Melissa Anzman (00:00): This is a launch yourself podcast with Melissa Anzman episode number seven, featuring Tal Gur.

Melissa Anzman (00:09): Hello and welcome to the launch yourself podcast career, business, and brand advice to help you be seen, make an impact and deliver at your maximum potential. And now here's your host, Melissa Anzman

Melissa Anzman (00:27): Welcome to the launch yourself podcast. I'm your host, Melissa Anzman today. We're going to be chatting with Tal Gur. Tal is an online entrepreneur world traveler and a coach. He is originally from Israel though. He feels at home at many places in 1996 at age 21, he took a long motorcycle trip in Australia and immediately fell in love. Years later, he went back to complete his master's degree and adopted Australia as his second home. Since he's moved to Australia, being inspired from the sheer enjoyment that came from pursuing his Australian dream. He found himself constantly seeking new challenges, overextending himself in all aspects of life. Ultimately resulting in very fulfilling journeys. Some of them include creating financial freedom after being in $34,000 of debt. He completed an iron man triathlon in New Zealand after quitting smoking in 2009, he quit his nine to five desk job and went on a nonstop four year trip around the world. He served around the world and places such as Brazil, Costa Rica, Peru in Sri Lanka, any coordinated Belize, building a new home for a local family who lost their house in a mudslide in Peru. Please welcome him to the show. Welcome to the show, Tal. Thanks so much for coming.

Melissa Anzman (01:41): Thank you for inviting me.

Melissa Anzman (01:43): We're so excited to have you Tal and I actually met a while back via email. He was kind enough to ask me to do an interview on his website. We never actually talked live. It was all via email and I was so pleased with the writeup and all the fabulousness that he does, that I, when I had the opportunity, I should say to have him on as an interview guest, I jumped at it. So I'm really excited to have him. He also has a lot of launch background. So when we were chatting before the podcast, we really had a difficult time settling on just one to talk about. So the framework is going to be around how we define a launch. So here at launch yourself we define launch as a specific point in time when you purposely decide to take action to fulfill your maximum potential in your career, business or brand. So with that in mind, how could you maybe talk a little bit about one of those launches of which you think is a turning point for you?

Tal Gur (02:45): Well, as you said, I have quite a few turning points in my life by one specific one was April, 2008. And basically what happened. I was in 34,000 debt and my credit card was maxed out. So I couldn't actually pay the rent. Back then I lived quite a lavish lifestyle. I would go out and spend a lot of money on cocktails and, you know, pretty much having fun. But when I got, sorry, I got to the point where the credit card was mixed up. I knew this like, you know, something needs to change. And I basically committed to financial freedom through building online, passive income. So that's pretty much was a definite moment where my life's kind of changed.

Melissa Anzman (03:32): Yeah, your story is so interesting. And you talk really well about it. I'm on the blog posts that I'm going to share with everybody on passivelyfree.com in that, that age of consumerism and versus minimalism and how you had that turning point. I think a lot of people find themselves in debt. I don't think it's uncommon, unfortunately, and most don't take action on it. So what for you was that aha moment that I can't be in that anymore. I can't continue to spiral down this same lifestyle cause you made a very significant change.

Tal Gur (04:10): Yeah, well, not being able to pay the rent. I think that that's basically the, the deal. I also, at that point really felt that I wanted to travel the world and I knew that if I stayed in my it job, I had this office and it didn't have windows and I'm, you know, I really felt like stuck. And I think just the pain from pretty much like being tied to a job and the corporate world and the fact that I had to do that every day, it was just, just a lot of pain in that sense.

Melissa Anzman (04:46): Yeah. I love that. I'm not that you are in pain, but that you recognized it and started figuring out what made you tick and you took some significant action. So you did end up traveling the world for a long time and we'll get to that later. But I really want to talk about how you took that idea and that thought and, and put it into creating passive income because that's something that we all hear about all the time, right? There's millions of websites and online experts, quote, unquote of how to build passive income easily, how to make it sustainable. And more and more, you know, the feedback I hear from clients are frustrated entrepreneurs or, you know, fill in the blank is that it just didn't work for them. So how did you figure out that that's something that could work for you?

