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Episode 5: Drew Cutkomp: Follow Your Passion, But Start with a Plan
179 Plays8 years ago
Travel, experiencing new cultures, learning new languages, meeting new people – many of us dream of this kind of life, but don’t know how to make the leap and turn those dreams into reality.
In this episode of the Uncommon Life Project podcast you’ll find out what led Drew Cutkomp to take this leap – and what it took to prepare. This isn’t somebody who just flew to Columbia with $100 in his pocket and hoped for the best. Living an uncommon life took planning. Drew has a lot to share about how planning, leaning on mentors - and some chutzpah - can go a long way in making dreams come true.
You’ll learn how Drew has evolved from working as a corporate mortgage originator where he crushed sales goals and attended award conferences to living his life traveling the globe and pursing his passions. He can be found currently learning Spanish and living the dream in Medellin, Colombia while running an ecommerce business and trading cryptocurrencies. The next stop on the journey is up to Drew!
Hopefully his story will inspire you to plan, learn, make a leap of faith and live your uncommon life dreams! What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- How there are many paths (at least Seven!) to residual income
- How following your passion can be done, backed up by a plan and good mentors
- You don’t owe any explanations. It’s your passion and your path to go on
- Why surrounding yourself with smart, supportive, positive people can make all the difference
- How Amazon’s logistics dominance can free you up to sell from anywhere
- Why multiple streams of residual income are important for more stable cash flow management
Recommended
Transcript
Defining an Uncommon Life
00:00:02
Speaker
Everyone dreams about living an uncommon life, but how we define that dream is very different for each of us. And for most, it's a lifelong pursuit. Welcome to the Uncommon Life Project podcast.
Meet the Hosts
00:00:14
Speaker
We're going to introduce you to people who are living that life or enjoying the journey to get there. We're going to also give you some tools, tricks, and tips for starting or accelerating your own efforts to live an uncommon life.
00:00:27
Speaker
a life worth celebrating and savoring. Please welcome your hosts, Brian Dewhurst and Philip Ramsey. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Uncommon Life Project podcast. This is your host, Brian Dewhurst and Philip Ramsey.
Drew's Journey Begins
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome everybody, we just want to thank you back for listening to the show and we are so excited because we have a guest on today that is just forging a new path and just being uncommon and we can't wait to bring his story to you. And his name is Drew Cutkump and he is from Des Moines, Iowa.
00:01:03
Speaker
He is an international entrepreneur in cryptocurrency and Amazon, and he left a six-figure job with Wells Fargo here in Des Moines to pursue international interest in Colombia, South America.
00:01:19
Speaker
and we just can't wait to dive in with him today. Yeah, Drew is definitely a constant learner and he always wants to learn from people and he wants to have mentors. I really respect this guy and I would just say like one of his passions was to learn a different language and the way that he went about that was obviously a little bit uncommon because he just flew down there.
00:01:41
Speaker
And he just intertwined in the culture and the environment. And so guys, welcome to the show. Drew Cutcomb. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for the invite. Excited to be here today. Yeah. Dude, so let's
Pursuing Freedom
00:01:54
Speaker
talk about this. So you are in corporate America with great benefits, right? Wells Fargo and making good money. What was that snap in your head that said, you know what? I'm good here. I'm going to try something a little uncommon.
00:02:07
Speaker
Yeah, I guess it started maybe about six to eight months before I decided to leave Wells Fargo that I just had made it up in my mind that sure, I could make a six figure income at Wells Fargo being a senior mortgage loan officer, but at the same time on a monthly basis, if I didn't show up and work as hard as I did the month before, my income wasn't gonna be consistent. So it was very active income and I just love to travel.
00:02:34
Speaker
I, uh, literally every day I would take off of work. I would come back to like a hundred emails and, you know, it was just an overwhelming, you just, it didn't make you want to take a day off because of what you were coming back to. And you might've lost an opportunity or a sale because of that. So at the end of the day, I just wanted to travel and that's kind of, uh, where it kind of started for sure.
