Get Rich Quick: It's Just Changing Your Mind | Neil Solomon

THE ONE PERCENT DOOR: How Understanding Systems Made Him Free From Everything

At 35 years old, most people accept they're trapped. Neil Solomon refused. After generating $6.5 million in revenue for a Fortune 500 company and receiving a $13,000 bonus for his trouble, he faced a choice: spend the next 30 years as a trapped high-performer, or question the entire system.

He questioned it.

But here's what makes his story different from every other "escape the system" narrative you've heard: He didn't just leave his job and start a business. He spent the next two decades losing everything, rebuilding, studying patterns, understanding architecture, and eventually discovering that the system most people are trapped in is completely optional.

When he finally became a nomad in 2018 and gave away everything—the house, the car, even his dog—he expected grief. He got freedom. That single decision changed his entire understanding of what success actually means.

WHO IS NEIL SOLOMON?

Neil Solomon is the author of "The One Percent Door," a practical guide to understanding the hidden architecture of money, business, and the systems that keep most people trapped. He's not a guru selling secrets. He's an engineer who figured out something most people never do: the menu you've been given isn't the only menu available.

His journey started as a fighter pilot turned sales engineer at a Fortune 500 company. He was exceptional at his job—325% of goal, turning unprofitable deals into profitable ones. But the system didn't reward him. It punished him. His bonus was capped at $13,000 while his next year's goal jumped from $2 million to $6 million.

That moment forced him to ask: Who is this system really designed to reward?

The answer took him on a 20+ year journey through franchise restaurants, commercial real estate, divorce, bankruptcy, inflation, complete business collapse, and eventually freedom. Along the way, he built companies with 300+ employees, lost everything in a single week, rebuilt differently, and discovered the hidden architecture of tax systems, currency arbitrage, and lifestyle design that most entrepreneurs never see.

Today, he lives as a digital nomad across 70+ countries, generating multiple streams of income from international real estate, experiencing what most people only dream about: genuine freedom.

🔗 FIVE KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. The Architecture and Menu Framework Explains Everything

Every system—countries, businesses, families, your career—has an architecture (structure) and a menu (available choices). Most people accept the menu they're given and assume those are their only options. The breakthrough comes when you realize there are other menus, other systems, other architectures available. Understanding this changes how you see every opportunity: you're not limited by reality, you're limited by the menu you chose to accept.

2. Pattern Recognition Beats Planning

Neil didn't decide his future. He recognized it when it appeared. After 3-4 years of preparation—reading, asking questions, networking—he developed pattern recognition. When the right opportunity appeared, he immediately saw it. This reframes success: it's not about making perfect plans, it's about preparing enough to recognize opportunities when they whisper. The entrepreneurs who win are the ones paying attention, not the ones with the best plans.

3. You Don't Need A Pile, You Need Streams

Conventional wisdom says save money in a pile for retirement. Neil's framework is different: build multiple streams of income that match how you actually live. One stream might be international real estate. Another might be business revenue. Another might be passive investments. With multiple streams, you're never converting a fragile pile into income you don't understand. You're living on income you know how to earn.

4. Less Ownership Equals More Freedom

When Neil gave away everything and became a nomad, he gained something most entrepreneurs spend their lives chasing but never find: freedom. Because every possession rents space in your brain. Every thing you own pulls at your attention. The path to genuine freedom isn't accumulating more—it's designing a life that requires less. That's not deprivation. That's liberation.

5. Start With Why, Not How

Neil's entire framework starts with understanding your actual "why"—not the surface why (make money, build empire) but the deep why (freedom, curiosity, legacy). Once you understand your actual why, the systems, the strategies, the architecture all become clear. Most people never ask this question because they're too busy following the menu they were given.

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#️⃣ HASHTAGS

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

After generating 6.5 million in revenue for a Fortune 500 company, he received a bonus of just 13,000. That moment forced him to ask a dangerous question. Who is the system really designed to reward?

SPEAKER_00 0:13

I nailed it. Okay. It was 325% of my goal. It was well below the margin they wanted, and I turned it into a great margin and a story for the whole company. And I expected a very nice return for myself. And what even hurt worse, companies' normal line is you do this well. Your new goal for next year is based on last year's actual. So my goal went from 2 million because I did 300%, it went to 6 million. And so I got this terrible bonus and I got punished for the next year and the year after that, and the year after that.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

As an entrepreneur with a global team, one of my biggest challenges was managing international payments. I was stuck with high fees, slow transfers, and endless complications. Whether it was paying my team in the Philippines or buying products from Japan, I tried multiple banks and services like PayPal, but nothing seemed to work. Then I found WISE. The savings have been huge, and transfers that used to take days now happen in hours. It's fast, simple, and has become a vital part of my business strategy. If you're not using WISE for international payments, you're missing out on a game changer. Click on the link in the description to get started with WISE today. He's built companies with hundreds of employees, lost everything in a single week, rebuilt more than once, and became obsessed with understanding the hidden architecture behind money, business, and the decisions that shape our lives. Today we're talking about why smart people stay trapped in systems that no longer serve them, the money lessons most entrepreneurs never learn, and how to create more options instead of more obligations. I'm Linda Vogue and this is Inspired by Success. Without further ado, let's welcome to the show Neil Solomon.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Hi Linda, thanks for speaking with me.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

I was excited to have you on the show because once you introduced yourself and shared your story, I was like, wow, this is an awesome guest. I need to hear everything about the systems that you've built, your you know, your journey. And tell me a little bit about where you are now and you know, like what we spoke about in the intro, the 6.5 million, and you know what was that moment that made you change your percep your perception and and how you got to where you are today?

