It was in my high school years when I started to feel like I thought differently to most people my age. It was around year 11 when I really started to notice the frustration I felt with school and by the end of year 12 it was almost intolerable. I loved that I got to see my friends daily, but sadly it was the school part that I didn't enjoy. I did well at school don't get me wrong, A's in Art, Photography and Dance, Bs and Cs in History, English and Math. (Ok, D in Math). But regardless of what my report card said I always put in my best effort. In Math I even got tutoring (Yes, I'm THAT bad lol) Regardless of my grades though, I knew I was smarter than my school made me feel which really frustrated me. I felt like a majority of the time I was spending studying and cramming my head with facts and figures for the test that I'd probably forget the next day (or in my case, before the test...memory of a goldfish) Anyone that knows me well knows I can't stand the system. The way we're expected to live life and societies expectations. Go to school, get good grades, get a degree, get a high paying job. I've known from a young age that I wanted to work for myself. (Actually I knew I wanted to travel, and I realised that to do so I had to work for myself) I developed my passion for photography and thought that photography might be my vehical for creating a fortune and travelling the world and living the life I want. (Harhar) Don't get me wrong it's not that I don't have faith in my photography, although I knew that photography alone wouldn't get there, many successful photographers also hold workshops, tutorials, and expand their business in other ways. Regardless of all of this – in my last year of tafe when I realised what it felt like to make photography stressful only my only instant outlet from stress, I decided I choose happiness over settling for something I'm unhappy doing just to make money anyday.

I've always been a big dreamer and had huge aspirations for myself. When I was a child I wanted to be a famous artist, then when I was in year 9 I went on a school trip to Europe and decided I had to travel the world and that was my purpose. It very quickly became an obsession and I'd spend hours researching pictures of places I'd go, looking at prices of tickets, looking at transportation options, looking at packing lists, EVERYTHING – but mainly, researching how I was going to make it happen.

One of the most frustrating things in the world for me was that I had made a decision – one way or another I'd travel the world. Mums friends would come over and ask what my plan was after I graduated from TAFE and Id say “I'm not too sure, I just want to travel the world.” and they'd half heartedly pretend to be supportive but I could tell that they were all thinking – yeah right, good luck you have to be a millionaire to do that. WHY. WHY do people have this mindset where as soon as there is a challenge in something they dismiss an idea completely. I have FRIENDS that are travelling the world, I've read blogs of people that have travelled the world, so why can't I do it too? That goes for anyone's dreams. If someone's done it before - SO CAN YOU. and even if they haven't! Find a way and be the first. (Watching too much les brown 'it's possible' on youtube...just kidding no such thing as too much hehe)

One of my favourite thing is talking about controversial topics with open minded people. I somehow always end up getting into a really passionate conversations with friends about something like expectations of us in life, technology, the government, religion, the medical industry, conspiracy theories... (wow sam you must be such a fun person to hang out with) haha the reality is I am a little bit of a control freak...I mean It isn't obvious, I don't yell at people when they touch my things, or get angry when someone tells me what to do, but on a larger scale of things. I think as humans we deserve to be in control of our lives and our quality of life – and now'days we have less and less of it. For instance the retirement age being put up – I'll bet my entire camera collection that no one that was still working and ready to retire made the decision and said “Hm you know what these 60 years of work has NOT felt long enough at all – chuck another 5 on there will ya please, thank you” or people who had ALREADY retired – did they have to go back to work?? Can you imagine. But don't even imagine that – us Gen Ys will probably be working until we're 102 so I don't even want to think about that, but just imagine the reality of WORKING for the next 70 years, and we're expected to have our fun on weekends (sometimes) and then start REALLY living after 70 years old.....no thanks. Life is life. The one most precious thing in the whole world that you can't ever EVER get more of – isn't money, isn't health (although they closely follow) its TIME. And It honestly doesn't make sense to me that 90% of the population is just willing to go with this system?? I used to spend hours thinking WHAT is the meaning of life? Like what's the point? STUDY STUDY WORK littlebitoffun die. I promise I'm much more of a positive person now, but I was so lost last year. I knew where I was, I knew where I wanted to be. I just had no idea how to get from A to B. And the thing that scared the absolute heck out of me, was WHAT IF I didn't make it until retirement??? We never know when our life is going to end and what if we spend it preparing to live our dream lives when we turn 65 but we don't even make it! So we just spent however many years giving our boss the life they wanted and put our own happiness and dreams aside for later. What if later never comes?? That idea scared me more than anything and I remember sitting at the table with mum, dad and james and having this realisation and just suddenly saying “If I die before I travel the world I won't die happy” And mums like...bit dramatic sam. Haha

