How to Get More Control of Your Time Through Passive Income

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with the favorite niche real estate website foundleandgeek.com and on this week's Art of passive Income podcast. I'm excited to talk about our guest today, Bronson Hill. Now, if you're not familiar with Bronson, he is the managing member of Bronson Equity. Bronsonequity.com Bronson is a partner in 2000 multi family units worth over $200 million. A general partner, he co leads a large in person, multifamily meetup in Glendale, California called Investor to Investor. ITI Bronson's the host of the Mailbox Money show and he understands the investor mindset, having spoken individually over the phone with over 1500 investors and having raised over $40 million for real estate and his ATM machine fund deals. Bronson is the author of the book fire yourself, replace your working income with passive income in three years or less and is a regular contributor to YouTube and his blog. Bronson leads an exclusive mastermind for affluent passive investors providing unmatched investment opportunities within a growth oriented community. Bronson, welcome. Hey Mark.

Really excited to be here, man. Love talking with you. I always learned something, always. We always have a great conversation. I know I had you on my show, the Mailbox Money show recently and that was awesome, learning about your land flipping strategy. So I love talking about investing and coming up with new ideas that can really help people, you know, create more time. Really the time freedom, more than just financial freedom, which is great.

No, it's, it's fantastic. But, and I love being on your podcast. You're a great, a great host. I'm probably not going to do as well as you, but I do, I do have a, I don't know about that. I do have like the most traditional question which is, you know, let's rewind the tape. And how did you get started in, you know, multifamily and investing and ATM machines and just the whole idea of, you know, passive income.

Yeah. So I, I knew I wanted to be financially free through, you know, and really thought through real estate was the way to do it. And so I did kind of what a lot of people do is I started buying houses and then I realized I had four or five houses and realized it wasn't really that passive, at least the way I had set it up, it wasn't a very passive strategy. And so I, you know, there's a saying, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. So I had this job or I was making over $200,000 a year in medical device sales. That was my background for 10 years. I worked in surgery with cardiologists and it was very interesting. And I did, you know, 30 hours a week. And it was, you know, it wasn't that hard of work. But I just. They call it the golden handcuffs. Right. I just couldn't leave. And what I really wanted to have was really more control over my time so I could create, so I could write a book, so I could travel, I could do the things I want to do. And so, like I said, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. So I have a relative that's. That just kind of showed up in my life at one point and was like, hey, I've been doing this multifamily investing for 25 years and it was uber successful. And I said, wow, that's really amazing. And so, you know, he, you know, I said, I don't have the money to do this. And he said, well, you can raise the money. Talking about something called syndication, which is basically raising money from passive investors and helping them to get good cash flow. So started doing that, got into multifamily, and then I, I shifted gears a little bit. The last couple years, interest rates has, have been higher. It's harder to find cash flow in a lot of those deals. So we've shifted to ATM machines, which people do still actually use ATM machines these days. It's hard to believe, but there's a segment of the population that does quite frequently and, and some other alternative investments like oil and gas and other things as well.

Fantastic, fantastic. So, you know, it's, it's really interesting to me when multifamily people get started, because I can imagine if you're talking to someone who's just like you and they want to get started multifamily, and you just say, oh, yeah, raise the money. And you have no track record. How do you go out and raise 40, $50 million with investors when you have no track record?

Yeah, and it's a real challenge, right? And one of the issues is when I started, I had 62 calls with friends and family, and I counted because I just wanted to know how I was doing. They say every no gets you closer to a yes. Well, I had 62 conversations, phone calls, in person, meetups, whatever, and absolutely zero invested with me, Mark. So it was like, I felt like a total failure. The guy who actually invested with me was a guy I had started a meetup, this meetup I still run or co lead in, in, in California here. And he basically showed up and he was like, hey, you know, I'd never seen him before. He's like, hey, I'd invest in one of your deals. And I'm like, are you talking to me? And this is before I had any deals. But the thing is, when you, you know, in single family and in smaller stuff, it's typically about your track record and your experience, and you're doing all the work. Well, in larger deals, syndication, multifamily, other types of deals, it's not about what you bring, it's about what the team brings. So in those deals, often I had partners that were, you know, 10, 20 years of experience in that particular asset. And so my lack of experience was not a big issue. But it is a challenge when you go to friends or family or you start hanging a shingle saying, hey, I'm doing this. And people, you know, at the time they knew me as medical sales Bronson. They didn't know me as real estate or passive investing or Fire yourself Bronson. And now, of course they know because it's, you know, I'm putting out there been consistent with that messaging. But a lot of people may trust you, your parents, your family, your friends, but they don't trust you in, you know, with your money or their money until you've shown, you know, you can, you can handle it or that you at least have great partners that can handle it.

