The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 355: Ramit Sethi - How To Live A Rich Life

Episode Date: March 8, 2020

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Text LEARNERS to 44222 Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com The Learning Leader Academy: http://bit.ly/thelearningleaderacademy Episode #355: Ramit Sethi - How To Live A Rich Life Notes: Ramit's book buying rule - If you are even thinking about buying the book, don't deliberate, just buy it.  You could invest $17 and it could change your life.  Even one idea makes it worth it. Excellence - "Consistently do the work." Put it on the calendar Seek out people who are successful and then ask them for advice In motion - Refuse to be stuck or paralyzed -- Take action "Show me your spending and your calendar and I'll show you your priorities." What are the 3-4 most important things in your life? Does your spending and your calendar reflect that? Ramit starting learning how money worked while he was in college at Stanford... "The basic, boring truth. Consistency..." Starting your blog can be your experimental laboratory What is the future of online courses? Online learning will continue to grow -- "Great leaders are always learning." You should join The Learning Leader Academy The trajectory of hiring as you're growing a business: Part time assistant --> Researcher --> Full time What do you look for when choosing who to add to your team? Excellent at the task of doing the work Curious - They ask great questions Likable - They are someone you want to spend time with Start your business on the side: It's practical... Going from zero to 1 is very hard: Start this part while you have a job and don't need the money from your new endeavor The psychology of pricing:  There is a profound difference in customers who get it for free vs. those who pay for it You need to create "skin in the game."  People value it more if they have a financial stake in it. "In business, you're not looking for the most people, you're looking for the right people." "If you're a cheapskate, you'll attract cheapskates." The power of mentors: They can be massively helpful, but you need to do the work to be a valuable mentee.  Show up to your meetings prepared and with a purpose.  Don't wander through life. Atul Gawande - A coach in the operating room -- EVERYONE needs a coach. Automate your finances - It's the crown jewel.  Set up your system so you don't need to think about it after it's created. Create auto saving behaviors "People are so busy asking $3 questions instead of $30K questions." "How do I use my money to live a rich life?" "What does rich mean to you?"

Great leaders are always learning whether it's a $5,000 course or a $10 book or taking somebody out to lunch. And if you want to, say, start a business or change the trajectory of your career, there are massive opportunities out there. But nobody's going to hand it to you on a silver platter. You've got to be the one going out there and saying, this is what I want. Now, how can I go after it and get it? Over the past nine months, I've been developing a new online learning tool called the Learning Leader Academy. It's been carefully designed to help you become a more effective leader. The content is a combination of what I've learned for the past five years' worth of conversations with more than 350 of the world's most effective leaders,

as well as lessons learned from my own experience leading teams. With that said, the content will not be the best part. We are building an online community of learning leaders who will have access to the following. The initial 30 lessons, I sat side by side with my dad, my greatest mentor in my life, and we spoke through 30 different leadership topics. In addition to seeing all of those videos, you will receive a playbook, a manual to take what you've learned via the videos and put it into action. Additionally, we'll have live calls on Zoom

with me and other members of the Academy. There'll also be a private forum for members only for you to discuss the challenges of your personal leadership journey with the other growth-oriented leaders to lean on for advice, feedback, and general conversation. And every once in a while, there will be a special live session via Zoom where I will bring on a guest,

a previous podcast guest that I've had on my show that you can speak to directly. The initial people who sign up for the first cohort will receive a number of benefits that later adopters will not get. For more details, go to ryanhawk.me. That's ryanhawk.mee and sign up today. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Brixie and Meyer.

I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4-4-2-2-2. In order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world, receive Mindful Monday updates. What I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Also give you more details about my book, Welcome to Management. Text, learners to 4-4-2-2.

Now, on a nice featured leader to the great Ramit Satie, New York Times, best-selling author, and founder of I Will Teach You to Be Rich.com. Over 1 million people per month read his material to learn how to use psychology and systems to live a rich life. A few of the topics we discussed. We went over Ramit's book buying rule, the story behind it, why he created it, and how it applies to you.

Then the future of online learning and why you should invest in programs. for your future. Then the psychology of pricing and how all of us, if we choose, can become a premium priced provider. And there are multiple meanings there. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Ramit Satie. All right. Welcome, Ramit Sati to the Learning Leader Show.

It's great to have you here, man. Great to be here. First of all, there is a rule that you've published. online multiple times that I absolutely love. And we're going to start here, which is different than normal, because I want everybody to get this rule. And this is called, and you may have borrowed it from somebody else, but I've read it as called Rameet's book buying rule.

Can you share with me and the listeners, what is Rameet's book buying rule? Rameets, that's my name, by the way. It's always good to name your own rules. Ramit's book buying rule says, if you are even thinking about buying a book, don't deliberate, just buy it. And it is that simple. Because to be able to get an author's years of work for $10 is the absolute best bargain you will ever find. And it is absolutely amazing how many people will deliberate and equivocate and agonize and say, is this book good? I heard it doesn't work if you're a left-handed person who lives south of the

equator. And it's like the most, the best possible thing you could do would be to simply buy it and apply one thing from that book. And if you do that consistently a few times a year, you're going to be far ahead of the other person who's stuck deliberating over book A or book B. That's the book buying. When did you like come up with that? In college, I had a scholarship that. that allowed me to buy any book I wanted, any book. In fact, I would go into the bookstore, and I had a separate area where I would check out

because it was all on a credit system. And the history of this was that I grew up in a big family, and my parents said, hey, if you want to go to college, that's great, but you have to get scholarships. And so I did, I built a system to apply to 65 of them. And one of the scholarships paid for all the books that I wanted. So I went into the bookstore, and it was like a kid in a candy store.