00:02:56
Speaker
I think there's a lot of people that we talked to from Wells Fargo, great company, by the way, but they feel like they're just going through the motions and they don't have that, I guess, risk factor or what would you say? Maybe not risk factor, but maybe just the excitement level that you got that you had. But there's it's somewhere deep inside of them that they were like, I just don't know if this is really satisfying for me. And so kudos to you to realize that early enough to make a change.
Seeking Inspiration
00:03:24
Speaker
Yeah. And I want to dive in on that, Drew.
00:03:26
Speaker
walk the listeners through that you said it was about six to eight months before you left like what were you reading who are you talking to what are the thoughts that you're going through your head from like a passion standpoint like what had your attention outside of corporate America
00:03:42
Speaker
Yeah. I guess, um, you know, six to eight months before I was, you know, reading a bunch of books and so forth about kind of one of them was like the compound effect by Darren Hardy and, um, just kind of other like autobiographies of successful entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs or Phil Knight from Nike, the shoe dog books. Great. So just getting their thought process. And at the end of the day, they all kind of took at the time, it looked like big risks, but at the same time they were just really following something that they were passionate about and kind of inside they,
00:04:11
Speaker
truly felt like they should be pursuing. That's what I was feeling like. Wells Fargo is a great company. I enjoyed the job and learned a lot of good sales skills. I definitely look back at that chapter as it being a good defining moment, but at the same time, it was
00:04:27
Speaker
I wasn't making an impact with my co-workers. I was making the same position. They didn't see me as something different, even though I felt like I did have something to offer just off of my experiences. Through mentorship, obviously the two of you have helped, but I think
00:04:43
Speaker
You know, the proverb says that if you have like a multitude of counselors, you just have a lot more different degrees of wisdom, not just of your own opinion. So that definitely came into play. I had multiple people that I was kind of saying, hey, this is what my passions are, my gut's saying, my intuition, what do you think? And they just were kind of hoping to shape that.
00:05:06
Speaker
So you had to seek out people of like mind or who'd gone first that kind of affirmed you that you weren't crazy, right? Exactly correct. Yes. I, uh, and surprisingly a lot of people are very positive about me pursuing just saying this is a good opportunity. Why not, uh, you know, pursue your passions and, um, they didn't necessarily always understand why they were on passions, but that's, you know, how it's hard to describe that. I just, you know, intuitions intuition.
00:05:36
Speaker
For sure. Let's talk about something. I know one, I want to be really candid and say that you are, you have no children, right? You're dating somebody back in the States, but just to maybe kind of give some context around where you're at. It doesn't mean that you can't do what you're doing if you have a family. It's just, sometimes I think it's kind of nice to hear that. But let's talk about what your parents thought when you first laid this out to them.
Family Support
00:06:03
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, they definitely come from the school of thought of kind of just taking the conservative route. They worked, you know, good professions for, you know, 30, 40 years and, you know, just were conservative in how they spent their money. And I learned a lot from that. But at the same time, they so but they but they understand that I was a very different person. And that's, you know, if
00:06:23
Speaker
I'm not happy at working at a workplace. There's plenty of other professions and just pursue your dreams. So they're big travelers too. So they were, I guess initially, you know, it took time. I just kind of warmed them up to the idea. That's right. I gave a six month bike.
00:06:39
Speaker
I think they were just more probably impressed that I followed through because I told them six months ago I was going to do it and then doing little steps to get to that point versus not being like two weeks from now I'm just quitting my job and doing it. So I want to key in on this because I think it's both of the things that you're doing to really support your
00:07:01
Speaker
you know, income and lifestyle in Colombia, I think are kind of a mystery to a lot of people. And they they have certainly been to me. So I really want to dive in. Like, how did you get started looking at Amazon and are you leveraging Amazon as like an affiliate, like promoting products or are you viewing it more like a business? You have inventory. Can you shed any light on how you got into Amazon and like how it kind of works at a high level?
