The School of Greatness - From Worthiness to Wealth: Expert Advice for Tough Financial Times EP 1479

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

The Summit of Greatness is back! Buy your tickets today – summitofgreatness.com – Rachel Rodgers is the founder of Hello Seven, a multi-million dollar company that teaches you how to earn more money and build wealth. In this episode, we discuss how to feel worthy if you’re going through a difficult financial situation, how everyone can become a millionaire and the fastest way to do it, why it’s so difficult for people to be transparent about money.Ray Dalio is the Founder, Co-Chairman, and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Bridgewater Associates, the fifth most important private company in the U.S., according to Fortune magazine. Forbes named him the 69th richest person in the world, and he has been called the “Steve Jobs of Investing” by Wired magazine, and named one of the top 100 Most Influential People by TIME magazine. Chris Hogan is a best-selling author and America’s leading voice on retirement, investing, and building wealth. His goal is to help as many people as possible avoid financial traps and set their families up for the future. For more than a decade Chris has served at Ramsey Solutions and spreads a message of hope to audiences across the country. Grant Cardone is the author of eight business books, thirteen business programs, and is the CEO of seven privately held companies. Forbes calls him one of the top social media business influencers in the world. Seriously, this guy knows how to maximize growth and success.In this episode you will learn,How to feel worthy if you’re going through a difficult financial situation.How everyone can become a millionaire and the fastest way to do it.Why it’s so difficult for people to be transparent about money.The most important conversations to have around money.The 3 things to know to develop a millionaire mindset.For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1479For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]Rachel Rodgers full episode: https://link.chtbl.com/1184-podRay Dalio’s full episode: https://link.chtbl.com/1266-podChris Hogan’s full episode: https://lewishowes.com/podcast/become-an-everyday-millionaire-with-chris-hogan/Grant Cardone’s full episode: https://link.chtbl.com/1439-pod

Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection, I've got an invitation for you. Join me at this year's Summit of Greatness this September 7th through 9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio to unleash your true greatness. This is the one time a year that I gather the greatness community together in person for a powerful transformative weekend. People come from all over the world and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Jaspreet Singh, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Sincero and many more. You'll also be able to

dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts and connect with others at our evening socials. So if you're ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com slash summit 2023. Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I'll see you there. I think society was sort of designed so that we wouldn't talk about money. It's designed so that we wouldn't talk about money. It's designed so that we have a few people at the top and a lot of people at the bottom. I think that's part of the reason why it's like employers saying,

don't tell your co-workers how much you're making, because I'm paying you more than I'm paying this one, and I don't want y'all to know. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome to this special masterclass. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today.

It's going to be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in. Why is it such a taboo topic in general? Yes. I think for all classes all individuals i totally agree it's like you have it's so funny because and i wrote about this in my book like for women we have shame if we don't have enough money but we also have shame if we have quote unquote too much really yes why because it's like you know oh I have more than them and let me hide it because people are going to think I'm showing off or they have imposter syndrome, right? Am I worthy of having this much money? I've experienced that myself at different times, right?

Like you've worked hard for it, but you think that you don't deserve it for some reason. And I think that we just have, I think society was sort of designed so that we wouldn't talk about money. Why? Because I think it's designed so that we have a few people at the top and a lot of people at the bottom. And so now, you know, then of course the middle class emerged and we've gone through different things as a middle class, as a collective, right?

But I think it's, I think that's part of the reason why it's like, don't tell, you know know, employers saying don't tell your coworkers how much you're making because I'm paying you more than I'm paying this one and I don't want y'all to know. Right. So it's like it comes from those places, but it's reinforced everywhere, you know. Right. Everyone's reinforcing it. Exactly. And I think. Not just corporations.

Yes. And because there's so much mystery, it's like, I don't know how much you make, right? You don't know. Maybe you know how much I make because I talk about it all the time. But I don't, you know what I mean? So like we don't know and we're scared to make assumptions and we're sort of guessing and we're like, well, if I put mine out there, I might be embarrassed because I discovered that like I'm actually either making too much related to my peers or too little.

And I think it goes back to belonging We just want to belong to a community to a group. You know what I mean? And so Because of that it's like we don't want to do anything that's gonna make us not belong It's less than an inherent human need to belong And so I think that we don't talk about money because we think it's going to affect our ability to belong whether it means We're too broke or we have too much, you know, or somewhere in the middle. So what conversations should we be having around money? How consistently should we be having them and with who?

Yes. Okay. So in terms of the conversations I'm having, I'm telling people like, if I get a speaking gig, here's how much they paid me. Right. And I asked them more and they gave it to me. So make sure you do that too. Right. Or I negotiated for higher pay or I negotiated for profit sharing or I asked for more vacation days. Right. Like we need to share our

money earning strategies with each other, especially with, you know, women and people of color. Right. Like putting more money like that's what allyship is, in my opinion, is putting money in the pockets of the groups who need them, right? And who, you know, we have this huge wealth chasm in this country. So like, how can we start to change that? And so that's why I share how much I got paid for a book deal, like all these things you're not supposed to share. I'm like, I'm gonna tell you. This is how much I got, this is how I got it, you know? And I think it's important. So I think sharing money-making strategies is very important. I also think one of the things that has been so valuable to me with some of my peers, especially, I will say, my white guy peers in particular,

have showed me, like, they have taught me things about, like, you know, investing strategies or, you know, like, oh, here's a strategy that I'm doing with my money or I'm investing in real estate or I'm doing these different things. Like, what are people doing with money once you have some, right? Like once you have a little bit more than you need to live off of, what do you do with the excess and sharing those things, right? Sharing that information because it's usually hidden. And it's like, there's a small group of people that know and you don't know until you have peers who have done it. And then you find out, right? Sharing that information because it's usually hidden. And it's like, there's a small group of people that know and you don't know until you have peers who have done it. And then you find out, right? In those quiet conversations that aren't on, you know, on Facebook, right?

