Entrepreneur or Not With Brenden Kumarasamy

 On this episode of the Chasing Financial Freedom Podcast, we have special guest Brenden Kumarasamy. Brenden is the founder of MasterTalk, a company that coaches ambitious executives and entrepreneurs to become the top 1% communicators in their industry. He also has a popular YouTube channel called MasterTalk with the goal of providing free access to communication tools for everyone in the world.

In this episode we talk about:

-How Brenden got started in business

-How he became an entrepreneur at such a young age

-How does he define success and failure in his life

-Why communication is so important when running a business or working with clients

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Transcript

Entrepreneur or Not? with Brenden K

[00:00:00] Ryan: Hey guys, Ryan DeMent from Chasing Financial Freedom Podcast. I hope you guys are having a great day this week on the podcast. We have Brendan and guys, that I do not like to butcher the last name, so we'll let him pronounce it. Once we bring him in. Brendan is a communications coach and YouTuber is YouTube channel is master talk, but he has this great quote that we're gonna talk about and I'll read it.

[00:00:25] Ryan: I believe the next Elon Musk is a seven yearold girl who can afford a communication coach. So it's my duty to help her succeed in my free resources. Brendan, welcome to the show, Ryan. It's a 

[00:00:37] Brenden: pleasure to be on. Thanks for having me. 

[00:00:39] Ryan: Awesome. So tell me a little bit, so tell us a little bit about yourself before we get into your journey.

[00:00:46] Brenden: Yeah, absolutely man. So my name is Brenden Kumarasamy. You summed up pretty well. I'm a communication coach. I started a YouTube channel called master talk. And how that got started was when I was in university, I went to business school, Ryan and I did these things called case [00:01:00] competitions. Think of it like professional sports, but for nerds.

[00:01:04] Brenden: So while the guys, my age were playing basketball, rugby or football, or some other thing that the guys were playing at the time. I'm not one of those guys. I did presentations competitively and that's how I learned how to speak. But then as I got older, I started coaching the students in that program.

[00:01:22] Brenden: Cuz we didn't really have a coach and I wasn't one either and I was just helping them out. But then I had the idea for master drop. Cause I realized that everything I was teaching them, wasn't available online for free. I started making videos and here we are today. 

[00:01:35] Ryan: And how long have you been doing. I've 

[00:01:38] Brenden: been coaching for seven years and the YouTube channel I started three years ago.

[00:01:42] Ryan: Nice. So in all this, in everything, once you're, you guys say university, we say college, I mean it all the same thing. The biggest takeaway that you can really look at from what started you from what you were doing in university to today was. [00:02:00]

[00:02:00] Brenden: I would say the biggest difference was back then.

[00:02:03] Brenden: And I think you mean it from a general perspective, not just communication, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I would. Yeah, I would say the biggest difference is when I was in university, I used to believe that money is more important than time and today I believe time is way more important 

[00:02:15] Ryan: than money. So that is awesome.

[00:02:18] Brenden: and the reason for that Ryan is because, I grew up in a really poor family. I was the poorest guy on earth. I wasn't born in so like India or something, but I wasn't I wasn't super wealthy. My parents were both minimum wage workers. They both worked in factories and we didn't have, we barely had money for groceries.

[00:02:34] Brenden: So for me, a lot of my mindset in my tens let's use my tens to the age of let's say 12 and 22 was getting a six figure corporate job. Cause I knew if I made a hundred grand a year doing anything. I didn't care what it was. My, my financial security was going to be good for me and my family. So my job was to get a, to get a job as an accountant.

[00:02:51] Brenden: So I worked at one of the big four accounting firms, and, but when I started making money, I realized that, wait a second, here, you don't really need a lot of money to be [00:03:00] okay if you're smart with it. You need 60, 70 grand in Montreal. That's a lot of. So groceries weren't as expensive as my mother used to tell me.

[00:03:08] Brenden: So I realized my mindset needed to change and time ended up being more important. And I had to, I quit that job. I worked so hard to get to, to be an entrepreneur. Just fascinating. 

[00:03:17] Ryan: So what got you there to quit and let's back up. I wanna one more question. So growing up poor or in, I, I say I hate saying poor, but that's just what comes outta my mouth.

[00:03:29] Ryan: Sorry. That's the right word. What would you describe your mindset? Because that we struggle with it today, especially I know inflation is everywhere. You guys are struggling within Canada. We're struggling here in the states. A lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck, which is poor.

[00:03:44] Ryan: What was your mindset like? And how did you work through that process to understand that there was more time was more valuable than. 

[00:03:53] Brenden: Absolutely brother, even today, I'm still working through it by Louis my coaches and the people ran me, but obviously it was a lot worse back then. [00:04:00] And the big theme that I would tell you, Ryan is scar scarcity, right?

[00:04:03] Brenden: I had a big scarcity mindset around money. Like most of us do, which is, am I going to have enough? Do I really have enough? And this is coming from somebody now who has zero debt. Yeah, multiple five figure net worth soon to be six. This is not, I'm not poor, but back then the mindset was, oh my God, am I really going to eat?

