Andrew: All right, Doug, uh, just want to say thanks for Let me know when you’re in Helena, Montana. It’s good to have you in our community here. And maybe if you want to start with a brief introduction of who you are or why you’re in Helena for the weekend.
Doug: Yeah, definitely.
Well, I’m pumped to be here and thanks for bringing me into your studio. It’s an impressive space and like super professional and like good lighting and This is cool. You’ve done a good job. And, yeah, I’m up here because I’m doing like a beer judging event. So, I lived in Bozeman, Montana for a few years and I’ve been a beer judge for something like 15 years or so.
And I made a bunch of friends in Bozeman. I know a lot of people in the brewing industry around here. And it’s the Montana Beer Awards. And there’s going to be a big thing at Lewis Clark later on tonight. So I’m excited to head over there. But, yeah, I’ve been judging beer since Wednesday afternoon. The whole last several days have been a blur.
Because essentially we like We start judging beer at 8. 30 in the morning. And while we don’t drink a large amount you are drinking alcohol for several hours during the day. And it’s very intense. It’s actually a pretty, like, mentally taxing thing to do. And you’re drinking alcohol. And the thing is, like, these are commercial beers.
So, like, people have put in a lot of effort and time to brew these and enter them. So we try to do It’s good of a job like judging these beers as we can and it’s been a blast, you know It’s a cool sort of like counter culture. You you join me for a few minutes at copper furrow brewery around here and You look like a brewer Andrew.
So people were like, oh, where do you work? Look, what do you what are you doing? And it was kind of interesting because like in the FI community, for example we have like shorthand and lingo and jargon that like we can jump into and And people were, you know, just talking brewing stuff, and you were like, What, what words are those?
Like, what is that? And it’s like a hot variety or some other thing. But it’s, it’s interesting when you get deep into like a counterculture, and, or a subculture rather. And yeah, you have your own lingo and stuff like that. So that’s why I’m around here. And I was like, Hey, we should hang out and here we are.
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Doug. That’s great. So, and I know you’ve been a member of, and, and, uh, a leader in the fire community here for many years. So, so thanks for all your work there. And, uh, yeah, I just want to have a conversation about that. So, just got a couple questions and some of these are applicable to me.
Some of these are more hypothetical to somebody that could be in a. Similar scenario as mine. They’re not all directly applicable to me, but so you, so you have quit your corporate career years ago and have now been self employed, FI, FIRE, entrepreneur for many years now. So I think you’re very knowledgeable in this space, but to help somebody through that transition per se.
So how do you, and this may be a naive question, but how do you ease off the gas? When you’re approaching close to five, how do you step into entrepreneurship? I think hypothetically, it’s ideal to have a side hustle that generates just as much income as your day job before you quit. But there’s a reason somebody pays you maybe a hundred thousand dollars a year for your job, which takes 40 hours a week.
So. Some people can work four hours a week and earn a hundred grand a year. Myself is not in that club per se. So I, you know, how do you, how do you step into that? Or how do you get barista fy or passion fy? I don’t know if you have any words of wisdom for the next generation.
Doug: Well, you mentioned one thing me being like a leader in the FI space, and I wouldn’t even call myself that, I’m an enthusiast I appreciate you saying that, but yeah, like the more you get into like a certain space, like the more I think, I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Although, I mean, when I look back, I see I’ve accomplished some things, but then when I think about it more, I’m like, I don’t know what I’m doing, I feel like I’ve gotten lucky in a lot of ways. So there’s imposter syndrome, I think is basically what that is. But, you know, you talk about kind of doing things in parallel, and I think that is great.
The more I talk to people that maybe they like, they gave 100 percent effort, like, like really hard effort to retire as soon as possible. My good friend Carl Jensen, one of them, and you know, his blog is called 1500 Days, right? Like, he was trying. So it’s a good thing to retire as soon as possible. I hear from people basically saying like, yeah, it should have slowed down.
And I think there’s a lot more acknowledgement that, you know, doing, doing it slower is potentially better. And one way to do that is to ease off sort of your professional effort. Potentially corporate job and then put some more effort into your side hustles. And this is essentially what I did So for two years from 2013 to 2015 I was doing side hustle stuff at the same time as my corporate job Turns out like I was actually performing really well my corporate job as well.
And what I was doing is I was waking up early. I was waking up at like 4 and Basically, I’m much sharper at four in the morning than like three in the afternoon. So I would get the best work done for myself and then my employer would get the leftovers. So that’s the way I did it. And you know, you know, you’re easing off the gas at your corporate career and if you’re a high achiever, like you’re used to having those high ratings and all that stuff.
Look, I didn’t have that problem, by the way, but basically I was in the middle of the pack, you know, I wasn’t in the fireable area, but it wasn’t that great, but you seem like you’re pretty smart.
Andrew: Yeah, I mean, I did fairly well in school and I’m definitely a high achiever in ways and try to excel at my career and I could similarly resonate.
I am not. Creative and hardworking at 8:00 PM or 4:00 PM after sitting on teams calls for often eight hours straight. So I think a, an actual tactical method would be for me to start working at four or five, 6:00 AM and just show up till late, show up to work later, which is an option in consulting.
Doug: So, yeah. And, and one thing, I mean, looking back now, I, I was a, I was a younger man then, so I could like handle a little less sleep and. really over caffeinating myself. I mean, I leaned really hard on that and looking back, maybe it would have been better to just like wake up early, but like sleep a little bit more and just like do even less at the day job.
Right now, one of my big priorities is sleeping more and it, it is, I feel so much better. Everything in my whole life feels less stressful when I’m sleeping better. So I did wake up early and I felt stressed out. I got a lot done, blah, blah, blah, but looking back, I’m like, maybe I should have just like got a little more sleep and I would have been a little happier.
Everything worked out. I’m happy where I’m at now, but like sleep is really important.
Andrew: Yeah. And right now I, I probably sleep eight to nine hours every day. That’s great. Yeah. That’s really good. Yeah. No, I hear that. And there was a time more for my day job that I used to get up at 4 30 every morning for, Five years straight.
I think I was only half awake for five years straight. Like not exaggerating. Yeah.
Doug: Yeah. Everything’s a blur. And I’m like, what was I even doing? Why did I do that?
Andrew: Yeah. Um, and I, I’m not sure that you have done this, but potentially you and potentially some people you’ve known when you’re getting close to that, How, how do you, or how have others prioritized staying rich versus getting more rich?
And so if somebody’s, if the market’s at an all time high and the P. E. ratio is relatively high, I’m not trying to predict timing the market, but, but at some point you’re 100. 0 percent FI and you don’t want to be 70 percent FI. So, when do you transition over to, to staying rich? And maybe that’s an adjustment of your asset allocation.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen a, a lot of people doing that, but that’s just kind of one thing I see going on right now and, and hypothetically a question in my own mind too.
Doug: Yeah, you know, I, I’m probably not the best person to ask this, but I’d, I’d love to, for us to go back and forth and talk through it.
So So, I, I’m definitely more on the optimistic side and because I have an entrepreneurship background now, I have a big enough ego. Can I cuss? Yeah, go for it. So, I’ll do, I’ll do it later, but I’ll put that in the bank. But basically because I have a big enough ego now, I’m like, Oh, if I really needed to earn money, like I could probably figure out how to do it on my own.
