The barrier to entry to building a business has never been lower. The barrier to

entry to making a million dollars has never been lower. And the

amount of distraction that's available has never been higher.

I'm

Mike Salemi, and I've been there.

Today

I'm with my brother and mentor, Mike Bludsoe, who co founded

Barbell Shrugged, back when it was the number one fitness podcast on

YouTube and and helped shape the early CrossFit movement.

And make sure you're subscribed to the King Within. Let's drop in.

Dude, so good to be here with you, brother.

So good. Yeah. Good to have you. Oh, dude,

every time I know I'm with you and with Ashley, it literally

feels like it is like home. I was telling you, usually when I travel, you

know I'm coming off this sinus infection, so excuse the depth

of the voice right now. But sleep

in here. I was like, man, usually when I travel, I do not sleep

nearly as good as of course, when I'm at home and I've

been waking up, I'm like, oh my God, I'm so grateful to be traveling. I

mean, it's almost. I've only been here for what, three days is the third day

and I've already lost my voice. So to. To come to a place

that feels like home, that feels so. Just down, regulating and

welcoming. Yeah. I'm just so grateful to be here, man. Nice.

It's great to have You? Yeah, we tried to make the home as down regulating

as possible. Yeah. Nice. The. The word. I.

Years ago, I was thinking about what kind of home I wanted to have and

the word sanctuary just came up. Like, oh, yeah, this

is my sanctuary. So this is the Bloodso Sanctuary.

Back where I'm from, we call it the Salemi Spa. So we've got the Salemi

Spa on the west coast, central United States. We got the Bludso

Sanctuary. I love it. Tell me, what are you sitting on

right now? Because last night I did my. My group call for the Grounded King,

and I know you're getting me all set up with supplements with

freaking amazing coffee. What are you sitting on right now? There's.

Is it pmf, Mat plus infrared plus

crystals. This is a higher dose matte. That's the name of the

company. Ashley got it for me last month for my birthday. Best

ever. She is really good at throwing parties

and getting gifts, so being married to her is great for,

you know, my birthday. But yeah, it's

got infrared pmf. It's got a few different settings on the

pmf, different frequencies. There's a frequency for downregulating,

there's one for. It's supposed to match, you know, the

earth's human residence. It's got one for creativity,

another one for energy. And yeah, I've been sitting on

it while I work every day running some type of frequency a couple

hours a day. I've noticed that.

There'S less tension usually like hips,

hamstrings might have a little tension if I sit for hours and hours a day

while I work. And yeah, I haven't

experienced that since I've been using it. So I guess it works. A lot of

times people go, does it work? And I go, for what? You know.

But, yeah, I'm enjoying it. Do you find a difference between the infrared

and the PMF? Do you notice one? Do you do both

all the time? Yeah, but the infrared's always on. Like, there's

different levels of infrared, but I keep it pretty low because it just gets so

hot so fast. Your ass is on fire. Yeah. We

want to get pregnant, so not too much heat on the boys.

Yeah, keep the boys cool. Yeah, that's part of the. The

fertility hack here. Yeah. Yeah, I've heard of

guys, like, when they go in the sauna, putting in either like a cold pack

or some type of, like, cool towel underneath their balls. Yep. Just. I mean,

that's true. Like, if it gets too hot, man, that stuff will destroy all the

sperm. Yeah. It'll hurt their shape. They

got to be at the sperm have to be a specific shape

to penetrate, you know, through. That's what

they say. I don't know. I'm not a. I'm not a spermologist. But dude, I

love, I love our conversations, one of which last night and this

will headed to where I want to go today was. I didn't. I mean, I

knew, you know, your days obviously in. Barbell Shrugged. And just how,

how many just amazing people you got to interview, one of which

we were talking about was Louis Simmons. And the wild

thing is, is not only were you there multiple times, but I just

saw the video of you and a few of the guys doing

banded cleans at Westside Barbell, which is

insane for those who aren't familiar. So walk us through because then I want to

talk about the mindset of where you were then, especially around

money and your relationship to money. But tell me, how old were you at that

time? So this was.

Yeah, this was pre injury. There's no way

within this after my injury. So this must have been

2013. Okay. So.

Yeah, this was 12 years ago. I was probably 32.

32 years old. Yeah. Yeah. Near the peak

of my competing years. Yeah.

And you were with Barbell Shrugged. What else were you doing at that time professionally?

So, yeah, 2014. So we had. Barbell

Shrugged. So I still owned a couple

gyms. I had moved away where I was in the

process of moving from Memphis to San Diego.

So I started my CrossFit gym in. In Memphis,

Tennessee. That's where I grew up. And

I had, yeah, started this CrossFit gym. And then I started different

business projects over the years. And then in 2012, I.

I started a podcast and YouTube channel and I

started making money online. Way more money than I was making

on my. In my gym. And so I

realized one day I was in California, I go, why don't I just live wherever

I want to live? And I had been stationed in San Diego when I was

in the Navy. And I go, that was like, that was the best city. I,

I enjoyed SoCal so much, so I decided to move there.

