#1436 - How To Transition MORE Into Your Dreams

I was on a podcast today , alan , and this person said hey , what does somebody do if they're in the middle of their journey ? But they're not full-time dream chasing ? And I said first of all , most people are there and I don't know if there's any such thing as the middle of your journey .

I know you think we're towards the end of our journey , but we have a long , long , long way to go . It just looks like we're successful because our journey is longer . So it looks like we're successful . We're not there yet . We're not nearly where we need to be .

In this episode I told my story and I said I Know it sounds awesome that I quit my job and I went all in on my thing , but the truth of the matter is if my job didn't require travel as much as it did ? Right for context , I spent 10 months on the road , the most successful year I had financially .

If it didn't require that amount of travel and my mental health wasn't in a very , very negative place , I probably would have stayed and built the podcast while I worked . What I did was reckless . Now it worked out and that's great . But why couldn't I have done one episode a week and posted on social media every day while I was working ?

I could have definitely done that . So what I told this person on the show today was I think a lot of people are saying I'll do that when I have x amount of time when I have , when I have a full 40 hours a week , I'll be able to do all this other stuff . And the reality is you can start when you're working .

You can start when you have two hours a week . I always use the analogy or the example of if you're a photographer and you want to grow your portfolio , monday through Friday you might go do your nine to five and you might not even have the identity of a photographer necessarily , but when Saturday or Sunday rolls around , you could book out .

You could have a booking every single weekend if you wanted . You could get 52 photo shoots done a year , even while you had your nine to five . That's how you transition more into your dreams . You don't have to go all in right away .

Sometimes I think that's probably better not to go all in right away , because if you have to wait until it's the only thing to go All in , wouldn't it Create momentum if you started now , even if it was an hour or two a week , and you got some experience and you met some people ?

That's really what I want to jam on in this episode , because I know a lot of us are waiting for the right time , or we're waiting for the right amount of money , or whatever it may be .

No matter what you're aiming for , there is going to be a level of mud , and For me , the level of mud was being $35,000 in credit card debt and not being able to pay my bills . Yes , I left my job and I could do this full-time , but there was mud that came with that for you .

For you , your mud might be staying at a job you aren't super passionate about for the next eight to twelve months , while you do your side hustle dream chasing on the weekends or at night , or whatever it may be . That might suit you better .

yes , yes , and I gave a very long-winded , esoteric answer . I'm gonna try to make it more concise here . Three options for all of us . There's the reckless option , which is what Kevin already described , which is go all in , go all in on your dream , take the chance . And I want to make this very , very , very clear .

The reckless option is the one that Kevin and I chose , and I don't recommend that for most people . Here's why I had a hundred and fifty thousand dollar portfolio when I quit my job and I liquidated all of those assets , all the stocks , all the I I index funds , all of it , and I eventually went past zero . Okay , kevin , you had what ?

16 , 18 grand , something like that .

Emilia just quit her full-time job quit and she worked for a company called Alchemy's and , and they were really good to her . She was really good to them . She managed a really great IT portfolio , she learned a lot of skills , she banked a lot of money . Awesome , awesome , awesome . She is in a financial position where she has a very long runway .

She can go over a year and not make another dime and still be in the green . Okay , that's a good position to be in . So , unless you're in a position like that , I don't recommend option one , which is just reckless . All right . Option two . Option two is you do the side hustle . You run in parallel .

That's what Kevin was mentioning Photographer nine to five , do your thing and then , on the weekends , be a weekend warrior for a while . That's 52 photo shoots . If you wanna work both days , maybe it's 104 photo shoots . That's a lot of momentum you can build in one year . I've done 41 photo shoots as a fitness model . I think it might be more than that .

Now , I wasn't a fitness model , but you understand what I'm saying . I've probably done about 45 photo shoots in my life and I'm telling you it's way different than the first one , so you can build a lot of momentum .

Option three Option three is something I want everyone to consider , which is what if your dream is actually working for a company and being a part of something special ? Some people don't wanna be an entrepreneur , some people don't wanna be the business owner , some people don't want all the risk .

And the one thing that I'll share briefly is that option one is reckless and , while I'll tell you there's no glass ceiling on how much money you can make and the impact

that you can have , there's also no safety net whatsoever . If Kevin and I don't work , the business will eventually die Now , eventually . There's a lot of hocus pocus out there of you can have a self managing company and you can , yeah , decades in . Do not fall victim to a lot of that stuff .

