Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #315: I Will Teach You How To Get Rich With Ramit Sethi, Host of How to Get Rich on Netflix

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

Have you been wanting to work with Heather? Her annual elite mastermind is open NOW!   She is only accepting 20 participants this year! Click the link below to learn more and apply now if you are ready to go to the next level! https://bit.ly/hm-cc-mastermind In This Episode You Will Learn About:  Focusing on the BIG money questions you need to be asking yourself   Systems you can put in place to simplify your life & increase your wealth    The key to creating a healthy relationship with money  The 10 money rules to live by  Resources: Website: www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com  Watch How to Get Rich on Netflix Join an IWT Program  Listen to I Will Teach You To Be Rich Read I Will Teach You To Be Rich LinkedIn: @Ramit Sethi  Instagram & Twitter: @ramit  Youtube: @ramitsethi Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com  If you haven't yet, get my first book Confidence Creator Visit Indeed.com/monahan to start hiring now Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/monahan Go to 4Patriots.com and use code CONFIDENCE to get 10% off Show Notes:  When it comes to money, what are some of the strategies you’ve NEVER considered? Host of Netflix's How to Get Rich and the I Will Teach You To Be Rich podcast, Ramit Sethi is here to help us explore new systems and share his 10 go-to money rules that could change your life. He’ll teach us how to have a healthy, advantageous relationship with money, so we can FLIP the script on how we view the money we spend. Find out how you can GET RICH today!  About The Guest: Ramit Sethi is on the show today for my OWN needs, but you’ll thank me later. He’s a New York Times Best Selling Author, and the host of Netflix’s “How to Get Rich”. He’s helping millions of people manage, earn, and spend their money in a way that gets them to their richest life!   If You Liked This Episode You Might Also Like These Episodes: The Key To Disagreeing Without Being Disagreeable, With Heather!  The Key To Bouncing Back After Being Laid Off, With Heather!  Drop Your FEARS & Open Yourself Up To Change, With Heather! 

Interesting that we spend most of our lives agonizing over $3 questions, and we never really focus on the $30,000 questions. So, for example, if you are not investing, you are literally losing hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of your life. For many people, especially for your young, millions. Most people listening have never actually considered the idea that renting can actually be a fantastic financial decision. So if you've never considered that, then what are the other things when it comes to

money that you've never considered. And that is where we get to have a really interesting conversation. I'm on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals. We overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close-up. Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet my guest today. Rameet Sadie. This is a guy I'm having on a show for my own needs. This is selfish people. but I know you're going to love it too. This gentleman has sold millions of books. He's a New York Times bestselling author,

major props right there, first and foremost. But he's helping, and he's already helped millions of people manage, earn, and spend their money in a way to get to their, live their richest life. Who doesn't want that? I know I need it. Ramit, I'm so glad to have you here today with us. Thanks for having me. Okay.

All right, let's get started. I love your origin story because much like myself, I did not grow up wealthy. I didn't grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth heading off to Ivy League. However, you were able to make it to Stanford, paid for it yourself, and it sounds like it was an interesting road

to getting you there. I was hoping you could share that story with us. I think like a lot of people I grew up with immigrant parents, and our idea of vacation was getting in the minivan, driving down to Southern California, staying with family, along the way we would stop

and my mom would have packed lunches for us and we would all eat and then continue on our trip. So I grew up, you know, just basically frugality was part of our culture by necessity. And by the time I got to high school, my parents were like, yeah, of course you're going to college, you're Indian, but we don't have any money saved up. So you're going to have to get scholarships.

And I really, for whatever reason, I love systems. I just love it. Like, I have systems for emptying the dishwasher, certainly for investing. Like, I have them everywhere. I want my life to work so fluidly that even if I go blind, I know where every single thing in my place is.

I need you in my life. I know it's weird, right? Some people, they're just like, uh, that sounds like hell. And to me, what sounds like hell is rummaging around in your sock drawer looking for the correct sock. It drives me insane.

So even back then, I was, I'm like, great. I got to get a system. So I built this system. Back then, I wasn't even applying through the internet. I was mailing in these applications. And I applied to about 65 different scholarships, which ended up paying my way through undergrad and grad school at Stanford. And it was there that I was learning about human behavior, persuasion, psychology, and I was learning about money because I had taken some of that early scholarship money, invested in the stock market thinking I was a genius, like everybody in 1999 did. And I lost half of that money. And so that's a lot of that money. And so that's a lot of that.

was what kind of brings me to today, which is you hear a lot of people coming on the TV shows and podcasts. And I know people listening to this right now, they go, oh, God, this money guy's about to tell me I can't buy my latte and I can't buy jeans and I can't go on vacation until I'm 95 years old. I go, I don't want to live that kind of life. That sucks. And instead, I want to spend extravagantly on the things I love as long as I cut costs mercilessly on the things I don't. So hopefully today we get to talk about a really different approach to money, which isn't constant restriction, but rather let's start with what is a rich life. And then let's go from there. I love that idea. This is so refreshing because for me, I am not, I don't ever want to cut back on

anything. I definitely, listen, number one, I don't have the systems in place like you do. So I'm all ears to hear about your systems. But also, you know, there is this mantra that, you know, recessions coming. First thing you need to do is cut back on everything. And that just goes against every grain of who I am. I'm the person that wants to lean into it. Wait, when, how can we accelerate revenues? What problem is out there right now that we can go ahead and solve and fix this void while driving more revenue back to us so we can have the latte? So I love that you built all of your books, your mantras and your business around not making people give up the things that they want. What are some of the biggest issues that you've identified when you first start working with people?

