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Shine On Success
Shine on Success is a dynamic, story-driven podcast where extraordinary entrepreneurs, visionary leaders, and resilient change-makers share their journeys to success, revealing both the challenges and the strategies that led to their breakthroughs. Each episode offers a unique blend of inspiring personal stories, practical business insights, and actionable advice, allowing our guests to connect with an engaged, growth-oriented audience ready to be motivated and uplifted. By joining us, you’ll not only have the opportunity to showcase your expertise and inspire listeners but also to be part of a powerful platform that celebrates ambition, innovation, and the courage to turn dreams into reality.
Shine On Success
Fire Yourself: Unlock Freedom Through Passive Income and Mindset Shifts
On this episode of Shine On Success, host Dionne Malush dives into the powerful connection between mindset and wealth creation. Discover how to break free from the time-for-money grind, embrace passive income strategies, and create the freedom you deserve.
This isn’t just about building wealth, it’s about transforming how you see yourself and the opportunities around you. From real estate to life-changing mindset practices, this episode will challenge the way you think about success and inspire you to take bold action toward financial and personal freedom.
Connect with Bronson here:
Website: https://bronsonequity.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BronsonEquity
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bronson-equity
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bronsonequity/
Connect with Dionne Malush
- Instagram: @dionnerealtyonepgh
- LinkedIN: /in/dionnemalush
- Website: www.dionnemalush.com
- Facebook: /dmalush
- LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/dionnemalush
Welcome back to Shine on Success, where we bring you bold voices, big ideas and real stories from leaders who are building wealth with purpose. Today's guest is someone who doesn't just talk about passive income. He lives it. Bronson Hill is the managing member of Bronson Equity and a general partner in over 2,500 multifamily units worth over $250 million. He's raised over $45 million for private equity deals and is the host of the Mailbox Money million. He's raised over $45 million for private equity deals and is the host of the Mailbox Money Show. He's also the bestselling author of Fire Yourself. Replace your Working Income with Passive Income in Three Years or Less, and if that title doesn't make you lean in, I don't know what will. Bronson's mission is simple help people escape the grind, build real wealth and create freedom through smart investing, and he's doing it every single day. So let's get started. It's so nice to meet you, bronson. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Nice to meet you, dionne, great to connect. It's always good talking about wealth and talking about life and just ways we can make ourselves better.
Speaker 1:For sure, and you're over there in Pasadena, we're here in Pittsburgh. We have quite a different real estate market for sure, and you know, we've been on the side of, you know, investing ourselves. We only have 45 doors, but it's enough for us for right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a lot. 45 doors can be a lot, no matter what market you're in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. And so our. You know our market. The average rental price is about $700 a month, so you know that takes a lot of time. So, anyway, let me ask you this my very first question. I always like to ask what is one thing you want people to know about you right now?
Speaker 2:I think a big thing that a lot of people don't see is that there's this huge connection between mindset and wealth, or mindset and success, and I think I didn't really see that, but I actually used to run a meeting in LA once I discovered this on real estate and we started talking about some of it. We used to describe it, eventually, over time, as a transformation meeting that involved real estate. Right, because the idea for you to be able to have 40, 50 doors, or if you have to be able to grow or raise tens of millions of dollars, you have to become a different person, and so it's, tony Robbins would say, about 80% of success in life is just getting the right psychology. So if you want to change your life, you change the way you think and your life begins to change.
Speaker 1:I love that You're just speaking my language, so I try to say that to everyone when I meet them all the time. So we also own a real estate brokerage. We have 203 agents and yeah, so we've been in business of almost eight years and it's been a wild ride. But teaching them about investing is important to us too, because you know we're doing it maybe small scale to some, but it's big to us and big to some of them that don't have one. So you know it's kind of interesting. So let me take us back to a place in your life. What?
Speaker 2:pushed you to fire yourself and go all in on passive income. Yeah. So, yeah, my book Fire Yourself. It really came from just my story of working a job. I was getting paid well, was making over $200,000 a year as a medical sales consultant in medical device and was working with surgeons and enjoyed the job. It was fun, but I didn't have control over my time.
