Robert (3:02)

Very cool. And Public is a FINRA registered SIPC insured US based company with a customer support team that actually cares. So the bottom line is your investments deserve a platform that takes them as seriously as you do. So fund your account in five minutes or less at public.com rich habits and get up to $10,000 when you transfer your old portfolio. That's public.comfront/rich Habits paid for by Public Investing. Full disclosures in the podcast Description let's.

Austin (3:34)

Jump into our first question coming from Philip B. From inside of the Rich Habits Network. As a quick reminder, if you have a question to ask us, email us at rich habits podcastmail.com Send us a DM on Instagram @ Rich Habits Podcast or join the Rich Habits Network and ask it inside of there. This question is titled Time Warp Investing. Philip says if you can go back in time, say 10 years or so, and give yourself two tips or two pieces of advice or two mindset changes, what would they be as it relates to investing and how would that advice have helped you from then until now? I love this question Robert. It's not so like tactical, but it's more like just reflection based, which is kind of the theme for this episode. So why don't you take a stab at this one first?

Robert (4:17)

My tip number one is never listen to people who who are not qualified to give you advice on a topic of investing. And the number two for me is always go with your gut. So many people that play it safe in life, whether they're an engineer or a school teacher or a mechanic, they're always wanting to give their opinions of what you shouldn't do because they don't do any of it. If your gut tells you something is right for you, then you should always go for it because the outside world, even your closest friends and family do not know what you feel inside. They don't understand how tenacious you are or what you're looking to build for your life. So don't let other people tell you that. And number three, that's kind of my bonus. My pro tip would be building wealth is a long term play. So everyone listening, stop thinking in weeks and months and think in years when building your wealth. And I would say those are the three most important tips I can guide someone with of what I've gone through, but also how to help themselves.

Austin (5:23)

I like those a lot. I think my first one from a mindset perspective is you really, really, really don't have to keep up with the Joneses. I fell victim to that. When I graduated college. I was making about 65,000 a year. I felt like I had the right to go buy a cool Lexus. I was paying $440 a month with a car payment. My monthly insurance was 2. I was driving this car. It felt amazing. But I didn't have enough money in my budget to max out my Roth ira. So it's like, what am I doing right? What priorities am I really focused on here? And obviously I had the wrong one. Trying to impress people I didn't really care too much about, or rather that didn't care much about me. So that was the first step that I took toward leading a life of like, just being content with like, what I have and, like, really happy with my situation and like, just everything. I don't always have to have more and more and more and more and more. So I think like, that's like the first piece of advice I would give myself is like, the quicker you can forget about impressing people and having this, like, I need to buy this or own this or look like this to be happy. The quicker you're going to be happy. And then when it comes to investing, oh, my goodness, I wish I could go back to high school Austin and say, forget about the penny stocks. Forget about the random companies on the Yahoo Finance boards. Forget about the random little things over here and there. You're never going to make money off those. Do not waste your time. I remember there was a hearing aid company my friend told me about in college. I think it was at 9 cents a share. And I was like, dude, I'm gonna go buy a thousand shares of these things for like 90 bucks or whatever and it's gonna go to 10 bucks a share and I'll turn my dollar 90 into 10 grand. I'm gonna be rich. That obviously didn't happen. I lost my money and it was stupid. They never happen that way. They Never work out. We always have these like crazy get rich quick ideas, but it's not. The sooner you realize that there is no get rich quick scheme. It's a get rich sl. The sooner you realize that, the faster you will be able to get rich. Because that means less time is wasted trying to get rich quick, if that makes sense.

Robert (7:26)

It makes total sense to me. And I think we should put that on a shirt because we talk about it so much and everyone thinks that investing is getting rich quick and it just isn't. And that's why we're always trying to help people understand the distinction of who they are. Are you a gambler or are you an investor? Because so many people think they're investing when they're gambling on a meme stock or they're trying to pick out these penny stocks to get rich. I mean, that's a wish and a prayer. You might as well go to the casino and play blackjack or play poker or something like that, because that's gambling. And do we love getting, you know, in on some of these high flyers and taking some risks? Yes. But generally you want to build that base, have your diversity first before you start taking on these really high risk investments. And you'll be a lot better off in the long run. That's why so many people go broke multiple times throughout their careers until they learn how to be real investors instead of gamblers.

Austin (8:21)

So our next question comes from inside the Rich Habits network from Muzaffar K. This is titled how do I advertise my small business? Muzaffar asks, how are you guys marketing your small businesses and what strategies are you using especially to market locally? Robert, I know you have a lot of small business experience. I'll let you kick this one off.

