Unlocking Wealth- Bronson Hill's Insights From His Latest Book 'Rich Brain'

Christian: [0:02] Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Awesome in Seattle podcast. This is your host Christian Nossum of the Awesome Nossum Group at Wilson Realty Exchange, Inc. And today I have two amazing guests. One is my cohost, my beautiful wife, Shannon Nossum.

Shannon: [0:15] Hello.

Christian: [0:16] And I'm not gonna say he's my beautiful wife, 'cause he's not, but he is- pretty awesome, and that is Bronson Hill from Mailbox Money podcast and a whole lot of other things. So Bronson, thank you so much for being on.

Bronson: [0:28] I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to talk to some Seattle peeps. I mean, that's where I grew up, and I just have a fond place in my heart for Seattle, so love it.

Christian: [0:35] Oh, yeah, thank you so much for, for sharing your, your time and your expertise with us today. I guess why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself real quick, just so our audience understands a little bit more about you?

Bronson: [0:46] Yeah, so, uh, I've done a number of things in the background. I was, uh, kind of a youth leader, worked community leader for a few years. Um, ended up, uh, yeah, after that did medical sales for 10 years, and I had a great job, was making over $200,000 a year. But the thing that I didn't have is I didn't have control over my time. Mm-hmm. So a lot of people say, "Hey, I want financial freedom," but really what most people are saying is, "I want freedom over my time. I want time freedom." And so I wanted the ability to travel when I wanted. I wanted to be able, the ability to take time off during the week or do things, just kind of schedule them when I wanted to. And also, you know, really, you know, like Warren Buffett says, have that, uh, you know, learning how to make money while you sleep, and so I don't have to work until I die. So there'd be freedom there. And so I learned about, uh, real estate. Did some single family stuff for a while, then I had a mentor teach me about syndication, which is just doing larger deals, and started doing some multifamily. Raised a little bit for one deal, then found a partner and then raised 15 million over the next 18 months. And then now it's been about five, six years. We've raised about 40 million. I quit my great corporate job a few, a few years ago, and I've been loving it. It's been great. Hasn't been perfect, hasn't been easy, but you know, it's been wonderful to be doing what I'm passionate about, so. Oh my God,

Shannon: [1:52] it's amazing. I didn't, I didn't know all that. Yeah. That's something to learn.

Bronson: [1:54] Yeah.

Shannon: [1:55] What I did know is that you have a podcast called Mailbox Money. That's how we met you, because we were on your podcast. Yeah. And it's such a cool, it's such a cool show. I want to know, you've interviewed a lot of people. Who's the most interesting person you've interviewed? I mean, other than us. And what did you learn from them?

Bronson: [2:11] Well, that's a really hard one on the spot. Let's see. There's so many people that I've learned… I think one that I had recently that I really liked, it was a friend of mine. He's become a friend now. His name is Walker Deibel, and he wrote a book called Buy Then Build, and this has basically become probably the leading book in private equity about buying businesses. So as a lot of the boomers are aging, a lot of them have businesses, the smaller mid-sized businesses, and they're trying to find a way, how do I stop working and still get paid? Do I sell the business? Do I give it away? Whatever. So this just talks about the process of buying businesses, and so we're working on buying businesses. But just a super interesting guy, and it's, uh, the interview's not out yet. Probably by the time this comes out, it'll be out, and I'm really excited for that one. So that was, that was super interesting just to learn more about private equity and buying businesses.

Shannon: [2:52] Wow. That's

Bronson: [2:52] awesome.

Shannon: [2:52] We- we've been starting to learn about that, too. I'm definitely gonna have to listen to that. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's gonna be a huge opportunity there, even with financing those kind of purchases, because there are just so many boomers that are gonna retire and need to sell their business, so. That's

Bronson: [3:06] awesome. 100%.

Christian: [3:07] Yeah. Let's talk about your relationship with real estate, and kinda explain what kind of investing deals you've done in the past.

