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- [00:00]
Candy Valentino
Huddle up. It's me, Angel Reese.
- [00:03]
Sharon Lechter
You can't beat the post game burger and fries, right? Know what else you can't beat? The Angel Reese special. Let's break it down. My favorite barbecue sauce, American cheese, crispy bacon, pickles, onions, and a sesame seed bun, of course. And don't forget the fries and the drink.
- [00:18]
Candy Valentino
It's gonna be a high C for me.
- [00:19]
Sharon Lechter
Sound good?
- [00:21]
Candy Valentino
All you have to do to get.
- [00:22]
Sharon Lechter
It is beat me in a one on one.
- [00:24]
Candy Valentino
I'm just playing get the Angel Reese.
- [00:26]
Sharon Lechter
Special at McDonald's now. Ba da ba ba ba.
- [00:29]
Candy Valentino
I participate in restaurants for a limited time. For build more wealth and create financial freedom. All right, guys, you are in for a treat because today we have someone that I admire so much. I read Sharon's book. I want to think it was more than 25, 26 years ago. And as I just completed wealth habits and six Ordinary steps to achieving extraordinary Financial freedom and put it out into the world, there were so many times I thought of you along the journey. So it is truly an honor to have you here today on the show. So I just wanna welcome you and thank you for being here.
- [01:13]
Sharon Lechter
Oh, thank you. I'm delighted to be with you and I'm excited to get to know you.
- [01:16]
Candy Valentino
Thank you. You have. Obviously everyone that's listening knows the original book. It is the original book that kind of put everything on the map, right? Rich dad, poor dad, rich dad, poor dad.
- [01:25]
Sharon Lechter
Yeah. It was actually written as a brochure for the board game. We never expected it to take on a life of, but it did. And it was the first of 15 books we did together.
- [01:34]
Candy Valentino
Wow. And prior to writing that, because I would say that's what you're most known for from the space. You had over three decades of finance and accounting experience. Can you take us maybe back if we could rewind the tape 30 years ago and really talk about what happened? Why that message? Why that book? What made you want to start writing?
- [01:54]
Sharon Lechter
Well, certainly, I mean, it goes way back. I grew up in a house that was very entrepreneurial. Lived in a little tiny house between my mom's beauty shop and my dad's used car lot. I was embarrassed about it, actually. Swore I didn't want to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to be a sophisticated professional. So I went to college, got my degree in accounting, and I was one of the very first women in public accounting in the southeast United States. There were only four of us, and it was really before the terms of sexual discrimination or glass ceiling. They didn't even exist. Back then, we just said if we wanted to be successful, we had to work harder than the guys that came home with us. And we accepted the challenge, right? And so it was when I was about 25, and I was doing very well, very successful. But I also was not in control of my life. I was working incredibly long hours. And I had. All of a sudden, my parents started looking a whole lot smarter to me because the messages of buying, building, creating assets started sinking in. I started realizing most people don't understand that most people exchange time for money through a paycheck. And so I had a client come to me and offer me to go into business with him. He was buying a company out of bankruptcy. And I still remember going back to my condo and doing the old. This was before cell phones, before PCs, the old yellow legal pad, pros and cons. And it didn't help me a bit because I could argue both sides. Fast, upwardly mobile career, doing very well, or the opportunity to own a piece of the rock, right? And be able to participate in the growth of something. And my hand kind of took off across the top of the page. I said, why not? And that really is still my mantra today. Why not do something different? Why not solve a problem or serve a need? Why not take that path less traveled? And so I made the decision to leave public accounting. And at that point, it was like, okay, people don't understand how to have financial help. And it started a journey of different projects. I started a woman's magazine. Then I helped the inventor of the first talking children's book grow around the world. And that's where I learned a tremendous amount of my education related to publishing, related to licensing, understand the power of association. We sold that company and we moved here to Arizona in 1991. And our oldest son went off to college in 92, in September. And he came home in December in college. Credit card debt. And I was so mad at him, but more mad at myself. Cause he'd gotten the ASU right here. And he was met with tables that said, free pizza, free money, free T shirt, free money. And he had a really good time his first semester in college. All right. But then he had to start pay. It wasn't such free money.
- [04:41]
Candy Valentino
The pizza and T shirts cost a lot more. That's right.
- [04:44]
Sharon Lechter
So he came home at Christmas and asked us to bail him out. We didn't even know he had credit cards. And so we told him no. We haven't always made the right parenting choice. But that one was. But that was December of 92. And that's when I really dedicated the rest of my career to financial education and entrepreneurship education. So you fast forward a few years. I started working with school systems. Since my hair used to be red, it's now white, you better work for school systems. And my husband called me one day. Mike said, an intellectual property attorney. He said, I met this guy today that has what you've been looking for. I always laugh when I'm in women's groups. Ladies, what would you. If your husband called you and said he met a man that has what you've been looking for. Right. So I said, okay, this sounds kinky. What's up, Mike? And Robert Kiyosaki had come into his office in his flip flops and his board shorts with this idea for a board game. And so I met Robert at the very first beta test of the board game Cash Flow. And it was exactly what I was teaching. And so I volunteered just as a friend to help him commercialize the game. And in that process, he told me he wanted to charge $200 for it. And I said, that's kind of pricey.
- [05:49]
Candy Valentino
And that was in 1992, right?
- [05:50]
Sharon Lechter
1996.
- [05:51]
Candy Valentino
This was.
- [05:52]
Sharon Lechter
Yeah. I said, that's kind of pricey for board game. Maybe you should write brochure to help market the board game so people would understand it's an investment, it's not just a playing tool. And that's when he asked me to be his partner. So we became partners in that brochure was called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Most people don't know that background story. We never expected it to take on a life of its own. Certainly not to sell 35 million copies and be on the New York Times bestseller list for seven years. But that started a journey. All of a sudden we thought we were a game company and said, oh, no, we are a publications company. And that was the first of 15 book we wrote together over the 10 years we worked together.
