The Agent Podcast - Episode 77 - Daniel Blue - Giving Yourself Permission to Begin Again
[00:00:00] Daniel Blue: So, I hung out with the wrong crowd and this, this crowd introduced me to Oxycodone and me just, I just got a hook, man. It was, it was something that, you know, allowed me to not live and forget. You know, my, my adversity and it was a really dark time and with Wild Raymond is, you know, for those who don't know, Oxycontin is heroin form of a pill.
[00:00:24] Daniel Blue: So, it's super addicting, but it's, it's really expensive, you know, spending about $60 a pill, and I wanted a day. You can see why I lost my house, right? My mortgage is $1,400 a month back in oh eight, and it's like, do I pay my house billed mortgage or do I get drugs? That's a no brainer, right? When you're a druggie.
[00:00:53] Ray Sjolseth: Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Agent Podcast.
[00:00:56] Ray Sjolseth: Today I'm here with my buddy Daniel Blue out of Las Vegas, Nevada. [00:01:00] Daniel, welcome to
[00:01:00] Daniel Blue: the show, Raymond. Thank you for having me. Stok to be
[00:01:03] Ray Sjolseth: here. Yeah, I'm glad you're here, man. I'm glad we finally connected. So, Daniel, normally I ask why real estate? But you have a very different background where it starts.
[00:01:14] Daniel Blue: Man, it started I would say when I was 18. When I was 18. I'll tie this back to why Real estate. Sure. When I was 18, I ended up getting a woman pregnant, got addicted to Oxycontin, and I dropped out of college, and I had no idea what I wanted in my life. I know I should have gone to school. You know, that was what Heidi told me to do.
[00:01:35] Daniel Blue: So, I signed up for Dixie State College out in this small little town called St. George, Utah. You've ever been to Zion National Park? It's beautiful out there. St. George, about an hour away. So, I was just aimlessly walking through life, trying to figure things out. Obviously really scared about having a kid.
[00:01:52] Daniel Blue: And around the same time, I, I got introduced to sales. I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grow up, you know, I was growing. I [00:02:00] did know I didn't want to live paycheck, paycheck. My parents got divorced when I was 12. My dad moved to Mexico and all the sudden it was just my mom and I and my mom struggled financially.
[00:02:10] Daniel Blue: We lived in California, high-cost living. She's busting her butt trying to make ends meet. And just financially we, we hit time. So, I just remember thinking like, I don't want to live paycheck, paycheck forever. Like, I, I, there's got to be a better way. And I just remember growing up I was like; I can just make a hundred grand.
[00:02:29] Daniel Blue: I can just make six figures. I'm going to take care of you. Mama, mama. We made it right. And you know, it's just so naive to think that way. But going back to real estate, I actually made some really good money in sales at 18 and this was oh eight and I bought a house. I'm like, Okay, I'll make six figures.
[00:02:47] Daniel Blue: Going to buy a house, and if you probably know where the end of the story is, is, is coming to right before the market took a crap, right? So I bought a house not thinking about really good questions. When you buy an asset, how long did I want to hold this asset? What's my exit strategy? What, what, what's the goal with this asset?
[00:03:08] Daniel Blue: I didn't ask me this question. I just bought it, and I lost a house. Right? You know, the market took the crap no night and I lost my house. It didn't help. I was, you know, Dick Cotton during this time. So that was my worst investment ever, but my best one because it, it taught and you know, that's the game of life frame, right?
[00:03:27] Daniel Blue: We live, and we learn, and I've made a ton of mistakes that try to get better.
[00:03:30] Ray Sjolseth: So, can we back up and unpack something that's the addicted to Oxy? That's a big epidemic, right? In the world in life Addiction itself is a whole conversation. How did you push through that and reinvent yourself, for lack of a better term?
[00:03:54] Daniel Blue: Well, let's go to the root. Okay. Usually when we go to a [00:04:00] vice consistently, right, alcohol bugs, right? There's a lot of addiction out there. There's usually a root and there's an issue or something that you haven't uncovered. And I mask a lot of my pain for me was when my dad left when I was. He moved to a different country.
[00:04:17] Daniel Blue: We were really close. So, when he left, it broke my heart because I didn't know why he left and why he never back. So, it was hard for me to forgive him, and I held on to a lot of resent. Which led me to make bad choices in my teenage years. And then eventually when I was 18, you know, I'm, I'm looking at other people to try to influence me because I lack that father figure my life.
