Dragon's Gold: The Magic of Mindset

Breaking Free from the Modern Day System: Bryce Robertson on Financial Freedom & Living Without Limits

• Justin Mills • Season 1 • Episode 12

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Episode Summary:

In this episode of Dragon’s Gold: The Magic of Mindset, host Justin Mills sits down with Bryce Robertson, an investor, entrepreneur, and adventurer who went from being completely broke to achieving financial freedom in just a few years. Bryce shares how he turned $2,000 in debt into a thriving real estate investment career, all while prioritizing adventure, personal growth, and global experiences.

From mobile home park investments to creating a life by design, Bryce reveals the strategies, mindset shifts, and financial principles that helped him escape the 9-to-5 and live a life of total freedom.

Key Themes:

  • The money mindset shift that allowed Bryce to turn debt into financial success
  • How to build passive income streams that support your dream lifestyle
  • The importance of financial literacy & strategic investing
  • Why most people remain stuck in financial mediocrity—and how to break free
  • The Freedom Trinity: Money, Time, & Mobility
  • The power of adventure, travel, and designing a life on your terms

What You’ll Learn:

  • How Bryce overcame financial struggle and built long-term wealth
  • The real estate investing strategies that helped him gain financial independence
  • Why creating cash flow is more important than chasing lump-sum wealth
  • How to break free from the traditional work-life cycle
  • The importance of mindset and emotional intelligence in wealth-building

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About Gold Dragon Investments:
At Gold Dragon Investments, our mission is to bring joy to others by helping them win the game of investing — helping every client become the hero of their financial journey. We believe that wealth is a tool, but joy is the ultimate outcome.
Through meaningful partnerships, we strive to empower our investors to create freedom, and build lasting legacies of purpose, fulfillment, and wealth.

Join Us on the Adventure:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome once again to another episode of Dragon's Gold:

The Magic of Mindset. Today we have the pleasure of having Bryce Robertson, CEO and founder of Cultiv8 Collective. Bryce, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me Justin. my pleasure, my friend. so let's go back to the origin story. Where did it all begin for Bryce Robertson? Cool, yeah, so I grew up in Australia, Australian native, and then in my early 20s I actually left Brisbane, which was my hometown, to go work in the underground gold mines in Western Australia. So I was working like seven days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day, eight weeks on, one week off. It was really, really hard work, but that was a way that I knew at the time to make a lot of money. I actually didn't have any entrepreneurial influences or any wisdom around that. So I actually dropped out of high school early and went into the steel trades, steel fabrication and welding. And then, because that was the only way that I knew how to make money. And I had this vision, I had a vision that I wanted to travel the world. So when I was out in the gold mines, I was actually saving up some money for a couple of years and I bounced between Northern Territory and Western Australia. And then in my kind of mid twenties, I took off and traveled the world for six years. And I spent three years in UK, Europe and Africa. I spent two years in Canada and I spent 18 months surfing and scuba diving in Central and South America. after that, I actually came over to the States, which was about 14 years ago. I came to California. And then once I got here, I realized that I wanted to recreate this amazing life that I'd been living, traveling all around the world. But I wanted to make it more sustainable because the travel that I was doing, I would work for a little bit, travel till my money ran out, and then I'd have to come back and work again. So I started exploring all the different ways to make passive income and create that kind of lifestyle. Real estate seemed like a really clear angle for me. At the time I had about a 20 year background in construction and construction management. And I looked at all the different asset classes in real estate and then mobile home parks kept popping off the page, getting to provide massive value to affordable housing. Excellent tax benefits, very little competition, appealing returns. so I ended up deciding to delve into that. And then in 2015, I bought my first mobile home park. I had a negative net worth $2,000 in the bank in unseasoned credit. So by nature of that, I had to attract capital to deal and pull that whole deal together. And three months later, I closed on it. So I rinsed and repeated that for the next two and a half years and then created financial freedom. then there's been a lot of growth since then. It's amazing. Congratulations, my friend. along that way, sounds like you've had some amazing adventures, I'd love to share some of the stories. was there any point beyond just wanting to provide yourself that financial freedom so that you could live that lifestyle? Did you ever have the desire or feeling that you wanted something more or that you wanted to create something great, not just for that freedom, but for in order to help people. Yeah, totally dude. like when I was a kid I actually knew in the area that I grew up that I was gonna do a lot more than the people were doing in that area. I felt like the world was my oyster. My parents would use to keep telling me that and then if I got my mind set on something I wanted to do it. Like when I was a kid I saw the running of the Bulls in Spain. So that was one of the first things I did when I went over to Europe is I ran Bulls in Spain and I just if I get my mind on something thing I want to do it. when I came over to the States. At that point, the whole construction industry had been serving me, but it had been pretty unenjoyable for me for most of the way. And I was doing it because it was the best way to make money. But I was going deeper and deeper down a path of dissatisfaction. I reached a point where I literally had no energy left and I knew that if I continued on this path, I envisioned myself at age 40 or beyond, and I'm beyond that now. But back then when I envisioned that, it was a very dismal, miserable outlook of my life. And I'm like, life's gotta be better than this. thing that really motivated me in the beginning was get away from that lifestyle and create my own lifestyle so that I could live in a better lifestyle and I could break out of the what I call the slavery of the modern day system and create my own economy and create my own future. Now that whole path there was was mainly egocentric. I was very much thinking of self and I wanted to free myself from something that was very dissatisfying. But once I created financial freedom, the interesting thing that happened is that a massive weight lifted off my shoulders and I had a huge paradigm shift in the way that I approach things. So from that point onwards, I put more of a focus on how can I help others? How can I provide massive value to others? What contribution do I want to make? What impact do I want to make? And that has been the the big driving force in me scaling business and doing a lot of the things that I've done because I really want to help a lot of people along the way. And obviously the thing that was at my core was breaking myself away from modern day slavery of the system. And I want to help other people do that as well. So I want to help people become financially free, free their mind, live better, live more fulfilled, live more healthy. These are all things that are important to me and these are all things that I think we deserve and I just don't think that there's enough of that in the typical path of our education these days. I unfortunately, I agree with that. But I do think that exactly as you say it oftentimes and understandably starts that it is a bit egocentric in the sense we have to be selfish and these are the things that we want in our life. we have to take care of ourselves first before we can take care of others. Otherwise we can give and give until there's nothing left for us to be able to. If you can create that abundance and you have that opportunity now. You've showed up those walls and now you have the opportunity to create more, to give to others. And it's amazing how it amplifies, right? It increases. And how much is truly available? Like it's limitless. I'm curious along the way, so we call this gauntlet, right? The trials and tribulations, those moments that are just difficult to overcome and oftentimes teach us valuable lessons. Are there any moments that you would share with the listeners resonate with you. Yeah, honestly, I think the whole path on most of the things I do been very challenging. there's a balance between challenge and reward, support and challenge. so traveling the world