I would rather have free books than free candy. And so what I did was when I graduated, I said, I love that feeling so much of being able to walk in and pick any book on any topic that I liked that I'm going to replicate that for the rest of my life. And it turns out it's not even that expensive. It's one of the best gifts I ever gave myself. And then the second best gift was to share Rameet's book by Rule with the world so everyone could see the joy you can get from not worrying about a $10 purchase, but rather joyfully buying it. Just so you know, on the launch day of my book, which was January 28th, 2020, I usually like to make these episodes timeless, but that is a big date in my life since my first book came out on the 28th,

2020. And I wrote, remember, Remeet's book buying rule. I saw that. And congratulations. Did you? Oh, cool. Oh, yeah, of course. Thank you.

It was amazing to see it. And I know what it's like as an author that only another author can understand the work that you put in and the feeling of launching something like that to the world. So congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to talk about that with you in a second. So we're going to tease that. And we'll come back to writing books because your books have made an impact on my life for a while.

But, Rameet, the first question I typically ask all my guests, and I normally would if they didn't have this incredible rule that I live my life by. want others to live by, which is the book buying rule. But the typical question would be you have fancied yourself as, I should say that's the wrong way. You are a person who I think lives the life of excellence. And you've done a really good job of surrounding yourself with other people who do as well. And so when you think about the people in your life who sustain excellence over an extended period of time. What are a few of the commonalities among those people? They do the work consistently

and they put time for that consistency in their calendar. It's never a hope, it's never a wish, it's on the calendar. And they honor that. They don't simply commit to things knowing that in the back of their head there's a 50-50 chance they may or may not show up. It's very hard to earn its way onto an excellent person's calendar. But once it's there, it will be done. They actively seek out people who are more successful than them or who have different skill sets than them.

And they ask for advice. They put themselves in the position to be open, even though that person may be have less money or may not have written a book. And I would say finally, they are in motion. the excellent people that I know refuse to be stuck or paralyzed. And that's one of the reasons that I love the book buying rule. If you let a $10 purchase stop you,

you're never going to get to the $100,000 decisions. So those are three of the components I've seen with successful people. And I would say that they are fairly consistent across them. How about the part about actively seeking out people who are more successful than them or have different skill sets. How do you, you mentioned putting things on your calendar, and I would love to look at a couple weeks of your calendar. If we think about that specific activity,

what does Rameet's calendar look like as far as how you're regularly putting yourself next to people who are more successful than you or have skills that you don't have yet? Okay, that's a great question, because if you show me your spending and your calendar, I can tell you your priorities. And it used to be, show me a man's calendar, and you can see his priorities,

I would add into that spending because your spending also determines what you truly value. And to get that in alignment is a really rare thing. For everyone listening, let me ask you a couple of questions. What are three or four of the most important things in your life? I would almost be willing to bet some of the answers are family and relationships, travel, work, maybe health and wellness. And so then I would say, does your spending and does your calendar reflect that? And for most of us, the candid answer is no.

And actually, it should always be a journey. I don't believe that it's ever going to be perfect. In fact, I redo my calendar every six to 12 months because things have changed. Priorities have changed or I learned something new that I don't need to spend more time on. But just the journey of saying every six to 12 months, what are my priorities, what's actually important? And then let me get honest with myself. If I claim that family is important to me as one of my top four, how much money have I spent on that? How much time have I spent on that in the last week, the last month, the last quarter? So for me, I'll give you a couple of examples because I love your question, I think a calendar really reveals all. So I value fitness, and I also know that I can

learn from teachers who are much better than I can. So I have a trainer. You can see that roughly four times a week, I have that training session on my calendar. It's at the time of day that works well for me, and that is money and time that I'm happy to spend. Okay, so that's one. another example would be travel. So I recently got married and my wife and I decided that we wanted to take a long trip every single year. And so on my calendar at the back end of the year, we take a long trip and we spend the year planning it and really going through the beautiful process of deciding where we want to go together and also taking our family with us for part of it at least. So those are a couple examples. But I'll also say that it changes. Last year, I had a lot of one-on-ones for my business, and I decided, you know what, some of these one-on-ones are just not necessary anymore. They've been rolled into other meetings. Let's go ahead and let's wipe the slate clean and start all over again. And that allows me to make sure that what I'm doing each quarter each year is exactly congruent with where I want to be going.

Can you, can we talk a little bit about the beginning of your business as compared to what it's like today. And the reason that the part I want to focus on, Rameet, is, because the typical person who's listening, who emails me on a regular basis is someone who is in a leadership position, but a little bit different than

yours, they're in sometimes like a corporate America type of a role, a mid-level manager, uh, within a big company. And some of the aspects of that job obviously are hiring and firing, training, and developing. And so your business started, I believe, when

you were in college at Stanford, which is, it's called I will teach you to be rich. And we can talk about that title in a second as well. But your business started then. And I would imagine it started. It's just you. But then there's obviously been growth. And with growth comes people. What has been kind of the take us back to the beginning to then when you decided, you

know what? I need to start scaling this. And the only way I can do it is by adding people and your thought process around adding people to your team. Well, when I first started. my business, I had taken some of that college scholarship money that I referred to earlier, and I had put it in the stock market. And this was 1999, 2000, when everybody thought they were a genius. I did too. And within a few days, I lost half my scholarship money that I had put in there. Not a good start to my

investing career. So that was one of those moments that you really realize, man, I'm not as smart as I thought. And so, first of all, I stopped investing in all these companies that I thought I was a genius at. I started learning how money worked. And if you start to get into any area, whether it's fitness, money, et cetera, you quickly realize there's a lot of hype, there's a lot of nonsense, and then there's some really basic boring truths. And the basic boring truths are not as sexy as some of the fads that people like to talk about, but basic consistency is actually what gets you results over the long term.

