How To Heal Your Relationship With Money To Create More Abundance

Summary

Podcast Summary: The School of Greatness – "How To Heal Your Relationship With Money To Create More Abundance"

Host: Lewis Howes
Guest: [Guest's Name Not Provided]
Release Date: February 7, 2025

In this insightful episode of The School of Greatness, host Lewis Howes delves deep into the intricate relationship many individuals have with money and explores effective strategies to foster abundance and financial freedom. Through a candid conversation with the guest—a financial expert who has personally navigated through financial hardships—the episode unpacks essential lessons on wealth generation, financial literacy, and the psychological aspects of money management.

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1. Overcoming Financial Hardships and Starting Anew

The guest opens up about his personal journey from being broke and homeless to embarking on a mission to understand and teach wealth generation. He reflects on his upbringing in a strong Christian household where financial discussions were limited to giving to the church, neglecting the crucial aspects of saving, investing, and entrepreneurship.

Notable Quote:

"Growing up, I just knew, go get a job. You know, work the 40 hours a week... No one really said, hey, here's how you start thinking at 18 to build true wealth."
— Guest (03:11)

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2. The Importance of Early Financial Conversations

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the necessity of initiating money conversations early in a child's life. The guest emphasizes that financial literacy should begin as soon as children start asking for money, ensuring they understand the value of earning and managing finances effectively.

Notable Quote:

"We have to stop saying our young people are young. If they can remember songs, if they can remember famous dances from TikTok, they can remember the conversation around money."
— Guest (12:39)

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3. Common Parental Mistakes in Teaching Money

Lewis Howes asks the guest to identify the three biggest mistakes parents make when educating their children about money. The guest outlines the following:

1. Paying for Chores: Offering allowance for basic tasks teaches entitlement rather than the value of earning through meaningful work.

   Quote:

   "We shouldn't teach our kids that the world is going to reward them for just being who they are. No, we need to teach our young people, hey, the world is going to reward you by actually producing and by working."
   — Guest (05:17)

2. Promotion of Prestigious Colleges Only: Ignoring alternative educational paths like trade schools limits children's perceptions of potential career avenues.

   Quote:

   "We got to start teaching young people is, hey, go to college if that's the route that you want to go. But trade schools are actually in right now, and it's less expensive."
   — Guest (06:37)

3. Emphasizing High Credit Scores as the Sole Path to Success: Focusing solely on credit scores overlooks broader financial strategies necessary for true wealth creation.

   Quote:

   "We got to stop teaching our kids that the only way to be successful financially is to have a high credit score."
   — Guest (07:55)

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4. Personal Finance Strategies: Budgeting, Saving, and Investing

The guest elaborates on foundational financial principles crucial for building wealth:

• Living Below Your Means: Maintaining expenditures lower than income to facilitate savings and investments.

• Debt-Free Living: Eliminating debt to gain financial freedom and enhance investment capacity.

• Budgeting: Creating and adhering to a written financial plan to ensure intentional money management.

Notable Quote:

"No one wins anything accidentally. It's an intentional act. Winning always is at marriage, at taking care of your body, building a business, money. No one accidentally gets wealthy."
— Guest (28:00)

He also distinguishes between saving (short-term financial protection) and investing (long-term wealth growth), advising on maintaining an emergency fund and allocating funds appropriately based on financial goals.

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5. The Role of Generosity in Wealth Building

Generosity is portrayed not merely as a moral virtue but as a strategic component of personal wealth. The guest argues that a generous mindset fosters positive relationships, enhances creativity, and cultivates an abundance mentality, all of which contribute to sustained financial success.

Notable Quote:

"Generous people are highly attractive... they almost always have a positive outlook. They don't have a scarcity mentality. They have an abundance mentality."
— Guest (34:31)

He shares personal experiences highlighting how intentional generosity leads to fulfilling relationships and opportunities, emphasizing that generosity should stem from one's character rather than financial capability.

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6. Choosing the Right Partner for Financial Success

A critical aspect discussed is the impact of selecting a compatible life partner on financial health. The guest underscores the importance of aligning financial values and practices within a relationship to prevent conflicts and ensure mutual support in wealth-building endeavors.

Notable Quote:

"The number one cause of divorce is money fights and money problems out there."
— Guest (49:15)

He advises couples to have open and honest discussions about money early in their relationship, covering topics like debt, saving habits, spending behaviors, and financial goals to establish a strong foundation.

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7. Long-term Wealth Building vs. Get-Rich-Quick Schemes

The podcast contrasts sustainable wealth-building strategies with the allure of quick profits from speculative investments like cryptocurrencies. The guest warns against the high risks associated with such ventures, advocating for conservative and long-term investment approaches to preserve and grow capital effectively.

Notable Quote:

"Why is that so enticing? Why do so many people jump into that with all their money... They are very good at running a business, but when they actually get liquidity, it's usually their husband or wife that was the person that was taking care of the family and mitigating the risk."
— Guest (32:59)

He emphasizes the importance of patience and consistent effort over time, drawing parallels to the tortoise versus the hare, and explains how quick success often leads to instability.

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8. Advice for Different Age Groups on Financial Literacy

The guest provides tailored advice for various age demographics:

• Late Teens and Early 20s: Encouraging open conversations about money, understanding credit, investing early, and avoiding entitlement.

  Quote:

  "Take 10% of whatever anybody gives you... and set it aside and start investing it. The earlier you start, the less pressure you have when you're in your 60s."
  — Guest (73:32)

• 40s and 50s: It's never too late to adopt better financial habits. He recommends increasing savings rates, reducing unnecessary expenditures, and focusing on long-term investments to secure financial stability.

  Quote:

  "No, they should at any age. I mean, the truth is, changing your spending behavior in your 40s is difficult, but you can do it."
  — Guest (75:32)

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9. Investing in Oneself and Entrepreneurship

The guest highlights the paramount importance of self-investment and entrepreneurial spirit. He discusses qualities that make entrepreneurs attractive investment opportunities, such as resilience, clear articulation of ideas, execution capabilities, and financial acumen.

Notable Quote:

"I prefer to invest in entrepreneurs that have failed once or twice before, that have felt the sting of failure and have gone down the road and not had success the first time."
— Guest (71:16)

He advocates for a team approach in managing wealth, recognizing individual strengths, and promoting philanthropic efforts as integral to sustaining wealth and societal contributions.

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Conclusion and Key Takeaways

The episode underscores that healing one's relationship with money is a multifaceted journey involving education, intentionality, generosity, and strategic planning. By addressing early financial education, avoiding common parental mistakes, fostering open dialogues, and embracing sustainable wealth-building practices, individuals can cultivate a healthy and abundant financial life.

Final Notable Quote:

"These are character qualities of the successful people that I've met."
— Guest (48:32)

Lewis Howes wraps up the conversation by reinforcing the importance of integrating these financial principles into daily life to unlock inner greatness and achieve lasting success.

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Key Resources Mentioned:

• Guest's Book: Make Money Easy – make moneyeasybook.com
• Beanstalks Program: Encourages early saving and investing habits.

Final Thought: As Lewis Howes aptly reminds listeners, "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."

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

No, I didn't.

[A]

So you had to go on the journey of discovering, what does that look like? What does that mean? How do I get out of debt? How do I earn, you know, a consistent living? How do I save it? How do I invest it?

[B]

The whole process, you know, because growing up, man, I was taught, you know, I grew up in a very strong Christian faith home. I have four parents. I have two biological parents and two step parents. My biological mom and stepdad and my siblings live here in California, that my biological father and stepmom live in North Carolina. Right. And I grew up in a very church stand. The only conversation we really had around finances was give, right? Just give to the church.

[A]

That's it.

[B]

That's it.

[A]

You didn't talk about money?

[B]

No, we didn't really talk about, hey, here's how you build wealth. Here's how you start a business. Here's what entrepreneurship looks like. It was, hey, when you get your money from Wendy's, you want to give 10% to the church, then what you do with the other 90%, save it. Save a little bit. But, you know, you want the shoes, you go buy it. No one really, really talked to me about how to invest. No. No one said, hey, son, save this money, baby. Go start a small business. So growing up, I just knew, go get a job. You know, work the 40 hours a week. Make sure you get a good 401k benefit package with some good health insurance and keep your credit score above a 700. And then you get a good retirement package at the end of the. At the end of your time. No one really said, hey, here's how you start thinking at 18 to build true wealth. Here's. Here's how you start a business. So I said, it has to be more. Yes, there has to be more than just living paycheck to paycheck, sleeping in the back of my car and looking at everyone else look good. But honestly, I was tired of looking good and honestly not being good.