for six years sounds amazing. There's obviously challenges in that, too. I had to go to new countries each time didn't know what the customs were in those countries. didn't know how things operated. Oftentimes I started with very little money and I had to create my own economy and do all of that very quickly and get everything set up and find some accommodation and figure it all out. I did that in many different countries. And then as an entrepreneur, my whole path of being an entrepreneur has been extremely challenging. in the beginning, I started with negative net worth, $2,000 and unseasoned credit because I hadn't been in the States long enough to build credit. So that's not a very advantageous starting point to get the first mobile home park deal across the finish line. so working against those challenges, there's big rewards. And here's the thing. We are going to get challenges in life anyway. So if we seek a life of inspiring challenges and we seek our own challenges, then we are handsomely rewarded. But if we are trying to avoid challenges, they're gonna be distractions that are gonna take us away from our life's purpose. one of the things that I've really grown to learn over the years is to live in my highest values because whether we're conscious or unconscious of it, we're actually trying to do that anyway. And so it's clear to me that my top three values is self-development, health, and wealth building. And so the things that I do all revolve around that. So I'm consistently seeking challenges that are in those areas. I do a lot of outdoor athletic adventures. I've surfed some of the best waves in the world. I've gone cave diving. I'm a dive master. I've done some extreme hikes and some extreme... physical challenges and marathons and ultramarathons and all this kind of stuff, but health is one of my top values and so is self-development. So you mix those together and I have very inspiring challenges and that is very rewarding. There's other areas in my life where I get challenges and because it's not linked to my highest values, I'm just not inspired in those areas and so are not things that I would pursue through and so you know the thing that keeps pushing me through all of these challenges is aligning myself with my true values and my purpose, That's fantastic. one of the things that I hear you say in that, as far as challenges that come, when we don't feel inspired to be able to take those challenges on, and it's not something that aligns with our values, we don't have the fire to push through, right? But when it's something that you want and you've got that desire, it's amazing the amount of energy that you get to put into it, taking that forward leap into the fire, if you will, and pushing through in that, when you come out of it, it feels so wonderful, I can only imagine how you felt after completing those hikes or surfing those waves or finishing those dives. when you were there, did you do those alone? Yeah, I did a lot of these things alone. I've been kind of lone wolf in a lot of the things that I've done. actually really love solitude. the concept of being an extrovert or an introvert. The way I like to explain it is where do you gain most of your energy? And I gain most of my energy from solitude. Now, ironically, I also... I speak on stages in front of thousands of people and I really enjoy that as well. But if I'm doing that all day every day, I'd be very depleted. So I really like the solitude. I like the, you know, going through the challenges. I'm not competing with other people. I'm competing with myself in like a healthy way to be a better version of myself. And I really enjoy the process when I go through that. One thing I'd just like to mention on values is that People sometimes wonder why they're not exercising or they're not eating the way that they want to eat. Or maybe they're not making the money that they want to make or they're not as financially successful or they're not as fit and healthy. I'm just choosing those because they're two common things that people go for. If health or wealth is not in your top four values, because we've all got a value hierarchy, there's some things more important than others. If they're not in your top four values, you're very likely not going to achieve anything sustainable in those areas. So it's more important instead of trying to beat ourselves up, if health is not highest on our totem pole, what is high on our totem pole? And that's what we should be dedicating ourselves to, not the things that we'd like, but they're not actually true to our heart. I think what you said about being true to your heart is very relevant. You know if it's something that's important to you. You know if you really feel that fire. And when you lean into the things that you most desire, that you truly want or love, it's amazing what you can succeed. on the path of entrepreneurship, oftentimes not a straight path and we don't take it alone. we call this the fellowship, The allies or the mentors that have helped us through. along the journeys that you've had, whether it be for your personal growth or your business growth, have there been people that have helped you along the way? And what would you say about that? Yeah, absolutely. Totally. doing things that I have achieved have been because of the collective help from a lot of people, mentors, teams, investors, partners, vendors, the whole kit and caboodle. I mean, when you actually look at the people that are involved in what it is that I'm doing, there's thousands and thousands and thousands of people. So that's really cool. actually put a lot of wisdom that I've gained over the years to my mentors. My first main mentor was T. Harv Eker I actually trained under him for three years, who is the New York Times bestselling author of the Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. He has a really amazing way to connect business and expanding wealth with being heart-centered and grounded spiritually, which is a really cool touch. and he's a very powerful mentor as well. learned a lot from him. also done quite a bit with Tony Robbins as well. The main mentor, the one that I really work with these days is Dr. John Demartini. He is the world's leading authority on human behavior and he's basically spent the last 50 years of his life Deeply studying, I think he's read over 30,000 books. and he studied all of the different ologies and theology and physiology and biology and astrology and over 250 ologies and isms and all of that and he's brought it all together and brought the commonality and how that relates to human behavior and that's been one of the things that's really helped me the most. It's really the self-development side of things. Learning all of the how-to's is great, but that's only about 20 % of it. It's the 80 % of mindset and self-development behind it. And that's