Welcome back to another episode of the Reseller's
Mindset Podcast. My name is Mike, also known
as the Used Book Guy on YouTube, along with my
friend and fellow full -time reseller, Johnny
B. We help people start and grow their reselling
businesses from the ground up. We also have a
weekly Zoom call and private Discord for all
YouTube members. Head on over to youtube .com
backslash usedbookguy to join the channel and
gain access to the full -length podcast, Zoom
call, and private Discord today. Let's get into
this week's episode. Mike's a bad man. I want
to start off the recording with that. Well, what
is up, everybody? Welcome to another episode
of the Resellers Mindset Podcast. Mike sitting
next to Johnny. And yes, I am a bad man, as you
heard, because I didn't tell him the topic and
I kind of made him come up with one. And then
I said, don't waste your time. So today's topic,
and I'm going to make Johnny go first. Let's
keep on hitting. He says I'm a bad man. What
would make you quit reselling? And if you had
to quit reselling in any way, shape or form,
what else would you move on to in your life?
Ah, reselling. If I had to quit reselling, I'd
probably just do another small business of some
kind. I probably swing into, I might try YouTube
and do some movie reviews and do that. Sounds
like fun. What's going to make you quit though?
What would make me quit? No money. Negative money.
I mean, that is a determining factor. I love
reselling. The fact I get paid to do it is wonderful.
But at the end of the day, if it pays me no money,
it's just a hobby at that point. And I need to
live. So I got bills. So the hobby has to go
away and I have to put on. a business attire
and go do that, whatever that is. But for me,
it'd be another small business. Uh, if I weren't
doing YouTube punsy stuff, uh, and seven year
grind at that, uh, cause that's, that's typically
the average before somebody makes it. I would
probably, I probably do some, uh, either a moving
business or no, that's probably what I would
do. Yeah. Cause you can't do a moving business
unless you're not, unless you're not, I guess
if you're talking just moving, like not like
clean outs, because clean outs and you just wind
up right back and resell them. Cause you got
all this junk you want to get rid of. No, I've
done that. I did that for my twenties. I'd probably
hire a couple guys to do the menial manual labor
part. And I would be more of logistics and routes
and all that and bookings. I agree with it. The
only caveat I have is even if it is making money,
if it's too much work. I'm out, Johnny. Even
if it is making me some shekels here and there.
And it's like, hey, Mike, you got to be working
from like 8 to 10 every day, like 8 a .m. to
10 p .m. And like I'm barely paying my bills
like that is no life to lead. And I think a lot
of resellers fall into that trap of just spinning
their wheels, spending a lot of time. But you
are right. Like you got to you got to make money.
And it's weird to think about, you know. What
happens if we can't resell no more? Because at
the end of the day, I mean, think about how many
different things have happened like with brands
over the year. Like you can't sell this brand.
You can't sell that brand. You can't sell this
type of stuff. You can sell this type of stuff.
It's always changing. And, you know, it's kind
of cool to see like what else you would do. For
me, what else I would do besides reselling? It'd
be tough, right? Like I do inspire and I have
been working on other YouTube channels that are
not related to reselling at all. So that is something
I 100 % would double down on. I would definitely
do more influencer content based on the influencer
program and the money I know you can make off
of that. And the money I have made off of that
without doing a lot of work. I think there's
so much opportunity to still make a lot of money.
I won't say it's not a lot of work, but it's
a lot less work than working, you know, a job
as like a trash man or like a heavy labor intensive
job. I think it kind of benefits us that we have
the internet in the way that it is because it
allows us opportunities that previous generations
never had to be able to make income. Like think
about these kids that have like these YouTube
channels, right? Like that Ryan kid or whatever,
like he's just making millions and millions and
millions of dollars just from like content creation.
That would be the route I would go. It just wouldn't
be content creation around reselling or around
myself. It would be around more popular things
going on, which in turn should increase your
revenue when you build kind of a YouTube channel
out that way. But I'm also like, I mean, vending
machines, I guess that's resell note, right?
