Episode 58 | Joseph Hogue | Military Millionaire

00:00 - 05:00

David:

Hey what's up guys Today's episode is with Joseph Hogue, who is the let's talk money YouTube channel he also runs several blogs. He's a self published author and he was a marine so this is his journey from Marine Corps to absolute entrepreneur completely financially free through all of these different entrepreneurial endeavors and he also utilized location arbitrage which is awesome.

Thanks for joining us if this is your first time if not welcome back, hey don't forget to click subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and show notes are found at Frommilitarytomillionaire.com/podcasts. Now relax and enjoy the show.

Intro:

You're listening to the military millionaire podcast, a show about real estate investing for the working class. Stay tuned as we explore ways to help you improve your finances, build wealth through real estate and become a person that is worth knowing.

Sponsor:

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David:

Hey, what's up everybody is Dave From military to millionaire. And I'm here tonight with Joseph Hogue, who is a former Marine and runs the let's talk money YouTube channel as well as a whole bunch of other stuff that we're gonna dig into. It has been very successful with multiple side hustles and all kinds of just really cool strategies that we're going to talk about tonight.

So Joseph, thanks for joining us tonight. Welcome to the show!

Joseph:

David, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Always wanted to call you Staff Sergeant or or just David, you know, a little, little bit of the old, the old life coming through. But, uh hey, good to be here.

David:

Yeah, absolutely.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey so far, then we'll unpack some of this.

Joseph:

Sure.

Well, I got out of the Marine Corps in 2001 was in armor so playing with guns there, got out finished my you know, went to college because that's just what you do. I got my first job in a kind of financial accounting, financial reporting kind of capacity, because that's just what you do, you get a job and maybe you don't like it, but you do it anyway. Because you need a job to make money and you need money to buy things like jet skis and stuff.

And that was my life for the next you know, four or five years. I hated what I did. Wasn't wasn't having any fun at all. But you know, there's always early retirement right? This was before the fire movement, but I was all on board with just getting out of there and retiring early.

And finally figured out that you know what I don't want to be. I don't want to be miserable for a third of my life, right? Eight hours out of a 24 hour day. So I started looking into some of these, you know, online business ideas.

First, it was blogging, freelancing, things like that. And then I started my own blogs in 2013, writing on that personal finance space because I had a lot of experience in, you know, in real estate. As a commercial real estate analyst. I ran my own portfolio of residential properties, residential rentals. I had some equity analyst background as well. So a lot of personal finance stuff, blogging, and then just in this last year that I've started the let's talk money channel on YouTube, and I absolutely love it.

05:00 - 10:00

Joseph:

You know, the blogs did really well those first few years, made made good money, loved having that sense of sense of control and really being able to grow The business and have have my money have what I made on a monthly or annual basis be a direct direct result of what I was doing, you know, the work that I put in, there wasn't it was no longer a slave to that three or 4% annual raise each year. And I really love that interaction.

You know, moving on to YouTube, over the past year and a half, two years almost built that up to 108,000 subscribers on the channel. And I love the interaction, the face to face feel and YouTube and that engagement you get with videos. And it's just been a great experience. Besides the fact that I'm having fun last month, I hit a record of 14,800 through the month.

So you know, growing, growing, loving, loving the experience and love to share it with other people.

David:

Yeah, that's huge.

And for those of you listening, I just want to point out that if you've been watching my YouTube channel, Joseph’s started about six months to a year before I did and grew like 20 to 40 times faster.

So he's doing something right. And his channel is awesome. It's one of the few that I actually watch. Later in the evening, and actually care when a new episode shows up on my wife has kind of dictated what I'm allowed to watch and who drives her nuts. And you're not one of the ones that I'm banned from watching. So that's a good thing.

Joseph:

She just likes the bow tie.

David:

That's it. I do wear bow ties. So maybe that’s it.

Joseph:

There we go.

David:

So although not nearly as frequently or as well.

So you get out of the military, when you got started with you had some rentals. And then you got into the blogging world. And I'm kind of curious, when did you first realize like, oh, man, there might be something to this blogging thing where I could theoretically just quit my job?

