← The BetterLife Podcast
The BetterLife Podcast
9 Money Truths I Wish I Had Known at 25 (from a 40-Year-Old Millionaire)
00:16:38
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
What's going on, everyone? It's Brandon Turner, host of the Better Life podcast here with a special episode where I'm just going to be playing a YouTube video that I made for YouTube for the podcast because I put a lot of time and effort into working on these YouTube videos and I realized I never put them out as podcasts. So here you go. It's going to be a little bit shorter episode, but I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by me. Appreciate. Y' all have a great day. Here are nine money rules. I wish I knew at 25, and this is coming from a 40 year old multimillionaire. So I still remember that look that my wife gave me when I was like 24 years old. I looked at her and said, honey, I don't know what to do. Like, we are totally out of money. I mean, I didn't understand because I thought I was doing things right. We were both working hard. We didn't blow our money on like partying or on buying stupid stuff. And we were even starting to invest, like in real estate. But every month our bank account just dwindled until it was just gone. I felt like a failure. I felt confused, I felt desperate. I mean, I wanted so badly to be wealthy someday, but I felt that I was moving backwards. But that moment of realizing how broke I was, like, that's what changed everything for me. That was the moment that was like the first time that I admitted something important, that I didn't have a money problem. I had a money ignorance problem. Like, I wasn't stupid, I wasn't lazy, I just was ignorant. No one had ever taught me this stuff, like not school, not my parents, not college, not my job. Everything I thought I knew about money came from watching other broke people try their best. So I'm sitting there broke, frustrated, and I made a decision that changed my life. I said, I'm gonna learn how money actually works and I'm going to master it. So I started reading and watching everything I could about money, wealth, about investing, and about success. Now fast forward to now. I'm 40 years old. I'm financially free. I run multiple businesses. I own over a billion dollars of real estate alongside a lot of partners I brought in. And I've got millions in net worth and I'm building this wealth intentionally. But here's the part that stings a little. It didn't have to take me this long. I didn't have to go through as much trauma. Had I known this stuff, had somebody handed me the nine rules I'm about to give you. When I was 24, I would have reached financial freedom way faster. Maybe half the time or less. Now, these aren't cliches or Instagram advice. These are real rules that wealthy people live by. So let's get into it. Number one, build an emergency fund before you build a lifestyle. Look, everyone in their twenties thinks that the first step to financial freedom is I got to invest. I got to invest. The longer I'm investing, the more I'll make. It's not the first thing. The first step is stability. Your emergency fund is not about returns or growth. It's not even really about money. It is about safety. Like the psychological and financial safety that allows you to make intelligent decisions without fear breathing down your neck. So most people skip this part because they want the exciting part. They want to go buy some crypto or some stocks or rental properties. They want to do the big stuff. But the truth is, wealthy people understand this. An emergency fund is the foundation that keeps your entire financial house upright. Without it, like a flat tire becomes a crisis. A medical bill becomes a catastrophe. A job loss becomes a freefall. An unexpected expense becomes credit card debt, which becomes financial cancer. People without a proper emergency fund are always the ones that are, like, one unlucky moment away from going backwards. And people who are constantly like, recover, recovery, never get ahead. Millionaires build wealth because small setbacks, they don't ruin them. Their emergency fund absorbs the shock and then the emotional stability that comes from that allows them to do bigger stuff. It's priceless. I mean, you negotiate better, you invest better, you choose partners better, you sleep better. Because you're not living in survival mode. Your lifestyle should never get an upgrade before your emergency fund is fully stocked. Stability before lifestyle, Always. Rule number two, don't finance anything you can't afford to pay off fully that month. Except real estate that's covered by cash flow. So this one rule will save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in your lifetime. If you couldn't buy it in full, you shouldn't finance it. Like cuts cars, phones, furniture, vacations, appliances, weddings, lifestyle upgrades. All those things. All the things that Instagram says that you deserve, you don't. If you need payments, you can't afford it. Financing is how broke people pretend not to be broke. It's a disguise, a mask, a temporary illusion of financial I'm doing a good job. But the truth is, you're not. Financing