I'm so pleased to be welcoming Bronson hill to the show, so I'd love for you to start with your story. Awesome. Sounds great? Great to be Anastasia, yeah. So quick background, I basically was a well paid medical sales professional, and I was making over $200,000 a year. And I enjoyed what I did, it was interesting. I worked with heart surgeons with some of their equipment and their devices. And one thing I realized is that I was working really hard, and I was really developing, you know, a business for someone else. I really had something that I was creating for someone else, and they were literally making millions of dollars off of what I was doing. And I realized that for me, I really wanted to have financial freedom. And this quote Warren Buffett talks about is, unless you learn how to make money while you sleep, you'll work until you die. And so that just kind of stuck on my mind of, well, gee, I'm going to work. What happens if I can't work or don't want to work or don't want to do I want to do it a different way? And so for me, it was really about time freedom. A lot of people say financial freedom. For me was really time freedom. Want to have more control over my time. And so I kind of hit a wall at one point. Just said, you know, I'm I really want to figure out a way to generate investment income and grow and I was able to do that over a period of a few years. I basically made the decision. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to figure it out. And a few years later, I was able to do all of that. There were some ways, through investing in real estate, doing other investments, raising capital for real estate deals, and it really allowed me to live the life of my dream. So now I've traveled, you know, 40 to 48 countries. Traveled six times internationally last year, and just love, you know, creating, wrote this book behind me, "Fire Yourself," a little bit about my journey, how people can also fire themselves. And so that's how I got started and doing what I'm doing. Yeah, so the the travel was that sometimes business or Is it all just pleasure? It's a mix. I mean, sometimes I'll go around. I've spoken internationally as well, so I've spoken in different places or been a paid speaker. But for the most part, I just really enjoy traveling. I think I work really hard. Have this idea of work hard, play hard, so I work my 40 hours a week generally, but I've got a trip coming up. My next trip is in Italy, I'm excited, or I'm gonna go to Naples and Sicily. And so it's very motivating. And it's funny how they study this. I know you're you've probably done a lot of work on this too, they say that we actually enjoy thinking about our vacations more than, actually, when we're on our vacations. So it's funny how, the visualization and you seeing yourself there and all this stuff, it's actually more enjoyable, actually, than the happiness levels or being on the trip. Well, yeah, it's the anticipation. It's the Anticipation of pleasure is way more pleasurable than the experience. And it's the same thing with anticipation, of like, when you're a little kid and you did something that you know you shouldn't have, the anticipation of the punishment was way worse than a punishment. Yeah, it's so true. it's like, funny though. It's like, we how we remember it, or how we're looking forward to it, we can like, oh, I so enjoy it. But that's, I guess, the power of visible visualizations, as well as just anticipating, like you said, yeah, the anticipation. And although I have to say that, I'm Greek, my my both my parents were Greek, and, my first language was Greek, even though I was born in the US, that first time I went to Greece was way better than my anticipation. So sometimes it's way better. with life too, if you have low expectations, you'll just pleasantly be surprised consistently. But then, I guess you're not really making plans. Or, I guess there's a balance. I don't know how you balance that out, but I do think visualizing and anticipating something good is really great, because it look helps you look forward to a goal and what you want. So when you were doing all that work for those medical sales people, when you were doing all that work, did you experience burnout? Were you working way too hard for what you were getting out of it? You know, honestly, I had some seasons where I would work 50, 60 hours a week. I wasn't working crazy hours when I left or when I was getting ready to leave. I just, I didn't like the the grind of it. And what I mean by that is, I was out of the 10 years I was in medical sales. For those years, I was top 10% they give you awards. They give you accolades. Each quarter you have a goal, you try to meet your quarterly goal, and then they kind of give a slap in the back. Hey, great job. You met your goal. And they'd be like, Okay, we'll go do it bigger better next quarter. And so it'd be kind of this, you'd feel like you're on a hamster wheel, the higher, the better I do, the better I perform, the higher the goals get. And so at the end of the day, I was like, Man, this just feels exhausting. And I think most people that are in corporate or in like a big corporate world or have do a professional job, they feel like they're a number. And I think at my company, I started to feel like, you just go out and you do this, and it was all like, how are you performing, personally. I think even with AI, and all these things are now disrupting a lot of these other things that, it's hard to feel like, you know, you really matter personally. It's like, if you don't perform, you're out. And I think that was kind of what I felt, and it just felt like a lot of pressure and a grind, and I didn't want to just keep grinding, and I wanted to do something