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Sure. So probably many people have the same story of growing up and everybody telling you what to do. You go get a good education, you go get a good job, you work for a big company, you have a nice title, the house, the kids, the mortgage, all that stuff. And then you realize, oh my God, I've been listening to everybody for so long, and this is not really what I wanted. And so it really became evident to me when um I was a sales engineer. I was um I was in a Fortune 500 company, sold technical products and things like that. There was a huge opportunity. I'd been working for quite some time, and I nailed it. Okay. It was 325% of my gold. It it at first we took the the order, it was well below the margin they wanted, and I turned it into a great margin and a story for the whole company, and I expected a very nice um return for myself. And then what happened is the return had a cap, and the cap had had different kind of things that the bosses could do. And where it left me when it was all done, besides sad and broke uh with uh $12,000 or $13,000. I really don't remember because it was like 20 something years ago what the real number was, but I remember that. And um, and what even hurt worse was I mean, this this job I had was not repeatable. And so the company's normal line is you do this well. Your new goal for next year is based on last year's actual. So my goal went from 2 million because I did 300%, it went to six million. And so I got this terrible bonus, and I got punished for the next year and the year after that, and the year after that. And the only way to reduce your goal after those periods is like it's really difficult, and you paperwork and you have to explain yourself. And and so I was completely just shocked that this is the way my life is gonna go. And it starts with sadness. This you know, it's grief, it's recognizing that everything that's happened in your whole life isn't really what you should have been listening to. And so what that was for me was a wake-up call. That um, either I'm gonna be stuck here, I was 35, either I'm gonna be stuck here for the next 30 years being sad, or I got to change what I do. And a guy who can do 300% of what the normal person can do shouldn't be stuck. And they can't recognize it. So maybe I should believe in myself, and that's where it all started. I didn't believe in myself, I didn't believe that I could do it without somebody giving me a paycheck. And it's really scary to go that route because you probably believe everybody who's listening probably believes in their self at some level here, but can you believe in yourself enough that you know your family's gonna have food and a and a place to live and you're gonna be able to make your payments and all these things you've committed to? So it's it's pretty scary. It's pretty scary at the beginning. But I learned about fear, and I learned about what isn't scary, and what really isn't scary is when you've done the work. And what I mean by that is this I don't know, to pick any sport you want, like baseball or my sport when I was young was racquetball, and I would practice and practice and practice, and then when you had your chance to get up and do what you do, it was simple. It was no fear, there was no decisions, is you just take the swing that you would normally take, and there it goes, like you've done a thousand times. However, if you're that employee, which I was, I never took the swing. So I spent the next three or four years preparing. I learned so many different things. I read, I tried different things, I talked to people, I grew my network, all the things that an entrepreneur should be doing that an employee doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

And then what happened there? So what what made you finally make the decision to build and be uh become an entrepreneur? Because that's the the duty.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah, so yeah, so I mean, so for four years, three, four years, something like that, I was a bad salesman. You know, I did the I did the littlest possible I could do because I knew I wasn't making a bonus and they got what they deserved. You know, they they they they put me in this box and they made it so I can't make my gold no matter what I do. So it's like, okay, I'm not. Okay, I'm gonna work on me. I'm gonna work on me. I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna take care of my customers the the bare minimum, make sure nobody's unhappy or complaining or anything like that. But you know, the rest is for me. Now I need to change me. And so some of it was asking people who were in a position I wanted to be in. I didn't know where I wanted to go. I didn't know what I could do. At this point in my career, I had never had anybody report to me. And at the peak of my uh entrepreneurialism, I had over 300 people. Okay, so I had to go from a person who doesn't know anything about HR and human beings and working with them. I was a fighter pilot who would do sales, and I had to go to a completely different person. And there's a big learning part, right? And there's no line in between them, there's no book that says, all right, step one, step two. You can have all the AIs pin it, pinpoint it for you, but there's no there's no route. Yeah. So what I did was I started thinking about, okay, I'm probably not the best at creating something because I've created certain things and they never really took off. What I can do well is my engineering brain is good at systems. I understood systems and I could sell, as you can imagine. I could sell. So what do I do? Okay, I take those two things I'm good at and kind of move it into somebody else's business. So franchising is where I started. And I I started looking at businesses that businesses that were for sale. And people don't realize that any place in the entire world right now, there's hundreds and thousands of businesses that are profitable, that are that are been operating for a long time, and they're for sale. Just like apartments, just like you know, houses, just like offices, they're all for sale. It's just nobody knows where to look. There's places to look. I use this this website called BizBy Sell, which isn't outside the US so much, uh and it's run by, I believe, um Wall Street Journal. And you can sort, you can decide, and then start making phone calls and asking questions. That's the hardest part. Because everybody who's new to something, they're gonna call, talk to somebody who's gonna think that they're a fraud. And and so it's like, oh my god, I'm gonna call this person and he's gonna tell me I'm an idiot and he's gonna hang up on me right away. All right, and that is the fear that all of us have. The same fear of leaving your job or leaving something or starting something new, it's all the same fear. It's called imposter syndrome. I don't know if you know that word or not, but we all have it. And the only way to get over it is to do the thing it's saying you shouldn't do. So you make the call. Yeah, you practice, you do the practice, you make the call, and all of a sudden you start to learn the questions to ask, the things to know. And what I talk about, especially in the book, is it becomes what's instead of decision making, it becomes pattern recognition. And all of a sudden, it hit me this was the deal. After seeing and calling and whatever, it was like, oh my god, it's right here. And what am I gonna do? And so I called, and they said, Yeah, this is the deal, here it is, blah, blah, blah. And I was sitting there in my home office, just kind of like like this this feeling is coming over me, like, oh my god, this is it. This is what all the work I've been doing for so long is just appeared in front of me. So I tell the story in my book, and blah, blah, blah. I won't go through all that, but that's how it works. You don't actually decide. And I said to my wife, I think this is it. And she says, What should we do? And I said, buy it. So we did. And then all the terrible things happen right after. All the craziness. I lose my partner, I don't have enough money, I don't know if I can do it. I have to go convince other people that I'm the right person to do this stuff. It worked out. It worked out, and there's no, there's no great like, oh, Neil left this job, this job because he got a bad paycheck and all of a sudden he became a millionaire. That's not how it works. It's this roller coaster that you have to constantly adjust to, make decisions that keep coming in front of you. And so you start getting better at decisions.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

