Flip The Switch Episode 54: Opt-Out Podcast

PAT: Today on Flip the Switch we sit down with the guys from “opt-out,” A local podcast in the San Diego area that centers on taking control of your life and opting out of the traditional life that we were all taught to live. If you like the idea of creating side hustles, entrepreneurship, and achieving better work/life balance, this is the episode for you. Let’s get into it.

01:00 AUSTIN: Welcome to Flip the Switch presented by Power Digital Marketing. This is episode number 54.

01:06 PAT: 54. Our Brian Urlacher episode.

01:08 AUSTIN: Finally a good athlete.

01:09 PAT: We’re back. We’re back. It took so long to find good athletes again…

01:13 AUSTIN: A few we just skipped because I just couldn’t come up with anything. I don’t know if any of us could.

01:17 PAT: We don’t really even have intel on whether you guys care about this.

01:21 AUSTIN: Yeah. This is solely from our interests.

01:23 PAT: This is for my amusement.

01:26 AUSTIN: But we do have another very good interview which we know you all like because luckily you’ve been telling us. And this one is very interesting, because they also have a podcast. So it’s two guys Dana and Nathaniel and they have a podcast called opt out podcast. Which is actually another local podcast here in San Diego. They’re a couple of entrepreneurs that then took all their business knowledge, flipped it into this show.

And then also the kind of the theme of what it is that they also go after entrepreneurs, so they interview other entrepreneurs, people that turn their passion projects or side hustle if you will… That they’re using into full-time businesses.

02:07 PAT: Yeah, exactly we were super excited to bring you guys this content because a lot of our listenership and, you know, what you guys have told us you care about is figuring out how to not only achieve that work/life balance, but streamline what you want to do.

So, you know, without further ado I could keep talking all day but let’s get into the podcast.

02:25 AUSTIN: With us today we have very special guests. Two of them. From the opt-out podcast. A fellow podcast crew down here in San Diego. We’ve got Nate Broughton and Dana Robinson. What’s up guys? Welcome.

02:37 DANA: Hey thanks for having us

02:38 AUSTIN: We’ve got a mutual friend Devin who does some business here at power digital. Brought these guys to the table. We were just chatting about them. So shout out to Devin before we get started… He also he always loves… This is the second time…

02:50 PAT: Second shout out that Devin has gotten on the show…

02:51 AUSTIN: Cause he keeps bringing us cool people. Like as you said we were just saying he’s the mayor of La Jolla. That’s the best way to describe him.

02:58 NATE: I think he’s expanding right? Mayor of Del Mar now and PV…

03:02 PAT: He’s gonna be mayor of the greater San Diego area after a little while.

03:04 NATE: He should run for mayor.

03:05 AUSTIN: I was gonna say, I might just, yeah, run for him… We’ll get a campaign going, maybe get him elected. Be huge…

03:10 PAT: I’d vote for him.

03:11 AUSTIN: I would too.

All right so enough about Devin, let’s get into these guys. They’re a couple of entrepreneurs that have basically turned what it was a side gig or a passion project into a full-time gig. And that’s kind of what they do with their show now too. Is they highlight individuals that have a passion project. A side gig. A side hustle. And they’ve turned into entrepreneurship in their full-blown life.

So I’m really curious about kind of where this started. If you guys can just talk about where did that passion stem from or what was kind of the beginning, genesis of all of what is opt out.

03:40 NATE: Well opt out started in Bali, actually. That’s always the sexy story to tell so why don’t you tell that, Mr. Robinson? The true founder of the opt-out life?

03:51 DANA: Yeah the… I’m not the true founder of the opt-out life. I had this break that I took from life, that ended up in Bali. For me I’d been an entrepreneur and at one point wanted to write the book about kind of my life and business hacks. And then the economy crashed and then I thought “I got nothing to say and I got no time to try to say it.” so the book went on the shelf and I worked my ass off to get through the sort of rough times.

And as the economy improved a little bit, I was still just juggling businesses and interests and obligations. And working too much. And I said to my wife “maybe we should just sell everything and go to Bali.” and she just… We had no conversation and she said “I was just thinking the same thing.”

04:40 PAT: No way.

04:41 DANA: Yeah and so I was like “alright. Let’s grab a bottle of wine. Let’s go to dinner and let’s like make it real.” and we did. We started plotting, and we planned our extraction and went to Bali. And we sold everything. Got out of our lease.

I shouldn’t say everything… We got a ten-by-ten storage and kept the stuff you’d probably want to keep… Heirlooms and whatnot. And went with almost no bills, a one-way ticket and no real sense of whether we’d come back or when.