Are you seeing some constant that you see across the board with everyone? Yeah, many of us, we grow up with money, but we don't actually understand it. So our lessons with money come from our parents, who will often say phrases thousands of times that we then absorb. I mean, how many of these sound familiar to you? We can't afford it. We don't talk about money in this family. That's just for rich people. you got to buy a house, that's the best investment, and on and on and on. And by the way,

none of those are necessarily true. But when you hear it enough times, you start to believe it. I call these invisible scripts. They are so deep in us that they guide our lives and we don't even realize it. So for example, I'll be talking to somebody on my podcast. I bring these couples on and they share everything. They share the real numbers, how much they make, how much they're spending, how much debt they have. And recently I spoke to a couple, they're multi-millionaires. Okay. And they are agonizing over literally driving an extra mile to save 12 cents on gas, et cetera. And I go, what's your net worth? Six point six million dollars. Okay. Now, all of us listening are like, oh my God, that's so dumb. I would never do that. Really? Because how do you know when you will finally

feel good about money? Most of us grow up only feeling bad. We only talk about money when we're fighting with our partner. We only think about money when we feel guilty. Or when we finally go, oh, I can't take this restriction anymore. I'm going to Bora Bora. It's a very unhealthy relationship with money. So one of the biggest things that I see is an unexamined life with money. We have these beliefs.

We don't really know why we are doing the things we're doing. Like, why do we have to buy a house? Is that really the most important financial decision you make? Maybe, maybe not. Is investing really gambling? Maybe, but do you really understand how investing works? And these are the things that when people, we start to engage on them, they go, oh my God, I didn't realize I was thinking about it this way. Gosh, if I think about investing in a different way, I could actually have $3.2 million. So my belief has been costing me tremendous amounts of money. Maybe it's time to change the way we look at money. Oh my gosh. It's such a great point. And I really,

relate to the owning a home. Ever since I graduated school, that was the first thing on my list. I needed to buy a house. And I did that. And I bought and sold houses a number of times. But for the last 17 years, I've lived in the same house because that's what you're supposed to do.

And I just sold it. And I am renting at 48 years old for the first time in my life. I didn't know where I wanted to go. The marketplace has been so erratic. And I didn't sense that it was the right time to buy something. So I thought, and it's been a weird feeling. I feel nervous sometimes.

I say to my son, we don't own this place. I mean, we only have nine months left. And I hear myself saying that. I'm like, wait a minute, you could always redo the least again if you wanted to. There's a million places on the market. But there's something in my mind that does feel a bit unsettled. And I never really realized that goes back to childhood and these goals that I guess we set for ourselves. Well, it wasn't you set it yourself.

It was other people setting it for you. So think about all the play. involved in the game of making us believe that you have to buy a house to be successful in America. Let's just break them down. You got your parents who probably bought a house at some point, and they think that it's the greatest investment because most people don't really understand how to factor in opportunity costs and the factor in inflation and all kinds of stuff. They go, we bought this house for 200. It's now worth 600. We made $400,000. That's quite a simplistic way of looking at it. So that's number one. Two is the government. The government wants people to buy houses. They actually

offer certain tax advantages to people who buy houses. Three, let's not overlook the entire mortgage industry, one of the biggest industries in America. Everybody has their handout because they want you to buy. They don't care if you can afford it. They don't care if it's a good financial decision. And so what I would challenge people is to actually run the numbers. Now, let's talk about this. A lot of people have really strong feelings about money. I can't afford that. That's outrageous. I love this type of face cream, so it's worth it for me. Cool. I have no problem if you want to buy really expensive clothes. I like nice clothes or you want to eat out at certain places. Awesome. In fact, I'll show you how to spend more on that. But it's interesting that we spend most of our

lives agonizing over $3 questions, and we never really focus on the $30,000 questions. So for example, if you are not investing, you are literally losing hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of your life. For many people, especially for your young, millions. If you are paying a 1% fee to a financial advisor, that's about 28% of your returns going right out of your pocket to fees. Yeah, super counterintuitive. People go 1%. How does that turn into 28%? It's compounding. Also, in certain places like L.A., San Francisco, New York, it might not make financial sense to buy. So I could afford to buy, but I also rent, because when I run the numbers, it actually makes no financial sense. Now, there are other reasons. You might want to decorate, school district, whatever. But most people listening have never

actually considered the idea that renting can actually be a fantastic financial decision. So if you've never considered that, then what are the other things when it comes to money that you've never considered. And that is where we get to have a really interesting conversation. Starting the year with a wardrobe refresh, Quince has you covered with lux essentials that feel effortless

