Mastering Passive Income to Gain Financial Freedom

Hey, guys. This week's guest is a guy who went from medical device sales into real estate. So he is my homeboy. Bronson Hill is the managing member of Bronson Equity, a general partner in over 2,500 multifamily units valued at more than $250,000,000 He hosts the Mailbox Money Show where he explores the investor mindset and has raised over $50,000,000 for real estate and private equity ventures. He's the author of the best selling book Fire Yourself, Replace Your Working Income with Passive Income in Three Years or Less.

Bronson has is a sought after keynote speaker and founder of the Wealth Forum, a mastermind for affluent investors. He's been featured on top podcast like this one, and major events alongside Ken McElroy. Here is Bronson Hill.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Power Up Your Life podcast powered by GoBundance Women. I'm Mandy McAllister. And I'm Kelly Resendez. And today, we have a really brilliant real estate investor, Bronson Hill. Hi, Bronson.

Hey, Mandy. Kelly, great to be with you guys. And, it's always great having great conversations about real estate and talking specifically to entrepreneurs.

I love it. We're I I'm excited to dig in, and I feel like we've grown up together from Med Device into real estate. So before we end up, getting into all of the things, why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey and your own words?

Yeah. So I was a well paid medical sales professional. I was making over $200,000 a year, and I had a great quality of life in the sense that I, you know, worked eight to five or seven to five most days. And, you know, it was it was consistent work. But the thing I really didn't have is what a lot of people want is the ability to take time off, the ability to have not just financial freedom, but time freedom.

And there's this saying that, you know, unless you learn how to make money while you sleep, you'll work until you die. Warren Buffett said that. And it really got me thinking about what are ways that are not there's a lot of things people talk about that they think are passive income that are really not, such as I own a rental house. I have an online business. I do options trading online, but all this stuff takes work, and it's it's not always scalable. It takes up more time. It actually creates another job for you.

So as I started to learn about that process, I was able to, basically cover my living expenses and then my income through other forms of passive income. And so I've it's been really rewarding to do that for myself as well as teach a lot of other people to be able to do that. So we've raised now over $50,000,000 to do different real estate and other, private equity projects, and I just love being able to help people get where they wanna go on their financial, goals.

And then fire themselves. I I love everything about that title. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I had the epiphany that I didn't go to medical school because I didn't wanna be on call, and then I ended up on call for a med device job. So how do I buy my way out of that so that I can be at, you know, school field trips with my kids? So it is so incredibly aligned.

You know, going bigger in real estate. Estate. You know, there's a big difference between managing a book of business with a med device company and then moving into, you know, dollars 250,000,000 worth of real estate. You know?

So along that travels, I I'm certain that there was a time that you felt stuck. So you when you feel stuck, when you don't know what to do next, how do you get there?

Yeah. So I think I think often as an entrepreneur, you get stuck. There if you haven't had a moment where you're, you know, waking up in the middle of the night at three in the morning staring at the ceiling, you know, it's that's that's not that uncommon. Hopefully, it's not always up your business where it continues to get better, but there are seasons you go through where it's like, some things happen where, like, how am I gonna make payroll? What's gonna happen?

And if you've watched the last few years in real estate, we did a lot of multifamily. Some of those deals went really well. Some of them have not gone very well. Right? So some very difficult conversations with investors, some very challenging deals. And so you have a choice in everything. Is are you gonna let something defeat you, or are you gonna allow it to help you get stronger?

You know, I talk about this in my book where I had, I I was I was actually investing options, and I had made $20,000 in a couple months. And basically, I lost in one day $70,000, through an options strategy. I decided to zig where I should have zagged and do things correctly. But, it it was a $70,000 lesson or an education of, you know, okay. I'm I'm not the best options trader. Right? And there's other things I can do that are a better seat for me. There's no there's no shame in that. It's just like, oh, there there's a lesson. I can learn that.

And so a lot of us, we go through things and we think that failure defines us. But as an entrepreneur, you have to be someone who's willing to make a lot of mistakes and then quickly learn and make adjustments. So when it comes to investing, everything is information. Nothing is is this is who I am, but it's just simply just like in your business. Oh, this didn't work. Let's try something different. And that's exactly the same the way it works in investing.

Wow. That's incredible. So did you have, like, mentors or really how did you make that transition? Because, obviously, there's a lot of people listening that are probably interested in real estate investing, which could be a little bit scary to them. Kinda walk us through how you made that shift.

Well, I'd love to say I was just complete self made. I had no mentors. I just had epiphanies every night. I'd wake up and just have these brilliant ideas, and I was never wrong. But that would not be true, so I've gotta actually be honest.

