You Only Need This To Become Rich (Millionaire Explains) | 119

[00:00:00] Mike: Society sells a s lie. That money’s gonna solve all your problems. If you are putting off the present and, and sacrificing everything on the altar of more, you’re gonna wake up one day and realize, oh shit, it wasn’t worth it

[00:00:10] Nathan: as a kid, Mike Brown had the supercar posters on his wall. Success to him was a red Lamborghini, a car he actually came to own one day.

The house in Colorado was beautiful. You have a supercar collection.

[00:00:21] Mike: I, I made a significant amount of money along the way,

[00:00:23] Nathan: but then. He sold all of his supercars.

[00:00:26] Mike: I actually discovered what a rich life truly means and and what true wealth is actually defined by. It’s not as much money as I thought it was.

[00:00:33] Nathan: So what do you define it as? Now?

[00:00:35] Mike: Wealth is actually,

[00:00:37] Nathan: Mike says the big shift is moving from outcome goals to process goals. And when you do that, it forces you to confront the question every founder fears. What if it all goes away?

[00:00:47] Mike: No one cares about what you’re doing, which may sound kind of lonely, but it’s incredibly freeing.

But there are three levels of financial freedom. Level one, financial freedom is safety. The next step is five to seven years of liquidity. And then the [00:01:00] highest level of financial freedom is what I call a.

[00:01:07] Nathan: Mike, I think of you as Rich. I follow you on Instagram. We’ve hung out in person a bunch of different times. You are also friends with my rich friends, and you’ve got the supercars, you’ve got all of that. Is that an accurate assessment of your life?

[00:01:21] Mike: I would definitely, yeah. I, uh, I would definitely say that, uh, I’m rich, but it’s not the material possessions that, that I would use to define that.

[00:01:30] Nathan: Okay. Let’s stay on the material possessions for just a second. The house in Colorado is beautiful. You have the, uh, supercar collection, multiple supercars. It’s been a part of for as long as I’ve known you, you’ve had those, is that right?

[00:01:44] Mike: Yes. Had

[00:01:45] Nathan: had. Okay. You don’t have them anymore?

[00:01:47] Mike: I am in the process of selling off my last supercars.

[00:01:51] Nathan: Okay. Well, so I mean, first it’s something that brought you a lot of joy.

[00:01:55] Mike: Yeah. And, and this is, you know, my arc as I’ve [00:02:00] developed, um, you know, as a kid I had the red Lamborghini Kosh poster on my wall. And, and like that to me was success. And so when I got my first taste of success, when I made a million dollars for the first time, I went out and bought a car and I, and I kept buying cars.

It was a thing that brought me a lot of joy. I would, I would go to car meets, I would go to, you know, track days. It was, it was a really big part of my life. And then about a year ago, my wife looked at me and said, when was the last time you drove the Lambo? And I went and checked the odometer and I had put 800 miles combined on my two supercars in the last year.

[00:02:36] Nathan: Oh wow.

[00:02:37] Mike: And I realized that, so I, I have a saying that I love, which is, show me your bank account and show me your calendar and I’ll show you what you actually value.

[00:02:46] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:46] Mike: And my bank account was saying that I was valuing supercars because they were a significant portion of my net worth, but my calendar was saying that I didn’t anymore.

Right. So now I’m out of alignment.

[00:02:57] Nathan: Okay.

[00:02:57] Mike: And, you know, basically at this point now [00:03:00] I have two options, either reprioritize and go, no, I, I still love these supercars. I need to make time for them again. Or maybe I don’t care about this as much as I thought I did, or maybe my values have started to update.

And, and it was, that was the latter. That kind of made me decide that, Hey, this is, this brought me a ton of joy, but like Marie Kondo says, thank you for your service. And, uh, I started selling ’em off and, and man, it, it feels so freeing at this point in my life.

[00:03:28] Nathan: Do you regret, like, is that something where you’re like, oh, that actually didn’t provide me any value, waste of time, waste of money.

Like you regret that or? How do you approach it?

[00:03:37] Mike: So one of my core values is open-mindedness. And I, I love to say that my favorite feeling in the world is having my mind changed. And so I’m constantly updating my opinions, my values, you know, and, and how I spend my time. Like, I’m super happy about that period of my life.

I, I always tell people, buy the ticket, take the ride. Like, they brought me a, a tremendous amount of [00:04:00] joy and at some point they were no longer providing that outsize amount of joy.

[00:04:06] Nathan: Yeah, it’s, I was thinking about, um, the quote of personal finance is more personal than finance and how everything is, there’s this wide range of what you should spend your money on, all of this stuff.

And so I, I could see myself saying, like, looking at the supercars and, and that’s not a particular attraction of mine. Um. I’m probably in the airplane category, which we’ll get into your background related to airplanes ’cause it’s very cool as well. Um, but you know, I could see like, oh, maybe I won’t even buy the thing or go down that path because what if at some point it no longer brings me joy and I’ll move on.

And like, that’s a boring way to live your life. So I love the phrase of, you know, buy the ticket, take the ride. Like do the thing, try it on. Often these things don’t cost as much as you expect. Like, um, I had friends growing up who, uh, the dad was an airline [00:05:00] pilot. He was like a back country, uh, bush pilot in Alaska, early in his flying career, all the way up to like a air, you know, an airline pilot on a global scale.

And he loved adventures. And so they would like buy a sailboat, fix it up, sail it for two years, have a great time with it, and then sell it off for more than they bought it for, or like do the same with airplanes or various things. And so it doesn’t cost as much as you might think to go. To buy the ticket and take the ride.

And I like that approach that you have of like, yeah, do the thing and see if it serves you

[00:05:34] Mike: well. And and one of the things, you know, uh, the, the kind of common personal finance wisdom is like invest in experiences, not material possessions.

[00:05:42] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:05:42] Mike: But material possessions can be an experience. Like driving a Lamborghini is an experience like that, like objectively, that is a adrenaline rush.

You know, uh, throwing a, a Lamborghini into a drift on, on the track, you know, definitely counts as an experience in my life. So I’m, I’m super glad to [00:06:00] have that experience in my, in my, you know, content, like my library of work and. I’m constantly updating going, okay, does this still bring me that same level of joy?

And is it worth the investment? If yes, continue. If no, okay. How am I gonna update my belief system?

[00:06:16] Nathan: Right. Okay. I wanna dive into belief system all, there’s so much that I wanna cover, but I feel like people should have an understanding of who you are in your background. Right? So, uh, Navy fighter pilot.

[00:06:27] Mike: Yeah. I flew f eighteens for the Navy. Uh, I was a backseater like Goose, uh, from 2003 to 2011. Mm-hmm. And then I got out and moved back to my hometown of Midland, Texas.

[00:06:39] Nathan: Okay.

[00:06:39] Mike: Uh, somewhere I never thought I would live again, but, uh, that particular location in the US happens to be the oil and gas capital of, uh, of the US And so I, I started a oil and gas investment firm, and then I sold that in 2019.

[00:06:56] Nathan: Okay. What can you say as far like. People always wanna [00:07:00] know the scale of the exit in some way. What, what do you say along those lines?

[00:07:03] Mike: Yeah. Eight figure exit. Uh, you know, our, our best year, we did 30 million in revenue and, um, you know, we were also taking money out along the way. Mm-hmm. So I, I made a significant amount of money along the way de depending on how you define that.

Yeah,

[00:07:16] Nathan: exactly. Uh, so, and then, so you have that exit and you’ve achieved, I assume, all of your financial goals at this point, or was it, there’s still a push for more, the eight figures was supposed to be nine.

[00:07:28] Mike: Yeah. This, this is a, um, a really interesting thing. I thought I needed a hundred million dollars to be rich.

[00:07:33] Nathan: Okay.

[00:07:34] Mike: That was the number. And, uh, when I think about it, like where did that come from? It came from nowhere. That just, that just seemed like a good round number and that, and that’s how, you know, if somebody hasn’t put a whole lot of thought into their number, if it’s 1 million, 10 million or a hundred million,

[00:07:47] Nathan: if it’s around, like, even.

[00:07:50] Mike: Exactly. And, and so after my exit, I should have never had to work again.

[00:07:55] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:56] Mike: Instead, two years later, I [00:08:00] found myself losing a hundred thousand dollars a month in a failing company. There was days I didn’t even wanna get out of bed in the morning. I, I was so full of anxiety, stress, you know, I had this albatross and, you know, I ended up losing about $1.5 million inside of 18 months, but worse, I lost my peace.

You know, I, I was sacrificing my health, uh, you know, high stress in my marriage like this. This was a really, you know, objectively difficult experience that, that truly brought me to my knees. And, and I say often that I wish upon everyone a failure that forces a perspective shift, but that doesn’t make you start completely over.

And, and now I feel like it’s one of the greatest gifts that I’ve ever received.