Sure, sure, sure. Should people be talking with their friends, their family members, their spouses about money? Yes. What if someone's really uncomfortable and says, you know what, I don't want to talk about the money I make and what we should be doing. What conversation can you have to try to break the wall down? Well, I think you could say, here's why I want to talk about money. And here's why, like we have to be, I think if we're willing to be transparent, people will be transparent with us. That's what I've found in the conversations that I've had.

And that's how I've learned a lot about monies by having conversations you know like the friend that I was spending time with last night she's an investor and a financial advisor and so I was asking her like okay well what are you investing in and how are you thinking about it and what is an investment thesis like I don't even know what that means right like you know we were having conversations and she was teaching me all of this stuff because I was willing to tell her like, okay, here's how much money I want to invest, but I don't know where to, where best to put it, you know, that kind of thing. So I think you just got to be willing to put yourself out there first.

And I find that people want to talk about it. So when I bring it up and I start sharing, they immediately start sharing because it's like, they were like waiting for an opportunity to talk about this yes is what i find so i think we just got to start doing it um and create more transparency around it um and then yeah that creates it creates opportunity for all and that's the other piece of it is like i recognize that you know even someone who would be considered a direct competitor maybe they sell the same thing i sell i sell, I don't believe in competition in that way. I think there's more than enough money to go around. I think there's more than enough opportunity to go around. And I choose to be friendly with and support my competitors, quote unquote, and vice versa. And that just means that we all get better

at what we're doing. We all can serve our clients better, right? We all can make more money. But I don't wanna be a person who's closed. So I'm just gonna, I just gotta be me and it is what it is, right? Like there's gonna be some occupational hazards when you're being transparent. Absolutely.

And you just gotta navigate that as best you can. But I just choose to be who I wanna be in the world instead of who I feel like I need to protect myself you know what was harder for you making your first hundred thousand dollars in a year or making your first million dollars in a year $100,000 for sure why is making a hundred thousand harder than making a million in a year because it's like I think we're just figuring it out I also think we're charging too little for our work at that point. Is this when you were working as a career

or when you had your own business or freelancing? I never made a hundred grand prior to starting my business. You know, I went from a college to like, I had a job in between college and law school and then I went to law school and then I started my own practice. So you didn't work at a law firm after law school.

So you started pretty much right away being an entrepreneur right which is really hard to do yes my last salary before I became an entrepreneur is was $41,000 a year and like really good health insurance yeah and I was thrilled that was in between law school or in between school and law schools yes no in between this was after law school because this is my clerkship. OK, gotcha. Yeah. So, you know, you kind of sign on for a year. Your paycheck is not that big. But like and you're a lawyer, right? You're riding the ropes. You're getting reps. Exactly. And that's kind of why I decided to start my business at that time, because I'm like, I already don't have a lot.

Right. Like I already know how to live off of this amount of money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, if I can live off of this amount of money. Yeah. So I'm like, if I can live off of this now, let me keep my expenses this way or lower them even more. Like I sold my car and we owned a house and we rented it out, moved into a smaller place. How many kids do you have at this time? I had none yet. Oh, well actually that's not true. I had my, my stepdaughter, but she didn't live with us full time. Um, and so that's what I did at that stage is like, I cut down my expenses as

much as I could so that I could build this business. How old were you then? I was 27, I want to say, 2009. Yeah, 2009 to 2010. This was that year. And then I clerked for the judge and I started my practice. And I was like, you know, I made like, there were months where I made 500 bucks and months that I made $2,000. And that's why like the linking together, you know, I was doing, my friend bought a salon. She was a hairstylist.

She wanted to buy her first salon. I did the transaction. She was purchasing an existing business. And I charged her 500 bucks for that. I don't think I've actually ever told anybody. That's cheap. because I was ashamed I was ashamed that I didn't know what to charge for that and that I undervalued my services so much that I like literally have never told anybody I'm under bucks for that and she's still

a good friend of mine and she's not her fault no it's not her fault she made bank with that salon and since's since now sold it. But you also got experience doing that, you know, doing that transaction, that deal, which you'd probably never done at that level. Yeah, it seems like so you gain confidence from that. Yes. So there was a win there for you as well. It was a win. And but when I saw how many hours of labor were involved.

For like weeks, probably. Yes. I'm negotiating with the other side, dealing with like a difficult lawyer. And $500 is a steal. I mean, for the whole thing. Can I hire you for that? I should have charged $5,000 minimum, you know? But it was like, but I learned from that. Of course.

I value, I can figure it out. And I have a skill in that I'm trained in knowing how to figure it out. Yeah. You know what I mean? And that was kind of like working on the job experience. Like you weren't fully probably experienced for that yet, it sounds like. But you learned, okay, I didn't need to do these 10 hours of calls that I did here. I could have done this in an email or whatever.

