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- [00:00]
Mike Brown
Society sells us this lie that money's going to solve all your problems. If you are putting off the present and sacrificing everything on the altar of more, you're going to wake up one day and realized, oh, shit, it wasn't worth it.
- [00:10]
Nathan Barry
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 is beautiful. You have a supercar collection.
- [00:22]
Mike Brown
I made a significant amount of money
- [00:23]
Nathan Barry
along the way, but then he sold all of his supercars.
- [00:26]
Mike Brown
I actually discovered what a rich life truly means and what true wealth is actually defined. It's not as much money as I thought it was.
- [00:34]
Nathan Barry
So what do you define it as?
- [00:35]
Mike Brown
Now, wealth is actually.
- [00:38]
Nathan Barry
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?
- [00:47]
Mike Brown
No one cares about what you're doing. Which may sound kind of lonely, but it's incredibly freeing. 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 highest level of financial freedom is what I call foreign.
- [01:07]
Nathan Barry
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?
- [01:21]
Mike Brown
I would definitely. Yeah, I. I would definitely say that I'm rich, but it's not the material possessions that. That I would use to define that.
- [01:31]
Nathan Barry
Okay, let's stay on the material possessions for just a second. The house in Colorado is beautiful. You have the 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?
- [01:45]
Mike Brown
Yes. Had.
- [01:46]
Nathan Barry
Had. Okay, you don't have them anymore.
- [01:48]
Mike Brown
I am in the process of selling off my last supercars.
- [01:52]
Nathan Barry
Okay, well, so, I mean, first, it's something that brought you a lot of joy.
- [01:56]
Mike Brown
Yeah. And. And this is, you know, my arc as I've developed. You know, as a kid, I had the red Lamborghini Countach 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 wouldn't check the odometer. And I had put 800 miles combined on my two supercars in the last year.
- [02:36]
Nathan Barry
Oh, wow.
- [02:38]
Mike Brown
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. 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. Okay. And, you know, basically at this point now I have two options. Either reprioritize and go. No, 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 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 I started selling them off. And man, it feels so freeing at this point in my life.
- [03:28]
Nathan Barry
Do you regret, like, is that something where, like, oh, that actually didn't provide me any value? Waste of time, waste of money. Like you regret that or. Yeah. How do you approach it?
- [03:38]
Mike Brown
So one of my core values is open mindedness. And 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, and how I spend my time. I'm super happy about that period of my life. I always tell people, buy the ticket, take the ride. They brought me a tremendous amount of joy. And at some point they were no longer providing that outsize amount of joy.
- [04:07]
Nathan Barry
Yeah, I was thinking about the quote of personal finance is more personal than finance and how everything is. There's wide range of what you should spend your money on, all of this stuff. And so I could see myself saying, like, looking at the supercars and that's not a particular attraction of mine. I'm probably in the airplane category, which we'll get into your background related to airplanes because it's very cool as well. 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, old friends growing up. Who. The dad was an airline pilot. He was like a backcountry bush pilot in Alaska early in his flying career, all the way up to, like, 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 well.
- [05:34]
Mike Brown
And, and one of the things, you know, the, the kind of common personal finance wisdom is like, invest in experiences, not material possessions. Yeah, 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, throwing a Lamborghini into a drift on the track, you know, definitely counts as an experience in my life. So I'm, I'm super glad to 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 going to update my belief system?
- [06:17]
Nathan Barry
Right. Okay. I want to dive into belief system all. There's so much that I want to cover, but I feel like people should have an understanding of who you are in your background. Right. So Navy fighter pilot.
- [06:27]
Mike Brown
Yeah, I flew F18s for the Navy. I was a backseater, like goose from 2003 to 2011. And then I got out and moved back to my hometown of Midland, Texas. Okay. Somewhere I never thought I would live again. But that particular location in the US Happens to be the oil and gas capital of, of the U.S. and so I, I started a oil and gas investment firm and then I sold that in 2019. Okay.
- [06:57]
Nathan Barry
What can you say as far as, like, people always want to know the scale of the exit in some way. What. What do you say along those lines?
- [07:03]
Mike Brown
Yeah, yeah, eight figure exit. You know, our, our best year, we did 30 million in revenue. And, you know, we were also taking money out along the way. So I. I made a significant amount of money along the way to. Depending on how you define that.
- [07:16]
Nathan Barry
Yeah, 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.
- [07:29]
Mike Brown
Yeah, this. This is a. A really interesting thing. I thought I needed a hundred million dollars to be rich. Okay. That was the number. And 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.
- [07:47]
Nathan Barry
If it's.