Tal Gur (05:36): Well first of all, before, before I moved to Australia, I kind of built a little website in HTML and at that point it was just kind of a hobby. I really want to share my experiences of moving from Israel to Australia. And someone actually paid me to advertise on the, on that side. And so I got some tests of income from advertisement. It was like very small amount of money, but that was enough for me to realize that it's possible. It's possible to make passive income completely passive because this guy kind of paid every year. I didn't have to do much. He just like, it was just happy to extend the the advertisement deal. So the point like in April, 2008, I thought to myself, all right, I can just duplicate my success and I can create more sites and I can, you know, make the site better. Luckily at that point I had finished six months of Ironman triathlon training. So I basically transformed what I learned from the trust and journey into my financial journey. And that basically was the turning point.

Melissa Anzman (06:47): Yeah. And on your site, when you talk about it, you really go into depth about the commitment that you have to make to it. It's not passive when you start, right. It's you were talking about how you used to train three hours a day doing this. And instead of doing that, you would work on building your passive income and 15 hour days weren't uncommon. And so do you find that even now we're several years removed from 2008 at this point, do you think that with enough determination and drive that passive income sources is still a viable business model?

Tal Gur (07:22): Yeah, definitely. I mean, I'm still living the life of my dreams in that sense. I'm living life on my own terms. I don't have to work. I do work you know, for example, as a coach, because I want to, that's a big difference between half two and one two. Yeah, I mean, what really worked is, is that like, you know, when you do something like Ironman triathlon, or even a marathon, you have a deadline, you, you have a race and you need to perform at that race. So if, if basically basically what I did is I gave myself a deadline. I get myself actually one year to do that. And I even wrote a resignation letter. I bought one way tickets, flight ticket, and it was a, you know, that was a very strong commitment. So I had a deadline and I think that's, that's basically one of the keys

Melissa Anzman (08:12): Tal. I really liked that you gave yourself a realistic timeframe to make it happen. It, wasn't just, I'm going to, I'm going to quit my job in two months and hopefully it'll be sustainable. You gave herself a year to make sure that you sort of were all in. Do you think that was a key to your success?

Tal Gur (08:29): Yeah, a hundred percent. I couldn't say it better. I also want to add that it wasn't like two years or three is a five years, which could be too long for a journey like that, especially when you know, you pushing. So I think one year was, was a good, good the amount of time to do that.

Melissa Anzman (08:46): Absolutely. And it's interesting because what I find, and I don't know if you've come across this with the people you've worked with, but I've found that since it is so scary, people tend to fall into either too short of a time or too long of a time. Right. Of I either I'm going to give myself two months and sort of setting themselves up for failure that way, or never really making the launch and giving themselves two years. So having a realistic, but aggressive deadline sounds right in the middle. Yeah. And scary. Yeah. Well, what I was going to say, it brings me to my next question, which is one of my favorites in that making a launch, particularly one, this big of saying, I have this much, that I want to travel the world. I have a deadline. I have so much that I want to do. Having that go from that thought to launching it is pretty scary. Just in general, it's a scary thing. What types of fears came up during the process for you?

Tal Gur (09:45): Well one of them was basically, you know, I wrote the resignation letter and not only that I sent, I sent it to all my friends to have accountability. So they knew that I basically going to resign from my job in a specific date. I also decided to actually share it with my with my boss at a time, which was basically actually a very positive thing because we managed to build some kind of relationship after I resigned and he gave me, you know, good, good recommendations. And so, so there was, there was fear, but I think fear in general is, is a, is an emotion that, that we create in order to motivate ourself. So it was, it was also useful emotion in that sense. Yeah, that's kind of my thoughts around, around the whole thing about fear, but you know, the other thing that came back to my mind was like, what's the worst that can happen. You know, I can always go back and find a job. I mean, it wouldn't be the, you know, the end of the world, but in the process, I'll, I'll change as a person, you know, new habits become you know, a better person in that sense. So I was excited pretty much.

Melissa Anzman (11:03): That's great. So when you set out to do this, you said that you started with some passive income on a site by surprise, like advertising by surprise, that just worked out which was kind of a dream come true, right. Of like somebody wants you and you're not necessarily actively, actively seeking them out. So how did you take that and build a model for passive income or is it fully based on advertising? Do you have other sources of passive income? Like how did you take that one moment of, Oh, I can get paid for that and turn it into the business that it is today

Tal Gur (11:41): Nowadays I'm fully diversified, which means that I have five five income sources, different income sources, mostly passive. So nowadays, you know, that that's not the case, basically. I decided to duplicate it because it worked and if something worked in my mind it could be duplicated. So I just focused on that just to get to a point where, where I'm able to travel. And then when I got to that point, at some point in my journey later, I decided to diversify. I found very specific niches that no one else targeted. So as one example I could give you is a site about Australia in Hebrew. There was no sites in Hebrew. And at that point that people build in order to motivate other people, to either immigrate to the country or to to study in the country. There was some sites about traveling, but nothing about migration and, and, and, and and becoming, becoming a student. So I just basically tempting to a niche that no one else really targeted.

