Hello, everybody. It's Sam from Financial Samurai. And in this episode, I have a special guest with me, Steve Cho from My Wife Quit Her Job. How are you doing, Steve? How's it going, Sam? Am I the first person you've interviewed? You are the first person I've interviewed outside of my wife because I have some technical challenges.

But you finally encouraged me to figure out this Riverside FM podcast setup. So now I can talk to many, many people. Nice. It's an honor, Sam. It's an honor. It's an honor to have you. So we go way back, I think maybe eight to ten years. We first met at a financial bloggers conference.

Was it in Denver or was it in New Orleans? I think it was in Denver. That was my first one. Okay. And what year was that? Do you remember? I want to say it was 2013 or 2014. Does that sound about right? Okay. Yeah, about ten years ago. And back then, you were an engineer at a tech company?

That's correct. And then what did your wife do? She was a financial analyst at a Fortune 500 company. Okay. And then how old were you guys back then? Ten years ago, you can ask my age, I was 38. Ah, so you're 48 now. Almost the big five. Okay. I know.

Yeah. Old man. Old Chinese man. And so back then, so tell me the story about how my wife quit your job happened and then how she transitioned to, I guess, being a staying home mom and then how you eventually transitioned. Yeah. I mean, the whole reason we started a business in the first place was because when she became pregnant with our first child, and this is my wife, she told me that she just wanted to stay at home with the kids.

And you get that, right, Sam? Yeah. I grew up not seeing my parents as much as I would like, so I was on board, but Sam and I, we live in the same area. It's very expensive here. Yeah. And education is important. So in order to get a good house and a good school district here, pretty much need two incomes.

So when my wife wanted to quit her six-figure job, that's how much she was making, I started to panic a little bit. So we looked for different opportunities to make money on the side, and we kind of stumbled upon selling handkerchiefs. And there's a short little backstory behind that.

Three years ago, when my wife and I got engaged, she knew she was going to cry. She's kind of like a crier. Okay. She gets happy, right? Anyway, we spent all this money on photography, and she did not want to be in her photos using like ratty tissues to dry her tears.

So we looked all over the place for handkerchiefs, couldn't find any except for these factories in China, but you had to order a bunch. So we ordered a bunch. We used maybe a handful of them, and then we sold the rest on eBay, and they sold like hotcakes. So later on, we kind of got back in touch with that vendor, imported a bunch, and just decided to launch an online store.

And that became Bumble Bee Linens. And that ended up making six figures in profit, right around $102,000, I would say. And my wife quit her job right after her maternity leave, and it's been growing ever since. Oh, that's great. You know, that's something that I have thought about as well, doing an e-commerce store.

And I think many people think about that as well, to be able to do something from home and have more freedom and flexibility. So how happy was your wife once she quit her job and started focusing on her side business full-time? I mean, initially, she was ecstatic. You know, she was spending all her time with her kids.

We were just having fun, packing orders at night. So our child would go down around 7 and we would pack orders at night. And then I was still working full-time at the time. And then it started growing every single year, like growing significantly, like doubling every year. And then it got to this point where I got super crazy and I was trying to grow it a lot every single year.

And we'd set these ridiculous goals. I should say I set these ridiculous goals. And then we would hit them. And then I'd set them higher for the next year. And then all of a sudden, we were working a lot more than when we were working at our day jobs.

You were doing, I guess, double. I was doing both. Actually, I was coming home from work. So this is a story. So my wife used to be really into embroidery. She would embroider pillows and everything with monograms. And once we started doing that for money, she started hating it.

But it was such a huge profit center that I took over those sewing duties. So I would come home from my engineering job and I was working probably 50, 60 hours a week. I'd come home and then I'd sew for a couple hours and then go to bed. And it kept going on like this until I think our breaking point was we got on the Today Show.

We only got on for 12 seconds, just 12 seconds. But then our daily average order, you know, orders increased 7x. And because this show got syndicated all over the US and everything, different time zones, it was probably like that for two weeks. And at the time, it was just me and my wife and one employee.

And we basically almost killed ourselves during that period. And then my wife was like, "I don't want to do this anymore. Why?" We were already making like 10x what we earn or what we spend for sure. And she was like, "Why are we doing this? We make way more than we spend.

So what's the point of doing this?" And that's when things changed. And when you say things changed in terms of the outlook on the business, the happiness of running this business or you and your occupation at work? Oh, no. It has nothing to do with my job. I really love my job as an engineer.

I mean, that's what I studied all my life. What changed was that I stopped being so aggressive with the business. Okay. So my wife kind of – we had this talk and there were tears but they weren't the happy kind this time. And when she said she didn't want to do this anymore, I was like, "You know what?

You're right. What's the point of making all this money?" So we stopped all the revenue goals and we focused our efforts in getting my wife out of the business and just automating as much as we could so that everything was streamlined. Yeah. And it was just a lot less work.

Yeah. And so how – so it sounded like the business did very well. How long did you continue to do double duty before you left your job? Oh, double duty. So the sewing part, I stopped right away if that's what you're asking. In terms of just helping out, I quit in 2016 and we have an even split of duty.

