Latest / The TalkBlock Show's Podcast / What Losing a Leg Taught Him About Financial Preparedness

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What Losing a Leg Taught Him About Financial Preparedness · The TalkBlock Show's Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so when your head gets in the way, you're gonna need to say, okay.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I know I can do this.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now I have a resistance.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I have to take care of my resistance.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I have to go from the over the F.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't take care of it.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I have to take care of my cost edit.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because they are not cheap and they have to have their stuff you have to do every night.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, like I said, you you just gotta make a list and continue to build that list.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what do you like to do?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: What do you need to do?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: What are you already doing?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we can we can add more to that.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: What would you like to learn?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome everyone.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: This is a talk blog show.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Vadim, and today's guest helps us prepare financially for anything.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: He is an author, international entrepreneur, and speaker.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: He jumped off Banjo Towers barehanded and started business as young.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Please welcome the author of the book Monetize Your Mindset, Bart Merrill.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Bart, welcome to the show.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Nice to meet you.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, I um first question.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so uh so what is actually you you you you doing you're doing daily, like what what is your uh daily life?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I've never had a real job, I've never done the real job thing.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: My goal as a kid from about 16 years old was to get in the FBI and chase serial killers.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: That was my dream job of what I wanted to do.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't make it.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I we had a family friend who was an ex-FBI agent, and he said the easiest way in was through accounting.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Once you get in the FBI, you can apply to the positions that are open, and if you're good enough, you're gonna get the position, so you don't have to stay in the white collar area.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I took his advice, I studied accounting, I found out two things very quickly.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: One, I didn't like accounting, and two, I wasn't very good at it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I it was a means to an end.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was my path, it was how I was gonna get to what I wanted to do.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I took a break right before my last semester of college and went down to southern New Mexico on the pig farm to help my dad out and learn Spanish better for me.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And while I was down there, I was making money, I didn't have any place to spend it.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: RK surgery for your for corrective vision for your eyes had just come out.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I got money, I want to do it, I want to get rid of my glasses.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I went and got it done, perfect, 2020 in one eye, 2025 in the other eye, clear up until I was 52, 53, and then I had to get glasses again.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I got back up to school and I was starting the application process into the FBI, and I found out that that automatically disqualified me.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh and I was devastated.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like, oh man, I don't want to be an accountant.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of I finished my my college career, graduated in accounting with minors in Japanese and Spanish, and I was there figuring out what I was gonna do.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: I fell back on kind of what my dad taught me as a kid.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: He was a pig farmer, but he wasn't just a pig farmer.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: He monetized several different things, usually in the agricultural industry, because that's what he loved.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was just anything that crossed my path, I said, okay, how can I monetize it?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And a buddy of mine who worked for the bungee jump company that built the bungee towers jokingly asked me if I would like to go back to Japan.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because they had just sold a tower in Japan.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I thought about it for a second, and I non-jokingly said, yes, I kind of do, because I was an adrenaline junkie.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so three months later, I'm in Japan pushing little Japanese people off the top of an eight-story tower.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so that just kind of started my life off.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what do I do today?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I do many things, I have multiple businesses.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: One of my main businesses is I'm a dog trainer.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And why am I a dog trainer?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because we adopted an eight-month-old 90-pound Rottweiler that didn't know the word no.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I mean, I grew up on a farm.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: I I've had dogs, I've trained dogs, I've trained horses, but I never had any structure.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I kept calling a buddy of mine, Sean, and Sean said, Well, so I'd say, Sean, Rex is doing this.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: What do I do?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And after about the fifth call, Sean says, Bart, if you're not going to pay me to train your dog, come learn how to train your dog yourself.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went to their their dog training school.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was two months all day, every day, had my hands on many different dogs.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's I'm a dog trainer because a dog came into my life that needed training.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm gonna learn to train my dog, I'm gonna get paid to play with other people's dogs.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so is it a you you personally training, or you have like stuff and team?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, just me, a small business.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I do two to four dogs at a time out of my house.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: They come, I do a board and train, they come and live with me.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have a new dog coming in tomorrow, excited to get him in to start to work with him.