So I started learning this. I learned about low cost, long-term investing. I learned about fees, all these things. And I started investing my own money. This was money that I made during college internships. And eventually, I got pretty good at it. And I started helping some friends in college. And I, well, at least I tried to.

I would say, oh, you know, you have another overdraft. People were complaining, sitting at dinner. I would say, let me teach you this one-hour class I put together, free. And everybody would say, oh, that sounds amazing. and then they would never show up. And it took me years to understand that most people don't like going to events about money because it makes them feel bad about themselves.

And actually, whether it was free or not, was irrelevant. It was the way that I was presenting it. And so I felt like I had something the world needed to hear, but the world was not listening. And when you're starting out, this is another pivotal moment. You can either be, you can either kind of give up or you can be a little bit,

confident, borderline, arrogant, and say, you know what, they need to hear this. They really do, even though there's no indication that anyone is listening. And that is the route that I took. And I started a blog. I said, maybe these lazy college kids will listen from their dorm room. And I am so glad I did that because that turned out to be the right answer. People wanted to learn about money, but they didn't want to go to an event. So I started writing the blog, and this is when after another six months to a year,

it started to take off. So I wrote that for many years. That was in 2004 that I started, and I was treating it like an experimental laboratory until eventually in 2009, I had really tested everything. It was perfect. I had, at that point, hundreds of thousands of readers, wrote a book, and then from there have scaled it up into a multimillion dollar business. So that is the route that I took for going from a college dorm room blog to a business. What, where are the primary streams of revenue for you? The vast majority of revenue comes from creating programs that people join. And I chose that intentionally.

I have tried a lot of different revenue streams. I've done speaking in the past. I've done affiliate revenue in the past. I don't know if I've done sponsorships, but I've created programs. And I love the purity of creating programs. Programs like if you are looking to. to transition careers, find a dream job, negotiate a $25,000 raise, we have a program on that. If you want to learn how to find an idea and start a business, we have a program on that.

We have about 20 different programs around careers, money, business, and psychology. And I love it because either our material works and you get the results we promise or you ask us for a refund and we don't put food on our tables. So it's high risk, high reward. And we have found with now over 40,000 customers and about a million readers a month that people like it. They're willing to pay for huge results if they trust that it's going to deliver. So these are basically online courses. Correct. Are they are there, is there a community aspect of it or is it, is it self-directed, self-paced,

or do you do a little bit of both? How does that work? Good question. So some of them do. Some of them have a community aspect. Some of them are very simple. There's one on mental mastery. And for that, it's a simple program.

You take it, you listen to it on the way to work or during a lunch break every day, and it will reframe the way you think about it. Some of them, like one of our programs, it's our flagship business course. We do have a community. And this year we're coming out with a new program because we've learned it's not enough to sit behind your computer or your phone and consume content. A lot of people want to be in the room with other people. because when you're starting out, you're like, is this idea good? How do I know if this is working?

Or I tried to make a sales call and the person wouldn't even listen. So for that, a lot of times people want more support. So that's something that we're going to be doing this year. I want to, this is a little bit selfishly, but I do think it could be valuable for the, for the listener as specifically in the learning phrase. I believe, and you've already proven this, but I think it'll be even more impactful moving forward. For example, and I don't know if you watch college football, but Joe Burrow, Heisman Trophy winning quarterback and he won a national championship for LSU. He was in graduate school this year at LSU as a fifth year, and he never stepped foot in a classroom. Every single one of his classes was an online class.

So I am a firm believer, and this is the next iteration of my business, and we've invested years of writing and filming videos and an amazing amount of work. because this is what I firmly believe, and like I said, you've proven this, that I believe the future of learning will take place online. I think for courses with the community building aspect and continually to add to that, so it's not just the initial course, but then what comes after that. What is your thought process and philosophy on the future of learning as it pertains to online courses? Well, this is a great question. I think you might be surprised by my answer. Because as someone who has created over 20 courses with a team, with millions of readers, it would be natural for me to say the future is purely online.

But I actually don't believe that. I think there is a very large role for college four-year education in our future. I had an amazing experience. So do many people. I do think there are issues and flaws. I think the student loan crisis is a huge deal. And I think there are some political issues going on as well. But I think that if you simply say to people, you can learn everything you need online, I don't think that's the correct solution. I think there is a need for a structured process like a four-year college system. I think that we see that in the data. People who have a college degree have over a million dollars in higher lifetime earnings than non-college graduates. But I will say that there are amazing results that people are now. getting from online or blended systems. You have people who go from low wage jobs to learning software

engineering skills. Amazing. Completely changing their socioeconomic status. I have people, for example, I have a student of mine who was doing, she was a caricature artist. She was making about eight bucks an hour going to basically county fairs drawing people's faces. You know, they puff them up, those cartoonish kind of drawings. We taught her how to turn that into a multiple six-figure business. So there are huge opportunities with distributed learning, online education to change the trajectory of people's lives. And it's not just for a $8 an hour earner. It's also for a lot of my students who were working at Google or Facebook. And they said, you know what? I don't want to have to do this every day and come into work, but I want to earn a very high income to continue with

the lifestyle that I've become accustomed to. And I want to share my passion with the world. that also works, but I don't think it's the only way forward. Gotcha. No, I agree. I think that makes sense. I just am a firm believer that, especially with leadership skills and learning that, a lot of people put that in this bucket called the soft skills area. And it's kind of a nice to have training. You know what I mean?

