My 12 Sources of Income ($128,000 /Month)

hey guys my name is charlie i just turned 29 years old and in this video i'm going over my 12 sources of income as a solo serial entrepreneur living in southern california just to give you a little background about myself i went to ucla majored in psychobiology and graduated in 2014. my parents really wanted me to become a doctor so i applied to like 20 different med schools and i got rejected from every single one of them it come to a point where i disappointed my parents pretty badly and i was always living with this constant anxiety about what i was doing with my life so ever since then i've just been working for myself and building my own businesses there have been a lot of failures in my life but also a lot of great lessons so i really hope that this video can inspire you to make money in multiple non-traditional ways this has without a doubt been the craziest year of my entrepreneurial journey and since about one year ago when i made a similar video my income sources have changed pretty drastically i've added some and i've also removed some so for each of these income sources i'm going to talk about what i do how i got started and any tips i have for you if you want to do something similar i really hope that you guys get a lot of value out of this video so let's get started my first income source is my real estate brokerage core capital realty basically in 2019 i started a residential real estate brokerage and right now we have about eight different agents on the team so i'm only licensed in california and that's the state that we're based in so basically i am able to help people buy and sell real estate all my agents they hang their license under my brokerage and they're able to conduct buying and selling transactions for their own clients this is one of those businesses i started without much prep at all and basically after two years working here as a real estate agent i was able to take another test and get my broker's license this allowed me to conduct business under my own name so i thought why not just start a real estate brokerage and then from there on i just sort of made it i formed my s corporation i created my websites and everything else by myself and then i started to recruit different agents the way i make money from this business is that whenever someone on my team buys or sells real estate for a client i'm taking a very small portion of the commission we are listed as a 100 commission brokerage so that basically means the agent gets 100 of the commission minus a flat fee which is around 800 for most transactions and yeah if you sell a house for let's say a million dollars here in california which is pretty typical the commission on that is going to be probably 25 000 so basically we're just taking 800 of that and the other way that i make money from this real estate brokerage is i buy and sell real estate for my own clients typically i'll do maybe three to five transactions per year and when i do that i'm receiving that you know 2. 5 commission and yeah i do think that real estate is one of the best side hustles for anyone to get into especially if you want to do real estate investing in the long term because you're going to learn a lot as you do it my second source of income is selling products on amazon fba amazon fba stands for fulfillment by amazon and it's a way for people like me to actually private label products and sell it on their platform for amazon fba i got started in 2016 when i was trying to find a product that i needed for myself and i realized hey there aren't that many people selling this product it seemed like the margins would be really good and i thought hey this is the perfect time for me to get into e-commerce so that's what i did without that much research i pretty much just jumped into it i sourced that first product i sourced more products and currently i have about six active selling products on amazon i'll basically find factories that are overseas have them create products just like this so this is a product that i used to sell and funny story this is actually a product that got banned because it had a patent on it and i didn't realize so yeah like i said a lot of failures in my past after getting those products made i have the factories put my label on the product and then i get those products sent directly to amazon's warehouse in the united states from there you create your own listing on amazon.

com and whenever someone buys that product amazon's going to handle everything they're going to store the product for you they're going to ship it out for you and they're going to handle customer service so it really is a pretty passive income source nowadays i don't really do too much with it i just check the numbers every once in a while and yeah it really has become a pretty cool way for me to make money with e-commerce and not spend much time on it at all this is a business that anyone can start anywhere in the world and i really do think that it's a great way to learn about e-commerce learn about the whole import export process and yeah these skills are super valuable and they should help you out and many other businesses that you might start in the future my third source of income is affiliate marketing and this is something i started in mid 2020 basically what affiliate marketing is is you're putting these links to different products and services and when people click on those links and buy that product or service you're going to get a small commission from it i currently do affiliate marketing on my three youtube channels and i think i currently work with at least 20 to 30 different affiliates it's pretty cool because i can make content on these channels i can put these links in the description and then when people click on those links and actually buy the product or service or open an account that's going to result in some very passive commissions to me now the thing with affiliate marketing is that it requires a lot of eyeballs you can start it very easily but the thing is that you can't make that much money until you have those eyes so this could be things like having a blog it could be having a tick tock account it could be having an instagram page it could of course be on youtube you could have an email marketing list really the list is endless and as long as you are creating content that helps other people that draws people's attention then affiliate marketing can be one of the smartest things that you can do for me i create a lot of targeted content right so for example i make content about investing or personal finance and then i work with these affiliates that you know my audience would use themselves at the end of the day it's a win-win for everyone the company gets a sale i get a small commission and the viewer gets some type of value from my content and likely gets a discounted price or something free for using my link this is probably my favorite source of income on this list because it's just that scalable and that passive okay my fourth source of income is being a mortgage loan originator i've sort of been in this business since 2013 and it's the only full-time job i've ever worked in my life during college i worked for two months full time as a loan assistant and let me just say it was a pretty rough two months but i grew interested in the mortgage industry and in 2017 i got my mlo license to do mortgages myself as a loan originator you are helping your clients get a mortgage or refinance their home and every time you do that you are going to get a commission and typically most loan originators are going to make about 1 to 1. 