that I could make money while I sleep, or at least create something that's my own, and I didn't want to have that for big thing. One of the reasons I left as well, yeah, you're something that's your own. You, you tend to use a lot more creativity, a lot more of you. You put yourself into it. Makes a big difference for people. if you feel like you've got a purpose, we know purpose is your number one happiness factor. when you're doing sales, you're just pursuing money that's a grind that because it doesn't feel like that's your purpose. Is your purpose being a salesperson? No. people that discover, like for you, discovering a purpose of, okay, let's make money while we sleep. And on top of that, I can help other people make money while they sleep, so you can save them. So that's more purposeful than here have some medical equipment, yeah. And I think purpose is a huge thing. Something I've I've learned, as I've interviewed over 2500 millionaires, is that, most people in general, in our society, it's about 70% are not engaged at work. They don't enjoy what they do. And I think that's really tragic, right? I mean, what if we all were financially free, and we could do the things we felt passionate about we're excited about, even if they didn't seem significant,even if it pays really well. But when I left my J, O, B, I was able to say, Oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna write the book, I'm gonna write more music, I'm gonna travel my creative experience with my daughter. I'm going to do these things that are important. And it's like the idea, what makes you come alive, what's the thing that lights you on fire? Like I just, I really care about this cause. And so to me, it opened up a lot of these things. And then to me that the obstacle from that Anastasia was, you know, I was afraid of failing, but I became more afraid of, what if I'm 70 or 80 years old, and I regret that I didn't try, right? And I think that was a bigger fear of, like, I don't want to be the guy who's has all those dreams in his heart that dies with the dreams and the music still in them, right? I want to be somebody who actually, actually tried. If it didn't work, I'd go back to medical sales. But I wanted to, at least try and see how it goes and just give it all I have. So 70 to 80, that's where I'm at. I'm going to be 73 next week. Oh, you look great. Yeah. So my healing stuff, nutrition, all of this stuff that I do is it keeps you young, and staying in doing these kinds of things, interviewing people like, I really love doing this and helping people stay and get healthy, All of those things for me keep me young. One thing that people are really afraid of is letting go of that steady paycheck. how can someone begin to move past that fear and self doubt, to take that first step? Yeah, so I think that's a lot of fear for a lot of people. And for me, it was a big fear, as well as even when I had income coming in, and I was basically had replaced my my income with investment income, I was afraid to leave. I mean, most of my family are teachers. They work for the government. There's a lot more, like, Why would you leave your great job? Kind of this golden handcuffs mentality. But I think, it doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing. Some people think, Okay, I'm going to leave and I've got to leave tomorrow, and I'm going to take out debt and go do some new business thing. I think that's maybe for some people, maybe they'll do that and they'll do fine. I think the Wiser thing is, can you start doing something on the side where you can basically start learning and maybe start making some income, or just starting to learn about it on the side, and if it doesn't work out, then, at least you'll just lose a little bit of time and maybe a little bit of money. But you didn't lose your job. There's like, a fallback there, right? So I think I realized for me, there was a time where I was working, I had my full time job, was able to kind of get it down to about 30 hours a week, but I was working 30 plus hours a week on the other the real estate, the investing, other types of stuff. And I just realized I'm going to do this for a period of time, and then eventually I'll be able to shift away. And I was able to do that right after a couple years, I was able to do that. And so I think there's a way that there's a transitionary period there and not everybody can handle that easily, but I think it's just good to have, you know, big things start with small steps. You know, don't despise small beginnings. Sometimes, just because something starts small, if I'm my goal is to replace my my income or my living expenses. Maybe it's five or 10,000 a month. Well, can I start with $1,000 a month? Can I find an investment? It'll pay me $1,000 a month, and can I grow from there? I just think it's just finding small steps to get you towards your goal. Yeah. So is most of your side income? Is that got to do with real estate investing? Or are you into, like, stocks or I've done a lot of things. I think I initially I started as an investment advisor, so I did work with different assets, including stocks and other things. And then I realized Wall Street is very difficult for the average investor. There's just so many disadvantages of being a small fish in this big pond, and the information you have is late. It's not as good. Wall Street makes money. If you lose half your money. Wall Street still makes money, and so I'm a big fan of Main Street and getting into main street type investments, such as real estate deals, such as other types of buying businesses. And what I discovered is that people will say, I want to, have passive income. So they use this term, passive income. But what people think