The Dr. Josh Axe Show - Secrets of the Self-Made: How Ordinary People Built Extraordinary Wealth

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

50% of Americans have reported that finances have had a negative impact on their mental health. Dr. Josh Axe is back to share the principles of success and wisdom when it comes to your finances. He presents personal insights and empowering advice from Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, Tony Robbins, Mark Cuban, Dave Ramsey, and more! Learn how to change your mindset and transform your money habits. Dr. Josh Axe dives into: Why it’s important to recognize the “why behind your wealth” Biblical principles surrounding money How to shift from a scarcity to abundance mindset Steps to break generational debt  Success principles and tips from some of the most successful people Tune in to transform your relationship with money! This episode will leave you energized and equipped to make positive changes. Dr. Josh dives deep into core principles that can help you achieve financial freedom, no matter where you're starting from. Want more of The Growth Lab with Dr. Josh Axe? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook Tik-Tok Follow Leaders Instagram Twitter Facebook Email Newsletter ------  Links:  https://www.everydayhealth.com/wellness/united-states-of-stress/?_ga=2.85307482.2114169003.1701979659-1435983923.1701979659 https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/13/mark-cuban-success-isnt-necessarily-how-much-money-you-have.html https://www.lendingtree.com/credit-cards/credit-card-debt-statistics/ https://www.nerdwallet.com/calculator/compound-interest-calculator https://www.fool.com/investing/how-to-invest/stocks/average-stock-market-return/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, everyone, welcome the show. I am Dr. Josh Ax. Did you know that one out of every three Americans has zero dollars in their savings? And nearly 50% of Americans say that their finances have impacted their mental health. On today's episode, I'm going to be talking about the principles of success and how to build generational wealth. I'll share with you how I've done it. I'll share with you how many billionaires, everyone from Mark Cuban to Warren Buffett to Ray Dalio, how they've done it. And I'll be going over how everyday people have done it, including some of my family members, some friends. And it's pretty amazing that there are so

many people today. And you're one of those people that could be included in this that could be able to retire likely in their 40s or 50s or 60s and be set for a life. However, again, most people aren't in that situation. The number of people that get to 60s and have very little money in their savings is mind-blowing. So I'm going to go through the principles of how to do that today. Now, it really all starts with your mindset about money. You know, this is something not a lot of people talk about. But when I see people that have built a lot of wealth versus a lot of people who are struggling financially on a regular basis, it has to do with limiting beliefs around money. And I want to give any example of this. I have a close friend of mine, and he really struggled

because his dad would always tell him money doesn't grow on trees, things like that, right? So throughout his life, he's always trying to just hoard every last thing to himself. And so he has saved some money, but he's never been able to multiply his money because he believes that there's one pie for the entire world and he's got to get his peace and he's got to fight and scratch and claw to keep that piece versus other people might believe, well, no, there's abundance of wealth out there. And there's plenty for everybody to go around. And so it's important. And so it's important. that your mindset about money, you have the right mindset about money. Some of the key mindsets that I've really embraced when it comes to money is there's an abundance mindset. There's a lot for

everybody. And if I'm able to take what I've earned and bless other people with it, there's this sewing and reaping, this principle of, you know, some religions call it karma, others call it sewing and reaping. But again, there's this principle of generosity that it will come back to you. I think that's another important principle. I think also understanding you have value to add. I think there's a worthiness aspect to money that a lot of people don't believe that their skill or their talent or those gifts God has given them are necessarily worth very much. And they think may think, well, nobody's going to pay me much for that. You know, I was interviewing a friend recently and she teaches how to do courses. And there is a woman who teaches other people a course, how to make candy apples.

And she makes $800,000, was very little overhead a year just teaching people how to make candy apples. So my point there is there's so many businesses like that. So there is so much money to be made out there. The other thing I want to say when it comes to money and mindset that I think is really important is that you view yourself, you don't view money as something to be saved. You view it as something to be invested. This is the key between simply adding a little money to your bank account and multiplying your money. every dollar that I have come in via my business, I then think about how do I multiply this? So I never put it under my mattress or just put it in the bank and let it sit there.

I think about, okay, where can I invest this? It could be for, I don't really invest much in the stock market. It could be in the stock market. For some people, for me, it's a lot more real estate. It's investing in other companies, investing into myself, investing in my own business, doing those sort of things. And so this is one of the biggest keys. if you want to multiply your money, you need to think about not how do you save money.

You need to think how do you invest the money you've already made? That's key. And then the other one I mentioned is how do you take that skill that you have, take that to the highest level possible to make the most money possible? And so those are some things you want to think about. And remember, the goal of bring in wealth is not to accumulate wealth for yourself. It's to bring in wealth, invest it, and add value to others. So make as much money as you can, doing good works for other people that benefit their lives.

You take that money, you multiply it in order to give it back and invest in others. And if that's your mindset in terms of how money works and how wealth should work, then you're going to have a wealth-building mindset. And so that's really important. Another thing that's important to remember before I jump into the exactly how you build wealth and some of the other statistics and getting into some of the roadblocks of why a lot of people or building wealth today is knowing it's so important that money is in its proper place in your line of priorities. So for myself, when I think about my priorities, I've got my faith in God, I've got

my family, I've got my health, then I have my career and my finances, and then I have things like my free time. But those are the things I'm really, really conscious of is those five buckets and where money lies in those areas. And so, and one of the things Ray Dalio puts it this way, he says, remember that the only purpose of money is to get what you want. So think hard about what you value and put it above money. The thing that gets us into financial trouble is when we start looking at everyone else around us and saying, well, they have that, I want that, they have that, I want that. And in the Bible, it's called envy. It tends to be. It's sort of envy of what I want what they have, or if you want exactly what they have, that's envy. But jealousy or just this comparison where in order for

us to have a certain amount of self-worth, we feel like we need to accumulate things. And by the way, this is one of the biggest reasons some people accumulate things is they want to. It's a feeling of sort of identity and it helps build their right sense of identity via worthiness. And so you want to be careful not to get in that trap to keeping up with the Joneses, being in the rat race, or just trying to, you know, gain more things for your lack of self-esteem. All right, jumping back in here. Elon Musk is an example of a person who has a why behind his money. Okay. And so if you want to build a lot of wealth, you want to have a purpose behind why you're building wealth.

And Elon Musk, you know, is one of the two richest people in the world today. And the thing for him, though, is he never started off saying, I wanted to be a billionaire. He said, I want to add value to the world. I want to create electric vehicles to what that are, you know, whether they are not, but better for the environment and can save money on gas and it's in and can drive themselves so people can be doing other things watching movies or or working while they're driving so i mean what an amazing service so he didn't get in saying i want to be a billionaire he said i want to innovate and do these things to help humanity advance going to outer space places like mars you know he bought twitter which he now

renamed x because he believed in free speech that that that that today so many these social social platforms started censoring and restricting free speech. And so he wanted to help further advance that. So I want to say this. When you look at every single person that's built a lot of wealth, let me say this. When you look at most people that have built a lot of wealth, they are purpose-driven people. Elon Musk has an amazing purpose in terms of wanting to help with free speech, wanting to send people to space, wanting to help make life easier for people and safer with self-driving cars and some of the other things he's doing. And so when you think about your why behind your wealth, what is your why? I want to share for myself. Like I have a deep sense of purpose based on my faith

that I am called to make earth a heavenly place. So I'm called to love people and I'm called to make earth the heavenly place. So when I think of those to, and my third one is to love God, okay? But when I think about making earth the heavenly place, I want to make sure that when I'm building wealth, it's not polluting the environment. I want to make sure it's actually helping the environment. I want to make sure it's making the world more green and friendly and healthy. I want to make sure the product I'm creating is adding health to people, extending their life, whether it's a supplement or a food or an investment, whatever it is.

