Self-Publishing Secrets That Changed My Life! I Sean Dollwet DSH #490

Did you like Japan better or Hawaii?

I would say like my personality wise, it's America's most suited.

Because like you know in Japan growing up as a kid like I would step outside

and then all the other kids like neighborhood kids would just stop and like like look at me like that and like they would point at me saying oh my god look there's a foreigner you know so like wow yeah so that was pretty much my entire childhood you know damn

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All right, guys.

Digital Soul Schlower.

We are back.

Sean Dalwett in the building, digital nomad making a living selling audiobooks and books online, right?

Yeah, just books in general.

So like ebooks, paperbacks, audiobooks.

Nice.

And how'd you get into that?

Well, the story is I got recruited into a multi-level marketing company at age 18.

And that's when I learned like the concept of passive income and all that.

But I sucked at MLM.

You know, English is my second language.

So I failed for like four years straight.

And one day after work, I came back, looked up on YouTube like how to make money online, found a video by this guy saying Kindle Publishing or like self-publishing is the easiest business beginner, beginner-friendly business model.

So I'm like, okay, I'll try it out and published one book.

Did really well.

So I'm like, that's crazy.

You wrote it?

I wrote a super short book on mindfulness.

And after that, I kind of used ghostwriters to outsource the process.

So I published a second book, third book, and I just kind of stacked, like started doing that and kept doing it consistently for like years.

Wow.

So how many have you published now?

Overall, I published like hundreds of books.

Damn.

Yeah, that's more than 200 or so.

And it's all under your name?

No, so I have a few books under my name.

I kind of regret it because like the books aren't that good.

So like I don't have good reviews and like people look me up saying like, oh, your books aren't even selling.

But it's, i used to i try to build my brand uh using like ghost written books and try to funnel into like you know back-and-offers like affiliate marketing and that didn't work out but most books that i have uh is under a pen name got it so walk me through how long it takes to make i know you're using ai to write some of them you're using ghostwriters what's the process like yeah so it really depends on what kind of books you make you know like if you're trying to make journals and planners Those books are super easy.

There are templates out there.

You just customize the templates and you can get it out in like hours or a couple days.

Right.

For me, I kind of focused on non-fiction books so non-fiction books like obviously if you write yourself it depends on how fast you write but if you work with ghostwriters then you know typically like a full-length non-fiction book of 150 to 200 pages it takes about a month for you to write and or I'm sorry the ghostwriter to write and then for you to review it then you get a book cover down that's like max one week or so and then you just format it you upload it to KDP and then they review it it takes like 72 hours and then it'll be live on Amazon so what is KDP KDP is just Amazon's platform where you can sign up and upload your book and then you know publish it got it yeah you're taking like the mass approach rather than hormosy just taking years to write one book at a time you're kind of going

wide like if you want to succeed in this business you you need a balance of you know quantity but also a high quality book you don't want to just spam low quality books so you know yes i have hundreds of books uh it's probably a mistake because like the first couple years of doing this i was kind of spinning my wheels right like i was publishing a bunch of books

and then, you know, my older books

eventually gets bad reviews, dies off, and then I'm publishing a new one to keep maintaining my income.

And when I shifted my focus to like, you know, producing high quality books that actually got four or five star reviews, it never died off.

And that's when my income kind of stacked more and more and more.

So that's definitely the focus you want to take.

But I would say you don't have to take like years writing one book.

Right.

It's a balance.

Yeah.

And you're selling all of these on Amazon?

Yeah, all on Amazon.

amazon dominates the book market so like 70 of all book sales are coming from amazon damn yeah but there are other like obviously the 30 outside of amazon so you can upload your book to other places like you know apple barns and noble google play those kind of things too r.I.P.

Barnes and Noble's man, I got some good childhood memories there.

Yeah.

I like Barnes and Noble's, but whenever I walk in there these days, it's a ghost town.

Yeah, it's completely different.

I mean, I love bookstores.

I read a lot of books.

I think that helped me to build this business too.

Cause like, even though English is my second language, so you know i'm i'm not a great writer but at least i read a lot of books growing up so like when i got the book back from the ghostwriter i was able to tell what is a good book what's not a good book you know i mean like i kind of had a good idea of how to structure a book and what people are looking for so which books stand out to you in terms of just changing your perspective on life

uh for me i mean when i was 18 i read rich dad poor dad and that really really really helped like i understood you know oh like you don't have to trade your time with money right Like you can build passive income systems and make money while you sleep.