Oh, that's such a good answer for sure. But okay, but even still, when you're building a team, why would they join your team?

Well, I think the big thing about a lot of investing, I've realized it's very much a team sport. I know with what you guys do with, with land flipping as well, you know, you have, you have team members, right? People involved, how you source things. You probably got people that help you mail stuff. You have, you know, a team that kind of follows up. So it's all teams. So what I realized, I wasn't quite sure what my value was that I brought. And again, there's typically kind of two or three main parts when it comes to these large deals. There's kind of people that raise money, kind of bring the capital side. There's people that will find a deal. Those are kind of usually the two ways people start. So if I don't have a lot of experience, I can try to start raising money, I can find a deal. And then the more experienced people typically are asset managers or they're the ones kind of operating the day to day, because in my opinion, there's really no substitute for experience So I thought, initially, I'm gonna. I'm gonna chase a deal down. I'm gonna be somebody who finds deals. And then, you know, I did okay with it. It was fine. But then I realized, like, I've had 10 years of great, you know, sales experience and working with investors, and why don't I just kind of like, you know, try raising money and see how that goes? So I started down that road, and after I found my first investor, got. It got much easier. And so. But I think the thing is, we don't realize if we're a cpa, if we have a business, if we're a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, we have all these skills that we can bring to a deal. We don't just like, hey, we start at nothing. We start with maybe some business experience or some interpersonal experience. And really, it takes two things to do a deal, right? It takes the deal and it takes money. So if you can be a part of finding the deal or operating the deal and then the money, if you can just put those together, be a part of a team that's doing that, they'll definitely be a place for you on a great team.

I love it. I love it. All right, so you start doing all these deals and. And now you're like, okay, I'm going to write a book. Why write a book?

I should ask you the same question, right? Why write a book? Well, I think, you know, a lot of times when you write a book, it's. It's interesting. There's a few things. I had wanted to write a book for a while. I never really committed to it. And Tony Robbins, I'm a big personal development guy, he has this quote, and he says, it's in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. So in a lot of different ways. So I actually made the decision while I was at a Tony Robbins event. You know, ironically, or I guess so ironically. And that was, you know, I made the decision and I said, I'm going to write this book. And then I kind of started researching how to write a book. And really, it's not hard to write a book. You know, there's a motivational speaker. His name is Jim Rohn. He passed away. But he would say something is defined, is means you can do it, and if it's hard, it means you can't do it. So anybody can write a book, right? It's not like unless you just physically can't type or can't talk or whatever. Like, it's. It's. People can do It. So what I realized is If I took 60 minutes on the timer and I did that five days a week, just. I just scheduled it, just like another meeting. I just schedule it. I just get in that mode, whatever. And if it was, you know, a lot of times 60 minutes was enough to get about a thousand words or 1200 words, it was less sometimes if I was doing a little research, but generally then, you know, it was able to write. And then after about two months, I had about 32, 000 words. I think my book had to be about 45, 000 words. I added a little more later, but a lot of times it's just. It's just getting in the habit of writing. And so I actually would love to know, Mark, how did you know what made you want to write your book? Or how did you.

I think, you know, my book was really more as like a cautionary tale about my story, as well as a general overview of the land investing space. And then, you know, then I just think, okay, this is a great way for people to get introduced into land investing. And then for me, as the person who wrote the book, well, then it's instant credibility, because even though it's easy to write a book, it's not easy to write a book.

Yeah, we'd all write a book.

So that's why I wrote Dirt Rich. And. And Now Dirt Rich 2 is sort of the next step of that as far as how to scale land business. And I'm very excited about, you know, publishing that. But it's. It's all done. It's just in. In layout mode and working on the audiobook right now. But, you know, but it's so interesting because, like, I think we're both like these personal development guys, and, and it's not just, hey, can we make as much money as possible as fast as possible? It's. It's a deeper level than that. And you tease that out of me in. In your podcast. I'd like to tease that out of you. Yeah, in this podcast. And I think the way to do that would just be starting with a more general question. What's your definition of success?