I don't want it to be subtracting from someone's life. So my why behind my wealth is loving people, adding value to their life, and making earth a heavenly place. And when you have that for yourself, you know, yours might be to, you know, maybe you have an organization that's tied to bringing clean water to people in need in Africa. Or, again, it's helping just advance society in some way. I think it's important also to have a why behind your wealth. It's more motivating. It's more inspiring.

I think it's when you have those altruistic motives, I think it helps drive you with a sense of purpose every day that can help you build more wealth. Now, here's, I want to get into a few problems with if you are not financially conscious. And I think this is one of the biggest problems today. People are not very financially aware. By the way, I did just read that it's like the 14th state, or maybe it's the 25th state, but now a lot of high schools are implementing money management programs into high school. And so every state, by the way, that's done that, Bravo, I want to say, congratulations, thank you for doing that.

because it's absolutely crazy to me that kids would go and learn calculus, which about 1% or less of kids will use. Now, some engineers, I mean, there are a few mathematicians, there are, listen, there are a few fields, but almost nobody uses calculus, okay? Not to say some kids shouldn't use it learning college. I think, yeah, if that's your field, I don't think any kids should learn calculus in high school

unless they're going to do it in their future. Even algebra versus money. money management, right? I mean, every kid should be learning this today. And so they understand it. Now, everyday health did a study and they found that finances came across as the number one stress across all age groups. So the number one cause of stress. By the way, 80% of doctors visits today are stress-related. So really, money stress is the number one cause of health problems in the United States. Now, I would put that up there with a poor diet like sugar consumption, overconsumption of sugar probably. But again, financial stress is one of the greatest causes of poor health today.

52% of people said they regularly feel stressed out because they're finances. So more than half of people are always feeling stressed at some point in the month because of their finances. And Ramsey Solutions did a study and they found that nearly 50% of Americans report, or finances having a negative pact on their mental health. So finances are impacting digestive health, heart health increases risk of heart attacks, mental health disorders like suicide, depression, anxiety. We see this 40% of Americans have experienced anxiety attacks due to financial stress. So these are all really, really important reasons to become more aware of your finances and get them under control.

I want to talk about money from a biblical perspective. Okay, I know that a lot of you that watch this as I do have more of a biblical worldview and believing that the Bible is a really great source of wisdom to go to. Now, whether you're a Jew or a Christian or not, I don't think it's relevant as it's a little relevant, but I think it's more relevant of understanding the Bible is a, is incredibly insightful in how to build wealth. When you think about the most affluent, influential group of people in the world today, a very, very, very, small set of the percentage of the population are people that are Jewish because they've learned these biblical principles of wealth. So my best friends, in fact, my best friends have almost always been Jewish when I was in elementary school. My best friend was Jewish when I was in college. My best friend was Jewish today. Jordan Rubin, one of my best friends is Jewish. And so I've learned a lot about

the mindset about money that they've taken from the Old Testament from the Bible. And then Christians would be next in terms of who has who has created the most wealth. It's because of these biblical principles. And so I want to share some of those principles with you today that will help you increase your wealth. And the first one is the parable of the talents. And the parable of the talent says this. It's God, also known as the master in the story, gives three people money. These are his servants. And so he said, I'm going to give one person, one talent, another person, two talents, another person, and five talents. And he said, hey, I want you to go and multiply these talents. And by the way, these talents could be seen as money as they are in the parable. They're actually money, but I also

think symbolically that could be the gifts God has given you. Maybe you have a gift of doing art or creating music or teaching or customer service, whatever it is, but taking that gift. And so with the one person, they go, that five person with five talents, they go and multiply and turn it into five talents. So let's say that person said, I'm good at teaching. I'm going to go and buy personal growth books and learn about being a better communicator and learn from other teachers, and I'm going to then and become a better teacher. I'm also going to take the money I've made, and I'm going to wisely invest it in land in real estate or stocks or companies or all these things and be wise about it over time. And I'm not going to go and spend money frivolously on, you know,

junk food and and yachts that I don't, I don't. never use just to look whatever okay so the first person does five turns it into five the person with two turns it into four the person with one they said oh I'm going to go take that talent and I'm going to bury it in the sand and then God comes back of the master and he says well done to those two servants that doubled their talents he said well done good and faithful servant the person with five he's going to get he's going to give them both more the person with one talent who just buried it now he didn't lose it but he just buried it didn't multiply it. He said, you evil and wicked servant. And God basically says, I'm going to take your one talent and give it the person who has five, actually 10 now. I'm going to

give them the other one. Here's a couple lessons from this. One is that person with one talent believed that God was a sort of a ruthless person in a way. And I think the other people with those talents didn't believe that about God. They believed he was generous. They believed he was benevolent. They believe certain things about him. And so one of the parallels with the story I don't hear people talk about a lot is how do you view God? Do you view God

as this sort of mean judge? Or do you believe God is a generous father and you just want to please him? You want to help do what he initially called us to do and turning earth into a heavenly place and adding value to the lives of others? Right? So if you

believe the right things about God that he is generous himself, you more likely to be generous. If you believe that God is hoarding from you and makes it difficult and he's judging you constantly and all those things, then you're likely to take that talent and just kind of live in a fearful state, right? Live in a state. That's what the person said. He said, I'm afraid of you. I'm living in a state of fear. And the other thing about that, too, is, again, is you really got to think about this parable of the talents about how do you multiply what you've been given? How do you multiply it? And that's part of that lesson here. And here's what this parable accounts is, Matthew 25, 14 through 30. Here's a

small clip of it. And it says, everyone who uses what they have will get more. They will have much more than they need. But people who do not use what they have will have everything taken away from them. And so it's important to know that if you are a person who is not focused on multiplying, you're just saying, I'm just going to waste my life. I'm going to waste the talents God's been given me and waste my money on things, you'll actually have more even taken from you. And Proverbs 1022 says, I think this is another important one. The blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and he adds no sorrow to it. He adds no trouble to it.

So the blessing of the Lord has no side effects. So there are a lot of people, if you're building and growing wealth, but it's coming at a cost to your family, like, for instance, it's ruining your relationship with your spouse or your kids or even your colleagues or it's destroying your health. That's not from God. Okay. You are trying to do things out of God's blessing. Okay.

So remember the Proverbs 1022, the blessing of the Lord makes one rich and he adds no trouble to it. Okay. And so it's important to have that mindset about money that if I read this story, by the way, about Steve Jobs. I put this in my new book. It's called Think This, Not That. And Steve Jobs, when he got to the end of his life, he had said, he said, you know what? I just want my kids to know why I wasn't there for them.