And so I'm like, that's cool.

I want that.

And since then, I've been trying to build that as much as I can.

Yes, I would say Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

I mean, recently, like, $100 million offers.

Classic.

Dude, I read that like three, four times.

Yeah, yes.

Alex Fomo is amazing.

So I would say those books.

Yeah.

I will say Leeds was decent, but I feel like Offers was way better.

Yeah.

It really, really changed my paradigm and like how I approached business.

Yeah.

And that book was so so great because you could just implement that information immediately I feel like some books are so like I don't know more of like a

I don't know how to describe it you know what I mean it's not tactical it's really niche you know but like that book you can kind of apply into any business like even in KDP like how we position it's basically just positioning right so like how we position the book uh makes a huge difference in like perceived value and like how much you can sell it you know so absolutely yeah what percentage of your sales are audiobooks versus physical So for us with nonfiction, generally, it's like on average, e-books are, I would say, like 20%, 10, 20%.

And audiobooks, maybe 30% or so.

And then the rest, so that's like, what?

Like 60% or so would be paperbacks.

But it really depends.

Like, if you start publishing, you know, cookbooks, like, no one's going to listen to an audiobook of a recipe tour, those kind of things.

Yeah, yeah.

So most of your sales are going to be from paperbacks.

So it really, really depends.

Wow.

I thought it'd be the opposite.

So I'm an audiobook guy yeah audiobook is picking up like it's trending hot

it's crazy so like you know there's studies out there where they're projecting audiobooks uh the market for audiobooks to triple in size by like 2030 right so i can see audiobooks taking over completely but for now it's it's so new uh and it's just like people are still buying paperbacks yeah i would say in the future it's going to be like ebooks and audiobooks i agree because i feel like with audiobooks you can learn quicker yeah i do 2x speed I know our friend Zach Fisher knows someone that does 4x speed.

So I feel like you could just learn pretty fast because when you're reading, it's kind of capped.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

You can't read at 2x.

I mean, some people read fast, but.

Yeah, 4x is crazy, man.

I don't know how they do it.

I think for me, it's like 2.5x.

That's the most I've done.

Certain podcasts, I could do like 2.6 if it's a slower talker.

But then if it's someone fast, 2.5 is very fast on a podcast.

Yeah, you're right.

It depends on the reader's speed or the narrator's speed too, right?

If he's naturally a fast talker like 2x is even too much sometimes Yeah, but with Rogan I mean those are four hours So it's kind of hard to listen that on 1x and not get bored Yeah attention spans these days and that that's what surprised me about the book the book industry still being pretty solid people's attention spans are three seconds now yeah but books are still doing pretty well i thought they'd die off yeah it's it's definitely there's definitely a market for it you know it's definitely an older demographic i would say uh but yeah like audiobooks it's picking up so you know maybe like paperbacks in the future, it's going to slow down.

But I would say e-books and audiobooks is going to keep growing.

And I think there's a little shift in the market, like, you know, even younger generations, like people are getting into more self-development.

And, you know, like reading books, like everybody says one of the best things.

Right.

So like people are kind of coming back to like reading more books.

Yeah.

That's cool to see because I feel like it got lost during our generation a bit.

Yeah.

I mean, when I was in school, I hated reading.

Yeah.

But I didn't know it was because they were giving us books we didn't care about.

If they gave us business books or like self-development books, maybe we would have liked reading in school.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man.

I mean, I read a lot of like sci-fi books on like evolution and stuff growing up.

And then when I started like entrepreneurship, I read a lot of business books and like just self-help in general.

So yeah, it's like, really, like, if you enjoy reading those kind of topics,

books are great.

Absolutely.

So you're kind of going against the traditional publishing route where you sign with a company, they give you an advance or they give you a percentage of sales.

You're doing it all on your own.

Yeah.

Self-publishing is so much faster.

Like you have way more control.

And obviously, you you don't have to sign away the rights to the book and you don't have to give away like 90% of the roties to the publishing company.

I mean, you know, the thing is we got a lot of students that sign with publishing companies, right?

And have their books published.

And like, it's crazy because they just help with, and obviously I can't speak for all the companies.