Joseph:

Sure, well, I guess it was probably around 2000, and maybe 2010. That I did start to see. And you hear about some of these, these examples, these legends in the space, right, you hear about JD Roth, that just sold his website for millions or for Jim Wang, you hear a lot of but a lot of these people that are actually becoming legitimate success stories, through blogging, and right around that time, was when a lot of those were popping up, you know, people were selling their sites to larger corporations and getting millions out of it.

So of course, that kind of perked my ears up as an investor and as a, you know, as somebody that likes to grow a little side business and stuff. So I started looking into it and immediately found out that you make no money in blogging, right? Here's this great opportunity that there's no barriers to entry, anyone can start a blog, and it's extremely cheap to start. And, yet nobody makes money.

So I looked a little bit closer, and kind of the blogging income sources and stuff. And found out that yeah, okay, you can make money like, like some of these, these examples that I had heard of, but it does take time, and you have to learn how to treat it like a business, you have to learn the income sources that do make money. And that takes time. So what the traditional path is to kind of a full time work from home full time blogger, kind of career path is you start freelancing, right, and this was what I did, I would start, I started with freelancing as an equity analyst, okay, so I would reach out to companies or even even analysts that had too much on their plate. And I would say, Hey, you know, I've got, I've got experience doing this. I'm a Chartered Financial Analyst, and I can write up your reports for you, right.

So I started doing that freelancing, you know, 20, 30, 40 hours a week while I was building these blogs out, right, so I actually started the blogs in 2013 started posting to them learning how to blog and and it was probably a good six months before I was making any money on the blogs, I still remember that first that that first monthly check right was actually from Amazon for a book that I had self published right 60 bucks, I was ecstatic I was I was hitting the big time already in six months and and it was probably about a year year and a half before I was even making you know 1000 $2,000 consistently each month.

So it was just kind of that natural evolution from depending on that freelancing that freelancing income into where I could basically just, you know, tell all my freelance clients that I had something better to do with my days and just focusing on the blocks.

David:

Man that's just super cool and you are spot on about the amount of money you make blogging from the get go. For those of you who've been following my journey, I think my biggest month has been 50 bucks. And that is not including my expenses, which would make that negative so I have been funneling rental property income into equipment and marketing and platforms and whatever. But I've learned a ton and it's just been fun. Like it's funny, because I started this really just super on a whim. And then I realized, wow, I could grow this into a community. I could grow this into a business. I watched some of you guys. And then I realized, wow, I'm not doing that. But it's become a total hobby. And it's fun.

And now as we were talking, before we recorded now I'm starting to monetize. It's where I've actually earning some income through this, which is really cool. But you're spot on, it takes time.

10:00 - 15:00

Joseph:

Yeah. But and you're doing well, I mean, I think I think one of the big things about this, this whole online, online age or new age of online businesses is, is that you can start a lot of different, you know, different I don't want to call them side businesses, because they're, they're all part of the whole whole idea. But they are kind of different pieces, where I see you just hugely excelling, that is that Facebook group you've got? What is that just over 1000 people in the Facebook group so far?

David:

Yeah, I think we're in the year, like 1100 ish. Got some great engagement!

Joseph:

Yeah, which is huge.

And I mean, so. So one of the things is you, you do these different pieces of the business, and some of them are going to be a grind, some of them you're going to grind through, you're going to slowly build them up, they're going to be successful, but it's gonna take a while. And then others will just amaze you at how fast they'll grow. There'll become a huge asset, like I said, I had, I had been blogging for about four and a half, five years, and had to consider myself pretty successful. I mean, I was by no means a success story. But I was doing well, five 6000 a month. And then I started YouTube, I started getting serious about the YouTube channel and developing that and just boom, something just happened. And it has taken off and been way beyond what I could have possibly imagined.

So it's kind of that idea and and you hear some of the older stories of entrepreneurs where you know, they'll fail, fail five or six times at a business before they really hit that success story. And I think it's different here. And so great about online businesses, and really the online world is that you don't have to necessarily fail in all of these. They can be moderately successful, you can do well at them. They're a grind, but they do okay. But then, you know, you just kind of put these pieces together. And eventually one of those pieces is going to boom, one of those pieces is going to take off. And you will be amazed every day of your life.

David:

Yeah, absolutely.

And so I would like to ask you, because I know, like you said, YouTube's been huge for you. And you're one of the fincon I guess I'm a thought leaders is the right word, video gurus will use the official term, your video guru for fincon. Which, by the way, thanks for that free t-shirt.