The more decision, the more challenges that we get, the better the way we we become at making these decisions. Now I just wanted to take it back. Like you you just said uh just tell me some of the dark, like the moments that you know you you've lost and you you've lost everything, and then you had to re pick yourself up twice. So tell me through those challenges and what you learned and what what happened.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Oh, yeah. So the first one was after the first business, within I don't know, six months or something, it was the Great Recession.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Oh, is this the franchise that you're talking about that you bought?

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yes, yes. Okay, yeah. It was like six months after I opened. We I thought it was a home run. It was this pattern recognition. This is a home run. Okay, what I didn't realize is that I wasn't the batter for this home run. So I had to become a better batter for this home run. And that was part of it. Then all of a sudden, the world happens. So the Great Recession happens. People go, they don't want to go out to eat as much, they don't do this as much. And so I changed how I wanted to do it. So I started with sales, I sold my employees on why they should work for me, why I'm the best place to work. And that in turn made them better at customers. And so they wanted to be in my team, and we required that this is how we treat customers. So to have a good job that they enjoyed, this is how we do it. And it worked. The customers realized it, and the customers came, even though everyone else was struggling. And then the next catastrophe was I lost all my credit. I got divorced and lost all my credit. And I could I had to restart. I still had this one business that I'm working through this terrible time. Well, we came out of that. Okay, it was not easy, but we came out of that. And and I learned during that time because credit is about how to get debt, how to get loans, how to um do things like that. But I learned during a time of no credit, how to get partners, how to pick good partners, how to stay away from bad partners, what partners bring to the party, when you should use their capital, when you shouldn't. So one thing that could be a negative, all of a sudden, if you continue to drive forward, tells you where you should go. And I was able to grow my company even without access to debt. So that was the next thing. And so once the debt problem became not a problem anymore, scaling became possible because now I knew how to use debt, I knew where to get debt, and I knew how to use other people in my um cap stack, the the the ability to get uh capital to grow the company.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

So you got investors you did you get investors into the company? Is that how you grew it?

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Yes. Yes. Yes. It was but it was very small. And um typically, I don't know about in in Australia or other countries in the United States when you have certain operating businesses, you can fund them at about 80%, sometimes 90. And so you only need 10% of the money. And if you only have a little bit and somebody wants to give you a little bit more, multiply that by 10. You know, so that's the kind of company you can buy. And you just start bolting on different pieces that work in with your organization and your skill set that you're good at.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

What was the main company though, like that generated the most? What type of industry was it?

SPEAKER_00 16:58

It was restaurants. It was restaurants at first, yes. Then it was some real estate things. Um, but most of the cash flow was um was in uh franchises, mostly restaurants.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Are you still doing the franchises now?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

No, no, I'm I'm completely out of that now. I still have uh some commercial and residential real estate that does for cash flow or around the world actually. And um uh but uh the active part of business, um, the final collapse that I had, where I lost everything pretty much in one day. Um how did that happen? That story, oh it's it's no save that one for the book. But I'll tell it to you this way. I'll tell it to you this way, okay?

