How To Build Wealth & Create An Abundant Financial Future

Summary

The School of Greatness: Episode Summary Title: How To Build Wealth & Create An Abundant Financial Future
Host: Lewis Howes
Guest: Jaspreet Singh
Date: [Insert Episode Date]
Duration: Approximately 76 minutes

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Introduction

In this transformative episode of The School of Greatness, host Lewis Howes engages in a profound conversation with Jaspreet Singh, a financial expert and entrepreneur. Together, they delve into the intricacies of building wealth and crafting an abundant financial future. This episode is a masterclass designed to reshape listeners' perspectives on money, wealth, and personal fulfillment.

1. Money Mindset and Abundance

Jaspreet Singh begins by emphasizing the foundational importance of adopting the right money mindset. He challenges the common scarcity mindset that alienates individuals from wealth, asserting that "money is abundant" and that "both of us can have money because there's a lot of money in the world" (03:00). Singh encourages listeners to view money as a tool for freedom and options rather than a source of stress or moral corruption.

Notable Quote:

"The first step to building wealth is to start with the money mindset... you will become wealthy. And that money is abundant." — Jaspreet Singh [03:00]

2. Making Money vs. Building Wealth

Singh draws a clear distinction between merely making money and genuinely building wealth. He shares anecdotes about high earners who remain financially stagnant due to excessive spending, highlighting that "building wealth is really a matter of time and freedom" (07:00). He underscores that wealth accumulation requires disciplined investment and strategic financial planning.

Notable Quote:

"Some people who have made millions and millions of dollars died with nothing in their name. Died being broke and lived broke." — Jaspreet Singh [07:00]

3. Five Steps to Build Wealth

Singh outlines a straightforward, yet powerful, five-step framework for wealth creation:

1. Earn Money: Whether through a job, side hustle, or business, securing a steady income is essential.
2. Control Spending: Ensure that you do not spend all your earnings. Singh notes, "Most people make $1000 and they spend $1500" (10:22).
3. Invest: Allocate a portion of your savings into investments, which he refers to as the "middleman" to grow your wealth.
4. Reinvest Returns: Continuously reinvest the profits from your investments to compound growth.
5. Increase Income: Strive to earn more to amplify your investment potential.

Notable Quotes:

"You got to earn money. And if people say, how do I earn money? It doesn't matter... you just need a small sliver of it and you can have millions." — Jaspreet Singh [09:00]
"You have to keep more money for yourself. The way that our economic system works is the more money you spend, the richer somebody else gets." — Jaspreet Singh [11:30]

4. Overcoming Limiting Beliefs and Money Demons

A significant portion of the discussion centers on identifying and eliminating "money demons"—limiting beliefs that hinder financial growth. Singh shares personal stories, including his father's struggle with inherited negative money beliefs, and emphasizes the necessity of "killing" these destructive thoughts to pursue wealth (60:44).

Notable Quote:

"Money demons are so pervasive because when we have them, we make their self-fulfilling prophecies and we make them come true." — Jaspreet Singh [60:44]

5. Soft Skills vs. Technical Skills in Wealth Building

Singh highlights the critical role of soft skills—such as likability, relationship-building, and effective communication—in advancing one's financial status. He contrasts this with the often overemphasized technical skills, noting that "you have to be a B student with an A plus personality, and that'll get you farther than being an A student with a B personality" (45:25).

Notable Quote:

"People who are actually rich, they don't brag. They talk about experiences that they have." — Jaspreet Singh [37:33]

6. The Destructive Cycle of Wealth

Addressing the paradox that money doesn't equate to happiness, Singh introduces the concept of the "Destructive Cycle of Wealth" from his book Experiencing the American Dream. He explains how continual acquisition leads to unfulfilled desires, perpetuating a cycle where money fails to provide lasting happiness (73:48).

Notable Quote:

"Learning about this cycle can help you better understand some of your decisions about money." — Jaspreet Singh [67:07]

7. Purpose and Fulfillment Beyond Money

Singh argues that true fulfillment stems from having a purpose beyond financial gain. He references historical figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa, who attained profound satisfaction not solely through wealth but through their impactful missions (73:18).

Notable Quote:

"If you have a purpose first, then use it to create value for other people... you can do great things with your money that brings you joy and happiness." — Jaspreet Singh [73:09]

8. Practical Strategies and Takeaways

Towards the episode's conclusion, Singh offers actionable advice for listeners at various financial stages:

• For Those Starting Out: Adopt the 75-15-10 plan—75% spent, 15% invested, and 10% saved.
• For Increasing Income: Develop a "brag book" to document achievements and actively seek raises by showcasing tangible results (40:56).
• For Financial Recovery: Make temporary sacrifices, such as reducing discretionary spending, and focus on long-term financial goals without succumbing to quick-fix investment schemes (38:33).

Notable Quotes:

"Understanding you're going to make a lot of money in your lifetime... you need to keep more money for yourself." — Jaspreet Singh [10:26]
"It's going to be harder next year. It's going to get even more difficult the year after that." — Jaspreet Singh [17:38]

9. Navigating Emotional and Psychological Barriers

Singh emphasizes the importance of mental resilience and emotional intelligence in financial success. He discusses strategies to shift from a scarcity to an abundance mindset, overcoming fears, and managing emotional responses to financial setbacks (54:40).

Notable Quote:

"You have to ride through them and keep investing your money." — Jaspreet Singh [30:00]

10. Conclusion and Final Insights

In wrapping up, Singh reinforces the idea that wealth is accessible to anyone willing to change their mindset, prioritize investments, and pursue meaningful goals. He stresses that while the journey is challenging, the rewards extend beyond financial gains to encompass personal fulfillment and freedom.

Notable Quote:

"You can live in America for very little money... And that if you have a strong enough purpose, you don't even need money." — Jaspreet Singh [73:40]

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Key Takeaways

• Adopt an Abundance Mindset: Believe that wealth is attainable and view money as a tool for enhancing your life.
• Differentiate Between Income and Wealth: Focus not just on earning but on strategic investment and saving.
• Eliminate Limiting Beliefs: Identify and overcome negative money beliefs that can impede financial growth.
• Enhance Soft Skills: Cultivate interpersonal skills to advance professionally and personally.
• Understand the Wealth Cycle: Recognize the patterns that prevent lasting happiness despite accumulating wealth.
• Pursue Purpose Beyond Money: Align financial goals with meaningful personal missions to achieve true fulfillment.
• Implement Practical Financial Strategies: Use structured plans like the 75-15-10 model and proactively seek income enhancements.

Additional Resources

• Jaspreet Singh's Book: Experiencing the American Dream: How to Invest Your Time, Energy, and Money to Create an Extraordinary Life.
• Financial Tools: Compound interest calculators, investment platforms, and budgeting apps to assist in wealth building.
• Further Reading: "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill, recommended by Singh's father for cultivating a successful mindset.

Conclusion

This episode serves as a crucial guide for anyone aspiring to break free from financial limitations and build a prosperous future. By intertwining psychological insights with practical financial strategies, The School of Greatness empowers listeners to redefine their relationship with money and embark on a journey toward true wealth and abundance.

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Note: For a comprehensive understanding, listeners are encouraged to tune into the full episode and explore the resources mentioned throughout the conversation.

Transcript

[Lewis Howes]

Welcome to this special masterclass. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme. Today. It's going to be powerful. So let's go ahead and dive in. This episode is brought to you by Merrill With a dedicated Merrill Advisor. You get a personalized plan for your financial goals and when plans change, Merrill's with you every step of the way. ML.com bullish to learn more Merrill, a Bank of America company what would you like the power to do? Investing Involves Risk Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenrin Smith Incorporated Registered Broker Dealer Registered Investment Advisor Member SIPC FedEx doesn't know your small business yet maybe it's handmade apparel for dogs. Maybe it's handmade apparel for cats. What FedEx does know is that running a small business is hard enough without the hassle of complex shipping. That's why there's FedEx One Rate. Did you know that with FedEx One Rate you can ship your holiday packages cheaper than the post office? Send packages as low as $14.50 for small boxes. Visit fedex.com onerate for details. Exclusions apply. Valid from October 6, 2024 through January 19, 2025. FedEx 1 Rate 2 Day Retail Shipping 1 flat rate.

