Arsenio's ESL Podcast: Money Talk for Teenagers with Hernan Sias!

A super special podcast for lots of teenagers and employees around the world.  Hernan, who's another podcaster, talks about implementing practicality into his classroom to enable students to learn hands-on; in addition, it's all part of their grade! I had the opportunity to bring him on my joint-podcast with another co-host of mine, and I absolutely thought he would deliver on so many different levels for this podcast -- AND DID! Tune into this one!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

YGuys welcome back to Arsenio's ESL podcast and today I'm going to bring you as much value as I possibly can today. Today is a very, very special day just because, Ooh, I actually entered and had the special privilege of interviewing this specific individual who's sitting right in front of me on motivational mentors, which is another podcast. And I'm so grateful because he is starting to implement change into the schooling system. He actually teaches 12th graders out there in San Diego, California. Um, this is going to be a very, very interest in podcasts for a lot of you because you're going to hear two west coast accents. Not only that, but you're going to learn about what is not being taught in school and how can you somewhat start preparing yourself in terms of possibly building up different sources of incomes, not relying on one job or this or that. It's going to be a lot of different information. So bad. With that being said,[inaudible] man, thanks so much for coming on.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Oh, appreciate it. Let's do this. I'm excited. I mean, uh, there's, there's so much we can talk about. We can talk about this for days. So, uh, let's, let's get as much information as we can in this compact, the time we got.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Absolutely. So, Matt, would that be a say I want you to just give a nice introduction about what you do, everything that you're engaged in. Uh, so the listeners just have a good idea of what's going on on your end.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Oh, for sure. So, let's see. First of all, I have my own daily podcast. It's called business bros. Um, you can find us on social media at Business Bros Pod, pretty much any, uh, social media platform out there. Um, and on top of that, I teach at East Lake High. Um, I have a course called Financial Algebra. Um, I own a, an insurance agency with my brother. Um, and, uh, we also invest in real estate, so we got our hands in a bunch of cookie jars. But, uh, but you know, I think the biggest thing for me, the, the passionate thing for me is teaching 17 year old kids who are about to enter the world, who are about to face a reality. It's going to give them a nice slap in the face. I want to give them the tools that are, that'll give them the opportunity to succeed. So what I tell my my seniors all the time is, is the first time they ever played the game monopoly. They probably sucked that it was probably not a very good experience, but the second time they played, they had a chance of winning. And the big difference between the first and the second time is they learned the rules to the game. Once you learn the rules to the game, you have an opportunity to win. So when I teach this course, I want to give you the rules so that you have a chance to win at this game called life. And if you choose to take one route, you know the route you're taking and you understand that there are other opportunities out there, but you're consciously making an effort to go the route that you're going on.

Speaker 1: 2:46

Wow, man. Just so much info. I'm really, really excited. Just because you know, there's a very vast audience that you're actually speaking to. You know, I just found out that there are other, you know, folks from Butan and Ghana and I mean this about 50 countries that listen to this podcast. So, you know, with Brazil being the number one followed by, of course America, they love listening to my English language podcast, which is cool for a lot of reasons and whatnot. But man, so when it comes to teaching and you know, just everything in general, again, I've talked about on, you know, my personal development podcasts in terms of Robert Kiyosaki, we're not taught how to of course earn money. We're taught how to become employees. So you, let's just say 20 years ago what you've learned, what I've learned versus what you are implemented in your classroom today, how much of a difference is it?

Speaker 2: 3:47

Well, let's, let's break it down even simpler. You're an ESL teacher, you're an English as a second language teacher, right? So that means that you are literally teaching someone the different variations of language, dialect. You know, you're, you're even teaching vocabulary type stuff. Finance is its own language. So like if you, you know, there's a lexicon of information, there's, there's a Word Bank of information that you need to be able to speak to understand if you're going to do anything in finance, period. So step number one is literally teaching kids a new language. This language of money, right? This language of finance. If you can teach them what the words mean and understand, then the concepts make a little more sense, right? If we can speak the same language, I can teach you other things around that language. I could teach you other concepts, other ideas. So the very first thing that I try to really invoke in my students is able capillary section. I want you to know what this word means. I want you to go down to the root of the word. I want you to understand, you know, mortgage, for example, a contract until death, right? So understand where these words come from and what they mean. And then we can talk about, well what is a mortgage? How does it work? Let's talk about, you know, what does it mean to have a term? How many years in a term, what are the, you know, once you can speak the language then we're ready to rock and roll. So, you know, if you're talking about going back to, you know, when I first started in my first very, very first finance book that I decided to read was also where Robert Kiyosaki's rich Dad, poor dad. And it was one of those things that like when I'm reading it, I start to make sense. I love the fact that he used pictures instead of, you know, trying to give me big fancy words. And, and you know, it made me understand the concept of a cash flow statement in very simple terms, the way money flows. And once I understood that it opened up the door to much more intricate topics. I mean, by the time you get to this third book, he's talking about, you know, an LLC versus an s corp versus c Corp. You know, you can't just take a 17 year old and start talking to corporations. It's not gonna work that way. You've got to guide them through the process so that they understand so that they can speak the same language as you. If I went to the doctor's office and I did sat there and listened to doctors talk about whatever's going on to this particular patient or the dentist's office, I mean they speak in tongues, man.

