The Ryan Hanley Show - Only Poor People Think the System is Rigged | Start Thinking Rich

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.com   Unlock the secrets to achieving financial freedom as we challenge conventional wisdom and redefine success with insights from Dr. Brad Klontz and Adrian Brambilla, authors of "Start Thinking Rich: 21 Harsh Truths to Take You from Broke to Financial Freedom." Go deeper down the rabbit hole: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanley Connect with Dr Brad Klontz and Adrian Brambilo: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbradklontz/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianbrambila/ The Book: https://amzn.to/4eek635 Discover how the habit of complaining rewires your brain for failure and why the popular belief that "money can't buy happiness" is misleading. We'll also reveal the staggering truth that 90% of millionaires are self-made and explore the psychological barriers preventing many from realizing their own potential. Join us as we explore the critical difference between a poor mindset and a rich mindset, and how your beliefs about money can either propel you to financial stability or keep you stuck in a cycle of debt. Learn why financial setbacks can be opportunities for growth and how generational thinking shapes our financial behaviors. Through compelling personal anecdotes, we'll show you how the resilience of a rich mindset can transform financial catastrophes into stepping stones toward success. Break free from learned helplessness and socioeconomic limitations as we explore how early conditioning and our social circles influence our financial lives. Hear inspiring stories of overcoming financial trauma and making mindset shifts that lead to wealth and investment. We'll provide actionable steps to turn your frustrations into progress, emphasizing the importance of small, steady actions. Lastly, understand why political parties are not invested in your financial freedom and why taking charge of your own financial destiny has never been more crucial. This episode is a masterclass in challenging limiting beliefs and taking strategic action to build the life you want.

Chapter 17 is complaining is for losers, but I like stop fucking bitching better. I wish we would have named it that. It's so easy to complain and bitch. I mean, it's so easy. We all fall into it, but the bottom line is it's horrible for you. There's even studies showing that your brain shrinks. I mean, it like literally makes you dumber. Let's go. Yeah. Make it look, make it look, make it look easy. The Ryan Hanley Show shares the original ideas, habits, and mindsets of world-class original thinkers you can use to produce extraordinary results in your life and business. This is the way.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. We have one of the best episodes we have ever done on this podcast about money teed up for you today. We are talking to Dr. Brad Klontz and Adrian Brambilla. They are the authors of Start Thinking Rich 21 Harsh Truths to Take take you from broke to financial freedom. And we discuss some epic topics today and only the way these two guys can deliver them. Why only poor people think the system is rigged. Why money can't buy you happiness is terrible advice. And why your political party doesn't give a shit about you.

This is a tremendous episode. Absolutely tremendous. You are going to want to stay for the full conversation because it only gets better as we go. These guys are funny, they're fun, and they deliver incredible tactical advice. And they sent me a copy of their book, Start Thinking Rich, and I blew through it in a weekend. It's that good. I put this on par with the psychology of money and some of the other just perpetual top 10 books on personal finance. This book is right there. I am just so excited to share this with you because we all have issues with money. All of us, whether you believe you do or not, you do. And sometimes when we think through some of the nuances, particularly the way that Adrian and Dr. Brad deliver them, we start to see why we may make certain decisions versus others.

And guys, as always, I love you for listening to this show. I don't run ads on this program. I have gone back and forth. I recently just said no to another sponsor because I want to be able to talk to whoever I want. I want to be able to share ideas, mindsets, thoughts. I want to be able to bring guests on. I want to start talking to people who think outside the box, who take different perspectives, who have unconventional ways of solving problems and thinking about the things that we that that impact our lives. And I don't want sponsors to dictate that.

So the only thing that I ask is you share the show, text message it to a friend, post it on social media, Email it out to a colleague. And if you don't want to share, a like, a subscribe, or even a comment. Go over to YouTube. Leave a comment on your thoughts. What part of what Dr. Brad and Adrian share makes sense, you don't understand, or you just completely and utterly disagree with. That engagement helps drive more individuals to this show, which helps it grow, which helps us bring even more amazing guests in, regardless of which way you choose to support the show. I love you for being here.

Let's get on to Dr. Brad and Adrian. Guys, incredibly excited to have you on the show. The new book is fantastic. I appreciate you sharing an early copy with me. I've been through most of it. Made me question a lot of the life decisions that I've made with money, so that's a wonderful thing. I also very much appreciate, as you said, the aggressive chapter titling, which I think is fantastic. I actually want to start on the very first line of the introduction which you write most people hate the statistic

that 90 percent of millionaires are self-made why is that the case well i think it's it's highly confrontational because what it really does tell you is that, oh, well, perhaps I can go from poor to rich too. Perhaps those individuals got there through their own efforts. And the whole phrase self-made really makes people so mad. Anytime I post about it on social media, people get so mad. And what they want to do is they want to change the definition of what self-made means. Essentially, it could be really rough. Like I grew up lower income. You know, Ryan, I know you had a lot of hustle early in your life. And it's the big message of the book is that it is possible for you. So really, this is a message of hope and inspiration. We're not looking to shame anyone. But I think what happens is people have

created a narrative in their head about why they can't or why it's really difficult for them or why it's impossible. And anything that challenges that narrative, people can resist. I think it's a very freeing narrative. But if you've been stuck, if you've been struggling, perhaps even for generations, if not decades in your own life, it's easier psychologically to say it's impossible than to sort of face the reality that people just like me who've come from where I've come from, have experienced what I've experienced, have been able to climb the socioeconomic ladder. So I could potentially do it too. Sometimes that's a bitter pill to swallow. I hear a lot of people will thrash

Elon Musk and say, well, his dad gave him all this money or he got all this stuff. And then I started listening to Walter Isaacson's biography of him and learned about how absolutely fucked up his childhood was, how that's like 100 percent not the case. And while brilliant and crazy, some mix of the two, this dude really did grind out a lot of stuff. And sure, he made opportunities for himself, but I find it incredible that someone could look at this particular individual and use, well, he was given money by his dad early, which is not the case,

was given money early as the reason he got to send spaceships to mars uh make electric cars a reality uh create a interface between the brain and machines put um the internet uh around the world in places that you know standard corporations i mean like you look at all these things and people go well yeah he was given a bunch of money when he's a kid and it's like what are we what are we talking about here like Is that really like you have to tear that down even when it's false to make yourself feel better? I just don't understand that mentality. Dude, this riles me up so much. I hate how so much people focus on people's privilege.