[00:08:43] Nathan: Uh, you and Dan Marel are really good friends and, uh, I was thinking that we first met through Dan, we actually first met through Saul Orwell, who runs examine.com, and then we’ve hung out since then through, through Dan and, and all of that.

I think it’s something that he says we’re, you know, talking about hitting rock bottom and he says like, rock bottom is [00:09:00] actually a really good, like a really good foundation to build the future on. And is that kind of where you ended up of hitting a rock bottom and it’s time to rebuild?

[00:09:08] Mike: Yeah. And it turns out I’m not the first post exit founder to sort of go through this.

What does it all mean thing? This is a, a well documented

[00:09:15] Nathan: right,

[00:09:15] Mike: you know, existential crisis that, that comes with the identity loss of selling a company. And so, you know, I exited a marriage and my company at the same time.

[00:09:25] Nathan: Hmm.

[00:09:25] Mike: Uh, and I was really forced to evaluate. Who I am and what am I doing here in the first place.

And, you know, it was in losing that material wealth that I actually discovered. You know, for me what a rich life truly means and, and what true wealth, uh, is actually defined by. And, and newsflash is, is not as much money as I thought it was.

[00:09:49] Nathan: So what, what do you define it as? Now?

[00:09:52] Mike: For me, wealth is actually freedom.

And, and so I run workshops and retreats for entrepreneurs and, [00:10:00] uh, if we’re gonna talk about wealth mm-hmm. We need a, we need a working definition. Yeah. So I always ask the crowd like, what, what does wealth mean to you? And they usually start with some definition that centers around money. But eventually we always land on freedom for, for the most part, if you press an entrepreneur hard enough, why they started their company, they’re gonna say.

For freedom. I’m unemployable. I can’t work for somebody else. I want to live life on my own terms. So for me, that means freedom in five areas. And, and these are hierarchical, but not sequential. So meaning, freedom of health, foundationally, right? If I don’t, if I have, if I don’t have my health, I don’t have anything, freedom of relationships, do I have the freedom to, you know, authentically relate, be seen for who I am and not be beholden or, uh, controlled by others.

Three is freedom of time and then freedom of mind and freedom of soul. And so freedom of mind means being free from anxiety, uh, or depression or, you know, having an open mind to [00:11:00] update my belief system. And then freedom of soul is the highest on this sort of hierarchy of needs, which is connection to a purpose greater than myself and, uh, and those around me, you know, whether that be a higher power or, or humanity in general, however you define that.

[00:11:15] Nathan: Okay. So when you’re taking a group of entrepreneurs through this, like you get to this initial definition of wealth, what, how, like what are the reactions that you get from people? Is that, do people like immediately accept this definition and go, cool now for the next day of our workshop? Like, I’m good.

Or do they really wrestle and struggle with parts of it?

[00:11:35] Mike: Yeah, typically. I, I think it makes sense, uh, to most people, you know, and there’s, there’s less defined ways. Like a lot of times people will say, I want the freedom to spend time with people that I love doing the things that I love. Right? That, that’s kind of a more colloquial definition of, of what I just described, right?

So, you know, do I get to live my authentic life? You know, investing in experiences that bring me [00:12:00] joy and light me up and hopefully connected to other people.

[00:12:03] Nathan: I’m thinking about those different categories, right? If you think about freedom of time, that’s something for me. I. I’m at this stage, you know, if we’re, if we’re talking specifics on wealth, I am very, um, on paper wealthy, right?

I own a very large portion of a very valuable software company. Um, and then I can easily fund my life and all of that. It’s not very extravagant. Um, though I guess it’s all relative, you know, but a, a little hobby farm in Boise, Idaho, like doesn’t cost that much money to operate. But my time is very, is like completely committed, you know, and always.

So between, you know, as you have kids as well, right? Between three kids and running a company and all of that, like, pretty much every bit of my time is scheduled out. And, um, and it’s because I do deliberate things like schedule. You know, I, I have a time block, the [00:13:00] kids don’t know this, you know, but I have a time block of like, okay, for these four hours I’m gonna make sure there’s no work happening or that sort of thing.

And I’m like, going to be all in on. You know, family time or whatever else. But then after they go to bed, I’m right back to working. And so I, I struggle a lot with this balance of like achieving the goals. You know, I’m trying to scale a company. I, you know, I guess as far as round numbers, perhaps you’re trying to scale a company to a hundred million in annual revenue.

[00:13:28] Mike: Yeah.

[00:13:29] Nathan: And, uh, you know, achieve these goals, build up this team, serve these customers. And then also really kind of wrestling with, am I spending my time in the right ways? Am I, uh, I, I’m super proud of what I’m building, but also like, okay, do I wanna spend the next 10 years grinding as much as I am now?

Even though I think I have this balance, people are like, oh, I’m all in on work, or I’m all in on family. Like, no, I think I’ve found the nuance on [00:14:00] it. I don’t have a particular question, but I’m, I’m curious. I think you talk to people like me a lot.

[00:14:05] Mike: I do. Yes. And, and so, you know, the, the balance comes in, how do I take care of myself in the present moment?

[00:14:14] Nathan: Right.

[00:14:14] Mike: You know, investing in these experiences that light me up and bring me joy while also taking care of my future self. Mm-hmm. And hopefully, you know, serving my greater purpose, uh, here on, you know, in, in this short lifetime that, that we, we only have one of, and there does have, there has to be a balance, right?

Mm-hmm. And, and I think the trap that most people fall into is, I’ll finally be happy when.

[00:14:37] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:38] Mike: Right? So if you are putting off the present and, and sacrificing everything on the altar of more, I have a news flash for you. Uh, you’re gonna wake up one day and realize, oh shit, it wasn’t worth it.

[00:14:48] Nathan: Right.

[00:14:49] Mike: Right. So. At the same time, if you’re just, you know, yo lowing your way through life and only living in the present and, and not engaging in the habits or, you know, systems [00:15:00] practices that take care of future you, like, at some point your luck runs out, you know, and now you’re in a worse off position than you were before.

So how do I design a, a life that, you know, both takes care of me and the experiences I wanna have in the present, while also take care, taking care of future me?

[00:15:16] Nathan: I think I do a good job of that, of like the, something that I always talk about is journey over destination. And a destination is only interesting in that it gives you a unique or interesting journey, right?

If we have a really lame destination, like, like our, our destination is, uh, Chick-fil-A down the street, it’s like, well, there’s nothing interesting is gonna happen between here and there. Totally. Right? If our destination is, we’re going to build a company this way, we’re gonna impact these people,

[00:15:43] Mike: yeah,

[00:15:44] Nathan: then we’re probably gonna have a pretty interesting journey.

Um, and so I spent a lot of time thinking about. You know, now with the present, the journey that I’m on, that kind of thing. So I, I think I balance that pretty well.

[00:15:56] Mike: Yeah. Here, here’s how I think about goals, which is just like you named, [00:16:00] right? Goals are the vector, not the destination. And if you, uh, you know, there’s studies that have been done on outcome-based goals actually have, um, very little effect, uh, or efficacy on, on actually getting those goals.

But, but process based goals increase the likelihood of hitting the outcome by 40%. So when I think about goal setting, it’s, how do I imagine an outcome? And then break that into a process, you know, daily, weekly, monthly rhythms that, number one, make the goal inevitable. Meaning I’m gonna get so many honest reps in service of this goal that would be unreasonable not to achieve the goal, but then b.

How do I make that goal also irrelevant, meaning the life that I’ve lived in service of this goal is reward enough. So whether, whether you hit 90 million or 110 million

[00:16:51] Nathan: right,

[00:16:52] Mike: doesn’t really affect the fact that you’re waking up every day, pouring yourself into work that you love, not ignoring your family or the things that are, [00:17:00] that are also important to you.

And, and that is how I orient, you know, this kind of, how do I distribute my time? Question.

[00:17:08] Nathan: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. What’s, what’s an example of a goal that you have set and then maybe that that started as an outcome goal and you’ve reframed as a process goal?

[00:17:18] Mike: Yeah. For me, you know, I can hold a vision of a future where I’m speaking on the largest stages in the world and, and writing, you know mm-hmm.

Million copy bestseller books. Right. So, how do I achieve that goal? I can’t control that outcome.

[00:17:32] Nathan: Right?

[00:17:32] Mike: Right. What I can do is wake up and put my best work into the world every single day. I can develop a daily writing practice, you know, I can hone my craft from speaking on stage. And again, if I get enough honest reps and, and I’m truly, you know, honing my craft and pouring myself into my art, my audience will grow over time.

In 10 years, it would be unreasonable to think that my audience won’t be larger than it’s now. Right. I can’t control whether that’s gonna be a million [00:18:00] people or a hundred thousand or 10,000 people, but if it’s 10,000 of the right people. I love what I do, and I, and I love what, what I’m writing, and I, and I really, you know, feel like I’m living into my true purpose, then the number doesn’t actually matter.

