[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Big Ticket Pros. We're super happy to have you here. This is a podcast for agencies, coaches and high end service providers who know what it takes to thrive in competitive markets. I'm your host Josh Thomas. You can find me on all social mediat literally. Our guests share insider tips, strategies and sometimes cautionary tales to help you close bigger deals, build stronger relationships and scale your business faster. Big Ticket Pros is sponsored by Conversational funnels. We booked 121 qualified sales calls in 10 days without any ad spend, outreach or enlist social posting. We found a new way to close deals in 2025 that doesn't rely on any of those tired old methods we're used to. To learn more, download the free Step by step
[email protected] Once again, that's conversationalfunnels.com Today's guest is Adrian Rambila. Adrian is an Internet entrepreneur and former professional dancer for T Pain. He's become a leading figure in online marketing with over 1.7 million followers on social media. His journey to success took an unconventional turn during the Pandemic when he lived in a van and traveled across the USA documenting his experiences. He showcased how he was making upwards of $100,000 per month online and how wealth and minimalism can coexist. Adrian is the founder of bramify.com and brambila method.com and the author of Start Thinking. Rich Adrian welcome to Big Ticket Pros. What is the best piece of advice you would give to someone just starting out in your industry?
[00:01:38] Speaker B: I think this advice is so powerful it actually applies to any type of job or business you would start. It's paying yourself first. I think the whole goal of work and selling is to potentially get in the position that one day you don't have to sell or have a job and operate in a world by choice versus I need this to work. I have to do this is a totally different mindset and way of living versus I want to do this. This is what fulfills me or this is what is exciting. I'm getting to choose how I make my money. And you don't ever get that way by just earning income. If you get that way by saving it and then investing for your future self. So pay yourself first. Investing, make it automatic, make it, make it unconscious and make it a regular thing. And every successful person I know, typically their money makes more money than anything they they, they do. And I think that's a great position to strive for.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, many years ago I interviewed Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit first and that was the first time somebody had presented to me such a simple idea that almost nobody understands and nobody does. Pay yourself first man. Like you gotta eat.
And I want to hear your thoughts on this because I think it goes deeper than pay yourself first. There are so many stories about, you know, in the event of an emergency, put your oxygen mask on first so that you can take care of your others. And there are so many people that we run into that are like, ah, well I just want to make sure everybody else is okay. And it's almost like that's backwards.
You know, you got to take care of yourself because if you're not healthy, there's nothing left to produce. You're the producer, you know.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Definitely. I think the best gift that you can give to the people that you love, your friends and your business, is to be the best version of yourself. And so that means taking care of your health, taking care of your body, but also taking care of, of your wealth. In we we're both in Austin, Texas. We I was just talking about Internet marketing party which is a cool event that has high caliber people that usually I only get to meet when I spend $5,000 plus to go to some mastermind or somewhere but it happens to be in Aust.
I'm a curious person. I always like talking to people about their money, how they spend it, how, how they invest it and the psychology of what drives them. Because many entrepreneurs and and I would say Austin is a pretty high caliber city in this circle. They have really high incomes, they're selling high ticket stuff or programs or softwares and they're making the. I meet a lot of seven figure earners, it's not uncommon. But what I learn is, is that they, they when it comes to like to get wealthy, which is different from just like a rich skill set was your ability to earn income, the ability to sell these. I find two scenarios. One, they're living a seven figure lifestyle. So they make seven figures, they live, they, they live a seven figure lifestyle. And a true stat is actually 50% of six figure earners live paycheck to paycheck. So that's pretty crazy. And then second when it comes to investing entrepreneurs, people are in sales.
We have such a high tolerance of risk if you're entrepreneur, if you're on your own compared to a 9 to 5. Like the way we make money is risky but we, we like build this like stomach and we, we normalize how risky it is to be on your own selling Your own things or, or being an entrepreneur or creating something, we, we have to normalize. Otherwise every day is anxious and, and panic. But then when it comes to investing our benchmark for what is considered safe, it's so skewed that then I meet a lot of entrepreneurs who put all their money in like a gorilla nft. It doesn't do well and they have.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: To rebuild or they like dogecoin.