SPEAKER_02 17:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Um we restaurants don't do well in times of um inflation. And you might see that in your own hometown or things like that. What happens is how do you price the food that a restaurant serves to you? Okay, well, you have the cost of what it costs me, then the cost of the employees that it costs to make the food, then the cost of the overhead and all that other stuff. Okay. As the food cost rises dramatically, you have to make some account for it in the price. As you account for it in the price to the customer, they start feeling this is too much for this amount of food. And so it gets this point where they don't feel that the value is there like it used to be. So they're not used to the new prices of the world. And so they come less. And so even though your price is going up, the customers are going down, and the overall number starts to shrink. So your margins start to shrink, shrink, shrink, shrink, shrink. And what happened in this particular case is the franchise or thought we needed to increase marketing spend, which would be a good idea if we were actually getting new customers from our marketing, but we were not. And yeah, and so what you're doing is you're just taking margin off the off the bottom line. And if your margin was here and then it went to half, and then it went to here, and then they want to increase the marketing and now it's negative, you don't stay in business long. And you don't have enough to ride it out until this changes where people can understand that these are the new prices of the new world. So that happens with inflation. And ultimately, it it crushed us. Ultimately, it crushed us. Because once you are leveraged with loans, the bank has these things called um uh um, I can't remember the name, but it's it's they do these ratios and they want to see that certain ratios meet certain, it's like how much profit versus how much the loan is, you know, um yeah, and so on. And uh covenants, that's what it's called. They have these covenants, and as soon as you miss a covenant, you go in this in this bad folder and they start looking at you, and they can call the loan at any time at that point. So that's the difficult part. And that is pretty much what happened.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Wow, and how did you rebuild from nothing? Because you know, a lot of people give up after they've you know hit bankruptcy or have lost everything. Some people get desperate. I've almost been there, and and I can relate to this story too, especially when spending money on ads and and just not checking the profit margins. And I've been there where I wanted to sell my business and I couldn't get it rid of it and it wasn't profitable. But I'm curious to know how did you rebuild from a loss? Because some people don't get out of it. So tell me how did you it would have definitely taken a lot of courage and mindset as well. So I want to get into that. But how did you pull yourself out of that?

SPEAKER_00 21:04

So yeah, so it's it's i I decided that this particular style of business was not what I wanted to do next. So the next style of business I wanted to do was um international real estate. And so um what I what I I I included it in my lifestyle because uh actually several years before this main collapse, I had enough. I had enough money to not work anymore. I did well. And so it wasn't a money thing anymore. And and so it's it was now a lifestyle thing. And I don't need 300 employees anymore. It was nice when I had them. I enjoyed the conversations, I enjoyed the people, I enjoyed that you know, we're part of their lives, but that's okay. That's just one part, and it was 20 years. So that's okay too. And so now it's it's more of um with realtors and other investors and different markets. And part of my thing, like I had said at one point, was travel. So there's places I would like to go to. And I'll give you an example. One of the places I love to go to is Medellin, Colombia. And most people are afraid of Medellin, Colombia because they remember Pablo Escobar back in the 1980s and you know all the gunfire and all the craziness. But it's actually one of the most beautiful places on earth. And um I you can buy property there that does between 8 and 15% return on investment. There's no loan, so you do need cash in order to do it. So what I do is I have this apartment, I rent it out nine months out of the year, and I live there three months out of the year, and it's free because the money that the apartment makes goes in a bank that's in Colombia, and the Colombian interest rates are typically around 10%. And so the money just keeps compounding. And when I go, it's much less expensive to live there, much nicer to live there than many other places in the world. And so if you're able to do that three or four times, there you go. There's your retirement plan for the rest of your life because you never need to earn money. You don't have to think about how to convert this pile of money they told you to get into something else. And it's a way to use geography as leverage and as lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Wow, I want to talk about money too, because you know, there's a hidden math money, and like not many people can achieve that level of success and and do or like you've traveled to 70 different countries, countries you've mentioned, and you know that would be an ultimate dream. But what's the biggest lie we've been told about money?

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Oof. Okay. Lie. Well, there's a lot. Okay. So um the people who have money don't want you to have it. And and the people who sell you services, usually they're broker than you. All right. I am very much into creating streams of income, multiple, because as I know, I can predict my future, and some of them may crash. So if you have multiple streams of income and you're reasonable about your spending, it's very easy to have a great life. Very easy. Okay. The thing is, what do you spend your money on? I spend my money on things that produce more money. Most people do not. If you change that part first, all of a sudden you have more money than you can spend.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

I love that. So sometimes when people get more money, they uh naturally just want to spend it. You know, that's just the more money you make, you know. So I I can relate to that. And what do you think that is? Is it a belief system or mindset, or you know, or do we just have to keep on making more cash flow in order to and reduce the spending? Like, what's your advice on that?

SPEAKER_00 25:21

So start with the most important question to yourself. And the question is why? It's always why. Why is this important to me? Okay, so that's where you start. You gotta look, you don't even look inside yourself. And so when you answer the first why question, you have to ask the second one. Why? And you just keep getting to the why, the why, the why. What I found in my life is my why is about curiosity. The things that I love the most are the things that I really know nothing about. The things that I've owned, the things that I've had, I've lost many times. So I don't treasure those things. Actually, I became a nomad back in 2018 and gave away everything in my life, like everything personally, everything. Sold the house, turned in the car, I had to give away my dog, which was the hardest part. I I all of my belongings went in a weekend. All of them. I mean, all of them. And people think that, wow, okay, Neil must have had a lot of grief. No, not one second of grief. What I had was this this weight lifted off my shoulder that I'm really free. And so I want to compare this to something. I don't know how it was when you were young. When we were young, my mother would say, Go outside and play with your friends and come back when it's dark. Okay? And that's what we do. No homework, no, you know, you don't have to check in. You are a hundred percent free. Now I want you to think about your life today. Do you have anything like that in your life where you're a hundred percent free? Nobody's texting you, nobody's calling you, nobody's asking you for something. You are just completely disconnected, out playing with your friends, and not thinking about anything. Oh, it's starting to get dark. Now I know I'm not free anymore because it's starting to get dark. That that is the the life that I think everybody really wants to get back to. Not that they have this beautiful purse, not that they've they've they take this wonderful cruise. That's not what they want. They want that feeling that they had of real freedom, that nobody's pulling at them. You see so many people who spend their small vacations in resorts lying on a chair, just really thrilled that nobody's asking for anything. And that's really not even free either. That's just, you know, you're taking a rest, you're just waiting for the next wave. So the more you buy, actually, the harder it is to be free. The more you own, the more stuff, because it it rents space in your brain. Oh, I gotta take the dog to the groomer. Oh, the car needs an oil change. Oh, the whatever it is, it takes up space in your brain. And the less is actually more freedom.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