Speaker 1: 6:06

Yeah,

Speaker 2: 6:07

language, right? But to them they understand exactly what's going on. So we've got to do the same thing with these kids. We get to teach them the rules of the game. They first need to understand the language. Then they can understand the rules. Then they have a chance of winning.

Speaker 1: 6:22

Wow. You know what you just mentioned? Cashflow and with cashflow, you know, he actually did a couple of our London grill podcast as a matter of fact. And when he did those podcasts, he talked about how cashflow consistently comes in. So we got three ways of earning income, right? You have basically your household income, which you get from your job. Then you have your portfolio and then you have pass it. So we of course in school, break it down the foundation and everything. We're taught base you just working for money. That's basically it. We have to do a little extra to learn about the ETFs, the index funds, mutual funds and stocks, et Cetera, et cetera. And then passive income. We're never taught this, but he said something very interesting. He said passive income cannot be taxed. And so this is why there are so many rich people, a, there are so many lower class people saying tax the rich, but you can't tax assets. So I mean there are just so many different ways of just breaking down cashflow in general. So what are some of the very, very basics. Of course, you know, the vocabulary and whatnot do in the real estate vocab, you know, mortgages, all that stuff. Ah, how did you, like you said, you, your, you're getting ready to launch this bad boy and within a month, you know, and you're going to be teaching something very, very different from what you're accustomed to teach it. What is the basics that you want everyone to learn in the beginning and right out the gates?