05:08 AUSTIN: What were you two up to before that? And what was kind of… Obviously the crash was tough and it caused for a lot of stress and anxiety… But was kind of your day to day looking like before you decided to make this change?

05:19 DANA: I called it feeding the babies. The crying babies. So it was like you know making the milk and sticking bottles into the babies’ mouths. And some of that was like you know having invested in various businesses that needed a little of my attention. And if you get too many of those, then it’s a lot. So every day those crying babies. Gonna feed them and keep them going. And at some point you’re like “what am I living for except to just feed the babies?”

And then it was an opportunity to step back and go “well what could I do to extract from these things? Does this business really need me? Can I sell out of this one? Can I liquidate? Can I shut this one down?” and just start shutting those relationships off and repositioning them and it was a way to force prioritization too. Because when you’re gonna take off and go to Bali, you can’t feed the crying babies. So you’ve got to be sure that you’ve realigned all those relationships. Gotten out of businesses, and sold some stuff.

06:20 NATE: I think in the context of the opt-out life you were doing a bunch of different side hustles. You’re an attorney, which I don’t think we’ve mentioned yet, so a practicing attorney, that owns a law firm…

06:30 PAT: That’s very interesting…

06:30 AUSTIN: And you still own the law firm?

06:31 DANA: Yeah.

06:32 AUSTIN: Oh wow.

06:33 NATE: So going back to that time, you’re doing that, you’re on the board of a couple companies that we were also on. Invested in a few others. You’ve got real estate you’re managing. All these things that we actually talk about being the good things that you need for the opt-out that life, but it was actually…

He realized he got to the point where he had too much of it going on. It was too stressful. Good life moment where his daughter was getting out of high school, or was in college to make that move. To like reprioritize things inside the law firm. And cut some of those hustle gigs out. And then write a book about the philosophy of making sure when you do these things, you do them the right way.

So he did end up writing that book and he finished it while he was in Bali and he called it “opt-out” and came back, I guess, refreshed with a new set of systems to manage the law firm. And some of those other projects had been cut out. And he was just refreshed I guess, right?

07:20 DANA: I was. And I had one big case when I came back from Bali. And so the year I came back, I was just hustling with that. That wrapped up at the end of 2017. And NATE and I were like watching the kids play at the park up from my house in La Jolla and I’m like “hey, could you read my book?”

07:39 NATE: And I didn’t even remember what the name of it was actually. And I was working on selling a business too. So this perfect like confluence of him finishing that case, me selling a business, and I was like just gonna not do anything this year. And he said the name and it was just like “opt-out.” that’s a great name. Like you get it. There’s no confusion about what it is. We hear it.

And it’s kind of proven itself out over the last six to eight months as we’ve met people on the street and they’re like “what are you shooting a video for?”

Like, “oh this thing called opt-out life.”

And they’re like “oh I gotta go to my job. I haven’t opted out yet.”

People like come up to us you run into people in Bali and you just tell him the name of it and they’re like “it’s kind of like 4-hour workweek,” and they re-explain the whole thing to you.

08:21 DANA: They tell me what my book’s about as soon as I tell them the title. So it’s pretty awesome. People resonate with it and then there… One guy I met at a little social gathering in Bali o—he was an Aussie—he’s like “okay it’s got to be like the 4-hour workweek. Here’s what I do.” and he told me his story about like how he DJ’s gigs in Australia, but then he wants to be in Bali for months at a time so he collects all those gigs and then sells them to other DJ’s. So he’s like kind of outsourcing.

08:49 PAT: Like syndication almost.

08:50 AUSTIN: Wow that’s interesting.

08:51 DANA: Mm-hmm. And so he’s like telling me basically he’s like kind of claiming membership in the tribe, right? He’s like “I’m opted-out.” and so it was kind of cool without even reading the book. I mean, he’s buying it on his phone, while he’s telling me what the books about, and what his life is about. And I’m like “there’s so many people that get it.”

09:09 NATE: Yeah and that’s an important part of the genesis too. So for like ten years we’ve been friends and we’ve posted these networking parties and events here in San Diego. And it’s basically a bunch of people like us that have an alternative path to income and lifestyle. And it was like opt-out the book is cool, but I’d be excited to launch a platform and I know DANA would too and we called it “opt-out life.”

And we’re like “we could start a podcast, because all these people that come to our events are the exact people that we… Whose story we could feature. All these people who we’ve met and become friends with do this in some way that’s just a little bit different. And exposing those stories of like, the little guy, who’s actually got a really cool life. And who’s done some cool stuff in business. It’s not a Silicon Valley success story. It’s not the typical success stories you hear.

