probably a pet peeve in like an OCD thing where like if I every morning when I wake up, I, you know, take care of the dogs, make my wife a coffee, feed them, make my own coffee. And then I'm in the office usually by like 8 o' clock on the dot, 8 to 8:30. I'm managing my finances because nobody in life, this is true, nobody will care about your finances more than you do. Right. I think sometimes people, they like to say, well, I'm not an expert. So I'm gonna. I have a cpa, I have a financial advisor, I have a consultant. I have this and that. Even with somebody's business, my clients, I tell them, hey, like, nobody's gonna care more about your business than you. So, like, you need to have things, you need to be able to manage things and have them like on tap, ready to go, whatever it may be, your marketing, your sales, like you need to manage it. So I manage my finances. 8 to 8:30. The key number is cash. So I look at how much cash, like how much liquid assets do I have, especially in business, right? If I had a job, maybe it doesn't matter as much. But as a business, you're not guaranteed anything. You're not guaranteed a Certain income or profit or whatever the case may be. So before I even look at what I'm making, I look at how much money do I have? Because anybody, if you look at a real estate mogul, business mogul, entrepreneur mogul, the number one common thing you'll hear is you need dry powder, you need cash. People love to say, no, no, no, but, but it's, it's only earning 4%. You could earn 8% in the market, maybe, maybe you could lose 50%, I don't know. But I again, as a business owner, cash equals Runway and life. Because if you're running a business, if you have a great business plan, you're talented, you're hardworking, you have the drive, but you run out of money, you're out of business. Which seems simple, but sometimes people love to think about everything else and they plan for the future, but they don't look at, okay, well, how much cash do I have? What do I need to pull back on? Or do I need to now use some of this cash to like, reinvest back in the business? You're like, what do I need to do? So I look at the cash I have, and then again, I usually pay off my credit cards like every day. I know it's with. It's OCD without. That's essentially what I do every day.

Without giving like a number. Is there a standard of certain amount of months of business operational costs that you keep in cash on hand? Is there a. Yeah, I would say.

12 months is over overly safe quote unquote. But I've again, like, I've never heard of somebody complain I have too much cash in the bank. Oh, this sucks. You know, I've never heard that. But people again, they like to think, oh, cash is trash and all this stuff to a certain extent. I mean, if you have your net worth, if a third of your net worth is in cash, you can withstand almost asterisk, almost any life or business explosion or issue. If you have, even if you're net worth is 100 grand, you got your house, maybe you have a car, you got 30 grand in cash. I mean, that's again, it's relative. So I would say a third of your net worth in cash. That's. That's what I do. Everybody's different. Not financial advice, but I would recommend, you know, anybody that's a friend or family member of mine, hey, keep a year of savings. And that helps you also take risk.

Yeah. And you just build upon that. Correct. Like, you just keep building upon that.

Like, well, if if, if it goes like where I have a lot, then I may, you know, depending on where somebody's situation is, that I may, you know, pay down my mortgage a little bit. Got you, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe look to invest it, you know, of course. But I think that's what I'm saying. Like, I'm talking about if, if you're at minimum what I'm saying, anything over that, it gives you room to take more risk, invest in your business or, you know, defer some of your income and again, like lower your profits. You can hire more people, but like having cash and liquidity because a lot of talented people, they went out of business because they just ran out of money, which you'd be surprised. A lot of entrepreneurs don't. They don't look at their numbers often.

They do not. They do not. It's, it's actually quite scary because I deal with some of those business owners. I'm like, what? Okay, interesting. So let's, let's keep, let's keep opening this up so people can see this. So in your case, money comes in, lands in a business checking for you, the cash on hand category, does that go in a separate account or does that stay in a, in a main business checking? How do you actually structure that for yourself?

It depends. You know, some of its business, some of it's personal. I do my best to put as much in a high yield savings account. It's not going to make me rich. It's 4%, but gotcha. You know, after paying the taxes on it, it might keep up with 3% inflation maybe. So at least I'm not like actively losing 3% on it, you know.