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty easy business.
Once you get to the suppliers and the machines,
the machines cost money. That's probably the
biggest upfront expense. The suppliers and paying
them to restock the machines for you, not a big
deal. You have to go around with a bucket to
get out the change and the dollar bills, right?
And then you got to bring them back home, put
them in this coin counting and dollar machine,
the bankroll, quarter rolls. And then you go
to the teller and she hates you. But it's definitely
a viable business. And people make a lot of money
that way, actually. It's a good business model.
And that's kind of like reselling, except you're
selling new. Yeah. But then again, I guess you
could say anything is reselling, right? Right.
Any business we're usually buying, unless it's
like a service -based business, like you're saying,
like moving or like landscaping, but I'm not,
I'm not too big into like, I think landscaping
is a great opportunity. I just don't know enough
about it. And I have no idea about anything when
it relates to that. So I need something like
that. I'm a little bit passionate about. that
i can still make good money on and like landscaping
wouldn't be it for me like i'm passionate about
food but i suck at food so like if i started
a food truck like i would enjoy myself but it
wouldn't make no money yeah i had a land well
a quote -unquote landscape business more lawn
care business in my my teenage years i made good
money i was making like 500 a week i was i was
really good money um but yeah i had no lawns
edge work bush care um couldn't like route out
a koi pond for you or anything like that just
general lawn maintenance care it went really
well i had a lot of clients in several neighborhoods
i was just me as one man show me and my truck
and my equipment pretty much that was good for
a teenager honestly really good money um there's
all kinds of opportunity out there i mean and
then getting into retail is always kind of fun
i plan to do brick and mortar with inside reselling
would i do brick and mortar In and of itself
with no reselling, that'd be a hard thing to
swallow. I got to be moved into a high traffic
area and whatever I'm selling has to be banging.
People want it. They need it. They're compelled
to buy it kind of deal. I think I also would
approach it a little bit different. I would look
earlier in my new business for ways to streamline
things and kind of I would try to pick a business
model where I didn't always have to be the sole
person that made the whole business move, right?
Because what we do now, if me or John, you don't
feel like going to work for the next month, not
per se, you're not going to go to work in your
other business. But if we don't go out and source,
we don't go out and run the routes, we don't
pack the boxes, the business stops growing, the
business stops making money. So that definitely
would be something on my mind is, okay, is this
business something after I get it off the ground
and it's profitable? If I hire an employee, is
it going to take a large part of the workload
off me? And is there a lot of training that goes
into having this employee do everything I did?
Because it's next to impossible to train somebody
to understand the scouting screens and kind of
have the same knowledge base we do in this reselling
business that we currently have. So I would look
for something like... Perfect example would be
like lawn care. Anybody can just grab the damn
mower and go mow the lawn, right? Like we're
not talking about things that are astronomically
hard to figure out. I think that would also play
a part in kind of what my next step would be.
What's up, Amazon tellers? We wanted to take
a second to talk about GoToLister, the software
me and Johnny both use to list and manage our
inventory and grow our businesses. With the fastest
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analytics, it's a no -brainer. Easily and quickly
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Mike or using the link in the description below.
I've done consulting before. That's always interesting.
I don't find it very satisfying. The money's
good, but I don't find it very satisfying because
usually the person you're dealing with is...
drowning and if it's long -term consulting they're
needy after a while like they're they're hiring
you to do billable hours but yet what they want
to talk about is i don't know their relationship
and how bad that's going or problems with their
animals and pets or whatever and it's like you're
paying me to help you give you business advice
and it's hard for me to do that when you want
to talk about your failing relationships because
i'm not a therapist or a relationship counselor
i'm here to talk about business i'm not a veterinarian
either so what do you really i guess i'll take
your money i don't i got nothing curious what
what are some things you think would cause like
the whole reason the idea of you reselling to
just kind of stop in their place like a huge
shift in the market where like people just stop
buying used goods for whatever reason or like
uh an absolute like overflow of inventory in
the category you sell in uh which would make
you to just kind of pivot 100 it's tough to kind
of pinpoint what can make it go boom but there's
a lot of things that can make it go boom as stupid
as that sounds like there's a lot of things that
could happen that kind of just blow up our whole
business model right like we've already seen
it over the years like the cost of thrift stores
right like if you're the person today that just
goes to thrift stores if you look at yourself
your business today than where it was two years
ago a year ago Your margins are getting smaller.
