Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / George Kamel - Money Expert & Top Ramsey Podcast Host | What Keeps 99% of People Broke

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George Kamel - Money Expert & Top Ramsey Podcast Host | What Keeps 99% of People Broke · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  I just want to take a second and thank Cornbread Ham for supporting today's episode.
• 0:03
  Now Cornbread Ham CBD gummies have been this really nice addition to my wellness toolkit.
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  I don't use them every day just when I want to win wine after those extra busy weeks,
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  really just shut off from work. Now what makes them special is how Cornbread Ham
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  purest, most potent experience, no fillers, no artificial fluff, just clean, full spectrum goodness
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  and delicious watermelon berry and peach flavor. I keep them in my nice stand for those moments when
• 0:40
  I just need a little extra help relaxing and I love how transparent they are too. Every batch
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  is third party lab tests. It's you know exactly what you're getting and they put together a special
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  offer for all success story podcast listeners. All listeners can save 30% off their first order.
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  Just head to cornbreadhemp.com slash success and use code success at checkout.
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  That's cornbreadhemp.com slash success code success for 30% off your first order of these amazing
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  gummies. When I grew up it was get good grades, study the thing you want to study and your life
• 1:12
  is going to be amazing. But they don't tell you that road is paved with a bunch of lies.
• 1:17
  Imagine this you're drowning in debt stressed out by the weight of financial burdens and convinced
• 1:22
  that wealth is for someone else someone luckier or more privileged. Now picture the complete
• 1:26
  opposite financial peace total freedom and becoming a self-made millionaire. The most paramount
• 1:32
  thing in your adult life is the credit score and so I started chasing that and so you just sort of
• 1:36
  swipe and swipe and swipe and it trains your body to be okay with debt. The idea of just
• 1:41
  accumulating debt and having that be your path to a peaceful non-stressful life is a total myth.
• 1:46
  I pulled my credit report someone had used my social security number. I had more in debt than I had
• 1:51
  in salary. I found the Ramsey plan and it changed my life so I went through it and decided I can
• 1:55
  do an 18 months of him willing to give up these things. If you're just willing to make a small
• 1:59
  sacrifice it will pay dividends for the rest of your life. This is the story of George, an ordinary
• 2:04
  guy who once fell into every money trap you can think of credit cards student loans and a culture
• 2:09
  that glorified debt. Today George is a sought after speaker co-host of the Ramsey show America's
• 2:15
  second largest talk radio show and a champion for helping others break free from toxic money myths.
• 2:20
  Money should not be the goal. Money is a tool to help you accomplish your goals.
• 2:24
  97% of the 10,000 millionaires that we studied said that they can control their financial
• 2:30
  destiny. It has nothing to do with money. It would be about character. Your character matters.
• 2:34
  That's what will carry you through life and as a byproduct I think people find success.
• 2:38
  This conversation will challenge how you think about money success and what it means to truly live
• 2:43
  like no one else. Welcome to success story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The success story podcast is
• 2:52
  part of the HubSpot podcast network. HubSpot not only supports this show but they support
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  entrepreneurs. That's why I'm such a huge fan of HubSpot and I'm very grateful for HubSpot
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• 3:46
  You went from around $80,000 in debt to millionaire status and along the way
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  you discovered a lot about breaking free from the system that I think most people miss.
• 4:00
  So talk to me a little bit about your journey because you described yourself as sort of an
• 4:04
  average millennial with very average debt and very average education in terms of you know I'm
• 4:10
  putting money into college and I'm gonna go live the American dream and I'm gonna go find a job.
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  So what did you discover about this system that a lot of people find themselves in and that was
• 4:19
  broken? Well like a lot of people when I grew up it was you know go to school get good grades
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  get into the college of your dreams study the thing you want to study and your life is going to
• 4:30
  be amazing but what they don't tell you is that that road is paved with a bunch of lies because
• 4:36
  you get to the end of that and you're $100,000 in student loan debt you have some credit card debt
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  you've got a car payment and you're trying to achieve this American dream with an 800 pound
• 4:46
  gorilla strapped on your back and so you're feeling the weight that's what people are feeling
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  today when they're living paycheck to paycheck in their 20s and 30s it's mainly because they
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  fell for those lies early on and so what I realized is that the system is designed to keep you
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  broke if you follow this current kind of toxic money culture we find ourselves in what do you
• 5:05
  learn well at 18 you got to open a credit card get as many as you can utilize all the rewards
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  in meanwhile companies are raking in billions of dollars Americans are going into record levels
• 5:15
  of credit card debt every year then they tell you well you're an adult now you need a nice car you
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  can't be driving around that hoopty from high school so you pick up a $500 car payment so you can
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  feel like all right I'm an adult now then what do they tell you stop renting stop renting you
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  got to get a mortgage you got to get a mortgage get a house get a house in the from the boomers
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  who got to pay $30,000 for their house you know years ago so all of these decisions have left
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  left us really strapped capped zapped financially and we're left to pick up the pieces and that was
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  me graduating from college you know with a bunch of credit card debt with a bunch of student loan debt
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  climbing my way out and luckily I found the Ramsey plan and it changed my life getting out of that
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  mess you know it's funny I always thought that one of the most predatory things was those little
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  credit card booths that they have on university campuses during frost or rush or whatever it is and
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  I'm like man this has to be one of the worst decisions financially to get into out of young age
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  because first of all yeah people use credit cards but you don't know what you're doing you don't
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  know what credit card you're signing up for you don't know what you're you're not using that stuff
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  for strategic debt either you're using that stuff to go out to bars and to go shopping and for food
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  and then on top of that you have all the debt that the university puts on to you and you have
• 6:26
  student loans you have lines of lines of credit that are advertised and marketed to you like I
• 6:31
  went through the same thing I was very fortunate because I was in a position where I actually got
• 6:38
  a fair amount of my tuition paid for because my mom worked for the university and that's actually
• 6:42
  one of the smart life hack it is a big life hack but not everybody can do that so when you were
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  going through this system now hindsight's 2020 looking back but what were some of the things that
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  you I mean like what was that did you participate in credit cards you start to take out a line of
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  credit for school like walk us through your situation because I think that's going to make it
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  really real for people that are going through it right now absolutely yeah so I grew up with
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  immigrant parents they're from the Middle East from Egypt and Syria so when they came to the states
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  they kind of adapted to this American money culture and when it came to college it was kind of
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  just like oh we'll figure it out and I went wow they've they've got some money sitting around
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  they're not worried about this at all what that turned into was hey we're going to help you take
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  out loans in your name to go to college and so I didn't fully understand what was happening when
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  you're 17 or 18 you're just bright eyed bushy tails ready to take on the world and pursue it your
• 7:41
  dream and then on top of that I was told well you got to have a you got to build your credit score
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  that's the most paramount thing in your adult life is the credit score is this three digit number
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  that tells you America what's your word financially and so I started chasing that and to do that
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  I had opened a credit card and so I got the mx sky mile so I thought well I'll be able to visit my
• 8:03
  parents that Thanksgiving for free if I get this credit card and then I got the discover cashback
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  because had rotating cashback at restaurants and entertainment and I thought that's a smart thing