- [06:29]
Candy Valentino
So your whole business model shifted because of the demand?
- [06:32]
Sharon Lechter
Yes.
- [06:33]
Candy Valentino
Right. I mean, that's just. That's amazing.
- [06:34]
Sharon Lechter
Oh yeah. My original business plan was gorgeous. It was so pretty. And it was about going to the top the 25 most powerful women in the world through Forbes. I thought that they're going to want the same kind of control and power to get education to their kids. It was an absolute disaster. Not one of. Only one of them agreed to even look at the thing. So it was at that point we also realized the message was really hitting home with a lot of people who were small business owners or People that in the network marketing industry. And so as we were going down this path, this other path opened up in a very big way for us, and we were able to grow very quickly around the world.
- [07:16]
Candy Valentino
Oh, it's amazing. It's such a great story. And I don't think a lot of people know because until I really started looking, I wasn't aware that the game. I knew there was a game, but I didn't know it was such the thing that you were trying to do, and you had to shift the whole thing on its head.
- [07:27]
Sharon Lechter
That was the name of our company. Cash Flow Technologies was the name of our company. It was a game company. And then it was like, oh, no, the world wants more. So we became a public. We basically, as, you know, dba. Rich dad is the Rich dad company, but the actual corporate name was Cash Flow Technologies.
- [07:43]
Candy Valentino
That's so great. I want to take us back a little bit too, because we kind of glossed over something. I know I started my first business 25 years ago. The landscape even then was so different for women. There wasn't boss babe and women empowerment and all of this stuff. I mean, you had to get gritty. You had to show up differently in rooms to be taken seriously. I mean, I still wear jackets like you. I wore suits every day just to try to be taken seriously. What was it like then? I mean, was it even that much more difficult? What were some of the things that you had to overcome even as you decided to write this book and do these things? Like, what was some of that like for you and the challenges that you had to overcome that you were faced with?
- [08:24]
Sharon Lechter
Well, I was raised in a house that I was told I could do anything I wanted to. I just had if I worked hard enough. And so it was always a challenge to me. When I was in a room, I was the only woman in the room. It's like, okay, you have to bucket up. You got to be as strong as anybody else in the room. But it was also during that time, women weren't very nice to each other. So women in power were not helping other women behind them because they didn't want to seem weak to the people they were working with. And so women were not nice to. And it is something that I just am so happy to see that shifting today and so many young women coming up in positions of power. And I don't talk about that in exclusion of men. I love working with men, and that was the whole essence of my book, Think and Grow Rich for Women. I got tired of all the complaining and criticizing women were doing and blaming the men that stood in their way. I said, stop. You know, if you are familiar with the law of attraction, what do you get when you complain and criticize? Get more negative results, right? So I said, let's change our dialogue from complaining and criticizing the men in our way, and let's start celebrating the progress we've made and start celebrating the men that have helped us along the way. And in doing that, is there more to be done? Of course. But when we do the celebration, more doors will open more quickly than if we complain and criticize. And so that's the essence of the message that I have in think and grow rich for women. And I'm seeing that evolve. I'm seeing people really understand the power of celebrating each other. And yes, there's more to do, but not to the exclusion of men. It's when men and women come together, you get the greatest results.
- [09:58]
Candy Valentino
So we have so many different strengths and weaknesses that one is not better than the other. They're just different. And I've never been from that school of thought either. I feel like I love what men can bring to the table. I love conversations with men in business. That's why I don't work with just women, because I love what we can offer each other. And I think men can learn a lot from us, the way we carry, the way we lead, the way we manage, money, things like that. But you, you said something very interesting. You said that your parents told you that if you worked hard, you can do anything. I had a very similar upbringing. My dad was a mechanic. My mom cleaned houses. So solo, like, you know, solopreneur, as they're called today, self employed.
- [10:34]
Sharon Lechter
My mom was a beautician. My dad got a used car lot. A mechanic. So, yep.
- [10:38]
Candy Valentino
And I remember my dad, I wanted to get something. I can't even remember, but I remember what he said was, I wanted to get something. He goes, well, you can get it. You just have to work hard enough for it. And I feel like that was ingrained in my head. And I feel like we've shifted a little bit as a society and as a culture, not just women, but I think as a whole that we no longer. It's almost like hard work. They want to wrap it up into hustle, and now it's like a bad thing. Can you maybe talk a little bit about how hard work and being focused and disciplined really plays into not just life, but your personal finances and business?
- [11:12]
Sharon Lechter
Well, if you think of all the wealthiest people on the you know, they've all worked hard to get there, unless it was handed to them from parents.
- [11:18]
Candy Valentino
From someone else working hard.
- [11:20]
Sharon Lechter
Yeah. And usually they end up blowing it if that's the case. So true. And so, you know, and in our environment today, your generational wealth topic, I want to talk about, you know, kids. So many of us wanted our kids to have what we didn't have. And so we became enablers instead of mentors to our kids. And there's a. When we talk about positive and negative, how many times have any of us said, we can't afford it? Well, that's negative. It closes our mind. We want to turn off the lights and get under the covers. And so I say, you know, we have to think about our mindset and the kind of mindset we're teaching our children. If we're saying to our kids, we can't. You can't afford it, we can't afford it, then it's negative. Instead, change your dialogue. And instead of saying, I can't say, how can I? How can I afford it? And that triggers your entrepreneurial spirit. It opens your mind, your subconscious jumps at the attention and says, I'm going to come up with a way for you to afford it because you've given yourself, you're open to the possibilities. And that's so important for our kids too, because exactly what you just said. Your child wants something, you say, how can you afford it? They get really creative with ways to do it. But allow them to do that, allow them to earn the money, allow them to buy what they want. Because the greatest benefit is not that they've set a goal and achieved it. The greatest benefit is the amount of self confidence. You see, that comes from them being able to say, I did it on my own, because I know you're going to. The greatest gift you can give anyone is financial education. It's the gift of a lifetime. Because once you understand buying, building, creating assets. My favorite word on earth, assets, is the definition of financial freedom. And when you're financially free, you get your time back. And it doesn't have to be millions of dollars.