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's just me.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a small business.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: I say it's small, it it does over six figures a year.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just as a side hustle.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, none of that.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: I actually actually worked on a pig farm for six years, so I know what you're talking about.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: We also did a side hustle.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I think I read that about your pig farm thing.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: I did two years in Denmark and four years in Canada.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: We even have had one uh Japanese uh client from a cosmetic company that were uh they were buying uh placenta from south, so this was our side hustle it's for for cosmetics for some to make skin young.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Funny.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wow.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: So six figures from uh dog training.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's not bad.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: I you can leave off of it.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that and so I that's one of the things I do.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: While I was in Japan with the bungee jump, I would go to the gym at night because I didn't have anyone to go hang out with, so I'd go to the gym, and I'm 6'4, 220, and when I would go to the gym, nobody would talk to me because I'm the big guy gene, the big gringo, and they didn't know if I spoke Japanese or not.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I was there for probably two or three weeks before someone said anything to me, and this this guy he comes up to me and he says, hero.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he and I, in as good of English as I could muster, I said, hello.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started speaking Japanese to him, and he's like, Phew, I'm glad you speak Japanese because I was done at hero.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: We became friends, and he was a big rig driver in Japan.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he decided uh, you know, it was probably a year and a half later, he says, I want to quit driving truck and start importing camping trailers from America.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Camping trailers and Ford and Dodge diesel pickups to pull them.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Will you help me?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: I said yes, but I thought he knew how.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Turns out he didn't know how.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we learned together, we've been doing that since 1997, and we do camping trailers, we do bathroom trailers, we do all sorts of trailers, horse trailers, whatever people want, I go find it and we ship it to Japan.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: So once again, another business that uh many years is six figures plus, I mean, in the high six figures because I w I said yes.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know how to do it, right, but I I said yes to the opportunity that crossed my path.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, some years it's really good, some years it's a pain, but it's part-time time and I make full full-time income.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's what I build my day with.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um I help people identify their ideal side hustle.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: So m part of my part of my day is getting my message out that hey, you have opportunities all around you that if you just paid attention to, they could become a stream of income and help you create financial security for when life happens.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because life is gonna happen.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And when definitely and and when life happens, you need to be prepared.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you wait until it happens, it's too late.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we I help people prepare for when life happens before life happens.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's what I do all day.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so and um uh how how exactly do you do how exactly do you help?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I've I've seen you have um uh you have website and uh you also speaker and you have that uh uh blind spot uh uh no how it calls.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Assessment.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Assessment, yeah, yeah.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's what you start with, right?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh with with any correct, yeah.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So when I help people, I don't go in with an agenda.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: You see all these other side people, side hustle people out there, and they have something that they want you to do.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Come build an Amazon store, come come do this, come do that, come to my network marketing company, come sell my stuff.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I go in and we go through the person's life.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: I ask them to build list.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: What do you like to do?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Make a list, don't think about whether you can turn it into a stream of income or not.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Just make a list.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: What do you need to do?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: These are things that you need to do that you may not like to do.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then what are you already doing?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And make these lists, and then we'll refine these lists into okay, how much do I like to do it, and how much, how quick can I get it turned into a stream of income?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I go in there and we look at their life, and really all I do is get the get the wheels turning because I don't tell them what to do.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I just say, go make a list, let's meet again next week.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you a quick example.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: A friend of mine, she called me up and she's like, I have this idea, I want to run it by you.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so she came to me with an idea already.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: I says, I says, Stephanie, just humor me and go through my process.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I I had her do what it just what I said.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: What do you like to do?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: What do you need to do?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: What are you already doing?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Make these lists, continue to grow these lists for a week, we'll come back and talk.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And she called me two days later and she's like, Bart, I'm so mad at you.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: I woke up at three o'clock this morning and she's a bus driver, a school bus driver.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, I woke up at three o'clock this morning and I couldn't go back to sleep.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know I have to be on the bus at six o'clock.
