From Zero to $1M Before 30 - My Exact System | Mallory Rowan | 135

There's 6 solutions to every problem you're facing, especially the ones where there feels like there's only one answer. But most of us can rattle off 3.

So for you, what would those 3 be?

For the million dollars? Yeah.

Um, Mallory is a Lululemon Legacy Ambassador, Business Influencer of the Year, Shopify Master, and has partnered with brands like Adobe and Uber Eats.

The best thing you can do is be excited about your investing goals.

Yeah.

And so for me, it's really important to find goals that you actually care about and not that you think you're supposed to care about.

She scaled her first business, a powerlifting apparel brand, to multi-six figures while still a student. But it nearly broke her.

I couldn't even work on my business because I would just be laying in bed in pain. I started losing hair. I started getting unexplainable rashes. I really felt like I had lost that personality. I thought it seemed so crazy and impossible.

In this conversation, Mallory breaks down how to use cash flow to buy equity and why buying equity is what actually buys freedom.

When I burnt out building my business, it really made me face the identity piece. I didn't realize at the time that now looking back I am really grateful for is—

Mallory, you built a million-dollar net worth by age 29, pretty massive accomplishment, but you also burnt out along the way at age 22. Like, what's the big contrast between those two moments? And like, tell us the story.

Yeah, so when I was still in school, I decided to build my first business, which was actually a powerlifting apparel company. Okay. Um, I was competing in the sport at the time and actually just started dating this guy, and we were like, let's build a business at the same time, because that's what you do when you start dating, of course, right? I will preface this with, it did work out. 11 years later, we are still together. I wouldn't probably recommend it because it's just an odd choice, but for us it really worked. Um, so we started building this business, and at the time I was already— I always knew that I was into business, so I was already working at a startup in university. Um, I was obviously going to my classes, and then I was competing in powerlifting, which is 3-hour plus gym sessions multiple times out of the week. So I very quickly burnt out building that. Um, there was a lot of emotional and mental psychological signs that I missed that often happen earlier. And so it wasn't until the physical signs really started to come. They say your body whispers before it screams, and I definitely ignored the whispers. And so it was aggressively screaming at me. Um, I started losing hair, I started getting unexplainable rashes all over my body that, you know, the specialists couldn't explain. I would wait wait months and months for an appointment just to be told like, huh, nothing's wrong, right? And you're like, well, I'm pretty sure there's something going on. But yeah, and there's all these different things happening. My gut would react to everything I ate, so I couldn't even work on my business because I would just be laying in bed in pain. And the worst part was I didn't even feel like myself anymore. I really felt like I had lost that personality. And it's an interesting age for that to happen because you're like, is this being an adult? Like, do I just kind of suck now? Like, am I not as fun?

And that's, yeah, it's an age when everything should be fun and easygoing and all of that, but you've taken on these massively ambitious goals. So you were competing as a powerlifter, still working in the startup?

Yep.

School full-time?

Mm-hmm.

And then, you know, just doing the little side venture of building a physical products company from scratch?

Yes, running the inventory out of our studio apartment. Yeah, when you say it like that, you know, hindsight is 20/20.

And you have a new relationship as well.

Yes, that's a good point.

Some people would say like, you know, I'm gonna focus on work my relationships right now and that's kind of it.

Yeah.

And you're like, oh, let's just, let's just do it all. Let's just do everything. You sound a lot like me. I think we're, we're pretty similar in that, in that way.

Yeah. So I, I burnt out really hard from it. And I think something that often happens when our body reacts to stress is it, it reacts in these interesting ways where you don't get something that's a clear diagnosis. You haven't necessarily broken your leg and you know, you get a cast. So it's a lot of advocating for yourself when you're at your lowest. And that can also be really difficult. So I spent about 2 years going to a whole bunch of specialists, everyone felt like, ah, I, I can fix you, I can fix you, and you get your hopes up. And then, um, every time it feels like, okay, well, this one piece got better. But I had to take a long time to work on my health. And what really changed for me with that was it forced me to look at how I was approaching business. I also think this was peak, like, it was peak Gary Vee. And I know even his perspective has changed since those early videos, but it was like we were having Monster Energy drinks, you know, we were listening to the Gary Vee videos. It was like hustle screensaver on my phone. And so I realized, just grind it out, you just grind it out. I I wanted to approach it differently, and I wanted to actually be the proof point that you can build without burnout. Because I think often when we have these self-care conversations, it becomes, for a lot of us ambitious people, seen as a compromise of like, I'm willing to maybe accomplish less but— and also take care of myself. And I wanted to prove that, hey, I think there's a way that if you're doing this in alignment, they can all actually happen.

Okay, so I want to dive into that, but first, on the burnout itself, what were You were talking about, you know, your body whispering before it screams.

Yeah.

Um, what were some of those whisper signs that if you could go back or you were coaching someone else through it, you'd be like, hey, here are the signals.

Yes.

That you should actually listen to.

I think when the issues start as mental, anything like emotional or psychological, we, we think we can just push it down. And I really think I learned like we, we're pushing that down into our body. Um, but we think we just know how to like push through it. So for me it was getting really easily irritated by things. I'm, never an angry person. Like, I've had my car broken into and I'm like, okay, who do we call? Right?

You're just like, this is now a problem to be solved. There's steps to it.

Yeah, it's done. Um, but I felt so angry, like, especially working with a team in that business, you know, someone would make a mistake and I just felt that inside, like, ah, you're so— like, how are you so stupid? Like, why would you do that? And I never really reacted to things in that way. So that was an early flag for sure. And I think just feeling on the brink of emotional at all times, you know, like the wrong song comes on driving home from my job and I just start crying. And you're like, oh, this is good. I'm releasing, which is true. But you're also like, I probably shouldn't be like this close to tears at all times.

Right? It's such an interesting thing for me. I had a similar time where you're in hindsight, you're like, I was trying to do all of that at once where we— I was working for myself. I had built my audience and business, had just had 3 months of my best revenue possible. I was like, okay, I'm going to scale this up even more. We had a 2-year-old and then a 2-week-old. Mm. Uh, so, you know, 2 little kids, they were doing great. Uh, we'd bought a new house and we were, I was the general contractor on the remodel.

And like I said, yeah, 'cause like, why not?

Oh yeah, of course. We were always trying to learn new things.

Yeah.

I was, you know, great opportunity, all of that. Save some money as well. And yeah. And then one day, well, really what happened is when the kids both got sick at the same time and stopped sleeping and then it like all fell apart. But yeah, then one day I woke up with a big rash on my leg and I was like, figure out what that is. And turns out it was shingles. And, you know, that was like the big crash and burn for me where it took a long time for me to admit that like, oh, this is totally unsustainable.

Totally.

But then also like it ends up taking— I think I had this idea before of like, okay, I will push to the limits because I'm very driven. I want to accomplish all of these things. And when I find the limit, I'll just dial it back a little bit. Or similar to your powerlifting, I'll be stronger. And so, you know, I'll either be able to handle it, or if I feel like I'm close to, you know, the limit, I'll just dial it back a little bit. It'll be fine. And I crashed and burned hard. Like, it probably took me 2 years to get back to level I was before. And so I didn't realize the level that I was like playing with fire in this. Was it similar for you?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's such a good and dangerous quality that a lot of us have where like the limit keeps moving.

