SPEAKER_01 0:04

I started it when I was nine years old. My claim to fame is I did so well when I was a teenager, flipping things and buying and selling and doing it all. By 21 or 22, I was a millionaire. So the name is a real real term. It's not one of those names that sounded cool, so I used it. I became a millionaire in my early 20s. I became a multimillionaire by 30.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Hi

Welcome And Millionaire Myth

SPEAKER_00 0:36

friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha Podcast. My name is Natasha Tynes and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel, I talk about the writing life, review books, and interview authors. Hope you enjoyed the journey. Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. I have with me today author Aaron Lapides. I hope I pronounced your name right. And he is known as the Garage Sale Millionaire. He's an award-winning author, collector, and radio host from Denver, Colorado. He is known for his treasure hunting expertise. He's written The Garage Sale Millionaire and its follow-up, How to Become a Garage Sale Millionaire. Aaron hosted PB's PBS Collectist for seven years and has appeared on PBS, the Discovery Channel, and the Hallmark Channel. He also created a boy named Penguin, a children's book series inspired by his son Logan to raise autism awareness. Wow, Aaron, nice to meet you and thank you for joining me today. I'm so excited to have you today because you're gonna tell me today how to become a millionaire. So tell me how to do this.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Well, in a nutshell, start with a million dollars.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

You have 30 minutes to make me a millionaire. I want to hear your pitch.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

So, you know, let me tell you how I how I did it. I started

How Flipping Works In Real Life

SPEAKER_01 2:12

young before social media, before eBay, before it all. And, you know, I was a hustler. I, you know, I I started doing garage sales at nine. I got the bug on how to buy and sell early on. My parents didn't understand it. They didn't teach me anything on it. They just encouraged me to do what I was doing. And and very quickly I realized thing what things are worth are what people would pay for them. And I know that sounds very simple, but a lot of times people put stuff on eBay, next door marketplace, Craigslist, and they put an unreasonable price on him and they wonder why it doesn't sell. And so my book, How to Become the Garage Sale Millionaire, is not all about eking out one extra dollar off a product. It's eking out, it's selling lots of products and making a fair margin, not a gross margin that is unattainable. And so I talk about buying things at garage sale, next door marketplace, and finding where people are just trying to basically get rid of the items and not, you know, that have them priced so low, and you can instantly realize that you can make money off of it. And, you know, I talk about how to go to eBay, and there's a section in eBay that will show you how what things sold in the last six 60 to 90 days. And then if you have an eBay store, you can go back three years and learn what are the ups and downs. So, you know, you learn all those tips because if a lot of things that are out there have already been sold several times on eBay. And so if that item sells all the time at $100 and your item is exactly the same, your item's not going to sell at $150. Your item's going to sell at $100. Now, if you want to move that item quickly, you charge $95. And if they're charging, you know, $5 for shipping and they're the same price and you're charging $35 shipping, once again, you're not going to sell that item. So when you're looking to sell on eBay, you need to have a great description, great, great photos, and your price needs to be in line with everybody else and a little lower.