Yeah, so I realized I didn't really answer your question about, you know, why did I write the book? You know, really, you know, like the subtitle says, replace your working income with passive income in three years or less. You know, for me, I just. I've realized having all these calls with investors, they. A lot of people just don't know how to get started. You know, they're doing stocks and bonds, they've got a money person. I had a call yesterday with a physician. This is not an uncommon call, you know, net worth of around 5 million. Only done stocks and bonds. And it's just, you know, very limited. He's like, well, how, you know, if I quit my business or my, you know, like he has a business and he kind of sold it recently and he's like, well, how do I, how do I generate cash if I don't work? And that's a real issue for people. So that's the idea of how do you generate more, really about generating more time. But how you do that is by covering expenses. So that work is optional and you can kind of work how you want to work. So that's where really why I created it. And it's just a, you know, a guide to passive investing in alternative assets. That's why I did it. But you know, I guess your question, your other question was really, you know, why, why, why do this? Right? Why, you know, help people in this way?

Yeah, yeah, but I mean, not necessarily that, but just. Yeah, I mean that's probably a better question. Like why, why help people do this? Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

Well.

And I think it, it comes down to what we're here to do once you discover your purpose. Right. So if I'm financially free, you know, it said that like something like 65 or 70% of people, they don't like their jobs, they're not engaged at work. And so I think that's just really sad. I mean, we go to work because we have to go to work. And I was there, you know, I did it and I was, I was good at it and I could do it and it was fine, but I just, it wasn't challenging. I wasn't growing, I wasn't there wasn't the never ending learning and kind of that unique ability that, you know, we've talked about a little bit, where it's like, what's, what are you doing that when you do it, you just come alive. And so for me, I just, I really want, I feel like when people become financially free, it allows them to be able to go write that book, to be able to go travel. Last time I, last year I traveled six times internationally. Right. Is to be able to create memories of my daughter, to be able to have time to invest in different things that are meaningful. And so I find that, you know, it's, I find that cause really worthwhile. I also find the bigger kind of below all of it is my My goal is to help the cause of ending modern day human slavery in the world, which is people don't realize there's actually 20 to 40 million human slaves today, more than there's ever been in the history of the world. And it just keeps getting worse. And so this is a problem that I'm very passionate about and this allows me to have time and effort to focus and resources to focus on that. So those are things that kind of the reasons why I focused on, on this.

That's amazing. That's amazing. All right, just. Just for fun, complete this question. The most important thing in life is.

H. The most important thing, life is relationship. Relationship with God, relationship with people. It's, you know, doing life with people. And I think part of relationship is loving them and letting them love you and, you know, just not being by yourself doing it. It's really that we have the gift of community and family and friends and I think spirituality and all these things that really help us to, you know, just. Because if you only look at life that it's just dollars and cents and what you see and it's just life is so. It's, it can be very negative. It just can be like an, like an 85% or 90% negative bias. Just when we see things, we're just. And we know a lot of people like this that are always being negative.

And so when people are kind of wired for it, we're wired for survival. You have this negative bias. I mean, this is why these, the news shows always, you know, if, if it bleeds, it leads. It's just the way we're wired.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So. So I think, you know, in general, just really finding a way to, to live out my purpose and to help other people live out their purpose. I, I think there's nothing more fulfilling. I think there's nothing more. And I think, I think that's pretty universal. Like if somebody is just really wrestling with depression or other things. If, if you just get a hold of, you know, try to get a hold of what you're here to do. I think we're all created for a purpose. And I think if you can just do that, you'll, you'll, you'll have a much better life and the people around you will be much happier that you're happy, right?

No, yeah, no. 100%. It ripples out. And I think, you know, what you're doing with your passive income or helping people create that passive income, it's giving them that time, it's giving them the resources it's in allowing them to have the energy right in the peak of their life. So it gives them that trifecta to really have the space to explore their deeper purpose and also to improve their relationships. And so we're very aligned that way that it's the, the goal isn't to go and, you know, sip pina coladas and, you know, play golf every day with, with your, your passive income exceeding your fixed expenses, I think we'd be bored. But I think having that purpose and improving other people's lives is way more meaningful. But it's really hard to do. To your point, if you've got a W2 job, you're exhausted by the end of it and you just don't have the bandwidth to do it. So what's your advice to that guy sitting in the cubicle right now, or Gal and Procter and Gamble and how do they get out of it? How do they fire themselves?