- [13:03]
Candy Valentino
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- [15:05]
Sharon Lechter
Oh, no doubt about it. I mean, my parents never gave me anything, they never asked me if I did my homework. I kept telling them, what did you do? I'd like to bottle whatever you did for me so that become a billionaire overnight. Giving that an independence to a child that they can do it on their own and they have the responsibility to stand in their own power and do it on their own is so priceless. And you're so, you're so correct in the fact that when people get something too easy, then they go, well, I don't have to work so hard next time either. And part of it also, and I'm going to blame my own industry a bit, you know, the whole law of attraction, you know, it's the law of attraction. You have to think positive things, but you actually have to take action oh, yes, you actually have to do something and go that extra mile, as Napoleon Hill says, and work hard, but you have to have the right mindset. And it starts with mindset, but it ends with action. And that's why I have the personal success equation three feet from gold that talks about your passion and your talent, which is all about you, which is school. And most of us stop there, think we have to do everything on our own. But true success comes from the power of association. Having the right people on your team, having the right mentor, and then taking action. Not just waiting for it to come to you, but taking action. But above all, having faith in yourself. Faith in yourself, Faith in what you're doing, faith that it's needed and necessary. Faith that you will succeed. And that formula is something I use in every talk, every interview and with every client. Because usually a business is successful and then it plateaus. And it's usually because they've stopped growing, they've stopped going to new groups. Their power of association needs to go to the kick up a notch or they have a lack of self confidence. And usually they go hand in hand. Because when you have the right mentor, you have the right people on your team, when you have a bad day, they won't let you stay there and that self confidence comes back. But you know, look at your own personal success equation and determine where you need the work. I have a worksheet I told you about earlier.
- [17:09]
Candy Valentino
Yeah, we'll make sure we go to.
- [17:10]
Sharon Lechter
Personal success equation.com and download it because it gives you the opportunity to really analyze yourself. Because what happens is we certainly these last few years, particularly with women, I'm waiting for I see the light at the end of the tunnel and it just drives me nuts. I go, that's baloney. That means you're waiting for someone else.
- [17:29]
Candy Valentino
To bring you the answer, someone to save you. Amen.
- [17:31]
Sharon Lechter
Stand in your own power. Be your own beacon of light and let other people be attracted to you. And we give up our power too easily.
- [17:40]
Candy Valentino
I could have said yes 25 times, but it would have been annoying. So I was just nodding my head. I could not. This literally sounds like things I say all the time. It just, it means so much to hear it come from you with your wisdom and everything that you've done. I always say my little saying is kind of a take on your book because I think people have misunderstood if they haven't read it fully. So I always say, think and get rich will only get you so far. You have to do to be wealthy. It's like, we can't, we can't. It's not one or the other. If I give you all the strategies, but you don't have the mindset, you're not going to know what to do with the strategies. You're not going to have solution based thinking, which is what you just alluded to. Like, you know, businesses will kind of get into something, they won't look at the solutions, they focus on the problem and then they just basically plateau, or what I've seen, they'll actually go back the other way because they haven't fixed key things in their business. So I love that so much. Thank you for sharing. What lessons do you feel early, early on in your career that you still maybe bring today? Like, I think wealth building is just no matter how much the world evolves, it seems like one of the core principles that's still the same. We still want to pay less tax. We still, you know, like the tax system hasn't changed all of these years. Earned income, portfolio, passive income are all the same. The way that we accumulate wealth is the same. Have you seen any, I mean, unless. Have you seen any great changes in your original work and how wealth, money and cash flow works today?
- [19:03]
Sharon Lechter
Well, I think the change, you know, I've always talked about the importance of assets. As I said, my latest phrase is assets are sexy because they truly are. And the older you get, the sexier they become. Right. They're like employees working for you and that gives you your time back. But I think what has changed is the dynamics of the economic structure. So 40 years ago, Fortune 500 was 85% bricks and mortar, 15% intangible. Today, that's more than flipped. It's closer to 90% intangible, 10% bricks and mortar. And that shift in the economic world we face is what's opened up tremendous opportunity for you and me for us to be able to compete with big boys. Because it's about intellectual property, it's about problem solving. I mean, you can think about Uber, one of the largest transportation companies, owns no cars. Airbnb, one of the largest hospitality companies, owns no hotels. Right. Their valuation is based on their intellectual property, their systems. And that gives us the ability to do the same thing and compete, which is the success of books, success of programs, success of finding a way to build brand recognition and goodwill. That little number that gets so big now on sales of businesses.
- [20:22]
Candy Valentino
Yeah, it's so true. And I think that's why people are getting such high returns on ebitda. Like they're Getting so many multiples depending on the vertical they're in. Because that ip, it's like a big, big company. They don't want to innovate, they just want to come and buy somebody that is already has a proven system so that they can run it through their process because they know they're going to make money and they're going to grow it. I love that.
- [20:42]
Sharon Lechter
I think that's almost every business sale is for either the intellectual property or the database.
- [20:49]
Candy Valentino
Yeah, right, exactly. I love that. So you told me a little bit before we started, kind of how you met your first partner, Robert Kiyosaki, and how you wrote the book, why you wrote the book. You talked a little bit about the board game and how did it go from that one book, rich dad, poor dad to 15 books, did you say? And 35 million copies around the world. Like what do you think was. I feel like when you have something that's that successful, there's like, I think you need a perfect storm. Right. You need the right moment, right message, right messenger, you need. What do you think it was about that time, that message, you guys writing it that maybe just made it so, so amazing.