So my wife kind of handles the day-to-day. We just bought our own warehouse just recently actually. And we have employees. She just makes sure the orders go out the door. And my job is marketing which is something that I can just do kind of behind my desk. Okay. And so 2016, how many years was that after she started her linens business?

So we started in 2007. So nine years. Oh, wow. Okay. So nine years. Interesting. Was there ever a point – did you have a specific number to make? Because I love numbers. Financial Samurai is a personal finance site. It's all about numbers. So what do you think is the ideal income to live a middle-class lifestyle with two kids in the San Francisco Bay Area?

And what income level do you believe where your happiness no longer increased? Interesting. I think in order to live – you said just a regular middle class. Yeah. You have a house, couple cars, two kids, vacation, two, three weeks, a year. You're feeling comfortable. You're not feeling like a lavish lifestyle.

But this is what you need in an expensive area. So the answer to that question really depends on what type of house you want really, right? If you want to get by with like – and this is going to sound crazy to your listeners, right? If you want to get by with like a $1.5 million house, which would sound absurd to anyone outside the U.S., I would say you would need to make $300 a year.

Okay. Right? Yeah. And so how – based on your experience earning various levels of income, what was that income level where you felt this making more income no longer made me happier? Because you took a route of – your wife made six figures, you made six figures at your tech job, and then your business blew up.

So obviously, it's made much more. How do you decide when is enough? Because that's one of the themes that I've talked about in Financial Samaritan for a while. How much is enough? Why keep going or doing a single thing you no longer want to do if you have enough?

So how do you determine that? And what do you think that number is? Yeah. So the way we figured that out is we just figured out how much we were spending every year. And so the last time we did this exercise, we spent about $150,000 a year. And this is obviously post-tax money.

So I would say in order to feel comfortable, if you can make double that, that's good enough, right? Because then you got 50% to save and whatnot. So that's what I would say would be our comfortable number. And what's funny about this is once you – if you're not used to making money also, and if you're not careful, your lifestyle is going to creep up.

Yeah. So fortunately, I'm pretty frugal. And I always feel like I don't need these luxuries. So like my wife likes to fly first class. I don't fly first class. So she flies in the front and you fly in the back? No, no, no. When we fly together, we always fly coach.

Like if she goes by herself on a girl's trip, maybe she'll go first class. But like in my mind, like if we're going to get to the destination anyways, like if it's slightly less comfortable, it's not a big deal to me. The only reason I would ever use business or first class is if I had an early morning meeting, like if it was for business and I need to be alert the next day.

But outside of that, we go in the same place. Now it seems like you're a parent to two children just like I am. It seems like the world has become more competitive because of globalization. It seems like it's very hard to get into a top 50 college nowadays, let alone a top 10 college.

It also seems like we have more and more opportunities to make more money online and be our own bosses quicker. So do you believe in college and the cost of college? And how do you view our children's future going forward as a small business owner? I've actually had arguments with my wife about this.

I still believe that if your child can get into a good college, it's worth going just for the networking alone. So I went to Stanford and I have all these buddies that are super successful now. They start large companies or they're heads of other companies or they work with a lot of famous people.

So I think it's important to have those connections. And I think I developed socially a lot in college so I still think it's important. In terms of making money, which is probably what you were getting at, right? Or just the expectations. So you're going to Stanford. Do you have expectations for them to go to Stanford?

What if they don't go to Stanford? What if they go to Chico State? I'm cool with that as long as Chico State, I hope none of your listeners are. Or San Jose State. Good schools but it's not Stanford. Yeah. I'm not going to let that happen. But you're just saying hypothetically if it does happen?

I'm just thinking about expectations, right? So I feel the irony of making a lot of money or going to a top school. I mean, all parents want upward mobility for our children, a better life for our children. But if you go to a top 10 school or a top 1% school, the chances of them getting into a top 1% school is much more difficult.

The more money you make, the chances of them making the same amount or more will be much more difficult as well. So I'm just trying to understand how you think about expectations for your children given where you are. I mean, it's hard to put expectations. I've become a lot more lax over the years.

But like let's use your Chico State example. If that was the case, if that was the only school they got into, I would probably have them go to community college for a year and then transfer to like a UCLA or something like that. UCLA's acceptance rate is like 5%.

It's impossible to get. It is. But if you go to community college first, the acceptance rate is actually much, much higher for transfers from community college specifically. We have a college coach. Yeah? Did she give any percentage rates for the acceptance rates from community college? No. Actually, it's more of a planner right now, like what classes to take, the key points you should focus on.

I know the acceptance rates are low. And I feel like I have a lot of friends who have kids that are applying to college right now, and it seems to be random for UCs especially. Like it's almost like a lottery system. There's this one kid who had top scores, top SAT scores, everything.

They got rejected from everywhere except for Riverside whereas they got into some Ivy League schools. Oh, cool. So it just doesn't make sense for the UCs right now at least. I mean, yeah. I mean, it sounds like you're focused because you hired... How old are your kids? They're teenagers.