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minutes. That's talkiatry.com slash confidence to get matched in minutes. So, okay, I love that you bring this point of too about financial advisors. Because I went to school for psychology and I've been in sales and operations and companies my whole career, I just figured that's something I don't know a lot about. I turned it over to financial advisor at a very young age, and I really have never dealt with it. Oh my God. This is amazing. Okay, let's put it to the side. Can we talk about this? Okay, this is amazing. First of all, how comfortable are you to share numbers with me? I don't know the numbers enough to share them with you. That's what's embarrassing. I'd have to call my financial advisor. No, okay, I'm going to tell you what's going to happen right now. This is going to be very dramatic. So maybe we'll do a part two on your podcast. Okay, do you know how much is in your portfolio?

No, I have no idea. Like, is it 10,000 or 10 million? It's not 10 million. Oh, my gosh. What are we talking about here? I mean, well, I don't really know for a couple of different reasons. I'm now on a board. I mean, there's so many, I have so many variables now that I really don't have a handle on, on any. But I know that's embarrassing to say, I just always kind of attributed it to that's not my wheelhouse. I meet with him once a year.

We go through that. Now with my board, I get with them once a quarter. I have different things that I manage. Can I fix this for you? Sure. Okay. I'm about to save you like about a million dollars. Okay.

So this podcast turned into awesome. Let me put it this way. So I know you think about a financial advisor, like somebody changing the oil in your car or like landscaping in the background. A doctor, like a doctor. It's like they study it. Once a year and they're the expert. Yeah.

Okay. I want to kind of gently challenge you that maybe that's not the right way to think about it. So I do have somebody else change the oil in my car and I don't ever want to go into a Home Depot again in my life. Okay, my rich life is never setting foot in a home repair shop ever. So I'm with you. I like convenience and I am willing to pay for experts. No problem at all. With financial advisors, first, I think everybody should know the basics of their own money, right? Everybody should know roughly how much they have, how much they are paying, and how much they can expect to have in the future. I think those are some important numbers to know. So I, you know, I can help you go through your paper

work and look at that. But more importantly, there are certain reasons to pay a financial advisor, like $200 bucks an hour, even $500 an hour. You want to go and review it every year and have somebody give you a second set of eyes? I got no problem at all, but I'm willing to bet you. Do you know how much you pay this financial advisor? I have no idea. Okay. I can already tell you how much you pay between 1 to 2%. Do you know the company that this person works for? Let's start with a P or an A, No, and he just changed companies. So now I really don't know. I just got all this paperwork. I had a sign about changing companies. So I have to go figure that out. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. So he charges probably one to two percent. It doesn't sound like a lot. Like one percent. Okay. Yeah. It sounds like nothing. Yeah. So over the course of your life, if you make, let's just say a million dollars in investment returns, you'll pay about $280,000 to this person. And the older you get and the more you have, the more you will pay. It will turn out to be a huge amount. So I spoke to a young woman recently on Instagram, and she's heard me talk about financial advisors. And again, I have no problem if you want

to pay an hourly fee, just like you pay someone to change your oil. But would you ever pay the guy changing your oil 1% of your net worth? No. Would you ever pay your doctor 1% of your net worth? No. So why the hell does anyone feel comfortable? paying a financial advisor. I'm using that term loosely. Because we've been taught this to trust them. They're the experts on it. Who taught you that? I don't know. I guess this. They taught you. I don't. This is driving me. They taught you. So here's the thing. Your financial situation, maybe it's complex, maybe not. You feel comfortable with an advisor. All good. You should use one.

But never, ever pay a percentage of your net worth. Now, in chapter six of my book, I go into detail about You know, the advisors, the things they tell you, like, oh, well, we can beat the market. They can't beat the market. It's impossible over the long term, especially for them. I actually love the example. I love how courageous you are in sharing it because most of us don't know this stuff. Like, if I have a kidney problem, I don't even know where my kidney is. So what am I supposed to become the Mr. Kidney expert?

No, I just go to the kidney person and they tell me what to do. But money is fundamentally different. It's not like our lawns. It's not like our oil. It is ours. and it affects where we live. It affects our children and our families. It affects even fundamentally who we are.

