DON'T Start A Side Hustle, Do This Instead!

Belief systems are the only thing that keep people from what they want. It's always so being more aware of, like, what are my beliefs? How can I change my beliefs? Studying it. It's a skill. You can literally change the way your mind works and start believing that you deserve more.

When I was growing up, everybody used to tell me all the time, they just said, you know, if you're wealthy, you're going to be evil. In fact, my dad talk about my men, my first mentor, like, he was like some bad guy. And lo and behold, he's the guy that actually changed my life. So one of the things I want to lead off with is I want to understand from your perspective why wealth isn't evil. Because I feel like a lot of people are scared to really lean into creating wealth, scared to lean into creating passive income, you know, because of they're thinking about judgment or whatever. I'm curious, from your two cents now that you've obviously become super successful and helped a lot of other people do the same thing, what are you seeing?

Yeah, well, I mean, that's a good question. I haven't been asked that before. You know, wealth and money is just a tool. Tool can be used for evil. It can be used for good. It's really in whose hands, you know, decides what it's used for. So money is power. It's the power to make things happen and to move things and buy things and all that kind of stuff. So I just see it as a tool.

It's neither good nor evil. And really, it all comes down to the individual. And also, one of the things I want to talk about is, part of what I talk about in my book is that there needs to be a new definition of what wealth is. And so I have. I have a different philosophy around wealth that also includes money, of course, but it's way beyond just money.

Yeah, no, that's so good. In fact, for you guys who don't know, this is the amazing book he's talking about right here. So, yeah, we're gonna. We're gonna hit that a little bit hard, because don't start a side hustle when everybody else and their brother on Instagram and social media is like, everybody, go start a side hustle.

Go.

Go sell lemonade. Go mow grass. Go do this, go do that. Here comes along Brian, Mr. Passive Genius. Like, passive renewer, let's make this happen kind of thing. No, I loved it. In fact, one of the things that I took away from the book was definition of wealth that you had. And I'M a paraphrase a little bit. Was the abundance or the is the abundance of passive income? Yeah, right. Talk to me about passive income versus active income. How are they different? How are they more important? Which one gives you more time, space, all that kind of stuff?

Well, one of the. That's one of the elements is passive income. I'll explain the other two in a minute. But the reason I wrote the book called Don't Start a side Hustle is because nowadays the culture is all focused on hustle, grind, work harder, hustle, like, work outwork everybody, that kind of stuff. And that's not been my experience. It's not been my path to wealth. I mean, there have been times I've worked very hard. But I think that the problem with that thinking is that you equate money and wealth and income to your own efforts. And when you do that, everything is linear, everything's tied to you. And if you can be making money that is not tied to your direct efforts, then there's no limit. There's no limit because it's not limited by your time, it's not limited by your efforts, it's not limited by your hustle. And so I think nowadays entrepreneurs are working more hours than they ever have before. Nine to fivers are working themselves to death, and now we're supposed to go do a side hustle on the side. I mean, this is crazy. So the difference between a side hustle and passive income is that there is no hustle in a passive income. By definition, for it to be passive means that if you stop working on it, it still continues to produce income. You may have to set it up, you may have to buy the asset or something, but once it's set up, it is passive or almost entirely passive. So that's one of the things that I teach in this book and one of the things I'm passionate about, because I've done it for myself and I've met so many other passivepreneurs. Now, even though that's not what they call themselves. And I want to bring this to the world and share that there's a different way, as outrageous as it sounds, to create passive income.

Yeah. Well, let's talk about the passivepreneur.

Right?

What is the identity of a passivepreneur? How do you see that passivepreneur shaping up? What type of attributes do they exhibit?

Well, if they're anything like me, I have this story of there's been times throughout my life that I've worked jobs, especially when I was younger, I'VE been either fired from or quit almost every job I've ever had. So I have always said that I'm unemployable, whether for good or for bad. So I was always a natural born entrepreneur. But I think that being an entrepreneur, entrepreneurs oftentimes are. They're elevated to a status somehow above 9 to 5 people. WT people. And they also sometimes can look down on people that have jobs, are employed by other people. But the ironic thing is that the average entrepreneur does not make more money, very little more money than a 9 to Fiverr. So the average entrepreneur right now, as of 2021, makes $74,000 a year. So the average entrepreneur is not getting rich. And trust me, if you divided the number of hours they work into their salary and what they make in a year, they're working for a lot less than the guy who goes 40, 50 hours a week at his job. So I think we should think about that. Maybe there's another level on top of that, and that is passivepreneur. And one of the people that talk about this early on, many years ago, of course, is Robert Kiyosaki with rich dad, poor dad. And he talks about the difference between the rich and the middle class. And the poor is that the rich buy assets and the poor and middle class buy. Buy liabilities, and they don't buy assets. But I would, I would argue that there's a. There's several steps beyond that, because you don't have to buy assets to become wealthy. You can actually create assets from nothing. And you can also leverage other people's assets ethically in order to create your own cash flow. So I talk about that in the book that there's. You can own, create, or control assets in order to become a passivepreneur.

