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Tell me about your vision. Well, I think for me, my vision is that I look to help as many people

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as I can to reach what I call Freedom Day. So I typically don't use the term retirement

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anymore. I use the term Freedom Day, which basically my definition of Freedom Day is

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the first day that you wake up, you have enough income, assets, and freedom to be able or time

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to be able to not get up and go to work that day. So you have a work optional lifestyle.

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You are focused around doing what you want to do instead of what you have to do. And I look at it

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as taking, it's more than just being a passenger in life. It's teaching people to not only find

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financial freedom, find the time freedom that they want, but it's also to have a freedom of purpose

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in life. Because I think a lot of us just kind of amble around through life and it kind of,

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we're passive about it, we're in the passenger seat. And I encourage people to be active,

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become the driver of the car and be active and take an active role in their life. Now,

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we do that through a bucket list. So one of the first things I teach people is

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build a bucket list. And most people wait until they're way older to do that. I want people

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as early as possible to have that bucket list because it serves as a reward system along the way.

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Wow. There's a lot you shared in there. And there's a lot of avenues I can take this.

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But let's go on to the first thing. The page of your Freedom Day Method, it says, and the title of

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the book is Overcoming the Retirement Trap. That's a very intriguing title. Why choose

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it as the retirement trap? Well, I think there are several things. But the biggest one is,

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when people think of retirement, and the reason I stopped using the term retirement, I use it in

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a part of my business, but in the part of my business that I focus on helping people that are,

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let's call them mid-career. They've gotten started, they're what I call a cubicle warrior,

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they get up every day, they go to an office, sit in a cubicle and die just a little bit every day.

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What I'm trying to encourage them to do is to think outside of the box, because what we've

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been taught and what the industrial mindset was, was, okay, you went to work for a company when you

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were 20, you worked until you were 65, and then you retired and you got to go have fun. Well,

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not everybody wants that. And I noticed that difference in the way that people think about

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retirement. And I noticed that difference in my clients throughout the 2000s period.

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Working with older clients, a lot of them had this kind of mindset of, oh God, I didn't save enough,

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I had kids, and we had all kinds of financial difficulties at the beginning, so I didn't save

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much, so I'm just going to have to work forever. So that was one mindset. The other mindset was a

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lot of my younger clients that kind of grew up in what I call the post four-hour workweek world.

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That, for me, was the book that made me change my mindset. And I think a lot of younger people

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grew up after that time period where it was acceptable to say, you know what, I don't want

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to work for, even if I don't work for one company, I don't want to just work for 40, 45 years and then

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start to live my life. They became a generation of people that said, you know what, I can do things

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online, I can do things remotely, I'm going to go and live in Thailand for a year and work there

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and have all these amazing experiences, live in a different country. So what I'm trying to do is

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get people that are trapped in what I call the retirement trap. I'm going to have to work for

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40 years, my life sucks, it's just not going to get any better. I have to do this and change their

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mindset to say, you know what, now you can figure out ways, even if you're working in that cubicle,

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you can figure out ways, there's lots of time available to you to go out there and create

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other sources of income, to start to invest in things that will generate an income stream for

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you. Maybe it's real estate, maybe it's the stock market. But the main thing is starting to get out

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of that mindset of, I have to work for a period of time and start to think about, I have to work for

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a certain amount of income, generate a certain amount of income that will support my life.

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And then when I've done that, the day that that happens, there's enough income coming in

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to support my life, not I make $150,000 a year, but I spend 40,000. I really only have to make 40,

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or maybe let's say 60, just for a little bit of a wiggle room. That's all I have to make to actually

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get to my freedom day. And that freedom day might be, hey, I'm done, I'm out of here, I'm going to

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go do those things I want to do, or it may be, I don't like my job, I'm going to do it, but I'm

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going to be the best employee ever because I have no financial stress at all. That's definitely a

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different way of looking at it from an employee perspective and an entrepreneur perspective and

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freedom perspective. I see three sides to this equation, and we can talk about that later. But

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let's go to the second thing. Yes. You mentioned the bucket list. Yes. Why do you, why would you

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say create a bucket list early in your career instead of for later? Well, because it gives you,

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when you create a bucket list, and if you do a bucket list correctly, that bucket list is a list

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full of things that you literally have to do before you die. And the ability to pack that into

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certain things. The whole story behind the retirement trap is my story. I go through that