Could get a job. I mean, the thing is like if you’re, if you’re at basically, you know, an air quotes, a five point, however you want to define it, if you’re that close, you probably don’t need that much more like, um, buffer. You could just like get a job for a short period of time and like bridge the gap, or maybe don’t take as crazy of a vacation or something like that.
And like, you would be okay. So essentially, I think for a lot of people. if you’re on the bubble area where if you’re at an all time high, which in the last few years is all the fucking time, right? Like you’re constantly at an all time high, right? Yeah.
Andrew: I mean, other than COVID it’s been like continuous for five years,
Doug: which I’m like 10 years older than you.
So like, I remember times when it wasn’t like that and you had like, I mean, the last 10 to 15 years has been like pretty amazing. But overall, if you’re on the bubble at the high point where usually, at a high point most of the time or the market’s going up. So if it goes down, which is going to happen, it’s going to go down like 20 to 30 percent like every three years or something like that.
Like that’s just what happens. And then you just sit through it and you’re like, yeah, this is what I expect. So for me, I don’t pay attention. And I think like, for me personally, I don’t want to pay attention and I’d rather like. Save more and accumulate more for longer to have that peace of mind. And whatever, every 10 or 15 years, it’s going to drop like 50 percent or something.
And we expect, we don’t know when it’s going to happen, but it is going to happen. And it’ll be probably shitty. And it’s probably going to come back to where it was and be all the time highs again. Cause you’ll have potentially two or three years of, you know, 15 to 25 percent growth. And that’ll, you know, get you back where you need to be.
So what do you think of that?
Andrew: Yeah, I’ve nerded out and read a couple dozen books on investing. So I thoroughly understand and believe what you’re saying. And I personally believe that as well, but it’s also, there’s some you know, I’m egotistical enough to, to objectify why the market is high is on the above 50 percent median of high PE ratios today and how it probably won’t stay there forever.
And I don’t think you’re arguing that it will stay there forever. I think you’re arguing it won’t stay there forever. And it will still be fine without, with that happening. Um, and, and so I hear what you’re saying. It’s just kind of, there’s this old investing saying that I back in college when I started investing smart heat no longer in business, I lost like four grand on them in college, junior gold mining stocks, I thought all gold mining stocks may be rich.
But like pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. And So I don’t want to go to the slaughterhouse again. I just want to slowly get fat. ,
Doug: So yeah, I don’t know. Yeah, it, well, I, I don’t, like, like you said, I don’t think we’re going to be at these all time highs, but also my personality works better with just being like, you know what, things are going to go up and down and I don’t enjoy Trying to figure it out.
It’s lazy overall. But the thing is, like, the more I mean We hear We hear And air quotes experts and people that have studied a lot and they can prove some certain point and then someone else could argue the other stuff turns out, but they both end up wrong. Like it’s very rare, especially in this kind of situation where someone’s like, I think it’s gonna go down.
And they’re right. Like people are con, the experts are constantly wrong. So I’m just like, ah, I’d rather. Just know there’s going to be a lot of volatility in the short term, long term, I’m okay with that. And the result is, like, my wife is way more conservative than me, like, we ended up accumulating more.
What I think is, like, too much more. We’re luckily young enough where I felt like that was a good risk to have. Like, the risk of over saving. And gave my wife the confidence to actually quit her job. So for us, over saving was like the right move and it fit for both of our personalities and our risk tolerances.
Although, you know, it was a little frustrated when she was frustrated about her job, but at this point everything’s great.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, yeah. First off, it’s just great to hear that. That’s a a great fit now for you and your wife. And I probably more aligned. With your wife being fiscally conservative, and where I think I may have just enough, I want more than just enough, because if a downturn happens, I don’t want to have not enough.
And but I’m also willing to commit to myself to working a corporate job for a few more years, or ideally just going into entrepreneurship.
Doug: Yes. And my wife, basically. Maybe those exact words, like, she was like, I’d rather have more to deal with a down, like, I don’t want to stop working and then be in a position where, like, we, we didn’t do our due diligence.
And now we’re in a position where we have to backtrack and, like, either get a job or, like, not do what we want to do. Yeah. So we’re pretty selfish.
Andrew: Yeah, no, I mean, it’s just not like reckless is what it is. So I think it’s naive to be like, Oh, I’m going to retire on the 4. 0 percent rule. As soon as I hit it, I’m retiring and never working again.
It’s just like that mathematically can work out, but there’s just, there’s risk there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, how, so I guess maybe transitioning to after five for, for you specifically, not necessarily your wife, but how, how, how do you work after five or, or do you just sit on the couch and, and judge beers seven days a week?
Doug: So, yeah, my position is a little interesting and I have been, since 2015. So I had my corporate job. I did management consulting and software project management and I got laid off in 2015 when we moved out to Montana. What wonderful state. Still love it here. We ended up in Bozeman for a few years and I took my, my side hustles full time, ended up with online course business, some affiliate marketing sites, and Basically worked really hard until about 2020 and by then we moved to Longmont, Colorado and things were shifting in the industry and I would say in the last five years, so 2020 to 2025 things shifted a lot in that the industry that I was in essentially like affiliate marketing and SEO that kind of fell apart.
So with AI tools. Google algorithm updates impacting SEO. A lot of this stuff I was working on is like no longer viable. So luckily I exited a couple of websites. So I sold them, made, you know, good chunks of money then. And I also had a fairly lucrative online course business that was very lean. It was me and a couple of VAs that would help me, you know, five, 10 hours a week or so.
So super lean. I never had full time employees, very profitable because of that. So we’re talking like 80 to 90 percent margin, which is like pretty crazy, but very typical for online business. And essentially I ended up slowly ramping things down over the last five years, selling stuff, doing less. And in the last year I stopped marketing my courses.
I sunset them like turned off access because I was like, these aren’t relevant. If anyone wants access to the videos or course material, I’ll give you access to it. But like any of the software that I was using to host online, you know, courses, I was like, this is expensive. I’m going to turn it down. So your question, what do I do these days?
I have two podcasts. One is called the Doug show. I still talk about like marketing. And online business, but usually interviewing people or talking mindset. And then the other one is called Mile High FI and it’s kind of a advanced financial independence, I guess, YouTube channel and podcast. It’s in both formats.
And, yeah. Yeah. Really it’s more like, you know, post five stuff or lifestyle type topic areas. So that’s how I spend probably like 10 to 15 hours a week or so working. Yeah. No,
Andrew: that’s cool. It sounds like a good lifestyle,
Doug: uh, better than management consulting and, you know, I’m doing less work and I shut down all the courses.
So it was really lucrative before, but now I’m in a position where like I don’t need to earn that much money. Like if I do a little better than break even, I’m pretty happy with it. I’m enjoying this stuff that I’m doing. So essentially I’m talking to people that I want to talk to, and I’m not talking to anyone that I don’t want to talk to, like I’m interviewing whoever I want.
Yeah, no, that’s awesome.
Andrew: What, so in the online business world in 2025, if someone were to get started in all kind of, you know, whether they’re doing it as a side hustle or doing it full time, what avenues do you think are, are worthwhile for your effort whether it’s YouTube? Consulting in some fashion, maybe on how to build the YouTube business, how to build the podcast starting an agency in my mind, that’s like a, a faster way to start generating income, starting a newsletter, just anything, call it digital marketing or, or online business, some of the, the standard buckets, what are your, what are your thoughts there to somebody that’s wanting to get into those?