- [07:51]
Mike Brown
Exactly. And. And so after my exit, I should have never had to work again. And instead, two years later, I found myself losing $100,000 a month in a failing company. There was days I didn't want to 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 was sacrificing my health. You know, high stress in my marriage. Like, this was a really, you know, objectively difficult experience that truly brought me to my knees. 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 now I feel like it's one of the greatest gifts that I've ever received.
- [08:44]
Nathan Barry
You and Dan Martell are really good friends. And 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 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 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?
- [09:09]
Mike Brown
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 well documented.
- [09:15]
Nathan Barry
Right.
- [09:16]
Mike Brown
You know, existential crisis that. That comes with the identity loss of selling a company. And so, you know, I exited a meritage and my company at the same time. And I was really forced to evaluate, you know, 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 what true wealth is actually defined by. And newsflash, it's not as much money as I thought it was.
- [09:49]
Nathan Barry
So what. What do you define it as now?
- [09:53]
Mike Brown
For me, wealth is actually freedom. And so I run workshops and retreats for entrepreneurs. And if we're going to talk about wealth, we need it. We need a working definition. So I always ask the crowd, like, 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 the most part. If you press an entrepreneur hard enough why they started their company, they're going to 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 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 controlled by others? 3 is freedom of time and then freedom of mind and freedom of soul. And so freedom of mind means being free from anxiety or depression or, you know, having an open mind to 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. And those around me, you know, whether that be a higher power or humanity in general, however you define that.
- [11:15]
Nathan Barry
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?
- [11:36]
Mike Brown
Yeah, typically, I think it makes sense 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 joy and light me up and hopefully connected to other people?
- [12:03]
Nathan Barry
I'm thinking about those different categories. Right. If you think about freedom of time, that's something for me. I'm at this stage, you know, if we're. If we're talking specifics on wealth, I am very, on paper, wealthy. Right. I own a very large portion of a very valuable software company, and then I can easily fund my life and all of that. It's not very extravagant, though. I guess it's all relative, you know, But 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, in all ways. 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 that's because I do deliberate things like schedule. You know, I. I have a time, but the 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 this, 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, I'm trying to scale a company to 100 million in annual revenue.
- [13:29]
Mike Brown
Yeah.
- [13:29]
Nathan Barry
And, 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. I'm super proud of what I'm building, but also, like, okay, do I want to 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 it. I don't have a particular question, but I'm curious. I think you talk to people like me a lot.
- [14:05]
Mike Brown
I do, yes. And. And so, you know, the. The balance comes in. How do I take care of myself in the present moment. Right. You know, investing in these experiences that light me up and bring me joy while also taking care of my future self and hopefully, you know, serving my greater purpose here on, you know, in this short lifetime that. That we only have one of how. And there does have. There has to be a balance. Right. And I think the trap that most people fall into is I'll finally be happy when. Right. So if you are putting off the present and sacrificing everything on the altar of more, I have a news flash for you. You're going to wake up one day and realize, oh shit, it wasn't worth it. Right. Right. So. But at the same time, if you're just, you know, yolo ing your way through life and only living in the present and not engaging in the habits or, you know, systems 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 want to have in the present, while also take care taking care of future me?
- [15:17]
Nathan Barry
I think I do a good job of that. Of like the. Something I always talk about is journey over destination. And a destination is only interesting in that it gives you a unique or interesting journey.
- [15:31]
Mike Brown
Right.
- [15:31]
Nathan Barry
If we have a really lame destination like Mike, our destination is Chick Fil a down the street. It's like, well, there's nothing interesting is going to happen between here and there. If our destination is we're going to build a company this way, we're going to impact these people.
- [15:44]
Mike Brown
Yeah.
- [15:44]
Nathan Barry
Then we're probably going to have a pretty interesting journey. And so I spent a lot of time thinking about, you know, now with the present, the journey that I'm on,
- [15:54]
Mike Brown
that kind of thing.
- [15:55]
Nathan Barry
So I think I balance that pretty well.
- [15:56]
Mike Brown
Yeah. Here's how I think about goals, which is just like you named. Right. Goals are the vector, not the destination. And if you, you know, there's studies that have been done on outcome based goals actually have very little effect 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 going to 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.
- [16:51]
Nathan Barry
Right.
- [16:52]
Mike Brown
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 that are also important to you. And that is how I orient, you know, this kind of. How do I distribute my time? Question.
- [17:09]
Nathan Barry
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?
- [17:19]
Mike Brown
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, million copy bestseller books. Right. So how do I achieve that goal? I can't control that outcome.
- [17:32]
Nathan Barry
Right, right.