Okay. So you hired someone to guide them in the high school path? Yeah. Yeah. Like I don't mess around. I mean, I hired a book coach to help launch my book, right? Yeah. So we are instilling entrepreneurship in my kids. So my wife has been running the entrepreneurship program at their school the last couple of years.

And so my kids actually started their own print on demand store when they were nine and 11. Oh, nice. And my daughter is on her second store right now selling her own handmade jewelry. So those businesses make money for them and they're happy with it. I don't want it to do too well per se.

I always believe in having multiple paths. So if college doesn't work out or whatever they want to do, then they always have entrepreneurship and everything to fall back on and vice versa. Yeah. Well, that's kind of one of the points I was getting at because the more entrepreneurial you are, it feels to me like at least in the Bay Area, the less emphasis you have on college because why go to college and learn liberal arts and be a well-rounded person and all that when you can find a business, find what you love and then make money and be free, like go directly to entrepreneurship.

So if I were to have my druthers, I would have them go to school and start a business while they're in college. Yeah, that'd be good. You can kind of hedge and discover yourself and get the best of both worlds. I mean, I got a lot out of college.

I would definitely go back 100% regardless of any money. Have you been donating regularly to be in the pool of consideration for alumni donors? I mean, I don't think it really matters. I mean, I think it matters to be consistent, but I don't think the dollar amount really matters unless you get into the millions, I think.

And we're definitely not doing that. Yeah, it's fascinating to me because with all the entire college bribery scandal, most of the schools were private schools where you can manipulate how your kid looks easier with dollars and you can bribe through the front, but I guess they got caught bribing through the back door.

But with the public schools, they're very specific. There's no face-to-face interviews. It's very hard to bribe your way into public schools like the UC school system. And I feel that there is a little shift in perception, at least from the hiring managers that I've spoken to regarding hiring people from private universities because there's this kind of like this asterisk.

Like, okay, are you a child of an alumni who went to that private university? Did you donate? The acceptance rate is like 40% for the children of alumni and donors and faculty. And so there's this whole talk about meritocracy. I mean, what are your thoughts about that and meritocracy as it pertains to entrepreneurship, which I think is a highly correlated thing as opposed to getting to college maybe and getting a day job?

Can you rephrase that question? What do you mean? I guess my thought from you is, do you believe meritocracy is declining? Or how important is it meritocracy in terms of building your business, getting ahead? People who have a huge network versus people who don't have a network. Do the people who don't have a network, can they succeed just as easily?

I mean, they can definitely succeed, but it always helps to have a network, right? I mean, let's take launch in this book, for example. I would not have been able to do it without the help of my network and my connections, right? Same with business, same with blogging, right?

We've been blogging for a long time. At least in the early beginning, we used to all help each other get ahead, linking to each other, promoting each other. So it definitely helps for sure. Is it required? No. But over time, you just kind of naturally develop that network. Now, in terms of getting a job, I've talked to my friends who are still engineering managers and they don't care about the school so much.

Having a good school might get you the interview, but you still have to pass the technical part, which is the most important part. And they've hired people who've never gone to college. And this is for engineering, just to be clear, though. They've hired people that have no education, but they're fantastic at what they do.

Yeah, it's interesting because that would align more closely to meritocracy. You get hired based on what you know and what you can do, not so much who you know and your identity, right? And so I think about that a lot because as an Asian American person, it does feel like the standards for test scores and grades are higher.

And the reason why is because there's a higher representation of the Asian minority in colleges and in these well-paying jobs. And so I just think about that for the future of our children. And I'm just wondering how you think about that for the future of your children. I mean, I think our children are going to be lucky also because we have a network, so it's going to be a combination of meritocracy and network, right?

I mean, what I'm trying to instill in them is that you've got to work for it and you've got to ask for what you want because that's not the way I was brought up. I was brought up that if you work hard, put your head down, you'll be recognized and you'll get promoted.

And in my job, at least, when I used to work, that was not the case. I used to work hard and I wasn't getting really promoted. I wasn't getting the raises that I wanted until I started asking for them. And then what was funny is once I had these businesses and I was already making like eight to 10x what I was making at work, I stopped caring and I started getting cocky.

And at meetings I'd be like to my boss, I'd be like, "Hey, I think your idea is dumb. I don't think this is going to work at all." And only then did I start getting higher raises and getting promoted. It was like the weirdest thing. Interesting. Yeah, be more assertive.

Be more aggressive. Don't believe that just doing good work will help you get recognized and promoted. It's like the squeaky wheel, right? It's the grease. Yeah. Yeah. I believe that as well. Especially, I mean, that's kind of like the benefit of having that side income or financial independence is that the more you make, the more you can be true to yourself, the more you can speak up against things you don't believe in without fear of getting crushed financially or getting blackballed, frankly.

I remember at work, I worked in finance and it was a club. And so if your boss spoke Korean, you should probably understand Korean culture. If she liked Premier League soccer, you better know all the players on her favorite team. And even if you didn't really care, that's just kind of how things worked.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's the case for anything, really. You have to be personable. You have to be able to get along with people. And in business, at least, I'd say that's like half the battle. In your business, though, do you think so? Because if you produce great products, you're assertive.