[A]

Yeah, that's a big one, man. Looking good is. That's tough. If you don't feel good on the inside, it doesn't matter how much money and how. How good you look, how shiny you are on the outside. If it doesn't feel, Feel confident in yourself and proud of yourself, of what you're creating. I'm curious. You've talked to a lot of different individuals, parents, families about money. What would you say are the three biggest conversation mistakes that parents teach their kids around? Money in general or three things that they don't teach, they should be teaching? What are they saying? That's maybe not the best thing they should say. Um, you know, you had your experience, but what are other people saying that you're hearing?

[B]

Number one thing is chores. You know, like, we're going to pay you and give an allowance for just being my son.

[A]

That's good or bad?

[B]

That's bad.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

We shouldn't teach our kids that. The world is going to reward them for just being who they are. No, we need to teach our young people, hey, the world is going to reward you by actually producing and by working. Okay.

[A]

By offering a value.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Not by just living, just by waking up. Like, why does that teach you if you're just gonna give someone money consistently without working?

[B]

Exactly. It doesn't teach you nothing. And then it's like, why are you paying your kids to make up his bed? To make up her bed. Why? Why are you paying your kids to wash dishes? No, pay them to go wash cars. Not your car, but your neighbor's car. Pay them to go cut other people's grass. Pay them to go walk other people's dogs. Pay them to walk around the neighbor and pick up trash. Teach them the TR of working in exchange for finances. So that's number one is we got to stop teaching them that. Hey, the only way you can get paid is, you know, make up your back. Yeah, that's misleading our young people. Number two is, you know, I wrote the book Debt Free Degree while I was with Ramsey Solutions. Is that the only way to go to college is to finance it. You know, we got to start. Stop telling our young people, hey, your Harvard's and Yales and Princetons are the best schools out there. No, I know a lot of prestigious people who went to community colleges, but I know a lot of people who went to a Harvard or a Yale. A prestigious school, but they're not prestigious individuals. And so what we got to start teaching young people is, hey, go to college if that's the route that you want to go. But trade schools are actually in right now, and it's. And it's less expensive.

[A]

I got a friend who's a plumber who's making multiple six figures a year as a solo plumber, crushing it. And he's like, I go golfing every week. I travel. I was just in Hawaii, and he's got his own little business in Vegas making multiple six figures. I'm like, you're crushing it. He's like, yeah, no one wants to do his job. I'm making bank.

[B]

No one, man. I just had a handyman come out to my house and ask 60 bucks.

[A]

An hour, probably or something.

[B]

150 an hour.

[C]

I see y'all in the wrong business.

[A]

Hammer some nails up in here, you know, he was up.

[B]

But nobody wants to do the ugly work, right? Nobody wants to be hot. Nobody wants to be cold when it's, you know, 30 degrees outside so he's. I mean, he can rack up. So we got to start teaching our young people. Start asking them, hey, what do you want to do? You know, what is it that you feel as if you can do in the world and actually enjoy it? Parents have to stop telling their kids what they will do. Okay? You have some parents saying, hey, I want you to go to this school and become this when you get older. And then they grow up growing envy of their parents because their parents didn't give them the opportunity to say, you know what? Hey, let's work hand in hand.

[A]

Right? Or resentful or whatever it is.

[B]

Exactly. So it's like, how do we do that together? Okay, so that's number two. And then number three, this is going to be an unpopular one, but we got to stop teaching our kids that the only way to be successful financially is to have a high credit score. We got to stop saying, I don't even.

[A]

Maybe I'm weird, but I never even. I don't even know my credit score is. I never. I never tried to get my credit score. I didn't even, like, check what my credit score was until like, a year ago when I had to do some. I don't know, I signed up for some financial services thing, and they had to, like, check it. And I was like, okay. It's never meant anything to me.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Right. First off, I've never bought a house. I've always rented.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's never mattered, I guess. I've never tried to buy a house. And then I don't know what else I would need it for, because I'm just.

[B]

What about a car? You know, that's what some people bought.

[C]

Cash.

[B]

You bought cash?

[A]

Yeah, I bought cash.

[C]

Well, I had a used car.

[A]

My dad taught me, this principal. He always had used cars.

[B]

Yeah, me too.

[A]

And he had used car for, like, 10, 15 years. I mean, he would keep it perfectly clean.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And highest condition for, like, 10, 15 years.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So it always looked and felt new, even though it was old.

[B]

Yeah. But that came from the teaching of your father, though.

[A]

Yeah. Because he didn't have a flashy car.

[B]

Exactly. And nowadays, and then, too, growing up, because we're right around the same age, social media wasn't big back then, so we didn't see all the flashy stuff.

[A]

Just saw your neighbor maybe had a nice car and that was it. Or your friend or whatever had.

[B]

Or whenever you go to church or something like that. So, like, now this generation of kids are seeing the flashy stuff. Oh. You got to have the nice car to be perceived as successful.

[A]

And if that's your thing, you like flashy cars, you like flashy water. That's your thing.

[B]

That's the thing.

[C]

Cool.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But don't do it because you need to feel better about yourself, in my opinion.

[B]

And it goes back to the core.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When you really know who you are, you operate and you walk differently.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And that is something that over the last few years, I've really mastered and really keep drilling into myself. This is who you are. This is where you're going. I like cars. I am a car.

[A]

So it's your thing.

[B]

That is my thing. But you know what I'm really coming to value a whole lot more than cars is I want a wife.

[C]

Right.

[B]

You know, I want kids. You know, and it's like I value that more.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And. And when I. When I say I value that, man, I didn't go to Disney World. You know, I haven't been to Disney World yet because, you know, growing up, my family couldn't afford it.

[A]

You've been to Disneyland up here in la?

[B]

I haven't been to Disneyland.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And I've been to Six Flags.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, but we couldn't afford stepchild of Disneyland. Exactly. You know, we couldn't afford the family trips, the spring breaks. And it's like, man, when I think about it now, I'm trying to steward and maximize my single season so that when. That way, when I do have a wife, I do have kids, I can say yes to my wife because I steward this season. Well. And it's like one of the things I'm really teaching myself is as a young man, dating. Right. When it comes to my money is I would rather tell my girlfriends no today so I can tell my wife yes tomorrow.

[A]

Let's go.

[B]

You know what I'm saying? It's like, I don't have a problem telling them, hey, I'm not. I'm not going to Spend a hundred dollars on a date on you right now, you know, because you may not be my wife, but I refuse to tell my wife no, because I told all of them yes. And as I'm maturing and as I'm growing, I'm realizing that the caliber of my financial future and the caliber of my future family's future is depending upon the choices that I make today. And so I have to be willing and be strong at my core to say no to things that will set me up for my future. And I want my wife to be like, thank you for telling them no. I want my kids because I remember my mom and dad. Unfortunately, I have great parents, but I remember wearing shoes that had holes at the bottom of it, and we had to put tape on the bottom of it. I don't want that to be my kids. And the decisions that I made today impacts that. You know, I want to be able to take my kids to Disney World. That's the only reason why I haven't been. I've dated ladies with kids. Let's go to Disney World. Nope. Why not? I want to go there with my wife and my kids.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

I don't want to go there with my girlfriend and her kids. I want to go there with my wife and my kids. You know, I want to be able to do things with my family that my family couldn't do when I was growing up.

[A]

That's cool.

[B]

And so I'm learning to. I'm valuing that more. I get. That wakes me up every day. That gets me excited every day. That gets me on my YouTube channel every single day. Because I'm working for them, then I'm also working for the community.

[A]

That's cool. What's the third thing that parents should be doing more?

[B]

The last one we talked about, like, don't tell them the only way to be successful is having 700, 800 credit score.

[A]

Got it. Got it.

[B]

Which goes into one thing that they're not doing enough is really having the money conversation with them early on as possible. You know, I think that parents, as soon as they say mama, as soon as they say daddy, you need to start having a money conversation. Absolutely.

[A]

At 2.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

What are those conversations they should be having?

