Hey hey, and the third “hey” for good measure! Screw it, let’s even give it a hey hey hey hey!! If you were counting that was 7 hey’s all together, except now I’ve said it again and that brings the total up to 8. Haha. Now that you’ve endured that intro, it’s about time we do a business (oh sweet mother of England please let me provide for my family) check in. We’re also gunna have a real heart to heart about the language of money.
If you’re new to I Will Thrive, then I welcome your face. You’re kinda cute from what I can see. Or if you’re like my 9 year old son and you get unbelievably pissed off when people call you cute, then you look very rugged and manly… from what I can see. I got the boot from my job due to the pandemic on April 1st, 2020. No joke. I committed to never return to corporate life again. Instead I’ll build my own businesses and work on my passions in the film and music world.
Part of the I Will Thrive project is documenting the learnings on this new crazy path. Some of what I’ve learned is seriously stupid. Specifically, I can’t believe how much I didn’t know about money before this year. I was straight up stupid illiterate with money. What’s silly is the the Wes of last year would have told you he thought he knew plenty. He was an idiot.
Oh The Things I Don’t Know
Get this, I’m in my late 30’s and I never knew about passive income until this year. Yeah. Obviously having worked in ecommerce, I knew creating online stuff can generate income while you sleep, but I had never actually heard or processed the term “passive income” until recently. It feels like a big secret that everyone else has been trying to keep from me, and I just interrogated the right guy and got the all coveted intel.
Also, I never knew about investing in stocks with the “drip” method, or reinvesting the dividend income of stocks. And how if that kind of investing is done right, it can compound and create financial certainty overtime. There are organizations that have had predictable high income dividend returns for decades, even in the craziest downturns. That is a tiny bit of what I’ve learned this year.
I can see why children raised in wealthy families would be more likely to be wealthy adults themselves someday, even if their family cut them off financially. There is a language to money. If you’re raised with the language of money, it is far easier to communicate. Just like any freaking language.
Learning Any Language With One Proven Method
I had to learn Spanish at the age of 20 as I was embarking on service trip to Mexico. I spent every day for two grueling months trying to learn the language. As I boarded the plane, I felt confident. It lasted for 10 minutes, until the announcements on the plane were given in English, followed by Spanish. I had heard the English version, and I still had no idea what the Spanish lady was saying.
I didn’t even realize it was Spanish until the lady finished talking! I remember looking around the plane like I had been punked. Hahah. I then, loudly said “oh crap.” The next three months in Mexico were rough. I understood very little of what was going on around me. One day, I was asked to hold a little baby of a family I had grown to love. It took some careful listening, but I deduced that the little guy had been sick. I had agreed to hold the cute little “bebe,” but I didn’t know that I had agreed to say a prayer. They family had asked if I could pray for the baby as I held him. Oh man.
I tried to communicate to them that they shouldn’t want me to pray for their child. I could accidentally ask Zeus to turn the baby into a Horse Monkey, my Spanish was that bad. They insisted, and kept on insisting. I said ok, and said a prayer for the baby. Something incredible happened in that tender moment.
It’s like I could literally feel a gear shifting in my brain. I could suddenly say almost everything I wanted to say in this new language. All those months of work and pure immersion in the language all added up to this singular moment. From that day I was able to communicate well. I even got to the point that I tricked a family into thinking I was from Chihuahua, an area where white native Mexicans live and Spanish is their first language. That family was later pissed off at me as if I had called them cute or something. I guess it was the lie of really being an American.
Now, before we make any assumptions and think maybe we should all start walk around holding cute little Mexican babies, because maybe that will magically help us in all of the illiterate areas of our lives, I don’t think it was the baby that did the trick. I think stinking Tony Robbins has it right again, dangit! When will he be wrong about something? Let’s talk about that another time, because I actually do think he gets one thing wrong. Haha. Anyway, the point is: Immersion. It was the months on end of only hearing the Spanish language that pushed me into speaking it well.
That’s Nice, But Does It Apply To The Language Of Money?
Yes! Yes, Mr. Question Above This Paragraph In the Form Of A Section Heading – The same goes for the language of money! Thus, if you’re born into an affluent family, you’re automatically immersed into a different world and a different mindset. Just the mindset of money working for you instead of you working for money is a game changer. It’s something that families like mine growing up completely don’t understand, it’s a completely different language.
Money just plain sucked growing up. My mom spent her entire adult life dealing with physical illness, which has been out of her control. She graduated High School, and that was the end of wellness for her. I have the utmost gratitude and respect for that crazy red head, what she has had to endure, and everything she’s done for me. She’s managed to push through a great deal in her life, and she always manages to smile and laugh about it in the end. Hey mom, you’re awesome.
It was just my mom and I growing up, and we lived on the minuscule amount provided to her from the social security disability program. We’re talking about $600 a month, which in Utah doesn’t even cover basic expenses. We actually didn’t live on that, it’s just not enough. The only way we made it and had a place to stay was the kindness of those around us, and a local church.
From a psychological stand point, it’s hard to not let situations like that weight down on you. Even with her amazing fortitude, my mom would have occasional times of feeling like a failure, even though the sickness was out of her control. It’s hard to change your mindset about anything when you don’t feel well. You’ve probably heard the adage, “A healthy person has 1,000 wishes but a sick person has only 1 wish.”