I don't know how this works. But whatever it was, you learned your process to simplify it, to maximize it. Exactly. And back to that hundred grand question, I think that's why. It's like we're figuring it out. Usually we don't know exactly what we sell in those early stages of the business. So we're selling everything, whatever people come to us with. We're like, yeah, we could do that. We just create a custom offer for that. Whatever money we can bring in, we'll do it. We will take it. And so you're very busy. I call this stage busy because you're very busy at this stage, but you're nothing's refined, nothing's efficient.

Everything is just sort of like your massive labor towards whatever you can make happen. And so that first hundred grand, I think you are hustling for that. But in order to get to a million or at least to do it in a way that feels sustainable, you need systems, you need process, you need team, right? And so now you're starting to build a sustainable business. You're not just, you know, by brute force making money. And you need to clarify your offering and your audience and your niche and what your specialty is.

Exactly. I'm not just a lawyer that can do anything you want me to do, but here's what I really specialize in. Exactly. Here are my three packages at these different levels. Yes. And you go all in on marketing that. Yes. And there's money that you're saying no to.

Absolutely. You learn that lesson that not all money is good money. Isn't that crazy? Yes. It's so, I say this a lot to people. I go, it's weird that I'll turn down massive checks all the time. Yep. But I'm just like, that's not what I want to do.

And it doesn't serve my mission. Yes. If it's not serving the mission and I don't need the money, then I shouldn't do something just to bring in more money. For me. It's a distraction. At different stages of my life, a different season, now to say yes to everything, you know, when I'm broke, you say yes to all these things. Yes. But then when you're like, okay, I'm here for a mission and to serve at the highest level of my skills and abilities, that brings me the most joy and brings others the most joy and benefits the most number of people, then you start saying no to money, which is crazy.

Yes. It sounds crazy, doesn't it? It's delightful. It is. I love it. No, it's great. I feel like, to me, it lets me know that I'm not, it's like I've not made money my master.

Yes. Like it's very important, but it is a tool. That's good. You know what I mean? And I'm not beholden to it and I won't trade anything for it. There is plenty of things that I will not do and I don't care how much you pay me, you know?

So I think that it's good to remember that. And so when you're turning down opportunities, it's just an example of like, okay, I'm doing things right. Well, I think you gotta understand that just because you turn down money over here, doesn't mean it's not gonna keep coming to you. Like just because you turn down something that's not right for you, it doesn't mean abundance of something that is right. Yes.

Will keep coming to you. There's so much opportunity. There's always more where that came from. Absolutely. You know? Absolutely. That's powerful. Okay. So the first hundred thousand, how long did it take you? How many years until you made a hundred thousand in one year? Can you remember? Roughly. So my first year in business and it was like, I started September 1st, 2010. And so from that year till like September, 2011, I made like 60 grand that first year. But I think the first

full 12 month calendar year was like year two. So it wasn't, it didn't take too long. And then how long until you made seven figures in one year? Yeah. That took me seven years. After that, yeah. From starting business. From September 2010, I think it was, maybe it was six. It was like 2016, 2017. I think 2017 was my first seven-figure year.

And I had gotten close, but not, you know, like almost there, but not quite. And twice. And you know what? It was interesting. What happened is like I had my business, my revenue was doubling in the beginning. It was like I made a hundred grand, then I made two or 250.

And then, you know, then I made 500. Then I was- But that's like- I plateaued. It's like, okay, 560 and then 620. I know. It started making me mad. Like from 500 to 700,000,

I think I was there for like three years and there was all kinds of stuff going on in my life. One, there was a lawsuit that one of my business partners. So like, this is one of the things where too trusting too quickly caused some issues. So that was a huge distraction for me at that time. I had two babies back to back. Wow. So, you know, I was busy with them. And then there were just a lot of lessons I needed to learn. Like I had all these people working for me, but I didn't have good boundaries. And I didn't, I just kind of let them do whatever they wanted and didn't have, you know, like I was learning how to become a boss.

I was learning how to become a leader and a manager. So much more challenging than just doing your skill. Like, let me just be good at the law thing, which is what people wanted me for. Yes. Now they want my business for that and me, but I've got to train the team and empower. To deliver. Right. Exactly. It's a different skill. It's totally different. And it's, it can be challenging. I think that's why a lot of times we're like, well, I'm just going to go back to doing it myself. And it's like, you can, but it's going to keep you small. Yeah. You have to say yes to those challenges and learn that new skill. Right. And I think leadership skills are so valuable for everybody. So yeah, I had to learn that. And it

took me a couple of years to like, figure out how to have stronger boundaries, figure out how to stop letting people waste my time, figure out how to charge for what my services are worth, right? All of those things, those were lessons that I was learning in that time. Who was wasting your time? Like clients or employees? Everybody. Clients were wasting my time, team were wasting my time, even family members, right? Like my desk was like right in the front door. So like, it's like the door is here. My desk is right here. My husband would like be coming in and out. He's a stay at home dad at the time,

taking care of the kids. And he just ran a tight ship with our household. It was amazing. Like I had so much support in that way. But he would like, every time he came through the door, what did he talk to me? I got to focus. Yes, exactly.