eBay Pricing And Marketplace Bargains

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Next door marketplace. I only use nextdoor marketplace to sell big items. I'm usually a buyer on nextdoor marketplace because people, when they put it on next door marketplace, they're already desperate. They need it gone. They're already beyond they need it gone. And if they're asking $100, I don't recommend to do this anywhere but next door marketplace or Facebook Marketplace. But you're offering them, you know, one one third of what they're asking because they are desperate. And you can tell how long it's been listed by because it tells you this item has been listed for 45 days. Well, they're probably trying to move, their rent is up, they're leaving town, they're desperate for money. So that's why Facebook Marketplace Next Door, Craigslist is a great place to buy, not to sell. eBay is a great place to sell. So that's that's how I do it. And then if you can, if you can throw a garage sale and you don't have much money, you know, that's the best way to start. Get a garage sale, go through your house, top to bottom. And for you, you're going to go through every book that's behind you. You're going to find a ton of books that you don't you don't read anymore. You don't care about. And me, they're meaningless to you. And you're going to sell them. You're going to find tools. You're going to go to where your tools are and find your five extra screwdrivers, your seven extra hammers. You're going to find, you know, kitchen stuff you don't need. You're going to find garden stuff, garden furniture that you want to upgrade. You're going to find your kids' clothes, like your wonderful, beautiful child behind you. I bet he's growing like a weed. What are you doing with his old clothes? Well, you should be selling them because kids' clothes, kids' toys, kids' furniture. That's some of the top selling items at a garage sale. Tools are the next one. Antiques are the next one. And so you then create a cash role, a stack of cash, and then you go to eBay or go to other garage sales and you go to Facebook Marketplace. And then you use that money to start buying more stuff that you can list. I guarantee if anybody would read my book, Take the Time, How to Become a Garage Sale Millionaire and Learn Act, you could take $100 and triple it in a day by going to garage sales or Facebook Marketplace. It is that easy. If you want to side hustle and you don't, it's not a get rich quick scheme. You just take your time, go to these places, buy, be prepared to see what you can repurpose and resell locally. And the smaller items, if it's small and it could be wrapped up and sold easily, you know, through UPS or FedEx, then you should be shipping, putting it on eBay, have an eBay store, and you're going to make great money every day. And I, you know, I teach about, you know, if a lot of people like to use a book scanner that you can actually have a book scanner and you can go to garage sales and use this book scanner, and you go to the barcode of the book, and it can tell you what eBay is selling it for it or Amazon is selling for it. And every now and then you're going to pop a book that's going to be worth $100, $500, and then you're going to buy those books. And a lot of times, people, if they can buy it for 50 cents and they can sell it for $30, they're doing that all day long. So that's something that I like to teach people because it is easy to turn this into a side hustle and then make the leap to a full-time job.

What To Flip And Where To Source

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Wow. So what sells the most on eBay?

SPEAKER_01 9:38

You know, the best thing on eBay is collectibles. You're, you know, baseball cards, coins, tin toys, small antiques, honograph, like famous, like presidential memorabilia. You know, a lot of that stuff will always do very, very well. Comic books. Uh, the list can go on or what, and you know, you're now going to you you can go to secondhand stores and find clothes. You know, sometimes you can find like red bottoms or Louis Vuitton that's real that people give it away and they don't know it's an actual real Louis Vuitton. And so, because there's a lot of fakes. And so, you know, secondhand stores, I talk about how they're it's valuable to go to secondhand stores at least once or twice a week when they reload. Understand, Natasha, so many people are cleaning out their parents' house or their kids' bedroom, and they just load it up in their car and take it to goodwill or those veterans' associations, and they're not looking at anything, they're not trying to price anything out, they're just dumping it. They need that room, they need to sell that house, they need to stick a gym in that basement where their kids just moved out of, and they don't care. So it's uh that that's those are the things it's a lot easier than people think. They just have to take a little time and spend their money properly.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

You did not mention state sales, and I'm curious why didn't you mention state sales? Because there's a lot of stuff in there.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

You know, estate

Estate Sales And Negotiation Tricks

SPEAKER_01 11:19

sales are great, and estate sales, a lot of people ask me what's the difference between a garage sale and an estate sale, and there is a big difference. So a garage sale is stuff and it's held outside a person's home or apartment. An estate sale is where you go into the house and everything in the house is available for sale. Somebody just died, or they live leaving the country. And estate sales are great because good chance the house has already been sold or already been released and they need it moved. But with those things, you need to show up right away, first thing that they open, and be prepared that your every when they people see the word estate sale on a banner or a board outside on the corner, there people are going to flock to it. So you need to show up first thing in the morning. And I'll Natasha, I'll tell you a little tip. I've had this done to me and I've done it to other people. I will go the day before and hand whoever answers the door $20 if I can just look around and get a first shot at it. They keep my $20. That's just an entries fee. Please let me in. Here's $20. You keep it. If I don't buy anything, you still keep it. But I'll come and you can I'm going to make you offers. I know I'm the first person, so I I'm not going to haggle. I'm going to make you offers and it's going to be great. That is a tip that works over and over for people. Because if I know that I have, I need, I believe there's going to be something in there. Not only will I give them 20 bucks, I'll show them my stack of hundreds that I'm prepared to spend. And not many people say no to me. I I guess I have that look about me that I'm not a no kind of guy. I'm a yes kind of guy. So in on the state sales. I think they're great, but there's always competition.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