- [17:33]
Mike Brown
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 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 is now. I can't control whether that's going to be a million people or 100,000 or 10,000 people. But if it's 10,000 of the right people, and I love what I do, 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.
- [18:14]
Nathan Barry
I think a version of that for me is you and I are both working, working on books. I think you're a little bit ahead of me since, you know, at the time of recording this, your, your book has. Has released, which we'll talk about more in a moment. But the something that shifted for. I had 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 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 truly be the main thing then. 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 recording Today, I have 102 days in a row of writing at, you know, at least for 10 minutes or something every day on this book. And like, the manuscript has made significant progress. And it was really switching from this year I'm gonna finish my book to I'm just Gonna write consistently and I'm gonna trust in the book gets finished. My. My workout and exercise goals actually shift in the same way. Last year, I had very specific goals that I wanted to achieve. This year, the goal was 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.
- [19:52]
Mike Brown
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. What is 160 workouts going to do? Well, hopefully that's giving me a body that moves the way I want it to, that allows me to go on adventures and, and do things that. That light me up or, like, 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 0 times y. Like, like at some point, that's not going to, that's not going to serve your. Your end goal.
- [20:25]
Nathan Barry
Typically 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.
- [20:35]
Mike Brown
Yeah, totally. Right. And then, you know, back to this, this supercar thing.
- [20:39]
Nathan Barry
Yeah.
- [20:39]
Mike Brown
Is eventually at some point you'll. You'll do the stuff block and then go, okay. Did that feel the way I think it's going to feel? If yes. Cool. I keep going on this vector or. Oh, like, that wasn't as cool as I thought it was going to be. Great. What's my next goal? How do I update my belief system?
- [20:54]
Nathan Barry
Yeah, that makes sense. Something that you talk about is dirty fuel versus clean fuel. And like, what is 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.
- [21:13]
Mike Brown
Well, something I saw you say recently is that entrepreneurship is a trauma response. And for the most part, I agree with that. Right. You know, we, how we think about money and how we relate to money typically is formed in, you know, Childhood, early adolescence, we're imprinted with these stories how our parents relate to money. Whether we're rich in a poor town or poor in a rich town, like we, we form all these beliefs about money that shape our worldview. So for me, I grew up watching my parents fight every single night of my life. And they only fought about one thing, money. And so, you know, as, 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 spouse about money, that I'll never worry about money. Right. And that was the thing that drove
- [22:05]
Nathan Barry
me, Exact same promise, had the same experience, made the same promise.
- [22:08]
Mike Brown
Yeah, exactly. And that was the thing that drove me to become successful. I worked hard and so school, 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. Okay, right. So when we, when we talk about personal finance, you hear about scarcity and abundance. Right. And if you just think more abundant thoughts and get rid of scarce thoughts, then everything's going to work out 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 freely, and that was not serving me. I would put my back against the wall in order to elicit, you know, this high performance, you know, create pressure for myself to earn more money. And it was this vicious loop that I couldn't break out of.
- [23:06]
Nathan Barry
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.
- [23:16]
Mike Brown
Yeah. So, you know, my, my company first started making a significant amount of, amount of money in 2013 and I started angel investing. And, and my thesis was I want to give other veterans the same. Yeah, unbelievable life that I have. Right. And so I was writing checks into veteran.
- [23:36]
Nathan Barry
As clear of a motive as possible.
- [23:38]
Mike Brown
Yeah, totally. Right. And, and, and it felt very altruistic at the time, but I was writing checks into these veteran LED companies. It turns out I'm the world's worst angel investor.
- [23:48]
Nathan Barry
Angel investing is a good way to get rid of money 25 grand at a time.
- [23:51]
Mike Brown
Yeah, exactly.
- [23:53]
Nathan Barry
Spoken from experience, getting rid of money 25 grand at a time.
- [23:57]
Mike Brown
Totally. Right. And, but Again, I was doing this in the name of service. Like. Like, I had in my mind really good reasons why while I was doing this. But, you know, I invested about two and a half million dollars over, you know, five or seven years of angel investing. Had I put that money in the S P, like, it would be worth, like, almost $10 million now. Newsflash is I will be very lucky if I make my money back 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. Right. For me, that is a much higher leverage activity than writing checks into.
- [24:49]
Nathan Barry
Right.
- [24:50]
Mike Brown
Companies that are never going to generate a return. Right. 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, you know, connect to that higher purpose of service.
- [25:02]
Nathan Barry
Hey, I hope you're enjoying this episode. I want to 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 going to sell out really soon. So you want to grab your ticket, go to kit.com/conference. So going back to the idea of dirty fuel versus clean fuel.