- [21:31]
Sharon Lechter
Well, if you imagine back in those dinosaur days because that was before Amazon, before the Internet. So we the old fashioned US Postal service and fax machines. So it was, we were listening to our clients and to our students, our customers and what they wanted. Once we did Rich Dad, Poor dad and it took off in such a big way, we decided, well, we're going to do a trilogy. So Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Cash Flow Quadrant, Rich Dad's Guide to Investing. We thought Trilogy three and done, right. And then it was like, no, there's still more to say. And so we continued on with that. And then I actually, in addition to the 15 that I co authored, we launched an additional brand called Rich Dad Advisors and there's over a dozen books in that series as well. Because you know, Robert and I were very contextual as far as mindset and people needed hands on. So we brought in area experts and they wrote books specifically on protecting your number one asset, intellectual property, on real estate, on corporations, on taxes. And so they were the experts in those fields and they wrote books in the Rich Dad Advisor series. And it was, and it just continued the need. People were just thirsty for this information because we really were the first ones to come out with a let's take a fresh look at money. Because you're taught even personal financial planners or financial education banks that did financial training talked about saving money.
- [23:03]
Candy Valentino
Yeah.
- [23:04]
Sharon Lechter
Okay. 401ks, you know, the interest rates. Right. And it's like, but let's talk about assets. Right. And, and so we were really the first ones to bring it out. And of course the controversial chapter we had called your house is not an asset really got us a lot of attention. But it's, you know, again, as understanding. When we first did this, Mike and I, my husband, we negotiated a very unique publishing deal. She kind of put publishing on, it's on his head. It was not a traditional deal. It was a joint venture and a partnership. But the publishing companies all said, well, your book needs to be red, black or green. And I said, well, I want purple. He said, well, you can't do that. I said, why not? Why not? Because that's why I want it purple. I don't want to be red, black and green. And so we ended up with, when we got, we'd already made it to the bestseller list on our own before Warner Books came to us. So. And that's when all of a sudden, now you go into bookstores, those few that are left, you see a lot of purple in the business section. And that's because of the success of Rich dad. So you can't be afraid to put your, make yourself unique, that unique selling proposition, that unique branding that helps you stand up because that's part of that goodwill, the brand presence and the trade dress, trademarks, all that helps add value to your company. And so we, and you listen to your clients and say, you know, what more can we do to continue? So we were pumped. We were probably doing a book every, every 12 to 18 months in response to what was coming in. People asking questions.
- [24:41]
Candy Valentino
Yeah.
- [24:42]
Sharon Lechter
So, okay, let's, let's address that.
- [24:44]
Candy Valentino
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- [25:54]
Sharon Lechter
No, it was a publishing arm. We simply had them. Now as time went on, they all, you know, being part of the Rich Dad Advisors gave them a lead generation tool to do, to provide tax services or corporation services. But there was not specific coaching involved at that time. At that time, we later put in a seminar arm. We put in a coaching arm for the company.
- [26:18]
Candy Valentino
How long? Because that obviously it was the books, then you did the seminars, then the coach, and then all of these things. Was that when you look at it, it's such a massive thing. Now when you look back, was that all just based off of need, listening to your audience, messaging, tweaking, like, you know, when you see, when you. I always feel like when you look back at a company that's 25, 30, 35 years old, you can see the complexities in it. And I think people often underestimate how long it takes to build all of that. I think I see a lot of people coming in as an entrepreneur and then their first three years, they're frustrated because they haven't. They're not doing millions of dollars. And it's like you don't realize how long it takes sometimes to kind of hit that momentum and really start to develop systems and processes. Was it really quick because of the demand or did you guys still have to kind of like figure out your footing? And how did you scale? Was that something that you and Robert and your, like, did you guys know how to do that or did you start hiring team in order to scale that really big?
- [27:14]
Sharon Lechter
Well, yes, yes and yes. I mean, I, when I built the talking children's book, we had technology for kids when kids had no screens, they had no electronics. So we said, how can we get parents to trust us? We're this little company out of Wisconsin. And so we partner. That was when we partnered with Disney, Warner Brothers, Sesame street and Marvel Comics. And that helped us explode that company around the world. And so I learned very quickly the power of association, the power of licensing. And I was writing really big checks to them, which was okay because we were keeping a lot of Money too. And we were impacting millions of children's lives. And so. But I said, next time I want to build a company where people are writing me checks instead of me writing them checks. And so that's really, at the onset of Rich dad was how can we build this company as quickly as possible to reach as many people as possible? And it was through licensing, not through trying to build everything on our own. So when I wanted the best publisher, I went to, we selected Warner Books. When we wanted, we realized that the infomercial world was alive and strong. And I personally hate infomercials, but we knew that it was the next step for us as a company. So Time Life came to us. So I said, if I'm going to do an infomercial, it's going to be with Time Life, right? Quality, high quality. And so Time Life paid us. And they did the concept of other people's money, time and resources. My husband wrote the book Other People's Money. So that's his, you know, that is his career. He helps people identify their intellectual property, protect it, and leverage it through other people's money, time and resources. And so we did Time Life. At that point in time, we saw the opportunity for coaching when coaching was just in its infancy. And I said, well, I don't want to build my own sales floor, train my own coaches, find the sophomore is going to take so long. Speed to market is very important in this world. And so I found one of the top coaching companies and we did a deal with them, using their systems, their people, their phone structure, all branded Rich Dad. So you would think you were talking to Rich Dad. We train the coaches and we use them as our coaching arm. Same thing with, we found a seminar company that we did the same thing with. And so the whole structure of building was through this power of association, finding best in class and doing a joint venture or a license arrangement with them so we could get to market as quickly as possible and serve as many people as possible. So at one point, height of our success, I had 5,000 people working for me, but only 15 to 17 on my payroll because I was working CEO to CEO, and they had thousands of people working for them, CEO to CEO, publishing companies around the world. So that's. We were over in over 100 countries and over 50 languages, because those companies would come to us and say, we want to print your book.