[Jaspreet Singh]

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[Unknown Speaker]

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[Jaspreet Singh]

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[Unknown Speaker]

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[Jaspreet Singh]

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[Unknown Speaker]

Learn [e-mail] AmExBusiness the first step to building wealth is to start with the money mindset, the beliefs that you have around money, and understand, number one, that you can become wealthy. Not just that you can become wealthy, you will become wealthy. And that money is abundant. There's a lot of money in the world, right? When people start to enter this financial education space, we start to assume that if you're rich, I can't be rich. If you have money, I can't have money. So it starts to create that jealousy or just this negative association with oh my God, I don't want to tell you my business idea because what if you feel in and take my money? Well, both of us can have money because there's a lot of money in the world. If you look at it from a financial perspective. The Better Reserve bank is printing trillions and trillions of dollars. There's a lot of money out there. You just need a small sliver of it and you can have millions and live a life of true financial freedom. And not just that understanding that money is a tool. Because the reason why we put these smokescreens around money, the money's bad, it's taboo, it's evil, is because many times people are insecure about their own money. And so when I can't go out and buy the nice vacation for my kids, I can't buy my husband that thing that he wants. I can't buy my wife that YSL or Gucci purse that she wants. I can't go on the nice vacations. Well, you know, money's bad. We shouldn't stress about money. It's these stupid vacations. We don't need those. We can enjoy our time here. It's such a scam to go out there and sit on an all inclusive beach and have food delivered to you. Right? I mean, we start to create these smoke screens where, oh, why would, why would anybody want to have an expensive car like that? Why would anybody want to have these nice and expensive things?

[Lewis Howes]

Judging people who have money. Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

And so now it's, you know what? If you don't want it, that's completely fine, but make sure you can afford it. And understanding now, money is not going to make you a good person. It's also not going to make you a bad person. It's just a piece of paper. It's fuel. It amplifies who you are. When you have more of that money, you can do more of the things that money can buy. One of those things is have freedom, have options. Options to choose what you want to buy, options to choose where you want to eat, options to choose when you want to go on vacation, not just can you go on vacation, and options to choose how you want to live your life. And not just that, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, it also can influence what type of healthcare you can get, what type of healthcare your parents can get, what type of healthcare your kids can get, what type of college your kids can go to, what type of education your kids can go to. It matters. And so now at the end of the day, you can hate it or you can understand it. And so we create these smokescreens without really understanding how money plays a part in our life. Because at the end of the day, money talks. And the people who have money will get to be able to live their freedom and the people who don't. You become subservient to the people who have money. And I don't say that to be mean. I say this to be factual.

[Lewis Howes]

They're facts. Yeah. What I'm hearing you say is if every individual watching or listening does not take 100% responsibility for their beliefs around money, they will pass on generational money traumas to their children or the people around them, because they'll be speaking beliefs that are limiting instead of abundant.

[Unknown Speaker]

Absolutely.

[Lewis Howes]

And so how does someone who has been conditioned for decades around certain money beliefs all of a sudden educate themselves, get the tools, get the information and say, no, everything I've been taught for the last 20, 30 years of my life is a lie around money.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

And therefore, you know, have I been living a lie myself? Am I a fraud? Or these people that have been telling me this, can I trust them? My parents, like your whole world blows up, essentially.

[Unknown Speaker]

It does.

[Lewis Howes]

It blows up. And so how does someone navigate the emotions of. Oh, all these things? My parents, who I love, who are well intended, have taught me around money, have kind of been holding me back. And I understand they try to protect me, but it's really limited me. How do we deal with that and then start educating ourselves to break free of money limits so money scarcity, of money insecurity so that we can have more financial peace and emotional peace around money.

[Unknown Speaker]

I think you got to start with this understanding. If somebody doesn't have what it is that you want, you probably shouldn't listen to them on how to get where you want to go. And your parents might have the best intentions, your family might have the best intentions, but they might not know how to get to where you want to go. Right. The common saying is don't listen to a fat person on how to lose weight. Take that for whatever it's worth.

[Lewis Howes]

A broke person on how to personal money.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

You know, my parents and a lot of traditional Indian immigrants, you come to a new country like America with very little. You work very hard. Now you want your kids to have a better life. And if you don't have financial education, you're going to say that the best way to do that is go and become a doctor. That's why you see so many Indian people become doctors, is because your parents beat it into you since the day you're one. I'm speaking from 100% experience here, because since I was young, my parents said that I need to go out and become a doctor because if you become a doctor, you're going to, number one, have that Dr. Title. So you're going to have the status, someone's going to want to marry you, and you're going to be able to make a lot of money and be rich. But what I learned was there's a disconnect between being a doctor and being financially wealthy. Those are two different things, because we assume that if you go to school, get good grades, you make more money and you become more wealthy. But there's also a difference between making more money and building wealth.

[Lewis Howes]

What's the difference between making money and building wealth?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, some people who have made millions and millions of dollars died with nothing in their name. Died being broke and lived broke. Building wealth is really a matter of time and freedom. And what I mean by that is I can make a million dollars a year and be broke, which a lot of people actually are. We're out here not far from Beverly Hills, and a lot of people are making a lot of money but are broke. And I see this all the time because I work in this financial education space where I have met countless doctors, because I talk about this a lot. People who are making 3, 4, 5, $600,000 a year that have no savings, no investments, and no idea where to start. Because when you start to make more money, you first think, if I had an additional hundred thousand dollars a year, oh, my God, I could do so many things. Because we think in terms of spending. If I had $10,000 a month, what would I do? Well, I would first go to Cancun, I'd buy myself a nicer car. I'd go on a nicer, you know, whatever. And that's, we consume. That's how we think. We're, we're conditioned to think that way. That America is a consumer nation. We are the largest consumers of things in the world. I like to say that Americans make a dollar to spend $2. Traditional Indian mindset. People make a dollar to spend 20 cents because they're conditioned to save. Not saying either one of these is right, they're both wrong. But when most people are conditioned to consume and spend, you make money, spend more. And you might think, well, how can you spend a million dollars a year? It's very easy. It is very easy to spend a million dollars a year. You start buying some nice homes, start going on some expensive vacations, you start buying some expensive clothes, and there goes your million dollars a year gone. And that's what happens to a lot of people. So we talk about the difference between building wealth and making a lot of money. You got to take the money that you earn and not spend it and you got it. Put this to work. And so let me break this down this way. Becoming wealthy comes down to five steps. And I've talked about it in many different forms. But I'm going to break down into the simplest root thing you have to understand. Number one is you got to earn money. And if people say, how do I earn money? It doesn't matter. It could be a side hustle, it could be a business, it could be a job. You could have some money coming in. Once you make some money. Number two is you don't spend all of your money. And that means when you make a thousand dollars, you don't spend all thousand dollars. How much do you spend? Let's not worry about the nitty gritty yet. Just don't spend all of your money.

[Lewis Howes]

Well, Most people make $1000 and they spend 1500.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

They use their credit card to spend more than what they have because they think, well, I'll be able to pay this off next month because I have another thousand dollars coming in.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly.

[Lewis Howes]

And then they get into more and more debt because they're over consuming.