steals your future to pay for your present. Every payment you commit to reduces your freedom. It reduces your options it traps you, it reduces your opportunity. So millionaires use debt, but they use it productively. They use productive debt, not consumptive debt. So productive debt makes you money. Consumptive debt takes your money. Your car doesn't make you money. Your couch, yeah, it doesn't make you any money. Your phone doesn't really make you any money. I mean you could maybe justify that you're doing business. But no, it doesn't. A cash flowing property, now that's a business that generates income. If you did it right. What about a skill that increases what you earn? Yeah, those are investments. Everything else is a drag. When you're young, it's tempting to finance everything because society just normalizes having monthly payments. But payments are shackles. The fewer you have, the freer you are. So if you follow this one rule, you're going to have more margin, you're going to have more money long term to invest and more control over your future than 90% of people your age. Now, rule number three, buy assets, not liabilities. This rule is simple, but almost nobody actually lives it. So society has rebranded liabilities as treats. And they're things that you deserve. Treat yourself right. They're lifestyle upgrades, they're self care. People fall for that stuff every day. Here's a clear definition. An asset puts money in your pocket. A liability takes money out of your pocket. We learned that from rich dad, poor dad. Your car, it's a liability. Your clothes, liability, electronics, vacations, liabilities. Your rental property is an asset. Index funds an asset. Profitable business, that's an asset. A skill that pays you asset broke. People spend money on things that make them feel rich. Wealthy people spend money on things that make them rich over time. So in my 20s I didn't know the difference. Like I bought things that looked cool and they felt fun and they, and they just came with monthly payments that really they're small, but they quietly strangled my financial future. But wealthy people know something powerful. It's not how much you earn, it's how much you own that pays you back. Assets create freedom, leverage and growth and peace. Like liabilities create stress, they shrink your net worth and they drain your future. So spend your 20s buying assets. Spend your 30s scaling them and spend your 40s enjoying what you built. That's the formula. And the earlier you understand it, the faster you escape the financial treadmill that most people stay on trapped their entire life. Rule number four, learn a skill that is both valuable and rare. Look, if I could go back, back to my 25 year old self and shake Myself, this is the rule that I would scream the loudest. Because wealth is not built by working hard. It's built by becoming someone whose work is worth a lot of money. Most people in their 20s, they don't understand this yet. So they chase degrees, not skills. They chase job titles instead of competence. They chase promotions, not mastery. But here's the truth you discover when you just spend enough time around wealthy people, which I've done. A ton of money doesn't flow to effort. It flows to value. And not just any value. Rare value. Meaning if anyone can do what you can do, you're always going to be underpaid. The marketplace rewards people who do things others can't do or won't do or don't know how to do. Now, that might be sales, might be communication, leadership system, design, marketing, writing, negotiating, coding, branding, strategy, real estate analysis. Whatever lane you choose, the formula is the same. Become so freaking good that no one can ignore you. When you become rare, you become necessary. When you become necessary, you become valuable. And when you become valuable, you gain leverage. Leverage means you can negotiate to charge more money. Leverage to say no to things. Leverage to walk away. Leverage to build your own thing if you want to. Your income jumps, not because you deserve more, but because you are more. That's the part no one told me in my 20s I was trying to earn more money without becoming more. But at 40, I can tell you this with absolute certainty. The fastest path to wealth is mastery of rare and valuable skills. The world's always going to pay a premium for those skills. It never pays a premium for an average. You know, a good example of that is back in the day, I worked at Biggerpockets. A lot of you know that. Back in the day, I worked for a company called Biggerpockets, and I had a little bit of equity in it, but I was just an employee. But I made more money than anybody else there. Why? Because I developed the skill called YouTube and podcast and writing, those three skills. I got good at YouTube. I got good at talking to a camera. I got good at talking at a microphone for a podcast, and I got good at writing books. And all three did really well. Because I got good at those things. It didn't happen naturally. I wasn't naturally good at it. I worked and worked and worked and worked to become great at those things. Those are rare and valuable skills. And