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  while I'm going out I might as well make money and so these are the kinds of decisions you make at
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  18 years old as a knucklehead and so that led me down this primrose path and there's a sunk
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  cost fallacy that a lot of experience where you go what's another payment I'll get that next month
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  I'll worry about at the end of the month when the credit card bill comes in and so you just sort of
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  swipe and swipe and swipe and it trains your body to be okay with debt and one of the most controversial
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  things that ramsey has been preaching for 30 years now is that there is no such thing as good debt
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  we're okay with a mortgage debt we won't you know yell at you for getting the mortgage and
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  paying it off but the idea of just accumulating debt and having that be your path to a peaceful
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  non-stressful life is a total myth and a lot of people are falling for it thanks to social media
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  it's interesting right because then you start to look at and I know you speak about this a lot you
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  start to look at your credit score and to increase your credit score what do what do people say well
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  open more lines of credit and have a couple more credit cards and you know don't don't use it all
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  don't worry don't use it all but you have to get these credit cards to be able to increase your
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  credit scores then you can afford a mortgage and then you can afford to borrow more money and you
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  can put yourself in more debt and you can pay more for things than they are really worth so this
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  it's this I think there's a huge issue with early like early childhood education around finance
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  because there is none there really is no smart early childhood education around finance so then we
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  just succumb to whatever is marketed to us but when you okay so you are a typical millennial
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  you're you graduated university college you have all this that you're working side hustles to
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  make ends we can try and pay off this debt as well what I think is already more ambitious than
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  most people just try and get this job and work a nine to five w two so what was the sort of like the
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  the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak in terms of I need to fix my life I'm not happy
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  I'm not being I'm not able to pay off my debt the traditional system is broken what was that
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  sort of inflection point in your life that pushed you to go discover Ramsay pushed you to go look
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  at money differently well the the irony here is that you know I'm literally a camel George camel
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  and so the straw that broke my back here was when I got I had identity theft and so I pulled my
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  credit report because I got calls from collectors being like hey you owe us money on this AT&T bill
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  and I'm like I don't even have AT&T I going from a Verizon collector going hey you owe us money
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  and Verizon I'm like dude what what's going on here so I pulled my credit report and found that
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  someone had used my social security number address name all these things to open up these
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  credit lines at these phone companies and so that's when I saw the scarier part was seeing all
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  of my debt listed out on that credit report I had never seen it I was just kind of heading the
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  sand going I think I have some over here with Sally man I think I've got some over here here's
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  my credit card bill I get the picture but seeing it all right there and realizing that I had more
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  in debt than I had in salary that was a gut wrenching moment lump in the throat pit of the stomach
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  where you're just like oh my gosh how did I get here like I'm $40,000 in debt and I make $37,000
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  like how am I going to ever pay this off it felt like just chains and that's when I had discovered
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  Ramsay and it was my first kind of big boy job they they let me work here as an email marketing
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  coordinator that was my first job and I figured it out convinced them I could do the job and so
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  that's when I went through financial piece university which is our flagship nine lesson money course
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  and as a new team member if you haven't gone through financial piece university you're required
• 11:49
  to go through it to get you know a full picture of here's here's what we do this is the product that
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  has changed a lot of people's lives you need to be in on this mission if you're going to work here
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  so I went through it and decided oh my gosh I can actually get out of this and it's not going to
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  take a lifetime it's going to take me 18 months I can do it 18 months if I'm willing to do these
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  things if I'm willing to give up these things and so there's the thing I wanted which was debt
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  freedom there's the price that I had to pay to get that and then there was the willingness to pay
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  that price and the best thing about financial piece university is it shows you here's the price
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  you didn't have to pay but it also motivates you to have the willingness to do it that's where a lot
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  of people stop they see the price and I go no thank you I'm not going to sell the car I'm not going
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  to get two more side jobs I'm not willing to do that I want comfort but I was willing to be
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  uncomfortable for a short season for 18 months so that I could have peace on the other side for
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  the next 18 years and that's that's the trade off that I just want everyone to grasp if you're
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  just willing to make a small sacrifice for a short period of time it will pay dividends for
• 12:54
  the rest of your life I just want to take a second and thank cornbread ham for supporting today's
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  episode now cornbread ham CBD gummies have been this really nice addition to my wellness toolkit
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  I don't use them every day just when I want to win wine after those extra busy weeks
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  slash success code success for 30% off your first order of these amazing gummies if we look at all
• 14:05
  the different things that we sort of just touched on we spoke about credit cards and line of credits
• 14:09
  and mortgages and and leasing your car and credit score they're all damaging to various degrees
• 14:16
  but I think that some people would argue that there's a place for all of those in people's lives
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  as well there's some there's some utility to getting out a mortgage if you or maybe there is
• 14:25
  I don't know I know that Ramsey has a pretty hard and fast opinion on on debt right so out of all
• 14:32
  those things is there a place for them at all in a an early person's life is there anything they
• 14:39
  can use strategically is there any point for example of trying to even focus on a credit score
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  are all these things really just myths that are going to damage your your life your ability to
• 14:48
  afford things your ability to build wealth later on well I had these fears as well you know when
• 14:53
  when you dive into the Ramsey plan and it's like hey cut up all of your credit cards close them down
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  and you know don't worry about your credit score eventually it's going to disappear and you're
• 15:02
  going to live life without it just fine these are things that you know when you're young you're
• 15:06
  scared you're like I don't know that's not what I've heard and then living it out personally
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  when I cut up my cards in that class I closed the accounts I paid off the cards my credit score
• 15:16
  went to indeterminable within about six or eight months it was just gone and then I want to have
• 15:22
  to rent an apartment and they're like oh you'll just need a little more deposit and as long as
• 15:26
  you have proof of income and you don't have a criminal history you're fine I went oh okay so that
• 15:30
  was one myth busted I went to rent a car without a credit card or credit score and then went wow
• 15:34
  yeah we have a debit card policy you'll seem to add a little more to the deposit upfront but other
• 15:38
  than that you're good to go and I went oh wow another myth busted and then I went to get a house
• 15:43
  to get a mortgage and this was the big kahuda everyone goes well you need a credit score to get a
• 15:47
  house to get a mortgage and I went through a process called manual underwriting to no score alone
• 15:53
  and this is what they used to do back in the 70s and 80s before credit scores were rampant they
• 15:58
  would look at your act a real person would look at your personal financial history look at your
• 16:03