So the gyms were taking care of themselves

kind of without my presence. I realized how

that I actually needed to sell them instead of try to manage them from

afar because I'm not much of a manager anyway. And then

not a manager at all, actually. I can lead

managing day to day things, not my jam.

And so I can do it for a period of time to get

through, to get past a specific stage. And then once that stage hits,

I got. It's got to go to somebody else. But we started selling online

training programs. And so we were. We were running Barbell Shrugged,

which is, you know, I'm sure a lot of people don't know what it is,

but it was a podcast for strength and conditioning, really popular in

the CrossFit space. So we were selling online training programs that was doing really

well. So we were making. When I decided to move, you know,

that that might have been making like 40, $50,000 a month. Well,

fairly, fairly, quote, unquote passive. And then

I, around that time also saw I had a lot

of gym owners asking me for advice. I found myself on the phone

multiple times a week giving business advice to gym owners.

And I go, well, I'll just create another podcast. It's called Barbell Business.

So I started doing that. Within a few weeks of doing that. I go, let's

just create a product. So we created a product on how to

market your gym and all sorts of things.

So we had two. Two businesses there that were virtual. So we had the

gyms. I really stopped collecting money from that, and it was

just Barbell Shrugged training programs, Barbell Business

programs on how to grow your gym. And I

think at that time I played around. I'd had some mastermind events where I was

holding retreats for business owners. And that.

That turned into beyond just gym owners, that turned into people who own

supplement companies. And some of the guys from Onnit,

some of the executives Onnit, ended up being part of that mastermind at one

point. And so, you know, they were going there to get

some of their. Their development. And so there was. It wasn't

just gym owners. It kind of morphed into something a little more than that. And

that was going on at that time. There was. There was other things that those

businesses did two, three years later, but at that time

it was, yeah, a couple gyms, training programs,

some business systems. And then my job was to show up and

be crazy on camera with Louis Simmons on occasion.

Best ever. Best ever. You know, that's your. Your

mid-30s, let's say more or less in your mid-30s. What was your

mindset around creating wealth? Or what did. What did your

mindset around wealth and money look like back then?

That's a good question, dude. I was insane on every

level. On every on. From the trading level to business

to relationships. Yeah, everything. I was. I was

like. You know, at the time, I. I

didn't feel very accomplished

on the app outside in people were, you know, congratulating me.

But I'm like, dude, I'm just getting started. Like, I'm gonna. I'm here to

crush, you know, So I was never. I was

never happy with anything that, that I had, that I

had or achieved. And so there were moments. I

definitely had moments of appreciation. Don't get me wrong, there were moments where I was

like, damn, this is good. I built this. Yeah. Like,

I moved into a house at the beach, and I'm sitting in my backyard in

a Jacuzzi in the beach, watching the sunset into the ocean.

And my backyard was a wildlife turned into a wildlife preserve,

a lagoon. And I'm like, yeah, like, this

is dope. But then work would start on Monday and I'd be.

The appreciation would totally. And the gratitude would totally

vanish. And I'd get lost in, you know, a lot of

resistance and depression. And there were. There were moments I'm laying in my

house at the beach and being. And like, oh, I hate my

life. You know, it was that kind of going on, big

wave. There's a. There was a point where I thought maybe I was bipolar or

something. I'm like, oh, wow. I'm like, really high highs, low lows.

And that wasn't the case. That was. I mean, I think

all those. All those. What are they called? My wife's a

psychotherapist. I should know these words. But these

labels, they're all, you know, mostly B.S. anyway, it's like, it's just a

way to. Whatever. I'm sure if I walked into a therapy office at one point,

they would have said, yeah, bipolar. But if I walk in now, they'd be like,

you're totally, totally adorable. Totally great now. Didn't need to be put

on any therapeutic drugs. But.

Yeah, my mindset was like, crush everything I

wanted. Everything. I didn't. I didn't want any. It

wasn't that I didn't want anyone else to have anything. It's that

I felt like if it was on the table,

I could have it and I wanted it.

And so when it came to Barbell Shrugged, it

was have the most popular fitness podcast on

the planet. And we pretty much checked that box. I mean, every time.

Pretty much. You did? Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. You go into

iTunes and we were ranked number one in the

category for. In fitness and nutrition for like five years.

You know, some of the. The top 10 would rotate around, you

know, by the day or whatever, but we had the most

five star reviews. We had the most positive comments. We had. And

we were always in that circulation right there. And so

we don't know what algorithm was being used, but yeah. And then we. We

built, you know, a couple hundred thousand people on YouTube, which at the time was

a big deal, maybe the equivalent of having a million now.

And so I wanted to, you know, keep crushing there and

then I wanted to expand into my ego. Really

wanted to be seen, be respected in the business community.

Okay. And I didn't feel like it's so funny.

It's so, so funny how we perceive ourselves. I. I felt like

such a meathead because I was running a fitness company. I was like,

oh, I want. I need to like. And I also had some business systems stuff

I was selling to gym owners. And I. I'm thinking, you know, I want to

be. I want to be respected in the business community. I want to be. I

want to. Anytime I got into a community, I wanted to become the leader of

that community. Huh. So it wasn't enough for me

to be the fitness. To be a leader in the fitness community,

and it wasn't enough for me to be the. The business leader in the fitness

community. I wanted to be the leader in the business community

at, like, mid-30s. That's dumb.

