Why Building Income Matters More Than Building Wealth

0:00Time is the most expensive commodity you could ever spend. Like you like money isn't gold, silver, like it's your time. When you realize that your time is going to go away, 100% of the people die. That's just proven fact. Everybody dies. And so people say that and I I agree that t time is the most expensive commodity you'll ever spend. But what's even more expensive that is the culmination of your time here on this earth, which is your life. If you spend your life working for somebody else or going on a path that's not actually going to be fulfilling to you in the end in the long run then you've spent your life and it was hopefully a waste hopefully not but it is a wasted life if you go after the wrong things and so what I started realizing a long time ago that I

0:49Wanted freedom of time that was the number one thing now there's two things I'll get to u so one I'll get to in a a secondary is delayed gratification that's how I get got to where I am. But first, before that, you're 100% right that money is a is just a means to an end. The end for me is freedom in my life. Time freedom, money freedom to not have to worry about money or bills ever again. But here's what really leads into another. And you have to they don't say have to, but it's good when you build it this way.

1:20So, you need to have a money freedom in your life. And you work hard to eventually hopefully get let's say you get like 10 rental properties and they're cash flowing and then you have money that comes in you don't have to work that then allows you to have a time freedom. So money freedom leaves into a time freedom and then that time freedom you can do whatever you want but you also have the money to help you to do whatever you want with your time but then that time sometimes you might have some damaged relationships along the way because you worked so hard to get to where you are. Then that time freedom leads into a relationship freedom where you go back and you start building up all those relation.

1:55Maybe it's your kids, maybe it's your spouse or parents or whatever it might be. You shore up and get those relationships solid. So the money leads into time. Time leads into relationships. And the last one is where you and I both live in which is amazing is relationships lead into service. When you start serving people and I'm going to tell everybody, so for you listening, I'm going to tell you this. You're you're going to understand it. You're going to comprehend it, but you're not going to completely get it. And I'll give the example. Let's say, or this happened to me. So, my brother had his kids before we had kids, and I was looking at his son.

2:28I was like, "Oh, man. I love him like my own." He said, "No, you don't." I said, "What do you mean? Of course I do. This is this is my nephew." You just don't understand that when you have a child and you're a parent, it's a different You don't even comprehend that feeling. You might understand what it should be. You don't have that feeling, though. Same thing with service. Every I've always heard lots of people talk about you should serve a lot of people. The more people you serve, the more money they make, the more money you make and everybody wins. I thought that's a great thing, but I did not get it until I started living in it.

3:00And now I realize that the more people that I serve, honestly, I make so much more money. But here's the key thing. When you're serving somebody else, you're not taking from them. It's not like they're losing, you're winning. You're both winning and they're getting what they want. You're getting what you want. Like if I buy a single family home and I give a tenant a decent rent, you know, it's not exorbitant, they have a great place to live in, then we're both winning. It's it's a mutually beneficial thing. And so what we need to move to, as fast as you can, for you listening, as fast as you can, you want to get into the service aspect.

3:35Now, it does take, you know, money, time, relationships to get into service. You can jump right into service. But that's that's how I prioritize things is I I went that route in life. Now, quickly, I'll get jump into the delayed gratification. And this is how I got here. I won't say as fast as I did because people have done it faster, but like in the time frame that I went through, it was delayed gratification. So, when you're thinking, okay, finances, your health, relationships, all those sort of things, a lot of people think, I'm gonna compartmentalize and I'm gonna, okay, I need to make my family the highest priority, which is not bad.

4:14I'm not saying it's bad, but to the detriment of other things. And so, what I didn't do was do that. I didn't focus, okay, just the work to the detriment of the family, to the detriment of health or whatever. I made sure that as best as I could, I knew the number one thing that I needed in my life was to be able to provide for my family. So, which was money, which was the investing. So, I would like I don't know, let's venture to say 70% down that route, like really really hard. But at the same time, when I didn't have time, I still made myself go to the gym.