Even still, my mom’s mindset around money could have been different. She had the mindset of money passed down to her from her family, and it was one of uncertainty. My grandpa had been duped and tricked out of money multiple times, and he was fired right before he could collect the retirement that he had earned. This was before there were laws to protect against such disgusting behavior.
Now, did you catch what I said about money when I was growing up? I’m gunna quote myself, cause that seems ridiculous. I said “Money just plain sucked.” That sentence is one major problem of the poverty mindset. You see, if your mindset is money sucks, it will do just that. It will always suck. It will suck so bad that sucking will suck the suckiness right out of your sucky pocket. What?
In other words, we truly have the power to create the world around us. It’s a real thing friends! You want a different life with money? Then you better surround yourself with people that know that language. You better change the messaging in your mind from “money sucks” to “moneys no big deal.”
I had the message of “money sucks” as my default message about finances in my brain my entire life until this year. It took some work to change the crappy wiring, but once I really believed the new message, I can’t even explain how quickly things started changing around me. It’s kinda unbelievable.
I do a number of daily exercises to keep my mind where it needs to be. One of the things I do is turn on a playlist of pump-up music I’ve complied on Spotify, and I write down a number of statements with my new beliefs. Among them is the phrase “Money comes easy.” Another sentence says the following:
I have full control and security. I never go backwards. My kids have options. I KNOW WHERE I WANT TO GO AND NOTHING IS GOING TO STOP ME. I will not tolerate limitations. I Will Thrive!
I’m typically on my tread desk walking during the entire ritual, well I’m usually walking on my tread desk when I’m working, period. It’s a great way to ensure some exercise and keep up the energy. Anyway, I then read everything I just wrote out loud and I walk to the beat, dance a bit, look like a psycho, flex my arms up a bit, and have some fun.
It sounds ludicrous, but man I’m telling you, I went from a mindset of concerned hopeful uncertainty to a stoked I Will Thrive-ity. In a past post I talked about the possibility of losing my house and I mentioned how I had never been so certain in my life with my new chosen path. The only thing that was really missing was making money. Well, haha, I’m starting to make money. I’m making money from my projects, not the projects mandated from someone else. It feels incredible.
So, here I go, I’m required by myself to to plug the whole mindset thing again! You change your mind, you change your life. Learning the language of money has to start with the right mindset. We all have some faulty wiring to overcome, and it’s possible to change and move into a better life!
Also, for those of you out there that think I’m completely crazy doing what I’m doing, you’re right. But also, the I Will Thrive mindset is working in ways I can’t even explain. I’ve completely immersed myself in a thrive mentality, and I’ve spent a lot of time trying to learn the new language of money. Via a couple of investments, and a Youtube project, I have more money in my bank account than I’ve ever had in my entire life! I’d be honored for anyone to join me on the journey, grab the I Will Thrive t-shirt, and swap stories!
YouTube Is Hard, But Worth It
Unless you’re insanely lucky, Youtube is one of those things you just have to keep hammering away at until something sticks. It took me ten years of putting up content to finally create something that has resonated with people. YouTube is a glorious passive income machine once you start having videos that are being seen. Once that channel was monetized, I had friends saying even with millions of views you don’t make a lot of money. One of them even said they’ve read that it’s only a buck per thousand views. Meaning 1 million views would only make you $1,000
I need Donald Trump to jump out right now and scream FAKE NEWS! There may be some YouTubers out there making so little, but most do much better than $1 per 1000 views. The way YouTube figures it out is a little technical, but what you make really depends on the kind of people watching your content and then the complexity of Google Ads bidding system. Inside of a YouTube account there’s a RPM score, which stands for Revenue Per Mille, which gives you the dollar amount you make per thousand views.
For sure the RPM started at just a couple bucks, but over time as YouTube analyzed the growth, and could predict the kind of people watching my videos, the RPM steadily went up. At its highest it reached $15. It has gone up and down quite a bit, but again, there are funds rolling in everyday, and I think YouTube has to be up there among the coolest passive income mommies.
As long as it doesn’t slow down in an extreme amount, the YouTube revenue alone could be enough to save us from losing our house. It’s far from enough to pay all of our expenses, but with some growth it could end up completely replacing what I was making before and surpass it.
But, I still have my next big business coming down the pipeline. Still in the very early phases of this one, but I’m excited and it’s going to rock the casbah.
As side notes, if you were curious, the cute little Mexican baby got over the illness. And, my mom is still rad, but her financial situation hasn’t changed too much. Disability does not keep up well with inflation, so really she’s probably in worse shape than she was when I was a kid. This is another reason why I’m motivated to learn the language of money. I would for once love for her to have some of the things she’s dreamt of her entire life. Like having a real house of her own. She’s a miracle to be alive today, keep fighting momma. I need a little more time here!
I’m a long ways off from getting a hair cut from making a million, but this is a killer start. Be sure to check out the financial tracker section of I Will Thrive for more thoughts on finances. Money for the sake of money does in fact suck. There has to be more to it than that. So, yes I’m crazy, but right now things are so incredibly amazing. Stick around for more lessons as I learn the language of money. I’m humbled and grateful for the blessings, and nutzo crazy excited about the future.
VIDEO version of this episode HERE
PODCAST version of this episode HERE