The margins are getting smaller any way we shape
it. Every year, fees go up. If fees don't go
up, shipping's going up. There's always rising
costs across the board. So technically, we are
working towards that point, Johnny, of sooner
or later, the margin is zero, which means we're
making no money. Yeah, I mean, looking at it
from the outside of getting feed out, I mean,
there's other things I've seen crop up over the
years. And these are more... I think buy employees
than a real concern, honestly. Shop local, made
in America, veteran owned. These are more up
sales to their business because they want you
to buy quote unquote in -house, whatever rooftop
you want to put yourself in. But it's more, it
doesn't impact the market as a whole. Sure, people
will. be more incentivized to buy from that kind
of person versus nebulous person over here but
that's a small percentage of those kind of buyers
because most people don't care they just want
the item whatever the item is so i don't even
think that's a ploy it would have to be something
i don't know people stop shopping online for
whatever reason yeah they stop shopping online
or they only want to shop in retail again i i
mean i'm kind of seeing that like a retail resurgence
because people are tired of getting stiffed online
or They miss it. They have that nostalgia thing.
Remember when we used to go to the mall? I love
malls. Me and Dev love going to the malls, but
they're all dead. It's like there's more. Suncoast,
Spencer's Gifts, back when GameStop wasn't as
publicly heinous as it was. We had arcades and
stuff, so the mall was the place to be. I don't
think there's a place to be anymore that's like...
The cultiest thing I could see right now is probably
Starbucks. That's the place to be to get your
morning coffee. And everybody's in line and everybody's
in this uniform. I hate lines, but I need my
Starbucks coffee. So there's some uniformity
there amongst those people. But I don't see the
whole mall. Like, what are you doing this weekend?
I don't know. I'm just going to the mall. You
don't see that anymore. That doesn't exist. I
definitely would start a business too where the
overhead costs in the beginning or even in the
middle of the business would not be high, right?
That's why I enjoy reselling is it allowed me
to. be a little bit of financially free when
it comes to my money, because you can keep costs
down, you can manage everything. And that's the
benefit of Amazon, right? You don't need to store
your stuff, no packing supplies besides the boxes
you're throwing it in. So I definitely would
go the route of a business where I didn't have
to have 50 grand to start it, right? I want something
where I can just be, you know, I can just go
buy a used mower, push mower, get a few clients
and build upon it. Something like that kind of
business would appeal more to me. Right. In the
beginning of anything, you've got to sink your
time in. Right. Like you start anything in the
beginning. It's probably going to be where you're
going to be spending the long days trying to
grow the business, trying to grow the client
list, whatever that may be. So you have to understand
that sacrifice. But I don't I don't think it's
smart to jump into a brand new business and just
throw, you know, 50K added or take out a crazy
business credit, you know, credit line to kind
of get thing going, get something going. And
you don't even know if there's any proof of concept
that it's going to work. Right. And then would
you consider getting anything like manufacturing
or something you make yourself to sell? Yeah,
I mean, I guess you can go that route. I mean,
it's like your own product, kind of like Shark
Tank, right? You show up and you got the next
coolest gadget, the next scrub daddy. And I mean,
I wouldn't consider that reselling. That's just
you coming out. That's like... You being an inventor
and developing a product, I don't have any cool
ideas. Do you have any cool ideas you would like
to share? I mean, no, I don't have any cool ideas.