Speaker 2: 7:58

All right, so I'm going a little contradictory to, uh, Mr Kiyosaki. Now these days, only because the world has shifted a little bit. So can you stop? He's big on making your way to retirement, figuring out how to get to retirement, where your money works for you. You no longer have to work for your money, right? That's essentially what he's after, whether it's through rental real estate, whether it's do owning stock in corporations where there's dividends, doesn't matter his, his flow is take your money invested by assets so that your assets spit out enough money to cover your expenses. You're done right in, you're out of the rat race. Um, and then you can retire. Now, uh, the only thing that I'm shifting on that is I don't like the word retirement anymore. To me. Retirement means you're done. You're, you're at the end of the line. You're 65 years old. I'm done. I hit the finish line. The problem with that is you get that in your head and you start thinking, I'm done. The next thing that happens is you die because that's what really happens when we're done is we die, right? I know want that to happen to to any of my people, I want them to continue to have a purpose in life and work is purposeful. Now, the difference between you getting up and going into a job and you getting up and doing something you love is is the difference between you hitting the snooze button in the morning and you wanting to get up in the morning. If you can figure out the thing that makes you happy, if you can figure out how to monetize that thing and if you can figure out how to turn that into an income that you can survive on. Now, I'm not saying this is the way you're going to make millions. It's possible. But what I am saying is you're going to wake up everyday loving what you do and you're going to work well into your nineties because you would've been doing that thing for free anyways. Right. And so, you know, for me, my biggest thing is now trying to teach these kids to find that thing that drives him, that passion, that happiness inside them, and then giving them the tools necessary to figure out a way to monetize that. So in my classroom, I actually started this week is the kids came back to school. So we have a little bit of a modified schedule. So they started this week and we've spent this whole week doing community building activities. I wanna make the vulnerability level amongst these kids. Like I want them to freely share ideas and freely comment on each other's stuff and help elevate each other. But I need to build community in that, in, in, in the classroom so that they're comfortable to do that first and foremost. Along with that, I'm having them journal every day. So 10 minutes a day, they are journaling and, and um, I give them a prompt. But really, really, really what I want them to do is write down their ideas. What are you thinking about on a daily basis? What is it that drives you today? What is it that stressful in your mind that you need to get out on paper? Because my thought is if you have an idea in your head and you don't put it to paper, you're never planting that seed is just gonna be an idea that's there for a second and then it's gone. Right? I don't want that to happen to them. So I want them to get in the habit of writing down their thoughts and their ideas on a regular basis. Second thing I'm doing is I'm, I do this thing called my goal, your goal. So I tell them what my goal is for the day, right? This is my goal for the day. Like I, I, I'm expecting to do x, Y, z by the end of the period, that sort of thing. And then I want them to write a goal. And right now their goals are very micro, very small. Something as simple as you're going to show up to every class on time or this tomorrow I'm not going to hit the snooze budget and button, I'm going to pop up out of bed or I'm not going to eat chips for the rest of the week or you know, something small that they can achieve. Because between those two things, between writing your thoughts down and writing a goal down in achieving it, that is the, to me, those are the habits that are going to take a dream or some vision and place action beside it to make it happen for them. So those are the, those are the things that we're starting off with. The biggest change in my classroom this year is I'm revolving each chapter around social media. So for the very first chapter we're starting off with is employment. So normally this would be like how to write a resume. This will be, you know, when to get a job filling out your w four those are pretty boring topics if you're just talking to 17 year olds doesn't relate to them. So what I want them to do is we've, we've introduced, I've introduced them to five platforms, so it's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, linkedin, and Youtube. And they're going to be creating content around the topics. Now, maybe they're the employer and they're looking for employees. Maybe they're the employee and they're looking for a job. Maybe they're selling a product, one of these companies, and they're the employee, the sales rep doing this stuff. I don't know where, where the, you know, what it's going to be, but I'm going to let their creative juices fly and I want them to, to create pieces of content for each one of those platforms. So each, and I'm going to have 10 teams basically in my, in my classroom. And each team will create a piece of content for a specific platform and, and it's project base, but now they're really digging into the material because they need to make the content relevant. They need to make the content. Uh, you know, if they're targeting 25 year olds in a specific city, then they need to understand the demographic. They need to understand what it is that they're selling. They need to understand the concept altogether and put a piece together that works for that. So part of the grade is going to be a, in the classroom is his textbook, right. You know, there's, there are certain math problems in there we've got to cover, there are certain concepts we gotta we've got to take care of. That never goes away. It's part of the curriculum. State of California says, I gotta do that, we gotta do that. Right? But the rest I get to do some creative stuff. The rest is like, you know, 20% of your grade is going to be tests and quizzes. And then I got another 20% that guess what? I'm not grading it. The market is going to grade it. If you put a piece of content out there and your goal was to get, you know, 10 10 engagement comments and you weren't able to do that, well then your piece wasn't good enough. The market decided that it wasn't good enough. And I told them, I go, now, look, I understand we're in high school. So if I tell you to put 10 comments and sell 10 of your friends, you know, you get them to put little happy faces or whatever that might look cool. But we're going to look at the analytics and if your target was 60 year old individuals and you have nothing but 17 year olds posting under your comments, then you didn't meet the metric. So the market is going to decide what happens here and it puts a little added pressure. My ultimate goal is pretty simple. I want them to walk in a class with a marketable skill. I want them to walk out of class knowing the rules to the game and then give them an opportunity to succeed when they graduate. Build that rapport with them so that if they're ever in a have any questions in life, they know who to reach out to. Man, that is like the you age of interactive learning. I May and you know what put in their self in you giving them the opportunity to put themselves out there for vulnerability because you know what, when you start posting things on different and whatnot,

Speaker 1: 14:53

um, let me give you an example. Um, I've never had any negative comments on my youtube channel, probably like last year and it was in regards to like a podcast I uploaded three years ago. Um, but you know, putting themselves out there and saying, hey, you know what, this is the content that I'm distributing. These are the, you know, the metrics and the different age groups that I'm targeting. And getting that feedback too. So I woke up this morning and I didn't know, but I had a message on Linkedin and a guy out of nowhere in Idaho was like, hey, where can I find your personal development podcasts? And I'm like, oh my God, that was the first time on a professional platform that someone had reached out to me based on what I've been posting. So using hashtags and you know, all these other things. I love what you're doing because what we were taught 20 years ago obviously doesn't apply for today because now we're able to create an audience and a lot of people don't understand that. So you see the fire that Facebook is coming down with in terms of weaponization, what? At the same time, it's like, Hey, you know what? No Facebook, no market. Everyone is on social media. Okay, this is how it works. Now you have the opportunity to choose if you want to see the good or the bad, if you want to engage with the nasty or engage with the people that like teen positive, you know what I mean? So, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:19