[00:18:13] Nathan: I think a version of that for me is, well, you and I are both working, working on books. Yeah. I think you’re a little bit ahead of me. Um, since, you know, at the time of recording this, your, your book has, has released, uh, which we’ll talk about more in a moment. But, um, the, something that shifted for, I had a, a goal for a few years in a row of, to finish my book.

And I reframed that goal for 2025 and said, okay, my goal is just to write every day. And that’s it. And I’ve done it in the past where I had a even a number attached to that, like to write a thousand words a day. That was before I was running a company that, you know, it could like truly be the main thing.

Then, um, now the goal is just to write every day, and I built up a streak and I broke it and all that. And as we’re [00:19:00] recording today, I have 102 days in a row of writing. At, you know, at least for 10 minutes or something, you know, every day on this book. And like the manuscript has made significant progress.

And it was really switching from, uh, this year I’m gonna finish my book to, I’m just gonna write consistently and I’m gonna trust that the book gets finished. My, my workout and exercise goals actually shifted the same way last year I had very specific goals that I wanted to achieve. Yeah. This year the goal is to work out 160 times, so slightly more than three times a week, you know, and trusting that if a meaningful number of those are with a personal trainer who’s like, making sure that I’m pushing myself and I’m following a program, like I’m gonna achieve meaningful progress.

And so, yeah. Exactly as you’re saying, I have shifted in most categories from outcome goals to process goals.

[00:19:52] Mike: Yeah. And I think even a more helpful framing can be, you know, how do I want to feel like why am I working out in the first place, right? Like, what is, what is [00:20:00] 160 workouts gonna do? Well, hopefully that’s giving me a body that moves the way I want it to, right?

That allows me to go on adventures and, and do things that, that light me up. Right? That’s the actual point of working out. So if you work out 142 times or 168 times, it’s sort of irrelevant to the outcome of having a body that works. You can’t work out zero times.

[00:20:19] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:20:20] Mike: Like, like at some point that’s not gonna, that’s not gonna serve your, your end goal.

[00:20:24] Nathan: I specifically. Just going for the stuff, block and volleyball. And so I want to jump higher so that I can get that. That’s, that’s the specific, you know, the thing that I visualize.

[00:20:34] Mike: Yeah, totally. Right. And then, you know, back to this, this supercar thing.

[00:20:38] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:20:39] Mike: Is eventually at some point you’ll, you’ll do the stuff block.

[00:20:42] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:43] Mike: And then go, okay, did that feel the way I think it’s gonna feel If, yes, cool. I keep going on this vector. Or Oh, like that wasn’t as cool as I thought it was gonna be. Great. What’s my next goal? How do I update my belief system?

[00:20:53] Nathan: Yeah, that makes sense. Something that you talk about is dirty fuel versus clean fuel and like, what is [00:21:00] powering you, what is driving you?

I think most people don’t even ask the question of what’s driving me? What’s behind these goals? Maybe first, like, how do you define dirty fuel? Like what is that? And then we can get into clean fuel.

[00:21:12] Mike: Well, something I, I saw you say recently is that entrepreneurship is a trauma response. Yeah. And uh, for the most part I agree with that.

Right. Uh, you know, we. How we think about money and how we relate to money typically is formed in, you know, childhood early adolescence. Mm-hmm. We’re imprinted with these stories, how our parents relate to money, whether we’re rich in a, in a poor town, or poor in a rich town. Like we, we form all these beliefs about money and that, that shape our worldview.

So for me, I grew up watching my parents fight every single night of my life.

[00:21:45] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:46] Mike: And they only fought about one thing, money. And so, you know, as, uh, you know, 12, 13-year-old, I made a promise. I said, I’m gonna have so much money when I grow up that I’ll never have to fight with my [00:22:00] spouse about money.

That I’ll never worry about money.

[00:22:02] Nathan: Right.

[00:22:03] Mike: And, and that was the thing that drove me. I made the

[00:22:05] Nathan: exact same promise. Yeah. Had the same experience. Made the same promise.

[00:22:07] Mike: Yeah, exactly. And that, and that was the thing that drove me to become successful. I, I worked hard in school. Mm-hmm. Went to a top tier university, eventually went and tested myself in, in combat, and then got out, started and sold the company.

So the, the thing worked, the promise worked. Right. But it was the second half of that vow that was no longer serving me because I’ll never worry about money. For me, my brain conflated that with being responsible with money.

[00:22:31] Nathan: Okay?

[00:22:32] Mike: Right. And so when we, when we talk about personal finance, you, you hear about scarcity and abundance.

Right? And if you just think more abundant thoughts and get rid of scarce thoughts than everything’s gonna work out. But like I was the most abundant guy on the planet. I had this very easy come, easy go relationship with money I was spending and investing, you know, very, uh, uh, freely, uh, and, uh, that was not serving me.

I would put my back against the wall in order to elicit, you know, this high performance, you know, [00:23:00] create pressure for myself to earn more money. And it was this vicious loop that I couldn’t break out of.

[00:23:05] Nathan: And so. What’s an example of that loop? Like how, like if practically, you know, something that you were spending money on or Yeah.

Get more specific there.

[00:23:15] Mike: Yeah. So, um, you know, my, my company first started making a significant amount of amount of money in 2013. Mm-hmm. And I started, uh, angel investing and, and my thesis was I want to give. Other veterans the same

[00:23:32] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:23:32] Mike: Unbelievable life that I have, right? Yeah. And so I was writing checks into veterans company as clear

[00:23:36] Nathan: a motive as possible.

Yeah,

[00:23:38] Mike: totally. Right? And, and, and it felt very altruistic at the time. Um, but I was writing checks into these veteran led companies. It turns out I’m the world’s worst angel investor.

[00:23:47] Nathan: Angel investing is a good way to get rid of money. 25 grand at a time.

[00:23:50] Mike: Yeah, exactly. Um,

[00:23:53] Nathan: spoken from the experience, getting rid of money 25 grand at a time.

[00:23:56] Mike: Totally right. And, um, but again, I was doing this in the [00:24:00] name of service. Mm-hmm. Like, like I, I had in my mind really good reasons why, why I was doing this. But, you know, I invested about two and a half million dollars, uh, over, you know, five or seven years of, of angel investing. Had I put that money in the s and p, like it would be worth like almost $10 million now.

[00:24:18] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:19] Mike: Uh, newsflash is, I will be very lucky. If I make my money back

[00:24:25] Nathan: mm-hmm.

[00:24:25] Mike: Over seven years, that’s a terrible return. You know, overall, most likely I will lose money. I, I will never make that principle back. Okay. So if I go back to my mission of serving veterans, you know, now I’m on the board of a nonprofit that teaches meditation to veterans.

[00:24:42] Nathan: Mm-hmm. Right?

[00:24:43] Mike: For me, that is a much higher leverage activity than writing checks into

[00:24:49] Nathan: Right.

[00:24:49] Mike: Companies that are never gonna generate a return. So I’m still serving veterans at a really high level, but I’m using my time now instead of my money as the main leverage point in order to, [00:25:00] you know, connect to that higher purpose of service.

[00:25:02] Nathan: Hey, I hope you’re enjoying this episode. I’m gonna just quickly jump in to tell you about Craft and Commerce. It’s the annual conference that we host at Kit for creators who are serious about building a real business. We host it every June here in Boise, Idaho. As so much of our work shifts to ai. The thing you can’t replicate is being in the room with other creators who get what you’re building.

We have incredible speakers and workshops, but honestly, the real value is the people you’ll meet and the relationships you’ll build. We sold out last year, and this year is gonna sell out really soon. So you wanna grab your ticket, go to kit.com/conference. So going back to the idea of dirty fuel versus clean fuel.

[00:25:42] Mike: Yeah.

[00:25:42] Nathan: So what we’re talking about the, the childhood trauma reaction to that and that dirty fuel. We’re not saying dirty fuel in the way of, like, it foul was the engine and it failed.

[00:25:54] Mike: Totally. It worked.

[00:25:55] Nathan: It worked very, very well. Really effect effectively.

[00:25:58] Mike: Yeah.

[00:25:59] Nathan: That moment where you say [00:26:00] like, I’m going to become world class, I’m making money.

[00:26:02] Mike: Yeah.

[00:26:03] Nathan: And so that will never be me. I think some of the most important, like, or the most insightful questions you can ask is, one, what are the time in your life you saw something happen and said, that will never be me.

[00:26:13] Mike: Yeah.

[00:26:13] Nathan: And then the other, the inverse of it, what is the time in your life you saw something and said, oh, that could be me.

[00:26:19] Mike: Yeah.

[00:26:19] Nathan: And so we, we use that as fuel to achieve these incredible goals. But you’re saying that at some point that dirty fuel is gonna stop working for you.

