Life is funny, about the time you achieve something you realize that there is something else to go after.

“Obviously I’m a few years older than you but the writing is absolutely on the wall, I was at work last night and had a critical care where I was having to intubate and put central lines in anyhow my aunt was actively having a stroke at the same time and my cousins were asking for guidance on what to do and how far to push the limits, I made the right decision cutting back no question, family first” – Hui Member

When I was going after that magic number “10” single family homes I was all consumed by the chase. Then when I got there the next goal was 1,000 units. Got there and it was the same result. Taking a step back I realized that happiness was not about getting to a magic number or properties or money (although it is a great way to keep score).

I wanted to get back home to Hawaii after 14 years of living in Seattle. Done! (And you can see why by visiting)

For a long time, I have written down my “I would be happy when…” or IWBHW’s and they always change and I am always chasing the next thing. Not until recently did I realize that it was not about the chase to the next goal but embracing and enjoying or the Journey… Follow along on mine.

We all have heard about the Gallup article that said that once someone has $75,000 of income a year their happiness does not grow by leaps and bounds. I’m not here to debunk it but to ask why and more importantly how can I apply it? [I personally thing 75/k a year does not cut it in Hawaii/California/Seattle – most of us are shooting to that magic critical mass number of 4.5M net worth because at that point you can pass the trust off to clueless offspring and it can still grow]

After quitting my job in 2019, and transitioning to a life of working on what I want to instead of working for someone else (obligation) I discovered that everyone will always work. If you think retirement is just golfing… well that’s fine but many people SPC investors find that their life energy is better served to go into something bigger. But it does not have to be a structured 40-80 hour work week. As little as 8 hours a week is all this study says we need to achieve autonomy. However I find I still work 10 hours everyday on building the SPC community and adding more content.

I have built up a large network of other investors who have enough “simple passive cashflow” and the common thought pattern switches from making money to getting back time and living a more fulfilled life.

Unfortunately, happiness is not as easy as in a video game

These days I ponder… how I can hack happiness? After all, more money won’t make that much difference. (Although I would like a Mercedes Tesla Convertible Porshe/Corvette since its safer than my electric bike.

I tried using Maslow’s hierarchy as a framework to dissect happiness but I have found it to be a little too bit “basic” as it applies more to those in third world countries and people with real problems in life. I don’t want to sound basic I mostly have “first world problems” which I am very grateful for.

In 2016, I went down to Texas to attend a Tony Robbins seminar and discovered my current framework to backward engineer happiness.

Mr. Robbins outlines six human needs:

1)         Growth

2)         Contribution

3)         Significance

4)         Uncertainty

5)         Certainty

6)         Love and Connection

The lowest on the spectrum of human needs is to be Loved/Connection. I talk to so many people in my free investor calls and it is very apparent who are givers and who are takers. Why do people act so selfishly and so seriously? Perhaps it takes an old soul to realize it but in the end relationship that we build on the journey are what really matter and what we will cherish. (per Ray Dalio)

Action item: How can I get more Love/Connection? Schedule it? Attract more people of that nature? Create a podcast and network of other like-minded investors.

This $6.2M home in Hawaii looks pretty lame when you focus on the fact that is not filled with people and without meaningful relationships.

Certainty and Uncertainty are complete opposites. Certainty is having a reliable and safe life but at some point, we thirst for spontaneity.

Action item: How can I get more Certainty/Uncertainty? How do I build a routine? How do I put myself in places to get lucky? How do I free myself to go on more controlled impulses?

Significance is about feeling special.

Action item: What do I do that is my competitive advantage? Where can I get praise?

Contribution is about aligning your life’s work for the benefit of others. A mission. Apparently, Mr. Robbins did not endorse the mission of sitting on a beach with an unlimited supply of piña coladas and taking food porn pictures while gallivanting the world as a tourist. Nor did he support playing it safe with a bunch of passive investments.

Action item: What has been your biggest pain point growing up and maybe you can help others? What pisses you off most in this world? Realize that you might have to take a bit of monetary risk here to make a bigger impact.