I love this. Okay. So in my neighborhood, especially when it gets warmer, I'm in in Maryland, so it's pretty cold now and lots of snow outside. But in, you know, in the spring and the fall, there's a lot and the summer is a lot of yard sales, garages around this. So I go to one. What shall I look for? I want to find something, buy it, and sell it on eBay. What shall I look for?

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Okay, so Natasha, you're going to have the eBay app already downloaded on your phone.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

I have it.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

So you're going to go there and you're going to look for first edition books. You're going to look for old tin toys. You're going to look for old fishing rods, old fishing poles, bamboo fishing poles. You're going to look for things that are brand spanking new in the box that you that they want $5. It's a blender they never use. You just Googled it on eBay. It's going for $150 brand new. You're going to send it, sell it for $120 in the box. Things have a box. You already know that's going to be more valuable because you can sell it with the original box. With collectibles, the original box is very important because if it came with an original box and it does not have it, you just devalue that item for by 50%. So those are the things you're going to look for. Not big things that are going to be hard to transport. Smaller things that you can put on eBay and see what it last sold for on the completed section on eBay. So that's how you're going to turn around. So say, Natasha, you get really, really good at let's just say comic books. You don't see any comic books. This goes for anything. But you are an you you become an expert on buying and selling comic books. You don't see it, you're going to ask that person, hey, I love your garage sale, having so much fun at it. But these are the things I'm looking for. By any chance, do you have any comic books or do you know anybody that has comic book collections? You start the dialogue, and then suddenly you find, oh, oh, shoot, I forgot to bring out my comic book collection. Or my mother has my comic book collection. I didn't even think about it. Are you interested? Yes. Here's my phone number. Can I get your phone number? Always get their phone number because people will forget. And then you'll follow up. And then they'll have you over. You'll look at it and say, here, you're now not being, there's no competition. You make them an offer that's fair for you and them. And then boom, you got a comic book collection that's probably worth a lot more than you pay.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

I'm excited because I've done similar stuff, but I used AI. So I'm gonna tell you what I did. Which is, which is which is

AI And Photo Search Tools

SPEAKER_00 16:11

I like sometimes people stuff put stuff outside and they say, take, take it, or I don't want it, or whatever. And I saw like a really nice bench in good shape, and I grabbed it and I was like, huh. So I just took a picture of the bench, put it on Chat GPT, and I said, write me the description and give me a price. It it put it and in two minutes, less than two minutes, I had everything ready, posted it on Facebook Marketplace. I made $150 in two minutes. And it did not, and that's the reason I mentioned that is because AI reduced the time massively for all the hustlers out there. And I was uh the reason I'm asking you is like have you experimented with AI when it comes to selling?