A lot of that stuff is for people that are decades into their journey . Option two run in parallel . That's the one I highly recommend until eventually you can make the leap Bank as much money as you possibly can . Get a good runway , make the leap . And then option three is maybe your dream is actually to be a director of marketing for a company . That's okay .

That's okay . And just figure out which one you are and which one you wanna do , and make sure you're preparing accordingly .

But that's the thought process I had when I was thinking of this episode . Okay , I could say , well , one day when I'm not as busy , I'll rap , and that really is the case . Right , I don't have a lot of time to rap . I'm not doing martial arts because I just don't have the time right now .

But what if I could just do an hour of rapping a week In that , four years from today , when I might actually have enough time to say you know what , I'm gonna block off Thursday for four hours and I'm gonna rap every week .

I'll be so much better because I actually transitioned the whole time that I think we look at people who transition immediately and it's sexy and it seems very sexy . Oh , that person quit and went all in Again to Alan's point .

It is what we did , but it's also very reckless and there's a lot of pressure and there's a lot of stuff that comes with that , and here's the thing we need to really hear about the people that make it .

I don't like the minority thing because I know that's like a that could be taken out of context . So I would say , yeah , we're more of the exception than the rule .

Out of all the podcasters I've ever met , I could probably count on one hand how many of them built a business from a podcast the way we have a profitable business that you and I can actually do for a living . It's very , very small . It's a very , very small amount of human beings . But here's the thing not everybody wants to do that .

A lot of people's dream is not doing seven episodes a week and doing the things that we have . So we created it the way that we wanted it to be to a degree . But I that's the way I think of it . The problem is , if you wait until you think everything is ready , you might not feel like you're good enough to actually do it .

I made a mistake . I actually was . I had some entitlement . A few years ago we had Justin Freeman on the show . Remember Justin Freeman , an amazing rapper . I messaged him and asked him to rap with him . In retrospect , that was a very entitled thing to do . He is way ahead of me and he should never rap with someone like me .

He has earned being able to rap with people who are way ahead of me . He would be going backwards . That would be a favor . If he was willing to do me a favor , I'd appreciate that . I haven't transitioned enough into rapper Kev to get that opportunity .

This is what could happen If I said to you all right now , 15 years from today , we're going to be very financially free , we'll have a very successful business and I might have access to people that I don't have access to now . I might know rappers . Then I'll reach out to them and say , hey , I'd love to do a track with you .

I'm going to pay for everything , but will you come on with me ? That sounds really good . The problem is , if I don't practice this for the next 15 years , I'm not going to be good enough to even do it . They might still say no , they might say Kev , you're not a rapper . I know this is like a dream of yours , but you're not good enough .

If I don't train martial arts for the next 15 years , when we get to have and again , I don't know if we're ever going to have guests again , but imagine we have one of my favorite fighters on and we're in the gym with them again , like we were with Julian Nguyen I'm not going to be able to train with them .

I'm not going to be able to hit pads because I haven't done it in 15 years . I want to be the guy saying , oh , I used to do this . Yeah , no , let me knock off some of the rust . I used to do this

. I know what's up . Give me a minute . I'm going to be 15 years from today . I'm going to be 49 year old , kev . If I'm not practicing all aspects of my dreams , if I do get presented the opportunity , I'm not going to do it .

If you're waiting to be a speaker and you go to a speaking event , you go to an event and somebody says anybody here , I want to do this at some point . Anybody here , have a presentation ready . I'm going to give you 15 minutes on stage . It's got to be about self-improvement . That's the only rule . Anybody have a presentation in their mind ready .

You could raise your hand if that could be the shot that propels you to some success . But if you don't do it , I'd be the guy speaking before you . So you probably would be good . You'd probably win the audience over . But that could be it . That could be it for you .

But if you don't identify as it long before you are it , you're not going to get the opportunities or you're not going to say yes to the opportunities .

We're in impact fitness , we're working out , we finish our workout hour and a half crushed it a lot more time back in those days and she stops deadener tracks in the top steps on the way out of the gym and I turn around and I'm like what's going on ? You good , she was just super sad , you know .