Doug: I want to sidestep that just for a second. I’m not going to derail your whole question because it was a good one. But, are you familiar with the Dunning Kruger effect? I’m not, no. I’m going to tell you a bastardized version of it. But basically when you first learn about something, and your knowledge level is fairly low, you feel like you’re an expert.
You’re like, I’m learning all this new stuff, and I I’m really good at this and I’m awesome. So like you, you think your competency is pretty high, but you’re actually not very competent. You just like learned a bunch of new stuff and you’re excited. And then when you become an expert, you start understanding that there’s so much that you don’t know, and there’s so much nuance.
So what happens is experts feel like They don’t know what’s going on. They don’t have confidence in their opinions anymore. And it’s because they’re, you know, they’re experts. And they now realize how much they don’t know. So, if you have those two people, like, talk to each other, like, the beginner may sound, like, way more overconfident than the expert.
And the reason why I’m mentioning that is kind of similar to you know, like imposter syndrome. So while I’ve done many of the things that you listed out and have been very successful in most of them, I don’t know, I feel like I got lucky several times and I think part of it is that like timing has a big role.
So I’m mentioning that cause I’m like. I don’t, I don’t know. I’ll give you some answers, but I’m just curious, what thoughts do you have on that Dunning Kruger effect? Have you heard of maybe something similar, though?
Andrew: I’ve heard, I’m gonna butcher this a little bit, but there’s like the I forget how they describe it, but it’s like the uninformed optimist, and then you get to be an informed pessimist, and then, and it’s like this rollercoaster, I think there’s four stages.
And so like, I’ve taken one YouTube course, I think I don’t have enough experience to apply the context, but I could absolutely coach somebody starting out. I have 300 subscribers on my YouTube channel, not that many. I could absolutely help coach somebody to build a YouTube channel. I think not, not as well as, as you could or somebody.
With a million subscribers, but someone who knows nothing, I could short circuit their timeframe a lot. I think actually, I think I may be just egotistical, but I also think there’s some truth there too.
Doug: Yeah. The one, the other part is that I started my YouTube channel, like, I think the first video was like 2014 or something, there was a long stretch of like nothing, but basically.
Yeah, I’ve done a shitload of YouTube, but like, it’s been a long time, so you might be able to coach somebody fresher for sure. But all that said, I will answer your question. So you had a few options. I have experience like doing consulting. I have two YouTube channels. I think I have like 130, 000 subscribers on one channel.
I’ve done agency work, although I hate working with clients, so you know, that didn’t work for me. I’ve had a couple of newsletters, they’re lucrative, and you know, people use email and you’re able to contact your customers directly, and I love podcasting, I mean, I have two of them. So, I, I said a lot of stuff, but I, can you narrow, can you like re ask a, the question and I’ll just answer directly.
Andrew: I would like to generate 5, 000 to 15, 000 a month in income within 12 months. I don’t need it in the first 3 months, but I want it to happen for sure within 12 to 24 months. And you said 5, 000 to 15, 000? 5, 000 to 15, 000.
Doug: Yeah. Okay. How long have you been working on On your YouTube channel, it says like the longest.
Andrew: Yeah, so my YouTube channel’s been a thing for about nine months. And, right now I have seven rental units. More or less whenever a vacancy happens I stop contributing to YouTube. And so, I’ve started the channel probably nine, ten months ago, and I’ve probably made videos for six of the months, per se.
Doug: Okay. So, It’s probably unrealistic for a lot of people. Now, I was able to do it, I was able to do it in the timeframe that you mentioned. However, it was rocky and it, you know, there were a couple months where I made, um, yeah, say 10, 000 bucks. And I was like, I’m a fucking genius. And then it dropped in a very volatile, but once I, you know, you learn a lot along the way.
And the thing is, I’ve heard people say. You know, it’s a thousand day rule, so it’s about, you know, a few years and it takes a little while to like get your feet under you to replace like your full time, like day job, assuming, you know, you have an engineering job or some other sort of highly professional like, you know, high skill level situation.
And I think that’s probably still accurate for most people because you have to, you know, try some stuff. You have to put in a lot of effort. You have to have you know, a string of, you know, failures or many failures behind you. Totally possible, like I said, pretty sure I got lucky somehow or another. I was able to do it a few times and, you know, I hear other people, and a lot of times, let’s say, you know, I worked in the, um, We’ll, we’ll use the podcast and YouTube industry since it’s what we’re talking about, but someone was able to, you know, do it a little faster and then you find out they worked at a radio station in college for three years.
So it turns out they actually had like 50 percent of the skills that they needed. So they took a shortcut. So if you have one of those, then you could lean into that. Totally possible to like, you know, figure out a good monetization method, but it’s a little tricky. So, what side questions do you have on it too?
Cause I, I, I only gave you a little bit, but I want to go deeper too, but.
Andrew: Yeah, so. I, I am not a tech guy, an audio visual guy. So it was very much starting from scratch for me. And maybe I undervalue my, my previous work experience within engineering consulting. I’m a real estate investor as well. So I started just talking about.
The Firespace, small multifamily real estate investing, basic index funds, because I can just speak off the cuff to those. I don’t have to do any research. But in my perception now, and I, I didn’t intend to fully commit to replacing Graham Stephan or something like that in the YouTube space, but, um, I wanted to get started and not have to research anything I was talking about.
So that was the easy button for me. Now, I don’t know that that channel niche is one of the best for monetization per se. So one thing I’ve thought about, you, you did some project management. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Notion or monday. com, these project management, task management softwares there’s a few channels in that space.
And then in some sense, you’re being a sales guy for that software. You have an affiliate link that’s effective day one, and you can do tutorials on how to, how to navigate, how to build projects or tasks in there. And I find that interesting. I’m not there. Tim Ferriss Productivity Bro, but like, I think that stuff’s good for all of us generally.
And I think it’s, it’s something I would enjoy learning. I think it could actually help my personal and professional life. So I think it’d be good skills to learn and just a much more easily monetization niche. So I’m, I’m, I’m. Very much thinking about just abandoning my initial channel with 300 subscribers and trying to do a niche that’s actually just monetizationable in that shorter frame.
Doug: That is one of the best ways to do it. So, I have coached people in the past and actually one of my former students who took some of my courses. He Basically ended up doing that and, you know, there’s software for anything, right? And people always have questions, even if the company has like, okay, tutorials, usually they kind of suck.
And the thing is, like, if you do, you know, find some software that you’re like, Oh, I really like this. I know it well, or I’m going to learn it, or you have some reason to do it. Those tutorials are inherently useful and you’re not like trying to like be over salesy or just like here’s a solution to a problem you have.
And yeah, you can do it other ways, but like this is the easy way to do it and it saves you time or it saves you money or it’s easier to do. And people will, you know, watch your, you know, watch your videos, potentially sign up for your email list. And then, like you said, you have a very clear monetization path.
That is directly related to the type of content it is. So like one, you know, thing, one mistake people make, so like, Oh, I will build an audience and then I will sell them something, but there’s not a good product market fit. I’m going to go on a side tangent here. I had a podcast accelerator and it was a live workshop.
I didn’t create the course material ahead of time. I had a syllabus. We went through everything, you know, worked great. When I ran the pilot, it ended up being like people that I personally knew. And I had like three or four people go through. I had four people go through and they all launched their shows.
