Jan. 4, 2026

Breaking Free: Matt Raad's Blueprint for Escaping the 9 to 5 Grind through Digital Assets

Breaking Free: Matt Raad's Blueprint for Escaping the 9 to 5 Grind through Digital Assets

Send us a text In this empowering episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we sit down with Matt Raad, a digital investor and educator who specializes in helping individuals break free from the 9 to 5 grind. Matt shares his inspiring journey from struggling with traditional business models to discovering the lucrative world of online investments and digital assets. He explains how he and his wife transitioned from owning bricks and mortar businesses to thriving in the digital space, highl...

Send us a text


In this empowering episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we sit down with Matt Raad, a digital investor and educator who specializes in helping individuals break free from the 9 to 5 grind. Matt shares his inspiring journey from struggling with traditional business models to discovering the lucrative world of online investments and digital assets. He explains how he and his wife transitioned from owning bricks and mortar businesses to thriving in the digital space, highlighting the freedom and leverage that comes with online entrepreneurship. Listeners will learn about the essential skills needed to succeed, the mindset shifts required to transition from employee to entrepreneur, and the common pitfalls beginners face when starting an online business. Matt also shares success stories from his students, including Ashleen, who transformed her life by building and managing online businesses. This episode is packed with actionable insights and strategies for anyone looking to create financial freedom through digital investing. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to gain valuable knowledge that could change your life! Discover more about Matt and his work at www.ebusinessinstitute.com.au

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. If you believe you can achieve.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today, I, I am joined by guests who knows that reinvention can happen at any point of your life. Matt Rod, who is a digital investor and educator, and he helps people get rid of the 9 to 5 grind by investing in digital assets and creating online businesses. So we're going to be talking to Matt about that and how he helps people. I know we all, or, at least some of us want to get rid of the rat race and do something else. So Matt might can help us with that. So Matt, thank you so much for joining me.

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> Matt Rod>It's a pleasure to be here, Travis. Thanks for having me on.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All right, well, why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Sure.

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> Matt Rod>well, as you said, we're about helping people quit the 9 to 5 through digital assets or online businesses. And I think, like a lot of people who are looking for freedom in their lives, particularly, not just financial freedom, but time freedom. That was certainly, my wife and I goal when we first met. So Liz is my business partner in this as well. And what we decided, Curtis, we grew up in rural Australia and we wanted freedom.

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> Matt Rod>We wanted to be able to, you know, work ideally in a rural area. And for us it was all about business. So we bought our first business. We actually met at university studying, but we realized a 9 to 5 job was not the way for us at all. and it wasn't going to give us the freedom that we wanted. So we, yeah, with the help of friends and family, we bought our first business.

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> Matt Rod>This was 30 years ago. And then basically we made a. We did things quite differently. To most people. We never had a normal job ever. what we did instead was we made a career out of buying and selling businesses. And we were primarily buying back in those days, manufacturing or wholesale import businesses here in Australia. And it quite difficult. I don't recommend for any of your listeners to actually go into that space. They were bricks and mortar businesses and they cost a lot of money. And you also tie up most of your capital in physical inventory. So when we saw the Internet coming along in the, in the 2000s, it was actually Liz, my wife, who figured out, she said, hey, Matt, we can do what we've always done with bricks and mortar businesses, but we can just buy online businesses. It's heaps easier. And we don't have to have physical inventory anymore, we don't have to have stock. So it worked really well. So we were already used to buying and selling bricks and mortar businesses. As I said, we'd made a career of it. And we just literally transitioned to the online space. And Curtis, it was just amazing. Like, literally. So, you know, in our bricks and mortar business, we had to export to America. with online businesses, we're in America within the very next day, literally by a website that's based in America, and we've suddenly got access to 300 million people. So that was just a life changer for us. And, and also these websites work 24, seven, you know, while we sleep, literally. So no borders and working 24 7. And you could buy, you know, you can buy multiple websites. So we, that's literally what we did.

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> Matt Rod>We're one of the first to figure out how to buy websites. This was what, 15 years ago? And we started buying up a portfolio of websites. Just like, you know how I've seen on your podcast, you've got real estate investors coming on. So we kind of do what real estate investors do, but with online businesses. So instead of buying a portfolio of real estate, we bought a portfolio of online businesses.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Absolutely.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, why do you feel like people feel trapped in the 9 to 5 grind? And why, buying digital assets is the way out.

