In this episode, host Steven Pesavento talks with Michael O'Donnell about his journey to financial independence through investing and sales. O'Donnell shares how his challenging childhood and Irish heritage shaped his perspective on success and the importance of overcoming destructive behaviors to achieve financial goals. The conversation covers the use of debt as a tool for increasing returns while maintaining comfort levels, and the benefits of creating a passive investment plan.
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About our Guest:
Michael O'Donnell is a sales pro in the solar space who has achieved financial independence. He is also the author of the book "The No Matter What," which is a recipe for a seven-figure income in sales. He is a business person who has achieved financial independence. Coming from a family of Irish immigrants who worked hard to achieve the American dream, Michael was lucky to have opportunities for education and success. However, he faced a personal challenge early on in life with a high risk for alcoholism, which he overcame through a 12-step program. He has been sober for 39 years and has written a book on sales success.
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Steven Pesavento 0:00
Hi,
I'm Steven Pesavento, and welcome to the name your number podcast presented by the investor mindset. As someone who comes from a challenging childhood, I've spent my life seeking financial security, personal growth, and ultimately freedom, the freedom to not wake up worried about the next paycheck, but rather, with the confidence of knowing that my passive income pays my bills without the need to think about it. When you name your number, that you'll learn passively, that creates your ultimate quality of life, that I believe you've achieved real freedom. Welcome to my show, it's time to name your number.
You don't complicate things, that's a great place to be. And then there's an evolution to that where you start understanding how to use good debt. And it sounds like that's exactly what you're doing. We're use debt as a powerful tool for increasing the rate of return. But you only use enough Yes, so that you feel like you're comfortable. Because if you go in 90%, or 100%, debt and something goes wrong, all of a sudden, now you're underwater, you're being on the other side of it. Welcome back to the name your numbers show by the investor mindset, we're on a mission to create financial independence for over a million investors. And when you name your number, the number that you want to earn passively every month, that creates your ultimate quality of life, then I believe you've achieved real freedom. If you're ready to name your number, and create your passive investment plan that you'll follow step by step to get there, then head over to investor mindset.com/number. To download the free guide to get started. And for those of you who are ready to build this plan together with me, and a community of other like minded investors, you'll be invited to schedule a call with one of my top advisors to see if it's a fit. Now let's get into the show. today. I'm excited to have Michael O'Donnell in the studio today. How you doing, Mike? doing terrific, great to be with you today, Steven, excited to have you because you're a pro when it comes to sales in the solar space, you've made a lot of money, you've helped a lot of people, you've made a lot of impact. And I think there's a lot that people are going to take away from this. And you've also been able to reach and achieve financial independence. So I think there's a lot of inspiration. So you're ready to get into things. Yeah, I certainly am. Awesome. Before we get into all the tactics on on investing in all the things you've done, let's start out on a personal note, by looking back at earlier in your life, what events or influences from your childhood shaped who you are today.
Michael O'Donnell 2:36
Gosh, what, what a great thought. I mean, I've had so many things being the oldest of seven children and coming from kind of a first generation Americans, my family came from Ireland, they were literally ditch diggers, literally my grandfather was a sand hog. They called him he built the New York tunnels, the Holland and the Lincoln tunnels, almost indentured slaves, you know, and then their kids got to not go to college, but to take more clerical and policemen and that classic American next generation story, then their kids, my parents put their kids through college, we had opportunities to go through college. And so my brothers and sisters are engineers, lawyers, business people, real estate agents, I'm a business person. And so you know, my entire family, you know, it's follows that American dream curve from immigrants with working for pennies to kind of arriving at a place where maybe not all of us have financial freedom, but we certainly have a lot of options and a lot of opportunity and a much higher lifestyle than my grandparents came into this country with and then my parents were raised in. So I love that you bring that context to it financially, from a personal standpoint, and me going through my life, I was very lucky. And I write about that in my book, The no matter what, which is a recipe for a seven figure income in sales, that if you have something that's destructive, and that's killing you, you're not gonna get anywhere you can go to as many Tony Robbins seminars you want. And if you've got some, you know, destructive, you know, self sabotaging behavior behaviors going on, nothing's really going to work, you're going to continue to find yourself in the weeds and then in the ditch. So, one of the things that was super fortunate for me is that the problem I had as a young man, I discovered early on in life, that that Irish heritage also led to the fact that I had about a nearly 100% chance to be an alcoholic, and I got myself on a ton of trouble. By the time I was 19. I'd been arrested three times. By that time, and it was really clear to me I had a choice, I either had to figure out how to overcome that destructive personality trait, or I was going to have a life that, you know, just just a miserable story. And so I was able to get that figured out at 19 by walking into a room of people who knew how to deal with that. A 12 STEP program and I've been so