Speaker 2:And I think a lot of people say you know, I want financial freedom, but yet really what I wanted was time freedom, right, and I worked with a couple of physicians that were making over $2 million a year, but they were working 60 to 80 hours a week every week and weren't able to take time off, or if they did, they weren't getting paid.
Speaker 2:So I think that you know, for a lot of people you know Warren Buffett has this quote and I think it's he's probably the best investor of our generation and he said if, unless you, until you learn how to make money while you sleep, you'll work, until love what you do, but you know God forbid you have a health issue or a family member needs care or something you you have, if you have to go to work, you've got to run the business you. You know you're doing. You have to do those things. Then your money's not working for you, right? True passive income is actually you make the money and then the money goes and puts on its work clothes and goes out to you know, works a full-time job for you and works on its own, it comes back and brings more money right.
Speaker 2:So that's really what passive income is about, and so once I learned about what that was, I realized there's so much power in developing passive income and even learning how to do it and developing yourself to think in a different way, instead of just a time for money trade.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing what you're saying, and I know you've spoken with over 2,500 high net worth investors, so what's something most people don't expect to hear from them? So I can see where I'm at in investing, right, but what is something they say that you're just like you don't expect?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's interesting from that the research I've done, obviously being able to interview 2,500 million errors and average net worth of 2 million. Some are going guys worth over 500 million and just understanding that a lot of these people think very differently than the average crowd. And what's interesting about wealth is that our narrative is that there's in media, just in culture, there's the haves and the have-nots. Right, you're either a trust fund baby or you're just not and you're just never going to be wealthy, whatever. But Fidelity Investments did a study in 2019, and they discovered that 86% of millionaires are self-made. So that means almost nine out of 10 were didn't inherit it, they didn't have a gifted, they didn't you know they're. Somebody didn't die, give money to win the lottery, it's. It's they actually figured out what are the learnable, teachable things that you can do to become wealthy, and so I think that should be really encouraging to anybody. So when I released my book, I'm really excited to release what I learned, but a lot of people don't realize that to become wealthy, one of the biggest things you can do is really work on your mindset. So we were talking earlier about mindset. It's just like if I were just to give somebody $100 million and they didn't have the character or the mindset to be able to handle it, they would probably lose it all, and that's what happens to most people that win the lottery. That's why a lot of people get large inheritances. They just kind of they don't know, they don't have the character to be able to handle it. So the idea of really creating yourself and getting their mindset around wealth can allow you to have these big jumps in your net worth, like for me, most people I mean, I get into this thing called wealth worthiness. But basically this is one of the most surprising things is that for a lot of people, the person that makes a hundred K a year will generally make about a hundred K a year, right, they'll, or they'll, have incremental improvements. They'll go a hundred, 10 K, 115, 125. They'll kind of make little moves up. And then, um, and the person makes a million dollars a year, kind of just makes a million dollars a year. But like what is it that people make big jumps? Right, they go from making a hundred thousand dollars a year to a million dollars a year, right, and I actually had this where to about a 4 million net worth, right. Well, how did that happen. It happened because of a mindset shift. I saw myself as this different person and then, as I walked into that, things started to align and kind of come around to help me to receive that.
Speaker 2:And so the idea of worthiness shows up in our relationships and we have self-sabotaging behaviors. So it says about 90% of us we procrastinate, we have negative self-talk, we have things like this. So if in our relationships, if I'm a single guy, I show up to a party at a friend's house, I see a beautiful woman, I want to go talk to her, but yeah, my self-talk is I'm never going to. You know, she's not going to like me, I'm not good looking. What do I have to offer? How's that conversation going to go? It's probably not going to happen, even if it mean. I'm not going to say that out loud, but I'll internally feel that way. And so I think it's the same thing with wealth, where we don't see the opportunities or we don't feel like we're worthy of it. We wouldn't put it in those words, but we don't show up in a way that shows that we're available to it.
