The COVID-19 pandemic is redefining life as we know it. Respond to the changing season much like you would to any other winter spell— slow down and start preparing yourself for spring.
In today’s episode, learn how this season in life so closely resembles winter and how we can all start responding for the opportunities ahead. Find out how to respond to this time with or without an abundance of capital.
Mike Ayala shares the importance of pouring into yourself and doing the rejuvenating work of shifting your mindset. Listen in to learn what you can do to place yourself, financially and mentally, in the most receptive place possible come next season.
“You don’t necessarily need capital, you need to be able to see the opportunity. You need to acknowledge opportunity, and you need to be able to react… Take this winter time to work on yourself. Take this winter time to let certain things die.” -Mike Ayala
HIGHLIGHTS:
- [00:00] Intro
- [00:33] This is winter
- [02:28] What the change in season allows for
- [03:43] The importance of embracing winter for what it is
- [04:19] Getting creative when responding to the financial effects of COVID-19
- [05:43] Slowing down and rejuvenating
- [08:55] The two questions to ask yourself if you do nothing else
- [09:58] Outro
RESOURCES:
InvestingforFreedom.co
FULL TRANSCRIPTION:
Intro 00:00
Are you looking for freedom? Freedom from the daily grind and hustle? Or just finding a way to live the life you always wanted? Then join us on the investing for freedom podcast, our host, Mike Ayala will help you discover new ways to find freedom with tips, insights and interviews. You’ll learn the exact systems he’s used to travel the world and live his best life. True success and happiness are all about freedom. And here’s your roadmap on how to find freedom on your own terms. Welcome to the investing for freedom podcast. Here’s your host, Mike Ayala.
Mike Ayala 00:33
Thank you for listening to the investing for freedom podcast. I’m gonna talk to you today about something that’s just been rattling around in my brain. It’s April 8th And you know, we’ve got a lot of stuff going on in the world right now with the COVID-19 virus and the financial markets in turmoil, unemployment at an all time high. Just a lot of crazy things going on. And I’ve been thinking about this and and I’m kind of correlating it to a winter. And a lot of us in this in this day and age that we live in, a lot of us don’t really understand the seasons or we don’t really have to be affected by the seasons. So, there’s so much that’s good in life, even in times like this, like, We’re so blessed and fortunate. I mean, we have the internet. We have the ability to work from anywhere. We have our electricity on, we have running water, we have heat, we have air conditioning. Heck, I have a pool in my backyard.
Mike Ayala 01:28
So, in this day and age, we’re not really accustomed to some of the things that people went through in the past. And so this is literally a winter. And that might be metaphorical. But if it’s time, you know, there was a lot of it was time for the financial markets to correct. I’m surrounded by a lot of people who, you know, have been calling for a financial correction for three, four or five years. That basically came out of 2008. The monetary supply went from 8 billion to 4 trillion overnight. Well, not overnight. It was within a period of a couple of years, and we just thought that was crazy. But yet, here, we find ourselves today and they’re printing that much money, like overnight. So we knew we knew a market correction was coming, but I don’t think any of us knew it was coming this way. And so I’ve been having a lot of people ask me lately, like, Hey, you know, what would you invest in right now? When’s a good time to invest in real estate? Is it a good time to invest in real estate? should I invest in the stock market? I think we’re asking the wrong questions.
Mike Ayala 02:28
I think we have to really ask ourselves what season are we in? And I think we’re in winter, and if you know typically winter is right after a harvest. Depending on what climate you’re in, sometimes there’s two harvests but typically winter is right after a harvest we go into harvest season which is fall, and then the winter comes in and kind of kills everything off and it brings moisture, and it allows the ground to rest and settle. And it allows us to rest and settle after, you know, nine months 10 months of hard work and springtime planting growth. cultivating winters there to really let the ground rest and it’s there to let us rest. And I kind of feel like we’re in a season a winter. And for those of us that don’t embrace that, or we get overly stressed out, listen, I, I know, I know that everybody’s getting affected by this. I’m affected by it. I have. I’ve been working for 15 years now to create multiple streams of income. We’ve done all the things that you’re supposed to do, we’ve invested in real estate, we’ve bought golden silver, we’ve, you know, bought and sold businesses, we’ve invested in other businesses, I’ve invested in loans, done all the things that you’re supposed to do, and we’re being affected. Everybody’s being affected. We’re in this together.
Mike Ayala 03:43
But here’s what I want you to think about. If we don’t embrace winter for what it is; A time to slow down and a time for things to die. Then we’re going to miss we’re going to miss some opportunities. Right now is the time to be sitting on cash if you have cash if you don’t have cash. I would be looking at everything that you have in your life, all the unnecessary expenses. If you didn’t get a harvest before this happened, you can’t expect to get a harvest right now. If you weren’t planting and cultivating before Now’s not the time to be thinking about a harvest. This is not an overnight get rich quick because there was a bad scenario situation.