[00:04:23] Brenden: What if they fire me at work? And there's a lot of these stories around money that just weren't true. How did I fight that? How did I overcome it? I would say the first step that really helped my money mindset. A lot that I got from one of my money mindset, coaches, Belinda, she says every morning, when you get up, look at what you have, be great for what you have.

[00:04:41] Brenden: So what she does every morning, she opens up all of her bank accounts, all of her holdings, and she just adds up all the numbers together. And as low as that number is increasing slowly over time, not by millions of dollars , but tens of dollars, hundreds of dollars, it creates that confidence that, Hey, I'm doing something right with my life.

[00:04:58] Brenden: The other piece [00:05:00] is gratitude. Understanding that there's a lot that we have, even if you're homeless. I know it's hard to say, right? Going back to what you said, even if you're homeless, living in America, Canada, already wet first world country, you're still amongst the richest people in the world. And that perspective is so important.

[00:05:15] Brenden: Go. 

[00:05:15] Ryan: No, it just you're hitting on all the cylinders already and we're going, and I love it. It's a mindset and it's a shift in mindset. I Every morning I wake up and I'm thankful for the things that I have. And I like that you're looking at your bank, she's looking at her bank account and so forth, but you brought up being homeless.

[00:05:31] Ryan: How can somebody, and I know this is extreme and I like extreme right now. So we're going there. How do you take yourself as, as homeless and shift that mindset and say, okay, I'm gonna move from where I'm at today on the streets to where I'm gonna find shelter and start that process.

[00:05:50] Brenden: That's tough one man. Tough one here. Here's what I would say. I would respond with another story and the story is simply this, I dunno if you've ever heard of the father, the alcoholic father was two different sons. I'll tell that [00:06:00] story. Cause I think it's really powerful. So let's say there's a dad, right?

[00:06:03] Brenden: Who is an alcoholic? Abused. All the drugs made all the mistakes in the world and he has two sons. And what's interesting about both sons is they both take on very two different paths of life. One of the son looks at their father and becomes an alcoholic, becomes a drug addict, makes all the mistakes in the book.

[00:06:19] Brenden: And then the second son ends up becoming a mega successful person, has lot good money has a great family, is a leader in his community and the interview, both people 20 years later, Ryan, and in two separate rooms and they ask them this question. What made you successful? And what was interesting Ryan is they both answered the same thing.

[00:06:42] Brenden: They both said, with a father like that, what else would you expect? And then you might wonder why did they answer the same thing? One of the sons that the person who ended up, ended up being broken in some way, said My father was an alcoholic. My father was this. My father was that.

[00:06:56] Brenden: So I, I just ended up becoming him because it was all his fault and there's [00:07:00] nothing I could do about it. Yeah. Whereas the other son, and by the way, I had a similar upbringing minus the drugs. My, my dad never took drugs, but he was definitely was an alcoholic. Whereas the other perspective was how do I learn from him?

[00:07:12] Brenden: What can I learn from this experience? How about I do the exact opposite of what this person. And that's exactly what I did and what that person did in the story. So what's the answer to the question. I don't think there's a great answer to it, Ryan. I think the only answer that matters is that life is all about how we perceive life to be.

[00:07:29] Brenden: Life is never as is as what it is, but rather how we choose to look at the world. So if we believe. That Ryan has good intentions. If Ryan's a great guy and he has this great sign, good things come to those who hustle love that. , you're gonna perceive Ryan in a great way, but if you go into it with a negative mindset and you think Ryan's a bad person, oh, he just has that sign because he's trying to look good in front of other people.

[00:07:52] Brenden: And that's obviously, it's not the case. That's a high perceive you at all, but let's say that's the story. There's nothing. That's going to change that story. So just realize that moving [00:08:00] forward is, would be my advice, but 

[00:08:01] Ryan: It is, it all boils down to mindset. It really, it, the way I describe it is the inner you has to match the outer you, and in our real estate business, we work in the affordable housing space and a lot of people unfortunately are poor.

[00:08:19] Ryan: And don't understand banking, don't understand credit, just have not been given the tools to succeed. And when they come to us, they're broke. And when I say broke, I'm not talking about money broke, I'm talking mentally broke is they think that they don't deserve any of this. And you have to be not just a coach, but also a therapist.

[00:08:39] Ryan: And. I struggled with that. Where I've been doing this almost eight years now, and I've been, I struggled with it for the first five years, just for the simple fact of understanding that mindset and not wanting to shift it and just living in that, I call it the comfortable space. And the way I look at it is what's gonna be harder to change [00:09:00] your comfortable life or your new world.

[00:09:03] Ryan: And I pose that every single time. And you'd be amazed the answer. What do you think the answer. 

[00:09:07] Brenden: I love that the comfortable life versus the new world. That's a fascinating kind of comparison. I see it in the sense of, for all of us, that new world evolves over time. So I'll give you an example with me to be super concrete here.

[00:09:20] Brenden: So it's helpful for people. When I was 19 $50,000 a year, to me was a fortune. A fortune, like an absolute fortune. Cause remember my parents both made minimum wage and they didn't spend the money correctly, whereas we could have been just fine, but they made a lot of bad bets, a lot of bad career moves. So for me if I just made 50 grand a year, which is what price pays you, price Waterhouse Coopers.

