We asked 1,000 millionaires how they got rich. Here’s what they said.

Summary

Money Guy Show – Episode Summary

Podcast: Money Guy Show
Hosts: Brian Preston & Bo Hanson
Episode Date: June 19, 2026
Episode Title: We Asked 1,000 Millionaires How They Got Rich. Here’s What They Said.

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Episode Overview

In this engaging and insightful episode, Brian Preston and Bo Hanson dive deep into the financial habits, backgrounds, and mindsets of over 1,000 millionaire clients. Drawing from their own client survey results, they bust common myths about wealth, highlight actionable strategies for building net worth, and emphasize that wealth is less about where you start and more about the choices and behaviors you develop. The hosts use data, relatable anecdotes, and candid advice to empower listeners to build their own “great big beautiful tomorrow.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Does a Millionaire Client Really Look Like?

• Net Worth & Income

  • Average net worth: just under $3.5 million
  • Median net worth: about $2.5 million
  • Average income: just under $350,000
  • Median income: about $262,000
  • Message: Don’t be intimidated; most clients did not start rich. Everyone begins somewhere—track your own net worth and progress. [01:34–04:08]

• Quote:

  "How your journey starts does not define how it ends."
  — Brian Preston [04:08]

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2. Education & Early Careers: Busting the Ivy League Myth

• Public Education is Common

  • 76% attended K–12 public schools
  • 61% went to public universities

• Student Loans

  • 52% used student loans
  • 74% kept loans below their first year’s salary (the “first year financing rule”)
  • Emphasis: Avoid taking on student debt larger than your expected starting salary. [05:29–07:40]

• Degree Alignment

  • 76% work in the field their degree was in vs. just 27% for the general public
  • Advice: Be intentional about your degree and career choices.

• Quote:

  "Education is the ladder that you can crawl up to change the circumstances that you’re in."
  — Brian Preston [09:38]

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3. The Power of Behavior: Savings Rate

• Consistent, High Savings

  • 71% of working millionaire clients save more than 20% of their income.
  • Saving is used interchangeably with investing—a key to letting your money work for you. [10:29–11:46]

• Consistency Over Perfection

  • “I started, and I never stopped.”
    — Insight by Brian Preston recalling client attitudes [11:46]

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4. Smart Consumption: Cars and Homes

• Cars: Delayed Gratification Pays

  • 63% paid cash for their most recent car.
  • 71% financed their first car—showing starting humble is normal.
  • Most drive their cars for over 7 years (83%), compared to most Americans (65%) who keep cars 5 years or less.
  • Rule: If you must finance a car, follow the 20/3/8 rule: 20% down, finance no more than 3 years, payments <8% of gross income. [14:51–15:55]

• Quotes:

  "Instead of you building wealth, you’re going to drive your wealth, and that’s not successful." — Bo Hansen [14:17]

• Homes: The Reality of Down Payments

  • Median client home value: ~$700,000; average: ~$850,000
  • 79% put down less than 20% on their first home.
  • Quote:

    "When you go to buy your first home, you do not have to put 20% down to be able to come into homeownership." — Brian Preston [20:14]

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5. Mastering the Financial Order of Operations

• 9-step framework for prioritizing financial decisions

• 97%+ of clients use credit cards; 99% pay them monthly with no debt carryover.

• 93% have a fully funded emergency fund—vital for not being derailed by life surprises. [21:45–24:43]

• Quotes:

  "I want you to aspire to be 100% debt free on credit card debt." — Bo Hansen [23:08]

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6. Mindset, Habits, and Wealth Building

• Early Focus on Personal Finance

  • 58% got serious about personal finance before age 30.
  • Even if you’re older, compounding still works for you.
  • 20% got serious in early 30s; 12% in late 30s; 7% not until their 40s.

• First Generation Millionaires

  • 74% built wealth on their own; only a small minority inherited substantial money.
  • Median inheritance is <$25,000.