so because of that, I could negotiate for more income and more equity and more opportunity. I could build businesses around those things because I've got a rare and Valuable, valuable skill. Do you hear about the guy that I think was meta just paid like a million dollars? No, no, it was like a hundred million dollar salary for some. Like, he's an AI guy. He just got an extremely rare and valuable skill. So they paid him like a hundred million dollars. That's an extreme example. But the point I'm making, rare and valuable skills help you scale your income. All right, rule number five. Track every dollar. This is the rule most people skip. The one that they roll their eyes at, the one that they think that's just too basic, it's too tedious, it's too boring. But the truth is, the most boring rule in personal finance is also the most powerful. What you measure, you improve and nor decays. Most people don't have a money problem. They have an awareness problem. They think this was me for sure back then. They think they know where their money's going, but the moment they actually track it, they realize they've been guessing. And guessing is how people stay broke. Millionaires track their money not because they're obsessed or because they're cheap, but it's because data gives them control. Like when you track every single dollar. When you track every dollar, you stop lying to yourself. You stop saying things like, well, I don't spend that much eating out, or, you know, I only got a few subscriptions or my car payment isn't that bad. I mean, maybe it's not on its own, but you don't truth unless you know the numbers. Tracking eliminates the fog, it exposes the leaks, it reveals your habits. And habits are what create or destroy your financial future. Tracking also gives you the ability to make intentional choices. So suddenly you're not cutting expenses like randomly. You're cutting strategically. You're planning consciously. You're not hoping to save, you're actually saving automatically. And most people avoid tracking because they're afraid at what they're going to find. But here's the irony. Avoiding the truth is always more expensive. So track every dollar until money becomes something you manage with clarity and not emotion. Rule number six. Separate time from money. That rule is the dividing line between people who get wealthy and people who stay stuck forever. Because the truth is brutal but simple. If your income depends on your time, you will never build wealth. I mean, you can earn a good living, right? Exchanging time for money, that's fine, and nothing wrong with that. But you can't build financial freedom that way. At least not in less than 40 years. Why? Because your time's limited. You only got 24 hours you can't scale your hours. You can't duplicate yourself in your hours. You eventually you run out of hours. So wealthy people, they understand this early on, and they stop asking the question, how can I earn more money per hour? And they start asking, how do I earn without hours at all? Now, that mindset shift. It's everything. It's the reason entrepreneurs exist, why real estate works, why content compounds, why investments matter so much, why systems are just sacred. Money that requires you to show up is fragile. Money that comes in whether or not you show up or not. That's freedom. And no, it doesn't mean you should quit your job. It means you just stop relying on just your income that demands your presence to build money. You start building something, anything that earns while you sleep. That might be a rental property. That's my favorite thing. Maybe it's a YouTube channel, or maybe it's a product or a skill that lets you charge retainers instead of hours. Or maybe it's a business that uses systems instead of your body to get things done. Or an investment portfolio that compounds quietly in the background. When you separate time from money, everything changes. You stop feeling desperate. You stop feeling trapped. You stop feeling like your job owns you, and you stop trading your energy for survival. You start building for your future, not just working for your present. And the earlier that you adopt this rule, the sooner you escape that life that most people just settle for. Now, rule number seven. Force your lifestyle to follow your income, not lead it. Now, this is one of the most important wealth laws on the planet, and almost no one in their 20s follows it. Most people let their lifestyle grow faster than their income, and that one habit keeps them broke for decades. They get a raise or a promotion, and immediately they inflate their standard of living to match it. They get a new apartment, they get a nicer car, they eat out more, they go on more trips, they get buy more gadgets, a better iPhone. They grow their lifestyle first, and then eventually they hope their income catches up. But wealthy people flip that formula. They let their income grow, and they keep their lifestyle the same for as long as possible. So the gap between income and lifestyle grows. And that's where wealth is created. That gap is where investments come from. That gap is where options come from. That gap is like the