  income you do have stable income look at your tax returns look at all these things to go do you
• 16:08
  have the ability to repay this mortgage do you have a solid down payment what is your debt to
• 16:12
  income ratio and so based on all those parameters they gave me mortgage with no credit score
• 16:18
  and so that's when I realized that there really isn't a lot of hoops to jump through and my life
• 16:22
  is actually better having opted out of this system entirely and so that takes that's a big sort
• 16:30
  of a curve if you can make that curve you're going to be just fine but a lot of people they go no
• 16:34
  thank you I'm going to keep living the way I'm living or I'm going to do it for a tax deduction
• 16:39
  or my tax guy said I can write this off I'm going to do the lease and they're trying to finesse
• 16:44
  the system and it's burning so many mental calories that could be used for you know more beneficial
• 16:50
  things to your life and that's what I'm saying out there you can you can live a life in the system
• 16:55
  and you can build wealth but what I found is it's much more peaceful and simpler to just buck
• 16:59
  the system entirely when you look at bucking the system and getting rid of the credit score what
• 17:04
  it's forcing you to do is to not be over leveraged and to be more financially responsible because
• 17:09
  now like you're saying they're asking you to actually just reserve a little bit more of your cash
• 17:14
  for the purchase you're making which is just smart financial sense anyways because how do people
• 17:18
  get into trouble they just over leverage themselves I'm very curious in your opinion what would be
• 17:25
  the most predatory financial product that you've seen people get hooked into oh man there's so
• 17:33
  many it's like choosing your least favorite child you know there's there's the most predatory
• 17:40
  for different people groups so I'm going to I'm going to say for lower income folks the payday
• 17:45
  loan and the tote the note car lot those are the most predatory products out there because it puts
• 17:51
  you in an endless cycle when you have a 400% interest rate it feels impossible to climb out of that
• 17:57
  even if it's a low amount of debt it makes it so difficult to get out of that and so you're left
• 18:02
  re-entering that cycle over and over again then we look at the middle class the biggest wealth
• 18:07
  killer is the car payment and as cars have gotten more expensive you know the same thing happened
• 18:12
  with student loans we saw this the colleges said hey the governments are going to back the student
• 18:16
  loan companies so we can increase tuition because people will just take out more loans because the
• 18:22
  student loan companies are happy to give it because the money's backed by the government and so you
• 18:26
  saw this just spiral out of control and tuition you know blew past the rate of inflation the
• 18:32
  rate of the housing market everything it just exploded the same thing kind of happened with the
• 18:36
  car the car market post-COVID you know supply and demand issues we got to make the chips we got
• 18:42
  to increase the supply and car manufacturers went well we could raise prices and people will
• 18:46
  still take out loans because what's a $500 car payment versus a $350 car payment and people
• 18:52
  are already used to payments into their life so we saw the average car payment increase to over
• 18:57
  $700 now and people are just going well you got to have a car payment you got to drive something
• 19:02
  reliable you got to drive something safe and I'm like dude a 2003 Honda Accord is safer than some
• 19:08
  of the cars that are out there on the road to the okay that thing's a beast you cannot take it down
• 19:12
  and so we also have justified a lot of these purchases emotionally and psychologically
• 19:18
  truthfully because we just want them we want the nicer car we want the nicer house we don't want
• 19:23
  to have to budget and save up and pay for things with money we actually have we'll just put it on
• 19:28
  the card and then as you look at the younger generations they've really gone away from credit cards
• 19:33
  but now they're addicted to buy now pay later a firm and clarinet all these services because they
• 19:39
  go well credit card equals bad I know that 25% interest that's not good but would buy now pay later
• 19:45
  I can still have all the things I want now without having to need the money right now upfront
• 19:50
  so that's another addiction for the younger generations and then of course the credit cards one
• 19:54
  are the kind of the overarching nemesis from you know people in their 30s to people in their 60s
• 20:01
  were just so used to it you have 16 cards in your wallet now that you've justified for different
• 20:06
  purposes maybe it was a there was a bonus with points if you sign and then we see this new credit
• 20:10
  card act they're trying to pass that basically will crush credit card rewards and so now people
• 20:16
  are petitioning against this I don't know if you've seen no what is this and there's in so basically
• 20:21
  Visa and Mastercard have had the monopoly as the processors in its crushing business owners
• 20:26
  you know when you look at the fees they're charging business owners the extra 3% or 3.5%
• 20:31
  if it's an MX card that's why a lot of businesses say we don't take MX because they're not going
• 20:35
  to take a 4% hit on every purchase for the pleasure of you swiping your MX so what they're saying
• 20:40
  is hey there's going to be other processors that are going to enter the space you're not going to
• 20:44
  have the monopoly on it and that's going to hurt all of the reward systems that are tied to that so
• 20:50
  capital on discover all of these places that have the Visa Mastercard logo on it and so when you look
• 20:56
  at how they're able to devalue points at any time the fact that people don't even redeem them the
• 21:00
  blackout dates the mental psychology of what is 100,000 points oh it's a $10 gift card I didn't
• 21:07
  realize that it just felt good to be a chucky cheese getting more points and more points
• 21:12
  so that one overall is is I wouldn't say it's as predatory as the others but it's definitely one
• 21:17
  of the biggest killers because it's sort of a silent killer because the payment is low
• 21:22
  you're let's a $200 monthly payment on my credit card the problem is you're never going to
• 21:26
  pay that thing off making that minimum payment you've got to be putting a thousand bucks on that
• 21:31
  balance in order to make it go away forever and so there's there's a lot out there and the first
• 21:36
  two-thirds of my book breaking free from broke I systematically am going after the credit score
• 21:41
  the credit card the auto loan investing traps mortgage traps to help people go hey I know this is
• 21:47
  what we have all believed but there's a different path and here's what you need to know and I do it
• 21:51
  with a lot of research and also a lot of humor because this stuff can get heavy if you're not
• 21:55
  making jokes about it I think it's stressful because what you do is you're you're really just
• 21:58
  re-educating people on how to look at finance and it's really a paradigm shift from everything they've
• 22:04
  known their entire young and adult life people know this but everybody buys a house with a
• 22:10
  mortgage a majority of people buy a house with a mortgage and when you start to do the math and you
• 22:14
  start to figure out how much extra this house is costing me over 25 or 30 years it hurts like it
• 22:20
  really it's really really hurts it's a very uncomfortable conversation because then it forces
• 22:26
  people to understand that the financial system is not there to benefit them so they kind of have
• 22:32
  to take their own financial future into their own hands which isn't uncomfortable thought
• 22:36
  I mean you you have stats and you have data but if you don't use your credit cards if you have
• 22:43
  nothing on your credit cards there are credit card companies that will just shut your card down
• 22:49
  you're doing all the right things you open a line of credit you open a credit card you're not
• 22:53
  using it because you're not using it they're not making money off of you so then they shut it down
• 22:57
  oh exactly well they're always offering you well hey if you do good we'll give you more
• 23:01
  line of credit or hey hey your credit score could be higher if you opened up more lines here you go
• 23:07
  that's the marketing we hear the marketing is never hey before you make that purchase is it in the
• 23:11
  budget did you save up do you actually have the money and savings is it gonna derail other financial
• 23:15
  goals have you invested in your Roth IRA yet nobody's marketing do you like that they're going hey
• 23:20
  buddy over here I got some candy in the van you want some more line of credit and we're falling
• 23:24
  for it as adults we're going sure absolutely and it's it's not because we're dumb it's because
• 23:30
  we've been led to believe all these things in society misguided guidance counselors well-meaning
• 23:35
  parents they're all complicit in this crime of leading us to the source of of pain and frustration
• 23:41
  and as I talk about in the book the inflection point is realizing that it's not all your fault
• 23:46
  but it is your responsibility so if you just say it's it's not your fault then that says well I'm
• 23:52
  just a victim of life life happened to me but it's not all your fault meaning there were other
• 23:57
  things there were other sources there were other influences forces at play here but you're still
• 24:01
  the one who signed the dotted line for that credit card you need to take responsibility because if
• 24:07
  you're the problem you can be part of the solution I just want to take a quick break and thank the
• 24:10
  Havspot podcast network for supporting success story for the past two years now the Havspot podcast
• 24:15
  network has other incredible podcasts like my first million now if you are an entrepreneur or you
• 24:20
  are ready to turn your entrepreneurial dreams into millions you have to listen to my first million
• 24:25
  it's a show that is revolutionizing business podcasting it's hosted by sam par
• 24:29
  shan perry this is a Havspot podcast network original it brings you unfiltered conversations
• 24:34
  with self-made millionaires who actually tell you how they did it if you want to learn how
• 24:39
  Alex Ramose built his fitness empire or how Sophia Amaruso turned nasty girl into a fashion
• 24:44
  phenomenon these aren't just success stories they're the blueprints for your own journey to the top
• 24:48
  each episode breaks down the exact strategies and hidden opportunities that you can use right now
• 24:53
  don't just dream about your first million learn how to make it listen to my first million wherever
• 24:58
  you get your podcasts what do you advocate for when somebody is just graduated university college
• 25:04
  maybe they do have some debt because they had to take up money and then you know they didn't have
• 25:08
  a mom who worked for the university they had to actually pay it off themselves had to take
• 25:12