Ever since I've been sober 39 years and so for 39 years, I've lived a life where that's not an equation. It's I didn't It's not a factor in the equation. My children have never seen me take a drink. I've never lost a whole never lost a family over that problem, which is a common story for a lot of people. And it's not mine. So I'm consider myself to be super fortunate in that regard. Yeah, it's a really powerful thing to realize that sometimes there's things in our life that hold us back, if we do them at all. If we let that be a part of our life, then it can actually really stop us from be able to have success. And so when you took that off the table, what did that do for you? What did that give to you as far as confidence and knowledge to know that, that you had that capability of having that type of discipline? Well, it did not make me successful, it made me not be destined to be massively, an epically unsuccessful. And so that was a huge step forward, but certainly not the whole story. I was also very fortunate at that same age of 19 years old, I walked into another room of old guys,
Steven Pesavento 6:02
who were very good at making money. And they're very good at money, making money by selling large ticket home improvement, sales to homeowners, which is a very specific skill. And those guys were aluminum siding, salesmen, better known as 10 men. And they had taken the skills of 10 men, which was knock on the door, get somebody interested in taking a look at that at a proposal to make a big ticket, Home Improvement and the ability to have in one meeting, a compelling presentation and understand how to sign people up that day, because there were no VBACs, they taught me that, you know, in day one, they were dovie backs in that industry. And so they taught me how to sell and close and taught me how to make a ridiculous amount of money at the age of 19 years old. And so I again, consider myself to be very, very lucky and just fortunate that I wandered into that particular conference room at that age and learn how to make a lot of money in sales. Yeah, the ability and the skill of learning how to sell is one of the most powerful skills somebody can have. And especially when you're able to do that alongside a lead generation strategy, I know yours happens to be going door to door, when you have a product that you can sell directly to somebody in a one call closed scenario, it allows you to be able to quickly, very quickly be able to improve on those skills, because you know, you have that one moment to make that sale happen, what didn't work, how can I improve it. And you know, when we before we began buying two or 300 unit multifamily buildings, I was buying homes directly from homeowners, one call closes, people rarely, if they're gonna think about it, or gonna think about it, and by and so, you know, it's a really, really powerful skill. So I want to get into sales and solar, because I know that's what's really made you a lot of money. So let's come back to that. But talk to me about what led you to having that first feeling of financial independence? And what got you there? Well, let's start with kind of the flip side of that equation, which was I spent, and was pretty successful for about 25 years in sales, and did not have financial freedom. And why was that? Because I had after learning how to make a lot of money, sort of as an independent contractor and straight commission sales. I had a newly a new bride and babies on the way and I said, Man, I got a trade the upside for security. And I did that as a young man. I said, You know what, I'm willing if someone's going to pay me 40k, which was my salary in 1987, if they'll pay me 40k, and let me make another 20 to 40k. In commissions, that's good enough for me. Why? Because my wife needed that security to know that I was coming home with a minimum amount. And so I'm constantly talking about people about whether or not they should come into this business. This is almost always an exclusively a straight commission opportunity. And the answer is, are you ready? And are you in a position to bet on yourself, when somebody else puts down the risk and they're the one who bets on you, ie a salary that they deserve, and they get the lion's share of the rewards for doing that. When you're willing to take the bets and you're willing to take the risk, then you deserve and you should get and in the solar industry, you do receive the lion's share of the benefit of your efforts and your skill and your work. And so people find it hard to believe but in the solar industry, a seven figure income is not a mythological thing, if you and my book is called the recipe to a seven figure income. If you do the things that are necessary to do that. It's just a recipe. You put the chicken in the pot, you cut the self, the vegetables up carrots and celery and salt and pepper, turn on the gas. You're gonna have chicken soup in a few hours and then you'll learn more about what makes chicken soup pretty good are really great, you know, and
Michael O'Donnell 10:00