Everything was great. And then I took that and I was like, I’m going to sell it to my full email list of 10, 000 people. And this is probably the 10th course, workshop, digital product that I’ve sold. And it’s done really well. I know how to do it. I have all the, I like, I know how to send the emails. I know how to let people know like what to expect and who the right student is.
And I sold zero. It was the first time that I sold zero. And this was just last year. Wow. That must have hurt in some ways. Or surprised you. A little bit. I was like, I won’t be surprised. I remember telling my wife because she always asks me about the launches. I wouldn’t be surprised if I sold zero, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were 25.
I’m not sure, but I’m going to send out these emails. And I’m not overly aggressive, but I sent You know, six emails in seven days, like I’m not afraid to sell because I typically don’t sell stuff. But the issue here is I had an audience that I built up with my previous material, my previous content and tutorials, and it was all about, you know, building a website.
And now these people are interested in building a website, which is no longer a viable even business model. And then I was trying to sell them a podcast course, and they were not there for that. I thought maybe my 10, 000 person list was large enough that Even if you, because people are interested in podcasting, they listen and they’re like, Oh, maybe I could do that.
And basically like my list wasn’t big enough. Now, if it was a hundred thousand people, maybe eight of them would have signed up, which is still a completely horrible conversion rate. But it’s like, well, it’s the wrong product market fit. So all that to say, if you’re like, I’m going to do Notion tutorials and you’re a Notion affiliate, then that works.
Andrew: Yeah. Okay. That’s good to know, and I haven’t used Notion at all, but I have used productivity and hacks in a Google calendar and seen a lot of success from that in college and my professional career. So, I just, more or less, I just want something that works. I don’t want to invent the next rocket ship to Mars.
I just want to like, You know, have, have a, like, I’m an engineer, so I just want something that objectively can work and then just sit down and just chew on the bone for years on end and just, yeah.
Doug: Yeah. Well, one thing you mentioned is the agency model. So this is a service based business. I’m looking at your notes and you wrote Virginia and I think that’s my friend, Virginia Elder.
Did you meet her at FinCon? I didn’t meet her, but I just listened to your podcast with her that I enjoyed. So yeah, she’s great I’ve known her for a couple years and She she does like podcast production so she had her own podcast for a few years and essentially like developed the skills to be a podcast producer and she Does that service for people and the thing is like for me personally I don’t like working with clients because those are like mini little bosses and I don’t like bosses that much and if you have an agency I have a lot of little bosses out there that They want stuff from you and I’m like, ah, I didn’t like it too much.
Do you think you’re okay with clients?
Andrew: I’m very client facing in my consulting career So that’s what I do today for a day job And so if I could do it where I get the upside We’re like, it was funny, I was talking this is a story from a hypothetical friend. He was talking to his boss about winning a little over like 5 million in work last year for the company.
And they’re like, Oh, you know, instead of a 3 percent raise, we’ll give you a 3. 8 percent raise, uh, or hypothetical friend. And I was like, what is the point? And I was like, I have to travel three weeks in the next month. 0. 8 percent extra is not worth me skipping evenings at home for one week a year.
I was like, this is a complete waste of my time. How about I make, I don’t know, 10 percent commission? We’re 5 percent commission, which is not unreasonable in the, um, you know, working for yourself space. And I’m like, I would get a, over 100 percent raise, but here I am so I can handle clients. I can do that.
I’m not saying I do that when I’m bored, but like, I can do it with a smile.
Doug: I just want the upside too. That makes total sense. Yeah. And for me, I mean, it was I was fine. Talking to the clients, but yeah, like the business model that I had just didn’t, didn’t work for me. It was, you know, when I got laid off, that was like the most lucrative area because like you’re, you’re doing a service.
So you’re paid immediately where a lot of the other like online businesses, they end up being essentially like build an audience and then sell them something. And it takes a little while to build an audience and it’s pretty hard to do. Like, you’ve been doing your channel for a while and it’s like 300 some odd subscribers and yeah, it’s tough, right?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, it’s tough and like, I, I don’t know. It’s like, you know, there’s somewhat of the fear of the unknown to me where you have more experience building an audience. I think it is doable with repetition. I don’t think it’s a It’s an if it’s more of a when probably but there’s there still is an if factor and I kind of it’s like if I’m gonna work and spend all this hours and let’s say like do I want to fully commit to that and You know, hopefully someday make some more income or why don’t I just stay at my job?
And make on average 10 percent more in my portfolio every year plus contributing another five percent or something And so then my portfolio grows by 15 percent plus per year on average. And I’m like, I can just literally just hang out for 3 more years, do my day job, work no Saturdays, and be like comfortably fi in 3 years from now or 5 years from now.
Or do I grind and work 60 hours a week? To build this side hustle up to then, you know, make an extra five grand a month or something in a few years. And it’s like, or I can literally just do nothing and let my portfolio rise to make me an extra five grand a month.
Doug: I like how it’s all coming together and you’re pulling me back in.
So good job hosting here. So I think there’s a balance like kind of in the middle because when you, Stop working. It sure will be nice to have a handful of skills that are outside, like your old corporate job. Because those are interesting and it’s fun to learn new stuff. And I would say for me, I have it seems like about a five year interest level in something.
I’m similar. And after about five, you know, it could be five to ten, but essentially like, The beginning super exciting in the first three years the last two like you get to more advanced stuff But essentially like either I’m gonna keep going deep in that or I’m gonna start transitioning to something else and that’s what I did so started with blogging got a little more into YouTube and then a little bit more into podcasting and there’s a lot of growth space and potential for me because I didn’t Um, I’m not, I don’t have a communication background at all, so there’s a lot of stuff to, to learn and improve and, you know, communicating is like a thing that’s, you know, really hard to master and it’s something you can work on for a really long time and on that, on that point, so like you were like, I can, I can keep working and I could like try to do a side hustle and work really, you know, pretty hard and do 60 hour weeks.
I wouldn’t do that. I would do like Maybe a little less work. If you somehow you figure out how to do that, you know, and then, um, yeah, like if you could do three to four days of work, like at a corporate job per week, that’s pretty sweet. Like that, that’s great. I think that’s a much better schedule. Like if you could do three days a week which is hard to do or impossible at most jobs, but if you can figure
Andrew: out how to do it in consulting, it’s a thing.
I have a team member that works for me that works three days a week. And that’s their minimum. So they often work overtime to 28 hours a week. So in many ways I would, I can even take a sabbatical at work. I can, I can go and be gone for four months this year if I want to be. So part of me is thinking, do I take a four to six month sabbatical or do I go down to four days a week for this summer?
I honest, like the income and the health insurance is nice, but it’s not needed. And so. And it’s easy for me to get pulled into four days a week, we’ll just work a half day Friday, you know, or just do this one work trip this month. And so it’s just, it’s a slippery slope. So I agree that I should not work five nines, which can be common for sure.
And I should try to reduce my, my hours worked. And, yeah.
Doug: Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, bringing it all together. Yeah. If you could like do a little less of the day job, do a little bit of side hustle and you know, have some skills because I mean, the fact is like basically if you sit around and you don’t do something creative or active or something a little challenging, then you probably get bored, especially people with our kind of personalities where we’re like.
relatively type a You were doing like interesting shit at work. You’re you have your engineering background you build stuff You have the engineering mindset like you’re not going to sit around and it doesn’t have to be like work or creativity or any like People are just like I want to be an influencer of some kind.