SPEAKER_01 17:06

You know, I just have started to dabble in that, and you're cutting edge by using AI, you know, and there is another trick that you didn't mention is taking a picture, and and it's the same thing, but a reverse description where you take in Google or in eBay, you can actually take a picture of something and it will come up what it is and what it's valued because a lot of times people don't know what they're looking at. They take a picture, they get a reverse description, they find, wow, this is something pretty amazing. So that's something else. And AI is really helpful when you're ready to relist something on Facebook Marketplace or eBay. It makes it very easy. A lot of people are scared of AI, but more and more it's becoming easier and easier to use it. And I'm glad you brought it up.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

And the reason is because people might complain that it takes a lot of time to do this kind of gig, especially if you have a lot of other stuff going on, you know, full-time job, kids, whatever. And they would rather just give stuff away rather than just go through the hassle of selling it online. And I think that's where the opportunity for the hustlers like you to find the people who are busy, take the stuff and make income of it. Yeah, and and using AI can like now for me, because I sold stuff in the past, but now with AI, I think I went down from two hours to two minutes. So that is massive investment in your time.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

100% agree. Anything that can make it quicker, like I say, that the barcode reader can literally read it, and then you can actually instantly if you have an Amazon account or an eBay account, you can just a couple clicks and suddenly that book is on Amazon or eBay. So it's all depends. And Natasha, one thing people need to know about what you do and what I do on reselling

How To Value Your Time

SPEAKER_01 19:14

is what your time is worth. Some people will buy a book and say, oh my God, I'm getting it for 50 cents. I can sell it for $12. What a great and what a great return. Well, you have to incorporate that you're buying it. Now you're listing it, now you're wrapping up and selling it. How long did that take you? Did it take you a half an hour? Did it take you 45 minutes? You know, what is your time worth? If you're not going for $75 to $125 an hour, you're shooting too low. And when you're getting really good, you should be doing it, you should be making $200 an hour. And and anybody who thinks making, you know, you know, $10, $15 an hour is good, no, that's a waste of my time. I don't wake up in the morning for less than, you know, a couple, two, three hundred dollars. And it and it's it sounds funny, but when you get as good as I am, and and people can do that really rapidly now because of all the information out there and how easy it is, you need to make sure your time is valuable and that you the best thing, Natasha, I can give anybody my job, my friends, my family is my time. And if any of those do not appreciate it, my family, my friends, my job, my time, then I am doing something wrong because my time is valuable, and that's how people have to treat this job as it your time is valuable, and you have to incorporate that when you're trying to make money.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

So you mentioned a book scanner. Are you uh talking about an unphysical scanner that you buy? Because some of the apps No, it's an app. It's an app.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

It's an app. It's called Book Scouter is one of them. You can buy that, or you can just go on eBay and there's like a little camera that you just hit the barcode and boom. You can use that on toys, you can use anything that has a barcode reader, and it will instantly tell you what that item is going for on eBay. It is powerful. You can do the exact same thing on Amazon, and Amazon is really known more for books, but they are selling literally everything. People are having Amazon stores. So if you have several of the same thing, the same book, you have a hundred of them, well, that's a great thing to put on Amazon too. So you should have an Amazon store and an eBay store, especially if you have multiples of that item.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Okay. So I want to go back to the the name of your book. It's it's a great name, by

Scaling From Side Hustle To Wealth

SPEAKER_00 22:05

the way, and the garage sale millionaire. And it's, you know, like the idea of the American dream as well, right? I'm an immigrant myself, I guess you can tell from my accent. 20 years here, and I still have that accent. But, anyways, all right. So you're doing this actually full time, or you stopped doing it, or you you got your first million and you stopped. Like, where are you in this journey?