Melissa Anzman (12:55): Can I, can I ask you a question about that? Because that's a very specific niche, right. And so did that come from your own experience of looking for that information while you were there? How did that idea get sparked for you?

Tal Gur (13:09): Point? I was very passionate about the topic I wanted to move to Australia. So I studied every detail about it, and I became a little bit of an expert. I knew that I'm an expert because when I, when I got to some forums, people ask questions and I, and I replied and people love that and share that. So I knew that something you know, that I was passionate about it, I was an expert and also there was demand because people kept asking me questions about that. That that gave me the idea of, of building a website. At that point, I wasn't really like focused on making money. I was just happy to share my, my journey. But you know, some, the next sites, I was more focusing on like how much demand there is for a specific niche. I wasn't worried too much if, you know, the site would be a failure or not failure. I just felt like, you know, I can, I can just like go and feel things and, and duplicate, I had the process, right. So I wasn't worried too much about a result that was more focused on the process to do it, to do it correctly.

Melissa Anzman (14:17): Hm. I love that. And so having that sort of pressure taken off it probably let you try a few things and take a few more risks than had it been fully about, I need to make money from this site today.

Tal Gur (14:31): Yeah. I felt quite a lot. Let me, let me tell you that, but you know, it's enough sometimes once success or to success as to basically, you know, again, give you like the life of your dreams. I can tell you that, like this very small niche site about Australia and Hebrew resulted it was almost like $10,000 a year passively every year, you know, without, without too much work. So if one side, one small side can make so much money then if you have a few more yeah, that's pretty much like, you know, can, can,

Melissa Anzman (15:08): It adds up. That's awesome. And you talked about failures and I think we all have them. I mean, I would hope we all have them because I feel like you learn so much when things don't work right. That whole tweaking and, and, and making better. How did you bounce back from, you know, these so-called failures that you had?

Tal Gur (15:31): I had a deadline. I had to make it happen. I was extremely passionate about the journey. I knew it's actually going to change my life. So you know, I was really, I was like a liquid laser focus that was, you know, doing, let things self name pretty much. And, and that's what happened also. Like again, I, I really recommend to I don't know if people are, are kind of like correlating fitness and business, but there's so many similarities in them. And if, when you train for a marathon, like it's exactly the same process. So there's like times where you tire the times where like, you know, it doesn't, the workouts are not, so you don't work so well, but still you bounce back. So that, that, I think, you know, the experience of, of doing those triathlons were for me, like, you know, a very big deal in my section.

Melissa Anzman (16:26): Absolutely. Absolutely. And it, you know, when you said that before you made the connection, that's exactly what I was thinking of. You know, if you're training for an iron man, pretty much, nothing's going to stop you, right. Like that's not a pleasant experience every day. So did you want to go more into depth just as far as like replicating it? Did you do any type of, other than advertising? Did you grow in any other way, passively, did you do products? Do you do services? How, how did you sort of branch out from that?

Tal Gur (16:58): So basically during this financial freedom journey, I had the, I had this little system that I set for myself basically, and I was setting a deadline, a strong deadline and setting intermediate goals. You know, usually when you have a big race coming up, you sit some small races in between. So I did the same thing with my new online business. I set kind of monthly goals and track them and tracking is pretty much so important when you're an athlete, you track everything you measure,uyou track time spent training. And so instead I measured Track instead of tracking my, my,utraining. I measured my productivity. So I gave myself points when I finished,ua 45 minutes to us and seeing the points going up is really motivating. So basically I decided to create a it's called goal software, and,uit's quite successful right now. And also, you know, quite passive as well in terms of income. And yeah, I really enjoyed creating something that I'm passionate about. It really helped me. And,uyeah, that's just one example. Uyeah,

Melissa Anzman (18:08): I love how you, I love your goal software by the way. And I love how you've taken something that kept you on task and kept you focused and said, Hey, wait, this is an actual system. I could sell it and help others, not only meet their goals, but I can make some passive income with it. And so it's the tools that you created for yourself that you then propelled into income as well. And I think you've done that more than once just looking at some of the things I know in your product suite and everything of how you've taken that and continue to take your own experience and products and everything, and put that into action.