[00:09:41] Brenden: When you start as an entry level kind of employee there. So I knew if I made 50 grand a year as a fortune, but so that became my golden token. That became my pedestal. That became the ideal. And I focused all of my attention from the age of 1920. I hustled my face off meeting all of the partners for coffee, [00:10:00] get to get a $50,000 job, bro.

[00:10:02] Brenden: Like I put it all the work, but then when I got it, That's when my mind started opening up to new opportunities. And I'll tell you this on record, right? If I never got that job, I never would've started master talk. Cause if you had told me, entrepreneurship was a way out, I would've told you to go F yourself.

[00:10:17] Brenden: That doesn't make any sense in my mind. I've been like, you make no sense. Like why would I be an entrepreneur? There's so much risk. I'd rather just be like, so I had a very like limited mindset, but what happens is momentum. If you choose to momentum, unlocks bigger pieces of the mindset over time. So then when I got the 50 K job, I was like, okay if I become a partner at this firm only 300.

[00:10:40] Brenden: And then when I got to that point, I said, okay, but what else is possible? And then I start to dream. So my advice for people are getting started. Don't focus on the being the millionaire thing. Most people aren't, most people barely make the top 1%. I dunno if people know this top, 1% of people in the us make four and 50 grand a year.

[00:10:55] Brenden: Like it's not. They're not million. They're not making a million bucks a year. So start with, how do I [00:11:00] get 10 grand in my bank account? How do I get one grand in my bank account and work up to the momentum. And then when you start to win a little bit, then that creates momentum, that snowballs over time.

[00:11:10] Ryan: So then let's go there. Let's start that. We're gonna put a thousand dollars in our bank account. How do we do it? 

[00:11:14] Brenden: So how do we do this? Okay. So here's what I think I have a different perspective than most people. So hopefully that adds value. It's this idea of EK guy, right? EK guy is a Japanese term that talks about how do you live your ideal life?

[00:11:25] Brenden: So one of the sides of the triangles, what you love to do. Another side of the triangle is what the world needs from you and is willing to pay you. And the third part of it is what are you actually good at? And the trifecta of Iki guy is how you live your ideal life. And there's another guy. I forgot what his name is, but he calls it the zone of genius versus the zone of excellence.

[00:11:46] Brenden: So the zone of genius is what you're called to do that you love to do that you would do it every second year, that you get paid to do it, that you, that people need as well. But I actually argue against that. I don't think you should ever start [00:12:00] with Iki guy or you should start with finding the trifecta.

[00:12:03] Brenden: I think where the journey becomes begins is your zone of excellence. Cuz it's easier to optimize for, in other words, in, in layman's terms, I encourage you to start with what you're good at and what makes money. I know a lot of people. Don't like to say that a lot of Billy nerd come on TV shows and podcasts and they go, Hey, you should follow your heart.

[00:12:22] Brenden: You should follow your passion. I think passions are a crock brother. And the reasons I think they're CRO is because a lot of passions are not monetizable. You even passion about anything. You passion about your dog, your cat, Steve your hair. It doesn't work. Whereas for me, what's helped me a lot.

[00:12:37] Brenden: It's really doing an honest audit of what am I actually good at and what am I not good at? So when I was 12 years old to make this concrete everyone else was dreaming up beyond I astronaut or stand at comedians, all this shit. I looked at my life and I said, okay, let me look at my report card. I was a math genius.

[00:12:54] Brenden: I wouldn't study at all. I would get nineties in math all the time, every other subject I was shit at. So I went on the [00:13:00] internet. I looked up all the careers that paid well for mathematics majors, and I landed on accounted and I never changed my mind. And then when I started making money, going back to your question on a thousand dollars, when I started making money, then I had a lot more time to think.

[00:13:15] Brenden: Cause I wasn't worried about the bills anymore. And then I started singing kumbaya and then I started going into my vision later in life. And I ended up finding my EK guy. But my advice for those who are looking to make a thousand or even 10,000 is start with what are you actually good at? And the way you figure that out is by co comparing yourself to other people.

[00:13:31] Brenden: Comparison, I believe is a tool. If you know how to use it correctly , it's not a lot of people say comparisons to the team for joy. I disagree. And then when you compare that, then. You able to make a list of things that you see yourself doing that you're willing to tolerate and then make bank, and then make the decisions of life later.

[00:13:48] Ryan: I agree with a lot of that. And then there's some disagreement just for my history, please. Cause tough in my whole thing is I'm a, I'm an eight year overnight success because I've had two have failed other businesses and those [00:14:00] businesses were things I was very good at. One was a collection agency.

[00:14:03] Ryan: When I learned, I, I know how to collect bills, I can make people pay their bills. It didn't Dr. It, I was very good at it. It drove me, but it also brought greed out. So that also was a demise of that. And then I had other I also had a debt buying company into where we bought debt and then worked through that whole process.

[00:14:23] Ryan: Very good at that too. But it also failed because of the same thing until I found something I was very good at and I had passion and it mixed the two together. Then it actually worked. And that's where the real estate, the affordable housing, we buy defaulted, mortgages, all those things I'm good at, but I'm also passionate about, and I think it's a hybrid of what you're talking about is because I'm good at the financial aspect.