Oh absolutely. Well, I, you know, one of the things that that I spoke to my students about is the word responsibility, right? And you know, I asked them what do they think of responsibility? They think, you know, Spiderman with great power comes great responsibility. I'm like, that's a great movie line, but let's talk about, you know, let's, let's break that word down a little bit. I go, this is your ability to respond, right. How you respond to any given situation is going to determine how you live your life. If you respond negatively to the situations, you're going to tend to live in negative light because you're going to get back what you put out. So I've actually, I had a negative comment just today. As a matter of fact, I posted this comic con video, right? It's about one minute long and uh, it's just, you know, I went to comic con, interviewed people, you know, had a good time and I posted it on a bunch of different groups. Right. Cause I'm part of a lot of different groups. Yeah. And I had a lady, you know, one of them is by nothing, national city or something and uh, and I posted it there and she's like, Hey, are you selling something? I'm like, no, I'm not selling anything at all. She's like, oh, because you know, your, this is a place where you don't sell anything. I was like, no, no. I just, you know, put it up there. I don't earn anything if you watch it. I just, you know, I decided it'd be cool to see something here that happens in San Diego and she was like, good, well I wasn't gonna buy anything from you anyways. And I was like, well, you know what? That's fine. I hope you have a wonderful day. Right? That's my response, right? I don't, I don't need, I could easily have, you know, turned around and started a Facebook fight right there. You know what I mean? They could have easily happened, but I chose to put out the positivity because I know that now I'm going to go the rest of my day. This is a example I had just spoken with my students about what you do when you get negative comments and now I have an example of how to respond in a positive manner. I know, I tell them, and I heard this from a, from Gary v actually. He's like, you know, when you get a negative comment, you really got to think about, you've got to empathize with the person who's on the other side who's placed in that negative comment. They took the time to consume your content. They took the time to think about it and it triggered them in some way where they responded to you negatively. You don't know what's going on in their life. You triggered an emotion, which is really what you want to do on social media anyways. It just triggered them the wrong way for whatever reason, whatever's going on in their life, so you continue to put out positive things. You might be that positive little spark in their day that changed the outlook of whatever happened to them. You don't know who you're affecting by trying to help that person be positive in that one day. You don't know, right? It's, it's that butterfly effect, so just remain positive and things will get better for you. Ultimately, you may be that may not come back from that one person, but you put out enough positive vibes. They're going to come back to you in droves eventually, sometime somewhere.

Speaker 1: 19:01

Right? A lot of man, a lot of people, they get their, their voices drowned out of course, by the negativity or of course the fear of being judged. That's what Napoleon Hill wrote in his book like almost a hundred years ago. And it stops them from helping the people that need their voice. And a lot of people don't understand that. It's kind of like me, you know, at the very beginning, my personal development podcast, um, when I first started it, you know, of course is the English language because this is an entire different thing. You're not reaching out to a very vast audience. But personal development podcasts, I, if the listeners would just a byproduct of me. So as I was putting out as much material as possible, I was still somewhat focusing on the negative. And then it almost cost me my job because all these older guys who I didn't necessarily implicate, but I said, hey, if you can't get a Thailand for all the wrong reasons, why are you here? A lot of them didn't like that. They stopped talking to me. Oh, so what? I'm teen positive. And once you become, because you have a talisman, every morning you have PMA, positive mental attitude or NMA negative mental attitude you have and make the choice, the decision to, hey, which talisman do you want to put in your pocket today? Or you know, are you going to have the right site up or the bad side, you know, the bad side up. So, um, very important and especially when people start pursuing their passions. So I wanted to touch up on that real quick. It's so crazy because there's so much information and of course misinformation out there in terms of, oh, is, I don't know, a tedx speaker was like, don't go after your passion. That stupid. Go after it. And it was something in terms of an employer and I'm like, oh my God, what's going on there? So what was my passion? To be honest with you, her and on, I had no idea I was going to become a teacher. I just said something was pulling me towards Asia and maybe it was the beginning of the new me. And so when I started doing personal development got amplified, I went into podcasts and I went into writing. I did the writing books, I started posting blogs, I hired someone for content writing. All of this just started blowing up and then I just got my biggest speaking engagement on my life that's coming up in three weeks, which is going to be very, very nerve wracking because it's like the Asian summit and I'm like, oh my God, they're going to have this rather on stage speaking to all these. It's just going to be crazy, but I'm so grateful for the process. But did I know what my passion was from the beginning? No, no, no. Maybe it's putting themselves out there in the vulnerability that was somewhat find their passion. I don't know, because I remember you said on the last podcast on motivational mentors that how was the 17 year old going to find their passion? Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2: 21:48

