RPF0424-Zeona_McIntyre_interview
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00:00:30.800 | Today on Radical Personal Finance, we're going to talk about financial independence and how
00:00:36.320 | quickly you can get there if you use the concept of synthetic equity and find the right timing
00:00:45.280 | on an opportunity.
00:00:46.280 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:01:06.440 | skills, insight, encouragement, and inspiration that you need to live a rich and meaningful
00:01:12.200 | life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:01:15.560 | My name is Joshua Sheets.
00:01:16.560 | I am your host.
00:01:17.560 | Thank you for being with me today.
00:01:18.560 | Today, we're going to tackle that financial independence in 10 years or less nut.
00:01:23.520 | It's a hard one.
00:01:24.520 | Probably don't talk about it enough.
00:01:26.560 | Today, let's do it.
00:01:34.800 | As I have done shows in the past about that little 10 year or less statement that I have
00:01:39.520 | there in my little slogan for the show, I've emphasized that there are a number of different
00:01:43.040 | ways that you can get to financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:01:46.320 | I use the term financial freedom intentionally.
00:01:50.160 | I don't use financial independence there, although I do believe that you can become
00:01:54.600 | financially independent in 10 years or less.
00:01:58.120 | The paths to get there are generally going to involve a very high extreme savings rate.
00:02:03.120 | If you can save 70 or 80% of your income, you could reliably become financially independent
00:02:07.680 | in about 10 years or possibly through the growth and sale of a business.
00:02:12.600 | That also can be done in less than 10 years.
00:02:14.480 | Many successful businesses are able to build and grow and sell out in less than 10 years.
00:02:20.440 | Now, none of these strategies are without risk.
00:02:23.400 | Entrepreneurship is risky.
00:02:24.400 | There's no guarantee of success, but neither is there any guarantee of anything in life.
00:02:28.620 | I don't use financial independence in my slogan to say financially independent in 10 years
00:02:32.840 | or less, although I do maintain it's possible.
00:02:35.960 | I use financial freedom.
00:02:39.720 | You can choose what financial freedom means to you.
00:02:43.960 | You can define what financial freedom means to you.
00:02:45.960 | I've done entire shows where I've talked about some of the different stages of financial
00:02:49.200 | independence and financial freedom.
00:02:50.760 | I've talked about different meanings, but that word freedom simply implies liberty,
00:02:59.220 | financial liberty.
00:03:00.520 | I often associate that term financial freedom with the idea of being able to live life on
00:03:06.880 | my own terms, being able to do the things that are important to me when I want to do
00:03:14.840 | them.
00:03:16.040 | I don't define it as having a job or not having a job, having a business, not having a business,
00:03:20.800 | having enough money in the bank to pay my bills for decades or not.
00:03:24.160 | I define it more as a mindset, an ability to live life on your own terms.
00:03:28.440 | I believe that financial freedom is absolutely achievable for anybody in 10 years or less.
00:03:39.080 | Is this just some fun idea or is there actually more meaning behind it?
00:03:44.360 | Yes.
00:03:45.360 | I want you to have a sense of self-control, a sense of autonomy, a sense of decision making.
00:03:51.040 | One great way to get there is through the use of various approaches to business.
00:03:56.280 | I don't think that everybody should be an entrepreneur.
00:03:58.160 | I don't think everybody is prepared for that or has the emotional makeup.
00:04:02.000 | But I think there are many ways where if you'll open your eyes and look around you, there
00:04:05.560 | are many ways that you can use resources that are at your fingertips and find an opportunity
00:04:12.320 | that will help you to build the life of your dreams, to live that rich and meaningful life
00:04:18.120 | now and experience the financial freedom that you desire in 10 years or less.
00:04:25.440 | My guest today has done exactly that and she has used something that I term the concept
00:04:30.320 | of synthetic equity.
00:04:33.160 | This is not original to me.
00:04:35.880 | But the idea here is can you find a resource that's being underutilized and bring additional
00:04:39.920 | value to it and use somebody else's assets to build your own wealth?
00:04:46.000 | Can you use somebody else's money to build your own wealth?