- [30:06]
Candy Valentino
So there is literally so much brilliance and wisdom in there. I hope everybody captured that because you said something that I cannot preach enough is speed to market, Speed of Implementation. And I think that's when people stay in this ideation phase and they try to build it all from the ground and they burn through so much capital. And that's why a lot of businesses fail with maybe a good idea, but it just took them too long to get the market and they kind of miss their opportunity. I think people, you know, the self help world is like an opportunity will never miss you. And that may be true, but in the business world, you can miss out on opportunities if you don't leverage. I just love how you just leveraged other people's, not only other people's money, other people's businesses. Right. And it's just like, well, this is a way that we can do it quicker. Is there anything that you would do now if you were, if you were able to. All, everything was gone. If we took everything away. Nobody knows who you are. You know, the books are gone, Nobody knows who your name is or rich dad, poor dad. But you're able to retain all the information that you have built over all of these decades. How would you do it today, knowing what you know?
- [31:08]
Sharon Lechter
Well, so much easier to build a business today because of the Internet and the resources that are there. And so the first thing is to start with your definiteness of purpose. You know, I talk about this in my book Outwitting the Devil with the Napoleon Hill Foundation. But so many of us are crippled by fear because fear paralyzes you or motivates you. Most of us are paralyzed by fear, so we're afraid to step outside our comfort zone. But it helps when you have, you know, what your purpose is. And that purpose in a business perspective is what's your mission? Are you solving a problem, serving a need that keeps you going when the going gets tough? Because it's something outside of yourself, it's something bigger than you. And so it helps you have that motivation and that inspiration to keep moving. So definiteness of purpose and then understanding, you know, habits are important. And I do believe people miss opportunities because if you don't train yourself to be open to them, if you're so focused on what your plan is. So for instance, our plan was with these powerful women. If we hadn't paid attention and been open to the possibilities, we could have missed the quick rise of the company. You have to listen. And part of that is having the right mentor, having the right people around you, because as an entrepreneur, it can be very lonely because you're at the top. If you don't have the right mentor and the right advisors helping you because you're so focused on what you're doing as you're building your company. Because there's a whole lot of doing this that has to happen to get your company up and running. You need somebody on the outside saying, hey, hey, what about this? What about this? Have you thought of this? Not completely distracting you like shiny object syndromes, but somebody that has been there, done that, and they can see you going down a path that may be limiting as opposed to expanding.
- [32:55]
Candy Valentino
Yes. Oh, my gosh. I was. You can learn from mentors or your mistakes, and the ladder is a lot cheaper learning from mentors that have already done it. There's something that you said in there I don't want to miss. You had said that. And I. The way I always say it is you can be so focused on what you want that you might actually miss what you can actually have. And I feel like solution based thinking and all of these things are great when you have laser focus, but when your focus is so narrow, you may actually miss the ability to pivot into something much bigger. Do you feel that there were any moments along your journey that you had to do that be other than just the game where you had to kind of like, oh my gosh, we can't go down this path. Let's tweak and do this.
- [33:37]
Sharon Lechter
Well, I think that's a natural course of business. All right? There's a strategy and then there's tactics. Okay? So if you know what your strategy is. So if you want to sail from Los Angeles to Catalina island, all right, that's your strategy, that's what you want to do. And you're in the sailboat and the wind changes, all of a sudden you're knocked off course. So you have to recalibrate and you have to change. You still want to go to Catalina, but you just got knocked off course. So you have to take corrective action. Your tactics have to change. And so as you start to do, for instance, my personal mission statement is elevate the financial well being of humanity. Now, I can do that through one on one mentoring. I can do that through books, I can do that through programs. If I do a program and it's not selling very well, it tells me, okay, either I'm not getting it in front of the right people or it's not accomplishing what I want it to accomplish. And so I have to go back and say, okay, how can I make this better, more sufficient to solve the problem? So many times we think we know what's best for our clients, but Unless we have a feedback loop, we don't know that it's actually working. And so it's really important to have that check in time to make sure that you're giving them not just what they need, but what they want and what they're willing to pay for.
- [34:57]
Candy Valentino
Yeah, so true.
- [34:59]
Sharon Lechter
I've had to learn that because when you're talking about education and money, which is a very emotional subject, I mean, people like, let's do. I don't want anybody to know I need this. Right. So you have to figure out how to make this available to them so that they don't have to let the world know that they're in financial trouble.
- [35:16]
Candy Valentino
Oh, exactly. I love that, though, the feedback loop. It's like following the data. If you don't have the data from the customer, how do you know to pivot, evolve, create ancillary revenue streams, do something different? I love that. And it kind of brings to just a little bit. I want to just touch on before we get into your latest book, Exit Rich, which I love. I've exited two companies, so I'm super passionate about exits. I don't think enough women talk about exits, but do you think there's something specific? We have, obviously men and women that just. People don't want to talk about wealth. You know, have you, in all of your research, all of your data, been able to boil it down so that maybe someone who still has that, like, oh, I don't like to talk about money. Is it a mindset? Is it shame? Is it all the patterns that they're bringing around from their parents? Have you seen maybe one or two of the most common things of all the people that you've worked with of what that subject trips them up on?
- [36:05]
Sharon Lechter
Well, and it's particularly important in a relationship when people get together. I tell them, you guys need to go out on a money date. And the whole purpose of the date is for you to talk about how your parents thought about money. All right, so for instance, my husband's parent, his father just passed away at 96, but the man still has every penny he ever met. He was the cheapest guy on earth. Nice man, Loved him dearly. But, you know, and my father was a contemporary. He's been gone 16 years. He was also very conservative, but if he wanted something, he made it happen. And he, you know that my father in law was Mr. Coupon. He had a trunk full of coupons. Right. My father hated coupons. If I want something, I'm gonna pay for it. Right. And so those different philosophies impact my husband and I on how we think as adults. We've been married 42 years, so something's working. And so I say, you've got to think about that. Cause usually when you do that, it actually gets pretty comical when you start talking about it, and it takes a lot of the pressure off. But as an individual, someone who, if you're scared about money, if you're fearful about money, or if you've even had success and you're afraid you're gonna lose it, start by taking a step back. Say, okay, what did my parents say to me about money? Did they say things like, money doesn't grow on trees. Pinch your pennies, save for a rainy day, we can't afford it. Because what happens is when those things get repeated to us as a child, we hear money negative, money negative, money negative. That's the source of a scarcity mindset. And because we're not teaching our children about money in school, you're not having anything counteracting that, teaching you how to build wealth. And so we have this, like. It's like this filter in our brain that keeps us from joy about money. You know, if you're happy about money, then all of a sudden your somehow is evil, you know? And it's not the. It's not the. It's not money that's evil. It's, you know, it's the love of money to the extent of nothing else. Right. And so it's really important to be aware that the more successful you are, the more good you can do. Yes. And so when you focus, my dear friend Les Brown says, you gotta be hungry. Right? And it's like, les, I gotta change. You know, I want to add something to that. It's not, you know, are you hungry for money? Because then when you get it, you go, is this all there is? What's next? Let's be hungry for impact. And if you're hungry for impact, the money will come. But where is your focus? Because I have so many friends who have created great success in their life financially at the expense of their family, their relationships. And it's like they're there with all this money and they're very unhappy, which I'd rather be happy and broke. Right. I think it's really important to understand that you have one big life and you need to pay attention to every aspect of your life.