But they all illustrate kind of the same point. It all comes back to these principles.

09:56 AUSTIN: And it just seems so realistic. I think that’s the cool side of this. Yeah, you listen to… I don’t know… Name a big podcast… And it’s obviously—like you said—that rags to riches maybe. But they’re billionaires or tech giants. And for these it just seems like you know either doing enough to live a comfortable life. They’re not you know gazillionaires but it just seems attainable. And I think that’s like a cool side of it too.

And kind of what I was thinking, you know, opting out it kind of reminds me of like a subscription-based model that kind of life is… That’s like a good analogy for the 21st century… Life has become a subscription-based model. You subscribe to it and every year you pay the same every month. And you get what you get. And it’s very difficult to kind of turn that off.

10:35 PAT: Yeah and you want to stop for a little bit almost. You want to stop from that routine. The same thing coming at you consistently.

10:42 AUSTIN: And it’s gonna keep happening unless you actively stop doing it right? Or you say “I’m going to make a change.”

So I think that’s really cool. But what is it and how I would say when you’re stuck and becoming unstuck? I think that’s really difficult for a lot of people to make that change. Do you guys have any examples maybe? Or tips or tricks maybe? Something where you’re able to physically make that change. Instead of just having it be an idea in your head?

11:06 DANA: What we found is that the podcast… We wanted to showcase people’s stories. So here’s this cool person, they didn’t cash out, but they’re living this the same kind of life people want to live if they had made a lot of money. Millions or whatever.

So featuring these stories. Listening to those stories, we’re hearing themes consistently coming back. And so we’ve actually picked up on those and we’re trying to find ways to help our listeners, and people that are into what we’re saying understand those.

So for example there’s always a pivotal experience in somebody’s story. You know, when we get someone in and we’re like “what’s your opt-out life story and very often… Nate coined the term “audacity to reach out.” you know, there was a time where they just walked up to someone and just asked “can I this? Or can I buy you coffee? Can you tell me how you did that like that?” pivotal moment. A partnership or a business relationship

12:01 PAT: It’s like an “aha” moment kind of right?

12:04 DANA: Yeah. And you’ve got to be bold. You can’t be shy. You can’t be kind of like hiding at home.

12:10 PAT: Can’t be passive with it.

12:12 DANA: To do that you got to be out at some meetups and even if you’re reclusive you’ve got to like find your pathway to get out there. So that’s a big recurring theme is “audacity to reach out.”

12:23 NATE: Curiosity—exercising curiosity—not just letting it live inside your head. And part of that means, walking out the door and going to a place where that interaction’s gonna happen. But also curiosity enough not to be like, “I’ve got this idea for this thing and it’s a great idea. And I tell people about it at barbecues. And then that’s it”

But having curiosity enough to throw up an ad and try to sell it. Having curiosity enough to I don’t know go to a farmers market and try to sell it. A lot of this stuff, we would come back to side-gig, side hustles, which is kind of a term that is annoyingly getting abused these days…

12:55 PAT: Very widely used now, right?

12:58 NATE: I don’t know. It sucks in a way to be like “let’s do a side hustle.”

13:00 AUSTIN: It was a bummer when Uber decided to use it in their ads.

13:03 NATE: Right yeah.

13:04 PAT: Great side hustle. Well okay. Not really.

13:07 NATE: I don’t know if we just take “side” out of it, because we’re all just hustling. We had this dinner last night with this 12 that we always meet up with here and we’re all just doing a bunch of different hustles. So we get a lot of user feedback. People that are in their jobs that they hate. Or they’re kind of doing an opt-out life thing, but they want to figure out how to get into real estate. It’s like choose a hustle. Be curious enough to actually try it. Go with that feedback and that’s like just gonna push you down that path.

13:33 PAT: Right. Kind of leads you down the pursuit. I think one thing too, just kind of hearing what you’re saying, is like a lot of people they kind of get that self-defeating mindset in a sense? They’re almost like “yeah, well I have this job and I’m very comfortable at it. It’s great that I have this curiosity, but I don’t have the time or I have like x, y or z rationalizations for why I shouldn’t be going and pursuing it. And the world we live in right now, being able to leverage technology in the way that you can, there really isn’t a reason for you to not explore that curiosity. You can find more information about it on your phone. Literally at your fingertips.

14:03 NATE: Yeah, a lot of it is mental. And that’s why we try to bring back these hustles, these rules for side gigs were it has to be low time commitment. It has to have a low capital requirement. Like it can’t be stressful. That’s a business.