4:45I still made myself hang out with my family. I still made myself not watch TV, not go on vacations, not spend money because delayed gratification. The longer I put off something that's that's good right now, if I put it off for let's say 5 years from now, 3 years from now, however long it is away, it's going to be so much better because of working hard right now to make my life even better in the future. And I so I would wake up at 4:30 every morning. This I still worked a job. I still had Well, I'll tell you. So, I wake up at 4:30 every single morning.

5:18Get to the gym by 5:00. I was doing CrossFit. 5 to 6. And then 6:00 rolls around, jump in the shower real quick, get to my business. I had a business at the same time, working a job. By 7:00 I'd open the business, get the employees going, and then I go to my job by 7:30. Then I work all day and then I would go back home. Not home, sorry, go back to my business, close down the business, and then go home. And in the meantime, on my lunch break, on my breaks or driving, I would be investing. I'd be focusing on doing the things that can make me have financial freedom.

5:50And but then I go home, kiss my wife and kids, go to bed by 9:00 cuz I'm tired, and then go do the same thing over and over again. I did that for 5 years, constantly for 5 years. And it's a reason why I s well, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel of this hard work that I'm putting in now that now for the last 10 years, I haven't had a job, which has been amazing. And I'm like, I don't have an alarm clock to wake up to. I don't have a boss that I have to ask for vacation time. I have plenty of money to do whatever I want. And now I can just serve people. But it was that delayed gratification.

6:21Putting off for the future. — Even like good things now, but putting it off for the future. Like I didn't go on vacations for 5 years. We ate, I think, like Top Ramen or macaroni and cheese or we didn't spend money because every penny that did not go to a property was another minute, 10 minutes, hour, weeks later for me not being able to quit my job. Does that all make sense? — Absolutely. Yeah. And that's I think that's a part that is hard for people to hear that you know there there is a pure it's not like you push a button and you get rich overnight.

6:54But it if you to your point, if you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, it makes it worthwhile and it's not always going to be a perfect balance, but it it frees you up to to have a lot more balance if you can focus in the beginning. So, one one other thing too that you mentioned that I thought was was interesting that I think people maybe not everyone has this mindset of when you help people, you know, you we're talking about used to or or people would view it as competition in a lot of cases.

7:27I I think a lot of people don't recognize that the pie can actually get bigger as you're as you're assisting people. It's not that now they have a bigger cut of the pie than you do. Like before it was 50-50, now they have 75 and you only have 25% of the the pie. The pie just got a lot bigger because like their knowledge expanded. Your ability to do different things has expanded because you now have a partner and a new relationship and that leads to new partners and new relationships and more impact that you can have and it just consistently gets bigger.

7:58That's that that difference between the abundance versus fixed mindset and it's hard to wrap your head around in the beginning if that's not your mindset. But I' I'd encourage people to maybe go back and relisten to this section again that you just went through because I think that's exactly it. It's just like everybody benefits when you when you start supporting other people's goals. — One thing that I I hear too and I I I absolutely think then you're 100% right that it it doesn't have to be the detriment of somebody else.

8:30But one push back that I do get when I not on the the service but like in helping other people but in my work ethic or how hard I work or what I the the quoteunquote sacrifice which it's just a sacrifice because you're telling yourself it's a sacrifice instead of saying I have to do this or I have to go to work or I have to pick up my kids from you know the the bus stop or I have to do if imagine if you could like you're thinking I have to go pick up my kids. Well that's a bad perspective. What if you could never pick up your kids? What if your kids were gone?

9:01God forbid. And you couldn't. Then you would say, "Oh my goodness, that's a horrible hole in my life." Now you should be saying, "I get to pick up my kids. I get to go to school." You not go to school if you go to school, but you go to the gym or I get to go to work. I get to whatever it might be. If you have that different perspective, life of abundance, life that that life's or world's not out to crush you or get you, — but maybe it's there to, you know, the pie gets bigger. I love that idea.