It's, it's, it's damn near impossible. I don't think, I don't, I didn't know what I was doing at 17 I don't think most 17 year olds know what they're doing right. You know, the biggest thing is, you know, you, you may not know what you want to do, but you know what you don't want to do. Right. I mean, some of these kids, especially in my class, they had not been doing good in the traditional school system. They have it. They'd been told, you know, you better get good grades or you're not going to go to college. You better get good grades or you're not going to get a good job. You're not going to graduate. They've been told everything they can't do all this time instead of, hey man, like you have something in you, you have a spark, you have some, something that drives you, something that you love to do is inside you. And you may not know what it is, but it's there and you're gonna figure that out. So stop wasting your time with things that, that you know you don't want to do. And it's Kinda weird because I know as a teacher I'm like, I know you want, you need to pass your other classes. I really do expect you guys to graduate high school that, that I need you to do. But you know, after that, beyond that college isn't for everybody, especially today with the prices of college. Like it's ridiculous. It may not be for you, but what is it that you love to do? It's funny because I relate this to finance all the time. Like, Whoa, we got sirens going off. So, but I relate this to find this all the time when, when you get a job at the very beginning, right? You're 1819 years old, you get a job, you end up at a pretty good company, you know, they're going to say, hey, you know, fill out these w four is, you know, let's get your payroll going by the way we have a 401k. Would you like to participate? And you start thinking about that sort of stuff. Like, okay, well, yeah, I should probably, you know, save for retirement. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. And then you sit down with the, with the 401k person and they're like, you know, this is how we should set up your fun. You know, you're young, you have a lot of years, let's set up a very risky fun for you, right? And then let's put, let's put most of your money in high risk. Um, and you know, as you get older we'll, we'll, we'll change it and you'll get more bonds, more, more, uh, you know, more or less risk stuff over here in later years. So we'll start with the high risk stuff. So they're telling you that to do that with your money and yet with your life, they're giving you the most conservative way possible, which is you should go to college and you should get a job that you're going to work for the next 30 or 40 years. So your money can take a risk, but you can't, like that doesn't make sense to me. Like 19, 20, 21 years old, figure it out. Like go out there and decide. Travel the world if that's what you want to do. Live with like four or five roommates and minimize your expenses. Get off mom and dad's paycheck. Like you need to get out there and try things. Cause that's the only way you're going to figure it out. Continue your education. Doesn't mean you have to go to college, but it does mean you should listen to podcasts, listen to youtube, read books in whatever field it is that interests you. Elevate your education and take the risk in that realm because what's the worst thing that can happen? You're going to find a job. You're going to conform and you're going to be average. Everybody is average. But take the risk at what you want to do. And maybe you can come up on top. Maybe you hit, you know, you find your stride, you find your passion and you find what you want to do. But take the risk today, like when you're 19 2021 years old, you have the rest of your life to be conservative. You have the rest of your life too. You know, put all their chips into some basket that you want for retirement, if that's what you want to do later down the road. But you're gonna regret not taking the opportunity when you were younger. You're going to regret it because later on you're going to have married, you're gonna have kids, you're gonna have more responsibilities. All those things are, are, are things that trigger that conformity. But when you're young, take the risk. If your financial advice is to take the risk with your money, take the risks early on and figure out what your passion is. And I don't know what the answer is. I don't know what your answer is. I wish I could tell you, rub a crystal ball and tell you what your future's going to be like. I don't know. You have to go out and figure that out for yourself. But don't be afraid to tell mom and dad, hey, you know what? This college thing is not for me. Mom and dad, I'm sorry, like I did four years of high school and you saw how that went. Makes you think is going to change when I go to college. So I'm not saying college is not for you. Like me personally, I went to college, I in school clicked for me. Let's be honest, like I did really well in high school. I went straight to San Diego State University, but at the university I didn't know what the hell I was doing there. I was going to classes because I'm supposed to go to classes. I got good grades because I'm supposed to get good grades. There was nothing behind that, no passion. I dropped out after two and a half years and I didn't go back until seven years later, but by that point I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I was like, I need to know how this money works. I went back and got my degree in accounting, but there's a difference in the education level seven years later when I wanted it versus you know, seven years prior when I just went because I was supposed to and that's my, you know, that's what I'm trying to get across to these kids. There is no exact rule for how your life is supposed to go. It doesn't work that way. You need to figure it out and you need to be able to have that, that confidence in yourself to say, I'm going to go out and make my mistakes and that's okay. I'm going to try it and I'm going to go out and I'm not going to have any regrets at the end of the day.

Speaker 1: 26:53

Oh my God, that's just powerful man. And you know it. Oh my God. And just touching up on the whole retirement thing, how can someone tell me, hey, at the age here in Thailand, the age of 60, hey, forced retirement. So for the next 30 to 35 years, just sit in that home complaining, watching TV. I'm like, so you're going to, you're just going to waste away a third of your life because someone told you to do something and conform to a society that no longer exist. So I'm like, I'm scared as hell for someone to come to me and say, hey, you can no longer do this. This is why I don't teach in schools. I just can't do schools. Right. I'm more of a, and of course me, I'm more of a freelance coach and you know, a training. Now I do language centers, that's my main job. Um, but teaching at different companies and giving them those training and the, you know, the techniques and things that they need immediately, an accelerated coach, you know what I mean? But at the same token, um, I'm going to be doing this well past 60, you know, and so of course, I used to have only one source of income my entire life until I came to Thailand. And the parents approached me and they said, hey, can you teach our children? And I'm like, oh, I don't know if I can, because she might say I can't. And you know, and I was always worried about them. She's like, oh, just make sure I this and that and this. And I'm like, wait, so you're telling me I could make more money on top of what I'm already earning? And so when I started putting those together, I created multiple sources of income. But then Gary v says that passive income is a BS. So what's your, what is your yeah. Yeah. What's your yeah, tell me about the whole passage. Multiple sources. Cause you, you have income coming from everywhere.