Robert (8:41)

Yeah, I love it. This is a great question. And a lot of companies and business owners struggle with it because they think that the grassroots simple strategies just won't move the needle. And they couldn't be more incorrect. I don't want to say wrong, but incorrect for me. Small businesses, what works for us today, right now, as we film next door advertising, you can put, you know, find a geographical area that you want to pinpoint and advertise in that neighborhood. I love next door. You can spend $10 a day in test, see how you're doing, see what kind of outreach you get and what kind of response you get in conversion. I like that you can go old school. I love flyering local areas. You can go to one of these places like next day, flyer, buy a thousand you know, of these really nice, colorful flyers, go out and have somebody go to every business and say, hey, we're new to the area. We'd love to give you 10% off your next visit, come see us and do that. That works really well also. But then also beating the street through Facebook, Instagram and TikTok for certain businesses, especially Facebook and Instagram, it is really, really powerful, especially if you're connecting well with your audience. And that's pretty easy to do for most business types. So those are my favorite. But nothing could be better than finding a way, especially if it's a technology business, to get an email list started. If you can collect emails through your shopping cart or maybe through your marketing and say, hey, join our email database for all of our quarterly specials, that is a great way because then you can have all the touch points you need with the client base to be able to grow your business.

Austin (10:27)

I love those answers. And I think in this specific situation with Muzaffar, he had mentioned in the question that he has a technology support business. I wonder if there's a world where, if it's a tech support business or some sort of like services related business, if you can do some of these services for a discount or even for free, to have clear case studies and say this was the problem our customer experienced here, the solutions we implemented and this is the type of positive impact it had on their business and post about that, share about that. And it kind of goes back to like how people answer interview questions like the Star method, right? So it's like, what happened and what were the results? And so I think with Muzaffar's question, if you're a services oriented business and you're offering consulting or marketing or technology support business, this was someone's reality, here's what we did to change it and here's how it positively impacted their business. Let us know how we can do it to your business too. Having those clear one, two, threes I think are really important because to Robert's point, you're driving eyeballs with this online marketing. But once those eyeballs get there, they have to convert into customers somehow. And if you have clear parameters and examples of how you've been able to help people, I think that conversion rate goes up exponentially.

Robert (11:40)

And before you spend a single dime on everything we're discussing here, do your research. You would be shocked at how much you could learn off of YouTube, podcasts and everything else. Just trying to figure out what is the best strategy for your business. Generally as a small Business, especially locally, it is much easier to convert because you can have a face to face with this client base and it's just very important to understand what you're getting yourself into. But look at emails, look at nextdoor Facebook, Instagram and flyering. I know flyering seems antiquated, but I promise you it works when you go to someone's door or you go to their business and say, hey, you know, we're new to the area, here's what we do. We'd love your support. It is such a really, really good way to convert customers.

Austin (12:27)

Our next question comes from Shia shaya says I'm 24 and doing my master's in aerospace engineering and engineering management at Colorado. I'm fortunate that my tuition and living expenses are paid for while I'm a student. So the small amount of income I earn from being a graduate teaching assistant goes towards maxing out my Roth ira, saving for my future and spending on leisure. I currently have $15,000 in my Roth IRA and 30,000 across my brokerage account and high yield savings accounts. My question is this. I currently live in Colorado, but plan to move back to my home state of California graduation. Like you guys have said, I have this big dream of buying an investment property as early as I can afford it and my sister said she's even willing to go 5050 with me on a down payment. I have two and a half years of schooling left in Colorado and I think it'd be a good idea to buy in Colorado while I'm still in school instead of waiting until I move back to California where it'll be more expensive. But if I were to look for an investment property at this stage of my wealth building journey, it would have to be very small and very cheap. Should I just wait until I move back to California when I'm earning more money and I can a nicer property? How do you guys think I should approach this? I'll kick this one off. So first off, really cool job. You've done 15,000 at 24 in your Roth IRA. You've got 30,000 saved up and invested in your bridge account and your high yield savings. Like you're doing a really cool thing. And I think that is way more than I had at your age. I mean you got, you're really crushing it here at 24. The piece of advice I'd give you is this and I'll let Robert talk more tactically about the property. You are an aerospace engineer, you know, master's degree engineering management. I mean I guarantee you this Master's degree will make you a quarter million dollars a year salary in 10 years. You need to be focused on being the best teaching assistant you can be, getting the best grades you can get, getting that internship, making connections and being a top tier student instead of focused on buying a subpar investment property that's likely not going to cash flow that much and might not appreciate that because it's a subpar property. Like the ROI on brain calories, in my opinion is just so much higher being a aerospace engineer and getting your master's degree and being a top tier student than spending 6, 8, 10, 12 hours a week worrying every single week about this property, repairing it, keeping it up to date, finding the tenant. Like, go spend that time, energy and focus and brain calories on furthering your career. That's going to have way more upside potential than this investment property.