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> Matt Rod>Because it gives you so much leverage. So there's a skill set you need to learn to be able to do this, obviously, because you need digital skills and you need to know the sorts of sites to buy.

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> Matt Rod>But I think in this day and age, the world is changing just so much. You can't rely on nine to five. You can't possibly get the leverage out of a job anymore. You know, wages aren't growing like they used to and it's very difficult to get ahead.

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> Matt Rod>And so even Warren Buffett says, you know, the world's most famous investor, he says you have to find a way to make money while you sleep, otherwise you're not going to get ahead. And I think that's where online businesses can come into it. So a lot of our clients, they've got, I guess you call them side hustles, which are online businesses. And they're semi passive, like they work without them having to turn up to do the work in them. And I think that's one of the most powerful things. And a great book that I think teaches this concept came out before the Internet became a big thing. And that is, Have you heard of Rich Dad, Poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki, I'm sure a lot of your listeners have. I think he got that spot on the getting the power of business. Any kind of business where you don't have to turn up to work in it, you know, every single day nine to five. That's the leverage that can help you get to that point where, like Warren Buffett says, you earn money while you sleep. And it's a very powerful place to be. And we've certainly found that, as have done a lot of our clients we've been, we've found that that works really well with online businesses because they are just so leveraged. They work 20, you know, online businesses never close. They're open 20, 24, 7, and they literally have no geographic borders.

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> Matt Rod>That's very, very powerful. And you've got access to a worldwide market. So it can give you, if you know what you're doing, it can give, give you huge leverage over, a normal job or even over a normal business you don't have to have. No longer are we restricted by having a business sitting in Main street, you know, where we're relying on people walking into the shop front and stuff like that.

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> Matt Rod>Those days are gone now. We do everything online.

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> Matt Rod>Plus you can work from home on your laptop, which everyone loves.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, for someone who is new to the space, what's the first practical step do you recommend them take when it comes to owning an online business?

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> Matt Rod>Yeah, good question. we get asked this a lot and we do specialize in helping beginners. And I think realistically, the first skill set, like the technical skill set you need, is learn how to build a website. But there's actually a few skills, Curtis, that, we recommend beginners learn. So the big one, I think is learning how to build a website. But secondly is just even understanding how you make money online. Most people have no idea. They've never considered it, maybe like some of your listeners. So I think that's a big step as well, is just looking around at the different models or strategies that you can use to make money online. we don't recommend beginners start with E commerce. So I know there's lots of courses out there promoting that. It's a lot harder than people realize with E commerce, which is you buy physical inventory, you stick it in a warehouse, and then you sell it with an online website. That's quite tricky because that's the problems we had in our early days in bricks and mortar businesses is managing stock or physical inventory. You know, you've got to order it, you've Got to store it in a warehouse. If you can't sell it, you get stuck with it. So we don't like that sort of a model. So even just simple things like that, realizing what are the, what are the safest ways to make money online. So I think that's probably another big starting point. So I'd probably say they're the two main skills is learn how to build a website, learn how what different strategies there are for making money online. And then a third one in what we do because we do something very specific which is buy and sell online businesses. The third one of course is understand or learn how to do due diligence. So there's three big skills that you start out with.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, let's talk about what mindset shifts.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Someone needs to have to go from employee to digital entrepreneur.

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> Matt Rod>Yeah, now that is an interesting one because online it works very differently to. That's a really good question. one of my favorite topics, Curtis, is because we noticed this. So Liz and I have always been entrepreneurs for 30 years. So we don't know what it's like to work 9 to 5. But something I've noticed and when I question like and ask our clients who are in those sort of nine to five jobs, you know, everyone complains about swapping time for money. So you work X amount of hours a day and you get paid X amount. So what that means is mindset wise is this is a powerful mindset thing. Those sorts of people. And maybe if you're listening to this, you might be in this camp, you tend to think very relatively what I would call short term in that, you know, if you need more money, what do you do? You work harder and you work more hours. Now you're going to max out at what, 12 to 16 hour days there. It's a very hard way to get ahead. Long term it can be powerful. Don't get me wrong. But in terms of mindset, what I've noticed is people that have jobs tend to think about okay, if I need more money, I just work more hours. Whereas as an entrepreneur we tend to think long term and we know that if I put in the hard yards now and I'm smart with my strategies, I don't get a, one times result on my time and effort. My efforts could be 10x but it just might take longer. It might take 12 months or it might take 5 years or whatever.