There are some young guys that have something to teach at that age,

like Alex Horosi. I don't know how old he is, but he's definitely somebody who.

He was able to achieve that at a fairly young age. Most

guys that are at his level, you know, they may be in their 50s or

60s. Right. I didn't have the wherewithal to

realize that, and I didn't have. I didn't have any mentorship, and not

necessarily because the mentors weren't. There's just that I didn't

listen. I wasn't a very good listener. I'm. I'm definitely somebody

in my younger years. It's. I've shifted my

younger years listening and taking advice from other people.

I never believed anything anyone ever said. I had to see it

for myself. I had to try for myself.

Someone said, that's not a good idea. I'm like, we'll see. Unless

it was something that was gonna kill me immediately, I'd try it

out, right? And so I then

started building. What I wanted was.

This was. This was crazy. So I was running Barbell Shrug. We had big

team there. We had Barbell business. And then we launched a

software company. It was totally done for you.

Software as a service. We build your website all the way through

your. All your marketing, everything for CrossFit gyms.

You buy this, we install it and then people just start showing up to

your gym. You don't have to worry about your website anymore. You don't have to

worry about emails, you don't have to worry about. You just use our

system. And everyone who bought our system, their gyms

grew. Wow. I've never had anyone go, man, I bought your system and it sucked.

Everybody goes, work. We were selling that for a

thousand dollars a month. So at our peak there

was 275 gyms okay on that service.

So I'm thinking, okay, dominate that market. But

then, and then I'm like, okay, there's 10,000 CrossFit gyms.

I've only got 275 of them. And then, you know, we'll go out and we'll

expand into other fitness markets. And I'm, I'm sitting there thinking, how do I turn

this into a $100 million company? So I stopped focusing

on the fitness stuff as much and I start really pouring my energy into that.

And part of it was when I moved from Memphis to

San Diego, I moved from like a community of people that were incredibly

diverse in their backgrounds, like members of my gym and stuff,

to, I moved to San Diego and then my, my crowd

became all entrepreneurs. So the status,

the desire to have status in that community of

say, how much money these people make, because I want to make more than everybody

else. Was it just making more or was it also

taking home more? Were you investing in stuff at the time? Like what

was, was it just like you said earlier, like I was just going to crush

it and be the top in these different areas. What was that like? I

was in the mindset is if I just make a certain amount of money, I'll

be taken care of. I didn't think about any of the details. Got it. Like

investing, like I wanted to be, to invest. And all I did was invest

in some startups. All I did was

if, if someone had an idea, then I

had a holding company with co partners. We just stroke a check. But it

was, it was done very poorly. It was one of those things

where someone would come and go, oh, I have a business

opportunity. I'd look at it. They'd,

they'd say this is, I go, I think this is a good idea. How much

do you need? Like what's the minimum to get in? Or what do you need?

$25,000 check, $60,000 check. I would just go to my

CFO and go, hey, can we, can we write a, can we write a

$50,000 check for this right now. He'd go, I don't really think we

should. And then I would pressure him. And then I never,

I never had a clear view of finances, and yet I was

stroking checks to, like, different projects. So

on top of, on top of trying to build this software company

to 100 million, I also think, well, I'm going to start up this thing called

Barbell University. I think that all exercise science

programs should be online and we're going to create an online university.

And we started building that. I started recruiting. I had all this money coming in

and I had it going out just as fast. So I was either

investing in projects inside of my own

ecosystem, or someone would come in and go, I've got this idea.

It wasn't like that was happening every month. I wasn't struggling. Checks every month. But

every six months there'd be something where, you know, we go, oh, okay, like

let's, let's throw another 50 GS at this thing that's outside of our business. And

so we were just, we were holding paper, you know, the

paper of a. You know, we own stock in a startup. Hopefully

it'll do something, whatever. It's like set it and forget it type of thing.

And what ended up happening is I ended up just biting off way more than

I could chew. I had so much. There was no focus there.

The focus was. Totally dispersed.

And so there was. There was like A. I'm 44

now, so that we're talking about a decade ago.

At the time. That lack of focus cost me

almost everything financially. At the end of the day, I got

too spread thin. My attention was spread too thin. The

finances are spread too thin. I remember starting projects, hiring people, and then

three, four months later having to shut the project down together, all together, and then

having to let them go. It's like put them. Putting

that, like, they'll move. I had one person move countries.

Oh. And then I had to let them go shortly after. And

so, and that was really hard from back then. Firing somebody

or letting somebody go was like. I had a bit of people, people

pleaser going on and I would hang on to people

way too long and the business would suffer. Paying someone salary way

longer than it needed to be. So it was

really poor decision making back then. I tell people

frequently that I got away with a lot. I got away

because we were so good at a few things. We could

be messy in other places, but I, I wasn't getting the feedback

that I was screwing up because I could always fill it in with more sales,

I could always just make more money. I was really good. Like, we were really

good at just, we need another $100,000. Let's go pull another

$100,000 in. We, we could figure that out quickly

while there was just holes in the bucket on the back end draining everywhere.