I'll tell you this though. I mean, like, there is this inherent risk involved, but like, just, just real quick about that. You know, I, I, I was running a crypto conference all the way back in 2017 and I had somebody kind of make, you know, kind of laugh it off and like, oh yeah, they got this dogecoin. It's just like kind of a joke and it was worth like 1/100,000th of a cent at the time. And, and like if you had just bought like a dollar of that, like I wouldn't even be here doing this podcast anymore.
You know, it's like you never know. Like sometimes you just gotta take those calculated risks and you do.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: And I think that's calculated risk is the thing. So where an entrepreneur or anyone, this advice applies to anyone. No matter how much money you make, when it comes to this risky, speculative stuff, you, you definitely need to play the game. Like, what if, what if it does? What if it takes off? What if it goes, actually goes to the moon? Like, but just make sure it's not more than 10% of your entire net worth. One thing wealthy people are generally pretty good at is preserving their wealth, which is a skill set. Like making a lot of money is a whole different skill set. Your podcast helps people with that and then keeping that wealth and having that money make money. Totally different skill sets are not related and so definitely participate in whatever the next Dogecoin is. Crypto right now is kind of sexy thing right now. It's like, it's like Bitcoin, just 100K. So it's like, yeah, it's really hard right now. And all those crypto bros are back. I don't know where they were these last few years, but they're back.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: They were hiding.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Yes, they were in hiding. So definitely partake. But make sure it's not more than 10% because in case it does go to zero, you don't have to start over for again.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, you, you hit on something important there. When you said 50% of six figure earners are living paycheck to paycheck, you know, $100,000 is just not that much money in the grand scheme of things. You know, especially you like mortgage rates and rents haven't gone down, they've gone up. You know, the price of food hasn't gone down, it's gone up. $100,000 20 years ago might have been something, but that's like the new $50,000 now.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: That's. Yeah, it's true. I mean inflation, it definitely is more expensive and you have to, you have to be able to earn an income. And you know, trying to grow your income is. Is one part of trying to, to get wealthy. But typically what happens is we earn more money or we land a bigger deal, we close more sales is people tend to inflate their life so alongside with it. And so like you like. And I'm guilty of it too. Like I launch a product, new product does really well. I'm like what are we doing? We're celebrating which is spending money. But I think one thing that allows me, I think to be really good at entrepreneurship and sales and I know have I have a few companies I've exited an agency actually in the last year and I credit actually something that has nothing to do with entrepreneurship business. It has to do with this first concept of paying yourself first. I've been investing every single dollar since I first made a dollar since I was 20.
And at one point I did live in a van and I saved invested 95% of my income that year. So. So like I'll just share transparently. I haven't done this on many podcasts but like every month I dollar cost average 35,000 into the st.
Been doing that for a while. And so that is like my secret weapon which allows that money to keep like making money and, and my whole cost of living is paid for by money. The point of that leverage is that when I go into a room and I want to try to close someone or when I launch a new product, I'm doing it in this abundance mindset. Like I'm here cause I want to. I'm only taking on clients that I, that I want to. I'm not going to cut corners. And I have this, I have this power of being like if, if they're trying to figure finagle or they're not interested, I can just walk away because I've already taped, I've already paid myself first and that wealth is accumulating. So operating as a choice I think is a deadly weapon when it, when it comes to like trying to sell or trying to create an agency or grow anything. Is like that freedom. Be like, you know what, if I don't like you, I'm out. Or if this isn't going your way and I'm trying to pitch something and I feel like you're going to be a bad client. Instead of like trying to work with high maintenance clients, I'm like, I'm out. Like having that power is truly something it.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: And that's one of the things I think this is a great segue into your book. Start thinking rich. Because I, I ran into this recently where the, a big, big time client fell in my lap. And it was going to be like five figures a month. And you know, we start talking and, and they're kind of hesitant, you know, like, okay, cool. And I'm, I'm answering their questions, I'm going through, jumping through their hoops so that they feel comfortable, but it was just like after another and I'm like, man, I don't know, guys, like, at some point I think you're just gonna have to believe that, that I'm, that I'm not the Antichrist, you know, and, and ultimately they, they ended up dropping me. And I was like, that's great. I'm so glad you did, you know, because I needed my sanity more than I needed that money.