[00:14:48] Ryan: But I have passion in helping people and getting to the right place. And during this journey, I've also learned you can't go down that rabbit hole with people when they're fighting their own demons, when it comes [00:15:00] to finances, because it's a personal journey you can give 'em the tools you can help.

[00:15:04] Ryan: 'em and all I can say is be here when you're ready. And that's what we do. And that's, it's a little twist on what you talked about, but it also has a lot of what you also discussed too. 

[00:15:15] Brenden: Hundred percent. And it's nice that you said that Ryan, cuz it helps us draw a nuance that I feel a lot of podcasters don't go deep into here's my take on this is your zone of excellence, often leads to your zone of genius.

[00:15:26] Brenden: But I do think, and I still believe this unless you're a small percentage of the population. Cause I'm empathetic to that. It's easy for me to come on a podcast and say yeah. Find your passion, all that stuff. Yeah. It's easy for me. I found it at 21. Like how, who, who else is gonna do. So people are gonna look at me and say, oh yeah Brenda did that.

[00:15:43] Brenden: I think it's more about the zone of excellence. All of those finance, all of the history you talked about then leads into your zone of genius. But I think the argument, a couple of things, I would say the first piece is the zone of excellence doesn't necessarily need to be a business. I think that's what a lot [00:16:00] of people miss when they try and get wealthy.

[00:16:02] Brenden: I know a lot of people are multimillionaires who were employees, their whole life, like easy. Easily because they had high income jobs. So I think there's two pieces to that. I would say the first piece is I would still optimize for a zone of excellence. If you can find the zone of genius life, kudos to you, then I have no advice for you.

[00:16:18] Brenden: Go live your life. That's amazing. That's a brilliant, I didn't personally I became an accountant, right? Like my journey was literally, I became an account. And I realized to get that job at KPMG or at EY or at PWC or Deloitte. A lot of these people did case competitions. And I said, what the hell is a case competition?

[00:16:34] Brenden: And then I started competing in these things to get the eyes of the executives. And then I got an unhealthy obsession with them. I started coaching them with communication, and then I accidentally become the world's youngest C-suite communication coach in the world. That's what happened. And I started master talk re I think for most of us, the mistake is we try and optimize for a zone of genius that we haven't found yet.

[00:16:54] Brenden: And we just sit there in an action versus going, okay, don't optimize your zone of excellence in a [00:17:00] business. Optimize it for a high paying job that you can tolerate for two years. And you can build up a lot of savings. And then use that two years of suffering. Once again, I like giving real advice and then use that two years of suffering to then be so much in pain that you try and figure out your zone of genius and then live your rest of your life in place.

[00:17:18] Ryan: I just did that for almost 25 years. So there you go. Yeah. so I mean that, we all have that journey in it's amazing what we actually put up with to get to where we're at, but then we also. I call it discounting. We discount who we are and what our abilities to, to accomplish things.

[00:17:36] Ryan: And it all starts right up in here. It's all in your mind, it's what's between your ears. And if you don't decide or you don't figure out what you want to do in life, you're always gonna continue to be in that same place. And one of the things I tell these individuals that come to us, I was talking to a gentleman last week and it's just a short story.

[00:17:55] Ryan: He has rented a home for almost 30 years. Same. [00:18:00] Never ch never moved. Literally in 30 years, I think he said the family that owns the house it's on the second generation or third generation of family that's own it. I said, so that house is free and clear. You've paid their you've paid their mortgage off multiple times.

[00:18:14] Ryan: Why do you wanna stay there? And his response was cuz I'm comfortable. And it's okay. So what do you do for work? And he tells me. He works in a blue collar factory. He's making decent money. He's probably making 65, $70,000 a year after being there. He's probably in his mid to late fifties.

[00:18:30] Ryan: And and I said, so have you been doing the same job while you worked there? Practically. And I said, so practically, your whole life is the same boils down to is. He was never given the tools. He feels from his family passed down that to succeed, but he never pushed himself mentally. Like you did to be able to make change.

[00:18:52] Ryan: And that's where we're at as a society is that change is a four letter word. We don't wanna do the work. Everything [00:19:00] on social media is instant gratification and it's all about, I'm gonna become a TikTok overnight success with a billion downloads and I'm not gonna ever have to work. And it's gotten bad.

[00:19:10] Ryan: It's bad to the point of it's I don't even wanna look at social media half the time. 

[00:19:14] Brenden: I completely agree, man. I definitely think there's a lot of bad actors in the social media space where spiting acknowledge that isn't really relevant for people. But I feel when it comes back down, I love the story that you told around the person who didn't have that tools.

[00:19:26] Brenden: I think what's great about this life. And since we're having an extreme conversation, might as well give you my extreme piece of advice here, which is a quote I got from one of my coaches and he says this so well, he says, are you making an excuse to do the thing or not do the. So there's two types of people in the world.

[00:19:40] Brenden: Ryan, the first type of person is always going to make an excuse, not to do something. Yep. Oh yeah. I did this I'm tired. And the second type of person is always going to make an excuse to do the thing. Oh my God, I have all these things going on, but I'll still make it happen. And it's that nuance that creates successful people versus unsuccess [00:20:00] successful people.