- [38:53]
Candy Valentino
I think I just won my taxes. Yeah, I just switched to H and R block in about one minute. All I had to do was drag and drop Last year into H and R Block and bam. My information is automatically there so I don't have to go digging around for all my old papers to switch. Nope. Sounds like we just leveled up our tax game. Switching to H and R Block is easy. Just drag and drop your last return. It's better with block. Oh my God. I wanted to hit the table like three times, but I didn't want to make the sound. It just, it's so awesome to hear this from you because I feel, I wonder when I look back, like, where. Because I regret everything you're saying, I say. And I'm like, I had to have heard this from you originally in the book that I read that you wrote. Because it's amazing to me. Everything. I'm just, I don't even know what to say. I'm just in shock because you're welcome.
- [39:46]
Sharon Lechter
To take anything I say and use it as your own. No, no.
- [39:49]
Candy Valentino
I'm always good about giving credit. The interesting you think you said this and it's literally what I just said on the flip side of being interviewed on a podcast is it's like if you, if your only goal is to make a bunch of money, but you don't build a rich life, you've missed the entire point of wealth. And I love that you talk about that because I see so many people focused on vanity metrics, they're focused on buying the new car, the payments, and they really are missing not only building wealth, but really just what it means to build a rich life.
- [40:21]
Sharon Lechter
And so I love that you building peace. Peace of mind. Yeah.
- [40:25]
Candy Valentino
I tell you, I. I've been in some not so great relationships and it's amazing that I would have paid anything to just have peace, peace and joy. And I think that there's no amount of money that can buy that. And so I think a lot of times people are trying to fill a need in their ego or in their soul or in their worth because they have like. It's like every money thought that we have was probably pre programmed somehow in our childhood or even your parents, what they experience. And so I think it's like, when is it time to learn and decide what you want to believe about money and take the next steps? Like you said, it's the action.
- [41:00]
Sharon Lechter
Well, money is an amplifier, you know, it really brings out more. If you're greedy, you're going to be more greedy. You know, if you're generous, you're going to be more generous. So it's not the money that impacts us, it's the mindset yes. And so work on your mindset. And you know, and sometimes it's mindset that you're not really consciously in control. And that's what's dangerous because that's where you get this imposter syndrome. I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy. Because you're allowing that subconscious basically transcript, that thing that's pre programmed in your brain to control your daily thoughts. And that's why it's so important to control what you're reading, what you're listening to, what you're thinking, and to really help reprogram your subconscious to the fact that you're perfect just the way you are. God created you to be perfectly you, not me, not someone else. And so stand in your own power and be uniquely you and know that you have a gift to give, whether you've had great successes, maybe learning opportunities. But we are all where we are today because the choices we made before today. And if you want something different, something better, something unique, start making different choices today. Don't look back, look forward.
- [42:12]
Candy Valentino
It's not where you've been, it's where you're going. And I think that's the thing about money is we often feel people feel shame about all the debt that they have or they wish they didn't make that bad investment decision. But if you continue to look back and think of what you should have done different, you're going to miss what you need to do next. And I think that kind of brings us into just. I can't have you here and not talk about this because there's obviously all of the talking points on all the news. We've got the elections coming up. Everybody is talking about pending recession, looming recession, economic downturn, financial difficulty. And I know you've been in business during the savings and loan Crisis. You've been 9, 11. When Powers attacked, I was in business as when they were attacked, I was in business as well. 2008 recession. I was flipping houses and had multiple doors during that time as well. Is there anything that maybe someone who's listening and super concerned about what's coming up that you can maybe just give them either a tactic or advice or something that you've learned along all of these decades and what this recession could or could not mean to them?
- [43:10]
Sharon Lechter
Well, absolutely. And I think the first step is to understand that you and I cannot control what's happening on the international economic front or even most of us can't afford control what's happening on our state level. We have a vote, we can Make a vote, but you can't control what's happening in your wallet. And so when you see what's happening in the world, economics, it's really prudent to say, okay, how can I pull back? How can I protect what I have? How can I position myself and educate myself to take, see and take control of those opportunities, take advantage of when they become. Because that's when you have an economic downturn, there's tremendous opportunities. People get really wealthy when this happens. And so, I mean, my husband and I are, we're sitting on quite a bit of cash because I'm just, I'm ready, you know, I'm getting ready. This is a way for you to understand what's happening without allowing yourself to be paralyzed by fear. You know, get into a group of real estate investors, find people that are in this so that you can learn from them as they're going. You might find a deal that maybe you can take a. So that you're not, you may not be the expert. You can learn alongside the expert. And it's really important to. It's not what you do for your paycheck, it's what you do with your paycheck that determines your financial future. Yes, I'm going to repeat that. It's not what you do for your paycheck, it's what you do with your paycheck that determines your financial future. So, yes, if you're an employee, I'm not telling you to quit your job if it's something you love and you fulfill. But what are you doing with your, yourself, your personal business? We're all entrepreneurs. Your personal business is your personal balance sheet. And what are you doing to create a financial foundation for yourself? Start by looking at bad debt. Get rid of it. There's lots of different ways to get rid of bad debt. And look at how you can start having a second income. Get multiple streams of income, one step at a time. And don't, don't knock yourself out. As you were just saying, we've all made mistakes, but that bad investment was an occurrence. It's not a definition of who you are. It's an occurrence. We've all made mistakes, but you're smarter today because of it. And hopefully you don't repeat that same mistake. Right? And so understand that none of us are perfect. But we have a gift of what has happened to us in life, whether it be good, bad, or indifferent. We have that knowledge that we can help others coming behind us and we can better position ourselves for the future. So pay attention. To what's happening in the economy, pay attention to things that are going down because that means you have an opportunity to get back on the upside.