And basically, he had put all his time in building Apple and what an incredible company, but he had a terrible relationship with his kids and never really got to spend time with his kids. And so you think about, well, yeah, God, you know, he was blessed financially, but was that from God or was that from the world? and so he had a lot of sorrow. He had a lot of sorrow at the end of his life because he built wealth, but he also sacrificed his faith

and his family and his health for the god of mammon, for the god of money. And so it's just an important thing that we keep all of these things in perspective when it comes to how do we build wealth. Now, Tony Robbins has some really empowering advice when it comes to wealth in our beliefs.

He says, the secret to wealth is simple. Find a way to do more for others than anyone else does. Become more valuable. Do more, give more, be more, serve more, and you will have the opportunity to earn more. If you're in a career right now where you're kind of feel you're at the bottom or the metal and you're just not bringing in or even at the near the top and you don't feel like you're, you know you can make a lot more. You don't feel like you're bringing the finances that you're the maximum you want to. Find ways to grow the company's

bottom line, find the ways to take your skill to a whole new level to really become a linchpin, to become so valued with a company, they would never want to lose you. And then once you know you're close to that level, go into management and ask for a raise or seek out an opportunity with another company once you've been able to build that skill side. Again, what I'm not telling you to do is just become the doormat. And if they tell you to, you need to be doing, you know, 60 hours a week of just bookwork, I'm not telling you to do that. I am telling you to take whatever your skill is to the highest level possible and get paid the maximum you can as part of a company, especially that's adding value to the world and doing things in a moral way. You know, I think about

a lot of companies today, even if they paid me $10 million a year, I would never work for them, never because I believe what they're doing is evil in the world. I think about some of these financial organizations, whether it be BlackRock or others. I think about media companies like CNN. I would never work for them. If they gave me air time, then maybe I, you know, maybe I wouldn't if I could say what I wanted. But my point there is that, you know, I wouldn't because I think you got to remember, if you're sewing into something that's evil, you're going to reap evil. That idea around sewing and reaping is so important that you're sewing good seeds that are going to bring up good crops.

All right. So one of my favorite people to follow when it comes to investing is Warren Buffett. Listen to us, Warren Buffett still. lives in the same home he bought for $31,000 more than 60 years ago. So him and his wife got married, they've lived in the same home in, I think it's Omaha, Nebraska for 60 years. And you know what success really means? This is according to Warren Buffett. He said, you want to know what success really is? He says measure success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you, that's the ultimate test of how you've lived your life. Now, I would say that I think that's,

that's better than most people. I would say if you want to measure how successful you are in life, you want to measure it based on the amount of lives you've helped transform, the amount of people you have great relationship with that you've helped become more virtuous people, more Christ-like, more growing in their character, their skill. So again, I think this idea of the more people you can love, and I think loving is a combination of things. You're both nurturing, them, encouraging them, loving them with kindness, but you're also challenging them to be all they can be. It's sort of this really beautiful balance of yin and yang there if you really want to love people. But I do think he's on to something here. The measure of success is how well you love others

is crucial to what success truly is. Now, here's what Mark Cuban is. He has four tips for success in building wealth. Time is more valuable than money. If you can take what you do and create systems and you can get very skilled to where you can maybe manage and coach rather than be the player in certain businesses, that is one way to start to grow your level of wealth. I mean, think about this in terms of business. Most of the time when you have the hierarchy of organizations, you have the people that are on sort of the top of the hierarchy. That's called a CEO. They're not necessarily doing a lot of the execution like functions, right? They're not writing the articles, doing the actual customer service call, doing the actual service, whatever that is,

they tend to be strategically coaching everyone else on what to do on the field. Okay. And so one of the greatest things you can do is, and the reason why their value is so high is because they, they have this sort of multiplying effect on everyone beneath them. But anyways, going back to this, time is more valuable than money. Remember that tip for us. Number two, commit to random acts of kindness. Remember this, generosity always comes back around. This is something I have tried to live my life by. Let me give you an example of this.

When I meet anyone that I really feel like I have the opportunity to impact in a positive way, I will still oftentimes create health plans for them, especially if it's somebody who I really feel like God's put in my life, that there's something I can, there's a synergistic sort of connection there. If you are just adding value to other people, just without expecting anything returned, you will see it returned. It is a supernatural spiritual principle. Number three, be a constant learner.

When you look at, by the way, this is the principle I've seen the most. If you want to know what makes somebody wealthy or not wealthy is, are they a learner? Period. That is number one by far. I can talk about everything else today. it's the number one thing. Leaders are readers. Remember that.

Leaders are readers. And so when you see people that are leaders that are wealthy, that are successful in life, they're always reading. So every morning when I wake up, I spend time reading the Bible. And then when I go to the gym right afterwards or workout at home for an hour, I have an audiobook or a podcast or a sermon or YouTube. I'm listening to something for an hour. And then when I go to bed at night for about 30 minutes,

I'm listening to something else. And then sometimes when I'm driving somewhere. So I typically get about two hours, at least, of learning in every single day. And so I'll typically go through maybe a couple books a month. But when you look at, you know, the most successful people, Bill Gates does a book a week. Now, I don't want to model him as a person, by the way. But as a somebody who has achieved a certain level of wealth, he's one of those people. Again, Mark Cuban, Warren Buffett.

I mean, Warren Buffett, they said, what do you do in the morning? He said, I sit there and I read for two to three hours. That's how he starts his day every single day. And so if you are not listening to podcasts, reading books, doing those things, you're not going to maximize your potential for building wealth. You're just not going to do it. Number four, tip by Mark Cuban. Remember, these are Mark Cumans.

These aren't mine, which I'm agreeing with him on these, but these are Mark Cuban's tips. Number four, don't let fear be a roadblock. So many people never pursue their dreams because I'm not. a fear of failure or because of fear of losing it all. Don't be afraid to lose a little bit in order to fulfill your dreams. Listen, the pain of regret is so much worse than the pain of trying and failing. And so I want to encourage you to think about what is that thing that you want to do in life, that thing you want to achieve? And write down, okay, what are the roadblocks? Now, write down, are those reasons why you shouldn't do it or write down, hey, what are solutions to

how to overcome those roadblocks. And if you don't have an idea, go and ask somebody that's wealthy and wise how to do it. And I almost guarantee they will have a solution for you. And so those are four great tips by Mark Cuban on how to build wealth. All right, I want to go back to the Bible here because I think this is an incredibly important verse in Malachi 310. This is the last book of the Old Testament. And when it comes to sort of the supernatural and spiritual aspects of money,

And here's what God is saying through the prophet Malachi to the Israelite people. And he says this. He says, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse. No, a tithe means 10%. So he said, bring your 10%. Give your 10%. So he said, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. He said, test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates

of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. Now, this is literally the only time in the entire Bible where God says, I want you to test me. Throughout the other time, Jesus is telling people, hey, we shouldn't be testing God. And the prophets are saying we shouldn't be testing God. Well, God says here, test me on this. He said, if you give 10% or more, I will. there's his exact words. I will throw open the floodgates of heaven and bring out so much blessing that there will not be enough room to store it for you, for your family. So I believe that this is a verse that not a lot of people have heard, not enough people have meditated on. And this is something I am incredibly aware and conscious of. And this is this principle of generosity. We should be incredibly generous. We should be incredibly generous. And we should be incredibly generous and also wise about where we give money.