Do I have the money to be flexible, or am I constantly living in a state of fear? And so for all those reasons, what I really, really love to encourage and to see people doing is to take control of their money. It's not this mystical thing that we can't understand. It's actually really quite simple. There's like a few basic principles,

and when you deeply understand them, that changes everything about your life. life. It changes what kind of vacations you can take. It changes like going to the grocery store and never having to look at the price. And it changes how you talk to your kids or your family about money because they should learn from you. And everyone, if you have children, they should be learning from how you interact with money. So I actually think this is amazing. It's a huge opportunity. And the fact, because you're so young and you can change this now, oh my God, the savings you can have will be into multiple six figures.

I could tell you that. But one of the things that is not attractive to me about this idea is time, right? Like the R-O-Y, what's the return on my investment? And I understand that you're saying that, you know, by not paying this person exponentially from a percentage standpoint, that does make sense to change, you know, what that setup is. It's an hourly rate. I completely agree. However, I don't have the time to go research the market and start understanding what stocks

are performing well. To me, that just sounds like an exorbitant, amount of time to actually become proficient at something like that. And again, I've heard about day traders and I've heard about all this. But when you're busy and you're really good at certain things, why wouldn't you spend the time at the things that you're really good at? Let me ask you a couple of questions. Because remember, I talked about those invisible scripts that we grow up with. So I think you might have a couple of invisible scripts, which to me is like really fun when you discover them about yourself. You go, oh my God, I didn't realize that's a story.

Maybe it's real. Maybe not. How long do you think I spend per month? managing my money. I mean, you are a systems guy, so I don't think very long because I think you create systems. Correct. How long? A couple of hours. One hour. One hour.

And do you think that really good investors are looking around and evaluating individual stocks? I don't know. They're not. They're not. So you mentioned day traders, kind of like researching. None of that is actually what real investors do. That's what we see on TV.

Real investors like you would pick one fund like a target date fund just based on how old you are. And all you do is set it up to automatically contribute money to that fund every month. You can set it up so it's automatic. You don't even think about it. It's like a transfer. And that's it. You're done. It is that simple.

But to get to that level of simplicity, we have to probably unpack some of the layers like the idea that the belief that investing is complicated. it's actually deceptively simple. The idea that 1%, or I don't even need to know how much I'm paying, costs really matter in investing. Because when you pay someone, you actually don't get better results. You get worse results. And that's crazy because when we eat at a better restaurant and we spend more money, we usually get better ingredients, better cooking.

You expect to, of course. You expect to. When you pay more for clothes, you get a nicer cashmere. All that is true. But in investing, it's totally counterintuitive. So we have to kind of like rewrite some of those rules. It's kind of like you learned how to ski the wrong way. And now you're like, okay, I want to learn the proper way because I want to go faster.

Same thing with investing. For you, if you were to do this, it would probably take you knowing that you're busy and you have a lot of other things going on. And candidly, you've kind of just like let someone else do it for a while. if I were you and I said, okay, I just realized that, you know, I'm working hard. I'm like making all this money, but I didn't realize I have this leaky hole in my bucket where all these fees are going out and even realize it. Gosh, this is worth my time. I think for somebody like you, within four weeks, you could have the entire thing turned around.

You could have it under your control, not somebody else who you don't even know how much you're paying, your money would be invested better for you, and you would actually set it up so that you spend one hour per month. And I don't know how old your son is. How old is he? Oh my God, amazing. And you could do it together. He should be investing too, and he should see you going through the process. Oh, my gosh. Well, that's going to be a little challenging because my ex-husband and his father is an SVP at Merrill Lynch, so I think he's going to be getting some very... Oh, yeah. You're screwed on that one. You're screwed on that. You know what? I'll all. I'll talk to him too, and I'll tell him. We'll go through it gently, chapter six, Merrill Lynch,

you should not be putting your money there. There's no reason to pay AUM. We could talk about all that stuff. It may be a little hard, but better to get the invisible scripts right from 15. I was investing at 14 years old. He should be investing at this stage, even if he makes a little bit, you know, I was working at a pizza place. I was making a little bit of money. I put it in the market slowly. I made some mistakes. That's okay. You're just dealing with a little bit of money. but to let a young man start to realize that he too is an investor and his mom is investing and learning this stuff. Oh my God, that's a lifetime of sophistication. Yeah, that's a really good point. I'll help you. If you want help, I'll get on a Zoom call with him too. But it just gets me

excited to see mom and son doing this together. It can really bring you together in an amazing way. Well, thank you so much for that. I mean, we're also doing the whole permanent. and driving. That's bringing us together in ways you could never imagine. Wait, is that together or apart? That's crazy. Yeah, that's a little stressful. When you want more, start your business with Northwest Registered Agent and get access to thousands of free guides, tools, and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business. All in one place. Build your complete business identity with Northwest Today. Northwest Registered Agents has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They are the largest registered agent and

