After reading the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris, Tyler Wagner decided to drop out of college and start his own journey. Being a student with over $80,000 in debt, he didn’t have the resources to attend big conferences. Instead, he wanted to go for coaching.
Six months later, Tyler contacted event organizers asking for a free ticket to their event. Almost every 100+ events gave him a ticket to their conference. On one occasion, in particular, Mastermind Talks, he met Tim Ferriss backstage.
“At that event, something clicked for me. It was that most of the speakers at that event were authors – most were bestselling authors. So I decided to be a public speaker at the age of 20.”
Conference Crushing
After attending these events, Tyler wrote his first book, Conference Crushing – a 70-page guide on networking in events. Going from a dropout to best-selling author, the people who doubted Tyler would make it after becoming a college dropout were now paying attention.
At this point, Tyler was getting paid to speak on stage. So he also started his own tribe, Authors Unite. “I started out with one-on-one coaching that was a low ticket item. At first, it was great.”
Then his time became minimal with global clients when he realized he hit the ceiling. So Tyler decided to create online courses to scale his business at high-ticket pricing for their book marketing services.
From ghostwriting to book editing, PR, marketing, and media kits, Author’s Unite brings the critical services a severe author needs to write, edit, publish and market their book – no matter their industry or vertical.
Finding Work-Life Balance
“The toughest thing that I’ve gone through in my life is trying to find balance.”
For example, When he is in work mode, Tyler says he forgets about his surroundings and other responsibilities as he is in the zone. “Then if I’m in family mode, I let everything else go, you know?”
He typically will work hard for four months, then travel to visit family or spend time vacationing.
The Bitcoin Balance
There’s a balance to be had with Bitcoin and hard cash. Tyler believes there’s a massive crash coming. Still, before the Bitcoin crash happens, he predicts that Bitcoin will reach a million dollars a coin in the next couple of months. This type of currency has many extremes to play the game. So he keeps investing a dollar-cost average per month and also keeps cash in case the crash occurs at some point.
“I like having a balance so that I can sleep at night. Because if I’m all in one market and it crashes, that’s gonna screw me up and have ’em all in cash, just watching assets rise, then that’s going to piss me off.” You don’t want to be in a position where you are mortgaging your house to buy bitcoin. I’m still not willing to do anything crazy like that. Do you know what I mean? You don’t want to live in a home that is less valuable than what Bitcoin will be worth.
As long as you take on massive amounts of debt to do it, I don’t care how the fuck you got the money. I’ve done stuff like that where I’ve made decisions about living situations. Sometimes you have to move back in with your parents to get yourself off the ground again.
Business Building and Passive Income
“I like the idea of passive income, but I’m also very much like a business builder.” Tyler enjoys building businesses using his money and investments. However, he tends to hold a large amount of cash if he finds another company he wants to start.
“I’m very serial entrepreneur-minded. I like building something rather than taking the six to eight percent of interest. He also likes building businesses because, Tyler says, “you just discover who you are.”
Building businesses hasn’t only helped Tyler discover who he is – “I created all this freedom in my life, and then I realized I didn’t know what the hell to do with all this money and freedom. “I live a nice minimalistic, simple life to avoid problems. You know what I mean?”
Book Writing and Marketing Advice
So how should you pick the topic for the next book you’d like to write? Tyler suggests writing raw books because those books tell the full story fully without hiding anything.
“Those are the ones that have the potential to get the legs to go with word of mouth taking over. If you don’t do that, it just, it, it ends up dying. Like it just doesn’t work.”
“I think the more open we are, the better off we can be.” This is why Tyler wants to become more open on his social media and what he thinks and feels about social topics. “I think it’s how we should be and everybody should be open and curious. I think curiosity is a foundation for success.”