But, yeah, but in essence, gotcha. But technically it's going to a separate account. Like you got your main business account where money comes in, lands in that checking. That checking is not earning the high yield. That's like your operations account. And then you have this give first mentality of whatever comes in. Then you've got a safety net that you create. 12 months cash on hand. Then when it comes to operations, basically anything that could be paid with a credit card, you're running it on business and, or personal credit cards and you're getting your cash back, rewards and your points because that's essentially free money. And then you immediately pay that. Like you don't even create the possibility of being late or paying any kind of interest whatsoever. You settle that almost immediately, pretty much every day. And if we continue along when it comes to, okay, you solve for give first, then you have Your emergency money. And that's earning, you know, high yield, 3, 4%, whatever it earns, you're not really concerned about it. It's just fixed money that needs to be liquid and available. That allows you to perform better, I would say, in your business and take more risk because you have this, this safety cushion from, from there. As a business owner, do you set yourself up with a paycheck, a salary to your personal? How do you operate that?

Yeah, no. So I do take a salary. And yeah, there's a whole bunch of. Even with what you're saying with like the business checking and the personal, that's where a CPA is necessary. Because if you have an S Corp, you can only take so many distributions. So that's where you get down the rabbit hole. But yeah, I have a small salary. Nothing crazy or anything like that. But yeah, that's where a CPA can help you maximize. How much salary do you pay yourself when you time that out? And all that very detailed stuff. So again, I'm very numbers driven, so I naturally like researching that stuff and still consulting with the cpa. But that's where I think a lot of people, as they start making money, they need to get a cpa. Because if you're not a numbers guy or gal, just not let them handle it. But like, learn from them. Don't just like kind of be like, I'll think about it later, you know, like, think about it now. Because a lot of people leave so much tax savings on the table just because they could do the same thing they're doing. They just don't know how to structure it. And they, they don't know what they don't know.

Correct? No, I mean, the, the tax law or the tax code is bigger than the Bible, I believe, or it has more.

Oh, really?

Than the Bible itself. So it's. If not, it's competing for sure. So we are talking about a massive tax code. It's very complicated, very complex, that requires just another set of eyes to challenge ideas, to brainstorm ideas. And when you can work with a strategist, and this is what's, I think trending more now is not just working with a CPA that files your taxes, but actually working with a financial strategist. A tax strategist, I would say, that is specializing in tax strategy, tax saving to help you optimize your business profits. Because it's one thing to make a lot of money. It's a whole nother ball game when we talk stewardship of it. So that's why I'm really diving real deep with Alex here on like the stewardship of the finances. So he's already injected the gift first as a, as a foundation. Another foundation is cash on hand. He has a certain level of it, pays himself a salary that is reasonable according to the tax laws, all that good stuff. He's leveraging credit cards for points, cash back, both on personal and business. And then he just injected a tax planner. Right. So having tax planning.

And I'll jump in and mention something else, Denzel.

Yeah.

And I think people, and I'm sure you deal with this, people should get lines of credit, get liquidity, get access to money when you don't need it. I wouldn't say I've made the mistake. I like learned from an early because again, I didn't have somebody funding my business or like a safety net. So I had to be proactive with this. And I've even taken out business loans that like, I didn't need, but it gave me like cash in the bank liquidity to take risks so that if it didn't work right away, like, I would still be able to weather the storm. So I think people should, again, it's personal, you know, opinion, but I think people should look into just accessing liquidity when they don't need it, because that's when banks want to give it. Whereas when you need the money, they're like, actually you're like the last person we want to work with because you kind of need the money right now or you can like even use. So it's, it's just about getting access to money, especially I'm talking mainly for business owners too. Getting access when you don't actively need it. Right now, maybe you might in a year, but get it, get it asap. Because it's not also an instant process. Like, I just got a HELOC on another property. It took like two months. So much back and forth paperwork, like a lot of this stuff isn't, isn't easy or fast. So you want to do it ideally when you don't need the money. So again, that's also something. It could be a business line of credit heloc, like whatever the case may be. But that's one thing people don't. They don't look at the future and think, how can I protect my business from a capital structure? What you would think is, oh, like, Alex, isn't that scarcity? Like, you're always going to make more. I believe that 100%. But I mean, what if you don't for the next three months. And then what if the next nine months could be the best in your career but you're out of business because you didn't make any money this month and next month, so you miss out on all that growth. So sometimes it's just, you got to figure out how can I protect myself to weather the eventual ups and downs of business cycles that you or I as human beings and nobody can predict, but you can. You can predict that it's going to happen at some point. Look at 2020, look at 2008. Like things happen. So you want to be prepared no matter, best case, worst case scenario.

