How to Transition from W2'er to Entrepreneur | Jamie Gruber

But the biggest decision I made back then you talk about being intentional is surrounding myself with the right people. If you're in a W two as I was, the network you have is usually other w two people. So I would call my friends the guys that were at my level after work about what my boss did or what the company's doing like those drives home or drive to work was was just that I was in that world. So when I start talking about real estate with these guys, while it was like interesting to them, there wasn't really much depth. I wasn't learning anything from them. They weren't learning anything from me, it was a stalemate. So the thing I did was find a community. That was the first thing and I would recommend to anybody who's considering I don't like my job, I think real estate or I think I've said is like opening an Etsy store. I think becoming an influencer or building a course any of that stuff that really appeals to you, a group that you can join and be a part of like minded people. Welcome to the action Academy podcast staring back while I celebrate freedom, the show where we help you achieve financial independence with the mindset methods and actionable steps from guests who've already earned their freedom blank the freedom fly. Choose to do what you want, what you want, with who you want, with who you want, when you want when you want with another episode today. Now, here's your host, Brian Luebben. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. This is your host, as always, Brian Luebben, bringing you another episode of the action Academy podcast, bringing you the mindsets, methods and actionable steps for you to achieve freedom in your life and business today. Now for this episode, here's my hope for you. I hope that you click on this title. And you're in traffic on the way to a job that you love in a job that feels you where you feel supported by your management. And you feel like you're really contributing to the team and you're really contributing and giving back with what you're doing and you're valuable and you're valued. I hope that you're in a W two job like that. But if you're not, and you're like the majority of us, then hey, this episode is for you. The guests for today's show is my friend Jamie Gruber, a multifamily investor, a podcast host and now a professional w two quitter. Jamie was working for a corporate job for 20 plus years. And he got up in the company got promoted and promoted again, got to a high position. And he just realized that while the company was good, and it was a good job, quote, unquote, it just wasn't for him. It wasn't feeling him and it wasn't driving his passions. And he needed to do something in his life to be able to spend more time with his wife in family. So he decided that he wanted to take some actionable steps to be able to leave that in to be able to pursue different areas and opportunities that he saw in his own wife and business, so that he can make the entrepreneurial leap. And finally take a bet on himself. So today, we go over a couple of strategies and mindsets that helped Jamie be able to leave his job after 20 years with a wife and young kids. And the same process that a lot of us are following right now. So if you stick around to the end, you'll be able to get a lot of good stuff, a lot of knowledge and hopefully be one step closer to living the life of your dreams in your design after the show. Now, before we get started, I do want to preface this episode with one thing. We talked about go abundance and our abundance affiliated programs in this episode a lot towards the back. So if you're interested in that, there's information in the show description. But if you're not, please don't feel like that's the only option for you. There are hundreds of other options. And I just wanted to make sure to reiterate the point that you need to find who and what is speaking to you directly, and then go all in with that community and that tribe. So without any further ado, if you could please leave us a rating and a review on Apple podcasts. And now Spotify. It'd be greatly appreciated. And let's get to Jamie Gruber, the man the myth, the Groover How are you buddy? The group I'm good brother. I'm good. Thanks for having me on. Great chatting with you. Man. It's great to have you on how was your Thanksgiving. It was good. We we ate steak instead of Turkey because we're countercultural and we had a three year old break his elbow. But beyond that, it was great. So So Jamie has the topic of today's interview when your three year old broke his elbow how many days of PTO did you have to use for your corporate job to watch what's funny you say that you want to dive in because it's actually a really interesting topic in my mind. Let's go we just going so to zero because I don't have a corporate job. I left that job back in March of 2021 context I was an executive with a large insurance company 21 years of that company three plus $100,000 A year income equity the whole nine wife stay at home two young boys and it was just time I walked from it and and I've been in it Learning how to be an entrepreneur since then, and it's gone through fits and starts. But on this point, man it's funny the the security of corporate life and all that I say security and air quotes. So the day that this happened was actually Saturday, so this will get published later. So for those that are may not recall, and I'm not a college football fan, but there's relevance to college football here on this specific day. My son trips and falls, breaks his elbow at the gym, daycare at the gym, and actually a bone in the shoulder as well. Take them to the local er, I live in Michigan, smaller town, they check them out the look, you need to go to an orthopedic child, a pediatric orthopedic in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is about 20 minutes south of me, so you got to go to Ann Arbor. This Saturday after Thanksgiving for those that don't know or don't remember at the time of this releases. That Saturday happened to be the day Michigan beat Ohio State for the first time in 10 years huge win. The game was in Ann Arbor and it was a 12 o'clock game and we're driving to Ann Arbor at three o'clock. So right in the thick of it. Add to that add to that, that we have a huge snowstorm a blizzard rolling through that just as greasing up and icing up the roads as we skip down the road to Ann Arbor. And this is from 11am till 8pm 9pm. Me and my older son are pretty much in and out of our car waiting for my wife and my younger son in the hospital figure out what's going to happen until it finally culminates with, he's spending the night surgery the next day Sunday morning. And he's fine. He's good and home and healthy and and all that stuff, which is great. But you're right, I didn't have to take any time off, which is fantastic. But I'll be honest with you, there was also a bit of a shift that I saw happening in the moment. And I don't know that I would have had the ability to see it in the moment in the past. I think we all can look back when we're in a certain place and say man had this not happened today. I wouldn't be right. But I can sense this in the moment. And it was a feeling of loneliness and really fear. I live in Michigan I'm not from we have two dogs at home while I'm skidded down the road at this hospital waiting to see what's going to happen with my son needed help letting the dogs out. But there's really no one we have friends but they're all busy, either drunk from the game from the Michigan game because it's a big deal. Or they're celebrating late Thanksgiving or whatever. So it was a lonely feeling in that regard. It was a lonely feeling in terms of man, if I don't, if I don't if this were me in that hospital bed instead of my son then what happens to my family financially and all of that, right? Like it's we have passive income, but we're still building that. So the active side of it, which I still make a good living, the active side of that if that were me in that bed, what happens? So it's this feeling of I got to start getting serious here, I got to really double down and buckle down on what it is my entrepreneurial life looks like. For the past seven, eight