Let me give a couple examples of here. There are people who give money and that are generous. By the way, as a whole, when you look at the studies, the groups of people that are the most generous at giving money are people that are religious. It's Jews and Christians. They give more money. There is a study done. I want to say it's a Gallup or Pew research that I read that went through and said people that are religious are, they give more. They donate more to charities and people in need.

Okay. So going back to this, though, if you're a person and you have, you, you've, you've brought in money. And then you say, you know what, I'm going to give money to just this person here and this person here or this, this university over here or this school I went to and you give money there. Listen, I think that's good to be generous. But do I think it's the best? Not necessarily. Here's why. When you give money, you want to make sure it's going towards.

someone that's truly in need and it's going to bless somebody and not hurt them. And so one of the things I always appreciate, for instance, is, you know, I have a, there's a friend I have, several friends actually who do this. A couple of them are North Carolina. And they tend to, they'll give money sometimes to the homeless, but more often that they will actually take them, sit down with them for a meal, have a conversation with them to make sure that when they're giving them money, it's not going and getting spent on drugs and alcohol. Now listen, sometimes I think it's great just to give money. Chelsea and I, when we were in Nashville and there are people by the road, like we really try and give almost every time. But I think it's an even greater form of virtue

and charity if you can actually go and give food and give something you know will actually bring health to them and bless their life in that way. Think about today, if you give to a lot of universities, if you would go and give to a school, let's say, I don't know, an Ivy League school today. nearly every Ivy League school today is promoting a agenda that is very anti-God. What's crazy is, by the way, the Ivy League's, most of them, were very Judeo-Christian or Christian organizations. Harvard, for instance, Princeton, Yale. I mean, these were founded by Christian people that were supposed to be building Christian virtues. Well, today, they've absolutely turned their back and gone in the exact opposite direction.

My point is this, do you think if you're giving to a group or organization, organization. Let's say a group of Satanus. I don't know. I'm just kind of going very far out there now, right, to purr to prove my point. But if you're giving to that, do you think it's going to be the same sort of blessing in return? No, again, I think there are supernatural and spiritual principles we need to be aware of. So my point here is when you give, do your best to give to give to something that you know is going to be doing good in the world. Give to your local church. Give to an organization that's saving women from sex trafficking. Give to an organization that's, it's bringing clean water. Give to an organization that it gives microloans so people in certain areas

of the world who can't get those can and can start businesses in those countries. Give to regenerative agriculture, something that heals the planet. But my point there is give to something that does good in the world, not evil. So remember, as God says here, test me in this. It's the only place he says, he says test me. He will open the floodgates of heaven of blessing. And for me, I want to challenge you focus on if you want to build wealth give 10% or more give that be dedicated to doing that and i don't think i think you'll be amazed at what happens now i want to go through uh with go through an interview i did with dave ramsey and dave has a lot of incredibly successful financials by the way i think dave and i see pretty close to eye on eye on almost everything financial i think

there's a few areas where i probably am a little bit more i would say liberal in my ideas and my around taking out some loans for business for people that have high skill and potential high wealth. I think that credit card debt should be stayed away from. I think Dave's belief is pretty much cash for everything. And by the way, I think that Dave might be more right than I am on this. I do believe, though, that if you're in a position to where, let's say you're starting a small business, okay, and you want to take a loan and you have a really good business plan and it's low debt. The interest rates are low. I think there's a time and a place to take advantage of low interest rates in order to scale your business. And so that's, but outside of that, Dave and I are

aligned very, very closely on everything. In fact, I followed Dave's advice and I paid off my student loans in three years when I was coming out of getting my health medical degree, my chiropractic degree, getting those degrees. Like, I paid it off in three years, which I don't know, I don't know anyone else who, at least I graduated with who did that, but for me, it was because I listened to Dave's steps. So here's Dave's five steps to building wealth. Number one, live on less than you make. Okay, you know, thank you, Captain obvious, but most people don't do that. Okay. So live on less than you make. Be aware of what you're bringing in and what's going out. And so that's number one. Number two, have a detailed plan in a budget. By the way, you need to do this with everything in

life have a detailed plan, okay, and then have a budget laid out. That's principle number two. Principle number three, get out of debt. If you're in debt, pay off that credit card debt, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, there is over $1 trillion in credit card debt in $203. In the average household credit card debt is $8,000. Okay, most people are $8,000 in the hole in their credit card debt. can see here on this charge is how it's continued to just climb, especially spike in the last few years, an absolute hockey stick spike on the amount of debt we're seeing there. Number four, Dave Ramsey's advice is save money. You want to aim to have about three months or so of an emergency

fund. If something goes wrong, you get laid off at your job, you have three months of savings. And number five, be generous. He says, give and it will be given to you. So this is Luke 638. given it will be given to you, a good measure pressed down, shaking together, running over, it will be poured into your lap. For the measure you use, it will be measured to you. So think about this. So the way this works in ancient times is if you would go to your local farmer's market, okay, your market, you would go and get grain, okay? And so they would pour rice. You'd carry a bag. They'd pour rice in there. Now, what he's saying here is that sometimes what they would do, some of these vendors, is you would go there and they would make sure that

sure your bag was full to where it was pressed down. So they would press it down. And you'd get another five, six, ten meals out of it because they would take that rice and they would press it down and fill it again and press it down and again to where it was overflowing. And so that's what God says here. He says, listen, if you're generous, he said, I'm going to fill your bag so full of wealth and prosperity and blessings in life that it's going to, I'm going to press it down to you more and more and more to where it's overflowing. And so, That's the idea around generosity in that principle. And again, I don't think generosity in this idea of sewing and reaping.

I don't think it's just a metaphorical idea. I think it is a principle like gravity. Gravity holds us down every single day. And generosity, if you are generous, it is going to come back to you in some way. And if you're doing it for the right reasons, if you're doing it. And sometimes I'm right for not even for the right reasons probably, But if you're just doing it and being generous, it will come back to you. And this is a constant reminder we should be adding value to others.

So I want to give some personal insights into building wealth here. And so this is personally for me. So I've been going through Dave Ramsey. We've talked about Mark Cuban, Warren Buffett, a lot of others. A lot of this, and some of that's been for me, but this is going to be even more directly from me now. The first thing you have to do if you want to build wealth is you have to have the right mindset about money.

I started off talking about this. You've got to know this. By the way, I saw this a lot in people of faith. I remember being at church once. And I didn't go to a church. There were like a lot of wealthy people went to when I was really young. And I remember these people's basically this conversation. By the way, I had family members like this too.

I remember no Thanksgiving where some of my family members extended that that really came from, they did not have much money. And they looked at some people who had money. And they basically kept saying that essentially insinuated that those people just had money because they were evil. and they were taking advantage of people and a number of things. And I thought, you know, at the time, I thought, well, I don't think that's true. But a lot of people do think that's true. A lot of times people think that people that are wealthy got it because they were evil. And my mindset has always been, no, people that have wealth.

Now, listen, some people that might be true. But most people, they were able to build wealth because they were taught. It was because of a good character quality. It was out of character. It was they worked hard. They had good work ethic. And they put their time in and they did things to build wealth. And so I think your mindset about money, whether you have a poverty mindset, if you're one of those people looks at people that have money and you try not, like, by the way, this out, you'll know people like this where they'll try and say, oh, well, that person gave it to me.