Robert (14:59)

I love it. You crushed it. So I'm going to add a little bit more. You hear us talk and anyone in this situation that's watching this episode, you hear us talk all the time about building your base. Now I love the sentiment of getting out there and buying real estate early on, but the problem is for Shia here, she doesn't have her base built. So right now, with only $15,000 saved, you could put yourself in harm's way to where you vacate all of your capital trying to get this property up and running. So for me, it's always the same. Build your base, get that hundred thousand dollars saved and invested first. Then you can consider going back and looking at buying real estate because Austin nailed it. You do not want to go buy some small crappy property with 2 to 3% capital appreciation if any, year over year. Because not only is your mind share going to be wasted on this property because the opportunity for it and the upside appreciation is not going to be there, but it's just going to take away from your main focus and that is getting to a point where you're a high earner, which you're going to be very soon. So I think it's very important to understand love that you're thinking about real estate. I'm not trying to beat down the prospect of it, but you're not ready. A lot of people want to start out in real estate and they go out and buy a duplex or a single family home, which is worse. You're not ready. Get your money built up, focus on your earnings, focus on the schooling and then come back to real estate in a couple of years.

Austin (16:30)

Totally agree. If you graduate, let's Call it two and a half years from now. You're working, you're making 1000-001201-40150. I just read online, seven years of experience is about 200,000 for these aerospace engineers, depending on where they work. So, you know, we fast forward half a decade. You've got your base built. You've got a wonderful down payment. You've been doing a lot of research the last call, year or two into real estate, and you're feeling really good about maybe where in Colorado or where in California you want to invest. That's wonderful. You're still going to be like literally early 30s, late 20s when you do this, right? So you are still way ahead of your peers, but you're doing it from a place of strength. You're doing it from a place of, you know, your base is built, you've got your money invested, you've done a lot of research, right. You're not doing it from a place of, oh, my gosh, if this goes wrong, I now have to go into credit card debt or go take out a loan. And, like, you don't want to do any of that stuff. Plus, I'm assuming you also have student loans to figure out as well. Really good question, Shia. We're rooting for you and we appreciate you following along and listening to the show. So our next question comes from Zaid. Zayd says. Hello, guys, my name is Zaid and I more recently started tuning in and it's a very helpful podcast. I was wondering if I were to buy a small business with my friend in the next two or three years, for example, a pizza shop. Do I quit my 7 to 3 job to run it full time? And when time comes and I want to acquire another small business, would I have to sell this one and then use that money to go buy another one, or do I franchise? I'm really new to this stuff and I'm trying to learn as much as possible, but I just don't really have a good understanding as of right now what to do. Sorry if this was worded poorly. So many questions are going through my head. Love the show.

Robert (18:10)

I love it.

Austin (18:11)

Let's just ramble for like five to seven minutes for Zayd. He's got all these questions, all these ideas. Let's just, you know, throw the kitchen sink at them.

Robert (18:18)

Well, Zade, you're asking one of the best people on earth to answer this question. Peoples, the two of us, because we both own businesses. I happen to own pizza shops. I've been in the restaurant game for over 30 years. So here's the deal. Most of the volume in a restaurant, especially a pizza store, is done at night and weekends. So guess what? I wouldn't quit the 7 to 3 job because you can find one of your managers or your partners to run the daily operations in the lunch hour. Not as many people buy pizza for lunch. And then you can keep the job, keep the revenue till you really flush out where you're at with the pizza store. And for your other part of your question is, should I then sell that one to get another one? Why? If it's profitable and it's doing well and you've got your processes in order, you figured it all out, you know how to run this thing perfectly. Now, why not buy another business? You don't need to sell one to buy another. You're just going to add to your team. Just like I did early on and just like I do every day, when I see an opportunity, I look for a partner or someone to help me grow it because I can't be everywhere. So I think that's very, very important to understand. And then thirdly, your goal should want to be get 2, 3, 4, 5, maybe more businesses over the next five years that you can then get a regional manager. You can have someone be maybe an operating partner for you, and then you can have a whole portfolio of businesses so then you never have to look back and you can grow these businesses, grow your wealth, and not have to have that 7 to 3 job.