- [45:41]
Candy Valentino
So good. A million percent yeses to everything you said. And I feel like when we do have this kind of uncertainty in the markets and we have a little bit of pullback, it allows the little guy to get into the ring. Right. Because otherwise, if everything's so expensive, it's really hard to kind of get into the investment space. So I love that so much. And it was interesting when I was doing the research for the book, we found that that 75% of the Forbes richest 400 on the list, 75% of them all were business owners or had their net worth from someone in their family that had a business. And this kind of takes us in a little bit to your latest work, which I think is so uniquely different from everything else that you've done. So I want to dive into your newest book, Exit Rich, where that came from, why you wanted to write that and just tell us a little bit about it.
- [46:27]
Sharon Lechter
Well, thank you. Yes. My co author on that is Michelle Seller Tucker and she's the largest female business broker in the country. And she's a friend and she's in the trenches with people, helping them sell their businesses. And so she sees the tactics that are wrong. I'm the one that comes in as a mentor in strategies and it's really important for people to get in love with their product. They get in love with their sales team, they get in love, but they don't pay attention to the fundamentals of their business. And so many, many businesses, up to 85% of them that want, want to sell, will not sell because they've not structured themselves properly. They don't have the right legal formation, they don't have the right legal agreements. You know, one of the biggest things I talk about is if you've ever hired somebody for a photo shoot, hire somebody to do your website, hire somebody to do your marketing. Unless you have work for hire agreements with them, you don't own that intellectual property. They do, right? And people look at me, I paid for it doesn't matter if you didn't have a work for hire agreement, you don't, you don't technically own it. And so when somebody comes in to buy your company, they're going to go through that and say, nope, your 10 million price is now 8 million. And then they're going to look at your customer agreements. And that customer agreement says it's not assignable. Oops. Sorry, I'm no longer interested in buying your company. And so understanding how to structure your business, how to create the systems so that your successful business can be scalable and sustainable is so important. If you ever want to sell or give it to your kids. Kids. Because that's what creates it as a separate asset. You know, a business, you can own a job, not a business. Too many people own jobs. Yes, I want to help them. That's what I help. That's my superpower. I help people create the business that can stand in its own and create additional value.
- [48:12]
Candy Valentino
Oh my goodness, I hope everyone caught that. And I'm not even kidding when I say that you need to pause, rewind and re listen to that. There are very few people. I have this conversation all the time with business owners. Very few people can have the conversation you just had. And so I'm like, literally like I was jumping out of my seat, I was like, yes, yes. Because it's all the often boring, non sexy things that's really gonna matter when you wanna exit or you just wanna scale to some. You know, we actually were just going through a lot of our contracts and realizing. Cause you know, I came out of an exit in 2019, moved to Arizona. It's kinda like just taking time off. Covid happened. Then I'm like, okay, you get itchy cause you're always an entrepreneur, right? So I started and then I was like realizing, oh, you know what? I don't know if intentionally paused to make sure all this was right. Because you're just in that active state of doing and creating and sales and all of the things that you get sucked into. It is so critically important business structure your legal documents, you know, boring things like non disparagement clauses for your employees and employee contracts.
- [49:12]
Sharon Lechter
So.
- [49:12]
Candy Valentino
Oh, I cannot, I'm just. I could talk to you all day, but I know I want to be respectful of your time. The book Exit Rich as well. Like, like a hundred percent. You said 85% of people will never exit. And it's a shame because I think there's a lot of great businesses and they can if they would just do a few things. Like business owners want solvency, they want to know profitability. They want to make sure that the organization is going to have efficiency without you. And a lot of people wrap a whole business around themselves. Their name, their efforts, ego. Oh yeah. And then you have nothing to sell because there isn't an asset. So one of my actual quotes that I. If you go on my feed, it literally, that's probably on there the most that it says, oftentimes you think you're building a business, but you accidentally build a job. And I think that that's an important thing for people to remember, that if you aren't intentional about building a business, you just build a position for yourself that you have to show up there and it's more work. Because being an entrepreneur, wearing all the hats, doing all of the things, is actually way more stressful than just doing a job for someone else and investing in the rest of your time.
- [50:15]
Sharon Lechter
Or they're building a business around people. They're building jobs around people and their personalities. And you cannot scale doing that. You cannot sell doing that. It's so much easier to manage a system. That's what the functionality of that position, what needs to happen. You've managed the functionality, not the personality. And so it's really important to document your systems.
- [50:36]
Candy Valentino
That's so good and wise, wise, sage advice there. If we could look through. Obviously, you know, people always say, I didn't do this. You know, I started investing in real estate at 21, largely because of your book and two others that I read when I was 19. And so. But most people go, oh, candy, I, I didn't do that in my 20s. I didn't do that in my 30s. I'm now 40s or 50s. And I know that I need to do this, but I feel so far behind. I know it's a loaded question, so you don't have to go down through the list, but is there just maybe a piece of advice or something that you can get people started on if they feel like they're a little behind, they know they should be building wealth and doing the things we're talking about, but they haven't done it enough. Is there something that you can maybe just give them to start with?