00:04:50.640 | The textbook example that I use is the concept of property management and that's exactly
00:04:56.400 | what this show is about, although it's property management in a different format.
00:05:01.460 | The idea is you can become a wealthy real estate investor by owning and renting out
00:05:10.080 | your real estate units, whether they're houses, condos, whatever they happen to be.
00:05:13.900 | You can do that.
00:05:15.160 | But that's going to involve a lot of financial capital to actually own those units.
00:05:22.420 | Now when you own those units, you generally are going to be managing them and you're going
00:05:25.680 | to be earning profits from them.
00:05:28.340 | But what if you don't have any money?
00:05:29.480 | Can you get into the real estate business and experience the benefits of property ownership
00:05:36.660 | if you don't have any money?
00:05:38.160 | The answer is yes and you don't have to go out and do a no money down deal.
00:05:42.880 | You can get involved in the real estate business if you can develop a skill and expertise of
00:05:47.720 | property management.
00:05:49.540 | If you come in as a property manager and you can find clients, you may have the opportunity
00:05:53.480 | to manage their properties, take a percentage of the rents and have the benefit of real
00:06:01.880 | estate ownership without having to put up the upfront money.
00:06:08.380 | You can benefit from the growth of rental rates as your rates go up.
00:06:13.520 | You can benefit from a nice property based upon being able to rent it out.
00:06:19.960 | And although you're going to be doing substantial work for that money, you'll be able to benefit
00:06:25.120 | from some of the aspects of real estate ownership, some of the ways that it's not a constant
00:06:31.260 | everyday amount of work.
00:06:34.280 | And it's all synthetic.
00:06:36.440 | You're using other people's equity to pull your own profits off.
00:06:41.400 | So my guest today is Ziona McIntyre and Ziona has an interesting story where she did exactly
00:06:46.000 | that, but she has done it not with traditional rental houses.
00:06:49.960 | She's done it with Airbnb and she's done it in a remarkably short amount of time.
00:06:55.160 | I met Ziona when I was at Camp Mustache Southeast 2017 in Gainesville a couple weeks ago and
00:07:01.160 | we sat down for about a 20 minute interview, which I will play for you in just a moment.
00:07:05.840 | Sit back and listen and recognize that Ziona has built for herself a plan for financial
00:07:12.480 | freedom in a remarkably short amount of time.
00:07:17.320 | And you can do something similar, maybe with Airbnb, maybe with something else.
00:07:22.160 | When I bring you ideas and business ideas, things like that, you need to recognize that
00:07:25.880 | these are all culturally and time dependent.
00:07:31.840 | Some things might work where you are, some things might not work.
00:07:34.720 | Some things might work in 2017 that didn't work five years ago and that won't work in
00:07:38.360 | five years.
00:07:39.600 | But there are always, always opportunities around you.
00:07:43.120 | And so look for the principles of what people who are successful in a various endeavor do.
00:07:49.540 | Look for those principles and then seek to apply them in your unique context.
00:07:54.680 | Before I play the interview, advertisers and sponsors for today's show, sponsor number
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00:10:45.800 | Ziona, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.
00:10:49.560 | Yay, thanks for having me.
00:10:51.400 | So we're here at Camp Mustache Southeast 2017, which has been this really fun gathering of
00:10:56.260 | all kinds of people who are pursuing financial independence, who are financially independent,
00:11:00.600 | kind of have this early retirement financial independence theme in common.
00:11:04.800 | I'd love to hear a little bit about your story.
00:11:07.760 | How did you come into this world of financial independence?
00:11:11.000 | What's been your journey up till now?
00:11:13.520 | I found Pete like 2011 and I just loved it.
00:11:19.680 | I latched onto the idea.
00:11:20.880 | Pete is Mr. Money Mustache for those who don't know.
00:11:23.200 | Oh, sorry.
00:11:24.200 | That's all right.
00:11:25.200 | I'm just a bag.
00:11:28.180 | I think it actually goes back to my parents were always struggling with money and I just
00:11:32.300 | knew that I didn't want to take that path and I saw that there was other ways.
00:11:36.220 | So I kind of was always looking for a way out.
00:11:38.220 | I was looking kind of like what you talked about.