Amazon Business Explained
00:07:30
Speaker
Sure, of course. So I guess maybe six months back, kind of an answer to prayer, I got invited to kind of like a seminar where somebody was kind of training who had done, you know, very, you know, so multi-million dollars worth of business through online platforms, Amazon being one of them. And so
00:07:47
Speaker
Again, that mentorship just went with an open mind and learned quite a bit of information through, I literally flew out to San Francisco, Chicago, and Miami to get additional training from these guys. So I guess at the end of the day, how a high level of how Amazon works and how I'm taking advantage of it is, there's a few ways, but Amazon itself allows you as a small business to list products on their site. That's where about 50% of their business comes from.
00:08:15
Speaker
Last year, Amazon did 50% of all e-commerce in the whole country. They're massive. They already have the customer base and they already have the logistics figured out. What they allow me to do is buy a product from China or a wholesale supplier here that's willing to sell me a Fisher price toy at $10 that sells for $30 on Amazon. I'm able to send the product into an Amazon warehouse.
00:08:38
Speaker
they hold the inventory for me. And then when, you know, Jane in Mississippi buys that Fisher price toy, it gets shipped directly from her from their warehouse and through their employees. I do pay a commission obviously for them to do that service, but I'm down here living in Columbia and able to manage a business that did 10,000 in sales last month. So that's how in high level it works. Cool. What's the expenses that you have for that? If you're doing $10,000 of revenue, what's your expenses?
00:09:06
Speaker
Obviously, to do that much sales meant that I had to put that much upfront to buy the inventory. I'm buying inventory in advance. There's definitely analytics where you can see how often a product sells on Amazon. If you know it sells a thousand times a month and then it also shows you how many people are selling the product and what price they're selling it for. Then you can do the math.
00:09:30
Speaker
very simple applications that you can just purchase that so that we're talking maybe maybe four or $500 worth of kind of like software on a monthly basis. Maybe that's even on the high side, but you're able to then make a purchasing decision and it's just a mathematical equation. In my mind, if I'm going to buy this product, I know it's going to sell in 45 days because that's how many it's selling on Amazon.
00:09:52
Speaker
And if I buy it at this price, I'm going to be making 25% profit. So then it's really just an investment from my perspective. It's like, I'm going to get a 25% of return on my money in 45 days. That's kind of in basic how it works. And you get to go on the beach in Columbia. How you like me now? How you like me now.
00:10:09
Speaker
I love it. That's awesome. Let me talk about this. What do you think you have learned from Wells Fargo that you've been maximizing or from this point where you're at? What do you think you've learned? What were the good things about Wells Fargo that you took away? There's a lot of them. I mean, honestly, I had some good people that were
00:10:26
Speaker
I guess you call them managers, but that really took time to help. I mean, it was the high level sales role where you were helping somebody get into a $600,000 home in California where that was a multi-millionaire, right? So you had to speak at it. We had to be very concise with your words, very direct, but obviously show knowledge. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, yeah, at Wells Fargo, I just learned quite a few lessons about the process of managing my time, having a pipeline of
00:10:55
Speaker
30 mortgages that, you know, take 45 days from start until finish. So you're managing people's emotions in a very, you know, trying time when you're buying a house, if you've got one, obviously people are very engaged in that process. So, I mean, the great word, by the way.
00:11:12
Speaker
So at the end of the day, I mean, Wells Fargo is very good at kind of helping me with that through support throughout some very good managers there. But I'd also just to learn a lot of the sales process and how to manage my time so I can move on to the next transaction. But at the same time, keep the people that we're currently helping satisfied and obviously giving them a great experience overall. So that's kind of the main things I learned because those aren't natural to me, but it was cool from that experience to be able to kind of advance and
00:11:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's funny because you and I, obviously we've, we've known each other for quite some time and we have met, uh, way early in this process. So I've got to have kind of a, I don't know, bird's eye view of your trajectory in this quest to go South or, or go to someplace where you can speak and learn Spanish. Uh, but I remember you giving me specific timelines and dates that you wanted me to hold you accountable to. How did you create that plan? Tell me about that.