- [25:42]
Mike Brown
Yeah.
- [25:43]
Nathan Barry
So we're talking about the. The childhood trauma reaction to that and that dirty fuel. It's not. We're not saying dirty fuel in the way of, like, it foul was the engine and it failed.
- [25:55]
Mike Brown
Totally. It worked.
- [25:56]
Nathan Barry
It worked very, very well.
- [25:57]
Mike Brown
Really effectively.
- [25:59]
Nathan Barry
Yeah. That moment where you say, like, I'm going to become world class at making money. Yeah. 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 is the time in your life you saw something happen and said, that will never be me.
- [26:13]
Mike Brown
Yeah.
- [26:14]
Nathan Barry
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.
- [26:19]
Mike Brown
Yeah.
- [26:20]
Nathan Barry
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 going to stop working for you?
- [26:29]
Mike Brown
Yeah. And, and for me, the day I sold my company, I thought I would never be unhappy again.
- [26:37]
Nathan Barry
Okay, that's an interesting story.
- [26:39]
Mike Brown
You like, legitimately, I had done everything society would tell me would make me happy, right? I had the house and the cars, I had the money. You know, I had the time, freedom to do whatever I want. And really, like, I think society tells us this lie that money's going to solve all your problems. Money can solve money problems, right? But, but then it's still, at some point you wake up and you're still the same person, right? And for me, I was externalizing my internal worth, right? I was using my achievements as a measuring stick for my self worth, right? 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 I did the thing 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 got to be even bigger, right? And there was tremendous amount of pressure. So now I'm taking what I made. I'm swinging for the fences, I'm going all in, right? I'm literally, to use the popular Top Gun phrase, like I'm writing checks that my butt can't cash, right? I'm investing, you know, high risk, high reward mindset. The irony is that's exactly how I made my money in the first place. But you know, when it comes to wealth, so when you start a company, right, we start off as a startup founder. Burn the boats, wear all the hats, rob Peter to pay Paul. And then at some point as you scale, you need to switch your mindset to a scale up founder where now you're delegating, hiring people that are better than you 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 risks. So you need to shift your mindset to becoming a defender of wealth. And that's the shift that I failed to make. I was still acting like an accumulator when I should have been playing defense.
- [28:40]
Nathan Barry
Like I think about this reinvestment idea because if we go to the extremes, right? We take Elon Musk. He took his money from Zip2 and he poured all of the chips back into the table. And then, you know, went and did X.com and PayPal, right? And then one, and then he took it all and said, sweet, now let's put half into SpaceX and half into Tesla. And now it'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.
- [29:22]
Mike Brown
Yeah. I mean, I've got another story. When I sold my company, we. I bought a local commercial property with a couple of business partners, and we bought the property for two and a half million. We put about $750,000 into renovations, and three years later, we sold that property for six and a half million dollars.
- [29:47]
Nathan Barry
So great return.
- [29:48]
Mike Brown
Great return. Right. 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 hundreds of hours doing due diligence, you know, permitting from the city, managing the construction, finding and vetting, you know, firms, subcontractors to do the construction. Once we got tenants moved in, you know, we were, we were managing the property ourselves. And, 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 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.
- [30:35]
Nathan Barry
Well, let's dive in, let's say a little bit on the dirty fuel side for a second.
- [30:38]
Mike Brown
Yeah.
- [30:38]
Nathan Barry
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 works to get a return. But what are the other examples that you come across?
- [30:56]
Mike Brown
Yeah, basically anything that's coming from proving energy. Right. Or external validation. Right. Again, back to this idea of I'll finally be happy when. Right. My third grade teacher said I wasn't going to be I wasn't going to amount to anything. You know, I'll show her. I'll go build $100 million company. It turns out she doesn't care. Right.
- [31:16]
Nathan Barry
She doesn't even remember the fact she may have not even thought that you wouldn't amount to something.
- [31:22]
Mike Brown
Yeah, totally. And you know, we see that it's very pervasive in hustle culture is like, you know, if you don't have haters, then you're not doing anything of significance. Like that is a fairy tale. Right. The more successful I become, 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 or if not, they're just so worried about their own life that they can't be bothered to look up and, and see
- [31:48]
Nathan Barry
what I've been doing is thinking that people are thinking about you at all.
- [31:51]
Mike Brown
Yeah, exactly. Like, like no one cares about what you're doing. Right. Which may sound kind of lonely, but it's incredibly freeing. And the 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 girl? Like, like that was where I was deriving all of my value. And it turns out that is a never ending treadmill. Right, 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.