• 12:57
  unknown: Yeah.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Okay, um, three o'clock in the morning, I was at my house.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: What does this have to do with me?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, I had an idea come to my head and I was so excited I couldn't go back to sleep.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was making lists of the things I need to do to find out if this is a viable opportunity.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and I didn't come up with that opportunity.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: I just started her thinking that she came up with the idea herself.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just get people to start thinking, think like I do.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: To me, it comes naturally, but if you didn't grow up with my dad or someone like my dad, you don't think like I do.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I help people learn to think like I do so that when things cross their path, they can always ask that question, how can I monetize it?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um I found out in October of 2023 that I was gonna have to have my lower left leg amputated.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I found out, of course, there was a little bit of shock and awe going on.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, how bad's this gonna hurt?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: After I dealt with that, a few hours later, I said, Okay, I don't like this, but it's gotta happen, it's gonna happen.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: My twisted mind says, Okay, how can I monetize it?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Six months post stop, I contracted with my prosthetist to help other people that are gonna have to go through what it is I went through.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because I had questions that I wanted answered, and all I could do was go down the YouTube rabbit hole.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I had no idea where the information was coming from, who the people are, and a lot of it was people who had experienced it, but they're trying to be funny and get views on YouTube.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then you had the prosthetist that man, you I couldn't listen to them for five minutes, they were so dry.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so I it it kind of happened like this.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in a uh an appointment with my prosthetist, and I said, Scott, you know I interviewed three other prostitutes before I decided on you.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: One of those prosthetists had a guy, a guy that had his leg cut off that I could talk to.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: I could ask questions, how bad does it hurt?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: What about phantom pain?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: What about my bathroom?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: What changes do I need to make in my bathroom to accommodate me?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Scott, you don't have a guy.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your guy.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that you can keep up with your competition.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Okay, what do what do you want?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Scott, I don't want a real job.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be on retainer, you send me the names of the people I need to talk to, I go do whatever it is I need to do to help them out.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so he pays me to help out his clients so that they can have a proper transition from two legs to one leg or two arms to one arm.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all because I thought about it before I had my leg cut off.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_03: And when the opportunity came out, I took I I took action.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: So so and uh how how exactly did you did you help those people with this uh kind of surgeries?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like they have questions.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: All they want is they want to know the answers before it happens.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: They want to know, okay, how bad is this gonna hurt?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: They want to know uh so one of my research that I did on my own was I wanted to go to an acute I wanted to go to a a care center after it happened so I could learn how to to go through some occupational therapy and physical therapy to learn how to navigate that time without a leg.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I found out what I I didn't realize in the beginning, but there are two different types of centers that you can go to.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: One is basically you go into a rest home with old people and they work with you two or three times a week.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: The other is an acute care center where they're rewired required to work with you three times a day.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I don't want to go to a rest home.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm gonna go to a rest home, I want to go to my own home.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I I navigated to where I could get to the acute care center and learn how to hop around on a leg until I got my prosthetic.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so just navigating different things that that come up.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the the only time that I had any issues in the hospital was when they pulled out the drain tube out of my leg and it it just caused I mean pain shot down into my foot that wasn't there.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then my my s my stump just kind of went like this and tightened up and it was very painful.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the the f person, uh, it was uh what do they call them?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh wasn't the doctor, it was their nurse practitioner that was there that did that, and she said, Okay, we're gonna give you these meds to help with the pain.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: If it's not enough, you be sure and call me or have the nurse call me so we can adjust it, because you don't want to get behind on the pain.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm like, Okay, and it it did, it wasn't a good experience.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I I called the nurse in and I says, We you need to do something about this pain.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Well, I can't give you any more for you know three, four hours, whatever it was.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: I says, No, the the nurse practitioner told me to call her if we needed more medication, and she would adjust the prescription.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, the nurse didn't listen to me, and so I had to be an advocate for myself, and finally it was getting to closing time to where the doctors, the nurse practitioners were gonna get harder to get a hold of.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so I finally told the nurse, well, I pushed my button and called the person to come in, and the tech came in, not the nurse.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, the nurse said that she can't give you any medication and she's not coming in until she can give you medication.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I says, Well, you can call my doctor, or I'm gonna call my doctor, I don't care, but we need more medication.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and that because I threatened to call the doctor myself, she finally did it.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's teaching people this type of stuff that you need to be an advocate for yourself, don't just take their word for it that they can't, you know.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: So teaching things like this, um, you know, what do you need in your bathroom?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I had to change my whole shower.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we had to do a remodel on my shower so that I could wheel a wheelchair in there.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: These are changes that need to be considered and looked at, and that's kind of the stuff I do.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, yeah, yeah, that's very useful for sure.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and uh also a question how do uh side hustles uh prepare us for those days when, as you say, life happens?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you mean uh as I know this is like a plan B, which you always have on side in case something happens or so for me it's having multiple streams of income.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: The average millionaire has five to seven streams of income.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm not about creating million millionaires, I'm about creating financial security by having multiple streams coming in.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've had several times in my life where life has happened, and yeah, you have the emergency like getting my leg cut off.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: How bad's it gonna hurt?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: But right up there next to it is okay, how I'm a dog trainer.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: How long until I'll get back on my feet, or maybe I should say foot because one of them is gone now.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: But how long until I get back on my feet to have a an income stream from my dog training business?