It was like, I didn't know how to create boundaries around my work time. And I did eventually learn it. I started getting up at 4 a.m. because I was like, I didn't know how to create boundaries around my work time. And I did eventually learn it. I started getting up at 4am because I was like, I'd get up at six and these kids would, it's like, they could tell, like they had a radar the moment I woke up. So then I would get up at six, like, I would be like, okay, I'm going to beat them. I'm going to get up at 530. Nope. Still get up with me. Five. Nope. 430. Nope. 4am. And they stayed in their beds. So I was like, fine, I'm going to be 4 a.m. every day then. Is now the time to start investing or is it more just save up some reserves for six

months to have some cash to live your life before you start investing? Or is it important to build the discipline and the habit of investing 50 bucks a month, a hundred bucks a month in a diversified portfolio, no matter how much you're making. I, I remember going through this cause I, I didn't have any money. And I, when was this, right? Oh, um, this was, um, 1982, 83. Um, I didn't, I had to borrow $4,000 from my dad to help to take care of my family bills. So, but I, so I remember thinking, how many weeks could I live if I lost my income? And I started counting in weeks and I would try to go out because if I got hit, I, so I think, I think that's the way to do it. You start to count how many weeks, can it be a month, a year, can I get up to a year? I didn't like that because of the fact that

there's an obligation and it's like, oh, if I get, then I'm going to be drowning. I'm trying to keep my head against water. This is just my own bias. But anyway, count the how many you can and then assume that it's buying power over the next number of years can fall by. Three or 4% a year, or if or if you put it in a risky investment like stocks or something, it can go on by more.

So cut that number maybe in half and have twice as much because you have to understand that that's your freedom. That is your safety. So that first band you must take care of, that first band, take care of that. Once you get past that and you feel, okay, I could take care of my family and I could take care of mine in a worst case scenario, then you have the freedom to then take other kinds of risks. But when you're building that portfolio, it's the same thing as when you have a lot of portfolio past that, just you want to diversify well, because you could see what happens to the markets. Every market, stock market, bond market, most markets have had times where they've gone down over an extended period 60 or 70 percent in buying power. period, 60 or 70%. So in buying power. So I think diversify, count that and build it and realize that's your saving. One thing I do for my kids and grandkids and always did, as long as i could start to afford it uh was um for every uh holiday like christmas

or their birthday i would give them a gold coin and i said i never want you to sell that gold coin until uh there's an emergency a real, never because you want to buy things. And the reason I did that, and they'll build over a period of time, that'll build something. And I said, don't even sell it. You pass it to your kids unless there's an emergency. Okay.

And so you're building that savings because I think we so easily spend so much money on junk. You know, so anything that I would give them, whatever it would be, I don't know, a piece of clothing, a thing of a jig, a toy or something will probably be gone in a year. Okay. And so the power of saving and, you know, and that resource, the relief it gives you and the power it gives you is so great. So yes, save it, diversify it. I want, I'm going to, I'm going to continue to stay on this topic, but also go off a little bit because you mentioned how, I guess it was 40 years ago, you, you lost your money

and you had to borrow 4,000 from your father to just kind of survive and pay your bills. How much money had you built before then, before losing it? I don't remember. It wasn't like it was a ton. I was fairly early in my career. I had a small investment business. I don't remember what it was exactly, but it wasn't a ton. I'm curious how you, from having some money to losing it, how you then went on a 40-year, four-decade run of getting to where you're at now, was there something in your mindset that allowed you to believe in yourself still? Yeah. That didn't say, oh, I've lost it all out.

You know, I don't believe in myself anymore because I just ruined my finances. That extremely painful experience was probably the best experience of my life. Really? And it changed my way of thinking, ways I'll describe. But let me say, before that, I didn't have much money. My dad was a jazz musician. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. And I felt, of course, rich.

I had two parents who loved me. I went to public school. of course, rich. I had two parents who loved me. I went to public school. And then when I was a kid, I did odd jobs and I caddied. And so when I put in the stock market when I was 12 and I got hooked on the game, so I never had much money. But then I built up some and then had that experience. And so that experience, which was also a very public experience, So that experience, which was also a very public experience, was very painful, but it changed my approach to decision making in really a profound way. and fear of being wrong that balance my audacity to double check myself. And in fact, try to find the smartest people I could who disagreed with me to have them stress test my thinking. So I'm never sure if I'm right.

I'm never sure if I'm right. Like my track record of being right is probably 70 or 75% ish, somewhere in that 70%, let's say something like that. And I'm used to being wrong sometimes and it's painful. So the stress testing of my opinions gave me an open-mindedness to learn a lot. And also diversification. I learned how to diversify without reducing my risks. If I could take a lot of uncorrelated bets, the return will equal the average of those bets, but the risk can be up to 80% less. And it changed my, it really caused me to reflect because I remember thinking to myself, it felt like I was sitting next to a jungle and I could sit on the safe side.

There's always risk in return. And what would I do? risk and return. And what would I do? Would I have a less great upside and be safe? Or would I go through crossing this jungle in which things could kill me or whatever in an attempt to have a great upside, a great life, a great upside. And so that puzzle led me to do the things I described, but also I knew that I had to go have the great upside and not be constrained by the risk. And so I did the two things that I've described, but going into the puzzle, I found that it was great that to find people who could see things that I couldn't see and vice versa. So that we were on the mission together because people see things differently. I learned how people see things differently.

Somebody will spot this or that. And then that back and forth helps you make better decisions. And if you're on the same mission with them. So one of the things I wanted was this meaningful work and meaningful relationships. And I found that that was so good that when I, you know, sort of got to the other side, like, you know, I had enough money and upside or whatever, I still wanted to stay in the jungle and I still wanted to do this because the act of doing that with people that I was doing this meaningful work and meaningful relationships with

was rewarding in and of itself, as well as success. So one of the things that you can learn is that you can see through other people's eyes. That doesn't mean you accept what they say blindly. It's that you think about their reasoning. And if you do that, that's good. It also gave me a principle, which is one of my fundamental principles, which is pain plus reflection equals progress. Okay. We have this pain, whatever it is. And okay. The reaction is a negative reaction and could almost be, why did that thing happen to me? And so on. If instead, when one calms down from the pain, there are is a lesson there about how reality works.