- [32:31]
Nathan Barry
I, I don't know if we're the same person or, but I did the exact same thing. And you know, my example of, of that is growing up in a family where money was very scarce.
- [32:46]
Mike Brown
Yeah.
- [32:47]
Nathan Barry
Watching my parents fight and ultimately divorce over money and just realizing the sheer amount of conflict that it causes. That's why when someone says money doesn't buy happiness, I'm like, well, one, you don't know how to spend it, 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 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 didn't realize the like razor's edge that I was. Walk, watch 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 this. And it all started with I got shingles where 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 accomplished. 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 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.
- [35:11]
Mike Brown
Yeah, it's, it's, it's really is a vicious cycle, right. You know, the, the negative selft talk intensifies. I mean, look, most entrepreneurs, 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, way to get things done. But the problem is it has built in fragility, right? And if you go back to, you know, the five freedoms that I talked about, right. What it sounds like happened to you and certainly happened to me is I failed to diversify. I failed to become multidimensional and build wealth in all of these other areas because I was all in on, on making money and achievement as, as the source of myself worth, right? Once you start to build multi dimensionally now you become antifragile, 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, 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.
- [36:35]
Nathan Barry
Okay, so that, that's the dirty fuel side of it.
- [36:38]
Mike Brown
Yeah.
- [36:39]
Nathan Barry
What do you mean by clean fuel?
- [36:41]
Mike Brown
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. Like, like what am I, what am I trying to prove here? Right. And it usually, unfortunately, pain is a great teacher, you know, usually comes from some sort of 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 want to 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.
- [37:36]
Nathan Barry
Yeah. Yeah.
- [37:36]
Mike Brown
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. I'll say. The day you become truly wealthy is the day you realize it's not about you. Right. So now I wake up and I, and I write and I speak and I do the things that I do because hopefully I can help other people that are on this same journey, you know, maybe a step or two behind and save them. Some of the pain that I went through. Like that, to me, is the best feeling there is. Like if I can find somebody who's struggling, who feels trapped by their business, right. 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 want to spend my time. 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, spiring flywheel, to borrow a term from a, from a guy
- [38:38]
Nathan Barry
that sure likes to talk about flywheels.
- [38:41]
Mike Brown
Yeah. You know, but. But now we're in this positive direction where wealth is a byproduct of service.
- [38:49]
Nathan Barry
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?
- [39:00]
Mike Brown
Yeah. So, you know, when we back up to first principles, wealth is a feeling, Right. So. So most people think they want more money, but 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's really hard 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 want to 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.
- [39:51]
Nathan Barry
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. And actually there's 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, stage, like, how rich are you? And he, like, stops, and he's like, okay, let me put this in terms of. You would understand. I have 100 money. And you're like, what? And it's. I love that line.
- [40:19]
Mike Brown
Cause he's.
- [40:20]
Nathan Barry
He's pointing to the absurdity of the question.
- [40:21]
Mike Brown
Yeah.
- [40:22]
Nathan Barry
Where he's 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's 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. Under that definition, I feel very, very rich because I spend my time doing exactly what I want to do and working on those things with the people that I want. And I think that's so important is to say, like, 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.
- [41:15]
Mike Brown
Yeah. I mean, so, you know, back to this idea that. That wealth is a feeling.
- [41:20]
Nathan Barry
Right.
- [41:20]
Mike Brown
Feelings, by their definition, can only be experienced in the present moment. 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. 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. Right. So. So that's the first thing to solve. And then, you know, as I help, you know, founders and entrepreneurs start to define this, first of all, we get really clear on the life you want to live. So I do an exercise called the Unbreakable year. 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 is, what does an ideal week look like? And map it out across a year. And then the next step is added up, like, how much does this cost? Right. And look, if you have seven vacation homes and a fleet of Lamborghinis, like, it's, you know, it's going to take a lot of money. But what typically happens when I run people through this exercise, 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 of enough money to live this life. Which means back to this Jimmy Carr definition, more money is actually not going to help me get closer to the things that I actually value. But maybe putting my phone away and spending more time with my kids. Right, right. Being present at dinner, making sure I go to the school plays. Right. Taking time for adventure and traveling. And I mean, 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.
- [42:55]
Nathan Barry
Yeah.
- [42:55]
Mike Brown
But it reaches diminishing marginal utility very quickly.
- [42:59]
Nathan Barry
Yeah, I was thinking about a 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. I have another lumber delivery that I'm hoping is coming in. I'm hoping it arrives 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 going to spend like I'm going to 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? You're like, okay. And so I've just decided, all right, we're doing it. And that even included things like spending 900 to rent an excavator for a week, teaching them 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 that he's like, great, this will work for the hobbit hole. I mean that to me is rich in every way because the money wasn't a factor. I have 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 the project when he's ready to go bounce and go play video games or something. And it's just been, it's been really, really fun. And that 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.