[Unknown Speaker]

You'll never build wealth, you'll never get rich, you'll never have any freedom. And so you can't spend all of your money, which is why number three is you take the money you don't spend and you go out and you buy an investment. We'll call it the middleman. And you'll see. Why I call it the middleman is you want to take this money, don't spend, and you want to essentially throw it into this thing on the side that will hopefully make you some more money in the long term. Then number four, when your investment makes money, take the money that your investments make and dump it back into your investments. And then number five is work to make more money. And the reason why you're working to make more money is so you can have more investments. Now let me explain why this is so difficult. Because it makes sense in theory, right? You're never going to become wealthy if every time you make a dollar, you give it to somebody else. If you want to become wealthy, you have to keep more money for yourself. The way that our economic system works is the more money you spend, the richer somebody else gets. It's, you know, hate it or love it. That's the reality when you go to Chipotle and you buy that extra guac. Chipotle is making more money. When you Go to Amazon, you spend more money. Amazon's making money. Now, this can make some people extremely wealthy, but it also keeps the majority of people broke financially. And so this is where if you want to make yourself rich, you got to stop making everybody else rich. Right now. You gotta first make yourself rich, and that means stop giving other people your money. And there are so many extremes to how you can do this. Right. I mean, you could go to that. That one extreme where I am not gonna spend anything. I'm gonna live in a shoebox and I'm gonna eat nothing but rice and beans, and I'm going to stack all my money. Fine. Other people will find a more balanced approach, and you got to find what's right for you.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah, yeah. I'll spend a certain amount on the things I like, but I'm not going to overspend or I like it where you just say, I'm going to reinvest a certain amount of my money every single month. Of the money that's coming in, whether it's a paycheck or your business, I'm gonna take that money. This much is going every month into my investments, whatever that might be. And then if I want to spend the rest on a vacation or, you know, extra guacamole or whatever it is, cool. Enjoy your life as well.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Lewis Howes]

You don't have to live the most frugal life as well. You don't have to be so extreme. But I think first take your money to invest.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Then spend on some activities and events and go to concerts. Cool. I get it.

[Unknown Speaker]

And you got to find your balance. For me, I was on an extreme when I first learned about this. I went extreme because at first, when I was making money first I was running an event planning company. I didn't know anything about money. I took my money and I bought nice watches and I dumped it back into my car. I mean, that's what I thought was normal. But as you start to learn, you realize, or if you start to become more financially educated, you realize that that doesn't do anything for your wealth. Right. There's no wealth built into tricking out your car. There's no wealth built into suspending money on nice things. It looks nice and it's nice. If you want to have it, it's fine. But that's not going to make you wealthy. And you got to decide what's more important to you. So then I completely tipped the scale, and I started not spending any money so I'd have more money to invest. For me, it Started off in real estate, and now it's this slow process. The reason why it's so difficult is because if you make $10,000, it's a lot of money to put aside, right. You to make 10 grand. But you can't show off a $10,000 stock market portfolio the way you can a $10,000 watch or a $10,000 vacation. Because I can take those things and I can put it on my Instagram, I could put it on my Facebook, I could put it on TikTok, and I can show these things off, and they get a lot of likes, and they get a lot of oohs and ahs, but my stock market portfolio just sits there. Slowly, you'll start to generate a little bit of income. And I think understanding you're going to make a lot of money in your lifetime. I don't care how much money you're making, if you make 50 grand a year in the next 10 years, you're going to make half a million dollars. In the next two decades, you're going to make a million dollars.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Unknown Speaker]

Assuming you never get another raise, which means you're going to make millions of dollars over the course of your career. And most people will have nothing to show for it. And when I say most people, I don't say this generally. I mean, statistically, most people will have nothing to show for it. Which means now, as you go through life earning this money, what are you doing it for? Are you doing it to look rich or are you doing it to actually build wealth? And you got to decide that for you, right? I can't come here and tell you, oh, it's important for you to build wealth. And then you listen to me, you got to decide that for yourself, because you want to take better care of your yourself, your wife, your husband and your kids and your parents. And you want to have a better future than today. And that's what investing is really for.

[Lewis Howes]

What would you say? If someone is making between 50,000 to $100,000 a year and they want to break free of the system, they want to overcome the urges and desires and temptations of society, where they have to show off to please people that don't care about them and they don't care about, and they want to start setting themselves up for a greater future, it's going to take time, but over 10, 20, 30 years, they could potentially have a million dollars worth of investments or beyond or more or more. So if someone's making between 50,000 and $100,000 right now, 20, 24, what should they be thinking about in terms of building wealth? What's a couple of steps or a system they can put in place if they have zero financial education, if they have. They didn't even have the right beliefs, but they could start setting themselves up for 5, 10, 20 years in the future where they're going to say, wow, I'm so glad I made those few steps that Jaspreet told me to do back in the day. What would those steps be?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, the first thing is understanding that even if you're making 50 grand a year, you can retire a millionaire and live a life of financial freedom if you start taking action. Now, the thing that everybody likes to talk about, I'll give the end goal, and I'll show how to actually do it. Because everybody says if you invest $100 a month from age 21 to 65, you'll have over a million dollars when it comes time for you to retire. Okay, how, where, when? And, you know, what do I do? So, number one, understanding the numbers, the math will show you that you can become a millionaire. Now, you got to dissect the how do I actually go about doing it? Because everybody says, invest your money, but what does that mean?

[Lewis Howes]

So, and where do I invest? In the stock market, individual stocks, funds, real estate, Real estate funds, apartments. You know, it's crypto gold. Like, what am I supposed to do?

[Unknown Speaker]

So you start by not spending all their money. A simple thing that I talked about is my 75, 15, 10 plan, which means for every dollar that I earn, 75 cents is the maximum that I can spend. 15 cents is the minimum I'm putting aside to invest. 10 cents is the minimum I'm putting aside to save. Now, the first thing everybody says when I say that is, Jaspreet, how in the world am I going to live off of three quarters of every dollar that I earn? I'm already struggling to survive. Well, you got to make this decision right now. Which is what's more important to you right now? Do you want to build your future wealth or do you want to continue having the nice things? Then everybody says, jaspreet, I'm already living tight. Like, what do you mean? I'm already living paycheck to paycheck. Things are already tough. Well, I'm going to just. All I can do is give you the reality. And the reality is it's going to be harder next year. It's going to be even more difficult the year after that, and it's going to get even more difficult the Year after that, the path to building wealth is not that complicated. You have to have some money. You have to put this money aside for your investments. If you're spending all of your money, you're never going to build wealth. And now you got to figure out, what are you going to cut out.

[Lewis Howes]

But, Jaspreet, I've got my parents who need support. I've got family members who are struggling. I've got my friends that want to go out on the bars three times a week and concerts and activities, and I gotta buy nice clothes for my job, and I've got to commute to work, and I've got to do all these things that cost a lot of money.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yep.

[Lewis Howes]

Jaspreet, what do I do?

[Unknown Speaker]

Where you put your focus, you're going to see the biggest results. If you want to lose weight, you got to put your exercise in your focus in the gym, you got to put your focus on your diet. If you want to advance in your career, you got to put more focus on your job and learning how to advance in your career. If you want to build more wealth, you got to put your focus on learning how to do that and changing the way you spend your money. And it's really just a matter of priorities. I used to guest teach in Detroit public schools. Obviously, our office is in Detroit, but I used to guest teach in Detroit public schools in some really rough school districts. And these kids were smart, hard workers, but many of them grew up in troubled homes. Most of the kids did not have two parents in a home. The vast majority of kids did not have two parents in a home. The vast majority of kids had no guidance or leadership. Some of the kids were already affiliated with gangs in high school because they didn't have anywhere else to go. And the gangs literally provided them food. So now when you're quoting community, Community. When you're. When your brothers are providing you food, they're trying to take care of you, you don't think of it as a bad thing. Now, here's the interesting part. If you focus on the financial side, I came in as a guest teacher just to talk about life, and I would talk about, you know, just general motivation. And you can become successful starting with the mindset side of things, but also getting a little bit into the financial side because the kids there wanted nice things like every other high school kid in the world does.

[Lewis Howes]

Cool sneakers and clothes and whatever. Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

Which is no different than any other high school kid. The difference is many of these kids here were also working jobs. They were working to earn money while going to school. And so we talked to the kids about money. Like, okay, you're working to earn money. Great. What are you doing with this money? I get paid, I go to the local liquor store, I cash in my check, the liquor store owner takes 1 to 10% of the check, I buy a bunch of things and I walk out and then I have half of my paycheck left. Okay, well what about these new Jordans that you got? Because that was a big thing in the school that I'm talking about, particularly where kids were really lining up to buy the J's, the Jordans. And I remember this so vividly because I remember kids would saying, I'm not going to eat because I want to save the 8 bucks so I can buy these shoes. It's a matter of priorities where. True story. Some kids are prioritizing the Jordans over the food that I eat. Wow. And so life is really a matter of priorities. Now if building wealth is really a priority, that means you're going to have to deprioritize some other things that you're spending money on. Now this is where people get into those arguments of, does that mean I should stop buying Starbucks? Look, Starbucks is $5 a day. Whatever.