OK, it happened. It reality works that way. And then there's a thought. How do I deal with it better? Right. To produce better. What's my lesson? And if you acquire that I used to acquire, I would acquire that. I still acquire that. And then I wrote them down as principles in my books. That's why the collection of principles, it's like a journal. Pain plus reflection equals that. And then you write down the principle like a, and that's what the collection of principles came from. That has, so that event, that painful event was the basis. Most people believe they inherited it all, right?

You see somebody with money, you think, oh, mom or dad handed it to them. The truth is 79% of the millionaires that I talked to, first generation wealth builders. They didn't come from anything. These are people that focused and built money over time. Next myth. Well, if you're a millionaire, you make a high paying job, right? You got big income. Yeah, yeah. Nope. A third of the millionaires that we talked to never made six figures in a single working year. Really? Think about that for a second. Dual income, never made six figures. So that

blows that myth out of the water. A third of the millionaires that we talked to. Wow. Right? Now you think made six figures. So that blows that myth out of the water. A third of the millionaires that we talked to. Wow. Right. Now you think about six figures nowadays, it's more prevalent than it's ever been. But for people, a lot of people with six figure salaries have nothing in the bank. Thank you. Because they just spend it all. That's exactly right. And they're using credit constantly to buy bigger things. That's right. No, no, you're absolutely right. So what happens is, is people tend to think that income is so important. And I'll tell you, no, it's not. Because I was one of those people. I remember I was making about 30 grand and I thought, all right, when I get serious, I'm one year out of grad school making 30, 40 grand. I said, all right,

when I make this amount, I'll start to get serious about my money. Well, you know that path, right? Well, when I make this amount, the next thing you know, lifestyle grows and you never end up taking control. But these are regular everyday people that took control and were focused. It's amazing. So let me tell you this. Top three positions of the 10,000 millionaires we studied. Number one was engineer, which doesn't surprise you, right? They're good at planning.

Yeah. Accountants. Organized. Yeah. Accountants, same thing. They were number two. They're good at counting stuff. Number three was teachers. Teachers. They're not making that much. Exactly. And you think they're undervalued, underpaid. How are teachers doing this?

Well, if you think about what it is, wealth building is a long-term view, right? Not a quick hit. And so these get rich quick schemes that we see on TV at late night, they get me riled up because they're preying on people. But these people were people that built wealth over time, investing in their 401k, their 403bs. So anyway, the goal of this book is to let people know their American dream is not dead. It's alive and it's well and it's available to people. We just have to take action. Absolutely.

What are some of the things that they do on a daily basis? These millionaires, what are some of the steps to take And how do they think differently than non-millionaires? Great. 97% of the millionaires that we studied feel that they control their own destiny. Now think about that for a minute, because we have a victim mentality issue in America today, where we want to blame somebody for us not achieving something or getting in our way. So these millionaires think differently. 94% of them live on less than they make. So that means if they're making a hundred thousand, they're living on 70 or 80, right? You can't build wealth if you live on more than you make. That's exactly right.

And that's where the credit cards, people start extending themselves and using credit cards. But 73% of these millionaires never carried a dime of credit card debt. They never carried debt. Debt. Yeah. Right. Might use a card, pay it off every month. Pay it off. And so the mindset, and I love to give people an economics and a PhD in economics, interest that you pay is a penalty, right? If I use someone else's money, they charge me, right? That's a penalty. Interest that I earn on my investments is a reward, right? So why choose to penalize yourself? Don't use debt, get yourself out of debt and invest and grow your money to reward yourself. Yeah. Powerful. Yeah. Now, how have you managed to through all this stuff you've gone through? I'm assuming the last,

you know, 15, 20 years, you've gone through some challenges. You told me before off camera that you have a child who has special needs and was told that they wouldn't live past a certain age you're you know i'm assuming you've had challenges in relationships with business partnerships intimate relationships family yeah the more wealth that i've accumulated and the attention that i've gained there's more people with handouts yes expecting whatever it may be. How have you personally managed the emotional challenges that have come your way by not letting it affect your mindset around money so that you don't do things emotionally with your money? Right. Well, I mean, I've been there.

I don't know about you, but I've made some mistakes. Yeah. Okay. And, you know, a mistake that you make one or two times, you can call it a mistake. But when you keep doing it over and over, it's not a mistake anymore. It's called a choice. So for me, I'm very, I'm a man of faith. So obviously I'm rooted there. Uh, but I got good people around me. Uh, I got good friends, people that have known me since my childhood, people that know me for who I am. So I'm not an author and speaker with these people. I'm just Chris. And so those people keep me rooted, right? Mama Hogan is no joke either. Okay. She'll keep

me rooted. And so I think it's really important to understand what am I trying to accomplish? Like, I don't want notoriety and I don't want to be famous. I want to be known that I help people think bigger. Right. And so staying rooted in that, it helps me to be very, very clear on on what I'm doing people will come up and tell me oh Chris you changed my life financially and I go whoa pump the brakes I didn't change anything I gave you some information you did the changing and so I think it's really important as as we help people that we stay aware of who's doing what and our role yeah I think there's a there's a story about Marcus Aurelius where he would go around the town and he had someone just walk with him beside him and say, you're just a man. I remember that.

