Don't Start a Side Hustle!: Work Less, Earn More, and Live Free

PRAISE FOR

Don’t Start a Side Hustle

"If you can read only one book this year, read Don’t Start a Side Hustle! It’s like getting a master’s degree in living your truth."

—AKBAR SHEIKH,

7-figure coach, speaker, and philanthropist

"Don’t Start a Side Hustle! is a guide to creating wealth through discipline! Not a ‘get rich quick’ lesson—instead a handbook of real, everyday work ethics that will help you build wealth and keep it. Read it, and give it to your kids to read!"

—SCOTT McEWEN,

author of the #1 New York Times bestseller American Sniper

Game-changing. Original. A must-read for every hustler out there! Brian’s story will motivate you to live an abundant life.

—JON GORDON,

14-time bestselling author of The Energy Bus

The most in-depth and comprehensive look on what it takes to produce your own passivepreneur revolution.

—BRENT SMITH,

private advisor to UHNW clients and lifestyle consultant

"This book is for every entrepreneur that wants to do more than just ‘make money.’ If you’re interested in learning how to make your money work for you, this is the book. Stop just being an entrepreneur and learn how to be a passivepreneur!"

—PAUL GETTER,

The Internet Marketing Nerd and digital marketing agency owner

Inspirational, motivational, and instructional. Brian Page has created an invaluable resource for entrepreneurs wanting to reclaim their time, create additional streams of income, and achieve personal fulfillment.

—MATT ANDREWS,

venture capitalist, investor, author, and philanthropist

I know there are a ton of people who are pursuing passive income, or a way out of a nine-to-five day job. Once I saw what Brian was doing, I said, ‘This is a game changer!’

—MIKE DILLARD,

founder of Richer Every Day

Brian is the king of cash flow. If you can fog a mirror, you can do this.

—RON LeGRAND,

real estate expert and bestselling author

Brian’s story is on FIRE and will IGNITE anyone to live free and live wealthy, both financially and personally.

—JOHN LEE DUMAS,

host of Entrepreneurs on Fire

This book will challenge you to rethink what it means to be truly wealthy—not just financially but in every other arena of life.

—TIM STOREY,

acclaimed author, speaker, and life coach

If you only read one book this year, make it this one. Brian will show you how to radically change the trajectory of your own personal wealth journey. This is a must-read for any aspiring entrepreneur.

—CALEB MADDIX,

influencer and CEO of Apex Holdings

© 2022 Brian Page

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by HarperCollins Leadership, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus LLC.

Any internet addresses, phone numbers, or company or product information printed in this book are offered as a resource and are not intended in any way to be or to imply an endorsement by HarperCollins Leadership, nor does HarperCollins Leadership vouch for the existence, content, or services of these sites, phone numbers, companies, or products beyond the life of this book.

This book is written as a source of information only. The information contained in this book should by no means be considered a substitute for the advice, decisions, or judgment of the reader’s professional or financial advisors. All efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this book as of the date published. The author and the publisher expressly disclaim responsibility for any adverse effects arising from the use or application of the information contained herein.

Illustrations by Sandra Rivero Ortiz

Book design by Aubrey Khan, Neuwirth & Associates, Inc.

ISBN 978-1-4002-3141-6 (eBook)

ISBN 978-1-4002-3140-9 (HC)

Epub Edition August 2022 9781400231416

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022941874

Information about External Hyperlinks in this ebook

Please note that the endnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication

TO DAD.

I’M NO TOLKIEN,

BUT THIS IS FOR YOU.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

PART I: THE WHY

  1. A Reason to Be Rich

  2. Questions Are So Underrated

  3. Consider This Your Wake-Up Call

  4. The Curse of Time Bankruptcy

  5. Your Net Worth Is Not Worth Your Life

  6. The Keys to Cash Flow

  7. Back to the New Future

  8. A Simple Cure for Time Scarcity

  9. The Remarkable Power of the Exponential

PART II: THE WAY

10. The Path to Prosperity

11. The Baker and the Farmer

12. Say Goodbye to DIY

13. Home Remedies for Shiny Object Syndrome

14. Four Steps to Becoming a Passivepreneur

15. The Joy of Saying No

16. Laser-Like Focus for the Chronically Distracted

PART III: THE WEALTH

17. Modeling for Average-Looking People

18. Are You a Producer or a Consumer?

19. Your Ass or Your Assets

20. The Owner Passivepreneur

21. The Creator Passivepreneur

22. The Controller Passivepreneur

23. The Difference Between Trading and Investing Time

24. How to Work Once and Get Paid Forever

25. How to Forever Avoid Unproductive Busyness

26. Passive Income Vehicles (PIVs)

27. Choosing Your First PIV

28. Examples of PIVs

PART IV: THE WARNINGS

29. About the Warnings

30. The Planning Warning

31. The Squirrel Warning

32. The Pinching Pennies Warning

33. The Road-Trip Warning

34. The Cause-and-Effect Warning

35. The Indifference Warning

36. The Ignorance Warning

37. The Not Enough Time Warning

38. The Side-Hustle Warning

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Appendix

Notes

Index

About the Author

INTRODUCTION

"I’M GOING TO GIVE YOU a few minutes to say your goodbyes. When you’re ready, I’ll come back in the room and turn off the ventilator. We will then let your father rest in peace," the doctor told us gently.