I'm so glad you're actually bringing this to the marketplace. I actually think it's been overdue for a while. You know, it's. It's been interesting getting, you know, getting to know each other and becoming friends along the way and stuff like that. Not only do you find another brother, right, who's. Who's also trying to make a difference in the world through positive, positive impact. But you've actually challenged me, and you don't even know it. So I'm gonna tell you right now how.

You tell me.

Okay? All right. So you know that, you know that I own multiple businesses, and you know that most of those businesses are pretty successful. And yes, what you don't know is I work, on average still to this day, 70 to 80 hours a week.

Okay. Now, so I'm so, I'm touching the sore spot here.

Yeah, you're such a sore spot. Meanwhile, you know, I chit chat. Hey, Brian, let's have a meeting at 4:30. Sorry, dude, I'm off at 4. Like, no, but we gotta, we gotta plan this. Look, he's like, it's, it's, it's a commitment I made to myself and my family. I'm off at 4.

Yeah. Like, I'm so not available on the weekends. My team that don't touch me on the weekends, I'm not even available.

Yeah, well, the crazy part is that I bet it's, I bet it's freeing for them too.

It is freeing for them because they're work, they're used to working around the clock and for other companies before they came onto my company. But you know, it's what I do by now, now is by choice. Everything I do is 100% choice. And that, and that's really. If I can go back to my definition of wealth. Wealth is three things. Okay. My definition is, it's a, it's a, it's a combination of passive income, discretionary time, and free choice. Those are the three things that make up. So in other words, if I broke it down for you, passive income is defined as cash flow that requires nearly no effort of your own to create or maintain. Discretionary time is the number of hours you have available each day to spend as you see fit. Not for obligations. But you can do whatever you choose. How many hours per day do you have to do that? And then free choice is the amount of agency that you have to do whatever you want to do and be whatever you want to have and all that kind of stuff. So it's choice income and time.

Yeah.

And unfortunately, most of us are time bankrupt. So we may have a lot of money, we may have a lot high income, but we have no cushion, we have no spread, we have no availability in our schedule to just do things like play. I mean, when was the last time you played? I had this conversation with an entrepreneur recently, a friend of mine who's, you know, makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year. And I was like, when was the last time you just had fun? He's like, well, you know, I'm always going to this and going to that. And they're like, no, you're not. Business networking events was the last time you just played, had fun, did nothing that had to do with business? He's like, I don't even know.

I'M hanging out with him. You might even be talking about me by accident.

You know what I'm saying? But, but, you know, so that's, so that's kind of the idea is that, like, if you take somebody that, that is working 80 hours, 90. 90 hours a week, and they just have so much stress and, and, you know, maybe these other, all these kind of strains on their life, but they're making bank.

Yeah.

Is that guy as more wealthy than the guy who has, you know, a very nice income, very nice lifestyle and does almost nothing to maintain it?

Yeah.

Well, that's my argument.

Now.

Some people, they love the hustle. They're addicted to the hustle. And I get it. Some people are just like, you know, elon Musk doesn't stop. He's never going to stop. He's not about the billions he could stop.

I think it's because it's not. It's because he's not hu. Hustling to making. He's not hustling to make money. He's. He's hustling to make a dream come true. Like it's a dream.

He's got a vision. Yeah. Vision drives him. But for a lot of people, I call this the Powerball question. I talk about this in the book. The Powerball question is, if tomorrow you woke up and won the Powerball lottery, would you go into work? And for most people, the answer is, well, heck, no, I wouldn't go into work. Well, then that's an indication that you're spending your time, you're spending your life doing something that's not worthwhile to you.

That is so good.

And so if you're making your money at your job or your business, you're running a business, what if that could be completely eliminated and it could become from another source, what gives you all your time back? So now you can go do the passions that you want to pursue and do the things that you want to do with, with your life. And I think people don't realize that's possible, so they just stay in the grind that they're in, whether it's a job or an entrepreneur or whatever. And they never. Because as an entrepreneur, the dream that was sold to me is be an entrepreneur. You can do whatever you want. You're your own boss, you know, and it. But that's not what I mean. All the entrepreneurs I know work their butts off and, and, and all the time, and they have no free time. So, so the dream is not there for most people, but to be truly wealthy the dream is real. And to be truly wealthy means you have a lot of time and money and not. I'm not talking about like, you know, being living the van life and you have no money. You have all the time in the world because you're a bum. I'm not talking about that. I've actually played that game myself for a little while. It was actually pretty fun. But I'm talking about having the money to live the incredible lifestyle that you want and have the time to spend with the people you love, the causes that you care about, to do things that. That might not be super profitable, like writing a book. You know, it's been a dream of mine. It was a dream for most of my life to be an author. And so here I am. And I got to, you know, write this book because I had the time to do it. So, yeah, you know, that's kind of some of the things I'm talking about.

Well, I know for a fact this book's going to touch a lot of people because I do think, I mean, especially in today's economy.

I think, I think everybody dreams of being had, of having financial freedom. I don't know that most people count the cost of becoming financially free or coming or becoming financially free in the normal or historical or tradition, meth, traditional methodology or modality.

Right. Yeah.