Bronson: [3:16] So we've done a lot. So I started, like I mentioned, doing single family, kind of an accident, a landlord of a, a d- a, you know, a house I had in another state. So I thought single family's great, so I did more single family, and then I got to a place where I just felt like I… It's hard, it was harder for me to figure out how to scale because I ran out of money. So I was like, "How do I do this?" It really wasn't returning as much as I wanted. And these days, that's a, that's a challenge with real estate. It's not impossible, but it's definitely a challenge where to get something that cash flows. So we've done a lot of different things. I've done stuff passively. I've done stuff actively. We've done self-storage. You know, I've done, you know, mobile home parks, ATM machines, car washes, oil and gas deals, venture deals. I've done… I, I actually lost a lot of money in an options trading strategy that's in my book. I lost $70,000 in one day, so it was a bad day. And that was about a third of my net worth. But, um, you know, over time, I think these are all things that you learn from, and you learn what you like and what you don't like. And so there's really… Like, I've had over 2,500 interviews with high net worth millionaires, and one of the things that's come up is that really there's three things that are important to most people. It's either one or all of these, but it's, uh, getting cash flow. Cash flow in an investment allows you to leave a job. It allows you, like my book says, to fire yourself, and so you actually replace, you know, your, your expenses. Once you get to where you replace all your expenses, you're financially free. That's the first level of financial freedom. Mm. And then the second one really is for appreciation. Maybe it's for people that are already wealthy or have a retirement account. The third one is tax strategy or tax benefits. So you can get to potentially I reduce my tax, my taxable basis from 25% to about 1% just by making a couple moves. So I think, you know, for me, all these investments have provided different things. Some have turned out phenomenally well, some have been really, you know, have not turned out well. But, you know, in the middle of that, I've just learned a ton, and I feel like I'm getting better every day.

Shannon: [4:59] Amazing. You mentioned your book Fire Yourself. Can you tell us more about that book?

Bronson: [5:03] Yeah, I'm glad you asked. I have a copy right here. Oh. Um, it's become, it's become an Amazon bestseller, and so, um- Oh … it's sold where books are, are sold, particularly Amazon's the best g- good place to get it. It's also on Audible. But basically it's… The subtitle is How to Replace Your Working Income With Passive Income in Three Years or Less. And so, uh, really what it is is having all these calls with individuals that are like, "You know, I wanna get started in real estate, but I don't know how," or, "I have a rental house or two, but I just can't seem to scale it. Like, what do I need to do to get to that next level?" And so that's where, you know, getting outside of Wall Street, I used to be a, a registered investment advisor, which is known, is known as, as an RIA. Well, I'm still an RIA, I'm just a recovering investment advisor. So, you know, sometimes Wall Street, and most of the time Wall Street doesn't really treat people well. So it's just this is a guide for people that are like, "I know I should be doing this. What are the assets that are out there?" I have a tool in there called the Deal Funnel of just how do you analyze any deal and any asset and be able to feel comfortable when you get in and just be able to really make good investment choices. So it's, it was a lot of fun writing. Got a lot of great feed- great feedback about, uh, how that can help people to grow in their, you know, their investing.

Shannon: [6:05] Wow, that's amazing. Scaling is such a hard thing, especially in real estate. It's- Mm-hmm … it's a challenge for almost everyone. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Bronson: [6:13] Yeah. It, it, it is. I tell people, too, it's like especially, you know, there's two types of people. One is somebody who has more money than they have time, so that's a great choice to be a passive investor, right? Because you have the, you want the money working for you, like Warren Buffett, making money while you sleep. Other people, you don't have money, but you got time, so you can leverage that and do things actively and can do it. But if you're somebody who has more money than you have time, if you can't 10X the strategy of currently what you're doing, you're not really a passive investor. So if you have three rental houses, you can pretty quickly go to 30, which people, you know, their eyes just about bug out of their head when I tell them that, but it's so true. It's like if you can't 10X it, then you're not really being passive. But there are people that I know that are in, you know, 40 or 50, you know, passive investing deals and they can still manage it and still have a life. It s- seems, seems like a lot to me. I think it'd be better to be in fewer deals. But, you know, you can be in many deals passively, and your work really is on the front end when you're vetting a deal, you're vetting a team, and then you just receive that mailbox money. Hence the name of my, uh, my podcast there.

Shannon: [7:07] There you go. Amazing. And then, um, you have another book, which I'm really excited to read.

Which is called Rich Brain: [7:14] How Wealthy People Change Their Brain to Change Their Bank Account. And that title, I feel like, really got me interested, and I wanna know more about that one, too.