[00:26:29] Mike: Yeah. And and for me, uh, the day I sold my company, I thought I would never be unhappy again.

[00:26:37] Nathan: Okay. That’s an interesting story.

[00:26:39] Mike: Like a legitimate, I had done everything society would tell me would, would make me happy.

[00:26:43] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:43] Mike: Right? I had the house and the cars, I had the money, you know, I had the time freedom to do whatever I want. Uh, and, and really, like, I think society tells a society that money’s gonna solve all your problems. Uh, money can solve money problems, right? Mm-hmm. But, but then at some, at some point you wake up [00:27:00] and you’re still the same person, right?

And, and for me, I was externalizing, uh, my internal worth, right? I, I was using my achievements as a measuring stick for self-worth. And, and what happens the day you sell a company is people come to you and they go, oh my God, I can’t wait to see what you do next. And I was like, next, like that.

[00:27:21] Nathan: I did the thing

[00:27:22] Mike: that was really hard.

Right. But we have this idea that everything has to be up and to the right. And if you build and sell a company, the next company’s gotta be even bigger. Right. And there was a tremendous amount of pressure. So now I’m, I’m taking what I made, I’m swinging for the fences. I’m going all in. Right. I’m, I’m literally, uh, to, to use the popular top gun phrase like, I’m writing checks that my butt can’t cash.

Yeah. Right. I’m, I am investing, uh, you know, high risk, high reward mindset. The ironies, that’s exactly how I made my money in the first place. But you know, when it comes to wealth, uh, so when we, when you start a company, right? We, [00:28:00] we start off as a startup founder, burn the boats, wear all the hats, Rob Peter to pay Paul.

Mm-hmm. And then at some point as you scale, you need to switch, uh, your mindset to a scale up founder. Where now you’re delegating hiring people that are better than you. And, and the skill sets completely change. Same thing when it comes to money and building wealth, right? You start off as an accumulator of wealth.

So you bet on yourself, you take big swings, you know you’re all in all the time, but at some point now you have more to lose than you have to gain by taking these risk. So you need to shift your mindset to becoming a defender of wealth. And, and that’s the shift that I failed to make. I was still acting like an accumulator when I should have been playing defense.

[00:28:39] Nathan: Well, like I think about this reinvestment idea because if we go to the extremes, right? We take Elon Musk, he took his money from zip two and he. Poured all of the chips back into the table and then, you know, went and did uh, x.com and PayPal, right. And then won. [00:29:00] And then he took it all and said, sweet, now let’s put half into SpaceX and half into Tesla.

And now let’s like go all in again. Were you feeling like that was the approach you were supposed to take? Because people were saying like, oh, what’s next? When what you wanted to do is say, actually I’d love to be all in on index funds and spend my time the way I want and be free of this stress.

[00:29:22] Mike: Yeah, I mean, I’ve, I’ve got another story.

Uh, when I sold my company, we, uh, I bought a local commercial property with, uh, a couple of business partners and, um. We bought the property for two and a half million. We put about $750,000 into renovations. And uh, three years later we sold that property for six and a half million dollars. So

[00:29:46] Nathan: great return,

[00:29:47] Mike: great return, right?

Yeah. Like you, if you’re listening to this right now, you’re probably saying like, oh my God, Mike is a legendary real estate investor, right? But when we talk about the returns, like what are the hidden costs here? Well, I spent [00:30:00] hundreds of hours doing due diligence, you know, permitting from the city, managing the construction, finding and vetting, uh, you know, firms, subcontractors to do the construction.

Once we got tenants moved in, you know, we were, we were managing the property yourselves. And again, like 18 months after I sold my company, I found myself unclogging toilets in this, in this commercial property going like, what the hell am I doing here? Like, how, how did this happen? You know, how did I go from this massive financial windfall to unclogging toilets?

Well, I was valuing the wrong things. I was valuing return on investment when I should have been valuing return on happiness.

[00:30:35] Nathan: Dive. Let’s stay a little bit on the dirty fuel side for a second.

[00:30:37] Mike: Yeah.

[00:30:38] Nathan: Because you and I have the same example of dirty fuel, but as you talk to a lot of other entrepreneurs, what are some other examples of dirty fuel?

The, you know, the, the chip on the shoulder or whatever, and the line is, chips on shoulders, put chips in pockets, right? Like it, it works to get a return, but what are the other examples that you come across?

[00:30:56] Mike: Yeah. Basically anything that’s coming from proving energy.

[00:30:59] Nathan: Mm-hmm. [00:31:00]

[00:31:00] Mike: Right. Or external validation.

Again, back to this idea of I’ll finally be happy when, right. My third grade teacher said I wasn’t gonna be, I wasn’t gonna amount to anything. You know, I’ll show her. I’ll go build a hundred million dollar company. It turns out she doesn’t care. Right.

[00:31:16] Nathan: She doesn’t even remember the fact, she may have not even thought that you wouldn’t amount to something.

[00:31:21] Mike: Yeah, totally. And, and, and you know, we see that it’s very per pervasive in hustle culture is like, you know, if you don’t have haters, then you’re not doing anything of significance. Mm-hmm. Like, that is a, a fairytale. Right. Right. The more successful I’ve become there, there hasn’t been this army of haters that have come out of the woodwork, like trying to tear me down.

Like most people are genuinely happy. Uh, or if not, they’re just so worried about the, their own life that they can’t be bothered to look up and and see what Ive been doing. Right. The state

[00:31:48] Nathan: you make is thinking that people are thinking about you at all.

[00:31:50] Mike: Yeah, exactly. Like, like no one cares about what you’re doing.

Right. Which, um, may sound kind of lonely, but it’s incredibly freeing.

[00:31:59] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:59] Mike: And the [00:32:00] reality is, is that I was ex like I was outsourcing all of my self worth on what could I achieve? How could I measure myself against others? Do I have more than that guy, you know, or, or girl. Like, like that was where I was deriving all of my value.

And, and it turns out that is a never ending treadmill.

[00:32:20] Nathan: Right?

[00:32:20] Mike: Right. Like, like you can’t feel enough through external wealth or achievements or, you know, building a bigger company. It’s something you can only create inside of yourself.

[00:32:31] Nathan: I, uh, I don’t know if we’re the same person or, but I did the exact thing and you know, my example of of that is growing up in a family where money was very scarce.

[00:32:45] Mike: Yeah.

[00:32:46] Nathan: Watching my parents fight and ultimately divorce, uh, o over money and just realizing the sheer amount of conflict that it causes. That’s why when someone says money doesn’t buy happiness, uh, I’m like. Well, one, you don’t know how to spend it. [00:33:00] Um, but two, the lack of money Sure. Causes a lot of stress.

And so, you know, there, there is this element and we’ll get into that. An idea of enough. Yeah. Talk about that more. But I got to the point where I was like, okay, you know, when I learned that making money is a skill and I obsessed over getting very good at that skill. And so I went to the point where, let’s see, in a two year period, I went from making $63,000 a year as a software designer at a company to then being self-employed with an audience, making $250,000 a year with complete time freedom.

All of that I was writing, I, you know, I had completely transformed my life and it was through this incredible drive writing a thousand words a day for 600 days in a row. All of this. And I felt really good about myself, right? Self worth got that locked in, but it was entirely based on. What I could create and accomplish.

And so I [00:34:00] didn’t realize the, like razor’s edge that I was walk, watch, uh, walking and one small step off the other side. I ended up spiraling to the point where I was dealing with depression, suicide, all of us. And it all started with, I got shingles where uh, our second kid was born and he ended up getting sick.

I tried to like play superhero, take care of everybody and all of that. Got super stressed out, got shingles, spent six months on painkillers, like dealing with all of this and I could not get back out of it because I was so hung up on this drug of my self-worth is derived from what I accomplish. And it’s this exactly what you’re talking about, this dirty fuel, that it totally works until it doesn’t, you know?

And so like I would end up in this vicious cycle of, okay, let me. Get something done, and I’d try to do it and I couldn’t get it [00:35:00] done. And instead of having like grace and patience with myself, I was just would slide, you know, it would like further diminish my self-worth. And that was in, I mean, it took me years to get out of that.

[00:35:11] Mike: Yeah. It’s, it’s, it is really, is a vicious cycle. Mm-hmm. Right. Uh, you know, the, the negative self-talk intensifies, I mean, look, uh, most entrepreneurs, uh, myself and, and it sounds like you included, are world class at being hard on themselves. Yes. Right. If there’s, if there’s one thing we are good at it is putting pressure on ourselves.

And again, that, that is a really effective way to get things done. But the problem is, it, it has built in fragility. Right. And if you go back to, uh, you know, the five freedoms that I talked about, right. What, what it sounds like happened to you and, and certainly happened to me is I failed to diversify. I failed to become multidimensional and build wealth.