[B]

It's on their level, you know, I mean, if. If the kid is saying, hey, mom, can I get a piece of candy? Well, they understand that. Candy. Tell them, hey, it costs money, and show them, hey, you got to give this in exchange for that. But let's. Let's. Let's, you know, pass that level. Start having a conversation with middle schoolers. One of my good friends has a private school in Nashville. I went to read books with them last a couple of months ago. Again, right when I walk into their school, she has a picture of all of her kids on college campuses. These are middle school kids, fifth grade. And I said, what are you. What are you doing? She said, actually, if you look on this one, those are our third graders. And I was like, you're taking them to college? They don't. Do they even understand what they're looking at? She says, no, but young people are impressionable at a very young age. So they will remember, like, hey, I want to go here, so I need to work hard right now. And so it was like, we have to stop saying our young people are young. If they can remember songs, if they can remember famous dances from TikTok, they can remember the conversation around money. So we got to have that conversation as early as possible. So that way, when they get into high school, they are already aware of what's going on with the finances.

[A]

Talking about the stick figures with the partner and the kids. And the kids. Kids. How important is the choosing the right partner in making money, keeping money, investing money, building money?

[B]

That's the second most important and decision of my life is the right partner.

[A]

Choosing the right person. The first one is.

[B]

That's just my spiritual walk. Just, you know, just, you know, being a Christian, that. I think that was the first part. The first and most important part, the.

[A]

Second most, is choosing the right partner.

[B]

Yep. And choosing the right wife. You want me to be real? I'm trying to get emotional. I had the right wife.

[A]

You did?

[B]

I let her go.

[A]

Why?

[B]

Because I was young. I was dumb.

[D]

Ooh.

[B]

I was immature. Dang. I was selfish. And I didn't. I thought I wanted something else, but I. I let it go. And so now it's like, okay, let's. Let's fix it. Because, you know, hey, you don't want to pass up on that again. I believe that the quality of my future is depending upon the quality of my life, and I had that there. But because of the immaturity, because of the looking at what everyone else had around me, I let someone go who could have been my wife. And I learned from that. You know, it was a. It was a hard season for me because I had to. One of the things I've learned that wealthy people do very well is they confess when they're wrong, and they tell themselves, so you messed up. How do we make sure we do not make this decision again. That's when I say, you know what? Let me submit myself to a married couple to get wisdom. You know what, Let me just talk more to my therapist about this area so I can make sure that the next time I have the opportunity to meet an amazing woman that I do not pass up on that again. And so my partner is the second most decision, because this is the woman that will be raising my daughter. This is the woman that be raising my son. This is the woman that together we're going to build an empire. I need a partner that we are aligned, in sync, and we have each other's back.

[A]

What would be the three questions you would ask about money before you would move forward on a commitment of, like, dating? Maybe you're dating for a few dates.

[B]

But I wouldn't even go. I'm not even getting into a committed relationship with the woman until we have a money conversation.

[A]

And what should that conversation consist of?

[B]

The very first question is I'm asking her is, what was the conversation you had about money growing up? You know what, what did your parents teach you about money? And then two for me. What's your thoughts around ownership? What's your thoughts around debt? And then three. It's a fun one, but it answers a lot of questions. It's gonna answer a lot. You have a million dollars right now. What are you doing with it? Yep. What are you doing with it? And. And a bonus one that I. I really, really, really. I really have this conversation on both sides. What. What do you value most in life? Yes. Like what. What's. What's valuable to you that money cannot buy? And it just starts the conversation going. And I think really understanding the root of the individual really sets you up to understand. Okay, how they're going to be thinking proceeding forward.

[A]

What do people in their 20s and 30s have to deal with if they don't have those conversations in their, you know, middle school teenage years?

[B]

You know, that was me. You know, we're going to deal with the lack of a lot of information that's important, the lack of understanding. What. I did it at 18 and 19, I'm still paying for today at 37 years.

[D]

Really?

[A]

Still?

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

What things?

[B]

I mean, I. I have collection items on my credit report. You know, every time I bought two homes, you know, over the last three years, I had to explain that. And I'm the money guy.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, it's like, Anthony, whoa, wait. What is this question? What. What we see is from X amount of years ago, because we don't have the conversation, everyone thinks, well, it'll be off in seven years. Well, here's the thing, when it comes to money, it'll be all, let's say, for example, you own that particular collection item and let's say you sell it to me now I can put it back on their credit report for another seven years. So just because it was a 15 year old situation that I had, if it got sold to another company collection agency, it restarts the whole process over again. So I still have some items on my credit report from when I was 20 years old. And that's embarrassing when I go in there because no one sat down with me and had the true conversation around what is a credit card? What is interest? What's the difference between a credit card and a debit card? No one sat down and had that conversation with me. My mama told me, you don't need a credit card. She just said, don't do it. She didn't explain to me why not. No one sat down and had the hardest conversation and give me the education. So without that education, I made poor decisions, right?

[A]

And when a credit card is so easy to open up and everyone's selling them to you and hey, get this, you get a couple hundred dollars free when you open it up.

[B]

Easy. Everywhere you go is by credit card. You can't go into the mall without being offered a credit card when you're checking out. You can't even go into Walmart anymore. These days, you know, everything is about credit. And again, I'm not knocking people who go down that route. I don't do that route. I actually enjoy the freedom of waking up every single month and having the freedom of saying, you know what, I don't owe anybody. I just owe my mortgage. Yeah, I love getting into my car and I have no car note. I love going to the mailbox and, and excited to go to my mailbox because there may be a check in there.

[A]

No, no bills.

[B]

You know, I don't know about you, but I remember every time my cell phone rang, if I didn't recognize the number, I didn't pick it up because it was a collection agency is calling me. It feels good. When my phone rings, I can. Hello? What's up? You know, I'm proud to answer it. And so if we don't give people that proper information, 20 rows now tend to be, tend to build this negative relationship with money and they're not really building wealth. And think about it, if we can start having this education now, we should be seeing more 20 year olds being successful, millionaires are being made. Now, if you're dropping a course or if you're sitting at home and you're playing video games, people are actually making millions online right now. But if we had the conversation with them, now we can see a lot more younger people really producing income.

[A]

What else is keeping most people broke? Is it a mindset? Is it the habits and the actions? Is it the environment, the people they spend time with? Is it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. For me, it's a network. You know, I have this. It's not my rule. It's a philosophy that I go by. 33%, 33%, 33%. The first 30% of people who are talking into you. So I think a lot of people, especially young people, are not really building wealth because they don't have the right people talking into their lives saying, hey, here's what you need to be doing. Here's what you should be reading. Here's what you should be investing into. And so if you don't have the right people talking into your life from wisdom, like I've called you from wisdom on a lot of different things. We're the same age, but you're wiser than me in certain areas. So, hey, Louis, what do you think about this? So they don't have the right people talking into them, then the next one is who they're doing life with. So if you're dating someone that is all about, hey, I want to go here, I want to do this, and I don't care if we have the money, let's finance it. And if you have. If you have friends in your circle that are saying, hey, let's go on this trip for spring break, let's just take our student loan refund check and put it on there, then that keeps them in a certain bracket, and then they're not really depositing anything into anyone. So for me, when it comes to, you know, the lack of building wealth, who are you around?

[A]

So the people that are depositing into you, the people kind of in your same sphere of influence, what decisions are you making together?

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And then are you depositing into someone else?

[B]

And if you're not, here's the thing, we're just reduplicating it. If you don't have someone depositing into you, if you don't have someone who you're doing life with on a healthy way, you can't deposit something positive into them.

[A]

So you have nothing to give.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

You have nothing to teach. Nothing to give.

[B]

And you're teaching them. You teach them the wrong things.

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[A]

You are an example of what you do consistently every day, year after year, decade after decade, playing the long game of what you can create in the physical world. And I think that's a good representation of what I've learned from you about building wealth over time. It's not about doing it quickly. It's not about trying to find some scheme that you can get into and build this overnight. But it's about doing the consistent, integrity things over time. I'm curious, besides the steps, the seven baby steps, what are, what are a few things people can start doing to increase the odds of wealth over time to increasing the odds? Is it something mentally they can do, spiritually they can do? Is there something in their relationships they can do differently to increase the odds?

