91: Why Bitcoin is the Future of Money (Especially for Entrepreneurs)

Behind Their Success: Episode 91

Beau: [00:00:00] Bitcoin is the most perfect form of an energy backed currency that I think has

ever existed. it has the best chance of disrupting the last several hundred years of one particular

group or nation holding the world reserve currency. I think it's our best chance at having a

neutral reserve asset that's used worldwide.

Paden: Hello everybody. Welcome to Behind Their Success Podcast. I am Paden Squires, the

host, and today we have on Beau Turner. is the founder and CEO of Abundant Mines, a pioneer in

sustainable bitcoin mining. Get ready for some real stories and actual insights and advice you

need to fuel your entrepreneurial journey.

Beau, welcome on Behind Their Success.

Beau: Thank you for having me on Paden. I'm really excited for this.

Paden: Absolutely though. So Bitcoin mining, you know, I'm in the financial space. I've been a

guy that's following crypto for quite a while, felt like I caught on a little early. we're in like a bullish

market now. So tell us, like, [00:01:00] I know you started your career in real estate. How did

you make that switch to crypto?

Beau: Yeah, well there's, there's a very long story and then there's a slightly abbreviated one,

but the, the short story is I thought real estate was gonna be my vehicle to build and maintain

wealth far, far into the future. And. I had been exposed to Bitcoin for a few years, but wasn't

really paying active attention to it.

Just kind of owned a little bit passively. I wouldn't say that I had done my a hundred hours, much

less my thousand hours of research at that point, but it was interesting and I owned some, and

then 2020 was a huge year of change for me. Not just in terms of what was going on in the

world, but also making the decision to move across the country and really kind of having the, the

tail end of the passion and initial interest that I had in real estate.

So had the waning desire of being a full-time real [00:02:00] estate investor at the same time

that people like Michael Saylor were coming onto the scene and starting to talk about Bitcoin in

a way that. It was much more appealing if you were thinking about how do I, how do I invest as

an institution? How do I invest large portion portions of capital?

And it just spoke to me differently. And so that was the start of me beginning to think, you know

what, maybe I'd like to store my value somewhere else and not in properties that are kind of a

headache for me to manage, especially if they're several states away. And so I started the

process of, of liquidating property and buying Bitcoin and the.

Shift that happened was. I kept liquidating property, but I didn't want to lose the cash flow that

those properties generated. And so, I had an engineering background. I went to school for, for

engineering management and information systems, so I had some coursework in data centers. I

knew how mining worked.

I knew that that was the closest thing that I could get to rental property, like cash flow. In the

[00:03:00] Bitcoin space and keep many of the same tax advantages that real estate investors

rely on to make it even more attractive to be in that space. So started selling more and more

properties and after a certain point was no longer buying Bitcoin, but buying Bitcoin miners and

an early experience with a not so scrupulous and not so skilled host that I was sending those

miners to, led me to actually build my own facilities up here in Oregon.

And we've been offering that service ever since.

Paden: very cool. you know, I love, you know, I kind of love this crypto space. Um, it's

something, you know, I think we, I kind of told you I think off air, it's something I've been and

been following around. I think I first made up my radar just like the concept of Bitcoin. Like, I

don't know, 20. 15 or something like that. you know, I bought in a few times and then just sold

immediately when it doubled. Um, you know, funny enough, I found an old crypto account the

other day, like no joke of mine. Amazingly enough, I had an old crypto account paid out there

from [00:04:00] 2017. It only had a few hundred dollars worth of Bitcoin in it, but now it's worth

like $3,000

Beau: Wow.

Paden: but, anyway, you know, I say all that, I've gone down that rabbit hole a little bit and I, it,

it's interesting to talk to other people that have gone down that rabbit hole and how, man, when

people go down that hole, man, a lot of times they dive in head first and they have like, I mean,

it seriously changes the way you think about things, right?

Beau: Yeah, I mean the funny thing, especially starting to tell my story a little bit more is many

people will ask me at this point, like, how much of this should someone have? And I have to give

a very different answer of how much someone should have versus how much I choose to have.

And, you know, a balanced, if you're giving someone financial advice, I think a balanced

approach would be somewhere between one and 20%, depending on how, how.

Convicted and, and how committed you are to what it is and how much you understand it. But

you know, the further down I've gone into the Bitcoin rabbit hole specifically, you know, I'm, I'm

edging way past 90% at this point of whether it be [00:05:00] Bitcoin or my company. You know,

like there's almost no part of my financial future.

Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing in my financial future that's not in some way correlated to the

Bitcoin industry.

Paden: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's cool. That's cool. So, what led you

specifically down the mining route, even more so down that route.

I know you got that engineering background a little bit. speak to that a little bit.

Beau: Yeah, so mining is interesting for a couple reasons, and there's the investment case, and

then I would say there's the kind of like moral or engineering case that makes it really interesting

and the investment cases. Same amount of capital outlay over a period of time. You get to

potentially as long as you do it well, mine more Bitcoin than if you had bought the Bitcoin on day

one.

So if you're optimizing for stacking the most, bitcoin, doing mining properly is, is a great vehicle

for that. The other reason is I, I mentioned really briefly the tax [00:06:00] advantages. So if

you're. Buying Bitcoin on the open market with after-tax money. That's an intangible asset.

There's no depreciation schedule it.

It doesn't do anything to offset your taxes. Whereas if you're buying computing equipment and

you're paying for operating expenses to operate that computing equipment. You actually have a

business and businesses, as most people are aware, are a little bit easier to navigate the tax

code with. You have more levers to pull.

So mining was the vehicle for me to do it well. You can make more Bitcoin and do it structured

properly and you actually can mitigate some of the the high income years and actually have a

few more levers to pull so you're not paying too much in taxes. And then the, engineering and,

and sort of like ethical side of it is I felt a calling and I have felt a calling to.

Find the things that are poorly understood and even misunderstood. And, mining is one of the

most misunderstood parts of the Bitcoin space in general, [00:07:00] and shine a light on them.

And for years and years it was hailed as this kind of horrible thing that's extractive in all of our

resources and is a, a drain on the environment.

Paden: Yeah.

Beau: Plenty of, uh, you know, now debunked academic studies were saying that it would use

more energy than every other industry on Earth by, you know, several years ago.

Paden: I love those projections they throw out there.

Beau: What I found to be true was it was actually in many cases, the most positive force on the

environment that you could, you could possibly put into a community and actually lowered the

cost of energy. Because it's such a flexible resource, it doesn't have to be on a hundred percent

of the time. Um, it's way cheaper to set up than like an AI data center or traditional data center.

It has a very different profile of how it interacts with energy systems and the coolest.

implementations of this are in places like landfills or, oil and gas wells, where they've got

essentially just methane rich pollutants that [00:08:00] are otherwise going straight into the

atmosphere that if you put a generator in a.

Mobile data center on top of you're not only making money with, but actually mitigating some

really serious environmental harms. So the more I dove into it, the more I was like, man, this is

not just a great way to make money. It's actually a kind of an ethical imperative to participate in

this and help it flourish.

Paden: did I read up and, you know, and you're in the organ area. Um, you guys even using

some hydropower around that, I guess.

Beau: Correct. So we use hydropower along the Columbia River, at our main sites. We're also

currently developing a couple that would be using landfill gas. So working on, on those projects,

those are still relatively early. And then not only that, but actually these things produce quite a bit

of heat. So on the back end of that, that computer channeling all that electricity, you don't lose

any energy to data.

It all gets exhausted as heat. So we're finding ways to repurpose that. And our second site right

now are building a greenhouse. So [00:09:00] that'll be a, a place where throughout the winter

and these cold climates, you can actually grow fresh food year round and give it back to the

community.

Paden: That's amazing. That's some, that's some cool stuff. So like, you know, Beau I'm gonna

give you, a kind of the big overarching, question for the people that haven't like, gone down into

these rabbit holes. Like, can you like high level, explain to the listeners like why Bitcoin has

value?

Beau: Oh, this is, this is such a deep question. Uh.

Paden: I

know.

Beau: I'll say there's, there's so much knowledge that you could unpack with this, but um, I think

the overarching theme is that the best monies in history have been in some way connected to

energy. And we've been in effectively a monetary experiment for the last 50 years or so, in which

money has been connected only to political authority and doesn't have any sort of energy

backing it.

So whether you talk [00:10:00] about gold or Gold really would be the, the most historically close

to analogized, to Bitcoin in terms of a commodity money that takes energy to find and purify and

turn into some form of, of way that you can actually use a currency for day-to-day existence.

That worked for hundreds of years in many different cases, and.

What you find if you look through history is that when people were on a gold standard or a hard

money standard, there was widespread prosperity and a evolution of, of how people cooperated

together. And even in cases like the Roman Empire, you know, there's many reasons why the

Roman Empire fell, but one of them was because they started to clip coins and reduce the purity

of them and essentially use.