Every time someone would praise him, just a man. Can you imagine that? I mean, seriously, isn't that cool? How rooted does that keep you? You know, so, you know, John Wooden's got a quote. He says, you know, be careful of fame because fame is man-made. And if man giveth, man can take it away. Absolutely.

You know, and so being aware of that, I think, is really, really important. What's the heart behind what I'm trying to do? Yeah. And so, you know, if I travel and I go speak to 10,000 people, if I get one person whose eyes light up and they start thinking differently, then I've done my mission. Yeah. Yeah. If you got a thousand dollars,

I would like just keep, you know, keep investing in yourself until you got another thousand. Okay. And, and then invest in yourself. You know, now,

now you got 2000 investing. You go, go, go. You should start making money faster. At some point you should start, like every time you make an investment in yourself, if I put fuel in my car, it's supposed to take me further.

Right. Right, so if I invest in myself, then, and look, you know, there's things I bought that I didn't get a return on right away. But I didn't quit investing in a course or a workshop or training or education because it didn't work. Or your health or anything. I spent 17 years going to school, None of it was any good for me, but it did teach me, it did teach me how to go to

school, you know, how to study, how to study, how to go there, how to finish, how to complete a course. Like I completed college. I'm not proud of that, by the way. You're not proud of you completing it. Why not? No, because it was stupid. It was ridiculous. I should have dropped out. Like I knew it was a bad thing. I knew what youored uh uh majored in accounting it's a good degree it's not like just some you know business degree right but you should have dropped out of it i should 100 because i i mean i would still i would still i would well i'd have a five-year jump on my career but the problem is i was on drugs. So, you know. Actual drugs? If I wouldn't have been on drugs,

I would have quit college because I would have had enough confidence in myself. When you're on drugs, you can't have confidence because you know you're drugged. So everything is second guess because my self-esteem was like through the basement. And so I'm like, I need to quit college. But everybody around me is like,

oh no, you got to finish college, you got to finish college. I'm like, what do I know? I'm a drug addict. And if I drop like, I need to quit college. But everybody around me is like, oh no, you gotta finish college, you gotta finish college. I'm like, what do I know? I'm a drug addict. And if I drop out, I don't have a degree, no one's gonna hire me. I didn't even worry about any of that. Cause you know, I didn't worry about that. I just didn't have the confidence to follow my intuition.

You can't when you're- On drugs. When you're not yourself. So what do you do with a thousand bucks, right? You know, I think you just got to keep investing in you until like, oh, now I'm making $3,000. Okay, boom, reinvest all that again. But what we do is we start taking it off the table, right?

We save it, we don't invest it. So I think people just need to get on that cycle of like, okay, I'm going to keep repeating this activity. I'm going to reinvest some money in myself, go to the workshop or whatever. Monday, I got to be hustling again until, okay, now I got $4,000. Okay, now I got 5,000. Now the income is starting to pick up. Income has to pick up. The income should be an indication that whatever you're learning is helping you. That's interesting. Until one day you're like, okay, I have more money here than I can actually-

Invest in myself. I can't, like there's nothing I can go to to get rid of this money. You need to get rid of that money, though. All my free time is going to my workshops. I don't have more free time to invest in me. I'm developing skills. I'm working. I'm earning more.

Now, what's the next step? Yeah. And now it would be, okay, I've got to spend money on marketing. I wouldn't go look for an investment right now. I'm going to spend money on marketing. I wouldn't go look for an investment right now. I'm going to spend money on marketing now. Now I'm going to spend money on marketing to get me more leads. And a big mistake I made in my career was not spending more money on marketing. Because you turned, what, 50 when you really started investing?

I was 51 when we started playing the social media game. And I was probably 56, 55 or 56 when we started spending money on marketing. Wow. Yeah. 51 when you started doing social media. Yeah. Yeah. And I should have been spending money. I should have been spending money when I was 25 years old. When I was selling cars, I should have been spending money

on ads, but I was scared, man. So- So what made you not scared 25 years later, 26 years later at 51? I started studying, hey, what do all these successful people have in common? You know, whether it was the mattress dealer, the car dealer, the furniture dealer, or Elon Musk,

they spend money, man. You know, they spend money. They spend a lot of money. And they don't worry about money the way I was worried about it. They use money. They used it. They didn't save it.

They didn't hoard money. And the greatest companies on this planet today, the ones that have just like, some of these companies have lost money for 25 years. Look at Amazon. Reinvest, 1.7 million employees when i started i remember i looked at ernst young i said i had a buddy that worked at earn shot i said how many employees you got he's like 240 000. wow and i'm worried about 10 people what am i thinking so so when i quit

studying individuals and started studying people everything shifted for me when I quit trying to be the you know when I quit worrying about what Bob was doing or Pete or whoever and started saying hey man what is this big company doing because that also relieved me of being competitive with this guy Pete and started saying okay I'm gonna go do what co Coca-Cola does. That's when I bought the plane. Wow. Really? Yeah. How old were you when you bought the plane?

I was 50, maybe 55, the first one. I bought it because I studied what Coca-Cola was doing. They bought planes. I said, why are they buying planes? Oh, then I learned how they write them off. And then I learned how they trade them every three years. That's crazy. So notice every three years I'm trading a plane blind I'm getting rid of it replacing them with another one but what are they using it for they don't use it for pleasure they're not using it for Instagram

photos they're using it to go and set up headquarters in other countries Wow you know so so that's when I wrote if you're not first you're last because when I started studying these companies I'm like co, Coca-Cola is everywhere. You can't go any place and not see Coca-Cola. And I was like this big, I was always thinking about what can I keep? And they were thinking about how many shells can we get on? How many eyeballs can we see?