In reality, it's one of the most important areas that you need to train. And when I was writing my book, I did this research with a, a number of people who had been promoted at some of the greatest companies in the world over the past five years. And I would send them emails or text messages and say, describe to me the training you had when you got promoted from individual contributor to manager for the first time. And I would get laughing emojis, eye rolls. I would get everything. You know what I'm saying? And I think that's, and so I firmly believe that there's an opportunity there to help companies do a much better job with that, even if they choose to outsource it to somebody like,

like me or you who are teaching these in a different way. You know, I completely agree with that. And I will tell you that not only do I believe in offering amazing training to people, but I also believe in taking it myself. So you heard me, you know, working with a personal trainer is just one, going to a photography instructor as another. And I'll give you one of my favorite courses I took in the last couple of years was I went to the Disney Institute.

Now, I have had my eye on, I love Disney as a company, and I've had my eye on the Disney Institute for about 15 years. But I never had the right time or place to take it because my business wasn't ready for it. Finally, a couple of years ago, we were discussing core values in our business. And I realized if there's a company that knows it well, it's a company like Disney or Ritz Carlton, et cetera.

And so the funniest thing was I looked at their brochure and because they're Disney, They really don't care to sell you at all. They have one page listing all of their courses. The description is about two paragraphs, and the price is almost an afterthought. It's just irrelevant. And I think it's $5,000 or so for three days, something. The price was irrelevant to me. I flew down to Orlando. I went to the classroom, and there were mostly corporate employees there. I think I was maybe the youngest, certainly. I don't think there were many CEOs of small businesses there. And it was one of the most transformative classes of my life. So we learned from veteran Disney execs. We went into the park. We had a chance to interact with people who were working there,

and we asked them about Disney's core values, and we learned how to apply it back. I think the key takeaway there is that great leaders are always learning, whether it's a $5,000 course or a $10 book, or taking somebody out to lunch. And if you want to, say, start a business or change the trajectory of your career, there are massive opportunities out there,

but nobody's going to hand it to you on a silver platter. You've got to be the one going out there and saying, this is what I want. Now, how can I go after it and get it? And that is what we teach in our programs. Love it. I want to get back to the growth of your business. So it starts with just you.

What is the makeup of your team as of today? Like number of people, how many are full-time or contractors? And the second question will make sense more after you answer this first one. We have about 20 to 25 full-time and several contractors in all different functions of the business. So product development, technology, project management, customer service, and many other divisions. How much time are you spending as a leader? doing managing and leading task? Versus what?

Versus anything else that you do because I mean managing a team of that size and scope seems like more than a full-time job. Yes, that's what it is. It's not like I'm just like sitting around the rest of the day just hanging out. This is my full-time job for the last 15 years. So can you explain as you're growing from just yourself

to adding people to the team? This is where it can make or break your business. what do you look for? And other than, you know, some people have, they have specific task or roles they have to do. If they need to be a developer, they're going to do that or a designer. They're going to be good at design. I get that part of it. I'm talking about just the makeup and qualities characteristics of people that are going to join Rameet Sate's team.

Like, what are the qualities that you really value in someone to bring on? Okay, let me give you the trajectory of hiring first. and then I'll tell you what I look for. So when I started out, it was just me, and I was writing a blog, and I had to beg, borrow, and steal from friends to help me figure out how do I delete these spam comments and things like that. So that was first off, just me. Then the first hire I made was out of convenience,

and that was to hire an assistant, part-time, maybe 10, 15 hours a week as a contractor. The next hire I made- How long were you working just by yourself? Oh, years. Two years plus. And it wasn't a business at that point. It was just my blog, free. I was making no money.

But it was something that I felt the world needed to hear. Then I started to say, hey, maybe this can turn into something, but I was pretty much making zero dollars at that point. Still a hobby. I then hired a book researcher. This was when I signed a book deal and I needed someone to help with research. This was out of necessity. I needed help.

And then as the book took off and I went on tour to all, all these cities, and I realized, wow, this could actually be a business. That's when I started staffing up even more. And that was to make an impact. So three key reasons. And each of those stages, I think is so important. The first time you're hiring, you're going to be horrible at it. And I think a lot of people just need to hear that and accept it. I have friends who have recently started to scale their businesses. And they come to me, they're like, how do I hire the best project manager. And I'm like, you don't. Your first five are probably going to be horrible. And that's not their fault. It's your fault. You have to learn the skill of hiring, of managing, of leading. And they're like,

well, how do I do? What book do I recommend? And I'm like, well, you can get Ryan's book now. That's a good one. But really what you have to do. You should read all of them. There's not one book to get. You should read all of them. You should take a class. You're probably not going to understand what some of this stuff means. that's okay, expose yourself to it, but you should most importantly understand that this is skill that's going to take some time and focused attention to develop. So that's not a really popular answer. I can tell you that. They've glazed over minutes ago to like, yeah, dude, but like, what's the book to get? I'm like, oh, God, I don't think you were listening for the last 10 minutes. The key with that process is having an eye on the North Star. And that North Star could be impact. It could