[C]

Well, I think the first thing is you have to have. We were sitting in one of our leadership team meetings yesterday, as a matter of fact, here at Ramsey, and we were looking at a business unit and they kept going, well, we need to do this. We need to do this. And we did not have agreement on the baseline data of what was actually going on. One person thought one thing was going on, one thought another was going on. And we, I said, we got to back up. We got to put data in front of us. And once we all agree on exactly where we are, then we can discuss where we're going. And I think, you know, building wealth or having a high quality life in any area is a little bit like that. You need to back up and say, okay, what are the principles? Before I worry about the tactics. And the principles should lead us to the tactics and the five money principles. If we wanted to pull some out, there would be common sense, biblical things that are kind of boring. But if you lay those principles in place, then they'll lead you to the tactics. I mean, here's one. Live on less than you make right now that sounds kind of almost glib, you know, but the Bible says the borrower is. It says a foolish man devours all he has. Live on less than you make. You need to be on a written plan in anything you're doing. If you don't do it intentionally, it's not going to occur. No one wins anything accidentally. It's an intentional act. Winning always is at marriage, at taking care of your body, building a business money. No one accidentally gets wealthy. It just, oh, what happened? No one does that. So that's a written plan. That's called a budget, you know, and so we got to have a budget. We got to live on less than we make. If you get out of debt, mathematically, what it does is you have money to invest. Because when you have a $750 payment on your Ford F150, you got no money. And so that money's going to forward instead of to you. It's not going in your 401k. And so that's what the borrower is slave to the lender means. But also what happens when you get out of debt is you have this sense of freedom, you have this sense of autonomy, the sense of agency. You're not being controlled by the man stinking bank of America. It doesn't tell you what to do. Ford Motor Credit doesn't tell you what to do. So you don't have to keep a horrible job. You can move to a better job and take that risk. But if you got to pay payments, you don't feel free. And so, you know, being out of debt, living on less than you make, haven't written plan, obviously saving and investing obviously in the house of the wise or stores of choice, food and oil. Grandma said have money saved for a rainy day. We start with an emergency fund and then we long term invest. In the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America. We did it here at Ramsey. We discovered that the typical way someone gets their first 1 to 5 million is they have a paid off house and they have a really healthy 401k or Roth IRA combo in good mutual funds. And so they'll be sitting there with a million dollars in, in their, in their retirement accounts after 10, 12, 15 years of doing this and they got a half million dollar or 700,000 dollar paid for house, they got a 1.7 million dollar net worth. And so the save money, save money. And the weird thing is that there's no all the get rich quick stuff on TikTok and all that. It is all crypto and everything. Everything. There's always some way. There's a new version of stupid every year, you know, and, but, but why is that?

[A]

Why? Go ahead.

[C]

No, go ahead.

[A]

Why is that so enticing? Why do so many people jump into that with all their money or all their savings or take out debt just to invest in the 17 new things a year that seem like one or two people actually made a few million dollars but probably end up losing it a year later. Why is that such an enticing thing for people who work so hard of making their money?

[C]

Well, taking the long haul, being the tortoise versus the hare is not human nature.

[A]

Right?

[C]

Our brains are wired by God for efficiency. You know, we want to burn the least calories possible to get the job done. Whatever it is. Which in the financial world causes us to look at get rich quick and we don't think of it as stupid. I didn't think of it as stupid when I did it in the 80s and you know, I started with nothing, had $4 million worth of real estate, lost everything because borrowed too much money on the real estate and crashed my own life down on my head. I didn't think I was being foolish, foolhardy, impulsive. I thought I was burning the least calories to get to the goal.

[A]

You were being smart.

[C]

I thought, I thought this is the way to go. And people that are buying crypto, that's what they think. I mean, no one thinks they're gambling. They don't think, oh, this is, has worse odds than a roulette wheel, which it actually did mathematically, you know, but they didn't think that. They thought this is the least calories to burn to get to the goal. So that's just the human brain doing what it's supposed to do. We're just efficiency experts all the time in everything we do. What's the least effort to get to the goal?

[A]

How often does someone, when they know like, hey, this is a big risk investment, this, the chances are of you making, you know, 10x on your return in one year or six months is so slim. Or 100x returns in two years is so slim. But why do people sometimes go all, all in on the money they have or 90% of their money on things that have a 1% chance of actually getting more than a double return within a year?

[C]

Well, there's two reasons. One is they don't believe. There's only a 1% chance they believe again, it's the most efficient way to get there. I didn't think that there was a high probability I was going to fail doing nothing down real estate. I did not. It never occurred to me, number one. And then number two, pride comes right before the fall. There's an arrogance. I was smart. I understood that debt knocked over some people. I understood that sometimes people got in trouble. But I thought, oh, I can do this. I'm smart enough.

[A]

26 years of your wisdom, you could do this, right?

[C]

After 24 and a half years and a college degree in real estate, by God, I can do this. And there was that in there, that arrogant little twerp, he was there. And so there's a combination of this pride and that then leads you to again, these principles that lead you to bad tactics or principles that lead you to good tactics. And the principle was a bad principle that I was functioning in. And you know, just put a little icing on the cake of a little pride. A little arrogance that says, oh, yeah, I know, I know that for that guy. But I'm really good at math and I grew up in the real Estate business. And I know, I know things just, just ask me, you know, and that you see this, you can actually see that dripping off of some of the stuff that's posted on the Get Rich Quick stuff. Stuff that criticizes you, stuff that criticizes me, stuff that criticizes our friend Craig Groeschel or whoever. I mean you could see anybody that's playing a long game or you know, Simon Sinek's infinite game. Right. Anybody's playing long game. The short term thinkers all have to pile on. And there's always that dripping arrogance around it. I could recognize it because I was the same guy. I did the same. I would have been the gu. Trashing that guy. I would have been the guy trashing me when I was 26. Because I would have been going, no, that doesn't apply to me. Yeah, I understand Ramsey, but that's for regular people.

[A]

I'm smarter than.

[C]

I'm not regular. You know, so there's that in there. So we got, we got get out of debt. We've got live on less than you make. We gotta have a budget, we gotta save. And the last one is you need to be outlandishly, outrageously generous and walk around with an open hand.

[A]

What does generous mean for people that feel like they're struggling to live their own lifestyle of going out with friends once a week or having a dinner every couple of weeks or just doing, you know, some basic activities to enjoy life beyond free activities, how does generosity look like for those individuals?

[C]

See, generous is not an action. Generous is a character quality. And like integrity, it's a character quality that you choose. You're not born with it. It's not, it's not installed. You have to say I am a generous person as a friend, as our friend James Clear says. He says our habits come from our identity. So change your identity and your habits will follow. Right. The whole essence of Atomic Habits is best selling book and which is wonderful material. And so the. But I am a generous person. Okay, now what does that mean? Yeah, there's obviously a money thing. That might mean I give 10% to my church. A tithe. That might mean I pick up the bill at dinner. It might mean I look across the room and someone's wearing military fatigues and I buy their lunch. It might. Or a policeman or a fireman or a nurse. You know, I'm in scrubs. I might. That it might mean something that simple tactically. But it could mean I just opened the door for someone.

[A]

Yeah, a generous heart.

[C]

It could mean because here's the Thing we all know the difference in a taker and a giver. We know the difference in selfless versus selfish. When you hang out with selfish people, you feel like you need to take a shower when you're done, you know. And when you hang out with selfless people, so I can just decide to do that. I don't have to have a lot of money because generous people are highly attractive. Not because they give you stuff, but they're highly attractive because they're that they. And they're very seldom depressed. They almost always have a positive outlook. They don't have a scarcity mentality. They have an abundance mentality. And all of this is just a decision. I just. I'm going to. Instead of being. But what happens is we become overwhelmed with the financial stress and we turn it in and we became navel gazers. Worried about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Because I got to take care of me, me, me, me, me. And if I don't take care of me, me, me, the lights get. And it doesn't take much margin to push all of that back as a decision and just say, no, I'm gonna leave a tip. That's outlandish. You know, I watched a guy the other day park a Mercedes. He pulled up in a car. I know the car because I looked at it one time. It was $140,000 car. And he hands the valet five bucks. Like, dude, this is Ferris Bueller's Day Out. You just gave a guy five bucks to park 140,000. You are out of your mind. That's a lot. That's a lack of generosity that could really cost you. I want them taking care of Mr. Ramsey's car like it's their daughter. You know, that's the tip I want to leave for selfish reasons. Hello.

[A]

You know, protect your car.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

I'm curious. What was the. What was the most generous year you've ever been financially? You don't have to say how much you gave or tithe that year, but what was the most you ever gave back in one year? Can you remember that year?

[C]

Yeah, yeah. It was your. Before last. Because I had a goal. I met this. I've been hanging out with these generous guys, these guys that have a lot of money and gals and trying to learn from them. And one of the things I learned is the intentionality behind their generosity. They're very careful. They. They do large gifts as if they're doing an investment.

[D]

Really.

[C]

They do due diligence.