Austin (19:51)

I think that's a great breakdown. So I think with the 7 to 3 job, I totally agree with what Robert's saying here, right? Like, if you can buy a small business, hire employees, hire a manager, do whatever you can do to automate the business away from you. That's a great thing to do, even if it eats a little bit too deep into the profit margins. You know, the mistake people make is they buy a small business or they start a small business and they quit their job before it's profitable, before it's even generating revenue, before it's scaled, before they've hired the right people, and now they're going all in on this business that isn't even paying them what they were making at their previous job. So they're working for 2, 3, $4 an hour, essentially, and it's just a recipe for disaster. So, Zayd, if I were you, I think the three things I'd look out for are one, to buy an established business. Two, I would make sure that I have a partner or a manager or Someone in place that can really take over the day to day the business, even if it means paying them so much above original expectations that you're not profiting too much in the beginning. And then depending on what those profits begin to shape up as, you can just do a quick analysis and say, hey, if this manager didn't work anymore and I was the manager, how much would we save with the business? How much more in profits would we make? You know, what does that time, you know, equate to from a compensation perspective for me? And then to your point, Robert, about like buying the next one and selling it and all that other fun stuff? I mean, yeah, like once you figured out the process of really making sure that this specific business, if it's a pizza shop, if it's a, you know, tire shop, if it's whatever. Right. There's totally different things you can do once you figure that out. Just copy and paste the same protocol onto the next one. You're going to learn a lot, I'm sure, in the first 24 to 36 months. Make sure you're taking notes, make sure you're writing these things down and not making the same mistakes twice. Whenever you now go purchase this next business, you know, call it in the next two, three or four years.

Robert (21:48)

Yeah, I would say one of the best sweet spots you can find yourself in, especially if you're doing franchising or you want to build a portfolio of ownership, is to get to that five to seven unit situation in your portfolio. And here's why. You can hire real talent, because you're going to need to have someone that can help you with marketing, operations, the finances, all of the above. And that is why most people that own one business, if they're trying to grow, they struggle because that one business cannot withstand the payroll to hire a team. But if you get the three, four, five or seven businesses, then you can have a team around you. And that's when it gets really, really fun. And there's nothing wrong with owning one business. Many people build wealth around one business, but you need to make sure that if you're going to buy multiple businesses like pizza shops, that you can build a team over time to be able to help you.

Austin (22:39)

Yeah, I think that owning one business versus multiple businesses. Right. It's like I've never owned a pizza shop. Robert, you've owned several, but I would imagine a single pizza shop isn't going to make $5 million a year in revenue. And if it's operating at, let's call it a 10% net margin and you're doing 500,000 a year in revenue. That's $50,000 a year in like net profits to you as the owner. The people that make, and I know there's a recent Wall Street Journal article about this, I think it was like H Vac repair people and plumbers and electricians and things like that. The people that make retirement money off this stuff are ones that have scaled a service based business into multiple regions, multiple cities, multiple states, and they've got tons of employees, tons of locations. It's just super scalable versus like a one single shop and you're waiting on like foot traffic to come buy something from you. So just keep that in mind as you like continue to, I guess, think about the different types of small businesses. You mentioned pizza shop, maybe that's something you're really passionate about and you love creating food and like starting cuisines and things like that. Or maybe it's a service based business or something of that nature. It's just really important to understand the total addressable market and like the scalability of it versus you know, like for example, a pizza shop might be half a million, where like an H Vac repair shop could be 5 million or 7 million. So like understanding those differences and having those same margins is just really important.

Robert (24:04)

And that's a great point too, because if you look at an individual business, whether it's a pizza shop, a barber shop, a tire shop, like you mentioned Austin, it's okay to own one if you're going to be the owner operator, but if you're going to be an investor, then it's a little more difficult because you're going to have to have someone operate it for you. So make sure everyone listening understands that distinction because you might say, wow, if I could own this one pizza store that's down the street from my house that I'm going to buy because the owner's retiring and I can make $80,000 a year and be proud and own my own business, that might be a sweet spot and an incredible life for a lot of people. But if you're an investor and you're going to have to pay other people to run things for you, that's where the economies of scale come in.

Austin (24:48)

Our next question comes from Soha. A. Soha says. Hi, Austin and Robert. My name is Soha and I've started listening to your podcast and I find it quite helpful in my personal financial planning and investing decisions. Bonus season is here and I wanted to ask what portion of my bonus would you recommend contributing to my 401k. For context, I'm almost 29 years old. I make 100,000 a year. I usually contribute 6% to my 401 for my salary, but last year that changed down to 5% because I was struggling to keep up with inflation. I also want to minimize the tax implication by contributing the right amount to my 401k. Any advice is greatly appreciated. So let's set the table real quick for our listeners. This 401k is a pre tax 401k. They didn't say Roth, they said 401k, which means any amount of money that you contribute to this 401k directly lowers your taxable income for the year. So if you made $150,000 and you contributed 10,000 to 401k, you now really just made 140,000 and that's what you pay taxes on. Right. So that's what SOHA here was a little bit alluding to at the end. What would I do? That's tough. So I guess a couple questions I'd want to know, slash reflect upon before I made this decision, if I were you. So hot. The first one is, and Robert and I talk about this all the time, 401ks can be very deceiving when it comes to, oh yeah, I'm just kind of throwing money in there. I'm going to be rich eventually. I'm feeling good. I've seen so many 401ks, countless 401ks that are invested absolutely terribly with like 2 to 3% annual performance that are just underperforming like crazy because people don't know what they're invested into and they automatically get thrown into some random international stocks or some bonds that underperform or some small cap names that go down, like whatever. So the first question I have for you, Soha, is do you have autonomy over your 401k to choose your investments? Which means can you take your contribution and go invest it in the S&P 500, go invest it in the NASDAQ or, you know, different ETFs that we talk about. If that's the case, then it's really up to you how much you want to invest. It's of course a balance between figuring out how much you actually got in a bonus versus how much you have in there. If you have any high interest debt, you want to pay that off first. You mentioned you're struggling with inflation. Maybe there's a little bit of like credit card debt hanging around. But I think the biggest thing to Consider here is is if you do not have Autonomy over your 401k, I would be weary to make a big contribution. I'd rather see you max out your Roth IRA and invest it via a individual brokerage account on public.com that's exactly.