be profit. It could be whatever it is for you, but you have to know that your team dynamics are going to be informed by that North Star and by your strategy. Some people want to have a small team. Some people want to staff up massively. That all is determined by you, the CEO, and what your goals are. So for the people that you eventually decide, there's 20-some plus full-time employees, what are some of the general characteristics you want in a teammate? Well, they have to be good at their job. They have to be great at it. So that's a given. I think that sounds obvious, but how many people do we know that hire for potential, not for performance? So it's really important, especially depending on how senior they are, that they have experience in this domain

and the domain you're going to in, say, the next 18 to 36 months. Two, they got to be curious. When I ask them, what questions do you have for me? I'm really, really paying attention to the type of questions. So have they studied what we do? Have they joined one of our programs or at least read reviews of them? Have they gone through our website and given us some feedback on what we should do to improve it? These are just basic table stakes. And if you're going into an interview, you better have listened to some CEO interviews and kind of know what they stand for and what they don't. I love it when people say, you know, I took a look at your site and here are three things I might recommend, I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds. I think any great leader loves to hear

candid feedback. You might be completely wrong, but a great leader wants to hear your thought process. So performance, curiosity, basic likeability. The consulting industry used to say the airport test, we're a 100% remote company, so it's unlikely we will be stuck in an airport together, but do I like them? And do they like me? That's really important because we're going to be spending a lot of time together over the next few years. So those are some ways that we evaluate teammates here. I want to talk about something that's personal to me, but I think also could apply to a lot of people listening because of the emails I receive, and that is the benefit of starting

your business on the side and why it can be such a good idea. And I certainly have some thoughts since this is exactly what I've done without any intention of leaving corporate America and then having it, the opportunity be really just too good to pass up a few years ago, but why is it such a good idea for anybody listening who may have a full-time job that they like, that they're happy with, but to start whatever it is that they want to start on the side and not just quit everything immediately? So the first, I really encourage this, and I encourage this of my students, many of them have very good jobs.

So it's not like they're stuck only in dead-end jobs. A lot of people are making great money. But they come to me, they say, look, I made it to the level I wanted to make it. I have money, but I don't really enjoy what I'm doing. Or like, that's it. It's just not that exciting anymore. I want to do something else. So the first reason that starting something on the side is what we encourage is just pure practicality.

Financially, most people haven't saved enough to be able to just quit and not know what's going to happen. That's one of the reasons that I have a list of things you should do before you quit and go full time on your idea. And one of them is to start saving and calculate your six months savings and all that stuff. The second reason and I think more important reason is starting something from zero to one is very challenging and very difficult. Zero to one is a totally different animal than taking something that exists and scaling it. So if you have an idea, like so many people do they come to me and they say, you know, I'm good at organization or I'm really good with people. How do I turn that into a business? Okay, we can work with you. We can help you turn that into a multi-six figure or in some cases seven-figure business,

but it's going to take a lot of looking around wandering, peaking under the cracks and talking to people in customer research. These are skills that are not taught typically in corporate America. So it's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to make you feel like, I don't know if this is working or not. There's no boss telling me if it's right. And it's going to take a while to manage your own emotional upheaval. So that's why I always love to see people keep your job. Keep performing at your job. You don't want to burn any bridges, right? Get clear on what makes you an excellent performer and do that. But in your time that you carve out for yourself, start working on that idea. Find the idea, which we show you how to do, start testing it.

In fact, get a few paying clients if you can. And that way, you know if and when you decide to make the jump, you have clients ready to go and you're not going from zero to one. You're going to scale it from one to ten. How about the reason behind charging for something versus giving away from free? You wrote a book called Your Move, The Underdog's Guide to Building Your Business. and in it you talk that there that some would consider about writing an ebook for free to give away and in that it it start there's more around the psychology around why you charge for something

and how much you charge for something and so I think this could apply to a lot of people who who think well I just I just want people to buy or I just want people to take it to to be a part of this so they chart they either don't charge or they charge very little. What's your process and mindset towards how you price things and why you choose to have something be, why you prefer paying customers versus free customers outside of the obvious that you're receiving revenue for that? Good question, because the psychology of pricing is absolutely fascinating. It is absolutely fascinating. Just to give you some context, many of my competitors charge very low prices for their programs, $19, $29, online. Our most

popular program is $2,000. And we have programs that are digital only that sell for about $10,000. Okay, how do we do that? It's not like we just rolled out a program and slapped on $10,000. There's a lot of work that went into that. And I have data from customers at every price point from $4.95 to $20,000. And I can tell you a few things. So first off, there's a profound difference in giving something away for free versus charging even $5. And it is profound. We see the data when grocery stores charge even a nickel for a plastic bag. You can see plastic bag consumption drop dramatically, often by 90 plus percent.

Most people would prefer to have free, of course. But in business, you're not looking for most people. You're looking for the right people. So that is the difference between free and $5. If you want to spread your ideas, give it away for free. That's great. But that's also a hobby. If you want to have a business, now you can choose, do you want to be low priced?

And if you want to be low priced, then you need massive amounts of customers. We're talking McDonald's scale. On the other hand, you can choose if you want to be relatively premium or even luxury priced. And what we see is that in the premium space, it can be much easier to have, let's say, 100K a year business, 500K a year, even a million dollars a year, if you're consistently selling a thousand dollar product or if your retail rate as a consultant is, say, $500 an hour. Now, these numbers might sound crazy if you're first starting out. It's like, hey, I don't even know how to get someone to pay me 20, but those are just logistical

details that can be worked out. So that's the first broad stroke I would give you about pricing. What else can I answer for you? I think that's good. I found that whether it's in speaking gigs or one-on-one clients, that the ones who really are kind of nickel and diming you on getting the price down low always seem to be the least enjoyable clients. and the ones and the ones who pay you the most are the most enjoyable clients, whether, like I said, it's speaking gigs or it's one-on-one or really anything.