Or they're trying to make excuses of why they have a nice car or why they have a nice home or why they have money. And that's really, that stems from a poverty mindset versus versus if you have. wealth and somebody says something about hey nice car thank you god bless you know like like i'm blessed because i'm really blessed to drive that car right uh i'm in a really blessed position in life right and so i think i think that when you think about your mindset listen if you have this mindset that making money is evil you will not be able to make money and you won't be able to pass it on your kids here's my mindset the more money that i bring in the more that i get to give the others the more i get to impact the world, the more that I get to do good, the more kids I get to feed that are orphans

that are hungry in third world countries. That's my mindset about money, is that I am simply a vessel that money flows through. I know my purpose is not to accumulate wealth. My purpose is to take that money that comes in and use it for the greatest good in the world. Now, I do believe that God as a child of God, like God wants me to be blessed and enjoy finances. He wants me to eat good food. like buying organic food we do that in our house like he wants us to go on vacations and have fun and make sure our kids get a virtuous education so i think god wants all of that i don't think he wants us to though just essentially keep accumulating thing after thing after a thing and by the biggest home we possibly can in order to look great or whatever it might be so all that being said i think you

want to make sure if you have a poverty mindset and it could be well money doesn't grow on trees or there's only so many pieces of the pie or people that have to have you have a lot of money. They took advantage of others and they're somehow evil. If you have any of those beliefs, you are totally sabotaging your idea or you're totally sabotaging your future success in making money. So build a more wealth-building mindset. Here's how I try and think about mindset. What is the person that does the greatest good with money? What do they believe? Okay. So I think back to like the Bible, if you read about someone like Abraham and what he did, Abraham used his wealth, he saw himself as this vessel that money flowed through in order to

bless other people. And God, by the way, says that, if you go back to the Old Testament, he says, Abraham, I will bless you so you can bless others. That should be our mindset. We're blessed. We bring wealth in order we can make others wealthier. We can help meet the needs of others. So that's the mindset you want to have. By the way, you can be wealthy, incredibly wealthy and make $40,000 a year. You can be incredibly wealthy making that much a year. My family growing up, that's about what we made. We were incredibly wealthy. We had everything. we would ever need, everything we'd ever need, okay? Not to say you can't want more and bring in more. You absolutely can. But no, you can actually be wealthy and debt-free and eating good and doing things.

You know, I want to say there was an article I read. And basically, it's around that $75,000 a year. If somebody a household made about $75,000 a year, going up a lot from there did not make this radical difference in their lifestyle. They're actually a level of happiness and fulfillment and a number of things. And so know that there is actually a number to a degree that you want to try and get up to. But still, and by the way, there are examples of people that made nothing. St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, many others who lived, who they actually said they married lady poverty. Okay. And they were some of the most joyful, happy people ever.

And so sometimes the more things you have, the more stress you have. And so it's important to understand. And here's what I would go back to. Go back and think about what do you want in life? Be really, really real. What will really make you happy? It's going to be having great faith, great family, great health, okay? Those things.

And if you have those, you're going to be happy. Okay, so figure out what's the dollar amount. What are the things you want to do in life? And then go after those things. You know, I went from a broke college student to a multimillionaire myself. And I did it because I was able to build five, multi-million dollar businesses. Okay. You know, I built acts wellness. I built a clinic, functional medicine clinic that did that. I built a company called ancient nutrition. I've got two

others now that I've been able to build. And so I just share that with you to say that, and by the way, I never did any of this to make money. I did it because my mom was diagnosed with cancer and I wanted to help people not have cancer. That like that, that was my motive. And now it's, I want to help people become better leaders and grow personally because I believe the world today. There's so many people that are lacking ethics and morals and values and leadership. That's why I started leaders.com. It's why I started this podcast. So for me, that's not making about money at all. That just naturally flows in for me so I can pass it on to other people. But again, like, that's the mindset you want to have about all of this. All right, a few more personal insights. Here's a mindset I have about money.

If I lose it all today, it's okay. I'll make it all back tomorrow. You know, I've lost one. I've had businesses is failed. Chelsea and I were in a position nine years ago. I want to say this was 2014 or so. And here's what happened. I sold my business partner bought my clinic. And I got paid for that. And then I took all the money we had to live off of while I went on a new venture. This is a business I did with Jordan Rubin. It was a company where we were shipping grass-fed beef across the country and this fermented dairy project in Calchitz. We started a food company. A lot of people don't know this. And so I took all my money, put it in that business, invested it, and paid off the rest of, like we had a student loan that we had and just some other things and live off of.

Well, Chios and I got the point where this business failed. And so we ended up nine years ago having no money in the bank. In fact, we weren't going to be able to pay our bills the next month. This wasn't that long ago. It was nine years ago. And Chelsea and the first thing we did is we got down, we prayed, we talked about it, we said, hey, let's not worry about this. Like at the very worst, we'll live with her parents.

I mean, you know, that's the worst that could happen. And we love her parents. So anyways, we said, okay, well, let's just create a plan. And I prayed about it. I thought about it. I talked to a lot of friends, my wise, you know, wise friends. And they said, hey, you know, what you can make money doing courses online. And I thought, okay, well, I'd love to do that because I've been wanting to help people

heal from leaky gut and detoxing and, you know, a number of courses I wanted to do. And so I created this course, launched it online. And, you know, three months later, boom, it took off. And I was able to, that was, that was one of the big boosts for building Dr. Axecom. Number of things. My whole point is, is I'm not worried about it because I've been able to build a skill that brings a lot of value to other people. And so I know that if I just go back to adding value to people, that it will come back. And I know the principle of sewing and reaping. As long as I just keep sowing seeds, I'm going to reap a harvest. As long as I'm generous as well, by the way, even when Chelsea and I had no money to our name, we still were giving to people in need because we believe so strongly that principle that it

will come back. Okay. I think most people are so afraid to lose it all. Lose a parable of the talents is a great example of that, that a lot of times we bury our talents. And I want to encourage you, if you're one of those people and you've wanted to write the book and you haven't wrote it. You know that you need a career change. You're in a job you're miserable in and there's something else. Maybe you'll make less at the start, but you can make more long term and it's using your gifts, but you haven't done it because you're sort of fearful about what can happen. Take the leap.

I give you another example of this. I have a family member who makes really good money right now, but he found out. Now, if he becomes a nurse practitioner and can start his own business, he'll make more. Now, he'll probably lose a couple hundred thousand dollars his first couple years, okay, because he has to go back to school for about two years and then doesn't work for really two years, but then he'll get started again. But we actually did the math where, okay, he won't make as much money basically for the first eight years, but eight years he breaks.

He would have made what he would. of. And then after 10 years, he makes so much more. So he's in his 30s. And so it's like, wow, by the time you're 60s, this is worth it. So sometimes you just need to think about, rather than thinking about the next six months, think about, okay, 10 years from now, where do you want to be in life? Think about your future self. And that's how you make the best financial decisions. So much of it is this. Think about it like this. Have you ever gone out with some friends and, you know, and you have the opportunity where you could just drink a lot of alcohol? Okay. But you know you've got something important the next day.