Speaker 2: 28:40

I do. I do have multiple sources, but none of them are without work like I did. I, I'm not sure. The only one I can think of that's like passive, like truly, truly passive is if you hit the lottery and they're paying you over 20 years, like that's to me is the only real way you're getting passive income. Even if you do it with real estate, like think about it. For you to be getting$4,000 a month means you've had to bought probably$400,000 worth of real estate, which means you've had to ask or you'd had her earn quite a bit of money, put aside on top of your regular living expenses to have that money to invest and then get a return and you're assuming that these houses are never going to deteriorate. You're never going to have vacancies, right? You're never going to have accidents like natural disasters or anything like that. It still takes a lot of effort and a lot of time to manage these properties. It doesn't come passively there. Can you make passive income? I'm sure you can, but people have this fantasy of like, you know, I'm going to do one, two, three things and boom, I'm a millionaire. Like it doesn't work that way. There is no such thing as as getting something for nothing. It just doesn't exist. Uh, again, aside from maybe the, the lottery. So to me it's not about passive income because again, you talk about the time and experience done at 60. If I, if I was forced to stop working at 60 and think about it, stop working at 60 means you can't work for a company but doesn't mean you can't do other things on the side. Like you still, you, you deciding to Netflix at at 60. I mean that's only gonna last so long. I mean even Netflix has a limit of stuff I'm willing to watch. But if you take the time to build something on the side that you get up and do for fun, that the neighbor or you know, the friends at church, are there friends that you've grown up with or willing to pay for this particular product or service that you have? To me it's more about purpose and having an intent to wake up everyday than it is about just coming in. Like just money coming in late. For me, money's more of a metric. I'm not a big spender of things, you know, I mean I probably spent a lot of money on my business brochures, but where a business bro, right? I, I'll wear a business brochure like every day. Right. And, and I'm, I'm not like dressed to the t's or anything, you know, I don't buy expensive things. I don't, I don't even really buy stuff. My wife gets on my case cause I don't buy stuff. Uh, so we're, we're not, uh, I can't see, we're frugal. We just don't go out and buy things. For me, money is more of a metric. It's like if I have it, people look at me like, okay, I should listen to that guy a little more. And to me that's the credibility that I like about, about having these multiple streams of income, about having these businesses. I could throw out some fancy numbers, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't understand how the numbers work anyways. Blows my mind about, you know, a lot of different people who post stuff online, they're like, you know, like my insurance company for example, we have$12 million in premium every year. Sounds awesome because I can throw a big number, but what's your net like? What are you keeping? What's your bottom line? You even asked that question. Realtors do that all the time. We sold, you know,$400 million in sales last year. Well, that's great. Well, how much did you keep struggling? So paycheck to paycheck, like, and even even in real life, I have tax clients, they make like, you know, a quarter million dollars,$200,000 a year, but they're paycheck to paycheck anyways. So they're broke just like the guy who makes$50,000 a year. But the problem is his broke looks a lot nicer than his broke. It's still broken on the left. So, you know, for me it's not really the passive thing. It's understanding, you know, what is it that you want to do? How many days forward can you live on the money that you have coming in? And that's why cash flow is vitally important. It's more about cashflow than it is about cash. You have$1 million, great. That might only last you five years depending on your lifestyle. 10 years maybe, right? Yeah. Depending on how much you spend on, on a monthly basis or whatever. Cool. What happens after that? Like you got to go back and do these things. So you know, for me it's all about cash flow. Um, I've always had that goal of making$30,000 a month in residual income. And for me, residual came from rentals. But I know that if you're making$1,000 per rental, I don't need 30 rentals. I probably need somewhere around 40, 45 because I'm going to have things like vacancies. I'm going to have things that go down in these properties and think about it managing 45 properties. Like you got your, every month you're going to get statements coming in. Every month you're going to get a property management companies calling. Every month you're going to have the advertised needs stuff. It doesn't go away. It's not passive. It's less physical work. I am not digging ditches or you know, standing on roofs or outside where the weather's beating me down, but it's still working on the list. I don't, I don't think passive income actually exists.