00:12:08
Speaker
But I guess it was more of realizing it was kind of going into just how much money I would need prior to making the jump and kind of knowing my budget that it would maybe take and then researching the areas of the country I wanted to go to or the world, I should say, and kind of being a little bit more thinking through, I wanted to learn Spanish. I wanted to travel the world. I wanted to create an income source that allowed me to do it anywhere I wanted to be.
00:12:37
Speaker
I didn't find that income source into maybe a couple months after telling you the plan but it kinda just came to me from an answer to prayer through the amazon part and obviously i've been investing through bitcoin and other things on the asset side so it's kind of a combination of those.
00:12:54
Speaker
for sure. So Drew, wait, I got to go back. I got to go back. So what a freeing feeling you have sitting at your computer in Iowa, right? Thinking, where do I want to go learn Spanish? Right? Like, tell me the places where you kind of like, was Columbia the only place you looked? Like tell me about the different locations that you were like, well, that kind of sounds fun because like really the world is your oyster, right? At that point, like you got a different playing field. Let's just be honest here.
00:13:23
Speaker
So pretty much came I thought for the first four months it was going to be Madrid Spain but then for a couple reasons it was kind of entering kind of their winter season when i was going to be over there versus south america is kind of perfect weather this time of year and then realistically there always yeah i should say that it's probably 70 degrees every day so it's pretty perfect um so it was going to be you know argentina or columbia pretty much
00:13:48
Speaker
Columbia just has a very clean way that they speak Spanish. If that makes sense, it's very comprehensible. So that was kind of another reason. And their money is 3000 of their currency, their pesos to one US dollar. And so literally you can get a steak dinner at a nice restaurant for $10, like I did a couple of weeks ago.
00:14:09
Speaker
That's great, man. So you've touched on a little bit. You're running an Amazon business. Now let's talk cryptocurrency. When did you start looking at cryptocurrency, invest in cryptocurrency and kind of shed some light on how that's played into this transition?
Cryptocurrency Ventures
00:14:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:24
Speaker
So about two years ago, a friend of mine had turned my eye to Bitcoin and altcoins and cryptocurrencies. And so I just dove into it. A skill I have, I think, is just seeing down the road. And I just knew that this was the next thing that everybody in the world will know about in the next 5 to 10 years and how the blockchain technology is really a
00:14:48
Speaker
a key part behind its rationale. I got into that and just started to invest. For my assets, quite a considerable amount just because of backing it up and seeing quite a bit of returns from it, probably like 25X in two years. It's pretty darn good, but that gave me an extra boost of confidence.
00:15:09
Speaker
And then you're in a foreign country and we've talked at length about this and I've talked about it on our YouTube video. Share with our listeners how influential cryptocurrency is in a foreign country.
00:15:26
Speaker
Everywhere I go, literally almost every single day now, somebody brings it up to me. I'm working and having this call in a new co-working space. And literally the first day I showed up here, there was three people setting up a Binance account and a Coinbase account right next to me. And they were talking about different things. And then some guy walked by.
00:15:44
Speaker
I'm pretty sure it was an Arabic language, and he just was talking, I didn't hear it, and then he threw out the word Bitcoin, and it just kept on going. I'm like, that's the only word I understood. Just literally everywhere. I was in a very small town a couple weeks ago, population of maybe 5,000 people in rural Colombia, and this lady that was 70 years old had a Bitcoin account serving me coffee.
00:16:05
Speaker
It was like everywhere. But the reason rationale is, I mean, their currency has devalued by 50% in the last three years. So the reality is this is such a safe investment compared to their currency.
00:16:17
Speaker
in relative terms. So I think their thought process is way different than ours in that sense. For sure. And I think it's so neat, you know, you obviously give us a different perspective from another part of the world. I mean, we've had a stable banking system for, you know, 100 plus years and really, you know, from the beginning of the founding of our country.
00:16:37
Speaker
Compared to so many different countries around the world, their currency is devalued on a regular basis. Talking about your residual income and doing the numbers you need to meet your budget now in a different foreign country, banking is important. You've kind of changed banking systems.