- [44:49]
Mike Brown
Yeah. I mean you're maximizing return on happiness, right? And, and you know, again, so often in the personal finance world, you know, we, we think of 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 principles is like, so like for what, what, what am I doing this for? Right? And, and you know, the doll dollar value can be completely arbitrary. Like, you know, I built my dream home in, in Colorado near Red Rocks. I poured two years of my life designing this house, right? It was an expensive house, 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 founders 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. It has brought me a ridiculously outsized amount of happiness. Right. So that was a really high ROI and RO activity. But Coco Chanel says, you know, the best things in life are either free or very, very expensive. Right. And so, you know, going down to the pond and fishing for an afternoon, 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.
- [46:30]
Nathan Barry
Yep. I love that. Yeah. As someone who loves airplanes, I'm glad that, you know, very expensive is on that list.
- [46:36]
Mike Brown
Right.
- [46:36]
Nathan Barry
Like, it, it brings me so much joy. I think that that's the thing probably in this conversation that I'm realizing is I feel very aligned in how I spend my time and money with what I want to 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, you'd be like, 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's very much a spectrum and it change. Changes over time and goes back and forth.
- [47:12]
Mike Brown
Yeah, it changes on the daily. Right. Like, you know, for example, you know, posting online, it would be amazing to say that I never check how many likes I get. 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 spent the last 10 years of my life healing this achievement wound and switching to a cleaner fuel, like, of course I still find myself waking up and, you know, chasing and being like, oh, I wish my audience was bigger and I was doing better and all that. Like, you can't escape that stuff. For me, it's how quick can I recognize that I'm in that loop, right? And then how can I close the gap and return to presence, 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 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 presence? 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.
- [48:32]
Nathan Barry
If I'm being totally honest, sometimes I worry that clean fuel, this desire to serve others, help them achieve their dreams, have this impact, might not have the same edge that the dirty fuel does of the like, I just want to win. I want to 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. I don't want anyone to get this idea, like, oh, Nathan is just like a Zen monk over here who has it dialed in. I end up in the stress place at times of like, okay, are we driving towards outcomes? Are we innovating level that we need to? Are we beating our competitors? Are we growing 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?
- [49:27]
Mike Brown
Yeah. So this is, this is a question 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,
- [49:43]
Nathan Barry
and they want the reassurance and you're
- [49:45]
Mike Brown
like, yeah, no, and, and the beauty is the edge that you build in its place is so much more powerful. Right. But necessarily, those outcome based goals may start to shift. They start to become less important. Like as we do healing work work, and as our ego's 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.
- [50:22]
Nathan Barry
Yep.
- [50:23]
Mike Brown
Right. You know, that comes. Greatness comes with a cost. Right. And so 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 going to feel a certain way, right? But if the path to greatness is littered with proverbial bodies along the way, right. If you've been stepping on others and you know, ignoring your family and sacrificing your health and all of these things that we sacrifice for greatness, the question is, was it worth it? And you know, I, I can't tell anybody whether that's worth it or not. But I've worked with enough people that have achieved the outcome. You know, I, I, I've worked with lots of, you know, multi nine or you know, billionaire clients who are fundamentally unhappy. They got everything they ever wanted and it didn't fill them up. So now what? Right, so, right, exactly. So, you know, yeah, by all means, if, if success is all, at all costs is what's driving you. And, and you want to 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? Right? And usually when pressed, you know, people are going to say, hey, it's not working as well as I thought it was, right. 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 is, right, 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' 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 to wake up to, right? But, but then framing what does success look like really becomes the operative question.
- [52:33]
Nathan Barry
You mentioned a few of these like, big name public figures, whether it's Elon who like runs on the strongest dirty fuel of anyone maybe we've ever seen in history, right? 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 tortured existence, right? You know, these other people who have, 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?
- [53:12]
Mike Brown
Yeah, I mean, I think that there's 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 and, and so I think you can heal along the way and the hope is that you've already know, achieved enough where now the goals continue to become inevitable, you can continue to grow. And, and like you said, everybody exists on a spectrum. Right. It's like the goal isn't to eliminate this darkness. Right. I really think it's, I don't want to say impossible, but, but I think it's, it's really difficult to completely get rid of these dirty fuel patterns. Right. The question is how do I recognize them and then interrupt those patterns and return to presence and joy in the moment?