Speaker 1: 33:39

Oh Man. So was so many golden nuggets that you're out here give Amanda spent, you know what? What was I gonna ask you? Ah, here we go. I was actually, and when you told me about, you know, people and like people like Jack Ma, okay. Of course those folks out there in China who know Jack Ma, Jeez, the one that launched all the entire e-commerce out there in China in the 90s and you know what? He was on stage and he was saying, you need to find a need and fulfill it after that, of course, I think all insane, all in part that will become your passion. And on the other side of that, that's when a lot of income starts coming in. But people, there's so they're, they're interested in this sprint. They like the 100 meter, the 200 meter, but they need to realize that life is a marathon and it's a hell of a marathon. So when we think of all these places, and if I look at the list of people that listen to me like Brazil, Sao Paulo, uh, people in the Philippines, Mongolia, uh, Uzbekistan, uh, all these countries around the world, I do believe that in each of their neighborhoods, their communities, whatever it may be, there is a need. There is something that they're saying, you know, what, why isn't there? You see that? I mean, and that's when they can come in and say, you know what? I'm going to create awareness. Let me create it. Instagram, let me start making videos in terms of what I'm going to develop. You see what I mean? It's those, the, the light bulb after the light bulb. But a lot of people, they can't enable themselves to think like that. I mean, they could, but I don't know. Like I had to start reading a lot of books and things started clicking and now I get these ideas all the time.

Speaker 2: 35:22

We'll say that. But like you hit it, you hit the nail on the head right there. The key is to continue your education. Don't stop educating yourself. If you only learn, you know, elementary math, you can never look at maybe measuring things or building a house or any geometric shape because you never learn anything beyond that point. But if you continue to learn, if you, if you continue to elevate your game, whatever it is you're doing, you find a passion. There's an expert in that field. Learn from that expert. Read the books in that section, you know? And then, and then there's other things around you that you're going to learn from to never ever, ever stop learning. Because every time you learn a little more, you are elevating yourself above society. And I'm not saying looking down on people like they're little people or anything. I'm just talking about your intellect continues to grow. So when you see, you know, you see opportunity a and opportunity B because you have so much education, you know, you can put these things together and make something different. Extraordinary because you've educated yourself on these different types of things. Whereas the person who didn't see something sees another something and they just keep going cause they never saw the opportunity presented itself. They weren't educated enough to take advantage of that opportunity. They'll look at you and say you were lucky, but you've been preparing for that thing your entire life. You just have, you know, it's when preparation meets opportunity, that's when you end up finding getting lucky. That's when things happen because you've educated yourself the whole way through. And I think that the biggest issue in today's society is when they think education, they think college. And that is a farce. We live in an information age. You can get educated just by being on youtube now is does youtube have all the right answers? No. But you get perspective. You get opinions, you get expertise, you get other people's experiences, right? A genius learns from their mistakes or sorry, a smart man leads from their mistakes at genius links from the mistakes of others. So let other people have already tried different things. There are paths in life that I have been that have been walked. You don't have to mow the lawn and pave your own path. You can follow someone else's path that's already gone in the direction that you want to go in. If you take the time to look around and find those paths, but they're everywhere, especially today and, and you know, I think college is probably the biggest marketing scam in the world today, right? I'm not saying that college education is bad. There's certain things that'll help you, but I mean where are you going to school if you're not going to like top 10 ivy league schools, the name of the school is irrelevant. It's a piece of paper that's going to get you to the next level. But the price of that paper has gotten so high. You really got to think about is this what I want to do and is this financial investment the best use of my time? And money or can I develop a skill or can I just document the whole process and, and, and make something of it that way? I mean, there's so many different options again, but you need to decide what, what you want to do in life. Like that's, that's the, you know, I, I'm a big Garyvee Fan. His big biggest thing that I hear him say all the time is you've got to become self aware, easier said than done. But that self-awareness, deciding what it is that you want to do. You know what I tell my kids is even if you don't know exactly what you want to do, decide on something that you are interested in and then do it. Take action. And as you're taking steps forward, this is what will Smith says about failing forward. As you're going in the forward direction, you're going to pick yourself and be like, well, that didn't work. I'm going to try it a little bit different and you're going to keep going. You're a fail at that. You're going to, I'm going to try it a little bit different, but you're always moving in the forward direction. If, if life is a race, you're going to get to where you want to go, even if it's baby steps, fall, baby steps, all baby steps all. Even if you never get to run, you'll eventually get where you're going if you progressively try to get there, if you're constantly taking action and moving in that direction, now people are going to laugh at you, right? You're going to have an audience. People might disagree with you, but when you're there, people are going to look up to you. People are going to ask you for advice. They're going to, they're going to look to your experiences and ask you about them every single fall. You have his ammo in your belt so that when you're up here, you can help other people not make the same mistakes, not make the same false and the path gets bigger, better. It used to be a trail maybe when you walked it, but by the time you're at the top, that's a paved road baby and you can, you can drive a car through that thing if it's, you know, if you're, if you're trailblazing, right, if you're the one going through the process and helping those behind you along the way. So to me, I mean I think I lost track of your question there, but I'm really passionate about this sort of stuff.

