079 How Did I Get Here...Doing What I'm Doing

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. I get asked a lot. How did you get into doing what you're doing? You're a CPA. CPAs don't do this. Well, here's the.

I didn't walk the traditional journey and I want you in this episode to understand a little bit more of how I ended up doing what I'm doing, why it's important to you and what you need to do next and how this came at the hands of a six year old boy. See me. This is the Affluent Entrepreneur show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom. Because that's what it really means to be an affluent entrepreneur.

Hey there. I hope you are doing well. I wanted to jump in here and do a different kind of video for you. I had a call or I had a question come in from someone asking the question, how does the cpa, how does, how did I end up in this place? How did I end up doing what I'm doing and.

How I'm doing it and that type of thing. And, and it got me to start thinking about it and saying, you know, sometimes we take for granted the journey that we have been on. And life is a journey, lots of twists and turns, ups and downs and and arounds. You know, my life isn't any different. You know, I'm certainly, I certainly feel blessed to have the life that I have to do, the things I get to do to serve you, to help people build their dreams, build their financial dreams, find freedom. I knew those things, but it wasn't, it wasn't all that way. Always that way. And I think about back on, how did I even get into entrepreneurship? Why did that even attract me. And, and it goes back to when I was a young kid. When I was 11 years old, I, I got, I was watching a movie with my dad and watching a movie with Tony Curtis and Janet Lee and, and.

It was about Harry Houdini, Harry Houdini's life. And, and I was fascinated with this guy that no boxes, no chains, no nothing could, could hold. And, and the more and more I researched, the more and more I, I read about his life and his times and the things he did. And I fascinated him more. The, the realization that.

There was this idea of being able to go and do things that you loved and make a difference and everything. And, and so I got fascinated with magic at 11 years old. 10. 11 years old. And started to, to learn and, and, and read. And I, I literally, during the summer months when I wasn't in school, I would literally take the bus down to the magic shop across the valley every day and spend time there. And one time someone came in and talked about them doing a gig, and I go, what is a gig?

He says, that's when we get paid to do a show. You're getting paid to do magic? And he said, yeah. So I said, how do I do that? Now I'm 11 years old, because I'm thinking, well, if I can get paid to do what I love, that would be really cool. And so I went on to start doing magic shows, half hour magic shows.

For kids, birthday parties at 11 years old for $50. You know, now we're talking about 1971. So it was a long time ago. 50 bucks was a, a lot of money. But what it really did is plant the seed in me about, well, what if I could just live my life? And as a child, you automatically think that everything's possible, anything's possible. And I kept that spirit. And then that's what, you know, drove me to start looking at business as I got older and I went into college and things like that. I ended up as a cpa, you know, working with businesses and, and everything and, and doing the kinds of things I wanted to do, but at the same time also knew that I'd always do it on my own, always was going to create my own firm and, and do that. And I had a firm, I was the managing partner of a firm, and we were doing, you know, well into the seven figures. And we had a team. I had a team of 29, 32 at the max. And next thing I know, my partners came to me and said.

We don't want to be Partners. And they pretty much shoved me out the door with no clients, no client backlog, no cash flow, nothing. Nothing. And you know, part of it was because I was, I was going in a different direction. I had that entrepreneurial spirit. I wasn't doing the typical accounting stuff. I was doing valuations, consulting. It was a different animal. And so they, they wanted to keep with the traditional business and I totally get that. But I was left with nothing and figuring out, how do I make this work? But that was the same year that one of the greatest gifts.

Came to live with me. And that was my son. I became a single full time dad. My son Jeremy was five and a half years old. And here I was as a father.

With this gift of a child, trying to figure out how do I make ends meet, what do I do to take care of this child, how, how do I nurture and, and, and, and do the right thing for this five and a half year old, six year old boy. And some of you might be in that situation where you're trying to take care of your loved ones, you're trying to take care of your spouse or your children or your grandchildren and you might be struggling these times. I get it. And it's a scary, scary situation. I was, I was scared. And you know, the good news is I had the support.

Network around me, but that still didn't mean that, you know, I still had to go out and make the money. So I did what most entrepreneurs do. I got on the treadmill. I, I started working, I started promoting, I started speaking, I started writing. I was, I was doing everything that I knew to get com. Get, get clients and to get business in. Next thing I know that.

The business starts coming in and, and all of a sudden I've got cash flow, I've got clients, I've got work to do. And, and I'm looking at, I'm excited, I'm saying, you know, I just looking at Jeremy and realizing, saying, hey, this is going to work, we're going to be okay. I had just purchased a house when this happened. So I was three, over 300,000 in debt. So I had that on my head also. But I was okay because I had these clients coming in. Now the cash flow is coming in. And now all of a sudden I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. And then Jeremy comes walking and running in from school one day. This was probably one of the most pivotal points in my financial journey, my business journey, my life. He says, daddy, daddy, daddy. I drew a picture of you in school.