Use, uh, ever inflating monetary supplies to fund a bunch of wars, and we're not living in such a

different time now where the, the [00:11:00] money is the prime tool of being able to finance

endless conflict. And enriches a few and otherwise creates a, a very destructive pattern. So why

is Bitcoin valuable?

How does that have anything to do with Bitcoin? Bitcoin is the most perfect form of an energy

backed currency that I think has ever existed. and in fact is, is perfectly energy backed to the

point where it doesn't leak any. So that's the fixed supply nature of it. So you would know there's

only 21 million coins that will ever exist.

And so it's effectively this, this capped vehicle that can never be inflated, that can never be

expanded and continues to absorb more and more of the world's economic energy As long as

you can store your economic energy with integrity far into the future, you have a great tool for

cooperating with other humans.

If there is a, a leaky bucket, so to speak, of that economic value, and it's inflated away by an

expanded monetary supply. that over time, even if it's very [00:12:00] subtle, leads to cracks and

inefficiencies in the system, and in fact, perverts incentives of, of how the system operates and

who gets to control it.

So, there's a lot more that you could do to, to dive deeper down that rabbit hole. I would

recommend anybody check out the seven properties of money to, to understand a little bit better

why certain monies have value. And I've made the mistake of trying to remember all seven live

on shows, and I'm not gonna make that mistake this time, but suffice it to say

Paden: You're not gonna all law. Come

Beau: I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna listen.

I need a sticky note in front of me. Um. But suffice it to say Bitcoin's an improvement on every

one of those except for the one which is, how long it's been in existence. So. That's the one

fault, but also the opportunity. gold is great because it's been around for thousands of years and

uses of money for a very long time, and Bitcoin's only 15 years old at this point.

So that's a, a ding on it for being a global money. But if you see the [00:13:00] rest of the

characteristics and you know, you can identify good systems before everybody else, I think

that's really the opportunity is catching onto something that's technically sound and just has yet

to be proven by the test of time.

Paden: yeah, that's a good point. I mean, and you're right in, in many ways it, has the

characteristics that more perfect money. You know, like for example, like yes, gold is limited. a

degree, I mean, limited degree to our ability to extract it from the earth, which like you said,

makes it tide the energy.

But maybe there's some massive gold discovery someday that you know, that it has the

potential to be inflated away. But you know, and you talk about like empires or countries and

whatever has the. As they go down their path and eventually get corrupted and fall apart. You're

right, the monetary supply almost is always at the crux of that. you see large empires that, you

spread your empire, you get your colonies. Well, all of a sudden you gotta protect all your

interest. You kick up all these wars across the world, um, and then you run out of. Resources,

and then he gets written money [00:14:00] and eventually it all topples over.

if the listeners want any great book on that, uh, Ray Dalio, the, uh, the Changing World Order,

fantastic book. Uh, you know, he doesn't say that we're necessarily, you know, the United States

is, necessarily at that point, but he makes the case and a strong case that like, man, we check a

lot of those boxes.

Beau: that's a great book reference. and actually that came into my awareness around the time

that I was really starting to dive further down the bitcoin rabbit hole so that he, he doesn't really

talk. About it much. I wouldn't consider Ray like a, a bitcoin bull, although he has at different

times expressed.

Paden: like a Bitcoin or whatever.

Beau: but that, that context, that kind of backdrop of you see a rise and you see a fall and

there's many different, criteria for why a, a nation or an empire does really well. And then there's

a kind of unwinding of that trend and it's just over and over. You see something replaced by

something else. Who's to say that that's Bitcoin, but at least in terms of [00:15:00] of how it's

designed, I would say it's, it has the best chance of disrupting the last several hundred years of

one particular group or nation holding the world reserve currency. I think it's our best chance at

having a neutral reserve asset that's used worldwide.

Paden: Yeah, which can be good or bad depending on what side you, on the table you're sitting

at and, and how you're, how well you're prepared for that for sure. so you're, doing the Bitcoin

mining, do you connect like investors and stuff too.

Just tell me, tell us a little bit about that piece.

Beau: Yeah, so the way that Abundant Mines works is like you would come to us and say, I'd

like to get into Bitcoin mining, and essentially it's a very turnkey service where you are just

writing a check or you know, sending us a Bitcoin payment. You then become the owner of a

physical machine with a serial number.