We honestly trying to say, “Don’t start a business.”

14:15 PAT: It should be fun

14:16 NATE: It should be fun. Because then if you get too many of them in aren’t fun, then you end up like where he was at. So you got to qualify these things before… You got to figure out where you can generate ideas from. We’ve started to bring together a lot of places which like… This is these are the places we watch… Business for sale sites. The freelance platforms, because you can go there and see what other people are selling, right? Like that’s where you can be like “oh man, I can do that.”

14:39 PAT: I think it’s so interesting too. Because it’s like the new-age definition of success, almost in a way right? Because the old money way of thinking about it is like “I need to make x amount of money, and then I will be successful or I will be like fulfilled in what I’m doing.”

And now it’s like people are looking more for that that personal fulfillment. And that love for what they do. As opposed to like being able to quantify how good they are at it, I think.

And this just goes right in line with that. Which is why it’s such an interesting time. And such an interesting idea for you guys to explore that put that platform out there I think.

15:08 NATE: Yeah, I think a lot of people want to connect with what they’re doing. And they also want to just have control over time, right? Like the old marker success was the gold watch. The new marker is I don’t need a watch because I don’t give a fuck what time it is.

15:25 AUSTIN: Yeah, you nailed that.

15:26 DANA: Totally. Yeah people who get stuck… I think a lot of the getting stuck is bad ideas about what business and money are about. So this new myth that you need a novel idea, you know? That whatever… “Someone’s never done this. I’ll do that, right?” that’s a crazy thing to do. What you should do is very pedestrian. You should do something someone else is already making money at. This is not shark tank. You don’t need a novel idea that dazzles investors. You need something that’s gonna sell next week, next month. And these are very pedestrian ideas. People get stuck because they think “well I have no good ideas.”

You don’t need a good idea. You don’t need a great idea. You need to just do something that makes money.

16:04 PAT: You need to be able to execute. I think that’s a really interesting point too, because that is something that you hear a lot. And a lot of kids that want to be entrepreneurs when they grow up and you know like find that business niche. A lot of them are like “what is a business that’s gonna disrupt an entire industry?”

Right? It’s like you don’t need to come up with a new Facebook. You don’t need to be the guy that comes up with a new google. What you need to do is take something that already exists and perfect it, and keep iterating on it, and make it better. Because there’s always gonna be a need for that.

And the demand is already there. You’re not having to create demand out of nothing. And so from what I’m hearing, if you’re looking for that immediate accessibility, that is key. You need to kind of have, you know, something that’s proven, to an extent. So that you can perfect it, and it’s accessible to you right away.

16:44 AUSTIN: Yeah, so just transitioning over to talking more about the opt-out life podcast and kind of who you guys get to interact with—you have a lot of really cool guests. And you shoot kind of on location. And you get to go to all these cool places.

How did this kind of come to be in terms of the networking and who are these people in your life that you’ve been able to reach?

17:04 NATE: Like I mentioned. A lot of them comes from that group that we’ve curated here in San Diego. So there’s definitely a local leaning tint to our guests. We do record in person, so getting a lot here, but we also knew that we’d be traveling a lot. So we try to… Dana was going to be in Europe this summer a couple… Or just once I guess… And hanging out with cool people that the guy from Denmark we didn’t even put up. He owns what does he own?

17:26 DANA: He’s got a really high end woodworking shop. Stayed with him at his villa down in France. Casual.

17:35 NATE: But he owns the building that the shops in… So telling you stories from the sexy background of France and Copenhagen or whatever, but the same stories that we would tell here. But a lot of it comes from that initial network of people that we’ve been curating.

And that started with just a 12-person dinner in 2009 in La Jolla. And I was like “you invite your friends. You invite your friends.” and it’s people that are in real estate. People that have just started side-gigs that have gone big. One of our recent guests was the Knockaround founder. He’s… You know, started a sunglass brand while he was a grad student and… He’s had the business for 13 years, which is crazy. And that one was just actually leveraged the podcast to get to him cause that was a local brand that I really liked and I wanted to get the story behind it. But there’s a lot of that stuff. I mean who else has been on recently?

We had a cop who reached out.

18:22 AUSTIN: Oh wow

18:24 NATE: He actually had listened to the podcast. Reached out and told me his story right off the bat about how he was… It was Christmas Eve and it was you know six or seven years into working on the force. And he had a side gig that was going well. And he had to drop off his daughter at the in-laws and go work a shift. And he was like “I’m not doing this anymore.” and that was kind of a pivotal moment. And he’s gone off and he’s been an entrepreneur for like almost 20 years now. Still is a reserve officer, but kind of a cool story of that moment where it happened.