So that's when it all clicked for me. And that goes back to that thing about the financial misinformation, right? It's like, who am I studying? And that's when we started, opened up the funds for, I went to New York City to go walk in Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan's offices. I wanted to walk in and see what it was like.

These are multi hundred billion dollar companies. Crazy. like these are hundred multi hundred billion dollar companies crazy you know and I walked in I was like oh my god man I just it just all hit me in a second I've been doing everything wrong what were they doing different they own the building mmm they weren't renting the building they own the building well they don't care if they rent they could rent it but they own the elevators were bigger than the studio. One elevator. It's crazy.

And 60 people got on that elevator and went to the 120th floor. And then there was six of these elevators, people going up and down. Everybody told me, don't take people's money. Do not let investors invest when you keep the whole deal for yourself. The second I walked into Goldman Sachs. Because all they're doing is getting investor money that's all they do okay and the difference is what I do is I could go to Goldman so I was there they would give me money mmm and I'm like I'm not gonna get money from them I'm gonna do what they do for my individuals exactly for my friends from people that friends, from people that follow me, from people that support me. Okay.

Goldman Sachs will give money to anybody. Right. Okay. They don't know how to go to these people. They're not on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn or TikTok. So I'm going to create a fund where I can tell my audience, hey, Lewis, you can invest with me. I'm going to kick Goldman out of the deal or JP or whoever. There's a bunch of these guys. It's not that they're doing a bad thing or anything. I'm not saying they're the

devil, but they're close. Because they're not going to call you up and say, how are you doing, man? Without saying, hey, you got any money to invest. That's not what they do. Their job is to make money, period. So anyway, when I saw that, I'm like, okay, these got any money to invest. It's just not, you know, that's not what they do. Their job is to make money, period. So anyway, when I saw that, I'm like, okay, these people are, these are the richest institutions on the planet. They fund everything that happens. The company BlackRock, BlackRock's gonna be,

BlackRock and Vanguard, these are multi, you know, probably gonna be worth $20 trillion each in the next handful of years. They'll own, they say they'll own 99% of all the assets on planet earth, not just in America. How are they able to do that? Because they scale, right? Because they think big.

So they're funding everything, everything that happens on this planet from media to pharmaceutical is gonna be funded by those two companies. So it just, when you're studying your rich uncle or the neighbor down the street, the think is only so big. And then when I started studying these other companies,

I was like, okay, this is who, if you want to create that kind of legacy wealth and really help a lot of people, because they are in a position to help or hurt a lot of people. That's the scale you've got to think at. Yeah. But it took you really 25 years to get there, to start thinking that way.

Is that right? Because you weren't able to see yourself spending money for 25 years. You were just trying to earn more and more and more. Yeah, because I was just trying to – because the grind was so – it was such a low-level grind. Let's say you had the right information at 25. Let's just say you had a rich uncle that did what these people did, and you got to witness this. Do you think that you would have been able to get there faster?

Yeah, 1,000 years. Or do you feel like money only comes to you when you're ready for it? No. When you're ready to make it, and when you're ready to take on the risk or the responsibility. Sabrina will never make the mistakes I make. Because she won't get in the wrong car. I got in the wrong vehicle. I didn't know.

The vehicle I got in when I was 28 years old, I could actually make 100 grand a year doing this. My daughters will never get in that vehicle. What will they do? They'll be like, I'm not getting in a $100,000 ride. If it can't bring will they do? They'll be like, I'm not getting in $100,000 ride. If it can't bring me, they're gonna be like, hey, if this doesn't have a billion dollar possibility,

they're gonna pick, this is the wealthy, they put their kids, their kids see things differently. If they're not ruined. Right. If they're not completely ruined and scathed by having whatever they want then they'll see they'll see track they'll see opportunities different yeah you know and and but when when you see the possibility then you're like I'm not gonna get in that car that car that car

I'm gonna get I'm gonna get I'm gonna get in a spaceship mmm so if I was 28 again today I mean I would would know what industries to pick. Top three industries to pick. Well, hedge funds have to be one of them. Advertising and marketing has got to be a space to be in. And probably, you know, something to do with health care. If I could scale health care. If I could scale the organic alternative medicines, you know, so those are three massive spaces. Maybe financial too, the financial world.

You know, in the next 30 years, we're probably going to have a disruption of the dollar. You know, and the way money's, maybe we're a crypto currency you know environment in the future yeah so any of that any of that's going to happen you know um but but they're the reason i would go there is like like jeff bezos when i when i saw the first interview with jeff when he was saying he was studying algorithms i think he was he was at one of the big firms selling stocks. Before Amazon. Yeah, before Amazon. And then he saw something that came across his desk where there was a spike in internet activity. Eyeballs going to the internet.

That's when he said, I'm going to go do Amazon. And he followed traffic. I didn't ever follow traffic. He followed scale. He followed scaling possibilities. And then what did he do? He followed this traffic, the possibility. Then he invested in the possibility. And then he went into debt on the possibility. And then he was willing to not get paid any money. But what did I do? I need money today. I got to have money this week. I need to have a little

more money next week. And if I get a little more money after that, I'm going to save it all. And then I'm going to do that again. And I'm going to feed the bank and I'm going to keep feeding the bank. I don't even know how much money the bank's made off of me for 25 years. We don't know anybody that works harder than Grant Cardone. And as soon as he gets a bag, he brings it to us. What do they do? Hey, y'all want to borrow this money? Now repeat that 300 million times. Wow. And that's the American people. What about a family that's thinking, you know, I really feel comfortable having six months to a year of savings because I got kids. I got, you know, the rent. I got all the bills.