Speaker 2:And this happened to me recently this was last August in a deal where this deal came around it's a bigger deal than we with about five X the size of our business almost overnight. And I didn't see it at first. But because I've been doing some of this work and kind of seeing myself differently in some of the mindset work, I was able to say, okay, let's do this whatever, and so it opened up some things. We did not end up closing out on the deal later for a number of reasons, but seven month process and some story there. But I was really proud of myself for being able to walk into that and receive it Right and so I think for all of us we can just take a look and see the results we're getting. Are we living from a place of worthiness, like we do deserve it, like we are able to do these great things, or do we feel like we're just constantly limited? And a lot of times it's internal, it's a mindset or something that we just internally feel we have risk and resistance there.
Speaker 1:So what do you do? So what can you, what can they do to help them? Because I even know myself, I know where I haven't felt worthy of things right, and I was talking about this just yesterday. I remember there's one time I won this award in real estate. So this is before we owned the brokerage and I never told anyone like I was so guilty, I felt guilty for being successful and that was a really difficult one to get over. But now, like I share everything, so I'm totally over that now because I do realize me sharing helps other people, because I go through a lot and sharing that does help them. But I need this shift. I need to go from where I'm at today, where I've been the same five years, right To the next level. So what can you do to help?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question. I mean it really is. Yeah, what can we do to change, to become where we're actually open and available to do it? So it really is. It's mindset work, and I think there's a few things that I found that really helped. This One is like the most powerful one.
Speaker 2:You know, people think of affirmations of, like what I say in the mirror, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh, darn it. People like me. Right, it seems a little hokey and cheesy. They do work. I do think they have another phrase I call whisperings. It's basically when we stub our toe, what do we say to ourselves? It's in that moment when I'm going to talk to the pretty girl or when I'm, you know, approaching her, like, what am I saying? So really being becoming very curious, not in a judgmental way, but very curious what we're saying to ourselves, and then also creating, crafting those words. And I do have a little practice this morning where I do, you know, in the mirror, I'll read my whisperings to myself I'm worthy of love and belonging, I deserve great relationships, I own the room with the confidence and authority of a king. I say that to myself.
Speaker 2:It doesn't always feel authentic right away, but over time, what happens? After doing this for months, your brain starts to shift and say, oh, like this is who I really am. You start to actually live from that place and this is kind of the big test. There's a lot of things like I could tell from your LinkedIn. You're a person of faith as well a person of faith, but, like you know, I know, okay, I know I'm unloved, I know I'm loved by God, I know I've got a plan for you know, there's truths that I see from scripture or things like I know these things are true, but I don't feel it in my heart, right, a lot of us kind of feel that.
Speaker 2:Right, like, I know these things are, I know I'm worthy of it, whatever, but I don't feel it. Well, how You've got to continue to keep it in front of you until, over time, it starts to generate from the inside. So you walk into a room and how this came really for me is I went through a divorce, unfortunately seven, eight years ago you know long story for another day but basically just came through. It just felt no sense of self-confidence, self-worth, whatever, and so I started to speak these things about self-worth and confidence and owning the room and in the beginning I just didn't really feel genuine.
Speaker 1:I was like what am I doing? You know.
Speaker 2:But over time after doing this for six months, 12 months I started to really generate those feelings of like wow, I really do have something to offer. I really do have something there. So it's interesting, sometimes we'll know something in our head but we don't really feel it in our heart. If that's the case, then it's important to create these whisperings around those things you want to be true and then over time, you start to actually I internalize it. You show up and it comes from within and everybody says, oh yeah, that's just, that's just Bronson, that's just Dion. They just show up that way, they just own the room because that's who they are and it's like, well, no, they actually created that with their words and their and their and their. You know the way they visualize that. So I do think those whisperings are really powerful.