Yeah. I definitely have had mentors. I had some mentors. You know, there's a saying when the student is ready, the teacher appears. I had been doing single family real estate. I had four or five single family homes in other states, and my goal is get to to get to 30. But I realized I was creating my for myself another job as I talked about. And then I had a a kind of a relative I had seen in years who said, hey. Why don't you do multifamily apartments? And I was like, why don't I have the money? He said, well, you can raise the money. So he said, read this book, listen to this podcast, go to this event, and I did all those things. Within a short amount of time, I was raising tens of millions of dollars.

Right? So it's sometimes when you're ready and, again, I I took massive action. I did everything I could. I was working kind of almost two jobs full time for a little bit where I was trying to kinda do both. And then, you know, but it but it really it really works for me.

So I think that, you know, the role of mentors is incredibly powerful. And, again, it's rare that I have somebody says, you know, I I come to them and I say, hey. Will you be my mentor? Will you mentor me? It's more like I have mentors in different areas of my life. I have mentors for spiritual growth. I have mentors for, you know, finance or business. I have mentors for for giving back our legacy. And so I try to find people in my life that are like in there or maybe family relationships or things like I can watch. They well, how can I how can I get better in this area of my life?

Because there's that quote, you're the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. So if you're the smartest and wealthiest and most fit person in your network, it's time to get in a different network. Right? It's time to pay to be in the room such as GoBundance, GoBundance Women. We run a group called the Wealth Forum, which is for high net worth investors, typically 10 to 40,000,000. We have some that are lower net worth. But, in general, people are there because they wanna be in the room with people that are are ahead of them. And that's really one of the keys to anything is get in the room with people that are doing things that you want to be doing.

Yeah. Yeah. You've got to be around the people doing the thing you want to do because that's the advice that you wanna take, not the guy who bought a rental house and that didn't work out for him. You know, you you talk to the people who've done the big thing or bigger things than you.

I having worked with so many people to figure out how they're gonna fire themself and firing yourself as well. I I'm curious what you would think are the biggest mistakes that people make on the on the path to financial freedom.

Well, I think the number one biggest mistake most people make is that they, they have analysis paralysis. They have a lot of great ideas, but they don't actually take action. And I have this theory that if you have somebody who's a masterful strategist, they've got we know people like this. Right? They're just absolutely brilliant. They've got all the ideas. They can literally conversate about anything. They know how especially with chat g p t now, you can figure out all the business plans for everything, but they don't take any action and their life doesn't change.

But then there's someone who's really you ever have you ever met somebody you, like, you see them and you're like, you know, they're they're not really that smart or amazing, but they're like, they're like 10 times my net worth. Like, how did this person do this? Right? And typically it's because they just simply took action every day. They just literally said, like, this is my goal, and here's what I'm doing. And they took consistent action every day, and they learned. They made adjustments.

So I think that my theory is is that life has an action bias. And if I just simply take a little bit of action every day and I keep making adjustments, I will just destroy it. And it's not a competition, but I I will just have way, way more progress in my life had I just been somebody who had great ideas and ideated all the time.

So I would say for people that are like, I'm interested in changing my life and growing and investing and business, get around people. There's really two things that do that. Getting around people that are a different place and, you know, much further along than you, whether that's masterminds, that's conferences, that's groups like yours, subgroups, whatever it is. And then, you know, ask for help, ask for feedback.

And the second one really is education. Like, I'm an absolute nerd and, you know, I've I've my goal this year is a 100 books. I think I'm at 97 books for 2025. And, like, I I listen to a lot of them, and, yes, that does count. A lot of people say if you listen to books, it doesn't count. It's an awful accountings I retained pretty well. But but to just be hungry for learning and growth because, it it's all it's all been done before. Right? It may look different. I mean, we have AI now. There's so many changes happening now, but all this stuff is, like, it's a very exciting time to be alive.

But it's also important, I think, with books. You get something that you don't get on a podcast or on a YouTube or on some of these other things that are short kinda short more recent form. So so I'm a big one of of learn as much as you can and get around people and be curious and really try to grow.

Wow. That's amazing. And it is a common theme. We've actually, like, just in the last couple days, like, so many things that you've said, like, when the when the student's ready, the teacher's gonna appear. Like, you can't ever stop learning and growing.

So I think you mentioned that you've raised $50,000,000 in syndication funds, which is absolutely incredible. We have people that are listening that are in that same place, whether they're raising capital for their company or for real estate ventures or etcetera. Like, give us some of what you believe is important because there's more than just connecting with the right people.

It's also presenting the right opportunity and then being able to deliver on the results that they really count on. So share a little bit more in that regard.