[Lewis Howes]

It might be more than that now.

[Unknown Speaker]

Whatever it is, Right. Which, you know, if you put that in a compound interest calculator, yeah, it could be worth a million dollars. But now let's, let's take a step back and look at some of the biggest purchases. The number one largest expense for most people besides taxes. Car, your own, where you live and then your car.

[Lewis Howes]

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[Unknown Speaker]

And so now let's start with those two things. Can you live somewhere smaller and save a few hundred bucks a month? I still rent today.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

I own a portfolio of rental properties. I invest in stocks, I invest in startups. I run Briefs Media. My company. We have an office, an expensive office in downtown Detroit. But I also rent where I live.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Unknown Speaker]

Are you going to feel bad for me because I rent?

[Lewis Howes]

No.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, I hope not. You know, it's. It's. We demonize the wrong things. Let's stop normalizing buying BMWs in our 20s and start normalizing buying assets because it's very easy to demonize. Oh, you're renting, you're paying somebody else's mortgage, you're making somebody else rich. Why not build your own equity? Well, let's actually dissect the financial argument here because it has good merits, right? People coming at this from a good perspective that you have to own a home to build wealth. That's what people have made the American dream, to own a home. When reality, the American dream, is the ability to build wealth. People just assume building wealth means buying a home. Who did that? Well, none other than the bankers and the realtors. I used to Be Well, I still am a licensed realtor. And one of the things they teach you when you become a realtor, especially if you're learning how to sell, is you talk to people about buying their biggest investment ever. And if you're buying your biggest investment, keyword investment ever, it's a little bit easier to get you to think about buying a little bit bigger and a little bit nicer. Because now you're buying for your kids, you're buying to build a generational wealth, you're buying something that you can build equity in. But let's talk about this for a second. When you go and rent, the thing everybody says is you're going and paying a landlord's mortgage. Yes. When you go and buy something on Amazon, did anybody ever say you're paying Jeff Bezos mortgage, whoever the other owners.

[Lewis Howes]

Are, the Starbucks mortgage?

[Unknown Speaker]

Because you are.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

When you go and eat at a nice restaurant, did you ever think that you're paying the chef's mortgage? Because you are. When you go and get a drink from Starbucks, do you ever think that I'm paying for that baristas mortgage? Because you are. So you're getting a value. Now let's talk about. Okay, well I'm building equity in your home. Yeah, that's great. Nothing wrong with that. But banks are also smart and they front load their mortgages. What does that mean? That means for the first, if you get a 30 year mortgage for the first 14 and a half years out of your 30 year mortgage paying interest, well the majority of your payment is going directly to interest. Which means for the first year, almost all of your monthly payment is going in interest. So if I'm making $1,000 a month in my mortgage year one, I have built essentially zero equity because all that money I paid in year one or almost all of it is going directly to my bankers pockets. And it's not until year 15 that half of my mortgage payment is going to build equity. So yeah, you are building equity, but it takes a long time. And what ends up happening before year 15 is people go and refinance. And when you refinance, you're starting that process all over again. And so this is where again I'm not against homeownership. I think it's a great thing for the right person at the right time. Just make sure you can afford it.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Unknown Speaker]

And at the end of the day, the way you build wealth is not by buying a home. The way you build wealth is not by becoming a doctor. The way you build wealth is not by Becoming a NBA player, the way you build wealth is by using your money to buy investments. I called it the middleman a little bit earlier. The reason why I called it a middleman is because it's so difficult, and you really have to think of it as like a delayed process. I make. When I make $10,000, it takes a lot of time and effort and energy to make that $10,000. Right. Well, what do you want to do when you make this? You want to show it off, but instead, if I take the $10,000 and I put it in an investment, I don't see anything of it. A 10% return on $1,000 is 100 bucks. A 10% return on $10,000 is $1,000. And it might take a year to get the 10% return. It could take two years. Well, if you keep doing that, though, what you'll start to realize is that a 10% return on 100 grand is $10,000, and a 10% return on a million dollars is $100,000. Right. It takes time to grow and build, but you got to get started. It starts with one, right? People say, oh, I got. I can't see any real returns, real money until I invest a million dollars. Well, the way you get to that million dollars is you start with one.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

You're from Ohio, right? In the Midwest, it gets cold during the wintertimes. Okay, Detroit's a little better than Ohio. But what happens is, when the wintertime comes and you want to build a snowman, you start with a small snowball. It's this big. You put it on the ground, and if you want to build a snowman, you start to roll it in the beginning, you're not seeing any growth. That snowball stays small. But if you keep rolling, you stick with it. You keep rolling, it starts to get a little bigger, and then a little while by, it goes a little bigger. And then once it gets bigger, every time you turn the snowball, it gets a lot bigger, a lot quicker because there's so much more surface area. And that's what you're doing when you're investing your money is you are working to build. The beginning part sucks. There's no way around it. You got to start by spending less money. You got to start by investing your money. And you see no returns because the markets might be going up, they might be going down, lose money you might be seeing. I mean, that's a part of the process. And you're like, what? I'm investing my money for six months, and I Haven't seen where are my millions of dollars? Right. But you got to stay consistent. The beginning part sucks, and it's tough and it's not attractive, but you got to keep going. And that's why people get so attracted to how can I get rich quicker, Right? The next meme stock, the next crypto. Hot crypto. I'm not saying all bitcoin or blockchain is bad, but you get caught into this, how can I 10x my money in 10 months? How can I double my money in 10 months? How Can I get this quick outcome which ends up becoming gambling? Which is why most people who do that end up losing their money. I read a statistic the other day that said that 90% of people lose money in the stock market. Over the last century, the stock market has gone up by an average of 10% a year. Yet most people are losing money.

[Lewis Howes]

Why?

[Unknown Speaker]

The reason why is. And if you're watching this video, you might relate to this. You go and find a nice stock you put your money in. Three weeks later, the stock is lower. Every. And you feel like every time you buy a stock, the stock market goes down right after you buy. That happens to a lot of people. And then what ends up happening is a lot of people end up selling because they don't start to see that return in three weeks or three months or even three years. And so now you sell. But this is where. Now it's that financial education, which means the psychological education, but also, which investment am I buying? Psychological investment means understanding there's ups and downs. I gotta be able to ride through them and keep investing my money. The education of financial education is what am I actually buying? Because I don't think 98% of America should be trying to pick the right stock. No, invest your money in a fund because you don't know if you're investing into the next Amazon or the next Bed, Bath and Beyond, Because.

[Lewis Howes]

But if you invest in a decent index fund or the s and P500, you're going to. And you keep it in there, you're going to make money.

[Unknown Speaker]

If you believe, well, as long as America keeps growing, you're going to keep making money. Because at the end of the day, what you're trying to do is you're essentially trying to invest in the American economy. And if you believe that the future of America is going to continue to be bright and it's going to continue to be better, then you want to own a piece of that today.

[Lewis Howes]

For people that don't have money or feel like, money is out of reach for them. Is it possible for anyone to become wealthy or to become rich? Or is it only for a certain mindset or a certain demographic of people?

[Jaspreet Singh]

Yeah, I think anybody who wants to have money, anybody who wants to have richness can get there. But it certainly is not as easy as everyone on the Internet makes it seem. It's not rah rah, Amazon dropshipping, rah rah, wholesale real estate, rah rah, buy some life insurance and you're good to go. Like, that's just not it. And I think a big conversation that, like, we don't talk about is, like, proximity. Right? So, like, in my life now, I have many rich friends, and those rich friends provide me additional rich opportunities. So I got to go to the US Open on a bank's dime because my fiance worked with a guy who is at an investment bank, and he had four tickets, took him, his wife, my fiance, and myself. Those tickets are thousands of dollars. Like, they're very, very expensive. I have friends who had an incredible accountant, had great team in terms of financials for business, and they were like, you should talk to my team. That's how I got hooked up with my business manager. If you don't have that proximity to people who have money, who've done it, who played the playbook, how are you going to learn it? Because, sure, if you are a young person growing up, low income, and you want to make smart money decisions, work very hard in school, get good grades, do the American dream thing, and you go, you get a Harvard. Okay. You get to Harvard. The rich kids still don't want to be friends with you. Why not? Because you can't afford to split the table at the club on Friday night.