• Optimism is Key

  • 82% of millionaire clients identify as optimists.
  • Host advice: Tune out media negativity, focus on the abundance of opportunity.

• Quotes:

  "How your story begins does not define how it ends."
  — Bo Hansen [28:53]
  "Just because I'm in a situation today does not mean that I'm going to have to be in that situation tomorrow."
  — Brian Preston [30:00]
  "When you reach actual financial independence…between 77 to 95% of your total account value at retirement is probably going to be the growth of those assets." — Bo Hansen [26:20]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I love what you just said. How your journey starts does not define how it ends." — Brian Preston [04:08]
• "Education is the ladder that you can crawl up to change the circumstances that you’re in." — Brian Preston [09:38]
• "I want you to aspire to be 100% debt free on credit card debt." — Bo Hansen [23:08]
• "How your story begins does not define how it ends." — Bo Hansen [28:53]
• "Just because I'm in a situation today does not mean that I'm going to have to be in that situation tomorrow." — Brian Preston [30:00]
• "82% of our clients…identify themselves as being optimists." — Brian Preston [30:45]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Net Worth & Income Benchmarks [01:34–04:08]
• Education & Student Loans [04:08–07:40]
• Major Purchases: Cars & Homes [13:09–21:26]
• Savings Rate & Investing [10:29–12:29]
• Financial Order of Operations & Debt [21:45–25:28]
• Mindset & Generational Wealth [25:28–31:15]

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Closing Notes

Brian and Bo reinforce that building wealth is accessible: it’s less about luck or privilege and more about mindset, behavior, and making the most of each dollar. Their final message is clear—no matter your starting point, adopting these principles can significantly improve your financial trajectory. Optimists do better, and disciplined, intentional strategies win out over time.

“You too can be part of our next millionaire study.” — Bo Hansen [32:30]

Transcript

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[Brian Preston]

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[Bo Hansen]

You might think you know what the wealthy do with their money, but are you right, Brent?

[Brian Preston]

I am so excited about this because our clients have literally spent decades building wealth and learning financial lessons along the way. And on today's show, we get to show you just what it looks like to live like a millionaire.

[Bo Hansen]

I'm Brian, he's Beau, and we're financial advisors here to dive into what the wealthy actually do with their money, how they got there, and what you can learn on your way to building your great big beautiful tomorrow. With that, let's jump right in.

[Brian Preston]

All right, Brian, so let's jump right in because, you know, every year we do this survey, we're asking our clients all these questions. Let's talk about, what do they actually look like? Who are these folks? And so just at a glance, let's start with the very beginning because it's one of the things we talk about all the time here. We want you to understand where you are and what your net worth is. You take everything that you own and subtract out everything that you owe, and that's your net worth. When we look at our clients, the average net worth for our clients is just under three and a half million dollars. But the median is about two and a half million. It's not skewed by the higher and lower ends in the middle. About a 2 1/2 million dollars median net worth amongst our clients at about wealth.

[Bo Hansen]

So if you're watching this and you're wondering, well, what is my net worth? We would invite you, hey, you got to start this journey somewhere. Start keeping score of what you own versus what you actually owe. And I would invite you, go to learn.moneyguy.com and start tracking your net worth, even if it's negative. I don't care if you just came out of school and you have a lot of student loan debt. I'm telling you, if you have a dashboard view of what's going on every year, you're going to be better for it and you're going to be able to manage your army of dollar bills that much better.

[Brian Preston]

And Brian, this is the actual tool that you and I both use every single year. We, when we do our net worth, it's not like this is something we built that we don't use. This is what we like to see front and center. So if we're talking about net worth now, let's talk about one of the things that leads to net worth. It's the size of the shovel. And when we look at the income, the average income, immediate income for our abound wealth clients, the average income is just under $350,000. But if you remove the outliers and look at the median, it's about $262,000.