Go start a business, work your butt off, build it as you go, deal with team member issues, deal with this, deal with that, all that kind of stuff. I don't. Also don't know. Most of our audience probably knows who you are. Right. You've been in the entrepreneurship circle for a while.

I won't assume so, but maybe. Yeah.

Well, so for those that by some chance don't, one of the things I want to bring up is the fact that you were not teaching something based on theory. You're teaching something based on something you've been doing for almost a decade now.

Yeah.

So walk us back to the beginning. Yeah, we'll walk us back to the beginning. Tell us how you discovered that.

Okay, so let's go back to the beginning because my, you know, like early, early on in high school, I got involved in network marketing companies. Never made a dime, but I was all like, I had a lot of books, read a lot of books. I got a lot. Yeah, I read a lot of books. I got a lot of personal development. I got good at talking to people because you have to, but it was a lot of personal development, but I didn't make any money doing it. But I love the. What they Sold me, which is like one day you can build this whole thing. You have all this passive income and stuff. It didn't work for me there. But then I got very quickly, I got in real estate investing and it worked amazing. And I started buying properties, renting them out, had cash flow, and within a year and a half I was essentially retired. I was a millionaire in my 20s. And I just stopped everything that was doing, didn't have a job anymore, started traveling the world. Everybody was like, how were you doing? All this is amazing. This is so cool. Now I didn't have a big income. I had enough income to cover my lifestyle, but I didn't have a huge income. But that was really awesome because I experienced that total unbelievable freedom that everybody dreams of. It was at a very young age. Then when the 08 crash happened, real estate, I lost everything. I had to go back to crap. Now I'm back to paycheck. To paycheck, had to go get a job. And that really hurts when you've experienced and tasted the freedom or whatever. So I went back to having to get a job. And then because of all that turmoil, a lot of people went through the same turmoil. My credit was ruined. I owed $1.3 million to the IRS, which I couldn't pay. I had foreclosures on my credit. I was essentially like outside the financial system. I mean, it was, it was a horrible, horrible time for me and. And I had to figure out how I could get back to living that passive preneur lifestyle. And so it all came with just a really simple idea, which at the time it was relatively new idea, not a big idea, which was Airbnb. And I took my spare room in the apartment that I was renting. I just listed it on the site. And immediately, within a month or two, I made enough money to pay for all of my living expenses, including my rent and all utilities. I was like, whoa, I just apartment hacked. That was pretty cool. I'm making a lot more money on this little room than I did on my one bedroom units when I used to be a real estate investor. So I started thinking of a way to duplicate that process. So I duplicated it over and over and over again. And then I found a way to fully automate it with virtual assistants and like not do any of the work. And then boom. I was now had a bigger cash flow than I did as a real estate owner. Didn't own anything. I was now controlling. I was controlling properties, assets that weren't mine. So I was a controller and Again, I quit the job, walked away from the job. It was a six figure job, so I was making good money at the time. And then I again hit the road, traveled, lived the jet set life, you know, look like, you know, all those Instagram people, whatever. And people again were like, people again were like, how are you doing all this? Like, you must be really like independently wealthy or something. And I was like, no, I just have enough cash flow to do what I want to do. And so then I got to experience that. I started teaching people how to do that, and then that led into me creating an online course, which I created one time. That course has gone on to sell $16 million since that time. It still makes money to this day, and it teaches people how to do the same thing with Airbnb. And then I launched all kinds of online products and digital, so it created things. So I went from owner to controller to creator, and now I've gone back to owner again because I've reinvested in real estate and bought real estate and all that kind of stuff, so. And bought businesses and everything. So. So that's the idea. There's many ways to do it and you want to kind of stack them, but the idea is that, that I have total 100% choice and I get to do whatever I want and, and, and also just have the time that I want in my life to, to enjoy the money that I have. And that's what I want for everybody.

Yeah. I'm going to ask you a personal question on top of this, if it's cool. It's something that I, that I enjoy. When I was going through, when I was going through some of the pages and reading and there's this quick notes, says, dad, this one's for you.

This one for you. So. So talk to me a little about how your father's influences has played a role in your life of teaching you.

Maybe talking about the forward and the very forward.

Yes, sir.

So that's right there. It says to Dad, I know I'm no Tolkien, but this is for you. So he was a. He was an avid Lord of the Rings fan, obsessed. He passed away last year. And the story opens with. So the book opens with the story of my father and, and on. You know, right before he died, he said that he never got to do the things he wanted to do in life. That was his biggest regret. And I never knew that about my dad because my, if you'd asked me, I would be like, my dad, you know, did everything he wanted to do and he did not do the things he wanted to do with his life. And he regrets that immensely. And that's what they say, people on their deathbed, when they question what, what is your biggest regret? It's almost never, I regret that I did that stupid thing. It's, I regret that I didn't do, I didn't do the thing I wanted to do. You know, international travel might not be your thing, but for me, I wanted to see the world. And yeah, and I was like, if I died without having seen the world, that would have been a huge loss. And for other people it's something else. But like getting the end of your life and thinking, gosh, I didn't do the thing I really, really, really wanted to do. And that, that's a huge regret. And, and everybody's life, I mean, it's going to be here faster than anybody can imagine. You know, our life go, it's just a blink. So, so that he was the inspiration for the book. And also just growing up very, very poor with my parents not having much money and stuff kind of set me up also to want to become wealthy, I think. So it's all outlined there as I talked.