Speaker 1: 40:09

Absolutely bad. Oh Man. Just fantastic in general, and I shouldn't even have to ask you that because I've already given you or you've probably already given us the three biggest takeaways, but for teenagers out there who are probably a little bit lost, I know a lot of people out there who possibly listen to me, I'm on Youtube and whatnot, and they're trying to get, you know, these academic test scores so they could get into a university and this could potentially help students who live like in the moon by of India or in Wu Han, China, you know, to go to another country because once they go to another country, they leave a culturally strict, oh, you, you know that that strict culture and they're able to immerse themselves and these ideas come. I just had someone from Switzerland on the podcast just last week and she said once she was able to break away the shackles from Switzerland and she went to Korea, everything came because she was no longer afraid of being judged by anyone. She was able to live freely. So for anyone out there, teenagers, people who are studying, what are the three biggest takeaways you could give them in terms of learning, but at the at the same time identifying what their passion is and pursuing that for the rest of their life?

Speaker 2: 41:19

Yeah. For me it's, I want you to just think about it. Picture yourself on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Uh, you don't have any responsibilities. What's the thing that you would do? You know, you don't, you're not, you don't have to go to work. You don't have to go to school. What's the thing that you would do? And if you could figure out at least with that, is there maybe one or two things? Take a direction and, and use that as your, as your starting point, go in that direction and don't be afraid of what people are going to say. People might tell you something. It's, it's one of those weird things like you might have a great idea in the, when you have a great idea, you get super excited about it and you go off and you tell the people you care about the most, your best friends, your, your parents, your grandparents, your teachers. And what do they tell you? They usually say something like, that's done. That's not gonna happen. And what happens to your idea? Your dream? It fades. So don't worry about what people are gonna say. Once you decide on what that path is, now start taking action. So step one, figure out what, what is what it is that you love to do, what it is that you would do anyways on a Saturday morning. Step two, don't worry about what people are gonna say. People are gonna say things anyways. Just start taking steps in that direction. And the last thing is take action. Take action every single day towards that one goal. If you are taking little baby steps in that direction, you might figure out that that's not exactly what you want to do, but it is part of what's inside you. It's that thing that drives you and you're going to figure out a path that is going to, that you're going to take steps towards and you're going to get there. Eventually you're going to figure out what it is that is driving that passion. And it might not be today. It might not be tomorrow, might take a year or two, whatever. But you're heading in the right direction. And as you're going in that direction, opportunities will present themselves because you are constantly educating yourself. You're constantly moving towards your goal. So life has a funny way. I mean, I'm sure you've seen the secret, all these other things. You know when you, when you are working progressively towards something, you're going to open the door to a number of opportunities. Things are going to fall in your lap. You're not even going to know where these opportunities came from, but they're gonna be presented to you because you've been preparing for it. And you can see them now every day, every opportunity is there. The question is, are you prepared to take advantage of it and can you see the opportunity? And it only happens when you work towards that goal that you're going to on a daily basis.

Speaker 1: 43:40

Wow. Three tips guys. Three actionable steps. So much wisdom added this wonderful man, her nodding. You don't want, he has a podcast and as well as so many other things or not.

Speaker 2: 43:49

How can people get in touch with you? Bros pod it at business bros pod. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube. Uh, you can go to a iTunes anywhere you listen to podcasts. You can find it there too. So uh, and you know, reach out to me. Send me a DM. I'd love to, you know it's me because I will send you a video DM back so you can see my face. You'll hear me say your name like you can say, you know, I love to communicate with people. If you guys have any questions let me know. I'd love to answer it for you.

Speaker 1: 44:21

Awesome man. Hernan, thank you so much for coming on here. Again bed. I'm really interested to see who actually goes over there and follows you and what not because I'm just as much useful content for the masses out there and now I'm starting to see everything come in, especially with these speaking engagements and everything that's just coming in my life in general. So I can't be thankful enough for you coming on. I can't be thankful enough for all the listeners out there just in the attitude of gratitude. So her non man. I'm going to let you get on about your business but thank you so much for coming on man. Awesome. Thank you very much for having me. Appreciate it. You're very welcome. And guys with that being said, man going to call this episode money talk for teenagers, but you know what? It could be money talk for just about anyone out there, especially employees. But nonetheless, regardless of the title, please take action on money in general. I have to bring her non on again to talk about like you know, creating multiple sources of income and this and that. So we're going to have to bring them on later on.. Thank you so much. It's time for me to start creating memorabilia and guys stay tuned for more! Over and out.