That's kind of the increasing your skills and your craft over the time. But if you do that, you're going to make a tremendous amount of money. When we talk to a homeowner, that's currently using utility, we're sort of interrupting their thinking about how they're providing their family's energy needs to say, hey, what if you were to try owning your own power plant, if you were to do that, massive benefits would ensue? We have that conversation in 10 minutes at their door, and they say, Well, I would take a look, that's the knocking on door, well, I would, you know, take a look, knock yourself out, show me a quote, we come back later that day, or the next day with a quote, we spend an hour and a half with them, at least you know, in our in the way we do our training and our track record, I typically have salespeople signing up one out of three, in an hour and a half, two hour meeting, I sign up two out of three, that's the difference between, you know, making the roster and Hall of Fame, I'm in the Hall of Fame, right? I've sold more solar than anybody else in the entire solar industry. My job is to teach other people how to do that. And that's exactly what I do. But we're literally capturing 30 years worth of revenue that would have went to a fortune 500 type company, Duke Energy, Arizona public service, Nevada energy, we literally capture 30 years worth of revenue and an hour and a half conversation, that pays a massively lucrative amount of money. And so if you're just kind of working at part speed, and kind of making the roster you should be making somewhere between 407 $100,000 a year at that task, if you want to put in the extra effort to become world class. And the time that you spend working at doing it. Getting that to a million dollars plus a year is just a matter of really making a decision, that that's where you want to go. And so you got into a position where you're making that kind of money and better. And then what did you do with that money that led you to knowing that you're financially free, independent, outside of the money that you're earning day to day doing sales? Well, and unfortunately, when young guys start making that kind of money, they show up on Instagram, flexing, Lambos, and all sorts of things. And my Flex is owning a home with a paid off mortgage. My Flex is that my choice is a cabin in the woods with a paid off mortgage. I'm not a big leverage guy, by the way. But I luckily unfortunately, I had people like you and my life giving me great advice. And in this industry, we knock a lot of doors. And then we blow the money unless we buy a lot of doors. And so that's my advice to guys knock doors, by doors stay broke, but not because you're blowing the money stay broke, because you're putting the money into the next investment. Be scared where the next money's coming in, and don't let it stockpile. If it stockpiles, every time one of my guys ends up 50 kg head, I end up losing them for a month in Australia.
They end up they end up over the $25 paycheck and I lose them for two weeks. So yeah, just keep programmatically sticking that money into investments in mine my my investment of choices real estate, I'm you know, very, very heavily and I am diversified AF money in stocks and bonds and mutual funds, mostly mutual funds for 401k type and trying to get money out of the non, you know, out of the taxable category into the taxable category with you know, self employment
investments and those sorts of things so that I can invest pre tax money into the stock market and mutual funds. But that's a that's a smaller percentage of my portfolio, most of its in real estate. So you took that money and you went out and bought what single family homes or something like this, if you're really Yes, yeah. And I've been investing in single family homes for 25 years. And so I own you know, a handful of single family homes now they're paid off. And so I literally could be financially independent, just from collecting the rents on those properties. Yeah. And luckily, I have a higher you know, goal than that. Or maybe I would maybe I just might, you know, my wife and I could just cash in the chips and tool around the country in an RV and we'd have enough money to we'd be good we'd be safe right? We'd be having a financially independent passive income stream that would take care of that lifestyle. I'm Fortunately I have what's called what I call in my book, a nine figure mindset. So I'm looking for $100 million net worth exit from my working career. So instead of a motorhome, instead of a Land Yacht, I'll have an actual yacht tied up outside of Monaco while I you know, enjoying the fruits of my labor. So that's I have a difference. And that's I really, you know, talking about Napoleon Hill and the thinking Grow Rich, if you're not visualizing a legacy that includes generational wealth, and really, whatever and you don't need to want that lifestyle. You don't need to want a yacht and Mediterranean lifestyle, but to have the option and the ability to pick what your lifestyle is homes in most
multiple locations and, you know, possibly even jets and helicopters or whatever to get you between them, you know, because that's what you achieve when you get to a nine figure net worth is you have those kinds of options as well, totally. And I love that because what I'm hearing you say is that you've got a clear vision, and one of the most important things to getting clear on having success in business, in sales in investing is knowing what you want and why you want it. So I'd love it. If you'd share with the audience a little bit, you're clear on that vision? What is that vision for your life? What is it that you're ultimately working towards? What does that look like? What are those exciting toys, those experiences those things, the legacy? What is it that you're really going after?