I love it, I love it. Well, and, you know, I think it plays on the next point, which is, which is one of the reasons I wanted to kind of bring it up. Most of us, right, the vast majority of the population is going to settle, settle just in general, they're going to settle, settle for a career they're not meant for, possibly a relationship they're not meant to be in for an identity that is not their created value or their identity and stuff like that. One of my biggest takeaways from this amazing book is the simple fact that it's designed to awaken you from within. It's designed to give you back your dream, designed to give you back your, your hope, your inspiration. But more importantly, a practical methodology on how to get there. Talk to me a little about, about why you think people settle rather than leaning into something that can ultimately transform their life from the inside out.

You know, I, I mean, limiting beliefs are what hold everybody back. I mean, I, I, you know, I can't pretend I don't have them. I mean, I'm always bumping up against them. But being aware, self aware enough to know what you believe is holding you back. So I, I, one of the things I've always preached is what I call radical responsibility. I mean, you've heard this from all the great teachers about taking responsibility for yourself, but most people just simply Won't. So there's this whole idea that, like, a baby has no responsibility and no ability to take any responsibility. Therefore, that's why they're a baby. An adolescent or a child can take responsibility, but chooses not to because they want to assert their independence. Right? But an adult, if you're going to be an adult and you're going to be mature, you have to take 100% responsibility for where you are in your life, even if the circumstances that got you there are not. Were not because of you. Because ultimately, the only thing that will. Will determine a change in your destiny is you making new choices. So because we cannot control the things that happen to us, we can't control our environment. We can control how we respond to our environment. The books we read, the people we listen to, the wisdom that we heed, you know, developing ourselves, those things we can control. So I think. I think limiting beliefs is. Is belief systems are the only thing that keep people from what they want. It's always so being more aware of, like, what are my beliefs? How can I change my beliefs? Studying it, it's a skill. You can literally change the way your mind works and start believing that you deserve more and that you can achieve more and you can do anything if you really believe it's really. You will see it when you believe it. And people always think, well, I got to be inspired first, or I got to find the right opportunity first. I got to do whatever. But it really is like you just believing it when you don't. I mean, that's what faith is. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. So you have to have faith without seeing it. And then miraculously, it starts to happen, and you're like, whoa, that. That didn't exist before until I first saw it in my mind's eye.

Yeah, No, I love that. And I'm so glad you mentioned that, too, because I actually think there's, you know, obviously there's a few forms of belief. There's the limiting belief, the empowering belief, the bridge belief, and all that kind of stuff, which is great. But on the other side of belief, there's this concept of once you do become financially successful, okay, so you put in the work, hopefully you did it wisely. Hopefully you followed more of your rules, less of mine. I did. I did it the hard way. But, you know, you go through that process, you begin to develop wealth, you begin to develop some credibility and even notability in certain marketplaces.

And then all of a sudden, there's a shift that I think that people Evolve through and it goes back to beliefs in that. One of the things I love that you mentioned in the book is not to let your net worth become your self worth. I thought that was really, really, really profound. Someone who used to put a lot of identity in my overall.

Yeah.

So talk to me a little bit about that because I feel like that that's such a profound mic drop moment that needs to seep in everybody's heart.

Thank you. Thank you for that. So, you know, men always want to keep score. I'm not saying that women, it's not important. Some women it is. I don't want to make blanket statements here, but men want to keep score. The easiest way, most objective way to keep score is with money. So we're always looking at net worth and we're thinking about where we should be, where we, where we're not, you know, and it's a trap. It's the, you know, you can fall into the trap of more. And the trap of more is the guy who says, the billionaire who says, how much more money do you need Is like a billion, just another billion. You know, like, it's always like, I don't have enough. I got, you know, so it's like, you know, a mentor of mine once said that if you could go back and talk to the you from five years ago, he or she would be astounded. Like, because your dreams back then, you far exceeded them. Oh, man. So you think about your dreams five years from now and you, you're going to wildly exceed them. And then when you get there five years from now, it still won't be enough. So it's like, so you have to be very careful of falling in that trap of achieving to be happy versus happily achieving. So you're just, you're unattached to where you're going.

You're.

You can be committed to what you're doing, but you're unattached to money. You're unattached to all that kind of stuff. And I think the only reason that I have kind of that unattachment to a degree is because of going through that whole experience of losing it all. So to be a young millionaire, feel like you're the man and you're untouchable and everything you do turns to gold because you happen to be in a real estate market that's going up the moon, you know, and then you lose it all. You're like, who am I? And then you realize, that's really sad that I just put my whole worth in my money. You Know or what I have or whatever. But ultimately, as my dad said, who was the wisest guy I've ever known, he said, you know, there is no prize for being the richest man in the cemetery. So, you know, you're not going to take any of it with you. Just, you know, one way or another that someone else. So, yeah. So you got to think about like that, you know, this is very, very temporary. Everything you have is going to be very temporary. So there's. That's a whole nother discussion. But this life is brief, and what you're going to have is going to be very temporary. And the most important thing, this is the most empowering thing, Steven, is somebody told me one time, don't do it for other people because nobody cares.