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> Matt Rod>But at some point my income and my freedom of my time Freedom can go 10x through the roof. Whereas you could never get that when you're working in a 9 to 5 job. So it affects your mindset of how you approach every day. So as for entrepreneurs, if they're entrepreneurs tend to think long term because we have to. And the payoff is long term.

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> Matt Rod>So short term pain, long term payoff. And the main thing is we realize that every bit of effort that we invest now, either that's in increasing our knowledge or putting effort into our business, it can have a massive trade off down the track. And every single little thing we do, we're not just swapping time for money. See, when you swap time for money, you're helping your employer get rich.

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> Matt Rod>As an entrepreneur, when you work in your own business, you're the one getting rich and you are creating your own equity in the business. And that's super, super important. So every hour that I work, I don't care what I get paid because I'm creating equity, I'm creating an asset. And that's a very powerful mindset. As a business owner or an entrepreneur, you're constantly creating an asset that you can sell down the track. Remember, my career is buy and selling websites or online businesses and it's all about exits. And I think that's a powerful mindset shift for your listeners. If you're working nine to five, you know, you think getting rich is about swapping time for money and working more hours. We tend to think of getting rich is creating assets, and we do that by creating equity in those.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, looking back, let's talk about the biggest challenge you faced during your reinvention and how did you overcome it?

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> Matt Rod>Getting the money to do this as a young entrepreneur is really difficult. It's very difficult here in Australia. So I'm from Australia, but it's the same. We have a lot of clients in America. It's difficult with bricks and mortar businesses to get the money to buy them.

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> Matt Rod>you can't easily get a loan. You can in America.

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> Matt Rod>You've got the SBA loans to a degree. But I think our biggest challenges when we look back over 30 years was managing cash flow. And that was because we were in businesses that involve physical inventory. So again, that influences heavily. What I recommend to beginners don't touch businesses that have physical inventory. it's not financial advice, it's just personal opinion based on our main challenges, which was always cash flow. So we were taught by mentors of ours, go for cash flow first. And that's why online businesses are such beautiful things, because they're very high cash flow compared to bricks and mortar businesses. So I'd say managing cash flow has probably been the hardest thing. And we help lots of clients with this as well. it's probably one of the hardest things we've experienced in business because of the physical inventory aspect.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, define what you mean by digital assets and talk about why they're so powerful for wealth creation.

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> Matt Rod>Yep. So we're talking about online businesses that make money typically through advertising or selling information products. So, literally any, the opposite of physical inventory. So they might be like a blog where someone blogs about traveling. And so when someone lands on that blog, there's ads, you know, those ads that people click on where you can get paid for that. But there also might be sponsors. So hotels may sponsor you, or travel companies may do a sponsorship deal with you because you've got lots of traffic and so you get paid automatically or passive, semi, passively. And they're very powerful. That's just one example. There's lots of examples. But we like, like we tend to buy online businesses that are what we call passion sites where people are passionate about a topic, they blog about it, and then they make money off either ads or affiliate commissions. Where people, or selling information products like courses. That's another very, very powerful. That's more advanced. But you can make a lot of money selling courses online as well.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>We'll talk about the most common mistakes beginners make when trying to build an online business.

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> Matt Rod>I think, oh, most common mistakes is not understanding what they're doing and not understanding how websites work. So it's all about driving traffic. So online, there's two metrics that we live by. One is profit and traffic. And beginners overestimate what they can achieve when they build a website. They don't realize it can take years to build them up. And so that's why you buy them, because they've already been built up.