00:16:58
Speaker
And you're a proponent of our cash-ready life insurance process. Walk our listeners through what banking has been like and the importance of having access to not only cash, but Bitcoin internationally. Yeah. I think to answer your question, I did think through quite a bit about
00:17:19
Speaker
a life policy that allowed me to get a cash value and it's more of a long-term kind of safer investment. And yeah, I mean, being able to see that cash value go up over time, I mean, in the next five to 10 years thinking ahead, that's, it just made so much sense for my scenario, especially wanting to have a family and kids down the road. And then just with the whole Bitcoin and so forth like that, I mean, it's just,
00:17:45
Speaker
I mean, there's so much opportunity there and it's just the beginning in my opinion. So, you know, I'm not necessarily, you know, I'm pretty much not reinvesting everything that I have right now, but at some point, obviously, there's income that you can be pulling out from that as well.
00:18:01
Speaker
For sure. For sure. So I mean, I think if we're thinking about the seven source of residual income, you definitely have a banking component of that. So that's the first one that we would say you have investments with your Bitcoin and you run a business with Amazon that's providing a way of lifestyle for you and cash flow and they all kind of work synergistically together. What do you think the next seven source of residual income will be for you? Will it be subscriptions? Will it be real estate? Will it be royalties? What are you thinking on
Future Plans in Real Estate
00:18:30
Speaker
that path?
00:18:30
Speaker
Yeah so definitely have been looking at a couple different business vehicles I think real estate is definitely going to be one in the near future. There's a lot of people that invest into the Medellin market and one guy know that has multiple properties down here.
00:18:46
Speaker
literally 10% per year is how much the real estate's increased over the last five years. And you can see why. I mean, everybody floods here cause it's much more safer than it had been before. It's a cheap way of living a beautiful weather. So a lot of people out of other countries come here to live. And so real estate's a great investment. I'm looking into that. And then outside of that, yes, subscription based, um, just with all the information I've been learning with me and kind of a mastermind group I have on the,
00:19:13
Speaker
cryptocurrency side, Bitcoin, I think, there's just so much value we could provide to people that are looking for maybe the right coins to invest in. And I think we, you know, have some information to provide. So I think we're going down that route of maybe having my encryption service to have people know their options. And so yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking. Sure. Very cool. Did everything go according to plan, Drew, when you when you set off on this path? Did everything go smoothly? Or was there some hiccups?
00:19:42
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, definitely not. Everything went smoothly for sure. I mean, obviously, you know, even from like a mental standpoint, it was, you know, as much as I, you know, wanted to do this, everybody was saying, you know, my close circles were saying that I should do it. It's still, you know, I was hesitant to make a jump like this, but, but yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, I, it's more of was like a mental thing, if that makes sense, but, but everything has been going smooth. I mean, obviously owning a business is not like something that's, you know, smooth on a daily basis.
00:20:12
Speaker
takes dedication and so that has took time and thought process and sometimes money to figure out answers. But yeah, I think for the most part, day by day it's getting better for sure.
00:20:30
Speaker
When did you know that this different approach, this uncommon path was gonna work? Or are you there yet? You might not be there, I don't know. I definitely am. I mean, the moment I arrived here, it's obvious that I'd made the right decision and I appreciated my past corporate position and other type things, but I'm a traveler. I love to meet new people, experience new things and
00:20:57
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, I definitely know I made the right decision and I can see myself, you know, there's so many opportunities that have been opening up because I just kind of, you know, jumped in the deep end. And so yeah, I definitely feel it kind of was after the fact, it was, you know, logic and friends encouragement. And then, you know, now that I jumped in, it's like,
00:21:17
Speaker
I'm not going back to how I was living before. It literally costs maybe $2,000 a month down here to live good. $3,000 a month, you can eat out wherever you want and live in a nice pad. It's that type of spending way more money living in Des Moines without the benefits. The $3,000 a month probably includes a side trip or two to another country within South America.
00:21:45
Speaker
Amazing what you can do and as long as i have a laptop i really can set up shop forever.