And that machine lives in one of our data centers in Oregon. And of course, you can always

come out to visit, see it, take pictures with it. but effectively most people don't [00:16:00] want to

manage a computer, learn how to repair a hash word or replace a power supply, and they may

not have the setup. In their garage or office building to deliver the kind of power at the rate that's

needed in order to operate these.

So people are coming to us, they're purchasing a computer, they're paying a monthly operating

expense, and then getting all of the Bitcoin that that machine produces, and it's not. An

investment per se, where someone's like giving you money and then you're getting shares in a

company. It really is just a physical piece of equipment that has an output.

Um, and you're paying a management fee to run. So people come to us in all sorts of structures

from just an individual to small business to even having us do the fulfillment for a hedge fund or,

or a, you know, investment fund where there's, there's hundreds of partners. Where we're taking

care of the operations, doing all the maintenance and running the machines, and they get to just

reinvest their, their profits back into buying more or take their Bitcoin and, and run or save it,

[00:17:00] whatever it may be.

But the idea is a fully managed service to make you Bitcoin passively.

Paden: Yeah. and this I, I'm assuming, and, and, and this is making me some assumptions. I, I

assume there are some, um, business people that invest in that, just from the depreciation

purposes of some of that.

Beau: That is, uh, I would.

Paden: mean, you know that's a part of it,

right?

Beau: I would, I would say that it makes the most sense and, uh, you know, just to put

disclaimers, I'm, I am not a, tax finance or legal advice professional. Um, I can tell you that most

of the time it makes the most sense to hold this within the context of a business. And that is

going to open you up to the most favorable depreciation and offset characteristics where yes,

this can be essentially an investment vehicle that helps you write down your taxable income.

Paden: yeah, yeah. I'm a, you know, I don't know if we can talk about it, but I am a CPA in CP

trade, so, um, yeah, I'm well versed in the, the tax side of all. it could be an interesting play, but

once again, [00:18:00] all this, you know, obviously for listeners, this is all generic vice.

None of this is specific to any one listener.

Beau: Yeah, the, uh, if anybody wants specific advice, obviously come to you. Um, but that's,

that's part of the reason that we design the service in the way that we did, is that if it's just. Us

offering a piece of equipment with operating expenses that gives you the most flexibility on the

backend to structure it and hold it in whatever way is the the most advantageous for you.

So there's not this predefined cookie cutter. You have to set it up this way, otherwise it doesn't

work. You can come in as a. GP lp, you can do a sole prop. You can, um, as far as I understand,

hold it in, in tax advantage accounts as well with the right structuring. So it's this really flexible

vehicle, and that's what I wanted, right?

I mean, when I first got into this, I was, I didn't set up a new entity for it. I just started mining in

my real estate entity and gradually made the shift from a real estate [00:19:00] investor to a data

center, real estate investor, to a Bitcoin miner. Um, and so that's, that's the kind of flexibility that

not putting it into a predefined structure where only accredited investors can participate, kind of

opens up the field.

Paden: yeah. You know, that and that, yeah. Like you said, that gives you the ability to, um, you

know, raise as much money as possible and allow the investors to Yeah. Just structure it in the

way that's, yeah. That's for them. So, uh, along, you know, along your journey here, Beau, I'm sure

you've. I made a lot of, decisions you maybe, uh, thought you could have done differently. Can

you point to, maybe a moment, or you may call a mistake or, or whatnot, but a, an area where

man, maybe you mistepped, and what is like a lesson you've, you've taken from that?

Beau: Yeah, the, origin story for the company really was me trying to mine with somebody else

who is offering a similar service to what we offer, but, uh, not nearly as good and not actually

fulfilling any of the promises of that service. So the [00:20:00] story of that, or the mistake in that

was. Not properly vetting a partner.

and really just taking what was offered at face value and.

that was, I mean, the most painful mistake, but also the greatest opportunity that was ever given

to me was that experience. It was about a half million dollar loss all told where these machines

were poorly treated, not put online at the right time.

Uh, I got billed a huge amount of money, like $30,000 to just go through and have a college

intern do repairs that never actually really lasted, never kept these things online. and it was just

a very rough experience and it was at a time where I had just gotten engaged and so I was like,

wow, okay. I, so about that wedding that you wanted to have, that was really beautiful.

Um, there might, I might have to be delayed a little bit. So really rough experience, but also the

reason that I [00:21:00] started the company. So, because I had a bad partner, a bad

counterparty. It only made me want to be a good partner that much more and, and build this

service. So I'd never had any intention of actually offering hosted mining and, and bitcoin mining

as a service to people.