It really depends.

But for the most part, like, they just help with the most basic stuff, like formatting and like editing and book covers.

And those are something you can do yourself super easily.

You can hire someone very cheaply, you know, although like still still high quality and get it done yourself.

You can keep 100% of the royalties, right?

Like, you know, and the publishing companies, they often don't even help with marketing.

So you still got to market it, but you're making like five, ten percent.

I didn't know they take 90%.

Yeah, it's a lot, man.

Wow.

It's not always 90%, but it's a lot.

For a first timer, it's probably 80%, 90%.

That makes sense.

Yeah, yeah.

So, wow, that is insane.

Yeah, so unless you're like super famous, you know, and like they can give you a huge advance and like they can actually market the book for you.

Like, it often doesn't make sense it's better to just go through the self-publishing route they help with the distribution though right that's like the main sell yeah but the distribution is also easy too like if you want to get yourself on Amazon Apple Barnes and Noble it's as simple as just uploading there oh really yeah and then you just market it yourself you know wow

like social media marketing or whatever like they're not doing anything different than what you can do yourself if you understand marketing.

Yeah.

They might go out of business with a self-publishing model picking up them.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm not not a hater or anything.

I think there's like, you know, for some people, it might be good for them, right?

But I'm a huge believer in self-publishing.

You just have more control and, you know, just you can do things the way you want to.

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Yeah.

What do you think about TikTok shop?

I bought a gratitude journal.

I bought a meditating thing off there.

Seems like pretty good deal is on there.

Yeah.

TikTok is just crazy.

I mean, there's a whole movement of book talk, right?

And even on Instagram, too, there's like a bookstagram, you know, popping.

So yeah, like before the way we market the book was mainly like advertising.

So like Facebook ads Amazon as is what I use heavily too.

But I think it's kind of shifting.

You know, like people are starting to tune out of paid as and more organic content and like, you know, being recommended by other people on social media, like from their peers uh they trust that opinion more so like that's why tick tock is really good because you can hire or you're not really hiring but they can get a bunch of affiliates right like talking about your product or your books and then you can give them a little cut like if people buy it from the tick tock shop so there's this uh and this might be the like did you buy the shadow work journal or i believe it was that one yeah yeah so like we kind of talked about this before but yeah like that book made i believe like four million in a month like millions a month right crazy it's it's nuts man so yeah like just utilizing the viral nature of social media i think it's just so powerful nowadays yeah absolutely um in terms of ranking on amazon is that based off of reviews mainly it's mainly reviews um as well as sales velocity so it's just it's just sales and reviews right

if um yeah sales reviews and also keywords based ranking is good too like you know if you have like uh it's seo so like if you have a book on like how to stop overthinking and you title the book how to stop overthinking, then it's so much easier to rank for that keyword.

So when people type in how to stop overthinking, it will show up.

If your title doesn't have that, eventually, like, you know, if you run ads to that keyword and then people who typed in how to stop overthinking find your ad, click on it, buy it, then Amazon will make the connection.

Like, oh, this book is about how to stop overthinking, even though it's not titled that way.

Eventually it'll show up, but it's just so much easier if you have the SEO and the title and all that stuff.

Yeah.

How do you get book ideas?

I know there's extensions that tell you Amazon sells of certain products.

Is that kind of what you do to see if there's a market?

Yeah, so it's as simple as just searching Amazon and seeing what kind of books are selling.

Because Amazon actually tells you right on the page how well the products are selling.

It's not just books, like all products, they have this thing called the bestsellers rank.

So, you know, like there's certain numbers that you kind of want to go off.

Like with books, generally, if the bestsellers rank is below 80,000, it's making an average of like 500 bucks.

If you you include like the other formats, it's, you know, with e-books and audiobooks, it could go up to like a thousand bucks a month.

So

those are like a good baseline number to follow.

If the bestseller's rank is a lot lower, then it's making thousands,

so yeah, like you just find other books that are selling, you know, pretty well.

And if you find multiple books on the topic selling well, that's a pattern.

And then from there, you're like, okay, it's profitable, but now is it like competitive?

And you kind of like start analyzing the competition.

If it looks good, the next question is like, can I make a book on this?