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whole story of how I got to my freedom day. And really the last part, and it was funny because

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it was after everything had kind of come together, I had sold my business to my business partner,

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I was in the process of it. I went to a retreat, or it was actually a conference, and I kind of

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treated it like a retreat. And I learned about bucket lists because there was a guy there that

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spoke on it. He gave me, you know, we got a book, a bucket list book. And that was the aha moment

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for me that I went, this is why people don't succeed a lot of times. Because think of it,

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the traditional, you know, once again, you get to the retirement trap, the retirement trap is, oh,

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well, I have to keep saving, you know, millions of dollars I've got to save. And I'm starting off,

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and I've got $20,000. Well, that's not very motivating. It's a long slog to get to that.

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And you can't save your way there. You're going to have to find ways to get yourself there in

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other ways. So the bucket list for me, I realized, wow, we need to shift that, you know, for me,

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it was on the backside of all this stuff. We needed to shift that way to the front end of what

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we call the freedom day method. Because what it does is it not only says, okay, this is a whole

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bunch of things that we're going to do after we reach freedom day. It's here's a whole series of

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things that we want to do even before we get there. And sometimes it's relatively inexpensive. And

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I'll give you the best example I can. When I wrote my first bucket list, if it's a plane, train,

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automobile or boat, I'm in. I love everything that has a motor and is not an electric car.

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And when I was sitting there and I was putting my bucket list together, I came up and started

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categorizing things and realized that I had 12 experiences that involve planes, trains, automobiles,

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boats. Okay, so I was like, man, this is awesome. There's 12 of these. And so in 2023, that was my

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first year of freedom after I sold my business, I said, you know what, every month I want to do

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one of these experiences for 12 months. And so I did this whole thing where, you know, one of one

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or one of them was that I wanted to drive a Lamborghini, never wanted to own a Lamborghini,

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but I wanted to drive one. So I drove one at the F1 track here in Austin. And I went and flew on a

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World War II bomber that I wanted to do forever. I went and rode on an amazing train that there's

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only one of them that exists in the world and got to ride up this thing. And so it was a whole series

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of those types of experiences, combining these with trips that we made, you know, my wife and I made

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to England where I got to drive on an F1 track in England and drove the James Bond car, you know,

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all those types of things. But what I came up with the reality was every one of those experiences

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every one of those experiences cost right about 500 bucks. And so when I decided when I started

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off the year, I said, well, I'm not going to save up $7,500 or take $7,500. If I'm going to do this,

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I'm going to live my I'm going to live what I say in the books and all the things I talked about on

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my podcast. So I said, you know what, 500 bucks, what can I do to generate $500? And I just happened

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to own a rental property at the time that I was getting ready to sell. And I turned around and I

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heard something on a podcast talking about working with traveling nurses. And so we ended up converting

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this property we had into a midterm rental, where we work exclusively with traveling nurses. And if

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you know anything, if anybody knows anything about traveling nurses, they get paid a ton of money,

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they get paid a stipend to travel and they you know, basically, they get a tax free stipend for

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their, you know, their home or hotel or wherever they're staying, along with food and everything

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else. And they work on 13 week contracts. So basically, we have four turns per year.

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Nurses are the nicest human beings on the planet. They never complained. The only thing they complain

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about is if it's not safe, and it's loud, because they tend not to work normal hours. So we did that

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that started to generate, you know, it went from maybe $100 extra cash flow per month to about

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$700 cash flow per month extra because we could ask more because it was a furnished property.

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And it generated the 500 bucks a month that I needed to go do all the things that I wanted to

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do. So that's just one of the steps of where you can use a bucket list today and do the things on

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your bucket list, but also retrain your brain to start to think about not how can I afford this,

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but what can I do to afford this? Wow. To me, Jeff, it is very clear, the way you're talking

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about the mindset, but to some of the audience listening, there might not be as clear because

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they are in that mindset of the one track mind. It's hard for you to see where you can't see.

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You can't see your own blind spots because that's your own blind spot. And I encourage people to

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think about this mindset instead of looking at how can I, instead of looking at, hey, I can't do

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this, you should be looking at what can I do to do certain things. And insert, yep, insert whatever.

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If you want to retire at 60, what can I do to retire at 60? If you want to make $10,000 extra

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a month, what can I do to make $10,000 a month extra or $2,000, whatever is your starting point?