00:21:50
Speaker
Yeah, what a blessing. It was just like, it was an instantaneous. As soon as you made the decision, like there was really not a lot of time there that was like shaky or what did I do? That was a huge blessing, I think from you or for you in that whole walk. So I'm glad to hear that. One of the common themes of all of our guests that we've interviewed so far is mentorship.
The Power of Mentorship
00:22:10
Speaker
And you talked about a mastermind group. What have you been surrounding yourself with, you know, mentally and emotionally?
00:22:17
Speaker
Like you said, because there's always doubts, right, of what am I doing or people question you. So how have you surrounded yourself with people like mine to help you just continue to grow and evolve in this process?
00:22:31
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think there's just value in who you associate with and I value a positive attitude and believing, you know, when you say that you can do something, good things happen. When you say you can't do something, your mind's close to it. So I definitely had some circle of friends, including the two of you who have provided some financial advice on top of other friends in different kinds of areas, being a Christian, having that kind of spiritual support and
00:22:56
Speaker
friend that's willing to kind of listen to you every step and just family and so forth and other friends but also just people of you know leadership mindsets and things like that so I think just the areas that I wanted to you know get better and I just suck
00:23:13
Speaker
you know, seeked out people like somebody that was good on Amazon. I seeked out those people. I traveled, like I said earlier, to these places just to, you know, get around them and ask all the questions I needed to ask from somebody that was already proven in an industry or, you know, maybe proven in marriage, like, so I can get that advice. All that type of stuff. So I think that's the key. Somebody has fruit on the tree is what I
00:23:35
Speaker
was looking for and I'm glad I did. Good point. Great point. What sacrifices have you had to make to be uncommon?
Sacrifices and Surprises
00:23:43
Speaker
So, I mean, obviously, you know, leaving family and friends behind wasn't easy, right? Cause it's not convenient for me to travel home often just cause you know, Des Moines and Minneapolis doesn't have direct flights from Columbia believe it or not. Um, but at the end of the day, so that's one, right? You're kind of leaving what seems like friends and family behind, but at the same time they're still there and I'm still able to communicate through Skype and other ways consistently since being down here. But other sacrifices, you know, obviously, um,
00:24:12
Speaker
you know losing a steady income job to be able to start a company and move to a country where i didn't know that many people was a risk for sure but it's all paid off you know i found a good university i'm studying spanish and just good friends and quality people and honestly the people that are meeting down here of a very similar mindset weather.
00:24:34
Speaker
very open to experiences and it's been a pretty seamless transition. That's cool. Very neat. What would you say this step out has done for your faith? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely enhanced it. I mean, whenever you step out and not in the unknown, that's what faith is, right? So I've definitely felt
00:25:01
Speaker
you know, just answers upon answers and opportunities and people that have come in my path. And just, it's hard to fully describe in a brief podcast, but just a lot of cool opportunities. And it's definitely growing my faith as a result. Awesome. I can see that. Definitely.
00:25:19
Speaker
What surprises, or I guess maybe surprises that are still happening on a day to day basis, probably for you, even like realizations and how you're going about your life, what has been some of those, I guess, either aha moments or I guess surprises in your day to day life in Columbia?
00:25:38
Speaker
Um, I mean, one of the major surprises was finding out how cheap it was to live here and how much I had been paying for to, you know, in Des Moines to live in the winter. I remember the first time you had a good steak dinner, you called me and you're like, dude, I just had like the most baller meal, $17. I went all out, all out, dessert, wine, steak. I love that story.
00:26:01
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. And then another realization is I've met so many intelligent people in the crypto blockchain space down here that have companies that they're running down here.
00:26:16
Speaker
Medellin, I don't know if you know, is considered the Silicon Valley of South America. A lot of people invest. A lot of people come down here because it's easier to start a company. You don't have to pay. Employees aren't expecting as high of a wage. There's a lot of good talent down here. I've met a lot of cool connections that way that have led to some pretty sound opportunities coming my way in that.
00:26:40
Speaker
You know, again, it's rubbing shoulders with those that have more wisdom than you in an area. And wow, have I found that down here in the Bitcoin crypto space.