Absolutely. You're now my audience. Their ears perked up when you started saying HELOC and credit and access. So they like that. So you're talking to the right audience that is all about, you know, access to capital. They there many are in a position where they need it and then I walk them through on the coaching side, how we can set ourselves up properly. So having a great credit score in advance, setting yourself up, even little things for those that don't have a business yet, little things that you can be doing. Like if you have credit cards that you're not using too often, that every three, six months I call all my different credit cards that I have, the ones that I use the most honestly, and every three to six months I'm requesting a credit line increase and I'll get 2,000, 4,000, $5,000 increases. You do that over a decade, you can have credit cards that end up being around 50 plus thousand dollars in no time. And it didn't require you to make more money necessarily. It just required you to make the call. Like they're not just going to give it to you. So you've got to take that proactive approach and manage your credit to just have the access. And then when it comes to the business side, it's even more complex, but absolutely worth it because it really, it doesn't cost a whole lot to just build a credit score while simultaneously building a successful business. And to your point, having access to capital when you don't need it, I think that's huge because you get the best rates, you get the best offers, you build relationships with banks. And then when there's an opportunity, you're, you're the first that is in line in a sense. So I like that. Is there anything else you'd like to add on the stewardship side of just how money comes in, how it flows? Is there any other principles or strategies that you, you implement when it comes to just standard stewardship of money, both business and personal.

Yeah, I would say I am very frugal to a certain extent. I manage my money very closely and I look at all the numbers and every everything. But I'm very concerned about people living off of a spreadsheet, meaning they defer happiness. They don't do things today or tomorrow or five years from now because they saw some calculator that said, oh, when I'm 75, I'm gonna have $10 million if I invest every free dollar I have and I do nothing for my entire life. It's like, technically on paper that could be true, but there's weddings, there's experiences, there's family trips that you want to take especially. I mean, you know, I have my in laws, my parents, I mean, they're in their 50s now. I mean, I wouldn't say they're like, young. Hopefully my dad doesn't see this. He'll laugh. But like, I mean, you're not that young to where like, you can't, you'd be like, oh, yeah, they're gonna be around forever. So like, let me just save, save, save. And then like in 10 years, I'll do something with them. Like, you know, I'm visiting my dad, my wife and I are visiting my dad, and my in laws are coming later this week. And yeah, I mean, I could be working and making more money. Oh, it's going to cost me money with flights and you know, it's, you know how much it costs to see the Backstreet Boys in Vegas at the Sphere. I spent like, I don't even want to say to see the Backstreet Boys. I'm going to be wearing all white. Okay. I do it for my, my wife and my, my in laws and my stepmom and dad. Like, they grew up with that. They're going to have a great time. So long story short, it's great to spend money on experiences, be wary of spending money on stuff. I feel like you'll be disappointed. I've had all the nicest cars, all of, like, almost all of them. They're fun for sure. But like, in terms of return on happiness, most 99% of people will find like, wow, that costs money. But I'm so glad I did that trip. Or I, I, we got that little boat and like both of our families were able to do that thing or we, we did that thing that was kind of expensive, but we'll never forget it. So you want to be wary of like overanalyzing your money. And again, like, it's kind of scarcity of like managing it so tightly to where you have to say no to everything. And yes, there's phases in life where I, I couldn't do anything again. I, I, the best I can do is buy the old lady at fresh market her $5 little.

Yeah, you know, within something. Yes.