[Bo Hansen]

But look, I got to tell you, if I was outside looking in, I, I mean, of course these people have money.

[Brian Preston]

They hire financial advisors.

[Bo Hansen]

I think that this is not telling the full story as of, I think, take myself, when I graduate college, my starting salary was $28,500. That's where a CPA graduating in the 90s was. So this isn't where these people started out. Yes, they've created success. And we're going to get into education, we're getting into careers and other things. But I think you're going to see that how your journey starts does not have to be where it ends. And don't get thrown just because you see all the success. What I want you to do is use what we're sharing, the income, the net worth, Start thinking about the behaviors that can impact your life.

[Brian Preston]

I love what you just said. How your journey starts does not define how it ends. And so why we wanted to start with net worth and income is to kind of show you what it looks like, beginning with the end in mind. So now let's talk about what were the things that took place, what were the things that happened that allowed our clients to get to the place where they are? And the very first thing I think this is really interesting is we ask a question around education, like, how were you trained? What sort of education do you. Did you receive? And I think the common thought is, well, okay, if, if you're going to Be wealthy. If you're going to be successful, you must have gone to some prestigious school, you must have gone to the Ivy Leagues, you must have gone somewhere that allowed you to build a network. You're that private school person and that puts you in the position to be wealthy. But when we actually look at the numbers, that's not the case.

[Bo Hansen]

Yeah, I love this because this is one of those things I found when I was started. You know, if you read any of the books out there, like the Millionaire next door, everyday Millionaires, I love that we kind of get to echo these things by even interviewing and surveying our clients. You find out is that what you perceive is, is often wrong. And education is one of those. If you look at this, 76% of our clients went K through 12 in public education. Even the college they went to, 61% were public universities.

[Brian Preston]

Now there are some that went to private schools, but it's not the vast majority. A lot of folks just went to the same education as a lot of you out there. That was what their upbringing was. They didn't have to go out and get hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt going into some prestigious university to get some prestigious degree to be able to attain wealth. That was not the track that they went on. And we don't think that that's necessary for you. If you're someone who's sending your students off to college or if you're someone who's in college or thinking about pursuing higher education, we do not think it's a necessity to go out and have some crazy, expensive, crazy debt riddled education in order to be able to attain success. It's why we talk about when you do go out to take out state of loans, we want you to follow the first year financing rule, meaning that whatever you accumulate in student loan debt, we don't want you to have more than what you anticipate your first year's salary can be. So if your first year salary coming out of school for an accountant in the 90s was $28,000, which we would not want your total student loan debt to be more than 28,000.

[Bo Hansen]

Well, I think this is where a lot of people, because those first two slides, the net worth, the income, it's going to be somewhat of a, it's going to be polarizing. Whereas I love that we're going to kind of build this thing up from the foundation now of education and show no, these people are a lot more like us than you probably realize. And the first is on student loans because a Lot of people you're going to say, well these are all silver spoons, they must have just, just had it given to them. No, we found out that our clients, 52% of them actually had to use student loans to get through college. So yes, they're just like us, they're having to go get student loans to make it through college. But that now ask us question, did they follow the money guy rules before the money got rules even existed? Because a lot of these people are now the age that this is just good instincts. And yes, we found out that 74% of our clients actually followed the first year financing rule. And if they had student loans, they made sure they kept them below the balance of what their first year salary was going to be.

[Brian Preston]

I think it's the idea that they were, they intuitively recognized, man, I don't want to be carrying this debt load into my career. I don't want to drag this education along with me for years or even decades into the future. So not only were they forward looking, they were also beginning with the end in mind. We asked them this question. For the job that you have now or for the vocation that you pursued, does it align with your field of study, the degree that you went out and got? And when we asked our clients, we found out that 76% of our clients, three out of four of them actually work in a field related to their field of study. Meaning the degree that they got in college matches up what they do for a living.