Mike Ayala 04:19
The financial effects of this are going to be around for a while. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t begin getting creative and formulating ways that we can come out of this on top. So a couple things that I would encourage you to do right now. Just accept the fact that it’s winter. It’s time for things to die, you need to cut some things off in your life that you’ve known you’d need to here’s this here’s the situation. I subscribed to DirecTV now like 18 months ago, 24 months ago because we were traveling or something and I wanted TV on the go. And then I lost the the password and the login and I was never able to shut it off. I think it’s 69.99 a month. And so every couple months, Kara would say hey, this is still being charged. And I didn’t want to take the 15, 20, 30 minutes that it was going to take to be on hold and try to get them to cancel it. And so every single month, DirecTV now charges me 69.99. And then here comes the Coronavirus, and we’re like, okay, we need to cut off every unnecessary expenditure. And I start looking at all these situations like that 69.99 a month here, 15.99 a month, there subscription, a monthly subscription to this, membership to a float tank place, which I love, by the way, but I’m, I think I’ve got 25 credits. So you’ve got all these areas that need to get cut off, they need to die. These are unnecessary expenditures, that because we’re living in such a great time, we don’t really pay attention to.
Mike Ayala 05:43
So if you haven’t prepared yourself for a harvest, there’s not a harvest coming right now. So don’t… and I’m not trying to make this a negative conversation. What I am saying is just let some things die. Take some time for you to slow down and rejuvenate. And here’s the good news. There’s a springtime coming. And springtime is when everybody gets happy, we start moving again, we’re energized, we’re ready to come out of our holes, we’re ready to start tilling the ground and planting again. And the more cash you have, the more capital you have. And even more importantly, the more you have your mind in the right place, and you’re prepared, you don’t need capital. I’ve said this for years. And by the way, if you want to reach out to me, I can tell you 15, 20, 25 different stories, I literally have a building that’s worth $1.2 million that I bought with zero money down. So you don’t necessarily need capital, you need to be able to see the opportunity. You need to acknowledge opportunity, and you need to be able to react and so what am I saying?
Mike Ayala 06:41
Take this winter time to work on yourself. Take this winter time to let certain things die. It might be limiting or it might be limiting beliefs. It might be streams of outflowing income instead of inflowing income that need to die. It might be just getting your head in the right place. That might be just going through the five keys to freedom, what do you really want? Why do you want it? What are you going to do to get it? Measure the results, adjust. Maybe it’s that book you’ve been thinking about writing. Maybe you’ve been thinking about launching an online course. What are you good at? If you’re good at photography, maybe maybe do some videos right now on how to set the camera up. I know firsthand experience, I’ve got a, I got a guy that works for me. His name is Dylan Burns, and he is awesome. But without him, I wouldn’t even know how to turn the camera on. So, if you’re good at whatever it is, you’re good at. Maybe start making some videos, do an online course. If you’ve been thinking about wanting to start a service business, where are the opportunities on the other side of this, I’m not talking about now, because I don’t see. There may be some opportunities for jobs and to make some capital and stuff like that now, but this is really the time to start thinking about what you’re going to plant in the springtime. It’s the time to start positioning yourself to be ready to start planting so that you can grow that so that we can create a harvest. And I don’t think the harvest is going to be in the next three or four weeks. I think there’s a harvest coming. I think there’s going The opportunity coming in, you know, the next six weeks, eight weeks, two months, two years, but we’ve got some things that need to die off. First, the financial markets are in turmoil. A lot of a lot of operators, a lot of business owners are going to go out of business, there’s going to be opportunity.
Mike Ayala 08:17
Let’s just say you’re a plumber, and you’ve been thinking about starting your own business like I did in 2004. But you look around and there’s so much competition. Well, here’s the thing, a lot of competition is going to die right now. Because a lot of companies have too much overhead, they have too many payments, they’re gonna go bankrupt. And you could step in there. And you could take up the same opportunity because you don’t have debt. Because you don’t have the overhead. You could literally buy people’s trucks, and you could buy their book of business for pennies on the dollar, and go make an amazing living. And so what we have to do during this time is just slow down. Let’s get introspect. Let’s start going through the five keys to freedom start working formulas for yourself.
Mike Ayala 08:55
Ask these two questions. If you do nothing else. What do you really want? And why do you want It, if you don’t start going through the rest of that formula, don’t worry about that right now. Just start asking yourself the question, What do you really want? And why do you want it? That’s what’s important right now. So just remember, we’re in winter, things need to die off, there is a spring coming, we will need to plant we will need to harvest we will come back. The most important thing right now as to keep yourself emotionally centered, financially centered as best as possible.
Mike Ayala 09:23
And the last thing I’ll say, if you’ve got some financial troubles coming, don’t ignore them. Communicate, deal with them, hit them head on. Get to it early, because there’s no reason to drag this stuff out. So if you need any help, or I can help you in any way, you know, you can follow me on Instagram @themikeayala. You’re obviously listening to the podcast. If you found this, you’d go to www.investingforfreedom.co. I’m here to help. Hopefully, hopefully, you can see that a springtime is coming for ya And there’s better days ahead. Appreciate you guys.
Mike Ayala 09:58
If you found value in this episode. So to know someone who’s wanting to start or move further along in their journey toward investing for freedom, I would be forever grateful if you would share this show with them and help me get this message out to more listeners. Also, if you enjoy what you’ve heard, I would appreciate it if you take 30 seconds and leave me a five star review and share this with your friends. And Until the next episode cheers to moving further along in your journey of investing for freedom.