Oh, you're talking about the linens business. I'm talking about... Okay, sorry. Let me talk about the linens business. In the linens business, when it comes to partnering with other companies, I would say that's the case. We used to do these group giveaways where you and a collection of other companies that have the same target customer but don't directly compete with each other, we would each contribute a gift card and do a group giveaway where we would all blast our lists and at the end, we all keep the emails.

Oh, that's good. Yeah, to quickly grow the email list. But in order to get those deals, you got to be able to talk to these other companies and be aligned so that they even agree to do this with you. That's just one example. Or in order to just get any sort of publicity, like when we got on the Today Show, that was a combination of people's skills as well as just being out there with content.

How did you get on the Today Show? Yeah, so they found us through Google, I think, because we had written articles that had ranked and then they were interested in our products and we just kind of hopped on the phone a little bit and we went back and forth, sent them products and they're like, "Hey, I'd like to feature you." Yeah.

Cool. So being in it to win it, because if you last long enough, something eventually good will happen. And it seems like grit and just staying with it is very important. You have another business where you teach people how to be e-commerce owners, yes? Yes, that's correct. And what percentage of the people who pay to learn how to be an e-commerce store owner stop doing the work after three, six months, 12 months, 24 months?

I mean, I don't have that data, but most people don't follow through, right? I can tell you this. I've done a survey in the past where the people who have stuck with it for at least a year and have launched, 59% of them go on to make at least four figures a month and then 10% of those make at least 50K a month.

But you have to get through that first year. Yeah. So four figures, so like 1,000 to 9,000. Yeah, exactly. And so when people, if I heard that, let's say I went to community college, free community college, and I didn't go to a top 50 university and like 60% earn between 1,000 to the $9,000, let's say it's 1,000 to $3,000 a month.

Why wouldn't I just do that? Why wouldn't I just continue if I had no other options? Why quit? If you have no other options, then yeah. Or even if I had options, but I was like not in my ideal job, I was making enough to pay my rent. But if I could boost my income by 12,000 to 60,000 a year, why would I ever quit?

Why do people quit? Quit their jobs or quit the business? What do you mean? Quit the business. Oh, quit the business. Quit a new endeavor that seems obvious that there's a high correlation with duration, effort, and reward. I mean, the answer is they shouldn't. The way I always teach it is you should do this on the side while you're working, mainly because you don't want to be making boneheaded decisions based on not having enough money.

Let's say you need this tool. You don't want to be like, "Oh, I can't afford this tool," when in fact this tool is very crucial to the success of your business. But yeah, I'm a full believer in that you should do both. Then once your side hustle starts taking off, get a little bit cocky at work, and then maybe quit.

Or ask for a raise and a promotion. Exactly. It also depends on the upward mobility of your job. With my engineering job, I became a director, and I probably could have become a VP if I stayed. It's just a question of whether it's worth it. Let's say you are in retail as a clerk.

Well, maybe the upward mobility wouldn't be as good, and it wouldn't make any sense at all to stay at that job. Well, right. I would think that the less upward mobility you have at your job and the lower you make at your day job, the more you should try to do this e-commerce store or any type of side business and not quit.

Absolutely. I would argue that even if you are in a white-collar job, you should do it also. Look at where we are right now, Sam. I have a whole bunch of friends at Facebook, Google, and Amazon that have all gotten laid off. Now, they're actually having problems finding a job because when you have like 30,000 people looking for a job, it's actually hard to get one.

I'm trying to figure out what is that right message to encourage people not to quit. One of the things that I tell my readers is to try to forecast your misery because when you get your job, you graduate college, you'll be happy, and you'll be like, "Oh, I'm going to be here for the next 10, 20 years." But if you do anything long enough, it starts to get mundane, and bad things and good things happen to you over the course of your life.

What is that one or two messages that you can encourage people not to quit? What do you tell your kids? Not to quit their jobs or the business, just to be clear. Just not to quit any type of endeavor that sees a positive correlation with effort and duration. I haven't had that problem if there's a positive correlation.

Most people quit when they don't see any results. The problem with business is you might be working hard. Let's take my blog, for example. I didn't make any meaningful money until probably the three-year mark. Those first three years were a slog. I was writing these blog posts and whatnot.

People weren't reading it. I wasn't making any money at all. But isn't that an example of not seeing progress? How do you break through that? How do you encourage people to continue without seeing that progress? I think it's all about expectations. If you go into a business, for example, with the expectation that you're going to make money within three months, and three months passes and nothing happens, you're probably going to quit.

But if you go in with the expectation that this could take three to five years, then you know. I went into my blog saying, "Hey, I'm not going to stop this forever." I set aside a routine where I write every single week. I'm not sure how you do this, Sam, but I have a day where I do all this.

I'm just used to doing it now forever. That's something I'm just going to maintain. With the e-commerce store, you should probably expect to see results in a year, year and a half, maybe two. If you haven't gotten your first sale after a year, something is wrong. Hopefully, you get that first quick win that encourages you to go on.