So if you had to say what would be the key thing that made you successful on YouTube? If there was like one thing you had to say, Hmm, this might be what I did right. Although I know that's not easy to target. But.

Joseph:

Sure, sure.

YouTube is so frustrating, because yeah, you can know all the best practices, you can have a checklist of all the best practices and do them and, you know, sometimes it hits, sometimes it doesn't, what I will say is and if you, if I had to pick just one, it would be finding those popular topics, okay and this is something that, that I talked about at fin con in the presentation was basically just, you know, not making it hard on yourself just going to other channels that are similar to yours, go into their videos tab and sorting by their most popular and looking at what's what's most popular on their, their channel, okay, you do enough of those, you do five or 10 of those. And and you're going to see commonalities, you're going to see topics and keywords that just happened to be popular on every channel within that niche.

Okay, these are, these are the keywords and the themes and the ideas that everybody in that niche that just loves, they're always popular. So you know, just just doing those starts out by doing those, seeing which one hits in which one you can really dominate when it does hit. Okay, so once a video does do really well for you, then, you know, do a lot of other videos that are very closely related to that, maybe change in one word or two words in the keyword and really dominate that specific group of videos.

David:

Yeah, that was really powerful advice. I went and did that. And some of my videos are slowly starting to trickle out from the result of that but you know what I realized when I did that was which was also really cool. It was for thumbnails, it gives you a really cool I don't remember which channel it was. I don't think it was I don't know.

So I looked up one of the channels I had locked it up by popular and the videos weren't all similar, right? They were different targets through his channel. But his top seven videos all had one thing in common. They all had a huge font with a $1 symbol and a number. And it was like I just it was just very cool because I was like man, every video this guy has posted that has like 1 million, 2 million, 1700 whatever the number was and just bold font is one of the few words on the Ah, that thumbnail that video was like, What all seven of his top posts had that. And I was like, Oh, sure, sure. Okay, and I was able to find different thumbnails and different people that like, man, I need to start doing some of these things.

15:00 - 20:00

Joseph:

Yeah, yeah, thumbnails, thumbnails, and titles are two of the most important things on YouTube. And, and so yeah, you know, if you could, if you pressed me to get another, you know, another success hacker, or whatever it is, yeah, study those thumbnails, those titles of successful channels. And one thing you can do is, go to blogs, very successful blogs like BuzzFeed, where some of these just have those kinds of click Beatty, viral titles, and just kind of look at what they do. And a lot of times, you're right, it's that number, or it's that dollar sign. People are just naturally attracted to, to numbers and dollar signs.

So yeah, what I like to do is if, if my title doesn't have a number in it, then the thumbnail does, the thumbnail doesn't have a number or $ sign or something like that on it, then the title will be one of the two. I want to have that persuasive, number idea.

David:

Yeah, Joseph YouTube channel, Let's Talk Money is definitely worth checking out. If you guys haven't done it yet. Absolutely check his channel out. I love it.

So another thing that you've done that I love that we talked about, somewhat extensively, oh, by the way, I want to thank you again, for your editor. I'm not gonna give his info out. But he's helped me a lot. So he's awesome.

Anyway, side bar there. Don't listen to that.

Books, self publishing. So I know you wrote a book on YouTube, which is great. And I'm currently reading your book on self publishing, which is also great. And like, think of like, halfway through, I’m reading it at work. And whenever someone comes around and realizes that I'm reading a book at work, I like to minimize it, forget about it.

I know you've written several books, and they've all done quite well. And they I believe, are your favorite income source or one of your favorite income sources? I'd love to hear a little bit about that. Because I don't know that I've had anyone on the show who does self publishing.

Joseph:

Absolutely, absolutely.

You know, and actually, self publishing was probably my first income source. And it is it you're right, it is my favorite, just because it is such a natural fit for for bloggers, for YouTubers, anyone creating content on the on the, on the internet, it's a natural fit, you're already creating that content, it takes very little extra effort to reformat it, repurpose it into a book and publish.

But it's also one of the most passive income sources you'll ever find. If you can, you create your book and put it up there on Amazon. And if you can drive just a few organic sales through ads. So I do probably about $20 worth of Amazon marketing credit, Amazon marketing services, to sponsor the books, so I advertise the books on Amazon each month.