I think people are, I think people sometimes are doing better than they think, but they're stuck in safety mode. And like, they don't really believe that they could spend the money because they don't know if they're going to be able to make it back, which is more scarcity. But again, I think you don't want to look back and then have a pile of money and be like, wow, I have this pile of money, but now I'm too old to learn how to golf. I missed that ski trip, I missed that water ski family vacation. So you just have to be wary of living your life on a spreadsheet because it's not going to make you happy. Money is meant to be spent and enjoyed at, of course, discretion and wisely. So I would be worried of that because that culture is very prevalent and I like it. It's forcing people to save money, but don't. Like, I would, I focus more. I don't want to regret not doing things rather than regretting doing them. Like, that's why I kind of just like do it. And I'm like, okay, we're gonna figure it out. You know, like, let's just, let's visit my dad. Like, you're, like, my in laws are gonna come and like, we'll just, we'll make a whole trip out of it. And like, again, that's where I'm at. Ten years into my business, that wasn't me a year in. But I think it's very important to, to be balanced and like, sometimes plan for the future, sometimes you have to live in the now.

I see what you mean. I see what you mean. So, and to give people a little more context, some people sometimes get a little bit afraid of the word frugal. Like they feel like they have this compromise or, or like they're losing something. And I was having a conversation with a client recently and I was like, if, if you're stepping in to the person you actually desire yourself, if you're stepping into your purpose and you're on this journey of acquiring freedom for your life, for your family, you're not losing anything. You're just simply redirecting your attention to what actually matters. And you naturally start to value other things more than the stuff, and you naturally just spend less money. You're just less concerned about what people think about you. When you're dressing a certain way or the type of car you drive or the type of house you live in, you just become less and less concerned of these things and you naturally just are acquiring more and more cash flow. So being frugal is not being cheap. I think being frugal is being intentional. I think being cheap is. Being cheap is operating out of Scarcity. Is having $100 in your pocket, looking to the person that's behind you, having an initial desire to give but don't because you feel like you need it and you don't know where you're going to get your next hundred from, that's being cheap. If you didn't have the intent to want to give, that's totally fine. It didn't come. But it's when you feel it in your heart to want to give and then you don't because you feel like it's like you're not going to have it again. And that is being cheap or going to a restaurant and not tipping a certain amount that you want to be able to do, but because you feel like you're not going to make it again, now you're being cheap versus someone who is simply frugal. That is, I'm going to tip a certain amount and I'm going to experience this meal at this particular time, not going to go to the five star restaurant because I just don't value it as of right now. And so it's just like every decision you're making is very, very intentional. So I like that as a, as a framework for yourself. You also said don't live life on a spreadsheet, which brings up a question. Do you yourself, do you budget or do you not budget?

I know what I'm spending on every month. So, like I have a spreadsheet that has a budget and I know for a fact it's like 90, 98 accurate. But do I budget? No. Like, I don't necessarily like order on Instacart. And I'm like, oh, no, no, it's 120. I need it to be like 105. I have budgeted, though. I've definitely been there where I'm like, my income is not. It wasn't big and it wasn't even semi consistent. So then I had to be more careful.

Right.

But I think where I'm at now, I don't necessarily have to like, pinch and like, really look at it. I just don't like to waste money. So sometimes I might. I definitely, again, like, I pay off the card and I kind of look at the charges. Sometimes I'm like, I'll cancel that subscription. Or like, eh, I'm paying this bill for this restaurant. We're not going back, though. That was expensive. Like, that wasn't worth it. So I definitely watch over what I'm spending a hundred percent. But I don't necessarily, like, really overanalyze because, hey, I mean, if you have a car, you need gas. If you have a human body, you need food and water. So like, some things it's like you need it to live. So I mean, what are you gonna do about it? But I mean, I definitely make it a challenge to spend as little as possible when I'm like ordering groceries or even Ubereats. But you know, again, at a certain point, even now I focus more on, oh, I can order on UberEats. And that's a little expensive for, for a little like one meal. But I get to spend tonight with my wife instead of cooking and cleaning for an hour and a half.

