So I dropped out of college to enter the fastlane. My first year in ecom back in 2000 I made $400k. I was 21 years old. And yes, like MJ I bought a Dodge Viper. I didn't know what I was doing and certainly didn't understand how to continually innovate and add customer value. The barriers to entry dropped and every few months, new competitors would come and undercut me. Margins dropped and competition increased. In 2010 I closed up shop (was not even cracking 6 figures anymore) and moved my savings into real estate.
I went through a pretty dark period from 2008-2014. Even though I still had assets like real estate, I had too little cash flow. I remember once rolling change to make a mortgage payment on an extra house I didn't need. I moved my wife and 2 kids in with my parents, even though we owned 2 houses (main and vacation home) worth collectively $700k (although upside down on both), and a reasonable real estate porfolio. I bought into one famous radio guys and I tried cutting back, cheapskating on everything. Beans and rice, rice and beans. Going debt free feels great, and being cheap sort of feels like you're doing a good thing, but it doesn't solve your money problems. I think overall that guy's advice is sound financial advice for most people, but it's not a key to wealth, nor does he really sell it as that.
By 2012 I had reorganized, got rid of the baggage, actually ended up owning a $300k house free and clear, all my cars free and clear (newest car was 10 years old), no debt, but I was always broke. You still have to pay taxes, insurance, health care, food, gas, etc... This is what EVERYBODY strives for at retirement, right? But I was in my 30's. Paid off house, paid off cars, no debt. Tell you what, no bills and no income still equals broke.
I bought the "passive income" scam. Despite having a strong math background, I simply didn't realize that you can't grow wealth fast enough. If you look at the "penny doubling every day is worth $5.3m after 30 days" story of compound interest, you realize that after 17 days, it's still only worth $655. It's not until day 28 that it even cracks a million. From day 27 to day 30 it goes from $671k to $5.3m, or 88% of the total gain. So when MJ says you'll be rich in a wheelchair, it's true...
So I bought into rental real estate, which is the same as passive income, except it's really a job taking care of other people's problems. We had people call and ask us to change light bulbs. Or when the toilet's stopped up because they flushed 3 diapers down the toilet. Got out of that fast.
I got into the finance side of real estate about 3 years ago and things exploded (real estate finance = large magnitude). Suddenly I was generating explosive active income. Back in the fast lane! I started investing my proceeds into passive investing and the passive income started growing... enough to replace a college grad's salary. I've hit several passive income milestones since then. My new long term goal is 2-comma passive income a year ($1m) which I'll hit by the end of the decade, maybe sooner. The key difference is that my active income is funding my passive income buys... not passive income funding passive income.
About a week ago I picked up MJ's book and read it cover to cover. It literally opened my eyes to all the reasons why I had successes and failures, and why my first business never grew to a liquidity event. It also showed the math why passive income is great for living income, but terrible for wealth creation. His book is 100% legit, and I wish someone had handed it to me the day I dropped out of college.
I started reading the forums and hope the engage, learn from, and lend a hand to, all you other entrepreneurs.
I went through a pretty dark period from 2008-2014. Even though I still had assets like real estate, I had too little cash flow. I remember once rolling change to make a mortgage payment on an extra house I didn't need. I moved my wife and 2 kids in with my parents, even though we owned 2 houses (main and vacation home) worth collectively $700k (although upside down on both), and a reasonable real estate porfolio. I bought into one famous radio guys and I tried cutting back, cheapskating on everything. Beans and rice, rice and beans. Going debt free feels great, and being cheap sort of feels like you're doing a good thing, but it doesn't solve your money problems. I think overall that guy's advice is sound financial advice for most people, but it's not a key to wealth, nor does he really sell it as that.
By 2012 I had reorganized, got rid of the baggage, actually ended up owning a $300k house free and clear, all my cars free and clear (newest car was 10 years old), no debt, but I was always broke. You still have to pay taxes, insurance, health care, food, gas, etc... This is what EVERYBODY strives for at retirement, right? But I was in my 30's. Paid off house, paid off cars, no debt. Tell you what, no bills and no income still equals broke.
I bought the "passive income" scam. Despite having a strong math background, I simply didn't realize that you can't grow wealth fast enough. If you look at the "penny doubling every day is worth $5.3m after 30 days" story of compound interest, you realize that after 17 days, it's still only worth $655. It's not until day 28 that it even cracks a million. From day 27 to day 30 it goes from $671k to $5.3m, or 88% of the total gain. So when MJ says you'll be rich in a wheelchair, it's true...
So I bought into rental real estate, which is the same as passive income, except it's really a job taking care of other people's problems. We had people call and ask us to change light bulbs. Or when the toilet's stopped up because they flushed 3 diapers down the toilet. Got out of that fast.
I got into the finance side of real estate about 3 years ago and things exploded (real estate finance = large magnitude). Suddenly I was generating explosive active income. Back in the fast lane! I started investing my proceeds into passive investing and the passive income started growing... enough to replace a college grad's salary. I've hit several passive income milestones since then. My new long term goal is 2-comma passive income a year ($1m) which I'll hit by the end of the decade, maybe sooner. The key difference is that my active income is funding my passive income buys... not passive income funding passive income.
About a week ago I picked up MJ's book and read it cover to cover. It literally opened my eyes to all the reasons why I had successes and failures, and why my first business never grew to a liquidity event. It also showed the math why passive income is great for living income, but terrible for wealth creation. His book is 100% legit, and I wish someone had handed it to me the day I dropped out of college.
I started reading the forums and hope the engage, learn from, and lend a hand to, all you other entrepreneurs.
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