And then you know, I get a few, a few organic sales from the blogs to go over there. And that's all it takes to keep those books ranked in Amazon, and, and make money every month. Basically, it's no, it's no extra work. So I've got that that self-publishing book is actually coming out in November. So pretty soon you're one of the early readers there.

So with that one, I'll have 12 books self published on Amazon, and average, right around 2500 to $3,000 a month. And again, so that's maybe, maybe minus about two $300 in advertising. But other than that, it is almost no work. And I'm very passive income. And sure, I mean, I can share a kind of an easy self publishing hack, if you'd like, go into that.

Basically, you know, like I said, if you're if you're creating any kind of content, on the internet, a website, a blog, YouTube, anything like that, it is so easy to self publish pay scale, what you're gonna want to do is, you're gonna want to pick a theme or an idea, a transformation that you want to bring in your readers, and basically just kind of work backwards from that. Okay, so what are the 10 or 12 things that somebody needs to do to get to that point, those are going to be your chapter ideas, right? And what you can do is just plan on once a week, writing one chapter a week, don't try to sit down and write an entire book. Just sit down, write one chapter a week, those are your blog posts. So those are your videos on YouTube. So you stay on schedule with your blog, you stay on schedule, creating videos, or whatever you're doing. But you're still moving forward with that book idea.

Over 10-12 weeks, you've got your book done, you can put it together, reformat it, and push it out there as a self published book. And again, it's you know, after the launch, it's one of the most passive income sources you'll ever find.

David:

Yep.

And the other cool side thing to that is that books have always been joked about just being a big business card. But the reality is that your books obviously in your in your ebooks, you have hyperlinks, I'm sure and you're, you know, and then people can find your website or your YouTube channel from that and so it's another source of traffic and in helping to build fans of your community, because people will find your book without being a part of your community at all.

20:00 - 25:00

Joseph:

Sure, there's, there's so many different ways you can use these, you know, just as that income stream, you can have affiliate links. And um, so people are clicking through those and go in to make affiliate purchases and you get the Commission on that. You can get people into your mailing list, something I've started experimenting with is creating a kind of a companion video course with each book. And then so within the book, you can kind of presale or promote that video course for a little bit extra, extra profit on there.

So yeah, there's just so much you can do with these. And like I said, You're already creating that content, why not? Why not repurpose it and use it in the book?

David:

Yeah, that's really cool with the companion course. Because for one, I would imagine that's an email capture, which is brilliant. But for two, I would just say, as a listener, I agree completely. Some of my favorite audible books have, you know, even when they're reading the audible book, it's a it's just a reminder, if you go to WWW dot, whatever books slash blah, you know, there's a course or a forum or a book I'm reading right now, high performance habits, he has a, like a high performance habits, like personality test, or whatever, to see where you're struggling. And I haven't done it yet. But I've set a calendar reminder to do it. So I love when people put enough effort into their book that they think like, Oh, hey, here's something you can do on your computer. So here's something tangible you can take away from this book.

Joseph:

Sure sure, it's all about bringing people into your community, you know, right. So I sell, you know, anywhere from 50, 7000 copies of each book a month, and unless I can capture those people into you know, into an email list into a course, really anything, then then they're lost because Amazon doesn't share those emails or that purchase information.

So, so yeah, definitely a great way to kind of multitask those books into not only an income stream, but an income stream in the future as well.

David:

Yeah, and you've done a great job building a community. It's really cool to watch.

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David:

I would like to ask or not ask. But something else that I mentioned we should talk about while we're here is something that you do that I would love to do someday in my life, once I'm free of the military and can afford to do this is the location arbitrage as they call it trend, I would love to have you just expound a little bit about that from where you're living. And what's that's done for you.

Joseph:

Sure, well, right around 2013 when I was trying to develop these blogs trying to develop this kind of work from home idea. And so as a freelance equity analyst, I was doing okay, but it wasn't something that we were going to live very well off of in the United States.

So actually, I had come down to Medellin Colombia. And that's Colombia with no way south. Think Pablo Escobar and all that. I came down in 2006 to do some free trade consulting around the free trade agreement between the US and Colombia.