So, what's your why now? What's your deep level of why now that you've gotten every got rid of all those things, but you've traveled, you've got to do all these things. So, what's your deep why now?

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Oh, that's a great question. Nobody's asked it. I'm so glad you've asked it. So I wrote the um, I don't know, this thing is called the dedication or acknowledgement, which is like the front of the book. After I'm done thinking all this stuff, it's like, what's your why? That's the question. So I sat and I sat with that question for a long time. And so here's what I wrote. I wrote that whenever anybody asked me, you know, that question, uh, living or dead, who would you want to have dinner with? Have you ever heard that question before?

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Yeah, I've asked it before. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Yeah. So I asked that to myself, and I always came up with the same answer. And the same answer is that I would love to meet someone who was who had died maybe a hundred or two hundred years before I was born that was in my family and have dinner with them. Because they were poor, they were being chased all over Europe and and and and had difficult lives, and they created me, and I don't. I don't have a difficult life like they have. So I'd love to have them at dinner hear their story and tell them it's okay. And thank you. And so my gift is that this 200 years from now, maybe somebody who's related to me wants to hear me. That's my why.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

I like it. That's pretty powerful. Um, I wanted to get back onto the money part as well, because you talk about hidden taxes, and we mentioned that before the this conversation. But tell me a little bit about uh the hidden taxes, what they are, and how do you keep the and how do they uh quietly keep people stuck? And because you you've done investments all over the different countries as well. So any tips and advice on the the hidden taxes?

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Yeah, I know I like I said I know the the US tax code the best, so I can give you some tips on that. Some other international tax codes, um you know, in in the United States, wherever you make money worldwide, you get taxed in the United States. In Australia, you do not. So if you made money outside of Australia, it's actually better than making money inside of Australia. You get taxed under another system, okay? And and you may be, let's say, let's make up a number: 100,000 uh Australian, US, whatever you want. Just call it 100,000, and you have five places you make 20. And you do five tax returns at 20. You pay no tax because they're all small. They don't tax people at 20, they tax at 100. So that's one of the things. In the United States, they don't do that. You make 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, you get taxed as 100, even if you've paid tax in other jurisdictions. So there's other things, there's hidden taxes. Um, what I found when I owned a house in the United States, um my property tax, and I don't know in your area of the world what the property tax was, was 18,000 US dollars a year.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

And flat regardless of what the value was worth?

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Is it no, it was it was the based upon the value of that house.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Okay, yep.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Okay, take that same amount of money, buy it in a different district, like I bought one in Mexico, and it was eight hundred and fifty dollars a year. And if you combine all of the things associated with the house itself, as far as tax, it was really an 87% difference, lower, 87. So if you take that 87% of $18,000 and put it even in something small, it's gonna compound year after year after year after year. All of a sudden you're you're rich without even thinking about it. And a lot of these countries play pay higher rates on money you save in them in their currency. So currency is the next thing that you can look at. Um, but I'll give you some others. In many countries, especially the United States, insurance. Insurance is a hidden tax. If you're required by your country to carry insurance, which many are, and I don't know in Australia, you if you're gonna drive, you need insurance, right? Okay, that's not a choice. When it's not a choice, in my opinion, if the government says you have to do it, it's a tax. It's a tax. It's just it's not paid directly to the government, it's paid directly to somebody else. But you have you can't get around it. In other countries, it's not. Those are things that are hidden as taxes. Um they also hit you with fees that um they don't call taxes because they they know how people respond to the word tax. I'll give you another thing in the United States. The United States is so busy with tariffs and things like that, and they're so concerned about saving certain groups of people who are in manufacturing that they don't allow less lesser priced vehicles to come into the country. And I know in Australia, you have BYD?

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Yeah, that brand, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Yeah, BYD. Okay. It's not allowed in the United States. Not allowed.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Oh wow, okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

Okay. I own a BYD in Mexico. It's an electric, fully electric big car, all that stuff. If I wanted the same car in the United States, it would be double the price.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Okay, double the price. Same, same basic vehicle in another brand. Is that double the price a tax? In my opinion, it is. Yeah. And if you ask, ask your next next guest or anybody who who's in the United States, what do you think of BYZ, BYD or Gili or or um, I can't even remember the names. There's like 20 of them. What do you think of this? And that they won't know anything about them. And then if you told them, how would you feel you've got a thousand dollar a month car payment? How would you feel if 500 of that was actually tax? They would lose their minds, but they don't know. Because it's what I call the menu. The menu is what they've given you. You walk into a restaurant, they hand you the menu. You go to a sushi place, but you want ice cream, they don't have ice cream, they don't have steak. This is what's on the menu. And so that's a big part of the tax system, is the menu.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Are you still living like did you because a lot of people that are entrepreneurs move out of the US and just don't because so that so they don't have to do that and they cut their citizen? Is that right? Like, uh is that what you did?