Manufacturing is an interesting thing. And even
then, it would probably be pushed toward online
selling, like on the various marketplaces. It'd
be very hard to manufacture and sell local or
sell at retail. Because even people like, I don't
know, Hexclad, they make cookware, right? But
they still pump a bajillion dollars out or the
Ridge Wallet guy. They pump a bajillion dollars
out in ad spin for their physically made product.
Yeah, but I mean, it's a physically made product.
So I don't think that would classify as, you
know, being a reseller. I mean, I think the only
way you kind of get into reselling is like you're
doing something that's mass produced, like 3D
printing and everybody has access to that. Like
everybody, me and you can go print the same things,
then that's reselling. But if you have your own
product, your own, I guess, brand, then I wouldn't
consider that reselling. But you are right. It's
going to, no matter what you do, there's going
to be some capital spend. But in the beginning,
you have to be as frugal as possible. I'd probably
do something book publishing route again, more
indie style than what I was doing before, honestly,
if I had to go back to that lifestyle. Talking
like KDP publishing or what? No, I'd make physical
products, print -on -demand probably, or bulk
order from China product. So you're going to
be the guy that prints the books? Yeah. I've
done it before. Do it again. Oh, I'm interested.
How does this work? You get a blank book from
China, and then how does the machine print? No,
no, no. So a writer submits a work, and you take
that work, and you say it's shit. And you say,
we're going to buy it anyway. And then we make
all kinds of edits. So it looks nothing like
it did before it was submitted to us. We pay
them by the word. Then it's going to go to layout
and editing. And then after all that's done and
that, that takes probably, that's probably the
second longest step. And then that gets shipped
off to the printers after we decide how we want
the book. Cause every book has a part number
and it's a giant catalog. You wouldn't believe
like just putting like a little gold guilting.
There's a call number for that. So you got to
know those numbers because you got to relay that
to the English person who then relays that to
the factory. And the factory produces these books.
You get sent a proof. And if the proof looks
good, then you make your bulk order for thousands
and thousands of units. That takes a little bit
of time to make. And then it gets put on a boat
and then it gets stuck at the U .S. port. And
you wait a while and then it gets loaded on a
truck and then it arrives and then you sell it
wherever you want to sell it. Fill me in here.
I give you something I wrote. I wrote a book.
I wrote a novel. I give you it. When it gets
published, is it in my name or your name? Are
you buying the rights from me? I would be buying
the rights from you. Your name would be on the
front of the book as the author. Early on, we
did royalties. We didn't do that toward the end.
We just paid you per word flat out. Depending
on your caliber of writing, like how many works
you had, that could be up to two cents to five
cents. In some situations, 15 cents a word. So
they're inclined to make it beefy, right? We
pay them for all of that. We pay them for their
work and labor. But once it hits editing, we'll
make whatever changes we deem necessary to make
it sell. It's not a complete rewrite. Your vision
is still there. And sometimes we may consult
you on it, but most of the time we don't. And
then we make whatever editorial changes we need
to spruce it up or cut things out we don't need.
But again, you got paid for the full thing up
front. And then, yeah, after content editing,
it would go to grammatical editorial, all commas
in the right place, periods where they need to
be. Then you go to format editing, like spacing
margins and stuff like that. Cover designs and
other aspects. So you got to pay a cover artist.
And then you got to make a PDF version of this
thing in most cases. But that's generally how
it works. A project like that could take anywhere
between six and eight months to complete. From
the time you sell it to us, the time it arrives
off the truck that came from China. If you remember,
what were the margins like? It really depended
on project to project, but we were a $10 million
a year company. that that's top line that that
isn't net but yeah yeah we had a staff about
50 people uh between contract workers and other
various tasks um mainly it was mainly a contractor
because we'd have repeat artists we would use
we'd have repeat writers we would use layout
editing whatever and we did some other things
outside of that on the manufacturing thing too
Because you get warehouse storage and warehouse
shipping. Because, well, we got pallets and pallets
of books. What do we do with them now? We did
our stuff mainly on Kickstarter. So it's basically
a fancy pre -order store. So we had money to
pay for the purchase order. Because we never
really made an order until it ended. Like we
had the money to fulfill the order. But we would
do all the work up until that point. We do the
base editing and all that. And if we had a little
money extra over, we may pay for a fancier cover.
