See that image above?
That's my Starlink! Got it all set up yesterday as my "backup" Internet service at home.
You know how happy this makes me? Very. LOL.
Yes, I'm a pure geek. But I don't care. It works perfectly and having no single point of failure for Internet access makes me feel both ridiculous and fantastic.
And getting Internet from satellites just feels different. Freeing somehow.
And it's definitely a sign of the times.
There's a shift going on.
Some can feel it.
Some can even see it.
The world is changing quickly right now.
Every 80 years or so the economy goes through a major change.
And we're at that 80 year mark again right about now.
Living life on our terms over the last 20 years was a bit more straightforward than it is today.
Over the last twenty years if you had a good job you qualified for a bunch of rental property mortgages that generated cash flow as their prices appreciated aggressively.
Today, Artificial Intelligence is changing the job market. Quietly in some places. Very obviously in others.
And it's forcing us to question the income component of our lives...
Is personal income still a good enough plan for your financial freedom?
Perhaps it never was.
But for many, let's be real, it has been enough.
But we're in a new world now.
We always knew income was a single point of failure in your plan for financial freedom because it always required you to produce it.
That hasn't changed.
What has changed is all of our ability to replace income with a new job/career/income as artificial intelligence enters the job market to compete with us.
We're now not just competing against other humans for our next income.
We're competing against a new thing, a new species, that is soon to be smarter than us and can work 24/7/365.
And soon it'll be walking around in humanoid form.
So if we want to be free...
...which many of us do, then we must face this new reality head on.
Incomes are now more vulnerable than ever before.
It used to be "cute" to say, "Hey, you need assets, add them to your life, the rich own things, you should own things too!"
Owning assets has gone from being a marketing tag line for the sovereign individual to an absolute requirement.
The reason we keep returning to real estate as an asset of choice is that shelter is a need.
Other assets, stocks for example, are equity positions in companies that may not be filling a "need" very shortly. The world of AI is about to eat the lunch of many companies. Look at the software industry right now...did anyone ever think the market would question the value of equity in something like Microsoft? It is now. The world is different.
As the media "poo-poos" on real estate we find ourselves wondering what's better?
In the digital space, Bitcoin wins for sure.
But in the physical, old-school world, it's hard to beat a good single family starter home.
We know someone in their 20s who bought a property for $450K.
She is renting out the basement and living on the main level (house hacking 101).
The rent from the basement covers her mortgage payment. She just has to cover taxes, insurance, and utilities.
This income is fairly stable because shelter is a need.
And she now owns an asset that...
...as governments around the world print money to thwart the deflationary effects of technology...
...will go up in price over the next decade (houses are scarcer than newly printed dollars).
She has added an asset to her life, controls a stream of income that doesn't depend on her, and has a home to live in.
It's this type of creativity that's going to be required going forward.
(Quick Aside: Nick is doing an Introductory Rock Star Training Class on these types of real estate strategies at our next class on Wednesday, May 13, you can click here to register for it).
Most people are sleepwalking into the biggest economic change of our lifetimes.
This Zoomer above, she is adapting to the environment in real time.
We've joked that "the old path of go to school and get a good job" is dead for some time.
But in truth, maybe we weren't saying it with the seriousness it deserves.
So let us be very clear in what we're thinking...
The old way is done.
If it was beneficial for some, for some time, it's not the case anymore.
We don’t think everyone needs to quit their job.
We don’t think income is bad.
We just think relying only on income in the age of AI may be one of the riskiest financial plans around.
The future may not belong to the people with the highest income.
It may belong to the people who used their income, while they had it, to acquire assets.
We sat down with Daniel Foch to discuss the current state of real estate and jobs and the new, emerging economy, in a podcast this week.
You can click right here to check it out.
Daniel is one of the clearest thinkers in the space.
We think you'll enjoy the chat.
And if you want to see how we're using assets to create income and to build a life on our own terms then you'll want to join us in person on Wednesday, May 13.
Nick is going to break it all down, with examples like the one above.
Rock Star is somehow morphing into a place, not just for real estate investors, but into a community preparing to ride the wave of AI, personal sovereignty, and whatever the future brings.
If you're looking for that kind of place, you've found us.
And truth be told, we've been doing this for some time now.
Start your journey with Nick on Wednesday, May 13, click here to grab your seat. We're limited to what our training room can hold (yes, this is in-person!) so don't wait.
See you soon!
Tom & Nick