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> Matt Rod>Okay. So that's one big advantage of buying. The other thing is beginners to. It also depends on what your strategy is. So if you are listening to this and you're thinking about going out there and buying a website, make sure you learn how to do due diligence. It's the number one mistake we see people make. They just blindly buy a website based on the good word of the seller without doing any proper due diligence. And you must do proper due diligence on a website. So that's probably the biggest mistake in that feel. It's just like, you know, when you buy real estate, you need to know if you're buying, say, commercial real Estate, which is a business, you need to know what you're doing. You need to have some knowledge and some experience there. It's the same with buying online businesses. So not doing proper due diligence is probably one of the biggest, rookie errors that we see.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, can you give us one of your favorite success stories of somebody who reinvented themselves, because of your teaching?

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> Matt Rod>Yeah, sure, there's heaps, but, I'm just thinking like recently we had, one of our students, Ashleen, who's in America, she, it took her a year to achieve this, but she was burnt out in corporate working in Silicon Valley and she knew nothing about buying websites. She heard us on a podcast and she did our course. And she started out small because that's what we teach Curtis. We get to stop people making big mistakes. We suggest you buy small websites like under a thousand dollars to get started and then under $10,000 to get started. She did exactly that and did really well. She bought these simple little sites in niches she knew nothing about. She bought like a fishing site, sewing site, crochet site, site about cars. So she just practiced, did the reps, so did the work. And then what's happened with those sites? She's learned how to renovate them like you renovate real estate and fix them up.

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> Matt Rod>Plus she's bought a much bigger site now, which is a 15 year old website that no one else saw for sale. And it sells courses on Thai massage, like how to become a certified Thai massage, practitioner. And it's been going for 15 years and no one else realized the value. But because she'd done so much reps and training, she saw it and bought it. And that site now makes her anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 a month. Plus with her other sites that she's renovated, she's now earning around $8,000 a month on websites that she only works on like once or twice a week. So that's pretty impressive stuff. so for her that's meant she hasn't had to go back to work. She can do this full time now. And you know, she's got these beautiful assets, particularly that Thai massage, course sellings website, 15 years old, consistently made money for many, many years. The original owner is going to stay on with her and help her, transition. It. he lives in, I think he lives in Bali, so he's an expat. So it runs remotely. She can run it from anywhere in the world. So she travels a lot now. So she can travel around visiting family and things, which is important to her. And I think, you know, Ashleen would agree it's definitely transformed her life.

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> Matt Rod>And using AI to help create, you know, renovate these sites is also transformative as well. And you know, she's had a lot of fun learning how to use AI.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, let's talk about where you see digital asset ownership headed in the next five to 10 years and what can people do to start preparing for that transition?

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> Matt Rod>Yeah, good. Well that's the, that's the burning question at the moment. It's a really good question because we don't really know. It's an interesting space with AI. AI is definitely changing everything. So it's created challenges but it's also created enormous opportunities. So like with what Ashleen's found is the main big opportunity that AI has helped us with is outsourcing and automating things and reducing our staff or our team. You don't, you can basically run everything yourself now if you just want a simple little side hustle, AI will help you run it. and particularly what's coming in AI I think over the next 12 months. So in terms of the future of digital assets, I think it's very, for those that know what they're doing, it's going to be very good because you've got to think about this Curtis. Website businesses or online businesses are here to stay. Everything is done online now.

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> Matt Rod>Everyone's online searching. And even though people use AI, we still use the world Wide web to search for things. And that means there's always an opportunity to reach the world. And so if you know what you're doing and know how to monetize things and if you can figure out how to capture traffic, particularly if you can capture traffic in a very specific niche that is hugely valuable these days. So what I think is going to become even more valuable is real information, real experiences. People don't just want AI opinions, they want real human experience and they will follow people. That's why influencers are starting to get really big and things like that. And I know you can create artificial influences to augment the real influencers, but it's really interesting watching what's happening. I think, you know, online communities as a result of AI are going to become very, very valuable as well. That's, that's probably my big tip there too. I think specific niche online communities are going to be sought after assets long term.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>We'll talk about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

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> Matt Rod>Yeah, well, one of the other. It kind of ties in.

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> Matt Rod>Very close with your last question.

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> Matt Rod>The big project that we're excited about is working and a big opportunity that we've seen open up in the marketplace is building websites for local businesses. And it's so becoming like a digital services company. And that is really, really interesting, particularly with AI now it's a lot easier to run. You don't need much of a team. It's almost like the perfect little side hustle business that you can do. So basically, you use your digital skills, and we've got a lot of clients doing this now. You can use digital skills, like, particularly in your ability to build a website is. And then you go out and build websites for small local businesses because it's just so much opportunity there. They all need websites or they have poorly performing websites.