months, I've been enjoying it learning dabbling, do a little of this, a little of that do way too many different things all at the same time. But the trade off is no job to have to ask somebody for that time off. But it was the first time I realized as an entrepreneur probably a first real time. Wow. All right, it is on me. It's one day versus all the other 180 days where I've had a great time and I've been loving life Post who it is I would recommend it to anybody with the right preparation. But there is that element to it of Yeah, hey, now it's time for me to step up. And I on my accountability pod call. I call that a win and a challenge. It's a challenge in that I have to get there. But the win is that I know I can. And I have the ability to because I haven't I have no one to answer to other than me way to kick off the interview right? Hey, yeah, the reason I asked is because of obviously a happened recently. And B. It's an excellent case study. So to wrap all that up that you just said for everyone listening if you want to zoom out a bit. For you listening, Jamie was working in corporate w two he was well paid golden handcuffs all of this we can go into we can go into your whole origin story in depth here in a second. But as you all know, when it comes to your W two or your corporate job, you always it's a strenuous process. And it's an arduous process to be able to ask off time. And it's always such such a headache and a hassle. And you see this little bank of two to three weeks just depleting and depleting as you have fun. And as you also have emergencies. And I've dealt with that too. Yeah. So Jamie was able to organize his life in a way that he was able to go from his W two to make a plunge into entrepreneurial pursuits. And now when his kid is hurt, or when his kid on the flip side of that has a ballgame when his wife has an event, he is able to be there. And that's the reason that we all work towards this is our time freedom. So, Jamie, if we could take it back a second, as we use that as a case study, just to drive the point home in a practical sense for everyone listening. But to bring this all back. You weren't someone that was working a W two job and then just decided one day to give your boss the finger, walk out of the office, flip over a desk and say I'm going to do my own thing. You were very intentional and very purposeful in the setup in the implementation of this, can you walk us through this whole journey that you went on? Because I've been watching it. And it's so interesting. And I think there's so much that people can take from it. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, my I would go back. So I'm 43. Today, I left my job at 42. And this probably goes back to my late 30s. When I think a lot of us at that age and you're far away from that now, Brian, but one day, you never know, at that age, a lot of us I think, get into the sort of existential, what am I doing, you can see, you can see the rest of your life a little more clearly than maybe you could at 20 or 25, or 30, for that matter. And so for me on 3738, I started to think, man, if this isn't for me long term, like what is what do I do? What is the next step for me or whatever? And I started to go through a lot of questions about what am I good at? What value do I add what interests me and all of that? For me? Personally, I found real estate I happen to own a property as an accidental landlord moving from New York to Boston, I had to keep it because it was around the Oh, a crisis that I moved. And I had that property for a lot of years, but didn't really do anything with it, other than just hold it and hoping one day, I could sell it for a profit, which never actually happened. But once I understood the power of real estate of what it could be, I turn that property around, we bought a couple of more properties. And I thought, all right, I like this. I like the idea of being able to acquire assets that not only build wealth, but that I get to pay off with other people's money. And I get tax benefits from and all of that stuff. And at the same time in this area of my career is progressing. So I got this promotion to move to Michigan. This was 2017. And in that move, I got you know, the big job, like you talked about the golden handcuffs, the equity that sort of vests, always later, right? Yeah, here's a big chunk. Here's a big chunk of equity, but you'll get it later, at best to every five years, essentially. And it was good, I would vest I invested a few of those. And it's a nice extra chunk of change. Don't get me wrong, but I had this real estate itch. So I'm in Michigan and Michigan is a much more friendly environment to invest in then than Boston from a cash flow perspective. So I found a partner, we bought a 16 unit property that 16 unit property we brought through repositioning and then later bought a 22 unit property in Cleveland, my portfolio, we're sitting at 40, something doors, I sold a couple of them off that we're back in New York and today sit at 40. But the real estate was the tip of the spear for me, I guess, or the entry point. So I looked at real estate as the reason for my exit. And as I got into real estate back in 2017, to 2018, I started acquiring it, I realized there are things about real estate I really like and there are things about real estate I don't really like and I tried to as best I could figure out how to lean into the things I like more and that I'm good at and add value from and away from the things that I don't, I'm not good at or don't add value don't add value with. So as I learned all of that stuff, I started to position myself and I'll get to that in a second. But the biggest decision I made back then you talk about being intentional is surrounding myself with the right people, if you're in a W two as I was the network you have is usually other w two people. So I would call him pitch to my friends, the guys that were at my level after work about what my boss did, or what the company's doing like those drives home or drive to work was was just that I was in that world. So when I start talking about real estate with these guys, while it was like interesting to them, there wasn't really much depth. I wasn't learning anything from them. They weren't learning anything from me it was a stalemate. So the thing I did was find a community. That was the first thing and I would recommend to anybody who's considering I don't like my job. I think real estate or I think I've said It's like opening an Etsy store, I think becoming an influencer or building a course any of that stuff that really appeals to you. First and foremost, go find other people pay for it. Drop your money, pay for an organization, a community, a group that you can join and be a part of like minded people. Because Wait, Jamie, you like we don't want to pay for our friend? What are you talking about? If I would I pay for someone? Why would I pay something that I could just do for free on YouTube? You could do it for free on YouTube, I look at it as an investment first. And I've learned this, we think oh, well I have this money I can invest and get a return. Yeah, the best return you're gonna get is when you put that money into you. So I just think that when you put money down psychologically, you create you create action, because you know that you have to earn earn the money back that you put into it, essentially. So when you pay 10,000 or 15 or $20,000, to be part of a community, you're giving yourself 10 Or 15 Or 20,000 reasons to engage. That's what I look at it as free is too easy. Anybody that's ever gotten anything for free, a gift or whatever, do you just don't value it as much as when you paid for it, right? Somebody gives you a car versus you go out and buy a car. Think about it renting right like you're renting a car, I guess you're paying for it or your company is renting the car for you. What do you care, you'll turn doughnuts in a parking lot. But your car that you paid for, you're not going to do that same thing too. It's the same thing with your community. You can find the freeze and look I used to run I still do run a networking group, a meetup group for multifamily investors. And when I would charge for an event like it would just clear the riffraff and everyone that