Robert (27:26)

Where I was going with this. I'd want to see so hard 29 years old, get that traditional brokerage account up and running. The bridge count that we talk about. I'd want to see some of these funds, maybe 5% of the investable capital going into a crypto portfolio. So you have some diversity there. All of these things I think are important to make sure that you have integrated at 29 years old into your thesis, your strategy for your retirement and building wealth. So I think you nailed it Austin. And the main thing to remember Here is the 401k is not the end all be all. Especially because they generally underperform the markets and the things we talk about. So make sure you understand it, see if you have autonomy, revisit it and try to figure out what is the best strategy for you. Get the bridge account up and running, look at some cryptocurrency as part of your portfolio and I think you'll do great. So before we jump into this two year montage of everything we're so excited and so proud about, listen up folks. Time could be running out to lock in a 6% or higher yield at public.com you can lock in a 6% or higher yield with a bond account, but remember, your yield is not locked in until time of purchase, so you might want to act fast. Lock in a 6% or higher yield with a diversified portfolio of high yield and investment grade corporate bonds. Only at public.com forward/rich habits and Robert.

Austin (28:51)

We'Ve seen some volatility so far this year. It was One of our three main market predictions for 2025. Volatility, volatility, volatility. If you are someone who's looking to lock in some recurring income, a public bond portfolio is a really great way to do that. Lock in some gains and let them ride off into the sunset. Robert, I am so excited to now reflect upon the last two years of this show. So let's break things down for everyone as to what they can quickly expect. Robert and I are going to share our favorite guests from over the years and some of our biggest learnings from them. Some really important episodes that if you've not yet listened to, you should go back and watch some of our favorite quotes as we've kind of just come up with. With throughout the last two years. And then both Robert and myself's favorite moments that have happened because of the show. So, Robert, now that we have been podcasters for two whole years, it is just. It is unbelievable to think about. I mean, I remember the first. I think it was 13 episodes. It was audio only. I was in my bedroom just recording episodes. You were in Colorado. We had just met. And it was. It was wild because we were just like, let's go on Amazon. Let's go find some microphones and just hit record on Riverside. And some of these episodes were just. They were awesome. Right? We started with becoming the first millionaire in your family. We talked about buying that first rental property, building an investment portfolio from scratch. A lot of these episodes in 2023. That first off, no one listened to, by the way. No one listened to the show until, like, seriously, I mean, we started in February. No one really listened until, like, August. Right. So we were just talking to the Internet for no one to. No one to care for the longest time. And it was just so cool to see how some of that momentum turned into some incredible interviews and some really, really incredible takeaways.

Robert (30:37)

Yeah, it has been a really, really cool journey. And I think back to those first episodes. We were getting to know each other. We were putting some good information out. And one of my favorite parts of all of that when talking about the beginning is to help other people realize everyone starts somewhere and you have to be willing to put in the work because success does not happen overnight. So important. And another part of this that is really, really cool for me and you, Austin. We film remotely. We don't have a big fancy studio. We don't have a team of 10 people around making sure everything is perfect. And it really is a testament that it's all about the information and the delivery and the value we bring to the audience. And that is what is so incredibly rewarding. We've had so many great memories. Even this week as we film one of our episodes being top five on all of Spotify, when Joe Rogan has the top three spots, that's just mind blowing to me. Of the millions and millions of episodes and podcasts out there, we're in the top five. Just two guys putting great information out, building a community from our desks, and it's just so rewarding and so incredible. I couldn't not be any happier that you and I met and you DM me that one random day two and a half years ago, and now here we are. It's just incredible.