I really just wanted to be a miner myself. I was not trying to build a business like this. Um, and

that experience was so raw and so just destructive and, and infuriating that I felt like. You know

what this is gonna be my public service, is to actually improve upon this industry and raise the

standard for everybody.

So pick your partners wisely.

Paden: Yeah. You know, I've, you know, without going too deep into any of my own history, I, I

can relate on that kind of thing. I've had amazing partnerships. I've had a couple that were just,

man, you know, but, but yeah, just terrible. I mean, I'm talking six figures. Yeah. Those kinds of

things. And, um. it is amazing that you have [00:22:00] taken that story, right?

That's such a raw experience that you could have just shut down and quit or, done anything. But

like, you took that raw experience and said, you know what? I'm gonna use this energy. I'm

gonna use this pain. so now you've, you know, you've created something that you didn't even

know, was even possible for you.

Beau: In a way it, it was the gift that gave me my mission.

I'm a big fan of, Dan Martel. And, and he'll say often that your, your purpose lies next to the

worst thing that ever happened to you. And so far, that is the worst thing that's, that's happened

to me at least in terms of business and investment.

And so it really, really motivated me to go out and do something better. And I could not be more

grateful now in hindsight to, to that man for providing the service that he did because, um. If he

hadn't, there's, there's hundreds of people who I would've never had the opportunity to impact,

and I've had the chance to see really beautiful things unfold for our clients and even just my

team members having [00:23:00] a really beautiful sense of purpose in their lives, getting to

serve people in this way.

And that's not something that I was originally set out to do, and I was just put on that path by

that experience. So. The other, the other piece of advice, I guess would be, don't let any of your

mistakes or, or really raw run-ins with the dark aspects of life go unused later on. There's a lot of

gold to mind there.

A lot of Bitcoin to mind there as well.

Paden: Yeah. Lot of Bitcoin. That's right. Yeah. No, I, I mean, I, I noticed the Dan Martel book

over your shoulder. I got the, I got the same one. yeah, yeah, Dan Martel. Great. You know,

great book there. Buy back your time. Um, fantastic. Uh, full of practical stuff, but, it's always

that, the setback that always sets you up for, you know, kind of the fling forward. And, and, and

it's really like that in a lot of places of life. Not just business, but like, it's very noticeable in

business of like, often it's like, okay, you build up a business, you're kind of plateaued and you

really got to break something. to, you know, break [00:24:00] something, take a couple steps

back, right? To be able to then shoot up. you can't really anything great or extreme or, or quick

growth without usually having to stop doing a lot of the stuff that you're doing currently and have

to do a totally different.

Beau: Yeah. What I've found and and seen often is that many of the greatest companies and

products that that have ever existed have been people scratching their own itch, like solving

their own really frustrating problem. And so getting out of of school. I didn't really have that, kind

of beautiful unicorn startup idea to immediately go work on.

I was like, okay, I guess I'll, I'll focus on this real estate thing. that early experience in mining,

looking back like, wow, really grateful that that happened. 'cause that gave me the most

frustrating problem in my life that I could solve that could actually be a service into the market as

well.

Paden: Yeah. Yeah. And, my personal story is like the, you know, the last business partnership

[00:25:00] that I had go bad. Like it set me up, it forced me to. make my business, I mean, 10

times better and, and just processes and the way we went about things and, it wasn't maybe a

year after that separation that I, I could, or I'd say even six months after that where I said, whoa,

I already see why that happened, right?

Like, I could already tell like, oh, I needed to go through that to force me to change, to do what I

actually should have been doing for a long time.

Beau: Yeah, it's the mark of an evolved person I think, who can very quickly go from. Turning

their pain into wisdom that gets applied. And the shorter and shorter that gap is, I think the more

impact you can have around you. And I'm, I am still learning. I'm today years old, a student of

life. Uh, but the, the shorter you can compress that gap, I think the, the better you are off and the

better everybody else around you is as well.

Paden: yeah. That's great advice.

Speaker: Are you looking for a new tax experience, looking for an advisor that actually

[00:26:00] brings you high level ideas and proactively plan so you aren't overpaying your taxes?

Or how about one that even just responds and communicates in a timely fashion? If any of that

resonates with you, you probably just have a tax preparer and not a tax planner.

And it is through the tax planning process where all the value is found. And when Tax Planning's

done right, it has a positive return on investment. I'm Payden Squires, I'm a CPA and owner of

Squires Tax Planning. We work alongside entrepreneurs and high income earners, helping them

pay the least amount of income taxes, both legally and ethically.