I think you’re saying that but like Basically, it could also be like physical challenges where you’re like i’m going to climb a bunch of fucking mountains this year And i’m going to get the best shape of my life and like my focus is health And like for me, that’s one of the big things. Like I end up like walking several miles a day, I think for the last whatever, since my phone started, you know, tracking my steps.
I think I average like 12 to 14,000 steps per year over the last several years. Except when I’m judging beer, we don’t walk much. Right. . Yeah. Which is, that’s all right. . But yeah, I try to work out often. I try to get a lot of sleep. And I could clean up my diet a little bit better, but health is a big focus.
I mean, I feel better just focusing on that. And, you know, when we step back, when we have the luxury, very lucky to not have to focus so much on the finances because we solved that problem before. It’s like we can focus on health, which is way more important. I think like, you know, I see some of my friends that are, you know, they’re still grinding really hard.
Their metabolism is all fucked up. They put on a lot of weight and I’m in better shape than I was like 20 years ago, which is sad because I should have been in much better shape then. Oh, but good for you now. Yeah. So, and I see them and I’m like. They look like they’re 50, they don’t look like they’re 42, and they need to lose like some weight and like get some shit in order because their priorities are all kind of screwed
Andrew: up from a health perspective.
Yeah, I feel really grateful to have figured out the finances early in my life. And I really grinded a lot in my 20s working on these rental properties. And I mean, there’s many weeks or months that I would work 100 hour weeks. And it was very much a grind, but I could do it back then. I very much noticed I can’t work 100 hour weeks like I could when I was 25 years old.
I think there was some of what, where I’m like trying to optimize my life. And so I’m, you know, just more of a Madonna, I guess, then when I was 25, it was like just survival and it was like paying off my student loans and my life savings going into the down payment of my duplex. And so it was like.
I will not go the other way because that’s not an option.
Doug: Yeah. Well, I have a question for you. So how did you, and why did you get your finances in order and work so hard? Like part of your background or did you, were you
Andrew: inspired in a specific way? I had, uh, 70 grand in student loans and about 30 grand in a brand new truck, and I just hated the letters every month that told me to give them a few hundred bucks each.
And I had this good engineering job, air quotes, and then a lot of people thought I was rich because I was an engineer. So apparently when you’re 23 with an engineering degree, you’re rich. And I was like, I’m objectively The opposite of rich, I’m like massively in debt. And so I just and I have good examples from family and friends and I have less good examples as well from family and friends.
And so I know some people that retired in their young fifties and I know some people that retired in their late sixties. And it sounds just better to retire 15 years earlier. And I was like, that’s a, that’s a lot different, like 15 months, like 15 years. And so I just wanted to pay off all of my debt. And then once I got to debt, even broke, I was like, Oh, I, you know, I can just keep following the same trajectory and I’m going to be.
above broke at some point, and I’m going to have, I’ve been through the Dave Ramsey program, I’m going to have my thousand dollar emergency fund. Then I’m going to have a two thousand dollar emergency fund. And then someday I’ll be able to afford a house, and I want it to be a lifetime renter. And so then I, I bought a duplex and paid to remodel it, and then Being a landlord of one unit wasn’t really that bad at all.
And house hacking is phenomenal. So then I was like, I just saw this killer deal on a sixplex where it was probably listed for 60 percent of what I thought it was worth. And so I, I bought a sixplex, not cause I really wanted to buy a sixplex, but I was like, I think I can make a couple hundred grand on this thing.
And I can turn my 50, 000 down payment into 250, 000 in like two years. And I mean, now I’ve probably turned 50, 000 into 500, 000 in like five years with that one purchase. And so I’m just like yeah, it’s not even slightly more than that. But, and so it’s just like, and now I’ve. I was so frugal because I had to be and I couldn’t afford anything beyond the bare bones.
Now I buy a plain t shirt that doesn’t have a logo. And I have more t shirts than I need. And, um, you know, nice jeans that aren’t oil stained. And I used to roll my eyes at this. And I’m like, it’s kind of nice to have, I’m long. I can buy like long size t shirts that aren’t crop tops. Cause no one needs to see my belly button.
And I’m just like, so I’ve, I’ve experienced some luxuries. I mean still modest luxuries, but like more than I need. And I’m not actually interested in being broke and in debt the rest of my life. And I’m also not interested in barely having enough. And as long as I only wear t shirts I get for free. And wear my 8 year old jeans that have oil stains in them.
Then I’ll be fine. But if I want to go buy a nice pair of jeans. Or, uh. You know, I, I own a camper. I don’t, I don’t need a camper, but it’s fun. So I’m like, now I just, I want to enjoy some life’s luxuries and I’ve worked so hard. So it was just, it was an interest in paying off debt and then an interest in like, and just being modestly wealthy.
Maybe that’s offensive to some people, but like I’m interested in that and not just like surviving barely for the rest of my life.
Doug: Yeah. And you highlighted a couple, it’s a cool story by the way. And, like, there’s a hell of a lot of debt. Like, I came out of college with I think I just had one loan for maybe, like, 10, 000 bucks?
And it was just, like, from the very first quarter. Because they were like, You should get this loan, it is really good. The thing that they fucking told everybody, you know, You know, so many people have student loan you know, major debt that takes a long time to pay off. But mine was pretty modest, and basically, after the first term, I was like, I don’t think I need that.
Like, I don’t, I have all this pile of money. I didn’t use any of this. And I, so it was like, I don’t need these loads anymore. And then I worked through college. It took like, it took a long time. It took like seven years to get through it. But, but no debt. So I’ve worked in process for sure. Scholarships and blah, blah, blah.
But yeah, one thing that you mentioned your shirt without a logo, uh, Indicating it’s not a free shirt, you paid for it. Right, yeah. This is one thing, like, we’re talking about it a lot now, where it’s like, we have these frugal habits that got us to this point, and then We need to figure out how to spend some of that money and people are much more comfortable and we’re taking we’re splurging a little bit more.
We just came from, you know, a tap room close by. And I was like, I want to get a T shirt here and T shirts, they’re expensive now. Logo T shirts are fucking, it’s like 30 bucks. And I think a few years ago I would be like, I don’t think I’m paying like 30 bucks for a T shirt. But it’s a local business, and they, you know, they’re cool.
So I was like, I will buy a t shirt, and it’ll be fun memories of this weekend, hanging out, and this interview even. So, you know, something small like that, 30 bucks? That’s a good, you know, use of money right there. And you know, I’m not into clothes, but, you know, this is a cool thing to have.
Andrew: Yeah, for sure.
One thing, this is worthy of an IRL to anyone in the fire space, but I got into watches recently. This is just like a couple hundred dollars Seiko, so nothing crazy. But I’m just like, you know, I’m going to buy a watch. You know, an Apple watch, that’s not 20. You know, and you can buy a Casio 20 watch. And so it’s just like, yeah, there’s some things you want and that’s okay.
Doug: Yeah, and I think Like I said, I mean, we’re talking about it a lot more where it’s like, it is okay to spend money on things that you value and you just have to be like deliberate. About what you’re spending on and like most people are cool with it now Even if it’s like whatever you got a big truck or a camper or a watch or whatever I’m buying guitars like I bought a new guitar recently This is a side note, quick tangent.