Right.

Right. So once we achieve the thing that we never thought was possible, it opens up our eyes and we go, oh wow, I can dream even bigger and what else could be possible? But then if we're saying we're gonna deal with our health or prioritize our happiness after those things, right? When does that really come? And it either doesn't come or similarly to your point, we get forced into it. So we end up in this cycle where we focus on the business and then we have to focus on the health, right? We have to take the step back from the business, focus on that. And sometimes when we're in that health journey, then it becomes a mental health journey where, you know, founders get depressed because they feel so physically exhausted and now the business maybe isn't thriving. And so we're just constantly going in this cycle of business priority, then health priority, and then happiness. And then once we're happy again, we feel like we can thrive in the business. And so I think looking at it as, okay, what if we stopped doing that semi-toxic relationship and looked at how can we actually build all three into it?

Yeah, that makes sense. And then what did it look like, or what happened to the business as you realized like, oh, I can't function like this anymore?

Yeah, for us what we did was first remove myself a bit from the business because we were also going to a lot of in-person events. That was a main lead generator for us, was in-person events and Instagram. Um, so I took the step back and that really forced me to work on things, but also think about what is it that we're building. We had a few interesting things happening at the same time. Um, we were always designed to give back, so for every item we sold, we provided 1 month of clean water to a community that needed it. And when we worked with athletes, we would do different charities that were significant to them. And so I felt like we were really, you know, existing to do good, but then we were also starting to play more and more into this like consumerist culture of we were dropping bigger collections every time, more and more clothing. And I got to a point where I'm like, I actually don't even need new items of your stuff. Like, how do other people need new stuff? And so this was all kind of happening at the same time. And so we thought about, okay, do we want to sell t-shirts for the rest of our lives? Like, what did we think about with this business? Because, you know, I've learned since then to think about those things going in. We weren't at the time thinking about building this business to sell. We weren't thinking about so many of those things because we didn't really have those examples in our life. Um, we were, for both of us, like the first entrepreneurs in our family, so we were just kind of running with it. Um, so it forced us to kind of stop, and then honestly, it just gave us that moment of like, hey, is this our opportunity to go to the next thing? And for us too, we had felt like we had this collision of creativity and finances. And I remember, because when we started, keep in mind, when side hustle. I think this is familiar for a lot of people. It's all out of passion, it's all out of fun. Every win is a big win, right? And so for us, it started to feel like, oh, now there's a lot of financial pressure on the creative things. And it made it so much harder for me to come up with designs because we were ultimately designing apparel, right? So all of a sudden it became like, hey, we need this collection to really hit to pay off that Amex.

And there's a lot of stress on it because early on, you know, that $1,000 you made on the side is incredible, and you're like, oh, and I had leverage in it in this way, like, that was so good. And then later it's the, well, it has to make at least $1,000 because otherwise we can't make rent. Yes. And, and not only that, but it has to make the same amount of money like next week and the week after. And that's a totally different thing.

I always felt like having no budget can actually be a really great, um, strength in a business because you have to get so creative. Like, the way we would problem solve in the beginning was always like really interesting. It just forced you to come up with things that other people wouldn't think of. And then as the business is growing and you are seeing that money come in, you're like, oh, let's sponsor this event for $10,000 when before we would, you know, always do our booths for free. And were we really thinking through all of the things we should consider with making that sponsorship? So it was kind of, you know, coming to a head where we were spending more and we honestly felt like we were kind of zeroed out financially for how we felt inside too, right?

Okay.

Like, I just feel so incredibly horrible in my body right now. And then also this business we made to make money is like not really making us that much money. Um, and so we, we looked at them, we're like, well, this isn't great. So we put the business on pause, and we had talked to a few people. We were looking at selling it, but at the time, with my health, I was like, I can't imagine doing the transition that's required to properly hand this off, especially in something like a niche community where it is so intertwined. Yeah. Um, we're like, you know what, I think for looking at the value we could sell it for, we would rather maintain the ownership of the brand, um, and just see if it's something that ever like comes back around.

Yeah, if you want to revisit it in the future. There's a quote that I want to get your reaction to. Okay. And that's that rock bottom is a pretty good foundation to build a new life from.

Oh, I love that.

I'm curious what you think.

I love that. I, I think it's so true. Um, I was thinking about this in the car ride over. I was just watching a documentary actually about a cult.

As one does.

As one does. Um, I will watch any cult documentary. Absolutely sign me up. Um, but But to make a long story short, some of the women ended up actually landing in prison for their role in trying to evade the police in the end. And prison was the best thing that ever happened to them because it got them out of the cult mentality. And it was the first time they were able to sit with their thoughts and think about what they really wanted and see right from wrong. And I was like, oh, this is kind of similar to my burnout experience because it was the first time where you had to step back from the business and then go, is this the thing that I want? And what do I really want out of the next thing?

Hmm. Okay. So what did it look like to— because now there's only 7 years between burnout and a million-dollar net worth, which most people would take them far longer than that. Like, if you achieve a million dollars by a net worth by 40, that's like you're way ahead. You know, most of that compounding, that gain comes in like at 50 years old, 60 years old and beyond. So what was the process of rebuilding?

So I think the burnout ended up being around 24, like we were building that business. Yeah.

So maybe even shorter.

Yeah.

Like not to, not to brag too much, but it's not 7 years of stuff.

I was like, I had 7 years to do that. No, most of it was like within the 5-year time period. Yeah. So what I did, practically speaking, was I'm like, I got bills to pay. What's a skill set I can utilize that I already have? So I got 2 social media contracts for businesses I knew and I ran their social media. For about 8 months' time because—

How much were you charging to run those accounts?

Like just under $2,000 maybe each.

So this is like, I get those 2 accounts and then that will cover my expenses.

Yeah.

And like the financial pressure is relieved.

Absolutely. And I wanted to take a little space because I learned from that first business. We just jumped in and kept running. I wanted to really take a beat to say like, what do I actually want to build and what do I want that to look like? So giving myself that time was really helpful and I just kind of optimized the business to a point. I was paying someone else to like do the post. So I was really spending like one morning a week making this content, and then I just had space to think about these things of what do I need to do. A big thing for myself is I know I get bored easily, and so that can be bad in a business. I think a lot of us have experience. Yeah.

So a blessing and a curse.

Absolutely. So I knew I wanted to actually stop running away from that and stop trying to fix it and actually build the boredom into my business. So looking at things like like, um, I started running a group program because we had always built our businesses through social media. So I'm like, I can teach this to people, but I know if I teach it over and over and over again in a cohort, I'm gonna get bored of saying the same thing. So I looked at, okay, do it as a cohort once, and then we're moving it into a course format. So looking at these things of a course, you know, it might take updates, but I can be more and more removed from it, right? So really looking at how can I create a business that actually supports how my brain works and how I like to live my life. And so that was really helpful in changing it. And So I started building the coaching and consulting business, um, and that's what I did. I started with a group program, I moved to some live workshops. The timing of that, um, COVID came around, which you'd think would be bad, but everybody was at home deciding they wanted to start a business. So it was a really interesting experience because I was hosting these live workshops and they took off way more than expected because people were like, oh, I'm realizing maybe my 9-to-5 isn't as stable as people were being laid off and all of that. So I started building the business, and then as we approach this business, I find that we have these really siloed conversations. We have people who talk about health and wellness over here. We have people who talk about building a business over here. And then even within finance, we have the stock market people and we have the real estate investors and the cryptos. I guess that would be the other one.