[A]

Can you explain what do you mean.

[C]

Well, they do due diligence on the organization. You know, if they're wasteful, they're not handling money well. They don't treat their people well. Behind the scenes, 89% is going to overhead and 11% is going to hungry children. Then, you know, this is a problem. That means, I mean, somebody's got too nice a car in a pile, right? And so they investigate and go into it. That's one thing they do on large gifts, and two, if you've got an organization that's weak and their money is struggling and you give them too much, you can destroy them really much like a lottery winner doesn't have the chance.

[A]

They're not ready for it mentally or emotionally.

[C]

They don't have the character to carry it. They don't have the processes and the systems in the organization, in the nonprofit of the ministry to carry it. And so you can actually, you go into a church of 30 people and you tithe a million dollars, you can ruin the place.

[A]

So what questions should you ask an organization, a church or foundation that you want to give a big sum of money to, of money to? What questions should you ask the leaders to know that they have a mindset capable of managing that much money? Because typically, if you come from not having enough, and that's how you've always been, and then all of a sudden you get more, you may not be ready for it.

[C]

Right?

[A]

So what questions should we ask before we make those investments and give that generously to know that, okay, this person is actually at the right stage of their life to handle this big lump sum of money and all the donors that I'm going to bring them.

[C]

My daughter Denise runs our family foundation, handles all the Ramsey philanthropy. And the thing that she and I have agreed on in that is I want her to approach the ministry like we are venture capitalists and we're going to buy them.

[A]

Like looking at their books.

[C]

I'm going to buy them. Yeah, I'm going to buy them. I want to know how they're running the place. I want to know their HR issues. I want to know their systems and processes for growth. I want to know how they manage things. How chaotic is it? How is there accounting systems in place? I want to know the delivery mechanism of the actual goal of the ministry again, feeding hungry kids. How are we feeding hungry kids? What's that look like? What's the cost per kid? How many kids do we feed? And what's our goals and what's our vision for that? Just like you're buying it and then you can come alongside them and partner with them. And we're not trying to take them over. We're not trying to run them. Don't want to do that. God gave them that to do, not me, not Denise. But we're going to approach it that way as due diligence. And then that gives us a different set of eyes. And here's what's weird. Because we teach leadership and because we run a large business, we actually can help them sometimes by advising them and say, you know what? If you would just change that a little bit, then we could change our giving like this. And we're not trying to tell you what to do. We're not trying to bribe you, but we're just trying to come alongside you and love you well, help you increase your capacity, increase your efficiency for the goals that God's given you to do here. And it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. And so it changes our mindset of just. Instead of, like, we're going to throw some money over the fence, hope it all works out. If we come alongside them as if we're buying them, or if we're a venture capitalist, we're going to partner with them or something like that, then we're going to bring our advice. So obviously, then, the Ramsey Family foundation does not give to ministries that borrow money, obviously.

[A]

Right, right.

[C]

That's a deal killer for us.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That doesn't have to be for everybody. But we teach people not to borrow money. Why would we then give money to someone who's borrowing? That's kind of dumb.

[A]

Right.

[C]

So we wouldn't do that. So. But back to the other thing. My goal was, I saw one guy, he gave away a million dollars in a year. I thought that would be very, very cool to figure out a way that we. And many years ago, we were able. We were able to do that the first time.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Many years ago. And then I thought, well, what can we do next? I want to give away a million dollars in a day.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

And we pulled that off.

[A]

Come on.

[C]

We pulled that off.

[A]

That was.

[C]

So far. It included the gifts to our team for Christmas. It included supporting several ministries simultaneously at Christmas. A children's home in it included buying some stuff for this thing and that thing. We did it all. Brought everybody under this roof here and did it all this huge celebration one day. Not to point at us, but it was. I gotta tell you, it's one of the most fun days I've ever had in my life. Because generosity is fun.

[A]

Feels good too.

[C]

It does. It's a blast. It's the most fun you'll ever have with money.

[A]

Now you said, I think you said the year before last was the most that you gave.

[C]

Yeah, that was that million dollar.

[A]

That was it. Okay, so. So essentially like a year and a month ago or something, right? It was. Is that what it was like?

[C]

Yeah, sure.

[A]

A year and a half ago or something like that. I'm curious. Every, every individual that I've interview or talk to, you know, 10 plus years my senior, they all talk who I really admire, they all talk about generosity and giving and making it something you do early on in your life in any way, capacity that you can and giving more and more. The more you are able to give more. And they say the thing that always happens is I always make more when I give. Even like a little bit uncomfortably when I give more than I think. Can I really do this? The next year always becomes bigger. I'm curious, was the last year one of your biggest years?

[C]

No, no, no. But it will be. It will be over a decade.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I mean, because I mean, we're being impacted by outside variables like everyone. I mean we got supply chain is affecting the economics are affecting energy costs are affecting hiring, cost of labor is affecting us. Everything's affecting us. So now we're. We're actually not up immediately following that, But I am 100% convinced that over a decade will be way up.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Because I've done it before. I've stretched and done it before, done unusual thing, had the celebration with no thought of the return. Yes, you don't. If you do it with a thought of a return, then that's you telling God what to do. That doesn't work. He thinks he's God, so that won't work. But the, this idea that again, generous people are just more fun to do stuff with.

[A]

They're more attractive, they're more fun, they're.

[C]

More attractive and you just end up having opportunities come. I mean, think about it in a simplistic way. Let's say you were a leader in an organization and you had two people working for you, vying for a promotion. And obviously, what are we gonna do here? One's the selfish look, like he's weaned on a pickle, you know, and, and the other lady is. She's generous and she's kind. She's always doing. She's always stepping outside of her own job description and helping someone else get the project done and not taking credit for it. Who gets the promotion of course. Of course. And it's not because, you know, it's not because you're somehow beholden to her for that. It's just.

[D]

Just.

[C]

That's who I want to work with every day.

[A]

People with good attitude.

[C]

Good. I don't want Mr. Weaned on a pick all hanging out. I don't want to hang out with this guy.

[A]

Right.

[C]

You know, he's awful. It's awful. You know, what do you think happens.

[A]

To people that never give that they just earn for themselves or they keep it in their business and they only put it back in their business, but they don't think about giving outside of the business.

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[C]

I think their growth is stunted.

[A]

Really?

[C]

You know it to me, again, it falls in the same category as integrity. What happens to someone who cuts corners? You can, you can win, you can prosper to a degree. But all the data tells us and all the life experience tells us that the people with fanatical levels of integrity are the ones that do the biggest stuff. The crooks really don't get ahead. At the end of the day, the people that are selfish, they can, they could get some stuff done. But the people that are selfless, they just have a tendency because people trust them. That trust factor comes in. Things move at the speed of trust, as they say, and all those things come into play and you just don't become all you were designed to be. The Other thing that happens with generosity is your creativity increases because you're releasing chemicals that you don't release when you're selfish, your productivity increases, the quality of your relationships increase. I was speaking at a little Baptist church in Kentucky one time, beautiful little church, and the guy, many, many years ago, and the old pastor had been there for 40 years, and I did a tithing lesson, hardcore Baptist tithing lesson, which I love. And the guy came up afterwards and he goes, well, you left one thing out. Sure, Pastor. I mean, you've been doing this longer than me. What I leave out. He goes, you know, I've been doing this 40 years. I've never had a tithing couple in my church get a divorce. And I went, why? Because the tithe is magical. Because some people think that in Christianity, you know, because I don't think that he said, no, because when you're unselfish with your money, you're unselfish with your wife, and you're unselfish with your husband, and you serve each other in the marriage. If you're serving the community with your giving, it's the same muscle. And he goes, you're just easier to.

[A]

Stay married to when you're tithing, when.

[C]

You'Re giving, when you're giving, when you make giving a standard part of the rhythm of your life, you build that generosity muscle. And it affects every relationship you're in, particularly the key relationship in a marriage. It changes the way you parent, you.

[A]

Know, because if you don't give in one area, if you say, I'm going to hold back my money and I'm going to keep it here, you're probably not going to give generously to your spouse or to your kids or to your friends or community. Right?

[C]

Because it's a character quality.

[A]

Interesting.