[00:04:35] Daniel Blue: So, I hung out with the wrong crowd and this, this crowd introduced me to Oxycodone and me just, I just got a hook, man. It was, it was something that, you know, allowed me to not live in reality and forget. My adversity and it was a really dark time and with Wild Raymond is, you know, for those who don't know, Oxycodone is heroin form of a pill.
[00:04:58] Daniel Blue: So it's super addicting, but it's, it's really expensive, you know, spending about $60 a pill, and I wanted a day. You can see why I lost my house, right? My mortgage is $1,400 a month back in oh eight, and it's like, do I pay my house billed mortgage or do I get drugs? That's a no brainer, right? When you're a druggie.
[00:05:15] Daniel Blue: And so, I try to get clean for a number of years. From, oh, end of oh seven to oh nine is when I used, I've been clean since oh night. But those two years is where some of my darkest times. And you know, there's a rock bottom point when we hit a low below there. It's got to be something that allows us to balance back or just further spiral.
[00:05:36] Daniel Blue: Now we're just going through the motions and, you know, we, we don't make that comeback. And God willing, I made that comeback when I had my daughter.
[00:05:44] Daniel Blue: I had my daughter when I was. At 18 turned 19 had my baby. And I was in such a dark place that you, I wasn't at the hospital and being born.
[00:05:53] Daniel Blue: Our fellow was born I was still used to. And you know, that's, that's part of my story, part of many mistakes that I, that I've made, I've learned from. But it's my truth. And that's what allowed me to get finally clean. I remember holding my daughter two weeks. And I remember holding her, and I immediately thought about my dad.
[00:06:10] Daniel Blue: I'm like, you know what? My dad was a jerk, and he made some really bad decisions and hurt me, but I, got to forgive him. And I immediately turned my, my perspective to gratitude. Like gratitude's a word you'd see a lot, right? You're scrolling on Instagram, gratitude is attitude, this, this, and that, right?
[00:06:26] Daniel Blue: Like, that's cool. Like, how deep can you go? And I won't really beat that day. I remember thinking, you know what? I'm grateful that I had my dad. When I was born at 12 years old, I'm grateful that he was my soccer coach. I'm grateful that he was a stud dad. Like I'm grateful that I even had a dad.
[00:06:42] Daniel Blue: And I'm also grateful that he left because it taught me how to grow up quicker. It got me closer to my mom. I remember having a victim mentality when I was a teenager. I look at my friend, you know, and Brendan has his dad. And how, how come, you know, after friend over here has his dad going to his soccer?
[00:06:59] Daniel Blue: You know, and, and I would come from a place of being a victim. You know, I don't a dad to got to drive, I don't a dad to teach how to put a tie on, talk to girls likes. And it changed all that when I had my daughter cause I'm grateful allowed up. It allowed me to get close. I'm mama's boy and I are ultra-tight and a lot of that was cause of the university we went through together.
[00:07:22] Daniel Blue: And it just gave me so much more wisdom because he left. And I'm really grateful for all of that. And I love him dearly. And, and we talk, you know, these days he still lives in Mexico. But, you know, once I forgave him, it finally gave me a different perspective or I could finally get clean and you know, I was finally able to get clean that year and I haven't turned back.
[00:07:40] Ray Sjolseth: So, you know, one of the hardest things that I've experienced to do is that when you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, they say the first thing to do is stop digging. Right? So, at what point did you realize that you had to stop digging because you were just getting deeper and deeper and deeper?
[00:07:58] Daniel Blue: Actually, in November 2009, it was Thanksgiving and I remember like, it was like yesterday my mom, and I were at the house.
[00:08:06] Daniel Blue: My daughter Bella was there, she was born in February of 2009, so she's been month. And my mom and I are, you know, making Thanksgiving meal and I remember it was like late afternoon. I was like, hey mom, I got to go grab a Red Bull for a monster. Whatever drink was more, We back in oh nine, there's no bang back then, right?
[00:08:25] Daniel Blue: There was no five-hour energy, at least not that I can remember. Bull monster. Anyways, I made up a lie. I was like, I'm going to go the gas station and go. I was a lie. I left the house, and I immediately called my regulars to find pills. I was out that. No one picked up the phone. Imagine that Raymond, All the drug dealers are having Thanksgiving meals with their family.