I kneeled down, and he was so excited. It was. I had to stop everything. And I kneeled down to his level. I. I take this picture in my hand and I look at it, and there it is. I'm drawn in blue felt dip pen and a stick figure. Still pains me today, seeing two computer screens on the desk, a phone in each ear and one on the desk. And it was in that moment that I realized I was totally screwed.

Yeah, maybe I was getting the money in. Yeah, maybe I was building the business.

But I wasn't building my relationship with my son. The only thing he saw in me was that I worked. And I get it. I have to pay the bills, and I can use those as excuses, and I can do all those things, but the fact of the matter is, I was ripped up inside because I felt like a failure, because I felt like the one gift that was so important to me. And I thought I was doing the right thing. And I realized. So I had so many people telling me, mel, you have to get work life balance. You have to get. Get things done with. But here's what I figured out. Work, life balance, that's a man. It doesn't exist. I mean, the fact of the matter is that to have balance, what it insinuates is that you have weight on this side, you have weight on this side. They counterweight. There's like this tug of war. And that's what it was, a tug of war between the personal life, between fatherhood, between work and the professional life, and all these things pulling.

It's not balance that we need. I realize that. It's harmony that we need. Things that work in concert with each other. How. How could I be the entrepreneur I want to be, to build the business, to serve the clients, but be a great dad? You know, I don't know, maybe in your life, you're sitting back looking at the same thing. How. How do you be a great parent? How do you be a great spouse? How do you be a great son, daughter, sister, brother?

How do you harmonize those things, integrate those things? And that was the thing that got me to start to really look at my life and say, how do I do it differently?

There had to be a way to reinvent, Reinvent how I did the business. So I had the time to dedicate to him and to be present, because he didn't want my profits, he wanted my presence, he wanted me there, he wanted me to be with him.

And so that's when I started to understand this idea of living an affluent life.

Versus A wealthy life. See, the wealthy life is chasing the money. The affluent life, life chasing the meaning. See, I truly believe that an affluent life.

Has four aspects to it. And the first aspect is that it's a meaningful life, that it means something, that it brings joy to you, it warms your heart, that, that each day, even if it's a tough day.

Has meaning to it. The second aspect of it is that it is an impactful life.

That you're having a positive effect and impact on those you serve, that on those you love, the people you share life with.

The third aspect is that it's fruitful life.

One where you can pay the bills and then some and do do that. It, it's the only aspect of affluence that actually has money attached to it. And then the third, the fourth aspect is that was a peaceful life that you can live in peace knowing that you lived it your way. Kind of like the old song, that you had a chance to make the decisions, design your life, live it your way. Know that it was in alignment with your values, with your value, with the vision that you have. That's affluence, that's true affluence. And that's, that's the thing that, that came out of a felt pen picture of me and a six year old boy. Because it's through that that I developed the processes and the systems of the affluence blueprint and, and all those things to.

To really bring that to life, to live an affluent life in a way that, that gave it meaning, impact, fruitfulness and peacefulness in order to make that happen, you know, and that's what I want for those that I serve. It's, it's what got me here because it's through that people asked how did you do it? How are you doing? How are you helping your clients do that? And that's what got me out here. It's not what I set out to do when I became a cpa.

But the fact of the matter is I realize.

That richness is an experience and feeling game. Wealth is just the money. The wealth part of it is actually easy. There's principles, there's processes, there's priorities and all that stuff, that's easy. But we can get all that right. And if we don't get the richness part of it right, the way we live, the way we experience life, the way we feel life, we're going to feel poor. No matter what's in. That's what drives me, that's what makes me do what I do. That's how I got here. You know, there's more to the story and maybe I'll continue it in another video, but for that, you know. And this is what, what I'm obsessed with is helping people find affluence in their life. Not opulence, if they choose opulence, that's on them, but affluence, impact, meaning fruitfulness, peacefulness, and able to do that. So that's the game I want to play. And the fact of the matter is that it's what I teach. It's what we do in the affluence blueprint. And in fact, I'm doing a special training, it's a live, exclusive training that I do only once a year called the affluent Entrepreneur Live Totally free. I'll walk you through the processes, the principles, the priorities, and the things you need to do to find affluence in your life, to build it so you don't forsake the things that are near and dear, like I was doing, so you get a chance to build a life that feels good at the same time is good. So if you want to join the wait list for that, because it's not till September 15, but join the waitlist so you get on the priority wait list, just go to affluencelive.com or click the link around this video. We'll make sure that we get you in there. Because I truly believe financial freedom afterwards is your birthright. I'd love to help you. All right.

Thank you for being part of the affluent entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join the affluent entrepreneur facebook group@melabraham.com group and I'll see you there. Cheers. Bye.

And that's it for this episode of Building your money Machine where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcast, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.