Transcription
Hey, let's talk about everything that I learned in 2025 that helped me profit $1 million this year. If we haven't had the chance to meet yet, my name is Zach Pascarelloo. I grew Harrisburg Bookkeeping over the past 5 years to $40,000 of monthly recurring revenue. Now, I'm managing Zip Capital, my investment fund.
This year, I have learned a lot. I've learned things about focus and consistency, learning skills, taking risk. Money doesn't make you happier and enjoying the process. So, this is going to be kind of a year in review. Let's just talk about it. Let's spend 10 or 15 minutes together and let's talk about some things that I learned.
This year is my first year ever profiting $1 million. That's across both of my businesses, both companies, Harrisburg Bookkeeping and Zip Capital. 2023, I made $300,000. 2024, $700,000. 2025 first year profiting $1 million.
So, let's start by talking about focus. So, we all know that you got to say yes to the right opportunities. That's being focused. What people don't often think about is saying no to the wrong opportunities. Especially as your business or your career or your life in general grows, you are going to be presented with so many opportunities. Every yes takes up your time, energy, and momentum. You need to conserve and safeguard your time just like you do all your other resources. And you also need to conserve your mental energy. If you say yes to even something as simple as a 15-minute phone conversation or a 1-hour coffee meeting or taking on a new project or starting a new business or getting a new full-time job, all of those things take up your time.
So, for me, growing Zip Capital, if it doesn't 100% perfectly align with what I want to be doing with my investment fund, I'm saying no. And I have gone so far as with Harrisburg Bookkeeping, I've got a really great business, but I am trying to practice what I teach. So, I've been teaching people to focus and to cut ties with your past. Quit your full-time job. Go all in on your bookkeeping business. So, right now, I am practicing what I teach. I am no longer taking on new bookkeeping clients. Do you know how big of a deal that is for me? I spent 5 years building my bookkeeping business. Incredibly successful, made a ton of money, and now I'm focusing on Zip Capital, going all in on Zip Capital. That means I need to quit my old job. That means I need to stop taking on new bookkeeping clients. For me, my old job is my bookkeeping business, Harrisburg Bookkeeping. I'm not selling my business. I'm not getting rid of my clients. I'm not firing my clients, but I am not taking on new clients. That way I can focus all growth and expansion [snorts] on Zip Capital.
If it doesn't directly move the needle, if it doesn't directly get you closer to your goal, it's just a distraction. So, you got to learn to focus on one thing, maybe two things, and you got to learn to say no to everything that doesn't directly align with your goals or your vision. So, for me, when I sit at my desk, I think, what can I do right now to help grow Zip Capital? Right now, my goal is to raise money from accredited investors. If you're watching this video, your goal might be to get bookkeeping clients. So, for you, you can sit at your desk in your office and you can think, "Okay, I've got two hours. What can I do right now to increase the chances of me getting a new bookkeeping client?" That's what it's all about. That is 100% your goal. That is 100% your objective. Anything else is just a distraction. If it doesn't directly [snorts] influence your ability to get a new bookkeeping client this month or to raise more capital for me in my investment fund this month, it's a distraction. Focus on one thing. Say no to everything else.
You're going to learn skills right now that will open up doors that you never even dreamed of. For me, another perfect example, Zip Capital. So, my my background, I started a bookkeeping business five years ago in 2020. I learned bookkeeping and then I started doing bookkeeping for real estate investors and then I learned about real estate private money lending and then I learned about my investment fund, Zip Capital. I never would have dreamed in a million years that I would be where I am today. If you asked me 10 years ago when I was in the military, if you had asked me, "Zack, what are you going to be doing in 10 years?" I never would have told you I'm going to be running a seven-figure investment fund investing in real estate debt. Never would have said that in a million years. But the skills that I learned and acquired starting in the military, you learn discipline and time management, organization, and then I went to work as a warehouse manager. I learned management. I learned how to interact with people. I learned how to get a new job. And then I started my bookkeeping business, went back to college, studied accounting, I learned finance, taxes, accounting, I learned business, I learned sales and marketing. All of those skills added on to each other and got me to where I am today. The skills that you build today are going to give you an unfair advantage in the future. In two or three years, you're going to say, "Man, am I just lucky? What happened? How did I get here?" I'll tell you, spoiler alert, it's not luck. It's hard work and it's take having the courage to learn something new. Having the courage to learn something new, having the consistency I'm going to talk about consistency here in a few minutes. Having the courage to try something new, take risk, and being consistent long enough to the point where you look back 3, four, 5 years later and you're just thinking, "Wow, can't believe how far I've come. Never would have thought in a million years I would be managing an investment fund profiting $1 million."
The whole goal with this, I'm not trying to convince you that I make a lot of money. I don't need to do that. I've got my tax return that shows how much money I made. That's between me, my wife, we know. But instead, not trying to convince you I make a lot of money. But instead, trying to convince you you can make a lot of money. I'm trying to inspire you, motivate you, educate you, help you, help you grow, coach you through these things. And hopefully I can very simply share my experiences and maybe you can learn something. Maybe you can learn from the mistakes that I've made or maybe you can learn from the things that I've done well and hopefully fast-track to success. That's kind of the whole point of me making these YouTube videos.