Austin (32:01)

So Robert, let's kick things off with our favorite guests. I think our first guest was George Camel. He was from the Dave Ramsey Network. He came in to talk about something we hate, which is the Iuls. He came in, talk about the whole life insurance and demystify all that stuff for everyone. It was a great, great convers. We also heard from candice nelson, episode 49. Right. She was the founder of Sprinkles. She sold it for millions of dollars to some private equity firms. But, you know, a big takeaway for her was that you don't need to have the exact expertise to go start something. You and your spouse or your business partner can just learn in real time and grow and figure this stuff out. We also heard from jay Jacobs from iShares. Right. We love bringing on these experts that are able to talk with you all and share with you all some of, like, the big Wall street takeaways and themes and ideas that the people who have billions and trillions of dollars are thinking about when it comes to the markets.

Robert (32:57)

Yeah. And I love the episodes with John, who and also Sahil Bloom. I thought they were really, really insightful and incredible. So that was a lot of fun as well. But also, we've had so many great guests, but people always ask, why do we not do guests for every episode? And I think it's a very reasonable question. And I always tell people it's because we want to make sure that we control the narrative of the show and make sure to bring as much value as possible. So we're very, very selective on who comes on the show, because I feel a lot of podcasts, they're forced to have a guest for every episode, and that can cut down on the quality of the episode because it's hard to have a guest every single time. So I love what we've done with the guests, and I can't wait to announce some of our new guests coming up.

Austin (33:44)

Speaking of quality guests, we cannot forget Harley Finkelstein, the president of Shopify. That episode last year was insane. I mean, really just want to encourage people to go listen to that one. Especially if you're a budding entrepreneur or someone who's trying to start a small business or sell on Shopify or, like, go do that thing you're passionate about. Harley's episode was amazing. And same thing with John. John's episode was incredible. Sahil Bloom's episode was very much more for, like, the average person who's trying to build their mental wealth and their physical wealth and their wealth wealth. Right. The five Types of wealth. It was just. Man, I just get goosebumps talking about this stuff. Oh, and then Jeremy Schneider from Personal Finance Club on Instagram, he came in and he was able to tell us about how he sold his company for, like, $6 million and how he's taken this super easy approach to investing. He's like, listen, guys, I don't want to use any brain calories. I'm in the big VTIs and VOOs, and that's just kind of what I'm up to. So I think, you know, it's just so cool to hear from all different people and how everyone is approaching building wealth, staying motivated, being successful in their own ways, their own terms. Everyone's in their own lane. And what I really love about this show, and I'm super grateful that you all come back every week to listen to it, is that I've been blessed with the opportunity to be friends with some really awesome people. And this show allows me to open up those friendships and relationships and bring them to the masses with you. All right, I got to meet Harley Finkelstein, and I was like, hey, man, jump on the show. I got to meet Saheel Bloom, and I was like, yo, jump on the show. I made friends with candace Nelson on TikTok, and I was like, yo, Candace, jump on the show. And this show has just been a wonderful way for us to unlock our networks, our friendships, and just say, you know, here's some really cool people that are doing some really cool stuff that we think would help you all on a weekly basis. Come and check it out.

Robert (35:35)

So let's move on to some of our key episodes because I'm so excited to talk about my favorites. A couple of my favorites were episode 44, so make sure you guys go check that one out. Your eight favorite rich habits from 2023. That was a really, really cool episode. But I also loved episode 85, side hustles for busy people. I thought that one was kind of a game changer for everyone, because I think so many people think, well, I've got my 9 to 5 job. How do I get ahead? And they're thinking, because they already have a job, they don't need a side hustle. And that is the wrong mindset. Having a 9 to 5 job where you know exactly when you have to go to work and come home from work leaves you the freedom to be able to take on a night job, a weekend side hustle. Or it could just be being an Uber driver every Sunday from 10 to 5 to make an extra Couple hundred dollars a week to put towards your investments or your kids college fund fund. So we really love that episode. It did really well and I think it just kind of opened the eyeballs in the brain a little bit to get people to understand you can have multiple things happening at once because you might have to give up some tv, you might have to give up some fantasy football, but at the end of the day, it's all about what you want for your life and how you build your own Freedom.