00:11:40.180 | I was always looking for a get rich quick scheme.
00:11:42.660 | But I didn't want it to be a scheme.
00:11:44.660 | I wanted it to actually work.
00:11:47.020 | I saw a lot of things out there that didn't really work and I was a little bit scared
00:11:51.260 | that maybe there was no way to do it.
00:11:53.940 | But then, yeah, I found things like personal finance books.
00:11:58.160 | I got really into Suze Orman and although now I think she's way too conservative, it
00:12:02.680 | was a really good start.
00:12:04.400 | Just get like a Roth IRA.
00:12:06.040 | Just get some basic stuff.
00:12:08.080 | But it wasn't until Mr. Money Mustache that I really blew it open and thought like, "Whoa,
00:12:14.120 | okay.
00:12:15.120 | I can do what he did.
00:12:16.240 | I can be early retired by 30.
00:12:21.160 | I can really do this."
00:12:22.480 | I still hold the belief that anyone can do it within five years from like zero to like
00:12:27.360 | I think you can do it in a short period of time if you're creative enough.
00:12:31.760 | I think a lot of people don't think that but I think it's possible.
00:12:35.160 | - So why do you think it's possible?
00:12:37.760 | - I just think there's so many ways to go about it.
00:12:39.880 | I think it depends on how much you're willing to give up.
00:12:43.520 | So it's like a different kind of struggle but you're struggling for a goal.
00:12:47.440 | So for me, like we can get into this but I do Airbnbs, I do short-term rental.
00:12:54.800 | There was a point when I started doing that that I realized, "Wow, I can cover all of
00:12:58.880 | my housing expenses," which was my biggest column of expense, "through Airbnb and more.
00:13:05.160 | It can pay me.
00:13:06.160 | So why don't I just let that take care of itself and then know that I can get there
00:13:10.640 | really fast?"
00:13:12.760 | In having to do that, I had to hustle a bit.
00:13:14.560 | It was like I was staying at friends' houses, I was dog-sitting all the time, I was doing
00:13:19.000 | anything I could do to rent out the space that I would normally be living in.
00:13:22.520 | But I knew that that short-term struggle was going to get me there really quick.
00:13:27.920 | And I was like, "That's it.
00:13:28.920 | I'm doing it."
00:13:30.240 | So that was like my turning point when I was just like, "Okay, this is the thing that's
00:13:33.320 | going to work for me."
00:13:34.320 | - Okay, so you started with Airbnb just renting out your personal house?
00:13:37.760 | - Yeah.
00:13:38.760 | So a friend of mine had done it for a year and he made $50,000 on his apartment.
00:13:42.960 | And so then I was like, "Whoa, I am listening."
00:13:46.280 | And that was in New York City and I thought, "Maybe that doesn't work where I live."
00:13:49.920 | And I was living in Boulder, Colorado at the time.
00:13:52.080 | I still live there.
00:13:54.240 | But it was kind of perfect timing.
00:13:57.040 | I had a roommate and she moved out.
00:13:59.240 | And so I was at this place of like, "Well, I have all this furniture.
00:14:03.280 | I could just have someone come in as an Airbnb and try it.
00:14:06.660 | And if it doesn't work, I'll just get a roommate."
00:14:10.400 | And so it worked so well that I was like renting her room constantly.
00:14:13.600 | And then I started renting my room too.
00:14:15.560 | And I would like go between the two.
00:14:17.640 | And then when that was too popular, I was like, "Screw it.
00:14:20.560 | I'm going to stay at my friend's house.
00:14:21.800 | I'm going to sleep on the couch.
00:14:22.960 | I'm going to dog sit now."
00:14:26.040 | So whatever I had to do to get out of my house, which is slightly uncomfortable, but it's
00:14:30.160 | like this is my path.
00:14:31.560 | I know it.
00:14:33.400 | And there's a long journey since then.
00:14:35.320 | That was like five years ago, but it's awesome.
00:14:37.400 | - So what were you trying to accomplish?
00:14:38.400 | Because a lot of people would say, "Well, what's the point of having your housing expenses
00:14:41.000 | paid for if you don't have a house to live in?"
00:14:43.120 | Were you trying to save money or were you trying just to cover your monthly mortgage?