That was usually the last thing we did before
we got shipped over to final layout and editing
and got off to China to come to us. I got a crazy
one for you. I'm curious if you were interested
in my proposal, sir. Cash out everything you
have today. Sell everything you own. Fill a suitcase.
Take your money. Go live comfortably in a different
country where the dollar is worth a lot more
than it is here in the United States. And basically
retire today on your bank account and your asset
value, your net worth today in a different country.
So open up a tiki bar in Fiji is what you're
saying. You could open up a tiki bar. You could
just sit on the beach all day. I mean, it's a
real possibility. I've seen shows where people
go to these other countries and, you know. You
can live like top 1 % in that country spending
$100 a month. And I mean, it wouldn't take a
lot of money to just say, hey, I'm moving to
XYZ country and I'm going to figure out something
there. And imagine if you had a remote job over
there making US dollars in one of those countries,
you could sustain your lifestyle and kind of
live a stress -free life. Okay. Since I've actually
done research into this, the issue there. Is
your US dollars heavily taxed if you're putting
it in the other country's banks, like funneling
it over there to spend? That's why they say initially
bring the first $9 ,999 with you in cash when
you fly over there, because you're getting taxed
to funnel your money. That happens in most countries.
They're taxing your US dollars to come into their
foreign market, essentially. They get their piece
of your money, which is fair. They also have
different taxes and stuff. Some have extreme
health care. So if you're still producing money,
this isn't your retirement money, and it's coming
in, you're going to get taxed on that, especially
if you're offering your services or whatever
it is in that country. It could be anywhere between
30%, maybe sometimes 40%, depending on the country.
However, your core thing that you're saying does,
in fact, work. Your dollar stretches longer there
as long as your dollar arrives there. That makes
sense. It isn't heavily taxed after. Would I
want to do that? I would not want to be in retirement
mode. I would need something like that tiki bar.
I would need something to mess around with. Maybe
I make wooden boats or something. I don't know.
I would need projects to do because I'm not the
kind of guy and stop and smell the roses or just
sit on a beach. I consider, for me, and nothing
wrong with people like this, but I consider it
a waste of time. It's funny because if you think
about like the median or like what we consider
poverty in the U .S., it like puts you in like
the top one or two percent of incomes in the
whole world. So I always thought to myself like,
man, some people literally are working 80 hours
a week, can barely make their bills. And if they
had this money just in a different country, it
just looks a little bit different, maybe has
a different language and is a few thousand miles
away. you would actually be able to live a comfortable,
stress -free life and not have to worry about
everyday bills piling up and feeling like you're
never going to be able to retire. You're never
going to be able to get ahead. Right. I live
in Texas and we have a, what do you call it?
A Mexican, it's like a restaurant and a hardware
store in one. It's really weird. But anyway.
At the back of the register, they have all these
prepaid phone cards for them to call back home.
And a lot of those guys, they live poor in the
U .S. They get paid good money for what they
do because they do a lot of manual labor jobs
that you or I would not know how to do, first
of all, nor would want to do. So they get paid
really well for that. But they intentionally
choose to live a poor lifestyle to send majority
of their money back home to their families. their
trip to the u .s is planned to be short term
and they plan to retire like i had a guy his
name is jose he did he built my shed out back
it's beautiful uh all the drywall he added on
an extra wing to it beautiful and i talked to
him extensively about that um because that that
restaurant thing that's where i found him but
he did probably most and he built my cabinets
in my kitchen as well uh beautiful work um but
He said probably he keeps about 20 % of his money
to live on, and 80 % of it went back home to
his family. And I was like, when's the last time
you've seen your family? I go once a year on
a trip to see them, but I've been here for about
15 years. But on year 20, and that was a couple
years ago, I was like, I'm retiring, and I'm
going to not worry or work ever again. That was
his plan, and it worked out. He did it. He did
the 20 -year run. The 20 -year U .S. run. It's
crazy to think about, man. Like, you know, a
lot of people have obligations. And I miss him
because I have a lot of projects I would have
loved for him to do. A lot of people have obligations
here in the States, but I mean, it's a real reality.