Tal Gur (18:48): Yep. I also build passively free, which is a more, more of a site that is around the financial freedom in general. And so I got quite a bit of coaching clients the one to get financially free, and that was another active income. And now I'm actually in the process of writing a book it's called one year to freedom. So a lot of things actually branch out from this journey pretty much. And, and yeah, I'm now more having more diversified business. I really enjoy what I'm doing yeah. Was, was very very fruitful, a fruitful journey for myself.

Melissa Anzman (19:26): Absolutely. Absolutely. So how long did it, I know you gave yourself a one year deadline. How long did it take for you to feel financially free?

Tal Gur (19:38): Well, for me, the definition of financial freedom is not really a feeling is more, it's the very specific measured goal. So my definition of financial freedom is monthly expenses are lower than passive income, and that was basically the case. So when I was able to reduce my expenses to a point where they were no longer, you know, more than my passive income, I'm not talking about active income, I'm talking about passive income, then you, you all finished the free, you don't have to walk pretty much because your passive income cover your expense.

Melissa Anzman (20:17): That's great. And how, and you had that big chunk of debt. How long did that, did that sort of get paid down during that first year? Or is that something that you continue to work on

Tal Gur (20:29): Fit everything in the, in that year? I worked extremely hard. Yeah, I worked extremely hard. I also worked in designing websites, everything I could, and because I didn't want to have these debts, like, you know with me, I just wanted to feel freedom and to be free while I'm traveling. I remember like, even like just before, before I went to this round the world trip, I thought of actually buying a real estate property because there was like an opportunity. But even that was, I just really wants to feel freedom. I didn't even want to take a death of real estate property. And yeah, I just focused on freedom or more on the actual money.

Melissa Anzman (21:15): I love it. I love it. And your journey is so amazing as far as how long you traveled, where you went, you have amazing pictures that you shared along the way. And I'm sure so many stories yet to be told. Where are those? Where can people find out more about your travels and, and your, your freedom quest, so to speak?

Tal Gur (21:36): Well, I've got quite a few sites and quite a few blogs, but there's one side that I just feel it's called Tal Gur. That's kinda my name T a L G U R .M E. And then basically all my projects are there. So I've got quite a few projects. One of them is below zero to hero , where I interview people and try to inspire people to live life on their own terms and also passively free and other projects pretty much. Yeah, we have a, you know, it's, it's life is incredible. So so I'm really passionate about helping or inspiring other people to you to take action.

Melissa Anzman (22:16): Absolutely. I know that you, you inspire me every time I see any posts from you, so you definitely do that. And before I let you go, I just want to get your best nugget of advice for somebody who's in the same situation as you are in thinking, gosh, I got to get outta here, or I just need a freer life, or I need to get out of debt. What would your best advice be for them?

Tal Gur (22:38): Well, for me, it's a firm deadline. It could be one year. It could be six months. It could be a month, whatever the deadline and, and daily habits. I mean, I can't stress enough how important habits are. My core habits when I did the financial freedom was wait, we're waking up early 5:00 AM and working working hard and also having breaks to rest the body and mind. So those daily habits that, that you do on, you know, day after day are Omar, from my perspective like ki and yeah, that's pretty much that

Melissa Anzman (23:12): Love it. Well, I will be sure to share all the information of where people can find you online as well as some of your great projects, but I really appreciate you being on the show today. Tal, great insight, fabulous topic, and so much good nuggets for somebody who's looking to be passively free. Okay.

Tal Gur (23:32): Accumulation, thank you for what you're doing. As I said, the, you know, before we start to record that I love your brand. It's just brilliant.

Melissa Anzman (23:41): I hope you enjoyed today's episode with Tal Gur. Tal been a great friend and champion of mine, as well as a really amazing online entrepreneur who has proven that you can create passive income, even though it's not the easiest thing in the world to do. If you'd like to get the show notes for this episode, you can go to launchyourself.co/session7. Again, that's launchyourself.co/session7. And if you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe on iTunes and Stitcher and leave us a great review until next time.

Melissa Anzman (24:14): Thanks for listening to the launch yourself podcast. Join the conversation at www.launchyourself.co.