came to the charged event the paid event even was 20 or 25 bucks. It's just way better. Like the quality of people like that 20 bucks creates some level of engagement that's just above and beyond zero bucks. So you have to invest. And as Jamie's talking, we're about to go even further down this rabbit hole here. Ladies and gentlemen, a lot of the time people ask about a forum. I see it on Facebook all the time, all the time. And I get this question all the time, is hey, man, I've got $10,000 I've got my first 10,000 I've got my first $15,000 saved. What should I invest in for the best return? Are we talking Bitcoin? Are we talking Doge? Or should I try to buy real estate with it? Should I invest in this stock XYZ stock. And the wisest people actually saw? I think it was Cody Sanchez, recently that I saw that posted this she was like, if you got $10,000 Find a group that you can spend, obviously have maybe a month or two of expenses covered but find a group to invest that money into to Jamie's point to where you're a member of a paid group. And then that the mindset and the connections that you make from that are going to be an infinite ROI on that money. And it will help you because it's always who not out Jamie's got the book plugged sitting on my couch. And Sullivan, you're coming on here, buddy. I love it. You know, you're spot on you're spot on, like the I didn't look, I didn't believe this, especially as a W two. And not more than that. We're tactile human beings. When we put money out, we usually see something. I paid $500 I got camera, I paid $20,000 I got car, I paid 300,000 I got house, I pay 10,000. And I get to go meet people like yeah, like, Where's the thing? Where do I get the thing that I put my money out for? And it is a mindset shift. But to your point, if I was saying, Okay, I've got money saved, whatever, I got 10 grand, that's free and clear that I want to invest in something I want to get a return on this. You're right. Everyone's thinking stock market crypto, this that. And the other I absolutely would say find a community of like minded people and invest in that community. Maybe it's not the entire thing. There are organizations like YPO or EO I think that was 567 $1,000 to join I don't even know but but you join a community of if you want to be an entrepreneur, join a community of entrepreneurs, you want to be a real estate investor, join a community of real estate investors, you want to be an influencer or start an online course then join a Russell Brunson group funnel hackers or whatever I like join something, spend the money on something invest in you guaranteed the best return I've ever gotten is investing in me to the tune of hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of dollars in equity and earnings from investing 10 grand a year over the last few in a mastermind community, exactly in the same conversation to be applied to coaches, because I thought that I would be able to do everything on YouTube, I thought that if I'm not learning it myself through books through YouTube through free resources that I'm just being lazy. I'm like, No, I'm not going to waste that money on coaches. That's ridiculous. So to the tune of this year, like this year, I actually left a couple of jobs and then went to some other jobs. And then so I ended up taking my income down about 50 to 70%. But now this year, I've probably spent about 30 40,000 on coaching, mentoring, and all this different stuff, because it's like, it's night and day. And when you go to a Tony Robbins event, you're not paying for the information, he comes out and he tells you, but I'm gonna have to tell you, it's gonna be as simple as I can possibly make it. But what I'm going to do and what you're paying here for is to be here with 10,000 people that are going to give you the energy and the physiology and the connection that you need to implement what the hell I'm telling you is like because you if knowledge was the answer, we'd all be rich and ripped. Knowledge isn't the answer. It's application, same thing hard work where the answer then every construction work, you would be multimillionaires. It's not about that it is about application of knowledge application of work, learning how to do things and to your point when you surround yourself with in my case, entrepreneurial millionaire men in abundance which the group I joined, specifically with a lot of them with a real estate bend to them, then yeah, lo and behold, how all of a sudden later did I exit my job with and be an entrepreneur, millionaire man with a focus in real estate and course development right? So there's when you get around it, you become it. It's the whole average of five people you hear all the cliches but it is it's it's true. It's not it's not just some saying or an old wives tale. If you want to be a jackass and surround yourself with five jackasses you'll gladly be you want to be an alcoholic surround yourself with five alcoholics right but you want to be a millionaire surround yourself with five millionaires and the likelihood is that stuff's going to rub off on you 100% I was and I wish that I could paint a picture for anyone listening that that you could just casually Facebook message five millionaires and that they would give you the time of day maybe one maybe I would venture to say that for that conversation and to be in that room. You have to pay something. Yeah, most millionaires I know our pay right are paying for multiple they're in multiple communities. I think of a David Osborne guy worth, you know, 150 200,000,003 four different organizations probably a couple $100,000 A year and I get it he makes a lot so he but there's a significant investment in community and in self development and your point about coaching now this one blows my mind, like people who say how I would pay for a coach, Michael Jordan had a coach, Michael Jordan had a coach, right? Kobe Bryant had a coach like, as a Swing Coach Agricola, because you can't see your own shot, you can't see your own swing, it takes somebody else looking at it. And when you have somebody that can reflect back the stuff that's just like turning and churning in your brain, it comes out of your mouth, when they can reflect that back with just a small question, or an observation or something, it completely changes the dynamic of what exactly you thought was going on. It just interrupts neural pathways. It's unbelievable. So yeah, investing in coaching, investing in community. And I always say this, like, it's like anything, if you're gonna go out and buy a new TV for yourself or a car, you don't go the cheap route, you just don't write, you're like, Okay, maybe you go cheap for like kids toys, I go to the dollar store, you do that right? Or get the not NyQuil, but the Walgreens brand for $6, less fine, it's all the same stuff, I get that. But when it comes to high quality products, you are going to spend the money to make sure that you get return for the investment that you make. And it's the same thing when it comes to coaching. If it's a $50 an hour coach, I don't that's just a waste of $50, I'd rather take that 50, put it toward the 500 per hour and buy that coach or pay for that coach, the same thing with community if it's a, you know, $29 a month to join a community, I seriously questioned the value of that community 10,000 I'm like, Man, that's pretty exclusive. That's a pretty high end group. So I'd rather be there. So as you're sitting at your W two, which you do not like, which I would venture to say, please shoot me a text, shoot me a message if I'm speaking to you, and I'm incorrect. I hope that you all love your jobs. But if you don't, and you're part of the majority, that's an America, then step one to put a pin in this is go find a community of people that are like mine in an entrepreneurial, whatever pursuit that you want to go, if you want to start an Etsy shop to Jamie's point, and they sell custom T shirts, go find yourself in a community of people that are doing Etsy shops with custom T shirts. And whenever you're hiring a coach, you're buying time, if you don't have a coach, maybe you'll figure it out 1020 30 years, maybe you'll figure it out. But the coaches already spent 1020 30 years doing it, you're paying for your time back. So