5 percent of the loan amount so let's say you're helping someone buy a home and they're getting a 500 000 mortgage from that deal you'll probably make between 5 000 to 7 500 i think it's pretty awesome because you can do it from the comfort of an office and also pairs really well with real estate for example if i help a client buy a home i can also help them get a mortgage and you're doing that you're gonna get commissions on both ends it really is a great career in my opinion i think it's better than real estate and yeah if it weren't for my youtube channel taking up a lot of my time i'd probably focus most of my energy on doing mortgages because it is a very scalable business since this video is about income sources let's talk about wealthfront which is a platform that makes it easy for you to invest and build income passively wealthfront is what's commonly referred to as a robo advisor and they use software to build you a globally diversified portfolio of low-cost etfs and manage it for you if you want to start investing but don't want to spend a lot of time on it and basically want a trusted partner to manage your investments for you wealthfront is a great option they do all the heavy lifting so you can put more time and effort into building up your other income streams so here's how it works their app will ask you a few questions to determine your risk tolerance and financial goals and recommend a portfolio that's right for you they offer retirement accounts which are absolutely crucial as well as taxable accounts they then invest your money based on your risk tolerance finding an optimal plan to maximize your returns while minimizing your risk this is like your smart very affordable automated financial advisor bundled up in the most beautiful and easy to use software the app manages your investments for you and looks for opportunities to lower your taxable through tax loss harvesting right now you can get your first five thousand dollars managed for free with my link in the description and after that it's just a super low 0. 25 annual management fee use the link below to check it out and now back to the video my fifth income source is photography and this is something i've been doing ever since 2007 so definitely my most consistent side hustle of my life i got started because one of my friends had a camera back uh freshman year of high school and we just ended up taking some photos i thought it was super fun and luckily i was able to get my parents to buy me a really cheap beginner's camera from there i realized i loved taking portraits of people and starting in high school i began reaching out to people seeing who wanted to get their photos taken and i realized wow this is a really great skill that i can do whenever i want pays a very decent amount of money and best of all i was just really passionate about creating art and fast forward to college this is when i began shooting weddings shooting dance groups shooting with fraternities and sororities at ucla and most importantly that's when i started doing grad shoots which quickly became my most lucrative side hustle during college and in the few years after college so i think my most busy month i did 157 shoots in the span of like two months and i quickly became probably the most popular graduate photographer on campus i was able to charge between two to four hundred dollars per shoot and while it was very very tough on my body to you know do up to eight or nine graduates per day it allowed me to earn enough income where i could invest that money in stocks in my other businesses and just have a more comfortable life during that time period i'm definitely starting to do a lot less photography and grad shoots but i still did some this year it was super fun and every time i do it i meet a lot of amazing people so yeah if you guys are interested in photography i definitely think that it's on the best side hustles and something that will teach you so much about business my sixth income source is from youtube adsense in the years since i've made my last income sources video this channel has grown a ton when i tell other people that i'm a youtuber a lot of them are really confused about how i make money but yeah as a youtuber the most direct way that you're making money is through youtube adsense when an ad plays before youtube video starts or during a video a portion of those proceeds are going to the creator as ad revenue so basically youtube is taking 45 cuts and paying the creator 55 i've been really transparent with my youtube revenues and i consistently post about them on my instagram but essentially the more views you get and depending on what types of videos you're making you can earn a very significant amount of money through the adsense program youtube handles everything and on the 21st of each month the adsense revenue is just directly deposited into my bank account the reason why i love adsense revenue is because every video i make can generate adsense for a long time that's why i'm so big on youtube that's why i think everyone should start a youtube channel because by making these videos you're basically owning a piece of digital real estate as long as that video is posted it's going to generate views and when that happens you're going to get paid now the reason why my adsense revenue is quite high compared to many other creators is because i make content in the personal finance and entrepreneurship space these videos have a very high cpm so they are able to generate about 50 to 60 dollars per thousand views like i said before of that i get 55 of it so you can see how that can add up to a pretty significant amount of money my seventh source of income is brand deals and sponsorships so if you guys watch some of my videos and some of them you'll see me cut away from the video for a second and talk about a product or brand this is called an integration and basically these companies are paying me a flat fee to talk about their company product or service in the middle of my video i do this on my channels and it can actually bring a very significant amount of money for most creators i feel like at least a third to half of their income comes from brand deals and that's another reason why i think starting a youtube channel is that important companies are spending more and more money on influencer marketing and as a creator today we really are benefiting from that they're realizing how much cheaper it is to actually advertise through influencers rather than through traditional paid media like billboards or tv ads beyond these integrations you can also do brand deals on platforms like instagram and tick tock i do these every once in a while and they always pay me a flat fee or give me a free product so an example of this is in the last year i did a sponsored post for nectar i basically gave them a shout out in a youtube video and made a quick story about on instagram and they sent over a free 1000 mattress you do not need to be a really big creator to get these brand deals and i've seen people with just a few thousand youtube subscribers or a few thousand instagram subscribers get these types of deals it's a great way to monetize social media and it's quickly become