  us some student loans what's the strategy what's the 18 month strategy that people should
• 25:18
  should adopt so that they start to go down the right path are there any investments that do make
• 25:22
  sense is it about uh making a job and doing all these side hustles is it easier to be frugal or
• 25:30
  is it easier to make more money all these different thoughts i i know that i'm not spending money
• 25:35
  on stupid shit but what do i do next what's the strategic move in my career so that i can actually
• 25:42
  make money and live the life that i want that's a great question well step zero is stop borrowing
• 25:47
  money you got to stop the bleeding here we got to stop the source of the pain and once you decide
• 25:52
  i'm done with debt i'm taking debt off the table i'm not going to keep swiping that card i'm not
• 25:56
  going to go get more debt your next step is to kind of do a financial audit what is my actual
• 26:01
  financial reality what am i making what am i spending and the way you do that is through a budget
• 26:06
  it's a lot of people hate the dreaded b word because they go oh my gosh it's so restrictive
• 26:10
  budgets are for broke people or i don't make enough to budget and that's the most hilarious part
• 26:14
  is everyone can find their own reason to opt out but i realize until i did a budget i was going to
• 26:19
  stay broke and so listing out your income listing out your expenses and going all right i have to
• 26:24
  live on less than i make that is the singular goal this month and every month if i make 5,000 i
• 26:29
  can't spend 5,500 i can't do it that's what got me to this place and so once you do that budget
• 26:35
  you'll find out very quickly do i have margin to spare to start attacking my debt and hitting my
• 26:40
  financial goals or am i in the red do i need to create more income and cut spending and so there's
• 26:46
  a formula for this thing called margin that's what you're needing here you need margin we talk about
• 26:50
  this in business all the time profit margin so margin is really there's two ways to get it you either
• 26:55
  need to make more or spend less and i highly recommend both especially if you're in this if you're
• 27:01
  in this phase of life where you're going all right i need to get out of debt i need to get my
• 27:04
  savings in place i got to start investing my income and so there's a lot of ways to spend less
• 27:09
  right we all know you can hey let's evaluate the subscriptions let's do a no spend month let's stop
• 27:15
  eating out there's all kinds of things that take sacrifice like i mentioned what are you willing to
• 27:19
  give up you're gonna have to give up a few subscriptions you're gonna have to give up eating out
• 27:22
  you're gonna have to give up just willy nilly spending on you know little treats during the day
• 27:26
  you're going out for lunch the gas station runs whatever it is for you and then on the other side
• 27:32
  you got to make more and that might mean hey i can't just go get a 20% raise at my normal job
• 27:39
  i need to go get some side hustles right now and the best way to do that is to use the skills that
• 27:43
  you have that's gonna be your best way to make like good money fast is i'm gonna go do freelancing
• 27:49
  with the current skill set that i have you could also do the kind of gig economy jobs like uber lift
• 27:55
  instacart whatever it is that you can just sign up for today and go make money
• 27:59
  but some of the best money you can make if you're just an average person and you don't have a high
• 28:04
  skill set is just go dog sit dog walk babysit handyman work i mean you can charge a high hourly rate
• 28:11
  and be making 25 30 50 bucks an hour doing these things in your neighborhood without even having to
• 28:17
  go far and so that there is some great ones there on top of going hey how do i get my core income
• 28:22
  if i make $30,000 a year it's going to take more money to get out of a hundred thousand
• 28:27
  dollars of debt i got to go make $60,000 so what is the education the skills i need to level up
• 28:33
  in my career or even switch career paths entirely and once you do that you can start following the
• 28:39
  ramsey baby steps and getting out of debt and doing all the things you're just being more aggressive
• 28:43
  about your career to things a good thing and i think that i've had this conversation a lot and
• 28:49
  i thought about it a lot i think that if you want to be happy and fulfilled and successful whatever
• 28:54
  however redefine that in life there will be seasons of your life that are uncomfortable and unbalanced
• 29:00
  and i think that when you are in your 20s before you have a family that's why i love entrepreneurship
• 29:07
  because you can have this season of unbalanced amount of work that contribute that can eventually
• 29:12
  contribute to your overall life goals whether or not and it can be dog walking making a couple extra
• 29:18
  bucks there it can be if you're a great marketer if you want to run social media for somebody use
• 29:23
  you're selling your services on fiber or upwork you can do uber there's so many different ways to
• 29:28
  make money and technically all those are very entrepreneurial but it's just side hustles really
• 29:32
  that if you are living a frugal life and you're making an extra thousand bucks a month that adds up
• 29:39
  that really does add up and you can you can give you know 10 12 hours of your day to work to make
• 29:48
  that money so that you can be happy later on when you do want to spend time with your kids and have
• 29:53
  a little bit more of that balance and i think that that's also very important because when you
• 29:58
  look at your balance or you look at your budget you start to figure out how to create more margin
• 30:04
  you're also not wasting time like drinking on the weekends or going out parting because now you
• 30:09
  understand your priorities you understand this is a beautiful prime moment of your life where you
• 30:14
  have the time and energy to do all the extra stuff that's just going to contribute in the long run
• 30:20
  so it's just like a healthier lifestyle across the board i don't know if you when you talk to
• 30:24
  students there's probably a couple responsible ones but i would say that most people don't even think
• 30:30
  this way when they're you know 18 19th 2021 well absolutely well there you know there's the
• 30:36
  phomo and so what i like to do is flip it into jomo the joy of missing out the joy of going listen
• 30:42
  there there's like oh my gosh i'm not and there's the the joy of going hey i'm running my own race
• 30:47
  i'm being productive i feel a level of dignity and excitement about my future versus feeling like
• 30:53
  i'm just wasting my life away going to another bar on a friday night with my buddies who also don't
• 30:58
  want to make anything of themselves and so you got to really surround yourself with the right
• 31:02
  people a lot of times you know relationships and money have a strong tie and you become who you
• 31:08
  hang around and so if you a bunch of your friends want to stay in debt and make terrible choices to
• 31:12
  you know kind of prop up a lifestyle then you need to exit that friend group and find different
• 31:18
  friends and that's a difficult breaking away and it's not that you're better than them and that
• 31:23
  you're like hey guys i'm doing my own thing and you guys just just just go hey i've got goals
• 31:29
  can't make it and eventually they realize all right this guy's not a part of this anymore he's
• 31:34
  opted out he's running his own and they'll probably be intrigued by what you're doing they go dude
• 31:38
  you're like a different person how way you you got a new job good for you you got out of how do
• 31:43
  you do that and so i like to you know instead of ramming financial wisdom down people's throats
• 31:49
  i want to live my life in such a way that they go what's he doing i got to ask him about that
• 31:54
  now they're intrigued and they're more willing to follow whatever plan you're doing you know i see
• 31:58
  a guy with a six pack i have questions when i see a guy with a beer belly i'm not like dude how'd
• 32:03
  you get that body tell me more and the same thing applies when it comes to money and so you know
• 32:08
  Dave Ramsey for many years now has been building a business completely debt free the building that
• 32:13
  we're sitting in has never had a incentive mortgage on it because of Dave's principles and so
• 32:19
  i am inspired by the way david built wealth there's a lot of people that are inspired by you know
• 32:24
  robbera kiyosaki in the way he's leveraged debt to build wealth that's fine i'm not for everyone
• 32:29
  i'm for the person who wants to do this peacefully without the stress of being so over leveraged
• 32:35
  that your families on the brink of disaster i can't live like that i got a baby you know like
• 32:39
  you're i think life changes once you have a family and you realize i can't live life on the
• 32:43
  edge because of some tiktok i can't just put it all on black and roulette and hope for the best
• 32:48
  i gotta just do a budget put it put away money my 401k save for her any day and live on those
• 32:54
  that i make so you're talking about this through the lens of investing i see a lot with entrepreneurship
• 32:59
  because that's sort of my background but not everybody wants to be a a billion dollar unicorn
• 33:04
  founder not everybody needs to be i think i think kiyosaki is billions of dollars at this point
• 33:09
  leverage in total access for the average person who does not want to commit their entire life to
• 33:14
  building a huge real estate portfolio maybe that's not the strategy for you maybe you just want to
• 33:22
  have a couple rental properties maybe you don't even want to have a rental property maybe you don't
• 33:25
  want to headache maybe you just want to be completely focused on your family and work is just
• 33:31
  work but the majority of your life is spent with your family your kids your parents whatever
• 33:36
  everyone has different goals and i think that that's something that a lot of financial
• 33:39
  the quote unquote gurus miss they think that everybody wants to be like them everybody wants to have
• 33:44
  a thousand doors everybody wants to build a company is worth a hundred million dollars it that's
• 33:49
  not the case that's really really not the case and i think that's very important to to identify
• 33:54
  absolutely yeah there's there's been this weird shift in social media and in the financial space
• 33:59
  where they're like i'm getting calls on the ramsey show where an 18-year-old is saying hey
• 34:05
  i need a i want a million dollars by the time i'm 25 how do i turn a hundred thousand to a million
• 34:10
  by 25 and i just go why and they go i don't know just a question they just hear it on social media
• 34:18
  spattered off and they think well if i don't have a million dollars by 25 i'm a loser and grand
• 34:24
  cardone is out there going if you don't make 400 grand you suck and your life is terrible and like
• 34:28
  weird like you got to stop believing these lies like turn off these inputs that are making you feel
• 34:33