Right.

right like a lot some books are harder to make uh some are easy like you know if it's like a trivia book it's as simple as like writing up random trivia you get ideas from online or just like even use chat if you could come up with ideas obviously you have to like you know rephrase it so it's your content and it's not just copy paste but it's as simple as that um for non-fiction books like you know you got to find writers who can write that topic once again we're like you still got to create high quality books right but you don't have to know about the topic because you can find someone who can write about the topic who's knowledgeable on it.

So that's kind of how it works.

Yeah.

What's the most you've seen generated off of one book?

From one book, I would say like probably the Shadowwork Journal one.

I mean I've never heard of a book like a single one making millions a month.

Right.

But in terms of on Amazon, the store directly,

it's interesting because there's this one book called Curious,

interesting facts for curious minds.

And it's a trivia book, right?

So it's like the easiest content to make.

It's just literally just random facts, uh one after another barely no images so it's just text right so like anybody can write this but it just have an amazing cover you know so it stood out they got a good marketing team behind it so that was actually the number one best-selling book in the entire store wow like it was number one in the bsr in the the bookstore and it was doing like 20 30k a day uh damn for months yeah that's insane just facts just facts yeah so it's all the marketing man i i want to see the cover now now what goes into a good cover in your opinion good cover is something that pops.

It clearly illustrates what the book is about.

But the main thing is it captures attention, right?

Like, you know, because it's on Amazon, when you're scrolling through, it's small thumbnail-sized covers.

So, like, you really need the colors to be popping and the text to, you know, like, bam, like the book title is very clear and just got to catch people's attention.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I want to dive into the coaching side and how you got into that.

So, how many years were you doing this before you got into the coaching?

So, I was doing like five years of publishing myself, and you know, I sold my first account, and that put me over like seven figures net worth.

And then, like, I felt like I was finally qualified to like start teaching.

So, I was doing YouTube videos, uh, but then I quit a course and like kind of got into it.

So, since then, I've been doing YouTube for like five years, just teaching Amazon KDP.

Nice, yeah, and YouTube's, I feel like that's one of the biggest social media assets you could have these days.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I love YouTube.

Um,

definitely opened a lot of doors for me.

Like, this podcast, you know, I mean, if I didn't have a YouTube channel, I wouldn't be here.

For Instagram, my Instagram game is kind of weak.

My TikTok game is non-existent.

You're not on there?

I am on there, but it's just my team repurposing my long form video and like cutting it up and putting it up there.

But Amazon KTP is so niche that it's not very viral, like worthy, you know?

So

I probably got to film a short, like original shorts just for that purpose of like going viral rather than just cutting up long form.

But as of now, I'm kind of just focusing on YouTube.

Yeah, it is super niche.

I've never seen someone teach this or talk about it actually other than you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, there are some side hustle channels like, oh, you know, make 10K publishing blank line journals.

And then they talk about like, you know, uploading journals and stuff.

But barely anyone talks about non-fiction, fiction books, a little more higher content books.

So it, you know, it takes a little more work to make, but often like so much more profitable.

Yeah.

What are you up to this year?

I know you're you're a digital nomad.

We'll get into that.

Are you traveling a lot?

Yeah.

So

I actually just flew in uh a couple days ago from thailand so the past two years i've been traveling southeast asia basically since i i make money online you know and i can live anywhere i'm trying to find a home base uh because like i'm born and raised in japan moved to the us

and it's cool like i'm happy because i like we moved to hawaii so hawaii is nice right but i wanted to see if there are other places out there and that i like so i started traveling and uh saw pretty much all of southeast asia a lot of good places.

But now this year, I kind of want to check out Latin America,

some parts of Europe.

Nice.

We'll get into some of those countries.

First, I want to know, was it a culture shock coming from Japan to America?

Was there any specific moments you remember where you were like, wow, that's different?

Yeah.

First off, I mean, I barely spoke English.

You know, obviously I'm half white.

My dad's from America.

So like he would talk to us in English growing up.

So like I was able to understand English, but I was not able to speak it.

So at least the understanding was there so that it was a lot easier for me to pick up English compared to like my Japanese friends, you know, who didn't have that.

But the culture shock, I mean, we moved to the big island, the Hilo side of Hawaii, which is like, you know, it's not like...

Even the other side of the big island, Kona, it's more touristy.

It's more developed.

And if you go to like the Waikiki side, which is a whole new island, then there's a lot of

Japanese people and all that.

Got it.