Speaker 1:I agree with you said when you think about, you bring about. But I say, speak about, you, become, yeah, yeah. So, like I love that I'm actually creating, I'm creating this course about speaking and becoming. So I love that we're talking about this today because it's so important and people are attracted, like you're here for a reason today, right, because you're saying everything that I already know. So if you're just helping me, you've helped that one person today, right? But I know that there's so much impact we can make on the world just by our words, so, yeah, so I don't know if I'm going through something One of the hardest things in my life right now. My husband had a liver transplant seven weeks ago, so I've been caretaking and working from home and it's been really difficult. But if I haven't been with, I haven't been practicing self-development and personal development for so long, I don't know if I could have got through this the way I am today. Wow.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. I appreciate you sharing that. I mean that's like but see, that's a real world application. I think that we have to look at like all of our life is preparation, so that when we do go, when we go through those moments, we're ready for that Right and we have that, the energy, we have the focus, we've got the right attitude, we've got God's perspective, We've got you know, we've got all these things on our favor. So it's like, okay, like this is actually not happening to me, it's happening for me and there's some growth, but it's so easy to miss that. But I love that you're doing that work.
Speaker 1:You've been doing it for a long time. Thing is going to be so good, you know, or the bad times in your life, that you've realized that that there is something positive in every negative, so you just have to be willing to look for it. So thank you for sharing that. That's really cool to know that. You know, I'm definitely on the right base already in what I'm doing, even with this podcast, I feel like I'm meeting the most incredible people. I don't know where they're coming from, but I do kind of know, but it's amazing. So thank you for sharing that. So let's go back a little bit to the money. I heard something you said that saving money is foolish and that's kind of bold. Can you unpack that for me?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there's a saying that savers are losers. So not that they you know they're not wonderful people with a bright future it's just that they're losing money, right? So if you look over the last five years, just the last five years everything costs 50 to 100% more. I don't know how it is in Pittsburgh, but like it's crazy, and everything is so much more expensive, from groceries to gas. They actually say in California, this is kind of separate, this is a political thing, but it's going to be 850 a gallon about a year from now, right, because of the refineries, like. But when that happens, everything just costs more.
Speaker 2:And so I think, for people that are looking to grow wealth, there's a way you can actually use that to your advantage, right? You can use inflation to your advantage, right, it's a pain when you go to the pump and you get the grocery store, but how can you use it to your advantage? And really, really, it comes down to things like what you're doing, like buying homes with other people's money or using debt to do that. On a lot of I'm sure, you have loans, and so some people are buying cash, but if you put 20% down and you have a 20% increase in the value. You haven't increased 20% of your money. You've actually 100% right Because you basically only put 20% down.
Speaker 2:So a lot of people don't realize using some leverage in a time where there is inflation and costs are going up. Because that's what inflation really? No matter what they call it, and they say it's three, four, three percent, whatever it is, I think it's way higher. But I think just the idea of, you know, going from cash to asset to cash flow right, I take cash, I buy an asset that puts money in my pocket every month and I cash flow with it. And also time, if there's some sort of inflation hedge component, such as, you know, we do oil and gas, we do real estate, we're doing, we're buying businesses, we do all these things because we know that there's also an inflation hedge built in that as prices go up, we're protected and we're actually going to benefit from that as well.
Speaker 2:And if we can, use debt to do all those things, we're in much better shape because, you know, little increases in the price lead to huge increases in equity.
Speaker 1:Makes sense. So when I decided to do this podcast it was because my father had passed away and I was just looking for a vehicle to like get that grief out Right. So I thought what if I just meet people all across the world that have been through adversity and push through to the other side? So my question to you is you said something about a divorce, so I know you had some adversity there, but has there been a major adversity in your life that you pushed through to the other side and came out where we are today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, the divorce is a big one. I just had something recently like I shared this deal we were doing. We, you know. Again, I was really proud of myself that we received to be able to do this. It was a you know, multi. The deal was a $17 million purchase and it was. It was pretty life-changing in a lot of ways for both us and for a lot of investors.
Speaker 2:We actually raised two and a half million dollars for it and then, because of the tariff situation, because we had a difficult situation with a lender where they changed some of the terms, we had to just kind of walk away, and so it's a loss of tens of thousands of dollars for my partner and I. And then now, since then again, I don't have the hope for this to get resolved soon. But the lender has said our $110,000 deposit, which was refundable for any reason, but they're not, they're not refunding it and it's been like 60 days. So we're we're debating like, do we sue them? Do we like is it fraud? Like we were trying to figure out what to do. But it's, it's challenging and that's you know. It's. You know I have lots of worth in long-term deals, but it's not just cash sitting around, I try to deploy as much, as I just reminded myself that, like there's a couple of things from this is that things don't happen to us, they happen for us and there's always a gift at every challenge.