[00:08:46] Daniel Blue: They're not trying to sell bills, but no one's picking up me. And after a few hours, it's being a scavenger throughout town and trying to figure out where I can get fixed. It got a, where I realized it's like, I'm not going to score. I'm not going to get what I eat. And I remember pulling up back to the house about to walk in and I turned off the ignition, turned off the bar.
[00:09:07] Daniel Blue: And I finally had like a real conversation with myself as far as like, you know, cause at this point I already forgave my dad. I already had Bella, you know, so my heart was softer. I was more receptive. I was at a more sense of awareness at this point. I had more accountability at this point.
[00:09:23] Daniel Blue: So, I think the, I finally had with myself finally resonated where I was like, Dude, what are you doing? Like, you're about to walk in this house and your daughter's six months old and she doesn't know you're a drug. Like you keep saying you want to get clean for her, but dude, you need to do something because if you don't do something now, she's going to be in first grade, she's going to be in middle school, you're going to be graduating high school.
[00:09:44] Daniel Blue: And is this the example that you want to set? You know, my whole thing, Raymond, is, you know, when I had my daughter, I was like, and I don't want to do what I did to my, my daughter, do what my dad did. I want to be that absent father like, you know, I got to break the, the, the chain. You know, I don't want to get divorced for my wife.
[00:10:00] Daniel Blue: I don't want to leave my kid, you know, I wanted to break the cycle. And I just remember it was like, Dude, you're just full of shit. Like you're doing the same thing. So, like, you got to stop now. And I just took that day, I was like, Okay, I am not using today, so I know tomorrow I'm going to withdraw. I know the next day I'm going to withdraw.
[00:10:18] Daniel Blue: Let me just get through these withdrawals and let me just get past this and I know I need to. Out of the city for me to get clean because I wasn't able to get clean. Staying in St. George, I was around the same friends. I had the same people in my phone, in my phone. As far as contacts, like I tried to get clean three or four times.
[00:10:34] Daniel Blue: It just didn't work. So, I knew I needed to change my environment. And guys, if you're in a, in a, in a tough spot right now and you feel like you're not able to really get ahead and you're in a funk, and it's been like that for a while now I encourage you to think about, you know, how long have you been in the same spot that you've lived in?
[00:10:50] Daniel Blue: You know, how long have you been in that city? And sometimes it takes being in a completely different environment to get different results. Now I'm not saying, you know, I'm not advising you to go move [00:11:00] to South Dakota. But maybe a change in environment might help you. And for me, I moved from St. George.
[00:11:05] Daniel Blue: November 2009 to Las Vegas of all places in city. I moved to Las Vegas to be a clean and that change of environment was for me. And you know, I've been clean since oh nine and I
[00:11:16] Ray Sjolseth said haven't looked back. So, one of the questions that I like to ask my guests that have been through a lot of adversity and are very honest and truthful with their journey and where they've been is, what do you do when you don't know what to.
[00:11:30] Ray Sjolseth: When you feel empty or lost, or you don't know whether to go right or left, and you're at, you know, a three-way intersection. What do you do when you don't know what to do? How do you dig deep and how do you find direction?
[00:11:45] Daniel Blue: I think you know what direction you need to go. You're just afraid of going that direct direction because you're afraid of failing and you're probably afraid of failing because you're afraid of what other people are going to.
[00:11:56] Daniel Blue: So, you know what you need to do. Like you're smart, you have life experience, you've made mistakes, you've had some wins, you've done some good things. You might just be on a losing streak right now, but you know what you need to do. And a lot of it's just the fear of the unknown. The fear of what other people are going to think, and you just eventually have to get past your, your excuses, right?
[00:12:20] Daniel Blue: Like that's, that's what I had. I just had excuse. That held me back from being the best person I could have been for. That's why I made a lot of bad choices. I knew when I know what I needed to do. I just had excuses that outweighed my commitment. If you're excuses outweigh your commitment to whatever you want to achieve, then you're going to keep being in that three-way intersection and not know whether to go straight, left or right, you know which way you need to.
[00:12:50] Daniel Blue: But are your excuses going to outweigh your commitments?
[00:12:53] Ray Sjolseth: I love that. I think that's a hundred percent truth. All right, thanks for sharing all that with me. I'd love to hear your journey from 2009 to where you are today and what that looked like and what you're doing today.