And you know, some people just have a, have a hard time with that and it's okay to let them go even if you need the money because you're better off nine times out of 10 and that's kind of start thinking like, I'm going to be okay no matter what. That to me is start thinking rich. But I'd love to hear you like, introduce the idea of your book and you know, what's it for, who's it for? And what's the best lesson we can learn.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I agree with you. Like, you made the right choice. That was better for yourself. But unfortunately most people, they can't make that choice. So that, so I mean, I talked to most besides talking to interesting people like yourself. When I talk to people, I want to just, I don't want to say regular people. People have like jobs or people are in sales or whatever. Like, they're, they're there because they have to, they're, they're, they're selling whatever to try to get by. And they don't really have that, that financial freedom to, to make a choice. And that's why I created, created the book with My co author, Dr. Brett Klontz, is to help people like get to the point of financial freedom. So I think the book is for we define wealth in this way. Like, owning your time has nothing to do with objects, mansions, Lamborghinis. It has to do with, like, is your day designed by, like, everything that you want to do and then having the freedom or flexibility to change or pivot. And the example I share is I used to be a pro hip hop dancer. My first YouTube channel grew to the number one place people learn how to dance the robot online. And then all of a sudden, when I turned 27, I was like, dude, I don't want to dance anymore. I got burned out. And I was able to change and keep making content, but. And my content sucked a lot. Like it wasn't making any money. But having that freedom allowed me to change. And I think as humans, we're allowed to change, but sometimes we don't get that. We're too afraid to make the change because especially if we don't have the. Financially, we're kind of bootstrapped and stuck there. So the book is how to optimize for Time, how to make money, um, and, and leverage that so it buys back your time, which is our most valuable asset. So that's the, the center around Start Thinking Rich. And rich people, they, they. If you can look at, I think a. A rich mindset. And that person is someone who prioritizes their time and they optimize for their time in their personal and in their business life.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Excellent. And so where can we go to get a copy of the book?
[00:13:34] Speaker B: The book is on Amazon or anywhere you buy books. A Start Thinking Rich will pop it up. And we do actually have a couple of bonus resources if. For the listeners here, if they could go to start thinking rich.com/josh. And then that's going to have some extra tools and calculators like projections. That's one of my. I think if you're listening to this and you're. And you have a lot of debt or like, finance is something that you kind of ignore because it's, it's not the funnest thing. I remember when, when I had nothing, like, I didn't want to look at my numbers. I was almost afraid. But projections is like one way to build a desire of like, hey, what happens if I start investing a 5,000, 10,000 per month? And it's really crazy to see. It's. It's. It's impossible for us to see 30 years in the future. And that's what a projection calculator does, is like, wow, if I put $5,000 away per month in 30 years. Like, it's a, it's a, it's a huge number. Even if you put $5 a month in 30 years, it's, it's fascinating how much investing can compound and really build that wealth for you guys.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Awesome. Adrian Brambilla, thanks so much for coming on, sharing a little bit of wisdom of what it takes to get the big deals done and start thinking rich. For those of you who want to learn more about his book, you can go to startthinkingrich.com Josh I feel very honored. Thanks for that. And for those of you who want to connect with Adrian directly, you can go to adrianbrambila.com so, hey, we're gonna wrap from here. And if you are an agency coach, professional services provider, or otherwise sell expensive stuff, we would love to have you on a future episode. You can
[email protected] and once again, if you want to stack your calendar with qualified, motivated prospects who want what you have, download our free
[email protected] that's all for now. Let's go get that big ticket punched.