We have saved our clients hundreds of thousands of dollars through specific strategies, and we

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about. If that interests you, head over to squirestax planning.com. There you can take our free

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From there, you can also book a free tax discovery call with [00:27:00] our team to see what it

would look like to have us working for you.

Paden: So Beau, what piece of advice would you give to any of the listeners that are, maybe

they've, they have a business, maybe they're not as passionate about as they thought. what

kind of advice could you give? Or maybe they haven't even started a business, but what kind of

advice could you give for somebody who's just like trying to find something? about, lights 'em

up. You know, I assume, you're quite passionate about what you do, and, it doesn't feel like you

work that hard Right.

Sometimes when you're that passionate about it. Not that you don't work hard, I'm sure you do.

But, what kind of advice would you give somebody that's just looking, for their quote unquote

passion?

Beau: Yeah, that's a, a really hard one because as you mentioned, it's really, it's a second

source of energy to have passion about something, and it makes the 12 to 16 hour days feel

much easier if you love the mission that you're on and. The downside is if you [00:28:00] don't

have that passion, someone who does is going to outwork you and they're going to be better at

it.

They're going to have more staying power than whatever the thing is that you, you think you can

do, but you don't really like the person who is, is just on fire with inspiration. To get that done is

always going to be ahead of you. So finding something. That ignites that within you is one of the

most important things that I think you can do.

And it's really tough to force as well. So it's not something that I think you can give someone a

prescription of. Well just follow these six steps and your passion emerges. I think it comes to two

things. You can either be inspired by something that uplifts you, or you can be running away

from pain.

And in my case, I was lucky to get both where I had a painful experience that absolutely sucked,

that made me want to go build something better that aligned with the inspiration of what I

believe Bitcoin is for the world. And that's a really unique gift that I, I could [00:29:00] get both of

those. But if you could start with one, something that, that really grinds your gears, that uniquely

frustrates you, you might have some extra energy to go solve that problem versus anybody on

the street who's just, you know, casually observing.

And then conversely, if there's, if there's anything that interests you or inspires you or that you

feel like time disappears when you're doing your research or thinking about it, um. A good

barometer is if you would do it for free. You might wanna try to find a way to make a business

about it, because you could actually be really, really good at something that you would otherwise

do for free and can feel effortless to you, and you can do for 12 hours a day something that

might be very frustrating and and cumbersome.

For others, I think about, you know. CPAs are, are a great example where like, I can't even

imagine going through what you guys go through and is not something that lights me up and I'll

happily pay you every day of the week to do, uh, reconciliation and tax [00:30:00] filings and,

and navigating codes. And God, there's so much that I have absolutely no interest in doing, but.

the creative way to navigate that space lights somebody else up. So, you know, in short, find

something that Uber frustrates you or lights you up and, and makes you wanna get up in the

morning. And that's, that's a good direction to head in and then bounce, you know. Find the

things that do work and the things that don't work, and, I don't have it all figured out and every

day gives me more information of refining what direction to go in, but it's hard to get that

feedback until you start going in a direction.

Paden: Yeah.

yeah. That, I mean, that's, yeah, that's so true. I think passion is more like built. by that I mean

like, you go around, you start playing with different things. You, you, you take note of what gives

you energy, what doesn't give you energy, what you like, what you don't like, and, you know,

when you find those things you fall in love with, right? Like you really like doing and like you

said, you got into flow and time disappears or whatever.

While you're doing that. it's amazing [00:31:00] if you fall into those things and you pursue those

things, you're gonna get, you're gonna get good at it, right? whatever that is. And, amazingly,

when you get good at things and you're in flow, then you're like insanely passionate about 'em

because I'm like, Hey, look. I'm really good at this thing. And when you're really good at

something, you're, you automatically become more passionate about it. but it's tough, right? It is

a matter of kind of trial and error and exploring and, you know, I was lucky enough to stumble on

several things that I'm pretty passionate about and have really gone deep in.

And, sometimes I just contemplate that question too. And I don't really have an answer of like,

Hey, go do this. This is how you figure that out.

Beau: It's you already, you mentioned that it's kind of like letting the energy of compounding.

Show you what your passion is and it, whether it's business or investing or building skills, there's

something to be said for. It's really tough to see early on in the growth curve how much you're

compounding because you're still early.

Paden: content? [00:32:00] Yeah.