00:14:46.360 | Or what was your goal?
00:14:48.240 | - So I didn't own the house at the time.
00:14:49.640 | It was just a rental.
00:14:50.960 | But for me, I wanted to do what Pete did.
00:14:54.000 | So essentially Pete, or Mr. Money Mustache, he has this one blog that I love.
00:14:58.680 | It's like the 4% rule blog about like how much you need to retire.
00:15:02.720 | And in that, he was talking about like for his family, they need 25,000 a year as expenses.
00:15:09.280 | And so to get that, they estimated they needed about 600,000 in stocks so that they could
00:15:14.080 | get the dividends and a paid off house.
00:15:17.120 | And so that was the goal that I took on because I thought, "Okay, like 2,000 to 2,500 a month,
00:15:23.280 | that's doable.
00:15:24.280 | That's money that I could live off of."
00:15:25.920 | - Especially with a paid off house.
00:15:27.200 | - Yeah, totally.
00:15:28.200 | And so I thought, "Okay, let me take housing expenses out.
00:15:32.520 | So I don't have to think about that right now.
00:15:34.200 | Let's just work really hard to getting that 600,000."
00:15:37.560 | And so I was using Airbnb as a tool.
00:15:39.240 | I was also doing massage at the time.
00:15:41.360 | I was a massage therapist.
00:15:42.360 | But I was just kind of like, "Okay, this is my hard goal.
00:15:45.280 | And if I can get there fast, then it's worth it.
00:15:47.840 | It's worth the short term struggle."
00:15:50.200 | - So then the point of renting it out on Airbnb was the income, which allowed you to...
00:15:57.360 | You were saving the excess income over and above the rental payments that you were making
00:16:02.320 | towards your $600,000 goal.
00:16:05.560 | So then what?
00:16:06.560 | What'd you do from there?
00:16:07.560 | - Okay, so this is the gray area part.
00:16:09.760 | But I was like, "Okay, I want to get to the place where I can afford to buy something.
00:16:14.840 | So for now, I need to leverage this more."
00:16:17.800 | So I went out and I rented another apartment that I didn't own.
00:16:21.080 | And I was renting and re-renting, essentially.
00:16:23.640 | So I would go between the three.
00:16:25.680 | So it was like whichever space was not rented, I was living in.
00:16:28.720 | So it was either that apartment or it was the one that I originally was in, in one of
00:16:33.000 | the bedrooms.
00:16:34.000 | And I'd kind of do this cycle.
00:16:36.840 | So that was a little inconvenient, but it kept working.
00:16:39.240 | It kept growing.
00:16:40.240 | So it ended up turning into more apartments.
00:16:42.760 | And then eventually I was able to buy.
00:16:44.240 | And I knew I really want to be as in the right as possible.
00:16:49.280 | So owning was the best way to do that.
00:16:51.760 | So that was the goal, for sure.
00:16:54.400 | - So during this process where you were working, right?
00:16:57.440 | You had a job as well?
00:16:59.160 | - No.
00:17:00.160 | So I had finished, I was in massage school.
00:17:03.160 | I had just finished massage school and I started a private practice.
00:17:06.600 | So that was something that because Airbnb was already working for me, I had the privilege
00:17:10.820 | of not having to go, "Oh, I need to go get a job at a massage like Envy or something."
00:17:16.680 | I knew like, "Okay, I have income already and I'm not paying housing expenses.
00:17:21.760 | Can I just try to build my own private practice now?"
00:17:25.940 | So I was using multiple streams.
00:17:28.640 | And I had already been investing in Vanguard.
00:17:32.360 | So I had stuff to fall back on too.
00:17:35.940 | So it was kind of like, "Let's just try all this stuff and see what happens."
00:17:39.120 | - So where have things gone from there?
00:17:40.520 | Are you still bootlegging apartments, breaking leases, subletting?
00:17:43.920 | - No, I'm trying not to do that anymore.
00:17:47.200 | Now I own four places.
00:17:50.000 | I'm buying a fifth one on the 20th.
00:17:52.920 | I teach people how to invest in Airbnb and I manage a bunch of properties for people.