And so I mean, how common do you think that

is? At least from my perspective, obviously being good business and that also,

you know, I've worked with you for a good number of business side of stuff.

For me, it. That looks to me a really common thread. It's

what a business or man is. The first line of thought is

I'll just make more. I'll just make more. I'll just make more. But everything else

beyond that is usually not top of mind. So is

that something common that you've seen? And then I'd love to see how there's a

whole Mike that's bringing up a lot. But how do you define wealth? Just as

like a basic foundational premise.

Yeah, let's do the first one first. Yeah, yeah. The. So what was the first

question was, do I see that? Is that, Is that cobbit? Yeah, that just incredibly

common. All the pains I've been through. Yeah. And that

is really motivating for the consulting I do for people

now. So when I'm working with a client,

and usually I'm working with clients that are 10 years younger than me

or, or below. Right. And I just

see it, my job is to make sure they don't make the same mistakes I

do. Yeah. But also not just stop them from doing it, but

teach them why this is not a good idea or why

this is a good idea or let's direct our. I'm really

big on where are we directing our attention. Yeah. My job when I'm, when I'm

consulting people is to get them to a place where I'm turning them into a

business owner. I'm like, well, that's my desire for them

is I'm not here to do your marketing. I'm not here to do. I'm not

here to. I'm gonna, I'm give you a lot of resources. I'm gonna give you

a ton of information, knowledge, everything you need. But it's more of like

a, it's more of a wisdom position up.

Let's learn about why we want to implement this and what this is going to

keep us from doing and, and how it's going to help us make better

decisions. So that's, that's one thing I'm Proud of is

usually by the time I'm a year in with a client,

I like to work with clients for a long period of time. Yeah. Which is

also new is they, they turn into business

owners, like real business owners, not just someone who started a business and figured out

how to make sales. Yes. But. So it's incredibly

common. I think that I was an extreme case

because I had a lot of money, more money coming in than most guys

do, and we had hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in a month. And I

was, I was figuring out a way to how to burn all of it. And

I remember. So. So we'll get into the wealth piece.

There was a book that changed my life, and it's called Profit First.

Got it by Mike McCallowitz. Yeah. And

now when I work with clients, it's the very first book.

I go, you know, day one, read this book.

And then, you know, I program a custom GPT to.

With chat GPT to help them. You know, we run things through that.

And so I remember discovering

that book and like, right, right when

it was a little too late, like, I discovered it,

I discovered it. It's funny how that works. I discovered it after the mess had

gotten way too crazy. And

if I could go back to that moment and when I discovered that book.

I would have been a lot more ruthless in my

execution of the budget. Okay. Because

what I did was I was like, oh, let's just adjust things slowly over

time and let's make sure that

we don't cut things too fast. And I didn't realize

the situation we were in. And

I think it really takes years of

being embedded in the, in a financial budgeting of

a company and really watching where money goes and the impacts of that.

And after you see that for a while, you can see how

dire the situation is. Like, when you

get really good at, you can get really good at financial

forecasting. So I remember I had someone bring their business to

me about a year and a half ago. They brought their business to me and

they go, I need help with this thing. I'm. I, I feel like

they had this feeling like, this is, this is up. Okay. And,

but I need your help. And I go, okay, send me your books. And they

were like, I don't need help with my books. I go, your

books are going to tell me. 90%

of the story. They're like, I need help with the marketing. I need help with

this. I'm like, like, no, no, no, no. The books. And it, it was a

back and forth of show made of books. And

I remember when I was younger, if someone asked me to show me the books,

I would have been scared to show them the books. Sure. Back in, you know,

their part of me was going, I know that I don't know the

books I'm going to show someone else and it's going to. I'm going to be

embarrassed because I actually don't know what's there. Finally get a

hold of books. I look at the books and I go,

what is that? Like, there's several things. I'm like, what is that? They're like, oh,

that's what we're paying. So. And so I'm, and I'm asking them, you know,

what are they doing? And they tell me what

I'm. And I, and I look it up and I go, they're getting paid double

what they. For that, that role. And then

over and over again. And so what was that?

Oh, so I looked at the books and, and, and I, and

I come back after looking at the books and like, hey, you gotta. These

are all the changes that need to be made. They're like, well, we really just

want to help with marketing, right? Because sometimes when people

look at what I do, they think it's just marketing. I'm like, no, no, it's

the full, it's the full business. And I can give

you marketing, but you're not going to be happy with the result because. And

I can't do what I need to do with marketing because the financial

flows is jacked up. Like, you could invest where you wanted or

there would be funds there to what you needed. Got it. Like,

we're going to waste money marketing if the rest of the system isn't.

Isn't finely tuned. Right. Like, I can bring in more leads, but

if it's not going to matter at the end of the day, you're going to

go out of, you're going to go out of business in six months. Shoot. If

you don't make this change. This particular situation was for,

Was not a traditional client. This was somebody who was in

the friends and family network is all I'll say, okay. Business shut

down six months later with nothing.