They're like, don't leave us out.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so I wanted to look at like, how do we build more cohesively? How do I put in the boundaries to actually make sure— that I stay healthy? Because once you've experienced something like that, I'm sure you can relate to that, you don't want to do it again. Um, and then how can I look at finances as the vehicle? So looking at how can the business support both current me and future me, and kind of looking at that under all angles, both the habits, um, the finances, and what I would call like your dream life, or that's the happiness piece really. So with my finances, looking at, okay, what part of the business or maybe the whole business itself is going to fund that stability side, right? How do we make sure my bills are paid? Because I do think for most of us creatives, like, that's a good baseline to have to make sure that we're not making choices that don't necessarily align, or we're panicking and going after the trends instead of what we really want to build. So how can your finances cover that? And then looking at what's going to be the bigger vehicle. And so for us, the bigger vehicles was the investment piece and looking at first buying real estate and then building our stock market portfolio. And so that's really the approach I took. And I think what I didn't realize at the time that now looking back I am really grateful for is realizing that that chapter, it was okay to build something that wasn't necessarily scalable in its current format.

Okay.

And I think with creators we face this a lot, right? You wanna get out of coaching because you either need to build coaches under you or you have to turn it into the courses.

And I remember everyone will tell you like, oh, you're trading time for money, it's not scalable, this will never work.

Right. And you're like, what if I trade time for money but I get paid really well to do it?

And then I trade money for equity, right, through the stock market or real estate or whatever.

Exactly. And so that's what I realized is like, hey, I'm in a phase, especially it being COVID, um, thinking about like in those, those early years, like we were not leaving our home, let alone traveling. So I'm like, if I'm going to be stuck, I can spend a lot more time on calls than I would like in a regular life because I'm barely going outside, let alone like on a plane. Um, so really looking at, okay, what are the things in my business that can be high profit and keep it really lean and move that money into into the next vehicle, really funnel that cash into the investments. And I think that's what a lot of creators and personal brands miss is we're like spending so much energy like I did in the first business on building the business because we think that's how people get the money, right?

Right.

Is at, at the end there's like a little golden pot waiting for us. Um, but looking at how can I actually build that into the business from the start.

Let's go to like revenue versus profit. Cause a lot of creators that I, I see, they're very focused on top line revenue. Because that's a credibility indicator in the space of like, oh, you know, he did $500,000 in revenue last year. She did $1 million. Someone else just, you know, she had a million-dollar launch, you know, or that sort of thing. And then you end up repeating that line over and over again because it gives credibility and, and there's nothing wrong with it. It is you end up optimizing for the wrong thing. It's like in my world, in the software space, the number that people quote or used to quote is headcount. How's business going? Oh great, we went from 50 to 100 people last year. Yeah. You know, and you fi— like you subconsciously optimize, uh, like your brain is like going, oh, so headcount's what, what matters? Okay, we can get more headcount, we can hire more people.

How cool is the office?

Right? Yeah, exactly.

Those kind of things.

All of those things. And so the first like leap that I see these creators make is they realize, oh, I shouldn't optimize for revenue. That matters. It's a key part of the equation, but, but profit and net income is actually what matters more. The leap that I've seen you make is where you go, well, what, what am I doing with that profit? Yeah. And how am I turning that into assets that are going to compound? Because there's all of these creators that, you know, say do $1 million in revenue, do $500,000 or $600,000 in profit a year. And then spend most of it and very little actually makes it into something that builds long-term equity value.

Yeah. And keep in mind, when you're getting into those larger revenue numbers, the team is growing usually too. And a lot of entrepreneurs maybe don't want to manage a team. And I've seen that happen too. I think that can be the entrepreneur trap too. Similarly, the headcount, right? You're like, oh, I have, I have this big team. And then you realize I actually never wanted the big team and I really liked being lean with like an assistant or a few small roles. So I feel like I see people falling into that trap a lot.

Right. Okay. So how do you think about taking the profit in your business and what, you know, gets spent on lifestyle and what gets spent on acquiring assets?

I think the best thing you can do is be excited about your investing goals. Yeah. And so for me, it's really important to find goals that you actually care about and not that you think you're supposed to care about. So for us, we have always loved real estate, so we knew we wanted to buy a property. And so it makes it a lot easier to put that money first towards a down payment and then spend the rest that's left over versus spending first and like slowly saving for that house because we knew like we want to buy this soon. So how do we get there quickly? And then you realize like a lot of the things that we end up spending on in day to day is just stuff.

Right.

Right. And if you're getting closer to that goal, it's similar to hitting the gym, to be honest. Like with a bench press, you know, when like you maybe only added 5 pounds, but it moves so much better and you're like, that small win just feels so good.

I'm all about those 2.5-pound plates. Yeah. Throw those on the barbell. Yeah. It's always a joke. You'll have like, I dunno, deadlift, you know, and you've got a bunch of big 45-pound plates on there and you're like, yeah, but, but that's 2.5.

The little one on the bench.

Cause that gives you the tiny, tiny gain.

And you're like, did you see how it moved?

Yeah, exactly. Um, but what I was thinking about is, or what I heard you saying that is almost that you get to choose where you get your dopamine from.

Absolutely.

And so do you get your dopamine from the trip to the mall and the new handbag or the new iPhone or whatever else, or do you get it from going, hey, we've got a— we're trying to do a $50,000 down payment, and I was able to just get another $2,500 in there and knock it out.

And I think it doesn't— like, sometimes people hear that and they think they have to sacrifice like the little things they like, but the way I would do it is like, let's get to the down payment first, and if I have a really great year in business, I should be able to still buy the iPhone at the end of the year, right? Um, and just making those things the things that excite you the most. And I also like a challenge, so I'm like, if I want to see like like the whole million dollars by 29 was because my mom's boss growing up I knew was a millionaire by 30, and I thought it was the coolest thing. And it was like the closest example when I mentioned like we didn't have a lot of examples of that. And so I just went like, I want to do that. And I thought it seemed so crazy and impossible. And it wasn't until we sat down with something at like 28, I was like, oh, I'm actually gonna do this. Like, I'm gonna do it a year early even. Um, and so for me, that's been a big thing is it forces you to get creative with it. So I do this thing called the Six Solutions Theory, and it's that the theory is there's 6 solutions to every problem you're facing, especially the ones where there feels like there's only one answer. And so I actually got this from a real estate investor where he said he always has 3 exits for a building, and I was like, double it, give it to the next person. Why not? You know, 3 felt easy, right? Because you're like, oh, like rent it, sell it, live in it, whatever, right? Um, so I started looking at everything as how could I come up with 6 solutions to what I wanted to do? So if I want to have a million dollars invested, what's 6 different ways I can do it? And I think most of us can rattle off 3 pretty easily, right?

So for you, what would those 3 be for the million dollars?