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Then you have hospital bills, you have uh prosthetics to buy.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, here's a foot that's on my desk.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the this one is$8,000 plus dollars.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're not cheap.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have all these things that are going to happen.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Finances are way up at the top of the list.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you can have multiple streams coming in, that relieves the pressure of the finances, especially if you can have them where they're low touch.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, passive income is few and far between, but you can have a lot of low-touch income streams that come in that don't require a whole like I said, I have Yeah, where you don't need to show up every day to Yeah, my Japanese business I can handle with a few phone calls during the day.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's not as is not as time-intensive as dog training.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I have a rental apartment that if my rental apartment is full, I don't have to do anything unless something breaks.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so having income streams that come in with low that are low touch, that is gonna prepare you financially for when life happens.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, yeah.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then navigating these different things will also prepare because being an entrepreneur isn't for the faint at heart, you have ups and downs.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, and being able to navigate those ups and downs helps you deal with life emotionally.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when life happens, you you have more of a steady emotion than free.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: You don't get that emotional breakdown, right?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: You you prepare emotionally and especially when you have a side hustle which can give that support.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And in in your in your book, uh Bart, you uh uh talking about seeing hidden opportunities.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so how can someone find their own hidden like talents or what he or she wants to do or would like to?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: If there are any tricks, well, like I said, you just gotta make list and continue to build that list.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what do you like to do?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: What do you need to do?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: What are you already doing?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we can we can add more to that.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: What would you like to learn?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: I would like to learn how to play the guitar.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: If I took time and learned how to play the guitar, I could teach lessons to someone else and pay for it.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so I learn, I get to a certain level.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe it's not a high level, but there's always someone starting that's below me.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: A friend of mine, his name's Paul, the positivity psychologist.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: He says to a to a first grader, a third grader is an expert.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: A third grader, a sixth grader is an expert, sixth grader, a twelfth grader, and so on.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: There is always someone at a level below you that you can help and get compensated for.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what would you like to learn?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: What did you need to learn?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go back to my leg.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: I had to learn a whole different lifestyle.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: I joke that my wife, before I had my leg amputated, we would go to bed, I would brush my teeth and hop in bed, and she has her nightly ritual of putting stuff on her face and taking stuff off her face and getting ready for bed.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like 30 minutes later, hun, can you just hop in bed and shut off the light?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now I have a ritual.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I have to take care of my residual limb, or I could go from a below the knee amputee to an above the knee amputee if I don't take care of it.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: I have to take care of my prosthetics because they are not cheap and they have to have their stuff you have to do every night.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: So there's some maintenance needs to be done, right?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: You have to keep them clean so that they don't, so that bacteria doesn't get on your leg.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's just so much that you have to do.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: So now I have a nightly routine along with her.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so learning that is something that I needed to do for myself that I can teach other people and get compensated for.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Then what have you already learned?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my wife is Japanese, she speaks Japanese fluently, she's already learned it.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: She could do a Japanese conversation class for the young kids around and have that as an income stream if she chose to.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: She doesn't choose to, but it is something that she knows.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, same with me.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: I could do the same thing with Japanese.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: I could teach a Japanese conversation class if it's something that I wanted to do.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: So so there's just you all you do is you make these lists, and then you have to do the the uh research.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Is this something I want to do?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because we all oh, I want to be, I wish I was Bezos, or I wish I was Mark Cuban, or I wish I was Elon Musk.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you are you willing to do what it is to get there?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: So you you take that professional, whatever it is, and then then you go and look like how it's how to do how to do it, like on YouTube.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you can you can see something like tutorial or like the day of life of this person who's professional in it, right?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because you have to give up this in order to get this.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to do that?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's an exchange.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Quick example.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: There is a a restaurant in Japan that I love.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's the first place I go when I land, it's the last place I go before I leave.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Koko Ichiban curry.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's Japanese curry.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And in Japan, this curry chain restaurant has all of them have become profitable their first year.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to one by a military base, an American military base on a Friday or Saturday night, you think you're in America because that's where all the GIs are.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: So Americans love it.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said, Oh, I gotta take this to America.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: I had a Japanese friend that was willing to fund it for me.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I'll put up the money.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: If we make a profit, we split it.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't, if it fails, don't worry about it.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: I actually had to go ask my other Japanese friends to make sure I heard him properly.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I had money to get it started.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: I got back to America, I started doing the research, I talked to some restaurateurs.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: I decided I didn't want to work that hard.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said no to the free money.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not what I I I love to eat the stuff.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I want to oversee making the stuff, and you are you are focused and hard, hard at it.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: For two years to get that off the ground and get it going before you can probably get the pieces in place to where you can back off.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just like, you know, I don't want to work that hard.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said no.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: As someone going through this process, you need to do the same thing.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta give up X to get Y.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_03: Do you want to do it?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's always some sacrifice needs to be done, right?