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When you're talking about all of these things, one of the things that came to mind for me, and I don't know if it's going to resonate with anyone listening is one of the scripts that I am observing right now when I think about my own life is that, and again, I'm 48, so it's not necessarily this way any longer. But when I grew up, it was corporate America, climb the corporate ladder. That is the only way to go, here's what I've learned by having done it that way and now not doing it that way. That way does not typically allow for generational wealth. And I found that out in an early age by mistake. I was given an opportunity. partner with a private equity company and become a very small equity shareholder of that company. I was really a sweat equity partner, but I was able to make substantial money in my 20s because we sold the company at a $25 million gain and profit. So I was able to share in that profit. And that opened my eyes that day to, wow, why would we only go on this linear route

where you get paycheck, paycheck, paycheck, when you could actually be a partner and share in the wins. Is that something that you think people should lean towards or what are your thoughts on corporate versus going out in more of an entrepreneurial way? I think that everyone should be building an asset. And there are lots of ways to build an asset. First, most people work at a corporate job. And I think that's perfectly fine. If you are being paid commensurate with your experience and what the market pays and you're respected at work and you're being challenged, awesome. But if you're working at a nine to five job, you should still build an asset. And that's what investing is. for. So you can make, let's just take easy math. Let's say you make 50K a year. Let's say you're taking

10% of gross and putting it in the market. That's cool. That's great investment. Even better as 15%. Over a certain amount of time, the amount you invest will actually start to pay you more than your salary. And that's when you have an amazing asset. That's called the crossover point. And for a lot of people, that's when they're financially independent. Fantastic. If you want to work, you can work. If you want to cut back or leave, you can do that too. Now, I think there are other people who go, hey, I like my corporate job. It's fine.

But I want to do something on the side. I love that. I love when people are good at what they do day to day. And they go, all right, I'm also ready for something else. So, you know, I help a lot of people find a business idea and then grow it. And what I like about that is I learned through a lot of customer research that most people don't necessarily want to quit their job and go to a full-time business that they run, they want the option of doing it.

And that's cool. Like, hey, let's say you work a 9 to 5 job and you have this business that's paying you an extra $5,000 a month. That's a lot of money. Maybe you go, you know what? I want to spend a little more time on it. I want to turn that dial up, make it $10,000, $15,000. And at a certain point, you go, oh, my God, this is a lot of money.

Now I have an opportunity. I have an option. I can leave my job. I can keep it. just bank the money, or I go to Europe or India, have a awesome trip. So I love helping people start to build an asset, whether that is through their investments, which everybody should have, also through starting a business and really leveraging whatever unique perspective and skills they have. No, I think that's such an important script to get into people's head, and I wish I

had been so crystal clear on that at a younger age. And that is definitely something I speak to My son about on the daily. One of the things that I read about in some of the ways that you view things, which again is very different than most money guys out there, which I love about you, is you talk about the importance of having one year of income set aside. Can you talk about why that's important? That's one of my money rules. I have 10 money rules, but that's my money rule.

I don't think most people need to have one year. This is what's typically referred to as an. emergency fund. And this would usually be three to six months, which is a good amount. Let's break this down in two ways. First off, how much do you need to have set aside in savings? It's three to six months of what? Most people are like six months of what? What are we talking about? Here's how you calculate it. If you were to lose your job tomorrow, think about all the things you would stop doing. Probably stop eating out. You stop taking Uber's, et cetera, et cetera. chop all that stuff off and that number, the number you need to keep the lights on,

that is your one month number. Let's just say for easy math, it's $5,000 in month, okay? That is the number you want to have three to six months worth of expenses for. So in that case, $15,000 to $30,000. Now, understand that it can take years to set that money aside. And what I do in chapter five of my book is show you how to automate it. you're putting $100 a month towards a sub-savings account called emergency fund, maybe 200, maybe 500.

And over time, that thing starts to get filled up. That's the way to do that. Now, let's talk about the money rules, because I actually would, I love people developing their own money rules. So I have 10 money rules. You can search on Google, Money Rules, Ramit, and I'll just share a couple of them with you. Some of them are just real kind of nuts and bolts, personal finance, but some of them are like really fun. One of them is always have one year of emergency fund cash. We talked about that.

Cash means it's in a savings account. But how about this one? Business class on flights over four hours. Look at that smile. Yes, I can see. We both have an affinity for nice things. Okay, business class. How about this one? No limit on spending for health or education. And another one called Mary the Right Person. That one really jumped out at me. Really? That's not one you expect to see. However, you are so flipping right. Okay, well, let's talk about all these rules.

First of all, reminder, these are my rules. Not yours. Your rules will be very different. They should. But I'll explain them. I think that over the course of a month, we are faced with a thousand money decisions. Should I eat at this place or that?

Should I get that salad out or should I make it at home? Should we go on this vacation? And on and on and on. at a certain point you need to develop a simple set of heuristics or guidelines because otherwise you're going to be making $3 decisions for the rest of your life. And so one of my money rules, save 10%, invest 20%. That just right there, it dictates how much I need to be putting aside and everything else flows from there. So I would challenge everyone, if you start, you know, there's this phrase, pay yourself first. If you start with how much you want to save and invest,

all the rest of your money can flow around that. But then I thought to myself, you know, I'm always deciding what flight to take. Should I take this flight, that flight, Delta, JetBlue, da, da, da, da. I don't want to think about this anymore. I just want to create a simple rule. This is a system. And so I said, okay, anything above four hours is business class. Now, I can afford that and I value it.