They'd rather focus on the privilege versus what they've done. And in our book, Starting to Think Rich, we talk about having a rich skill set and a wealth skill set. And a wealth skill set is that, is the people who do get inheritance. And just because you receive a lot of money doesn't guarantee anything. And the fact, the data behind this

is if you look at 70% of people who win huge amounts of lottery in five years, it's all gone. So think of that. It's like that's almost gaming the system. You get hundreds of millions of dollars. It's like, oh, is everything figured out now? Absolutely not. Wealth skill set is your ability to take whatever money that you are either making or inherited or have, and then have that money,

make money. And that's, that's a, that's a rare skillset. So just because someone did get something, you can't discredit them. You, if anything,

you're analyzing from where they started and where they went. And we could do that with everyone. A lot of people here, my parents immigrated from Mexico. They started with, I would say in the negative, right? And they built a platform for me.

That platform was, they paid for my college. They saved their whole life to do that. And now I've taken it and I feel like I've, I've, I've changed my family tree with, with what I've done. I couldn't have done it without that platform. And I think I, I, I always try to acknowledge that was a privilege, privilege I got, but don't measure me. It's like, well, your parents paid for your college. That's why you're a multimillionaire now. No, you're discrediting everything. And also just to comment, rich skill set, we say is your ability to earn income. And so some people think, well, that person makes six figures, so they have to be successful. But a rich skill set and a wealth skill set, they're not related, which is why 50% of people that make six figures live paycheck to paycheck. So these are

people who are high income earners, but being a doctor or a lawyer doesn't mean you're going to be good with your money. So you need to have a rich skill set and a wealth skill set. You can't just earn your way to financial freedom. You do have to be able to live underneath your means, no matter how much money you make. And then you have to be able to learn how to invest so that money continues to make money. it's like this whole formula and just being good at one thing isn't enough i call these 19th hole uh confessions so when you're out on the golf course everyone likes to talk about their fancy watch and their new driver and the porsche they have in the country club parking lot And then when they get a couple pops in them in the 19th hole,

you start to hear about how they can barely make the payments on the car. You know, their wife is yelling at them because they're late on the mortgage payment. They're, you know, fighting with their boss for a raise at work. And you're like, wait a minute, nine holes ago you were, you know, Mr. Blinged Out, look at my life. You know, here we are, you got a couple drinks in you, all of a sudden life's not so good. You know, like it's just, I don't know, I just, I've always found that to be interesting how that happens almost every time you do a country club round of golf. That's amazing.

So I was hoping that you could break down – so for you guys listening at home, this book is going to be an absolute must. It's going to be on my recommendation list. I've read a bunch of books about wealth, money, this kind of stuff. I just – I read a lot. language that you use and the way that you break down these topics is very digestible and allows someone to actually take in the difference in these concepts. And the first one that I pulled out was just maybe define broke versus poor. Because I think so many people use these terms interchangeably and you guys really kind of clearly set what the difference is between the two. Yeah, I think we had to because one of the chapter titles says that if you want to get rich,

you have to get rid of your poor friends. And that one we've already got a lot of heat about. But poor has nothing to do with how much money or lack of money you have. It's actually your mindset. So we describe poor as a mindset. It's a way of thinking. It's a bad way of thinking. People that have a poor mindset, they don't believe in saving. What's the point? These are also people that have a poor mindset that have great jobs. They're the ones that as soon as Friday hits, they go out to the clubs and then when they go to a restaurant, they're getting an appetizer. They're getting wine, which by the way, nothing wrong with that. If it's within under your means and you're saving and investing, like your person has a rich mindset, can still do those things,

but they also – their biggest expense every month is investing. And then they're kind of living their lifestyle off those investments. But a poor mindset is, again, I think the golf analogy is perfect. Those people who, by that 19th hole, they're demonstrating that the facade of rich, at the end of it, a couple of drinks in, it's like they actually have a poor mindset because they're living way outside their means. And being broke is something that I've been, Brad's been. I don't know. Yes, we've all been. Typically, unless you were born with a silver spoon, we're all broke at some point.

And that's a temporary state. And so when we define broke and poor, people that are poor, have a poor mindset are probably going to be not just a temporary, but a very, very long term in being broke. And so I think if you if you have that recognition of how you think broke doesn't have to be a long place. Maybe you come from a family that was always broke. Money was always hard. You can change that, and it starts with just the way you think. Well, one of the things that I liked about that you broke out was that you could go broke multiple times. But if you have this rich mindset you can remake the money you know that's

one of the things that i've always uh i had to reset a lot of my friendships in the last say 10 years of my life because i for a bunch of reasons have a very high risk tolerance and you know i have goals and i want to go after things and sometimes those things don't work right i mean it just that's what happens and you have to and you'll reset my I've had buddies go you know geez man why why are you always doing this like it feels like you have to keep resetting and I'm like well that was a tremendous four-year experience and a lot of good things came out of it and yeah I got a reset because you know you know life happens this you know different things happen but now I remade that in two years instead of four.

And then if something else happens, I can do it even faster because I've learned because now I know what needs to be done to get back to that place. But as you guys lay out, and I love the way that you lay it out and the way that you focus on mindset is because it forces you to remove yourself from this particular moment in time and focus more on the activities that get you to the place that you want to be. Because it's like this snapshot mentality. I currently am not in a position that I want to be, so screw it. I'm never going to get there. I might as well just blow it all on Netflix and DoorDash and all these other things and live for today or whatever.

