The School of Greatness - The 6-Step Formula To Create Wealth w/ Jaspreet Singh EP 1327

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

Jaspreet Singh, the Minority Mindset, is an attorney, investor, and CEO of Market Briefs. Although he didn't receive any formal financial education - he is on a mission to make financial education fun and accessible.In this episode you will learn:Jaspreet’s six-step formula to becoming wealthy.Questions to ask yourself before you make a big purchase. Why you should increase the amount you are investing.The details and strategies for how to best use a savings account.For more, go to lewishowes.com/1327Click below to hear Jaspreet’s previous episodes,Everything You Need To Know About The Housing Market: EP 1301Take These Steps If You Want to Become Rich - EP 1301Money Habits To Prepare Against Inflation, Market Crashes & A Recession - EP 1283The Biggest Lies You've Been Told About Money, Debt & Building Wealth - EP 1257

So this is where you want to create a financial system and start investing your money because your savings will never make you wealthy. You cannot save your way to wealth. You have to... 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. So if someone wants to become financially free to be able to retire within 15 years, I want to talk about that. I want to talk about it at different stages of life. If you're in your 20s to your 30s, if you're in your 30s to your 40s, I want to talk about that. I want to talk about it at different stages of life. If you're in your 20s to your 30s, if you're in your 30s to your 40s, I want to talk about

that. What would be a step-by-step approach from first the mindset standpoint, which is your thing, thinking of the mindset, okay, I want to retire in 15 years. How do I have to think to then the actual actions that people need to take in order to get there? And what does retirement actually look like? That's a good question. So let me, I'm going to give you a quick formula and then I'm going to break it down because

I have created, it's not very complex, but I created this wealth formula, which breaks it down into a very simple, almost mathematical thing where it's, you take your income, you subtract your expenses, and that equals your investments plus your savings. Income. Income minus expenses equals your investments plus your savings. So if you want to become wealthy, it ultimately comes down to having more investments. Your savings are not there to make you wealthy. They're there to protect you against an emergency. Your investments are what make you wealthy. They're there to protect you against an emergency. Your investments are what make you wealthy.

So if you want to become wealthy sooner or if you want to become a wealthier. You need more investments. You need more investments. How do you do that? Well, if it's your income minus your expenses, it's basic math. Either increase your income,

decrease your expenses or do both. Right. So that's the ultimate formula. So now if we talk about, let's break it down step by step on how do you actually do it six steps and this is no matter what age you are these are the six steps that you want to follow before you get into the six steps yeah what is the mindset that someone needs to think about step number one is about the mindset so step number one is you need to have the right mindset okay so this is why i call myself the

minority mindset and you know the brand minority, because it's all about thinking differently than the majority of people. Because if you follow what the majority of people do in 80 to 90% of situations, you're probably doing something wrong. And you'll be in debt and you'll be paying off debts and loans for the rest of your life. The majority of people are broke. The majority of people are living paycheck to paycheck. The majority of people are drowning in debt. The majority of people are broke the majority of people are living paycheck to paycheck the majority of people are drowning in debt the majority of people have zero to no investments the majority of people are unhappy the majority of people are miserable and the majority of people do not like their jobs this is not me exaggerating these are all statistical numbers where more than 50 percent of people feel this way and so if now you keep doing what everybody else does you're going to

end up like everybody else and so this is where now you want doing what everybody else does you're going to end up like everybody else and so this is where now you want to think a little bit different and try to find what's right for you and try to get educated yourself because when it comes to the mindset the first thing you have to understand is that it is possible because if you're sitting there saying it's not possible for someone like me somebody who has my background background, my parents, my whatever, I can't become successful. I 100% guarantee that you will not be able to become successful.

You cannot change your outcome without changing your mindset. Oh, that's big. And in the previous interview we had, we talked about mindset versus tool set where most of the times

we assume that the reason why we can't become successful is because we lack the tool set. When in reality, for 90% of people, it's lacking the right mindset. Because when you have the right mindset, you'll discover that the tool set is right around you. So it's first believing that you can do it. Because once you know and believe that you can do it, that belief is going to then impact your decisions. Because now if you say, you know what? Yeah, maybe I can become successful. What are you going to do?

You're going to go onto YouTube, watch videos. How do I become successful? Then you start watching videos. Maybe you start binging videos. And now you start to realize, oh, okay, I can start to do this. I can change this about my life. I need to change the way I think. I need to change my actions.