So yeah, I don’t know, it certainly hasn’t been hard to find guests. There are a lot of people out there, that are doing things that kind of fit this definition. We’ve got them lined up for beyond the rest of the year. And I know that we could do a bunch more if we would go travel.

So this it kind of… Self-fulfilling prophecy that there’s a lot more people doing this in this opt-out way. There’s a lot more of these success stories that people don’t hear about. The same people, go on the same circle jerk on the big-business podcasts. You just hear about them. And it’s like, “okay.”

19:17 PAT: Every other video on Facebook is Gary Vee saying the same thing to me over and over.

Which is fine. The message is good, but it’s like “I get it dude.”

19:24 DANA: Yeah.

19:25 NATE: And it’s not… It doesn’t feel real or attainable in the same way that we could just have… We had these girls on salty Cali which is kind of a popular episode. Dana met them on a plane flight, right? It was like “what do you guys do?” and they had in the last year or so broken off from just selling some cheap jewelry that they were hand-making at surf shops, off into their own full-time gig. And now they’re in like a hundred stores doing a placing their product…

19:50 DANA: Full time.

19:52 NATE: Told us a great story about going to “magic.” the big fashion show in la… Or in Vegas, excuse me. And it’s just this cool story where it’s like this… She has… One of the founders has kids. And now she can go to the park with the kids in the afternoon. She used to work in real estate, and she wasn’t able to do that. So these real world stories… They’re cool to feature and they’re everywhere.

20:11 DANA: Yeah, what I like is how many people write in to us and say “thank you” for giving them permission. And kind of giving them a something to embrace to call the life that they’re already living. So there’s a lot of people that are like “oh I’m doing that and my parents… I’m 40-something… My parents are still asking me when I’m gonna get a real job, but now you know you’re endorsing what I’m already doing.”

So in a sense it’s kind of like we can build community around the idea that… We don’t really own the idea, but we’re giving it a name… And so you know people like that. There’s sort of like living the opt-out life, have a sense of permission. And hopefully… Our goal is to build community around it actually… Have a platform.

You know, we’ve got the Facebook group, but it’s growing pretty quickly. And we’re trying to interact there, let other people… It’s cool to like have people post questions and then not just us play guru and answer those. We’re just seeing other people answer in the Facebook group and our goal would be to see the numbers just grow like crazy on that.

21:13 AUSTIN: And I think inspiration also is a big part of this. And just listening to you guys and the thoughts come into my head it’s like “well, if other people are doing yet why can’t I? I’m good at these three things or whatever it is you know with your technical skill and background. How can I monetize that and make it work?”

And the inspirational side of it I think is probably gonna be the biggest asset, right? Is you’re actually changing people’s lives, because they’re finally seeing that other people are doing it. Or hearing about it and then seeing that it works.

I think it’s the big thing to where there’s a lot of fear associated with making a change of doing something yourself. I think we’ve all felt that from time to time where you’re like yeah this is a good idea and I’m good at it, but what happens if I lose all my money? Or you know or blah-blah-blah.

21:53 PAT: You just go to the worst-case-scenario mindset.

21:53 AUSTIN: Yeah, absolutely. So it’s just that mental side of it that I think is the hardest part. And there’s probably more of a weaning and waning instead of just dropping everything. Maybe the Bali thing was a bit aggressive for most, but it’s the fact that it works and that there’s real examples and you’re continuously highlighting those through your show, that gives people a sense of maybe comfort and confidence maybe that they can do it.

22:19 NATE: Yeah the podcast… “opt-out life” is 100% inspirational. It’s story based. It’s supposed to be a narrative that’s supposed to show you ups and downs and pivotal moments. And make you feel like it’s accessible for you. And that’s what it’s always going to be.

And we know that we get a lot of like… I mean the number one word in emails to us… Like I was just reading one in the car on the way here. Well, I wasn’t driving but I was reading… Inspiration, inspiration. Like, “keep up what you’re doing. It’s so inspiring.”

And then a lot of people start to say “well, can I have more practical tips? Because I know you guys know the practical side. So we may have to launch another podcast to focus on practical tips.

And then also behind the scenes we’ve built two courses now and we’re starting to like foster a membership community where we’re gonna do like AMAs and live streams and bring some of our friends to tell us more the tactical. I mean, I actually cut a lot of the tactical talk, because I feel like it doesn’t necessarily fit the mainstream. Where we’ll have a friend come in and we’ll talk about ad arbitrage for 40 minutes. And I’m like getting off on it, but I’m like “I gotta cut this down unfortunately.”