So the biggest thing that I can say about capital raising, is that people think you have to be the sales dog kinda person that you just shake people down and it's it kinda have I mean, that's what we think of when we think of sales. Right? That we've gotta be this person that is a a sales dog kind of guy. You imagine going to a used car lot kind of the vibe you get. Right? You gotta be that kind of person. It's like, oh, I don't like sales. It's like, I don't sell that way. I don't make calls when I have a new deal. Right?

So what I do is I think of, and this comes from my friend, Russ Gray. If you guys haven't had Russ Gray on the show, he's incredible. But, he basically says this that it's the idea of hunting versus farming. Right? Hunting is you can tell when someone's a hunter, and they want the sale more than you want the sale. Right? And no one wants to be sold. We all wanna buy, and no one wants to be sold. The difference is a farmer is somebody who's continually planting and sowing and watering. And that, you know, what they'll do is they'll maybe they have an apple tree. They'll come along the apple. They'll do a little tug on the apple. And if the apple doesn't come off, they don't kinda get both hands, start reefing the thing off over the days. Okay. It's not it's not ready. So they go on to the next one. Right?

So I think it's like that with people is people invest when they're ready. And so for me, the farming activity is a show like this, is we have our own podcast called the mailbox money show. We put out, you know, putting almost a daily short video every day for YouTube. We do other long form videos. We'll put it in my book that I wrote, Fire Yourself. So those are things that I just really wanna try to help people to get where they wanna go.

So if you wanna raise money, you've gotta think about that quote from Zig Ziglar. You can have everything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want. If I can make myself valuable to valuable people, meaning these people have money and they have a money problem. Not that they don't have money. They have money. They don't know where to invest it. So how can I educate them and just be a support to them?

And then what what'll happen is when the time is right, when the Frizz, they'll start saying, hey. Who do I trust? Who do I know? Well, I trust Kelly and Mandy because I've listened to them for months, and I know they're amazing, and they seem solid. I'll reach out to them. And that's how that's how capital raising works. We have people reach out sometimes years later, several years later. I've been following you for years. I decided to reach out. I'm gonna invest with you. Right? Or I'm referring to somebody else. And so that's that's how you build trust is being somebody who's likable, who's helpful. And then when the time is right, people will decide to come forward and and work with you.

Love it. And let's I wanna kinda transition into the operational stuff of real estate because we we do have many real estate investors that listen or invest in syndications. We talked a little bit about things that went sideways. There are there's no shortage of sideways syndications lately.

I I'm wondering from your vantage point, what are some things that separate the really good deals or operators from the those that have not found, a tremendous level of success, the deals or the operators or both?

Yeah. So I think, from an operator standpoint, there's some things that we some mistakes that we made where we assumed, you know, rates were gonna stay where they were, and a lot of people did as well. And some of these deals didn't make sense for a switch for multifamily unless you took on bridge debt, you took on shorter term debt. And so when you put 20% down or 30% down, the value of the property goes down by 40% over two years, you're kind of in trouble. You know, the capital call situation or things like that.

So I think that, you know, debt is very, very important in real estate. Having the right kind of debt, having long term debt is great. And I'm I'm willing now to take on less risk for a lot of deals, for things that are more sure. Because a lot of people I know have been doing this for many year, they'll have kinda like like they love, you know, like, we're we have a debt fund now where it's it's a first position debt fund or debt note fund. And, you know, it's basically 60% loan to value. So if if somebody doesn't pay, they lose half their cash and we keep the property. Right? So that's a pretty good equation that that we like. So being in a safer position so I've kinda moved more to that side.

Also, on the other side of that is sometimes there are deals that are more risk, but we know they're more risk. Right? We're understanding that, okay, this has a 10 x plus or, you know, upside, but we know that there's a chance the higher chance probably this goes to zero. Right? So just being aware of kind of where you're at on the spectrum.

It is hard to understand where risk is, but I think great operators will really try to say, you know, through experience, what what could possibly happen with rates? What could possibly happen in this deal? What what are the things that could go wrong? And that's a great question for investors is think about for yourself, what are the what's the one or two primary risks of ways this deal could not go well? And then and then ask the operator when you have a call with them because you always have a call with an operator, I think, and just ask them, say, well, what what do you what do you think is the biggest risk? Because they may tell you something different than what you thought. Right? So, you'll get an idea. It'll just help you to kinda get a better picture, and no one knows.

Right? We didn't know that rates would rise faster than over forty years, the kind of the black swan type of events, but those things happen. And so you have to prepare for those type of things. And, again, you know, Warren Buffett's rule as well as, you know, rule number one of investing is don't lose money. Rule number two is don't forget about rule number one. So it's it's that important to really try to, you know, not only learn from things, but just try to avoid losses at a whenever possible. Yeah. Absolutely. And I can tell you from personal experience the last few years, I've been learning a lot.