So, I've got three more things that I want to talk about. I already talked about consistency and risk and happiness and enjoying the process a little bit and I'm going to dive a little bit more into that in detail. Real quick before I go too much further, I do want to say this video is sponsored by my investment fund, Zip Capital. If you want to learn more, there's a link down below. I am offering 8% up to 12% fixed annual returns to accredited investors, not guaranteed, but I do real estate private money lending. So, I charge my borrowers 12% interest. That's how I'm able to offer my investors 8 to 12% fixed returns. Not guaranteed, just like any other investment fund. If you have $25,000 or more and you are an accredited investor and you want to learn more, register on my website. Take a look at my website, zipcapitalfund.com. It's linked down below. I would absolutely love to chat with you if you're interested.
Consistency. So simple, but it is unbelievably powerful. It's also very hard and very boring. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. If starting a business and making a million dollars were easy, everybody would be doing it. Wouldn't be special, but not many people are doing it. Not because it's super complex. It's actually very simple, but it's very hard. It's very boring. Doing the boring stuff every day is seriously what separates you from everybody else who gave up and didn't make it. Everybody else when you go to your high school reunion, when you go to your family parties, when you go to the Christmas party at your family, when you hang out with your friends, when you go to church, when you go to your son's sporting events, all those people around you who didn't make it, who gave up, it's really only for one reason. It's because they did not have the perseverance to consistently do the boring stuff over and over again. Even athletes, take a look at every athlete who has ever failed, every athlete who didn't get first place. Why? Because they weren't able to continuously do the boring stuff every day. In the terms of fitness and sports and athletes, eat healthy. Work out twice a day. Get good sleep. Monitor your vitamins and minerals and nutrients and supplements. Go to the doctor. Go to the the personal trainer. Go to the chiropractor. Get your massage. Work on different skills. Cross-training. There's the little boring stuff that nobody wants to do, but you got to do it. If you want to succeed, you have to consistently do the boring stuff. That's what separates winners from everybody else. People who give up, if you give up, you're never going to win.
With that in mind, motivation, inspiration, they're great. Don't get me wrong. I love motivation. I love inspiration. That's temporary. That that'll temporarily get you going, but that's not long-term sustainable. You need discipline to sustain long term. You need discipline to wake up at 5:00 a.m. every single day for two years. You need discipline every weekend to work three or four hours for 6 months while you're trying to quit your job. You need discipline to save your money every single day and not go out to eat and not buy new fancy clothes because you're trying to save up enough money so that you can quit your full-time job and go all in on your new business. You need to be consistent and you've got to be disciplined.
Entrepreneurs take extreme risk and they typically get extreme rewards. I think it could be easier to make [clears throat] $100,000 as an employee versus an entrepreneur. A lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of great employees try to become entrepreneurs and they fail and they go back to their job. No problem with that. But I do think it's easier to make $100,000 as an employee than it is as an entrepreneur. But I think it's easier to make a million dollars as an entrepreneur than it is as an employee. Had I stayed in the army, never would have got here. Had I stayed at Chewy, maybe. Had I stayed at Amazon, possibly. Could I have worked my way up to be even a general manager? Probably makes $300,000 at Amazon. Maybe a director might make $600,000 at Amazon. You You probably have to get pretty high up in Amazon's org chart to make a million. I'm sure there are a ton of people working at Amazon who make a million dollars, but it's going to take you a long time. It's certainly not going to happen in five years. I think it's easier to make a million dollars as an entrepreneur than it is as an employee because entrepreneurs take outsized risk. Therefore, they earn outsized returns. You are paid for the uncertainty. You are paid for the risk that you take. You are paid because many many people, the majority of people, 99% of the people are not willing to take the risk that you are. Of course, you want to mitigate risk. You want to be smart about it. I recommend keep your full-time job. Wait three to six months until you have proof of concept and you have money saved up before you quit your job and go all in on your business. But eventually, you need to take that leap. If you keep your full-time job and try to run your business at the same time, you're not going to get to that seven, eight figure business that you want. You've got to go all in. You've got to focus. You got to say no to everything else and say yes to the one thing.
Two more things and then we'll wrap this up. Money doesn't make you happier. I know it sucks. I wish it did. If if money made you happier, honestly, life would be a lot easier. All you have to do is just make more money and you would be happy for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, human psychology is so much more complicated than that. Making money is easier than being happy in my opinion. Making money, making more money does not make you happier. Of course, there are levels to this. If you are getting evicted from your home, if the bank is foreclosing on your property, if your kids are starving, if you can't afford health care, if your car is broken down and you've got holes in your clothes, yes, of course, you're not going to be happy. Money can buy comfort, comfortability, comfort, security. Money can buy security. Money can buy comfort. But money can't bring happiness. So there's certain levels. So once you $60,000 a year, $70,000 a year, once you make enough money to live comfortably, safely, securely, healthy, then beyond that, money does not make you happier. I thought that once I hit a $100,000 salary, I made it. I'm going to be happy now. I finally made $100,000. Wasn't the case. I thought once I get 30 bookkeeping clients, I'm going to be happy. I thought once I made $300,000 in my business, I would be happy. I thought once I had a million dollar net worth, I thought I would be happy. I've accomplished all those goals in the past 5 years. Didn't make me any happier. Did not make me any happier.