If you're a very wise person, you're not going to overdrink. Maybe you're going to sip on a little bit of wine or whatever it is and have one glass or maybe nothing. But you're prepared for the next day. Think about it like this. A lot of people are drinking themselves into oblivion every single day, not thinking about tomorrow. It's the same thing. If you're spending your money on meaningless things, if you're spending your, if you're just wasting your time, you're both your month time and money and talents, all of those things,

then tomorrow you're going to wake up with, with a big hangover versus no, you know what? You're going to use all those things wisely. You're going to wake up and you're going to have the great health. You're going to feel fantastic. Your life is going to be good. So don't think about today as much as you think about tomorrow and where you're trying to get yourself five years from now, 10 years from now.

All right. So I want to tell you a very personal story that has to do with this idea of giving. And I had two people. One was a mentor and one was more of an acquaintance. The acquaintance, it was really random. It was about the same time period. And he asked me, he said, hey, how much you're going to give? And I think he asked me this because he knew I was a person of, faith was very important to me, is it very important to me. And so he asked me, hey, do you plan on tithing and giving? I said, yeah. I said, I'll give 10%. And he said, you know, I don't know that I would do that. He said, your first few years of business, it's really hard. You really want to

save everything you can, put it back into the business. And I just said, well, I don't think I'm going to do that. And by the way, later on, I want to say this, I found out he had an affair with somebody 20 years younger with him as assistant. So just as proof, not good character. I had a mentor I had great respect for. I still love him today. His name was Ben. And I went to Ben, Dr. Ben, and I said, hey, hey, Dr. Ben, I was wondering, how much should I be tithing and giving a month? And by the way, I was asking him is more of an analytical question because I was wondering, do I give it off of profit? or Topline. It was a little bit more specific on how much is 10%? 10% of what when you're an entrepreneur? And his response to me was, I thought he was going to say, well, 10% of this or 20 or whatever percent of this. Here's what he said to me. He said, I don't know, Josh. Do you want to be blessed a lot or a little? And I was like, well, it was such a good mindset for me because the thing is like, I want to give out of abundance of my heart. I do think a number is important. I think it's important to have this. But I think it's more than just giving as a number.

I think it's a, I want to give because I want to give. There's something that Maimonides, he is known as probably the greatest Jewish sage and teacher of the last probably 2,000 years. And he has what's called his ladder of charity. We're going to put a graphic up here so you can see this ladder of charity. It's really amazing. And I put one in my book, Think This, Not That is an example of this. And basically it shows these levels of generosity. and the most generous thing you can do is is actually mentoring another person, by the way,

teaching them how to build wealth, not just giving them money, but actually teaching them how to make money for themselves. So by the way, Maimonides, if you want to know who he is, have you ever heard the saying, if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Okay, that's Maimonides. And so he created this charity ladder. And this is something that I'm very aware of in terms of what's the most

or thing I can do. And I think this principle lies on there. There should be a number that's the minimum threshold that we want to give. But we also should not just try and keep that as the minimum. We should also be looking at other ways to bless people, to give people a need. And it should be, it should be a fixed kind of ordered giving, but also flexible and balance where you can actually also give more of yourself and your wealth to others. You know, I've heard of people that have done a reverse tithe where they got to the point in their life maybe later on in their 60s and 70s and 80s where they said, I'm going to not give 10%. I'm going to give 90% because I've just been so blessed with where I am in my life. By the way, that's one of my goals. I would love to be able to get to my

life later on and be able to do a reverse tithe in that way. Talk about a great goal, a long-term goal to have. And so anyways, I would question you that if you ask me, hey, how much should you tie? How much should you give? How generous should you believe? Well, how blessed you want to be? Listen, the more seed you sow, the more of a harvest you will reap. Remember that principle. I do want to get into numbers here. And a lot of this is me sharing exactly what I've been able to do to create a lot of financial freedom. And so the first thing I do is I do give 10%. So I prioritize where I put my money. And the first 10% I give to church, I give to ministries. I give to those organizations. So Chelsea and I take 10% and give that to God.

The next 10% we have come in of my paycheck, of my businesses, is we invest that. Now, that can go first off towards paying off debt if you're in debt. And then after that, it can go towards savings, stock market. It could be real estate. It could be your own personal growth and development. It could be into your own small business, a side business, college fund, whatever it is. but I would have your first 10% go to God, your next 10% go towards something for the future, something that 10, 20 years from now, but investing in something.

And then I would take the next percent and be aware of taxes, right? What are you going to have to pay in taxes? And so let's say, like my tax bracket tends to be 30-ish, right? So let's say I give 10%, save 10%, 30% is going towards taxes. and then we'd have 50% to live off of. Now, I try and actually have more later on where I actually invest even more than that, but let's say you do 10, 10, 30,

and then the other 50%. So just be aware of that, hey, I'm going to live off 50%. Maybe 20% or 25% of what you're paying down in your home mortgage, right? And then you write down, well, how much food? Well, how about vacations during the year? You need to go through this process of planning and being aware.

So important. Okay. Here's another thing I want to mention that I think is really important for you to grasp a hold of. And that is invest in yourself. One of the greatest things you could ever do is invest in your own health and investing in your own wisdom and knowledge in your career. Like I am always buying books, Audible.com, reading books, watching things in order to learn and grow, spending money to go to conferences or mastermind group or something. And so that's my next piece of advice is, you know, invest in. yourself as much as you can.

The next thing you should invest in is your business. By the way, I had these mentors I told you about incredibly wealthy. These are things, some of them they passed on to me. So give to God, give to your future, your kids, your savings, those things. Then invest in yourself and invest in your business. Those are four things you always want to continually invest in. And then of course, there's living expenses and taxes with those. But write it down, become aware of it, have those goals start moving forward towards

those. Here's what I recommend. Take smart risks, not big risks. Okay. You know, smart risks are, example, my brother-in-law realizes that he can make more money if he goes back to school, becomes a nurse practitioner, has more freedom, all those things. It's a risk, but it's a smart risk that he has sat down and calculated. As the Bible says, count your costs, right? Count those costs. Be aware, you know, figure, be aware of that in the future. You know, I see this happen a lot. I know so many, I know a lot of doctors in functional medicine and chiropractors and medical doctors that have done this. They'll have people come to them, especially when they're early in practice and they'll say, hey, I just heard about this amazing deal where if you invest in this building,

you're going to make 10 times back your money in six months. You want to go in with me? And the doctors will do it. I know so many who have totally lost their shorts and T-shirts and everything else because they just believe this random person who doesn't have money either. and just gave them all their money to invest. That's not smart. So take smart risks, not big risk.

The smart risks are typically things you know intimately and you're involved in. For myself, and by the way, this is advice I heard from Shaquille O'Neal, who's built a lot of wealth for himself. He says, only invest in things you personally know about. So like right now, I'm not going to go and invest in a cryptocurrency company. Okay. I don't know enough about it. I'm going to and go and invest in health companies or online digital companies because I know a lot about that.