  less than and instead figure out what a realistic healthy goal is with a proper motive behind it
• 34:39
  and you will be much happier you'll be much more successful because you're not going to fall flat
• 34:43
  on your face because you were over leveraged with risk and so that's where i'm going i always ask
• 34:48
  and then what that's my favorite new question to ask anybody who goes i'm going to do this thing
• 34:53
  and i want it i need a million and then what you have you have you have 50 rental properties
• 34:58
  and then what well then i want a hundred and then what and you realize if there's just an endless
• 35:03
  chase towards money with no real goal and they have failed to understand that money is simply a tool
• 35:09
  it's a brick you can build a building with it you can throw it through a window but it's just a
• 35:13
  brick it's a moral money should not be the goal money is a tool to help you accomplish your goals
• 35:20
  and a lot of people get that twisted especially younger people who are just getting their advice
• 35:24
  from social media i think that that's it's very very wise um i think that a lot of people's personal
• 35:30
  north stars are being replaced by some like someone on social media is north star and it's not going
• 35:36
  to lead you to happy life because it's not even what you want so we spoke about you can make a
• 35:40
  little bit more money um you can take some side hustles you can you know play entrepreneur you have
• 35:45
  your nine to five and you play entrepreneur from five to nine or on the weekends and then you
• 35:49
  make semester cash you use it to pay down your debt a lot of people and you mentioned this before
• 35:55
  we even pressed record are interested in frugality and i think that frugality minimalism i think they're
• 36:04
  interesting concepts i don't think they're clearly defined and i don't think people really understand
• 36:07
  what it means and what it doesn't mean and i think that sometimes people take it to an extreme and
• 36:11
  you'll see again gurus on youtube they have a condo with a mattress on the floor nothing else
• 36:17
  which i also don't think is a way to live a life so what are thoughts what are your thoughts on
• 36:20
  frugality uh where do they play into this journey of building wealth how do you do it properly what
• 36:26
  should you spend money on what you should you not spend money on if you want to be a little bit more
• 36:30
  frugal or minimalist we found doing a millionaire study with over 10,000 millionaires that it's not
• 36:37
  they got there by being frugal it's not like well i say i didn't buy it you know a Starbucks drink
• 36:42
  and therefore i was a millionaire a lot of people go well Dave just wants people to skip Starbucks and
• 36:46
  all of a sudden i'm going to be able to buy a house no what he's saying is be intentional with every
• 36:50
  purchase and while you're trying to achieve a goal you need to make sacrifices and one of the
• 36:55
  sacrifices that a lot of millionaires have made is that they don't drive Lamborghini's you're
• 37:00
  thinking of people who are flexing on social media multi multi multi millionaires maybe billionaires
• 37:06
  but the average millionaire the person who retires at you know 62 with three or four million
• 37:12
  dollars in net worth which by the way is a great life you know people like what am i gonna
• 37:17
  three million is nothing in today's world or it won't be anything in 20 years says the guy who
• 37:22
  doesn't have ten thousand dollars in the bank and so when we look at actual millionaires we found
• 37:27
  that they drove older used cars not like 25 years old but a four year old toyota or Honda
• 37:34
  so not a luxury car it wasn't in the top three and not a brand new car and and the other thing
• 37:41
  they did was they paid off their mortgage they didn't hang on to a mortgage for the tax deduction
• 37:46
  they actually paid it off because they were they were able to free up that mortgage payment to then
• 37:52
  invest more or give more or accomplish other financial goals so you know it was interesting
• 37:57
  seeing that study going okay there's a correlation here between people who build wealth and people
• 38:01
  who are intentional with every dollar and they're not cheap skates this is not extreme cheap skates
• 38:05
  on TLC where a guy is you know basically like skirting the lines of ethics and morals to try to
• 38:11
  save a buck these are just people going I'm gonna buy quality now to avoid buying more stuff later
• 38:17
  I'm gonna research to find the best deal I'm gonna negotiate I'm gonna find the promo code
• 38:22
  where it matters and another thing they did is they paid cash now or they don't buy it now
• 38:28
  frugal people are not swiping their credit cards in debt they're not trying to leverage a reward
• 38:34
  system they're simply going okay I've saved up enough money to buy a thing that I really want
• 38:39
  and what you'll find is that they've won it's your own money that you worked hard to say for
• 38:43
  you're way more intentional with that purchase I would imagine if you did a study showing what are
• 38:48
  people buying on credit cards versus what are they using their own money for the stuff that was
• 38:51
  purchased on credit cards it's probably sitting in a goodwill by now or sitting in a closet with
• 38:55
  tags still on it so a great question ask yourself from my friend Rachel Cruz is if nobody saw this
• 39:01
  purchase when I still want it nobody saw it nobody saw the clothes out where the car I drive the
• 39:07
  house when I still want it or was it really just to show off a little bit and frugal people just
• 39:14
  aren't concerned about what other people think it's one of their superpowers is they just simply
• 39:19
  don't care about your opinion on how they live their life so I think it's very powerful
• 39:24
  like I'm in Miami right now so it's it's you're probably I think seven Lamborghini's
• 39:30
  driven by while we've done that I have no doubt I have no doubt and the watch is the people where
• 39:35
  and the and the money they spend on clubs and restaurants it's just ridiculous now that Miami is not
• 39:40
  the whole world but Miami is a Miami is like a social media threw up on a city that is the
• 39:46
  pet's way to describe Miami and I think that you have to be very cognizant of how you're being
• 39:52
  marketed to because people are selling you again the people are selling you how do you
• 39:58
  you know how can you build stronger relationships with your friends are selling you how can you
• 40:02
  look sexier how can you feel like you're being marketed to all the time and if you succumb to
• 40:07
  all this marketing the things you're buying are never really for you they're all for your friends
• 40:12
  or the people that don't really care about you anyways maybe yeah you buy it to flexing your
• 40:17
  in your little group but if you're posting that stuff on social media it's not for your friends
• 40:21
  or your peers or your family it's for people that you don't even know and it's just a very toxic
• 40:26
  culture I mean that that culture of social media buying these ridiculous brand names overleverging
• 40:33
  yourself of like a firm clarina all these buy now pay later and get and putting money into things
• 40:40
  that you can't even afford just to post it on social I think that's almost as toxic as
• 40:48
  you know the whole predatory finance industry it's just as bad it's really just as bad and I think
• 40:54
  that right now we have people that are succumbing to both so they again they want to they want to look
• 40:58
  cool but they also want to over leverage themselves to achieve that status and it's just a really
• 41:04
  nasty spot for people that are young I didn't grow up with social media so I never had to deal with
• 41:08
  it but I can only imagine what it would be like growing up now with all this pressure to look a
• 41:13
  certain way or to have a certain thing or thinking that success means you drive a lambo or success
• 41:19
  means you're always in a different country on vacation I think that it's tough dude it's very tough
• 41:25
  like I there's a lot of psychological trauma that must go on when people are exposed to social
• 41:30
  at a young age I think that's probably what drives a lot of this yeah and we're all craving deep
• 41:34
  down we're just like hey I want to put my head on the pillow at night and be able to sleep well
• 41:39
  and have the people in my life actually want to hang out with me and like me have decent
• 41:43
  relationships with my family have a functional family that I actually want to be around I want to
• 41:48
  have time to explore the things I want to do instead of do things I have to do and yet we pursue a
• 41:54
  path that removes all of that from our lives if we got to make that next bill because we're over
• 41:59
  leverage in debt because we got four hundred dollars in our car payment we got two hundred bucks
• 42:03
  in the credit card payment we have to go to the job we hate we don't have time for our hobbies
• 42:07
  and so what I'm all after is I want to talk about money so that we can stop talking about money
• 42:12
  because then we can actually pursue things that really matter money is just an obstacle holding
• 42:17
  us back and until we turn it into that tool to create a life that doesn't exhaust us we're going to
• 42:22
  be running in this rat race and the problem is when you run other people's races there's no finish
• 42:27
  line the goalpost will keep moving when you're going well I got to have what they have over there
• 42:32
  and the grass always gets a little bit greener on the other side you always want a little bit more
• 42:36
  and so contentment is a huge I mean that is that's the antidote is contentment and gratitude and
• 42:43
  by byproduct that is generosity when you're more open-handed and you're giving you're less
• 42:49
  focused on yourself less focus on what other people think about you and so that's something I
• 42:53
  turn to when I tend to get that way because I'm not a perfect human there's moments where you're
• 42:58
  like just I wish I had what they have I just got to go look at the life I have now like me from
• 43:04
  10 years ago their mind would be blown if they could see where you are now the family that you have
• 43:10
  the things that you have the level of wealth you've built and so it's it's hard because we live in
• 43:14
  such a fast-paced society we're just so future-thinking we never stop to realize how far we've even come
• 43:20
  I want to take a second to thank Range Rover Sport for supporting today's episode now let's talk
• 43:24
  about tools that match your ambition the match the ambition of everybody who's listening today
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  who has taken risks who has up-leveled their personal professional development who has tried
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  to build their own thing everybody listening gets it there is a moment when the thing you're trying
• 43:40
  to build the challenge that you're taking on it finally starts to take off there is like this
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  rush of excitement and possibility and that feeling that feeling that you get when you get behind