All money was gone. So in, in dire

situations, I could, I could see back and rewind back to

2017 and I would have

cut 80% of the operational

cost. No, I would have gone back and I would go back and just totally

slash. And it's interesting when I'm advising

people, a lot of times their nervous system

cannot handle that conversation. So I gotta, we

gotta Take it easy. Huh? You gotta take it easy. Like what about this?

What about this? Is it constantly? I'm like navigating

their nervous system in the conversation. So I'm not going to come and be

like, you got a/80% come in and like help them

come to their own conclusions. Because. Is that. Because they would, you would

find them going into like a fear response. It's shutting down and then

totally. Okay. Totally okay. Yeah, yeah, it's.

Yeah. And, and I want them to get there on their own because

if, if they don't get there on their own, then they just become totally.

They don't learn how to be business owners. And then now I'm

on calls every week with them, helping them make decisions

that they should have been able to make themselves. Okay. So in the beginning I'm

making, I'm helping them make all the decisions and then a year or two later

I'm there. But we've elevated the conversation. Now the conversation we're having

is big picture strategy. How do we move these

pieces in order to like, you know,

go from $50,000 months to a hundred thousand dollar months, which

is a different conversation than, you know, what do we do about this one little

piece of marketing over here? So in the beginning you're, you know, regulating

your, your spoon feeding them so that the nervous system doesn't go out of whack,

that they shut down. But then you're also really building them up

to a baseline where you could make some of those larger calls and also

not keep, it seems like not keep getting pulled back.

Right. Because now their level of awareness and consciousness is at the level of

a business owner. Yes. You know what I'm hearing is yes, you're a coach,

but really, and I've experienced this from you as well, you're largely a mentor,

you know, coach for sure. And, and really mentor that, that

wisdom position that so many of us need and

you bringing them up to that level, lot more efficient in

running business. Yeah, I care that

they're developing because if they're not developing, then I'll get bored. I mean,

part of itself. Sure. Because if I, if

I, I don't care how much money someone's paying me, if the

business isn't growing, then I don't, I don't want to be there.

I'm not there to like help people maintain their business. Okay.

If we're not growing in some way. I have one client right now

where he's had no growth for three months

financially. But we have been building all these systems in the

background, we, we're intentionally not growing

financially and then we're going to launch something new.

And you know, you can't predict the future

100%, but I think it'll double as revenue.

So you take three months off from doing that. While you're rejiggering some,

some stuff in the background, new thing comes out,

improves some of the holes that were in the game. So we're like basically shoring

up a hole. Look, retention is low for this particular

client. We're going, okay, how do we get retention from 5 months

to 12 months? Like the goal is how do we get 100 retention for the

first year? Okay. And because I know it can be done, I've

seen it. And so. We do

that, then the income will.

It'Ll compound for years to come instead of just being like, how

much money can we make this month? So, yeah, and I'd care that, like

they don't have to be developing in finances the whole time, but if we're developing

somewhere in the business the whole time, that's, that's interesting to me. I mean, I

would imagine too, that piece right there takes, I mean that too

does take coaching, get nervous as to regulation, because the

willingness to take one step back so that you could take three steps forward is

really what I'm hearing with this client. Like that. That also the

instant gratification or, you know, the income's not coming in these next three

months, like, that also takes its own regulation.

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's so interesting because

what'll happen is, especially if I've been working with somebody for

longer than six months, what will happen during that six

months is. Well, I heard so and so and so

influencer in the business space say this. I'm like, that's not the level

you're at. I have to remind them that this is not, that's a

different game. They're talking to somebody else. There are levels to this game

and sometimes people listen to somebody who's got a message for

a level they're not at. So, like, all this

advice is good if you're at the level they're talking to. Like

Gary Vaynerchuk for a longest time had terrible advice

for me. Huh? Because he was talking

to the 22 year old in his mom's basement, was trying to figure out his

life. I had already built something. I don't need to talk to, I don't need

to listen to Mike. I still don't. He's, he's always talking to the younger

generation. Like his advice is not good for me for a 25

to 30 year old. Listen to Mike, he knows what he's talking about.

Same with Alex Hormozi. Like I study him for his marketing stuff.

When it comes to how to live your life, not the guy for

me. Like I, I think I'm older than him. Like the,

I've been through that phase that he's in. He's crushing the phase that

he's in. Don't get me wrong, if you're a younger guy and you want to

make a bunch of money, he's got really good advice. If your nervous system

can handle it, most people can't. That's why

there's a thousand. For every thousand people trying to implement

these systems that he put together, there's one or two that are going to make

a million dollars. Right, yeah, that makes sense.

What? So going back to Dow, how would you define wealth?

For me, it was funny. I did Christina

Weiss's program back four years ago,

which I know you've done. Huge fan, huge fan, huge

fan. And the thing that I took from her

program, anytime I do any program, all I gotta do is get one

thing out of it. I got, I got many things out of it. But there

was one thing that really stuck with me, that this light bulb went

off. And it was

my definition of wealth. And she has her definition of wealth. I, I pretty much

adopted what she was saying in there.