So I I’ve been getting into guitars more in the last few years And I buy them used on Craigslist. I typically look, it’s the same thing as real estate, like you make your money getting a good deal at the beginning, right? Like, so I got a, I got a good deal on this guitar and I was like, you know what, I think I’m going to sell it and flip it.
So I ended up essentially doubling my money and got a new, cause I wanted to buy a new guitar, of course. Another guitar also used also, you know, not as good of a deal, but a pretty good deal. And I love it, and it, like, I have fun looking at the guitars, I have fun negotiating, I have fun, like, getting this guitar it was a Martin 0015 I had it for a few years and it was a younger guy, probably in his 20s, and it was, like, gonna be his first, like, really nice guitar, and I was like, yeah, I wanna get it to a good home.
He’s going to enjoy it. He actually got a good deal on it, like less than market value. Cause I got such a good deal. So it’s like, it went to his new home.
And anyway, I like, I like guitars and other people are like, why would you spend like, you know, thousands of dollars on a guitar and it’s just fun.
And I, it’s you. So if I sell it, I’m probably not going to lose money. So,
Andrew: yeah, no, I get that. And, and it’s just like. So many, so many people in the country today, and myself historically, and many in the fire space historically, their finances is just about survival. About like, how do I have enough to pay rent, student loans, car payment, all that.
And so it’s like, it’s a learning curve, I think, for all of us to have more money than we need. And to then just be able to be like, what do I want to spend money on that I purely like? And I don’t need to argue that I need it, so.
Doug: I’m going to just jump in one more time and then I’ll let you take back over, get us on track.
But, I think we both realize, we’re self aware and we realize how stupid some of these things are. We’re in a really lucky position. And I think the people watching and listening, like they, they understand. So like we’re self aware that we’re in a unique position and we’re like not trying to just survive.
Like. We got lucky. We made some good decisions. We’ve worked hard, compound interest in so many areas of our lives have like paid off. So like, we’re aware this is like kind of a silly discussion in some
Andrew: ways. No, no, I think it’s been a good conversation. One thing about like investing in things it’s like, and I’ve wanted to invest in.
And I think that’s something I didn’t do historically as much as I should have. I honestly would have preferred to move out of this duplex and get a different duplex that had a garage in a little bigger space. It would have probably been 50, 000 more, so call it 10, 000 to 20, 000 extra of a down payment.
And I didn’t have the money. To buy that. However, I had the money to max my Roth IRA and my 401k every year for years and years and years. If I owned another one or two or three duplexes right now, looking back, I’d have another few thousand dollars a month in rental cash flow. Probably another five hundred grand in equity at least.
And, so, that’s one thing with like, even just buying this, some mics and a camera, it’s I think it’s in the fire community. It’s very undervalued of that. You should invest in yourself, including skills like your podcast, accelerator courses, like the amount of value and not all of those are going to be the best fit for you.
But if you take three of those things, you’re going to learn a lot and you’re going to have a lot higher success, odds of success of, of doing anything. you know, entrepreneurial or whatever you’re getting a course on, maybe even just additional skills to build your corporate career. If you are actually passionate about management consulting and you took a course on like project management from notion and you personally paid 20 a month for notion to support your corporate career.
I would bet money over three years. You’re going to well make more than your money back on that. And you can be a rockstar corporate. Employee if you invested in yourself, like, I think that’s way undervalued. Yeah, I agree.
Doug: And yeah, the online courses end up being like pretty valuable because you, you kind of get a shortcut.
Like basically you can find anything on YouTube that you want to learn. And it’s very, very good, but it’s a little bit hard to put it in the right order. And it’s, it’s a little bit distracting because of everything else on YouTube. And you end up with a lot of noise. And it’s hard to get the, the signal out of there sometimes.
Um, so the online courses work really well. And, and I, you know what, I, I was reminded you asked a question like, Alright, I, I want to make five to fifteen thousand per month. I don’t think you can do it. Basically, it’ll take longer. So I’m not saying you can’t do it. It’s just gonna take longer than you think.
So one, I think we, most of us have this where we think we’re a little bit above average, but it turns out only about half of us are. We’re actually average. Yeah. So, and the thing is like. Basically, I thought I’d be able to like do my online business faster than other people and it turns out like it really wasn’t much faster.
It took me, you know, two years to get like full time income up and down. So it just takes a little bit longer. And what happens is like as you go, as you keep trying, you learn stuff, you learn what not to do. You’re still taking risks and all that kind of stuff. But it just takes a little bit longer, and most people think they’re going to be able to do it a little bit faster than other people, but you can’t.
So, it’ll just take a little longer. You can totally do, if you pick any one of the things that you’ve listed right here, you can make a full time income from it. And you just have to like focus on the one, and then pivot when you need to. Because whatever you think your plan is, it’s wrong. You just have to pivot when the time’s right.
And occasionally you have to like Leave this up cost and just be like that was pretty good, but I need to cut it off So I could focus on the next thing and what might happen is like you’re learning YouTube You got a great audio set up here And what might happen is you do your thing for a couple years you build your skills You got a high competency level in this area and then you meet someone at a conference and you’re like, let’s start a show together And then you work on that, and that’s the thing that works, because they have another skill set.
Yeah, that’s complementary or synergistic to mine. That’s what Carl, like Carl had his blog thing, and I had the YouTube and podcasting. We came together, we started the show, and like we, we had a good like diverse skill set that didn’t overlap very much. Yeah,
Andrew: yeah, that’s a good point, and yeah, and I’m really actually content with that.
day, two and a half year timeline. Most entrepreneurs started, I think it’s like 2. 6 businesses. So they have two or three failures. And I’m okay with that. I’ve, I’ve tried doing some engineering on the side that was very hard to market myself and I just don’t want to trade my time for money eternally.
And so I think like for right now, YouTube is the one that I know the best. And, I think now after doing it for a while and more awareness, I think it makes sense for me to pivot to a niche that’s more, uh, easier to monetize. And I don’t think, I don’t feel a lot of heartburn about this sunk cost of giving up my personal finance channel.
In many ways, that was just a learning, a learning channel and an easy button to get started in. But knowing what I know now, I just. I think that a better niche would give me better odds of success or faster faster income. So, I don’t know.
Doug: Yeah. Makes total sense. And that’s the perfect way to look at it where you’re like, I learned a bunch of stuff I know more now than I did before, and I’m going to use that information.
I’m not going to be stubborn and keep pushing this boulder up the hill, you know. Yeah. And I think a lot of people do that.
Andrew: Yeah, and I think even getting into this project management niche, I think that would help my corporate career as well. And I will probably personally pay for Notion, I think it’s like 20 a month.
But I’m like, I think that’ll actually just help my overall life productivity. It may even reduce the hours I spend a week working because I will more efficiently work yeah, between YouTube and my corporate career. And I, I totally, when I want to learn stuff for free on YouTube greater than 0 percent of that time do I get sucked down a rabbit hole.
And so it’s like, I’ve taken, I don’t know if you’ve heard of like Tropical MBA podcast. So like I’m a member on theirs. Pat Flynn, Smart Passive Income, I’m on that. Did that course. But I haven’t like had the time to actually work through it all. And then Gabe Bolt, if you know him, he’s a YouTuber. Kind of more in the minimalism space.