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  of the wheel of a Range Rover Sport because we've all had that perfect drive when the road
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  the car and you you're all in perfect harmony but that's not just by chance the Range Rover Sport
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  configure your Range Rover Sport today so it's because we always want everything instantly right so
• 44:58
  all society is trained us to have this instant gratification and I think that that again like you
• 45:04
  mentioned it rooms our long-term goal planning and our long-term thinking what was more personally
• 45:10
  for you when you look at all the different money rules that Ramsey teaches what do you think was
• 45:16
  the hardest one for you to incorporate into your life so if I'm thinking through the baby steps
• 45:23
  you've got you know baby step one thousand dollar emergency fund baby step two get rid of debt using
• 45:28
  the debt snowball method baby step three get the emergency fund saved up three to six months of
• 45:32
  expenses baby step four and that's 15% of your income into retirement baby step five save for
• 45:38
  college baby step six pay off the mortgage early and then baby step seven living give like no one
• 45:44
  and so now being in that baby step seven phase what I've realized is it's it's actually a difficult
• 45:50
  spot to be in because your body has been training to go all right I need to get real tight I need to
• 45:58
  keep my hands closed fisted I need to create that margin and so apart that I'm really wanting to
• 46:03
  get better at this year is on the giving side is going how can I be more open to the opportunities
• 46:08
  around me to give and be more open handed instead of going well I could use that to get a rental
• 46:14
  property I could use that to build more wealth or put more money into my daughter's five 29 college
• 46:19
  savings plan so what's helped me is having very specific goal for each area and that way there is
• 46:25
  margin to do those things because I pre-planned it when you don't pre-planned where your money is
• 46:29
  going when you don't do that budget it's easy to let the money just sort of float away into things
• 46:34
  that don't matter or just stack up a savings account and so it's been a fun exercise to go where
• 46:40
  do I have a flat tire in my life when it comes to giving spending saving and how can I set clear
• 46:45
  concrete goals so that that tire can stay intact and that's been a fun challenge for me but paying
• 46:51
  off the house when you look at just the sheer dollar amount when you look at a mortgage when you're
• 46:56
  looking at 200,000 300,000 it's you got to eat the elephant one bite at a time one bite at a time
• 47:02
  and so that's the making that extra mortgage payment when you can that was a that was a fun
• 47:07
  challenge but it was definitely the hardest for my wife and I because you're going this is a big
• 47:11
  mountain like I remember $40,000 in debt like I thought that was insurmountable and now you're looking
• 47:16
  at $250,000 on a mortgage going we're going to knock this out in a few years how are we going to do
• 47:21
  that but it's amazing what happens when you just have a focus goal you're tracking it you're going
• 47:26
  all right if we just make one extra mortgage payment right here we're going to pay it off this
• 47:30
  much faster we're going to save this much in interest and looking at that the amortization
• 47:34
  schedule on your mortgage seeing how much interest you're paying see how much you could save if
• 47:38
  you made an extra payment that lit a fire under us and I think it likes to find her under a lot of
• 47:42
  people to get rid of that mortgage faster yeah I mean if you look at the amortization and the total
• 47:47
  amount that you're going to pay over the course of your mortgage you could almost buy a second home
• 47:51
  yeah I mean most people now with interest rates where they are you're talking about paying an extra
• 47:56
  $300,000 on top of your mortgage to the lender as a thank you and that's why we recommend a 15
• 48:02
  year mortgage a lot of people get up and arms go well I want the flexibility in the wiggle room
• 48:07
  of a 30 year and who can afford a well who can afford to give a lender an extra 300 grand that's
• 48:12
  insane and so I'd rather have that money in my hands to do better with it than making a lender
• 48:18
  richer to sponsor the next you know Taylor Swift tour when when do you invest where do you invest
• 48:25
  you mentioned 401k's that's obviously sort of the more traditional investment super super safe
• 48:31
  that's sometimes company sponsored and they do some sort of matching as there as well but what are
• 48:38
  some of the investment ideas that you think would help people so where do you put your money when
• 48:44
  you start to have a little bit extra you budgeted everything you know that you have some margin
• 48:48
  if there anything else you should put money into well I kind of see it as as buckets and as
• 48:53
  the buckets get full you move on to another bucket and so in baby step four when we say invest 15
• 48:57
  percent of your household income gross income into retirement accounts that for a lot of people
• 49:03
  that would be a 401k if you're a traditional employer it might be a 403b it might be a TSP if
• 49:09
  you're a government or military and a lot of people like like you they're going hey I'm self-employed
• 49:13
  I guess I can't invest or I'm going to put my money in a single stock and there's a lot of great
• 49:19
  investment options for those that are self-employed freelancers business owners and at one
• 49:25
  example if you're solo or if you're solo plus a spouse is a solo 401k that's a great option or
• 49:30
  you can dump a lot of money into that thing with tax advantages there's also a set IRA that you
• 49:36
  can get if you have a bigger team and then as you expand the company you could create that 401k
• 49:41
  plan but there's a you know those are the main ones and then anyone with earned income can open a
• 49:45
  Roth IRA so you have a traditional IRA and then you have the Roth IRA which is very similar but
• 49:51
  it's using after tax money so you don't get a tax deduction on it but that money's going to grow
• 49:55
  tax-free and you can withdraw it tax-free you already paid Uncle Sam once so if that account that
• 50:00
  Roth IRA has two million in it that's like two million dollars of take home pay in your life at
• 50:04
  retirement and so those are the buckets we look at when it comes to retirement now when you get to
• 50:10
  that baby step seven mark you have a paid forehouse you can increase investing from 15% to 20 30 40 50
• 50:17
  percent if you want and eventually if you make enough money you're going to run out of options when
• 50:21
  it comes to your traditional retirement accounts because the Roth IRA has a seven thousand dollar
• 50:26
  limit the 401k has the 22,500 dollar limit and so once you get above those as you start to really
• 50:33
  build some serious wealth and get your income up you can then go into a taxable brokerage account
• 50:38
  so this won't have the tax advantages of a retirement account but it's a great place to
• 50:43
  socket away money that you can use before retirement so a lot of people say hey I might want a
• 50:48
  retire at 50 and pursue something else well you can use this as sort of a bridge account to bridge
• 50:53
  the gap between 50 and 59 and a half when you can access those funds in retirement without penalty
• 51:00
  and so that's where I put my money I try to max out the 401k in a Roth I love anything Roth
• 51:05
  is my friend because I know I'm I got the variables in check I know that what the tax rates are
• 51:11
  now I don't know what they'll be 20 30 years from now there's also no required minimum distributions
• 51:16
  RMDs on those Roth accounts because you've already paid Uncle Sam when you have the traditional
• 51:21
  accounts Uncle Sam says hey don't hang on to that to your 90 we need a piece of that pie and so
• 51:26
  they require you to take money out of that account so that they get their share before you pass
• 51:32
  away and so you know when it comes to the retirement accounts I'm a big fan of the Roth IRA a Roth 401K
• 51:38
  or Roth TSP Roth 403B whatever version you have of that and then moving on to the taxable accounts
• 51:45
  and then a secret sort of one that's not talked about a lot is the health savings account and HSA
• 51:51
  and this is part of your health insurance so if you have a high deductible health plan and HDHP
• 51:56
  they come with NHSA a health savings account it's just like a normal savings account
• 52:01
  but it should be used for health expenses but what's cool about this is that once you hit a threshold
• 52:06
  usually a thousand bucks in that account anything beyond that you can invest just like you wouldn't
• 52:11
  a 401k and so you can actually build some serious wealth you know up to the maximum that's allowed
• 52:16
  to for contributions you know whether it's 4000 or 8000 of your family you can contribute more
• 52:22
  to invest there as well and what's really neat is that after I believe 65 years old you can
• 52:27
  use that money like a traditional 401k for anything now it's you have better tax advantages when
• 52:32
  you use it for health expenses because you get to do that tax free but it's still a great sort of
• 52:37
  bonus retirement account if you've run out of those other options first of all I don't think
• 52:42
  I've ever heard of an HSA and I feel like this is something that you probably encounter a lot there's
• 52:47
  all these different there's all these different financial products that people aren't educated on
• 52:53
  they don't understand how they work and what ends up happening is there's nothing inherently wrong
• 52:59
  with this but when it's happening is if you do make a little bit of extra money you think well
• 53:03
  listen I found a way to make some extra money I might be I might be good at making money now
• 53:09
  what are the chances I might be good at investing and they start doing stock picking and they start
• 53:14
  doing real estate and they start realizing and they start maybe they put 15 20 thousand dollars
• 53:20
  into into a startup that you know they're their nephew started and they oh gosh and they look at
• 53:28
  you just gifted your nephew 20 grand just know that they just you were not getting they look at all
• 53:32
  these different options and I think that one of the biggest things that I've learned as an entrepreneur
• 53:37
  is just because you're good at building business or just because you're good at making money say you're
• 53:42
  an executive in a company pulling in a couple hundred thousand dollars it does not mean you're
• 53:46
  a good investor it never means you're a good investor just by de facto of you to become a good
• 53:53
  investor you have to do it again and again and again and you have to learn how to do it properly
• 53:58
  and I think that when you make a lot of money you start to get a little bit of an inflated ego
• 54:05
  about well if I figured out how to make money over here I'm sure I can be effective over there