Like in my school, there were only like maybe like four other Japanese.

So like,

and I had to kind of like force myself.

I played basketball, so I made a lot of basketball friends, learn English that way.

Like I was able to talk about basketball and English pretty well, but it was like other topic.

Like I couldn't say anything.

The biggest culture shock is just like Hawaiians, they got their like dialect called Pidgin, Pidgin English.

And it's like, it sounds different than normal English.

Like for me, I had to learn that and like understand.

Oh, I didn't know that.

Wow.

I thought they talked English over there.

They do talk English, but it's just like they got an accent or a dialect.

Got it.

Got it.

Did you like Japan better or Hawaii?

I would say like my personality wise, it's America is more suited.

Cause like, you know, in Japan growing up

as a kid, like I would step outside and then all the other kids, like neighborhood kids, would just stop and like.

like look at me like that and like they would point at me saying oh my god look there's a foreigner you know so like wow yeah so that was pretty much my entire childhood you know?

Damn.

So I would like, I never fit in like how I look anyways.

And Japan has the whole thing of like doing what everybody else is doing, fitting in.

And nowadays, it's kind of changing.

Like there's a lot of Western influences.

But before, I mean, it was different, you know, especially because I grew up in the rural area.

It wasn't like Tokyo or Osaka or anything like that.

So I was like the only white kid.

Got it.

So.

Yeah, like, you know, Japan is amazing.

People are nice.

The food is really good.

But I would, like, personality-wise, I don't see myself living and working in Japan, like, especially as in a corporate setting.

But, yeah, US is just, I like that kind of more of like, you know, the freedom kind of mindset that people have.

Yeah.

Not even just Japanese people.

Asians in general are super weird with other races.

Yeah.

There's videos on social media where like a black person or something will be walking through China, like a rural town, and they'll literally touch him.

They'll like point at him they'll film him yeah I don't know what it is with Asians man they got to chill yeah they definitely I think they're just not used to it I mean but nowadays they they're it's getting normal because like Tokyo there's a lot of tourists you know even Osaka so if you turn on and they love foreigners right so like that's the good thing is it's not in a bad way like you know you do get a lot of attention but not in a bad way um

they like mixed kids or mixed people in general like so a lot of like if you're going there for dating like a lot of girls they want mixed kids you you know, so like you're a lot more attractive in their eyes.

If you turn on the TVs in Japan, like half of the

people that you see on any show is like mixed person, you know, like mixed black, mixed white, whatever.

So like, I mean, it's a good attention.

It's definitely you're going to get a lot of attention.

Growing up mixed, I don't see people talking about this often, but it was an interesting experience because you get to experience both cultures.

And for me, it was so different.

Like, cause my mom's from China and my dad's from like a farm.

Oh, wow.

So I got to experience both.

But it's also tough, like you were saying earlier.

You got to figure out where you fit in almost.

Yeah.

So I played that game for a while, big part of my life.

Was it the same with you?

Like, you know, when you go to China, like, you don't necessarily look Asian, right?

So like people think you're foreigner.

But then you're in the U.S.

and people think you're Asian.

All the time.

Yeah.

Before the facial hair, yeah, everyone thought I was just 100% Asian.

Oh, wow.

Because most Asians don't have facial hair.

Yeah.

But yeah, all the time, man.

But then in school, it was tough because like did you chill with the Asians or did you chill with the white people?

I was chilling with the basketball players, man.

Okay.

So I would say a mix.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I didn't want to chill just with the Asians because like, well, with other Japanese, uh, just because, like, we didn't have much in common besides just being, you know, both being from Japan.

And also, like, if you...

I have so many friends, like, Japanese friend, who only hung out with other Japanese friends that they never learned English.

Wow.

Right.

Because, like, even though they live in the US, they're just constantly speaking Japanese.

So, like, I picked up English so much faster just hanging out with Americans or like people, other people who just speaking English.

Yeah, it's one of the most, probably the most useful language in the world, in my opinion.

For sure.

I think English, Spanish, and Chinese.

Yeah.

Those are probably the top three, I'd say.

Absolutely.

When you did that Spanish.

Yeah, same.

When you did that two-year Asia tour, which countries stood out to you in terms of, oh, I might be able to live here.

Yeah, so I started with Bali just because it was

a digital nomad hotspot.