Um, well, within the business, right? It could be like, do you take on more coaching clients? Do you raise your rates? Do you launch a membership? Is there a completely different venture that you go off into? Do you choose to go like the super frugal route, like where you're eating ramen noodles for 90 cents and like living with the power off, right? But you can look at all those options to quickly go like, well, those ones don't appeal to me, but these ones do, right? And I find when you do those 6, sometimes it just lets you get out of that box of being like, I might need like a silly kind of crazy idea. And a lot of the times the ways that we've been able to build the wealth is by going like, what if we just did this thing, right? And it feels like the thing you're maybe scared to say out loud because someone else might be like, That's kind of like a weird idea. Like even when we were buying properties, like we didn't go, can we buy a property a year for 3 years? But once we did the first one, I'm like, what if we could do it again next year? Right? And just opening that up makes you go like, okay, well, let's actually look at a plan because if you're never putting it on the table, it's absolutely not going to happen. But if you start to do that thing where you're opening up your eyes to what the other options are, I think it's really helpful and it helps you find the answer that you're excited about. Because a lot of the times, like we were talking about with the headcount, right, you're scaling in a way that you think you're supposed to scale. But when you start to do this and realize, well, here's this thing over here that I actually want, and now I'm realizing there's actually 6 ways I can get there, I don't feel the same pressure to do the traditional way of getting there.

It makes me think of my one semester of art school before I realized that art school was not for me, um, where the one thing they taught us was thumbnailing. Because people would say like, okay, I'm going to I'm gonna, you know, make the sketch or do a painting or whatever else. And so I guess I'm gonna do it like this. And everyone would just start. And so they would make us fold up a piece of paper until it made, I don't know, 10 squares or something like that. And you had to do 10 different, you had to fill every square with a different possible composition. And then you look at, once you had all 10, you're like, getting to 5 was easy. And then you're like, I don't know, what other ways could I look at this? And it was actually really hard to get to 10. And then you'd go, okay, now let me choose one of these. And it was usually one of the later ones.

Yeah.

So it was like, uh, most likely one of the later ones ended up being your solution. Or if it ended up being an early one, you could pursue it with confidence because you've explored every single opportunity. And I actually remember, um, you know, where my career ended up going was into software design and the, uh, designers for, uh, on the iPhone team. Right, doing the iPhone UI, they had a similar rule where they had to create thumbnails of 10 different concepts or how they lay out an interface before they were allowed to pick one and move forward. And so it's exactly like your 6 solutions thing where it's like you have to brainstorm and expand your thinking before you choose one to go all in on.

Yeah. And sometimes it's the one too that you're like, I didn't even think that was an option, right? Is, is that thing that you secretly want? I see that a lot where, you know, people are kind of doing a roundabout way to get the thing they want. I remember talking to someone at an event and she told me, you know, she's going to fashion school and she's going to build up this whole business that eventually can then have a not-for-profit arm off of it to help, um, young women with certain things. And I was like, well, why don't you just build the not-for-profit? Like, if you want to go to a fashion school and build that business, that's fine. But when— what I hear you saying is that that's the thing you're really passionate about, and is there a world where that's what you could build now. And the answer sometimes is yes and sometimes no, but it lets you go, well, okay, let's look at an actual plan for that.

So I want to get specific on how you got to that million-dollar net worth and the investment process in there. So it sounds like you started with real estate. What did it look like to get to the first down payment and, and then the first purchase?

So I'm really big on education too, and one of the things we did actually was my partner got his real estate license after the first business because we knew we wanted to get into real estate. So we're like, what's the closest way to learn. So he got his license and started trading. And so I feel like that alone gave us an in because we better understood like what makes a good offer. Um, we had a good idea of the market. So when we saw a house that was a good opportunity, we knew how to jump on it. So that would be kind of that pre-step one. And then in the business, um, I was focusing on putting all of that revenue, essentially anything that wasn't covering my bills was going towards that down payment. So we purchased the first house and we were really lucky too in that at the time where we lived, real estate really had a spike, which happened for a lot of places during the pandemic. Um, so we built equity very quickly in that property simply by the value going up so much. And so for our second property, we looked at, okay, how do we buy a second property? And one of the things that can make the down payment smaller is if you're willing to move into it. So if it's a new primary. So then we looked at, oh, well, where would we want to live? Because we were doing this dance of, do we buy, you know, some sort rental property and explore doing this. And, you know, a lot of people on the real estate rental side, it's like buy these maybe lower income spaces and navigate that. And we thought, okay, that's going to be a lot as first-time landlords. And so what we looked at, hey, we'd like to move back more central in the city. We were living in the suburbs, so we decided, okay, well, if we move, win-win, we get new life experiences and we can do less of a down payment. And so we actually took money out of the first property So did a, like a cash-out refinance? Yeah, we, because we had the equity that had grown, we were able to pull from it.

Okay.

And so we used that for the down payment on the new house and then also to renovate it slightly before. We just did new paint and new floors. But that was really cool because even though the business revenue was still coming in, we actually didn't really pull from any personal income or business revenue to buy the second property. And then—

And that's an important tweak of saying like, oh, if we move into this house, then— Yes. Then, um, the interest rates are lower, you know, the down payment can often be lower and all that. Yeah, because at least, uh, in the U.S., you get into these categories of, uh, okay, is it single-family or multi-family? You know, multi-family adds interest rate, right? And, uh, you know, is it personal investment? Um, you know, there's all these sort of categories. Yes, that raises the rates and raises the down payment, and they're very favorable to, oh, you want to live there? Okay, Right. Right. We'll give you the easiest option there.

Right. And again, when we look at these lifestyle choices of knowing, hey, we're both building businesses right now, what feels like the lowest lift of a tenant? And so we got a tenant in the first property, but because it was like a suburb home, like it was a home that we loved living in, we knew it would bring in a certain quality of tenant that probably wouldn't be a lot of work. And also that home itself didn't need a lot of work. Yeah. It wouldn't be things breaking down all the time. So we moved into that second property and then we— that was when we were like, we want to do it again next year, but now we're not sure if we're kind of pushing, like, figuring out how to make that happen. And we had always wanted a cottage. So I grew up with a cottage, a family cottage that was passed down, and it was just like so impactful to me and loved having those experiences. And then my partner Josh, he's Filipino, and most of his family had never been to a cottage before. And so we would bring his cousins up to my cottage, and it was really lovely, but my cottage is 3 hours away from where we lived, and so it's not very practical for people, especially doing like shift work and things like that. So we were like, I would love to have a cottage near the city. So again, we started looking at the numbers and asking those questions of like, what's the 6 different ways we could do this? And, you know, I would also suggest leaning on people in that. Like we have a mortgage broker on speed dial. We just call him and he always says like, I love you guys because you ask me the craziest questions because we're like, can you do this? And like, does this work? Is this gray area? Like, okay, but what if we wanted to do it this way? And so that was really helpful because buying a cottage is considered a secondary home.

Yep.

So even though we weren't moving into it, we were once again able to do a smaller down payment and we did it through a private sale as well, which I think we got a really fantastic deal on it because of that, knowing they didn't want to go through, um, the whole process of listing. And then we were able to renovate that. We actually, um, we used like a home equity line of credit.

Yep.

To buy the cottage. So it was almost like buying it cash. Um, in terms of the sale itself, and then we were able to mortgage it after we renovated it.

So get a higher appraisal.