Speaker 2:You know, in my divorce it was the hardest thing I've ever went through, but, man, I just became a different person. I really grew. I really leaned into like what's my part, what's not my part, what can I do to grow, what? What can I do to grow? What's the? What are the lessons? You know, also, as I approach I'm 44 now, but as I approach 40, I was like what kind of person I want to be? What kind of legacy? What do I want to do with my life, when actually I only have so much time? What do I want to kind of person I want to be?
Speaker 2:And so I think you know challenges they can really discourage us and really push us down. And it's like I am an athlete, so I do train for these races, I do Spartan, they do whatever. But it's like people like you pay to go get punished and I was like, yes, I do, because it's the person I become when I do that. So I think in the middle of adversity it's. I think our attitude towards it is really important. If we look at it like, hey, there's a purpose here and I'm becoming a better person when, better person I when I used to freak out about the smallest thing now it's like I can go through something and be like you know, this isn't my first rodeo Like I've been through some tough stuff and it's going to work out.
Speaker 2:And at the end, if I want to be more and more successful, there will probably be other business issues that come up There'll be other relational issues that come up, and you know, sometimes I see people where, as they get older, their biggest issue is what the gardener's doing right, and so I want to continually have a network of things that are just getting bigger and expanding and doing more, because we all have stress in our life and how we manage is important, but I think it's just really being like hey, this is actually happening for me, for my growth, my development, I'm becoming a better person. It's allowing me to give back more and to really be a better dad, a better you know you know, yeah, that makes a lot of sense and there's always power in your purpose.
Speaker 1:So if you find that purpose, that'll push you through all of this. Because, yeah, at the end of the day, like we're gonna have stuff. Everybody goes through things, you know, and life is filled with it. Some people just can't get back up once they get pushed down. And you know, that's something I feel like I've been doing my entire life it's getting back up. And here I am. I'm gonna be 57, to be 57 in two days.
Speaker 2:Wow, you look great.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, but I'm like if it's the back end of my life now, like I want. Now I'm going to listen to you today because what you said about being at that same level, I need to bust through it now. I'm. I am so ready, you know, and we're doing the, we're doing all the things right, but it's not enough yet. So I, I really am going to pay attention, I'm going to get your book. Is it published yet?
Speaker 2:So Fire Yourself is. It became an Amazon category bestseller, so it's on Amazon, rich Brain. I wrote it and then I realized I was doing I was trying to do the habits and the networks. So I basically I'm going to make it three books. So I've got to rewrite the first one. So I've got some of them written. I just need to go and you know, yeah, I want, I want to complete it and you know it's it's a rush to get it done, but it's also you want to just want to do it right. So I'm kind of in the process of just doing that.
Speaker 1:You know that makes sense. So let's talk about if someone wanted to get in real estate but they're like I don't want to be a landlord. What kind of advice do you have for them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think, be doing real estate, so I'm going to go buy houses or I'm gonna go buy single family houses and I think it's it, you can do it. I think it's there's a way that you know you can grow wealth. It is a longer term way to grow wealth. I had four single family houses and then I realized it's just a much longer term approach, like it's. It's. It's a little bit, you know, when I was buying in Cleveland, I was of these for it to kind of actually generate any kind of income for me.
Speaker 2:And so the idea of you know, for a lot of us, we think that owning a house or multiple houses or, you know, having an online business or doing like an options or a stock trading strategy online, that these are passive income. But they're really not right. So when I would, even with the four houses, I would, I would get calls every week hey, the tenant's not paying, the toilet's broken, the neighbors whatever, the city's upset, you know all these different things. So it was like another thing. So the test really, I find that if it's truly a passive income or a passive model, that you should be able to 10x what you're currently doing, either in the amount of money that's invested or the amount of the, whatever the asset is. And so for me, for going from four houses, could I very quickly go to 40 houses? Right, and that's kind of what you're doing now right, but that can become a full-time job, right, just to manage some of that. So the question it's not you know, some people like you said it could work for you, it could work for what you're doing, but it could be saying, hey, if I want to be a passive investor, I have more money than I have time.