But what's interesting is when I was younger, I used to go on play. We could never afford it. And I would walk past the people in the front of the plane. and I would almost scoff. Oh, so stupid. We're all getting to the same place. Where are they spending four times the amount of money? And I wish I had been a little less judgmental

and probably a little more curious. Like, who are these people? And if they can afford it, why are they choosing to pay four times what we're paying in the back? And I didn't do that because I just thought it was stupid and I was raised that that's a waste of money.

I now see that, you know, as we get older, and our taste change and our affordability hopefully increases, we probably buy and spend on things that we wouldn't have as a 16 or 18 year old. So that's my rule. Boom. I don't have to ever think about it again. It's right there, et cetera.

And so, you know, for me, your rules represent your values. They represent what you care about. And so when people say like, I say, what's important to you? Family's important. I go, cool, show me your money rules. First of all, they don't have money rules, but now they're going to. where on your money rules is there something about family? Because if you claim something is important,

it's got to be represented on your calendar and on your spending. And that's what these rules help you to do. That's so interesting to me. It's a way I've never even thought about. And to your point earlier, it's not something that money is not something. I think about making it, of course, but don't necessarily sit around and think about, oh, you know, how, where am I prioritizing?

What are my rules? you know, what are systems that I can put in place to make this a lot more simplistic, which would make it a lot easier. Well, that's the thing. It should be simple, right? All this is designed to make it simple because I do not want to spend the rest of my life looking over a Safeway receipt. Did I spend too much on asparagus?

Like, why? That's a waste of my life. And so I'm not operating at that level and neither should any of us. We should be saying, okay, what are my savings goals for the year? Okay, even if I'm living check to check and I have debt, what is my debt? payoff date. Because if you don't know that, then you're just basically shoveling money into a black hole. You have no idea when you're finally going to get out. So most of us are so fixated on these tiny questions that we never zoom up and say, what's my rich life? What do I want to use my money

for? And how do I do it? Those are the questions that get us out of different prices on lettuce, which I don't want to be there, neither to you. What is what's my rich life mean? Because I know for people listening right now, that might take some people a back. Why do you think it would take him a back? Because of how you were describing yourself when you were younger, that some people might just scoff at, oh, well, you know, he's in a different situation to me that he can sit around and pontificate about what a rich life is, and I know that you mean different than that.

Yes, thank you. And I agree. I mean, some people are like, hey, must be nice to be able to think about what my rich life is. I'm just trying to get through next week. Exactly. Right. I get that. I get that. I was raised where we're, I mean, we ate out once every six to eight weeks, and it was if we had a coupon to the pizza place. So it's not like we were sitting here. In fact, I remember this. One time my parents needed to get a certified check. So they went to a bank, and we were just waiting in the van.

They come back out and they're laughing as they walk through the parking lot. Like, why are you laughing coming out from a bank? And we asked him. And they were like, they told us that the certified check would be free if we had $10,000 in our account. And they were just laughing because who the hell has 10? $10,000 in their account. And that really puts things in perspective, right?

It was hilarious to them to consider having $10,000. And we picked up on that. We knew where we stood. So what is your rich life is a question I love everyone to think about? When I ask that question, I almost always get the same answers. The first answer is, I want to do what I want, when I want. I go, oh, God. Freedom, though.

Freedom is for real. Freedom is just a word. I don't, it's just a word. So I'll go, I go, okay, you want to do what you want when you want. Wow, that's so interesting. What do you want to do? And this is what they do. They go, uh, because they never actually thought about it.

No, I've thought painlessly about it. Really? Should we do this right now? Let's do the exercise. I'll share with you that it's interesting. I've been working for myself for five years. now. And because of the window of time, it's changed drastically, right? Because the pandemic completely flipped everything upside down. So now it's starting to come back. I do a lot of keynote speaking.

And my career has changed drastically when 100% virtual. And now it's, you know, hybrid and starting to come back. And things are booked very late in last minute. And that was never the way back in 2019. So I've seen such a transformation. So the way I see a quote unquote rich life is so different now, right? Because- is it for you now? I guess now it's about being at home enough to still be a strong parent to my son, right, and be able to make sure that he's taking care of while also from, not only from a financial, but also I love being in front of audiences. I love being with people, getting out enough to do the things that I actually like to do with the people and partners

I like to. And that means saying no to the ones that I don't want to go to, you know, I'm making it a Boise, Idaho and change two flights to work with a company. I'm going to work with once in my life. That doesn't sound interesting or exciting to me. I want to do the ones I want to do when I want to do it and be able to say no, and not have to worry about what does that fallout look like. Okay. Okay.

