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I recently met with a local realtor who was interested in selling his realty business.
He wanted 80k for the business. Fine.
While I’m not willing to go out and show houses to people, I’m perfectly interested in looking at the business opportunity.
If the numbers work I am perfectly willing to buy any business.
The problem with the realty business?
The problem is that the realtor is the business.
Without him doing the work there is no revenue. Without revenue there is no business.
You couldn’t buy his business today and have money coming in tomorrow. You’d have to go out and find new business to make money.
If someone were to purchase his business they would essentially be starting out as a brand new realtor and they’d be in the hole 80k.
Then they’d have to go out and cold call and knock on doors to start digging themselves out of that $80,000 hole.
Freelancer vs Business Owner
Without revenue there is no business and the realty business wasn’t a real business.
The owner was essentially a freelancer, getting paid when he got clients to sign and not getting paid when no one signed.
He should have taken steps to outsource the work to employees. He should have had systems in place to make money when he was not around.
Instead, he worked as a sole proprietor for ten years. He made enough money to buy a house in Australia, but he didn’t take steps to make his realty freelancing a real business.
Now he’s in the position of having worked on this gig for ten years and no one will buy it because there’s nothing to buy.
Businesses should be scalable and saleable
His realty business was nothing more than some phone numbers and connections, but phone numbers and introductions aren’t worth $80,000.
Only a system that can make money for anyone is worth 80k.
So the realtor is stuck with his non-business.
The magic of residual income
I don’t like the term passive income – I never made money passively – the term residual income fits much better.
You do the work once, then you get paid for it residually – as long as the work is good.
Like a songwriter who writes a hit song or an author who writes a hit book.
They do the actual work one time, then they get paid for it for however long people want to buy it.
There’s nothing passive about creating
The songwriter and book author didn’t make that money passively, they actively wrote the song or book, then they got paid residually.
And that’s how I got paid while I didn’t appear to work.
Speaking of not appearing to work…
The myth of struggle
A lot of people have asked me about my struggles to make a nothing into a something.
I don’t particularly enjoy reading or writing about struggle, so I don’t.
It’s much harder to work some job you hate for a paycheck that leaves you scraping by.
My life is phenomenally easy compared to any Average Joe working his average job.
I often romanticize the fact that I didn’t make money for over a year.
It’s true, I didn’t make a dime for over a year. But let me tell you two things…
- That year wasn’t hard at all. It was one of the best years of my life.
- I didn’t try to make money for a year. I knew it would come eventually so I just concentrated on building an audience. A year later, when I tried to make money, I did make money.
I know it will hurt some feelings to hear that it was super-easy for me, but I’ve never been bothered by hurting feelings.
It’s much worse to hear successful people lie about “the struggle”
When you hear the lies about struggling your mind is tricked into thinking that since you’re struggling you’re on the right path.
Wrong.
When you’re on the right path it will be easy. It’s only when you’re on the wrong path that it’s hard.
Whatever you were meant to do, IF you were meant to do anything, will be easy. That’s the cold, hard reality.
If you live a pathetic life you don’t have the right to complain about struggle because you and you alone have the ability to change your life.
If you don’t change it, that’s your fault. If you’re struggling it’s your own fault.
You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you.
Not me, not him, not her, not that corporation, not the government…
YOU!
If your life is a struggle, you are the problem.
It might just be that you aren’t smart enough or talented enough to make it
..or it might be that you aren’t trying.
Whichever it is, you get what you deserve.
It’s very easy for me to make money, it’s not hard at all.
People HATE to hear that but I don’t care.
Haters can hate all they want but if life is a struggle, it’s your duty to fix it.
Most people won’t fix it and I don’t care in the slightest.
If you don’t want to fix it I won’t offer a helping hand.
It’s an inevitablity of success that the lower classes first worship you then turn on you.
Which brings me to…
Making Money Hurts People’s Feelings
YouTube has become extremely successful by giving a voice to the voiceless.
The comments section on youtube gives anyone who has internet access a chance to voice their opinion.
That sounds great in theory but the reality is that most people are small, petty and silly and we don’t need to hear their silly opinions.
YouTube commenters are probably a perfect representation of normal people and I see two trends among YouTube commenters/normal people.
The first trend is this…
- Anyone who makes money is greedy and a piece of shit.
- Anyone who is poor should be given money.
Huh?
That’s right. Making money is evil and you should give poor people money (even though it’s evil).
Anyone who wants to make money, makes money
If making money is a priority to you, you will make it.
If you don’t make money it’s because you don’t want to.
In reality, losers don’t want to make money, they want to be given money.
I know that hurts to hear, but that’s what tough love is.
You can hear lies to feel better, or you can hear the truth to get better.
Only a loser is mad at the truth of the world.
A winner can hear the truth, accept the truth, internalize the truth, and then they can become something.
It is what it is – so make it work for you
I keep telling you, I’m not so special that only I can make a living being me.
You can do it too, if you want to.
I know people will tell you it’s impossible, but what are you looking for from them?
Permission?
You have my express permission to not require permission. OK?
But if you actually need permission you don’t belong in the big leagues and you don’t deserve success and freedom.
So stop pretending.