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot make an omelet without cracking an egg.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: Understood.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: So also um your website offers uh that uh blind spot assessment.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: So what is the biggest blind spot uh holding people back right now, in your opinion?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you have your first thing is choosing well, let's go before choosing, even choosing a side hustle.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people are afraid of what everybody else is going to think.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: What if I fell?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a big thing holding them back.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: What if I fell?
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: What if I look funny?
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Those type of things because we are we got this social media world going on where we where we care what everybody thinks.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody sees it, and and everybody has an opinion.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've had friends that their wives have said, why doesn't Bart just get a real job?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't want a real job.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: I like to have control of my time.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I probably work more hours than most nine to five job people, but I like what I do and I can choose the times I do it.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so sometimes I'm working till you know midnight or one o'clock, and I have to force myself to go to bed because I'm excited about what I'm doing.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: But the uh the thing holding people back is they're worried about what everybody else thinks.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what if I fail?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people they need to get a mentor, whether it's YouTube videos or whether you hire someone who has done what it is you want to do that can help you along the way, so that all these other people that are the naysayers, I mean, my wife is a big uh reality person for me.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: I will tell her an idea and she'll say, she'll give me the reasons why not to do it, which is a good grounder.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it keeps me grounded, but sometimes sometimes I have to go, hun, why don't you tell me the reasons why it would work?
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, why but but I love her to death and I and I appreciate her keeping me grounded because sometimes we become dreamers, and entrepreneurs are sometimes dreamers, and we need to be grounded.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's good to have an entrepreneur, not an entrepreneur, a mentor to help you through those times when every all the naysayers are saying no, it's not gonna work, or giving you a reason why.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Even your head gets in the way, and and so when your head gets in the way, you're gonna need to say, Okay, I know I can't do this, but if I could, where would I start?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and that keeps your head going.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's from a friend of mine, he's a fellow speaker, his name's Mike Rayburn.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: He has a book called What If.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, When your brain tells you you can't do something, you say, Okay, but what if I could?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Where would I start?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it gives your brain permission to think and to continue to work on the problem.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and so having someone help you through that is is very crucial when you're when you're starting something.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's good to have feedback from somebody, right?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like yeah, yeah, and someone who is done or doing it what it is you want to do is always better than listening to Uncle Joe down the street who has no idea what he's talking about.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's say you've passed that barrier, and okay, you're like, okay, I'm gonna start something.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Picking the right side hustle is important.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have a saying that I say, life is too short to be building someone else's side hustle.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you have all these young kids out there who haven't lived, and I'm I'm I'm I'm not trying to diss them, but they're they're pushing one thing.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: What like I said, eBay store, Walmart store.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: These are good, viable side hustles, but is it for you?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why you need to pick a side hustle that is for you, that you're willing to do.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're willing to give up X to get Y.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so picking the wrong side hustle is one of the biggest mistakes.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_03: And then if you do, it's okay.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to fail.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Gary V says, I would rather I would rather fail three times out of ten than win all ten.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because you learn so much from the failures.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: Just take it as experience and move on, right?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, if I if I go all t if I hit a home run all ten times, there's so much I missed that I didn't learn.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's okay to fail.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta be okay with that failure, and then just get back up.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: You have to get back up.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: So um so as I have understood, you turn almost every obstacle in your life into a new business uh opportunity, business option.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what advice uh do you give to someone who's afraid of taking that first single step in life to either open some business or like side hustle?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: What's the advice?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the big biggest advice is you gotta take action.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: Once you take that first step, you you take that first step, you get that momentum going, you're gonna get excited and you're gonna continue.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: But before you take that first step, you have to be willing to to take it.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: You you open the show saying that I jumped off a bungee tower just hanging on with my bare hands.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I use this as a metaphor because I in Japan on this bungee tower, on our busiest day, we did 783 people.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: We got them to jump off the bungee tower.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes during the week it would be a little slow, and I'd be up at the top of the bungee tower, just me alone with my brilliant mind.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so at the bottom of our bungee tower was a a stunt man airbag that has the fans continually blowing in it, they're about six feet high.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in theory, I'd never seen this, but in theory, one could jump off the top of my bungee tower, eight stories up, hit the airbag, and be okay without a bungee cord.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, nothing at all.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and they would survive and be okay.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so my I'm sitting up at the top of the tower, and my brilliant mind asked me, you think you can do that?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I walked over and I looked down, I was like, Nope, I ain't that crazy.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: But my brilliant mind continued to work with me and continued to speak.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, if you jumped with the bungee cord attached, you wait for the bouncing to stop, and then you unhook yourself and fall from six stories instead of eight, that's doable.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so in my mind, I could do that.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I jumped with the bungee cord attached, waited for the bouncing to stop, and I couldn't get unhooked.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: There was too much tension on the bungee cord.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I'm I'm back up at the top of the tower again.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: My mind is thinking and going, okay, how can I do this?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when you attach the bungee cord to your customer, you use about a it was about a foot-long, one inch wide nylon strap with a carabiner on the end.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you wrap it around and hook it onto the carabiner, and you have a loop.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: I could make two of those, put them at the end of the bungee cord, and what do I have?