Jamie, you're in your W two, it's going well, man, you're enjoying it, you're living the quote unquote American dream, or you've got the income coming in. But it's not enough for you, you cannot do this anymore. So you start surrounding yourself with these guys, you start venturing out into these real estate communities, what happens next? Yeah, opportunities happen next, oh, being around again, me placing myself in an organization of high net worth real estate investor men in this particular case. And again, you choose your community. Suddenly, it was like, Hey, we see how much you value community and how much you add value in that space. Like the gifts I didn't realize I had became valuable. So I love connecting people, I love interacting with people. I love networking. A lot of people out there think I love that stuff, too. But how you make money off of that you don't make money off of it, you go and do it in the right circle. And when you do it in the right circle, these folks who have access to a network and means and resources that are far above and beyond anything in my regular network suddenly have opportunity for me and you're a great connector, we see what you've built with your networking community. I mentioned before the meetup community, we've got this emerging ascend thing we want to put together this sort of community for future millionaires, would you want to take that on? Absolutely. That speaks to me, it's in the wheelhouse of what I love, and it leverages my skills. Another person, Hey, man, you're such a great connector, we I see I interact with people, I've got 120 million in assets under management, my real estate company, we've got our systems dialed in, you know, we don't have as a good marketer and investor relations guy, you want to come be a partner with us a general partner with us. And just lean into that part of it. We don't need you to worry about underwrite or putting deals together or any of that stuff. But when it comes to relating to people, and connecting people and raising capital and helping our investors with questions they have, you want to do that? Why, as I said before, I started in real estate with this broad swath because you have to okay, how do you underwrite? How do you reposition? How do you manage? How do you do all this stuff, but my skill in real estate really are in anything is how can I leverage the power of connection? How can I leverage the power of networking to serve somebody who does all the other stuff, so I got to partner up with a guy or a company that has a whole bunch of real estate, become a partner with that company. So I get the benefit of being paid and equity and everything else, and I get to do what I enjoy. And I get to do it on the time. That makes most sense to me and to the investors that I'm serving. So opportunities were the next thing that started to come to me but that still wasn't there was there's another step we'll get to it. But there's another step or two that I think people need to think about taking that may sound a little bit like whoo, whoo. But I'll get into them in order for you to make that exit but for sure, put yourself in the right community and then look at and take advantage of opportunities and by the way, to get the opportunities When you pay all that money to join, don't think of what you're going to get. Think about what you're going to give you. Yeah, join the community and offer as much value as you can a connection to somebody a spreadsheet that you develop, whatever. But if you go in with a contributory mindset, people see you as that. And when you give in life, just like when you give in a community like this, it will come back to you. And so not maybe one to one, like I gave some of that person, I'm not saying expect something back from that person, but just expect the universe to return that opportunity. And that's what happened for me, I just decided, let me just contribute whatever I can. And suddenly, these opportunities started coming to me. And Jamie, that's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on here is I believe that we're kindred spirits there because it's very rare, very few and very far between. I'm working on a definition for connector. I was talking to Mark McGuire about this, literally yesterday I did a show with him. And we're talking about connection and in context of connecting being a connector or being a networker. I don't want to put a negative connotation on networker per se. So if you're listening to this and you identify as a networker, please don't think that I'm coming at you. But I think that a connector is someone who, which is what I identify with is a connector or someone that can take every single person in the room and make them feel heard, appreciated, understood and spoken to, no matter what personality style they are, no matter where they are in life, if it's the janitor, or if it's the person holding the door open. That's a connector, that's a special skill set, that I'm leaning into myself, a networker. And like I said, this is just my perspective. If you identify as a networker, I view a networker as maybe someone that comes in with a bunch of business cards. And they're like, Okay, cool, I'm gonna come into the room, I'm gonna hang out my business cards I'm doing, I'm raising for XYZ, I've got this agenda in the back of my head, I'm gonna collect business cards and send follow up emails. So that's just my connotation of it. Alright, let's let's do this. So here's how I hear that I hear what you're saying is a connector gives a networker takes, essentially, is that fair? boiling down of how you're defining the two? Yeah, and I may be completely talking out of my ass. No, this is me with my generalities. Yeah, no. So here's what I would say. Here's what I would say. I don't think a network is to go give and take I think is too broad a spectrum? I would say a connector is more for them. In other words, like, if I'm a connector, my objective is for you. How can I connect you? How can I help you? If you're a networker? My objective is it's just for me, like I enjoy interacting with people. I like going into a room and meeting as many people as I can. I don't think it's a bad thing. I don't think it's a kind of, I don't think it has to have the connotation of being negative. But I think we agree on something here. I think we agree that the idea of a connector is how can I most add value to somebody? How can I most help this person with whatever it is a community, a person, an entity, an article? How can I best connect them to something that adds value to their life? Whereas for a networker that's more Oh, man, I'm just kind of, to me, networking is going to a bar, like I just want to go to a bar meet people tonight, I don't think it's a bad thing. If I go in there, to your point as a pure, like, I'm gonna go to a bar to meet a woman and take her home. And it takes on a bit of a raunchy vibe to her right, if I'm going to go to a networking event with the sole purpose of getting other people to like, I want to raise capital, or I want them to give me something that's just a that's just a bad way of going through life. And you can be that way as a connector by Yeah, I gave you that connection. Now, what are you going to give me you can have that same mindset in either role. But I think you're right. In general, I think that when I think about if I'm going to connect people, I'm thinking about them. Networking is for me, that's just that's I enjoy meeting people. And it's just a for me thing, like going out going to an event going to a bar, that kind of thing, is actually a great book, by the way. Have you ever read give and take? No, I haven't Adam Grant, give and take defines a giver or a taker and a matcher. I think it speaks to what we just talked about. Go for it. Perfect. Yeah, what you're listening to hear right now is us taking like this giant block of verbal marble, and just chiseling it away. I like that, you know, our new ideologies here, because I completely agree with what you said. So then I'll rephrase what I just said, into if you go to echo what you said, if you go into an event or space where everyone is together, and you're in one of these groups, if you go to add value, with the intention of adding