So let’s find a place to put that for the people that are interested in it. And just keep the front end stuff as inspirational.

23:26 AUSTIN: What do the classes entail. You say you’re doing a couple e-courses is it?

23:30 NATE: Yeah, yeah. I mean we took the book “opt-out” which is really actually Dana’s guidebook to how he’s built his life. Which he was doing even before he reached a kind of a boiling point and had to reset. And wrote the book.

But it’s his approach to side hustles and the matrix of all these things that they have to qualify for. We have a course basically built just around side hustles, so the side-gig launch kit or something like that. Working on the marketing name for it, but yeah, places that like… A hundred examples of side-gigs. Places to find them, ways to middleman the economy in ways that you never thought of that you could with side-gigs.

We have a lot of content around that, but our main big course is called the blueprint and it is the book turned into a course. And it’s a behemoth of… I mean it would take you a year to go through it I think if you were being wise about it… But side hustles. A whole thing on business. He’s an attorney. I’ve been doing internet marketing for 18 years, so there’s a lot of you know nitty-gritty stuff on both of those topics. There’s a whole real-estate section, because we’re both big real estate investors and believers in that as a way to grow wealth. And an alternative way at least compared to stocks and IRAs and all the opted-in ways to do it. There’s a whole ton of stuff on travel. Just for fun. Because we’ve done a lot of travel and we always advocate for that as a piece of the opt-out life. Because it’s what a lot of people choose to do with that extra time, that extra income, that extra flexibility.

And then there’s a whole bunch of stuff on mindset. And social pressures, and all the things people face

24:55 DANA: Yeah, dealing with fear. I mean like you’re talking about fear. I mean the courses are a place for us to say “it’s okay to fail.” especially with our model of side gigs being low capital and low time requirements. Get in, give it a shot. If it fails you’re out 500 bucks, you’re gonna start again. Pick yourself up, you know? So we’re giving people an opportunity to understand enough to overcome the fear.

25:16 AUSTIN: Which is awesome.

25:20 PAT: Yeah and I think that honestly out of all of those the one that strikes me the most to potentially be the most effective? Since you’re saying like the inspiration piece is what hits the mainstream so closely—is probably that fear that mindset one right. Because I think that what people are attracted to the podcast for… Or I guess the reason that they listen to it… Is because it helps establish this alternative mindset to that’s outside the norm of what they have currently. And if I’m understanding you guys correctly, it’s that deviation of mindset that created this whole opportunity for you in the first place.

So definitely super excited to see that. I’m definitely gonna be checking that out. We’ll post a link to that in the description as well.

But even just speaking about it a little bit more, I’m curious, do you guys see trends as far as which of those are the most popular so far? Is it too early to tell? Like what’s resonating with people right now? And where do you see that going?

26:11 NATE: It is tough to tell. I definitely think the mindset stuff, the inspiration, the permission to do it.

It’s funny—the blueprint course itself—we’ve had… I don’t know… Several dozen people go through it I’d say. And purchase it. And we’ve interacted with them.

And it’s like just the first lesson everyone just gets hung up on that. And it’s a side hustle thing. It’s basically my best side hustles. All the ones that I have. I go through like the seven I’m doing right now and I think it’s the first one I talk about that people are like just “that blew my mind. I wanted to do that and I just stopped listening to the course after that.”

And I’m like “okay, well there’s a whole lot more shit in there,” but I guess we hit a home run with the first thing. So there’s been a lot of feedback on inspiration, ideas for little side hustles that you can start with a real world example that is making money. In a way that you never thought that you could apply. Maybe an ability to build a website or do marketing. Those are resonating well.

And then, yeah, I think the mindset stuff. And then actually with people who are a little bit further along… Because we actually—it’s kind of a problem right people that are fifty-five, that are doctors want to opt out. People that are twenty-two, coming out of school, want to take an alternative path. They want opt out.

Very different places in life and also the 42 year old with the mortgage and kids and who is like “I hate my career. I want to do something to.” it’s this broad spectrum

27:26 PAT: Gotta approach that differently, right?

27:29 NATE: Right. A lot of the people we just had our first event called beach camp this weekend and the real estate panel was really interesting for all the people who have kind of gotten to a point of success with business, who are like “I want to do something and invest.” you know, although you’re cute side hustle ideas are cool, I’m at a different place. And that was I think there’s a ton we could do on real estate it’s just you know obviously as I’m talking through this there’s all these different buckets.

27:53 DANA: Yeah, so you’ve got a lot of people that have just done better than us with side gigs. And I mean really half of the crew that came to this initial opt-out event are people that are just like—we admire—I want to showcase the cool stuff they’re doing

28:09 PAT: Yeah, but that’s the cool thing, right?