You good , she's like I'm such a sucky speaker , I'm the worst speaker . Can you help me become a better speaker ? And I still coach Bianca to this day . And back then I was just mentoring her and I said , yeah , of course , like , of course , got you . Now she's got a podcast , she speaks , she goes on other podcasts .

She's actually a very strong speaker , so much , in fact , that at our relationship talks event I actually paused Emilia for a moment and let Bianca talk because she explained CBT cognitive behavioral therapy .

She's a cognitive behavioral therapist but I knew Bianca could explain it better than I could and as a speaker with thousands of reps , podcasting , speaking , training , workshops , whatever it's very rare that I'm like oh , can you please explain this for me , because I know you can explain it better than I can and she crushed it .

This is an opportunity for Bianca , but it all had to do with humility that no one saw . Six years prior to that . She started going on our Instagram stories . Then she started eventually doing Instagram lives , then eventually started a podcast with Emilia . Then eventually she started doing out of the mud events , virtual events Every month .

They've never missed , I'm telling you , those reps add up and eventually you get really really good . And you get good almost out of nowhere . It's like oh wow . And for me sometimes it's like , wait , are they bad ? Oh no , I'm really good , okay , cool .

Because when you're always comparing to the top of the mountain , sometimes it's hard to realize that you're good when you're still shooting upward . But at the end of the day , it's the stuff behind the scenes , the practice behind the scenes , the reps behind the scenes , the work behind the scenes that no one sees , that is going to make or break your dream .

Preparation meets opportunity . We've all heard that thing of luck , quote , unquote . Good luck is preparation meeting opportunity and

I honestly believe that opportunities around us all the time . I really do . We just aren't prepared for it . You know , you had that kid come up one of our speeches and you had a kid . Anyone here want to be a motivational speaker ?

But maybe he didn't identify as a speaker yet . I was thinking of this episode last night . I was thinking I'm always trying to think of , okay , tomorrow's episodes are this what can I bring in terms of value ?

Most of us have to do something part time long before we do it full time , and sometimes it's going to be while you're doing something else full time . Imagine that right now you're doing full time , real job , whatever that means . Just say even that phrasing I know could be limiting to you , but just say it's the job that pays the bills .

Currently , full time , part time passion . Eventually you might be doing full time passion in part time paying the bills , because the full time passion isn't paying the bills yet . That's okay . Everybody's journey is a little bit different . Everybody's results are going to be a little bit different . The way you get to those results are going to be different .

So my next level nugget is that don't be afraid to do something part time while you do something else full time , because most likely you're going to have to do something full time while you do your thing .

You're gonna have to do something part-time while you do your thing full-time , and that's okay , and eventually you'll be able to do your thing full-time if you do it right and you do it long enough and you focus on mastery and you get really good at the things that matter for you specifically . That's my next little nugget .

And then I played basketball when I lived in LA for a few months with some really , really , really good players and Emilia and I , when we first got together , we started playing ball together and she had never played and it was like oh , oh , wow , you don't , it was just weird , it was .

You don't know what a how to dribble , you don't know what a rebound is , and it's nothing against her . You just don't realize how good you get over time . I never considered myself Super good at basketball , but when I played against a beginner it was , it mean I could do whatever I wanted . It's not even . It's not even a real .

This isn't a competition , this is nothing . It's not about me , it's not about Emilia , it's not about Cav time , that there is nothing . Everyone underestimates what a decade will do . I'm convinced of it . If you want to play guitar for a half an hour a day or a half an hour a week , even for a decade , you're gonna get better than me .

You're gonna be good . You're gonna be really good time if you practice over time . There is not a single person that I know who isn't better than me at something , and that's because they've just been doing whatever that thing is so much longer than me . You get human beings get really good at things that they consistently practice . They get really really good .

And Are you leveraging that ? That would be my next level nugget .

in ten years you would never be on the celebrity basketball team . Say . You and I were like actual celebrities that you know Musicians or whatever . You know how they have celebrity games all the time . You'd never be on it if you weren't playing , if people didn't know you liked basketball and you hadn't been practicing . That would be so awesome . There you go .

So you better get on you better get on the streets , son .

The link is always in the show notes but I know a lot of us feel lonely and this growth thing and Dream chasing thing can get very lonely . So if you're looking for people , there are 700 and some odd of them in next level nation and they are all amazing you .