passive income is and what it actually is are two different things. What I mean by that is people will say passive income is owning a rental house, or it's doing an online stock trading strategy or starting an online business. And none of those are actually passive, because you're still actually doing the work, and you can't scale it up if you have one or two or three rental houses, if you can't 10x your strategy without creating yourself for yourself another job, it's not passive, right? So the idea is, Can I maybe do some diligence and find deals that other people are operating. And wealthy people do this all the time. People are worth over, you know, 2 million, 10 million, whatever. They'll find ways to invest with other groups, other people, and then they'll basically put their money to work there. And then the diligence is really on the front end to make sure, hey, who's this group, and what are they doing? What's their experience? And then you invest. And then basically it's hand off, hands off. It's hope should be at that point, kind of that mailbox money principle. for someone listening right now, who feels burned out and stuck, what's one small, doable step they can take today to begin firing firing themselves? Yeah, yeah. So I do think real estate is a great opportunity. there's also oil and gas. There's other types of investments out there that just, it's good to learn about. And I think everything sounds weird and crazy until you meet somebody who's an investor, who's just been doing this for 10 years or 20 years, right? And then they start sharing stories of, here's what's worked, here's what happened hasn't worked. And so I think one of the best ways that you can grow as an investor is go to local meetups. If you live in a large city, I live in Los Angeles area, but if you live in a midsize city, they're gonna have real estate meetups, they're gonna have groups of investors to just gather and just by being curious, just showing up and just, Hey, what are you working on? What's going on here? Don't show up with an ego. Just show up with like a humility that's like, hey, I want to learn. What are you doing? What's working, what's something that you know has worked well for you, and then ask, what's something that hasn't worked, what's a deal that didn't go well? And so those are ways that you'll grow your network, you'll learn a lot, but also there could be many opportunities for you to potentially partner with some people, because a lot of people have more money than they have time. Their money problem is not that they don't have money. Is that they have money, but they don't know where to invest it, where it actually makes sense, or maybe they don't have time. So if you come alongside and you're somebody who's bright and wants to help you might be able to help them and find a partnership and a way to really grow wealth together. Maybe you're using sweat equity and using their money, and you can basically help to grow your wealth as well. what's your favorite way to invest in real estate? There's so many opportunities. There's house flipping, there's rental units, there's, there's people that get together and buy things and have some people fix them up and then sell them, and they each own like, 10% equity. yeah. I think that it's interesting. I describe what I do, and people like, oh, you're a real estate agent, or are you a flipper? And I'm like, Well, really, neither. We do something totally different. But I think real estate is people ask, well, how is the real estate market? And I'm like, Well, what do you mean? You mean single family, multifamily, commercial? Do you mean retail? Do you mean warehouses? Are we talking about in the city? In Los Angeles, we're talking about the Midwest. We're talking about a suburb. We talking about older, newer stuff. There's so many so real estate is this huge asset that's like, there's a lot there. I think right now, in 2025 late 2025 what we're really focused on, what I like, there are areas where new construction can make a lot of sense. I think right now, I live in Los Angeles, right near the fires in Pasadena and Altadena. This is where the fires were. There's about 6000 homes. There's two areas of La hit very hard. This is near the mountains. It's not near the water. And so we're basically become, a modular home, or a manufactured home dealer to bring in these custom homes that they build off site, and they bring them in and can build them much cheaper. They should build them in seven days, once in the factory, in the queue, they can build them seven days, and they install them in one day. And these are not like tiny homes. These are not temporaries. These are two or 3000 square foot homes that have, quartz countertops, they've got tiled bathrooms. So it's just, it's amazing what's out there. Now, what you know, what we think of as manufactured homes from 40 or 50 years ago. It's like, these are homes you wouldn't know, if you didn't, know, where they came from. So we see a lot of opportunity there. And so I think in real estate, just like anything there's, it's hyper local, and it's hyper sensitive to what you know, time you're on the market, what interest rates are different things like that. we find. There's a lot of opportunity, and we're local, and there's just a kind of unique experience to be able to do this here. here I live in Torrance, so I'm not that far from you. Well, isn't there a lot of toxic stuff, like burned plastics and burned paint and burned things in that area that haven't been cleaned up? So what they did there, us, Army Corps of Engineers came through. They basically did two things, they basically pulled off any sort of, toxic car stuff, or, batteries or propane tanks or anything like