I had some friends over there.

So Bali was nice, especially like during time.

You know, it's so quiet, so peaceful.

It's absolutely amazing.

And then the border opened around April and then people started flooding in.

And obviously I'm part of, you know, the population there, right?

So like I can't say like, oh, you know, I don't want anybody coming in.

The fact is just it just got super crowded.

And then it was really hard to work too because like although Bali has a really good work setting or Southeast Asia in general, like it's amazing the fact that you can outsource pretty much anything.

Like, people do the laundry for you, you know, and then you can, they got their own version of uh Uber and Uber Eats, right?

So, you can just order food, it's often cheaper, or it's like the same price, even if you cook it at home.

So, like, you might as well just order it, right?

It's like a couple bucks per meal.

That's it, yeah.

It's like it's crazy.

I mean, Bali, if you go to the touristy area, maybe it's a little more like five to ten bucks, but it's still like way, way cheaper, right?

And so, and then it's good food too, it's healthy, you know.

So, you just order meals every day, And then even cleaning is included in the villas that you stay in.

Wi-Fi is good.

So literally you can just sit down and work and do nothing else because everything else is outsourced, which is amazing.

But yeah, so Bali just got too crowded after a while.

Like, you know, they kicked me out of the first place because I was on a month-to-month.

lease.

Yeah.

Right.

So then I moved to the new rental and then I couldn't work because literally right next door, they had construction happening, and every single day from eight to five, they're just drilling, you know.

And I'm trying to film a YouTube video and just like constantly drilling, right?

Something sitting there, and then when the drilling pauses, I'm like, all right, guys,

I talked for like five seconds, and then the drilling continues.

It was just super frustrating.

Wow.

And that's just because, like, you know, Bali is so popular, they're just constantly building everywhere.

So I moved out of Bali, went to Thailand, checked out Chiang Mai.

I went to bangkok phuket khosamui and kofangan like you know a bunch of different places and then i also went to malaysia i did kuala lumpur penang

and then did uh vietnam so i did the nang nice and i would say my favorite is chiang mai thailand okay just super super peaceful uh the thing is you know like bali Phuket, Thailand, those kind of areas, like by the beach, it attracts kind of the party crowd.

A lot of people go there for tourism, but also to live too.

And, you know, I don't really party.

I really just am looking for a peaceful place that I can just, you know, set up as a base and just work.

And I love the convenience of Southeast Asia because everything is so close.

And once again, like you can order everything.

So that's what I'm looking for.

And Chiang Mai was kind of like that.

You know, it's like a city, but it's not like Bangkok.

It's hectic.

It's crazy.

It's super peaceful, super chill.

And then you got a lot of nature, which I like.

And yeah, once again, it's like, you know, there's so many cafes, restaurants.

You can even walk and everything is like legit 10 minutes away from like, you know, everything you need is 10 minutes away.

I love that.

Yeah, so it just was amazing.

Yeah, being able to walk, that's a life goal of mine, just being able to step outside, don't need a car.

I want to live locally, you know what I mean?

Eat locally.

Who knows where the food's coming from these days?

I mean, that's a whole nother topic.

But you are qualified to answer this next question.

So, as a big foodie, which country in Asia had the best food?

That's a good question.

I mean, I would say Thailand has amazing food.

You know, it's like a a lot of food is the flavor is crazy in Thailand, but some people may not like it.

Like, I was talking to Zach the other day, but, you know, he said, like, it's not really the flavor of the ingredient, but they cover it up so much, right?

A lot of sauces and spices and this and that.

So if you're cool with that, maybe that's fine.

But if you kind of want more,

if you want to experience the...

the flavor of the ingredient, then it'll be more like Japan and how they cook, right?

It's more of simple kind of cooking.

That's what I heard.

Yeah,

with their sushi, it's more simple.

There's no spicy mayo.

Very simple.

Yeah.

The whole like California roll, dragon roll.

Like, you don't have to do it.

I love dragon rolls, man.

Yeah, I love it too.

I love it too, but it's, it's not a Japanese thing.

I feel that.

So you mentioned you don't party.

Was that a lifelong thing, not drinking, not partying, or did that come across later in life?

Yeah, no, it never happened.

I mean, I'm naturally an introvert.

I don't know if the introversion started.

uh because of my upward upbringing of you know just like being super shy growing up because of like you know just standing out out when I was small.