Yeah, I mean, I do have a clear vision, that clear vision has come about on purpose, right? That comes from reading, thinking Grow Rich, taking two pages a day as a habit, and then treat getting like a basic text where I have assignments that are due, right and then not stopping there. But going through, you know, Napoleon Hill wrote a lot. He didn't just read write that one book, he wrote the laws of success. That's a four volume course, on how to create that mindset. I believe creating that mindset is the way you become successful, not the other way around. You don't get the nine figure exit. By being successful, you become successful, because you're have told your brain and told your mind and told yourself, that's what we're attempting to do. That's what's in process. Otherwise, you'll have the mindset that I was given as a kid and what I think I encounter most of the time, which is I'm working really hard, and I'm awesome at not getting evicted. I'm really doing a good job of not getting my credit cards turned off, you know, and as long as I can not get evicted, not getting my credit cards turned off. I'm doing okay. And I spent 2530 years with the same skills and same abilities I have now making between 102 $150,000 a year, which by most people that I knows, mindset would be like, dude, bro, you made it. Yeah, but you find out when you make that kind of money for that period of time, you'll end up where I ended up, which is I had a big house payment, big car payments, a big boat slip payment. And I yeah, I had a few 100 grand and 401k accounts, what else had 40 grand in revolving debt that I don't even know I had, accidentally, you know, credit cards and ameba, Baba, and I got 40 grand in credit card debt. So, literally now I need that quarter million dollars a year just not to go below water. I'm like, a quarter million bucks a year is keeping you here, which will in the corporate America loves that, by the way, because if they keep you here, you know, 150 to 250, you'll keep producing for them. Yeah. And it wasn't until I said, you know, I'm I got one more real shot. And as I was 50 years old, I saw the opportunity and solar nets and i i Actually moonlighted for a few weeks and I said holy.
In the last three weeks, I made the same money that I would make in a quarter. What would happen if I made three work? If I made a quarters worth of money in three weeks? What would I do with them. And by now I'm mature enough to say, Well, I'm not going to blow it all on Lambos. So I'm going to I'm going to keep my $200,000 year lifestyle while I make a million plus dollars a year and invest the rest. And you know, very quickly, I got to a point where I had a seven figure net worth instead of a something $100,000 net worth. And you know, very quickly within a few years, I had an eight figure, you know, net worth. And now my question is you asked me about the dream. So the dream is I own a solar company, the solar company is called Sun solar solutions, the real dream is to have that become because I know how to sell teach enough people how to sell to turn that into a company that gets bought for you know, a couple $300 million. And my partners and I, you know, cash out at that nine figure level 10 years from now something along those lines. And what is that? And what is that exit going to do for you and your family in the world by going through the process of doing that?
Well, first of all, I feel Tripoli blessed that I have found something that my skill set can do well and provides my family with a seven figure income. But you know, I don't know if we're paying attention to what's going on in the world. But we've reached the 8 billion mark. A couple of months ago, we crossed the transom of 8 billion people. It was a lot less billions of people when we decided there wasn't enough firewood to go around every day to scramble for firewood to make our energy needs. So we started to drill into the earth. And we started bringing up rocks and gas and oil and stuff to light on fire dead stuff. There wasn't enough dead stuff on the surface. And so we started to dig into the center to get dead stuff to light on fire. And we've been providing ourselves with the energy we need for home and industry and automobile transportation by burning dead stuff now ever since and now that we've got 8 billion people one we've discovered, probably not sustainable, how much dead stuff is there but that we can suck out
causing a problem. And then by the way, we're lighting it on fire, which is causing an entirely different problem, right emissions and pollution and changing of the climate and all that stuff. So we've now decided we need to stop doing that. And so I know that when I come upon a homeowner, I say, look, I can Trank change the financial trajectory of your family by changing your perspective that you're a renter of power generation equipment, and turn you into an owner of power generation equipment that's going to change the trajectory of your financial state, just like being the owner of a home instead of the renter of a home. Well, I mean, I'll tell you, you know, we bought a 232 unit building in Dallas, last year we installed,
Steven Pesavento 20:45