that. They pull that stuff out. Then what they did is they went, they leveled everything, and then they put at least six inches of dirt on top, and so everything is covered. Some of these properties may need additional dirt brought in as well. I think in general, if you have, dirt that's safe for dirt on there, it's considered to be very safe. I think initially there was a lot more risks of toxicity because there was a lot of ash and other things. But this is all, I'd say most, not everyone, but I'd say 95% plus have been completely cleared and have been covered with some amount of dirt. I mean, they really came in very quickly. Within a few months, they were able to get all that done. And so, you know, it's kind of build ready for a lot of people now. Wow, that's awesome. So in your book, fire yourself. You talk about replacing your working income with passive income in three years or less. Is that your strategy is getting people into more real estate? Yeah, like I said, I've had a lot of calls with people that are high net worth, and just been great to interview them. Just kind of, what are your habits? What are the things that are important to you? And for a lot of people, you know, they kind of wonder, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do to become financially free? You know, I'm a physician. I own a business. I, I do this corporate job. And then the question is, well, when I stop working, or if I sell the business, how do I make money? What do I do that actually can make money. And so, you know, as a choice. And there are a lot of people that are making a lot of money. We're talking 234, $500,000 a year, maybe as a family, that seems like a lot. That seems like a lot in LA, it's not a lot. But how do you start actually generating cash flow, right? And so that's what allows people to leave. And a lot of people say, Well, I like my job. I don't know if I don't want to, I would want to leave. Well, the question is, what would happen if you got for it became disabled, or you had a spouse or family member that you had to take care of, or there's some issue that came up where you needed to have flexibility. There's something amazing that happens Anastasia, when someone knows that they don't have to go to work, right? They're working because they want to it, just the level of what you're willing to put up with is less because you're like, you know, I don't really need this job. And you can kind of tell your body, so whatever, when you need the job, most people are paycheck to paycheck, so they can't not go to work, right? So when you have the passive income coming in, you know that if you go to work or not, you're going to be okay. That gives you a lot of sense of security, like, Okay, I actually can, can do this. So how do you actually do it again? There's different investments we like. There are certain real estate investments, like I mentioned. There's oil and gas, which is, you know, a lot of people think it's, well, that seems Why would I invest in oil and gas. There's some unique tax benefits that allow people to reduce ordinary income tax almost for one for one. So, for example, somebody invests 100,000 in one of these projects of oil drilling. It's about typically an 80 to $90,000 income reduction. So people can save sometimes 20, 30, $40,000 in year one on that 100k investment, which people don't realize has actually been in the tax code for over 100 years. It almost sounds too good to be true, but then you look it up, and it's that the government wants to encourage things like energy. They want to encourage things like real estate and no specific tax advice. Wow, that sounds really creative. Like I wasn't even aware that there were those kinds of tax breaks. getting those tax breaks can make a really huge difference. I know when I lived in Germany for 13 years, we got a big tax break. I think we could make 70,000 in another country, and that was very helpful, because doesn't matter where you are. People don't know that, but doesn't matter where you live. If you're an American citizen, you have to file your taxes every year you do being an American abroad, yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, there's some countries don't do that, but yeah, the America, it doesn't matter if you're an American and you live anywhere in the world, just, let's say you're making, you have a business overseas, and you're making millions of dollars. You've got to report that here. Yes, and you have to pay your taxes on it too. Yeah, exactly. there's some unique things out there that people don't realize that are actually possible with reducing taxes. Yeah, so you've coached and invested with a lot of high achievers. What's one story that stands out like someone who overcame burnout, built some real freedom using your ideas and principles? Yeah, I just, I think of a conversation I had recently. There was a guy that works in the oil and gas space. He had invested in different things. And he was his goal was to retire his wife, right? He want his wife to be able to stay home with the kids. And basically, through creating different investments that he, passively joined, he was able to retire say, oh, and I got enough income coming in now that we don't need her to work anymore. And it was like, he was just so excited that he was able to, make that happen and for his family. And so I think that, I think that's a story I love. I think for most people, a lot of times they things can sometimes seem really strange and weird because they've just never done it, or they don't know somebody that's done it. And the problem with our financial system, and having been an investment advisor, I saw this, is that we're not taught really about finance. We're taught to, you