But I walked away from that program four years ago and I go,

oh, I now know what wealth is. And that

for me, my wealth, my number. There's a number

associated with this. And I go. I

desire to live. You know, we'll

just call it in today's numbers, a half million dollar a year

lifestyle. Okay, like $500,000 a year puts me

in this really sweet spot. I don't need,

I mean, that's a lot. It's a lot for most

people are like half million dollars. But that allows me to travel, it

allows me to do all the things that I want to do without feeling

any pressure, any financial pressure. Right.

And so how much money do I need

invested in revenue producing assets? So assets that

produce revenue. There's no such thing as passive revenue.

But there is, there is revenue that's high

leverage, high leverage activity. So if I invest

in a bunch of real estate, it's not

passive if I ever have to check on it. Got it. Right. I

have to engage in some meetings, I have to keep an eye on it. I

need to be watching the Markets, there's no such thing as passive. I think

people have this dream that that's going to be the case, and the more like,

quote unquote, passive or high leverage it is, your returns are probably

going to be a little bit lower. So you got to figure out, you know,

if you want to be. If you want to be as passive as possible, throw

in a savings account and get 2% interest. It's not going to keep up with

inflation. 8% is not going to keep up with inflation because

inflation, the way it's reported, is. Total.

If you're not getting more than 10% on your returns, you're just, you're. You're treading

water. And so I look for.

I look for things that are like, more in the 15 to 20%. Okay?

But that's why I say it's not really passive, because I'm

not gonna. I'm not gonna be able to just hand someone a check and then

never think about it again. I'm gonna have to check in on it, maybe be

in some type of advisory role with what's happening or

whatever it is. So the word that I play with in

regard to wealth is leverage, not passive. I think passive is

a. It's a, it's a pipe dream that no one's

ever going to realize. Like, Warren Buffett isn't passive. Right.

He's super high leverage. Spends most of his time reading and making a few

decisions, you know, a quarter still not

passive. Right. And so the greatest

investor of all time. So for me,

I know, okay, if I want a half million dollars a year in passive

revenue, then I probably, conservatively,

you know, high leverage revenue, $10 million in

assets. And so for me, that'd be wealth, financial

wealth. You know, we could talk about wealth, you know, wealth of

your life and all that. But if I'm only talking about finances, which I think

is what a lot of people care about when they're, when they hear that word

is, yeah. If I have $10 million in assets that are, that are producing

revenue that require a small amount of

energy from me, then that's wealth. So that's my number.

And it's such a great frame to hold

because there's so many different ways to accumulate $10 million

in assets. There's, there's like the,

the very linear path that a lot of people

can sit, you know, are. Are taught, which is take

a percentage of the money you make and invest it in things that are really

safe over a long period of time. That works.

Now. Dave Ramsey crowd right and

that advice is really great for people on fixed incomes.

Okay. Or if they have a, they have a job, have a job, you

get a raise, you get 5% raise, which is a lot for a raise a

lot of times, which again, not keeping up with inflation. And we can get

a larger economic conversation. But yeah, like you.

You all, you either need to be an owner of your own business

or you need to be in a. If you want to build

wealth, you either have to be the. This is, this is my belief. You need

to be the business owner in charge or you need to be a part of

a business that's in a. That's small and agile and

innovative. If you're not doing that,

then build it. You may be and you have a really high

income. Say you have a half million dollar income. I have a

friend, he's got a job. I don't know exactly what he's making, but I kind

of got an idea and he

could shave off a couple hundred thousand dollars a year and be putting it in

something. He might be able to achieve, you know, good retirement wealth

status by the time he's 60. But that's not the game that's

interesting to me. So that's one way it could be done. And it's very

conservative and, and for most people's nervous systems, that would work

if they could consistently do it. But economics doesn't really

pan out for most people in that, in that case, that's to me

the riskiest way to invest. Even though for most

people's perspective it's the. Because it's. You have the

least control over it. This is a key thing is

people. Call things that are risky

that aren't risky at all. And so they

have conflated the words risk and responsibility.

And so people will say owning your own

business is risky. And I go from my

perspective, it's the least risky thing I could do. One of the most risky

things you can do is have a job because someone

else sees the number. Someone else is in

control of everything. And at any moment, at any time,

you could get fired. Right. How risky is that? If you own your own

business and you know your numbers, you'll know months and

months ahead of time before you have any financial trouble.

The difference is the level of responsibility of a business

owner is so much higher. It's not risky. The problem with

using the word risky is immediately the screen

in their mind turns off and their ability to see a vision of the future.

It's just risky. I'm not going to think about it.

Once something's labeled as risky and I'm not a risk taker, I don't think

about it. I've done this with a lot of people. All right, let's shift

this word risk and let's talk about responsibility. Do you want to be

responsible for your finances? Do you want to be responsible for where the money comes

from? Do you want to be. That's being a business owner.

Being a business owner makes you responsible for

the finances, the marketing, the, the fulfillment.

You become much more responsible in a heartbeat the moment become a

business owner. So to me, being a business owner is

the highest level responsible responsibility for your finances,

and it's the quickest way to wealth. So.

So to me, being a

business owner is

the

highest

level responsible

responsibility

for your finances,

and it's the

quickest

way

to

wealth.