Like I personally invested in Oro Ring because I love their product. I've obviously an investor in businesses I've built like ancient nutrition. I'm invested in this food company called Rhine that does these healthy snacks. I'm invested in this baby food company called Food Nerd, which I love that's going to do like freeze dry, like the healthiest, you know, baby food ever. So anyways, like for myself, like I invest. invest in things that I know a lot about and that I can even help support the company. I also invest in real estate because I really know and understand that my in-laws used to flip

houses. They flipped like 10 in their lifetime so my wife gets that. So we'll invest in real estate. So know this. Invest in things that you know and understand or can learn about yourself while you're doing it. Okay. Here's my other piece of advice. Always have two businesses. one business or career where you're bringing in the money, your second that's multiplying your money. A lot of times people just put money in their bank and their savings. And that may appreciate 2% a year. That's not enough.

You want something to appreciate a lot more than that. Now, the easiest thing to do is invest it in with a good investing firm, like the S&P 500 in the stock market. If you invested, I think, in the S&P 500, the stock market, on average, it's increased 9.4% a year. that's nearly 10% every single year. So that's a way of doing that. Or for yourself, it might be in real estate,

or it might be in starting another company, but no, there should always be two ways you're making money. Your main business and you're multiplying business on the back end. That's how almost everybody builds the largest amount of wealth. And if you don't have that back end, if you're just putting in savings or you're taking a big risk and losing it all, it's really, really hard to build maximum wealth. way. And here's another piece of advice. Don't invest in the short term, invest in the long term.

Warren Buffett says, you know, put it in the, put it in the stock market and then don't look at it for 20 years. Okay. You know, it, you know, whether it's Bridgewater or or or, or, um, Berkshire Hathaway or somebody who really knows what they're doing. You're investing in those like, you know, Kathy Wood with Arc, but investing in those sort of places, you're going to tend to get a better return. But pulling it in and out constantly isn't a is, isn't a, is it good. to do. You know, I told my brother when there was the last stock market big dip during COVID, I said, hey, do you have any money saved up? He said, yeah, actually, I do. And he was just kind of saving it. I was sitting there in the bank. I said, hey, now is the time to invest. Because Warren

Buffett says, when there's blood in the water, when everyone is running and jumping out of the stock market, that's when you invest. And my brother did. And he was over for Christmas this year. And he said, Josh, I just want to say, thank you. Like, he's like, I literally, in a few months, doubled. my savings because I went in when the market was low. He said it wasn't the bottom, but it was low. And then now it's, you know, it's now it's bounced back two years later in a crazy way. So all that being said, I want to encourage you, invest for the long term. Don't be pulling it in and now. That's the way you want to do it. Really be thinking about the long term. Here's a few other principles, Warren Buffett Sheriff. He says, one, focus on quality companies

with a proven track record of success. Number two, diversify. your portfolio if you're investing in the stock market. Number three, be willing to be different. Don't base your decisions on what everyone else is saying or doing. For instance, like Warren Buffett, most everybody will just say, I'm going to put my money in, I don't know, Tesla or, you know, or Amazon or Apple, right? So that's where a lot of people are putting their money. But he's looking at companies like waste removal companies and some sort of farming company and something else. And so really look at those companies that aren't popular with, with, you know, with the end crowd. Number four, he says, be patient. Just be patient. Don't take, don't, don't live in that fight or flight

stay. Just be patient. Listen, they're always ups and downs. Every time there's been a down, there's been an up. So you just have to ride the wave. Number five, reinvest your profits. Every time you have profits, reinvest those back over time. And Warren Buffett's been one of the top 10 wealthiest people in the world, helped other people become incredibly wealthy. And so he's a good person elicit to on investing. I want to show you the power of compounding interest here. And this is something that I learned about and it just blew my mind when I started understanding it. And it basically is this, is that if you invest a small amount each year or even say a moderate amount each year, what it turns into over 30 years is not added, it's multiplied. And I mentioned this

earlier, the stock market has returned on average 9.4% a year over the past 50 years. And if you invested, now listen, for some of you, this is a very high number. For others of you, you might be in a position where you're able to do this. But if you were able to invest $2,000 a month every month, now let me say this. Maybe your first, now this is over 30 years. So let's say your first five years, you can invest $500 a month. And then the next five years, it was $1,000. And then $1,500,000, and then $2,000, and then $2,000. So let's say it's more, it works that way, okay?

But you're able to, over time, start investing, but let's say an average of $2,000 a month at a 9.4% rate of return. And that will turn into $4 million over 30 years. So if you could save about $2,000 a month, you'll have four million dollars now listen if you actually so so if you were let's say you start doing this when you are 30 okay and you get to 60 four million dollars now let's say you can only do a thousand let's say you can do a thousand a month if you started when you were younger like when you were 25 let's say you add 10 years 45 it's probably close to that too if you added another 10 years of

compounding interest all that being said um money compounds and so listen if you let's say you're in a position and you can just you can do a hundred dollars a month do it do it because you might also here's how this also works let's say for instance you know you you also have um you know you get money somewhere else at some point in your life somehow maybe your inheritance or something like that then you put that in the market at the right time then that starts to um multiply but my point here is is that again embrace understand the power of compounding interest even if you can only put $100 away a month, start doing it because it will add up over time. You'll be so grateful you did. I want to give you an example of some of a couple who I've been so impressed with are friends of

mine, and they have been able to multiply their income by flipping homes. Now, they live in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and they were aware that a lot of people come into town for Alabama football games. And so they run out their homes on Airbnb and VRBO and that sort of thing, those sort of sites. And what they try and do now is they try and buy one home a year. And now they have eight homes. And so when they typically buy the homes, they buy them for around $200,000. And they will put anywhere from 10% down to 20% down. Okay.

They pay for now, now for them, they paid them in cash. Okay. But I know a lot of people who do this and they'll put about, you know, 10 to 20% down. And then what they'll do is they'll flip them or rent them. But if they rent them, some of the homes make them about $20,000 a year. Others make them about $50,000. a year. But right now, they're making and keeping $200,000 a year. So they own about, you know, let's call their portfolio. You know, when they bought them, it was about $1.2 million now because

the market has continued to appreciate those homes are worth about, they went from $200,000 in value to about $300,000 each in value. So now their homes are worth about, I want to say $1.8 million. So they made about $600,000. No, I'm sorry. They made $800,000 just on the value of the homes. And they're making $200,000 a year. And real estate has all of these tax advantages. So if you want to know a good way to really start bringing money,

I mean, investing in a rental property that you can, here's the key with buying rental properties or flipping. You want to buy deals that are low. you know, don't just buy a house that's great or try and say, well, okay, you know, we got an okay deal. You want to really try, you want to be patient with this, even if you have to wait a year, but like wait until there's a really good deal on something. And so, you know, that you can go in, you can flip, you can fix up a little bit, do some, those sort of cosmetic things and it's worth more than you could rent it out. And if the market appreciates, but this is a really good way here.

And think about this, they make $200,000 a year. They could both just stop working. Now they both work, and now they have this coming in so they can continue to scale this up. But this is a really good business model for some people. And my in-laws, something similar, they've been able to buy homes, flip them, sell them, and starting new businesses in this way as well. In closing, here are a few wealth-building things I also want to mention. Number one, this is in review. Number one, have the right mindset about money.