I know a lot of people kind of, you know, kind
of go down that route and we never even really
think about it being an opportunity, but you
could take your net worth. here in the united
states and you could you know live comfortably
off you know what you have here even though here
it's not a lot right like you think to yourself
like man i don't have a lot of money maybe i
only got five thousand dollars well In some other
countries, and they're not all shitholes, like
you could live off that $5 ,000 for five, 10
years easily, comfortably. And here you are still
spinning your wheels, working, working, working.
And yeah, it was just another kind of angle I
had for what you possibly could do. No, it's
a legitimate angle. And he put his mother -in
-law in probably the best healthcare they had
to offer there. He had three homes, one for his
kids. He had a beach home and a regular home
for him and his wife. But he bought an extra
home just for the kids if they ever needed it,
just like a redundancy, spare, emergency, you
screwed up somewhere in life or life stepped
on you kind of scenario. He lived a very comfortable
life. And I think you can do the same. if you
plan ahead to do that, like he planned for 20
years here in the States, if we plan, okay, I'm
going to work 20 years here in the States and
I'm going to go off to, I don't know, somewhere
in Eastern Asia where you can live very, very
well in Eastern Asia or somewhere in South America,
you can live very, very well. Now there's the
arguments of like crime and do I really, do I
really trust their healthcare system? I don't
want them to use rusty razors on me. And all
the, all these red flags, but. If you're self
-conscious of this and you do your research and
your due diligence, you can figure your way out.
Retiring in the United States is really, really
hard. It is. They keep pushing the bar further
and further out each year. It gets harder and
harder each year to obtain. That's why Mike and
I harp on you. Start saving now. Get your IRAs,
your stock portfolio, money in the bank, cash
money in the bank. Maybe you want some tangibles
like gold, silver, copper laying around. Start
investing now because it takes an absorbent amount
of time to get your asset portfolio built up.
Yeah, you're 100%, right? Even if it's a little
bit, you have to start planning it for the future.
And if reselling does go away, we'll find something
else. Every single person listening to this,
you'll find your path, right? You'll find your
way through it, whether that's another business,
whether that's going to work. a job that isn't
as miserable as CBS was or Macy's for me, you'll
find a way because winners win and losers lose.
I'm a firm believer if you're willing to put
in the time, no matter what it is, you're going
to get results. So whether that's working a job
and showing up five days a week or whether that's
starting another business from the ground up
that you have no idea if it's going to work out.
I do believe that the people that win are going
to win and the people that lose are going to
lose. And there's a clear distinctive difference
between them because the people that are losing
are always looking for a reason to blame everybody
else around them instead of kind of just looking
in the mirror and saying, here's exactly what
I need to do to get to where I need to be. Instead
of saying, well, Johnny controls where I'm going
to be and what I'm going to do. And unfortunately,
a lot of people think that, oh, there's a new
president. It's the end of times or, oh, there's
a new president. This is the greatest ever. it's
got no the white house is not your house right
so it's like you have to take care of yourself
and don't let anything that doesn't directly
correlate to you getting the job done have an
influence on it right like sure i could sit here
and johnny can tell me hey mike you're an idiot
why did you buy 6 000 dvds the other day fine
Cool, Johnny. Here, I'm going to give you a five
second spiel. It's none of your damn business.