- [51:17]
Sharon Lechter
Well, the first thing I would say is, you're not alone. All right? 75% of Americans are behind the eight ball when it comes to retirement and probably higher than that. So you're not alone. And the issue is, what are you going to do about it? All right, the first step is to figure out where you are. It's hard to make a plan if you don't know where you are. Most people don't. They have their head in the sand. So figure out where you are. And even if the picture is bleak, it's not very pretty. At least it takes. You feel like you've at least taken action. And so then figure out, what can I do? What next can I do? Looking at real Estate. It's never been easier to invest in real estate. You don't have to buy a whole house yourself. You can find somebody else to partner with. You can go through a reit. You have the opportunity to invest a little bit of money, to learn a lot, and that's where you start. Invest a little, learn a lot, and then all of a sudden, you're investing a lot because you've learned so much, right? So it's very important to get that first toe in the water. Think about from a standpoint of building a business. You can always start off for cash flow, becoming an affiliate for somebody who you believe in. It's not an asset to you, but it's an income stream. So you can say, I really believe in what Sharon's doing. I'm gonna be an affiliate, and I'm gonna share it. So when people buy something from Sharon, I'm gonna get a piece of it. That Laurel Langemeyer, who a lot of people know in this industry, started off that way. When she left corporate America, she started working with us at Rich Dad Product. She had no systems, and so she started making cash flow from helping us spread the Rich dad message. And then she went on to build her own empire. So each one of us has. There are options available. The issue is the fear of stepping outside your own little world of comfort. And so the first step is who you're hanging out with. Hang out with other people that are doing what you want to do, and you'll start learning from them. Them.
- [53:10]
Candy Valentino
Yeah, it's so good. And I think that there's so many mistakes that people make because they're getting bad or misinformation. And what I love. If I was trying. If I was trying, I was trying to think all the things you're saying. How do I. How do I boil down all this brilliance? It's like it's the core fundamentals. We hear all these flashy things, you know, Like, I always thought it was funny when the B R, R, R R, whatever method came out. I'm like, that's kind of been around for a really long time. It just now has a really fancy acronym to it. And so I think that a lot of these things are distracting people to think this is what they need. But it really boils down to the core fundamentals that we know. How to grow a business, how to grow wealth, how to get out of debt. Like, it doesn't matter how you slice it. It seems like the basis is there. And I'm super curious about this, too. If I Know that you've had exits, you just sold a property, you did all this stuff. If tomorrow, for some reason, we woke up and there was a rule that you could only invest in one thing. You could only invest in one market or vertical, whether it's real estate, stocks, bonds, knowing what we're going into, having the knowledge that you have. But you can only pick one way to leverage your money. What would you pick?
- [54:26]
Sharon Lechter
It would be intellectual property, hands down, just from a standpoint of the power of knowledge. But the second one would be real estate.
- [54:33]
Candy Valentino
Real estate. Yeah. Well, you and I share that too. I wasn't surprised that you said that. Okay, lastly, I just want to make sure to wrap up. This is a question that I ask everyone at the very end when we always talk about wealth, we're talking about money, we're talking about all of those things. What does wealth truly mean to you?
- [54:51]
Sharon Lechter
Well, wealth and success. My definition is a little surprising to a lot of people since I talk about money all the time. But wealth is really success is how you feel about yourself when you look in the mirror. Because wealth is a way of life. Wealth isn't necessarily just money. And so are you creating a life of significance, a life of impact. What's your legacy? Because our legacy is created every single day with every heart you touch. And so to me, wealth is your legacy of life. Have you lived a life of grace? Have you lived a life of contribution? Have you lived a life that attracts other people to want to emulate you? And that's true wealth.
- [55:32]
Candy Valentino
Such a great answer. I know everyone is going to want everything from you. Where can they find the personal success equation? Your books, all the things. How can they keep in touch with you?
- [55:44]
Sharon Lechter
Well, Sharonlecter.com is how you can find me for everything. Personal Success Equation.com is the downloadable workbook I also have. When Covid hit, I was really tired of all the negativity. When I get mad about something, I start a new company. That's kind of how I operate.
- [56:01]
Candy Valentino
Love it.
- [56:01]
Sharon Lechter
Yeah. And so I started something called ATMs, which is a daily positive messaging. And it's called Abundance Tips and mentorship. And that is you can go to atm.sharonlecter.com it's also on the website, but it's a way to just start every day understanding, turn off the negativity. And it's a reinforcement that you're perfect, you're wonderful. And every one of them, I end up with you saying, I am fabulous with me. And I say, yes, you are.
- [56:27]
Candy Valentino
Oh, I love that. Thank you for sharing. It's truly been an honor to connect with you. To live in the same city as you, it feels like I've meet one of my heroes in my life. So I just want to thank you also for paving the way for women and showing up in this space and being so great at what you do. It's truly inspiring. And so I just want to thank you for your time.
- [56:48]
Sharon Lechter
Well, thank you. And I'm very proud of you. I'm always looking for that next generation to come to carry the banner, to carry the message. And you're doing it beautifully. And I'm so thrilled to meet you and I'm so here to support you any way I can can.
- [57:01]
Candy Valentino
Thank you so much. Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to this episode. And if there was something that you loved or you had a specific takeaway, share it and tag me at Candy Valentino. And if you haven't already, grab a copy of my latest book, the 9% Edge Life Changing Secrets to create more revenue for your business and more freedom for yourself. You can pick it up anywhere books are sold, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or your local independent store. And once you do, head over to 9% edge.com and claim $1,500 in pre order bonuses, including a chance to join me on this very show. Thanks so much for tuning in and spending this time with me today, guys. We'll see you next time. YouTube personality Betty Johnson has cracked the code on a new era of newsmaking. It's got to be music to your ears. Ears. It's like the angels singing. Listen, learn and laugh. I had a feeling. I had a feeling you'd be in a very good mood. Oh, it's gonna be a glorious day on Capitol Hill for you, sir. It's a new cultural landscape, so it's an important moment right now. Does this deserve another look? The Benny show sees it in all of its glory. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.