Yeah.

Don't. Don't try to do things for other people because you know what? Really nobody cares about anything but themselves. So you're doing it for nobody.

Yeah.

So make sure you do the things for yourself and not for other people. Because.

Your way to being amazing and everybody loves you, but it's just. It's a trap, too.

Yeah. Well, I find that most people that get lost in that are obviously like, really lost in people pleasing.

I was guilty of that.

I used to just give, give and.

Give and give and give and give.

And I. All I got was from other people was, can I have more? Can I have more? Can I have more? And when I said. When I finally started saying no, they're like, what, you don't love me now? I'm like.

I. This is not. Scoggins International is not a bank. Like, it's a media company. Right.

Yeah.

You know, and you start walking through that kind of stuff. I don't know, it's. It's been. I just thought that that statement really was really profound. And I think it gives a good contrast in between limiting beliefs and then not getting your identity lost in the very thing that you're assuming.

It also depends on your philosophy. You know, I mean, I, you know, I have a. A Christian worldview. And, you know, Jesus said a man's worth does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. You know, if the richest people on earth were the most honorable, you know, valuable human beings, that. I mean, we all know that's not true. So, you know, it has nothing to do with that. But. But I do believe that everybody needs money. Everybody needs money to pay their bills. Everybody needs money to live their life. And. And some people want to also get wealthy and that there's nothing wrong with that. But I think that. That tying your identity up in it is a very dangerous place to be because it is. It is not something that is. It's not something trustworthy. Money can. Riches can come and riches can go. A lot of entrepreneurs have known. A lot of the best entrepreneurs and best business leaders have. Have gone broke before they've broken through.

Yeah, most. Most of them, including. I know I have. I know you have.

Yeah, I have. Definitely.

Yeah. I mean, I know Grant has. I mean, there's been a lot of people that. Very difficult circumstances. Yeah. But that's the awareness.

Right.

That gives you awareness to appreciate that in which you've been called a steward.

Yeah, right.

And I. And I just think that's so valuable. I want to talk a little bit about the mindset of a passive preneur because we've kind of talked about a little bit of the limiting belief cycle. We've talked a little bit about the net worth not losing your identity. What is a healthy mindset for a passivepreneur who's trying to build something amazing in the passive income stream area?

Well, for some reason, I just thought of one of the goats in real estate. One of my friends who's been around for a long time is a guy named Ron Legrand. And one of his quotes he's known for is he always says this, the less I do, the more I make. The less I do, the more I make. So that is definitely a mantra for being a passivepreneur. And some people would hear that and think, well, gosh, what are you saying? Be lazy or you get something for nothing? Or it's like, get rich quick or whatever. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that in the marketplace, you're paid for value. The value you bring. The more people you bring value to, the more money you make. So if you bring value to thousands of people, you could potentially make millions. If you bring value to millions of people, you can make billions. That's the idea. But the value doesn't have to be tied directly to your time. It doesn't directly tie to you. So if I bring value to millions of people, but it doesn't involve me directly, it involves my company and my team and other things that I don't have any time involvement in, then the marketplace is still going to reward me immensely and I'm still not tied into that. So value is the only thing that matters, but doesn't have to be value directly from you. It could be value from something you built, something you purchased, something You've leveraged that someone else owns. And that's the whole idea of being a passivepreneur is just remove yourself from the source of money, put your source of money over here and yourself on the other side as far as you can be, and then. And then not let those two intermingle unless you're doing what you love. And I mean, somebody says, well, what. What about the teacher who loves to teach and she's called to teach. She wants to be a teacher, and she's happy with her income. Book's not for you. That's not.

That's not who I'm talking to. It might be for your husband or.

Your wife, might not be for you. I mean, some people just absolutely love what they do, but I would say it's the vast minority of Americans that love what they do every day and feel like they have enough. Enough money to do what they want to do. So that's just a rare, small subset. Most people are just grinding it every day, and they're doing the same thing day in, day out, you know, getting a paycheck or whatever. And. And they want a way out. They want to find a better way. And so this is what I'm. I'm saying that there are better ways. Yeah.

Well, and let's dig into that a little bit, because I. I agree with you. Right.

Yeah.

You're somebody I admire. I admire not you. Not just as a. As a business, not just as an entrepreneur, but as a person.

Right.

You're genuine, you care. You. Actually, you know, we. We both know one of your amazing, amazing team members, Asia, who I've gotten to know, obviously, for some other things we've been working on back and forth, and the fact that you. You saw talent when you recognized it. Right. He's like, I see talent. I don't know where it fits, but I see talent.

I'm hiring her, but I have no idea what she's going to do for me.

And now she. And now she's rocking your world in a positive direction, which is amazing. But, you know, one of those things that I wanted to kind of mention is that I want to see entrepreneurs whether win. That have a genuine interest in finding a way to give back and serve humanity.

Right.

And it's not through. It's. My son just dealt with this. Well, my. My son's car just crapped out, literally last. The weekend before last. And of course, we're. We're like you, right. We follow the Ramsey principles. They had a debt.