In all of these other areas. ’cause I was all in on, on making money and achievement [00:36:00] as, as the source of my self worth. Right? Once you start to build multi-dimensionally, now you become anti-fragile, right? So if you know your health goes out the window, but you have loving relationships and you know, wealth in these other areas, right?

You can focus on that one area and and, and get it back, right? But if all of your self-worth is, is tied up in how much money you make or how big your company is, or winning a gold medal, like whatever the achievement is, right? And you don’t do that thing, something prevents you from doing that thing, now all of a sudden you find yourself in a really dark place.

[00:36:35] Nathan: Okay. So that, that’s the dirty fuel side of it.

[00:36:37] Mike: Yeah.

[00:36:39] Nathan: What do you mean by clean fuel?

[00:36:41] Mike: So clean fuel is this process of, of switching from, from this dirty fuel. So the, the first step is identifying what is my dirty fuel, right? Like, like what am I, what am I trying to prove here? Right? And, and it usually, unfortunately, pain is a great teacher.

You know, usually comes from some sort of [00:37:00] reckoning where you realize, oh no, like I’ve climbed this mountain. Here I am on the top, and, and the view here is empty. Then we start this process of switching to clean fuel. For me that means. Building in purpose or in service of something greater than yourself, right?

Like you are wildly passionate about the creator economy and, and serving creators, and that’s why you do what you do, right? You, you’ve already said you have enough money to live the life that you wanna live, right? So, so why do you get up and, and do this every day? Well, it’s because it makes you feel really good to serve other people.

[00:37:35] Nathan: Yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:37:36] Mike: And this is, this is a feature, not a bug. Like, like it was designed like our, you know, it’s, it’s designed this way. Um, I often say the day you become truly wealthy is the day you realize it’s not about you, right? And so now I wake up and I, and I write, and I speak and, and I do the things that I do because hopefully I can help other people that are on this same journey, you know, [00:38:00] maybe a, a step or two behind and save them some of the pain that I went through.

Like that to me, is, is the best feeling there is. Like if I can find somebody who’s struggling, who feels trapped by their business. Who’s been on this treadmill of more this lie that we’ve been sold, and I can help shift their perspective and then see them flourishing on the backside. Like, oh my God, that’s the coolest.

Like everything else is a waste of time to me. Like, that is how I wanna spend my time.

[00:38:24] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:25] Mike: And not only does it benefit them, it benefits me in turn, it benefits my family. Right. And, and so now it creates this, this up upward spiraling flywheel to borrow a term from a, from a guy that, uh, uh,

[00:38:39] Nathan: sure likes to talk about flywheels.

[00:38:41] Mike: Yeah. Um, you know, but, but now we’re in this positive direction where, uh, wealth is a byproduct of service. Mm-hmm.

[00:38:49] Nathan: You know, we talked about the definition of rich or wealthy not being the number of zeros in a bank account. How, like how do you define being wealthy or rich now? [00:39:00]

[00:39:00] Mike: Yeah. So, you know, when we back up to first principles, um, wealth is a feeling, right?

Mm-hmm. So, so most people think they want more money. What they actually want is the feeling that they imagine that money’s gonna give them. Right? So for me, money has two purposes. Number one is to close the open loops, the anxiety loops, right? It is really hard to, to feel rich if you’re worrying about paying your rent at the end of the month, right?

Or putting food on table for your kids. So, you know, first step is to get enough money to actually live the life you wanna live. Like close the anxiety loop. And then number two is to increase joy and fulfillment in the present moment, right? So for me, joy comes from experiences doing things I love with people I love, and fulfillment comes from serving others.

And, and that to me, if I have some element of those two things in my life, like that’s how I use my money to feel rich in the present.

[00:39:50] Nathan: I think it’s such an important conversation to say what is rich? What is wealth? Because everyone is striving towards something that they don’t define. [00:40:00] Actually, there was a quote from Jimmy Carr, the comedian, where someone asked him in kind of a heckling way, you know, they, as they just shout out at a comedian on stage, like, how rich are you?

And he like, stops. And he is like, okay, lemme put this in terms that you would understand. I have 100 money. And first you’re like, what? And he, I love that line. ’cause he is, he’s pointing to the absurdity of the question.

[00:40:21] Mike: Yeah.

[00:40:21] Nathan: Where he is like, how rich am I? Like, why does it matter? But then there’s a genuine part behind the question that he actually speaks to next.

And he says like, okay, first being rich is relative. And I define rich as if I had any more money, I wouldn’t spend my time differently. I wouldn’t do anything differently than I do now. If that’s true for you, then you’re rich. Well, under that definition, I feel very, very rich because I spend my time doing exactly what I wanna do and working on those things and with the people that I want and.

I think that’s so important is to say like, [00:41:00] where is the bottleneck in the decisions that I’m making? Or all of that. And you realize like, oh, often money, money is not the bottleneck. And if we can get to that point, then it’s like, okay, cool. We’re rich.

[00:41:14] Mike: Yeah. I mean, so, you know, back to this idea that that wealth is a feeling.

[00:41:19] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:19] Mike: Right? Feelings by their definition, can only be experienced in the present moment. Right. You can’t be rich in the future. You can’t be rich in the past. You can, you can only feel rich in the present.

[00:41:28] Nathan: Hmm.

[00:41:28] Mike: So how can I feel more rich more of the time? Well, if I’m constantly worried about having enough money, right.

It’s really hard to remain present. So, so that’s the first thing to solve. And then, uh, you know, as I help, you know, founders and entrepreneurs, uh, start to define this, first of all, we get really clear on the life you wanna live. So I do an exercise called the Unbreakable Year. Um, clay Bear calls it the perfect calendar.

You know, there’s a lot of variations of this exercise out there, which is define that actual life. What does your perfect day look like? What does, what does an ideal week [00:42:00] look like? And then map it out across a year. And then the next step is add it up. Like, how much does this cost, right? And look, if you have seven vacation homes and a, and a fleet of Lamborghinis, like it’s, you know, it’s gonna take a lot of money.

But what typically happens when I run people through this exercise, if, if they’ve, you know, found some reasonable amount of success as a founder, they go, oh man, I already have enough. Or, I’m within striking distance right, of enough money to live this life. Which means, back to this Jimmy car definition, more money is actually not gonna help me get closer to the things that I actually value.

But maybe putting my phone away and spending more time with my kids.

[00:42:38] Nathan: Right,

[00:42:39] Mike: right. Being present at dinner, making sure I go to the school place. Right. Taking time for adventure and, and you know, traveling and, I mean the, these are the things that most people would say make a rich life and you don’t need that much money to do it.

Some money is better than none

[00:42:55] Nathan: than,

[00:42:55] Mike: but it reaches diminishing marginal utility very quickly.

[00:42:58] Nathan: Yeah, I was thinking about a [00:43:00] recent kind of ridiculous example of this is, I think the thing that brings me the most joy right now is that my 11-year-old and I are currently building a hobbit hole in the backyard on our farm.

And it’s not inexpensive to build, you know, we’re, we’re thousands of dollars into this venture of another lumber delivery that I’m hoping is coming in. I’m hoping it arrive sometime today while we were recording. Don’t have to call those and pester them about it. Um, but it’s this thing that we’re doing together and I kept thinking like.

Okay, this is ridiculous. Are we actually going to build like an underground house and it’s gonna spend, like, I’m gonna spend maybe $10,000 by the time we’re all said and done because like waterproofing this thing and we need an excavator and we need all of this. And I just decided like, look, this is gonna be the thing that he remembers for a very long time.

Like, remember when dad and I built a hobbit hole? And you’re like, okay. And so I’ve just decided, all right, [00:44:00] we’re doing it. And that even included things like spending $900 to rent an excavator for a week, teaching him how to drive it, and then be like, knock yourself out. And then, you know, a few days later, we have a 20 foot wide, 10 foot deep hole.

Then he is like, great, this will work for the habbit hole. I mean, that to me is rich in every way because the money wasn’t a factor. I had the time to allocate towards it. You know, we can spend an entire Saturday and I’m like teaching him how to frame walls and build this whole thing. And, you know, stay consistent with a project when he’s ready to go balance and go play video games or something.

Um, and it’s just been, it’s been really, really fun. And I was like, wow, I talking about a moment. You know, we’re out in the cold in December in Idaho, and I’m like, I feel really rich right now.

[00:44:48] Mike: Yeah. I mean, you’re maximizing return on happiness.

[00:44:50] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:51] Mike: Right. And, and you know, again, so often in the personal finance world, you know, we, we think of [00:45:00] ROI as, you know, the, the number one driver of what we should be doing with our money.

And there’s, there’s a lot of information out there about how we should, we should grow our money. But, you know, first principle is just like, so, like, for what, what, what am I doing this for? Right. And, and, uh. You know, the do dollar value can be completely arbitrary. Like, you know, I built my dream home in, in Colorado near Red Rocks.