- [54:10]
Nathan Barry
You know, that's something that I think is really important because 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 ask them 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 am aware of this and I'm still going to use it as fuel. And you're like, all right, sure. Just, just be aware of it.
- [54:38]
Mike Brown
Yeah. What's it costing you? Let's get really clear on the cost because, because everything sort of can be shifted in this cost benefit analysis. Right. Like if I look at. And first of all, it's also a false dichotomy, right, that, that you have to, you know, the only way to build something of meaning is, is from dirty fuel. Like, again, it's effective, but, but, you know, moving toward the light, like service is a, is a really great driver 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. So, you know, I don't think that they're mutually exclusive, but that I think
- [55:19]
Nathan Barry
of people like Sam Walton Talk has talked about this, of, of this idea of coming back to value to customers. You know, when, when in doubt of where to work in your business or what to do, it's 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.
- [55:55]
Mike Brown
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I have a dear friend who is a co founder of a payment processing company. And you know, 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, we really can achieve great things from this place of service. And so, you know, I think it really is getting clear on who you want to serve, right. How you're going to do it and then, and then going all in. And so, you know, and, 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 want to do in service of, of creating this outcome. Devotion is, I care so 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. Me.
- [57:13]
Nathan Barry
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 at all? What does that mean? How did you approach that personally? And then how do you coach clients on addressing that?
- [57:47]
Mike Brown
Yeah, so I think for every problem, there isn't a, a mechanical fix and an emotional fix. Okay, Right. So the mechanical fix is how do I build systems to make sure that never happens? And then the emotional thing is, even if I have those systems in place, that feeling might not go away. Okay, what, what's driving that, right? Was there, was there scarcity in my home growing up, right? 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, you know, trauma work, coaching, you know, therapy, that 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 that you can build wealth systems that ensure that it never goes away.
- [58:34]
Nathan Barry
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.
- [58:39]
Mike Brown
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, right? That's going to take that existential dread of not being able to pay the bills and, and, and you know, buy a little bit of that psychological safety. The next step is five to seven years of 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. Like that should buy a tremendous amount of psychological safety. And here's why 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? And so literally it did me no good to be a multimillionaire because, 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? So, so, you know, at that point you can start 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. And then the highest level of financial freedom is what I call escape velocity. And this is when you have 33 times your annual expenses in assets that generate enough income to pay for your lifestyle for the rest of your life without ever drying down the principal. Okay? So that's a pretty lofty goal. Like if you, so you know, if you spend 30k a month. That. That looks like about $12 million. Okay, right. So. So that is still a significant amount of money. But that's only if, number one, you don't want to draw down on the principle. Right. You want to 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 earned $10,000. Right. There's another rule called the Rule of 300. So for every 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. I want to go be a teacher, I want to make five grand a month, right. Like, I can reduce my productive reserve by 1.5 million. And so I need less if I'm going to continue earning in some way. If that makes sense.
- [61:20]
Nathan Barry
Yep, that does. Okay, so those are things due to touch on. On the, the logical side of your brain.
- [61:27]
Mike Brown
Yeah. Right.
- [61:28]
Nathan Barry
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.
- [61:38]
Mike Brown
Yeah.
- [61:39]
Nathan Barry
And then we really move into the emotional side and all of that.
- [61:43]
Mike Brown
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, you know, emotional piece that we're touching on. It almost always goes back to childhood, Right. Or other traumatic experiences. Maybe you experienced a bankruptcy in your early adulthood. Like, there, there are experiences that can influence this thing. And you know, number one, it starts with forgiveness. Right. You know, often I'll have people meditate on the worst money mistake that they ever made and go through a forgiveness exercise. 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's. It's always coming back to the present moment. Right. If. If I am feeling like if I objectively have my. My money basis 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's showing up and, and putting on the alarm bells when it's actually not matching up with reality. So where am I having this outsize reaction? And then how Do I interrupt that process and come back to presence?
- [63:09]
Nathan Barry
I like that. Okay, as we wrap up, I want to go one very practical and then maybe more theoretical, existential, all of that. 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 be like, oh, maybe I would follow that or do my own version of it.
- [63:40]
Mike Brown
Yeah, well, here's the beauty. I am constantly updating, right? I want to live life at the, the bleeding edges, right? Like, I don't just want to be a monk that goes and renounces worldly possessions and, and meditates in a cave for the rest of my life, right? Like I want to experience all of it. And so number one, again, my advice 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? There's, there are very few doors that 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, right?
- [64:21]
Nathan Barry
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.