And this is kind of where I want to ask my next question. I just had a guest on a couple of weeks ago. His name is Dr. Eric Peebles, a wonderful guy. And we were talking about generational thinking. How much does this rich mindset, poor mindset play into, you know, I'm just living for me and my kids are on their own versus this concept that I feel like we've lost in our country, which is thinking about the generations to come, not just our current moment in time. Yeah, I mean, a couple things, Ryan, that you said that were so wise. So when we've done research on millionaires, we find that the average multimillionaires has faced three major financial catastrophes. And the average non millionaire has faced slightly less than one, which is sort of a statistical anomaly. But

essentially, what what what that tells us is that they try and then they're like, Oh, forget it, I'm never gonna I'm never gonna try again. again because the world is set against me because X, Y, and Z. Meanwhile, people with a rich mindset, they have what we call in psychology an internal locus of control. So they look at, okay, all right, so I had this massive failure. By the way, very embarrassing. I lost a bunch of money. Everybody knows my business failed.

Where did my thinking go wrong? What did I miss? What can I learn from this experience? And it's that mindset versus blaming the world because there is a never-ending supply of people to blame your misery on. By the way, I'm married to a wonderful woman, but I could spend all my time blaming my bad mood on her. I mean, right? She's an imperfect person. And it's not a very effective way to live though. Not in your marriage, not in your relationships, and definitely not in your business and financial

life. So it's really being able to take that sense of personal responsibility. Where is my thinking? Where did it go wrong? And I'm going to segue from that into this multi-generational mindset thing. Because certainly your beliefs around money are getting you the results that you have right now. And a lot of these beliefs weren't inherited. So we talk about generational wealth, but we also have generational beliefs that have been transferred down to us. And so part of really getting a handle on a relationship with money is really understanding our family story. And it's really, really important. So probably the best psychology you could do for yourself is to interview your parents,

your grandparents, if you're lucky enough that they're around, your siblings, your aunts, your uncles, to try to figure out what is the psychology around money that I inherited from my family. And so I lost a bunch of money day training. I thought this is how people got rich when I was in my 20s. And I had such a painful realization after I lost all my money day training. Now the tech bubble burst. Otherwise, I'm sure it would have gone great. But I actually went home and I interviewed my parents. And I sat my mom down.

And I'm like, Mom, what was it like for you growing up around money? And she told me these stories. Are you tired of endless follow-ups and missed opportunities in your sales process? Chasing leads is a losing game. That's why I created the one call close system, a battle tested sales system that uses behavioral psychology to close deals in just one call. No more. Let me think about it. No more. I'll get back to you. Using the one call close system. We took new reps from 25% close ratio to over 80% in just three months. To grow fast, you must close deals faster at zero extra marketing cost. The one call close system allows you and your reps to build trust, address pain points,

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It was the Great Depression. Bank was locked, $0. It doesn't even exist anymore. Imagine having that experience. Imagine having that experience. So now all of a sudden, the fact that my very hardworking, wonderful grandfather lived in a trailer park made sense to me. He never put a dollar in the bank the rest of his life. He lived into his 90s and he was so afraid. He went unbanked his entire life. And then my mom's anxiety around money started to make sense to me. She, she would only put money in CDs.

She would never put it in the stock market. So she was so risk averse. And then I came along and I'm like, I know what you guys are doing isn't working and I don't want to be poor like you. And so I, I, I call it a dysfunctional pendulum swing. I swing all the way to the other side, taking, taking the most possible risk I could take lost all my money. And if I wasn't aware of this belief pattern in my family, I guarantee you this. And a bunch of people have done this, a bunch of millennials especially. I would have said,

I'm never trusting the stock market. And so I would have sort of adopted that same mindset. And so we have just like drug abuse and alcoholism can pass through the generations where people have this distorted relationship with it. So someone's an alcoholic. Next generation won't touch it, you know, which is an extreme relationship with alcohol. It's fine if you don't drink. It's probably better for you. But it's kind of extreme. It has a bunch of energy. And then you're going to pass that energy to your kids who then become alcoholics, you know. And so understanding your family history, very, very important if you want to get a handle on your wealth building. I'm going to touch on the first part of your story first. I love this idea of self-reflection in general on these experiences, particularly experiences around money, losing money, and if it's public.

I heard this story the other day about kobe bryant uh he there was a game and he had three shots at the end of the game that if he had hit one of them would have won the game right so game's over he's sitting on the bench towel on his head hands on on over the towel head down and um you know kind of everyone starts to clear he gets up he starts to walk off the court and uh a reporter comes up to him and says kobe what were you thinking about when you missed those shots blah blah and you know how are you feeling how are you and he goes feeling he goes i don't feel anything he goes i was thinking about the things that i did during those shots that made me miss. I now know what I did wrong and I'm going to go work on it after the game. Right. So instead of sitting there, I mean,

this is a public as it gets, this is a superstar, right? Three shots to win the game, misses all three. And the reporter saying, how are you feeling? You know, what are your, are you, I mean, what they're looking for is you're sad, you frustrated, you mad, they're looking for something. And he's going, no, all I did was dissect what happened so that I don't make that mistake again. And we just don't go back and reflect. I, I, I really appreciate, uh, the second part, uh, the idea of interviewing your family. And as you're, you're saying that I was thinking about, you know, my own, and I think I have a similar, not the, uh, grandfather, um, losing all their money in the, in the, um, great depression. But I think my parents were the same way, like don't invest, put it in a savings

account. You know, my dad's like one of those guys who's like, you know, he doesn't make a ton of money, but he also doesn't save any money. He's like, if I got it, spend it, you know what I mean? Like, that's what we make the money for kind of mentality. And, and it was always like, you know, we also very low income. And I think that plays a role in my own risk taking, because I was like, I don't want to be like that. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to live paycheck, I don't want to worry about, you know, the man firing me or whatever. And that kind of takes me to my next question. There's a there's a and I don't remember which chapter it is, so I apologize. But it was the idea of a poor only poor people think the system is rigged. Right.

My dad thinks the system is rigged and he's a great guy. I don't mean that as a negative to him, but his mentality is the system is out to get him. He's not one of the elites, so therefore everything he does is always going to be throttled. It's always going to work against him, and that kind of really corrupts his mentality, particularly around making money and money in general. So maybe just break down this idea and go as far as you want to on it. I think the concept we teach money, which can have so much baggage, we try to teach in the perspective of like a game that we're playing. And for some people, that already is a challenge because it has so much emotional baggage. But if you just allow yourself to think like what if money was a game? Who doesn't like playing games? Games are fun.