Austin (36:52)

My two favorite episodes, Robert, episode 28, Mindset Shift Consumer to wealth. I think that was a huge episode, really opened up a lot of people's eyes as it relates to how important it is to be an owner and not just a consumer. And then I would say another really great one I like that's a little bit more timely is episode 100, our 2025 market predictions. Making predictions is hard, but I think Robert and I nailed it. When it comes to volatility so far this year, we think that's going to be a major theme and we just really love being able to give you guys the insights and keep you all up to date as to what Robert and I are thinking when it comes to every single year in the market. So we really appreciate having that opportunity. Robert, let's now move on to some key quotes that were share on the show. One that I said a lot was personal finance is personal. That essentially just means that, you know, we all come from different backgrounds, we all have different relationships with money, we all have different just life circumstances, which means that maybe you want to have a bigger emergency fund, maybe you're a little bit more risk on or maybe you're more risk off, or maybe you've got just a, whatever's going on. Personal finance is personal, which means you have to make these decisions for yourself. Robert and I can give you a general blueprint or a framework, but at the end of the day you have to make these decisions on your own and stick to whatever plan that you create for yourself. And another quote that I love, Robert, is if you automate your money, wealth is inevitable. We had an episode recently talking about building automation with your money. And it's, it's really as simple as that, right? By automating your investing process, maxing out the Roth IRA every year, maybe investing towards your 401k up to the match, right? But automating these processes so you don't have to think about it on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Building wealth is inevitable over a long period of time. Consistency and Compounding will take effect and you're just going to be off to the races and have a really, really good retirement.

Robert (38:50)

I love that quote and I'm glad you say it all the time because I think it's so important to get people to understand. Most people invest based on feeling or a tip that they get from Uncle Bob down the street or whatever it is is. That is not the right recipe. The recipe is to have a thesis. Know your risk tolerance. Automate as much as you can. So every time you get that check, $200, $300, $500 is going into your investment accounts and go from there. Because the less emotion you have involved in your investing, the better off you're going to do for the long term. So that leads me to one of my favorite quotes and that is you can't out invest high interest debt debt. This one is so incredibly important. Make a post it note if you're watching this episode. Put it on your refrigerator, put it on your nightstand, I don't care. But you can't be investing in the markets and then have high credit card debt over here. It doesn't make sense. The math ain't mathing. If you've got 30% interest on your credit cards and we hope you're going to make 10, 12% in the markets, guess what? You're upside down already by 18 or 20%. That is why we need to get that high interest debt out of the way as soon as possible. Then get back to investing. Cut up the credit cards. Because if you're carrying these high debts, obviously you're not managing them well. Get rid of it. You can always get credit cards later when you get more financially savvy and know how to use them. And then here's the next one that I love. Make your money work as hard for you as you work to get it. Make your money work as hard for you as you work to get it. Write it down. Down. And what this means to me and everyone that'll listen to me is that making sure you understand getting the money in your checking account does not help you. If you don't get it out of your checking account, have it automated and have it invested. I deal with people all the time on one on one calls or through our school community where they're like, oh, I have 180000 sitting in my checking account. I have 28000 sitting in my checking account. No, go get it out of there and make the money work for you. I don't care if it's a high yield savings. I don't care if it's treasury bills. You have to have your money earning money while you sleep. Otherwise it's dead money. So those are two of my favorites. When it comes to trying to illustrate to people what is best to do with their money and how to build.

Austin (41:15)

Their wealth, I really think those four quotes are just Chef's kiss.

Robert (41:19)

Yep.

Austin (41:20)

Now let's talk about some of our favorite moments that have come from the show. I want to say, like my just like all time favorite favorite moment was the show hitting number one on Spotify's business chart for the very first time. We hit number one on the Spotify's business chart for the very first time in October of 2023. It was caused by a couple of episodes. 35 which was building generational wealth in your 20s and 30s, 36 which is investing the rich habits way, and 37 which was interest rate workarounds for 2024. It's just so cool to know that if you create a wonderful product and you put your heart and soul and time, energy, focus into like providing value at scale, that you get rewarded with people's attention, positive comments, shares, likes, subscriptions and everything in between. And hitting number one on Spotify's business chart in October of 23 was that like light bulb moment for me that was like, oh, wait a second. Like this is actually a cool podcast that people care about. Right before it was like a little hobby that you and I would do on, you know, we did a little bit and we didn't really like, we have a newsletter yet, we didn't have a community yet, we didn't really do much about. It was just like, let's just have a cool podcast. When we hit number one, that was the moment where my, my brain was like, whoa, this is real. Like Dave Ramsey's number two and Diary of a CEO is number three and we're number one. Like they've been doing it for decades, at least, you know, several more years than we have. Like, this is crazy. So I think that was like just my favorite moment is just that realization. And that really hits home in my stomach. That's like people really care about what we have to say and take action as to what we do. So it gives us not only this like feeling of euphoria, but also responsibility to always provide value and to always be empathetic as to people's different situations.