[C]

You know, it's like the guy that says, ah, well, you know, I hate the irs, I hate taxes. So I don't really put everything on my tax return. Okay, so you're a liar, you're a cheater. Where are you going to cheat me? In what? Deal. That's what I started thinking. I'm not impressed. I hate taxes, but I pay every stinking penny. Not because I believe in taxes and not because I'm scared of the irs. Because neither one of those things are true. But it's because it says something about me. I got to look at me. And that's an integrity issue. It's every penny, every cash sale of a book on the back table goes into the accounting system and we pay freaking taxes on it. I got audited not long ago. I paid precisely zero.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

In the audit. We were so stinking clean. And it's not because I'm scared of those dupers, because I'm really not. They're a pain in the butt, but I'm not scared of them. It's a matter of integrity. Is integrity. Is integrity. Is integrity. Generosity is generosity. Is generosity. Is generous generosity. These things, this stuff, these are character qualities of the successful people that I've met.

[A]

Yeah, that's beautiful. Speaking of marriage, it seems like money affects marriages a lot. I'm curious what. Or it could empower marriages. Or could it hurt marriages if. If not handled properly? I'm curious if you were to give vice on some. A couple dating for, you know, a few years, looking to get married, what are a few questions they must have and aligned to about money that might be uncomfortable to have those questions, but will actually get you clear on, hey, are we the right match in terms of our money mindset, in terms of what we're going to do with money for the next. And maybe you have this question in the first few months of dating, you don't wait two years. But what are those questions that people should be asking before they align with someone romantically long term?

[C]

Well, there's a couple things to think. Keep in mind. I'm talking to a young couple about this, and I do often in a marriage seminar or something like that is our pre marriage counseling session or something like that. The number one cause of divorce is money fights and money problems out there. The stress of money and the arguments over money. Okay. And so if you said the number one cause of death is getting killed by a bear on the way to the mailbox. Right. Then you would analyze how not to get killed by a bear on the way to the mailbox. Right. And so if you're going to get married, you should really look at the number one freaking thing. Hello.

[A]

This is the number one thing that either hurts or ends marriage, is what.

[C]

I'm hearing you say. And the odd thing is it's actually circular. It's an infinity loop because it feeds back on itself, meaning that it also the quality of your marriage is a high data point indicator as to whether or not you build wealth.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And so very few people drag a spouse kicking and screaming into millionaire status.

[A]

You know, does you mean it doesn't happen by accident?

[C]

You know, so I'm bringing the princess with me. Right. Come on, baby. And put you on my back. We're gonna haul you over there. Doesn't Usually work okay, or I'm bringing the guy who's, who's lazy and won't work and I'm gonna outwork him. And the lady says, and he's a little boy and I'm gonna be his mommy and I'm gonna drag him all the way into millionaire status. Not working, baby.

[A]

Right.

[C]

So it goes both directions. But so that, that's thing one, if it's the number one cause then yeah, it ought to be something really discuss. So preventative maintenance, right? Yes. You know, it's, you know, preventative health. If the number one cause of death is obesity, we probably ought to think about obesity.

[A]

You know, I'm curious then, what is, what is a, what's a question a woman at should ask to her man, you know, within the first few months of dating about money, where she could get a sense if he's fully honest and integrity with what he's saying and not just saying something to make her, you know, feel happy. What is a question she can ask to feel like, okay, this man I'm dating and courting and we're getting into this life with, I feel like I can trust him with money for the future.

[C]

Yeah, well, money is a reflection of our values, how we handle money. And that's another reason that it's very important, because if your values are not aligned, you're going to struggle in any relationship, but certainly in a marriage relationship. And so, you know, talk about the basics of money. Debt, I love debt. Gonna use it all the time, you know, I want zero down everything. I'm gonna buy a zero down truck. I'm gonna buy zero down stereo. I'm gonna buy zero down couch. I'm gonna put nothing down on the house. And you hate debt. Okay, we got a problem. We're gonna have to work through this or we're gonna have to. This is a deal, killer. Okay, how about saving? I don't think I'll save money. You know, you get you some. I always thought you could out earn your stupidity. I tried that for years. Didn't work, you know, so my wife, however, is a natural saver, right? So when I joined her club is when we started winning, you know, so bless her heart, she didn't know this going in, but made a hard, hard life for her the first seven years. But the. So saving and debt. How about generosity? I don't believe you ought to give. If you give, you end up with less. It's mathematically factual, which it is actually. But that short term thinking, that's a finite game. Instead of an infinite game again using summons premise on his book the things we just talked about. How about living on? Are we going to live in chaos? Are we going to live with a plan?

[A]

Yeah, I want to live with peace or chaos.

[C]

Are we going to live with future minded or yolo? You know you only live once. Thank God it's Friday Living for the weekend. Our marriage theme song is Huey Lewis in the news, right? I mean come on, is this us? And if it is then you know, because what's this tell you? Anyone that lives short term thinking we know they're emotionally immature.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Spiritually immature. And so you're marrying someone or you're dating someone that's emotionally immature. And they're fun, they're always fun. But they're. But it's not fun in the long term because it brings about stress. The fruit of this is nasty. And so now do we have to be perfectly aligned on all those things? No, we just need to understand where the other person stands and are they so far over away from us that it's a deal killer? Yeah, because my wife is more of a saver than I am by nature. I had saving for me is an intellectual act, a spiritual act of my will. It is not a natural rhythm. Okay. She naturally saves everything. The leftovers in our refrigerator are grotesque. I mean it's just, I mean you know, she saves everything so. But so to the extent that I can stay close to her on that, then we've got harmony. We have both obviously with what we've been through. Agreed. No debt. We are both plan have become planners over the 40 years of marriage. I've always been a detailed planner. I had to get her to join me more on that. So you know, but it's better if you do it on the front end than the way we did it. It's a lot harder the way we did but kill each other. So you want to be in agreement on that. And all the data tells us on marriage and divorce statistics and we've studied this for years is number one cause of divorce, money. The other three, if you can be in agreement on them, religion, kids, whether to have them and how to treat them and how to deal with crazy people in your extended family. Your mother in law and your crazy brother, your lazy brother who does cocaine and whatever it is. How are you going to deal with manage it all. How to manage boundaries with extended family. And you know, if one of you thinks that children should just be let run wild and the other one is an over disciplinarian we're gonna have a problem. Or I want no children and I want 17. That's gonna be an issue. Or I don't believe there's a God. And I think anyone who believes there's a God's an idiot. Oh, by the way, I think there's a God. Oh, see, this is a problem because now I'm an idiot. So there you go. And so these are the things. But if you can, because all of these things are representative of your values and what your beliefs are. So when you can agree on your money, what you've ended up agreeing on is your dreams, your fears, your visions. You're in agreement, you're in alignment on those. Not only what they are, but how we're going to go after them then and now. You've got real harmony and you've got a high probability of building wealth. That's the odd part of it. That's the infinity loop, how it comes back in on itself.

[A]

Do you think love is enough? If you have religion, kids, family, boundaries, kind of all in alignment, in harmony, but money is completely apart. But you love each other. You've been building this life together for a year or two and you're like, should we get married or not? But we are so far apart. One's the fun and undisciplined person, one is the extreme saver and, you know, detail oriented plan person. Is. Is love enough to have a successful, long term, healthy marriage? If money is not there?

[C]

I think you've got to be close. You want to be exactly aligned, but you got to be generally thinking because the problem is this resentment is going to set in and resentment will kill love. The eye roll, when you roll your eyes, that's the beginning of the end.

[A]

Is that called the Four Horsemen?

[C]

Exactly. Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Yeah. Les Parrott teaches about that. And that's some standard John Gottman background stuff. But that's one of the four. And that's the big one, by the way, of the fourth is. Yeah. And so, you know, if he won't work, he won't keep a job because he just doesn't think that that's that big a deal. It's not a problem. Eventually you lose respect and the eye rolls.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And that's the beginning of the end. That's one of the most, the largest of the Four Horsemen by far. So if you can't keep. Now, again, my wife and I joke about our differences on saving.

[A]

Right, right, right.

[C]

But they're not that far apart. Sure. I mean, and I, we Freely admit, hers is a natural rhythm, mine's a built in. I had to decide to do it because I see the benefits of it. So I intellectually will it. It's against my. Yeah, I really don't. I mean the only reason I save money so I can give more and have more.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

The only reason I don't do it because I get joy out of saving money. Zero.

[A]

Right.

[C]

You know, but I can give more and I can buy more and those two things bring me joy. So there you go. But, but that, but that again, that at least we though are in alignment that saving is important, even if it might be for two different reasons. If I absolutely believe that was ridiculous to keep any money saved and she had to have some money saved to have peace because she's constantly in anxiety because there's no rainy day fund, then that's going to eventually tear up anything you do.