Yeah, actually I know a couple that actually worked at Proctor and Gamble and they were doing well there and they actually fired themselves and found a way out as well. So. Which is kind of neat. But, but yeah, I mean, I think I remember the, the years I probably had six years of going to real estate meetups and not really doing anything because I didn't make the decision. Right. And I think everything started to change for me when I made the decision. And that's, you know, the Tony Robbins. You're in moments of decision that your destiny shape. So if you make a decision, hey, I don't know how this is going to happen, but I'm going to do this. And it was, I'm going to le in three years. And, and I did. It was less than three years I was able to leave my job. And so, you know, I didn't know how. And sometimes that'll happen where, you know, we don't always know how we're going to get to a goal, but if we create a goal or we say, hey, I want this. I'm also a big fan of personality tests. There's something called strengths finder which kind of looks at some of that unique ability stuff. What do you, when you do it, you feel strong, you feel like you come alive. You could do it all day. And the more we're cast and we're doing things that we're, you know, it's not like necessarily like you're an introvert, extrovert, but it's more like one of mine's futuristics of planning for the future or learner, where I'm learning those are things that, like, if you're operating from a place of strength, there is an energizing effect. And so I think that's, that's a really big thing. And I think kind of butcher this quote, but there's kind of the idea of, like, don't ask what the world needs, you know, or something, but ask what makes you come alive and then do that. And the world needs more people that have come alive. And I think that is really true. And so I'd rather, you know, spend time and less money and things to do things that are developing passions of mine than to do a job. I mean, I could literally go back, go get a job and make 200k a year and go do it. It would be fine. I'd. Whatever, but it just, it, it wouldn't be challenging for me. It wouldn't be something that would really give me that energy. Right. And so I think for, for individuals, it's important to, like, go through the week and make an assessment of what are the things that you do during a normal work week or your home, whatever, that make you feel like you come alive. And if you can find a way to do more of those things, you'll live a happier life and everybody around you will live a better.

They'll.

They'll be enriched by that as well.

Yeah, I. We're so aligned on this. I so agree. But let's just play devil's advocate. I'm in the car right now. I'm listening to you say this, and I'm kind of rolling my eyes because I'm like, okay, well, Bronson, easy for you to say. I'm working 60 hours a week. I got three kids. And it's just not so easy for me to just go ahead and fire myself and, you see, and have that luxury of finding out what makes me come alive. And then it's a big risk, too. What if I start going in to, you know, the syndication world or I go in the land world or the ATM world, and, and I've got all these dependents and it doesn't work and, and now it's. It's like, you know, the, the fear. I can feel the fear sometimes with people to, to make that leap. How do you. How do you reconcile that? I mean, I mean, we. You and I did it.

Yeah.

So it's.

How do you. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, you can do it too. But like.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I was afraid. I had a great investment banking job. I was afraid to quit.

Yeah.

You know, great medical sales job. I mean, I'm sure you were afraid when you. When you took that.

Yeah, yeah, I'm still afraid sometimes, you know, things happen. I still have setbacks. I still have failures. I still have things that don't go as well as I like and. Or things that are, you know, really challenging. And so I think, you know, life is going to be full of challenges. And I think everybody's situation is different, so. And not everybody's wired to be an entrepreneur. It's not everybody can do that. You know, what we. The book is actually a little more about. It's more about passive investing. Less, you know, my story. It's more about how does somebody get started so the person who's working 60 hours a week, you know, instead of just only having active income, where you're working in your business, you're working at your job, you know, you have all the things you do. You start taking some of your, you know, your money, your resources, and you put it towards passive investing and you learn. So you put 50 or 100,000 in a deal with someone and you start investing. And then it's like a muscle that as it grows and you see, okay, there's cash flow. This is how it works, then it gives you the ability to start replacing income. So I came to the. The belief that, I think, you know, $5,000 of passive income increasing per year is more powerful than like $50,000 of active income because it just basically, over time, it will scale up. It takes time to get there, but it's a skill. And it's like. It's like something you learn and you train yourself to do. So it's not even that the investments go well or not. Obviously you hope every investment goes well. You never have a loss. But it's really about the learning. It's about the learning that happens. And when I see the lipo going where somebody's invested in a couple deals or something, they're like, oh, my gosh, this stuff actually works. I actually know how I could leave my practice as a physician or I could sell my business and I could still have income coming in. And this is kind of, you know, I worked with a couple physicians that worked 60 to 80 hours a week, and they were making several million dollars a year each, but they didn't have time, freedom. And so the idea of being able to take some of the resources now for them, it wouldn't be that hard. You just take some of that money each year and you start putting it in deals. And after a little while you realize, well, what are your living expenses? Once you cover, it's not necessarily your income, but you cover your living expenses. In my opinion, you're free. Right? You've really done that rat race number. You've been able to replace that. And so I think for people, it may be that some people are, are people that have more money than time and some people have more time than money. If you have more time than money, you do what I did and you do it yourself. If you have more money than you have time, you learn and you develop the skill to be able to passively invest. And that's really the, the appeal of fire yourself.

I love it. I love it. And if I'm evaluating different multifamily operators, what's the best piece of advice you would give? If I'm looking at A, B and C as an option, what would you say? Here's some, here's a, here's a question or two you should ask.