And for me, I played Final Fantasy as a kid in Tekken. And I played video games. And to me, it's kind of like a video game, because all my money comes from online. But the first person I saw that really actually shaped me to become an online entrepreneur was, back in the day, I used to be a professional hip-hop dancer. I danced for T-Pain.

And there was one time – By the way, that makes me like you even more, just to be clear. I have to get that in there. That's awesome. T-Pain released a song in front of us one time. And it was called Reverse Cowgirl. Terrible song, actually. But he was able to launch it.

This is in his prime. This is 2010 era. And he looks over at his manager, and he had his own liquor company. It was like 10 o'clock in the morning. He was already kind of buzzed. And he looks over at the manager, and he's like, you guys want to see the video before we drop it? He plays it for us.

Super awesome. And he looks at the manager. He's like, yeah. You guys ready okay cool and then they and they hit play and this is back in the day in itunes you had to buy uh every song was like 99 cents and i remember looking at how many downloads and within like 10 minutes there was like 5 million downloads so i had watched him make like 5 million bucks while getting drunk from hitting a button and i was like to me he figured out he figured out the game like he figured like he could live his dream life he's he's drunk at 11 a.m he's made five million dollars he's gonna chill the rest of the day and and we use an analogy like that making money is a game and there's a lot of different games

a lot of different ways to to do it and the only reason why you don't like making money is because you're probably playing the wrong game and the best analogy is like a lot of people that i talk to they look and they they learn from me on how to like monetize and become an influencer because they hate their job so this is like what for whatever reason they went to school or they didn't go to school and they're in this job and they, and they hate it. And they're recognizing like, is this what I'm supposed to be doing? And it's just, and they're in the wrong game where they could be just placed in a different area and have fun. And like when I make money, it's actually, it brings me energy. It's like a game. I love doing it. And I found, I found my outlet. I think everyone can do that. But first understanding that mindset, it's different because most people are just playing the wrong game.

And instead of having that recognition, they think the system is rigged. But the system actually is rigged. It actually is. There's tax laws, for example. If you were to start a business, you could do things like write off your phone, like write off your Wi-Fi. These are things where people say they're rich, keep getting richer. Entrepreneurs, there's advantages for us to do things like this. I also have to mention because Brad and I, we come from totally opposite backgrounds.

I know he's going to clap back and say 95% of businesses do fail, which is true. But having this recognition on the game you're playing and recognizing that the system is rigged if you're playing the wrong game. So if you're trying to play football on a basketball court, of course, you can say, it's rigged, man. What the heck's happening? And I think that that's where we kind of dive into the chapters of like recognizing what game you're actually playing. And also like, I'm a big believer that you can learn pretty much anything from YouTube these days. So it's not like we don't say, like, I'm a big believer that you can learn pretty much anything from YouTube these days. So it's not like we don't say, oh, you have to go back to four-year university.

No, it's like there's tons of different opportunities in e-lancing and AI that are making it easier for us to diversify our income and find a game that you like to play. To me, when I hear that, all I really hear is you don't want to put in the work to learn the rules right I mean that's that's I mean the deeper that I've gotten into so you know I don't know how much you guys know about my history but 20 years in the insurance industry executive positions all different kinds of stuff goods and bads and then I started my own business and I exited in November in the insurance industry and when I did, I kind of kept one foot in the insurance industry just because I love it. It's my home industry and it's great. But I then broadened out and I've started doing entrepreneurial coaching and online business stuff like what you described.

And as I've gotten deeper into it, I knew how to play the insurance game. Like I knew what to do, who to talk to, where to go, what message had to be said, how the message had to be delivered in order to get people to buy stuff in that space. And then when I got into the broader kind of entrepreneurial influencer podcast game, I started, I like was like, why aren't these things working the same? Like, how come I could, when I was purely talking to the insurance industry, I could create a video on LinkedIn that would get 50,000 views, and now I get 1,700 views. And what's been interesting is, like, I've just had to relearn a new set of rules

for a different game. I love that analogy because and then people like wow you know you know this this this system what you know it's just the the most influential people just work with each other and they don't work with anyone else i'm like that's not that's not true i haven't found that to be the case they just aren't gonna play with you if you don't know how to play the game it's just but they don't want to learn why i guess my and as much as you can answer this and maybe brad this is for you because you don't know how to play the game. It's just, but they don't wanna learn. Why, I guess my, and as much as you can answer this and maybe Brad, this is for you, cause you're the psychologist

and probably the smartest of all of us here, at least from a degree perspective. Well, best looking at least. Yeah. I'm not sure about smartest. I don't know about that one. Yeah, best hoodie on the show, you know? So, you know, why don't we wanna do this?

Like why do people settle into these places where they're willing to bitch, but unwilling to work? Yeah. So it's such an awakening, awakening to just sort of, if you, if you understand that it's a game, you are already better off than nine out of 10 people because nine out of 10 people think, well, this is the way the world works, you know, and they're sort of stuck in this little bubble, um, and they have a bad experience, you know, and they're like, oh, you know, so, so for example, they have, um, they saw their parents get evicted, you know, from, from a housing unit. And they're like,

oh my God, rich people are terrible. You know, they're nasty. And then so because they just saw a rich person treat their family in a bad way, like this stuff happens. Now though, they figured it out. If you have money, you're a bad person. And so they will hold this in the back of their brain for the rest of their lives. They will sabotage themselves. Anytime they start to have some success, and I've worked with people like this, I don't understand, Dr. Brad. Like, I'll start to great if you're wealthy and you love it. It's bad if you're poor and you don't like it. But essentially, we surround ourselves with people who look at the world the way we do.

So they're all playing the same game. They all know the same world. They don't know the other game. It's a foreign game to them. That's a foreign tribe, right? That's scary over there. But we know how to do this. This is what we know how to do. And then once we start, once we say, hey, but look at that tribe over there. But we know how to do this. This is what we know how to do.

And then once we start, once we say, hey, but look at that tribe over there. You know, it's like, it looks like they have some fancier things. It looks like they might have more time off. You know, that looks good. No, no, no. Those people are bad. And once we start to leave our tribe, people will try to sabotage us. Not because they hate us.