• 54:10
  and I think that that's when people start to lose quite a bit and that's when they make some really
• 54:14
  bad financial investment decisions which can actually ruin a lot of the progress that you've made
• 54:20
  in structuring your life and budgeting I mean like if you talk about people that basically lose their
• 54:26
  whole retirement on on poor investment and I think that's really because they're being a little
• 54:31
  bit too ambitious if somebody is a little bit riskier or wants to be riskier and you can tell them
• 54:36
  no that's a bad idea but what would be your advice for somebody that does want to play with a
• 54:40
  little bit of money in things that are maybe more high risk is it don't do it is it do your research
• 54:45
  first is it put it into a fund before you put it into into an individual pick what's sort of your
• 54:51
  advice for that person well the most fun way is just go to Vegas and just you know blow somebody if
• 54:56
  you got it that's the most fun you can have with high risk high reward but really when it comes
• 55:02
  down to it there are things you can do that I'm not mad at you for but you got to look at it
• 55:07
  this way could you put that amount of money on your kitchen table and light it on fire if that
• 55:11
  would give you a little pit and a stomach and that would hurt your financial world then you can't
• 55:16
  take that risk now if you're already investing 15% of your income into retirement and you have
• 55:21
  some fun money that you want to put into crypto or a single stock that's fine you know don't let
• 55:25
  it be a big part of your net worth don't let it be don't obsess over it the problem is a lot of
• 55:29
  people download you know Robinhood put some money into one of these 24 seven crypto currencies
• 55:35
  and then watch it with stress as it goes up and down and up and down and up and down that's not
• 55:39
  a peaceful way to live and you're not going to make money doing it the people that make money
• 55:44
  are the ones that view wealth as a crock pot and you were talking my Instagram gratification
• 55:49
  earlier we live in a world full of microwaves we want it now and we want more listen the S&P 500
• 55:55
  which is the overall US stock market return 24% in 2024 that's amazing that's a mind-blowing
• 56:03
  return considering when I tell people hey if you put money in retirement over this long term
• 56:08
  you're going to make 10 to 12% that's been the historical average and they go where are you
• 56:12
  getting 10% that's not I don't get that I'm like I don't know what you're invested in but if you
• 56:17
  just a lazy investment into the overall stock market into a mutual fund or index fund would have
• 56:22
  netted you 24% in 2024 now that's not the average the average is 10 to 12 it might be down 20%
• 56:30
  this year who knows but over if you just put the money in consistently and let it sit there
• 56:36
  and don't touch it don't mess with the crock pot just let it cook then you're going to look in
• 56:41
  there 10 years from now 20 years from now and you're going to see it continually grow and grow and grow
• 56:45
  and the momentum that you get from compound growth will blow your mind it's difficult to get to
• 56:51
  $100,000 in an investment account but then getting to a million is actually easier because of the
• 56:57
  momentum you're building with compound growth 10% of 100,000 is 10,000 10% of $100 is 10 bucks and so
• 57:05
  you see that same 10% means a whole lot more as the balance grows over time and that's your money
• 57:11
  making more money which is that I mean I think Einstein said it's the eighth wonder of the world
• 57:17
  I don't know if that we can actually attribute to him but that's what I've heard on the go thank you
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• 58:39
  out of all the different sort of pushback that you get for sort of the Ramsey principles
• 58:46
  what would be the most common pushback what would be the most common thing that people say
• 58:51
  I have an issue with this particular principle and how would you address that man there's so many
• 58:56
  that choose from okay the biggest pushback why do you think that is though why do you think there's
• 59:00
  so much pushback against this it's just because that's not the way the people have been taught
• 59:05
  how to deal with money I think it's because the timeless principles that are so unboring have now
• 59:12
  seem to be outdated or like this is a dinosaur kind of mentality to have that you need to save
• 59:20
  her rainy day use money you actually have live unless you make get on a budget people want the
• 59:27
  newer sexier option and therefore the older ones feel like that's not for me and you know
• 59:33
  gods and grandma's ways of handling money just it's it's what Dave's been selling for 30 years
• 59:38
  and the principles haven't changed and it's not because he's outdated it's because they still work
• 59:44
  and all the noise you're hearing on social media is the stuff that isn't working but you don't really
• 59:49
  see the stories of people going hey man I gave that guy on my money for his get rich quick course
• 59:54
  and uh didn't get rich quick and here we are celebrating every day people who are following the
• 1:00:00
  Ramsay plan getting out of debt building wealth and so the biggest pushback overall when I see
• 1:00:06
  here here's the sentence I hear oh I like Dave but there's always a but and the biggest one is
• 1:00:12
  but I don't like that he's anti debt I think there's some debt that is good and that's where people
• 1:00:18
  get tricked up because you can justify almost any debt as good if you try hard enough and that's
• 1:00:24
  what I hear all the time well here's why it's actually smarter to keep your mortgage around here's
• 1:00:29
  why it's wiser to use your credit card instead of using your own money debit cards are dangerous man
• 1:00:36
  I never I've never felt like a bad boy in my life but when people tell me I'm such a danger to
• 1:00:40
  society using my debit card I feel really cool uh the credit score thing it's insane that he says
• 1:00:46
  you can't live without a credit score I've lived it I've heard countless stories of people who have
• 1:00:51
  lived it and so the mythology are basically around bucking the system is the biggest pushback we
• 1:00:56
  get is people say George we have no option we have to be a part of the system and the truth is
• 1:01:01
  there's a lot of ways you can opt out of the system do I still have a bank account yes I'm not on
• 1:01:07
  off the grid you know with just cash stacked in cans in my backyard I'm a person who lives in
• 1:01:13
  society who has an HOA but when it comes to the debt system there's lots of ways to opt out and
• 1:01:19
  there's not a lot of hoops to jump through in order to live without debt and anecdotally this is my
• 1:01:24
  experience you can't argue with that I found that I have built wealth faster with more peace by
• 1:01:31
  bucking that system of debt by not having a credit card by not having a credit score and you know
• 1:01:37
  I found that the the key to building wealth was my income days been saying that for 30 years your
• 1:01:42
  income is your greatest wealth building tool how are you using it whether you make 300,000 or 40
• 1:01:47
  thousand dollars you can build wealth or you can be broke and we're seeing this increasingly
• 1:01:53
  happen we're seeing the stats and the headlines people who you know two out of three people making
• 1:01:57
  a hundred thousand dollars a year or more are broke living paycheck to paycheck so I guess it wasn't
• 1:02:02
  about income so when people complain to say why I need to make go make more money in my life would
• 1:02:07
  be better not necessarily because lifestyle creep exists you're in Miami lifestyle creep is real
• 1:02:13
  the more money you make the more money I get to spend baby the more debt I can leverage the more
• 1:02:18
  lines of credit I can have that's an exhausting way to live I don't think humans were created
• 1:02:23
  to just get more lines of credit to play kissy face with a bank I think we were made to contribute
• 1:02:28
  to this world to impact our communities to raise great families and debt is only going to be a
• 1:02:34
  hindrance in an obstacle whether it's financial mental or emotional when you are over leveraged
• 1:02:40
  psychologically you will never feel comfort and you'll never feel peace because in your subconscious
• 1:02:50
  you'll always feel that everything could be taken away at any moment I think it was actually
• 1:02:54
  can I think it was one of the guys who was talking about this but I thought it was such a fascinating
• 1:03:00
  idea like when you over leverage yourself even if you know even if technically you can afford
• 1:03:05
  the next payment deep down you feel like at any point this could be taken away because it's not
• 1:03:10
  actually mine and when you live that life it's always stressed and there's always anxiety and you
• 1:03:16
  can mask it and you can go about your day but it's not necessarily a healthy way for most people to
• 1:03:22
  live and I think that that's probably one of the that idea alone about you know being over leveraged
• 1:03:30
  in my life what happens if I lose my job then I'm going to lose my house and then now you're
• 1:03:35
  hitting Maslow's hierarchy of needs and how do I you know how do I take care of my family
• 1:03:41
  that's a lot of stress that's a lot of stress and I think that that probably is very unhealthy
• 1:03:45
  for a lot of people to carry around I don't think everybody is built to just handle the idea of
• 1:03:50
  them losing everything overnight and so I think that you had a mortgage it sometimes it can be
• 1:03:57
  unavoidable but make it so that however you structure your life you can take a couple hits
• 1:04:06
  you can lose the job and you're not going to be out on the street tomorrow and I think when
• 1:04:10
  you can operate from a place of just feeling safe and secure in my opinion everything improves
• 1:04:18
  your health improves your your mental health improves your relationship with your friends and
• 1:04:23
  family improve because if you don't have that peace in your mind it's very hard to do anything else
• 1:04:30
  absolutely my friend Dr. John Deloney who you may have had on your show he talks about this idea
• 1:04:35
  of solving for freedom that's what most of us really need to be doing because the problem is not
• 1:04:42
  you know the living paycheck to paycheck that's a symptom of something deeper
• 1:04:46
  we are living very anxious lives and debt is part of that I mean we've seen levels of anxiety rise
• 1:04:52
  we've seen record levels of debt rising every single year I think there's a strong correlation
• 1:04:57
  between those two things because debt equals risk risk equals stress that's the only way to put it
• 1:05:05
  and so when you get debt out of your life you're solving for freedom freedom to me is not being
• 1:05:09
  you know I see these tiktoks and they're like we're five million dollars in debt and we love it
• 1:05:14
  and they're like we have nineteen thousand rental properties and we're on a beach every day