I loved it. The city is about 80 degrees all year round. But cost of living is maybe about a fifth of what a comparable sized city. So about 3 million people in the city that would be in the US. So my wife and I, we ended up moving back down here with our son, and we've been here ever since I've been here since 2013. So about six years now.

And, and yeah, you know, we my, my wife just got out of nursing school and are working now. But even when she was going to school, we were still saving maybe 90% of our income. So what I what I tell people a lot of times is, you know, go find find that location arbitrage kind of idea that you can use, maybe look around a little bit a lot of a lot of places in Latin America are real really easy, really inexpensive to live you know and do it for a few years.

You know, if you're not, if you're not someday it's going to be a lifetime and stay there for decades. It's still going to give you that opportunity really to save up money to create your work from home business. And really devote time to it like you wouldn't be able to do while you're still working full time with US. And just see where it takes you. You know because even even if you leave after a few years You're still going to be able to basically write your own ticket for wherever you're going to want to move back into the US, just because you've been able to save up that money, and you've been able to grow your business to a point where it can sustain you in, in any city in the US.

25:00 - 30:00

David:

I think that's really cool.

For one thing, I'm always telling people who, you know, complain about how expensive their place to live is, right? So I live in San Diego right now. And people talk about, oh, it's too expensive to do this here, blah, blah, blah. So moved to the Midwest, Oh, I can't do that. You know, it's a mindset thing. And here you are, like, that, we're just gonna move out of the country. And you're saying, Yeah, and you save tons of money by doing that, living in a really cool, really unique place, got a whole new culture experience. Like I love this idea. I know Chad Carson's done, and I know a couple other people who've done it. And successfully and I've always, like, in my, my vision is travel here, travel there, do this. And so the idea of being able to take an online business, where you're making a certain amount of money, and continue to make that certain amount of money, while moving to somewhere super cheap. It's just a really cool concept to me for just just hacking your savings gap, and just being able to save and invest that much faster.

Joseph:

Yeah, it really is an amazing opportunity. Difficult to do with kids and, and all that, but, but definitely, still doable. And so I say, yeah, we'll do it when you're young. You know, do it, do it for a few years, and see how you like it.

Even if even if you you don't end up being one of these people that stays down here for forever, two or three years, you'll be able to save so much money, you'll be able to devote so much time to your own business ideas, and really grow those, it's just going to open up a world of opportunities for you.

David:

Absolutely.

I really love the entrepreneur mindset, which you very clearly have, which is the mindset of how can I make money doing x? Or how can I save money doing y? And you clearly portray that through so many different side hustles and even being willing to move across country out of country to save money and obviously that wasn't the only reason you move but to save money and build this business. What do you think? Like? Do you think there's anything military related that helped with that? Being able to think that way? Or do you think it's something that's ingrained? Or was there a book that sparked that? Like, where do you think that came from for you?

Joseph:

I think that the discipline you learn in the military is definitely something you can use for the rest of your life. And maybe it's cliche to say, but yeah, you know, as an entrepreneur, you need to be able to discipline yourself, especially if you're working from home, you need to be able to discipline yourself to sit your ass in that chair and work, right.

There's so many distractions, you can watch TV, you can get something to eat. But I think, yeah, anybody with that discipline that they've learned in the military, that they know, okay, you know, what I needed to get this done, I need to set a schedule, stay on that schedule, and really, and really get to it.

So I think that's definitely something I learned from the military.

I think another thing is just kind of a kind of a no excuses, mentality, no excuses, attitude, right? Any job you do, or any business you do, you're gonna, you're gonna see peers that just have an excuse for everything, right? Especially in blogging and YouTube, you hear constantly that that blogging is dead, or YouTube is dead, or YouTube is trying to hurt little creators or something like that, just all kinds of excuses why people aren't successful.

And, and really, it just creates that culture of kind of a cancerous culture that, that you just kind of dwell on, and you just can't get anywhere with it. So I think it's kind of short. Definitely that to that no excuses mentality that you get in the military, and being able to take that to, you know, it's on me. This is what I do, this is I'm in control. And, you know, if I'm not as successful as I want to be, it's because I need to do something else and I need to work harder. Work smarter, one of the two.

David:

Yeah, I really love the Jacko Willings book, Extreme Ownership, which is all about that no excuse mentality, just super powerful concept when you start to take ownership of everything in your sphere.