It's, it's, the irony is it's because they love us. They don't want to lose us. They're afraid that we're going to leave them. And so they'll make us feel guilty or they'll encourage us to overspend. They'll do all sorts of things because they're so desperate and afraid to lose us. But ultimately, I think one of the things that keeps people stuck in this, the system is rigged. Everybody's out to get me. And by the way, there are people probably out to get you and things aren't fair like if that's

your focus you will see that everywhere and you'll never go beyond it but it's something in psychology called learned helplessness and if you have grown up in a place where they've done experiments we talked about it in the book like these terrible terrible experiments with dogs which are just terrible if you like dogs but what they would do is they would put a dog in a cage that was electrified and they would give it no place to escape. And so what they would start to do is start shooting electrical current through the cage and the dog jumps up and down, runs all over, tries to find a place to escape, and then eventually just lays down and whimpers. Okay. That is helplessness. You've

learned that no matter what you do, you can't change it. Then, and by the way, a lot of people's childhood is like that. So you're a child. You can't escape what's happening in your life. If you grow up poor, there's nothing you can do about it. You just got to lay down and take it and try to get through childhood. Trauma, abuse. So many people grow up with this growing up in poverty it's just multiple traumas now here's the problem they then took that cage so i mentioned now that you're 18 years old half of it was not electrified and so all the dog had to do was jump over this little barrier and it was totally free fine not getting electrocuted at all those dogs who grew up in that or had that experience, so the,

how we relate to that is growing up in that sort of trauma, they didn't even try to escape. So literally inches away was freedom from that pain. And that's really what I think happens for many of us. Like we don't know it. All it is is one book away. All it is is one relationship away, one mindset shift away. But we feel like it's impossible, so we essentially lay down and just take it. And it's so tragic when I see people and as a psychologist work with people where it's so obvious to me. All you have to do is just hop right over here. But they've been trained from that early childhood trauma that escape is impossible.

And so then they live a life that it's so sad to watch. And so that's part of what we're trying to do with this book is wake people up to that reality, to realize that it is a game. It is a game. You mean it's a game? Yes, it is. Learn how to play the game.

You can win the game. Yeah. It's like we create a ceiling that doesn't exist, right? Another good example is I think this came out in Thailand. They train the elephants with a cord attached to a stick. And then when they hit a certain age, they take the cord off and the elephant won't go anywhere. The elephant will just stay right there because it still believes that the cord is still attached to the stake. And the rest of their lives, the rest of their lives, they will stay right by that stake even though the cord is not attached to them anymore. It's crazy.

I completely agree with that. It's funny. I even look back, looking at my own life, it has been my journey in relationship with money has been you know I was low income I was blessed to get a scholarship to play baseball at the University of Rochester which I didn't realize at the time was a safety school for dumb ass kids who wanted to go to Ivy schools but were too dumb to get in so you start being surrounded by all these really rich dummies. And I show up. I have $127 in my bank account. Day one, I show up to college.

And the kid I'm roomed with is driving a Range Rover and has like a Rolex or something. I can't even remember. Some crazy-ass expensive watch on his wrist and, you know, whatever. And I'm like, I literally remember saying to myself i'm fucked like how am i ever gonna get there like look where i am i'm wearing i have one pair of jeans i have two button-down shirts you know what i mean like this kid's rolling in and a range over that his dad bought for him with this watch and coats and all this stuff fancy sunglasses and shit like i don't even have sunglasses you know i? Those are for rich people.

So, like, it just, you know, the gooders didn't exist back then. So, like, it is wild. And then only through a life of, like, experience and then ultimately meeting. I have a very good friend. He lives in Connecticut. I'll give him a shout out. He's a co-author on the book we're writing. We're writing a book together called The Civilized Savage.

His name is Chris Paradiso. I got to know him very early in my professional career. And he showed me, like he came from a good family, but he then, he just, he never had that mental ceiling, right? So he just kept growing and building and growing. And he would see opportunities and I'd be like, you can do that? And he's like, why can't we do that? And like that, that like, it's like we can't even imagine that these opportunities are possible for us even though they're right there. And this is why I love podcasting because we get to share this kind of shit. I want to briefly talk about something because this is one of my traumas. My mother will say to me all the time,

don't work so hard. Money doesn't buy you happiness. You guys address this directly in your book. Now, I don't believe her. And I will say, well, that makes you sound like a communist mom. And no, I give my mom a lot of shit. She's the best. But she does have this very, like,

what you're talking about, that relationship with money. She has it. And she will say that to me all the time, even today. Like I went on vacation last week and she's like, you know, that's great. But you know, you don't have to go to those fancy places or whatever, because you know, money doesn't buy you happiness. I'm like, well, have you ever been on, um, uh, Taylor Bay beach in Turks and Caicos? Cause that was pretty fucking nice. Um, so, you know, talk to me, talk me through this because I think you guys address this head on in your book. I think we yeah, we say being poor sucks. Now, it's it's it's fact. And I have to be really honest. I my my dad, he came from subpoverty, like in a village in Mexico where they built their own houses.

And when they came here, it was an hour north of San Diego and Oceanside. And I remember there was this one stretch of freeway we would never used to drive on as a kid. And when I got a little older, I remember i was driving and i made the turn and and to go on this one freeway and my my dad's like wait don't oh it's too late i was like well how can we never go down here and then he shared this is the when i was in high school this is the the road i'd have to walk like five miles to go to my part-time job. And so he was walking on the, he was one of those guys walking on the freeway. And it, that's one of so many hardships that I've got to learn about him. He's, he's someone that actually struggled, uh, to find, to have food. He went hungry. I've

never, I mean, I've been hangry. I've never been hungry. I never had to go a day wondering what happened. In the book, I share a story with my dad's permission where he had to go into a neighboring farm one time and dig out an onion and bite the onion. I remember when he shares his story, it's funny. He doesn't share it from a sad perspective. He's like, it was the best onion I've ever had. I just took the onion. I took a big. It was amazing. And at first when I heard that story, I was like, that's awesome. What a good story. And then as I grew up, I was like, wait a second. I don't think I've ever been like, I'm just going to take a big bite of this onion because it sounds delicious.