Exactly.

Okay, so what was your active income around the time that you, uh, made the first purchase? And then like, and what was the down payment? How do you save up for it?

The first year I think it was around $250K in revenue at the time, and my business has always stayed very lean. I think I was like traumatized from a product-based business, so it's just like, how do I make everything? I don't want inventory, I don't want all of these things. Um, so I kept a really lean business. I had some savings from before, and then it was really just funneling the money into the down payment, um, myself and my partner. And yeah, I think it was around the $250K mark for that part.

And then, yeah, and then you already talked about how to get the second one using the equity from the first. So you built up the real estate side, and why'd you stop at 3 properties? What was the—

we were starting to push it of like on paper what anyone would approve us for, right? And this is what I was talking about, like learning along the way, you know, finding out like, okay, at what point do you move these into corporate? Like at what point does a corporation buy this? Because also when you are self-employed, especially if you're incorporated, you're paying yourself out a salary. Like we pay a salary just so we could buy real estate, like whatever it was on paper and looking at like, okay, at what point can you not—

you're looking at your investment portfolio and saying like, okay, I'm now overweight in real estate.

Right.

And then, so it sounds like then you turned to the stock market and you set some very specific goals around that.

Yeah. So we were like, okay, this is really great that we have those properties. And we had started just very baseline investing in the stock market. And then a lot of the times what my goals have been is looking at other people and going like, well, that seems cool. And I'm attracted to that. Um, and I, I honestly think it, especially if you don't have those role models and you're learning everything from like the internet or people you're asking questions to, it's not a bad place to start because you can start by shooting for that big number. And then along the way, you're figuring out more and more like, hey, is this actually for me or not? And does this make sense with my goals? Do I actually have to go bigger or smaller or whatever it might be? And so I had a friend that said she was aiming to have $1 million invested. So I just said, okay, me too, I'll do that. Yeah, I'll do that. That sounds good.

Anyway, I love what she's having.

Exactly. Yeah, I was like, that sounds great. Learn more and more about investing through that process. And started really focusing on the investment side of things. And same thing kind of happened. Being so excited about those goals allowed me to really focus on that and not feel the need to have all the extra shopping purchases or things like that.

And then what was the process of like, you know, you're just putting into the S&P 500 index funds and then how much were you compounding each year?

Yeah, primarily. So COVID was also really great for investment portfolios, which is nice. We very much stayed simple. Like, yeah, just anything that's like a safe stock. I was not doing a lot of stock picking or things like that. For me, it's like, okay, $1 million can be the baseline in steady things. And then along the way, looking at the same, we kind of did the same thing of once we started to get closer to that number, we're like, okay, now this is like a lot in stock. Should we explore other things? And we had an angel investment opportunity that kind of landed in our lap. We're like, okay, this is going to be the riskiest one yet. But if it works, you know, it really works. And every time we did this, I really took it as a learning experience of, okay, well, whether we do this angel investment or not, let's go through the process. Let's talk to the accountants. I love using accountants as a resource too because they have clients who do way more interesting things than we do.

They can show you all these different examples.

Yes. And they know how people are doing it in the back end. So looking at like, okay, if we want to do this, what are we looking at? Deciding to make those kind of moves. So we started doing angel investments and crypto, but both of those, it was kind of like, let's put the money in and forget it ever exists, and if it comes back to us, great. And if not, we have to be okay with that being more of a high risk, might go down the toilet.

So I'm curious about how you think, you know, you have your revenue coming in and the profit, you get to choose to allocate that profit to lifestyle, uh, or to investments of some kind. And then obviously within investments, it could go to a bunch of different places. I think it's a hard thing where people don't know how much, like maybe they heard growing up, like, you know, if you invest 10% of your income, you're doing great, you know. And that might make sense if you're making $75,000 a year and your living expenses like come all the way up and you're like, okay, I just need to get this up to 10%. But when you're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, then obviously there's a different level to to it. So how do you think about like what goes into lifestyle and what goes into investments?

We always start with like the base expenses. So what is the rent or the mortgage, bills, if you have dependents, things like that. What's like that baseline month to month of living? Always making sure the money's going to that first. And then when you look at what's left over, deciding really what you're comfortable with timeline-wise. So if you want to go fast, then you're going to put a much larger percentage of that towards the investments. If you have maybe some other big things happening in your life, like, um, maybe it is the year you're having kids, right? Maybe you want more budget for that. Adjusting and thinking about that timeline as how you pick the percentage. Because as much as I would love to give like rule of thumb, I feel like my whole, my whole being is like, it depends for everyone. Yeah. Like that's the point I want to get across to people. A great example is when we hit, um, um, I think it was when we hit the million invested. My— there was one point where my partner said, okay, if we invest $30K for the next 8 years, we'll have $2.5 million invested by 40 if the stock market continues as, as averages. Um, and I said, okay, well, how much is that like total? And so it was around like $240K, like give or take, because we're talking about like compounding every year. And so I went, okay, Okay, well, I'm just going to do that. And so I just went, okay, could I do that in 2 years? And so I really zeroed in on that, and I actually did it last year in 1 year.

Congrats.

But thank you. But that's an example where, um, it's the timeline you're working with, and it doesn't mean— again, I was like eating noodles, but it forced me to get creative. Well, if you want to invest $240K in the next 2 years, you have to be making more revenue in the business, and you have to keep the business profitable. So I think always looking at like what's the route that feels good to you, because for him, he is more the person that's like, I think we could pull off between the two of us like $30K a year for 8 years. Like, that feels pretty fair with what we've done before. Um, but for me, I'd rather get it out of the way because if I know I have that locked in, it makes me feel more secure in my future. And it means that the decisions I make with where I take my business can now be based on where I truly want to take it and not just necessarily being like, okay, well, I have to do a few more things to get that extra investment money or whatever it might be.

What I, and what I'm realizing that you're doing is you're solving or you're putting the entire math equation in front of you.

Mm-hmm.

And a lot of people say like, well, here's a few inputs and we'll see what comes out the other end and how long that takes. And you know, that's interesting to know, but what you're doing is you're like, no, I have a specific dollar amount. Mm-hmm. And then a year that I would like that to happen in. And so then you're like, okay, what do I need to make an income? What do I need to save? And then you get to the point where you're like, like, okay, maybe that's cutting it a little too close. And so instead of pulling this off in 3 years, we'll pull it off in 5, right? And that's fine. But it's like looking at every equation in there, yeah, and how it ties into your goal.

And I think it's how you can look after that current you and the future you. Um, I had an interesting conversation recently with someone where they asked if I set goals for the year, and I had this hesitancy because it was a space of a room of people who set big goals, right? And I'm like, ah, like, not really. But what I realized that works really well for me is these like big scary goals. That is the like $2.5 million invested by 40. And then the competitive, like self-competitive person in me goes like, how can I get there faster? And so instead of going, you know, okay, I need to be here by the end of the year if I want to stay on track to hit that goal, it— I'm really someone that's like, it doesn't really matter where I am at the end of this year or next year if I'm going for that big goal, because I could be in one place in 5 years or in 1 year. But just looking at like, how do I want to get to that end goal? And then it forces you to get creative. So another example we were talking about with him was with followers. It's like, I know that I want 50K followers to just kind of like look more legit online for a lot of these rooms that you're in. And so he's like, you know, is it a good goal to hit 10K by the end of this year? And I'm like, okay, sure. But like also the actions we're going to take to hit 10K might actually feel a little bit smaller, right? Like the team knows they could probably get there. So we're operating in a bit more of a comfortable zone. But if we just went, hey team, we want to go to 50K 50, like we want to get to 50, then you start to go, well, like, oh, well, if we're under $10K, like, how are we going to do that? And it forces that creative problem solving. And I think that's something that's really been helpful to me, um, is using that creative problem solving. Because then you're— it's, it's the 50 you care about. Who cares if you're at $10K at the end of this year? Because you could hit $10K 2 years from now, but then hit $50K a month later because you changed how you're approaching it, right?