SPEAKER_01 22:31

So I started it when I was nine years old. My claim to fame is I did so well when I was a teenager, flipping things and buying and selling and doing it all. By 21 or 22, I was a millionaire. So the name is a real real term. It's not one of those names that sounded cool, so I used it. I became a millionaire in my early 20s. I became a multi-millionaire by 30, and I'm still definitely there. But I have to tell you, it's not I got there because of buying and selling and garage sales and estate sales and online auctions. But then I took all that money and I started one of the top 5% of all art galleries in the United States. Fascination Street Final. And then that took me to a level that I opened up, I started a real estate company and I bought and sold real estate. And that's where I everything started exponentially increasing. And now for fun, you know, I I wrote the two books. The first book was a bestseller. I was spent eight years on national PBS and wrote for the Denver Post my own column. And now I love just helping people. I'm at that level that I got to by hard work. It took me a lot longer than I know people doing it now. But, you know, I got in a really good place. And it was because I was a hustler. I knew about buying and selling, and I took that to my life. You know, if you be can negotiate and you're a good salesperson, your life is your oyster. You know, you can do everything if you can become a great salesperson and a great negotiator. And that's, you know, kids can start doing this. You know, I'm all about teaching your children the value of money and helping you at a garage sale. And Natasha, when you have, I'm I know I'm getting you excited to have one. You know, you're going to have that wonderful child of yours that loves the the being on the big screen. You're going to teach them about money by having a lemonade stand when you have a garage sale. And you're going to teach them about the overhead and and what how much to spend on the lemonade and what they should price it out and when to sell it and all those things, because this is a chance that you can include your children on learning about money, because this is where our school system fails, because they do not teach our kids about money and how to take care of it and how to watch over it. And that's why a lot of them don't have good jobs or they lose it because of scams. And once again, there are a lot of scams out here. And I believe teaching our kids at an early age about money and how to buy and sell at garage sales, God, what a beautiful lesson it is. And it's something you can do with your children too.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

So, okay. My question now is have you ever thought about monetizing your knowledge in other formats, not only books, for example, selling online courses or webinars or stuff like that? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

You know, and Natasha, that's funny that you brought that up. About five years ago, somebody approached me to set that all up. And I was in the throes of my gallery, it was a multi-million dollar art gallery, and my real estate business was exploding. And it was a wonderful idea. And I think now that I'm in semi-retirement, I sold my art gallery a year and a half ago. And now I have people run my real estate. I am now thinking that is a good thing. Just have to find the right person to help me with that because I am so not good in IT and knowing how to do that. But I think it would be great because it with this little lesson, with the lessons that I've learned over the years, anybody can do it. And, you know, these days, sometimes it's really hard to make a living. And I think I could teach people how to make a good living.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Do you think the nine to five job is becoming obsolete?

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Oh, 100%. You know, our young people here, there's not a lot of them, but these young people are learning how to

Is The Nine To Five Dying

SPEAKER_01 26:53

hustle and using social media as a way to do that. And I think a lot of people realize nine to five is not going to make them wealthy. It can pay the bills, but why work for somebody else? You know, I like that everybody has a job working for somebody else. If you want to learn, you go into that field and you have a job and you work for them for a year or two, you learn how the ins and outs of that job are. And then you start your own company. Maybe you work in a coffee house as a barista and you learn all the ins and outs on coffee. And then second, then after a year, when you learn everything you can learn about that job, you open up your own coffee house in a in an up-and-coming neighborhood and you do it yourself and learn how to franchise that company and open up other stores. I believe we're the greatest country in the world and we're the best country in making money. Anybody wants to work hard. I don't care if man, woman, whatever color you are, whatever you love to do, you can make money in this world. And it is easy. You just have to have a passion for it.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

You remind me of the book Which Dad Poor Dad.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

And I'm sure he's hopefully I'm a little better looking and a lot younger. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

But he has like similar ideas, which is that you cannot make money by just or you cannot become wealthy by just doing a nine to five. And uh, and you know, the author also went into real estate and and other stuff. But I, you know, I I see where you're going with this. And so I I I want to ask a bit about your publishing journey. So you mentioned the first book was a bestseller. Did

Publishing Lessons From A Bestseller

SPEAKER_00 28:42

you self-publish or did you have a publisher?