Bronson: [7:24] Yeah, so, uh, I'll share a little bit about it. Uh, you know, again, these 2,500 interviews I've had with high net worth, uh, individuals, there's a few themes that really came out. But the, the major one really was that, you know, mindset is, is so big. And we know mindset is big and we hear, you know, it's Tony Robbins, all these people. But a lot of it comes down to the worthiness, feeling… Bernie Brown will say this, that, you know, the, the, the difference between people who receive and, and achieve amazing things and the people that do not is the people that did felt worthy that they were able to receive it. So we've s- we've observed this, that the person who makes $100,000 a year will just continually find a way to make $100,000 a year. The person who makes a million dollars a year will perpetually figure out a way somehow to make a million dollars. And why is that? It's because there's an expectation and there's, like, a feeling of worthiness, that I'm worth this. So there's a few practices around that that I've created. There's something called wealth whisperings, and this is something you can do to actually change how worthy you feel, like, how worthy you feel of money, basically, how, that you can actually receive more. So it, it's a, it's like wealth affirmations, but it's just creating things about yourself, that you're worthy of this, you're worthy of these different things. And so that's kind of one part of it. Another part really, and these are what wealthy people do or how they kinda manifest this, another thing is really around the education. You look at billionaires like Warren Buffett, Mark Cuban, Oprah Winfrey, these people read often hours a day. And so you have to look at learning and reading in particular as a part-time job. This is a job that you do that you get paid for later, and there's all these ways it connects. You read a book on b- uh, a biography and, and, and something on, you know, business and there's a connection there, and you can find a way to apply it to your life. So last year I read 98 books. It's a goal of mine to keep reading more books. The last one really is the idea of who you surround yourself with. So Jim Rohn had a quote that said, "You're the average of the five people that you spend the most time with." And you can look at that in almost every area of your life. So if you wanna improve your spirituality, your net worth, your fitness, look at the habits of the people around you. You're probably a pretty good mix of those. If you wanna be a, a great athlete, you've gotta get around people that are very athletic, they eat better. You're gonna, like, find these things, you're gonna learn. Same with wealth. You've gotta get to somebody who's worth five or 10 times what you're worth and then learn from them. So those are kind of a few of the takeaways, and I'm pretty excited to be able to, to launch that.

Christian: [9:33] You, you stole- Wow … my next question was r- … like, tell me your top three takeaways from the book. And you just-

Bronson: [9:38] There it is. Yeah … Speaker: brought it up. Nicely done. I have a

Shannon: [9:40] question. Can you listen to the books on, like, audio, or do you have to read

Bronson: [9:44] them? Because

Shannon: [9:45] Christian and I more often will listen than read-

Bronson: [9:47] Yeah … Shannon: on paper. Well, I

Christian: [9:48] know you said your other one's already on Audible, but this one hasn't come-

Bronson: [9:51] Yeah, well that actually, that actually doesn't count if you listen to a book. No, I'm totally joking. I, if I, I listen to most of the books that I do, and I, I, I think it totally counts. I actually like speeding it up a little bit so I can- Yeah … listen to books faster. I do it when I run or when I drive. But I think I'm a pretty auditory listener. Some people sit and read and do more that way, but however you can get it in. I mean, it's, it's amazing. If you have a book, it could… It took somebody, I mean my book took hundreds of hours to write. A lot of pe- you know, some people take, lots of research, thousands of hours to write a book, and if you can consume it in three, four, five, six, eight hour, whatever, the return on your time is incredible, right? Yeah. And so podcasts are great, all the other things we do are great, but having, you know, a book, and that's why I like books so much, is they give you this kind of more broader perspective. We can kind of get stuck in the noise of news and podcasts and all the stuff happening today, but when you, when you step back and you have books, you have more of the timeless principles that are there. So yeah, I absolutely think it makes, it makes sense. I do apps from the library for audiobooks. I do Audible. I do all the stuff, and then I read some books, you know, physical books, but yeah, they're all, they're all good.

Christian: [10:50] Yeah. What- the f- a new trick that I learned on accident, actually, I was on a flight. It was like a six-hour flight, and I actually bought a book in the bookstore at the airport.

Bronson: [11:00] Yeah.

Christian: [11:00] And then right when I was sitting in my seat, I was like, "Huh, I wonder if this is also on Audible?" And I went and looked, and it was one of the ones included, so I was like, "Sweet, I'm downloading this before we take off."

Shannon: [11:10] Yeah.

Christian: [11:10] And I listened and looked at the book at the same time. Oh, interesting. And I learned so much more- Ah by doing them both at the same exact time, and I read 75% of the book in that six-hour span.

Bronson: [11:23] Yeah.

Christian: [11:23] Like, it was broken up with food delivery and all that stuff, so-

Shannon: [11:25] Also, your brain works better on airplanes. Did you know that? It, it… I didn't know that. Why? Can you tell me what the science is? Yeah. We were talking to- Yeah we were talking to someone, some business owner, and they said that when you're in the… Like, when you're on a flight, you should do things that are, take a lot of brain power and a lot of effort- Oh, yeah … and a lot of creativity because that is your optimum time. Something about, I don't know if it's, like, the air- Altitude

Christian: [11:48] and- happening to your brain … something else.