value, the universe tends to reward that person over the person that's going asking what's in this for me? Is that a better way to stay down? Not even 10s It's absolutely rewards people I agree with you 100%. But I would take it even further, like you will be rewarded long term. When you go in with a mindset of contribution. You might get short term rewards when you're a taker when you're going in with the idea of what can I get but in the long run, the those that go with the mindset of contribution when again, read give and take. It's actually it's an incredible, it just it speaks exactly to this. In fact, I'll give you a little teaser. What of a giver is somebody who gives a taker somebody who takes in a match or somebody who says give you but then I got to get back or or vice versa? Like you gave me something I need to give you back. So in all industries, engineer, actor, whatever, giver taker matcher, what do you think of those three profiles is the lowest performer? Hmm. taker? It's actually a giver. It's actually a giver. What do you think is the highest performer, giver taker, manager, matcher, or taker, are the highest performing? Yeah, also a giver. So it's interesting to read through and learn like there's an art to giving, there's the thought, again, you have to understand who you're dealing with, on the other side of that, are you dealing with a taker? Are you dealing with a match? Are you dealing with a giver, but the point is those that those that that master the art of giving and not in a way that they're looking for a return, but understand what the power of giving can be, and come at it from that general mindset, you're going to win. There are those though, that that don't, that don't recognize that they're being taken essentially, by people that they're giving to, those are the ones that lose, so you're most vulnerable as a giver. But you also have the most power as a giver. And this book really talks about harnessing that power a bit. Okay, I'm absolutely going to be putting this into the show notes for you listening. And then also the tie all of this up is I feel like that's a great litmus test for the group in the room that you're in. If you're in the room, and every single person you let's not, let's not even let's not even cut like this cut the bullshit here is you can be in a room. And if you're in the room, and every single person is just exchanging cards, and hey, what do you do? What Hey, what are you in, and then you see them go glazed over, when they realize that you're not gonna immediately benefit them, and then they turn to the next person with their beard. If that's the room that you're in, you can use that as a stress test immediately to be like, Hey, this is not the correct room. Because the rooms that me and Jamie are in every single time you walk in, it's everyone has such a genuine interest in what the other person is doing, that it almost becomes uncomfortable with you talking about yourself so much. Yeah, it's ridiculous. Yeah, no, that's a great point. And I like that, because you can tell by the if you're again, I think the free community, that's the one where you're probably gonna get a lot of people that are on the take, when you know what your what do you pay for community, especially though and a lot of them do value contribution, then you're probably in the right room at that point. So I that's a great point. Perfect. Okay, so we're getting in the right rooms, and what and then you said you had a couple other steps here, a couple opportunities that came up took advantage of those opportunities, but in order to leave the job, it's hard. It's funny, I have this bias when I hear somebody talk about leaving the job leaving their job and being afraid to do but they're 31. And single, I'm like, Come on, man, just go like you got nothing gets more complex as you get married as you have kids, and especially. But even still, I'll talk to a lot of people about that. And they're like, like, my wife's job would cover the bills. But I'm like, Come on, man. If your wife or your husband's job would cover the bills thing, go if you built something that you believe you can do something with, but again, in the right community, look for opportunities, and you're building while you're still at your W two. That's the essence of a side hustle, just get around the right people, it will accelerate you. But that decision for me, I realized comes down to stopping the engine for a minute, and assessing. So I call this just getting quiet. It's very simple concept. But I want to give a little detail on it. So I'll give you I'll give you an analogy here. When people come over to your home, often but you run around, you clean up, you shove everything in a closet or you just get everything out of the way. So it looks nice and clean and organized. In your home. Everything looks like nice and clean and organized. Just like you do walking around. Wow, look at that guy's put together he's doing well, or whatever the case may be. So nice and clean and organized. Everything's good. At a certain point, though, you got to clean that closet out. So what do you do, you open the door, and you clean out the furred the junk that you stuffed in there. And then you're dumped, there's a bunch of other things you could clean out. But I'm only going to clean up the this stuff in the front. The problem with that is if you clean out the stuff that you shoved in there, and stay in that closet, in the back of that closet are things that you're going to look at and say now why did I ever get rid of this? Like what? Why is this in the back of my I love this, it brings you back it gives you a memory of it gives you a sense of who you were the things you love. And you want to feature that again, put it on the shelf, do whatever that thing is in the back of your closet if you stay in the closet and clean it out long enough. Similarly, there's stuff in the back of the closet that you're like, why am I holding on to this, this thing is just taking up space back here, it's garbage, it doesn't do anything for anybody. Like, I should just get rid of this. It's just a waste. Okay? Getting quiet is the same thing. I meditate every day, 10 minutes a day, and it's great. But that doesn't give me the sustained quiet time to get into the closet, clean out the stuff that's very easy to clean out and then get into the back of the closet. And the obvious analogy here is my mind. So when I say get quiet, I say book a weekend, a Friday to Sunday and understand that on Friday, you're not going to be able to just dial it down without Netflix and your phone and everything else. It's just not that easy to just flip a switch and stop your life in one day. But over the course of Friday, you're trying to get quiet. Oh crap, let me reply to that email. Let me do this. You're cleaning out the initial junk that's in the front of the closet, right? As you go into Saturday and you stay there and you're thinking okay, now bored and it's uncomfortable because you've told yourself not going to watch TV. I'm not going to jump on my phone. I'm going to meditate. I'm going to read I'm going to really dial my brain down. That's when you start getting into the back of that clutter. In the back of your brain, you start finding those elements of you that you buried years and years ago that you want to bring back to the forefront or wonder. I'm sorry, but it was like the childlike wonder is as a kid you picked up and you were so innate with and you were like, if you want, if you like drawing, you can like do XYZ, it's like you remember back in the day, same thing. And the other stuff that's back there is stuff that's just cluttering up your brain that you should just let go of Thank you, thank you, whatever it was for the time that I had with it, but it's time to go and move on from it just clear the clutter from your brain, you do that for three days, while simultaneously journaling what's coming up in your mind. One, if you haven't thought of a side hustle, you'll come up with one because there's ideas in there that you can take and implement based on who you are truly, because you've given yourself that quiet time, me doing that. And it wasn't intentional at first, I do that every quarter now. But me doing that