No. But when you're hungry, anything sounds good. So I have to learn from these experiences of like what actually being you know really poor is because that those are those are struggles so the the goal of this book is to help people you know elevate but i think you know learning from your experiences if you if you've never been hungry if you come from a line of people uh like a family tree who suffered you can learn from that you can learn from that um and like i didn't immigrate here i was born here first brambula to be to be born here and i uh i have an immigrant mindset but i

i didn't immigrate here and i think that's that's part of the beautiful thing about adopting mindsets that's why books are amazing that's why podcasts are amazing you need to listen to other people's experiences and learn and adopt adopt those mindsets. But we make it super clear like we're not going to sugarcoat like having no money. It sucks. And we also don't sugarcoat that it's easy too. But we make it real. Like there's real tangible disciplinary actions on how we think about money that affect our actions to change. And if you just from my personal experience, I watched my parents do it.

I watched my parents come here and start low, nothing. And they were the first millionaires. And they did through saving. They did through saving. Like they also didn't invest in stock market, but just through saving CDs. And like they did things that like most people would be like, that's insane. I would never do that. They didn't buy clothes for three, four years.

No new clothes. They didn't eat out for years because they were just so focused on saving. So when you talk about we take things so much for granted, it's like, what? Not go out to a restaurant for a year? Are you insane? That's privilege, I think. But to an immigrant mindset, they're willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen. That is such a lost mentality, I think, today on this. Just like,

sometimes I want to tell, you know, I have friends and I have friends in a spectrum, right? I have my friends from my old life who still struggle with a lot of these things. And then I have friends from I'd say the second half of my life where I really started to embrace success and money and grow and build a life for myself, kind of break the chain I guess is really where our – part of it was I grew up in a town of 900 people in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York where we used to say you could leave your doors open because the criminals lived there. They didn't steal from there. And I remember being like 10 years old looking around this town, and it's just this dusty, ratty town with one streetlight. And I just said, I don't care what I have to do. I'm never fucking coming back to this place. Like this isn't going to be where I raise my kids. Like this never going to happen.

Like I just have to get out of here. And, you know, I share that because, you know, I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and he was, you know, he's bitching about that, you know, whatever bills and money. And I just, I was like, dude, I mean this with the most love. Suck it the up like change something like i i and i mean i mean i'll help you like whatever you need like if you dude i'll share with you the things i know i'll introduce you to people that i know that can help you that are smarter than me at this like but stop bitching Like, get after it a little bit. All this time, this 20-minute diatribe that you just laid on me about all this shit that's happening, you could be putting together a side hustle or a business. And you guys talk a little bit about this.

I guess, you know, where do people start with this? Do they start, is it, hey, I'm in this place and I have to, is it expense first? Is it go make more money first? Is it a combination of the two? Like if I'm sitting here and I, and I don't want you to give away all the, everything that's in the book, obviously I want people to read the book and, and, and all that. But like, if I'm sitting here and listening, I'm like, you know what? I freaking man, these guys are pissing me off. I'm going to do something. I'm not going not gonna what's like the first thing that they could do tonight after listening to this just to take that first baby step on this path uh adrian i was gonna say our chapter 17 is

complaining is for losers but i like stop fucking bitching better i wish we would have named it that ryan that's awesome um It's so easy to complain and bitch. I mean, it's so easy. We all fall into it. But the bottom line is it's horrible for you. There's even studies showing that your brain shrinks. I mean, it like literally makes you dumber the more you complain. And so if you really do love your friends, like go ahead, like, OK, so go ahead and complain for a minute and set the timer, you know, and then at the end, it's like, OK, so what the fuck are you going to do about it? Yeah. And by the way, I'll help you. Let's go. Yeah. So, so it is a mindset shift that I think first is sort of this awakening that, oh my God,

you mean I can do it? Wait, wait a second. You mean success is possible for me, but I've never done it before. I've never written a book and everyone around me tells me that it's too hard and you'll never have any success. Of course, of course, that's the ocean you're swimming in. Oh, wait, there's a different ocean. I mean, to me, that that is like the biggest thing is this mindset shift. So we have a chapter, though, where we we say, hey, we think that you should immediately start saving and investing. So investing, let's just say, you know, most financial expert experts say 10 percent. I always shot for 30 30%. When Adrian lived in a van, he was investing 95% of his income. And by the way, the richest immigrant person I know is an

immigrant. He's a billionaire. He invested 95% of his money while sleeping on his mom's couch, eating ramen noodles. And he's a billionaire now. But we say, hey, go ahead and start investing like right now. Even if it's 1% of your income, put all those mechanisms in place. And if you say you can't afford to invest, we got a great chapter for you where we break it down. We say, get a roommate, start riding the bus, get sober, shave your head. And we actually ran the numbers on it. So the average American, if you got a roommate, if you rode the bus, on it so the average American if you got a roommate if you rode the bus got rid of your car if you shaved your head bald like I do and if you stop drinking after 25 years of just investing that and

average market returns it's close to three million dollars you would have in just 25 years by just doing that but what we hear people say is well I don't want a roommate we actually have a chart in there based on the number of roommates you get and how fast you can become a multi-millionaire just to help you out. And it's a bit tongue in cheek, but also this is what people do. Like, this is what people who grew up like you, Ryan, you're like, I am not coming back here. I am not raising my kids here. I had that mentality growing up too, because being poor does suck. And anyone who tells you that, oh, you know, money's not going to make your life better. Um, you know, no offense to, to those individuals, but quite often they're already sort of hit middle class. Right. And so there, you know, it's, um,

it doesn't add quite as much happiness, but it does make you happier the more you go, or they feel like success is impossible for them, or they've actually never been poor. So they have no idea how bad it sucks. Um, but, but being And the best advice I could give anyone is start investing today. Another huge mistake people make, oh, once I pay off my debt. Well, if you're the average American, you're never paying off your debt. You're going to go get a house. You're going to owe a mortgage on that for 30 years. Start investing today, even if it's a dollar. Yeah, guys, I want, you know, just to just to share. And I've never shared this on the show before for for the longtime listeners.