So. And they

want to just sit on the beach drinking pina coladas. It's kind of like, I

think what's where a lot of people unconsciously, I don't think that's

consciously going on unconsciously. They think about retirement as

a resort somewhere. And

so if you can learn these skills and always be

valuable. Now, now I've gotten to the point where I've invested

in my skills for so long that I've become incredibly valuable. I have,

I have a lot of leverage, so I can have a handful of clients

and get paid well. And then I also have companies

because I understand business inside and out in a couple

different industries. I understand technology,

I understand software, I understand fitness, I understand health.

I

just

had someone offer me an advisory role yesterday. I got, I got offered two advisory

roles yesterday, one in a nonprofit, which I'm already

on one nonprofit. I got offer an advisory role

for a new supplement company, and I have an advisory

role in a peptide company right now.

So I look at the business and go, this business,

I think it's going to be worth $4 billion in the next three years.

And I'm getting in at the ground level. I'll advise during the startup phase.

I'm going to help get this thing off the ground. It's going to cost me

a few hours a week. That's high leverage. Yeah, you

only need one of those to get that 10 million dollar. Right.

Which

I do do that as well. Not every month, but we're not. When

money's high, put in crypto. Some of

this stuff sounds risky, but I, I don't believe in our current economy

is going to last until, for the next 20 years.

That's the safe investment to me. That's the, that's the Bitcoin is

gold. Okay. It's the new gold.

And there's, we know that there, it's a true

scarce resource whereas gold, they could find a new mine and

we actually don't know how much gold there is. So

I do that and then I, I look for companies where I can add value.

So that's my position. That's, that's, that's my

strategy because I've spent time doing this. This is a

strategy I could not have put in place 10 years ago. I wasn't knowledgeable enough.

I didn't have the wisdom. Companies weren't gonna, weren't coming to me and going,

come advise us. We're gonna, I, I had a couple of those but

the, the level of, of businesses that approach me now

for advisory and in exchange for equity, it's a different,

it's a bit of a different game going on now. Right. And that comes from

having experience. And so I

think it's, I think it's important for people to identify what that wealth

number is. Like I wanna, that good life number, right?

Yeah, that good life number. Yeah. It's like okay, half million dollars.

That's gonna require $10 million in assets to maintain that

because that should spit off, you know, at least

5% above inflation. So I'm looking for things that are going to give me a

10 to 15, 10 to 20 return. So that because I'm.

I have to always adjust for inflation as well for most people. Like this

is very complex what I'm talking about right now. This is not. I doubt

most people are going to listen to this and go, oh, I know exactly what

to do.

...implementing

Mike's strategy. But if you keep

developing yourself, you're gonna, and you're programming your mind to be

tracking for how do I accumulate as much in assets? Then you start seeing other

options. Some people get into real estate. I did a little bit of real estate

for a while and found out it wasn't for me, it was how I can

accumulate all of these

properties and then I can

borrow money to purchase them

and then I can sell them and owner finance them. And I had this whole

system I was using where. And it was a

system up that somebody taught me wasn't. I didn't make it up

and it works. But I got into it and I, I got

a handful of deals into it and I realized that there's way more administrative

load here than I prefer.

That's not my gift. Right. In fact, if I take personality tests and

business is like, don't do administrative shit ever. Like, it's the lowest

scoring thing. But if somebody scores really high on that, then getting into

real estate could be a really great thing for them because it's a huge. There's

a lot of administrative stuff happening there. And so you got to figure

out like, that could be a way in. Like you could, you could build

wealth with none of your own money. You go and make, get creative

in deal making in real estate. Borrow money in order to get our. And not,

not a way that leverages you in a really safe way where like

if the deal goes bad, you can walk away and you're good.

So there's all these. You have to be

entrepreneurial. You have to be even in the real estate thing. You have to Become

a business owner, you have to own your. A real estate business that does

investing. And so there's all these different

paths that can get you to those assets. And so when

I, when I came that, that's one reason I got into real estate is because

I, when I figured out what that number was, I started scanning the,

the horizon for what are all the different and easiest

ways to accumulate $10 million in assets that are revenue

generating.

...this

is how I'm involved in

right now. If I were to count it up, probably involved in like eight different

companies, eight or nine different companies, some capacity.

I don't even have to meet with all of them every week. You know, some

weeks I'm on the calls with them for several hours. Some week, you know, a

month goes by, I don't talk to them. So there's different things going on. Some

of them I own myself, some of my own, like a majority stake

in. Some of them I own like a very small percentage of. But they

have the potential for, to be a billion dollars or something like that.

So I think at the end of the, this whole.

The, the lesson here is like, you got to really know yourself and where you're

at in the world and how you can generate that wealth. But I think if

anybody, anybody who finds that target and starts

putting their mind there and then they, they're also in the process of

understanding themselves and how they operate in the world, they'll start finding that

leverage. You know, I think you spoke to it a bit

already, but as we had to head to close at the show, I'd love to

hear, you know, you're at a different phase of life as most, and I

think that's a huge asset because you are now a wisdom teacher

right off your life experience. If you've got a guy,

whether he's got a young family or wants to have a family, he's in

his 30s, what would you give him? As if you could say, distill

it down to what's one important thing that you would advise him on to

creating wealth in terms of that good life number. So, yeah,

man in his 30s, young family or aspirations, what would you suggest?