SPEAKER_01 28:44

So I and Natasha, this is a kind of funny story. So my first book, The Garage Sale Millionaire, was the very first edition bombed. It it didn't bomb, so to speak, as it was the person that edited it, it did a very, very poor job. Like, and I was not good. I I was trying to rush it. And the editor and person that was working with me just did not do a good job, and I allowed it to not be great. So I took the School of Hard Knocks on doing a book. What I was lucky enough was that I did not give up. And I was introduced to somebody to help me market it, and they brought in front of me Wiley Publishing, which is one of the number one or two business book publishers. And I they re-edited the book, we redid the cover of it, we we really put some effort into it. And the second edition of the garage sale millionaire went bestseller, and that was, I don't know, 12 years ago. And I got a residual check from that book about six months ago. And I couldn't believe I still got because I got a big advance and everything like that, things that they really don't do now. But that book just caught people off guard. And it was just, God, I can, I was teaching people things that people weren't able to learn back then. And so now everything, you cannot get book deals. It's very, very hard. My new how to become a garage sale millionaire, I am self-publishing. I have it on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble. You can buy it almost everywhere, including my website, thegaragealemillionaire.com. But unfortunately, the big days of getting big advances and having a big publisher behind you are kind of gone unless you have a big social media following. And even then, they don't want to risk their money. And if they do, getting a big advance is not going to happen. And you're stuck with making pennies on every book. So at the end of the day, if you have you feel really good about it, you should self-publish it and spend some money on good marketing and having a consultant, which I do have, on advising me on how the book looks and how the cover looks and invest in it. And if your book's good enough, Amazon will do a good job on getting it out there, and then you too can be a bestseller.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Do you have an audio version of it?

SPEAKER_01 31:25

It is coming. We you know, the interesting thing, Natasha, where when you have not got gone so with Amazon and Ingram Sparks, they two areas to get your book out on. When you do not go hard copy yet, you can book by demand, print on demand. You can still make changes to the book.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

So interesting thing is you can buy my book now. It is awesome, but I am making real-time changes. And because I see things, I notice trends, and I'm doing something that most authors want to do, is I'm not done with my book. My book is a living, breathing thing, and so I'm still making some changes to the book, and I want it to be perfect. I want people to love the book and kind of consider it their side hustle Bible. And that's why I'm not going to stop updating.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

What's the difference between the first book and the second book?

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Night and day. Understand, 12 years ago, there was no Facebook marketplace. There was no next door. There was no social media, putting it on your social media, buying stuff through social media. Garage sales have changed on how you market it. There was no Zell or Venmo. Using PayPal to exchange money was you weren't doing that either. Everything, collectibles on what is collectible and what wasn't collectible has changed. Literally everything in that my book has changed. How you know, back 12 years ago, I told everybody to buy a high-end digital camera with 4K in it. Now people don't need to buy a camera. The camera is in their phone. And, you know, by having apps that can do all upload everything. Literally, that is a question I get. What why don't I just buy your first book or keep your first book, Aaron? Should that answer everything? Literally, you would be going backwards if you read my first book, because so much has changed. And that's why instead of just the garage sale millionaire, I wanted I wanted people just to not learn about me. I want now people to emulate me and be better than me. And that's why I came out with a second one, how to become the garage sale millionaire.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

So the first one is about you, and the second one is how to become you. Is that the difference?

SPEAKER_01 34:02

The first one was really how I did it, but how I did it a long time ago. The second one is how I'm doing it now and all the new technical aspects of how you can make yourself make money quicker, faster, better.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

What are you working on next? Now you finished your second book. What does the future hold?

SPEAKER_01 34:22

You know, I'm I sold my art gallery, and so I'm supposed to be in somewhat semi-retirement. And,

Charity Mindset And The American Dream

SPEAKER_01 34:30

you know, I in my older age, not saying I'm super old, but older age, I really believe I have been very luckyslash blessed, whatever you want to call it, in my life. I have a wonderful family. I am very comfortable in my living status. I like to help out. So I have two charities. One is a chair, I have there's several charities in Colorado on helping out autism. And I think it's an epidemic in our country. One in 48 boys has it, one in 56 girls have it. And I don't think the country knows what's coming. And a lot of them can be their course of their life can be changed if it's if it's discovered by age three and they get diagnosed and they can get into counseling and proper medication, they can be a community asset and not a detriment. And I think it's very important. And so I have chosen to give money and time to different charities that help out the autism world. And then I believe in I help out the Denver Police Department because they've gotten a bad rap. And if we do not have our police, we have anarchy. And I believe any every police organization can improve. Instead of being ridiculed, I'm out there trying to help them be better. And that's the only way you can change the community around you is playing a role and not pointing fingers. And so those are the two charities, two organizations that I like to help out.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