[Bo Hansen]

Well now this is where, look, this one breaks my heart because I love education. I've often felt like it was holding the ladder of opportunity to make you a better version of yourself. And our clients are the best version of that, showing that 76% of them are actually working in their field of study. Unfortunately, if you look at the general public, only 27% of the typical American works in their field of study. So that means a lot of people something that should be a benefit to you and make you a better version of yourself. For a lot of you, it's creating a trap. You're ending up with all of the bad stuff, the student loans, the high interest rates, and then you're just not getting the benefit if you're not even working in the field of study. Guys, this is why we got to tell you, if you're going to make sure education is going to be an amplifier of your wealth building journey, be a good allocator of resources. I want you to make sure. And by the way, a lot of you, maybe year passes Think about this for your kids, think about this for your relatives. Think about this for your neighbors down the street. Pay this knowledge forward. Don't go to college unless you know what you're going to do and where you're going to end up because it's that expensive. Now that you got to be very deliberate with what the purpose and the why is on your cost of education.

[Brian Preston]

Now, I love what you said, Ron. You said that education is the ladder that you can crawl up to change the circumstances to that you're in. And it's a wonderful tool, but it's not a necessity in the same way we talked about the average income for our clients. A big shovel is a wonderful tool, but it's not a necessity in order to build wealth. But I'm going to argue this next one. This one is a necessity. This is something because it is more behavioral. And this is something you can control no matter where you came from, no matter what your shovel looks like. And that's your savings rate. How much you were willing to lean into. The first ingredient of wealth creation, how much you're willing to exercise discipline and defer gratification into the future, will have a direct implication on how wealthy you are able to become and how healthy your savings rate is.

[Bo Hansen]

Now, for my very detail oriented people, when we use, because this is part of our personalities, when we say savings, we're using that interchangeably with also investing to a large degree. So this means this is your army of dollars that you're putting to work so that you don't have to work so hard in the future with your brain, your back, or your hands. And I'm happy to report if you look at the data of our millionaire clients, 71% of our working abound clients save greater than 20%.

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[Brian Preston]

What I love about this is to be a client of abound wealth, you have to have already attained a certain level of investable assets. Well, even though our clients have had financial success and reached financial success, they did not arrive at the conclusion, okay, well, I'm done, I'm finished. I can put that aside. No, those that are working are still committed to deferring gratification and building towards a great big beautiful tomorrow. And I bet if you were to ask them individually, while they might not have started as early or as young as they wanted to, what they would tell you is, I started and I never stopped. I started and I, and I consistently got better at deferring gratification into the future. And I figured out for myself, okay, I need to Save this much money. If I save this much money, then I'll be able to get to the level of wealth I'm trying to achieve.

[Bo Hansen]

Well, a lot of you might be exactly like I was when I graduated college is that I was ambitious and I was trying to maximize every dollar earned, but I just didn't know what I didn't know and I didn't know what I should be doing. So I would encourage you, I want you to go out to moneyguy.com resources and if you're curious how much should you save and invest for the future, we've created a resource where you actually say, here's what your current age is when you think you want to retire and bill and save for financial independence, we'll tell you your savings and investment rate to shoot for based upon actual math that we've done on the back end so you don't have to, you know, spend all those calories of mental horsepower. We've done the homework for you. Take us up on that offer.

[Brian Preston]

So savings rate is this affirmative action that you take? I'm going to actually put effort into doing this thing. And yet most Americans fall short on that. But then there's another action that sometimes we have to, when it comes to wealth building, think about the decisions that we're not making, the consumption decisions that make us as millionaires look different from our peers. And for most folks, the two most expensive things you're ever going to spend money on are automobiles and homes. And so we want to ask, okay, when we think about how our clients pursue those huge purchases, how did they do it and how they think about it, and we found.

[Bo Hansen]

Well, no, what did we find?