28:12 DANA: Yeah, but then they—what was amazing to me was most of them hadn’t dabbled into real estate yet. But they have the resources, so now they’re starting to get their head around alright a long term play is real estate. And they’ve got really interesting questions and stuff that kind of between Nate and I, a couple of other people like Alex Martinez, you know, we’re just able to speak to it. And so I think it’s part of that opt-out learning as well. Because I mean you might not jump into real estate right out of where you’re at now. But if you get a side get going and maybe you leverage that into a business, you’re gonna need real estate.

28:45 AUSTIN: Yeah, so curious about kind of just growth and projections for your guys’ podcast and business. What do you think’s on the horizon? What are maybe some marketing tactics you’re utilizing? I saw you guys are doing a little bit of work on your website. Just put up some new content videos and all that good stuff.

29:01 NATE: We’re trying to do it all. Which is foolish I guess.

29:06 AUSTIN: Hard to know which direction to go.

29:07 NATE: I know. Yeah, I mean we’ve got the podcast down. Like producing it. I think our progress is pretty good and that’s just a machine that’ll go.

We’ve shot a ton of video. We did a week long shoot in July, and a couple days shoot in April. Just kind of mastering that’s been interesting as well. But we’ve got a ton of video content that we want to just try to use at the right time.

Right now it’s really just figuring out how to make it more simple, I think. I think what I talk through is a little complex and like this big blueprint thing like that could be probably six or seven courses.

So figuring out how to make this more approachable for people in smaller chunks whether that’s we’re talking about a 12-month program that we might launch. Just like twelve months to the opt-out life, and making this a lot more just like from A to B. A few things this month, a few things the next month, and trying to just figure out how to get people in the door for that community. And worry about the higher end stuff down the line.

And I think we also we want to host a big event. I mentioned we did an event this weekend. It was just fifty people here in San Diego. But I think this is a thing that could have the 500 person the thousand person big event where we’re dancing on stage with Wyclef jean and all that shit.

30:15 AUSTIN: Yeah. If you get Wyclef, you got invite me.

30:18 PAT: I was gonna say, he’s a diehard Wyclef guy.

30:22 AUSTIN: Bigtime Fugees.

30:23 NATE: So yeah it could get to that point if we stick with it. I think it’ll be a… It’s not a business that’s gonna blow up overnight. But people constantly telling us to just “keep doing what you’re doing. We love it. We love it. We love it.” so figuring out the business model behind it’ll be important over the course of the next two years. But it’s something that we embody that we love.

Like, I think kind of like have become opt-out life in a way. Every time someone says in a meeting, I’m like, “you owe me a dollar.” you said it at dinner last night, it’s almost like it’s just funny to hear like this phrase. It’s just becomes catchphrase.

But yeah, it’s a brand that is us, so hopefully we can just stick with it and do the fun stuff. But also make it something that touches a lot of people. And we can go on the road and do live podcasts in New York and LA, whatever.

31:09 DANA: Yeah, the challenge for any podcast is monetization. We’re crossing a threshold in terms of downloads now—where we probably we have one advertiser we’re putting in the mix. We’ll probably be able to get a seat at the table with agencies and get ads going that will help us to do more, and do better. And really the ultimate question is like how do we how do we make money the right way? Because we want to make money at this? Because it’ll let us do more of it, you know? So we want to spend every week making cool ask me anythings. And riffing on stuff and getting people that were answering questions we need money.

At the same time we just want to do this, because we’re loving it. It’s right in our sweet spot. It’s fun and so you know how can you deliver as much as you can to people free? At the same time you got to make money in the end. So that’s a balance we’re walking right now

32:00 NATE: Yeah we don’t wanna be gurus. Like I’ve always wanted to do a business like this. I love the model, right? I love all my friends with the Ferraris and the crazy you know the $25,000 packages…

32:12 PAT: Tai Lopez looking stuff.

32:18 NATE: Hey, there we go. We worked him in.

Yeah, I mean I’ve known Tai for a long time yeah and I’ve hung out with them a lot. And many other examples of that generations before Tai Lopez that have come and gone. I’ve always wanted to do that, but I didn’t want to be that internet douchebag dude. So part of the reason that this made sense to me was opt-outs a book. It’s a great name, it’s a great brand and us together—I don’t think you could ever you know call us that. I think we’re legitimate, we’re down to earth… Like this is stuff that we’ve done. People are still gonna you know give us negative comments on Facebook, because they’re skeptical. But I think long-term this is real and I think figuring out how to monetize it without ever jumping into that bucket of you know whatever Tai Lopez sells.