Yeah. Smart.

And, you know, I I was messing with him because I was like, look, had you not spent the money, you know, from three months ago to do X, Y and Z, you would have the money you need right now to do X, Y and Z. And he's like, right. But when we did that, one of the things that I saw was gratitude and integrity come out of my son because he knew where he was at, he accepted where he was at, but he was willing to make a change to make sure it never happened again.

Responsibility taking, Radical responsibility.

Yeah. Yeah. And as you're watching this kind of all unfolds, you realize that I really want my son to understand that you don't have to trade time for money like it's you. You might do it for a season to get enough going to get the momentum, but if you're focused on trading time for money, you're never going to have enough time or money.

Yeah, it's true. Well, it's also linear. So, you know, one of the things about linear versus exponential is any kind of linear growth is predictable and it's visible and it's. It could be seen. So in other words, you work a little bit, you get paid a little bit, you work a little bit more, you get a little paid more, you get a promotion, you can make more, you. You get. You move up the ladder, you get paid more. Exponential is totally the opposite. It's like you could work for months on a project that makes nothing. Like, for example, when I launched my first course, it took six months of testing to basically have it flop. Another six months of retesting and figuring it out, not getting paid for a year because I had a mentor again, that said, brian, would you be willing to work for a year, two, three years for free, to make millions? It's like, maybe. So that's what I did.

Can you guarantee my millions?

Yeah. So I, like, I already had one passive income source running, which is my Airbnb. I was living off my Airbnb, so I had all the time in the world. So I took my time and I put it into the next asset, which was going to be my online course. Didn't make any money for a year. Not any money for a year. But I. I did not stop. I was just, like, relentless about it. And then finally, when the piece fell into place, the very first time I did the webinar, I figured how to do. Figured out how to do a webinar. Within 42 days of doing that first webinar, I made a million dollars. Wow. So it's like zero to a million. And then it just went hockey stick. And so that's the power of exponential wealth. And then since that time, I mean, the webinar still produces sales, it still makes me money, and I haven't touched it. So that's the idea of an exponential source of income is where you want to play. It's the game of the rich. The rich play in the exponential, which is why the rich get richer. They don't get richer because of something unusual they're doing. They're just playing in an exponential arena. So their money can grow exponentially and their businesses can grow exponentially. Exponentially. Whereas everybody else is playing on this level field of linear. Linear income. So get away from linear income as fast as you can, or at least find a source that can replace your linear income so you don't have to do that anymore. And that's for anybody who wouldn't get up tomorrow if they won the Powerball.

Yeah. By the way, I love the Powerball thing. I absolutely love that, by the way. I think that is a very telltale thing to figure out. Do I actually love what I'm doing?

Yeah, no, it's. I mean, it's. It's a very. You know, because people give you all these answers. Well, you know, I'm. I'm important at my job, and I really find fulfillment, and I like to do this. And like. Yeah, but if you wouldn't get the, you know, if you stop it, if they stop paying you tomorrow, would you go? That's another good question. When they stop paying you tomorrow? No, of course not. Yeah, because you do it for money. Let's be honest. You're doing it for money. Unless it's specifically a calling that you feel like you're called to in your life. And a lot of things that people want to do with their lives don't pay anything. So there's this whole concept out there that, yeah, you find your passion and then you do it so well that people recognize you and you lots of money for it, which is total BS Because I can enjoy playing golf, but the chances of me going pro are slim to none. Right. I could want to be an actor. And, you know, as handsome as I may think I am, I probably don't have the skills to actually become a movie star. So it's like such a small percentage of people that will actually break out success. But that doesn't mean that I couldn't be an actor or play golf all the time because I enjoy it. So, for example, one of my students who I Taught how to do Airbnbs. He, right out of college, did not want to get a job, wanted to do this whole thing. He got, like, 20 properties, 30 properties, automated him, spends zero time on his business, and he plays golf every day. So he's now working to become a golf pro. He doesn't make any money at golf, but he's like, that's his thing. I said, how do you want to.

Spend his life three years from now? Might be hockey stick.

He might be. So he plays golf. Yeah, Maybe mastering it. So he plays golf because that's his life's passion. And so you don't have to make your passions pay. You can just do your passions. Who cares what they pay? Because you have a source. That's the idea behind this, is that. That life doesn't have to be like. I mean, the other thing is when you take a passion and you try to make it pay, you end up hating the passion. You're like, oh, I don't want to do this anymore, because I'm not making money at it. When you didn't start it to do money, you did it because you love it. Like, you know, I've always been in theater, and I've loved that. I did it because of the love of it, not because I ever thought I would make money with it. Yeah, so that's. That's a big, big, like, you know, myth going on right now that you got to mix your passion with your money. It's not necessary.

No, that's so good. That's so good. I want to pivot a little bit. Right?

So sure.

You and I know this now. I think you and I have shared it in different ways, and we currently use different modalities to kind of bring it to light. But this concept of cash flow, creating cash flow, positive cash flow. Look, recycle or not recycling cash flow, but regenerating cash flow. Like, talk to me a little bit about the passive renewer. How. How important is cash flow? How, how? Or what are some keys to create it? Like, give me. Give us some tips.