00:17:58.320 | So instead of just like renting and re-renting, they actually know about it.
00:18:01.960 | They come to me for it.
00:18:04.040 | So yeah, I probably have like 15 that I manage.
00:18:07.160 | - So the rentals that you're managing, how do you make that arrangement with the property
00:18:12.160 | owner?
00:18:13.160 | - Oh, it's so interesting.
00:18:14.160 | It's like people just started hearing that I was doing it.
00:18:16.840 | And so now it's just kind of built to this, is this like word of mouth thing.
00:18:20.440 | And before, I don't know, yeah, I didn't have a website or anything.
00:18:24.160 | I just launched mine yesterday.
00:18:25.880 | And so now people can officially find me and all my social media is up.
00:18:29.140 | But before it was just really like Facebook or a friend of a friend.
00:18:33.360 | They just knew that I had been doing this Airbnb thing so long that they thought, "Well,
00:18:37.040 | I'm going to be out of town for six months, four months.
00:18:40.480 | Why not have her rent it and let's just see if it does anything."
00:18:44.280 | So that's kind of where it's at now.
00:18:46.240 | I charge a 20% fee to do it, but I can get a lot of money for people.
00:18:51.520 | So it's a really good value.
00:18:53.280 | - What makes...
00:18:54.480 | I would guess it would be because a lot of people I think have space.
00:18:59.080 | And if they knew somebody, "Hey, I'm going on vacation.
00:19:02.000 | I don't want to go through the hassle of setting up my Airbnb account.
00:19:04.640 | I don't want to necessarily deal with it.
00:19:06.660 | But I don't mind getting a little bit of extra money for my household.
00:19:09.560 | I'm traveling, why not?"
00:19:10.720 | And giving up 80% of something is better than 100% of nothing.
00:19:16.040 | So if they know that they're busy and they're not going to go through the hassle, then it
00:19:19.680 | certainly can work well.
00:19:21.360 | Which by the way, I love that business model because it allows you to...
00:19:25.160 | I mean, what I call that kind of synthetic equity, using a resource that somebody else
00:19:30.680 | has, and you're profiting from the entrepreneurial endeavor without having to make the initial
00:19:37.000 | investment.
00:19:38.000 | - Totally.
00:19:39.000 | - You're basically doing what Airbnb did.
00:19:42.960 | So the reason Airbnb has grown so rapidly and so massively is that they are providing
00:19:48.380 | the service that hotels were providing without the need for them to invest in physical infrastructure.
00:19:55.560 | And so then they have an opportunity to grow exponentially without the constraints of capital,
00:20:00.560 | without the constraints of construction, without the constraints of property management.
00:20:05.000 | Because they're just jumping in to stuff that other people are already doing.
00:20:08.120 | Well, now you've taken that and you've jumped on the back of Airbnb.
00:20:11.680 | - Totally.
00:20:12.680 | All the middlemen.
00:20:13.680 | - And so now you're just taking your little piece of the pie of a completely synthetic
00:20:19.120 | made up business that you get profit from without having had to invest capital into,
00:20:25.120 | which is absolutely fantastic.
00:20:26.240 | - Yeah, I mean, I call that like the try before you buy method for a lot of people.
00:20:30.280 | I'm like, "Hey, if you know people that want to try this Airbnb thing and they have a house,
00:20:35.360 | they have space, they're not willing to do it themselves, but they're curious about it,
00:20:39.120 | then reach out to them and just start managing for them."
00:20:42.480 | And Airbnb has set up this new thing where you can be an official co-host.
00:20:45.520 | - That was what I was next going to ask you.
00:20:48.200 | So could you get your revenue directly from Airbnb or do the people just send you?
00:20:52.240 | - No, it's so easy.
00:20:54.380 | So they can just route it right to your bank account.
00:20:56.720 | It's so easy.
00:20:58.280 | And you can use your own login rather than having to log in through their account.
00:21:02.600 | So Airbnb makes it super easy for co-hosts.
00:21:05.560 | And it can be a temporary thing.
00:21:06.920 | If they want to shut you off, they just change the setting.
00:21:10.720 | - So what do you do as an Airbnb property co-host/manager?