Great. So I want to ask about what made you you at the age of nine, because it takes a certain mindset to do what you did. I mean, was it nurture versus nature? Was it your parents, was where you grew up? Because most of people's successes really boils down to their mindset, their growth mindset, believing in themselves, not playing the victim, taking responsibility. And read having that mindset is is uh I believe is a result of many factors that made you have that mindset. So, what made you have that mindset of of hustling and believing in yourself and wanting to do that? And not playing the victim and all of that.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

And Natasha, a wonderful question. I can honestly say nobody has asked me that in over a thousand interviews, which is a great question. And um, I am so different than my parents. I actually, for the longest time, thought I was adopted. My father was worked for the federal government and he was way up the food chain with the federal government health and human services. And my mom was a stay-at-home mom, a wonderful mother that really pushed me to be the, you know, the best in school that I could be. But none of them understood money. They did not understand money, they did not understand me. I started wanting to make money even before nine. I was doing lemonade stands and doing lots of different things when I was six. And it wasn't until my mother came up with the idea if I wanted more toys, I was going to have to find the way to make money to buy more toys, hence the garage sale. That it was her idea. And when I was buying and selling coins when I was 12 or 13, and my dad had to take me to these restaurant parking lots because nobody wanted to exchange money at people's houses. You know, my dad was there with me, not understanding why I had $5,000 in my pocket buying silver, silver dollars. He did not get that at all. And I don't know where I got the hustle in me. I I'm very lucky to have it. My parents didn't understand it. Some people like me, I believe, are born with it. And it was, you're going to there are people through time that you're going to see that are we're different. We understand things different. We look outside the box. Everything to people that like to make money, they see things that others don't. Not to say people, other people can learn from us, but there is a whole genuine thing about being born with the hustle in you. And people around me get the bug to have the hustle. And, you know, they have to work a little bit harder to, but for me, it's natural. You know, I I wake up in the middle of the night and I think about ways of making money. You know, people, other people think in the middle of the night they forgot to turn off the porch light. You know, it's it's totally different. Um it's one of those things. One of my books, my children's books. I wrote during an hour and a half in my mind, hour and a half worth of insomnia. I laid it all out in my head. And then the next day I worked with my illustrator, and we came up with my second book, A Boy Named Penguin, The Mystery of the Albino Calf. And I did all that in one night, thinking it out, because I use my insomnia to better myself, I guess to say. A lot of people go against the grain. If something bad happens, it's bad. For me, an entrepreneur and hustler, something bad happens, I figure out how I can make money from it. And how not to do it again.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

So do you think the American dream is still alive and you know, kicking?

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Oh, I think it's uh the American dream is turning into it's getting bigger and better. I think people, this, you know, it's not the sky's the limit, it's you know, what's beyond the sky, space and everything, everything out there because of AI, because of social media, because you can touch somebody all the way around the world, you our young people, there is no excuse why they can't be millionaires. No excuse. And you know, some of them will say, I don't want the stress of being a million, being a millionaire. Well, you've become a millionaire, you can now help out. If your thing is not money, then give it away. That's what I believe in. I, you know, I'm not giving away all my money, but I do help out charities. I love to be that guy that can help out a charity or help out a friend and give my family what they deserve. And now I don't work that hard to make a lot of money. Yes, I busted my butt in the first part of my life. Hard working 60, 70 hours a week. And I I paid for it with my life, basically. I had a massive heart attack when I was 43, almost done.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