That's the problem with my kids. Let's just take volleyball, since they're playing club volleyball right now. When they first started volleyball, they sucked at it, right? Of course, they never played. They didn't want to play anymore because they sucked at it. It was my job, I felt, to work with them to the point where I pushed them over the hump, where they were just good, where they were confident.

Now, I don't do anything. They just go off on their own and play. What would the three key variables be attributed to for a successful e-commerce business? Like search engine, networking, what are the three variables? It really just depends on what you sell. I would say this. If you're selling something online, it's not really about the product so much because everything is a commodity.

There's very few products that are brand new. People sell clothes, jewelry. It's all been done before. What's more important is that you evoke some sort of emotion. The best example I can think of is Dr. Squatch. Have you heard of Dr. Squatch? No. They sell soap. They sell men's soap.

You can get soap anywhere. It's the biggest commodity ever. The way they sell it, though, is clever. If you watch any of their ads, you'll notice it's always a girl and a guy. The girl is always like, "Oh, my God. You smell so good. I want to jump you right now." They're not really selling soap.

They're selling sex. There's this book called Cashvertising where he talks about the life force eight. These are the eight emotions that you must evoke and you can sell anything. There's protection of loved ones, keeping up with the Joneses, looking superior to others. Sex is one of those. If you can portray your product and evoke one of those emotions, you can sell anything.

Awesome. I'm going to get more emotional in my posts in the future. Your posts are already emotional, man. When I read your stuff, you're always right on the edge of controversy and that evokes emotions. That's why your blog does so well. I'm just trying to write the truth about all the things that we experience and feel because not everything is always hunky-dory.

There's a great saying, "Hell is other people," because there's always conflict. The reason why there's conflict is because not everybody gets along and everybody has different opinions. I just find it fascinating. I will keep that in mind, the emotions. I'll be more emotional. It's interesting. I do want to talk about your book because you have written a new book, The Family First Entrepreneur.

That's correct. Who is your publisher? Harper Collins. Awesome. How did you get that book deal? It was painful, actually. I had to write a proposal. That took about a year. I don't know if you went through it. No, they came to you. Yeah. They just emailed me out of the blue, "You want to write a book?" People like me, we have to actually apply.

We don't get approached. Maybe you wouldn't have to apply. You could have just done your thing and then it would have come out of the blue, too, just like the Today Show. That's true. I have gotten book offers in the past, but I never took them seriously because I said, "Okay, yeah," and then they still made me write the book proposal.

They said, "I want to offer you a book deal, but you got to write a book proposal?" What kind of pitch is that? Basically, you got to come up with a table of contents, how many books you can write in a sample chapter. I think that's pretty much what it is.

That's what I had to do. Then I hired an agent, and then the agent shopped it around to all the big publishers. It's kind of like selling a house. You set a date, everyone places a bid, and then you choose who you want to go with. Once you hired that agent, how long did it take for you to get that book deal?

Did you have more than one? You got a book deal immediately after you got an agent? Well, it depends what your definition of immediate is, but I basically had meetings with all the big, fine publishers. A number of meetings, usually like an hour long, and we'd get to know the editors and just make sure we're aligned.

Then at the end, they all put in a bid, and then you pick who you want to work with. You had multiple offers? Yeah. Oh, that's good. That's actually positive for sure for having a literary agent because you can shop it around. Generally, when you have multiple offers, you get the highest amount of money at least.

Correct. The downside is that you have to pay your agent. Yeah, 15% or something, whatever it is. Yeah, it's interesting. I didn't go with an agent because an editor from Portfolio Penguin came straight to me, and then I basically talked to other authors and tried to understand how they did it, and then I just negotiated upward.

In retrospect, I probably left money on the table, but it's not a lot of money to begin with. Money's not important. Right? Yeah. If you were a competitor, you could have gone back and forth. Yeah, exactly. I couldn't even get an agent. I tried 10 years ago, and I failed after 25 submissions.

Interesting. Yeah, but it was 10 years ago. I decided to screw that. I'm just going to write my own book myself, which is about how to negotiate a severance. Let's talk more about your book. Why did you decide to take on this endeavor, and how long did it take you to write this book?

Yeah, so I wrote this book mainly because I feel like most of the entrepreneurship advice given out there just doesn't apply to me. If you look on YouTube, I'm sure you guys have seen the ads, there's always these single dudes who have all the time in the world, they have no responsibilities, and they can work 68 hours a week.

That's not my life. I got two kids, and I actually want to spend time with them. Everything that you learn around the web doesn't apply to a lot of people. You don't actually have to work 68 hours a week if all you want to do is make a couple million dollars.

Like my life today, I work about 20 hours a week. I run two seven-figure businesses. It can be done. You just have to be very deliberate about it, understand your priorities, and then automate as much as you can. To answer your second question, Sam, it took me three years to write the book.

Who is the target audience for your book? What would be the ideal audience? I think it's really just people who want to achieve financial freedom, and whether they're not happy with their life or they want to spend more time with their loved ones, or they just want to do something that they want.