[Brian Preston]

We found that 63% of our clients said that for their most recent car they were able to pay cash. So over half of our clients are in the financial situation where they can pay cash for a car today. But that wasn't always the case.

[Bo Hansen]

Yeah, but I think that, look, I want to give the context and then I see where you're taking it, but I want to give the context of the person on the street. 81% of new cars are purchased or financed. And we know that most of those cars are financed for like 70 plus months at least. I mean, it's crazy. So a lot of Americans are taking these big purchases, especially the auto is this is their first step in rewarding themselves. I think about a lot of college kids. I even was talking to somebody and we were talking about the behaviors and like you sacrifice, sacrifice. You go to school, go to School and you get out and you're like, I'm going to reward myself with a new car. But you did this.

[Brian Preston]

Oh, yeah.

[Bo Hansen]

I mean, a lot of people, I've seen so many peers that they think, this is what I'm going to do to show my peers that I'm good.

[Brian Preston]

I finally made it.

[Bo Hansen]

I'm successful, and I've made it. I'm going to go buy a car. And I'm here to tell you this thing is napalm. Instead of you building wealth, you're going to drive your wealth, and that's not successful. Now, I understand if 63% of our clients paid cash, that's for after. They probably had a pot of money behind them. I know when I needed to, in the beginning of my journey, trade my time for wages to build, I needed reliable transportation. So how many of our clients on their first car were just like the general public? If 81% of general publics financing their cars, how many of our clients finance their first car?

[Brian Preston]

Yes. 71% of our clients said that when it came time to buy my first car, I could not pay for it in cash. I had to borrow money. I had to finance.

[Bo Hansen]

So we want people to understand it's okay if you have to use debt to get yourself going to your job, but you better have some foundational rules, because just as quickly as you truly can afford it, we want you paying cash for your vehicles. Cash is always the best way to pay for things that are rapidly depreciating. But if you're in that desperate situation where you need reliable transportation, follow 23eight. And if you've never heard of 23eight, let us explain it to you. 20% down. That way you make sure you actually own a little bit of equity into this car that you're purchasing. You make sure that you don't finance it longer than three years. Look, the dealership, they're going to want to take you out to 84 months. Don't let them do that. They'll say you can afford anything. A few hundred dollars a month. No, three years. That will keep your back pocket in your purse honest and make sure that your payments don't exceed 8% of your gross income. This will keep you safe.

[Brian Preston]

Now, it's not just how you buy the car that matters. It's how you use the car, how you actually consume that purchase. So we asked our clients this question. When you purchase a new car, how long do you drive it? And we found that 83%. The vast majority of our clients, when they Buy a car, they drive it for greater than seven years. They're not the people that are changing out and replacing a brand new car every two to three years.

[Bo Hansen]

Do you see though, this is why we use the term financial mutant, is because you're going to find out that our millionaire clients, just like we process the world a little differently. I bet you're watching a personal finance show right now. You process the world differently. So it's not going to surprise you that 65% of Americans drive cars for five years or less. You heard me say these cars depreciate like a rock. I mean, they go down in value very rapidly. So you're actually rewarded if you drive cars for seven plus years because that means you have less depreciation. You're not making more bad decisions. You're actually just driving these depreciating vehicles longer. There's a lot of success built in that deferred gratification and that consistency of how you use vehicles.

[Brian Preston]

All right, so that's cars. Now let's talk about homes. For most folks, this is often the largest purchase you will ever make in your life. And we know that right now in this country, as we've seen home prices run up and increase, we know that the median home value in the US according to the Federal Reserve is.

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[Bo Hansen]

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[Brian Preston]

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[Bo Hansen]

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[Brian Preston]

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[Bo Hansen]

This is one of those weird distortions is coming from just what's happened in the housing market in the last five years. I think a $700,000 median house probably five years ago was what, $450,000, maybe

[Brian Preston]

even less than that.