Doug: Oh yeah, I met him at FinCon. Yeah. I’ve seen his show, or I’ve seen his YouTube channel a couple times. I need to have him on mine, so. Yeah. I need to reach out. I just met him. I don’t know if he’d remember me, so.
Andrew: Oh, I can put you in touch with him if you want. Oh, thanks, yeah. Yeah. But I did his YouTube course as well, and it’s like, I just learned a ton.
And, and really I just need to sit down for like, an hour and watch one of the like Gabe’s videos or one of Pat Flynn’s videos and then go and execute. But like it’s just hard with my day job. And still trying to find, have a life balance. Cause I just like, I only worked for like five years. And so I can do that, but I’m like, Yeah, I just, I don’t want to have to do that anymore.
Yeah. So.
Doug: Interesting. Yeah, yeah, and the Tropical MBA, that was one of the shows I started listening to when I first got started. And Yeah, I was in the D. C. for a few years. And, kind of interesting, I went to One of their smaller DC events and steamboat, which was great. I knew a handful of people really fun, but when we went around for introductions and for people that don’t know tropical MBA and it’s a podcast, they’ve been around since I think maybe like 2008 or nine or some time.
And they have a paid community of, it’s location independent entrepreneurs in all different fields. But when we did intros, I was at the point where I was like doing less work. So a lot of people’s intros were like, I do this. My goal is. Nine figures my goal is ten figures and i’m like my goal is doing less work.
So I I was like I Felt a little bit out of place and everyone was cool with it. No one judged me to my knowledge, but basically I was just like this is the wrong room for me I fit more with the like I understand when enough is enough. No offense to the entrepreneurs. Cause like some people want to build something bigger and I just don’t, I don’t really give a shit.
So I was like, I understand when I, what my enough point is. And I really like not working way more than I like working. It’s I think you might find the same thing. Like, I didn’t realize it, and when I, I’ve chatted with a couple people recently, and they’re like, I’m such a, like, doer. I don’t know, like, how you could even do that.
And that’s literally what I would have said, like, years ago. But it turns out, like, a leisurely pace fits me much better
Andrew: Yeah, I think it would fit me better, too. And that’s where it’s like, I did the grinding out of survival. But I, I objectively know that if I spend every Saturday on YouTube, my YouTube channel would grow, but I don’t want to spend every Saturday on YouTube.
So it’s just like, I’m like, and I’m so close to enough. Not, not enough plus some, but like, I’m like close to enough. Where I’m like, I, I really just want like a paid off nice house, paid off cars, a big emergency fund, and then like enough to pay the bills and still save a little bit. And like, just work here and there and just like, hang out with friends and family and just like, do my thing, you know?
Yeah, yeah. And you’re probably like, two years away. Like, you just need a little bit more, yeah. Yeah, and so that’s where I’m like, do I want to work 60 hours a week for two years to, to build that side income? Or do I just want to like, hang out for two years?
Doug: Yeah, just hang out and uh Um, you know, start doing a little less, don’t do as good of a job, like get, just get things like 80%.
It’s pretty good. Yeah,
Andrew: no.
Doug: Oh, you’re an engineer though, so you kind of, you kind of get to get your right on.
Andrew: Well, I mean, I’m a project manager, so I just, you know.
Doug: Yeah, yeah. I did, I have a PMP. Do you have a PMP?
Andrew: No, I, I got nominated internally whatever that means, to. Get on this PMP program in January and February of this year.
But I was traveling for work three of the four weeks, and they were like, Yeah, you could just do the courses in the hotel while we’re traveling. I was like, in the evenings, I was like, I was like, Hey, I already go to dinner with the client. So I get to the hotel at 9 p. m. And I have to be at breakfast at 7 a.
And I’m not studying. And then if I didn’t stay for the, at the company for two years, I would have to pay back for the PMP course. And I was like, Oh, I bet a dollar I’m not here in two years.
Doug: Yeah. It’s a, it’s a. It’s really dry, but it’s not a fun thing to go through, but it’s a kind of a tough test to spent a little while studying it.
But yeah, I still keep it active, even though I’m not planning on doing it, but it’s hard enough to get where I was like, this is I’m going to keep this up because it’s pretty easy to keep it going. And just every three years. You have to do the continuing education professional development units, PDUs, they call them, so.
Andrew: Nice. Yeah, I think I would like, I’d be qualified to do it, and it would be directly applicable to my corporate career. It’s just, I want to, uh, I want to not have to travel for work whenever they decide on short notice, and to regularly work overtime, and just like. At what point of FI can you then trade your time for money backwards and be like, I actually only need to work three days a week or four days a week because I make 80 percent of my salary on investment income so I don’t, you know, so it’s like, I’d love to work 20 percent and maintain health insurance, but like, yeah, how to.
So maybe I need to just try to go down to four days a week and see what that’s like.
Doug: Well, you know what? I was chatting with my wife the other day and she reminded me how bad of an employee I’ve been very consistently. So back in roughly 2009, this is when I was still trying to make, you know, manager and good, you know, do well corporately and all that stuff.
And we were doing, like, some, yeah, roughly shift work. So, some people would come in at, whatever, 8, work during the day. But then it went all the way until, like, 2 in the morning. And, like, people basically were there. Except for, like, 4 hours in the middle of the night. Because we had an international team.
So, anyway, I played along and did some stuff. I, you know, we all divided it up and the team split it. But then, it was around the holidays. And they wanted me to come in on Christmas Eve, which I wasn’t supposed to, so they were like, Doug, we need you to come in on Christmas Eve. And I was like, Yeah, you know what?
I did my stuff before, and like, this wasn’t part of the plan. And I’m not coming in. So, The guy was like, What, like, what are you, this is my boss. He’s like, what are you talking about? And I was like, yeah, I’m not coming in so like you can find someone else to do it and they were like, well This is not gonna be good for your Performance review and like this is just not good if you want to get promoted and I was like Okay, like I understand the consequences here, but you go fuck yourself, basically Yeah, and the great part Is those people don’t want to work with me anymore, right?
And i’m like, I don’t want to work with you. You guys have no boundaries like you fucking work it Like he’s fucked up on whatever your thing was. So yeah, like the plan was unrealistic and we all knew it so like Stand up to your boss and tell them anyway. So I didn’t do it and I got a bad review and I never had to work with those people again cause they didn’t want to work with me.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean like I, I made a stand. I didn’t have a few money then. We didn’t even track our net worth for five more years after that. But I was just like, yeah, I’m going to like, it was more important to me to spend time with the family because. And no one’s like, I’m glad I worked overtime instead of spending time on Christmas Eve with my family.
So I’m like, that’s an easy one and I will happily tell people, no, not that you know, you had that situation or anything specific, but it’s like you can tell people no and they could figure it out or like, I mean, someone has to stand up to it. I interviewed someone a former lawyer and that’s the culture they do whatever.
I mean, they get paid a lot of money. And he started saying no because he knew he was going to quit before too long. Yeah, yeah. What are your thoughts? I love that you laughed. You got, you’re just like, I can’t believe. Yeah, I had big balls, I guess.
Andrew: Yeah. No, I think it’s just funny. It’s good that you stood up for yourself Historically in my young 20s, I worked at a refinery and we would work 100 hour weeks every spring and fall for a month straight.