00:21:18.720 | What do you actually do for the owner?
00:21:21.120 | - So I will look at their ad if they have one or I'll make it for them.
00:21:25.600 | So if they have one, it's usually not optimized.
00:21:29.040 | I've been doing it so long that I can go like, "Okay, you need way more photos," or, "These
00:21:32.760 | don't look that great," or, "Here's all these things that are awesome about your property
00:21:36.320 | that you're not talking about," just things like that that are important.
00:21:40.720 | Also different ways to set settings for money.
00:21:43.760 | So you need a high enough security deposit that makes sense.
00:21:46.720 | You need to be charging per guest.
00:21:49.520 | You need to just...
00:21:50.520 | There's just different things.
00:21:52.200 | Cleaning fees, making sure that's a little bit more than what you normally would pay
00:21:55.720 | because sometimes it's dirtier than it normally is.
00:21:59.280 | So just things to consider that I think a lot of people don't.
00:22:03.200 | And I know it right away because I've just been doing it so long.
00:22:06.080 | So optimizing, creating listing, doing all the guest communication.
00:22:10.320 | There's a lot of back and forth that happens with getting a guest ready.
00:22:14.240 | Answering all their questions, getting them how to get the key and all of the things for
00:22:18.320 | the house.
00:22:19.640 | Then I handle all of cleaning scheduling.
00:22:22.280 | So that is one thing about Airbnb that's a lot to keep up is you've got to make sure
00:22:26.440 | you've got good cleaners and that they're going to be there on time and that they're
00:22:30.560 | going to make every cleaning.
00:22:32.160 | Because sometimes it's two times a month, sometimes it's like 15 times a month that
00:22:36.760 | you're getting cleans.
00:22:37.880 | So you've got to have a good team for that.
00:22:40.360 | And then the last thing is handyman stuff.
00:22:42.620 | So just having a team of handyman that I can call at the whim if something needs to be
00:22:47.280 | fixed and managing that.
00:22:49.480 | So if you're in Dominican Republic and it's hard for you to get a hold of somebody, you
00:22:54.040 | don't want to know that there's this toilet flood happening in your house.
00:22:59.200 | I just got to take care of it for you.
00:23:01.160 | You know, definitely stuff like that.
00:23:03.080 | So you manage how many properties now at this point?
00:23:05.440 | 15.
00:23:06.440 | And you now also own your own property.
00:23:08.080 | Yeah, it's going to be five.
00:23:09.760 | So you're closing on a deal soon.
00:23:11.760 | Yeah.
00:23:12.760 | Congratulations.
00:23:13.760 | Thanks.
00:23:14.760 | So at this point you have a business that can pay your lifestyle, right?
00:23:17.800 | Totally.
00:23:18.800 | Actually, you know, if somebody wanted to just try out the whole management thing, you
00:23:21.720 | could pay your lifestyle probably with like three places.
00:23:25.240 | It's a lot of money.
00:23:26.240 | Wow.
00:23:27.240 | It depends.
00:23:28.240 | It depends.
00:23:29.240 | If you're mustachian, you could do it.
00:23:30.240 | But lifestyle can be a very flexible term.
00:23:36.880 | Some people need $100,000 a month.
00:23:38.360 | Some people need $100,000 a year.
00:23:39.840 | And some people need $1,000 a month.
00:23:41.520 | Well, that's why frugality is such a beautiful muscle.
00:23:45.120 | Because the moment you realize you have this power, it's like you can adjust the barometer.
00:23:50.080 | It's like, okay, now I get to live in the middle and that's kind of cool.
00:23:53.400 | And maybe I'm not eating out every night, but I could do it occasionally.
00:23:56.840 | If you need to shut that all down and live like the bare minimum, you know how.
00:24:00.840 | You know, you're like, nope, I'm cooking all my meals.
00:24:03.040 | I'm not getting in the car.
00:24:04.040 | I'm not buying new shoes.
00:24:05.600 | And just do it temporarily until all of a sudden you have more money.
00:24:09.520 | So you know, it gives you that flexibility of not being like, oh, I have to go get a
00:24:13.040 | job tomorrow.
00:24:14.040 | It's like, no, you kind of adjust as needed.