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> Matt Rod>So if you have a skill of renovating a website, you are absolutely laughing. yeah, there's. We've got total beginner clients getting, you know, selling websites for anywhere from 1,000 to $3,000 each time they build a website, you know, for your local electrician or your local plumber or your local hairdresser or your local doctor or your local accountant. So for us, that's a really exciting space and that's probably one of our biggest projects at the moment.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, so for anybody who wants to get into digital investing or want to keep up with everything that you're up to, throw out your contact info.

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> Matt Rod>yeah, you can check us out@e.businessinstitute.com so it's a.com au we're based in Australia, but we do have a lot of American, U.S. clients. Or you can also go and check out our Digital Investors podcast. So you can just find that on Spotify, or you can go to digitalinvestors.com and, and we talk about all our success stories there as well.

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> Matt Rod>But on our E. Businessinstitute.com website, we've got a free masterclass that goes into the actual strategy of the sorts of sites we're buying, where we buy them, and how we do due diligence. So people can check us out there.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Yeah, tell us about that podcast. Tell us what listeners can expect when they, when they hear it.

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> Matt Rod>Yeah, well, on our podcast, Digital Investors Podcast, we interview, a lot of our clients, our successful clients, and we share exactly what they're doing, the sort of numbers, they're, you know, what, how much money they're making, how long it took them to get to that point. Because it's a lot of what a Lot of people ask as well.

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> Matt Rod>and basically we're talking all things digital assets and also about this digital services idea of building websites for local businesses. So you can learn a lot just by listening to our podcast.

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> Matt Rod>There's some really cool stories on there. We also on there interview leading industry experts like, big website brokerage firms, so the leaders in the space, so you can hear interviews from the CEOs of those companies and they give us updates of what's working out there in the marketplace. So it's a great podcast for anyone interested in digital assets, online businesses, buying and selling online businesses.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about, that you would like to touch on, any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

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> Matt Rod>Yes, I think in this day and age of AI, it's something we're seeing increasingly. I do agree with Warren Buffett. I think it's so important to figure out how to make money while you sleep. I think that's, you know, the world is a very different place now, as I'm sure all of us would agree with. You know, it's not only volatility throughout the world, it's economic volatility.

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> Matt Rod>You know, the jobs are, a, lot trickier now.

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> Matt Rod>People are burnt out. And I think if you're in a job, I would highly encourage you, whether it's with an online business or not, I'd highly encourage you to make sure you've got a side hustle of some kind that you're building in the background part time. So you might work on it on the weekends or you might work on it in the evenings. But it is worth, putting aside some time each week to work on a side hustle in this day and age because you never know where your job's going to end up. But also, more importantly, being positive about things, you never know where your side hustle is going to end up. And we've got lots of stories where our clients have found their side hustles and now replacing their incomes. And that is what I consider security for the future. I think having a side hustle or a business is. I know a lot of people view it as risky, but I don't. I actually see it as security for the future. I think it's the opposite. I think we need to be building alternative assets to traditional real estate, traditional jobs and traditional shares. having your own business is something that you're in control of and you control your destiny.

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> Matt Rod>And sure it can be hard, but you can chip away at an online business part time in the evenings and, you know, build up your own alternative asset on the side. And sometimes those assets can be quite large. They can be bigger than real estate. So I think there's only upside, not downside, to starting a side hustle. And I'd encourage everyone to get into a side hustle of some kind.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Yeah, ladies and gentlemen. So if you want to go to Warren Buffett or the Matt Rad Way and learn how to make money while you sleep, check, out his podcast and website and keep up with everything that him and his wife is up to. Also, follow, rate, review and share this episode to as many people as possible who want to get a side hustle and make money while they're asleep. And if you want more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, you can check us out at www.craveball337.com. And please, please, please share the website to everybody you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Matt, thank you for all that you're doing to make the world a better place and help people make money while they're sleeping. Thank you for joining me.

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> Matt Rod>Thanks so much for having me on, Curtis. A real pleasure to be here.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.craveball337.com until next time, keep Living the dream.