[00:13:06] Daniel Blue: Yeah. So funny thing funny. Little story. I'm here in my office in Las Vegas and I, I drove my 2006 Mazda three. It's got 197,000 miles on it. And you know, I'm, super fortunate, right? Like, I'm not, I don't consider myself uber successful. I haven't figured it out, but I'm, I'm blessed to. Pretty business employees.
[00:13:30] Daniel Blue: You know, we're excited about what we're doing here. One, I'm not a big car guy, so like, it's not like I'm driving. I don't like Lamborghini or like that, so I don't know. Wanted I'm going off, this is when I got clean in oh nine. Very first car I bought after that. Was the Mazda degree and I've, I can't let go of it, Raymond, like, you know, I've got other cars that, that I, I love, but I just got to take out the Mazda three a couple times a week.
[00:13:57] Daniel Blue: And it's just a reminder of where I've been and, and it helps me with gratitude. So, when I got done in, in oh nine in St. George, I moved to Las Vegas. I landed a, a sales gig out here. And started just get back on my feet. You know, I, I still made some mistakes. One of the very first mistakes was credit, you know was 20 at the time.
[00:14:17] Daniel Blue: And I'm like, I need credit cards match, you know, and that hurt me because, you know, you buy no better than lot better rate. Like leverage and credit is massive, right? Like credit is a. So, I, I struggled doing some rookie moves. Like if I were to tell myself when I was 18, 19, I would say, build your credit, set up an LLC, you know, maximize your taxes.
[00:14:40] Daniel Blue: So I made some knucklehead decisions on the financial side when I was 20, 21, but I was making pretty solid money in, in sales and, and getting up into leading teams and management, things like that. And I started learning from my statement mistakes. You know, my early twenties, my mid-twenties, I started figuring out the credit game, setting up LLCs, you know, non-point with my, my money.
[00:15:01] Daniel Blue: Started saving money, started investing money. And I was in the real estate sales space and that's where I got introduced to the, the concept behind her. The problem that we solve in the marketplace is we help people access money in their retirement account penalty in factory. And I remember when I was like 20 hearing clients say, Yeah, I just used my 401k to buy this real estate property.
[00:15:24] Daniel Blue: Like, wait, you could do that. So, this concept of using a retirement account outside of stock market was intriguing me. I remember hearing about things cool. And I eventually pivoted from the sales space into the self-directory reading. I was like 23, 24. And I'll be 33 this year. I've been in the space since then.
[00:15:44] Daniel Blue: So, coming up on 10 years and I worked for a company for a number of years. I was blessed to be around a lot of smart people, help me with knowledge. And I got to a point where I had enough money set aside and enough credit set aside and. That's the right word. Confidence slash risk taker slash I'm in Las Vegas.
[00:16:04] Daniel Blue: I think a good analogy is like, let me just put all the chips on the table. I'm like, you know what? I could start this thing on my own. I think I could start a business and three years ago start request education with the, the business model that I've described as far as helping people. The requirement accounts penalty in tax free.
[00:16:22] Daniel Blue: And we, we feel like we're onto something. Cause a lot of people aren't aware that this tool exists.
[00:16:27] Ray Sjolseth: So, what are you doing to educate people? How are you going to market? You know, how are you accessing an audience to show people a different way?
[00:16:36] Daniel Blue: So, we want to attract solo entrepreneurs, people with side hustles, people that have some kind of business activity going on, because then they qualify for what's called a solo 401k.
[00:16:47] Daniel Blue: As long as they don't have any W2 employees. And solo 401k is the vehicle that we really educate a lot of our people on. So we've got a lot of strategic relationships with a lot of awesome affiliates of ours with row [00:17:00] partners. So, we know if we have a relationship with a company that sells business funding.
[00:17:06] Daniel Blue: Then that audience probably would resonate with us, right? Like they're already working with this company to help them get a line of credit or a loan from the bank, the, the flip house, right? So, we've got a lot of different referral partners that will allow us to do what we do. And everything we do is over the phones.
[00:17:23] Daniel Blue: You know, we've got customers in, in all 50 states. I remember we had somebody out of the bay. She was a realtor. So, if you're a realtor and you have 10 99 income and maybe you have an LLC S corp, and as long as there's two employee's business, you, 401k, I think she was either a broker or a realtor. She was making pretty good money, had an IRA at time, and she wanted to use the money in her IRA to invest in real estate.