I need to do more things in my day. I need to stop watching so much Netflix. I need to do this. Then maybe you start reading books. And now you start reading business books.. I need to stop watching so much Netflix. I need to do this. Then maybe start reading books. And then you start reading business books because I have read a lot of business books and there's so much wealth in a $20 business book. Just go on to Audible,

look at some of the top business books and just start reading them and you will learn so much. Now you start reading them. Maybe you start doing a little bit. Maybe you don't succeed too much, but you start taking some action and you start to learn even more because your experiences are some of the best teachers teachers in the world even if you make mistakes I

have learned from my mistakes I didn't have a mentor I don't have guidance I don't have investment family members I don't have people telling me how entrepreneurship works I screwed up a ton just like you we made a ton of a mistakes and that's how we learned and then maybe you go and take a class now you're like okay i want to learn how to do this i'm trying to build this business i'm doing something wrong i'm trying to get a better job or i'm trying to get a raise i keep doing something wrong you've read books now maybe you find a class you invest some money in this class and now you have more education now you try more and now you start to see over time oh my god 12 months

ago i had no idea i didn't even believe that I can do it. Now that I believe that I can do it, I started watching YouTube videos. I started reading books. I started taking classes. I started taking action. And then you keep doing it. Maybe you hire a coach. Maybe you hire a consultant. I mean, the list goes on and on and on of what you can do. But it all first starts with the mindset. Because if you tell yourself you can't, your mind shuts down and you're never going to find an opportunity. You're never going to look for the opportunity. So that's where the mindset is the most important thing. And if you don't have the right mindset,

this is where the first thing you want to do is start learning how do I build self-esteem? How do I build my confidence? How do I believe in myself? And there's, I don't have a ton of videos on this. I know you have a ton of videos on this. Watch Lewis's stuff, right? So start there. Then we go a little bit deeper now for focusing on finances the mindset is number one

mindset is number one the second thing now once you build the right mindset is you want to create your financial base and the best way to understand this is just to think if you wanted to build a house what do you do first well you got a foundation you got to build the foundation if you want a bigger bigger house if you want to build a house, what do you do first? Well, you've got to build a foundation. If you want a bigger house, if you want to build a bigger house, you want to dig a deeper foundation. You want to build a tall building, you need an even deeper foundation. So you have to start by building your financial base. And what that means financially is first, you want to save $2,000 at the very least. You want to put aside some cash for savings as fast as possible.

$2,000 at the very least. You want to put aside some cash for savings as fast as possible. Because right now, it's something like 40% to 70% of Americans don't have, well, 40% of Americans don't have $1,000 to put aside. And something close to 70% of Americans don't even have $400 to put aside to protect them against an emergency. So most Americans don't have $1,000 put aside. Get a $2,000 base. So have a two grand as fast as possible.

And then you need to cut the financial bleeding. That means your high interest debts, your credit card debts, your hard money loans, your 0% APR loans, which are now charged to be 20 to 25%. These need to be paid off as fast as possible because these are loans that are skinning you alive financially so I mean it seems like credit cards are one of the biggest

things that hold people back look credit cards right credit cards are a tool they are a tool if you're not educated with them you can get stuck if you have this tool without the education it it will burn you. I only spend with a credit card. I spend a lot of money with a credit card because I know how to use a tool. And now because I know how to use my credit card, what happens? Well, I don't spend more than I would otherwise because I use my credit card just as a medium of exchange. I'm going to spend this money anyways. Might as well use my credit card. My credit card gives me perks. It gives me cash back. It gives me fraud protection. It gives me cash back. It gives me fraud protection.

It gives me free insurance. It gives me hotel upgrades. It gives me all these things just because I use my credit card instead of paying with cash. And so now again, it's the financial education because now some people will say,

oh my God, these credit card companies are scams. Well, the reason why they're looked at as scams is because we don't have the right education on how to use them, right? It's a tool without the education on how to use it and this is where now you have to build that financial education and many times you're going to have to go out and do it yourself because your credit card company is not incentivized to give you the financial education because they're going to make less money right it's profitable to keep people poor

it's profitable to keep people financially uneducated because now if you just keep spending money in your credit card because you have no idea what you're doing, now your credit card company is going to get rich. The average household in America has $6,200 with the credit card debt. So if you have credit card debt in America, you probably have an average of $6,200. Now let's talk about that because if- And what's the interest on that? Well, that's at 15% to 25%, 28%. And that's going up. So every month you're paying that. You're paying it every month. So it's not $6,000 a month. It's really over years. If you never fully pay it off, you're just paying more and more and more. And the interest rate on your credit card isn't fixed rate. It's variable

interest rate. So as the Federal Reserve Bank raises interest rates, the interest rate on your credit card also goes up. So if you are 21 years old right now, and you invested $6,200, which is the average household credit card debt right now, if you invest $6,200 right now, and you got a 20% return on your money, and you did that for the next 45, 46 years, you were going to retire with 20 million dollars 20 million dollars and you never invest another penny again say it one more time if you invest 6200 today and you never invest another penny again and 21 at 21 and you get a 20 return on your money you're going to retire with 20 million wow now you're going to say just please what in the world am i going to get 20 turn on my money year after year you're right but your credit 20 million. Wow. Now you're going to say, just believe me, what in the world am I going to get a 20% return on my money year after year?