And I found that to be fascinating and it makes me say, I just don't think I'm going to play at the lower end because, one, it's a huge headache. And that alone is reason enough not to let alone the fact that you're making more for your time doing it the other way. And I have to imagine you felt that too. Yeah. In fact, I've seen the data. So I can tell you that we had a program, we have many different programs, and we can see the open rates in emails of our free subscribers versus our customers. Our customers open at a rate more than quadruple the open rate of our free subscribers. So when someone pays, they use it more.

It's very obvious. It's very clear. I think on a more emotional level, it can be really soul. sucking to deal with nickel and dimers. And I think this is really important. I have people who come to me, they're like, hey, I want to charge $1,000 an hour. Like, I can't figure out how to do it. My sales copy doesn't work, my idea, et cetera. And I asked them, when was the last time you joined a $1,000 program? And they just openly say, never, why would I do that? You can never expect someone to pay you a premium price unless you yourself have done it. If you're a cheapskate, you will a

attract cheapskates because that is the only lens you have to view the world through. On the other hand, if you are consistently happy to pay premium prices for premium service, whether it's a personal trainer, whether it's somebody to come and mow your lawn, whatever the case may be, okay, then you are going to understand what it's like as a consumer to not prioritize cost as your first priority. maybe instead to prioritize convenience or results or even experience. So if you want to be able to charge premium prices, you yourself need to be a premium customer.

What do you say to the person, I have to play devil's advocate that's part of my role. What do you say the person that say, must be nice for me, the millionaire, telling me I need to spend $10,000 to go to a conference or have a coach or must be nice, right? And so, and there's definitely people in their car on the elliptical saying that right now.

What do you say to that person? You don't have to start with $10,000. Why don't you start with a $10 book? The very same people who say must be nice have probably not invested in themselves with a $10 book. And I would encourage you that you can. It doesn't have to be my book or your book. It can be anybody's book. But start that practice because I didn't use to be able to buy a $2,000 or a $10,000 training

program. That was out of my league. I grew up in a middle class family of six with my dad working and my mom staying home. That's why I had to apply to scholarships. But if I wanted to attract a premium market, which I did, then I knew that I had to be able to, number one, earn enough to experience that and number two, translate my psychology into my customers. So I don't love the reflexive must be nice, because I get that a lot. And I appreciate you asking that. it's an easy way to dismiss the principle behind what we're talking about here, which is you don't have to spend $10,000. You can spend $10. Or if it's your anniversary, go to a nice dinner once a year, pick a nice place.

And instead of dismissing it like I would have when I was younger, I would have said, oh, this is so stupid. I could go to Taco Bell. I'll pay one tenth of price and walk out more full. instead now I might go once a year and I'll say wow this is a totally different experience than a day-to-day restaurant wow look at the waiters look at the service look at how they take care of us in x y and z way so you can put yourself in those positions for a much lower price than $10,000 but you do have to put yourself in those positions uh okay i want to switch gears just a bit uh mentors this is something you've written about and I'm fascinated by because the power of mentors in my life have

really been everything to me. What type of impact and what is your process around mentorship, both people who have helped you as well as you being in the role of a mentor for others? This is a good question. I feel like after a lot of research on mentors, we wanted to create a program, okay, on how to find a mentor? Because everyone's emailing me, how do I find a mentor? How do I make you my mentor, what mentors did you find? And so we started doing a serious customer research project on this very topic. And what we concluded was everybody says they want a mentor, but nobody actually wants to do the work of finding one. It's like saying everybody wants a six-pack, but nobody actually wants to go to the gym and track what they eat. Okay. So I have found mentors to be massively helpful

in my life, but I now never try to convince anyone to find a mentor because in my experience, you either get it or you don't. You either get it or you don't. I think that rather than looking for one mentor, if you're interested in this principle, you will likely have many mentors. I have mentors who make one one hundredth of what my business makes, but they are really, really good at the softer skills that I really want to develop more. Great. It doesn't only have to be about money. So I think mentors come in all shapes and sizes. All different ages is a really important thing that I've learned.

And one of my favorite articles on this was this article by Atul Gawande. He's a surgeon and a writer. He wrote a New Yorker article called Coach in the Operating Room. Oh, yeah. So good. And he said, you know, every professional athlete has a coach. Every elite athlete has a coach. How come doctors don't?

How come surgeons don't? And it really helps crystallize this idea that, you know, many people say must be nice to have a coach or a trainer. The answer to that is, yes, it is nice. So how can I get one? And sometimes you will have the wherewithal to pay for one, but when you're starting out, you don't. I, one of my first mentors in college, I waited outside his office for weeks because he was never there. And he ended up becoming my professor. I invited him to my wedding.

and I just spoke with him here in New York because he's had such an impact on my life. His name is BJ Fogg. So I would say that if you want a mentor, you probably already intuitively know what they will do for you. I can't convince you to want a mentor. But if you choose to go after one, I would reframe it from going after one

to going after 10 over the course of the next few years. And remember that a mentor doesn't probably need your money. What they need is different. And you always want to ask. Like, this mentor may have much more money than you or impact influence, but mentors love to be connected to other people doing great things. Mentors love to see someone who applies their insights and lessons and comes back and tells them they did it.