[Unknown Speaker]

Wow.

[Jaspreet Singh]

You can't afford to pay for the dues for your finals club or whatever they call it. Like, you don't have that money to get you there. So I think the process of becoming wealthy and becoming rich and having money, it's available to anyone. But the trajectory and the timeline is very, very different.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting where you start. So proximity alone isn't enough is what I'm hearing you say, because you could have the grades or the skills and the proximity, but if you don't have the money still, then people may not. What are you. What are you saying?

[Jaspreet Singh]

So I'm saying that proximity makes it easier.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Jaspreet Singh]

So if you grow up rich and your parents are, you know, very, very tough, and they're like, we're not leaving a penny to you guys. You still grew up around all of.

[Lewis Howes]

Those rich people, you still have access, contacts, information.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Exactly. And you still got all those soft skills. Whereas someone whose parents are like, I will leave you every dollar I have, but they grow up lower middle class, they don't have that proximity that you had growing up.

[Lewis Howes]

It's like a language. You didn't get to hear the language. See how things were done, see how deals were talked about. Even if you weren't involved in doing the deals or paying for the things you witnessed and experienced it over a decade or two.

[Jaspreet Singh]

So on Wall street we call them execution or knife and fork guys. So execution guys are the technical ones. They're like act the ones that are actually good at the job. Right. And then you got knife and fork guys. And the reason they're called knife and fork is because they know they have all of those elegances that if you don't grow up watching that day in, day out, you don't know. They know that the littlest utensils here and the biggest one comes in closer to your plate. They know how to take the napkin and fold it politely over their seat or like over their lap. They know that the dessert spoon goes this way. And they have those soft skills that are kind of like the tell of how you can kind of spot another rich person. Like I can smell the rich on someone.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Jaspreet Singh]

Oh yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

But there's a lot of like fake rich also.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Oh, tons.

[Lewis Howes]

So can you smell 100% and the fake rich?

[Jaspreet Singh]

Yes.

[Lewis Howes]

What's the difference between people who are actually rich and those who are acting like they're rich?

[Jaspreet Singh]

People who are actually rich, like you rich. Sorry guys.

[Unknown Speaker]

Show us.

[Lewis Howes]

Good, that's good.

[Jaspreet Singh]

They're not concerned about impressing you.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting.

[Jaspreet Singh]

They are. I talk about this in my book. They are apex predators. They do not worry about what you think about them.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Jaspreet Singh]

It is the guy that you see walking into a three Michelin star restaurant in a quiet, normal looking outfit, sweater vest situation, eats his meal, leaves a 50% tip. Because they can. That's true wealth. Then you've got the wannabe wealth that goes to that same restaurant dripped out in a designer label is, you know, making a scene. Why isn't this water sparkling? This is still. I don't like that. No, no, no. Like just, you know, really, really new to the experience. And then leaves at 10% it.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow, that's interesting. So do you, is there what are the other soft skills that you can tell between someone who's actually rich and someone who's faking it or trying to be rich or Maybe has some money, but they're trying to show it off too much.

[Jaspreet Singh]

So I would say that people who want to look rich brag about things. Look at my new bag, look at my new car. Really rich people, they don't brag. They talk about experiences that they have. So this is another experience, and, like, one that I frankly couldn't really relate to when I first started in my career because I didn't come from that kind of money. But when it was around vacation season and people were talking about going to.

[Lewis Howes]

Italy and the yachts and the.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Not even the yachts, but everybody had a restaurant in Capri that you had to try.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Everyone had their favorite place for gelato, you know, in Venice. Whatever. Like, whatever it was, you could tell that person had lived life in a way that someone who doesn't have that kind of access, who doesn't have that kind of money doesn't have, because they can't take the time off. They don't have the money to go to those places. And even if they did, they would be doing things on the path versus stuff off the beaten path that lets them live like a local.

[Lewis Howes]

What would you say are a few practical things if people are like, you know, I'm just kind of. I don't have money for the next few months. I don't have an emergency fund. I don't have. I've got debts I'm still paying off. If someone is financially sick and unwell and their financial health is unstable, what are a few strategies they can do to either increase their income or get back to financial wholeness?

[Jaspreet Singh]

I would say something that people struggle with realizing is that these changes you'll have to make, they're not permanent. They're only temporary.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Jaspreet Singh]

And you are going to be uncomfortable. It's not going to be fun. And I am very anti. Cut out the avocado toast. Don't buy the coffee. Rah, rah. Okay. I am.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Jaspreet Singh]

But if you are in a truly a dark, dark hole and there's no ladder to crawl out, cut it out. Like, you literally have to cut it out. You have to make some temporary changes that are very uncomfortable and to your point. Like, we focus so much on cutting out every single little discretionary cost. Do you know how hard it is to cut out $5,000 worth of expenses? Do you know how easy it is to ask for a $5,000 raise? A $5,000 raise happens every single day. Like, that is par for the course. That's not anything special. Cutting out $5,000, you how many coffees you have to cut out, you know, how many meals you can't go out to? Do you know how many friends you might lose in that process? So again, I think it's really, really important to be asking for that raise. And I mean 10, 15% every single year. Are you going to get it every year? Probably not, but you get 7% great. You get 8% great. You got to ask and you got to remind them pretty much for six months out of the year that you deserve that raise and that you want money, that you are money motivated. Because if you ask in December when everybody else is asking for money, you're at the back of the list. You want to be on top of the pile. When your boss starts thinking about who's getting a raise this year, what can.

[Lewis Howes]

Someone do who's an employee to be really smart and intentional about getting a raise?

[Jaspreet Singh]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

How can they show their value, their work ethic, that they're getting the results that's going to increase revenue in the business as opposed to just saying, give me a 20% raise or a 10% raise because I deserve it?

[Jaspreet Singh]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

How do they enroll through actual results? As opposed to, I just want to raise. Yeah, give it to me, otherwise I'm not happy.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Yeah. So you remember those two guys on Wall Street? You've got the executioners and then you got the knife and fork guys. So on the execution side, make yourself a brag book. So it's a literal folder.

[Lewis Howes]

A brag book, A brag book, razor.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Seats, promo pitch, whatever you want to call it, just make one. It's a folder in your email. And every time something good happens to you, every time you get a pat on the back from another team member from your company, put it, forward it to that folder. A client says, wow, you know, you did such a great job. Whatever, put it in that folder. Anything that good, good that happens to you, put in that folder. Because that way when you go and you have to write those really annoying self assessments, you can go back and literally look through those emails and be like, oh, remember that time I did that one thing and that thing and that thing, and now you have quantifiable results that you can point to. The second piece is the knife and fork piece. There's a study and it shows that the smartest person is not the one that gets paid the most.

[Lewis Howes]

Right.

[Jaspreet Singh]

They're like second most paid. Second or third most paid. Yeah. Being smart and being the best employee gets you to a certain point, but the person that is paid the most is the person that is essentially Mr. Or Mrs. Congeniality. You need to be liked. You need. And not so much like, you have to be agreeable and likable, but, like, people have to think of you.

[Lewis Howes]

Like, you gotta be top of mind.

[Jaspreet Singh]

You gotta be top of mind. And you have to be, unfortunately, popular around the office. So that happens by not skipping the company happy hour. That happens by joining your stupid wreck pickleball league with your boss. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you have to do those things if you really want that. And I know people listening to this might think, like, well, I have kids. I can't do the pickleball league. I can't go to the happy hour. Okay, Ask your boss to go to lunch once every three weeks. Make that time. Force that time. Do the water cooler thing, because it might cause you 15 minutes. It might cost you 15 minutes of your day, and it might cost you that 15 minutes of productivity. I guarantee you nobody is going to miss that 15 minutes of your work product. But they'll remember when you told that funny joke, they'll remember that story you told about, you know, the one, you know, funny thing that happened that weekend. Because that is how people remember you. It's not about, like, oh, do you remember who closed that amazing deal last quarter? Nobody says that.