You know what's so interesting is almost every creator that I talk I talk to sets goals and you know, you know, nearly all of them set goals around revenue. Mm-hmm. Some set goals around profit. Very, very few, probably 1% of the creators I talk to set goals around net worth or investable, like invested assets. Mm-hmm. And I think it's such an important pivot to make, uh, for two reasons. One, the revenue you have to keep hitting every single year.

Yeah.

The invested assets, they're going to start compounding. So long as you don't touch that, it's going to keep working for you. And then the other thing is it's going to— you're optimizing for the goal that will truly serve you, and it's the goal that lets you step off the hamster wheel at any time. Like, how do you think about that?

So when I burnt out building my business, it really made me face the identity piece. I loved being not only an entrepreneur, I loved being a young entrepreneur. Like, something about that, I was like, I'm so cool for this. You know, you're like, this is such a cool thing because That's often the people you looked up to, right?

I remember someone calling me precocious and I was like, I don't know what that means. And I looked it up and it was basically like, you know, doing things at such a young age and all that. And that was exactly me. Like at 22, at 24, all of the, and everyone would always say like, oh yeah, you're, he's done all of this and he's only whatever age. They don't say that to me quite so much anymore.

I think when the gray hair kicked in, they're like, come on, get it together at your age. You know that Kevin Hart clip with Don Cheadle and he says how old he is and Kevin Hart's like, damn. Like, it's that energy. Yeah, exactly. Um, but yeah, I, I love being a young entrepreneur and I love being a strong powerlifter. And so when I burnt out, it felt like both of those things—

oh, your identity—

were going away. Yeah.

Because a lot of entrepreneurs say, like, I think I've heard Tim Ferriss say this, of like, you should have, you know, your business goals, and then separately you should have like your health or fitness goals, because you're going to have a terrible day in your business, but you might have a great day. And like, you can play these two off of each other.

Yeah. So when they both fall apart, you're like, I was doing the thing. Yeah. And then my personal brand and what I was known for was a combination of those two things. So you're like, okay, that's cool. Like, that's just a little pressure.

Who needed an identity anyway?

Yeah, yeah, who needs it? And so in that period, I got really comfortable with like having no professional identity, just in conversations. Like, if people said, what did you do for work? I'd be like, marketing. I was like, I don't need to be a certain person. I'm going to lean into like what makes me me outside of both of those things, right? Because it's so easy for us to like fall into the labels and love the labels. Um, but I think the identity piece piece is a really big part of it. So when I was able to look at separating that identity, I think that's been one of the most powerful things in the chapters that followed for me. Because when everything is not tied to the identity piece, especially around your business, it lets you actually look at— to your point— what do I actually want, right? A lot of us got into business, yes, we want to have impact in the business we're building, but we also have those personal goals, right? We maybe want the house on the water, maybe we want the yacht, whatever it might be. We want to be able to be completely logged often traveling the world with her family. Everyone has those things that we want later. And so if you can really look at that is actually the goal and what are those different paths to get there, it really just keeps opening it up. So revenue is a great example where identity does get so tied into it. And one of my favorite things is when creator— bigger creators do these revenue breakdowns at the end of the year, and we see often there's a year where the revenue goes up but the expenses like massively jump because of what it took to get there. And often coming out of that year, they go like, I don't want to do that again because it wasn't very fun. It was exhausting, and I'm actually landing in the same spot, or maybe not further. And sometimes that is just the risk that you have to take when you want to build something massive. So I think there's always an asterisk here of like, if you are building a massive company, like, there is going to be those high expenses, and that is going to be— there's years of that. But I think for a lot of people, they got into it of like, hey, I can have this lighthearted creator business where I get to reap the benefits from it and have this future life life, but how can we actually like get that feeling now, and how can we find different ways to get it? And for me, the net worth has been such an interesting way to look at it because even we're looking at right now, like 2 years from now, we could probably pull fully between stock markets, the long-term tenants, and what the short-term rental can do. We can cover a comfortable lifestyle, right? So then it—

you're financially independent at that point.

Yeah, it lets me look at, okay, well then what do I want to build, and what's like the message I want to put out in the world? And it lets me now build this thing without it being so risk involved.

Yeah. Okay, so one of my biggest pet peeves in business is the hustle bro who has built, hustled their way all the way up to massive success and then goes around preaching like, you know what, actually you don't need to, you don't need to work that hard, balance is a better answer, like, I wish I'd done things differently. And it's like, you can say all of that because you're $10 million, with your $10 million, right? Like You built the business, the brand, the content, the following, whatever. And so now you can be like, you know, I'm just all about relaxation and, uh, you know, I don't know.

Mm-hmm.

And I, I think it, I, it's both a helpful and harmful message cuz there's an element of truth to it. Mm-hmm. But it's also like coming from someone where it's like, that is not how you got any of your success. Mm-hmm. Yours is interesting because you have some of this message of of, hey, maybe hustle is not the only way to do it. You're like, I've done it to an extent. Mm-hmm. But what I think is fascinating about your story is that you built really your whole empire. You, you learned a lot of skills through hustle.

Yeah. With the first business.

With the first business. And you paid the price. Mm-hmm. Um, and, but those skills have compounded over a long period of time. Um, but the, the net worth was all built post.

Yeah.

You know, it was all built under these new rules, you know?

Yes.

And so, yeah, what were those rules? Like, how do you think about the way that you build versus, you know, like in 2.0 versus 1.0?

Yeah, I think a big thing is like you don't necessarily have to lower the ambition, because I totally agree when we hear people say that, we're like, okay, yeah, but that's how you got to where you were, right?

Right.

Um, and I I think they're always a proof point that like the health and happiness does matter because they come out the other side and they go like, whoa, nobody else do that. They're just maybe telling you like, don't do it, but I'm sitting here in my pool of money.

I wish I'd learned that when I was still in my first marriage.