33:01 AUSTIN: I’m not sure.

33:02 DANA: Yeah, I’m not sure what he sells either. But our job is to show you that the gurus are these guys and girls doing what they want with their lives. And so where we probably will make our money is tools. I mean ultimately, education. Because that’s what will deliver. We’re not gonna deliver, you know, follow us… Give us money for a mastermind, because you should follow us. And think of us as your internet gurus.

But you should pay us, because we’re gonna give you kick-ass tools. Everything from legal to marketing to crazy strategies to do complex reverse 1031 exchanges in a real estate deal. You know, like, we know that stuff and we’ll deliver that.

But ultimately who we want you to look to as your guru are the people we’re bringing to the table. And saying listen to this story. That’s who you should be following, not some guy that’s got Lamborghinis.

33:53 PAT: To that point actually—it’s a nice segue way—one last question for you? Are there any exciting or upcoming guests that you’re really stoked about that you want people to hear about? All of them? Everybody?

34:07 DANA: Neil Patel’s dude right? I liked it. I liked it. He just had some cool stories about those pivotal moments and the decisions that he made. And leaving a career and so I you know that one is we didn’t finish production yet so it’s an interview we did two weeks ago. So in a next month or so that should be up.

34:31 NATE: Nicolas Cole should be fun too. We did a video interview, a video episode we have shot several of them with a guy up in la who’s I think he’s 27, now? 28? Who he had a cool story where he wanted to build a following online through writing and write a book. And to do that in his 20s—which is impressive as I explain this—he had the self-discipline to not pay for home internet for two years. I think it was?

34:59 PAT: Free Wi-Fi?

35:01 NATE: No Wi-Fi in his house. He’s like, “no Wi-Fi in my apartment. Cause I know if I go home and I have Wi-Fi, I’m gonna mess around on the internet. And I need to come home every night and write. And he did that for two years. And at the end of it he published a book and now he’s launched a business. He has a growing agency that’s probably a couple million in revenue. Where they do ghost writing and brand building for experts online. And I’m excited to kind of interview him, because it’s a very like real story where you’ve got this like crazy one move that that made it made it happen. So hopefully we get up to la and interview him soon.

35:32 PAT: That’ll be awesome. Yeah it sounds like it just does have that like pivotal moment that you guys like from your guests.

Well, awesome guys. Again, thank you so much for coming on today. We had a great time with you. Check out optoutlife.com to see where you can get their podcasts. All their resources.

And also check out the “opt-out” book on amazon and Barnes & noble. Guys thank you again so much for coming in.

35:53 DANA: Thanks for having us.

35:54 AUSTIN: A big thank you to Dana and Nate for that wonderful interview. We had a great time discussing podcasting with them. It’s not every day that we get to have other podcasters on to talk about kind of the way they market themselves, how their shows go, and then of course to get the lowdown on kind of why they started it was very cool.

36:11 PAT: Yeah, I thought they were two really, really interesting guys. And just the philosophy that they have behind the opt-out brand as a whole is pretty crazy. Just kind of hearing Dana’s story about his initial kind of “aha” moment. Going to Bali for a little while.

36:28 AUSTIN: It sounds amazing.

36:29 PAT: It sounds amazing. But more than that I think it kind of encourages all of us to think you know critically about what we’re spending our time doing.

36:35 AUSTIN: Absolutely.

36:37 PAT: Nobody wants to get to that point… To where they’re like “I need to drop everything and leave to reset.”

36:40 AUSTIN: And they kind of put—and I think I mentioned this—the creativity seems tangible right? And the ability to go after that thing that you love. So having an idea and a concept pop into your head and then feeling like you can actually go after it. They broke that down in ways that it makes it a little bit more simple. And within reach for those who actually want to go after it. And start that passion project as a full-time gig.

So big appreciation to those guys. Check out their show if you get a chance. It’s opt out life podcast, of course. Anywhere you can find podcasts so check that out for sure.

37:12 PAT: Yeah, definitely. And visit their website. They have a great website with a ton of awesome resources like we talked about.

All right you guys that just about wraps everything up for us here at Flip the Switch for episode 54. Again our Brian Urlacher episode. Thanks for listening everybody. Again we’ll be back next week with more great content for you. Join our forum in the meantime that’s at the Flip the Switch podcast forum on Facebook. Austin’s ready to approve you the second that you come through. But until next week has been Pat Kriedler, Austin Mahaffy, John Saunders, and Joe Hollerup signing off.