And you brought up a good point there about finding the excuse not to do something. I like to do that with people when I'm talking to them about things like, their fears and stuff in real estate. And it's like, Okay, well, great. Tell me what are your hobbies? Okay, now, tell me a reason why you shouldn't do that. Like, what's the negative? And it's like, instead, it could be like, their favorite thing in the entire world. And they could say, well, it's expensive. Well, it takes time. Well, it takes this was like, Great. Okay, so you just found four reasons not to do your favorite thing in the world. Why do you do it? Oh, well, you know, all these other great things. Yeah. And they outweigh it right? Like, okay, well, let me tell you why you should keep stuff. But it's funny. It's like the mentality of being scared to put $200 into a stock but being okay, dumping $200 into a pair of Jordans or you know, whatever. It's just a mentality thing and people get so scared, or make excuses for not doing things that they fail to realize you can do that to anything.

What are the? What are the benefits you can get out of this?

30:00 - 35:00

Joseph:

Sure, sure. Great point.

David:

Yeah. I love it.

Alright, are there any side hustles wrapped around in there that we haven't uncovered yet?

Joseph:

Oh, really, there's a ton.

I think that's one of the one of the real secrets to to working from home to having a either a blog or YouTube channel or, or a lot of these online businesses is that in that idea of treating it like a business, you have to learn the different income sources, how to use them how to how to use them well, and how to put them together, right, because very few of these are going to make you rich and in and of themselves. I do very well, self publishing. But, but again, that's only two to $3,000 a month.

YouTube is really growing rapidly and doing well. But again, that's, you know, maybe 5000 a month on the ad itself. The blogs that I've got sponsorships, so people sponsoring company sponsoring the YouTube videos, sponsoring blogs, that's maybe another 1000.

Affiliates, which are basically talking about a product reviewing a product and getting a commission on any sales, that's maybe another 3500 to 4000 a month. So none of these are something that is going to make you rich in and of itself. But if you put them all together, that's a pretty damn nice income stream. So you do have to learn how to use each one, how to use it well, how to be successful in it, and really put that together as a, you know, a whole business perspective, a whole lot in a singular business idea.

David:

Yeah, that's really cool. I love it.

Awesome. Well, I always have, I have a couple questions that I always like to ask people before we wrap this up.

So I guess the one that I would ask first would be, do you have any favorite, like one resource like a book, course, website, or whatever, that you would recommend to anyone looking to get started as an entrepreneur? I know I didn't prepare you for any of these. I'm sorry.

Joseph:

Yeah.

If you're asking just kind of general entrepreneurship, I would say there's one called the 12 Week Year, which is a very good book, it's about, you know, setting goals over a three month period. Instead of those general annual goals, I would say that I would say there is another one called Story Brand by Donald Miller. It is a book about how you know how you brand yourself and how you kind of kind of how you sell, it's a really good sales book for launching products, he has a great plan for how to launch a product. I would just say that I would say there's another one, by I think it's Jonah Berger, which is called contagious, which is a great kind of study on why things go viral in the why things go viral on social media and on the internet. And some great ideas for that kind of branding idea and how to position yourself what to write about to to really, to really bring in that community.

David:

I haven't read contagious yet but some add that to my list. But the other two books are both phenomenal. And I haven't had anyone mention them on my show before. So I'm glad that you brought those up.

I especially love story brands. In fact, I find myself going to their website periodically and saying okay, what did they change? What should I be tweaking on my blog, because I struggled for a long time with that, what the above the fold needed to be, I think I got something okay now, but it's changed probably 10 times since I started my websites.

And I finally just recently realized that all of the guys who are worth following as a, you know, a blog, as someone that are like doing really well, I'll have their face. And I was like, man, my website doesn't have my face when you open it. So I finally changed. I don't know if that's..

Joseph:

Sure! You know, your yourself, your face and your personality. That is, that's pretty much the only thing we have, that is unique. And that is different, you know, so many, if you're doing any of these a blog or YouTube, you need to be the brand you need to be the personality, right? Because, you know, obviously there are so many blogs, on every, every, every topic, there is really nothing new. And it's very hard to be unique just to your message alone.

So yeah, you need to brand yourself. And that's something that, that sponsors those companies and affiliates and advertisers they're going to be looking for as well. Because you're just going to draw a closer connection with people when they come to your blog or your channel.