[Bo Hansen]

I mean, so that's why it's all. It also depends upon the market you live in. We do have clients that live in high cost of living areas where these houses can go well Beyond a million, $2 million. But I think overall, the important thing is to understand, hey, don't let house is shelter, but you need to be careful how you structure it because it can be such a big, big expense category in your financial housing.

[Brian Preston]

And I think a lot of people are under this impression that, okay, well, houses have gotten so expensive and I know I've got to put 20% down. And I, I just, the house keeps running away. I'm never going to be able to own a home. It's just not realistic in the world in which we live. And so we said, okay, let's ask our, our clients. When you bought your house, when it came time for you to buy your first home and you're finally crossing into home ownership, the home ownership category, what was your down payment? How much did you save? How much you put down? And we found that 79% of our clients, almost 80% of our clients put down less than 20% on their first home. Brad, you put down 20% of your.

[Bo Hansen]

I did not put down 20%.

[Brian Preston]

I did not put down 20% of my first house. And we believe that when you go to buy your first home, you do not have to put 20% down to be able to come into homeownership.

[Bo Hansen]

Yeah, I think hopefully this liberates some of you who might be sitting on the sidelines, you know, for life purposes. It makes sense for you to buy this house for your growing family. And you fear this because you had so many talking heads telling you 20 plus percent forever. And then here you are, you find out that the majority of people who are really good with money put down a lot less than 20%. I think I put down 5% on my first house.

[Brian Preston]

I was three and a half on my.

[Bo Hansen]

So it is one of those things. But also, look, we live in unique time and we've done shows on is it better to buy versus versus rent in this current marketplace and in A lot of cities it's better to the rent and that's one of those things. That's why I would encourage you don't feel like you have to get pressured into this. I wouldn't. I want you to go out to, to moneyguy.com resources. Once again, we have a home buying calculator. We also have home buying checklists so you can go through and figure out if you go through the decision matrix. Does this even make sense based upon how often I'm moving for my job or my lifestyle? Go use these tools and resources to know that you're living your best life and not forcing the decision.

[Brian Preston]

All right, Brian, so we've talk about their net worth, we've talked about our clients income, we've talked about how they were educated, we talked about their large major purchases. But now let's talk a little bit about their mindset and their plan because you guys know, if you've listened to us for any amount of time, we've come up with a financial order of operations. Brady, hold me.

[Bo Hansen]

I got it here somewhere. Come on. There it is. There it is.

[Brian Preston]

It is our nine step process to help you understand what to do with your next dollar. And the way that we were able to develop the financial order of operations was both through our personal experiences building our own wealth as well as our professional experiences interacting with clients who've been able to build wealth. And so said, okay, let's put this to the test. How do our clients perceive and how did they actually realistically live through the financial order of operations? Because wealthy folks, folks who've been able to build wealth understand the value of what you're doing with your dollars and what you're not doing with your dollars. So we said, okay, let's figure out right off the bat one of the very early steps, the financial order of operations is high interest debt. It's step number three. And a lot of Americans fall into this trap. I think the average credit card balance carried from month to month right now is right around $6,000 carried over where you're paying putative interest rates. So we asked our wealthy clients question number one, do you use credit cards? Some people out there would suggest don't ever use credit cards. You just don't get them, you don't use them. We don't fall into that camp. And we found that over 97% of our clients, almost all of them said, yeah, we use credit cards, we get points, we get cash back, we use them as a tool in our financial tool belt.

[Bo Hansen]

But 99% say, you know, because remember, we always say credit card use A. Okay, credit card debt, meaning we're paying it off every month. No way. We do not want to have it. Now, look, I'll be honest. When I saw this one, I was like, who in the world is here at Abound wealth is carrying credit card debt. I don't know why this number is not 100%, but if you get enough people in a population, you're always going to have the crazy outliers. So I guess I'll take 99%, but that number should be 100%. That's not me, that's not you, that's not anybody, hopefully, who's here on staff. I want you to aspire to be 100% debt free on credit card debt.