Okay, so cash flow is the name of the game. You know, I mean, like, cash flow is. Is everything. So the difference between cash flow and income, people always want to know, what's the difference? Well, income I would define as something that is earned. There's earned income, whereas cash flow I would not define as something that you earn. So if you go get a job, you work at a. You know, you. You do anything where you're giving your time and you're getting paid back, that is earned income. That is not the kind of income we want to work towards. We want to work towards something that's more passive, which would be cash flow. So cash flow is something that is income that comes off of an investment. It comes off an asset. So I call it a passive income vehicle. That's my, my word for assets. So a passive income vehicle can be something that you buy. In fact, I got a list here, so I'm just going to give you some examples. You can own, you can become an owner of passive income vehicles. For example, traditional real estate, you can own commercial real estate funds, invest into intellectual property like patents, domains, trademarks, copyrights. You can buy automated businesses like parking lots, vending machines, existing businesses with management in place. Businesses would qualify if there's management in place. If you're the, if you are the management, it's not a passive income vehicle. So owning these things, you become an owner. But then there's the creator side, which is super exciting because that's all possible because the Internet and the technology and everything which is creating anything that could eventually become put on autopilot. So creating online courses, writing ebooks, creating an app or Alexa skill, you know, starting a podcast that, that you could run ads on, you know, all these kind of things, creating content, you know, so these are even NFTs is a good example. They're not as sexy as they used to be. So these are, so these are some of the ideas that you create an asset that can then spin off cash flow that is becoming a creator. And then the final source of cash flow would be being a controller. So you could control properties you don't own, put them on short term rental. You could do drop shipping or private labeling where you actually don't create any products. Like when you go to Amazon, you buy an Amazon product. Do you think Amazon made that? Of course not. They don't have an Amazon factory. They have somebody else in a factory cranking out these widgets and they stamp the Amazon logo on it and that's their product. So that's, that's called private labeling. You can, you know, you can use the sharing economy with all kinds of different things like vehicles and that kind of stuff where you could have somebody else, you know, renting these vehicles and you don't have any involvement in it. It's a totally automated business. So the idea here is that there's just, there's, you know, hundreds of different ways to do this. A lot of them I've never even tried myself. But you only need to find One, you really need to find one and get that passive income vehicle to the point where it will replace what you're doing every day plus 50%. So if you make 50 grand a year, you need to make 75,000 a year with your first passive income vehicle, then you could probably comfortably walk away from that. But then you don't want to stop there because things change. So you do not want to rely on one. You want to have multiple passive income vehicles, but you want to focus on.

One to get the success. You only want to do another one successful, then do another one successful.

Exactly. Because then you have redundant and you have a better chance of one of them going, you know, going to the moon. Because if you do in 10 of them over the course of however many years, one of them is probably going to go, you know, exponential. So that's the idea. And that's, that's, that's very different than saying, you know, do a whole bunch of different side hustles. So a perfect example, the perfect example of a side hustle is Ubering. Okay? So when I was working my job, I wanted to make extra money. I ubered on the side. That is a horrible, horrible thing to do. Because the only way you make money with Uber is if your butt is in the seat and you're driving people around, you know, or coughing on your neck. I mean, that's the only way that you make money. There's no way to just remove yourself and say, I'm not going to drive. And so it doesn't qualify. That's a hustle versus a passive income source. You know, if I sell an ebook, which I sell, not this book, I have another ebook that I sell every single day, you know, sells every, every hour. We're selling several of those ebooks. Every time that happens.

I make that' cause your stuff works.

And I haven't touched it in years. So that's an example of not a hustle. So it's not that there's no effort involved if you're going to just go buy an apartment complex or a house. Yeah, there's very little effort involved in that and it does spit off cash flow. But for some people, you don't have the money, you don't have the credit. You may need to create something from scratch. I mean, my course took a couple thousand dollars to build, you know, so.

It'S, it's also a, it's a high cost asset for typically a moderate cash return in traditional real estate.

Yeah. And you have to either have money or borrow money. So you know, you got to have your money or someone else's money to get in some of those assets. But. But the idea that you could make millions of dollars or maybe you don't even want to have that you don't even need to have that much money, but the idea that you can make millions of dollars from nothing. Yeah. In the information economy, I mean, we're. Information is the new oil. I mean, everything's very true now. So it's all possible now with. With the Internet and technology that there's so many more ways to. To create these kind of opportunities that are traditional assets.

Well, out of curiosity, right. So we've talked about passive income.

Yeah.

We've talked about becoming a passivepreneur. We've talked about mindsets in being a passive successful entrepreneur.

Both. Yeah.

We've talked about great starting points, meaning that all because you may not be where you are and want to be now, does not have any indication of where you could be if you just tried. I am curious, of all the books on the planet, why did you decide to write this now? Why did you decide to write this amazing book? Don't start your side hustle today. Why was now the time versus five years from now or even three years earlier?