[00:17:49] Daniel Blue: So she goes to her financial advisor and says, Hey. I want to use a hundred thousand dollars of my money to invest into this real estate deal, and you help me. He's like, no, I can't. And she's like, what [00:18:00] do you mean? She's like, well, you can't do that in this account. Well, I want to do it. He's like, well, you can't do it.
[00:18:05] Daniel Blue: He said, well, I'm just going to take the money out and invest it. This real estate deal ends up doing that. She withdraws a hundred thousand dollars out of the account and then invested into this real estate deal. She got nailed in like 30, I think it was like 40% penalties and taxes. Cause she's out in California.
[00:18:24] Daniel Blue: So she ends up losing 30 to $40,000 giving it to the IRAs, right? So she takes out a hundred thousand, now she's left what, $67,000 after taking that impact it. And then she uses her 60 K to invest in real estate. So when we talk to her, And we explained how we could help. She's like, Oh my gosh, you're saying I could have taken the hundred thousand that I had with my financial advisor in my IRA, moved it into a solo 401k, and now I have a hundred thousand in my solo 401k and I can use that money to invest into real estate and, and not have to pay any penalties and taxes on that transaction.
[00:19:02] Daniel Blue: I'm like, Yep. She's like, Why did my financial advisor tell me this? He wouldn't make money off this transaction. So there's this whole world that exists out there that financial advisors and a lot of CPAs are not going to tell you, and a lot of it has to do with they just don't make money off of this transaction.
[00:19:21] Ray Sjolseth: So can we dive into that a little bit? Because I think one of the struggles. You. You go to real estate school, you get your license, and then you're on your own and you have to figure out the business. Some people are lucky enough to have mentors. Some people invest in themselves and get good coaches, and they grow their business.
[00:19:37] Ray Sjolseth: But I'm always wondering like, what is it that I don't know? Right? Like I ask myself on a regular basis, I know what I know, but I also want to be aware of what I don't know. So if someone. If somebody's in that situation or if somebody's thinking about making an investment in real estate, and I don't know, maybe the wife's a real estate agent, broker, whatever, and the husband has like a typical job with a 401k in it.
[00:20:08] Ray Sjolseth: What are some questions that you have to ask yourself to get better or figure out what you don't know? Do you have a process? Do you have a, a checklist? How do you get educated so that you become more aware? I guess that's what I'm looking for, Like how do you create more awareness? Right? For instance, in her case, she didn't know what to ask her financial advisor of like, Hey, is there another way to do this that I don't get these penalties?
[00:20:38] Ray Sjolseth: And maybe he would know an answer. Maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he would've lied, right? Who knows? But. How do you, how do you do that? You know, like, what does that look like?
[00:20:49] Daniel Blue: That's a really good question. That's why, you know, I'm only three years into business, right? So my business is relatively new, so a lot of my money is going back into the business.
[00:20:58] Daniel Blue: And I'm at a point in my life, Raymond, where I would rather invest. Money into a coaching program, a mastermind program, then buy a new car. You know, I'm going to buy a 40,000 car or invest 40,000 into this Mastermind program. Those have been, that's been a game changer for me over the last few years. I, I don't know what I don't know, right?
[00:21:19] Daniel Blue: But if I can be in a room of higher caliber people, This guy does insurance, this guy does roofing. This lady does. They do tax credit, right? Like when you're in a room like that, it's awesome, right? Cause you, you don't know what you don't know, but when you, you have to get exposed to it. So a shortcut is, is, is finding coaching programs, finding networking programs match my programs to find yourself with other people.
[00:21:47] Daniel Blue: So then that way you can hear, you know, really what's going on. And, and get informed. You know, there's some really good groups on Facebook as well. Same concept. Obviously you want to fact check, there's a thing called Google, right? But we don't know what to Google if we don't know what to Google, you know what I mean?
[00:22:03] Daniel Blue: So we have to get the idea somewhere. And, and I get a lot of these ideas from coaching program, you know, basically you just got to build a network, you know, And a great way to build a network is adding value on social media. You know, Tom, on other people's posts that. You know you, you, you want to, you know, have some, its energy.
[00:22:22] Daniel Blue: You want them in your ecosystem. And it takes a little bit of time. But, you know, if you're intentional on, you know what, I, I want to be farther ahead financially than more I am now, that means I have to surround myself with people that know more than people are out there, right? Like, they have YouTube channels, they're on Facebook, they're on Instagram, they're out there.