You're right. But your credit card company is doing it every single day. Wow. They're charging you. And so when you have that sort of credit card debt, that's you making

your credit card company richer. Now, you know, whether or not you think it's a scam, look, let's move past and understand what's going on. That way now you can use it to your advantage. Because I get tens of thousands of dollars worth of cash back every year

from my credit card company because I use it as a tool and I understand how to use it. And this is where, look, if you don't want to use a credit card, it doesn't matter. But just don't, if you have credit card debt, you have to pay that off

because that is skinning you alive right now. Understand the financial education aspect. So that's the first thing you want to do is create your financial base. so you got to save some cash then you got to pay that credit card debt off cut the financial bleeding cut the financial bleeding what's the strategy if you got three credit cards what's the strategy to to get rid of that debt so Dave Ramsey is going to tell you to do something called the snowball method the smallest first smallest first and then to the biggest because you're building momentum right a financial advisor might tell you the opposite.

Do the debt avalanche, which is now pay the highest interest rate first and then go down because now you're going to pay off the most interest first. So it costs you the most money in the long term. The reason why Dave Ramsey recommends the snowball method is because psychologically, when you get those small wins of paying something off, you feel like you're winning and you can pay it off faster. An advisor is going to look at the math and say, hey, look, these numbers are telling me that pay off the higher interest rate first because it's going to save you the most money over the long term. Which one's right? Again, I'm not going to say which one. Do what's best for you. Because I know if I was in a situation, I'm not.

I like the idea of paying down the heavy interest rate first because that's how my brain works. I don't need the small wins like that. I can work for the long term. I think the entrepreneurial mindset where I know how my mind works so I understand myself. And this is just honestly being open and honest with yourself. If you can't stay true with it, then do the snowball.

It does not matter. Screw paying it off a few months early. Just get it away and pay it off as fast as possible. Cut the financial bleeding and have a $2,000 base. That's step two. That's step two. Now the next thing you want to do is what I call lead

your money. So this is where you want to create a financial system and start investing your money because your savings will never make you wealthy you cannot save your way to wealth you have to invest your money your savings won't make you wealthy because of what we've talked about in previous interviews inflation you're losing money in the savings if inflation is higher than the interest rate you're getting at the bank then your savings are effectively making you poorer each and every day because all your savings are losing

value to inflation. Now, does this mean you should not save any money? No. It means you need to save your money strategically. So you want to save your money for three reasons and three reasons only. Save your money for an emergency. Save your money for a big purchase. If you want to buy a car, you want to buy a house, you want to buy a nice watch, whatever you want to buy, you need cash in order to do that. And then three, save your money for an investment. If you're not saving your money for one of these three reasons, you're saving your money the wrong way, and it is making you poorer by saving that money. So now we focus on the first aspect of saving your money for

an emergency. How much do you save? This is now again going to depend on your risk tolerance. You want to save somewhere between three to 12 months worth of your expenses. And the amount of money you save is going to depend on where you are in life and how much risk you're willing to take on. If you're like, hey, dude, I'm 25 years old. I don't have any financial responsibilities. I don't need that much savings. Fine. Save a few months worth of savings and that's it invest more aggressively if you're like hey i have a family i have kids i have a spouse i i don't want to take on all this risk then save six months nine months a year's worth of savings because now it will give you that peace of mind that you have some extra cash put aside so it's going to depend on your

risk tolerance and what you want but this in this lead your money step this is where you want to understand that there's more to putting your money aside than just saving your money. You also want to be putting your money to work. And the best way to do this is to create a system where no matter how much money you're making, you are going to proportionately continually invest and save based on your income. So what does that mean? Well, one of the simplest things you can do is follow something like my 75-15-10 plan, which means for every dollar that you earn, 75 cents is the maximum that you can spend. 15 cents is the minimum that you invest. And 10 cents is the minimum that you save. And this never changes with your income. The only thing that you

would ever change is after you hit that savings goal for your emergency savings, you don't keep saving your money for the emergency because you built that whatever months you want, you put that towards your investments. And now whether you're making 40 grand, 400 grand, 4 million, 40 million, you just keep following the same thing and you're living below your means and now you're constantly putting monies aside for your investments. Now again, we talked about this before. This investment money can either be passively invested,

all of it, or you can put this money aside to be invested. So you can put this money into a bank account. You're looking for a rental property. You're looking for a business to buy. You're looking for a cheap stock to buy. This now depends on your investment goals, right? Where do you want to be invested?