Remember, if you have limiting beliefs, you believe that money doesn't grow on trees and that, you know, people that have money are evil, it is going to keep you from making money. You need to believe that there is an abundance out there that everybody can have more than they need. You have a mindset of you reap what you sow, that you should always be sewing. You should have a mindset of, listen, I also want to say this,

money is not the most important thing in the world. I've obviously talked about building wealth. I think it's an important thing for many people to try and do. But I think when I think about Jesus in the Bible, he says, do not store up treasures for your, yourself on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves breaking and steal he says store it for yourself treasures in heaven and so for me more than anything I want to encourage you have the mindset that you are storing up treasures in heaven by loving others helping grow in your own character

you know making earth the heavenly place and using money for those things okay and so so that's how you want to think about money have the right mindset about money that's number one number two an income-producing skill. So spend time. Think about right down, what are your top three gifts and talents? Like, I'll share. Like, if I were doing it, I would say, okay, I have a certain level of leadership ability in order to sort of both nourish but inspire others.

I'm really strategic. So I can really see the big picture of how things work and map out sort of a war plan or a plan in order to create something long-term, ability to communicate, maybe a, maybe a skill related to health and helping people improve their health or grow personally. So, but I want you to do the same, right? Three to five skills down that you have. And I want you to think about a way to increase that skill in order to increase your value to an organization where you can make more money, okay?

And do everything you can to improve that skill set. Example, if you, if you work for a company and you do social media for the company, you should be studying all of the best accounts. You should be working on your ability to edit. You should go and, you should go and, you know, work on driving people towards an email list. I mean, you should obsessively study the best of the best and help get that account, like, get better and better and better. So that's tip number, number one, have the right mindset. Number two, take your income producing skill as high as you possibly can.

Number three, spend time with and learn from others of higher net worth. I remember Tony Robbins years ago, he was sharing that he was a millionaire, but he wanted to eventually become worth $100 million. And he asked a friend of his who was incredibly wealthy, and he said, hey, I feel like I'm at a plateau where I've made a lot of money, but I'm kind of hitting a ceiling and I'm not making anymore. And he said, well, who are you hanging out with? And Tony said, well, I was surprised by the question because I thought that there were other

things more important than you hung out with and how to make money. but he said, you know what? He said, that's the thing. I am hanging out with a lot of millionaires already. And he said, that's your problem, Tony. You need to be hanging out with billionaires. And so Dave Ramsey shared this when I interviewed him. They did a study and they found that your average net income becomes that of the 10 people

you spend the most time with within 15% of that, I believe is what Dave said. So when you're thinking about your own net worth and how much money you make, if you start hanging out with other people, you'll see they think. differently. I do this with entrepreneurs. When I hang out with Jordan Rubin and some other successful entrepreneurs that I love running around with, you know, whether it be Donald Miller or Michael Hyatt or Amy Porterfield or others, it's like, oh, wow, like sparks go off. I realize, like, I will start becoming more successful because I spend time with them. So spend time and learn from others with net worth. Take them out to lunch. Hey, can I just learn from you how I can be better with

my money or how I can increase my skill? But that's step number three. Number four, invest in things you know about don't just invest to invest invest in things you love now the stock market is a little different but outside of that for the most part number five invest when the market is low and sell when it's high and your goal should not be to just accumulate wealth your goal should be to add value to others to make the world the best place possible all right i want to close here by answering a few of your questions on the topics of of wealth and listen if you want your questions answers in the future. Hey, make sure to follow me on me on Instagram. It's at Dr. Joshax. So if you just search DR, JOS, H, A, C. We post our Q&A's there. And you're going to start

hearing a lot of Q&As on the podcast here. So here are three questions that came in. Number one question is, what's the first step to changing your mindset from a scarcity to abundance mindset? I think the first thing to change is your view of God. I think if you you believe that God is generous and he gives abundantly, I think that's important versus if God is sort of like, hey, hey, listen, I created this world, you're left to your own devices, and there's only so much. So I would say that's an important mindset. And let me say this as well. Like, did you, like, here's something I'm aware of. If you, if right now, if we had, let's say one state in America. If we practice regenerative agriculture and did it the right way for seven years,

and we all invest in that, that one state would feed every other state in the United States and maybe even the entire planet. So it actually doesn't take much. Like we've only tapped the limit, the smallest potential of what we can do for experiencing abundance. And so I would say the first step to change you. And here's the other thing is read books about abundance. Just read them over and over and over again about the abundance mindset. I know there's some good ones out there. I think Tony Robbins has a good book on the money game, something like that. But I think, I think, you know, reading that book, but I would read books about sort of an abundant mindset. And I think if you're able to just regularly read those and sort of view God as who he really is and his goodness, I think those will help

you overcome that scarcity mindset. Number two, How can someone change their money habits if they grew up in debt? You know, I think the first thing is becoming aware, understanding you have bad habits, writing down what those are and writing down what your new habit should be. Okay, so I think starting with that budget and plan, writing down, okay, here's where I've been spending my money. I've been getting in debt, writing down the new things. Now, here's another big one. Change who you're hanging out with.

The reason why you have those bad money habits is because your parents probably have those bad money habits. and those people that you started running around with early in life have those bad money habits. Start hanging around other people that are wise with their debt, that are savers, that are investors, those sort of things. So change the crew. You run out with them telling you that will make a really big difference. The other thing is, as I mentioned,

write down your budget and a plan, write down those new habits and have your money go first. Have an auto withdrawal from your account that immediately goes to paying debt down so you don't spend it. Okay, so it's not even there to spend. So those are some things I think will help. Number three, what advice do you have for talking to kids about money?

You know, when it comes to kids, I think that one, the first thing you want to impact is their heart. Okay. And so I think you want to build within them a heart that is kind and generous. And so I'll give me an example of what we would do with our, what we'll do with our daughter, Arwin. But we may, if she does certain chores around the house or does certain things, maybe we give her money. Well, we will have a number of that money. And there probably are going to be chores that she doesn't get paid for. Those are just the chores you have to do to, you know, as part of this family, we all pull our normal way.

But maybe there are extra things she can do. For instance, I have a dad I know and his kids now read. And so for all the extra books they read on top of what they already have to, because he wants his kids to be leased. because leaders are readers. And so he pays them for reading all of these extra books and going through courses and learning and growing. And so I'll probably give her money for that, but also her knowing the first 10% or so we've got to give

to other kids in need. And so we'll probably do something that she can really see and experience and maybe visit one day on a mission trip, something like that. But all that being said, I think really tapping to your kids heart to where they know, listen, the first money goes to God, the first money we have. The next money it goes towards, you know, investing in yourself. And so if she has a whole, you know, like, for instance, if Arwin gets a dollar, you know, or let's use $10 as an example,

$1 will put and we'll put it in the church offering, okay, or we'll give it to a ministry of some sort where she sees she's helping these other kids. The next dollar will go towards something that helps her grow, you know, maybe it's a book. You know, I know Dave Ramsey and some other people have some great books on how to raise generous kids. I want to say, hey, thanks so much for tuning in today. Remember, each week I dive into these principles of purpose and how to pursue growth. Make sure to subscribe, like, and share, and I'll see you on the next episode. And if you like this episode, you're going to love my interview with Dave Ramsey,

where we discuss how critical your core crew is to your success, living a principle of life, and how to build a greater level of wealth. Dave shares also his five secrets of financial freedom. Check it out here right now.