...freelancer

or you've got to own your own business. A freelancer technically owns their own business,

but they do like one task for other businesses. You

need to get to a place where you can make

$150,000 a year depending on where you live. You know

it's going to vary a bit, but.

Live, live a modest lifestyle.

Get your lifestyle to where it's modest, where you can get by with 150,

$200,000 a year. Okay, and then, and then cap

yourself there and then create a

business that requires you to work 20 hours a week to,

to meet that and then spend the rest of your time

learning and developing and exploring other other things.

This is advice that probably, I think it would have worked at any time in

history, but I think it's the most important time in history right now because things

are evolving and moving so fast. You have to spend

time in research and what's going on in the world, and you need

to spend time learning about yourself. And so get

a business to where it's doing that. Sometimes when you get the business to doing

that, then you spend that extra 20 hours of, you know, weird work

week figuring out how to create more

efficiencies in that business to make it more valuable. Like, if you really love

that, then you're going to use that time to learn how

to, how to improve that and create efficiencies to where that

then holds a lot of the value free of your time, to where you get

to choose when you wake up, get to choose when you're working. We

were talking about this yesterday. Like, I stack all my meetings

on Monday and Tuesday in a, in like four to five

hour range. And so I've got two days in a row where I'm

meeting four or five hours a day, which takes a lot of presence. So it

takes a lot out of me. But then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

are mine. And I can either be working on my business,

not in it. I'm working on my business. It's so funny, I

saw another business influencer saying almost the same

thing. He stacks everything on Monday, Tuesday. I was like, well, I came to the

same conclusion. That guy's pretty smart. Anyone who agrees with me

is a genius. But if you can free that

time up and then you can, and you can play. It's important to be

in that playful energy of what am I, what am I interested

in right now? Like, I spent this last year,

I worked probably like on average three or four hours

a day. And I spent the rest of the time in learning

A.I. Wow. And I forget how good I am at using

AI tools until I start talking to other business owners and I ask them how

they're using AI and I go, oh my God, you have no idea what you're

doing. So I'm, I'm learning about AI. I'm listening to

podcasts of investors, people who are, who are

like, who are building the AI. I'm listening to people who are

hedge fund managers. I'm listening to people who have a global view, what's

going on. I go, the more I pay attention, I go, oh,

everything in the next five to 10 years. In the next five years, things are

going to change dramatically in 10 years, our lives are going to be

unrecognizable. Money may not even be a thing in 10 years.

May not, but it may. So

you really, that that additional time that you buy yourself,

you buy those, you, you buy all that time back and you

invest your high quality energy into things you love, you're

going to become very agile and adaptable and that's what's gonna, that's gonna be the

number one skill, is how adaptable. And part of that is your nervous system. He's,

you need to be, you need to be able to handle new information and

changes without freaking out. So you got to become, you

got to tune your nervous system and your body to be adaptable. You gotta

learn how business works to be adaptable. You got, there's a lot to

learn here, which you should be excited about because

you can do it. There's, there's nobody, there's no

oppression here. Zero oppression. No one's

physically forcing you to do anything or not do anything. It is

all on you. So this is the greatest time in history to

be able to design a life that you desire. But most

people, the only thing holding them back is they don't believe that it's possible

for them. They just stay focused on the things, on

why their life isn't the way they want it to be, or they focus on,

well, so and so's got this and that's what made it available for them.

So yeah, I mean, I grew up in like a blue collar home

construction, barely making a buy all the time.

And I was homeschooled. I

became a

Business

owner in my 20s.

Most of what I've been able to set myself up for has been

through just smashing through beliefs

of being inadequate or. You know, I used

to believe that I was stupid. I used to believe that. That I'd be,

you know, there's no way I'd ever make a million dollars like that. That. That

wasn't even a. Wasn't even a thing in my mind that would be possible.

I wasn't even trying to do it. So

you really got to work with your beliefs in this. The only thing holding anyone

back in America and most of the Western world is just your

beliefs. If you can work with those and work with your nervous

system, you can position yourself to build real wealth. That's

the only thing holding you back. And it may make. It may take five, 10

years, and in five, 10 years, it might not matter. But if

you invest in yourself over the next five to 10 years, no matter what the

world looks like, you're going to be in an advantage. The people who are going

to be a disadvantage in 10 years are the people who just try

to keep things the same, and they're only thinking about how to make money this

week, and they haven't positioned themselves. It's. I mean, I

quote Alex Horosi. He said, it's never been easier

to build a business. The barrier to entry to building a business has never been

lower. The barrier to entry to making a million dollars has never been lower. And

the amount of distraction that's available has never been higher.

And that's. That's learning how to regulate your nervous system

and recognize and being your awareness and realize, when am I getting

distracted and how do I bring my focus back to what's actually important?

This

has

been

fire, Mike. I appreciate you so much, brother. Thank you. Thank you.

Super fun.