[00:22:41] Daniel Blue: So it just takes some commitment on, on your end That's kind of a hard question to answer, Raymond, because the Wall Street has it rigged against you, right? Like you're a financial advisor. Most of the financial advisors, there are some good ones out there but most of them, when they talk to you once a year, it's, Hey, do you want to invest more money?
[00:22:59] Daniel Blue: Right. Like they're not proactive and that's why I love what we do. We're not financial advisors. I'm not here to pitch investments. We don't sell investments. We sell solutions to your problem. And, and maybe your problem right now is, you know, you like to liberate your retirement account and you it to invest in real estate.
[00:23:18] Daniel Blue: And you know, you can't do that with Fidelity. You can't do that with your four. Right. So we can help you with that, problem give you a solution. Or maybe you want to start a business. You know, you got the, the Great Resignation right now, Raymond, Right? Tons of people are leaving their jobs. That means they have 401ks from their old employers.
[00:23:35] Daniel Blue: A lot of these people are quitting their jobs to start a business and they need 10, 20, 30 grand, you know, to start their business. You know, I was just actually talking to someone yesterday where he needs like $20,000 for a truck cause he's going to get a food truck or his new business. Well, instead of going to the banking, getting a loan, cause we all know getting a loan for a new business.
[00:23:56] Daniel Blue: Is really hard. Really the only option you have to fund a new [00:24:00] business since you don't have income verification or, you know, tax returns is a credit card. So instead of using a credit card, he can just access the money from his retirement account penalty and tax free. And take out $20,000 there and invest it into his trucking business.
[00:24:16] Daniel Blue: Now, you know, he's starting his dream business using his retirement account. So it really just comes down to where are you in your life, What are you trying to accomplish? You know, is you need some working capital for your business. Maybe you have some high interest rate credit card that you need to pay off.
[00:24:30] Daniel Blue: You know, maybe you want to get, get into the real estate game with your retirement account. So few different ways that, that, you know, the direction you go.
[00:24:37] Ray Sjolseth: I love it. That's really good stuff. What advice would you give an agent that has had success and they're just getting going in their business and they're looking to set up for that next phase?
[00:24:52] Ray Sjolseth: It sounds like some of the solutions that you offer may be a viable candidate for, for future pacing, if you will. Is that.
[00:25:00] Daniel Blue: Yeah. One, don't be a knucklehead like me and spend more than you make, right? It's really easy, especially when you get a 20 grand, 30 grand commission check to just spend what you make, right?
[00:25:12] Daniel Blue: Like you're just in that hustle mode where you're like, Oh, dude, I'll just close deal next month. I'll just close another deal next quarter. And the more money you make, the more money you're spending, right? So your lifestyle keeps increasing as your income keeps increase. And you know, I think it's just a wise move to live below your means and spend way less than what you make and invest the rest, save the rest, right?
[00:25:34] Daniel Blue: So you can start making passive income. So you know, one thing that I would encourage people that are making really good money in real estate, in more specifically what you're paying for agent, depending income, they're responsible for their taxes, right? So one thing they could. Depending how much money they're making, they can contribute up to $58,000 a year into a solo 401k.
[00:25:57] Daniel Blue: And that's a game changer. One of two reasons why. One, they can put in fi that 50 K and it be tax deferred, meaning they put in 50 K and that 50 K is now right off that year. It's a tax deduction. Now they're taxable income. It gets decreased by 50. They're going to get a huge tax benefit, right? Like, you know, their tax brackets 20%, 30%, 20, 30% on 50 K, 10, 15,000, give or take, right?
[00:26:26] Daniel Blue: So they would get that immediate benefit right there. Plus they now are building up their savings right at 50 k in their solo 401k and now grow and compound interest and all that kind of fun stuff. Keep in mind though, that first scenario, you're kicking the can down the road. Eventually when you pull the money out, you're going to pay taxes on that.
[00:26:45] Daniel Blue: But it gross packed the fur, right? Growing tax free until you pull the money out. That's scenario one. Scenario two is this, probably one of my fair ones is the Roth contribution and the solo 401k. If you make enough money, you can contribute up to $58,000 a year and it could be a rough contribution into the solo 401k.
[00:27:08] Daniel Blue: And if you put 50,000 into a rough solo 401k, you don't get the tax benefit. So, you don't get to deduct that 50,000 to get your income that year. It's not a tax write off. So you're going to claim that 50 K is income still. However, if that 50,000 were to grow to 500,000 over a period of years, that 500,000 is now 100% tax free.