the piece that often people miss out. And that's the area that I really like to take a deep dive into. And so even though I might be in solitude for a lot of the things that I do, I am consistently getting mentored either where there's live or virtual. or I'm listening to an audiobook or reading, I am just like, I devour lot of that kind of content. you had mentioned T. Harv Eker And I love that book and how awesome to be able to train directly under have that direct connection and experience. Yeah, and a great reward was years later, actually was in 2019, I co-authored a book 10,000 Miles to the American Dream, Our Story of Financial Freedom. And I co-authored it with a group of us, 8 Australians called Real Estate Pates, who came over to America, created financial freedom, and shared our story. And Harv Eker endorsed that book and that was like a full cycle on, putting all of his wisdom into implementation and then coming back and getting that support from him was really cool. Wow. that's amazing. oftentimes there's a moment, and we call this the darkest hour, there's a moment where that pain was at max level. we felt we were gonna throw in the towel or we thought, why are we pushing this? in your experiences, is there a moment that jumps to mind you would call out? Yeah, I definitely had a pretty deep moment a few years ago. was rapidly scaling my business. I was going through challenges in my marriage and all of the weight of the world just felt like it was on my shoulders. But there was no, I didn't feel like there was any kind of time out. I had to keep pushing through everything. And it was also just before Christmas too, so. There was all of these Christmas outings and dinners that we had back to back, like every night for the next two weeks. And it was just like, all of it was so overwhelming. And I took my dog out for a walk then my dog's like pulling on the leash. He was like a little puppy at the time and he's a husky and you know, they pull on the leash and it was just like aggravating me. And I was just feeling myself build up, build up like the incredible Hulk. And then I just came back inside. and I lied down on the couch and I said to my wife at the time, we're separated now, said to her, I'm taking time out. I am clearing my calendar for the next two weeks. You can go out for dinner with everybody. I need time for myself. I need to recharge. I've been giving too much to everybody else. And we had an agreement that like, I need my space. Don't even try to interact or talk with me. I just need two weeks. by myself. And so I basically spent two weeks meditating, doing breath work and reflecting. was powerful. And on the third day, I actually had a big breakthrough and I was lying on the couch looking up at the fan. And then I just started laughing kind of like tears of, I suppose, relief started coming down my eyes. And I realized that 80 % of the pressure that I was feeling was self-created. I had this illusion that like, have to do this for this person, I have to do this for that person, I gotta do this for them, I have to do this for investors, I have to do this for partners, I have to do this for everybody, I have to do it for the marriage, I gotta do this for the dogs. And then I actually looked and I'm like, what is that actually telling me? Is anybody actually telling me I have to do that? And... very little, there was just a slight little bit of it and most of it was just the self pressure that I put on myself. it just dawned on me, like, you don't have to keep doing things, you are enough as is. And how about you just like and be proud of all the things that you've done. that was a very big breakthrough moment for me. from that point onwards, I went a lot deeper with like the breath work and the meditation. And those have just been really powerful tools for me along the way. That's incredible. And how amazing that you were able to have that moment, that epiphany, That clarity. And I think so many people, do fall into that same trap in the sense that we put so much pressure on ourselves to try and please everybody else. And of course, it's important in my mind's eye to take responsibility for your actions and to have a care of producing a good quality of whatever you do. But I think that we overwhelm ourselves. And in today's society, especially where everything is so instant in the gratification and responses are immediate and social media and phones ringing and emails, cetera. Like you can literally become drowned in everything that's going on. If you allow yourself to be and that pressure can really cause you to crack. And I think that you being able to take that moment to take that step back and have that realization. And in those moments finding out with the breath work, with the meditation, finding the tools to be able to help you work through those moments and then being able to lean more into the things that helped, that is a massive growth opportunity. And I love that you had the moment and I also love that you shared it with the listeners for them to reflect on their own lives and realize how much pressure are we putting on ourselves? You mentioned Secrets of the Millionare Mind by T. Harv Eker and you've talked about meditation and breath work. Are there things, other books or other items that you might were inspirational to you in your journey, and anything that you might share with our listeners? Yeah, that's a great question. So I've shared breath work and I've shared meditation. They're in my top three. Those are very powerful. The number one for me is something, it's a tool called the Demartini Method. And it was actually created by Dr. John Demartini. And it's after all of his studies, he uncovered the wisdom behind the human behavior and how we can live most fulfilled. And there's 4,628 human behavior traits. 50 % of them are positive, 50 % of them are negative. And the positives and the negatives are polar opposites of each other. So we've got kind, mean, giving, stingy, and so on. And so we basically have 2,314 pairs of complementary opposites our behavior. And the interesting thing is that when you look at research on our memory, memory states that we remember 50 % accuracy. Because if we think something was a good experience, we remember all the positives, but we don't remember any of the negatives. And if we remember an experience and we labeled it bad, we remembered all the negatives and we didn't remember all the positives. And so the Demartini method is a process. It's actually a 14 step process that takes us through a journey of actually uncovering that 50 % which is tucked down in our subconscious or unconscious. and uncover it so we can have a true balance and then we can have gratitude for every moment in life and then that way we don't put anybody on a pedestal and fantasize about them. Simultaneously we also don't put anybody in