[00:20:00] Brenden: So really ask yourself the person's listening to this show. Are you always making an excuse to, to do the thing or not do the thing? And that's what really pushes us to be successful. And what's great about this era that I love. And the I grew up in is information is. Whereas in the past, it took forever to read books.

[00:20:20] Brenden: I hate books. I still hate books to this day. It's so hard for me to read through pages. Like I'm just not smart enough for that. And I just can't retain the information, but podcasting my God, I ate that stuff ferociously when I was younger. And I just learned everything about finance and it's not hard.

[00:20:35] Brenden: You just save more. Then you keep try and live with other family. I still owe with my sister and my mom. That's why we have a massive household income. It's not cuz we're rich or wealthy it's cuz we just pay one rent. It's all about bringing your expenses down to the bottom. And then we just invest the rest in index funds.

[00:20:52] Brenden: It's super simple. It's just, most people aren't willing to do the simple things. It's so simple in fact that nobody does it. 

[00:20:57] Ryan: That's the thing you're willing to do it. And [00:21:00] that's where it boils down to is you're willing to one put yourself out there, two change, and the third is go after what you want, because you've identified what you're looking to do.

[00:21:10] Ryan: And you're looking to create that life. That one makes you ha excuse me, makes you happy. And two, you get to be free as a burden. Do what you want. It's and people don't realize. You can do anything you want. It's just matter of how much time and effort you put into it. It's life. I'm sorry.

[00:21:28] Ryan: I'm gonna get on a tangent, but we all fail. There's not a single day that I don't fail and I have to get back up and dust myself off. And I'm sure the same thing with you. You have to get back up and do something also, but the thing. That people don't realize. And I'm gonna talk about entrepreneurship, small business ownership, whatever is they think all of that all above the top of the iceberg.

[00:21:53] Ryan: Have you seen that image where you have the iceberg up top, where you have all the happiness and then all below is all the hard work and all the crap that we [00:22:00] have to deal with. People really think that's just false and it's just, we make it up because we don't want people to be entre. I want you to be an entrepreneur, if that's what you're looking to do, but it is crappy.

[00:22:11] Ryan: It's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches early in the Mor at late at night, you're up at night, sleepless. You're trying to find deals to make things work. There's just so many things that go into it that people don't realize corporate America, and then I'll get off. My, my soapbox corporate America teaches you to be fat and happy to be fed every two weeks or however you got paid entrepreneurship teaches you how to fish.

[00:22:34] Ryan: And it teaches you a another life skill that you're not going to get as being a w two employee. And it's not meant for everyone. And I'm not bashing anybody that doesn't anybody that doesn't succeed as an entrepreneur. It just is a different mindset that most don't realize they need to either address it or walk away and say, okay, I'm just gonna be a w two employee.

[00:22:57] Ryan: And I'm gonna find my side hustle. That'll keep [00:23:00] things going. 

[00:23:01] Brenden: I think that's just beautifully said, I feel when it comes to entrepreneurship, there's this preconceived notion, Ryan that, we have all these successful people, it's called survivorship bias, like people who are successful, that we don't really, we don't see the other dominoes that fell and the other people who lost the game, that, that's why I'm always cautious to tell people to jump into entrepreneurship.

[00:23:21] Brenden: And if I'm being perfectly honest with you real to real, if I never had the idea with master, I'd still be a w two employee. To this day, because I didn't find a reason that was compelling enough to start the business. So for me, and my advice is always cuz the person who are gonna, who's gonna be an entrepreneur, doesn't need my advice.

[00:23:38] Brenden: They're going to be an entrepreneur, regardless of what I say, correct. It's really the people who are the third type of person. So the first type of person is just going to be an entrepreneur. They sold lemonades their whole life. That's what they do. They wash cars, they do all that crazy stuff. Second type of person, it should just be a corporate employee, but they think they can be an entrepreneur.

[00:23:55] Brenden: And then the third type of person can actually do well in both environments. And that's very rare and I'm [00:24:00] actually I thought it was a top a category. Ended up being a third person. I could actually thrive in both, but I would say the advice is always, if you can't do the business, part-time, it's gonna be really difficult for you to do it full time.

[00:24:12] Brenden: And I actually did something very different than most entrepreneurs doesn't work with every business, but it, whenever you can make it happen, you do it. So in my case, I side hustled mastermind for two and a half years before I quit my day job, two and a half years. 

[00:24:24] Ryan: I got you beat four years. OK. Oh, four years.

[00:24:28] Ryan: Pride 

[00:24:28] Brenden: hustle. There you go. I love that, man. So that's why I still live with my mom. Even if my business does well now, cause I just want that extra 10, 15 GS to lever her up and do something else with it. So that's how entrepreneurs think. And that's the first piece. The second piece I had replaced 50% of my income before I had left corporate, not a hundred, but 50%.

[00:24:46] Brenden: I already had sales out of the gate. Most people, they jump into things and they still try and find product market fit, which I think is crazy. And the third piece is I had a very clear plan when I exited corporate and I had a nine month emergency fund [00:25:00] and like this and not, or, and I had really good relationships with my boss at IBM.