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: I have handles.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: I could just jump hanging onto the handles, wait for the bouncing to stop, and then all I have to do is let go.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to me, this was brilliant.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can do this.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got the handles, I walked to the edge, I looked down, I jumped and waited for the bouncing to stop.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_03: Now a lot of and obviously it was okay, obviously I survived.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of people think you're stupid.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and that I bet my dad rolls over in his grave every time I tell this story.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I can't believe I raised such a stupid son.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the deal.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: I had bungee jumped with a cord attached to me thousands of times.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: I knew what the pressure felt like.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was 99% sure that I could hang on.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was an educated guess, it was an educated decision.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you're starting something, you have to be willing to step out there and see what there is to see, even when you don't know what the outcome is.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Just like me jumping, just hanging on with my hands.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't positive I could hang on, but I was pretty, pretty sure.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I was willing to take the risk to see if I could do it.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the same with business, you have to be willing to take that first step.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the way you do it is you just have to jump.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: You have to go, you have to move.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: That momentum makes it easier for you to continue moving.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's when you stop and you freeze that things happen, that the bad things happen.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my advice to those who are a little bit fearful to take that first step.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: People tell me all the time, some well, I shouldn't say all the time.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people tell me I'm lucky.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm lucky.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: What are you talking about?
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: My dream job got blown up.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm missing a leg.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: How can I be lucky?
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: Seneca says luck is when opportunity and preparedness meet.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: I take it one step further.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: You have to take action.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because if opportunity and preparedness meet, and nobody takes action, nothing happens.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: That opportunity goes to someone else.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have to be the willing to take that action, or that opportunity is going.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: Someone is gonna fill that void that you missed if you don't fill it.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's true.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's true.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: A little bit um about the blind spot assessment.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, on your website, uh, the uh site hustlesamurai.com, uh you offer this uh blind spot assessment.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so when person goes and try to assess himself, herself, uh what's uh what it looks like, what's what's waiting for that person in the end and how it helps, why would somebody do this?
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: So there's things that you don't see that we naturally we we don't we only see to a certain point.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's behind us, unless we turn around and look at it, we're not gonna see it.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I was building this blind spot assessment, I thought, okay, my my initial one was okay, I have this questionnaire, and people who get between 90 and 100 points, they get the same email, and then nine, eighty, and ninety and so on and so forth.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, we with AI right now, we don't need to have it that way.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want this to be custom to everybody.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: So depending on what your answers are, you're gonna get a custom assessment of your own personal answers instead of just a cookie cutter email, and it's gonna give you ideas on what to do next to pay attention to that behind you that you're not seeing.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna take into account the stuff that you do see.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're good at this, you're good at this.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: Use these things so you can see that and improve that.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and so it's just a a custom way to look at the things that you're maybe missing and just telling, hey, pay attention to that because it's something you you should pay attention to.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, yeah, that's clear.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so and um as I have understood to if uh someone wants to contact you or uh uh buy your book or do this blind spot assessment, uh they can find you on uh the uh on on your w website, right?
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: The side hustle samurai.com.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: Correct, and you can get the blind spot assessment at your idealside hustle.com as well.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, I'll make sure I will attach all the links uh in the description below.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh thank you, Bart.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was uh incredible conversation.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: I really liked it, and uh, I'll definitely do assessment for myself.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh guys, please for having me.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, my pleasure.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: My pleasure, my pleasure.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, guys, please uh go to the sidehustle samurai.com, uh do the assessment and contact part if you have any questions.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: Your financial future questions.