SPEAKER_00 36:08

No, you don't have to cut your citizenship, not at all. Uh okay, not at all. Um, I am a resident. I am a resident in other countries because uh it's nice to have a plan B actually, yeah. Um, just in case something happens. It's also nice to have different currencies, different bank accounts, different places to live. Um, you know, there's this is stuff that happens. Um, and they call it these crazy things like I don't know, all of a sudden maybe I'm a terrorist because I have a voice and they don't like what I'm saying. They can just take all my money. They can just take it. Yeah, we can down that way, that way. They can throw you in jail just for what you say, even though it's freedom of speech. I don't know. I don't know. So some of that stuff, and I don't want to sound like I'm, you know, like there's somebody after me or anything like that. But I've seen things that it's like, no, that shouldn't happen. And what I've also seen is there's nothing that's fair. There's no fair, there's no going to the to the judge and saying, no, this is fair, this is unfair. Judges don't believe that. It's how good is your lawyer versus how good is his lawyer. That's that's how that works. So, you know, you have I I always try to have a plan B, places to live, different sources of income, because like I said, I've had many collapses in my life. And and it's good to have some kind of people use diversification in their stocks and things like that, but not in the rest of their lives.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

That's true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

And and so, and so you you don't have to you don't have to leave. But believe it or not, in the United States, kind of the craziest thing you're about to hear, if you live outside the United States for 11 months out of 12 and you make your money in the United States, they give you $500 a week. Every week. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

Why?

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Exactly. Why? It's just part of the rules. And the way they do it is this there's this there's this tax thing called F-E-I-E, foreign-to-earned income exemption. Some people may know it, some people may not. It means that a single person who's in makes their income in the United States can make up to about $160,000 tax-free. And so at about $160,000, your tax bill is going to be about $25,000-ish at the end of the year, which is about $500 a week. So if you live outside 11 out of 12 months, you get paid to live outside. You're paid your own money, but at least you don't have to give it to them. Wow. And if you're a family of four, you can go up to $330,000 of income and pay zero income tax.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

That's that's a thousand dollars a week. A thousand dollars a week to live somewhere else. Your taxes go from $18,000 down to $1,800. You're you don't have to pay for insurance. You don't, you can there's so many things, it's unbelievable, but nobody tells you to live this way.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

Yeah, you're living it now, clearly.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Um and yeah, I've been living it since uh the last eight years.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

And tell me, like, you've achieved so much, you've accomplished much, you've built your your streams of income. What's your purpose now? Like, what fulfills you want because a lot of people talk about how to get there, right? But you've achieved it. And some people want to keep going higher. And you know, what's your thoughts on that? And now that you've achieved what you want, do you still want to go higher or do you have a purpose? Do you feel already feel fulfilled? Tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Yeah, so so uh maybe 15 years ago, I had enough, right? But I was still good at what I did, and I wanted other people to come along with me. So I wanted to help them. So that's really what it was about. Even my investors, I wanted to have good investments for them, and so I kept doing it because of them. Now that it's all done, I don't really want to start over down that route. And if it probably wouldn't have been done, I probably would have continued down that route, not knowing what the end was, because I didn't have a goal in mind of what the end was. So the end came to me instead of me going to the end, right? I if if I was smarter and I knew what I should have been doing, but I stopped looking at the things I owned versus the things I wanted to buy, and that's a real problem of hubris in the entrepreneur's world. Okay, if you wouldn't buy your business today, you should sell it. That's period. End of statement. If you wouldn't buy it today, you should sell it. Even if you're gonna lose money, even if you're not gonna have your income. This the problem is the human experience treats gain different than loss. And this would be a loss. Oh, I lose money if I did that. Okay, no, you're gonna lose more money if you continue than if you don't recalibrate constantly, unless you see that, okay, I'm going this way, and I see in eight months this is gonna happen that way. Perfect, not a problem. But if your trajectory is down and you don't know when that's gonna turn, it's already probably too late. So you have to plan, you have to think about it as if you were a buyer instead of a seller. You know, the same thing with stocks, the same thing with real estate, the same thing with anything. Neighborhoods turn, yeah, you know, the this whole idea of remote work. If you owned office buildings and didn't sell when that started, okay, now you got a pile of concrete that's worth nothing. And you were a billionaire just a few years ago, so you watched it all go away. That's the kind of stuff that collapse actually helps, it helps you refocus. Yeah, so this part of my life is about sharing ideas. That's really what it's all about. And so I like doing these podcasts, I like the interviews, I like writing, I like talking to people. I like to to give them just a uh just an average guy's way of looking at the world.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

I like that. Do you have certain things and daily rituals that you you know that you have to do just to help you? Because I believe for me, success is you know, if you've got if you're fulfilled in most of the key areas in your life, so your health, you know, your wealth, your family, relationships, and spiritual. So, you know, do you have any rituals or things that you can't live without rituals?