[00:25:05] Brenden: So if shit hit the fan, I could just get my corporate job again. And it's as if this whole shit never happened. I had everything figured out the corporate thing, all of this, all the executives at my company knew about master talk, but they just thought it was a fun thing. And they all told me if this shit hits the fan, we'll give you a job.

[00:25:21] Brenden: The next. So I had all, obviously I never needed it, but I had all my ducks in line to make sure this is successful. Whereas a lot of entrepreneurs are jumping into just randomness cuz they see it's fun on social and they get slammed in the face. Yeah. 

[00:25:34] Ryan: And they they don't realize it takes a lot of effort, time and capital.

[00:25:38] Ryan: Side hustle. Four years for me was tough. I was working 80 hours. Probably 75 to 80 hours a week in my w two job come home at night and work 7, 9, 7 days a week on my side hustle. And it's just I, for me it was one, I knew it could be monetized two. I enjoyed it and was passionate about it.

[00:25:57] Ryan: But the third thing was I was so intrigued [00:26:00] because the. Market segment was antiquated. And when I say antiquated, there was no technology. There was there, literally spreadsheets were sent out when you're buying defaulted mortgages, or if you were looking to work with a city to develop a block and so forth.

[00:26:15] Ryan: You got a spreadsheet, an Excel spreadsheet to look at. So we've come out with a whole technology piece and I gotta learn to speak English again, implemented it to the point where it's starting to change the industry. It's very large. It's billions of dollars, but we're making end roads and it's slowly but surely, but that's just a side piece of what we do.

[00:26:34] Ryan: And. If I, and I, you made me think about this. If I truly wanted to go back to my mom asked me this question pretty consistently eight years later, is would you go back and work for your W2 employer? And I would say, Nope, I'd rather, I rather struggle or struggles are good for me. I've learned a lot about my myself, and I would learn to find another way to make money.

[00:26:56] Ryan: If that's I can consult. There's so many things that [00:27:00] I can do. I could work damn. I would go to, I would go work at, in and out burger here. They're paying $22 an hour. If I had to do that, I love in and out burger. It's one of my favorite places 

[00:27:10] Brenden: we'll go together. We'll go work there together.

[00:27:12] Ryan: I'm willing to do whatever it takes to keep my dream alive. And I think that's. You talk about three. I have a fourth is you have people that actually are very hungry to accomplish what they're trying to do, their goal, whatever it is, monetize it, side hustle, whatever, and they do whatever it takes to get that done.

[00:27:30] Ryan: And I think that's a whole different mindset and in most people will never get to that point because of what we see in society today is the instant gratification. And it's sad because a lot of people have the skillset to get. 

[00:27:46] Brenden: Yeah, man. And that's why I always say, and thanks for sharing that now I'm hungry.

[00:27:49] Brenden: Now. I want to go get some in and out broker, but I think the key, 

[00:27:51] Ryan: I just had it the other day. So that's what came to my mind. look, 

[00:27:55] Brenden: I think that the takeaway from this is. At the end of the [00:28:00] day, this is why most people shouldn't be entrepreneurs for all of those reasons. The first one is the whole idea behind instant gratification.

[00:28:08] Brenden: If you're going to entrepreneurship and you're already in debt, you don't not imagine your money. You're screwed as an entrepreneur, cuz you gotta be your own accountant. Even if you might hire one, you still have to look at your books. You have to understand numbers where that's the first piece. The second one.

[00:28:20] Brenden: Is the ability to think long term entrepreneurship really only pays off in like years 9, 7, 8, 9, 10. You have to really care about what you're doing. And then the third one, which is the most important. You said it yourself change is a four letter world word. And that's why most people can never be entrepreneurs because for entrepreneurs changes a necessity, it's a necessary skillset to actually be successful in the game.

[00:28:42] Brenden: And most people aren't willing to actually change on a rapid, consistent basis. Like I almost ran outta money last year and I had to really rethink my sales strategy or else my business was gonna die. And I figured it out probably what two months away? I wasn't like Elon, like a week away from running outta money.

[00:28:58] Brenden: It was like two months. [00:29:00] Okay. Like my business is a lot easier than what he is done, but I think that's the key that a lot of people don't realize, but that's the last piece I loved every second of it. I just loved being in this mode again. And it's 

[00:29:08] Ryan: super fun but it's what you thrive in because you're correct.

[00:29:12] Ryan: You're five year six, you're seven. Things start taking off in the first several years of running your business or being an entrepreneur. It's a struggle. Peanut butter and jelly. Top ramen no joke. I know I, I did it and I know other people that did too today. Can I say we're on solid ground and things are growing.

[00:29:30] Ryan: Yes. But I'm always hungry for more. And that's where I think entrepreneurs think differently. And you're always, I'm always concerned about our numbers. And one of the things I do on the side, is I consult and I. I have a private practice where I do coaching and most are doctors, attorneys in airline pilots making a lot of money, six figures, some seven figures, and you'd be amazed how broke they are.[00:30:00]

[00:30:00] Ryan: And having those conversations with those individuals is eye opening because I get to get into their practices and you should see what they spend their money on. It is ridiculous. And they wonder why they're broke and they're like, I'm making this money. I shouldn't be broke. And I said I could probably go.