00:26:51
Speaker
Looking at, you know, I think Philip touched on this with you, looking at the process it took to make this decision to move to another country, you know, you had defined goals, budgets, that type of thing. Now that you're on the other side of the fence, as you look forward, what are those new goals, budgets, as you kind of look for this, probably, you know, we talked either like a subscription model, or how do you leverage your, you know, all the stuff you're learning and seeing about cryptocurrency and
00:27:21
Speaker
foreign investment and those types of
Leveraging Cryptocurrency Experience
00:27:24
Speaker
things. Walk the listener through the next 12 months and just your thought process around that. Are you giving yourself grace just to enjoy the moment and just soak things up or are you already setting new hurdles for you to achieve?
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, literally on a daily basis with some people I'm close with, we're talking about different opportunities that we're seeing because, you know, in the crypto space, to be specific, but so yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different goals with that, maybe helping a bunch of people, because a lot of people I'm around, you know,
00:28:00
Speaker
are getting turned on to this being a good concept, but don't know where step one is. And so that's where I think I can provide assistance is helping people to understand and get educated. And I know the two of you are looking into that too.
00:28:13
Speaker
So, you know, just that's one definitely an area, I think, that in the next 12 months. But at the end of the day, too, I mean, I came down here to kind of live the dream. Right. So, you know, I'm I'm touring museums. I'm like last week I was in a southern region looking at beautiful Cora Valley, which is amazing. And, you know, just touring coffee farms and
00:28:35
Speaker
I'm living the dream too. It's kind of a mix. After five years in a sales position at Wells Fargo, I just wanted to break too. It's kind of a cool medium where I control if I want to work when I want to work. It's kind of a combination right now. I definitely am setting goals and have some pretty clear ones for the next year, but it's just a matter of
00:28:58
Speaker
you know, kind of taking it in too, because life passes quick and the whole point is really to, and a major goal is to become fluent in Spanish in the next five months. So that's a major focus and then from there. Cool. Let me, so you had said that you wouldn't go back to corporate America. So what advice would you give just our listeners and someone just that you met on the street or if you came back to Iowa for Christmas or a holiday, what advice would you give those people?
00:29:28
Speaker
I mean it's it's pretty simple i mean it's pretty much just what are you excited about you get turned on to show up everyday and wake up at seven and get in traffic and go through sleet and go when you're not feeling good to the office i mean when it came down to to me i mean all the accolades you know.
00:29:47
Speaker
sending on different trips that Wells Fargo did and all these bonuses. But at the end of the day, if you're not happy about where you're at and just the structure of you're under... I just had that entrepreneurial spirit and I think a lot of people out there do too. And obviously there's a disconnect between, they think there's a lot of risk to do it.
00:30:08
Speaker
But realistically, I started the Amazon business outside of my full-time job, you know, getting four to six months prior to leaving. And so it gave me a cushion of confidence to know that it was going to work out. So I don't think you need to jump in the deep end right away, but at the same time,
00:30:23
Speaker
It's, you know, spread your options out there. I mean, if something happened, like I figured to myself, I would type on a keyboard and talk to people all day. If I had broke my finger playing basketball and I couldn't type for six weeks, that could have stopped my income. So I just didn't, I wanted something that was going to be residual based that continued to pay me without, as you guys are saying through, you know, the seven steps of wealth creation. And you know, that's just how you protect yourself and your, my future family, because
00:30:51
Speaker
And it's just risky to only have one source of income, I think, in our society. And there's nothing wrong with corporate America, if that's your passion. But I just get the impression most people that I was working with were not that passionate about it. Drew, one last thing. I want to kind of nail this down, because it's something we've heard with some of our other guests. And I think it's something that Philip and I have gone through. I think so many people rely on corporate America for training, or I like to call it personal development, whatever you want to call it.
00:31:21
Speaker
Walk our listeners through, if you can, somewhat specifically of that, like you have sought out mentors, you have sought out trainings, you have sought out webinars, speakers, all those different things. Can you really frame in what it's been like to invest in yourself and just kind of shed light on that for you?