Or if it's just my personality, but I never was interested in partying in general.

And then I don't drink.

I don't do drugs.

I don't smoke.

It's just like I live a healthy life and I don't need much to be happy.

You know, I like you.

You know, I just enjoy working and being productive.

I think that gives me the highest dopamine hit.

It's just like knowing that I've got a lot done at the end of the day.

Right.

And then I just want to, I just want to keep doing that.

Yeah.

Well, you've achieved location freedom, which which is, you know, hard to do for a lot of people.

You can work for wherever you want, wherever in the world.

And I think what I've noticed, at least with my friends that have achieved that, they're super happy.

Yeah, for sure.

I think the key is like not to make as much money as possible, but to make enough so that you can do whatever you want.

And then also like, you know, having a business that allows you time freedom and location freedom.

Right.

So truly, like if you're working, that's because you want to work, not because you have to work.

Just that option.

Agreed.

That's the best feeling.

And, you know, I hope to see more people get there because right now it's definitely the opposite.

Yeah, right now, I mean, a lot of people go back into business and they say it's the game, you know, love the game.

And if that's truly the case, I understand.

But I feel like a lot of people have they're doing it for the ego too, like, you know, oh, I want to make more than this guy, or this guy, or like, you know, yeah, yeah.

So, like,

I think that's the wrong reason I'm doing it.

Uh, for most people, I feel like, because there's studies out there, right?

Like,

you know, there's this book called Your Money or Your Life, and it shows that

apparently in the studies that they've done, it's like after you make more than 100K a year, you're not necessarily happier.

So I think the key is to have, like for most people, I think the goal should be to make like 100K a year or whatever, you know, that covers your living expenses in a semi-passive way.

So you're just working a couple hours a day or however much you want to work

and you just enjoy life.

That's

a way more peaceful way of living.

Yeah, there's a certain point, whether it's 100K, 250, it's different for everyone where the money starts starts to lose that value almost because what else are you gonna buy you know what i mean right right like you got the car you got the house kids are taken care of yep you know i mean i don't know yeah and if you stop chasing those things that you see on social media like you know luxury cars houses watches those kind of things like you realize you don't need much to to live a good life you know like especially in southeast asia it's so cheap right

so obviously like i can live i can pay more now and I can afford more living in the U.S.

But for me, I just love Southeast Asia, especially Chiang Mai.

I've met so many seven, eight-figures entrepreneurs in Chiang Mai, even though they can live anywhere they want, they're not there because of the cost of living.

The cost of living is really low, but it's really because of the quality of life that you get there that they choose to stay there.

Wow.

So I kind of agree with that.

Like, I love Chiang Mai.

I didn't know that.

So the housing's affordable.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's super cheap, super affordable you know it has all the benefits of living in southeast asia and living in thailand but just you know it's not just that right you're not sacrificing the quality of life because you never want to do that right right you never want to live somewhere just because it's cheap but you don't like living there puerto rico yeah everyone does that i don't know i don't know why people don't like puerto rico i've never been there yeah i assume it's kind of similar to hawaii or that's what i thought so but yeah you just hear that constantly like people go to puerto rico and they don't necessarily like it but it's more so for tax benefits.

But yeah, in Chiang Ma, I don't see that.

Like people are actually successful living there, but they just they just enjoy it.

Yeah, yeah, the Puerto Rico thing, I mean, there's ways to save on taxes living in the U.S.

where you don't even need to move there, honestly, if you knew about it.

So that to me never made sense to sacrifice happiness for that.

For sure.

Yeah, yeah.

How does that work?

We'll talk off camera.

Okay.

But dude, it's been fun.

Anything you want to close off with or promote before we wrap up?

No, I mean, you know, if people want to learn about Amazon KDP or learn about my journey of like just traveling around, and sometimes I do like reports on YouTube, like you know, what I learned from living in this country or like which country I like the most in Southeast Asia or like wherever I go.

So, if you want to go follow me on that, just look me up on YouTube, Sean Dowitt is my name, or Instagram would be Sean Dowitt13.

But besides that, I mean, it's been nice talking to you, it's fun, and uh, yeah,

yeah, it's been fun, man, diving into your world.

Thanks for coming on, and uh, thanks for watching, guys.

As always, we will see you tomorrow.