a pit and villainize them as well and then we can actually be free. We don't have to hold resentment. So as far as like being free from within that is the biggest most powerful tool that I've actually come across. After all of the experiences that you've had, we call this Dragon's Gold, the achievements, the accolades, and oftentimes these are just mindset shifts that you've acquired over time. What would share as some of the Dragon's Gold, the rewards that you've experienced through all of these journeys? Yeah, I think a lot of it comes back to the human experience and human behavior. mean, one of them is if we want to live most fulfilled, to live life in our top values, either our top number one value or our top three values. When we're living outside of our top three values, that's when we actually feel unfulfilled. So identifying what our top three values are and living in those. And then also empowering the areas of our life. If we just empower the financial area of our life, we could disempower the health area of our life. And so having a balance of spirituality and health and the mental side of things and family and what we're doing socially and what we do for a career. All of those things balancing all of those and then also just I think the biggest tool that has really helped me in life is understanding that in every single moments there's positive and negative and this actually breaks down to the universal law the conservation of symmetry and That's the law of conservation of symmetry which states that even from down to the subatomic all the way out to the astronomic in the universe, here on planet earth, in our bodies, in human behavior, the whole kit and caboodle there's a consistent balance between positive and negative. so many of us are seeking a life that is a fantasized life that is all upside, no downside, all happy, all support, no challenge. We want relationships that are all supportive and not challenging, but that's just not the case. and we're going to consistently be disappointed if we actually seek that path of a fantasy. The reality is, is that there's balance and that the negative isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's being brought in because we're out of balance here on the positive. So it's balancing us out. And then also that in every moment that we perceive to be negative, there's an abundance of equal opposites that are positives that we've got to look for. When we actually truly assess that and look for it, we'll see the beauty and the synchronicity in that. And this plays into every single thing in life, relationships, building money, thoughts, the whole kit and caboodle. And I just think that understanding that has just, as far as my consciousness is gone, has just opened me up like this. And I just see things for what they are now, which is really beautiful. It's helped me a lot. It's amazing insight and valuable. Thank you, Bryce. My friend, I'd like to ask you about passing the torch. what I like to call it is the Hall of Heroes. If you were to have a statue and in that people could go by and see a plaque that said something that you wanted people to know or to remember you by, would it say? I think it would say that Bryce Robertson helped mankind free themselves from the modern day system to live liberated and free. That's awesome. love that. So what's next? What's the next quest for Bryce Robertson and Cultiv8 Collective? Yeah, so at a little bit of an interesting crossroads, this year presents a lot of potential exits from a lot of my investments and companies, et cetera, et cetera. So it's kind of a transitionary point for me. and it's a time to decide how am I going to step into the next level of what I'm doing. And so obviously I'm gonna continue with all of the investments and the mobile home park stuff, but I wanna take a deeper dive into the education because if I look at my top values and what I'm really passionate about, I love teaching, I love doing these podcasts, I love writing, I know I've got a best-selling book in me that I've gotta put down on paper. And I've spent a lot of time focusing more on the business and operations side of things and I'm going to transition more into the education side of things. Writing, speaking, presenting, providing value, helping people in whichever ways that I can. to free people from the modern day system so they can live liberated and live free and really make an impact. that gets to help other people, but also get something out of that as well. So it's a good balance. Absolutely, and I think that's one of the most enriching things you are giving but you do get right that feeds you goes back the idea about that fire if it's something you desire something you're passionate about something that you love it's amazing How it grows the ripples that come from it right when you give to others When you see that light bulb go on and you recognize that they just get it, it's an incredibly rewarding experience as a teacher, Bryce, if any of our listeners want to connect with you, how can they reach out to you? Yeah, the best way is go to our website and that's investcultiv8.com. spelt real trendy. So it's invest, C-U-L-T-I-V, the number eight dot com. So yeah, go there, check us out and reach out. Awesome. All right, one last question. My favorite to ask. If you could be any mythical creature, what would you be and why? Honestly, I don't even really know the mythical creatures so I might be making one up here, but I'm really into mountaineering right now and so I think that like mountain goats are like amazing the way that they climb mountains and so I'd probably be some kind of like hybrid mountain goat that had wings or something like that that could just journey through the mountains. I really love that energy and that experience. Awesome. And just for clarity, why would you choose that? what is it about that that inspires you? I really love being in nature and I love the feeling very small in a big nature environment. This is an experience I felt when I was like surfing decent sized waves and when I was cave diving And these days I get that experience in the mountains and it's a... I really love being up there and exerting my energy and testing myself mentally and physically and having a journey and there's a lot of unknowns and you don't know how things are gonna work out and then you're subject to the weather and the whole experience That's awesome, Bryce. My friends, thank you for joining us once again on our quest to inspire, educate, and empower you to turn your dreams into reality, one mindset shift at a time. We'll see you next time.

People on this episode

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Justin Mills

Host
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Aaron Iler

Producer
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Bryce Robertson

Guest