A few hours earlier I had gotten a frantic call from my mom, saying my father had collapsed in his room. I immediately left my house and drove four hours to where they lived. That’s a long time to spend on the highway wondering if your father is dead or alive.

When I arrived at the hospital, I found my mom and my sister in the critical care unit, at my dad’s bedside. He was in a cramped room hooked up to multiple tubes and monitors. Other than the sound of air being pumped in and out of his lungs, the room was silent.

He has no brain activity, my mom said in a soft voice. The machine is keeping him breathing but he hasn’t moved at all since we got here. Surely that’s not my dad lying here in front of me, I thought. I saw his body on the table, but was he there?

Months earlier, my dad found several lumps around his neck and armpits and was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma. The specialists told him the cancer had spread to his internal organs, but they were never clear on how much time he had. A few days before he was taken to the hospital, he told my mother he felt like he was in his last days. Never one to be dramatic, his statement rocked our entire family.

Since the time he was diagnosed I would regularly make the long drive to see him at his house. I noticed his health declining with each visit. During those days at his house we had many conversations about life, the kinds of conversations a son would hope to have with his father. I’m thankful I had that extra time with him.

One conversation stood out to me during those last few months. One night after he took his medication and fell asleep early, my mom told me what they had spoken about the day before I arrived.

She said, "Your dad was really suffering yesterday. He never cries, but yesterday he really broke down. You know what he said to me? He said he wasn’t ready to go yet. He told me he never got to do the things he wanted to do with his life.

Your dad told me that as a boy he wanted to be a pilot and was in love with planes. But his father told him it would never happen and not to bring the idea up again. So your dad never pursued it any further.

I didn’t know that about my dad. I assumed he had experienced everything he wanted in his life. If he felt otherwise, he never told us.

Most of my life, my father worked as a pastor. Although he felt called, decades of preaching led to burnout. His next job, far removed from church life, was at a call center for a cable company.

My dad was always the number-one or -two performer in the region for his ability to sell on the phone. He was proud that he could take tons of abuse from callers and still smile through the phone. When irate customers cussed him out and screamed into the phone that their cable went out in the middle of a game, he would politely explain that their service was turned off because they hadn’t paid their bill in ninety days.

But he despised the work. Every minute of his day was tracked, even when he needed to run to the bathroom. If he returned even one minute late from his brief lunch break, he was penalized. At the end of each day he would be so exhausted that he’d go straight to his room and collapse on the bed. He’d wake to have dinner a few hours later and then return to bed for the night. The next morning he’d wake up at four to do it all over again.

But by the time he reached his seventies, he had no savings of any kind. That job devoured all his time, energy, and the best years of his life. It was brutal, relentless work. But he did it to support himself and my mother. I respect him immensely for that.

A year before he was diagnosed, I told him, Dad, I know this job is killing you. I want to help you. I’m gonna get you out of debt and take care of you and mom from now on. Also, I want to buy you a house. You can go ahead and put in your two weeks. He and my mom were shocked.

For the first time in his life, my dad didn’t have to work.

They decided to move to a quaint town in the foothills of western South Carolina. They found a four-bedroom ranch in a new-construction neighborhood, and I bought it for them as I’d promised. The house was minutes from a beautiful lake where he could take his boat. Every week he’d be out there with his two dogs, exploring each cove and waterway. He was living his dream. Despite COVID and the lockdowns, it was a good year for him and Mom.

But the decades of soul-crushing work and a lifetime struggling to make ends meet had taken their toll on my father. His body was worn out, his joints were arthritic, and he was always in pain. Although he was now retired, he didn’t have the health to stay active and he began to decline quickly.

My father ran out of time. I was angry that he never got to enjoy his retirement years. I was boiling with questions: How was it that he never got ahead financially during his life? Why did he spend all of his time doing what he hated just to collect a paycheck? What other dreams did he not get to experience?

One of my father’s steadfast dreams for me had been to get a job. When I was a teenager, I disagreed. I’d seen too many people work at something that made them miserable. Why would I want that? I didn’t know what the alternative was, but I knew there had to be a better way.

When discussions of college came up he would say, You are going to college, son. It’s not up for discussion. Get a degree—get any degree and graduate. Just go to college. I wasn’t fully sold on the idea but started looking at schools.

This was my thought process when it came to looking at schools:

UNC Wilmington is at the beach? Okay, that one gets a yes.

This other college is near ski resorts in the mountains? That sounds even better. Let’s go to the mountains.

I applied to just one school and six months later I was packing my bags for Appalachian State University. Two years later I was a solid B student, but I still couldn’t choose a major—every one of them seemed boring to me. I finally settled on Leisure Studies (yes, it’s a major). My dad did say get a degree—any degree, right?

Needless to