Uh, if I poured two years of my life designing this house, right? It was an expensive house.

[00:45:29] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:30] Mike: Um, but it brings me a tremendous amount of joy, right? It’s become a gathering place for people from all over the world. You know, founders come once a month for a founder’s dinner. I host events there. I host retreats there.

Literally, like, I probably wouldn’t be doing the thing that I’m doing now, had I not built this house and designed this house around hosting retreats. And I was like, oh no, I gotta, I have to host a retreat now. So I circled a date, I hosted my first retreat, and like, that’s where, you know, I, I sort of launched this coaching career.[00:46:00]

It has brought me an ridiculously outsized amount of happiness.

[00:46:05] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:46:05] Mike: Right. So that was a really high ROI and ROH

[00:46:09] Nathan: mm-hmm.

[00:46:10] Mike: Uh, activity. But Coco Chanel says, you know, the best things in life are either free or very, very expensive. Right. And so, uh, you know, going down to the pond and fishing for an afternoon with my son brings me the same, the same amount of happiness.

Right. So it becomes less about the money and less about understanding what is it that lights you up.

[00:46:29] Nathan: Yeah. I love that. Yeah. As someone who loves airplanes, I’m glad that, you know, very expensive is on that list. Right. Like, it, it brings me so much joy. I think that that’s the thing probably in, in this conversation I’m realizing is I feel very aligned in how I spend my time and money with what I wanna do in life.

And that’s like a very reassuring thing because I think that we end up in this place of, it doesn’t always, it doesn’t always feel stable. Like maybe the, the switch from dirty fuel to clean fuel. Like, [00:47:00] oh, that’s a binary switch. And now that I’m, now I’m over here, I like, I even forgot what it was like to run on dirty fuel.

And that is not the case at all. Like it is very much a spectrum and it change changes over time and goes back and forth.

[00:47:11] Mike: Yeah. It change, it changes on the daily, right? Like, um, you know. For example, you know, posting online, uh, it would be amazing to say that I never check how many likes I get.

[00:47:23] Nathan: Yeah.

[00:47:24] Mike: Right.

I’m just building from this beautiful, you know, completely whole place where I just put content out and I never see if anybody likes it. No. Like, I’m still looking at my stats and being like, did this resonate with people? And the more people it resonated with, like the better it feels like, even though I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life healing this achievement wound and, and switching to a cleaner fuel, like of course I still find myself waking up and, and you know, chasing and being like, oh, I wish my audience was bigger and I I was doing better, and all that.

Like, you can’t escape that stuff.

[00:47:53] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:54] Mike: For me, it’s how quick can I recognize that I’m in that loop? [00:48:00] Right. And then how, how can I close the gap and return to presence? Mm-hmm. Right? Because again, if I’m thinking, well, if I just had more likes on this post and then I would be happy. Right. I’m, I’m not in the present moment.

I’m living in this future imagined state that only exists within my mind, right? And so how can I snap myself out of that and return to present? And, and that really is the trick. Like how can I be more present, more of the time is going to yield a richer life. Because, because you’re living in that present moment, free to experience the feeling of wealth.

[00:48:31] Nathan: If I’m being totally honest, sometimes I worry that clean fuel, this desire to serve others, help them, them achieve their dreams, have this impact, might not have the same edge that the dirty fuel does of the, like, I just wanna win. I wanna prove something, you know, I’m going to grind it out. And there’s this idea in business that if you’re not growing, you’re shrinking.

And so I think about the stress, uh, I don’t want anyone to get this [00:49:00] idea like, oh, Nathan is just like a zen monk over here who has a dial in. I end up in the stress place at times of like, okay, are we. Driving towards outcomes. Are we innovating the level that we need to? Are we beating our competitors?

Are we growing our market share so that we can have this impact so that I can even achieve these goals? And so how do you think about that of like, is clean fuel as effective for achieving outcomes as dirty fuel?

[00:49:27] Mike: Yeah. So this is, this is a question, uh, prospective clients ask a lot. It’s like, if I engage in this healing work, will I lose my edge?

And my answer is, if, if your edge is fueled by darkness, like probably, and they

[00:49:43] Nathan: want the reassurance and you’re like, yeah, no,

[00:49:45] Mike: and, and the beauty is the edge that you build in its place is so much more powerful.

[00:49:50] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:51] Mike: Right? But necessarily those outcome based goals may start to shift. They start to become less important.

Like as we [00:50:00] do healing work and as our egos grip starts to loosen a little bit, the things that we thought. We wanted, or the things that we thought would make us happy start to shift and change. And that’s okay. Right? So if we think about, you know, people like Elon or Lance Armstrong or Tiger Woods, like, you know, insert elite performer here.

[00:50:22] Nathan: Yep.

[00:50:22] Mike: Right. You know, that comes, greatness comes with a cost. Mm-hmm. Right? And so, uh, why do you want the things that you want? Is, is a, is a question that, that I think is really important, right? And again, this gets back to a feeling, well, if I’m the best in the world, I think that’s gonna feel a certain way, right?

But if the path to greatness is littered with, uh, proverbial bodies along the way, right? If you’ve been stepping on others and, you know, ignoring your family and, and sacrificing your health, and all of these things that we sacrifice for greatness, the question is, was it worth it? And, [00:51:00] uh, you know, I, I can’t tell anybody whether that’s worth it or not, but I’ve worked with enough people.

Have achieved the outcome. You know, I, I, I’ve worked with lots of, you know, multi nine or, uh, you know, billionaire clients, um, who are fundamentally unhappy. They got everything they ever wanted, and it didn’t fill ’em up. So now what? Right. So where do you

[00:51:22] Nathan: go?

[00:51:23] Mike: Right, exactly. So, um, you know, yeah, by all means, if, uh, if success is all at all costs, is what’s driving you, and, and you wanna see for yourself how it feels on the other side.

Like, you know, don’t do any trauma work, don’t do any healing work, like, just keep on the path. But my question would be like, how’s that working for you? Mm-hmm. Right. And usually when pressed, you know, people are gonna say, Hey, it’s not working as well as I thought it was. Something needs to give. I’m burnout, I’m unfulfilled, I’m unhappy.

My relationship is in shambles. My kids barely know me. Like, whatever it [00:52:00] is. There’s usually something that they’re ready to shift. And sometimes that means softening some of those big goals Right. Now that doesn’t mean giving up. Right. And I think, and I think that’s that, like, it doesn’t mean going off riding off in the sunset and, and sipping margaritas on the beach.

Like that’s, that’s fun for a little while. I’ve been retired twice in my life. Like it’s, it’s fun for a little while, but at some point we need a sense of purpose mm-hmm. To wake up to. Right. But, but then framing what does success look like really becomes the operative question.

[00:52:32] Nathan: You mentioned a few of these, like big name public figures, whether it’s Elon who, uh, like runs on the, the strongest dirty fuel of anyone maybe we’ve ever seen in history.

Totally. Right. Um, while still having an insane positive impact on technology and, and everything else. But like that man, I mean, he says it publicly, like he lives a, a tortured existence.

[00:52:56] Mike: Right.

[00:52:56] Nathan: Um, you know, these other people. Who have, [00:53:00] we’ve seen their rise and fall over time. Is there anyone that comes to mind where you think of like seeing them have this drive and ambition on dirty fuel and then make that switch to clean fuel?

[00:53:12] Mike: Yeah, I mean, I, I think that there’s, um, a lot of people who have healed along the way, and the beauty is maybe what they built from that place of, of dirty fuel was enough to create a sort of escape velocity where now they can heal, but they’re, they’re, they’ve already left the solar system and, and, you know, they’re on the path.

Uh, and, and so I think you can heal along the way and the hope is, uh, that you’ve already, you know, achieved enough where now the goals continue to become inevitable. You can continue to grow. And, and like you said, everybody exists on, on a spectrum, right? Right. It’s like the goal isn’t to eliminate this darkness.

Mm-hmm. Right. I, I, I really think, um, it’s, I don’t wanna say impossible, but, but, but I think it is. It’s really difficult to completely get rid of [00:54:00] these dirty fuel patterns. Right. The question is, how do I recognize ’em and then, uh, interrupt those patterns and return to presence mm-hmm. And joy in the moment.

[00:54:10] Nathan: You know, that’s something that I think is really important. ’cause it, you could get caught up in this idea of like, oh, I need to switch from dirty fuel to clean fuel. I need to totally rewire my brain and all of that. And that’s not what I hear you asking people to do. I hear you asking ’em to take a first step of just awareness and say, and see what it does for you.

And you might be like, you know what, for this period of my life, I’m aware of this and I’m still gonna use it as fuel. And you’re like, all right. Sure. Just, just be aware of it.

[00:54:37] Mike: Yeah. What, what’s it costing you? Mm-hmm. Let’s get really clear on the cost because, because everything sort of can be shifted in this cost benefit analysis.