we install solar on it, and that solar alone created a 15% return on cost plus, right, we're obviously not 100% reliant on the grid plus, which is upgrading, we're creating a more sustainable type of energy for that property. And it's actually Pro for the investors like, it's actually a good thing, it makes sense to do that now. So I think it's a really powerful tool, I'd love for you to share with the audience a little bit about your philosophy on investing, because I think there's something interesting that we can pull from this, when I hear that you own a bunch of real estate properties, and you own them free and clear. There's a philosophy there, there's a mindset, there's a risk mitigation concept, because if you were to bring in even 50% leverage, which is considered very low, you might double the amount of real estate that you own and increase the rate of return on each of those properties. But there's a reason you didn't. And I'd love it if you'd share why. Well, first of all, my primary residence, I wanted the peace of mind of night, I was stockpiling cash, like what should I do with it? I got rid of all my debt, I got rid of my credit cards, I got rid of every other kind of debt. I'm like, well, now what do I do? So that wasn't an investing mindset. Most a lot, just pay off my mortgage. And I did that. And then as well, now I'm in a point where I can buy another home. And it really just kind of came again, about organically. My brother in law is a real estate agent, he showed me a few homes, we find this perfect home, we kind of take this bigger idea because we can afford to do that. And it's a $600,000 home. So we're moving out of a $300,000 home into a 600,000 $700,000 home. And my brother in law says, well, I'll have the mortgage guy call you the solar thing was doing so well. I look at my wife and I go, do we need a mortgage guy? And she says, No, I think we can just write a check. At which point my brother in law says, What are you talking about? And he says, Well, I'll tell you what, we better hustle up and get the house in Gilbert sold. So you can move the equity over then to buy this house ago. Now we're just going to rent that property out. And by the way, I paid that mortgage off already. And so, you know, my primary investing strategy is to make a lot of money, so that I can make decisions about that. Now, do I wish I had somebody like you giving me counsel where you would have said well, and then I made several other purchases like that about a cabin and you know, that was a quarter million dollars wrote a check. If I had taken that, you know, a million and a half 2 million bucks and leveraged it out, would I have done better in 2019 2008, I would have. But there's sort of a peace of mind that goes along with that. And I am leveraged in some of my other real estate ventures and I to really like the multifamily. I've really transitioned away from single family, I'm almost exclusively multifamily and large apartment complexes, and I'm in a group with you know, 30 other guys that are taking down apartment complexes using leverage to get the majority of that capital to do that are taking over, you know, loans that are already in place to do that, and then experiencing, and I honestly the reason I did that initially was to get some shelter, from all the taxes that I'm paying now on this original income getting depreciation moved over into my 1040. Well, it's a really important thing to be able to understand the whole tax benefit piece, because when you can be active in the space, there's huge depreciation that can come off of that. But I just want to underline what you said, there's a benefit to owning properties free and clear, because then there's no question about the the underlying debt that's there. Now, the benefit is Inka Sinclair. So if I got a house and it's $2,500 a month, that's 30 grand coming to him like what do I do this money? Totally. I mean, that's like the simple the simplest version, and that's where people I think, if you're looking for comfort, and you're looking for low risk, and you're looking to be in that position, where you don't complicate things, that's a great place to be. And then there's an evolution to that where you start understanding how to use good debt and it sounds like that's exactly what you're doing. We're use debt as a powerful tool for increasing the rate of return but you only use enough so that you feel
Michael O'Donnell 25:00
You're like, you're comfortable. Because if you go in 90%, or 100% debt and something goes wrong, all of a sudden, now you're underwater, you borrow against being on the other side of it. So you're obviously in a position where you make a lot of money, you show people how to make a lot of money, you teach them how to do this sales thing. And then you're actually moving that money over to real estate to create tax shelter. And to really be able to park that cash in a nice secure position. What is it about real estate that makes you feel like it's a good safe investment, you know, good friend of mine, and he sort of leads this group, his name is Jeff Mendez. And he was a hero of mine. In my space. He was, you know, literally before I was the godfather of door to door and solar, he definitely held that title. And now he's retired with a, you know, I'm guessing something, he's got a nine figure net worth. So I'm literally trying to follow in the path of my mentors, but he told me something he said, If you were to went into New York City and found any company in New York City in 1920, and invested $10,000, into any of those companies, there's almost a 100% chance of that $10,000 would be worthless. There's almost no corporation, you could have found that has now still here 100 years later, and is viable, right, almost 100% of those corporations are gone unless you found better was GM around that. I don't know. Right? So. So there, you're dealing with that deal. But if you were to pick any building in Manhattan, any single one of them and bought that building with $10,000, you'd be worth 10s and 10s and 10s of millions of dollars. And so if you step back at it, step back from it and really look at it from that longer view, you're going to find that real estate always has that trajectory over the long home, why it's not going away, the real estate's not going bankrupt the real estate's not going to be defunct, that real estate is going to be there 100 years from now, and probably because the odd show have done very, very well over you know, any any long period of time like that.