Yeah.

So that's the trade off that I make, I hear.

Yeah. So for me, I don't budget as well. I just simply know where every dollar goes. And like you, you, you have a list, a spreadsheet of all your costs. You know what it costs to live your lifestyle. And what I like to help with my clients is help them go from budgeting to simply tracking and knowing where every dollar goes, then looking at the amount of creation that you're putting into the world, how much value are you creating and does that match your current lifestyle? And so if you're not creating more than what you consume in terms of your expenses and it's equal, the amount that you create is the amount that you consume. Guess what? You're living paycheck to paycheck. And if you are creating less than what you consume, well, guess what, you're running a negative cash flow each and every month. And that tends to be the case. I look at people's jobs, I look at people's positions, and I'm like, you're 45 years old and you are still at this position in this industry, but you've been in that industry for 15 years in the, in the medical field, but you haven't ranked up, but your lifestyle has. Something's off. You're not creating enough value. According to your age, your health, the amount of experience, time that you've been in that particular space. Why are you not going up? But your lifestyle is going up. And so there's an imbalance. So I try where it's like people are trying to budget. I'm gonna budget this much for this and this much for that and this much for that. And it always breaks because eggs are never the same price. Right. And milk is never the same, and gas is never the same. Today it's 289, tomorrow's 315, next week it's $4. And then the week eight later it's 379. You're never gonna get it accurate. So most of the people I work with that budget, they're always over budget. So it's like, you're always breaking it. Why not just know where every dollar goes and then try to. Let's just use the value equation of create more than I consume. Always be in a position of creating more than what I consume. You're going to have more money at the end of the day. So with that, thank you for sharing. Thank you for diving deep on this last question I have for you. Now that we understand how you make the money, how you steward it, the principles behind that talk to us about how do you invest the money after you've made it, paid your bills, saved your money, you now have this free cash flow that's left over, which is profit in your business. How do you now invest money? And if you can first start, not the type of investing necessarily, but if you can start with the accounts first, like where you first contributing dollars, then share the actual investing that you do.

Right. So I think people need to know their personality. I'm a bit impulsive in terms of, like, I want to buy this, so. And it's like, I could afford it, but, like, I'm just gonna buy it, you know? So that's why I don't do stocks. That's my personal thing. Obviously, I'm sure, you know, people are gonna be like, but over 30 years compounded, it's better than real estate or this or that. And they're probably right, you know, But I know for a fact if the market goes down 3%, I'm like, I need to sell, you know, like, it's. No, no, no. Because I just. I always believe that I could invest more in my business and get a better return. So I think as entrepreneurs, we're not the best, like, investment case because we're always a little bit, like, egotistical. We're like, the market 8%. Like, I'm getting another sales rep. They're going to make 100 grand this year, you know, so we're willing to take more risk. We almost like seek risk sometimes because the stock market can be so passive and boring and successful long term. Sometimes we're like, nah. And again, I'm going to probably change my mind as I feel like my business, I feel like my active income isn't at its full potential. So I feel like that's why I need to continue to focus on it. So I think people focus on passive income when their active income is woefully under potential.

Correct.

As you mentioned, somebody might be, you know, in an industry for 15 years and like, they're making seven grand a month before taxes and they, they're focused on, oh, but like, I need passive income. It's like, but your active income is nowhere near what it could be. That's where I, I feel like that's why I'm not a big investor. And yeah, I have a rental and I have a house and like, again, I save a lot of money, but I don't feel like I'm like a heavy investor because I feel like I could take that money, either leave it in cash or invest in my business to then grow my active income more. Or maybe, maybe I'm making investments in my business now that won't really pay off for the next year or two, but it's going to grow my active income then. So I feel like the, again, the entrepreneur, like entrepreneurial person is not the person to get investing advice from whatsoever. But from a mindset perspective, you want to max out your active income. In my opinion, once you're like, hey, like, this is the best it's ever going to get, then I would say, okay, then you need to really study investing and whatever that looks like for you. But I feel like my active income isn't near its potential. So I think that's why I just focus on that.