Robert (43:08)

I'll tell you what, I love that and I've had goosebumps this entire episode. Cause this is just so cool. I've had a very beautiful, long career and this is definitely one of the favorite things and the best things I've ever done. So thank you, Austin. But the number that ran rings a bell to help everyone with their mindset is 583. And what does that mean? $583 is what I collected from the Rich Habits podcast. And so did Austin after one year of work. $583. So what does that mean to all of you? It means don't quit. If you love something and you're passionate about it and you want to do it, go for it. Because it's not going to happen overnight. It didn't for us either. It looks great now on paper. But like Austin said, we did episode after episode. We stayed consistent. We stayed true to our message and our authenticity. We didn't pivot, we didn't do clickbait. We did none of that because we knew that the world needed a podcast that was authentic and helpful to break down difficult situations and topics around finance, mindset and business in a way that people could execute. Because all the information in the world does not help people. People if they don't understand it in a way that they can execute upon it. So that is so, so important. And one of the reasons why I'm so happy to get to do this with you, Austin, each and every week.

Austin (44:35)

I 100 agree. And something else that I really enjoyed that we need to bring back and do more of are these webinars right? We hosted, I think like three or four of them over the last two years. A couple with NEOs, one with public, one with Freck, one with Russ from Sheeran. We've hosted a couple of these cool webinars. We should do some more of those. I think people appreciated that. It's nothing is more fun than getting 3,000 of your closest friends together in a room to talk about, you know, personal finance and investing.

Robert (45:03)

I love it. So let's talk about which I'm sure are two of your favorites as well. For me, memory wise, mind blowing is getting to ring the opening bell at the New York stock exchange with iShares. That was incredible. And then also us getting invited to the White House to do some behind the scenes work and be able to interview some cool people and just be in the White House for what we do. Two podcasters on the Internet trying to bring value, getting invited to the White House. I'll never forget those moments. And yeah, just incredible.

Austin (45:38)

So we've talked about the past. Let's now Allude to the future. The Rich Habits podcast is an operation at this point. We've got an editor that's been with us now for pretty much two years. We've got a lot of different people, call it three or four total, that are on our team, that are helping us distribute the content, that are helping us with the Rich Habits Network, that are helping us with our emails. Like, this has grown into something more than just Robert and I doing it as a hobby. And there's a lot to look forward to. 50,000 of you have already subscribed to the Rich Habits newsletter, and we hope to grow that to 100, 200, 300,000 over the coming years. We already have 535 people inside of the Rich Habits Network. Dude, I remember when we started this in August of 24 and we had like a first hundred people. Now we're at 500 people that join us live every single Tuesday night to learn from us, ask us questions, and it's so fun. So the Rich Habits Network is growing. And then Robert and I, you know, we spent the last several weeks helping organize the Grit Money Summit. So we're doing some in real life events which alludes to this other idea, which is Robert and I hope to have some sort of in real life event sometime in 2025. So, you know, if you do want to meet us in real life and take some cool pictures and learn from us and other incredible people that will be invited as speakers to this event, stay tuned for that. But at the end of the day, the biggest way that you could just help us in 2025 is to stick around. 2025 is the year where we're testing things. We're trying to turn this hobby into a business that can scale beyond just Robert and I's time, because we are already spending 50 hours a week each growing this. We're trying to hire new people, we're trying to repurpose the content, we're trying to meet you guys in real life. We're trying to turn this into something larger than ourselves. And we're gonna stumble along the way. We're gonna have some episodes that might not be great, or we're gonna have some posts online that didn't make the best of sense or whatever's gonna happen. But just stick with us, give us the benefit of the doubt out and continue to support us as we try and turn the Rich Habits Podcast from a hobby into a real movement around the country and around the world.

Robert (47:43)

Yeah, I love it. And the easiest thing is for people to understand is the newsletter's free, Podcasts are free, content is free, and it just really comes down to you giving us that support that you already do in a way where you share it with a friend. You tell a friend about the Rich Habits podcast, say, man, you shouldn't miss this. This. You might have someone struggling with their business and say, man, follow these guys. They're really good with the mindset and the business strategy stuff. All of those things are ways you can support us. Go to our YouTube channel, like the stuff on YouTube, follow us on Instagram, all of those things help us continue to grow, hire talented people so we can really, like Austin said, make this a movement around the country and around the world because we are so blessed to have such an incredible audience already and we have the best jobs on earth. And I love doing it every single day.

Austin (48:35)

Don't forget to leave a comment on this episode with an idea or some sort of, you know, thing that you want to see from the Rich habits podcast in 2025. If it's merch, if it's events, if it is, I don't know, something else with the newsletter, like whatever you want to see, like, we're open to ideas. Any way that we can provide value to you all at scale, let us know. We're in on it. We want to do that and we're so grateful that you all come back each and every week, week to listen to the Rich Habits podcast. So thank you all for two amazing years of the Rich Habits podcast and we can't wait to see you in year three, four, five, six and beyond.

Robert (49:11)

Wow, that is just mind blowing. What a great episode. And thank you all again from the bottom of our hearts and we'll see you on the next episode.