Mentors love lots of things besides big fat checks. So think creatively, and that's how you will get a mentor and work with a mentor. The book writing process. So we talked about this a little bit after, I'm sorry. prior to recording. And so I will teach you to be rich. The second edition just came out. It's a New York Times bestselling book.

So congratulations. I know that is certainly no easy feat. Thank you. And me having just recently published my first book, the process was I could talk about it for hours. But I'm curious, what was it like for you to get a book published? And then not only published, but see it help literally millions of people. from all over the world based on the thoughts that you have so eloquently put together in this book

with a really, I'm guessing a title that has turned more heads than just about any book out there that you probably have to answer for constantly, so you're probably tired of it. But there are some listening saying, what are you talking about? What a title? What kind of title is that? I will teach you to be rich. Who does this guy think he is? So really kind of all of that with a bookwriting process as well as the peculiar title that.

that makes people turn their head. Well, thank you for using the charitable term peculiar. That's better than some of the other ways people describe the name. I get it. Listen, I know. I will teach you to be rich. It sounds like a huge scam. But I mean, I think it's obviously brilliant.

It's kind of, you know, you and Tim, I know our buddies, Ferris, the four-hour work week, which has very similar feelings that I will teach you to be rich. Yeah. Both of you guys are kind of, you could go laugh all the way to the bank when it comes to your books. Well, Tim and I always sit down and we joke, like, who has the scam here? sounding book titles that are actually good. And, well, at least that's what we tell ourselves. So, all right. So, all right. So results do you speak for themselves, though, and you can't argue with that. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. You know, the book, the book has been now reprinted after 10

years, totally updated 80 new pages of material and, and quite a few people have changed their lives using it, which makes me really, really proud. And it tells me that the impact of books is not going away. Doesn't matter how many blog posts and TikTok and Twitter is out there. There's something fundamentally special about a book, a book where you can sit down and consume it and change your life in a few days or a few weeks. So I will tell you that I found the writing process to be incredibly difficult the first time in 2007 when I started writing it, I would wake up at six, write for two hours, go to work. I was working at a venture back startup in Silicon Valley, come home right for an hour, go to sleep, and did that for two years. And that's why I had

such shell shock after the book came out and I was really happy with it. But my publishers were like, all right, when's the next book? I'm like, never. I'm done. I'm done. And then seven years later, they came back to me and they said, hey, this book, 10 year anniversary is coming up and there's a lot more you have to say, you got married, you have a business, et cetera. And I kind of resist. But finally I realized I had quietly been keeping notes on all the changes that have transpired over the last 10 years. Also, my views on money, which had largely stayed the same in terms of investing, but in terms of spending, I had refined them and added new frameworks. And so I sat down to write it thinking like, oh, like now I'm so experienced wrong. life really humbles you very quickly. And I found myself on my honeymoon. I was lugging around like

250 pages. We went on this long honeymoon and I'm sitting there in Kenya on safari and I'm writing, you know, overlooking this beautiful sunset. It sounds romantic, but it was horrible having to finish this thing on honeymoon. But I will tell you this, I think for anyone who's been out there and who has really put time and love into something that then they turned over the final product. There's no feeling like being so proud of the work you did. And when the book comes out and it was in Times Square on those big screens and even people, my publisher had told me, look, the people who bought the first edition are not going to buy the second edition. This is for a new audience. And then all of the people who bought the first edition came out and emailed me and said, I got the second edition. How could I

not. That's a feeling that I don't know where else I would find that feeling. So I'm very proud of it. It's really hard. I don't know if I want to do it again, but I have mad props for any, any author who goes through that. One point I want to talk about briefly, because there's one of the question after this I want to get to before we take off. But one aspect that you've written about that I have implemented in my life that I've done for a long time now. And you're part of the reason. And that is the automation of savings. Awesome.

And so what I mean by that is my, you know, I do work with a financial advisor. And when we got married, I remember my wife and I are first meeting with them. We just said, look, we don't even really want to have to think about this. So here, we're going to meet every quarter. And each quarter, our goal is just to increase the amount that automatically gets taken from our check. from our checking accounts and goes directly to the way that we are choosing to say. We have 529 accounts for our children, but also just our general savings. And I'll tell you, it is, it is, it's really nice because we, we, we, we, all we do is just

edit and change and try if we can. It doesn't happen every quarter to increase the amount that automatically is pulled. And I know that is one of the core foundational elements of what I will teach you to be Rich is all about. And I'd love for you to share kind of that concept before we move on. Yes. And I'm so glad you're using the system. That is like music to my ears. Wow. You know, I sit behind my computer screen all day. And when I hear real people actually using the work that we do, it's like nothing else. So thank you for saying that. Of course. The automation system is really one of the crown jewels in the I Will Teach universe.