Right, right. That's the big thing we see at the front of the rooms, right? It's like the 3 times divorced and they're telling you, here's how to build the business. And it's like, well, what if I don't want to end up in that place, right? Um, so I think for me it's like realizing that there's seasons to everything. And I think we get like afraid of that. And it comes into that identity piece too. We either are ambitious or we're not. We're lazy or we're not, right? And we self-identify that way. And maybe we also like judge it in others, and it's always that mirror of like, oh, that person's like lazy, this person's successful. Um, and we really look at this like identity piece of it. But if we can see everything in seasons and look at, you know, whether you want to call it work-life balance, work-life harmony, whatever you want to call it— I just call it life. Um, but looking at that can have seasons too. So for me, it doesn't mean that I'm like just always like chilling and like not working very hard. There's just seasons of that. So an example being in 2021, um, I decided to really dial up the coaching business. And so that actually, you could say I was hustling, but the difference is I put in the boundaries. So I got comfortable with what do I need from the health side, how do I use habits to have these boundaries. And habits can look like going to the gym and drinking your water, and I think those are really key habits. But habits can also be learning how to delegate 8, right? Learning how to ask for help and like being someone who asks for help, that is like a habit that we have to practice, right? So I think if you can put those boundaries on the work, you can still have these seasons of hustle. The key is it's a season, right? So 2021, I took on an absurd amount of coaching clients because I was like, I'm sitting home alone, this is sad, I don't even get to see my family, right? Um, so I took on way more clients. And then the next year I went, that was a lot, but I knew it was going to be a lot, but now I'm going to I'm going to have no clients for the entire year, and I'm going to go renovate this cottage in the woods with my hands. I'm going to learn to drywall and paint because that's what I want to do, have that trade-off. And I think a lot of the conversation, we think of this like everyday balance of now I also have to meditate and go to the gym and like do all these things to take care of myself. But you can also sprint and then just make sure that there's something that comes after that. So I love— like, I haven't worked a December in a very long time because often for November and December I take it off because I do still like to sprint in some ways through the year. But then in December, we were in the Philippines and Singapore and just doing like absolutely nothing. So I think finding that balance in like these longer seasons and acknowledging that you might have a season where you do feel more ambitious, you feel more driven, and then you might have a season where you want to take it easy. And that's where the full picture, like net worth side of things, is really helpful because you can go, okay, well actually, if I had to pull from my stocks right now, I could. But if you're only ever in the hustle mode, you get in this stuck position where you have to keep going.

Well, and as you were saying, of like being okay if revenue declines in a given year because your net worth didn't decline.

Mm-hmm.

And you're just saying, oh, I contributed less. I, I bought fewer investable assets this year than I did last year. Mm-hmm. But I still have, you know, I still have more than I did and those are working for you and those are compounding. Um, I've got family friends who they both had successful professional careers. So I don't know, maybe 5 years after they got married, they decided they wanted to take investing and, you know, their net worth seriously. And so they pulled their expenses down to the smallest possible amount they could, and then they took both their— one worked in IT and the other worked in accounting— and they took both of their salaries and said, we're taking taking absolutely everything we can. And we are putting all of our active income into buying investment properties. And then their rule was, they once they got to the point that their passive, their investment income matched, like met their expenses, then they're like, okay, we can only live off of our passive income. And our active income is the only goes to buying more investable assets. And so every time they'd be like, I think I want We want to like buy a new car, inflate our lifestyle in some way. It's like, okay, well figure out how to get that much more in passive income so that you can do it. And they, I mean, they compounded with normal jobs. They compounded their wealth in an astronomical way.

Yeah.

Uh, because they just said no, the, like they inverted the normal methodology.

Yeah. And that's where I, I look at it as like the habits make you actually able to like do the building and enjoy it after the fact. Because we've all been there where we've seen people build these massive things and not be okay. Right. But the finance, it's the two vehicles you're talking about. Right? One of those vehicles is going towards the bills and then deciding, okay, what's going to be the vehicle that's going to build this other thing? And sometimes we can just do it in a smarter way and it doesn't mean they had to work harder or differently, right?

So there's this idea that, you know, maybe ambition and results is on one side and balance is on the other, right? We have these, these binary scales and you're like, you got to choose where in there is right for you. Or, you know, in this case where you're saying like, okay, if you want more balance in life, then you need to set smaller goals or extend the timeline. You've put these constraints in and said, actually, to some extent, I can have it all. That's what I feel like. I don't think in avoiding burnout and putting constraints in, I don't think you slowed down your wealth acceleration journey, which everyone would— like, common sense would say that you would have to. Right. Like, what are the constraints that you put in and how did you not make it a trade-off?

I think it really is about that creative problem solving. So one thing I love to do whenever you have a goal is this thing called the toddler test. Okay. And like, you know how a toddler asks you why, why, why? It's like, why is this sky blue? I'm sure you're very familiar.

I'm very familiar, yes.

We want to do that to ourselves. So when you have a goal or when I have a goal, I think about, well, why do I want that? What do I really mean by that? And if we can keep going a layer and a layer down until we feel like we're at the root, reason we want something, then that's where we can actually have a conversation. So that, that could be a goal too that you're maybe like not acting on and you're not sure why you're— you think you want this thing, but you're like, I'm really not taking the steps in the direction. Like, am I scared or what is it? We can get to the root of it. And same with something that you're really chasing. Maybe you get there too and it's not that satisfying. It's like, well, did you actually want that thing or was it someone else's? Right. Um, so when you get all the way to the root, one of three things will happen. In one scenario, you realize like, I actually don't care about this goal at all, right? Maybe this was someone else's goal. Maybe you're similar to me where you see someone else's like million-dollar goal and I go, okay, I want that. And sometimes that works and sometimes we realize, oh, I was just doing that because, you know, I saw Nathan Barry doing it and he's a successful person. So I thought that's the thing I should want. Right? So sometimes we realize like, oh, I don't actually care about the surface level goal here. And then in that scenario, you get to make a new goal, which is exciting. In the second scenario, it's more of that 6 solutions path where you realize, okay, Okay, now that I understand what's underneath this goal, I can actually realize there's different ways to get here. So if I want that financial freedom, it could still be building the business the way that I'm building, but maybe it's buying these assets or flipping these properties or doing these other things or focusing on my stock investments. Um, or maybe it's a different business idea, right? Maybe we're just already in the motions of one business, so we think like that's the way we have to go. But if we're really looking at the root of what we want, it opens up those doors. And then in the third scenario, you're like, actually, hell yeah, like, I, I am really excited about this goal, but I have that deeper understanding. Maybe we've reconnected with the why behind it, and often that person can go like further faster because they feel so passionate about it. But then those first two scenarios, you can start to explore what is the goal that you actually want. And I think it's such an important process to come back to over and over, because sometimes too we did want the goal, right? But then when we actually get like real about what's underneath it, maybe it's an identity piece, maybe it's a security piece, and then that's where you can start letting go. And I think that's the thing I've been able to do You know, we were talking privately about, you know, being in rooms where there's really big revenue numbers and people are talking about the ways they're growing every year. And I don't make my revenue grow linear, like it's not, um, a non-negotiable for me. My non-negotiable is that I'm having fun in my business because I know how it feels, how to not. So that for me is actually the priority. And for me, it's okay if a year is less revenue because I probably intentionally took the time to go renovate the cottage or do something like that. But so much of that comes back to that identity piece of like, can you let go and look at what's the thing that you actually want?

Underneath. Yeah. And I think those constraints, when you clearly identify what you want and then you put constraints around how you're going to get there, I think it actually really helps.

Yeah.