Why do you think I accept non-accredited investors into my projects? Not because I love being super careful to follow SEC regulations. Certainly not because I have to expend so much energy to educate non-accredited investor and they invest all their money in just a couple deals. I do it because the middle-class non-accredited investors who go to work every day need these types of investments the most and damn it, I’m going to do that because it’s the right thing to do.

And the final need is Growth. Improving as a person.

Action item: Think about the different aspects of you life (physical, relationships, money, spiritual, to name a few), which ones need work? Many call this the wheel. I call it a stool (four pillars: health, relationships, spiritual, money/business) because I try to make things simple.

Tony Robbins six needs is a great starting point to see how we can increase our happiness. If you really think about these are the things that really make us happy. Lets us put focus on what makes us happy because in the end, that is what really matters. And the score of the game 😉

In another study, researchers asked 10,000 people to list 10 happy moments. This generated a corpus of 100,000 happy moments called HappyDB.

Here are the patterns that came up.

Here is where the team/comradary componet came into play…

Complete study write up.

Too often passive cashflow is associated with scammy multi-level marketing ploys to get people who don’t have the money in the first place to buy into expensive education systems. If the goal was to just make money and not to create value there are many things you could do such as sell drugs or sell a testicle.

“Hey man… let me tell you about passive cashflow and how you can get rich with little to no effort… do you feel that… its called entropy man!” (In a sleazy tone)

As mentioned before SPC-1.0 is getting into the rental property game and getting your mindset out of the Dave Ramsey/Millionaire Next Door lizard brain where you are just focused on putting food on the table and making ends meet. As you build up your cashflow you move from more scarcity mindset to abundance mindset.

“It is unlikely for someone to transform from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset (without a life altering experience ie. life-death experience, LSD, tribal drugs, or passing of loved one) without reaching or getting on the path to financial freedom. On my journey to financial freedom, I was cheap with my money and time. Somewhere along the way my outlooked changed but it is a process… you cannot just meditate or recite mantras to and obtain an abundant mindset. Perhaps scarcity mindset is the fire under your ass to do something.  And beware of “Cheap Easy Free people” (CEF) along the journey because it typically a sign for a scarce mindset. CEFs are usually 1) not very much fun, 2) have lame relationships and friends, 3) looking out for themself first.”

SPC-2.0 is turning into more of a passive investors as I have traded my single family home rentals to more scalable limit partnership positions in syndications, and now after I have cashflow (food on the table) I can take some risks and go after SPC-3.0 which is Simple Passion Income.

Being a working W2 professional I have a soft spot for those in my position… It makes no sense for a computer engineer who has a family and working 50 hours a week at a $200K W2 job to do what is required to become an operational lead on an apartment deal. Doing such would require 12-18 months of relentless work without monetary gain and little success to build relationships with brokers, travel to the markets.. and put up hard money to close the deal.. I have tried to make a team atmosphere where talented professionals can dip their toes in to “scratch their entrepreneur itch” yet keep their regular salaries.

“Entrepreneurship is all about you! A job is more about sucking up and politics.”

All too often the entrepreneurs out there reaching success are not those who possess the skillsets but they just went after it and got lucky. Don’t get me wrong they deserve it because of all the sacrifices but imagine if you combined that grit with talent?

Ikigai is the alignment of doing something that is 1) you passion, 2) makes money, 3) you are good at and 4) good for the world. When you get this it is like arranging the Infinity Stones on the gauntlet and a higher level of achievement and happiness.

What is SPC-4.0? Maybe mentoring the next generation but at that point, we are playing with house money!

SPC followers are typically younger than 30 or older than 35. My observation is that when people have kids, that takes all precedence.

“What do I love to do and get paid to do it” Russell Grey or the Real Estate Guys Radio show.

The pursuit of an entrepreneur dream is not for everyone.

It requires an investment in time and money. And whenever you make an investment, you take on risk. In this case its taking time and energy away from a day job that already makes a lot of money.