And it's on one page. It looks simple, but it embodies a lifetime of understanding of human psychology and money. So the typical advice around money is don't spend money on lattes. I don't believe in that at all. And I bet you the people listening don't believe in it either. But we do feel guilty about it and we feel berated. But if we're really honest with ourselves, that's not the level we want to be spending our time on. I always say, people are so busy asking $3 questions when they should really be asking $30,000

questions. And those questions involve, how do I automatically make my money go where it needs to go? How do I invest so I'm consistently getting low cost, long-term investments in growing my money? And most importantly, how do I use my money to live a rich life? Everybody's so focused on cutting back on everything, they never actually think about what they want to use their money for. So I teach people how to spend extravagantly on the things they love. And I mean extravagantly. I give lots of examples, as long as they cut costs mercilessly on the things

they don't. So the automation system shows you exactly how to set your money up so that your money flows from your paycheck into all the accounts that it needs to completely automatically. Oh, you want to take a trip to Thailand in November? Perfect. This will automatically flow the right amount of money to your Thailand sub-savings account. Oh, wow, you just had a kid you want to set up a 529? Great. This will flow that money there. And it also leaves you guilt-free spending money. So suddenly money goes from this place of confusion and guilt and anxiety to just a simple system. As I say, it goes from hot to cool. You don't have to feel guilty or nervous or jittery. It's just calm, cool, collected because now your money is under your control. So that's the I will

teach you to be rich system. And it's not just for people who have a lot of money. I think that's important note that you can start doing this for your very first job making, you know what I mean? I think it's important for you to talk about that part too. It's not just for rich people. This is for people for literally anybody. Okay. So thank you for saying that. Let's remember that if you're listening to this podcast, odds are you're probably living at least a partially rich life. You were able to navigate. over here on a phone or a computer, you have the intellectual wherewithal

to listen to this and get this far, you're living a rich life. Now, how rich do you want that to be? What does rich mean to you is something I teach in the book? You know, rich used to be gotta buy a house. That's not true for a lot of people, right? I live in Manhattan, I rent on purpose. What's that about?

I talk about that in chapter nine. The math is very counterintuitive. A rich life used to be, work someplace for 45 years, get a pension, that's not the case anymore for a lot of people. So if you're starting out at 20, 22, 25, or even 45, but you haven't saved a lot, it just feels like you feel so anxious. What am I supposed to do here? I don't have $10,000 a month to put away like those people on TV talk about. Okay, fine. Let's show what's going to happen if you put 50 bucks a month away. We can actually show you the math, and it's simple math. And then let's show you how you can actually

earn more money. That's where some of my programs come in, or negotiate a salary, chapter nine. These are different ways that you can start taking control, but you're right. You don't have to be already making six figures to use this stuff. Counterintuitively, the way you become wealthy is to use these systems and automatically grow your wealth. Yep. All right, Rameet, this is good stuff. What's next for you? What's next for the business? What's next for you personally? We have a huge, huge thing coming out this year. So we have a brand new business program coming out 2020. And I am getting out. I'm going on tour. I figured why am I only going on tour for my book? I want to show people how to create a business and how to grow that business. So we've got a brand new

program. We haven't even announced the name yet coming out very soon. And that is going to, if you're thinking about starting a business if you have a business idea or if you don't, we're going to show you how to take that idea, find an idea, and turn it into a six figure or even larger business. So this could apply to people who currently are gainfully employed with a pretty good job that they like, but they also have this itch. They have this thought. They have this idea to create something. They want to do something.

They may not know what. Yeah. But they know that they want to get out of the corporate world eventually and they want to start something. So where do they go? What are the first steps? Forget about pricing psychology. What's my idea? Yeah. And so what we did, you know, just like in the book, my dream was to show people every last detail. What day should your money flow from here to there? When people say have a conversation with your partner about money.

I was like, what words do I use? You need to give me the specifics. So in this program, people were like, hey, how do I actually sell? So I did sales calls myself and I recorded them. So now you can listen in as a real sale happens and you can watch as I diagnose, why did I say that? What happened there? What's going on here? That level of detail is something you will never find anywhere else. Nice. Love it.

Love it, Rameet. Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? They can go to I Will Teach You to Be Rich.com. And you can just sign up right there, get our newsletter. We have about 300,000 people on that list. It's free. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter. I am at Ramit. That's R-A-M-I-T.

I've been a subscriber to your work for many years. It's very useful. I highly encourage that. Excited to see when the new thing comes out. Rameet, thank you so much for being so kind and giving of your time. The investment of your time is more important than just about anything that you have. So I really appreciate you being here, man. Ryan, thanks so much. I really appreciate it. Yeah. And I'd love to continue our dialogue as we both progress. I spend some time in New York City. I'd love to meet up at one point next time. I would love that. Let me know. I will. I will. Awesome. All right, man. Thanks so much. Thank you. Have a good one.

All right, you too. Before launching my podcast, I made a list of roughly 100 names of people that I wanted to have on my show. Rameet was one of the first 20 names on that list. Currently, that Excel file. is over 850 names. So it's really cool that five years later, I finally had Rameet on the show. A few of the parts that really stuck out to me, the future of learning.

I firmly believe, and I know Rameet does as well, so much will happen online, forming communities, cohorts, and self-directed learning. I specifically think more of this will happen in the leadership space. And I'm definitely working to play,

my role in helping people do that. Then show me your calendar and I'll show you your priorities. Write down what you prioritize and then let's review your calendar. Do they match? If not, we need to rethink that. Then Atul Gawande, coach in the operating room. Google that article and read it. It's fantastic. And then remember and realize that all of us need. We need a coach or coaches. We need to have these people in our lives to offer us direct, honest feedback if we care to improve. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Ramit Say-Tee. I found him to be fascinating, really interesting, and I love his story.

If you did, I would love it if you would tell a friend or two, perhaps one that has never listened to the Learning Leaders show. word of mouth marketing is the absolute best form of marketing and because you continue to do that it gives me the opportunity to do what i love on a daily basis and for that i will forever be grateful thank you so much talk with you next week can't wait