Yeah. Right? Like if I look at, and first of all, it is also a false dichotomy, right? That you have to. The only way to build something of meaning is, is from dirty fuel. Right? Like, again, it’s effective, but, but you know, [00:55:00] moving toward the light, like service is a, is a really great driver and, and impact is an amazing driver and there are lots of people that have achieved massive things in the world from, you know, a true place of service.

Mm-hmm. So, you know, I don’t think that they’re mutually exclusive. Uh, but that edge

[00:55:19] Nathan: I think of people like, uh, Sam Walton talk has talked about this, of, of this idea of coming back to value to customers. You know? Right. When, when in doubt of where to work in your business or what to do is like, well, what will provide value?

And that can very much be a clean fuel of like, how do I serve my customers, my market, all of that. Instead of a, oh, I’m fueled by what is this competitor doing? How do I properly counteract it? Or I’m fueled by if I don’t. Achieve this goal, then my parents will never be proud of me or, you know, any other version there.

[00:55:55] Mike: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I, I, I, uh, have a dear friend, uh, [00:56:00] who, uh, is a co-founder of a payment processing company. Um, and you know, I, I remember having a conversation with him and he was talking about going into like little merchant shops and them talking about, you know, the product that he built and, and he literally teared up because he was so moved by the impact that he had on their ability to accept payments and, and build a better life for their families.

I mean, it, you know, uh, we really can achieve great things from this place of service. Um, and, and so, you know, I think it’s really is getting clear on who you wanna serve, right? How you’re gonna do it, and then, and then going all in. And so, you know, I, and. Being all in from a place of devotion instead of a place of discipline, right?

Like discipline kind of implies I’m doing something I don’t wanna do in service of, of creating this outcome. Devotion is, I care so [00:57:00] much about this cause that I’m attached to that I wake up and do the thing and it feels light, it feels, you know, in alignment with my soul and my internal experience is matching my external experience.

Like that’s true wealth to me.

[00:57:12] Nathan: Yeah, I love that. Okay. What about this feeling of it all going away? I think there’s so many people who are ambitious, they’re driving towards something, they’re scrappy, they have nothing to lose and all of that. And then one day they wake up and they go, oh, I have a, a lot to lose.

And they move into a preservation mode in an unhealthy way. Or, or maybe there’s like wrestling with that of like, okay, what if I were to lose it all? What does that mean? Uh, how did you approach that personally, and then how do you coach clients on addressing that?

[00:57:47] Mike: Yeah, so I think for every problem there is an a, a mechanical fix and an emotional fix.

[00:57:52] Nathan: Okay?

[00:57:52] Mike: Right. So the mechanical fix is how do I build systems to make sure that never happens? Mm-hmm. And then, uh, the emotional thing is even if [00:58:00] I have those systems in place, that feeling might not go away. Right? Okay. What, what’s driving that right? Was there, was there scarcity in my home growing up, right?

Mm-hmm. Like, was there instability caused by a lack of money if you don’t go back and heal those things at the root cause, right. Either through. Trauma, work, coaching, you know, therapy. There’s, there’s all kinds of modalities that we can use to go do, you know, heal those patterns that were caused as a child.

I think you need a combination of both, right? But the reality is, is that you can build wealth systems that ensure that it never goes away.

[00:58:33] Nathan: Let’s touch on a couple of those, like what are three or four of those things that you’re like, look, this is what I would put in place.

[00:58:38] Mike: So for me, when it comes to building and preserving wealth, there, there are three levels of financial freedom, right?

With freedom being the, the goal, of course. So the first one is. Level one financial freedom is safety. That’s 12 months of living expenses in a liquid asset that, that I can access within 24 hours.

[00:58:57] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:57] Mike: Right. That’s gonna take that [00:59:00] existential dread of not being able to pay the bills. Uh, and, and, you know, buy a little bit of that psychological safety.

The next step is five to seven years of, uh, liquidity. So, so enough money to cover the bills for five years, like four people who have money making as a skill. Right. It is almost inconceivable to go five years without ever making another dollar.

[00:59:26] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:26] Mike: Right. Like that should buy a tremendous amount of psychological safety.

And here’s why. I, I always preach liquidity. Right. You know, at my lowest, I was still a multimillionaire on paper, but I couldn’t access any of my money. Right. Right. And so, uh, literally it did mean no good to be a multimillionaire because I, you know, I couldn’t even pay my tax. I had to borrow money from my fiance at the time to pay my tax bill.

You know, being a multimillionaire wasn’t doing anything for me. Right. Right. So, so, uh, you know, at, at that point you can [01:00:00] start in investing in more liquid and semi-liquid assets like real estate, but if all of your money is tied up in things that you can’t access, like you are not rich. Right. And you are not free at that point.

Mm-hmm. And then the highest level of financial freedom is what I call escape velocity. And this is when you have 33, uh, times your annual expenses, uh, in, uh, assets that generate enough income to pay for your lifestyle for the rest of your life without ever dragging down the principle. Okay. So that’s a pretty lofty goal.

Like if you, so, you know, if you spend, um, 30 KA month, that, that looks like about $12 million.

[01:00:36] Nathan: Okay.

[01:00:37] Mike: Right. So, so that is still a, a significant amount of money. That’s only if number one, you don’t wanna draw down on the principle, right? You wanna die with this perpetual money machine. And then two, if you’re not earning any more money, right?

But if you continue to earn, let’s say I earn $10,000, right there, there’s another rule called the rule of 300. So for every [01:01:00] dollar that you continue to earn, you can reduce your protective reserve by $300, right? So now if I’m earning, if I, maybe I want to just, uh, I wanna go be a teacher, I wanna make five grand a month, right?

Like I can reduce my protective reserve by 1.5 million. And so I need less if I’m gonna continue earning in some way, if that makes sense.

[01:01:20] Nathan: Yep, it does. Okay. So those are things to do to touch on, on the. The logical side of your brain.

[01:01:27] Mike: Yeah.

[01:01:27] Nathan: Right. And the, and the practical, like this is the physics of the economy and, and all of that.

So you’re getting to those, those assets and then you can on the logical side say like, okay, I do actually have this squared away.

[01:01:38] Mike: Yeah.

[01:01:38] Nathan: And then we really move into the emotional side and all of that.

[01:01:43] Mike: Yeah. And so a tremendous amount of the work that I do is focused on our relationship to money and understanding this psychology and, and, uh, you know, emotional piece that we’re touching on.

It almost always goes back to childhood, right? Mm-hmm. Or other traumatic experiences. Maybe you experienced a [01:02:00] bankruptcy in your early adulthood. Like there, there are experiences that can influence this thing. And, uh, you know, number one, it starts with forgiveness.

[01:02:08] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:09] Mike: Right? Um, you know, often I’ll have people meditate on the worst money mistake that they ever made and, and go through a, a forgiveness exercise.

Yeah. Right. And, and it’s just releasing these old patterns that start to become limitations, start to keep us trapped in this feeling of never enough, you know? And typically, again, it, it’s, it’s always coming back to the present moment, right? If, if I am feeling like, if I objectively have my, my money bases covered, but I’m feeling like it’s not enough, something in my subconscious is hijacking me from the present moment.

You know, again, typically it’s, it’s something that occurred in a past version of ourselves that’s an open loop that just keeps running. It’s a protective part that showing up and, and putting on the alarm bells when it, it’s [01:03:00] actually not matching up with reality. Mm-hmm. So where am I having this outsized reaction, and then how do I interrupt that process and come back to presence?

Mm-hmm.

[01:03:09] Nathan: I like that. Okay. As we wrap up, I want to go one very practical and then, uh, maybe more theoretical, existential, all of that. Um, on the practical side, how do you spend money now in ways that has the highest leverage, maybe the highest impact, right? Where you’re like, oh, these are the things that I just love spending money on, as an example for listeners where they’re going to, uh, be like, oh, maybe I would follow that or do my own version of it.

[01:03:39] Mike: Yeah. Well, here’s the beauty. Uh, I am constantly updating, right? Uh, I, I wanna live life at the, the bleeding edges, right? Like, I don’t just wanna be a monk that goes and, and renounces worldly possessions and, and meditates in a cave for the rest of my life, right? Right. Like, I want, I want to experience all of it.

And so, uh, number one, again, my advice [01:04:00] is buy the ticket and take the ride. Like, like if you think it might make you happy, go check it out. See if it does. Most things in life are not one way. Decisions, right? Mo there’s, there are very few doors that, uh, close and lock behind us, right? So if you don’t love where you live, maybe try moving to that new city.

Guess what? If you don’t like it, you can move back.

[01:04:20] Nathan: Right? Or if you’re willing to spend the money, you can keep your old house. Like you don’t even have to, you can try it on.