00:31:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, education doesn't stop after college. And I think a lot of people in corporate America say that they're getting educated, but realistically, it's more of the mindset behind it. One great book that comes to my mind right now is Mindset by Carol DeWick. She's a Stanford professor, unbelievably written. LeBron James, his first championship, him and his whole team read the book prior to that
00:32:06
Speaker
championship run in Miami and just really good because it's all about a growth mindset. You can be somewhere. Anything in life can be a learning lesson. It's just a matter of you choosing it to be. Again, it's having the open mind saying, how can I and being positive about it.
00:32:23
Speaker
It's not that over complicated. It's just being like everything can teach you. Every experience can teach you. And so I think in corporate America, it's kind of tough sometimes because if you stick your head up too high, you're over ambitious than people trying to knock you. I don't know. It's just, but if you have the right mindset about it, I think it can work out. But there's so many other books in self-development outside and realistically having friends like you and other people that like hold you accountable to things and you're growing as a person, I think is huge to get around other people that are growing. It's pretty important too. It motivates you.
00:32:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think of a story about the fisherman who never puts a lid on the crab cake or crab crate because he knows that no crabs will get out because as soon as somebody tries to get out of that crate, another crab will grab it and pull it back in. So he doesn't need a lid on the crate, right? And so to surround yourself with people that one, encourage you to try to draw out that passion, that entrepreneurial spirit
00:33:16
Speaker
is so impactful and important in this quest of this uncommon life and then seeking out mentors that will help you down this path. And what I really think, and sometimes I think there's some people in corporate America that you don't risk anything that you, like you don't learn as much when you don't have as much to lose. And I would say that you've been, you had more education in the last six months than you've ever had in college because you had so much to lose almost.
00:33:45
Speaker
Right and so for me to see where you're at now is super encouraging and to see it successful. And it couldn't it could go on the other way to write a bitcoin might not have gone up and this amazon account one of but you would have fallen on those mentors that you would have established earlier to say hey what am i doing wrong here i see you are successful and you had that safety net.
00:34:08
Speaker
which you've done a really good job in doing that. So I thank you so much for just your story and your enthusiasm and your leadership in
Flexible Lifestyle and Travel
00:34:17
Speaker
this. Drew, it's fun to see where you're at and where you're going. What would you say the next step for you is and where you're going? Yeah, I mean, the next step right now is really just
00:34:29
Speaker
I mean, it's been a couple months since I've been down here, but it's kind of flown by. And realistically, it's more of just getting used to this lifestyle of traveling where I can and working and it's getting used to a routine because I kind of can do whatever I want whenever I want, which is kind of a fun feeling. But at the same time, obviously everything in life, you have to have structure and so forth. So it's more, I don't know, I mean, I'm just, I'm excited for traveling more. I'm going to see multiple other countries down here and then
00:34:59
Speaker
You know, just, um, there's a, you know, just, uh, I'm secretly on a bunch of things. I'm going to a Bitcoin conference next month in Miami and just all kinds of different stuff just to get continually educated and, and, uh, just refining my circle of friends and just those that can help, I guess.
00:35:17
Speaker
Awesome. Drew, thank you so much for your time today. You're definitely someone we want to have back on the show. You know, I'd say like in a year and just see where you're at. Where can people follow you and your journey in South America and cryptocurrency?
00:35:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty simple. At Twitter, it's at Drew Cutcomb, C-U-T-K-O-M-P. And on Facebook, pretty easy to look up. And on Instagram, same as well. So yeah, just feel free. I mean, I definitely see a lot of information, pass it along, and yeah.
00:35:51
Speaker
Great. Great, man. Well, hey, you guys have been listening to the Uncommon Life Project. Thank you so much, Drew. I'm your host, Phillip Ramsey. And I'm Brian Dewhurst. And if you like this podcast, please subscribe and go to the podcast at iTunes or Google Play, rate the show and leave a review so we can get out and get around more people that want an uncommon life. So, guys, we hope you are on the lookout for the next episode. Thanks for listening in and have a great day. Thanks, everybody.
00:36:16
Speaker
That's all for this episode of the Uncommon Life Project, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.