Yeah. What do you say to someone who's like, you know what? I see where you're coming from, but maybe I don't feel that comfortable yet. Well, then keep, you know, money. If you think money is going to save the, you know, money. If you think money's gonna save you, you know, you're just, again, they're stacking information on top of bad information, okay? You know, the money that you have saved

in the last six months has probably dropped 11%. So the money that you have, you got a hundred grand, I gotta have six months of savings. I need, you know, 4,000, my bills are four or 5,000 bucks.'ve got to have six months of savings. I need $4,000. My bills are $4,000 or $5,000 a month. I've got to have $30,000 in the bank. I've got to have $30,000. But they really have $180,000. So first of all, I guarantee they have more than six months,

and they don't even know it because they're living out of terror. It's not logic. You say it's logic. I need six months, but you've got three times more than you need. Sure. Number one. Number two, you've never had an emergency that cost you 30 grand in your lifetime. Very few people ever had that emergency.

Everybody hears about, oh, yeah, my guy got in a bad. This happened, blah, blah, blah. Accident or this. But if you had assets, if you'd been investing in assets, you can always go use those assets for collateral to get a loan out. Cancer surgery. You get a loan out from the bank if you got it. 100%. Or if you just took the money that you earned

and keep reinvesting in assets that pay you, not assets that you wish one day will pay you, but assets that pay you every month, if you keep investing in that asset class, one day your cashflow will be your emergency account. My emergency account last month paid me a million six. My cash flow, my free cash flow. That's crazy. That's no work involved. That is not one second of one day. Okay. And that happens every single month in my place.

But that's been because I made a bunch of investments for the last 25 years. Right. End of every year, I dump all my cash out every year. I'm like, you need to get as close to zero as you can. And replace it with assets that in January, if I dump out in December, January, I want a payment from that. It doesn't have to be a big payment. It just needs to be a drip off that asset. Something, yeah.

So I'm not gonna buy a cup because the cup won't pay me. So in December, I had a bunch of money, boom. I'm like, make a deal. You were in it, yes, a couple days ago. Yeah, yeah. You bought that house. Take that cash, that garbage that you have,

I already had a surplus of money. So if I can't buy two of these, I'm not gonna buy one of them. If I can't write off some portion of it, I'm not going to buy it. If I can't do it out of passive income, I'm not going to touch it. So those are my criteria for making investments, right? And it needs to cash flow. So I took a bunch of this cash that was sitting here just deteriorating, not providing me with safety, and took it and put it into this asset And people like are you still you ridiculous you paid that much money for that thing, okay? We'll see you know so I buy this thing this thing will provide rental income

I think this year I'll make three million bucks on this deal Wow in cash flow And how much do you have to put down or you buy the whole? I paid cash for this so so but the reason I did it is not because this is a great deal, but this is a terrible deal. Keeping the cash. Keeping the cash is garbage. This Malibu house is probably one of the worst investments I ever made. Why? But I had a bunch of surplus cash.

I had already bought, in December, we bought almost 2,000 apartments. If I could have got another apartment deal, I would have bought another apartment deal with $40 million. But I couldn't. You couldn't find one. I couldn't find another deal. Okay. I still had this money left over end of the year. It's just the thing that I do. End of the year, dump out. Literally like flush the toilet on your savings. So every day I look at my savings accounts. Okay. It's not because I'm worried about any more money anymore. I know for sure the money's going down in value. Everybody knows that this year. Your money is depreciating, right?

It's dropping down in value. What you were told that is 100 grand is not 100 grand. The bank's not even telling you the truth. It's 100 less 11,000. It's 11% right now? It could be 34% less. Some people think it's going down 34%. That's crazy.

But you're gonna still see 100 because this is invisible taxing, right? It's inflation. So I know that. I know it's not 100. So when you guys look at your check, I got 180,000. You're lying to yourself because you're not doing all the math on money. This is why Mike Saylor went and took all that money he had and invested in Bitcoin. Because he's done the research. So I would listen to him. And I'm not saying you guys should go buy Bitcoin, but I'm not buying Bitcoin at those levels. Okay? I'm buying assets that can provide me with more cash, with more income. Maybe I should be buying Bitcoin.

I don't know. But anyway, so I dumped this out. I dumped this for now. I've been shopping this piece of real estate for 19 months. I've been working this deal for 19 months. So I'm not being like, OK, I just got to go buy something. I'm not going to do that. But I'm trying to get rid of this cash to go into an asset that has the potential to go up in value over time.

I dump out in January. OK, I do three webinars. That's why everybody wants to know, man, what's the rush to make more money? Because I'm broke, man. And I got a new house. Right. You got bills to pay now. You got expenses.

So January 1st comes. I've done three webinars already to start filling this up again. Right. Now, if I walked into January 1st with $40 million sitting in a bank account, dude, I'm You're not hungry. What's the rush, bro? You're not hungry. Yeah the rush bro you're not hungry yeah let's plan let's do some planning this year mmm but what I do is I dump out so every year for the last 15 years every January I end up with more assets I hope you enjoyed today's

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