[Brian Preston]

So one of the questions is, okay, well, why are they able to. Why don't your clients have to have credit card debt? Why don't they get themselves into that pickle where they have to swipe the card to cover some costs they could not afford? And the answer is, because they understand the financial order of operations.

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Right?

[Brian Preston]

Hold it up for me one more time. They know that in step four, one of the, again, the early stages to have a fully funded emergency reserve, that thing that prevents you from being derailed by life's unknown unknowns. We found that 93% of our clients, 93% of our clients have a fully funded emergency fund. They know that no matter what comes their way, they have enough liquid capital to be able to bridge the gap between what's going on today and what they hope to be going on in the future when they get through that hiccup.

[Bo Hansen]

And remember, emergency reserves are so important in the financial order of operations. It's not just one step. It's step one and it's step four. So don't sleep on that. That's what's going to protect you from making desperate decisions. That's what's going to keep you so that you're grounded and have peace of mind so you don't even mess up stuff that's going on in your investments later in time. Because, you know, hey, even if I lost my job, I'm going to be okay. And I'm not going to have to do crazy things with either my portfolio or having to rely on credit card debts or do anything that's going to get me in a bad financial situation.

[Brian Preston]

And look, we keep referencing it. If you want to know more about the financial order of operations, go to moneyguide.com resources and you can download your very free copy. You can download your very own free copy.

[Bo Hansen]

Could be your first and your. And your free copy.

[Brian Preston]

It could be your first and your free. It can even be your laminated copy if you laminate it. So we want you to understand that there is a better way to do money. We've helped build the plan for what that should look like. And our clients, they figured that out. They've actually lived that in reality. So we said, okay, now let's focus a little bit on their mindset. We know what they did tactically. We know how they approach handling their money. But who are they? When you get inside of their minds and you think about when they figured out how personal finance works? And so we just asked this question. At what age did personal finance become serious for you? At what age did you start figuring out how money works and how you should interact with it? And we found that 58% of our clients got serious about their personal finances before age 30.

[Bo Hansen]

Yeah, remember, I've already kind of talked about that. Our clients see the financial world differently. We see the world differently. You're watching personal finance, financial finance content, so you also see the world differently. These are all indicators that you might be a financial mutant. And I love it when people discover the power of compounding growth. And early and often is your best friend. And that's why we often talk about what's called the wealth multiplier. And this is kind of the thing. Y' all know my journey on becoming wealthy was, is being the poor kid sitting in my economics class in high school. And Mr. Morrow told me, if I could save $100 a month, he told the whole class, $100 a month, y' all would all be millionaires. And I was working fast food, and I was like, holy cow, I can do this. What seemed impossible now was sitting right before me. You, too, can build wealth beyond your wildest imagination if you understand that your money can actually work harder than you can. What I think people would be shocked to find out is that when you reach actual financial independence, if you put your army of dollars to work early and often, between 77 to 95% of your total account value at retirement is probably going to be the growth of those assets. I would encourage you go to moneyguy.com resources. We have calculators, we have resources like this. You can actually put in what you have. You can put in what your age is and see how powerful every dollar you have can be for your future.

[Brian Preston]

Now, I want to pause real quick, because maybe you're out there listening to this, and maybe you're not younger than 30. I mean, we, we all understand conceptually that the earlier we save, the better, and that the absolute best time to start investing and saving would have been yesterday, which makes today by default, the second best time. But I want you to hear these numbers. We said that a vast majority, 52% of our clients or 58% of our clients figured out before 30. But listen to this. Even for clients that work with us today, 20% of them found out in their. They figured out personal finance in the early 30s, 12% in their late 30s, and there was still another 7% that didn't figure out to the 40s. So maybe this is the first time you're seeing this. Maybe this is the first time that you're interacting with this content. It's okay even if you're that 40 year old. Every dollar that you save has the potential to turn into $7 by the time that you retire. But you have to start today. If you've delayed, if you haven't caught the bug yet, make sure that you catch it and your future self will. Thank you for beginning to take it seriously.