• 1:05:18
  and I'm going behind the scenes when that camera shuts off I know they're dealing with a lot of
• 1:05:23
  problems they're dealing with a lot of stress maybe it's marital stress instead of financial stress
• 1:05:27
  who knows I've just never I've never seen someone with a great life that I want that I admire
• 1:05:34
  who's riddled with debt the people who have the you know the true wealth that's maybe invisible
• 1:05:41
  wealth you don't know it but that farmer's got you know he's got plenty of money and he's not
• 1:05:44
  trying to flex those people have the best lives they have strong relationships they love the work
• 1:05:50
  they do they're not worried about someone taking their more taking their house away because they own
• 1:05:55
  it and when you own it there's a few very there's very few variables you can control in this world
• 1:06:00
  but one of the ones you can't control is how much you make how much you spend and the stuff that you
• 1:06:04
  own and the more over leverage you are the less you own and the more you have to manage and deal
• 1:06:11
  and that's why like you said you don't have to own 20 rental properties to have a good life
• 1:06:15
  that's a lie that's been told to you on social media if you love real estate go for it
• 1:06:19
  and buy those rental properties and cash and move slow and do it the right way I don't have any
• 1:06:23
  rental properties I may never have a rental property I've a paid for house I have money and
• 1:06:28
  investments and I just want to be with my family and watch my daughter grow up and not be worried
• 1:06:33
  about trying to make the next million that's an endless goal that's going to have very little
• 1:06:37
  meaning at the end of it so I think redefining what success means for you and then following a
• 1:06:42
  peaceful path to get there that's all we can do as humans at the end of the day if you were going to
• 1:06:48
  say like listen if people read my book breaking free from broke and they can only take away one lesson
• 1:06:55
  from it what would be the most important lesson that you'd want people to walk away with oh great
• 1:07:02
  question biggest lesson I would want them to walk away with is that a different life is possible
• 1:07:11
  and I end the book with a chapter on hope versus cynicism I think most people feel stuck they feel
• 1:07:19
  broke because they have leaned into their cynicism too hard and within each of us there's a
• 1:07:25
  cynical person a person who goes there's no hope why do it why try this is the system I'm in
• 1:07:31
  whatever it's someone else's thing they have to deal with to get me out of this I'm a victim of
• 1:07:35
  my own life and the part you need to grasp every day which is it sounds hokey but the people who
• 1:07:42
  make it the people who are optimistic the people who have that hope those are the ones that actually
• 1:07:46
  take action and so you know we have this new year new me no it's new actions new me what are the
• 1:07:53
  habits you're going to build and one of those habits might just be a gratitude journal it might be
• 1:07:58
  I'm just going to wake up every day and not think the world is against me and life is just going
• 1:08:02
  to happen to me what are you going to do to happen to your life and we found out a millionaire study
• 1:08:07
  this is the stat that sums it up 97% of the 10,000 millionaires that we studied said that they feel
• 1:08:14
  like they can control their financial destiny now we can't control a lot of things in our life we
• 1:08:19
  can't control what happens to us we can influence our health and our money and all these things but
• 1:08:23
  they when it comes to their money they said I'm in control of my financial destiny it's up to me
• 1:08:29
  if I don't hit a goal I'm at fault if I hit the goal credit to the work that I put in it's not
• 1:08:34
  just this blind luck of I was born into a certain life and therefore I'm going to have the trust fund
• 1:08:39
  or my hope my mom works at the college so I can go for free you get to create your own luck and create
• 1:08:43
  your own opportunity and those are the people I feel have the best lives so it's it's far more
• 1:08:49
  than money but like I said earlier money is a tool to get there and right now it's an obstacle
• 1:08:54
  for most people and there's a way to get over that hump and that's exactly why I wrote this book
• 1:08:59
  to help people grasp that hope and go all right here's the tactical steps I can take to get there
• 1:09:05
  it's not this fluffy woo woo here's the hard things I have to do tomorrow in order to hit this goal
• 1:09:10
  that I said I want to hit yeah and I think that's listen is that there's a wide variety of people
• 1:09:15
  that listen to this show and some of them are highly successful and and I think that
• 1:09:24
  even myself sometimes because I'm in an entrepreneurial world and I talk to all these great people
• 1:09:28
  you think oh everyone must have money figured out and everyone must be killed and that's not the case
• 1:09:33
  I think that I think that the biggest issue is a lot of people don't have money figured out and
• 1:09:38
  there's a shame around speaking about it so forget that even showing up and flexing on social
• 1:09:46
  media I think that even if people aren't showing up and flexing on social media a fair amount of
• 1:09:55
  people of listeners of individuals who you know in your day-to-day life they may seem like they're
• 1:10:01
  doing okay but you know when they when they get off the phone or when they when they go home after
• 1:10:06
  work at the end of the day there's a million different stresses running through their mind
• 1:10:10
  because they've never had the proper financial education and understanding of how to sort of get
• 1:10:15
  out of this almost this negative flywheel of debt and stress so I love these conversations because
• 1:10:23
  not many people have them a lot of people come on this show and say this is how you build a business
• 1:10:28
  that can be a hundred million dollar business or this is how you you know this is how you
• 1:10:33
  invest strategically and you use tons of debt and then you'll you know you'll never you'll never
• 1:10:40
  have to pay tax again because you're gonna front load the depreciation on the house and then
• 1:10:45
  you're also gonna get this life insurance policy or against it so there's all these interesting
• 1:10:53
  ideas that work for some people that are in the point zero zero one percent of their field but
• 1:11:00
  the average person just wants to be happy and fulfilled and not stress about money and I don't
• 1:11:05
  think I mean you probably have stats because you do a lot of research on this and I know that Ramsey
• 1:11:09
  has done actual studies but the average person is not happy and not secure and not fulfilled and
• 1:11:15
  and basically I think wondering I don't have enough money now I'm stressed about my financial
• 1:11:22
  future I'm never gonna be able to retire like there's all these thoughts they just sort of circle
• 1:11:27
  in their head and I think that your work and your book and what Ramsey does very well is they open
• 1:11:32
  you all open up the conversation for the average person that just wants to feel happy and safe
• 1:11:37
  and secure and I think that more conversations like that have to happen not that how to build the
• 1:11:43
  next Facebook Apple Amazon Netflix Google but just how to operate through my day and feel like
• 1:11:50
  I don't have to do the job that I'm that I hate until I'm 90 years old because I think that
• 1:11:55
  stresses more people out absolutely if those money problems are living your head you're living
• 1:12:00
  your head rent free it's time for a change and I hope that book helps people whether they're
• 1:12:05
  trying to get out of debt or trying to build wealth more peacefully they're trying to figure out
• 1:12:08
  what's going on with those noise out there should I be doing this should I be doing this I try to
• 1:12:13
  just cut through it with a whole lot of truth and and hit them straight with exactly what they need
• 1:12:17
  to do where do you want to send people so talk to me about socials website obviously books
• 1:12:22
  to be available anywhere you can get books on Amazon deserve a special website for it as well
• 1:12:27
  so anything you want to drop and put it in the show notes as well absolutely yeah you can get the
• 1:12:31
  book anywhere breaking free from broke I've guy I actually read the audiobook out loud we did
• 1:12:36
  some really cool things with it I'm a musician so I added some musical touches some sound design
• 1:12:41
  to make it fun to listen to and on top of that we have a free live stream coming up if you go to
• 1:12:46
  ramsey solutions dot com slash live stream you can sign up for that Dave Ramsey will be a part of
• 1:12:51
  that I'll be a part of that that's going to be a really good time if you if you need a little
• 1:12:55
  boost a little pep talk with some information and tactical steps we're going to be there with
• 1:13:00
  that free live stream coming up and then ramsey solutions dot com is the place to go you can find
• 1:13:04
  all my stuff there my YouTube channel we've got episodes releasing three times a week I've got
• 1:13:09
  another podcast with my friend Rachel Cruz called smart money happy hour so if you like a more
• 1:13:14
  candid conversation around money and trends and pop culture with a lot of humor in there
• 1:13:19
  go check out smart money happy hour as well and then of course we have the ramsey show three hours
• 1:13:23
  a day take in real calls from real people I'll be hosting this afternoon with whether my friend Ken
• 1:13:29
  Coleman so feel free to call in if you have any money questions we'd love to hear from your listeners
• 1:13:33
  I love it all right last question out of all the out of all the insight wisdom that you've
• 1:13:39
  sort of accumulated over your life and it could be career wisdom it could be money wisdom
• 1:13:43
  however you want to take it but if you were going to leave your kids with just one piece of insight
• 1:13:50
  or wisdom what would that what would that idea be I think it has nothing to do with money it would
• 1:13:55
  be about character I would say character matters if you're a person of character no matter what success
• 1:14:02
  you find in life you're not going to look back with regret if you are a person of integrity you
• 1:14:09
  are kind you are generous with your time your talents your resources your money that's who I
• 1:14:15
  think as I'm getting older the people that I respect in life it's not about how much money they have
• 1:14:21
  it's about character and again if you have a lot of money problems it's just going to be harder
• 1:14:26
  to be able to focus on the things that matter in your life that help build that character
• 1:14:30
  and so if I was talking my to my my little one year old right now and she could understand me
• 1:14:35
  that would be the one thing I would say I don't care if you get all A's in school you know I want you
• 1:14:40
  to make good decisions and all that stuff but your character matters that's what will carry you through
• 1:14:45
  life and as a byproduct I think people find success