00:24:18.560 | And yeah.
00:24:19.560 | What to you is the benefit of not having a job?
00:24:22.280 | Oh my God, there's so many.
00:24:24.960 | I travel like five months out of the year.
00:24:28.680 | I get to wake up without an alarm clock every morning.
00:24:31.520 | I get to work from home.
00:24:32.680 | So there's zero commute.
00:24:35.240 | I get to work from Mexico if I want, you know, and there's just so many things.
00:24:39.360 | I'm the owner of my time.
00:24:41.240 | I get to work at eight in the morning or, you know, midnight if I want to.
00:24:46.800 | So and there's days that maybe there's three days where I didn't want to work or yeah,
00:24:50.840 | I'm here at this workshop and I thought I'd get stuff done.
00:24:53.280 | I'm not getting anything done and that's okay because I can work a hard day whenever Tuesday,
00:24:59.280 | if that makes sense.
00:25:00.920 | So when you work for yourself, you have all that flexibility and I think, you know, each
00:25:05.640 | person has its own, their own pacing.
00:25:08.960 | Like some people work really good for four hours a day and you can choose that and other
00:25:14.060 | people work in the nine to five.
00:25:15.800 | I don't know.
00:25:16.800 | I don't do well in that.
00:25:18.060 | So it's like learning yourself and what you can optimize about the way that your body
00:25:23.120 | is and your functionality.
00:25:24.640 | Where are you going from here?
00:25:27.780 | I'm going to St. Louis from here.
00:25:29.300 | Well, actually I'm going to Savannah with JD.
00:25:32.300 | Let's be honest.
00:25:33.840 | We're going to go do some fun road trip because I don't have a flight home yet and then I'm
00:25:38.120 | going to buy a last minute ticket.
00:25:39.420 | I'm going to St. Louis to furnish my house.
00:25:42.000 | So I'm going to write about that.
00:25:43.760 | A lot of people are asking about the steps of getting a new house and I thought it'd
00:25:47.720 | be fun to like post a list of all the things you have to buy and you know, just all the
00:25:52.120 | steps.
00:25:53.120 | Right.
00:25:54.120 | So I think that'd be a fun process.
00:25:55.880 | What about your financial independence journey?
00:25:57.360 | What are your goals from here?
00:25:59.320 | They've changed a lot because I consider myself FI now.
00:26:01.960 | Like I am working, but I like it and my places already make more money a month than I need
00:26:07.760 | to live off of.
00:26:09.060 | So I consider myself good to go.
00:26:12.280 | Yeah, I had a year, maybe like two years where I was only working five to eight hours a week
00:26:20.640 | and I was considering myself at five then.
00:26:24.640 | And then, you know, I, this is magical thing that happens when you're financially independent
00:26:28.720 | and then you just have all this free time.
00:26:31.560 | People want to give you jobs.
00:26:33.200 | They almost like don't get the concept.
00:26:35.120 | They're like, well, can I pay you to like move this thing or can I pay you to like watch
00:26:40.340 | my dog or can I pay?
00:26:41.960 | It's like money just happens and business opportunities happen.
00:26:45.320 | You meet all these people and then sometimes it ebbs and flows.
00:26:48.560 | So I'm in a flux now where there's all these opportunities to like share what I'm doing
00:26:54.720 | and build a little business around that.
00:26:56.380 | But I think in a minute I might scale back a little bit and do less.
00:27:00.720 | So maybe I'm going to do less property management and more just investing and writing about
00:27:05.480 | investing.
00:27:06.480 | And you get to choose that.
00:27:07.480 | What do you do with all the free time?
00:27:09.200 | Oh, what do I do with the free time?
00:27:12.440 | When I was like only working eight hours a week, I had to figure out a purpose.
00:27:17.960 | I was kind of in this weird, like floundering place going like, oh, is this going to be
00:27:21.160 | in my life?
00:27:22.160 | Like, what do I do?
00:27:23.520 | I'm not like producing.
00:27:26.520 | And I was thinking that I was finding my value in that.
00:27:29.840 | And that was a weird place to be like, oh, if I'm not productive, then I don't, I'm not,
00:27:34.360 | I don't, I'm not worth anything.