one of my biggest money makers in 2021 number eight is core sales so yes i do have a course that i rarely promote but it's called the six figure youtube academy and it helps people build profitable youtube channels i started selling this course in november of 2020 and we recently just passed over 100 students i know having courses sort of get some flack because a lot of people associate it with these gurus that just take your money and don't give any value in return i really did not want to do that and i wanted to create a product that was very very good and i actually got my students results i do think that online education if you guys haven't done it yet is really the future it's a really booming industry and it's great way to monetize your own skills it can be relatively passive income because once you get a sale that student can actually take the course by themselves and it doesn't really require much time or effort on your part however the hard part is finding those students and getting them to join that's where the marketing comes in that's where having my youtube channel really helps because it gets a lot of organic audience however you can create an online course and not have any online presence whatsoever to do that you just do a lot of paid ads on facebook and youtube create a webinar and sort of get people in that way i will say that core sales for me are a very small portion of my income maybe around two to three percent per month but it is something that i really want to expand on during this next year my next source of income is hustle club and i'm actually not going to count this in one of the 12 because it's not currently making money however it is a business that i really am trying to start up because i feel like it meshes really well with my current platforms it's a newsletter that i personally write and the whole goal is to teach you how to become a better entrepreneur in three minutes or less per week so yeah after seeing the success of newsletters like morning brew and the hustle i was really inspired to create my own the best thing about newsletter is that it's a business that can live on without me being present and i really do feel great putting out this newsletter that gives tons of value and that is completely free to the audience i haven't found a way to monetize it yet but it is something that i probably will do at some point in the future probably through like sponsored content or something like that but yeah i've made zero dollars from this new business but it is a business that i'm actively working on building oh and if you are interested in signing up i will put a link to it below it's completely free and if you're an entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur i think you will get a ton of value out of it my ninth source of income is modeling and whenever i tell people this they are surprised and actually they say a lot of mean things but yeah with modeling i started this during college and it was definitely one of my main side hustles after graduating i've been really fortunate to work on some really great campaigns from companies like mercedes ucla asics pakistan aeropostale apple walmart brawn and a lot more and in the process i've met so many amazing people and it also is a side hustle that can pay pretty well you know if you guys thought i did fashion modeling i definitely did not do that instead i did print modeling which allowed more average looking people like me to do these lifestyle shoots a lot of these companies they want to do campaigns with more normal looking people because it tends to be more relatable and it sells their products better now if you are interested in modeling you'll probably have to work or live in a big city so for me i lived in los angeles which is probably one of the best places to live for most shoots you'll get paid a flat rate of probably a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars and yeah being on set is probably the most fun job i've ever had if you guys are trying to get started you just have to reach out to agencies around your area submit your pictures and then hopefully if you have the look that they want they'll onboard you onto their roster of models from there on you'll have to attend casting calls or in some instances you could get booked without having to actually go to an in-person casting call it's a big time draw it's not really worth it for me anymore so that's why i rarely do modeling but every once in a while i'll just pick up a small job and it helps keep things fresh and interesting around here because if you couldn't tell i just absolutely love doing everything and something that i've always done my entire life right now i am on a platform called new book and it's basically an app where models can have profiles and these companies can book you directly by just looking it through your pictures but yeah a very small portion of my income but a very interesting and fun one in my opinion my tenth source of income is one-on-one consulting calls so basically i do these one-on-one consulting calls with people that have found me through my social media platforms i help them create plans to start building more income we talk about different side hustles that they can start i teach them how to start youtube channel whatever it is that they want to talk about i help them i started doing these in the latter part of 2020 and i really do think that it has been a great way to bond with people and give them some accountability about reaching their own goals i do maybe one to three of these per week and definitely gives me a great feeling when we end the call and i know that i positively impacted that person's life my 11th source of income is making money from the stock market and crypto i've been investing since about 2014 and like most investors during that time frame i've seen significant gains in my portfolio this is an income source that anyone and everyone should be doing because if you're not putting your money into assets that grow your money is essentially losing value due to inflation and that's why i encourage everyone to go open up a roth ira put in 6 000 per year and just invest for the long term i really take a long-term approach to investing and that's why i'm such a big fan of index funds and companies like wealthfront because historically this has been such a great way to have your money work for you i don't day trade i don't do any technical analysis instead i buy solid companies that i really believe in and i hold them for the long term and beyond stocks the crypto market has also exploded in the last year so that's why you can see it's been really beneficial to have your money placed in assets rather than just sitting in your bank account the way that i make money from stocks and crypto is from the appreciation so this is when the price of that stock or coin goes up as well as from any dividends that are paid out to shareholders this is something that anyone can do so that's why i really recommend it and if you guys are looking for a resource i will link my how to invest in stocks video down below and that's just going to be a complete guide on how you can get started investing but yeah historically it's been a great money maker and i'm very very glad that i have invested in stocks and crypto all right my 12th income source is my rental income and equity so in 2017 my sister and i purchased a condo in west l.