[A]

Sure. What's the difference between saving and investing at your kind of scale or someone who's, you know, bringing in over a million dollars a year in their business and they've got some extra cash. What is the difference between saving and investing? Is there a difference at that level of like, okay, some money is just saved in a, you know, an account and others are invested in different areas.

[C]

Savings is short term, investing is long term. Okay, pretty simple and you can define what that is. But I generally things three years and less, I'm just saving the money. I'm really not putting it in something that's going to be going up and down because I need the money there.

[A]

Right.

[C]

You know, and so I've got to have the access to it. So it needs to be. It's not going to earn a lot, but it's stable investing. I can ride a wave because I'm playing a long game.

[A]

What's the percentages of saving investing that people should be at?

[C]

Well, you should have an emergency fund personally of three to six months of expenses. The standard rainy day fund. Past that you need to save up and pay cash for whatever your purchasing. So if you've got a car purchase in your future, Christmas, this year's in December, if you didn't know, you got to get ready for that. And you know that kind of stuff, they move it occasionally. But just in case. Yeah, but just in case a reminder. And so you know, you got. Those are savings items. And then past that, everything else would go invest to investing, you know, because basically one saving is for protection, the emergency fund and the others for purchases to avoid debt. Paying cash for my Car, paying cash for my couch, paying cash for my trip. And those are short term savings. Christmas, I'm saving short term savings items and then long term saving items, obviously retirement, kids, college, general wealth building beyond that to do other things. And so then I get into. At our level, now that we make a lot of money, we're a little bit mixed up in that we get so much over in the investing pile. And a lot of it is not for 30 years from now, a lot of it is for six years from now. And so I'll throw money over into a mutual fund until I use it to buy a piece of real estate or something like that. But that's a little different.

[A]

What do you think are three things that rich people do differently than the poor people or people that aren't thinking about building wealth in that way?

[D]

Number one, and you'll be surprised to hear me say this, they don't take inordinate risk. You're going to find that the majority of very wealthy people are extremely conservative in how they invest. They don't need to beat the market. They've already done that. They just need to preserve their capital. So what you find them doing, and I don't know what that number is for you, wealth means different things to different people. But when you are fortunate and you become wealthy, what you'll find is most of those people do not take a lot of risk and they invest in things that are very long term. They don't use a lot of debt. Most cases they don't use leverage when they're investing. They don't take very speculative positions on, you know, you hear that they might buy Bitcoin or they may, you know, buy a speculative stock, but if you look at it as a percentage of what they're worth, it's nothing, right? And so they're willing, when they're making that investment, they're saying, I'm willing to lose it. It's entertainment almost for me. It's not something I think it's that I'm going to have to live off. And the other thing I found, because I advise a lot of wealthy people, because my companies that I invest in, you know, of which I have over 30, at any one time, 10% of them are being acquired by a private equity firm or being bought by a strategic. And I've known the entrepreneur and maybe it's their first liquidity event. I try and help them on that journey. And some of them, you know, get 100 million or $80 million. They've got plenty of situations like that. And they're young. And what happens is you find out later that entrepreneurs are actually really bad investors. They're very good at running a business, and they focus myopically on that their whole lives. But when they actually get liquidity, it's usually their husband or wife that was the person that was taking care of the family and mitigating the risk. And they're the ones that are the better investor. And that's why I say, in a family, you have to have a team approach. But I've learned this, that you really. You'll find that what's successful about families is they know what they're good at, or wealthy people, and they know what they're not good at. And they don't try and do things they don't understand. And this is important because you have to say, I have limits on my skills. I know what I'm good at, but I've been very fortunate, and I'm not going to go risk anything now doing something I don't know. I see that characteristic a lot. And the other thing that I would say is different, and this may have a lot to do with the concept of karma. Another lesson I learned from my mother. If you're successful and you talk to wealthy people, you'll always find that there's something that motivates them to be philanthropic, to give money to something that matters to them. And that's the whole idea of giving back. You've been successful, and you have to find the cause that motivates you. You're willing to spend your time and money supporting. That is a big difference. Because if you believe in karma, and I do, when you do that, it kind of protects you against the horrific downside of something bad happening to you because you're just so greedy. You can't. When you had success and you're a wealthy person, if you show me a greedy wealthy person, just wait 10 years, then you'll just show me a person. Somehow karma will separate their money from them. That's what I find.

[A]

Or they'll get sick or something will happen. Where.

[D]

Yeah, I really believe this. I really believe it. And you've got to find those things that you can give back on that means something to you. But if you abuse karma, it's got a special gift coming for you.

[A]

So finding ways to give back. Are you giving back in a lot of other ways? Philanthropy right now as well?

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

You know, I like to have a concentrated approach. I call it 5 and 5. I prefer to pick 5 charities or in our case. We support a dance company. We support some hospitals, some educational institutions and you know, give enough that it's a material gift and that, that I have a say in how it's spent very often. And above all, I like to see expense ratios reported. I generally don't support charities that can't provide. Just like an investment, some kind of a statement on where my money went.

[A]

Right.

[D]

And that is actually something I think Bill Gates is famous for early on saying, why can't I treat my charitable investments as I do my private ones and ask for some performance metrics? And I kind of believe that he's right.

[A]

Yeah. See, it's smart. And what would you say is one other thing that rich people do differently that poor people don't do?

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[D]

This may have a lot to do with, you know, the access to. But in the last five years I've realized how important food is and how if you're, you know, you say poor, how you should be or even you should focus on what you put in your body. Because in our society we do two things very badly. We eat too much sodium and we eat too much sugar, white cane sugar. And. And we have been trained to do that since the forties by a whole industrial complex that wants to sell us that. And I'm guilty of it and so is everybody else. Salt and sugar feel good. They're comfort food, snacks and all that. It's the Worst thing you put in your body. And I have learned it's kind of weird, but the older I get and the more I experience this, because I'm actually a classically trained chef in French fusion, I have a job on QVC as chef. Wonderful. I sell millions of dollars of food and wine each year there. It's because I grew up for a few years in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. And that's at a place where it was a French colonized place. My dad was working in the United nations and the two women that were the housekeepers and the cook used to go to the market. It was on the Mekong river in Phnom Penh and take me with them at four in the morning and it's very hot there. And so they were classically trained French chefs. So in French cooking, particularly if you're a sous chef, which is really hard to get that designation, and I'm pretty proud of what I can do in that area is you work with a lot of heavy butter and cream, but you can't do that in an environment where it's 110 degrees, 100% humidity every day. You, you can't eat like that. So what those chefs taught me was how to replace the butter and the cream with things like a mango puree or lime and lemon juice or guava crushed. I mean, all kinds of different flavors. So they would take a classic dish like crepe flambe, which is one of my specialties, or escargot. And those are classic frank dishes. They're very time consuming to make, particularly escardo, if it's made properly with real shells and real snails. But you don't have to put all that butter in it. You can have, you know, different flavor set based on using a fusion of citrus. Anyways, the whole idea of eating better for me is part of my DNA and growing up. So now I look at what I eat every day. I used to, when I was young, I eat three steaks a week. I used to love that. I don't think I've had a piece of red meat in months. I eat fish, I eat fruit and vegetables. And it really helps you feel better. So if you're asking me what's different, But I'm proud to see that many people are exploring plant based. And regardless of their financial income, meat is actually very expensive and very inefficient. And there's ways to get protein. Now you don't have to become a vegan. I'm just saying you have to choose to Focus on the things that are better for you regardless of your income and you will get more energy, you'll feel better. That kind of thing. That's the difference as well.

[A]

That's powerful. I love that. I'm curious, do you think the middle class is financially stuck and if so, what can they do to start achieving more financial freedom?

[D]

You can create a new opportunity for yourself online with virtually no barrier to, to entry. Many, many people did it as a side hustle and it's now producing more income than their first job. The whole idea of trying to solve for customer acquisition, using creativity, using video, using music, using photography, using storytelling, animatics, graphics, to actually sell a service or product, starting locally and then expanding. There's millions of new businesses that have been started during the pandemic. We, we see them every day on Shark Tank, but they are basically taking middle class people out of middle class. And I'd say if you look at Shark Tank, we have plenty of people that have been working in the middle class for years and all of a sudden exploded to the upside with a great service or idea that they did online. And that's why I really think people should empower themselves. You can try things online, you can see what works. You don't have to get the first one right, but those tools are there for you.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And most of this is done on Facebook in Geo locked advertising. 80 cents on the dollar of what my company spend is on Facebook. So I always find it very funny to see people, you know, bashing Facebook, saying how evil it is when really it's running small business in America because they have that unique geo locking advertising feature. So, you know, we shouldn't shut it down till we find something better.