And I'm going to go I'm going to go scan my DVDs
and I'm going to send in my DVDs. And yeah, it's
good to have people that you want to listen to
in your life and kind of can give you direction
if you need it. But at the end of the day, it
all boils down to you. If you're not going to
do it, you're not going to do it. If you're going
to do it, you're going to do it. And I think
it's hard to be the person that goes from. All
right. I'm used to getting the job done to being
the person that doesn't get the job done and
vice versa. You're the person that never gets
the job done to all of a sudden you're trying
to transform into this person that always gets
the job done. Yes. I'm going to say it. Work
ethic has a long way to go with it. And I'm talking
about hours when I say work ethic. It's just
when you're clocking in, you put in your best
work until you clock out. The hours don't matter
there as long as it's quality work. When you
do, in fact, work, that'll get you ahead in dividends.
I mean, we talk about efficiencies and processes,
but that's what I'm talking about right now with
quality work whenever you do it. And I think
people need to think on this topic, overall topic
we're talking about is what's your exit plan?
You're not going to be doing this when you're
95 years old. Good for you if you lifted 95,
by the way, but still. If you're that 95 year
old guy in the nursing home with his laptop open
and say, nurse, I need you to pack this order.
Nurse, come pack my order. I think something
went wrong along the way. You got to be doing
that. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, you're right. You
got to have an extra strategy and it doesn't
have to be a lavish one. It doesn't have to be,
you know, you're going to retire a trillionaire.
Just do what's comfortable for you, right? That's
what I tell everybody. Just get ahead while you
can, because like Johnny said, we can't continue
at our, I can't continue to fill the car up with
books and unload the car full of books for the
next, you know, 50 years of my life. Like it's,
it's not feasible. No matter if I'm in the best
shape of my life, when I'm 70 years old, 80 years
old, like. It's not feasible. And at that point,
should you have accumulated enough that you're
no longer required to fill the car with books
is my argument. But like Johnny said, you still
want to stay active, right? Like, yeah, sure,
right? Johnny already said he's moving to Mexico.
He's printing books somewhere. I'm probably headed
to the Philippines somewhere, right? I'm taking
my money. We're out of here. You never hear from
us again. But it's kind of cool to have the conversation
around, well, if you can't resell, what are we
going to do, right? Like, what's our plan? Are
we going to get a job? I'm never going to work
another retail job in my life. I'm going to put
a personal guarantee. We can revisit this video
in 50 years. You're not going to come help me
run the bookshop, Mike? You got to give me some
type. I'm not working in the store. I will never
work retail again. There is no chance, no shot.
What's one thing you would never do again that
you have done? IT work. That's brutal. I've done
IT work just because there's nobody in the company
that was qualified, and I was kind of forced
to do it. I didn't go to school for it. I had
no desire for it. But it's something that landed
in my lap as part of my job duties because I
was technically the most technically inclined
person to do it or tackle it. Should we have
hired a real person? Yeah, but we wanted to save
some pennies, so it fell on me. That's horrible
work. Well. It's horrible if you don't like it.
If you're into that, good for you. I'm not one
of those people. Looking at the back end of a
website, figuring out what's broken, and trying
to troubleshoot, fix it for hours, eight hours,
16 hours, overnight. Because if your website's
down, you're making no money. I want to make
money, so the website's got to go back up. Who's
going to fix it? Me. That's rough. That is rough.
Never again. I don't know. Like if I could be
one, what's your, what would be a crazy dream?
If I could pay you right now, say 250 K a year
to do any job you wanted to in the universe,
what would it be? I probably open up a game store
with other nerds and do retail that way. I like
games and stuff and playing and all that kind
of, not, not video games. analog physical i i
don't know for me man it's it's hard you kind
of came up with that pretty quick i didn't have
enough time to think about my my response to
it i would have some type of uh maybe like a
for -profit like uh i don't not cat breeding
right i know i'm not in but like a cat adoption
like kind of place people can go to and and uh
adopt cats but somehow i would make 250k a year
right like if i just had like a truck you're
just giving me money you didn't say the business
itself had to make money no no yeah it does it's
just like a trust fund you get 250k a year you
can do whatever the hell you do whatever i want
yeah yeah yeah i just hang out with the cats
all day with dev and every once in a while cat
gets adopted and i take my 250k and live comfortably
you got like one of those like inside soccer
stadiums with like real grass for them to run
around in Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just let them
run wild. It's fun to have this conversation,
man, because listen, I said it before, I'll say
it again. I don't want to resell forever, dude.