Because what I found, at least with my audience, is that most people aren't looking to start a $100 million company or an Amazon or a Facebook. They just want to do what they want. If all you want to do, let's say, is make a few million dollars or even $100,000 or whatnot, you don't have to work 68 hours a week to make that happen.

Let's talk about probabilities because I really like talking about the probability of something happening. Let's say I read your book, The Family First Entrepreneur. What do you think is the probability that I could recreate that lifestyle of working 20 hours a week, having two children, and then making $300,000 a year?

Let's not talk about millions. It was about $300,000 within three years. Within three years? Okay. Here's what I always say. Three years is kind of like this weird in-between number, Sam, that you just chose. I would say if you want to make money within one year or just around that time frame, I think you really need to be selling something.

That's where e-commerce comes into play. There's a direct transaction. If you have a longer time frame, and when I say longer, three to five years, I think content is the way to go. I speak from my own experience. I just recently released a YouTube channel. By recent, I mean three years ago.

It took me three years, but now it's going to generate probably $300,000 just in ads just this year. It took me three years to get there. The first two years were actually quite painful because no one was watching, and I wasn't making that much. What's weird about content is that it's slow, and then all of a sudden, it spikes up.

E-commerce is different. There's a direct transaction from the beginning you're making money. You probably won't see exponential growth after a while, but it's pretty linear. If you do everything correctly, and you establish a strong repeat customer base, and you just kind of build gradually every year, you can make it happen.

Your three-year number is kind of weird, but I would say if you go in thinking that you're going to do this forever, I'm pretty sure your chances are going to be super high no matter what you do. It's all about perseverance. Yeah, it's back to perseverance because it does seem like you can't fail if you don't quit.

Again, I see quitting or quitters all the time, and it's just so sad. Yeah. Okay. It is, but Sam, I don't know how you were brought up, but I was brought up to kind of get used to suffering. What I mean by that is just doing drudgery, drudge work, and that sort of thing.

I studied for the SATs when I was in the fourth grade, and while my friends were out playing, I was sitting there studying vocab. Is that you or is your parents pushing you? My parents pushed me because they wanted me to take it so I could get into this nerd camp.

I don't know if you guys have heard of CTY, but you had to get— What does CTY stand for? Stands for Center for Talented Youth. Oh, okay. Yeah. The way you get in is you get, I think, like a thousand on your SATs when you're in fifth grade. That's why I studied for them in fourth grade.

Yeah, my good buddy, he ended up going to Cooper Union when it was free. He got a 1600 on his SAT. I'm trying to understand what percentage would it be genetics and nurture? How much is it, do you think, is you're born with the ability to score high on your SAT or it's because you studied for it?

I mean, the SATs is irrelevant, I think, in this case, right? I think that what's more relevant is what your work ethic is going to be. I think that's something that is kind of developed. But I would say 99.9% of families out there are not studying for the—pushing their kids to study for SAT in fourth grade.

That's correct. Yes, I agree. Therefore, you got to give me a percentage here. Out of 100%, what do you think is genetics and what do you think is nurture? Just in terms of SAT? Just as a T for the example. I mean, here's what I believe. I believe everyone is born with a certain—let's call it like a microprocessor.

That's what I used to do, like your CPU on your computer, right? You might be able to pick up certain things faster or you might learn slower than everyone else. Sure. So that just determines your speed at which you pick things up. So again, this is where time comes in, right?

If you're super quick, like you have a super fast CPU, you can pick up things way faster than other people. But, given enough time and effort, you can be just like everyone else. It's just going to take you a little bit longer. Okay. So I'm still looking for that percentage.

What do you think is genetic out of 100%? Out of 100% for the SATs? Yes, SATs, standardized test scores. Give me some other parameters. That's like asking— There's only two parameters, genetics or how hard you're pushed in your environment. I'd say it's half then, if no other parameters. Half.

Interesting. I think it's more like 70%. 70% genetics. Really? We're born with our personalities, for example. Look at your kid's personality when they were three years old or two years old or one years old and compare their personality then to now. Has it changed much? Actually, my kids have surprised me because in elementary school, when one of my kids couldn't get any assignments done, waited until the last minute.

Now that they're in high school, much more diligent now and really on top of things. I was worried for a while, but they got it together. Diligent. But what about personality, like spunk and joy or moodiness? Okay. I'll give you another example with that. We purposely signed our daughter up to this all-girls school that is designed to—there are no boys.

Boys always get in the way, right? It's designed to empower you as a female. Before she went to that school, she was super shy. How old was she when she went to the school? Sixth grade. What is that? Twelve, thirteen, something like that. After being in that environment, she's a lot more assertive now.

I've seen it both ways. Her fundamental personality probably hasn't changed, maybe. I don't know. But she's certainly gotten more assertive. I think that's the 30%. That's the environment. You're putting her in this environment. Did you make them study for the SATs in fourth grade? No, because the SATs are going away.

But you have this optionality. Why not? We had them study vocab, but not taking the practice test like I used to do. Oh, you're getting soft in your riches. I used to take a practice test every single week. You know what we're doing instead, Sam? I think this is way more important.