Beau: So you, you might not discover that you're passionate about something. I mean, this is a,

uh, just to tie back to my story, I was exposed to Bitcoin for like a good five, six years before I

had any inclination that I might wanna spend more than like a couple minutes a quarter thinking

about it. And. it's that tail end of the growth curve, which I would, I would still say I'm very early in

the growth curve on, on my journey in this.

but you know, year six through 10 were much more obvious how deep and how like, you know,

you wake up one day and realize, oh wow, I'm one of the foremost experts on this thing called

Bitcoin mining. That's actually kind of wild. I never thought I would say that about anything. And

it just kind of happened because you, you ended up spending quite a bit of time in all of the

surrounding areas.

So, finding your passion might just take a little bit of patience actually, of just trying something

and letting something marinate.

Paden: Yeah, it's, it is that letting things marinate and you're right, it's the compounding effect,

right? Like the [00:33:00] first five years of anything, it's like there's no. The growth is so tiny, it's

not even noticeable. Right? Like I, know, I, I tell that to entrepreneurs all the time. It's like the

first five years of business just like suck.

Like you, you know, if you're lucky, you get through it and you've maybe built something right?

Like, but really, like, you don't see those gains at, at all. And it's like, it's like going to the gym,

right? Like you go to the gym for a week. You look exactly the same you did at the beginning of

the week, or it's like, so, you know what I mean?

It's so tiny that

Beau: Yeah,

Paden: Um, but you don't realize those changes are happening under the surface or at least

under the, the, the human consciousness there.

Beau: I.

Paden: have to continue. This is where you talk about like action and faith together. You have to

continue in faith until it shows up. and knowing that, oh man, everybody else works out like this,

and they get the results. I can too. It's, yeah. It's just amazing to have you, you gotta keep on a

path. And we've talked about entrepreneurs all the time. Why most of them struggle is because

they, they jump into a business, [00:34:00] they're in it, they jump into real estate.

'cause their buddies, it's 2021 and their buddies just made a bunch of money. Oh, everybody

can make money in real estate. Right? They jump in and realize, oh, well, you know what? It.

This doesn't just spit out money with no effort or no business built, right? And then they go like,

oh, this is way harder than I thought.

And then they quit and then they jump to, trading crypto. I'm just, but you know what I mean. It's

like you're jumping from thing to thing to thing. You never get more than an inch deep in any

area. So you have no skills on anybody. and you just, get mad and quit and, believe the lie that

the next thing is gonna be the thing that magically works for you. Um, until you decide to go

deep into anything, it's, you're just kinda wasting time, in my opinion.

Beau: Yeah, there's a, there's something to be said about staying power and consistency and

continuity, and you. Let that compound over long enough. You can be really mediocre and

unskilled and absolutely whip everybody else at something [00:35:00] just because you've got

the benefit of way more experience and time than they do.

And I heard this so much growing up of, of people who were, you know, very successful in their

later years over and over saying, listen, there's nothing special about me other than I've been

doing this thing that you're impressed at me about for. 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. it's not that

they were immediate savants within year one or two, and that's very frustrating, especially if

you're early on in the journey.

But. Something that came up as, as you were talking is if someone doesn't know, kind of like

what, what direction to go in. a good place to start is if you could be the best in the world at

something, what would that be like? What if you could pick any end state that's worth putting in,

just. Years and thousands of hours, like let's call it 10 years.

Because if, if you quit around year five, you might be just starting to see the results, 10 years

into anything to [00:36:00] become world class or best in the world at something, what would

you want that to be? What would actually bring you the most joy to be the best in the world at.

Paden: Yeah. that's a great question for, you know, for people to consider. And, you know, like

99% of podcasts don't make it past 20 episodes to be in the top 1% worldwide. In podcasts, you

just have to make 21 episodes. And that is just shows you, it is just pure time, right? Like you

beat 99% of people just by showing up, and just continually do the work and then you improve.

And like my first 20 episodes were the hardest ones to do. And now I've built systems and, and

it's amazing enough when I've built a podcast that now like guests come to me all the time,

right? And the first 20 people, I had to hunt people down to come on this show, right? you hit

some tipping point at some point, and it's different on all different areas, but eventually hit a

tipping point. even have to chase stuff anymore. It just comes to you because you have made

yourself good, you have made yourself attractive, and you really [00:37:00] attract the kind of

stuff you want.