That's rough. I could see in some capacity, right?
Like maybe part -time just so I can stay out
there and see the cool items, right? At that
point, I have a house. I'm well -invested into
retirement. And maybe I have a small collection
of things I think are cool, right? I could see
that definitely being an option, but a full -time
capacity for the next 30 years of my life reselling.
I don't know, man. Like I make good money doing
it and I enjoy doing it for the time being, but
I just know the market's going to shift so much.
I mean, we talk about it, how much things change
from a day -to -day basis. So the idea that this
business, I don't even know if reselling exists.
A year, two years, three years, five years, 10
years, and 30 years. By then, you should have
enough money that you don't have to really depend
on it as a full -time income. Right. I mean,
just look at what happened. It was either one
or two years ago. We all got this email. We're
no longer taking books at Amazon. So they have
a nuclear launch code. per category, I'm guessing,
because the toy guys got it like seven years
ago, of we don't want you to sell your product
anymore. They're ready to terminate you. They're
pre -planned to terminate you. They hired somebody
to write those emails. They're ready to shut
things down whenever they seem fit. That's the
job I want. I want to be the guy that hits the
big red button. Send the email. They're all fired.
All of them. Everybody's gone. I don't want to
hear or see nothing. Yeah, it is. It's crazy.
We live in crazy times. Take advantage of this
opportunity today. That is why we've done this
podcast for two and a half years now is to get
you off your butt, to make a little bit of money,
to get you in a better situation in case you
have to pivot, in case you no longer can resell
or in case you just want to retire. You can do
it. and not have to worry about all the stressors
of life. Johnny, any final thoughts on this crazy
world if we didn't have to resell what we would
do? Yeah, I mean, be proactive in what we're
talking about here. I encourage everybody listening
just to pull out a notebook or a note card, or
if you don't believe in the physical, pull out
Microsoft Word or Notepad or something. Make
a short list of what you want to do for... fun
like we were talking about and what do you where
do you want to end up like how do you want to
retire like is it the forever home your last
car kind of deal what does that look like and
then add up all the billable numbers or like
we just said if you want to open a tiki bar or
a game store or a habitat for cats cat manatee
kind of place um what is add up all those numbers
what does it take to get there those are your
end goals So focus on getting to your end goals.
I think that's a good proactive task. And then
you can visualize it and like, huh, I am not
on track to achieve that. I need to get my ass
in gear. Or you know what? I don't have to work
as long as I thought. It's not so far off. Because
if you've never done that exercise before, you
don't know. You're just guessing. You may think
it's a bajillion dollars, but it's only, oh,
it's half a bajillion dollars. That's not so
bad. I'm going to sell veggie dogs. I'm going
to have a veggie dog stand somewhere in a third
world country. I'm just going to tell people
it's hot dogs. They won't even know that they're
veggie dogs. And I'll be like, man, you got the
best hot dogs. It tastes different though. They're
going to know. They won't know, dude. I'll have
like I'll even have like the veggie chili sauce.
Right. So it's like the fake ground beef. Right.
Like I'll have to I'll have everything and nobody
will ever know. It'll be my little secret. I'll
just be some. Listen, next time somebody's on
vacation in one of these countries and you see
a little guy, a little old guy selling hot dogs
and quotation marks on the corner. Hey, just
saying. Anything's a possibility. That's going
to do it for this week's episode. We appreciate
you listening or watching over on YouTube. Thanks
for listening to another episode of the Reseller's
Mindset Podcast. Today's full episode and all
previous episodes are available to all YouTube
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