Shannon: [11:49] So he's like- Yeah … "Don't ever just watch a movie. You should be actively working-

Bronson: [11:53] Yeah. "… Shannon: on a flight." Yeah. Yeah, I do that. I, I travel a lot. I've traveled six times internationally. I went, uh, a couple months ago to the base camp of Everest and did India- Wow … and stuff. So some of these long flights, like, one way I'll kind of bribe myself or I'll kind of put in the time is I'll say, "Hey, I need to get this amount of work done or this writing done or this amount." And I do some of my best work on a plane. I don't know if it's the- Same … the sound or you're kind of like- Yeah you don't have the distractions. But now you can get… International, it's a little harder for texting unless you pay for it, but, like, you know, it's, it's nice to be able to shut it down and just to be able to be like, you're in that zone, and when you get off that plane. So sometimes I'll say I'll work for, if let's say it's an eight-hour flight, if I can work for, you know, three or four hours, whatever, and then watch a movie. I kind of do something first and then do that. Yep. It's kind of a neat way to be able to make it work.

Shannon: [12:33] Reward.

Christian: [12:33] Yeah, exactly.

Bronson: [12:34] Yeah. Yeah.

Christian: [12:35] You, you always gotta bribe yourself with, uh- Yeah … stuff like that. Yeah. Especially on a flight. What advice would you give to listeners who wanna change their financial situation but are overwhelmed and just unsure where to start?

Bronson: [12:47] Yeah, so I think, you know, the biggest thing, I think there's really a couple of those, those habits from Rich Brain, you know, uh, I think the couple that have changed my life… They've all changed my life, but I think the two, if you just are like, "I just wanna get started today. I don't know what to do," you s- start going to real estate meetups, start going to places where people meet. I think a local meetup, most mid or large cities in the US have a meetup people can go to. I know there's, there's some great ones in Seattle. I know you're a part of one as well, so you're part of- Yeah,

Shannon: [13:13] Real Estate

Bronson: [13:13] at Work. Shout

Shannon: [13:14] out … Bronson: yeah, that's it. Yeah. Shout out. Shout out. I know there's, there's others in, in Seattle as well. So, um, so I th- I think going to meetups are great because I think that, you know, when you're around it, it can feel awkward. And I'm an extrovert, so I, I can still feel awkward, and I actually lead a meetup, but I still feel awkward sometimes at meetups 'cause it's kind of, you go around, and you kind of, "What do you do? What do you say?" And I went, "I don't know." I kind of feel like a faker, and I'm not one of the… But what you can do is you realize everybody is there because they wanna collaborate, they wanna chat. And just by going around, really good networking is not going around and handing out c- business cards and shaking hands. Good networking is while I'm talking to someone, I'm thinking, "Who can I introduce this person to? How can I help them? Is there a book? Is there a resource? Is there a recommend?" And if you become known as somebody who's a connector who can do that, people wanna find a way to help you and pay you back. And so whether somebody's young or old, they have lots of experience or no experience, if you just show up, you're curious, you ask good questions, people wanna share their stories. I'm amazed that, you know, the real estate community is so collaborative, and we just actually experienced that recently. We got introduced, I got introduced to you guys through Leika, and then I introduced you to a friend in Seattle as well. And so it's just kind of fun to see, and here I'm on your show. So it's just amazing how that can kind of go where, you know, if we help each other, you know, it's not, there's not a scarcity mindset that it's like, "Oh, my gosh, there's only so, only so many deals." It's like, we can actually do deals together. There could be more deals out there. Yeah. And the com- the only competition is that the other pie actually can get bigger. It's not that there's a limited amount of, of wealth.

Christian: [14:34] Yeah, I totally agree

Shannon: [14:35] 100%.

Christian: [14:36] Any, any last-minute questions, Shannon?

Shannon: [14:38] Is there anything else that you haven't shared about your book that you wanna make sure that you, that we can glean from you? 'Cause we're all ears. Like this is an amazing- Yeah … topic and I wanna learn- Yeah everything about it.