on a long drive to Florida prior to that, and a long drive from Boston to Michigan, like that time where there's nothing but the road in front of me and all my brain can do is calm down. And really think and process. There's only so many phone calls I can make on that tribe. There's only so many radio stations I can listen to or podcasts. At a certain point, you're just there and quiet and raw. Those are the moments where transformation will start. And if you listen to anyone on any podcast, you'll hear that said exactly like a lot of these folks have routine quiet experiences. They do retreats, meditation for 10 days, whatever. That's where transformation happens. So I think for anybody in a W two, because we get up we do our morning routine, we go to work, we kiss our wife or husband, we come home, we help we play with the kids, we help make dinner we clean up we crash on the couch, repeat the next day, like our lives are just busy. Especially we have a side hustle, you build that into there already, right? If you already have something that you're building real estate or whatever, that's all happening, like in the wee hours of the morning or whatever, you crash for five hours, you're up and you're going the next day, you don't give yourself those three solid days. And you're never going to get yourself to the point of getting into the back recesses of your brain and re featuring who you are. That was the difference in okay, I'm building something one day I'll leave Yeah, I think I'll leave one day, it'll be nice to leave to like, you don't know it's time. It's time to leave. I've got I know I have more clarity on what my financial situation is. I have more clarity on what I'm trying to build here. I have more clarity on the next step for me. And it's time for me to bet on me. So that quiet time. That's again woowoo for some folks, that is huge and underrated underestimated by most they don't look at it that like in order for me to leave my job, I have to have X number of doors making this much cash flow. Yeah, sure. But more than anything, you have to get yourself to a place where you know clearly what you're trying to accomplish. And that only happens when you give your brain some space. And if you're sitting here right now thinking how I used to think and being like okay, Jamie, that sounds good. Must be nice. Yeah, I'm gonna sit and just take a nice long drive and all my problems and stress will be resolved. Yeah, sounds great for you, man. Okay, I would challenge you with this. If you're thinking that it's a pre wired belief, it's a preset notion and take a step back. And this is what made me snap out of it. I snapped out of it by saying, hey, that's what I'm doing right now, is the person I'm talking to, in a better situation than I am currently? If the answer is yes, then take a second and be like, hey, maybe what I'm doing is incorrect. And maybe this whole being quiet thing is worth a shot. So, Jamie, I want to be respectful of your time, because I know you have the support and call coming up here in 10 minutes. As I come up here, push it a little bit if you need to go ahead. I'm sorry. Okay, perfect. Yeah, then points specifically, because it's something that you said to me before, and it really stood out to me. And it's the quote, you want to run towards something not away from something. Can you please hit on that? And the significance of that when you're talking about someone in their W two, or just in general? Yeah. So again, I quit nine months ago, eight months ago, whatever it is. So in context, if two years ago, I quit, I was building something on the side, I was doing all the things I talked about. But there was a lot of if you in my body, if I quit at that point, it would have been a lot of I would let them all go in there. Yeah, just tell my boss Screw you. I'm out. I am done all with that would feel like I didn't. Again, this is the hindsight of reflection, but or the benefit of reflection, I should say. But I would have been running away. And I think that's very dangerous to run away from something, I think it's not sustainable. And I've even talked to some people who have left their job multiple times, maybe two or three times until they finally caught with what they were doing. But the third, the second or third time, what they what the difference was is they found something they're running toward, that allows you to look back at what you had, and leave it with gratitude, leave it with a sense of completion. So when I left my job a couple of years after that sort of fpu moment, it was with my best year of performance, I was in a much better place with my boss, I had built something I really loved with emergent ascent, like I was seeing people get results. And it fulfilled me in that that thing in the back of my brain that I was able to unleash by getting quiet and say this is what I want. I want to spend time with people helping them get to where they want to be I want to inspire and motivate others to live their best life and then I had something that was making that happen. I just want to go do that, hey, I'm not even bitter with you anymore boss or job like I'm over that, in fact, thank you, thanks for putting up with me cuz I was probably a pain in the ass at times. But over here, this is really compelling and drawing me I've learned this from others and I saw it in me, if I left two years ago, when I was running from something, I doubt my ability to sustain it. But running towards something, it just is a completely different feeling of the runway, the ability to dive into what's fulfilling and meaningful. For me, that's where I'm spending my time and energy not in a negative mind space of not that, like most people know what they don't want. They don't define what they do want you hear that right like to find what you do want what you don't want, it's the same concept, don't run away from something, that's what you don't want. That's more dangerous than running what toward what you do want running towards something. That was that was a key concept for me that I think a lot of people miss. Know, and that's very powerful. And I can actually elaborate on that after having just left Tony Robbins, and I just want to Unleash the Power Within. So I was also on the page, huge Tony guy, I read the books, listen to the videos, I was such a huge Tony. But yeah, but I didn't see the value in paying 1000s of dollars to go see him live until I did. And what you're talking about is described by him as being in a peak state or not being in a peak state. So what Jamie is talking about is if you are still in the phase of your W two, which is where I was before, and I've quit multiple times, he wasn't talking at me specifically. But he also was at the same time, because I'm the victim of this. But that's five and you learn from what you've done. If you leave with FSU. I'm out of here, I'm going to earn my freedom, and you leave with a lot of animosity and hate in your heart. What tends to happen inadvertently as you attract that same hate and animosity in some way, shape or form back into your life because that's your focus. Even if you're not thinking of it rationally or consciously, you're thinking of it subconsciously, what Jamie is talking about is leaving in what's called a peak state and Tony Robbins, where it's a beautiful state where you are open to opportunity, you are knowing that problems are going to come. But problems aren't problems or obstacles that are to be expected. The higher stuff, the higher level stuff you do, the more obstacles quote unquote, are gonna come your way. So you're gonna have, you're going to have them anyways, being in a peak state doesn't mean you're going to have less problems. But it means that you're going to be able to handle those problems in a positive in a grateful heart, instead of being pissed off stressed and annoyed. And then so when you're in a peak state, all of a sudden things start materializing to you that you wouldn't have believed before. And that's when Jamie was all of a sudden, I hope that y'all didn't glance over where he said he had a couple of doors and then bought a 16 unit. This man's been on podcast for multifamily just for that one story alone. That was because he was in a state of