How do you want to invest your money? And this is that financial education now of, what do you want to do and your personal goals? If you don't want to be involved with your money, you don't want to be, hey, day-to-day investing or paying attention to the markets. You hate that idea, just passively invest it. Right.

Put it into low-cost etfs index funds and don't even worry about it and let it do its thing you don't change it whether the market's up or down so this is where now you're putting your money to work leading your money because real wealth is built through your investments not through your savings because you don't want to be spending all your money either because if you're spending all your money on the gucci're spending all your money on the Gucci, the Louis Vuitton, the Beamers, and the extra guac, well, guess what? Gucci's making money, Louis Vuitton's making money, Chipotle's making money,

Beamers, BMW's making money, but you're the one that's making all of them rich. So if you say, I want to become wealthy, but you have no savings, and yet you have all this nice stuff, you'll look rich, but the stuff that's looking rich

is making you broke. Making you broke, yeah. So, you know, you're paying the price to look rich which there's nothing wrong with that but you just have to understand

what your goals are. If you say, hey, I don't really care about building wealth. I just want to have nice stuff. It's a free country. It's your choice. But if you say,

I want to have wealth and you have no investments and you're spending money on all this stuff, this is where you want to rethink what you're doing and understand what it is that you want and make sure that your actions are aligning with your goals. Your lifestyle is aligning with what you want to do. I mean, you can't keep lying to yourself. That's why you should put your money not in buying the bag, but in buying the stock every month. Exactly. Exactly. Own the company. Own the places where you're spending your money. And, you know, again,

there's nothing wrong with having nice stuff. Right. What I'm trying to say is just be able to afford it. Yeah. You know what? Don't go into a credit card with it. Don't go into a credit card with it.

If you want a nice watch, you want a nice house, you want a nice car, fine. Just make sure you can afford it first. Right. And this brings me now to the next step which i

call interest free living and now this is where we're going to go a little bit deeper of how do you actually spend your money because in the american culture it is very normal to be in debt it's very normal to buy things that you can't afford. And before it was with credit cards. Now it's with this new thing called buy now, pay later. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm very much involved in the financial space. I'm very much involved in the fintech space.

Buy now, pay later over the last couple of years is arguably the fastest growing sector in fintech. They're crushing it, right? They're crushing it. I have not invested any money into buy now, pay later apps because I don't believe in it. However... It's putting more people in the debt, kind of. The way that they work is

you can buy something now and worry about the price later. Now, the pitch to consumers, to people is, well, you don't have to pay any interest. It's kind of like the housing market back in the day. Right? It rhymes. It rhymes. History rhymes, right?

But the whole idea that they say is you don't got to pay any interest. Just pay it off for, say, 12 months or six months, which doesn't seem like a bad idea. Why would I want to pay $1,000 for a laptop today if I could just pay it off in installments and not pay any interest for the next 12 months? Yeah. Well, if that's the case, why is it such a fast-growing industry? I mean, no one's going to invest billions of dollars into something if they're not going to see any sort of financial return.

The most expensive kind of money is free money. So if they're giving you money for free, how are they going to make money from it? Well, this is where we dig a little bit deeper. If you don't pay it in your 12 months, then what? well that's where we dig a little bit deeper if you don't get past your if you don't pay in your 12 months then what so that's the first part if you don't pay it off now you get slapped with a very very hefty hefty fine a very very hefty fee where now you're paying a massive interest rate essentially like a credit card they're just acting like a credit card it's the same concept where you get a little bit of a grace period but the second aspect is if you want

to buy a laptop for a thousand dollars and you need a thousand bit of a grace period. But the second aspect is if you want to buy a laptop for $1,000 and you need $1,000 to buy it, well, you got to have $1,000. But if you don't have to pay for it now, you can buy a laptop. You still have the $1,000 in your bank account, maybe $900. And now what happens? I can go buy more stuff for $100 a month. That's $1,000. And more and more. So it allows people to spend even more to lock in all the stuff so you have a whole bunch of stuff and all your money is going out to pay for the stuff that you bought yesterday a year ago now a year ago and then if you can't pay it off in time because that's ultimately oh man you know their goal if you can't pay it off in time now you get slapped with all that interest all these fees and now you're the one that's got to pay it off so this is where you have to understand