Beau: Yeah, in today's day and age, I mean, momentum really is a superpower. Everybody

wants the. Viral moment that comes very quickly and and is effectively overnight success. But

just the sense of building momentum, whether it's in a podcast or a business or a skill, is its own

kind of self-sustaining energy where you go from having to seemingly push a boulder uphill day

in and day out just to make any progress to suddenly it's rolling downhill and you can't even stop

it because it's moving so much.

And I. I have been so blessed to have people around me to help carry this vision forward

because the first couple years was really just me and, a, technical co-founder, engineer, like

somebody to help. Keep the vision alive basically, but was really me, just day in, day out,

making sure everything was held.

And at this point, I [00:38:00] mean, I, I wake up and it's unbelievable how much happens

around me without me guiding it, without me pushing it forward in many cases without me even

knowing about it. And that's the wild thing, is you put enough time and effort into something to

get people to come build it with you.

And the sense of. Holy shit. This thing has a life of its own. That would go on with or without me.

I'm happy to be on the journey. I'm happy to be the tip of the spear, but this really is, is self-

sustaining momentum that I'm not having to push. It is pushing me forward and I get to just feel

the wind at my back.

That is what we do all this for, is to experience that, that level of things working out.

Paden: Yeah, man, that's great. And that's, that's getting to the top level of entrepreneurship, I

would say. It's like you've got to that point where you've built something that's become way

bigger than you. And, and like you said, it's, it's got all its forward momentum and you're just

long for the ride and it's forcing you to develop, right?

Not you trying to develop and force [00:39:00] it up the hill, uh, but eventually starts dragging

you with it. Yeah. Beau man, this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate you. if you

could leave one piece of advice to the listeners, what would it be? Just so you know, listeners of

entrepreneurs, uh, you know, on their journeys at different stages, you can give us all one piece

of advice.

What would it be?

Beau: I think the most expensive thing that you can do in your lifetime is ignore the things that

spark your curiosity and not give them the attention and space that they deserve, and Often so

hard if you are just living day to day to find time to do the things that light you up and bring you

joy, if you just feel like you need to survive.

But every spare moment that you can give to something that connects you to that, that higher

purpose, that higher intention, the spark of creativity or intention or inspiration, every moment

that you live more in that space connects you to. [00:40:00] The ultimate purpose vision that

you're here to live out. And there's nothing more satisfying than getting closer and closer to

being on that path every day.

And so if you ever have that sense, please don't ignore it. Please listen to it. And it'll be subtle at

first, but the more often that you tune into it, the more often that you can tap into the energy of

knowing that you're on the right path, the easier it'll become to just live there. And then life

becomes really the most fun game you could ever sign up to play.

Paden: Yeah. Stay curious. That's, that's what it's all about. Curiosity, pursuing curiosity. Well,

Beau, I appreciate you man. What is, the best way people connect, you get to know more about

you, abundant minds or anything like that?

Beau: Yeah, the easiest way to find me would probably be through our website, which would be

abundant minds.com, M-I-N-E-S. we also do a ton of education in the Bitcoin space, a little bit

more in depth than than I can ever get [00:41:00] in a a 40 minute window. Uh, on socials, the

handle would be at Abundant Minds and we're on YouTube, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, pretty much

everything that there is a platform for.

I would say YouTube has the most rich content and long form content. And would love to get a

chance to work with you. Uh, my team is always happy to help, even if you're just looking for

advice in the Bitcoin space that you can't find in one of our videos. we really just wanna help

people understand more about the space, whether you mind with us or not.

So appreciate you giving me, uh, some time with you, Peyton, and this has been super fun. This

is a great, great conversation.

Paden: Absolutely Beau, I appreciate you listeners. Um, you know, you're interested in the Bitcoin

space at all. Beau is obviously one of the, uh, top experts in it. Um, go check out some of his

resources or, you know, find him on the internet. I know he's got a lot of videos out there of, uh,

explaining some of this complex stuff that. As a guy, I've been trying to wrap my head around it

for, for years and you know, every time I listen to more [00:42:00] of it I'm like, I didn't quite

understand that till this time. So it's, you go way down that rabbit hole. But Beau appreciate you.

Thank you for coming on the show.

Beau: Thank you, Paden.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you found it valuable, please rate,

review, and share it. That is the best way to help us build this and reach more people as we're

trying to accomplish our goal of help creating more healthy, wealthy, and wise entrepreneurs.

You can follow us on social media by searching for me Peyton Squires.

Or going to padensquires.com on the website and social media. We're always sharing tips of

personal growth and there we can actually interact. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks guys.