9:33If you start having that perspective, I get to do this, then honestly, you will enjoy it more. Number one, but then you also probably do better at whatever it is that you're doing. Be present there. Maybe it's working, maybe it's investing, whatever. If you realize I get to do this, then you do so much better. One other quick last thing that I'll share that people push back on my work ethic or you know how much I I work. They said well Dustin like how did you have like you how did you have so much time? I don't have that time to do that. I said well I had 24 hours in the day.

10:05How many hours do you have? Oh exactly. We have we all have 24 hours a day to do whatever it is. It's not that you don't have the time you don't make the time. It's just that's really what it comes down to. And I do one of the I love this quote and it's from Arnold Schwarzenegger. He said something awesome. People say, you know, how do I how do I do this? I don't have any time. He says, well, we only have 24 hours. Sleep faster. I was like, I'll sleep faster. Okay. And I would sleep maybe five and a half hours, maybe six hours at most, and get back to work.

10:38And I maybe on the weekends I I would sleep a little longer, whatever. But we all have the same amount of hours in the day. We all have the same laws that are against us that are for us and all that sort of stuff. And so we just need to apply the things like the things that if you're listening to living off rental podcast and you're you haven't taken action. Like I know you're coming back listening every single week listening to Kirby growing, you need to also take action because if you're not going to take action, if you're not going to actually do it and you're just listening, you're not going to change your life. And so you need to take that action. Sleep faster, have delayed gratification, all the above.

11:12But that's exactly that's how I've gotten to where I am. — Yeah. W That's that's really good. And that actually made me think of something as you're describing that and the perspective because you're talking about like having a different perspective like if what if your kids didn't exist? Like you know there's people who have tried for years to have kids and they they don't have kids and you're like complaining that you know you have to like wake up with them or you know like drive them around or whatever it is. And one one thing that I do that's kind of a tactical hack I guess that has really worked for me is I just I I love reading about other people's journeys that have been really tough.

11:54So I don't know if you ever read man's search for meaning. — no amazing book Dr. Victor Frankle, he wrote this book. He was in a concentration camp. His whole family was executed and he wrote he he developed a whole mindset around you know how he survived — I'm ordering it right now Franklin found it. — another one that I just read so I read that one years ago but one I just read is esca escape from camp 14. So, it's about the only North Korean to escape from these basically death camps that he was born into, planned.

12:29I mean, it was going to be a whole life of just labor until he died and he was the only one. — What was it called again? — escape from camp 14. So, you know, books like this where you like it, it's hard to even go back to your day-to-day life after reading books like this because you see people then who complain about like, oh, it was hard to wake up this morning or it was like, man, it's cold outside and it's like, dude, there's somebody who literally is tortured 24/7 his whole life and and like now he's on the other side of that and like you're complaining about what you like these little things that you have.

13:07So I read those things and it's incredible like how much more motivated I am to like get to work and like you know structure a life of meaning because like we can't like it's just such a blessing. So — perspective — you you said one word just now that I changed my and to help me keep going in that direction of being grateful or being joyful or having gratitude in general. You said one word that I now switched in the last couple of maybe three years. So whenever anybody would ask how are you doing, you know, how's it going?

13:38That's that's a first quick thing. How's it going? Usually I say, oh, I'm fine or everything's going well or you know, something like that. I changed it to where I say I'm blessed. — I'm I'm blessed. That's really all I above the ground, which means I'm not dead. — Yeah. — You know, I I'm breathing. I I can walk. I can talk. There there's so many grateful things that you can have in your mind that you can be grateful for. And then you start thinking of even more abundance. If you start thinking about the negative things in your life, then that's always going to draw you away. And one quick thing I'll say with the the blessing.

14:10So my wife and I married oh 20 years coming up here in May. Five kids. Thank you. We're very very blessed. We've also at our church, we've done lots of marriage counseling with people or four people. And there's one thing that I try to do every time I'm counseling somebody or if I do a big conference or like some sort of event with with a bunch of married couples trying to help them to, you know, grow in their marriage. I say, "Okay, here's everybody. This is what you've been waiting for. Get out a piece of paper." Let's say you got a piece of paper. Hold on. If you're watching on YouTube, got a piece of paper.