Speaker 2:You have a business. Maybe it makes more sense to find someone who's doing a deal, a larger deal, and you invest with them. Then we pull it together and then it becomes a deal. That's. You know it's passive once you invest. So your work really is on the front end, where you're actually vetting the team, you're vetting the deal, you're vetting the project. You're saying does this make sense? How do I make money? What are the ways I could lose money? And you just feel like you feel really okay and it's never going to go how you think it's going to go. It's going to go better, it's going to go worse, it's going to have, you know different wrinkles that come up, but once you invest, you are passive and that's why I call my, my, my podcast, the mailbox money show. Right, so that once you invest, you get these checks and show up every month. Now it should be the direct deposit show because it's really direct deposit now's.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of some of the stuff to think about, and to frame is just, you know, am I creating for myself really, am I creating freedom or am I creating another job?
Speaker 1:So how do you evaluate deals today? The market is uncertain right. It's changing all the time. How do you evaluate the next deal, knowing that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. So obviously the market has changed a lot. In single family there's, I think, something like 40% or more of people have a 4% interest rate or less, and so it's just it's hard. A lot of people have no incentive to sell. 30 or 40% of homes, additionally, are owned in cash, and so people just really don't want to sell homes. Now it's hard. I mean, what's the reason? You'd rather keep the home, that you, if you want to move, keep the home, rent it out and move somewhere else and rent or buy somewhere else. So I think that for real estate, people ask how is the real estate market? Well, obviously there's so many different markets, some markets, there's multifamily, there's single family, all the things I would say across the board. It's a challenging time right now for real estate. The last two, three years, since rates have been higher. We're seeing it specifically in multifamily, larger deals and single family as well.
Speaker 2:It's hard to find places that are cashflow positive, that you buy, that the numbers actually make sense. I mean, for here's an example of the house I live in. I actually rent here in California. All of our stuff we own is is outside of California, like I mentioned. But if we bought this is a 1,250 square foot house, it's in a great neighborhood, it's probably 1.2 to 1.5 million. We bought it, we put, you know, five, 10, 20% down, and then the payment would be 10 grand a month, and the rent, though, is only about four to 4,500 a month, right? So if I bought that, if I bought this place and I rented it out, I'd be losing about five to $6,000 a month, right? So it's not cashflow positive, right? So at least here it doesn't make sense. So maybe in Pittsburgh or other places, maybe it can make sense, but it works same with larger deals.
Speaker 2:So this is kind of the reason you know, as, as an investor, somebody who's an investor.
Speaker 2:There are people that say, oh, I'm a real estate investor, I'm an oil and gas investor, or I buy precious metals, or I do these other things.
Speaker 2:Well, we should just be an investor and figure out what our goals are, and if the goals are cash flow, which I think really is powerful for a lot of people, which real estate used to cash flow, really nice in a lot of scenarios, and now it's harder to find cash flow, so we've shifted into things like buying businesses or oil and gas, which also has some great tax benefits. Or even doing debt funds, where we help people buy real estate but we're the bank right, so we have low leverage on it. We're you know, if they don't pay we take over, and just ways that we can kind of find ways to cashflow. So so I think that you know real estate it is a great time because it's a great long-term kind of capital preservation strategy, growth strategy. It's just right. Now it's kind of hard with costs being so high, interest being high and, you know, trying to have the numbers actually make sense.
Speaker 1:Do you anticipate a shift in the right direction?
Speaker 2:Yeah, somebody I think JP Morgan years ago was like what's going to happen with the stock market and he says prices will fluctuate, right. So it's kind of like, yeah, it'll come back. I mean, I do think you know, long-term it's an incredible investment long-term and I think you know it will kind of have a boom and bust.