Okay. And I don't want to devalue this because I often hear other entrepreneurs, like, kind of talk like that. It's like we're kind of devaluing what, what we're doing because it's not the norm. But if we were to actually look at your P and LS from the first year in business to now, and you look at what is Alex's rate of return based off of how much money he's put in, contributed into the business, and we look at year over year, growth year over year, year over year, how much money you put in versus how much money is coming out, I would argue, I would be willing to bet that your rate of return is in the triple digit. And this is personal in my experience as well, where I've gotten to the point now where it's very hard for me to invest in anything outside of my business, because for every dollar I have an operational expense in my business, it spits out at least 2 to 3 more dollars. So that's a 2 to 300% return on every single dollar I put into the business. Triple digits. And in some cases, it could be quadruple. Right. 1,000% or more. Where on earth can I get 100 to 1,000% return on my money other than a business? So I don't want to devalue this in any way and really get people to see the other side here. Like Alex first started with, you got to know yourself. If I had to summarize that, call it investor DNA. Alex knows himself. He's got the investor DNA. The very first thing you're doing is you're reinvesting back into your business. And then there's all the tax incentives that come with reinvesting in your business. So reinvesting in your business could maybe look like you buying something you may have wanted to have or buying some kind of an asset, such as real estate. And because it was done through the business, let's say there's all these tax incentives that come with it. Having, you know, the way that you bought your house is not the way most W2 people buy their house. When you buy your house, it's coming with a home office. It's coming with the Augusta rule. It's coming with the fact that you get to offset some of your electrical costs, your Internet costs. The fact that we're doing this right here in your office, the square footage of it, all of it factors in. And so it's increasing your net rate of return on your money. So I just wanted to, like, double down on, like, what you're doing. I'll mention, like, much better than a lot of other things.

No, and that does make sense. And I'll say, sometimes people just don't look at the facts. And I started my business with four or five thousand bucks, right? So even if I was a great investor and I put that in Nvidia back then, all right, 5,000 bucks might be 4,000. 5,000. I'm doing the math right now that even if, let's say I 5xed it, like, wow, 500% return. That's 25 grand, right?

Yeah.

And that's over the last almost decade, whereas I invested the 5,000 into myself and my skills and what I'm doing, and it's made millions.

That's a flex, you know, like, that's kind of cool where it's.

It's true. It's like, if people have. But I think people think they're an investor, but it's like you don't have the money to be an investor. Like, if you have $20,000. $20,000 times 7% is 1400 bucks per month. That's 116 bucks. People spend that at Chipotle these days with inflation. And I'm not trying to, like, say, oh, wow, you only have 20,000 bucks. I'm just saying your mindset has to shift. And, like, maybe when you have 200,000, hey, 200,000, you know, maybe you, you. You get 7% return. 14 grand, hey, that's like more than a thousand a month. You compound that. Like, you know, you double that at 7% compounded every seven or eight years based on the calculators. I mean, now, like, you're cooking with something. I think if people don't have that, then they should just focus on how do I make more, because then I can make any investing hypothetically that I do, like, actually worth it.

Okay.

Practically.

So in your case, as of right now, in 2025, are you reinvesting pretty much 100% of what you make? Or is there some element of investing outside of your business? Or are you just, like, to your. What you said earlier, you're focusing on maxing out your ability to create active income, getting to a certain number or certain level.

I would say I'm investing almost everything back into the business. Or again, sometimes I'm like, I'll just keep it in cash. You know, like, cash is an investment. People sometimes forget, like, that's true. Just. And you're earning some rate of return. It's. It's not making money based on inflation. But if you look at any hedge fund, real estate fund, or developer, like, they look at cash as it's an asset. And again, you don't need to save all your money in cash. But, you know, I think at a certain point, if you feel like you've maybe maxed out your active income and you've really reached your potential, then maybe you start doing other things and taking risk elsewhere. But I just look at, again, like, my business is a risk. It's not a guarantee. So let me protect my downside so that if I have a few bad months here and there, it's not a, it's an inconvenience. It's not, oh, my gosh, I need to shut down my business and get a job. Which is unfortunately what happens to a lot of talented entrepreneurs. They just don't give themselves the Runway financially.