I live in a 1300 square foot ranch. I could afford a much bigger house. Probably I just but I'm divorced. I have two boys. We live in a nice part of town. The house was built in 1960. I bought it off a 96-year-old woman who was moving in with her

98-year-old sister. I got it for an absolute song. It was a complete and utter disaster. I've spent the last year and a half fixing it up over time. I have friends that say they're nice enough not to go and a half fixing it up over time and you know i have friends that say like they're nice enough not to like go why do you live in that small house but they insinuate that question i've had that question insinuated me and i'm like because what the why who am i showing off

for that i need some big ass house like i would rather rather go, you're like, dude, for those listening, you, you can't see a Dr. Brad shirt, but experiences over stuff. I'm like, I want to take my kids to ball games. I want to go on vacations with, uh, you know, with, with my girl. Like I want to go do fun stuff and see shit. And the place that I sleep is so meaningless to me. Like it's, I mean, I've made it nice, but you know, it's me and my stepdad pounding away at shit. Right. So like, I just, we, we, I think like what society expects of us or what we better way of positioning that what we perceive society expects from us is a big part of why we stay in this poor mindset is like well you just got a raise get a better car you know what i mean like what does it get you where you need to go like does it if it doesn't break down all the time and it gets you where you need to go i i don't

understand the need to upgrade unless you've hit a point in your life where that expense isn't tearing you down right like i got a buddy who's got a beautiful second car. It's his convertible Porsche and it's beautiful. I mean, it's his baby and he loves it, but this dude has worked his ass off and hit a level of income where purchasing that luxury doesn't impact his day-to-day life, right? And good for him that he's there.

But I have other friends who have similarly nice cars that do the, that are living, as you said, paycheck to frigging paycheck to pay for this thing that they can drive around and show off. And that like, what people, what are people going to think? I think my brain is broken. I've just never given a shit about that. And it's like a blessed superpower because it just, I see so many people get bogged down in, well, what's someone going to think if I don't take my family out to the nicest restaurants or whatever? I just – it's such a limiting belief. I agree.

Living under your means is such an underrated superpower. And the true wealthy people, they do it. Wealthy people – and you're allowed to have nice stuff, but the difference is people that are really wealthy, they don't trade their time for objects. So if you're a W-2 earner and you have a high income salary and you purchase a nice vehicle without investment income, you're technically trading your time for that asset or for that vehicle, for the nice watch. It's like how many hours did I have to work to get this? That's what I would say a middle class mentality would wrap their minds at, that buy nice stuff. Wealth people, we have a chapter that says

you don't actually want to be a millionaire, you just want to spend a million dollars. And what a wealthy person will do is from their W-2 income, they'll try to save and invest as much of that as possible to the point where then that investment income is paying them. And with that passive income, then they go buy the Porsche, the Porsche. And that's the huge difference. Wealthy people, you're allowed, everyone's allowed to have nice things, but smart, wealthy people, they don't trade their time for it. They spend all their money in investments and that investment is then purchased their lifestyle. So when I was living in a van, that's when I got really popular online. I felt like I gained like a million followers overnight because I make like seven figures online and I've been documenting it since my first dollar.

And I was living in a van showing how much money I was making and talking about money. And it was a complete contradiction because like if you're a millionaire, there's no way you're living in a van. Like people can wrap their mind. So it became an accident, but that's why it went so viral. And it kind of makes me sad a little bit because like we talk about the most important asset, why we try to accumulate money, why do we save, why do we invest. It's so we can own our time. Time is our most valuable asset. It's the financial freedom is to do what you want to do whenever you want to do it for as long as you like to do it. So to do something by choice, that's why.

Money allows you to have that freedom to spend as much time with your family, with your kids, working on hobbies until you don't want to work on them anymore. Like that is what – that's an amazing place to be and most people never get to experience that. So it's having that discipline and avoiding the shiny objects and portraying success. And I think social media has made that part a lot worse is when you pull up Instagram, you look up a friend. It's their best version of their life. And so you don't know the behind the scenes because rich is what you see, but wealth is what you don't see. That's behind the scenes. And so that's why it's sometimes hard.

It's like that person looks successful, but did they trade their time? Are they trading their time? Are they in debt with their time? Are they trapped trade their time? Are they trading their time? Are they in debt with their time? Are they trapped by their objects? Or do they have real estate or stock that's actually paying for that? Are they really wealthy? And that's sometimes the hardest part is we can't really tell until a crash comes. And then you see who's swimming naked.

Resilience. That is resilience. So I coach entrepreneurs and they all come in wanting growth strategies. And I have to I found that I have to like backdoor into resilience because no one wants to hear it. But I'm like, it's not the goal. Your goal on a day to day basis shouldn't be to win the game. The goal is the ability to keep playing the game, right? That's the goal. Like, how do you keep playing the game? Because eventually you're going to get your wins. But if you think about it just as your next win, your next win, you're not going to be prepared for 2008, 2009, or, you know, the tech stock bubble burst back in 2001, or whatever the next thing is, COVID, you know, whatever the next thing is that's going to come down the pipe, and they seem to be coming a little more frequently. Um, and that kind of takes us to the final topic that I want to hit. And I want to be respectful of your time. You guys have been so amazing. This has been such a great conversation,

but, um, you talk about your political party doesn't give a shit about you. And obviously we're coming up to an election. Um, there you know, the words communism, socialism, this part, you know, these were the good guys. These guys are the good guys. It is insane. You know, for full disclosure, I have both a Trump sign and a Wu-Tang forever sign in my front yard. Just to give you an idea of where I particularly stand, although, you know, obviously Trump has his failings. But I just why doesn't your political party give a shit for you, shit about you? And how does that impact your wealth?

Yeah, they literally don't care about you. Politicians are all narcissists. They all care about themselves. What they really want to do is get reelected. OK, that's what they want to do. And so what they'll do is promise you. And by the way, so I grew up lower income. I'm in my early 50s now. I you know, the poverty rates have not changed at all.