engine of financial freedom. So at 25, I didn't get any of this. When my income went up, my spending just went up just as fast. Now, I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. I didn't even notice I was doing It I was just living, but instead of a Motel 6, I was at a Hilton, right? It's like little stuff like that. But now I can see the truth clearly. At 40, wealth is built in the gap. The person who makes 60,000 a year and they live like they make 40 is going to beat the person who makes 120 and lives like they're making 130 every single time. Your lifestyle, it should trail your income by a mile. So don't upgrade too fast. Upgrade slowly. Upgrade intentionally, and only after your investments are growing faster than your desires. Now, rule number eight. Never take advice from somebody whose life you wouldn't trade with. Like, that's mean. But the rule would have saved me years of frustration and thousands of dollars in mistakes. So when you're young, everyone an opinion. Your parents have an opinion. Your siblings have an opinion. Your co workers have an opinion. Your broke friends who mean well but have zero financial wins. And your uncle who hasn't saved a dollar since the 1990s but somehow feels qualified to critique your investment strategy. Yeah, people love giving advice, but most of them are giving advice from a life that you do not want. The same is true about rich people. If you're getting advice from a rich guy who doesn't have a good marriage or family life, do you really want advice from them? Now, look, most of the time, the people we ask advice from, and they're not qualified. They're giving adv based on fears. They're not sharing wisdom. They're speaking from limitation, not experience. They're trying to keep you safe, not successful. And here's the hard pill to swallow. Your parents, as much as you love them, may not be the people you should be taking financial advice from unless they have the financial life that you want. That's the same thing with teachers, with bosses, with friends, with influencers, people you follow online coworkers. Advice is only as good as the results behind it. Wealthy people are extremely selective about whose voices they let influence their decisions. So they study people who have done what they like they want to do. And they learn from people who have receipts, like actual outcomes, not opinions. So before you take advice, ask one simple question to yourself. Do I want this person's result? And if the answer is no, then smile politely and ignore everything that they say. Your financial life is going to thank you. Now, rule number nine. You get the results of what you repeatedly do. That sounds simple, almost cliche, but it's the ultimate money rule, and most people, they still ignore it. Your financial situation today, really, at the end of the day. It's the sum of your habits, not your hopes. Your money doesn't care what you believe, what you intend, what you dream about, what you want, what you plan to do someday. Your money and your condition of your wealth reflects your behaviors, your daily actions, your repeated patterns. If you overspend a little every week, you don't become broke overnight. But eventually you find yourself just deep in a hole and you can't figure out why. Like I was. Now, if you invest a little bit every week, if you don't become a millionaire overnight, but eventually you're gonna wake up with more money growing than you can reasonably spend, that's a great day. Wealth is just math, but it's also behavior. And, and it's not built by huge leaps. It's built by small consistent actions multiplied over years. And so if you want financial freedom, just don't build with such intensity, but build with consistency. Don't chase motivation, build systems, don't aim for perfection, aim for repetition. So if you're 25 and you simply invest consistently, you spend intelligently, you learn relentlessly, and you avoid lifestyle creep. There's almost no version of your future self where you don't become wealthy. You don't rise to the levels of your ambitions and your goals. You just fall to the level of whatever habits you're building. So build habits that your future self is going to thank you for. And that brings me to the final thing I wish someone had told me at 25, none of this is complicated. It's hard sometimes, sure, and maybe a little uncomfortable to say no to stuff. Absolutely. But it's not complicated. Wealth is not an exclusive club for the lucky or the gifted. It is the result of rules. Simple rules applied consistently over time. So these nine rules or 10 rules, I guess you could say they're not gonna make you rich overnight. But they will do something better. They will will make you unavoidably wealthy in the long run if you follow them. So if even one of these rules hits you today, don't just nod your head, start applying it. Your 40 year old self is already waiting there in the future to thank you. And hey, if you want more content, just like this, like actual practical money wisdom without the fluff. Make sure you follow along. Subscribe, whatever platform you're on. And I got you. I'm here for you, appreciate you.