[00:30:17] Ryan: Most of the time I can go tell him what type of car are you driving? And when he's telling me he's driving a Lamborghini or a Porsche or something like that, how much you paying on that lease payment on a monthly basis? Oh, it's $2,000. Oh, okay. All right. These are just, I call 'em first world problems.

[00:30:32] Ryan: They really are. And they're not even trying to keep up with the Joneses. They've exceeded the Joneses, but the, and I circle back and I digress. The biggest pieces with the entrepreneurship is the struggle in the first three years is what's gonna define you. And that defines your life because when you have a six-figure.

[00:30:53] Ryan: Which I did I really screwed up some technology and I had a six figure hit all, no, all joking [00:31:00] aside. And I still have nightmares about it, but it's coming back and it's being taken care of, but it's been a long journey. And if you're not willing to put that risk in one and two to fail and get back up every single time, entrepreneurship is not for you.

[00:31:16] Ryan: Small business ownership is not for you. And sometimes I joke about. Life is that way. And if you can't balance all those out, then I don't know how you can function in life because life is not all roses. Every single day 

[00:31:32] Brenden: just is that van 

[00:31:33] Ryan: just me. I just, and I'm not saying that they shouldn't do life.

[00:31:37] Ryan: I'm not, that's not what I mean, cuz people think of that. And I said, no, you have to change the way you think about life. And we get back. We go full circle. Now back to what you talked about, time and money. It's one of the questions I ask my coaching clients on the affordable housing space side, and they think money is the more valuable than time.

[00:31:56] Ryan: And I said, guess what? Go look at the average millionaire [00:32:00] or entrepreneur. They actually file bankruptcy or get themselves in a large debt amount at least one time in their life, and guess what? They lose it all. And they gain it all back because of mindset. But time, you can never get back once it's gone.

[00:32:15] Ryan: So if you live in the past or you're dealing with the past, you're never gonna get yourself in the right place. 

[00:32:22] Brenden: Completely agreed. And it's that equation by the way, that may be equipped my day job, cuz they offered me a lot of money to stay. Like it was, I wasn't the kind of student or entrepreneur that was like, oh yeah, I hate, I got DS and F no, I was a straight a student.

[00:32:35] Brenden: All star I, would've done just fine in corporate and made 300 finer K year probably, 

[00:32:40] Ryan: but the, it never had to worry about anything. 

[00:32:43] Brenden: Never had to worry about anything. So why did I cut down my earnings by significant amount? It's because I realized that this youth. This twenties that I'm in right now.

[00:32:53] Brenden: I don't get this back. I don't get the youth back. And I knew I pictured myself with $10 million and I said, you know what? [00:33:00] I'd probably give it all up to go back to right now. Cause this is where I have a ton of energy and I can compete in a way that anyone else who wants to be a communication coach in this industry just can't do.

[00:33:10] Brenden: If I start young enough and I put all my chips on this table, so I said, I got nothing to lose, might as well. And I've been having fun ever 

since. 

[00:33:16] Ryan: Okay. We're gonna have to ask one more question and we'll get this all wrapped up, but whether you're in your twenties, thirties, or forties, you're saying you want to go after it.

[00:33:25] Ryan: So what separates you from everyone else? Because unfortunately, most of your peers in their twenties are not wanting that they're wanting instant gratification and they want it unfortunately handed to them. So what separates you from everyone else? 

[00:33:42] Brenden: Absolutely. I think so there's a couple of ways of tackling that question.

[00:33:45] Brenden: It's just me as a human being versus business, but let's tackle a couple of them. I would say what separates me from a mission perspective is I really give a shit about this. I'm really pissed off that other coaches before me who could have easily used YouTube as a medium, just [00:34:00] didn't democratize the information.

[00:34:01] Brenden: Like it's not hard. What I teach. It's okay, random word exercise. Do this. Do that. It's like one, two, but nobody was doing it. So I was like, okay, but what about the next Elon Musk? Like when Elon was 15 years old, Ryan, as nobody gave a shit about him. Yep. He didn't have his exit. He didn't have his success.

[00:34:15] Brenden: He's but he needs to be a great communicator to advance the human race. But he still became successful. He doesn't need me anymore, but yeah, if he was a great communicator, would his life been easier? Yeah, he would've struggled a little bit less. And so the next Elon who's 15 years old right now is probably some girl in Cambodia.

[00:34:32] Brenden: Doesn't have money for a coach. I'm the only person they have. If I don't make videos, no one else will. So I think that's really what separates me from a business perspective is I'm willing to lose. I'm willing to lose all the money to make this work. That's why that's why I've done well financially, but, and that's why I don't spend the money I make.

[00:34:47] Brenden: I just, cuz I always have that. What if I lose the game? I gotta keep the game recessions coming. I always gotta think about that. So that's one piece. The other piece though, that I think you'll enjoy Ryan, which is more important is I feel the pain of [00:35:00] my mentors. What does that. Here's what I think interesting about human beings.

[00:35:04] Brenden: Ryan is we see other people make the mistakes and we just want to repeat the mistakes. Let me give you an easy one to help us understand this. Isn't it fascinating how every music band does the same four things they become really successful. Then they get into drugs, alcohol, women, or men, depending on what type of band they're in, then they separate, and then they do a redemption concert.