If you are miser So money, money does not make you a better person. Money does not make you a happier person. Money only magnifies your current state. So if you are a miserable person when you're poor, you're probably just going to be a miserable person when you're rich. If you are a nasty, rude, mean person when you're poor, probably going to be a nasty, rude, mean person when you're rich. If you are a generous, loving, and compassionate person when you're poor, hopefully probably going to be the same thing when you're rich. So, money doesn't necessarily change you. I believe instead money just magnifies who you really are. Money brings out your true colors, who you really are. So, money doesn't make you happier. If you're a miserable person when you're poor, you're probably going to be miserable when you're broke.
And now, that leads me into the final point. You need to enjoy the process, not just the end result. Happiness comes from daily peace, from being happy with your daily actions. If you are miserable, think about this. Think about your your 5-day work week. You get paid once every two weeks, but you work 40 hours every week. If you're only happy when you get that paycheck every two weeks, then what are you doing? You're spending 80 hours for two weeks to work just for that one paycheck. It's not worth it. You have to enjoy the daily process, the daily tasks. Now, with that being said, not everybody's going to love their job. You have to find happiness in the job that you have. You have to you have to learn how to enjoy the process. You've got to find little wins that will keep you going and keep you motivated. So if you if you don't like the daily work, if you don't enjoy the daily task, you're going to give up. So you either need to learn how to enjoy what you're doing on a daily basis, or stop doing that and figure out what is it that I really want to do.
Now, there there's there's two different ways you can look at this. You can you can you can say, okay, my passion is I love dogs, so I'm going to start a doggy daycare. That's the business I'm going to start because I love dogs. That makes sense. I would I would caution you away from that because eventually every business just turns into another business. So whether you're running a barber shop, an advertising agency, a mechanic shop, or a doggy daycare, the business fundamentals are the same. So I would actually encourage you to not do that. If you love dogs, I would say don't start a doggy daycare. Instead, I would try to encourage you to pick a business that you think would be boring and successful because boring businesses are usually successful. So, if you want to start a business, don't pursue your passion. Keep your passion on the weekend. Instead, pursue something that you think could be profitable. Don't pursue your passion. Pursue profit. Because if you start making money, then you can enjoy your hobbies and your passions on the weekend. So, if you love dogs, perfect. Get a nice big house, get a big fenced-in yard, get three or four dogs, work from home, and spend time with your dogs running a different business. Don't necessarily pursue your passions, but instead pursue a business that you think could actually be profitable.
With that being said, you need you need to enjoy the actual act of starting and growing a business because ultimately, every business is the same. You're going to have to learn how to do something. Whether it's bookkeeping or real estate investing or fixing cars, you have to learn how to do something. And then you've got to do marketing and sales. You've got to get customers, get clients. And then you have to deliver high-quality customer service. No matter what you do, whether it's bookkeeping or fixing cars or flipping houses, you have to learn the business side of things. So, pick something that you think you could see yourself doing every day for the next 30 years. and pick something that you think might be profitable and build a life the way that you want to live your life. Don't just don't just look at the end of the mountain, the peak of the mountain or the trophy or the podium at the end of the competition because you're going to spend a very brief amount of time standing at the top of the mountain. You're going to spend very little time standing on the podium. And yes, that's great. But you have to enjoy the years and years and years of work that gets to the point of you standing on the podium. Like I said, if you are working 80 hours for two weeks just for that paycheck, at the end of those two weeks, what are you doing? You got to switch it up. You got to find something new to do or you need to train yourself and learn how to enjoy the process.
For me, making the money I thought would make me happier. It didn't. So instead, I had to shift my mindset and say, "Why am I doing this?" Because I enjoy building. I enjoy building a business. I enjoy competing with myself. I enjoy growing and getting better. So instead, I view the little details of the day as fun and exciting and a new challenge.
Here, here's the last thing I'm going to leave you with. There are inputs and there are outputs. You can't control the outputs or the outcomes. That's making money, getting clients, raising capital from investors. You can't control what's going to happen. You can only control what you're doing to make that happen. So, focus on the inputs, the little tasks that you do every day. Focus your energy and your attention on doing the tasks, doing the boring work consistently, improving, getting better. And then if you focus on those inputs, the things that you can control, then I would be willing to bet that as you grow, as you get better, as you stay consistent, as you evolve, then the outputs will naturally come.
So that's it for the video today. That's the last video of 2025. I hope that was helpful. I guess I'll see you all next year. If you are interested in investing in Zip Capital, if you want to learn more about my investment fund targeting 8% up to 12% fixed returns, check out the link in the description of the video. God bless everybody. I hope you have a happy new year. I'll see you all in the next.