know, most wealthy people have a money person, that's a Wall Street person. There's a lot of hidden fees there's just books been written about. They'll say the fees are 1.2% but they're actually like 3.2% for the average mutual fund. And then if you have a money manager, they take 2% on top of that, so 5.2% per year, and the average returns of the stock market, the average, when you count the up and the down years, it's about six to 9% per year, so that's most of your money. So I think the problem is no one cares about your money the way you do. So I think you work so hard to make it, why not take time to educate yourself? And I think, you know, I got this message kind of when I was, like, in mid, late 30s, but I realized, I mean, I wish I'd gotten this sooner, but whatever age you get it, it's just great to be able to get that message. Hey, I actually can do things and make certain moves now. Then in 5, 10 years, I'll be really glad that I did. I'll reduce taxes, I'll grow wealth, I'll be able to have passive income, and I'll be able to, really develop that muscle. Because as an investor, you don't come out of the womb knowing, knowing how to do this, right? This is something you have to kind of learn and educate yourself and try. And you're going to not do everything that's with a lot of things like relationships and how to take good care of your health, all of that stuff we have to learn. Some of us are slow learners. We got to go through things multiple times. Took me a little while, but once I got it, I realized, this is so powerful, and I just, I don't know why more people aren't talking about it, but again, one of the reasons people aren't talking about it is that Wall Street has a lot of the laws and even the employers all this stuff set up that stocks and bonds are traditional, but yet, stocks are incredibly volatile. There was a time 100 years ago, you know, in the 20s, 1920s there was a crash where the stock market went down by something like 85% or 90% was like something substantial, and it took 25 years for the number to actually get to where it was. Is it was like if the stock market crashed today and it didn't recover for 25 years until 2050 and you think, how old would I be if I'm still alive at 2050 right? 98 So there was a time where people would say, Why in the world would you ever do stocks that would that was the that was what they said back then. And so it's kind of flopped. We people loved real estate, they loved real assets. Love businesses, but now it's like we love financialized and digital and other aspects, versus actually liking the real thing that you can touch, like a building. Well, there, are areas like in the general LA Basin, the prices are pretty stable. But if you go out to the outskirts, like Riverside and San Bernardino, there are a lot of people that were upside down for a while, like in the 2008 2009 and they lost their shirts in real estate, yeah. but most people's wealth is tied into their homes. yeah. And that's and home can be, you know, they say it's our greatest investment. I mean, Robert Kiyosaki, you wrote the book Rich Dad. Poor dad, would say a house is not actually an investment, because it doesn't put money in your pocket each month. It typically takes money out of your pocket each month. So anyway, it's paper wealth, but, but if you but, you know, these days it is, if you can own a home, I think there's a lot of benefit to it, and it's great. But I think that there's many strategies, and this is where, when you listen to great shows like yours, I also have a podcast called "The Mailbox Money Show." Talk about different types of assets. You go to meetups, you meet different people, you learn about so many things you didn't even know about. I think there's incredible opportunity for younger people if they're willing to do work and kind of find people as most businesses, most of the boomer businesses, about 80% just end up getting shut down. They don't actually get sold. They just, they're they're small enough, they're kind of like a smaller operation. And so if somebody is willing to come in and learn, they can basically really develop their skill set and try to grow it. You have a wealth of knowledge for people to really fire themselves and develop a plan for replacing their income. So where can listeners go and connect with you and learn more about your work and the wealth forum. Yeah. So I have, I have a free gift for your audience. We have lot many resources and deals. We're doing things. This is a gift. It's basically for It's called "How to Use Inflation To Your Advantage." for a lot of people, they're just finding things cost more. This really stinks, and I'm having to pay more every time I go to the grocery store or the gas station. So how do you get how do you get on the other side of that? When rents go up, you actually do better financially. You actually profit from that. And so if you text the word INFLATION to the number 33777, we'll send that to you. I'll just ask for your name and your email, and you'll get updated on what we're working on. But got some great feedback on that. Strategies, through real estate, through businesses, alternative assets, metals, things like that, just some strategies people haven't heard of, using debt. So I'd love to be able to share that with your audience, I'll be sure and put that in the show notes so people can go and check it out, whether they go to breakfreefromtheburnout.com or whether they go to my website, healersu.com they'll find that information. I really appreciate your insights. So thank you so much for being on the show. This is great. Anastasia, I appreciate you having me. It's been fun. I love the kind. Conversation was great. Okay, thank you so much.