[00:35:23] Brenden: 10 years later. It's always the same cycle. Yes. And yet every time it gets repeated over and over. Re what I've done differently. And that's why, I guess Ima mature. I'm still immature, but I've matured a lot for my age is I look at the people I admire Louis House, Tony Robbins. And I really, the perspective is I feel the pain of their divorce.

[00:35:42] Brenden: I go, what if I was divorced? And I lost half of my money and I lost custody of the kids, what would that feel like? And I go, okay. And the other piece to that is I assume they're right first before I disagree with them. So if Ryan, like you tells me something I assume this is the difference between me and most people.

[00:35:58] Brenden: I assume that what you're saying is [00:36:00] with good intention. If Ryan is taking time, his busy life to tell me something, there's probably some truth. I might disagree with some of it, but I'm not gonna disagree with. All of it. And that quality alone has made me skip all the pitfalls, never drank in my life.

[00:36:14] Brenden: Never smoked weed, never made any mistakes. And I've saved a ton of my money. Why not? Cuz I'm smarter. It's cuz I just listen to people who are much smarter than me and I take their advice seriously and that's 

[00:36:24] Ryan: what's really separated me but you're open to change and you're open to drastically. Like you said, listen to other people and see where they've been, because they've made the mistakes for you.

[00:36:34] Ryan: I'm with you for that. The. The huge challenge that we have today is people don't realize that failure is part of the journey to success. And if you don't actually fail, you're not gonna get to success. They think these unicorn companies that come along, those are dime a dozen man. I shouldn't say diamond dozen.

[00:36:57] Ryan: They're very unique and very different, but guess. [00:37:00] Those guys have failed many times before they got to this place in life. And it's you think that an overnight success like Steve jobs or Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, you don't think they failed along the way. And they were, come on.

[00:37:13] Ryan: That's just my mindset. I just, that stuff just really pisses me off. And when I hear that, I'm like, I don't even wanna spend time with you at this point. You're just wasting my. 

[00:37:22] Brenden: I love what you said there, Ryan and we can end on, this is a great quote that I think will help people cause more of a switch that people just have on for some reason other people have off.

[00:37:30] Brenden: So I'll summarize what you said in a quote that Jeremy coward talks with the CEO of purpose hotels. He says that the more you execute, the more you fail. Yep. The more you fail, the more you don't care and the more you don't care, the more you. That's a fascinating cycle. So the more you execute, the more you fail, the more you fail, the more you don't care.

[00:37:50] Brenden: And the more you don't care, the more you execute. So what does that mean in layman's terms? That means that people who are successful don't see failure as an obstacle. They just [00:38:00] see it as a muscle or a workout that didn't work the next day, but they still go back to the gym the next day. So what does that mean?

[00:38:05] Brenden: That means someone who's successful is going to go through, let's say we use zoom podcast. hundred people, let's say we send a hundred pitches. Okay. We pitch ourselves on a hundred podcasts and 99 of them say no, but one of them says, yes, you go, oh, so most people go like crap. I, they give up after 10 I'm done.

[00:38:18] Brenden: Whereas the successful person just keeps swinging until they hit a home run. So they go, oh, if I send a hundred pitches, I get one. Yes. Okay, wait a second. If I send 10,000 pitches, a hundred people will say yes, and that's amazing. Those hundred people will introduce me to tele people. I'll be on a thousand podcast.

[00:38:33] Brenden: Amazing. If there's just a different. There's a different perspective around failure that successful people have that unsuccessful people just don't 

[00:38:43] Ryan: and it's all mindset. And it's all about being driven to get there. Just, people ask, why are you doing podcasts? And I say, there's one reason I wanna be able to share a story that's beneficial to my listeners that helps them along the [00:39:00] law, the path of life that's.

[00:39:03] Ryan: And everyone's like, why aren't you monetized? You're doing great. All this and that, it isn't my main goal. My main goal is these are my passion projects. My main focus that I get paid for are from my businesses. Now, if someone comes along and says, Hey, I wanna monetize you. I'll look at it, but I'm not out there actively pinging the radar and saying, I need to monetize.

[00:39:22] Ryan: I need to monetize because I think it loses its value at that point. Cuz then I'm having somebody come in and say, okay, you need to be this and this. And I. No. Cause this is, I've gotten to this point without any monetization and we're doing quite well. We bring on guests like you that have this energy and this spirit and the ability to tell a story that our listeners can engage with.

[00:39:42] Ryan: I wanna be real. And that's what it boils down to is I want to share real stories. 

[00:39:48] Brenden: That's beautiful, man. It's funny when you said I wanna monetize you at a different thought in my mind, I was like, oh, okay. That's interesting. 

[00:39:55] Ryan: so it's it's been a, it's been a journey, man. It's been a journey.

[00:39:59] Ryan: So [00:40:00] it's been one of those. So I thank you for coming on, sir. It's been a great conversation. This has been fun. I definitely need to have you come back around and we can have some more conversation for. 

[00:40:11] Brenden: Absolutely Ryan. Thanks so much for 

[00:40:12] Ryan: having me. It was blessed. Yeah. Thank you, sir. I'll be talking to you.

[00:40:16] Brenden: Of course.