[00:27:33] Daniel Blue: You never have to pay taxes on the money. So you're paying taxes on the 50 day once you're paying taxes on the seed, but then that seed grows into a harvest. And it grows 100% tax free. Who doesn't love factory money?
[00:27:47] Ray Sjolseth: Yeah. So in that case, right time, and the market theoretically has to be your friend in order for that to work.
[00:27:54] Daniel Blue: Yeah. And, and that's what I love about the solo 401k is you get a lot of investment options. If, if you like stock market, if you like Elon Musk by Tesla if you want to do syndication and private lending and invest into multifamily, you can do that. If, if you want to really get risky, you can buy crypto. If you want to do precious metals, and you think the world is ending tomorrow by precious metals, right?
[00:28:17] Daniel Blue: Like you, you can, you, I'm not here to give financial advice. I love the solar 401k because it has so many options. You can invest your money in private equity, private businesses, so many different places.
[00:28:27] Ray Sjolseth: I love it. That's cool. That's great. Thanks for the education on that. What what's some life advice that you can pay forward to our audience in general?
[00:28:37] Ray Sjolseth: Like from, from your perspective, right? Like you went through some challenges, you went through adversity, you've learned a lot of lessons the hard way, school of hard knock, so to speak, and. You've been able to climb out of that hole, and now you're on a mountain, building a business for yourself, learning the lessons, implementing the lessons.
[00:28:55] Ray Sjolseth: You know, you got a lot of amazing years ahead of you. One of the things that I think that you can offer is that you have kind of a blueprint for success. You know, I think you're, you, you've written a book and you have a lot of different stuff going on. You have a killer podcast. I love your podcast.
[00:29:09] Ray Sjolseth: We'll give that a shout out in a minute down the road. But What are some things, what's some life advice that you'd like to pay for it and share?
[00:29:16] Daniel Blue: You know, I think no matter where you are in, in your life maybe some of you more than others, is you really care about what other people think about and it prevents you from taking action, prevents you from doing something different.
[00:29:30] Daniel Blue: It prevents you from taking worried about if I do this, what are they going to, or if I don't do this, what are they going to do? And it stunted you. Someone once told me this, that really resonated with me. So I can't take credit for this, but matter what you do or don't do. 40% of people automatically are not going to like you.
[00:29:50] Daniel Blue: 40% will like you. 20% are on the fence. How you show up that 20%, it's either going to like you or not like you, depending on how you show up, show up. Like just be you. Stop comparing yourself to other people. You're you only you, and just show. And just know no matter how you show up, 40% of people automatically aren't going to like you, and 40% will.
[00:30:16] Daniel Blue: Right? So just find your tribe, find the people that vibe with you, the people that know.
[00:30:20] Ray Sjolseth: I love it. I think that's a brilliant advice. Daniel, where can people find you? Man?
[00:30:26] Daniel Blue: Best place would be Daniel blue.me. It's Daniel Blue, b l u e.me. That website's got a bunch of free information, bunch of content, so you can also check on my book if you'd like. It's called Blueprint to Your Best Retirement.
[00:30:39] Daniel Blue: It's on Audible or you know, hard cover or Kindle, whatever. Closed your boat. And then as you mentioned earlier, I appreciate you bringing up podcast. It's called How Winners Win. Had a lot of fun with that. The mission there is to help people win their personal life, their entrepreneurial life, their financial life.
[00:30:55] Daniel Blue: So that's been a lot of fun. And you know, we're on Apple and Spotify and all the major platforms. You can a podcast there. And then, you know, if I've got your wheels turning, if you're like, Holy cow, I've got this 401k, I've got this Ira, I have no idea. I can access my account penalty and tax free. My website would give you some really good information on you know, how you can learn more or take some action.
[00:31:15] Daniel Blue: And then all my social media handle. Or on my website as well, I'm pretty easy to find on social media. Annual blue I'm on Instagram, Facebook weekend, same profile picture. Dark hair, fake eyebrows in Las Vegas. I think that's probably, you know, the only kind of dude with Daniel Blue in Las Vegas, so
[00:31:32] Ray Sjolseth: I love it.
[00:31:33] Ray Sjolseth: Daniel, this has been great man. Thanks for the education. Appreciate your time and look forward to doing this again.
[00:31:39] Daniel Blue: I appreciate you, Raymond. Thank you so much for having on having me on you.