Even more than just you know which books are great though it's kind of just how you use the books, right? So I love reading books on Kindle, I'll try to do maybe one or at least one or two a month, usually business books or biographies, but it's something that I that I it's tough to do, especially when you're just trying to get through a book but sit down with a notepad or a a folder of paper and actually take notes on stuff you're you're reading, you know, if you're, if you're reading a physical book, you can highlight and take notes there, but but try to take notes in a pad of paper and really think about how to apply this and how this, how this applies to your situation and how you can use it in your situation. Because it's so easy just to go through a book and say, Yeah, that's a great idea. That's a great idea, and get kind of the ideas out of it, but then never apply it, never never actually put any of this into application and really use it to grow your business.

35:00 - 39:22

Joseph:

And yeah, if you're doing a book or even two books a month, then you're going to forget what you read. If you're not consciously writing it down, keeping those notes, you know, actively revisiting those notes to see, okay, you know, what have I applied? What haven't I applied? And how can I use this, then what are you reading the books for? So really, you do need to take that time to actually implement the things, the things that you learn.

David:

Yeah, I agree completely.

And I do, I don't necessarily do the physical notes, although I am starting to more so but I'll highlight the crap out of a book. And then as soon as I finish it, I'll go back and read just the highlighted pieces again. And then you know, from there, if there's something really that I need to do, I'll, I'll write it down or just do it on the spot. But I think that's huge. A lot of people will read a book, and it's almost like they read the book to read the book, like, Okay, great, but what did you do with it?

So that's cool.

Joseph:

Again, yeah. What's the point of reading these? If you're just reading for entertainment, they're much more entertaining books out there. If you're reading to actually improve yourself and grow your business, then yeah, you need to consciously make an effort to to actually use some of this stuff that you're learning.

David:

Absolutely.

All right, before we wrap this up, is there anything you want to add any parting advice, big ideas?

Joseph:

You know, I think just get started, you know, one of the best things about this new this new age of online businesses is that you can get started with, with you know, as little as maybe 10 bucks a month, you can start a website on on three bucks a month, and, and maybe a few premium plugins or services or what have you. But just get started, you know, and grow into it. You don't have to know everything you need to do all at once, grow into it, grow your business, and in three or five years, you will be happy that you started today. I guarantee it.

So many people say to me that, you know, I wish I would have started in 2010 when I wanted to. I wish I would have started three years ago. Well, you know, be that person that started three years ago, be that person that starts today. So that yeah, in three years, you'll be able to say, yeah, you know, maybe I wasn't ready completely. But I got started anyway. And you'll be happier for it.

Other than that, I'd love to see people love to see everyone come on over to it to let's talk money on youtube and visit me there. Join the community. See a guy rock a bow tie in the videos there is always always fun.

David:

Yeah, absolutely, guys, if you haven't followed Joseph on YouTube, go check out his channel and subscribe and smash that like button. As I say.

David:

Joseph, where can people get a hold of you?

Joseph:

Sure, sure.

Well, like I said, building that community on YouTube. Let's Talk Money. Also around the four of laws, probably the most applicable here is myworkfromhomemoney.com. And that's just the blog where I'm sharing all my experiences of my journey building these online businesses and working from home businesses. Got a lot of great, great articles there on growing YouTube channels, growing a blog, becoming a social media influencer, lots of different ideas, lots of different business models that you can try out and see which one you enjoy most.

David:

Definitely, yeah, I will. And I'll link to that. And is there a specific blog post, but I guess I can talk about that afterwards. But if there's a specific article, I'll link to a specific article there. And then yeah, Joseph thank you very much for joining me. We've been I know we tried to do this for a little while. But, you know, between time zones and busy schedules, it's been a little difficult, but I'm really glad that we finally got you on the podcast.

Joseph:

It was a good time. It was my pleasure.

Thanks!

David:

Absolutely. Have a great night.

Joseph:

Yeah, you too.

End:

Thank you for listening to another episode about my journey From military to millionaire. If you liked it, be sure to visit Frommilitarytomillionaire.com/podcast to subscribe to future podcasts. While you're there, we'd love for you to rate the show. Give us a review on iTunes. Now get out there and take action.