SPEAKER_00 43:36

Friends, I mean no, I mean that's it's really it's friends. It's true. I mean, my thing is travel. My thing is travel, it's curiosity, it's learning. That's my thing. And just because I'm good right now on money doesn't mean I'm good right now on everything else, right? That's the way life is. I I saw this one guy, he had this great line. It's called Um off balance on purpose. Okay. And he would give these speeches on a unicycle. He was in the front of he was on the stage and he would give his whole presentation on a unicycle. And he would talk about if you're on purpose, if you're if you know your purpose and you're moving towards your purpose, you have to be off balance. Something is out of order because the only way to move towards purpose is to lean forward into motion. And as you lean forward, something's falling back, something's not working. So you're always moving on purpose, but you're never in balance. Because if you're in balance, if you're in balance on a unicycle, you're gonna fall over. So you have to always be moving. And that's really life. You're always moving, you know. In balance, you're really, I mean, I need to sit in this chair and not move, right? Everything is in balance. Okay, the music's good, my skin is perfect, my relationship, everybody comes to me. Yeah, I just stay right here because if I walk over there, I may stub my toe. And then life is not good anymore. Because now my toe hurts.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Wow. What are you excited about for the future though? Now that you've you know accomplished so much, what excites you?

SPEAKER_00 45:30

Um really what what could turn out from this project I'm working on? Because it seems like people don't think the way I do. So when I talk to people about this stuff, they're like, wow, you're different.

SPEAKER_02 45:43

I'm like, really?

SPEAKER_00 45:44

I'm different. I didn't even know. I just I just thought this is the way I think. So it's really refreshing to to have these conversations.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

Yeah, because I could as soon as I saw the intro, I thought, yep, definitely, Neilie's something special. Because you know, you get the standards, but different ways of thinking, it's your your your way of thinking stands out because it's unique, and that's that's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

Yeah. So I'll actually tell you, uh, and you can try this on your own. It starts with humor to me, actually. It starts with humor because um once you realize that there's this thing that I call architecture, think of a restaurant as an architecture and the menu inside of it, you know, that you're only given a certain amount of choices. So there's an architecture of every country, there's a menu in every country, there's a menu in every church, there's a menu in every family, and there's all architecture. There's architecture in your house. Okay, there's only certain things you can do. If you want to go to the kitchen and you're in your bedroom, you have to exit your bedroom door, walk the hall, maybe downstairs, maybe turn right, and there's the kitchen. That is the menu. That's your only choice. You're not gonna drill through the floor, you're not gonna jump out the window, you're not gonna break through the roof. Those are options, but they're not really. So you start with that, and then I think about why people believe that there's only this way, okay? And take the BYD in the United States, they don't they don't even know that they don't know. Okay. And now then I then I find it funny. I find it absurd. I find these things funny. So I point out the absurdity of it. And and so that's the funny part to me is like, oh, this is just ridiculous. But here's the here's even funnier. Nobody can see their own absurdities, they can only see other people's. That's what I found. That's what I really found. So I try not to insult anybody by pointing out some of the things that are absurd in the in the menu in the systems in their lives. And then I offer them an alternative. I say, well, okay, I thought this was absurd. Here's another way to do it. And so that's my whole my whole way of thinking is that.

SPEAKER_01 48:07

I like it. Now, if you could go back in time, what would you tell your younger version of you? Like what advice would you give to your young the younger version of you?

SPEAKER_00 48:16

Yeah. So um I it brings back this story, which is the uh one of the key stories in the book. Um, my first real adventure was um whitewater rafting in uh Costa Rica. And I almost died. I almost died on that adventure. And when I finally came to and were in the raft and in really bad position, the um the guide in the back saw I was alive, and he said in very explicative terms, which I won't use here, start paddling or we're all gonna die. And so I didn't have time to say, poor me. I just went through the biggest shock of my life.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

What happened like what the something hit you or something, what happened? Just how did you almost die?

SPEAKER_00 49:10

I got thrown out of the raft. Oh I got thrown out of the raft in one of the roughest parts of the river. It was class four rapids, and I actually said to myself during it, this is the way I'm gonna go. I I remember that vividly, and then I remember being pulled out and saved, and now I've got to paddle just after that moment, start paddling that's what I would tell my younger self. Start paddling, don't stop. It doesn't matter what happens, you just died. Keep paddling. That's what I would tell my younger self.

SPEAKER_01 49:55

Wow, that's pretty profound. Guys, if you found this valuable and you're watching on YouTube, please tell me you know what what was the key takeaway for you? And hit that like, hit that subscribe. And also if you're listening on the podcast, please do me a favor and hit that follow button because it helps the channel grow. Neil, where can people find you if they want to connect and yeah, if they want to buy your book?

SPEAKER_00 50:19

Oh, great. It's on Amazon and it's gonna be in other places. Um, it's available July 14th, and uh the book is called The One Percent Door. And you basically everywhere. So LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, you know, all the social channels are the 1% door. And I want people to know that I chose this title after I wrote the book, which is really interesting. And it's because it just kind of appeared. Um, you know, it's sort of the way business happens too. Once you actually take that leap, stuff just starts to appear. And it's not because there's only one percent or the top one percent can walk through the door, it's because only one percent of the people who actually could will, because they'll stop paddling, they'll be afraid, they won't do it. But I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, there's no competition on this side of the door. The resources are everywhere, but it's really a different world. There's no lines, there's no waiting, there's no anything. It's just the life you want. You just have to do the work and get over the fear that you're not enough. You are, you can do it.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

I like it. You've that's amazing. Do you do you have any books that you recommend? Like, or what's who's impacted your life and helped you so like where on your journey to where you are now?