gratitude, state of peace in somebody that was also in that same state was pulled to him. And then they were able to go together and then get this thing done. So that's what you're talking about. Now I finally fully understand that. And now as I am in this last chapter of my w two, and they can listen to this, I don't care that even though I do this podcast, that's fine. I'm at peace with it, because I'm finishing up my w two mock corporate life. And I'm gonna eventually be taking the same journey that Jamie has here. And it's just such a, it's a beautiful ride at the end of it. So I've been through all the animosity, man, and you're following the same script, right? So you're running towards something you've invested in you and you're doing all those things that we just talked about. It's funny talking about problems, like the idea of joining communities of like minded people, the idea of investing in you is the recognition that problems will be there. And what I want are level eight level nine problems, I want big problems, right, I want to choose my problems, which Think about that for a second, if you're at a job, you're probably having your problems chosen for you on your own, you're going to choose your own problems, you're going to have problems in life, I'd rather choose what problems I'm going to have. And I want those to be eight or nine level problems because I know that I'm working on being a level nine or level 10 person by investing in me and doing the things that I'm doing. If I'm at a level nine or level 10 As a person than a level nine or level a problem is not an issue anymore, I can take care of that fact, what I want now is bigger problems. So when you do have problems, the first thing you should say to yourself is wow, how did I create this problem and be grateful for the fact that you were able to I talked to investors all the time, man, I'm just stressed out because on my on this ad unit, I'm doing this and on this 120 units like timeout, do you hear yourself? This is exactly what you wanted. You just of course you want bliss and beauty and everything went great on this property. But by buying 234 100 units of real estate, you're gonna have problems that come with two 300 400 units of real estate so you actually created this for yourself. Be grateful you got exactly what you wanted. And the other thing real quick on the point of the universe I've always said I think the universe hears like the subject, but it doesn't hear the modifying word in front of it. So like when you say I don't want this job. All it is is this job deliver this job like it's just here. It's like a dog. It just gets like that job, or that job, more of that whatever you focus on whether you're saying I do or I don't or whatever you debt I want out of debt, here comes debt. Does that make sense? So like, the idea is, yeah, the universe really delivers the subject, not the modifier doesn't hear it. So get that out of there and focus on the stuff you want. And also, you're talking about the problems. And wouldn't it be cool if you're in a given community know what happens when you're in a given community you give to others, and then all of a sudden, when you happen level eight or level nine problem, all of a sudden, you've got 234 500 People that are so willing to help you navigate that problem. And guess what, I guarantee you, they've probably had that problem for the last 10 years. They figured it out 10 years ago, 100%. And they're holding me account, I just had this call with my Gopal, my accountability partner, and we and they held me accountable. Like I've got a deliverable by late January of 2022. And if not, I'm paying for something I don't know exactly what yet, but I'm paying for something like there's accountability, and me delivering on what I said I wanted, because it is it's what I want. But sometimes we get in this mode of I'm afraid to do it. And when you don't have a boss, you can get bad whenever I get to it, I get to it. But having those people around me investing in self investing and community gives me accountability, on top of wisdom around the problems that I'm facing, for sure. As we finish up here, we've talked about we've talked about a lot of different things. And we can go into a whole other podcast episode down the line about the how Jamie got all this together. But I think that today, the direction that we went with finding the rooms to be in to find the Hoos is actually a much more beneficial. And I, I would venture to say that this will get you out of your W W two and toward something that you're excited about, probably probably in half the time that if you just focused on the the oh, I'm going to generate $10,000 in passive income, oh, I'm going to generate I'm going to buy this many houses, I'm going to invest in my index funds for next 10 years, I would venture to say that if you focus on what we talked about today, I wouldn't be surprised if no matter where you're at, even if you're at Net Zero within a year or two of doing this really intentionally and purposefully and going in with a full heart to give to a community that wants to give back to you. But opportunities are going to materialize. Like very quickly. And to that point, we're talking about $10,000 rooms in these are high level rooms where high level people are playing. But some people aren't quite to that point where they can do the $10,000. And myself I was included in that. And so everything that Jaime is about to talk about is something that I'm involved in, and I was at the ground floor in because I remember seeing Jamie stand up in that $10,000 room and say I can't wait to take on what we're about to do next, I want to throw the rope down. I want to have a couple of programs below where this is because the network requirements like a million dollars to be in that room. So let's figure out how can we help people that aren't quite there yet, but they're close. And they need a little bit of a push. And they need somebody to help them and guide them to take out those level six and level seven problems to get them over the hump so they can be in this room. Tell us about the birth and the growth of emergent ascent and what the two different programs are. Yeah, go abundance is the community you're referring to. It's called the tribe of millionaires. In fact, I host the tribe of millionaires podcast, you can check that out on any platform shameless plug. Oh, no, we're plugging it the the podcast, download it now. Subscribe. It's great. So the idea was that hey, in order to join go bonus, you had to be a million plus, in net worth. We have events, some guests come to the event. That's how Brian made his way to the event through a connection, which was great. And yeah, the idea was, how do we take what we know what we've learned from the collective genius of this room of these five 600 millionaires, and give that wisdom to folks that are aspiring one day to be there, whether it's in real estate or other any other business area, being an entrepreneur or whatever, just becoming a millionaire. So that's where emergent ascend were birthed. So when I was handed this project, it was like, we like these names emerges. And we just don't know, what do we do with them? We want people to emerge and then they have to ascend. It's okay. What I did, what we looked at is, hey, if we can do something that is a bit of a, a crash course, an intro, something that kind of gets people rolling in the right direction, but also acts as a as a filter in some ways or as like a barrier to entry for something more valuable than let's maybe we could do a merge to send that way. So if you're not a millionaire, and you're looking at I want to be there one day, I want to join this Ruby. Jamie, you talked on this podcast about spending money to be part of a community I tell me about this stuff, because I'm not a millionaire yet. I can't join this abundance group that you mentioned, emerges built as a 12 week goal setting course essentially, is what it boils down to with a lot of live stuff in there. So the three objectives of eMERGE, were to create transformation by taking the lessons we got every week for 12 weeks, you get to learn and how to set a goal, how to establish habits, how to create a vision, how to plan to execute