You know, like, talk a little bit about, like, your buy box. You know, for a lot of people, you know, we see so many different opportunities and or partnership opportunities, and then we find ourselves getting off focus and doing things that maybe aren't in our expertise yet. And that's normally where I've ended up learning a lot. And so talk a little bit about how you how you've created your buy box for your company.

Yeah. So it's it's a question I've asked. I've had over 2,501 on one Zoom calls with high net worth investors over the years. And this is a question I'll ask is, you know, what are your what are your goals? What are your investing goals? Or what's more important cash flow or appreciation? And a lot of people typically answer is, oh, I want some of both or I want some of, you know, this and I need some tax. Like, they don't really know exactly what they want. But for a lot of people, for most people, cash flow is really powerful. So we've shifted to do a fewer real estate deals because it's hard to find cash flow in real estate now to do things like oil and gas or a debt funds that I guess are real estate related or other types of deals that are are cash flow related. But it's really important to get clear on what you want because if you wanna leave your job, you have to have cash flow because you gotta replace your living expenses. Right? If If you're Uber, I know guys I know guys worth over $500,000,000, and he loves cash flow. Right? Because it'll cover his expenses. So I think cash flow, I have I have a strong bias towards that.

But I think for us, just like you as well, we get pitched a lot of deals. So what you have to do and I talk about this in my book. It's I called the deal funnel. But it's where you'll get a deal sent to you. And somehow you get on these lists, people find your stuff online, whatever. They send you deals. If you're like me, you say you're an investor. You get all these deals from everybody. And you have to say when the deal comes to you first, but really you have to just take a step back and say, well, well, first of all, what market is this deal in? Right? Is it in is it a multifamily deal? What market is it in? Okay. It's in Dallas. Well, what's a submarket in Dallas? What is there a growing population in Dallas? Is there you know, you kinda go through that specific market. You say, does this actually make sense for what is happening now? How many apartments have been delivered in that specific market? And this works in any kind of field. You could use it in self storage. You could use it in, oil and gas. You can use it all different things. Just find it that specific market.

Then you go down to the operator. Who's the person who's actually doing this? Who's the team? Is this a rinse and repeat kinda deal? Or is this a a totally different type of deal? Or maybe it was great in one market, but this is a Dallas group, and this deal is is in Tennessee. Well, how are they gonna manage that? What does that actually look like? And then you then you come all the way down finally to say the deal itself. Does this meet my specific goals? Does the deal make sense? How I'm gonna make money and how I could how I could potentially lose money? And if it doesn't meet your goals, obviously, you can let it go. But we say no to at least 95% of stuff that comes along, but it usually comes down to those things.

And then I will say just as a special caveat, we typically never invest with anybody that we don't know very well that's been typically at least five years either investing with them or somebody we know has invested with them just because it it's it's really difficult. There are a lot of people out there. I mean, you and I, like, especially Mandy, you know, you're you guys are in this world, so you know a lot of people. And so there's there's a lot of reputation stuff. If I've never heard of somebody, if I don't know somebody that knows them, I I I would never invest with them. Right? Because I just don't know them. Right? It's gonna take me a lot more time to become comfortable versus somebody I know. They speak at conferences. I heard feedback from their investors. They have a good reputation.

We have somebody we just did a deal with, a self storage deal, large group. And I've known the guy for six years. I've never invested with him. Right? We just brought a fund, raised 1,000,000, a couple million for him. And I'm really excited for the deal. It's a great project, but it just took it was a very slow process. I think being slow as an investor is an important Mhmm. Way to go.

I so believe that you have to walk before you run. You know? I I I like to get my feet under me. So I I wanna get your take on this. The the idea of of focus versus, you know, really diversifying into things.

It sounds like, you know, you went a mile deep into multifamily real estate, and then it kinda stopped penciling with the change in rates. And then you, you know, brought on the fund and went into oil and gas and and, you know, that you just mentioned storage.

Tell me, I I own a hotel and a car wash and some multifamily, and I feel like I'm losing my mind sometimes. I'm curious the strategies that you have of getting the the returns of having gone really deep with focus versus that diversifying? How do you keep it all together now that you're invested in a lot of different stuff?

Yeah. Lots of therapy. Lots of therapy. It helps me a lot. I'm just kidding. Kind of. So, yeah, I I think that as an investor, one thing that I love is that, you know, I approach things as a passive investor. We invest passively in deals that we do, and then we bring we bring deals to our investors. I haven't really sat as much in the operator seat. On certain deals, obviously, with the multifamily stuff, I've sat in some of the operator seat there. But being somebody who's more of a capital partner, I've had less, day to day responsibilities often.