14:42Now, you your spouse is not going to look at this. Grab a pen. Everybody like your spouse is going to write about you. You're going to write about your spouse. Write down every negative thing you can think of about your spouse. They're usually they're like, "Oh man, this is great." They start writing and writing and they get like three or four lines and they're like, "Huh?" They have to kind of think of another, okay, there's a fourth one. They come up with a fourth one. But the the list gets very short, very fast. Like they they think it's a huge list, like 20, 30 things. When you boil it down, they're like, "Oh, there's only like four or five things, maybe at most four." Then I say, "Okay, put set that aside.

15:17Don't let your spouse see it. Set it aside. Now get out a new piece of paper and now I want you to write down all the positive all the good things about your spouse that you could come up with and every single time it's a list of like 30 40 like they I run out of time like okay you got to stop writing now because if you just add up all these little tiny things from like my wife makes me breakfast every morning or she makes me coffee and it sends me off or you never know like everybody has a little tiny things that you grateful for — and then you look at the 30 things versus three or four.

15:51It's like, well, I'm focusing on the wrong list. And then this is what I tell everybody. Okay, now this is what you need to do. Commit to yourself. It's not to me. It's not to your spouse. You're committing to yourself. Take that list of all the negative things. Crumble it up. Stand up and go walk and throw it away in the trash. Go throw it away. And you're making a conscious commitment to not be thinking about those things. Same thing with life in general. You're investing your job. Get those negative things out of your mind because that's only dragging you down as opposed to looking at the benefits.

16:24And when I did did this for the first time, I made a conscious effort to not even remember what those negative things are. I'll be completely honest, we I did that like I don't know 15 plus years ago for the first time. I don't even remember what my list was, but I do remember my list. I think I still have my list somewhere in my desk. A list of all the good things. It's so when you get rid of all the negative things, maybe your job's terrible. I completely get it. If you focus on the good things, that helps you to then go after the even better things instead of like always being drugged down.

16:57— I love that, man. S such a great practice. I mean, anyone could do that. You could just start writing a list every day. Just write a few things of of what you're what what are going well or what you love about your spouse or you love about your life, your business. Man, I I can totally see how that could change someone's life. — you know what's what's also really interesting too I heard anecdote but like a study done and I started implementing this into myself and I've seen a change. So there was a study done of let's say the top 100 tennis players.

17:31So you know think top 100 there's number one all the way down to 100. They talked to all of them interviewed all of them. The top five had something different than all the other 95 below them. The top five did something completely different. The other ones didn't. What was it? It was not negative selft talk but positive selft talk in a in a way that it says like this. Let's say you know most people oh that was a terrible shot. Like that they swing tennis and the ball goes off to a different direction. Oh man that was terrible man I can't believe I did that.

18:03And they start dwelling on the past as opposed to like, okay, what could have done right and how was this next shot going to be the best shot ever in the history of shots? And they visualize it. — They get their positive energy up. And honestly, I really believe I I'm I'm not a hippie at all. Meaning like I don't believe in that woo woo type stuff, but at the same time, — I've seen it work. Like when you get your mindset in a right direction of like I'm thinking so positively — then the top bullet the top five what they always did was they kept telling theirel and visualizing the next shot being the best shot ever or how this next shot I'm going to do this and they're constantly getting a positive frame of reference a frame of mind and I started doing this in my Olympic lifting I do I do it five days a week I started thinking because when you have technique

18:51If you're playing tennis so you're playing baseball, whatever sport, Olympic lifting or lifting weights, you have to have technique. And if you miss on the technique, you could hurt yourself, number one. But number two, you could also just not make the lift. And then I've been doing positive selft talk for the last 6 months saying, "Okay, this next lift, this is going to be the best lift of the day. I'm going to get this boom boom hit this right." And honestly, more often than not, it works. So what I'm trying to say is everybody, it's not just your mindset. It's also self-talking yourself into gratitude into this is what's going great or this next step is going to be amazing and I'm going to make sure that it's amazing because I'm putting all my effort towards that.