Let's talk about college. What's more important is that you stand out. Everyone takes SATs. Everyone has grades, right? But my daughter is going to be working on her own course that teaches people how to start their own business. You just need to stand out, really. You just need to do something different than everyone else.

I have a friend who wanted their kid to be an athlete, but all the major sports are super difficult. So they chose fencing. And she's a top fencer. That's smart. I was thinking about Cru being the coxswain. You've got to get the beat going. What I get from this conversation is that you're very deliberate.

There's a very deliberate intentionality to what you do. From doing your book proposal, to hiring the agent, to meeting with all the publishers, to pitting them against each other. It seems like being deliberate and having that plan is a big part of having a successful business, book, life. What do you think?

Here's what I believe, Sam. If you're going to do something, you may as well put in the effort to do it right to the best of your ability. And whatever happens, happens. Who knows what's going to happen with this book? But I put a lot of effort into marketing this book.

And let's say it doesn't hit the best seller list. That's my goal, is to hit the best seller list. But let's say it doesn't happen. I know deep in my heart that I did everything that I could to hit it. And if I don't hit it, I can sleep at night.

So this is the way that I think everyone should do things. Don't half-ass it. Right. What do you think is better? Would you rather let's say your kids get into a top 10 school and then your book doesn't get on the best seller list or they get into a top 50 school and your book becomes a huge best seller?

Oh, I don't care about the book that much. Like if they get into a top 10 school, yeah. The book doesn't matter. The book is an ego play, Sam. Is it going to change my life? No. Did hitting the best seller list change your life in any way? I felt very proud to make the Wall Street Journal best seller list and other lists.

I did feel proud because 2020, 2021, and 2022 were difficult years because of the pandemic. And writing the book for me was a way to say, "Screw you," to the pandemic. But I've been off the grid for a while. I don't have YouTube. I'm not out there. I'm not speaking.

And so I didn't understand the importance actually of status and being proud of your work for a while because I left in 2012. And I only understood the importance of having some status when my kids got rejected from every single preschool they applied to in San Francisco. And there were six because when you're applying to preschool, you're not evaluating the kid, although a couple of schools had play dates.

They're evaluating the parents. It's literally 95% the parents. Because I said, "Oh, if it costs $75 to $100 to apply to preschool, I might as well apply to the most exclusive preschools in San Francisco and see how I do." And I got rejected from all of them except for one which wasn't part of the exclusive list.

And then my buddy who's a CEO and he's worth a lot of money and he's been profiled by major outlets and everything, he was asking me for advice. And I said, "Oh, buddy, for you, maybe you'll have a 30% hit rate because there's a lottery system. There's a lottery system so you're supposedly not able to game the system." But anyways, he applied to four of the top preschools in San Francisco and he got into all four even if it was a lottery.

So when you're asking me, "Did making that Wall Street Journal bestseller list or national bestseller list matter?" To me, it actually did because I was so far down in terms of getting any kind of accolades or any kind of recognition. So to me, I was like, "Oh, this actually feels pretty good." But it only felt really good for maybe a month or something and then it's like back to the normal day-to-day.

>> I'll tell you for me, my mom has never really read anything that I've ever done or watched any videos or anything. But when I told her I was writing a book, she got all excited. >> Yeah. I mean, to make our parents proud, I hope you dedicated to maybe one of them.

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're in the plan. Take that. >> I'm assuming you can buy the book. When does it come out? >> It comes out May 16th. The best way to get it actually is mainly because I'm giving away a lot of bonuses is to go over to thefamilyfirstentrepreneur.com.

You can get the book anywhere. But if you want the bonuses, and the bonuses are pretty cool, a three-day workshop on how to get started in e-com, a two-day workshop on how to make money with content, whether that be YouTube, blogging, or podcasting. And I'm also doing this six-week interactive challenge where I'm going to be in a Facebook group live with you all and help you figure out what your site also should be.

>> See, you're very intentional. You got the bonuses. >> Very intentional. >> I mean, and that's really good. It really is the message that I hope many of the listeners, every listener comes away with. Because when I was doing it, I was not very intentional. I was like, "I got to write this book.

I don't have a book coach, nothing." But I just kind of went on the Internet. But to be intentional, to pay for things that can add a lot of value, I think will really help people. Don't be too parsimonious, folks, and wanting just everything for free. Actually, spend money to go out there and get that education because it'll pay back multiple fold over time.

Steve, before I let you go, what is one thing I should have asked you but I haven't, or one thing you want to leave before we go? >> All right. This is what I believe, and we've been kind of chatting about this the entire time. But if you don't have a side hustle, or if you're depending on all of your money or salary based on one thing, whether that be a job or even a business, or even if you already have a business and you're depending on all your revenue for that one thing, I really think you always have to have something else on the side.

Because I've just seen it time and time and again. I actually just recently had a conversation with a buddy who just started paying college tuition for this private school, and he was stretching. And you know, the economy has been really good for as long as I can remember. And he was like, "Oh, don't worry.

I can make it. I'm barely skipping by, but I can do it." And then he lost his job. And now he's debating whether to pull his kid out of college because, you know, it's a private school and it's like $60,000, $70,000 a year. So what do you do in that situation?