In order to get enough critical mass behind an idea to turn into a thriving business, you must devote time, often many years. There are no guarantees that your efforts will be rewarded a lot of time luck is required. This Time Risk is that all of your time will be for nothing.

The saying “good is the enemy of great” comes to mind here. For many high paid working professional, you make enough money to be happy but part of what we are going for is not the extra wealth but “passion income.” Feeding that entrepreneur itch or as Buck Joffrey says that primal to our core instincts.

Below are some money ideas that I have come to adopt. If there are any that do not make sense to you please feel free to reach out.

1) Money is not everything… but it sure makes life easier

2) Define the Rules of the Game

On my calls with people, I often talk about defining the monthly cashflow goal (5k-20k for most) where they will create the lifestyle that they want. Only fools work past that point. The exception is unless they find that the act of creating value as sport and fun.

3) Time is interchangeable with Money. You can trade your time for money all day. But you cannot buy time! But you can buy freedom!

4) Experiences are the currency of Happiness, Social capital trumps monetary capital

5) Unproportionate wealth comes to those who create value. Trading things buy low sell high is a gimmick.

Ben-Shahar shares four archetypes in his book called Happier outlines how we fall into these four “the happiness archetypes”:

1. Rat Racer – enjoy the idea of a future destination, but neglect the present
2. Hedonist – enjoy the journey (right now), but neglect the future
3. Nihilist – enjoy reliving the past, but neglect the present & future (because it’s hopeless)
4. Happiness – enjoy the experience of climbing toward the peak

The happiness archetype is the ideal.

Except from the 12+ Time Best Selling Book:

The One Thing That Changed Everything: The Engineer Who Escaped the Rat Race and Achieved Escape Velocity

I walked the linear path for much of my life. Raised as part of the disappearing “middle-class” programmed me to study hard in school, checking the boxes on extracurricular activities, cramming for the SATs, and getting a high GPA to get into college, all to live a “practical” life.

Growing up, we were told to “waste nothing” and turn off the lights every time you leave a room. I still feel guilty to order a soft drink at a restaurant as opposed to tap water.

In college, while other cohorts were playing Frisbee in the quad, I was stuck in the basement of the industrial engineering lab. Why was I not playing the sun? Because Google told me what the highest paid undergraduate professions were. Driving on autopilot for much of my early twenties, I went for a higher-level master’s degree and tested to become professionally licensed as an engineer for the job security.

Upon entering corporate America, I spent my first five years of my career working for a for-profit, private company as a construction supervisor managing a bunch of entitled journeymen who were older than my parents. Facing the rigors of junior level employment, I played my role as the young guy, traveling 100% of the time for my company, sacrificing quality of life, as I navigated the operational clusters, toxic management, and other backstabbing pawns in the company.

I have a lot of scar tissue from that decade of working for the man not to mention building someone else’s dream. You tell me how engaged you would be if meeting protocol was to sit next to your superior and not speak unless directly instructed to or if you were asked to address a director two levels up by mister or misses!

One day an internal company email went out notifying of a friend/ex-direct report had died in a work accident. My boss was uncompassionate about the situation, looking out for the big bad machine first (mostly his annual bonus and agenda). This really put things into perspective for me.

As a corporate road warrior, it was novel being on company expenses all the time and maxing out on airline and hotel points, but you can only have steak and lobster so many times… The only people who cared about my platinum status were the other suckers in first class who were working for the paycheck or an acceptable quarterly review. Although I am grateful that I had a well-paying job post-2008 recession, I traded the most important resource, time, for money.

The linear path instilled delayed gratification, living below my means, and an overall scarcity mentality of saving money instead of earning more, being more. I was entranced by the pervasive Wall Street marketing to blindly put money into a company sponsored 401K plan only to “hope and pray” that compound interest would carry me to a secure retirement.

Let’s not even talk about the student loans I had…

I knew where this path was going…I mean I did the math and it told me so. This is my story of how I freed myself financially, how I took ownership of my life’s direction, and the series of events that allowed me to find my calling.