Speaker 2:I think right now, with there's just so much uncertainty right now being created by primarily, I think, by the tariffs, it's hard for people to plan, hard for companies to plan, it's hard to know kind of how to move forward. So a lot of people have kind of done a wait and see approach when it comes to business which directly affects real estate, which affects a lot of things. So it's interesting to see kind of how all this gets resolved. But I think, yeah, over the next three to five years, great outlook. I think the next couple of years we'll kind of wait and see. And you know, again, it's hard to time any market. But when you get in, I think it's just important to say, well, does this cash flow, does the business, does it make sense or whatever, that you're buying real estate, and to be able to kind of move forward from there.
Speaker 1:So there are two properties we bought over the years, one dollar duplex and it was bringing in um 1800 a month. Wow, great numbers there. We had to replace a roof once, but that was it on that one. And then we bought another one a single family for 15 and it's been 750 a month. We've been getting for seven years straight. Amazing, we did put on a roof and put, change the window I mean fix the windows but there's a two that are shocking, but this one's even better. So we have this building in our town and it was an old cleaning like they clean clothes, like dry cleaners and we reached out to the lady and she said that she was willing to sell it. And I said well, how much do you want? And she said $2,000. I'm like what? $2,000. So I was like okay, four, we're getting 2,500 a month for that building that's amazing.
Speaker 2:I gotta come work in your market. That's incredible. I mean, we had some stuff in cleveland we're doing too. We were buying houses for 15 to 30,000 dollars, putting, you know, 5 to 15k into them and running them for a thousand bucks a month, or 12, you know. But sometimes we were in a rough area so the numbers they kept changing and it was hard to scale. But that's awesome, that's in the frame.
Speaker 1:People always want to talk about it, so it's easier to get those good deals. But you know, we, the bulk of what we have, are multi-units. We have a 12 unit building, an eight unit, a six unit. So you know, we do understand that that is definitely the way to do it, other than having all these single family homes all around town, but for those prices you just can't beat it. Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, so what's one of the biggest myths you think people believe about passive income?
Speaker 2:I think there's a lot of things about passive income people believe. I think one is that there truly is such thing as passive income. I think, in a way, it's kind of a myth in general that no one really cares about your money the way you do, and so when you trust a financial advisor or somebody else that, like you know, just is doing an investment, like you really have to be committed to educating yourself as well, and so I think that it's again there's investments that are more passive, right. So I think that's something to pay attention to. And then, like I mentioned, there's things that people say are passive income and they're not passive, and so you have to kind of evaluate, really. I think another thing is people really undervalue their time, so undervalue their time. So if it's a passive investment and you're spending 10 hours a week on it, what's your time worth and how much time do you actually have to give? And is it scalable, cause you know you can only do that a few more times until you run out of hours in the week, right? So I think it's important to think about. So so I think it's just really, when it comes down to scalability you know, I started to to be like that was going to be awesome because eventually it would overtake my other income. It would be stuff that would grow over time. I could do other things with it, and it hasn't been perfect. We had deals that have struggled. We have deals we've had real challenges then and we've had some that have done total home runs. So I think it's important to kind of be honest about all of that.
Speaker 2:But I think for other sources of income, I think the average millionaire has like multiple sources of income. It's not just I have a W-2 or I've got this thing or I've got a business. It's like, well, okay, and this is for a lot of business owners Like, well, if I have a business, what do I do when I sell the business? Or if I retire, what do I do when I retire? Like, how are you actually going to get income to be able to live? Are you like what is that actually going to look like? So I think, having conversations around that fire yourself we talked kind of about like why the financial model of kind of doing you know retirement accounts and whatever, and how we got here and there's so much misalignment of interest.
Speaker 2:I think that you know we're taught that stocks and bonds are safe. And you know honestly, you know Tony Robbins had a book that said that the average mutual fund has a. You know they'll have these funds where you work for an employer. They'll say the fees are 1.2% per year, like a Vanguard or Fidelity or whatever. And then it's a range dated fund for the next 2050 or 2040 or whatever the date is it's kind of geared to.