[Bo Hansen]

I want to bring it back to something that was said at the beginning. How your story begins does not define how it ends. And I think for a lot of you, I grew up in a household where I was told constantly, you know, the way you get wealthy is you have to be born into it, that the system's kind of stacked against those that don't come from money. And I remember when I read, you know, I had the Mr. I had the morrow moment where he told me $100 a month. That's where I understood compounding growth. But it wasn't in until I read the Millionaire Next Door by Dr. Stanley and Danko that I quickly learned that, you know what 80% of millionaires are first generation. And then once you know it, that we Fast forward the 30 years into my career and we're interviewing our own clients and we find out that just like the 80% that Dr. Stanley shared back in the mid-90s, we find out 74% of our clients, also our first generation, meaning they didn't inherit this money. It came from them doing the hard work of deferred gratification, being disciplined, saving a little bit today to build your great big beautiful tomorrow. You can do this too, if you

[Brian Preston]

even just think about the math. We said that the median net worth of our clients is about $2.5 million. That means that if 74% of our folks received an inheritance of less than $25,000. That inheritance likely represents less than 1% of their total wealth. These are folks who understand how money works, and they have a mindset that just because I'm in a situation today does not mean that I'm going to have to be in that situation tomorrow, that I get to take a part in controlling what my future looks like. And we believe, and we've always kind of anecdotally believed this, that our clients and the folks we interact with, they generally think that opportunity is going to be in my side, that tomorrow will likely look better than today, that I have the ability to impact my future positive. So we asked our clients, hey, when you think about your mindset and the way that you view the world and the way that you think about opportunities, would you describe yourself as an optimist who always sees the glass half full or as a pessimist who always sees the glass half empty? And we found that 82% of our clients, from a mindset perspective, they would consider themselves and identify themselves as being optimists versus being pessimists.

[Bo Hansen]

And that, once again, is a separation from the general public, because unfortunately, there's a lot of people out in the general public that classify themselves as pessimistic. And I get it. Look, if you watch the nightly news, the whole. And I even put it in the book Millionaire Mission when I wrote it is if it bleeds, it leads. It seems like the news media has also discovered, hey, if we create something that makes you feel on edge or scared or that there's a catastrophic thing coming your way, they'll keep your eyes and ears that much more peeled. It is so hard to work against the current. But I'm here to tell you guys, these are exciting times. There's going to be lots of opportunity for you to build wealth, to let your money work harder than you can. You just kind of have to see through the noise. And that's what we've tried to create, a safe space for you to come get the best education out there in the marketplace. And our goal is to help you really maximize the abundance cycle. And what is the abundance cycle is that I have literally, Bo and I have created an entire platform for you to learn our concepts, grow through them, and then apply them. And once you create so much success that your simple life that seemed like all you had to do was know your right savings rate, you had to put that money to work, all of a sudden, your life becomes complex. You're thinking about taxes, you're thinking about retirement planning, you're thinking about education planning, you think about insurance and all the things you just don't know what you don't know. We're going to leave the porch light on for you and I want you to consider maximizing the abundance cycle to the next level by becoming a client of the firm. We do work with clients all across the country and we'd love for you to give us a chance to show you why we where that special. I'm your host Brian, joined by Mr. Bo. You too can be part of our next Millionaire study.

[Money Guy Show Narrator]

Money Guy out the Money Guy show is hosted by Brian Preston and Bo Hansen. Brian and Beau are partners with Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the securities and Exchange Commission. In accordance and compliance with the securities laws and regulations, Abound Wealth Management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through the Money Guy Show. The information provided is for informational purposes only, may not be suitable for all investors, and does not constitute financial, tax, investment or legal advice. All investments involve a degree of risk, including the risk of loss.

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