Steven Pesavento 27:15
Yeah. And that's exactly what it's all about, you find something because there's a difference between growing your wealth, and preserving your wealth. And you're in a position where you make a lot of money, you fit into that category where wealth preservation as is as important, if not more important, than wealth growth. But interestingly enough, you can do both in real estate, you're not gonna have Bitcoin type returns, which I don't really like, anyways. But you're also not gonna have Bitcoin like losses, right? Something doesn't go from being worth a million dollars to being worth nothing. Right? You always have that underlying asset, you can actually insure it. Well, I've had people invest in companies that I was the entrepreneur of. And, you know, there's a big difference between an investment and a bet. And I, you know, I love the idea of understanding crypto and being involved in maybe some of the huge gains and in a speculative investment. But you have to understand a speculative investment is not an investment, it's a bet. And so I've also having people like you in my life, they've taught me to diversify. And so yeah, I can bet on crypto with maybe, you know, 2% of my investment portfolio, I can bet and put private equity into this diamond mind.
Michael O'Donnell 28:29
But only with you know, you know, maybe one or 2% of my portfolio, right? I need to have a huge portion of my portfolio, generating retirement income, and then an even bigger percentage generating equity and appreciation in real estate. So that doesn't mean you can't have fun, and you can't speculate on what everybody's enjoying and talking about at cocktail parties, as long as you've diversified and are putting the appropriate amount of risk against what your long term objectives are.
Steven Pesavento 28:58
I couldn't agree more. And I want to underline something because we're talking about real estate as a place to park cat, create passive income, grow your wealth, but there's another strategy that you're using, and I don't want to just pass over it. Because I think it's important to point out that when you're building for cash flow, you can build it for income, you can park money into real estate for passive income, but specifically, you talked about your vision is actually to build a business to exit. Talk to us a little bit about how you're going
to build any business with the intention to x it and why you decided that was a strategy that really makes a lot of sense to get to those financial goals vision that you set.
Michael O'Donnell 29:44
Well, and you know, so I learned a long time ago that there's a difference between income and equity and income is fleeting and equity is long standing. And there's different reasons to want to own a business if you want to own a business to make more money.
You're doing it for the wrong reason. And and I teach people all the time that when you're in the solar business, nobody makes anywhere near as much money as a great salesman. And if what you're looking for is income, that's the place to be to then stop and decide you want to build a business, build a company provide incomes and livelihoods and, and jobs for people, then in addition to doing what you're doing, you're going to be really sacrificing income. You know, people think the owners make all the money in our, in our business, we keep track of how many, how much money people make by how many watts of solar this guy gets, and what is the manager get, and what is the regional manager get. And that to that to that to that I'm, I'm quick to tell them, by the way, the owner, which is me and my two partners, our dollars per watt is zero, we don't have a comp plan, you know, we have to sell a bunch to a lot of people, and then pay all the bills, pay all the expenses. And if there's any money left over at the end, then we're chopping that up and distributing that to the shareholders. So it's not a great income building strategy, you'd be way better off focusing on sales if you want to generate income. But then when you get to a point where if that's not your main concern, and you really want to build equity and growth, well, then you need to take what you've learned as a salesperson, and I'm talking to salespeople all the time. And so I'm telling, you know, why don't you create financial independence in the next five years as a salesperson, generate a seven and then eight figure net worth and then decide what you're going to do with that with that resource to to create your next business. And now that you know how to sell, learn how to sell the crap out of that thing and build it into one of the great businesses in that space. And then every single day, somebody comes along and buys one of the great businesses in any space, and the price tags, a few 100 million bucks, maybe a billion dollars depends on what you're doing. That's where real money comes from. And you can maybe build your way up to 100 million. But I would bet if you found a list of people who are worth over $100 million dollars, unless they're entertainers or sports guys, almost every single one of them started a business and then sold it to somebody, you know, for that kind of money down the road.