Because there's so many aspects. I mean, I think about this in the goals that I have for Kit and how I'm growing the business. There's a, there's a ton of ways to accomplish any goal. And if you say like, oh, I have to, um, be home this much for my family, I have to do all, you know, yeah, then I have to choose, okay, these are the events that I'm going to go travel to, you know. I, I start to say no to the average opportunities that would drive the business forward, and I only say yes to the best opportunities, which tends to make other great opportunities come along, right? And so I like recalibrate in this way. And there's things where it's like, oh, if we're just maximizing output, then I would do all these things myself. But because I have constraints around it, I can't do it myself. And so I guess, guess I'm going to have to spend some money and hire a person to do that. And then it's like, oh wait, and they did it better than I did. Okay, so the constraint actually totally Totally. You know, gave me much bigger results.

I kind of look at 3 categories in my mind, one being the non-negotiables. Um, so this can be things like the family time, and I think it's important to clarify what that is, because if we say I want to spend time with my family, that can look very different from Parent A to Parent B, right? So figuring out like what pieces of that is important— is it a certain amount of hours per week? Is it doing the bath time at night, right? Like figuring out specifically what those non-negotiables are. Um, and for me too, I love to do like a, a quick exercise of like thinking of your day in the life in like 2050 or whatever it might be. And when you wake up, like how do you feel in the morning, right? Like who's around you? And really focusing on that feeling I think is so important. And similarly to how I was talking about, we can go in a circle for goals. Usually we can have that feeling in our current, right? I wanna feel light or I wanna feel like I'm having fun or I wanna feel at peace. Okay, well the non-negotiable is how we can make sure that we keep that feeling now because we don't know that we're going to get there later, right? Things happen, unfortunately, to people. So we might as well get that feeling now. And I think it's, again, a good challenge to be like, I think I have to do all of this stuff to get to that feeling. But is there micro ways I could pull in that feeling of peace, right? Maybe peace for you is a Saturday morning with a book. And so we're bringing that into our everyday life with those non-negotiables. And then we have our nice-to-haves. Haves. So the nice to haves give you wiggle room, and the nice to haves exist so that the non-negotiables like truly stay non-negotiable. Because I think we've all done that, especially in the new year. We're like, here's all the habits I'm gonna do and they're not negotiable, and then we start negotiating them, right? So the nice to haves is that wiggle room. And for some people, maybe that feeling you want later actually falls in a nice to have. Maybe there's seasons of that feeling right now. Maybe it's not all the time. Like maybe you're not going to feel at peace when you're hosting Craft and Commerce, right? Like that might be a season where not necessarily a prevalent feeling. Um, but the nice-to-haves are things where you're like, in the ideal world, this is what's happening, but I'm okay with sometimes it not being there. Really working with those seasons. And then the third category is really where we can find those other ways to growth, and it's treating things like an experiment. So like, that's also been a big theme for me, is just asking, you know, what would happen if, and going from there. And I think we do so much out of shame, you know, I should go to the gym more, I should grow my business this way, I should hire for this, and we don't do enough out of curiosity. And curiosity-induced stuff is just way more fun, and it's also a lot less stressful because it feels like we're just, you know, a scientist testing a theory, and it feels less like that identity piece. So if you're like, well, what would happen if I tried to get a million followers on Instagram? What would happen if I wanted to build this thing? And letting yourself experiment in that phase, that's really where we can like send it to the moon but not burn out because we have those non-negotiables in nice to-haves.

You have this like lightness and joy and playfulness to the way that you approach the business that I think is so different from so many people I talk to who are like, I have to make sure that revenue this year is at least 5% higher than revenue last year. And the thing that I think makes this difference is that you have this nest egg. Like, you know, you have the now over a million dollars in invested assets that like your worst-case scenario is pretty well protected. How do you think about the downside, and how has that enabled you to live differently?

Yeah, you know, it's so funny. One time I posted a story and I was like, I think I've cured my scarcity. And people were like, oh my God, what was it? And I was like, oh, I just like got a lot of money.

But you, you, you got a lot of money and then you kept your lifestyle low. Like, you're not— that's another big thing. People often say they look at all this money and they're like, oh, I want to be rich so that I can— and they list off all of these things. Well, whether it's planes or handbags or yachts or whatever. You're starting to sound like that Taylor Swift song about, you know, your Balenciaga shades, you know, but, um, and it's like, no, those are, those are all signs of spending money, but actually having the money is a very quiet thing to do. Right. And so what you're talking about is the signs of, no, I have the money as the nest egg, as the growing assets. And that's a very different thing.

Yeah. And I think too, like, I, I believe our generation is more attracted to like work optional versus is like this idea of like, I'm retiring and you're never going to see me again, because a lot of us do want to have that impact and we want to have that personal fulfillment. We've seen it a lot in the, the financial, like FIRE, Financial Independence, Retire Early community, where people like get lost and bored, right? It's the same after people sell a business. They don't know who they are anymore. And so I think having that nest egg is something that I craved so much in picking a non-traditional career. And so to build it for myself truly has has been anytime, you know, I'm getting nervous about what I'm building or I'm not sure about which direction to take, it's like coming back to that, well, you are going to be good because you've made these other decisions for future you. And that gives me a lot of power to decide where I want to take things. Um, it lets me say no to things, it lets me keep those boundaries, and it just, to your point, lets me keep this playfulness in the business. Yeah.

And then you could say like, you know what, I want to renovate a cottage, and I'm going to take a step back and go do that.

Yes, and even writing a book, that's something that's on the radar for me that I've always wanted to do. And I've had so many friends that have had very interesting experiences writing a book where, you know, it kind of takes over your whole life. And if you're not ready for it, they can sometimes be grieving like where their business was at and this thing kind of, you know, self-imploded because they're trying to meet the book deadlines. And that's something where I feel like as I move into that, I'm like, I can have space to like take 2 years to write the book. And if I know what I need and I know that that season can be, hey, we're going to live off like tighter expenses but pull it from stocks, then it can be that.

I feel like you do such a good job of being a public role model for a different way of building businesses. That's what's been so impactful for me is like not growing up around money or people who talked about this is just saying like, oh wait, random people on the internet will share, you know, all of these details. So thank you for sharing your whole journey and being willing to talk through the exact numbers. If people want to follow more of what you're doing in the like, ooh, I like this.

Yeah, yeah.

Not only this creator, but I like this life philosophy. I'll subscribe to that. Where should they go to check out more of what you're doing, what you're building next?

Instagram's always my main platform, @maloryrowan, but I'm really excited. We're building a membership community space called The Fund Club, and this is where we're going to continue these conversations. So it's going to be a place for both entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs to come together to have these creative money conversations, to say, hey, what are you guys doing differently? What should I do with what to do with this money that's just sitting. And we'll be bringing in experts who have done really cool different things to say like, hey, we have friends, you know, they travel full-time through content creation. So how are they doing that? And it's going to be one of those spaces where I just want people to hear a certain strategy and it has that moment where it clicks and you're like, I can do that.

I'll have what she's having.

I'll have what she's having. So I'm basically making a formalized version of I'll Have What She's Having. So we have a waitlist right now if people want to sign up. Everything's available through my Instagram.

That sounds good. All right, we'll go follow you on Instagram. And Mallory, thanks so much for coming on.

Thanks for having me.

If you enjoyed this episode, go to YouTube and search The Nathan Barry Show, then hit subscribe and make sure to like the video and drop a comment. I'd love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were and also just who else you think we should have on the show. Thank you so much for listening.