This is great. Can we keep going on this? Because I think this, what is your rich life? Let's just expand it for a second. First off, what I heard, you have a pretty clear vision of wanting to spend time with your son and what type of work you want to say yes and no to. I love it. In the next 10 years, on your bucket list,

not things to do before you die, but things to do in the next 10 years that would mean you lived a meaningful and rich life. What would be on that list of things you want to do? So much of that is about, right, well, this is another thing I've learned. I used to think everything was very linear and clear. This is back when I was in corporate,

and what I've learned is, oh, heck no, You do not know what's coming tomorrow, nor do you know what, you know, it's coming from a global pandemic stance. There's so many things. So I try not to say, this is the 10 things. I don't really. That's not. You don't want to check list. I got it.

You know what I'm saying? Like, I feel like that's too old school thinking for me. I think much more fluidly now. Like, as long as I'm still living under the umbrella of creating things that are helping people, though, will leave legacy in my life that I'm making the world a better place than, you know, when I first found it, that it's in tune in lines with who I am and the messaging. that's true to me and sharing my truths of people while earning, you know, substantial income to, you know, justify all these things that I'm doing. That to me, that's what I think the next 10 years look like. But I can't say it means, you know, I'm launching this new product line and here's my partners that I'm doing. You know, I can't pinpoint. I'm doing a number of different things.

I don't know which ones will come to fruition and which won't, but I think that they'll naturally progress or shut down because they weren't meant to be. One of the things that I think you and shares this fluidity. Like I was never the type to sit and create a 24 month budget. I'm just like, I'll make a lot of money and I don't ever want to have to think about how much I spend on X, Y, or Z. So I can feel that. Let me tell you how my conversations go when I have 15, 20 minutes to help people articulate their rich. And I do this on the podcast with couples because they're often anywhere from they just got married to their 60 plus. And some of them have $800,000 in debt. And some of them have net worth of $13 plus million. And for some reason, they're misaligned on money.

And so we talk about it. So often people say, I want to do what I want when I want. I go, okay, what do you want to do? They go, I have no idea. I don't know. I just want to be free. I go, okay, well, let's get specific. So I'll ask them a few questions. I go, what do you love to spend money on? That's what I call a money dial. The most common answer is eating out or food. The next one is travel. The next one is health and wellness, then convenience and then a variety of other ones. I go, amazing.

You love food. Okay, what if you could quadruple your spending on food? And they always say the same, oh, I'd have to go on a diet because I'd be eating out. I go, okay, what else? This is where it gets really interesting. Imagine like a dial. You're turning your money dial up. And if you're listening, maybe yours is clothes.

maybe it's experiences with your family, whatever it is. Play along with me. Identify your money dial, and you can search for my name, Ramith Money Dial, if you want some more inspiration. And now answer the question, if you could quadruple your spending, what would it look and feel like? For a lot of people for eating out or food, it might be they would eat higher quality food. It might mean they would plan a trip around a beautiful restaurant, I mean at the very high level, they might book an entire vacation based around a restaurant reservation. They might take their friends and surprise them for an amazing meal and tip 75%. Hell, at the highest level, you might take your family and go to Rome, go to a farmer's

market with a chef, and then make the food. Who knows? People get really inspired when they can think bigger than they're used to. And so I'll see this couple that has just kind of had their arms crossed with each other. And suddenly they're realizing my rich life is we're going to be in Rome, watching a sunset, drinking wine, and eating this amazing Italian cheese. Living your best life. Living your rich life. And that is what the rich life is. It is unique and personal to you. Your rich life is different than mine. It is vivid. It has details that no one else can come up with. It always includes not only the what we want to go here or we want to eat this or we want to wear this, but usually at the highest levels, the who.

The who do I want to bring? Who am I going to impact? Who, who, who, who? That is what a rich life is. And so a rich life can be picking up your son from school every afternoon. It can be wearing a $2,000 cashmere coat or it can be traveling for six weeks a year and never looking at the price of your airline ticket. your rich life is yours.

I want to get into, because I have not done this successfully yet, importance of the person that you marry in regards to wealth, finances, and living your rich life. The person you marry is one of the most important financial decisions you'll ever make. And we don't really think about marriage like that here, do we? No. How do we think about it? I just, I just, all I can speak to is my own situation and it just, it never even crossed my mind. The way, especially young women are taught, you know, in, in the, in our culture here in the United States, it's more of this fairy tale sort of love is everything.

And while Rameet, I was advised by countless business partners to have my ex-husband signed a pre-up, I decided against it. And I thought everyone's being negative about love. And that's not the way to be, I need to go into this with an open heart. And wouldn't you know, I lost all of my personal wealth in my divorce and ended up on the front page of USA Today finance section telling that story, which I don't want to have happened for anyone. Point being, I was listening to whatever this story was about love instead of actually taking good business advice, which if someone really does love you and you're entering into this massive partnership together, why would someone care if, If you're going to sign a pre-up. Gosh, the more we talk, the more you and I discover how much we have in common. It's really interesting.