Steven Pesavento 32:15
Yep, exactly. And that's, and that's it. And when you have a vision that is that large, $100 million net worth, it's going to have to have a business exit as a part of that role. Unless you're running an investment management firm. And you're investing all of your cash and you're multiplying it at some kind of high rate. Either way, it's still focused on that exit. Right, awesome. We've got one more question left. But before we do tell the audience how they can get in touch. It was funny, Stephen, initially, when I started appearing with the most sales in the industry, I have all these people, all these young guys coming after me on Facebook and Instagram, and people are like, you know, I'm like, How do I make these people go away? I don't have time to answer questions. And then I finally got the big picture that this really is about networking. It's about creating a presence out there and a brand and, and so I've really put a lot of time and then eventually said it's how you should write a book. So now I'm super easy to get ahold of you can just go to my social media, which is all Michael O'Donnell sales, and you can find me there. I think I'm even huge on tick tock these days. But Michael O'Donnell sales and you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, you can DM me, but what you're gonna see there at Michael O'Donnell sales is literally tons and tons and tons of content is me talking specifically, how do you get the number of conversations that you're in a day, up to a level where you really are making a seven figure income? And then when you get that opportunity and someone invites you to the kitchen table? Or the boardroom table? How do you make the most of that and put a proposal in front of them that's so compelling that they need to take advantage of it right now to day. So what you'll find out Michael O'Donnell sales is tons of content, podcasts like this, etc. Where we're having this conversation over and over and over again, you can also get a hold of me directly at mo D at mo D sales academy.com. And of course, if you're interested in getting into the solar business, I really find love to find some real terrific salespeople who are making 150 to 200,250 and really want to get to a million bucks. Those guys are top performers. And all they have to be doing is given a vehicle that the vehicle that they're in at their skill level does 150 I can put them into a vehicle that does 250 miles an hour gets into a million bucks a year and that you can reach out to me there at Sun solar solutions.com Michael O'Donnell, it's solar solutions.com This has been been awesome. Michael, really appreciate being able to hear about how you've gotten to make a lot of money how you've gone about creating financial and
Balance and that vision for what you're doing in the future. As we close up, what advice would you give to those who are listening? Who are on that path towards creating financial independence? What actions? Should they take beliefs? And where would you like to leave it? My advice would be to adopt a mindset where the amount of money you're making right now is nowhere near enough money, it really start to believe that you're trying to create generational wealth, if you're going to create generational wealth, you're going to need a much, much, much bigger income. And you're going to need a vehicle that generates a very large income. And that means if you're crushing the planet at what you do in that makes 80k or 120k, you're not going to get to your dreams through income to invest and turn into capital. So yeah, I mean, I like the Rich Dad, Poor Dad, just spend less on not going out to eat, invest the difference that will get you there to a degree, but you need to decide if what you're doing produces that kind of income. And if you're proficient and you're good, and you're able to make the roster as one of the guys that are good at doing what you do, and that pays that amount of money, you might need to be on the roster of something that pays a much different amount of money. And I feel very fortunate that I found solar because it literally pays a bizarre, almost obscene amount of money. But that's because the planet needs this done, the government is incentivizing this, the government pays for 30% of every solar project. That's one of the reasons that solar guys make more money per deal, because there's a lot of money in the deal that didn't have to come from the customer. And it just creates a different opportunity. So that's, that's my advice, I would really ask people to take a look and say, you know, is what I'm doing really a vehicle that can take me to the place I'm trying to go? Or maybe do I need to rethink that maybe look at taking some risk without any risk, there's really no return. And if you're just playing it safe, because you're in a deal, well, they'll just keep paying 80k forever, you know, and make your way to 100 or whatever, you know, yeah, that's a safe play, but it may not be the lucrative play for you. Well, this has been so great, Michael, I really appreciate hearing about your perspective. And thanks so much for listening, you guys and we'll see you on the next episode. Very good. Thank you, Steven, great to be with you. Today's episode is sponsored by Vaughn Finch capital. If you're interested in investing alongside me in the same type of real estate opportunities that I personally invest in that head over to Vaughn Finch capital and join their private investor network, you can do so at Vaughn finch.com/invest. Join me on that next deal. I look forward to seeing you on the inside.
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