Yeah, well, there's a, I have kind of a three step, three part system and I'll try to share this briefly. It's in the book. But at the top, people a lot of times will start with a deal and say, oh, is the deal a great deal? And you know, once you start getting in deal flow, you start getting, you know, you go to meetups and conferences, people start sending you deals, you get on people's deal list, we have a deal list, people can get on as well. But typically when you, a deal comes, you have to kind of stop and go back and say, what is the market here? Like what is. Whether it's, you know, Atlanta, Georgia or it's Cleveland, Ohio. Is the population growing? Is the, is the job growth there? Is income growing? Is it a landlord, a business friendly area? Are these the things? So whatever market is, it also exists in any type of deal, the market. So the ATM machine market, is that a growing market or a shrinking market? Well, surprisingly, it's actually grown about 4.1% per year of people. The number of transactions, surprising, but it's, it's true. And there's been confirmed. So you look at the market of whatever the deal is, then you go, next step. Is the operator. Who is the team? Is this similar to what they've done before? Is it, is there someone on the team that has, you know, 10, 15 years of experience doing this and you say, is this kind of a rinse and repeat, they've done it before type of deal? Are the values aligned? Those type of things? A lot of a great question you can ask. Is Tell me about a deal that didn't go well, or tell me about something that didn't go as planned. And if they don't anything to share, either they're not being forthright or they just don't have any experience. And so you want to kind of be aware of that, then the last thing, you come back to the deal. And so after you looked at the market, the operator, and you look down at the deal, you say, okay, well, does this deal make sense? Do I understand how I'm going to make money in this? And do I understand also how I could lose money? And so that's even a better question. Right, Just. And does that meet your parameters? Are you trying to reduce taxes? Are you trying to get cash flow? Are you trying to get appreciation? And so I think, you know, whether it's multifamily or any other asset, those are three things. I think everybody should kind of walk in those in that order.

Oh, fantastic. Well, Bronson, your, your mentorship has been invaluable and I could talk to you all day. We'll have to do a part two and go a little bit deeper.

Thank you.

Into, you know, personal development. But now we're at that point in the podcast where I'm going to ask you for your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something else actionable for the auto passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got?

Well, I just read this book this week and it was really good. It's this, is this book called Bit Bigger, Better Bolder by Jennifer Cohen. And it just talks about this idea of being bold, like being like, we miss all the shots we don't take. If we don't ask, we don't have. And so just being willing to ask for bigger and better things in your life from people, you know, in your personal life, in relationships, all these things. They're great books. I recommend that book and I really got encouraged by that.

Bigger, Better, Bolder. I have not heard of that book. Definitely going to get that book today. So is it on Audible?

I think it's, yeah, it's. Audible. It's, it's, yeah, it's a, it's a great book. I really enjoy it. I got to meet the author. It was really nice. And yeah, just some great stories in there for sure.

All right, fantastic. Well, before we go to my tip of the week, just to remind everybody, today's podcast is sponsored by Flight School. Learn how the next 16 weeks can change your life, because you're going to Go up that mountain of land, investing quickly, safely, and efficiently with our team. And I know you're thinking, oh, what about the tuition? And it could cost you nothing. Guaranteed, you're going to make back that money 180 days or less. Just show us you did the work. Learn more. Go to land geek.com forward slash training. The land geek.com training. Start doing land deals, and I have to deal with any renters, rehabs, renovations, or rodents. All right, My tip of the week is just get smarter and go to bronsonequity.com, get the book, fire yourself. And, you know, obviously you've heard Bronson. Now he's gonna be the kind of guy you want to work with. So check it out. Bronsonequity.com Bronson, are we good?

Yeah, man. Thanks so much for having me. I love talking with you. I always learn something. I always love your attitude and the. Just the, you know, fun way you make learning exciting and what you're doing with your business, too. It's really exciting. I got to learn more about land flipping.

Thanks, brother. I appreciate it. Well, I want to thank the listeners and remind you that the only way. The only way Bronson's going to come back for a part two is if you do two, three little favors. Follow rate, Review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review. Support thelandgeek.com and I'm gonna send you for free assigned book of dirt Rich. Even if you don't want the book, just do it anyway. It helps us because guys like Bronson look at our reviews, and if there's no reviews, he's like, ah, forget it. I'll go on a different podcast. So do it selfishly for yourselves. All right, thanks, everybody. Let freedom ring. Thanks, Bronson.

Thanks, man.

Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income podcast. Are you ready to learn how you can start building a passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations, or rodents? Schedule a free consultation@thelandgeek.com forward slash training. Let freedom ring.