I agree. So let's play a little bit in the future. Let's assume, Alex, you're at a point, you, you're hitting max or you're at that desired place of producing the amount of active income you wanted to create in your, in your business. Is there any kind of retirement accounts like Roth or solo case, Roth 401? Is there any kind of accounts that interest you, and is there any kind of investments outside of your business that interests you? From the perspective of, like, that could. These could be hedges, or these could simply continue to add more value to my business. Because I think the way an entrepreneur really works is they're not really focused on creating a net worth, like a, a quote unquote nest egg. They're not really trying to build a nest egg and then live off that nest egg. What they're doing is they're building an actual economy that is the whole monopoly board for their life. And it produces. They have players, and the players produce cash flow for the, the whole entire economy. And so now your mentality is pretty much continue to create more and more cash flow over. Over net worth. So you have a cash over net worth. I'm the same way. For me, it's all about cash flow. Right now. I don't care what any of my investments that I've done is making. I have no intent to sell. I barely look at the rate of return. If anything, I invest about 1 to 5% of my income. And it's mostly for tax purposes. Like I'm getting a deduction by funding my hsa, you know, or having a Roth. Like, it's more so tax, but it's like money that I'm not planning on touching. And it was like, it's a hedge, you know, in case something does happen. I'm perfectly fine with selling those to keep the cash flow machine active and running. So I think we're on the same page there. But let's fast forward. Let's say you're there. What kind of accounts interest you and what types of investments are of your interest or complement what you're already doing.

And that's a great point. And that it's like, yeah, it's not because a business most of the time isn't a sellable asset for a small Business owner and a small business can be still making tens of millions of dollars. I think 30 million and under is a small business.

Yeah.

Very few businesses will become a sellable asset that's going to make somebody $100 million. But they can be a great cash flow like machine like you're saying. But I think with investing, again I'm not an expert but I think people fall in love with one thing. Like they love Tesla stock, they love Palantir, Nvidia, they're oh my gosh, this one fund, like this is all I need. But I've only heard of people failing and not doing well if they just, if they over invest into something that they don't control. Right. If you have a business, you control the outcome to a certain extent. You know, that's your thing. That's why we as entrepreneurs invest in ourself, in our business. But I, my main thing is just diversification, right. Whether it's real estate, real estate fund, stocks, money market bonds, just being diversified so that not one event ideally hopefully could happen that would like knock my portfolio down 50%. So I think people just fall in love with like, oh no, I only do real estate. But real estate is a liquid and it's not easy to sell and there's transaction fees and it's harder to lend against. Whereas stocks, you can get interactive brokers, open up your stock account, they'll, they'll lend you money. No income check, no nothing within five minutes. But stocks are more volatile than real estate. They don't produce as much cash flow, they don't have the tax advantages. It's not a real asset. Like people need a place to live. Stocks go up and down sometimes 20, 30% based on a new ad or something. Right. Like it's not these days especially it's not based on like what are the practical logistics and logical numbers of this company. It's really, oh my gosh, this company's going viral on social media, the stock's up 50% or oh my gosh, never mind, it's down 80%. So nothing is perfect. No investment, no business. Like nothing is perfect. So I mean in life, if I got to that point, God willing, if I do, everything is just like, how can I diversify so that I'm never betting the farm? And one lesson I'll give people, if you hear one person say something or one piece of advice, it might be bs, right? It's one person, maybe their opinion is just nonsense. If you hear two people say the same exact thing in different settings, I Would, you know, I would keep my ears open. But who knows if three people, three different people in three different podcasts, interviews, whatever, say the same thing. I would say, when there's smoke, there's fire. So I have that rule where if I learn something and I, I give it as advice or whatever, usually I have to hear three people I respect in different settings, all saying the same thing.

Gotcha.