00:27:36.920 | And that's, that's funny.
00:27:38.120 | And so then I had to get down to like, what, what is important to me?
00:27:42.520 | And I realized like, it's really about the people in my life.
00:27:45.960 | And I decided that like the meaning and the purpose of my life was coming from just being
00:27:50.560 | available for people.
00:27:52.560 | And so it was like, if somebody wanted to talk or if they wanted to go on a walk in
00:27:56.960 | the middle of the day, if they were going through a breakup or grief in their life,
00:28:00.860 | like I could be there.
00:28:01.860 | If somebody just needed to like move or they needed to take their dog to the vet and they
00:28:06.240 | were stuck at their job, like I could be there.
00:28:08.480 | And it was just kind of nice to be like that friend that everyone knew was available.
00:28:14.720 | And so that was like a place that I was getting a lot of meaning at that time.
00:28:18.080 | And you know, now I'm doing other things.
00:28:20.400 | I'm teaching people and whatever.
00:28:23.000 | But I think just relationships are really important to me.
00:28:27.160 | So that's it.
00:28:28.160 | So your brand new website is ziona.mcintyre.com.
00:28:34.280 | I'll link to that obviously in the post for this episode.
00:28:42.200 | Any closing words of advice or perspective that you'd love to give to somebody who's
00:28:46.600 | out there saying it sounds so easy, Ziona, but frankly, I'm struggling.
00:28:53.920 | I think it's like only the individual knows what they really need to be doing in their
00:28:59.240 | life.
00:29:00.240 | And I think it's about finding the things that you really have, that you're really drawn
00:29:04.400 | to, that you really desire and spending time just doing those things.
00:29:09.000 | And if you're not happy in your job, I just feel like quit it.
00:29:13.880 | Go part time, do something else because you really will have all these other opportunities
00:29:19.320 | if you trust that you like open and make yourself available for it.
00:29:23.320 | Thanks for coming on the show.
00:29:24.320 | Thanks.
00:29:25.320 | Take Ziona's information and take her story and as I said at the beginning, look for the
00:29:30.680 | parallels near you.
00:29:32.760 | It may be Aaron B&B.
00:29:34.120 | It may not be.
00:29:35.920 | It may be something completely different.
00:29:38.600 | But recognize the concept of what she's done, which is to say, "I have some assets around
00:29:43.360 | me.
00:29:44.360 | How can I take these assets and make them more productive?
00:29:47.400 | How can I take them and bring additional value to these areas such that I can earn some income?
00:29:53.160 | Who needs what?
00:29:54.160 | Who has a service that they need?"
00:29:55.720 | A lot of times when you're dealing with something like Airbnb, the benefit is that people don't
00:29:58.920 | want the hassle.
00:30:00.240 | And one major thing that you can do to build a strong business is find things that annoy
00:30:05.320 | people and solve those problems.
00:30:08.560 | You can get paid very handsomely for that effort.
00:30:12.360 | Thank you for listening to today's show.
00:30:13.680 | If you would like to support me and if I've solved a problem for you or given you an idea
00:30:17.040 | that was worth some money, come on by and pay me for it.
00:30:19.560 | You can do that at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
00:30:26.000 | Also please, if you haven't done it yet, go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/survey.
00:30:30.920 | Fill out my quick, it's about 20-second, six-question demographic survey.
00:30:34.720 | I've just gotten the initial batch of results back from that.
00:30:37.760 | Very, very interesting.
00:30:39.880 | I have to really process that data and consider because it was very different than what I
00:30:45.360 | thought it would be.
00:30:46.640 | So I've got to figure out what it means.
00:30:47.840 | I'll share that with you soon.
00:30:48.840 | I'll share the results of that survey.
00:30:50.320 | But I want to make sure it's very accurate.
00:30:52.440 | So the way that I make sure it's accurate is if a broad representative sample of the
00:30:55.800 | listening audience goes to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/survey and fills that out.
00:31:00.080 | Please consider doing that, RadicalPersonalFinance.com/survey.
00:31:03.120 | Thank you all for listening.
00:31:04.120 | Be back with you soon.
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