And I'm sorry you had to go through that experience. I signed a pre-up. And when I was getting serious with my now-wife, I asked a lot of friends for advice, a lot. Now, you have to remember that in my culture and around the people that I grew up with, there's not pre-ups. because most, you know, we have some Indian guy who's an engineer. He has a great job, but it's, you know, they're both starting out careers when you get married. Because of my business and luck and good decisions, I had accumulated a business and my own personal wealth.

And so, you know, I tell the whole story about how we went through this process. It was good at the beginning. It was good. I brought it up. I was honest. Sometimes people advise you to say, like, my lawyer is making me do it. I'm like, take some agency. You're about to get married. You need to own up to what you want and speak for yourself. So I did. And my wife was awesome.

She was like, wow, I didn't expect that, but I don't know much about it, but I'm open to it. Cool. We started talking about it. And then it got hard. It got really hard for us because we saw money differently. I had been thinking about money for like 20 years. It's my business. She had not.

And so we ended up going to a therapist ourselves. And we sat down and this therapist was great. She asked us so many great questions. One of them I still remember was, how do you both see money? Such a simple question. And she started with me. I looked at her, I just shrugged my shoulders like, oh, this is easy. Yeah, growth.

It's so obvious. I could see the numbers in front of my eyes. They're like, I could see the compound interest rates. And I can see it all. Growth, obviously. And then she asked the same question of my wife. And my wife says, safety. Interesting.

I wasn't expecting that. No, to me, that was like describing money as, you know, concrete. Like the two words just, they don't match up. And so I looked at her. She looked at me. And that was an awesome question from the therapist. We talked about it a lot. And suddenly things started to make sense.

Like, why do I want us to invest more? Why am I suggesting we do X, Y, Z? Why does my wife want us to have a certain amount in our checking account? And it starts to make sense. So still, it was a difficult process. And I went on the Tim Ferriss show to talk about it because this is all stuff that's talked about behind closed doors. Nobody talks about it publicly.

And I want to change that. And I know you did too by doing that article, which is preempts are not bad. it's not some rich person taking advantage of the other. Both people should be represented by lawyers, and you should have these difficult conversations up front. You're going to have lots more through the rest of your life. So that's my story. But when it comes to your partner, it is important. In America, we have this concept of love marriages. You know, it's all about love and it's romantic. But anyone who's been married knows that marriage is also a business. partnership. It's a business. It's, yes, it's intimate. It's different than any other business

relationship you have, but it also has a lot of logistics to it. Who's taking out the trash? Who's picking up the kids? How are we going to pay for this thing? And we have to be able to talk about those things. It's so weird that in this culture, we resist like planning and talking and we're just like, love will solve it all. I'm like, this isn't a Disney movie. This is life. let's get some logistics involved. And so when you kind of both go into it early on, you know, maybe there are these natural points where you can talk about money.

When you decide to be in a committed relationship, maybe when you decide to move in together, your first vacation, certainly getting engaged, getting married, all of those things. Those are amazing opportunities to be like, hey, let's talk about money. We haven't talked about it before. I'm not sure I'm doing it right,

but I'd love to share it with you. I'd love to get your input. and let's put it all out on the table. And hey, if there's something we can do better together, let's do it. So we can go through how to do that conversation or series of conversation. But I like to take the shame away. Really shine sunlight on money in intimate couples. That's the whole I Will Teach You to Be Rich podcast because it doesn't have to be this mystery

and it doesn't have to be this just thing we put away in the shadows. Money is real. We should talk about it. Oh, my gosh. That's so helpful and powerful. where were you when I was younger? Okay, before we let you go, I know that you've got a program

that's helping people launch businesses and wanted to hear how we can share that with everybody listening. For anyone who has been thinking about earning more and wants to find an idea and grow it into a profitable business, I would recommend going to IWT.com slash earnable.

I'll say it again, IWT.com slash earnable. So we have a program there where I've coached thousands of people throughout that and our other business programs to help them start businesses. A lot of people come in, they go, I don't even have an idea. Perfect, because we help you find one. And then we help you show how to grow your client base, how to charge more, even how to turn it and productize it so that it can generate revenue while you are sleeping. So I love helping people start to earn more because, oh my God, you can

accelerate your rich life in such a big way. Now, Rameet, thank you so much for the work that you're doing. How can everybody find you and find your book? Find me on my website, IWT.com. You can find me on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube now, and my podcast where I am interviewing couples, real couples with real numbers from behind closed doors. All those things, plus my book on Amazon. Take whatever you like and start there. Guys, definitely check out these links. Check out the show. show and start having these conversations so you can be living your rich life. Rameit, thank you so much, guys. Until next week, keep creating your confidence. I'm on this journey with me.