SPEAKER_00 52:00

So during that time where I got that $12,000 check, I started reading. And honestly, I mean, I I actually preferred audiobooks to regular books because the way I learn. Um, but I would listen to one a week. So in three years, I read like 150 books. And maybe that's not for everybody, but what I can tell you is this if I can get one good idea from each book, now I have 150 good ideas, and that's really the point. And if you can't read the books, go online and get the book. Um, what do you call it? The summary. You can ask any any place to get a summary. But the ones I would recommend, I'm gonna give you the ones that are not, I'll give you the ones that are normal first, and then the ones that are not normal. The ones that are normal are Tim Ferris' Four-Hour Work Week, um, Robert Kiyosaki Choose to be rich, um, virtually anything by Tony Robbins, um, The Good to Great, um, Made to Stick, and uh that's all I can think of. Now, on the other side, I like other kinds of books that give me a different way of thinking. All right. Bill Bryson, I don't know if you know who he is. He's a great author. He wrote one, he made several, they turn into movies, and they're not really about, they're about how to live a life, okay? Which is just as important as how to make money and the history of the world, things like that, things that expand your mind. Because you never know, you pick up one thing from that, it changes your whole world. And here's the other one: The Wisdom of Psychopaths. Which sounds like the craziest title ever, right? The wisdom of psychopaths. That's why I read it because I was like, oh, what is this? So uh, long story short about the wisdom of psychopaths. Each of us have these three characteristic negative flaws in every personality. One is psychopathy, the other is um Machiavellianism, and the third is um uh what is it called when you look into the mirror and you love yourself? Um narcissism. Narcissism. Okay, those three things, right? Oh, and if you're listening right now, Google dark triad test, and you can see how you list. What yeah, to see because okay, so those three characteristics are on a scale similar to autism and all that stuff. And so you've got the you've got the crazies on this side, and then what's on the other side? Okay, well, the book tells you where every part is in that spectrum. So, what's on the other side is people who are super focused on whatever it is that they do. They're very they can't see anything else, which is a psycho psychopathic way of doing things. They're high in psychopathy, but they're not a bad guy. They're not a bad person. They never did the bad things, just they have the same characteristics. So that's what they're measuring. So who's a high psychopathy? Navy SEALs, surgeons, CEOs, people who are super focused on what they're working on right now. Those are high in psychopathy. It's kind of crazy, right? But it's really interesting. So I'm interested in personality things, and and you want to have a great time at a party? You know, get that link out for dark triad. It's a free test. I mean, it's so interesting because everybody will compare how much of a psychopath they are.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna try it.

SPEAKER_00 55:49

Oh, it's the best, it's the best at parties, it's the best.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

I'm gonna I'm gonna look at that book too, because that was like CEOs and founders. I don't know, like maybe I wonder if I've got that. I think I might because I do have a lot of focus sometimes, and yeah. But you could use it for good. You could use it for good, you don't have to use it for bad.

SPEAKER_00 56:07

So yeah, all of those things, even Machiavellianism, it there's there's points where it becomes a problem, right? And you should know if if it's a problem, and that's what the test actually reveals, which, if any, is a problem for you.

SPEAKER_01 56:21

What's Machiavelli? What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 56:25

Uh so uh Machiav Machiavelli, I don't really know his story, but you can you can Google it. He was supposedly this guy that was really tricky and sneaky. Okay, he would he would get over on people um for his advantage, he would take advantage of people for his own advantage, and so some of that is good, a lot of that is not, you know, and so that's that that they gave him the name. Um, I don't think he is probably not deserved, nor is Vlad the Impaler deserved to be Dracula, but that's the name. You know, the the this history history has a way of doing those things.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

Awesome. I'm gonna look at that, uh look up that book and that test. Is there any key last pieces that you want to leave the audience, Neil?

SPEAKER_00 57:14

Um what I'd like to leave the audience with, um, if they should get to my website at some point, there is an assessment there. And it it kind of gives you the point where you are, okay? And then we offer some places where you can start learning. And then once you've started learning, we give you this. You can take another assessment where you'll find out where you want to be. And like I said, there's no line. Okay. But I like to think of it as like a sailboat. You can sail in between it, but you got to learn how to sail. Sometimes you got to go this way, that way, this way, there's a sandbar, all these, and and the rain and all these different things, but at least you know where you are, where you want to be, and how far away you are in that particular category that we talk about. And it's not that we're gonna fix it for you. We'll give you some advice, we'll give point you in some directions. We don't want any money from you. That's not it. The the goal in the future is to connect you with other people who are in the same boat, and possibly you make a small little group that helps each other.

SPEAKER_01 58:23

I like that. That's great. I look into that. Yeah. Thanks, Neil. Thank you so much for your time.

SPEAKER_00 58:28

Thank you. Thank you for having me on.

SPEAKER_01 58:31

Awesome.