that vision. What proximity means all of this, spread it over 12 weeks. And at the beginning of this course, you create a goal for yourself with the intention of achieving that goal by the end of that course. So in 12 weeks, you create transformation. That's objective one, objective two with emerges proximity. First off, you're around other like minded people, we've had over 300 people go through emerge at this point in a year, you're around other like minded people like Brian, like others who are driven toward who are millionaires by what they're doing already. They just haven't hit it on the balance sheet. Yeah, but you're around those people that right now in your life, you can't relate to they're in emerge. So that's one piece of the proximity. But in addition, because I'm part of abundance, we bring in abundance member in every Tuesday night to talk to the eMERGE group for 90 minutes answering questions about how they got to where they got to what their business is about what mindset obstacles they faced life relationships, you name it every Tuesday evening, a millionaire comes in. So there's incredible proximity and a live q&a with that person. And then third objective, as I mentioned, is to make a merge the filter to to joining something bigger. So in order to graduate a merge, you have to complete all 12 modules. If you complete all 12 modules, you're invited to ascend as an annualised mastermind group. It's a year long years long group, a community where we go deep on accountability, we go deep on how you define purpose for yourself. We have group coaching as a part of that we bring in high level speakers like Ben Hardy from who not how which is Dan Sullivan's co writer on the book like Preston Smiles, like Dr. John Demartini, to come in and speak to our ASCEND group about developing toward that next level of life. So eMERGE is the course and the mastermind community. That is the entry level, it's the sprint, we go fast, we go hard, it's 12 weeks of intensity. And at the end of that of your standing, you get the invite to join ascend, which is a bit more of a marathon, a longer term annualized mastermind, where we really dive deep on helping you figure out figure out how to get to that millionaire level in one day join go abundant. So that's the structure of the to have that makes sense. Yeah, I can give anybody listening my perspective from it too, because I went through the like the intro like the origin, the original say, Oh, gee, yeah, the OG. So I went through emerge, I would say, eMERGE is a great starting point. So emerges where you if you haven't been exposed to any of this stuff, or any, like self development principles, or anything about goal setting habits, stuff like that, emerges, like really great content based. So you go into emerge, and you're gonna learn all the systems, processes, tips and tricks that you need to be able to get your life right, and to be able to get that get on the on ramp to the interstate. And then as you're doing that, as you're learning and doing all these different little tips and tricks that you're learning through emerge, as you get to ascend basically operates, which I think was the intention of it. Yeah, it operates as go abundance does, yes. For the people that haven't made the million Yes, a lot of us that are doing what go abundance, or GoPros are doing but it's just like the time horizon hasn't been to the point where we're there yet. So you gotta send, we got to send members partner with abundance members. There's a lot of stuff happening there. Yeah, yeah, all the time. And so now the conversation goes from an Emerg, where you're learning about setting goals to where it's like now, in a sense, it's like, I've got a pod, and they're like, Hey, I just bought 10, ice vending machines for $50,000 a machine, and they're gonna produce like this amount of passive income per month, or, Hey, I'm just taking out 102 unit apartment deal, who wants it. And those are conversations that you have every single week. So you're operating at a higher level. And then one by one, we're all just popping into abundance, because it's almost not like a if button when that's 17 members go from the emergence and programs to abundance in the last year, which is great. A couple of those were already qualified, they just did emerge, because they were like, I don't know about this abundance thing. Let me check out a merge. But oh, we've had some developed, some folks developed obviously, up through all the way through the ranks, which is great. Yep. So I'd highly recommend that but even if that's not your cup of tea, please get into one room, please get into a room like we've mentioned a couple different ones. That's just the one that we're affiliated with. And you're going to hear a lot of guests on here that are in abundance and affiliated with dough abundance. So that's just one example of a room so you could say that we gave you something I love it man. Now I agree with you. I like look, I love a merge obviously I'm connected to it's distilling the lessons of all these abundance members into one course. But I just say invest in something that speaks to you that resonates with you. It's it's it's really hiring a professional you ever tried to do the plumbing job yourself and you may get a ton but it's frustrating and it takes you way longer and everything else then you hire if you say Man, if I only just hired the damn professional, I probably would have saved money and time I would have saved so much same with like I drove instead of flew man if I just would have flown a big ticket on it, but I would have saved so much aggravation and headache and it's the same thing. Hire a professional. Join the community where you can get with people that are going to shrink time. accelerate your earning capacity. That's essentially what joining a community is all about. Yep, then all of a sudden, you'll blink twice. And you'll have opportunities that you never even imagined praise and Jason Jesus on this show, and he could be able to what he was saying is literally this, surround yourself with enough people. And they will be able to take you where you want to go. And way further, I would challenge you to open up your mind to what the possibilities are, because I can almost guarantee you that there are about 10 to 100 times higher than you even thought possible. Yeah. So on that point, Jamie, let's finish this up. Where can people find you? Where can they reach out to you for multiple things? So let's start with community just and regular and then we're going to invest in Yeah, so at the Jamie Gruber on Instagram is the best place to reach me right now. I'm most active there. So at the Jamie Gruber. from an investment perspective, if you go to quantum capital inc.com Quantum capital inc.com. You can see what deals we have going on there. We we purchased five deals in the last couple of months that are all in one fund right now that we're still in the fundraising window for so people interested in learning more about what we're doing there just yet quantum capital inc.com. And then we have any links for the eMERGE saying yes, of course, what am I saying? So Go abundance.com/emerge Go abundance.com/ascend. You can't join ascend without going through a merge, but at least you can see an overview. If you go to go bonus.com/emerge And you have interest in joining, you could put in my first name Jamie as a code, and we'll knock $200 off the course. Oh, we just gave you $200 in your pocket. Exactly. Exactly. Love it. Love it. And I'll include all those in the show description so you can be able to go and look at that. So at that point, my friend, this is Brian Luebben, host of the action Academy podcast and Jamie, father of a broken arm but he ain't taking no PTO. Gruber no PTO. Thanks brilliant. You've been listening to the action Academy podcast helping you to choose what you want with who you want. When you want. You've been given the gift of freedom. Don't turn your back on that. We hope you've enjoyed the show. And we hope you've gotten some practical and useful information make sure to like rate and review the show. We'll be back soon. But in the meantime, hook up with us on social media. Remember financial independence is freedom to freedom fly