[A]

Yeah. And what would you say are a couple of qualities that you really look for when you're, when you're looking to invest in someone or when someone has an idea and you see whether you invest them or not, you're like, this person's going to be successful whether it's in this thing or something else. What are those two or three qualities that all of them seem to have in your mind, whether it be a leadership skill or clarity. What would that be?

[D]

I prefer to invest in entrepreneurs that have failed once or twice before, that have felt the sting of failure and have, you know, gone down the road and not had success the first time because their motivations are completely different than a more arrogant first timer that thinks everything they do is going to make $100 million. It's just not, doesn't work that way. And so that's one thing I love. There's three things you have to have the ability to do and know if you're going to be successful in business. Number one is you have to be able to articulate your idea 90 seconds or less, explaining to me why anybody would want that product or service. And if you take more than a minute and a half, you're never going to be successful. You're just not. And number two is you have to be able to explain why you're the right person to execute on that idea. In other words, what is it about you that knows how to take this idea? Which good ideas are dime a dozen? Execution. Executional skills are really hard to find. So what is it about you that can execute on this business and make it work? I mean, those two together start to be really interesting because then as an investor looks at it, says, well, I'm going to mitigate my risk. I got a great executional expert here and I've got a great idea. And then lastly, the one that I think you have to have good command of, you have to know your numbers, you have to be able to explain gross margins, market share, break even, analysis, analysis. How many competitors, how fast can you grow? And I think, you know, that's who I want to invest in. Someone who has the command of all three of those that's probably got more than a 50% chance of being successful if they can do that. Right?

[A]

Yeah. I love your take on things. I wanted to know for those that are in their late teens, early 20s, what conversations should they be having with friends or mentors around money? I feel like a lot of people are afraid to talk about it or they don't, they don't share how much they make or how much a home costs or whatever. It's just like this hush hush mentality. What should we be talking about in our late teens, early 20s or even 30s? But what types of conversations should we be having to shift the narrative around money so we can start attracting it in our favor as opposed to rejecting it?

[D]

Well, first of all, we need to teach it in high school. Luckily here in Florida it's been put into the curriculum. And I'm very proud of that. You know, I used to be in the educational software business. There's 110,000 school buildings in America, majority of them in New York and Florida, Texas and California. And abysmally, most of them don't teach even debt. They don't even teach how to use a credit card, which is ridiculous. We've got to change that. And luckily we are. We're starting to see it creep into the curriculums in all the major states, which is good. But I think parents have a responsibility to talk about money, which is always sitting at the table every day. It always is. And you know, getting their kids to understand how a credit card works is very important. And again, I talked about not entitling. That's important too, but within, within your friends. I mean, don't be embarrassed to talk about money. You're going to be talking about money for the rest of your life. It's always going to be part. You can't live without it. You have to deal with it. It can cause great joy and give you personal freedom or can be catastrophic in your life, destroy your happiness completely. Your choice is where does it fit? Do you want it to destroy your life or would you prefer that you understand how it works and respect it for what it is and deal with it? That's a personal choice people have to make. And I would say the best way to do that is learn more, talk more about it, and don't be afraid to discuss it. I don't care what age you're at, but certainly at the age of 16, you should be discussing that. And above all, taking 10% of whatever anybody gives you, your grandmother, your birthday gift, whatever it is, and set it aside and start investing it. The earlier you start, the less pressure you have when you're in your 60s, because you've got to have at least a million and a half bucks in the bank. And you can if you just save a hundred dollars a week. That's what beanstalks is all about. That's why, that's why I got involved in beanstalks. That's the whole idea.

[A]

And do you think someone in their late 40s and 50s, do you think it's too late for them to start learning about financial literacy? If they've struggled in their 20s and 30s and 40s, do you think it's too late to start investing and saving? What should people do in their 40s and early 50s?

[D]

No, they should at any age. I mean, the truth is, changing your spending behavior in your 40s is difficult, but you can do it. And at that age, you should start saving 20 to 25% of what you're taking in, which sounds hard to do, but it isn't. You just stop buying those $5 coffees and you stop buying stuff you don't use. Anybody can go look in their closet and see all the crap they bought that they Never used. And basically you killed that money when you did that. You bought something that you could have had invested and it could have grown 6% to 8% a year for you. But instead you bought some piece of junk that you're throwing out. Now everybody's guilty of that. I actually think my mother was right. She's always said that people can save 20%, they just don't have the backbone to do it. And she did. And she died a very wealthy woman. She had a secret account she kept from both of her husbands. And I was the older brother and was executor for the state. And I remember the lawyers calling me up saying, you got to come down here. Your mother, your mother had a lot of money. And I always wondered how she did it. She basically bought dividend paying stocks and her twenties and a whole bunch of telco bonds, 50, 50 portfolio. She loved telco bonds. They used to yield 6% in those days. And she loved dividend paying stocks, S and P stocks. And over the 50 years that she had this account, it just provided massive appreciation.

[A]

Should people die wealthy or should they die broke because they spent their wealth on charity or giving back or whatever? Living your life and going on trips and adventures, what's your philosophy there?

[D]

You know, the trouble these days is you don't know when you're going to die. You make certain assumptions and then you live an extra 10 years or 20 years and you live at a time in your life when you really needed that money for your comfort. You know, it's probably better to not make an assumption. Oh, I think I'm going to die when I'm 88. Because you don't know what technology is going to provide or what your genes really have in store for you. I would prefer to die with a good chunk of dough in the bank and then gift it to a cat.

[A]

A cat?

[D]

Yeah. You know, cats only last 14 years. Be a great 14 years for them. I'm just kidding. I give it. I probably give it to a combination of, you know, in my case, I feel safe because I can roll it into a trust that doesn't provide for you after, you know, you finish college. So I don't, I don't feel I'm entitling anybody or cursing anybody's future. So I'll just probably roll it into one of my family trusts and say I don't need it anymore. The only thing I'm taking with me to the afterlife is my watch collection. All of them going to eternity. I got a lot. I don't even say anymore how many I've got. I haven't, you know, really, I'm very proud of my watch collection and it's incredibly, it's got some amazing pieces and it's taken me years to build this collection and I'm going to need it to tell time and eternity. So I'm taking it all with me.

[A]

What do you think is the best investment you've ever made in yourself?

[D]

Well, the best investment I ever made in myself was myself. You know, you often doubt yourself, but you know, it was, it was. You know, I went through some very tough times right from when my mother cut me off through several business ventures I failed in. And then you just don't know. Serendipity knocks on the door. The thing is, as an entrepreneur, you just got to keep getting up every day. You have to stay in the game, you have to stay in the race. It's very, very hard. It's like that story of the guy with his fiance. You know, you just have to focus and you have to find somebody that's willing to focus with you. But I'm glad I did what I did. I wouldn't change a thing. I made plenty of mistakes. But it is who I am today and I'm, I'm very proud to be able to offer the things I do to my family and to support different initiatives and charities and support the arts and collect watches and guitars and cook and all these things are made available because I've been able to focus on being successful in business. And that is the great American dream. It's going to remain that way forever. The essence of why Shark Tank works. I'm very proud to be part of the platform. I can guarantee you 13 years ago when we started this thing, we had no idea what was going to happen. I mean, it's just, who knew? But now 9 year old girls to 99 year old man come up to me saying look, let's talk about that deal last week on Shark Tank. And I'm happy to do it. I mean, I think it's great and we're proud to do it. And I don't know, that's the whole idea that I encourage people. Don't pursue entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship out of greed of money. You will fail for sure. Because every time I talk to anybody that's had a big liquidity event, I say, you know, did you see it coming and how did it, how did it happen? They said we never saw it coming. We were just working one day and then boom, I was poor. Now I'm rich. That's always the way it is. It's not that you're saying you're counting, you know, your dollars, you don't have any until one day, boom. Something happens and then the funny thing is you find yourself right back to work.

[A]

I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy and if you are looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life. But you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant. Then make sure to go to make moneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment. Moving forward, we have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to the next episode on the School of Greatness. 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 for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness+channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. 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.

[B]

At the UPS Store. We know things can get busy this upcoming holiday.

[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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[B]

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