Speaker 2:But the actual fees there's actually about 2% hidden fees they don't disclose, and so these are things like administrative fee, cash drag fee, exchange fee, which is kind of total BS fees but it brings in. They literally don't even disclose this to people, so it's like it's legal to not disclose it. So you think you're paying 1.2%. You're actually paying 3.2% and then and then if you do have a financial advisor or a money person like one of these big wall street firms working with you, it's a 2% fee on everything on top of that per year. So it basically ends up being about 5.2% in fees per year, when the average returns are only 6% to 9% per year when you count up the down years as well. So that means they're taking most of your money.
Speaker 2:The majority of your money is going to fees that you don't know you're paying, and so this is why, when I started talking to them, I was like you're really passionate, because people just don't realize that this is a glorified savings account and some people do need the handhold and just put money in the bank, but we talk about savers being losers. If inflation is there as well, well then you're losing out on the. You know you're just losing, you're just losing money. So I would say, some of these methods it can prevent you. If you have a sophisticated person, maybe you know they can kind of help you not lose money.
Speaker 2:But for a lot of these it's just kind of a scam where it's just like do I start taking money out of this when I have to, or what do I do to actually have income where I don't? You know, get rid of the principle, as I, as I do that.
Speaker 1:I never really heard anyone describe it that way. So, wow, thank you. I'm going to look at that a little more closely.
Speaker 2:So, but thank you for that and tell me this what's next for you? What's next on the horizon? I think there's always next things on the horizon. We're continuing to look at new deals. We're looking at different types of assets. We're just really trying to find things. We really want to buy more businesses. We feel like there's a huge opportunity, with a lot of boomers retiring a lot of businesses. If they're small businesses, a lot of times it's kind of just there's not really worth selling. It's kind of people just shut these down If it's too big. A lot of private equity groups want these and they pay way more, but if it's you know generates a million to 3 million per year in profit, that's a very attractive business to buy.
Speaker 2:If we exchange these into cap rates, so you're familiar with cap rates the cap rate for those listening it's like if I bought a real estate property in cash, what percentage would I get per year in cash flow, right After expenses? And so you know we look typically typically four or five, six percent's good kind of cap rates. Well, with some of these businesses they sell for three times profits. So that means it's like a 30 or 35 cap rate, right, so the returns can be sometimes five to 10 times higher than buying a real estate deal.
Speaker 2:So I just love looking and seeing you know those types of opportunities out there when it comes to cash flow, because I think you again a lot of money someday is great. But what helps me pay my bill this month, this quarter, this year is cashflow and, I think, forever. That's what gets people to be able to have the option If they love their job, they love that, everybody loves their job. But whether you love your job or not, just having the option that you have the money coming in, that you could stop working and you'd have enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense time. So thank you for showing us some different ways to look at things, and it's important because sometimes people don't realize that the opportunities that there are out there still, no matter if there's inflation, no matter if there's tariffs, there's still opportunity. So please think like that, learn to think and speak the opportunities. So if there's a way for our listeners to get in touch with you, how can they find you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I finished a. I write quite a bit, but I just wrote a guide that's basically my three favorite cashflow investments of 2025. And so it's about 10 pages. I just the three things I'm most excited about. So I'd love to share that with your audience for free, as a gift. If you text the word cashflow so just all the word cashflow to the number 33777. So if you just text the number 33777, you just text the word cashflow, we'll send it to you and ask for your email and your name and then it'll also keep you updated as far as things we're doing. So we're offering investment things, but we're really excited about that report.
Speaker 1:I think your audience will get a lot of interest. I really love that number, yeah. So thank you for that and for everyone. If you could like, subscribe and share this episode, that would be amazing. Our goal is to always go. For the first time, our goal has changed now. Our goal is to expect as many people as we possibly can in a positive way, and if it's through passive income, which would be amazing if it's through mindset, through how you speak or how you think, then this is definitely the place to go. So thank you, ron.
Speaker 2:so it's a pleasure meeting you today. Yeah, growing wonderful meeting. Thanks so much. It's a lot of fun, all right thanks bye.