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And it could be as small as $100 a day or $100 a month. It could be $100 an extra month and in

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passive income, Jeff, gives you a starting point and you can just duplicate it 10 more times

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and get $2,000. I do these big projects every year. So people that follow me on social media

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and watch my website and stuff like that, they'll see me do these big projects. And it's something

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what most people would consider astronomical. This year's project was I wanted to publish 24

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books this year and not just 24 piles of garbage, but 24 really good books for two purposes. One,

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I wanted to build up my asset pool of passive income from publishing. And so I established my

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publishing company or kind of tweaked my publishing company over to publishing books and I spent money

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and time to learn how can I write as fast as I possibly can really well. And I just literally,

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I was so happy because right before I got on with you, I just finished the type setting and

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everything for my sixth book for the year. So, and I know that there's another 14 right behind that,

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right behind that, that are in various stages of being complete at this point. And it can be done.

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It's not hard. I mean, for me, I have a little bit more time than your average person because

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I sold my business, so this is my job, but it is something that it can be done. And for me,

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it's building this nice little pile of passive income on Amazon. It's pieces of the pie that

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I'll be using to market my services in the retirement space. So there's all these kind

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of little keystones that I'll use these books for, especially the early ones, to be able to

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build my other businesses as a result of it.

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Well, thank you for sharing that, Jeff. I have one more question for you before I wrap up today's segment.

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I want to make it a good one.

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There are no dumb questions, just dumb answers, so be prepared.

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You're good. And you can take time to answer this. I can't find the question. Where is the question?

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Yeah, right here. Jeff, to you, what defines a great leader?

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Well, I think for me, a great leader is someone who is a servant of the people that work for him.

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So one, you have to model good behavior. So if you expect your people to work hard,

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you better work harder than they do. There's too many leaders that get to the point where it's like,

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oh, okay, well, now I have a team of people. I can just sit back. No, you still need to be out in

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front, always. You lead from the front. I spent five years of my life in the military,

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leading teams, and you always lead from the front. But the most important thing, and I learned this

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as a sergeant, I saw this from lieutenants, colonels, and generals, the troops eat first.

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So whatever we have to do to take care of your team first before you take care of yourself. And

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I think being a leader is, once again, modeling the right behaviors. So what do I do as a leader?

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Well, I absorb information. First off, I read multiple books a day. I read a couple books a day.

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I once again developed the skill where I could read a book insanely fast and grasp all the concepts

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because I gather that information and then I disseminate it out. Right now, I don't really

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have a team that I lead, but I look at it as the people that are on my social media,

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the people that read my books, all that. My job is to get all this information, gather it together,

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pull out the good parts of that, and then really focus it towards who they are. And it's always

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about not selling them a product, but it's about helping them achieve the goals that they want to

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achieve. Well, thank you for sharing that, Jeff. I can agree with that. A leader needs to be a

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servant. And too many people don't realize that having teams and having even processes and

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procedures in place doesn't replace you as a leadership candidate to be leading from the front.

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It comes later in the day when the downfall happens, when they don't see you performing well.

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They say, okay, why would I do that? You're not doing it. How would I do it? And then you start

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a vicious cycle that you don't want to be part of, and then it's hard to recover from it because you

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can't change who you are that fast. You cannot, not without a motive. Well, I mean, people don't

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leave companies. They leave bad employers. Exactly. People don't quit because, oh, you know,

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there's this great opportunity out there. They wouldn't have even known about the great

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opportunity had you not failed them at some point along the way. Yep. Hey, that is so true. That is

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so true. I have not thought about that before. Not even from the perspective. They do not leave

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bad companies. I look at it from my own view. I mean, I was probably the most loyal employee

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that ever existed. And there was a point, you know, where one of the companies that I worked for was

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a very large financial firm. I figured I would be there for 30 years. I mean, I love the company.

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I love the vision and the mission of the company. And somewhere around 2003 to 2005, you know,

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there was a lot of stuff that changed within the company and the culture changed massively. And,

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you know, I kind of came to work with the attitude, you know, they actually rent me. They don't own me

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at this point, you know, and once you get that mindset, you're not coming back. And that kind

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of ruined my mindset going forward. I'm, you know, I am genetically unemployable now. So I have to

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work for myself. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned into Vision Pros

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Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This

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is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite

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people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an

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excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.