So now, granted, they are, you know, a couple hundred years ago is like 80 percent of the world's in poverty. Now it's like 17 percent. Look, they're not doing anything for poor people okay and so even if they did even if there's some sort of policy that gave you a tax credit of a thousand bucks or whatever that's not going to make you financially free so if you are sitting around and i run and run across this all the time on social media and in my trolling comments and i can always tell who's doing it but it's's like, if people are so focused on the system has to change in order for you to then be able to take some action to better your life. And I'm a clinical psychologist. So I dare you to, um, to offer me up the person who has the

most stacked against them and, and me be unable to help them in some way. And even if these things are like totally legitimate, they've got all the, everything's stacked against them. I guarantee you they can climb the ladder with a mindset shift and some tips along the way, frankly, most of it's mindset. But if you're sitting waiting around for the system to get unrigged and for a politician to save you, it's never going to happen. We talk about it too. Like your boss isn't going to help you be financially free. Your boss probably isn't financially free, right? And even if they were, why would they want to eat the cost of trying to train your replacement? So they're not going to do it for you. You're going to have to do it for yourself. And the great news is like when I was growing up, you couldn't invest in the stock market. You actually

had to have a broker make the transactions for you and had to have a certain amount of money to even have that relationship. Now you can download the app today and you can invest a dollar today. It's unbelievable. There's never been a better time to make money. Adrian's a great example of that. We joke about college and everything since I went all the way and everything. I'm still debating about whether I should send my kids to Adrian's house, you know, over the summer so that he can just set them all up to make a bunch of money or if I should send them to med school or something. I think I'll probably send them to Adrian's house to be financially free. Then they can go decide if they want to, you know, go to med school or whatever. But it's never been a better time. You just but you have to embrace the concept that it's possible for you because it absolutely is.

I think the other thing too, we don't pick a political side. We talk about red, blue. Our approach is at a much higher level is that where your energy is on focus and it it has to do back to what wealthy people think. They have an internal locus of control. So they believe that their life, whatever, good, bad, ugly, they're the person that's most accountable for it to change, for it to improve.

They're the ones that are in control. And so people that, right now, I feel like everyone is a political activist uh consuming every single update it's already happening on my social media it's so annoying and um all most of the time these people uh they're not financially free i think if you are financially free and you and so you control your time and you would like to spend your time being a political activist to me, I think that's great because it's your freedom of choice. If you are not financially free, if you're behind on

bills, if you are in debt, if you are not at a job that you love, why are you spending hours of your time debating and fighting trolls online and trying to be a political activist? And again, if you're a politician, I think that's what you should do. That's your job. But if you're a regular person that's in debt, doesn't have a lot of investing and saving, it would be better to read a financial book. It would be better to start a side hustle because you're in control. And to think that anyone is going to save you is just not true. So it's about energy. It's about focus. And it's about energy. It's about focus. And it's about discipline. And politics is like another huge shiny object that can distract just as bad as Netflix.

We compare like if you watch the full Game of Thrones, that's enough time for you to literally start an Amazon business. That's enough time for you to sell something on Etsy. Like it's hours of time. And I don't know if there's a stat. We should probably look it up. The average amount of time people spend consuming politics now, because before it used to just be during election year. And now it seems like it's all year round. It's the it's the never ending Netflix is like what's happening in the political world. And ultimately, we all get one vote. So you could spend all year, every single day and spend days and days and months to get your vote in.

Or you could just catch up in the last couple of weeks and vote. We do believe you should vote. But ultimately, your energy should be spent probably elsewhere if you're not financially free. Yeah. I always come back with the political pieces like incentives dictate action. Like look at how they're incentivized across the board. Right. Take my own political affiliation out of the mix.

What are their incentives? Like you said, if their incentive is to be reelected, they're going to do whatever they have to do to make that happen. I love the – there's a clip from Warren Buffett who's like, I could balance the budget in five minutes. Oh, I love that. If they, you know, if at the end of the year the budget hasn't been balanced, none of them are allowed to be reelected. They're all done. Like the budget will be balanced tomorrow. Right.

It would be over. you know, not to, you know, get too like in the granular, but things like, you know, you look at like the tax code and how it's, you know, you know, volumes and volumes and it's like, if they really wanted your life to be simple, there would be one line, you know, everyone pays X percent period done. You know what I mean? Then just live your life. You know, we all know what it is and we all go, you know, but they don't, they build in all this. And if you do this and we, you know, it makes me feel better to get more votes if I tell you, you should buy a house. So I'm going to stuff this thing in here, but then it's not ever going to look the way I told you it was going to look. And it's just, and that's why I, you know, I find it so interesting. And, uh, uh, I do enjoy, I enjoy politics as theater,

but not as reality. It's, it's theater. It's like going to a Broadway play. I mean, you're just, you're watching people perform. And I just, I find it, I find it intriguing in that aspect. Not, not so much in that I think any of them, and I think this is your point. And I think it's 100% the right point and the point for everything you've said, which is stop fucking bitching and get to work. Adrian, Dr. Brad, this has been phenomenal.

We're going to push the book hard. I'm going to add it to my recommended reading list. I think this is one of the best, most practical, and most real language books on wealth and getting your shit together financially that I've ever read. I appreciate the hell out of you. Besides going and get the books, we'll link in the show notes. Where else can people find out more information about you?

Well, thanks so much for having us. Not just a regular link. So if you go to startthinkingrich.com slash Ryan, we wanna actually give an extra bonus for everyone that's just part of your audience. And that's a way to say thank you to you and then all of your fans as well. And so it comes with like a financial masterclass

as well as a couple of live workshops we're planning on doing after the book is launched. So that's one way for us to say thank you. And also a book is really amazing, but the book's just a starting point, right? Like you could have a whole library of financial books, but it's really about taking action. So that's what we hope with some of our bonuses

for your audience we can help too. Tremendous. Thank you guys. I wish you nothing but the best and I know this will be a huge success as just about everything else you guys do. So thank you. Awesome, thank you.

Thanks for having us. Let's go. Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy. Thank you for listening to The Ryan Hanley Show. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts. I never switched to no change in me. The only thing changing. It's not. With the one-call-close system, you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals in one call. This is the exact method we used to close 1,200 clients in under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no endless follow-ups, just results fast.

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