But if he had something going on the side, maybe he wouldn't be in such dire straits. Now, tell me more about this situation because, you know, you're 48. So I'm assuming your buddy is in their 40s. 40s, yep. But at 48, you've had 25 to 28 years of work experience post-college to save and invest.

And if he's your buddy, he's probably at least medium intelligence who plans ahead. So how did your buddy end up in this situation? Because clearly he knows the cost of college and he plans ahead. So tell me more. Okay. So the problem with this area that we live in, Sam, is that people tend to overspend on their houses.

So even though this person is very intelligent, they... Well, I don't want to blame the wife, but let's just say that they overextended on their house. Okay. They have a sweet house though, at least? Sweet house. At least at Living Laurent, yeah. But kind of at a bad time, you know, the timing just wasn't good.

Okay. Sweet house though. And the mortgage is just gigantic, really. Almost uncomfortably so. And they spent a lot of their money on that. And in the Bay Area, in the past, real estate has always gone up and to the right. Always. And now that it's kind of stagnated, like in my area, I don't know about yours, but it's dropped maybe 20%.

20%? No. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's your area? Mountain View. Mountain View? No. Maybe 10, 15%. From the peak? No, no, no. I follow it very closely. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, if you put all of your money on a down payment and you have this insane mortgage and you're like, "Ah, things are going well." And let's say a large part of your income is a bonus that you depend on getting every single year.

And all of a sudden you don't get the bonus and then all of a sudden you get laid off. You got debt. So not enough cash buffer? Not enough cash buffer. Definitely not. And they don't have as much passive income as you have, Sam, for sure. You know, it's interesting.

I wonder how much of a bubble I live in, we live in, in terms of thinking about our finances and being intentional. Because the last thing I wanted was to work forever given I worked in finance and it was like 60 plus hours a week and a lot of stress.

So rationally, I would save and invest and try to figure it out. So maybe they were also rational in the sense that they experienced a 10-year bull market, life at big tech is pretty comfortable, relatively easy, and they just got caught by surprise. But they went through the global financial crisis in 2008 given they're 48 years old.

Yeah. I don't obviously know this person's finances. I just know we had this conversation. And I also do know that a lot of people here stretch big time, mainly for their home. And I also know that I'm super conservative. I don't believe in taking a huge mortgage. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

Whereas let's take in the business space. I have friends that are just kind of leveraged to the hilt for their businesses. They take out loans for inventory for their e-commerce businesses. And it's all based on prior history. Everything's been good up until now because they haven't experienced really something really bad happening just yet.

This is why I don't know if FIRE people listen to your podcast, but I used to chuckle all the time with these FIRE guys going, "Hey, yeah, I can retire with this portfolio." Because you haven't lived through a downturn where all your stocks from portfolio goes to junk. And I've lived through probably three of them at this point, right?

So how much is, I guess in conclusion, if you could put a net worth figure, how much is enough for you? How much is enough for me? I would say 20 million would be great. 20 million. What's your number? Well, I did a survey, 10,000 people, and I asked them, "What is the ideal number to retire?" Oh, the ideal number or what I want?

Right away, ideal number or what do you want? And that number was 10 million, but that survey was done a couple of years ago. So you add on inflation, maybe that number is 12 million now. Right. So I feel like my indication is go to where the estate tax threshold is.

So in 2023, the estate tax threshold is 12.92 million per person. So if you can accumulate up to that and die, you don't have to pay 40% estate tax, death tax. But then if you cut that estate tax threshold down to 5 million, then I think that ideal number is maybe 5 million if you have that cash flow.

I mean, obviously it depends on where you live. So I'm kind of going with the wisdom of the government and how they're going to tax you once you die. So yeah. So your number is 25 million approximately with your wife? So I would say per person, 12.92. I'm just following the estate tax threshold.

I mean, I don't, that's weird. I've never heard someone answer like that because I don't care when I die. I mean, it's not my problem. Well, that's not the intention, Steve, that I know. No, I have a trust. Do you have a trust? You have a trust, right? We created some trust.

Yeah. So you have to be intentional with that because the 40% tax after all that effort would be a shame to pay. When you're dead, it doesn't matter. And I actually don't want my kids to have a certain windfall money. So they're actually not getting it until much later.

And this has to do again with motivation. Like a lot of things I did, like what I've started my business, if I wasn't motivated to make up for that money that my wife quit, who knows? Maybe not. Because I'd been talking about it for a long time before that happened.

Well, yeah. Seven years before you left your job. Well, no, no. I mean, before we started Bumble Bee Linens, we were always talking about starting a business, but we never did until something happened where we had to do it. Right. And then once she started, it took, it was seven years until you left, right?

Until I left. But my backup plan was the blog. That was my retirement plan. Yeah. Yeah. Well, cool. So. Well, great. It's been great chatting with you for the past hour. I hope listeners got a lot of value out of this. Check out my wife quit her job and Steve's new book, The Family First Entrepreneur.

And I'll speak to everyone later. Thanks so much, Steve. Thanks for having me, Sam.