[Lewis Howes]

Right. You know what I think about is, like, who is. Who is able to show up with just consistent, good attitude, energy, and effort consistently? Who creates the least amount of stress? Yes. You know that I don't want to think about the challenges and the stress that is being brought to the team or to myself, but that you're just consistent. Not that you can't have a challenging day or bad stuff happens, but just overall, you got pretty good attitude.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Pretty good energy. You're willing to show up and work hard consistently. It's like, all right, cool. You're gonna get rewarded.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

But go ahead.

[Jaspreet Singh]

No, I was gonna say it's also like doing an elevator test or a airport test. When you're looking at a resume, how many times has someone asked you about your past job experience in detail? Frankly, not that many times. You know what everybody beelines to on my resume?

[Lewis Howes]

What's that?

[Jaspreet Singh]

They look at the very bottom and they're like, interests, activities. And they're like, oh, that's weird. I see you were a. Literally, that's weird. You were a cheerleader in college. And I'm like, yes. And they're like, really? And I'm like, yeah, why don't I seem so fun and Bubbly and like, you know, it's the same day that I'm wearing all black and I look so, like, depressed. Or they'll look at the bottom of my resume and they're like, interest mob movies. What's your favorite one? And I'm like, Goodfellas, obviously. And then we get into a 20 minute debate and I waste 20 minutes in our interview. But you only now have 10 minutes to ask me technical questions. And if I ace those 10 minutes of questions instead of 30 minutes, I now look like a genius. Because every question you asked me, I got right. And then even better, like the fact that you and I now have something in common. Because you know that Goodfellas is my favorite movie. I know that the Godfather is your favorite movie. So now we're friends.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. You're more likable.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

And it sounds like people hire or they give raises or opportunities to people they like more.

[Jaspreet Singh]

It's been shown time and time again.

[Lewis Howes]

It's not about being the smartest or the most technical. It's about you want to have technical skills and be smart.

[Jaspreet Singh]

You got to be a B student with an A plus personality, and that'll get you farther than being an A student with a B personality.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting. It's more about personality than your technical skills is what it sounds like. Interesting.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

But you got to be competent as well.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

I mean, you can't.

[Jaspreet Singh]

You can't have an A plus personality and just be like a D minus, like, like, you're still bad at the job. They don't want you around.

[Lewis Howes]

Man, I don't know how I got here then. I was like barely past school, you know, so that's what I'm hearing you say around. If you wanted to increase your income is some practical things. Why do people expect to get big raises or big, you know, pay increases by just doing the bare minimum? Why do you think people think they deserve a 10% raise for just doing the job? Minimum. I am always on the hunt for alternatives to regular coffee. And I found one that I'm really loving right now called Rise Mushroom Coffee. Unlike regular coffee, Rise Mushroom Coffee helps you stay energized and focused while supporting your overall well being so you can more fully embrace the day. Rise Mushroom Coffee is a custom, powerhouse blend of six functional mushrooms crafted to fuel your body and mind all day long. It helps with all day energy, sharper focus, healthy digestion and immune support. And with over 150,000 five star reviews, you likely won't be disappointed. Even when I drink a cup of Rice at the beginning of the day. I love that I can feel my energy sustained throughout the whole day. Highly recommend you give it a try. Try Rise mushroom coffee with 15% off your first order at risesuperfoods.com School of Greatness that's R Y Z E superfoods.com School of GreatNESS don't just wake up, awaken with Rise. Did you know that skin care can start in the laundry room? All Free Clear is the number one laundry detergent brand recommended by dermatologists, allergists and pediatricians. Sensitive skin all free clear is 100 free of dyes and perfumes. It provides an effective clean that's gentle on skin. Plus All Free Clear liquid is safer Choice certified by the US EPA for a clean you can feel good about. All you need is All Free Clear.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Well, in recent years, because of how the job market's been, it's been a employees market, meaning there was always another company that was willing to hire. Like there was this massive Covid boom, actually where it was the great resignation. People were leaving jobs left, right and center because they could get paid more somewhere else. And now do you think it's gonna.

[Lewis Howes]

Go back the other way?

[Jaspreet Singh]

Right now it's doing this. It's coming, it's coming back in and you have to be good at your job. Let me be clear again. Those A plus, A plus employees, they're still leaving jobs, they're still going to new places, they're still getting paid and they always will be. Because if you're really good, there will always be some somewhere and somebody who wants you. But for people who are doing the bare minimum, it's harder to hide now because when things at the top and you know, the bottom line, revenue is not so frothy, they have to trim fat. And if you're doing the bare minimum, you're going to be the first on the chopping block.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Jaspreet Singh]

So I think it's important about making yourself indispensable and actually doing good work.

[Lewis Howes]

Right.

[Jaspreet Singh]

But in terms of like prepping for a layoff, again, I think it's important to have that emergency fund I've made content about this. But just, you know, check those warn notices every so often. Basically, if you just google your state and warn notice, warn W A R N warn notice, war notice, warn act, it is basically any corporation with over a certain number of employees needs to give notice when they're doing a mass layoff. Lots of companies try and skirt this by getting rid of like a slightly odd number below the threshold or, you know, giving just enough time, whatever, but just check. I think it's important just to have an eye out and be like, oh, wow, okay. A lot of companies in the hotel and hospitality space are laying off a bunch of employees. My employer's not on this list, but I might be soon.

[Unknown Speaker]

Who knows?

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. What skill should employees be developing throughout the year or years at a career or multiple careers? What can they develop to make themselves more indispensable besides just like, okay, I'm doing the job and I'm showing up and doing it, but should I be taking classes? Should I be learning public speaking? Should I be some other skills, learning to make myself more desirable at the current job or on another place?

[Jaspreet Singh]

Yeah, I think every job. Being good at your technical skills is great, but you want to have transferable skills, and these are the soft skills.

[Unknown Speaker]

Brilliant.

[Jaspreet Singh]

What is it?

[Lewis Howes]

What is it? Tell me.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Just, again, it goes back to those fork and knife skills.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yes.

[Jaspreet Singh]

You want to be able to have a conversation with just about anyone. You want to be able to make someone feel special. And I feel so lucky because after my stint on Wall Street, I went and worked at a media company in strategy, sales. And let me tell you, sales, that is another beast, because you eat what you kill.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Jaspreet Singh]

And I got some sales training that, you know, my company obviously paid thousands and thousands of dollars for, and I don't remember any of it except for one thing. WI fm. So you guess what that means.

[Lewis Howes]

W I, I. F. Oh, Two Eyes fm. F M. I was thinking, what if something, but I'm not sure.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Okay, so you got the W. What. What's in it for me?

[Lewis Howes]

Ah, yeah.

[Jaspreet Singh]

So we always know what we want, what's in it for us, but what's in it for me for. For the other person? Why do they need to help you do that thing? And this is how I always get what I want.

[Unknown Speaker]

I.

[Jaspreet Singh]

No, no, think about it. I always think at the other end of the table, what's in it for that person?

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah, like, it's like the prenup.

[Jaspreet Singh]

It's a prenup.

[Lewis Howes]

What was in it for your.

[Jaspreet Singh]

What's in it for. What's in it for. You know, I'll talk about you. I know that you have, you know, a very, very successful podcast, but what's in it for you interviewing me? You want a lot of people to listen to this. You want to get those, you know, charitable numbers up. You want to be up the ranks. You want a big social splash. You want all of these things. And I position myself In a certain way to make those things happen. If I go to the car dealership, I'm like, okay, it's the end of the month. It's the end of October. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna ask for the floor mats. I'm gonna do all of these things. But I'm like, but what's in it for that guy? That guy's getting a commission because it's the end of the month and they need to make their number. They want to hit their quota, they want to get the kicker, and they get paid upon delivery. So I'm gonna go four days before the end of the month, and then I'm going to have to buy, you know, an as is car on the lot. Da, da, da, da. But I think about what's in it for them.

[Lewis Howes]

That's cool.