In 2012 I met someone who really encouraged my dreams. Well in 2009 I did because my Jamesy has never had a single doubt in me, but the thing with James and I was we were ambitious as anything, but had no idea how to make our dreams happen. I would spend hours on end googling “how to travel the world on a budget” “how to travel the world for free” (Michael Wigge actually did it btw – so cool) “Nomadic living” “Digital nomads” I've researched it all. I looked up how to live homeless if thats what it would take for me to travel. Honestly – cruise ships, blogging, flight attending, photography, writing, online stores – you name it if its a way to travel and be paid I'd looked it up. But something I didn't look up was a way to build residual income – because I didnt know what it was and when I found this out its like fireworks went off and there was a little party in my brain and my mind was like cha ching I FOUND THE ANSWER. As I was saying I met someone who I noticed thought differently and spoke to me differently to most people. Rather than say “oh..coooool, better start savin'” when I said I was going to travel the world he'd ask things like “well, whats your plan?” “how are you going to make it happen?” so I told him, oh yknow Im either going to own a van with a bed in the back and live homeless and sell my photos every now and then and get enough money for food and maybe just live off baked beans or ill even go work on a cruise ship even know I'll be required to work around 80 hours a week and I have to sign a contract saying ill be away for months and months at a time or maybe ill write a successful blog and people will pa-” and hes like omg stop woman you crazy thing. He arranged an appointment with James and I and we got together and spoke about our dreams and he showed us this magical thing called residual income that changed our lives forever. Obviously my dream was to travel....James' were a little less selfish than mine (woops) and he said he just wanted to help and impact as many lives as he could (He's a good egg) and we were shown a way to do both and very quickly our dreams became goals. James and I get to work as a power couple and get to build and be in control of our own income together, and our own success and it's the coolest thing ever.

Let me explain residual income, successful authors get it, successful musicians get it, and successful entrepreneurs get it. It is the type of income where you put in the effort ONCE and after your hard work, you get paid repeatedly for it. Imagine writing a book – effort once, paid every time it sells. WHICH MEEANNS that we do the hard work now – dedicate 3 maybe 4 years to hard work, and we will be able to live the next 60 more free than we could ever imagine. I will be able to travel the world WITH james without time restrictions, and be paid while I'm away and not working *crowd goes wild* JAMES gets to fulfil his purpose of helping others, and he gets paid for that too – the more people he helps the more he gets paid. And as a couple – (I don't know if you guys know but James and I met on myspace almost 5 years ago, for 2 and a half years of our relationship we were long distance. We went from always being apart, to him finally being here and then us both working/studying full time and barely spending any time together) As a couple now, we have the option to cut down our hours at work in the next year, retire from a job completely if we want, and spend all the time we want together while building business anywhere in the world. As well, in the next 5/10/100 years :3 (can you tell her scared lol) if we decided to have kids, we both want to be parents that can give them our undivided attention and watch them grow up and not miss a moment.

So: why did I spend over $2000 to go to Salt Lake City?

Because I got to spend 4 full days with people who also want to take control on their lives, people who ENCOURAGE my dreams, who motivate and push me to be better. With my new friends theres no feeling sorry for one another, we care more than anything, but we push each other to be BIGGER than our problems. Making mistakes is GOOD because we learn from them and grow past them. Theres no such thing as dreaming too BIG, I told my mentor the money I wanted to make in this business when I first started (which was a crazy amount to me) and he said “….is that it?” Because money aside, the more you grow yourself in this business, the stronger your mindset gets, the more learn, and It's about becoming the absolute best version of yourself. And in this business your income reflects that. We're not paid by the hour. We control our own income. That same mentor who said that lives our of a suitcase and travels the world with his business and is (as you can imagine) such an inspiration to me. One of my favourite things and the things I most appreciate is the absolutely amazing people I've become friends with in the past year.

The way I saw it last year was I could apply for another course (I was considering studying business), pay $3/4000 and lose another year, or I could pay less than $1000 for a business opportunity that would pay me while I learn business from multimillion dollar business owners, mindset from world renouned leaders and improve my health significantly at the same time. What do you think I chose??

Up until the end of last year I felt like a yellow person in a blue world. And then I found another yellow person. And he introduced me to a yellow community. A community of people who strive to be their best. It's like my world has been flipped upside down in the most positive way possible.

Just yesterday James and I sat down and wrote our goals for the future out. I want to be earning enough money to retire myself from my job and retire my parents. As I said earlier I would dream of ways I could become nomadic, money was not important to me at all, but money is a big issue in today's society. I want to fund my own retirement, I want to be in control of WHEN I retire. Money was the root of 90% of my parents arguments during my childhood and I want to change that. I don't want James and I to argue about money in front of our kids. The best thing is now I'm at a stage of leadership in my company where I not only change that for myself by I get to listen to other peoples dreams and help them make their dreams come true. I get paid for helping others create the life they want and honestly there's nothing more rewarding than that.

Our amazing mentor Aimee Buhagiar speaking on stage at convention! So proud!

Tom and I received medallions for fast growth in the first 8 weeks of our business!

Jordan Kemper - 3 star diamond, Million Dollar Club member

Michael Callejas - 2 star diamond, Million Dollar Club member