I think because I still see people in the same trap and it's becoming more pervasive. The trap of doing more and more and more and more and hustling harder, working harder. And, you know, we live in an information age where there's just. There's. There's so much coming at us, there's so many opportunities. We have no lack of opportunity. We have more opportunities growing every single year. More information, more content, you know, more trying to vie for our attention. It's overwhelming in the modern world. Everything is so overwhelming. And. And I think this is kind of the antidote in a way, which is that you can just give all that up. Just like life can be so much simpler if you think of a different way of your relationship with money. And I've seen it only because I talk to so many people, I have so many students, and I see them falling into that trap because they might be the nine to fiver who's like, I long to work for myself, but working for yourself is not really that great in some way because you still got to work. Then they go and work for themselves, and then they're working even more, and then they're like.

Then you end up like me, just working all the time.

And. And you're like, yeah, you're working all.

The time I have this amazing business. Everybody recognizes you because you're whatever entrepreneur. I'm like, they have no freaking idea how early I get up, how late I go to bed, how hard I'm working.

Imagine if you had a boss that told you you had to do all that. You would, you would quit so fast. If you had a boss above you. Most entrepreneurs, if you had a boss above you telling you to do all the things that you're doing today, you'd be like, screw you, I'm out of here. So, so I see that trap for both sides and then I see another type of person who's a little bit less known, kind of under the radar. These people that are passive preneurs and they just live a completely different life. And they're, they have, they just have time, they have space, they have peace, they have, you know, because they're just not in that. They don't play that game. They're just like, I've, you know, and yet some of them, some of them make a decent living. Some of them are very, very wealthy. But ultimately none of that matters. It doesn't matter if your net worth is, is very low or very high. If you have the cash flow, passive income that you want to live the life that you want to live. Yeah. So most people are stocking, socking away money for some future date when they're going to live off the interest. Like I got to get to $5 million or I got to get $1 million in the bank and I'm going to live off that interest when I'm, you know, 88. And it's like that's, that's a really sad, long life.

Well, if you're 1 million and you're 88, it might actually last you. But if you're, if you're 68, it's 1 million. It's not going to last.

That's true. So it's an idea that like one day I'm gonna arrive. Well, why not now? I mean, why not three months from now? Why not?

Yeah.

Go from zero to, to semi retired in a few months. It's totally doable. I mean just this, I see it happen time and time and time again. Especially if your goal is to only just get, do what you're doing at your job.

It's so I've been telling my youngest son for who's not, he just, he will turn 21 this year in December. Yeah, I said, just said just spend two years of committed focus, not doing shenanigans just because all Your buddies are doing it. But go out and learn from people like Brian. Go out and learn from. You know, I've, I've put him in circles where he's around some of the most brilliant minds on the planet, you included. And like, I'm like, just do what they say for 24 months. Just, just do that. Don't do anything else but that and you'll be set, you know, and just trying to get that to sink in because that's the one thing that I wish I had heard at 20 years old, rather than 22 years old, having to restart life coming out of home. Like, you don't have to go that far to really figure it out if you'll just listen to the people who are trying to teach you how to do it. And one of the things I've always loved about your work is your stuff works like.

It'S simple in packaging, it's practical in principle and it's actually firm and foundation. There's a lot of things step by step that make it super, super powerful. And I know that this don't start a side hustle was a super passion project just for that reason. And I love the fact that you're trying to help so many people given these things are like seeds, right. They go everywhere and you never know whose hands they go into. You know, this is one of the things that when we get to heaven, we'll figure out, okay, how many lives did the book actually touch? Right. Kind of thing. But I don't know. Dude, I loved it. I love having you on. Love spending time with you. As always, I am curious. Go ahead, let's tell the audience where to get the book, where to find you and get to know more about you.

Absolutely. So if you go to Brian Page slash book, Brian Page Book, you can get the book there. And for anybody listening or watching right now, if you go there, you can immediately download a sneak peek of the audiobook and the first few chapters of the book PDF as well. So you get an instant download the minute you, you pre order the book. You'll be pre ordering on Amazon or one of the retailers that we have. And then the book doesn't come out till October 18th. So you're actually going to get what nobody on Amazon can get, which is to actually start listening to the book and, and kind of diving in ahead of time if you go there and pre order. So go to Brian Page Book and of course on the website there you can learn more about me and other things that I teach and that kind of stuff, but, yeah, I want to get in your hands. I mean, I'm. I'm obsessed with books. These aren't just for decoration. And I have a. You know, my library is full of some of the best books out there, and. And I. I. Everything that I've done in my life has come pretty much from a book. I mean, I've had a few mentors in person, but, you know, mentors just tell you the things that you already read in the book that you're not doing, so.

Or things that they read in a.

Book that they read in the book. So you got to read. You got to read, you got to read. Get obsessed. And if you're not a reader, start reading. This would be a good place to just start reading.

Yeah. Love it, dude, man. Love you to death, man. Thank you so much for coming on Unstoppable, man. I really appreciate you big time, brother.

Thanks for having me here. I appreciate you.

All right, take care.

See you. See ya. I hope you liked that video.

And if you did, make sure you check out this next video right here.

When I dove into it and understood the mind, the power of the subconscious, and the ability that we have to create our own reality in every single moment, that's when I took my power back, and that's when I understood that I could change what I had been experiencing. The things that Western medicine, doctors and specialists could not figure out.