- [64:26]
Mike Brown
Yeah. So, so, so for me it's, it's, you know, being experimental and then experiential and, and like I said earlier, material things can play into experiences, right? But like for me, my annual non negotiable is my heli skiing trip. It's, it's one of my favorite things I do that goes in the calendar first. You know, heli skiing is, is not cheap, but it is worth every penny. Worth every penny, right? But I, I also did a, a silent retreat this year. Silent meditation retreat and you know, again, serving on, on the board of the Wisdom Dojo, you know, serving the veteran community, so donating to, you know, charitable causes, both of those things. One is really selfish. I love heli skiing. That's, that's totally just serving me. Yeah. The other thing is in service to others, right? 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. I love McLarens 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 going to keep them 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, again, as long as you're taking care of future self, like not maxing out credit cards, 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.
- [66:12]
Nathan Barry
I like that there's some of these little things that I've seen people do over time. I'll give two examples. For me, it's easier to spend the money on the big flashy experience. So I love sailing and so, you know, to go do a trip like that or something and you know, 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 Ramit Sahiti, for example, will, 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 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 great use of not very much money.
- [67:08]
Mike Brown
Yeah.
- [67:08]
Nathan Barry
Or another example, I saw this when you and Dan and your spouses went to went on a sailing trip, which I've done that 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 that. And I was like, oh, that's what the sailing show was missing. But it would feel ridiculous to me. Before I like was working on changing this of like, oh, if you spend a thousand dollars or whatever it is to get a workout set at it, you know, and that makes the, you know, to get a set of weights added and that makes the experience that much better than like, totally do it. Yeah, 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 want to do that.
- [67:55]
Mike Brown
Yeah. So I got. I got two in this category. One is a house manager. I think 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 as an investment. So, you know, I've had a house manager since 2016, but, you know, and. And we outsource everything from paying bills to laundry to grocery shopping to chefing, you know, and our house manager job description, which we can put a link in the show notes, which, you know, is, I want to spend more present time with my kids. 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 think a house manager is the best use. And I've probably helped over 100 people hire house managers at this point. The other thing to your point about the hotel room, I had a friend recently said, man, if I was a billionaire, I would wear a new pair of socks every day. Right? And I was like, well, how much do your socks cost? And he said, it's like $8 for four pairs. Said, cool, so, you know, to get
- [69:09]
Nathan Barry
$700 a year or something.
- [69:11]
Mike Brown
$700 a year, you could wear new socks every single day of your life. And he's like, oh, but, you know, that would feel really wasteful. And I was like, well, what if you took the used socks and donated them the homeless shelter? Right? Like, now this guy's living like a billionaire. His version of how a billionaire 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 outsized amount of joy.
- [69:38]
Nathan Barry
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 them.
- [69:59]
Mike Brown
The nebulous day.
- [70:00]
Nathan Barry
Yeah. And. And realizing that, you know, you'd gone through all of that and were miserable, losing tons of money and all of that. And so in exiting that scenario, losing money, closing that chapter, you got to peace. And so 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 just speak to what it meant to go from that drowning feeling into peace.
- [70:32]
Mike Brown
Yeah. I mean the way I think about it is you can always get more money, but you can't ever get more time. Right. Time is our only non or noble resource. And for me being on this never ending cycle of more, I mean it, it truly cost me everything. I mean it was, this was an experience that, that brought me, you know, to my knees. Like I said, I mean I remember a day when I woke up and I was like, I can't get out of bed today.
- [71:02]
Nathan Barry
Yeah.
- [71:02]
Mike Brown
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, credit to my wife, like a really good wife would have 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. Right. Like having someone that has my back at all costs. And so, you know, now I look back at that period of my life, it's truly some of the greatest gifts. Like I, I lost the arrogance of someone who never lost before. Right. I let go of the pieces of my identity that were no longer serving me. I, I let go of externalizing my self worth. So I lost money, but I also lost lot of parts of my, 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. I love that.
- [72:22]
Nathan Barry
That's beautiful. All right, where should people go to buy the book, follow your work and check out everything that you're doing well,
- [72:29]
Mike Brown
Definitely sign up for my newsletters hosted on an amazing platform called ket@berichnow.com. sign up for the newsletter and, and buy the book there. Follow me on X or Instagram. I'm sure we can put those Mbrown Co on Instagram. Mbrown Underscore co. I maybe need to buy that handle with the new program. And yeah, I'm active on both of those and I really do pour my heart and soul into writing the newsletter. It's one of my favorite things I do every week.
- [73:01]
Nathan Barry
Yep, and the passion comes through, so people should definitely subscribe. Berichnow.com and thanks so much for coming on.
- [73:06]
Mike Brown
Thanks Nathan.
- [73:07]
Nathan Barry
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.