Every spring, every fall, 100 hour weeks for a month to do these big maintenance turnarounds. And I had one of them that lasted seven weeks and you’d work 6 a. m. to 6 or to 7 p. m. or vice versa with a half hour. You’d work 6 to 6 with half hour turnover on each side. That was normal. And working 13 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 7 weeks straight, like, you literally delete the rest of your life.
It doesn’t exist. Your family, your friends, your church, your gym, nothing exists. And I got like a 3, 000 bonus at the end of of that seven week shutdown, cause you’re only getting paid for 40 hours a week, your salary, you got no overtime. And I whipped out my phone to a calculator in front of my boss and I told, showed him how many hours of overtime, like 50 hours of overtime per week.
I was like, Hey, just so you know, I’d get paid more at McDonald’s on Saturday. Do you think it is wise for me to work at McDonald’s every single Saturday? And I just sat and waited for his answer and he laughed like that awkward and I was like answer the question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he’s like, no, I don’t think you should work at it.
I was like, they pay more. So, yeah, no, it’s hard. Like I had a I heard about a friend who had a conversation recently with her boss about trying to win more work for the company different company than I work at, but and they were talking about like, Hey, you should, you should not decline this work from the clients because like our business is to grow the business and they’re like, well, we didn’t have anybody to do the work.
I could do the work. But it’d be like another 10 to maybe 20 hours a week. And I’m already working 45 hours a week. They were saying, and they’re like, but yeah, we should take the work on now. And they were like, great. Who should I give the work to? And they’re like, yeah. Well, I think you’d be the best fit for it.
And they’re like, yeah, I’m not working 65 hours a week. And they’re like, well, we’re not saying that you need to work 65 hours a week, but like, we need to, you know, get that business and not give it to our competitors. And they were like, yeah, they want it to work to start Monday. So who should jump on a call tomorrow to take on the work and get an introduction?
Like, well, I don’t know that we have somebody. I was like, that’s what I told them. Like, well. So I’m like, you’re there like, yeah, yeah, I’m not going to do the work. So it’s like, it’s tough to have those boundaries, but like, it’s so freeing now to, I can just be more honest. I do it tactfully, introspectively, but I’m like, Oh yeah, you know, I’ve been asked to do some, you know, things that require a lot of overtime.
And I’m like, Oh, I’m going to decline this because I just know myself. And if I. Regularly commit to this and the next 15 things that look just like this, I was like, I’m going to get burnt out and I’m going to probably start applying elsewhere while doing this. If I’m having to work all this overtime and I don’t actually want to apply elsewhere and I don’t want to leave.
So I just. It, it’s better that I’ll just pass on this, then I can stay hap happily employed here. Mm-hmm . But if I start taking on a lot of requests, just like what you’re asking me, I just know my personality and if I get burnt out, then I’m just gonna go somewhere else and I don’t want to do that. Yeah.
And a lot of times they just, they’re just like, I can’t believe you had the balls to say that to me. I’m like, I’m saying I’m not there, but I’m just saying I could get there just like anybody else. Just like you too. And they’re like, yeah. Well, I wouldn’t do that. And I’m like, well, I hope you’d tell your wife you would do that.
So you’re lying to your wife or to me. Yeah. Yeah. It’s just, it’s, it’s corporate life. It’s just and just shows the importance of having FU money and how freeing it is to just be like, uh, you know, and maybe you didn’t have it at that point, but like, yeah, if my boss were to say something, it’s just like.
You know, it’s, it’s from such a blessed and privileged perspective to just be like, Oh yeah, I don’t actually need to do that. And if it hurts my performance review, like, oh, that’s okay. Like,
I, it, my performance review isn’t hanging on my fridge. So, it’s all good.
Doug: But the thing is, the raises were always so shitty.
That it’s like, we’re talking like, not that much, or also not that much. Like, the performance review is kind of dumb.
Andrew: I know that’s why like this year I got the Atta Boy and they gave me like a thousand dollar pre tax extra raise and I was like What is the point of this? I was like, you know I’m just like I can work overtime and I will work overtime while traveling literally the following week and Probably more than a thousand dollars after tax because I’d like a 50 hour travel week coming up.
I was like literally I’m just gonna like go work hard for one week and make this, so what the hell is the point of, of spending a year to earn this? I was like, this is so discouraging to me.
Doug: It’s interesting, and then going back to, you know, working for yourself, where there’s no, you know, there’s no waste, or very little waste in the system, so like, If you sell more courses, you make a crazy amount of money more.
And that’s, you know, my wife was skeptical and even till, you know, the last few years she was still like, I can’t believe like you make any money online. Which is kind of funny because I’ve been doing it for like a decade now. But yeah, yeah, I mean the courses that I sold were 500 to 2, 000. So like.
When you, you launch a course and you sell, you know, 20 or 30 of them, like that’s a huge chunk of money that comes in and it’s like that blows my mind, especially like having the corporate job and like working hard for very small raise or a bonus that’s basically a joke. And You know, looking at the value in air quotes, the value that I created, uh, in the course material and then sold it and then, you know, you build that once you can sell it a lot of time.
So anyway, yeah. What were your courses on? Essentially, it was making money online, which is kind of a, it’s a tough space to be in. So this is kind of the classic thing. And, you know, it’s done often where someone learns how to do something and they’re like, I will teach other people how to do it. And I built these affiliate marketing niche websites, which were pretty popular, like Pat Flynn talked about it was actually on Tropical MBA talking about affiliate marketing a few years ago.
Oh, cool. And essentially, because I did have an IT background in the project management background, I used those qualifications to put together a course that, Had maybe more value to people with a background like me. So other I. T. Professionals because I talked like an I. T. Professional and I have a P.M.P. And other people like I’m a project manager at my job. So I understand like how Doug is putting together this framework and it’s actually a little bit better organized and I would use a critical path and a lot of lingo and terminology from the corporate world. So. So, luckily people that work in IT make a lot of money, so they get their jobs, they can buy their course.
But, but anyway, I brought a professional spin to it, and it worked really well because no one else had a PMP and that was teaching it out there. So it was, it worked for us.
Andrew: Yeah, I even got that because I kind of rolled my eyes at some of their credentials and just wanted to spend my time making YouTube videos versus studying for a PMP.
Yeah, yeah. Bro. No, no, that’s cool. Good for you.
Doug: And I was going to say like, I got the PMP in 2008. It was pretty hot back then. My company had training and like, so they sponsored the whole thing back then. And yeah, I think it got a little saturated, but it’s still, it’s a good credential.
Andrew: It still is to the best of my knowledge.
It’s just for my company, I would have had to front the money. And then I only get reimbursed if I get above a certain score. And then if I leave within two years, I have to pay it back. And so I was like, yeah, okay, yeah, no thanks.
Doug: Yeah, yeah, mine was like, all included and they were happy to have it, yeah.
Andrew: Yeah, ours are happy to have a lot of things, but like, I have to front a lot of money for work travel and stuff. And then like, and it just kind of, you know, I’m just like, I’m sick of borrowing this company money. I don’t care what the idea is, you know. Alright, well thanks Doug for the conversation, really enjoyed yeah, all the lessons and wisdom you have, so, yeah, good to hang out.
Doug: Yeah, yeah, this was, uh, super fun, I feel like we could keep talking for a few more hours, especially if we, uh, get a couple beers here.
Andrew: Yeah, maybe later, so, thanks Doug.
Doug: Thanks for having me.