And so I had to say again, what are my goals? What are things that can do it? And then the nice thing about being, being an investor is you have flexibility. Like, it could be a great time for a multifamily or it may not be. Right? Or maybe a great time for, I think, oil and gas, it's a great time now because it's kind of an out of favor asset. The price of oil is down. When you say, why would you invest when the price is down? I said, well, I think it's a good time to be able to get into it. And so and also with some of the tax benefits or just like, you kinda look at ways what you should be buying stuff when it's out of favor.

I think there was a time a few years ago when multifamily was very much in favor. It was kinda like the beloved child. Now it's kind of the unloved child. So, actually, I think it's a great time. The challenge is it doesn't have a lot of cash flow for most situations.

So I think, you know, as an investor, it's is if you can get crystal clear on what you want. So if your goals are you wanna leave your job, you wanna sell your business, but you still wanna have, you know, 10,000 a month coming in, you've gotta figure out ways. Maybe you can't go from zero to 10,000, but could you go from zero to a thousand, you know, this year? Or zero to 2,000 just for over the next three to five years? What are ways you can grow that number? And if that is the case, then you've just find investments that can do that. And I would say some diversity is good. If you're only in oil and gas, you're pretty you're not really well diversified. You remember different operators? If you're only in multifamily so you gotta kinda find different ways to be able to get towards your goal, and there's lots of different things that can do that.

Yeah. Very, very true. And it's just it it is diversification, I know, for myself. You know, I did I did diversify out a lot, and then I've really found, like, my own personal sweet spot is businesses, which I do. And then Mandy on the investment side, you know, we have partnerships. So it's like we we leverage one another's strengths when it comes to that kind of thing. So thank you for that.

Well, you have absolutely shared so much amazing information today. And I think one of my favorite parts of it is just really just your story and making a decision that you wanted to buy your time back. And that in order to do that, you were going to have to do things simultaneously until you got to that level of expertise. Because I I see a lot of people dip into scarcity a little bit in order to be able to do it, and so that's been great. Mandy, what about you?

I love Warren Buffett, and those are quotes that I say all the time too. So so that's thing one.

But I wrote down that life has, an action bias. I I love I love how you put that.

So one thing that's really important to us at GoFundMeIn is to serve those who've served us. You know, what is an introduction or a resource that would change the ballgame for you, Bronson, so that either Kelly or I or some of our listeners could help serve you?

Yeah. I really appreciate that. It's a great opportunity to be able to share. I I think, you know, I I just I really love helping people on this path. So if anybody wants to talk about investing, happy to connect on that.

I think our wealth forum group, we're super excited about it. We've got about 30 people. You know, 25 signed up now for, Pasadena on December 12. So you guys, if you'd like to come, if somebody would like to join, basically, we just get high net worth people in the room. We don't pitch anything. It's just simply to try to get that collaboration and get those people together.

We've had some amazing things come out of that from deals we did or deals people passed on or even just Yeah. Those deals that didn't go well. Right? And sharing those stories. And then just saying, how do we create a win in areas of our life like legacy or how if we have more than enough, how do we give it to our kids in a way it doesn't spoil them. Right?

So I think being a part of things like that would be really valuable, but I really appreciate you having me today. This has been a lot of fun.

Wonderful. How would, listeners get in touch with you?

Well, I have a free gift for your audience. I wanted to, share share it, with your audience if if you guys would be open to that. Yeah. We have a, a gift. It's it's how to use inflation to your advantage.

So, these days, people talk inflation is low, but we're seeing everything cost 50 to 100% more than it did five years ago. So I've got this guide that I wrote that has some, you know, how to use, you know, real estate debt, also precious metals. Just some unique strategies you probably heard of. It's about 10 pages. And it's, if you text the word inflation to the number 33777, we'll go ahead and text that to you for free.

So, people can go ahead and reach out that way, and then I'll get you in touch with some of the stuff that we're working on as well. So, I mean, did I hear that correct? Inflation can be a good thing?

Holy moly.

You can make it your friend.

Even first or ever can. Align with the powers that be. I love everything about it.

Thank you so much for joining us on the Power Up Your Life podcast. If you, need some if you know someone who wants to fire themselves, make sure you're sharing this episode. Like and subscribe. Leave us a five star review because it really does help us get into the right ears of the right people.

If you wanna power up your business, go to power up your life now to look at all the resources that we have to help you do that. And we will see you next week. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, Bronson.

Thanks, guys.