And I've heard that numerous times where people say, don't bet the farm. Like, meaning, like, yeah, don't invest in this one real estate deal. And that deal could put you completely out of whack where, like, your, your family doesn't have food to eat. That's where it's like, I don't know if you should do that. You know, like, I don't know, that sounds risky. So just diversifying. And again, that's my personal opinion. And not betting everything on one deal that has things outside of my control. And if everything doesn't go perfectly, I'm out of business. That sounds, again, that, that doesn't sound great to me. Perfect.

Yeah. So to close out here, what I really enjoyed again is you doubling down on the fact of you focusing on that active part. And I think a lot of people are upset, obsessed with creating passive income. And it's not to the viewer's fault. I would say there's a lot of financial gurus out there that are always preaching passive. And then there's a whole industry of financial advisors that want your money. And then the appeal is, we're going to create passive income for you. You just need to give your money to us. So delegate the rate of return that you could make in a shorter period of time. Again, like, Alex is producing triple quadruple rates of returns on the money he dedicates to his business. Imagine if you could do that in 5 to 10 years. You compare that to an 8% average rate of return over a 30, 40 year period. What's going to happen is for Alex and I and others that decide to jump into this camp, you're going to be able to get there in, say, 10 years or less or to a much higher place than we're currently at right now on just developing the activity income over the next decade. And then you get to a point where you're like, I could care less what Nvidia stock is doing, or AMC stock or, or Bitcoin. You're, you're literally not concerned about what you could be missing out on with Nvidia stock going to the moon. Palantir Bitcoin being at 120,000, you could care less about it because once you've gotten to your active place, you're just saying, I'm just going to be fully diversified. I'm going to have exposure. Yes to maybe stocks, yes to real estate, yes to maybe crypto, yes to gold, hard assets, non duplicatable assets. Sure. I'm just going to be diversified. And then in terms of accounts, I'm pretty sure, you know, you have your Roth and you have maybe your Roth 401k and Solo KS and those tax efficient types of accounts for the most part. But you're not like hell bent or obsessed with any one particular asset because the thing that you are obsessed about is your number one asset, which is yourself.

And I don't feel like my potential is nearly maxed out. That's where I'm like, no, before I like start, yeah, like investing in other places, I need to keep investing in me, you know, and it could even be like getting this, let me see if this will work, getting this house on the beach. Because I'm like, okay, I have to be a different entrepreneur to afford this place. The maintenance is insane.

That was a flex. But that was, that was a flex.

You know, it's something where I speak from experience that like when you are getting comfortable, the best thing to do is immediately put yourself back in a situation where you have, even if it's a little pressure, like if you honestly never have to really like strive for great outcomes and you just totally comfortable. There's very few people that are just going to choose to just really give it their all. I mean we all need some real pressure pushing us and saying, hey, like I'm, I'm the guy, I need to do this, I need to do that. And, and it could just be not just what we're going to consume, but I want to give like this amount or I have these things I need to do. And, and, and the spouse, like they push us, you know, husband or wife, depending on who's watching. And I know our wives, Denzel and I, I, they push us to be.

That's pressure.

The best. That, that's pressure because they want to deliver the best. I mean the best experiences, you know, location, the best house, you want them to be comfortable and you want to, you know, make yourself uncomfortable to make them comfortable. So absolutely, yeah, I really enjoy this conversation and I think we'll do these more often because I think our thoughts and our ideas are going to be ever evolving because we're always learning and we're experiencing and saying okay actually that thing that we said didn't work or oh no, that really did work. So I really appreciate you having me on and was a great conversation.

Absolutely. And with that I will have links in the description for you guys to check out Alex's website, his YouTube channel, the work that he's been able to do and the people people that he's been able to work with are some wonderful people. I'm a case study in terms of working with Alex since day one when I was one of his very first clients. So I've got nothing but good things to say about Alex and the work that he does and how he serves at a very, very high level. So to visit and check out his work I'll have links below all throughout the video in the comment section as well. Dude, it's been great. God bless you, God bless everyone else. Enjoy the rest of your day and we'll be talking soon. Thanks.