Bronson: [14:48] Yeah, so, uh, from Rich Brain, yeah. So I, I think that, you know, one thing that was really surprising to me when I s- when I started to research this and have conversations with people is that there, there's a belief that people are either born with money or they're not, right? They're either… And I meet a lot of people who are like, "Oh," you know, they just, they feel like it's so rare. But Fidelity Investments did a stu- study in 2019, and they found that 86% of millionaires are self-made. So it means that it's actually the norm. People are not, you know, silver spoon in their mouth kind of thing. It's, it's actually a small percentage that actually inherited, inherited the, the money. So that, that's actually really encouraging. And I think a lot of people, again, this idea of the 1% and the stereotype that people either have the have or have nots, that these are learnable skills. And literally somebody in fi- I watched my net worth within four years go up 20 X, you know, to be a seven-figure per- you know, it, and, and multiple seven-figure person. So, you know, it sh- it's something if I can do it, anybody can do it. Now, obviously, we all have our diff- our different gifts, but if we commit to that process of learning and networking, I mean, those things have changed my life. I've learned skills, I've learned things from the books and the trainings and different things I did. And then, you know, this one kind of connection I made, and I really kind of approached it with a service mindset, it, it led to me going from raising $100,000 for a deal to, to raising 15 million over the next, you know, 18 months. So that, that was like a rocket ship for my career and what I'm doing as well. So I think that, you know, really having the mindset that's, hey, I, you know, I have a growth mindset, I can learn, I can grow, it's absolutely doable. If anybody's discouraged, it just means you, you need to keep that same end goal, but you just change your approach. You just try different things, and as you do that, you'll find a way to get there.

Christian: [16:25] It's so true. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mindset is a lot of success. If you have that negative mindset, if you have that scarcity mindset, it is so true how it will keep you down, and you will not spot the opportunities that are out there. 'Cause they are out there.

Bronson: [16:43] Yeah.

Christian: [16:43] And we have lots of examples in our live, our lives that, you know, when we put it out there… For instance, this is a funny story. We were at a real estate at work event, and at the very beginning, they had a haves, needs, and wants thing, where they let two people come up and say, "Hey, what are your haves, needs, or wants?" E- any of those three things. So someone was like, "Hey, I have this property I wanna sell," and told all the details. And then no one else stood up, and so I was like, "Okay, I'll go up there." I was like, "I want two things. I want a DADU lot, so a lot where I can build a detached accessory dwelling unit, and I want a university district around the UDub long-term hold." And within two weeks of saying that to, you know, 150 people that were at this event, we bought both in 24-hour time period for over $2 million in value. We used none of our own cash for either of those deals, which was fun. Love it. But, but yeah, just by, like, putting it out there, like, those things found us, and it's because- Yeah … we put it out there. We, we knew exactly what we were looking for, and then we spotted it, and it's a lot about, you know, knowing exactly what you want, what is your buy box, and then putting it out there and letting people know. So. Yeah.

Shannon: [17:55] Yeah.

Bronson: [17:55] Yeah. Yeah, it- that's a really good, cool story, 'cause yeah, when you, when you say something, I think you actually begin to create it. You create it in your mind, you create, it becomes a real tangible thing. And, uh, I mean, there's a lot of, you know, significance to just, just stating what the goal is. Like, "Hey, I'm gonna…" Actually, that's how my book, I started, I went to a Tony Robbins event. Mm-hmm. And I was like, "I'm gonna write a book." And, like, I gave myself a commitment, a timeline, and that's, and I did it, and I was able to create. But, like, a lot of us, like, we, we, we don't, we're not willing to go to the front and say, "Hey, this is what I need. This is what I want." And just- Yeah … if we're willing to do it, it's, you know, everything can open up. The world responds to how, the universe responds to how we show up and what we ask for.

Christian: [18:31] Exactly. Well, Bronson, thank you so much for your time. Again, Bronson Hill. He's got three things that I want you all to check out. Mailbox Money Podcast, Fire Yourself, his first book, and soon to be released, Rich Brain. Is that right?

Bronson: [18:46] That's right, yeah. Okay. I actually got a gift to you for your listeners. Um- Oh, nice … I've got a, a guide to, they say inflation's only about, you know, 4%, 3, 4%. I think it's more like 6 to 10%, but I have a guide of how to use inflation to your advantage. Uh, it's a gift to your listeners. Cool. If people text the word inflation to 33777. So you text the word inflation to 33777. I'll send a free copy of that. It's 40 pages. It's got some really unique strategies there. But it's been a lot of fun. Cool. Guys, really appreciate you having me today.

Christian: [19:13] Yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much. Um, and- Thank you, Bronson … yeah, we really appreciate your time, and thank you everybody for listening and watching, if you're watching on YouTube. And we'll see you next time on the Awesome in Seattle Podcast. See ya. Thanks,

Bronson: [19:24] guys.