[Jaspreet Singh]

When I'm at a gate and my flight's been delayed and I'm mad and I'm angry. I'm like, this gate agent wants to kill me. She does not like me. She doesn't want to help me. What can I say that is going to make her want to help me? So maybe it's, hey, I know you've got a crazy crowd control thing happening going on. When do you think we are going to have an answer? If not, I would like to just rebook my flight. That way I can get out of your hair. And then they're like, oh, okay. This person has already thought through solutions. I can just ABC pick one for them. Whichever one that I think is going to make the most sense based on when I think the plane's gonna arrive to the gate versus what's going on. No gate agent wants to answer that question because it's always bad news. You're always going to be mad. So think about what's in it for me. What's in it for them?

[Lewis Howes]

You've got a book called Experiencing the American Dream. How to invest your time, energy and money to create an extraordinary life. And there's a few things I want to talk about really quick. One is you shared a quote off camera that said, our brains are not wired for investing. Our brains are not wired for investing. That's one thing you said. That's right. And I saw a quote online. A statistic online says, according to lending tree, 64% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Many people view money as a source of survival and struggle with a scarcity mindset. So what I'm curious about is you've done so much, you know, Three, four decades of research around the neuroscience of investing, but also the data and the facts of investing as well. And how not to use feelings when it comes to investing. How can people start to shift out of a scarcity mindset into abundance thinking when they're just fight or flight survival mode daily.

[Unknown Speaker]

This is, this is a great question and I'm so glad you asked it. Early on in our time together, I was very lucky to have a dad that believed in the American dream. And he built into me my, the psychologically the ideals of the American dream. He gave me think and grow rich when I was 10 years old and said read this at least one time every year of your life. But we came from the hills of West Virginia in the hollers and my grandfather did not believe in the American dream. He worked in the coal mines, he worked in the factories and the chemical factories. He basically believed that money was a source of evil. He believed people that had it were greedy. He believed he was entitled to money that he didn't create. And he always viewed it as anybody that had money was a crooked. And my dad rejected that. My dad, by the time he was 10 years old, was an entrepreneur three times over. He sold newspapers, he sold cloverine salve to the miners where their hands were cracked and he signed shoes. So he believed that if you created value for other people that you would be rewarded with wealth and prosperity and that people that had money weren't crooks, but they actually were really hardworking and dedicated. And he loved this country and the values that it stood for. So the minds, every summer we go back to West Virginia and I'd see the people living in the poverty and they didn't have physical shackles. It was a mindset, what I call it a screen by which they saw themselves as victims. Screen, A screen, a psychological screen made out of language, language that you're taught. And then there's, and then there's the language or the screen of the American dream. And that, and most people do look at money as a form of survival and that is largely in our DNA too. I mean for thousands of years people had a real hard time surviving. And so money was in property, was a form of survival. But now we live in a relative world of abundance and creativity. And if you can get that screen of the American dream, you can start to escape that, that, that terrible bonds that, that really imprison you almost in a world of scarcity.

[Lewis Howes]

Two things here. One, can you explain what the screen is? Is it a framework of thinking and language around what money is?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yes. So it's, It's. It's language in some. The way that people can think about it. Sometimes you create that language on purpose. Like, if I'm going to go be a doctor, I spend many, many years developing language around what a doctor is. So they see the human body as very different. As someone who doesn't have that language. Well, we have all kinds of conversations in our lives about money, about the world, about how money works, how many is created, our place in the world and our relationship to money and money. Ironically, having a lot of money doesn't mean you're going to be happy. As a matter of fact, I've seen a lot of really, really wealthy people. Tens, 20, 30s, millions of dollars. And history is rife with people like Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Howard Hughes, Prince, people with a lot of money, power, fame. But it didn't do them any good. It actually helped seal their fate in the end and became very destructive.

[Lewis Howes]

And there's another thing that you mentioned just before this was, you know, there's kind of two different mindsets. Your grandfather, who worked in the coal mines, who worked really hard, it sounds like, on a daily basis, but didn't understand how to create more value, whether in his coal mine or somewhere else, and therefore was given what he received. Correct?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Versus your dad, where it sounds like, how did your dad break that mindset from his father, who he saw probably miserable or unhappy in the mines and dirty every night and sick and coughing? How did he say, I want to change this without a model of someone showing him abundance?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, that's. That's great. And go back to my grandfather. Once his screen was so strong, it was like they lived in two different worlds, is how the two different dimensions of reality. His screen was so strong. When he was offered an opportunity to grow at Union Carbide, he was offered to be a foreman and have a crew underneath him. He told them no.

[Lewis Howes]

Why?

[Unknown Speaker]

Because he didn't want to be part of the machine.

[Lewis Howes]

That's evil and bad.

[Unknown Speaker]

He didn't want to be evil and bad in his eyes. So he proved it to himself that he was doomed to be our money. I call these money demons, these money demons, which we all have at various times in our life, they take us over and preclude us from doing things that could actually save us. So he never took that raise. He never took that opportunity to save his family, even when it was offered to him. And I've asked my dad, I said, what? How did you. I mean, this poverty, this abject Poverty. They would cut the tops off of instant Carnation milk cans and they would hammer it to the baseboards in their shack by the railroad so that the rats wouldn't come in their house in the wintertime. That's how, that's how much poverty my dad came from. He only had one pair of shoes a year right before school started. And then they were barefoot all summer long. I mean this was true abject poverty. He said. He said, I saw a couple examples of people that did have a little bit of money and they were nice and they helped me and I went to work for them and I noticed that my dad was wrong, that people that had money weren't evil and they weren't bad and they weren't and they were actually willing to help. And I had a couple good teachers in school that taught me about that. But deep down my dad had, and I don't know where he got it, he had a deep seated belief in capitalism and entrepreneurism.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. So what you mentioned money demons. What are money demons? And do we all have them?

[Unknown Speaker]

We all do to a greater or lesser extent.

[Lewis Howes]

What is a money demon?

[Unknown Speaker]

So I'll give you an example. So when I started my company, I wanted to help a lot of people. You know, we manage $11 billion for people all over North America, 500 advisors. But when I started I only had three employees and I had a demon belief. It's a belief created in language that then we, we don't realize that it's only just a screen. We, we take it on as reality. And that reality was that employees suck and they, they're too expensive and when you hire them, they don't do a good job. And the other money demon I had was that I'm not a good manager and I don't know how to manage people, so I'll just do it myself. Now money demons are so pervasive because when we have them, we make their self fulfilling prophecies and we make them come true. And we don't look for opportunities that violate our screen. So I had to look at what I was getting out of it. What was I getting out of that screen? Well, I got to play small, didn't have to hire people. I got to be self righteous. I got to be condemning.

[Lewis Howes]

You're right all the time.

[Unknown Speaker]

I'm right and righteous.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

I got to gossip about other people, character, assassinate. I got to be a victim. I mean it was juicy psychological payoff. But I also had to realize that if I was going to, if I couldn't change those screens about the world that I was going to be doomed never to fulfill my mission, which was to help more people stop speculating with their money and fulfill their American dream.

Wow.

And then you have to do a cost benefit analysis and say, okay, am I going to keep that demon belief because there is payoff? Yes, I can live a normal, ordinary life not full of greatness. Thoreau said of the best, you know, quiet desperation. Or am I going to break that belief and I actually call it do violence to the belief.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting.

[Unknown Speaker]

I have to actually kill it.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Unknown Speaker]

I have to kill that belief. But the thing about money demons is when you kill them and have more money, they don't disappear. They often morph.

[Lewis Howes]

How so?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, so after I became successful and then I went through a divorce, and then I started eventually dating. After some therapy and counseling, and I started dating and I started getting one string of really painful relationships after another. And I developed a belief based on the divorce and dating that what? That I'm not really that attractive. I'm not really that sexy. I got a lot of money and that's what women really want from me. And so that I'll never really, you know, have someone I really truly love and really, truly loves me. And then I had a, you know, string of dating examples that created that. And so I had to do violence to that belief.

[Lewis Howes]

So how does, how does that look like in your mind? How do you kill off the old limiting belief or the demons that keep you small or hold your back?

[Unknown Speaker]

So you get. So you have to look at the bit, you have to look at the benefits you're getting out of it.