[01:04:25] Mike: Yeah. So, uh, so, so for me it’s, it’s, you know, being experimental and then experiential. And like I said earlier, material things can play into an ex experiences.

Right. But like for me, my annual non-negotiable is my heli skiing trip. Uh, it’s, it’s one of my favorite things I do that goes in the calendar. First heli skiing is, is not cheap, but, uh, it is

[01:04:50] Nathan: worth every penny

[01:04:51] Mike: worth every penny, right? Um, but I, I also did a, a silent retreat this year, a silent meditation retreat and, uh, you [01:05:00] know, again, serving on, on the board of, uh, the Wisdom Dojo, uh, you know, serving the veteran community.

So donating to, uh, you know, charitable causes, both of those things, one is really selfish. I love heli skiing. That’s, that’s totally just serving me.

[01:05:14] Nathan: Yeah.

[01:05:15] Mike: The other thing is in service to others, right? Mm-hmm. Both of those things bring me a tremendous amount of joy, right? So it’s spreading across all the different buckets and, and again, just continually asking the question.

Right. What happens is, I think that we sort of get stuck in, I’m the supercar guy.

[01:05:33] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[01:05:34] Mike: I love McLaren’s and, and Lamborghinis. So now I have these two things in my garage that are just collecting dust and I’m not the guy that loves those things anymore, but it’s too costly to my identity to update.

Right. So I’m just gonna keep ’em around. Right. I want to, I want to constantly be in the practice of updating my identity and letting go of the things that aren’t serving me. So, so number one, just buy the ticket. Take the ride, buy the thing. You know, [01:06:00] again, as long as you’re taking care of future self Yes.

Like, not maxing out credit cards. Right. Assuming you have the money, buy the thing, and then just monitoring like, does this bring me joy the way I thought it would? If yes, keep going.

[01:06:10] Nathan: Mm-hmm. I like that there’s some of these little things that I’ve seen people do over time. Uh, I’ll give two examples. For me, it’s easier to spend the money on the big flashy experience.

So like, I love sailing.

[01:06:23] Mike: Yeah.

[01:06:24] Nathan: And so, uh, you know, to go do a trip like that or something and, you know, uh, chartering a boat might cost 10 or $15,000 for a week. And, but it’s like this community experience. You can bring your friends together. I know you’ve done that. Um, but I like, might struggle with some of the small things like that.

Feel like I’m being high maintenance, like, uh, ramit safety for example. Yeah. Will, uh, when he’s traveling, he will make sure that his groceries so that he can match the exact diet he wants to eat as easy as possible, are delivered to his hotel room, waiting for him, you know, his favorite [01:07:00] yogurt. All of this.

And I’m like, on one hand I’m like, dude, you’re so high. Oh no. That actually would be like a, a great use of not very much money.

[01:07:08] Mike: Yeah.

[01:07:08] Nathan: Or another example, um, I saw this when, uh, you and Dan and your spouses went to, went on a sailing trip. Which I’ve done that, uh, similar sailing trips many times. Um, but I thought the ultimate pro move was that you all had a workout set on the boat of like a full set of weights and all of that.

And I was like, oh, that’s what the sailing trip was missing. But it would feel ridiculous to me before I like was working on changing this of like, oh, if you spend a a thousand dollars or whatever it is to get a workout set added, you know, and that makes the, uh, you know, to get a set of weights added and that makes the experience that much better then like totally do it.

[01:07:46] Mike: Yeah.

[01:07:47] Nathan: But it’s some of those things that are interesting to watch other people do and then go, oh, that would actually bring me joy and happiness. Like, yes, I wanna do that.

[01:07:55] Mike: Yeah. So I got, I got two in this category. One is, uh, a house manager. I think [01:08:00] this is the for, for entrepreneur, especially entrepreneurial couples.

I think this is the highest leverage expense that you could possibly have. And it’s not an expense, it’s an investment. So, uh, you know, I’ve had a house manager, uh, since 2016, uh, but. You know, and, and we outsource everything from paying bills to laundry, to grocery shopping, to chefing, um, you know, and, and our house manager job description, which w we can put a link in the show notes saying, uh, which, you know, is I wanna spend more present time with my kids.

[01:08:32] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[01:08:33] Mike: Right? And doing household chores is not present time with my kids. We might be in the same room, but I’m not able to, to be there and, and really speak to them, you know, in the way that I want to. So, I, I think a house manager is the best, uh, use. And I, I’ve probably helped over a hundred people hire house managers at this point.

The other thing, to your point, uh, about the hotel room, I had a friend recently who said, man, if I was a billionaire, I would wear a new pair of socks every day. [01:09:00] Right. I was like, well, how much do your socks cost? And he said, uh, it’s like $8 for four pairs. I said, cool. So you know, to get

[01:09:09] Nathan: $700 a year or something,

[01:09:10] Mike: $700 a year, you could wear new socks every single day of your life.

And he is like, oh, but you know, that would feel really wasteful. And I was like, well, what if you took the used socks and donated in the homeless shelter? Right? Like, now this guy’s living like a billionaire, his version of how a billionaire, his

[01:09:25] Nathan: a billionaire

[01:09:26] Mike: for $700 a year and he’s doing something that makes him feel really good by helping other people out with new socks, right?

So there, there are a lot of things that can, you can spend on that don’t cost a lot of money that bring an outsize amount of joy.

[01:09:38] Nathan: Yeah. I love, I love those examples. Something that you said early on, you were talking about this, this journey of selling your company and then you ended up back in this place of trying to.

Do the next thing, you know, maybe prove that you could build a second company. I don’t know who we’re proving this to, but we’re all trying to prove some version

[01:09:59] Mike: now. The, the nebulous [01:10:00] thing.

[01:10:00] Nathan: Yeah. And, and realizing that, you know, you’d gone through all of that and were miserable losing tons of money in all of that.

And so in exiting that scenario, losing money, closing that chapter, you got to peace. And so I’m, I’m, I’m very curious, like how do you quantify the value of that piece for someone who is listening and they’re very numbers focused or academic or all of that, like just speaks to what it meant to go from that drowning feeling into peace.

[01:10:31] Mike: Yeah. I mean, you know, the way I think about it is you can always get more money.

[01:10:35] Nathan: Mm-hmm.

[01:10:35] Mike: But you can’t ever get more time, right? Yeah. Time is our only non-renewable resource. And, uh, for me being on this. Never ending cycle of more. I mean, it, it, it truly cost me everything. I mean, it was this, this was an experience that, that brought me, you know, to my knees.

Um, like I said, I mean, I, I remember a day when I woke [01:11:00] up and I was like, I, I can’t get out of bed today.

[01:11:01] Nathan: Yeah.

[01:11:02] Mike: Like, I don’t want to face the day there’s, it’s too much. Like, I know what’s coming and I’m out and, you know, uh, credit to my wife, like a, a really good wife would’ve said like, Hey buddy, you got this.

Like, get up and, and, and get after it. My wife said, stay in bed. You run the, I’ll run the company today. Right. And like, just being held by another person, like being, being able to have that relationship, right. Like that’s wealth. Mm-hmm. Right. Like having someone that has my back at all costs. And so, you know, now, um, I look back at that period of my life, it’s truly some of the greatest gifts.

Like I, I. Um, I lost the arrogance of someone who’d never lost before.

[01:11:45] Nathan: Hmm.

[01:11:46] Mike: Right. I let go of the pieces of my identity that were no longer serving me. I, um, I let go of externalizing my self-worth. So I lost money, but I also [01:12:00] lost a lot of parts of my, uh, of my self that, that weren’t serving me anymore. And so, you know, if you’re in a dark place, like if you feel like the walls are closing in, if you’re struggling, just know that your ego is a small price to pay for the person that you’re becoming on the other side.

[01:12:20] Nathan: I love that. That’s beautiful. All right. Where should people go to buy the book? Follow your work and check out everything that you’re doing?

[01:12:28] Mike: Well definitely, uh, sign up for my newsletters, hosted on an amazing platform, uh, called Cat, uh, at, at be rich now.com. Sign up for the newsletter and, uh, and buy the book.

Um, there, uh, follow me on X or Instagram. I’m sure you can put those, uh, m brown.co on Instagram, m Brown, uh, I, I maybe need to buy that handle with the new program. Uh, and, and yeah, I’m active on both of those and, uh, I, I, I really do pour my heart and soul into writing the newsletters. One of my favorite [01:13:00] things I do every week.

[01:13:00] Nathan: Yep. And the passion comes through, so people should definitely subscribe. Be rich now.com and thanks so much for coming on.

[01:13:06] Mike: Thanks, Nathan.

[01:13:07] Nathan: If you enjoyed this episode, go to YouTube and search the Nathan Barry Show. Then hit subscribe and make sure to like the video and drop a comment. I’d love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were, and also just who else do you think we should have on the show.

Thank you so much for listening.