Oh, sorry to.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

Yeah, it was the widowmaker. It's the one that usually takes you out. And matter of fact, this week uh marks the 16th year anniversary of my massive heart attack. So it's a it's a very important time for me to make me realize that you know, money's great, but family and friends are the most important. And so I got caught up in business. And, you know, it dials me down knowing that, you know, life's more important than making every dollar. But back to the American dream, it is still and your people's future is still as bright as you can imagine. And I and I just think people have to work a little harder. A lot of our young people think it's going to be handed to them. And no, you're not going to get it handed to. But if you want to work a little bit, you will, you will get what you want.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

Does money bring happiness?

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Actually, no, it does not. And it makes things easier. But if you get caught up in money, you're going to find out you're going to go down a very dark rabbit hole. You have to do things for your heart and your soul to make you happy and make sure you're happy with what you're doing because money doesn't solve everything, it makes it easier, but you have to make sure what you're doing in life makes you happy.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

But does lack of money make you miserable?

SPEAKER_01 43:13

You know, I know a lot of people that don't have much money, but they're very happy with what they have. And you have to have keep, you know, remember back in Natasha, back in when you were younger, maybe in your 20s or late teens, that was a great time for me. It was a wonderful time when I was going to college and and I had all those friends and I was doing everything. And I didn't have much money. Yes, I I had a lot. I was a millionaire, but my million was all in the safe with coins and assets and stuff like that. I lived kind of humbly, but I loved that time of my life. And you don't need money to make you happy. You just have to never forget from where you came from and keep that happiness from when you were in your teens or your 20s and not change because a lot of people get a little money and then they change and they become too good for their friends or their family. And they're going, then they're chasing what their neighbors have, and then they suddenly find themselves in a very vicious circle, and then they're not happy.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Yeah, yeah. Well, so do you still go to garage sales and look for stuff? I do. You do?

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Oh, I do. I sell them garage

Where To Follow And Closing

SPEAKER_01 44:34

sales and secondhand stores. It drives my wife insane. Because I still sell stuff. I I'll hell, if I can find something for five dollars or ten dollars and think I can make a hundred bucks off of it, you know. I I I bought it and then I have my assistant throw it on eBay. It makes no sense, but I still love doing it.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

So you still do it. Okay. Yeah, I thought so because once you have the bug, you want stuff.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

You can't that bug stays with you. And I I love I just matter of fact, you just reminded me. I have I bought stuff, stuff in a in an online auction that I have to go and pick up. So yeah, that's actually after this interview, that's what I'll be doing.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

All right, and then that note, I'll keep it short. And so how where can people find your book and get in touch with you, you know, for anyone who's who's listening or or watching?

SPEAKER_01 45:36

Well, Natasha, thank you for asking that question. You can go to Amazon.com and get my book. You can also go to the garage salemillionaire.com and see all the wonderful podcasts and tips that I provide. You can buy it from my website. And if people want to learn what I buy and sell and how I do my descriptions and my photos, they can go on eBay and go to the garage sale millionaire on eBay and I lay it all out so you can actually see what I am actually doing and learn from it. They can take all the ideas for free and just mimic them and do it themselves. So those are the ways, you know. I'm uh there's the garage sale millionaire on Facebook. It is very easy to get a hold of me. You can friend me on Facebook, and I'd love to stay in contact with anybody who's interested in talking to me.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

Sure. So every time I see anything, I'm gonna text you.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Please do, please do.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

And so next time you see me, I'm gonna be a millionaire.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Well, great. And if you lose my book, I only take five percent of everything you make.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

Okay, dude. Well, thank thank you very much. Uh this been this has been fun. And I'll I'll let you go to buy or sell your stuff, and I'm gonna go make my my millions after this. And for for anyone who's listening or watching, thank you for joining us for another episode of Read and Write Again, and until we meet again. Thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha. I'm your host, Natasha Tony. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time, happy reading, happy writing.