[Lewis Howes]

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[Unknown Speaker]

Benefits and I know it doesn't seem like there are benefits, but there are benefits to being right and playing small and not taking risk and being a victim too. Being a victim of being the martyr. Getting to set set in my own.

[Lewis Howes]

If you would, what is the biggest benefit? What would you say? Yeah, right. What would you say? What would you say is the biggest benefit of being a victim?

[Unknown Speaker]

You don't have to take risk in life or responsibility. You don't have to be responsible for your own results in life. You get to blame others. Well, it's not me. It's the government or it's not me. It's these employees or it's not me that's this girl or this not me. It's somebody else. I'm. I'm just fine the way I am. I don't have to change. I don't have to grow. I don't have to do anything. So it just takes you off the hook and lets you complain about other people. Behind every complaint is a demon belief. And so I eventually, the way I Did. And then the second part of doing battle with it is to realize it's not true. You just made it up. There's no tablet that said employees suck from the mountaintop.

[Lewis Howes]

Right, Right.

[Unknown Speaker]

I just made it up. So if I made it up, I can make up something else and I can start looking for evidence that it's not true. Look, there's companies with 10,000, 20,000 employees, so it can be that all employees are bad. Well, that's just silly. And I've known people when about the money demon with the relationships. I knew people that had great relationships where it wasn't about money, so that couldn't be true either. I need to just slow down and actually take my time and, you know, find someone that's caring, loving, and kind.

[Lewis Howes]

Right.

[Unknown Speaker]

Which was funny because then when I met Melissa, she had a money demon, which was guys that had money or jerks.

[Lewis Howes]

So she saw that right away with you, and it's, like, repelling you.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Jaspreet Singh]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

She almost didn't say yes to that day at Starbucks because she thought, oh.

[Lewis Howes]

You must be a jerk.

[Unknown Speaker]

I must be a jerk. Yeah. Who must be a total jerk.

[Lewis Howes]

Interesting. In the book, which I love, you talked about this, but you have this part of the book, page 73, called the Destructive Cycle of Wealth. And you say, yes, it's cliche that money can't make you happy. Songs have been written about it. But why can't money make you happy? Shouldn't it make you a little bit happier if you suddenly stumble into, say, $100 million? You say, the answer is no, and it sounds counterintuitive, but I firmly believe that to be true. And if money isn't making us any happier, and most of us have much more than what we need, why do we work so hard to make more of it? Why do we spend so much of our lives thinking about money without even realizing it? We are stuck in the destructive cycle of wealth. And learning about this cycle can help you better understand some of your decisions about money. And you say it has five phases, beginning with our most basic human needs. Can you talk about what this destructive cycle of wealth is, why it's important for us to understand it, and what we can do to make sure we don't stay in it.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. So when I realized that I had clients with a lot of money that were very unhappy, that was my next question. My dad. One of the key strategies in the book is to ask a good question.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

And don't try to rush to get the answer. Take your time and really let it work on you and your subconscious and really think about it. So it took me years to come to think about this and that the reason it can't make you happy is because it doesn't fill anything in your spiritual nature that can bring happiness, but.

[Lewis Howes]

It fulfills the survival nature.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right? Yeah. So we all want things and we want things for our survival. That's instincts. Food, clothing, shelter, love, that kind of stuff. And then we go out and we obtain things and we obtain those things, most of us, but then we want more. Toyota even had that commercial. What a feeling. You know when you get to Toyota, so you don't just want a new car, you want a really nice car, you don't want in the house, you want a really nice house, you don't. So. And then when you do look at something, whether it's the computer or golf clubs or a purse or whatever it is, you have it for a while, you obtained it, you felt good about it for a little while, then you start comparing it to what everybody else has. I had a boat I bought in Florida when we had a house down there. And it would have, it was a 37 footer, three 300 Yamaha motors. I love that boat. Had tons of fun on that boat. It was adventurous, really great. And then one day there was 180 foot yacht and their dinghy was bigger than my boat. And I'm like, this ain't no boat. I gotta give me a bigger boat.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. And. But whether it's the size of your portfolio, the size of your house, you buy the perfect house, you think it's perfect, then six months later you're looking at the kitchen going, these cabinets really suck. We really need to rip these out. It's just human nature. And, and then, so then it brings us around to comparing it to other things. Sometimes in technology is this way, they always come out with bigger, better, faster, cooler technology. We want. And then you lead you back up to this topic, wanting stuff so it can't, it doesn't fulfill at a deep meaningful purpose. And that leads you back to what you mentioned earlier, which is survival. It's about survival.

[Lewis Howes]

So if I'm getting this right, we go through the cycle and you know, a lot of people who are mega millionaires, maybe even billionaires who are unhappy still.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yep.

[Lewis Howes]

Would you say the majority of millionaires or billionaires are unhappy? The ones that you've been around or experienced?

[Unknown Speaker]

I don't know about the majority, but I do know there is no correlation and I know it from my personal life too.

[Lewis Howes]

Because happiness and having money.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right. Because there's been times where I had a lot of money, was very unhappy. I had no money and was pretty happy.

[Lewis Howes]

So you've also had a lot of money and been happy too.

[Unknown Speaker]

I would take the latter. The money and the happiness at the same time.

[Lewis Howes]

You experienced that too.

[Unknown Speaker]

And I have.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Unknown Speaker]

But if it's not the money, then what is it? And what I've found is it's having a purpose in life that's greater than money itself. And if you think throughout history, the people that have changed the world, whether it's Ronald Reagan or whether it's Martin Luther King or whether it's JFK or whether it's Walt Disney or the Wright brothers or. You think about these people that have changed the world. They've all had this deep purpose, sense of purpose and value in their life. So much so that they've even laid their life. Dr. Martin Luther King laid down his life for his purpose. And that's how strong purpose can be. And if you'll have a purpose first, then use it to create value for other people in align with their purpose. And then the more money you have, great. Because then I can align how I use that money with my purpose in life. And I can do great things with my money that brings me joy and happiness and freedom from. And freedom and fulfillment with other people. But if I have the money without.

[Lewis Howes]

The purpose, it just becomes a burden, really becomes empty. It's so I need more money. More money. More money for what?

[Unknown Speaker]

It's an addiction of itself.

[Lewis Howes]

So it sounds like the greater the purpose you have, the more fulfilled you'll be with or without money.

[Unknown Speaker]

Absolutely. As a matter of fact, if you have a strong enough purpose, you don't even need money. You know, like Mother Teresa, saints.

[Lewis Howes]

Well, because they feel taken care of by the community or they know they're going to be provided for. They're happy with whatever they receive each day.

[Unknown Speaker]

It's about their purpose in life. If I don't have. Look, you can live in America for, for very little money. Even if you only have 40 or $50,000 a year, you live better than the King of England did 500 years ago. You have chocolate, you have air conditioning, you have food, you have running water. You have running water, you have healthcare. I mean, it's a miracle. Everybody should wake up every morning in a miracle going, it's a miracle. It's a miracle. I can't believe I live here. Of course they don't. But it's a miracle that what we have and if you only have a little bit of money and you have a friend in the hospital, you can make a card with a crayon or a pin. You could go to the hospital, you could sit by them and hold their hand and you can express your love and affection. And that's going to be more fulfilling than a Ferrari. I'm not anti Ferrari. I got one but it's part for an hour.

[Lewis Howes]

But it's not, you know, it's.

[Unknown Speaker]

I call them cookies and toys. You so you got these toys. They're. And they're fun. Okay, fine, great. I'm not saying that they're bad, but they won't make me happy. And then food. It's anything you ingest that try to change your mood about yourself and feel better temporarily. But they're not. They're not permanent.

[Lewis Howes]

This is powerful man. I love this. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the Description Description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

[Jaspreet Singh]

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[Unknown Speaker]

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[Lewis Howes]

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[Unknown Speaker]

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[Lewis Howes]

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[Unknown Speaker]

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[Jaspreet Singh]

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[Lewis Howes]

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[Unknown Speaker]

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[Jaspreet Singh]

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[Unknown Speaker]

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[Lewis Howes]

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[Jaspreet Singh]

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