the spending aspect of how do you spend your money because again these things are tools i wonder how many people you know this is going into our previous previous interview I wonder how many people signed up for more credit cards since 2020 and also signed up for more bought more things with this buy now pay letter I wonder if there's data out there on this I don't which will give us a more indication hey 12 to 24 months from now man people need to either make double the money or they're going to be going into a lot more debt. So in terms of the number of credit cards, I don't have an answer off the top of my head. But what I do know is the amount of money spent on the credit cards. Because

in 2020, when the pandemic hit, we saw the fastest pay down of credit card debt ever. Really? Which was great because now you're sitting at home you have very little expenses you don't got to pay a mortgage mortgages and forbearance a lot of people are not paying their rent you don't got a pair student loans you're not going out to eat right now right see a very little expenses and then many people are now getting unemployment checks you're getting stimulus checks you have more money coming in and many people actually became wealthier because of this situation. So you had this extra cash. Some people spent it.

Some people invested it. Some people paid down their debt. And we saw the biggest credit card debt pay down in the history of time in 2020, which was- It's all from free money though. Well, at the end of the day, at least you're using it for the right purpose. Yeah, it's true. So that was great. It's great. People paid down their debt. debt well then what happened towards

the end of 2021 into 2022 was the economy opened back up people started spending you wanted to go out and you know this pent-up demand you want to start traveling you want to eat out again you want to have fun again fine but then we were also hit with inflation everything is so expensive now you've been waiting to travel you've been waiting to eat out you've been waiting to do all this stuff and it costs so much more expensive so now what do you do well i don't got any credit card debt let me go put it on my credit card man and so over the last number of months we have seen the fastest growth of credit card debt in the history of time and this is the situation where we paid it off and now we're going right back into it. Maybe because we feel like, hey, I got room to spend.

And second, because everything is so expensive. I can't afford groceries. I can't afford gas. And so it's this whole vicious cycle. It all goes back to point number one, mindset. The mindset, the education. It is so, so, so crucial. And this is where now, in this step, you can make that decision.

First, you have to understand how to spend your money. And then you can understand now, what do you do with the rest do you want to pay down your mortgage right I'm gonna pay off you know something like that or do you want to invest your money and this is really an individualized question because the simple math is if your mortgage is costing you say five percent a, and you can get an 8% return on your investment, you can invest your money, get a better return, pay off your mortgage, and have some money in your pocket. It's a no-brainer. So if you can invest your money, get a better return, why would you not do that? Well, because investing comes with risk versus paying off your mortgage does not.

Well, because investing comes with risk versus paying off your mortgage does not. Because when you pay off your mortgage, you get a guaranteed 5% return on your money because now if you paid off a year early, you get a guaranteed 5% return versus when you invest your money, it comes with risk. Might go up, might go down.

Might go up, might go down. And so now the question again is what type of life do you want to live? Do you want to say, you know what? I just don't want to have to worry about my mortgage payment. I just want to be financially free, never have to stress about money, and just be okay. Then pay down the mortgage.

Because now once you pay down the mortgage, your biggest expense is gone. You own your house free and clear. You still got to pay your property taxes, but at least now the biggest expense is gone, and you're going to breathe so much easier when you don't have a mortgage to pay. But if you say, you know what, know i just breathe i want to live big i want to have the nice stuff i want to have the big things i want to be flashy nothing wrong with that like you i want to have it all okay that's fine then you don't want to be trying to get a five percent return you want to invest this money in the markets you want to invest it in your business you want to invest this in your education you want to invest this money in the markets. You want to invest this in your business. You want to invest this in your education. You want to invest this in yourself because now you

can get a much better return. Is it riskier? Absolutely. But your mindset is somewhere else, right? You want to get a different type of return. And this is why you're investing into the things that can give you a better return because that's what you want. But you just have to understand that it comes with risk. And if you're not comfortable with that, then do the first. So this is where you just have to understand you and understand what type of life you want to live. But the key here is you don't want to put yourself

back into the situation that got you here in the first place, where if you have the credit card debt, you got to know how to spend your money that we don't end up there again. One of the simplest things to do is now to understand the difference between being able to buy something

and being able to afford something. And one of the things that I like to say is just follow my rule of five if you can't buy five of them you can't afford one of them the houses are expensive though well houses are an exception it's a different so we're talking about what's more our liabilities you want to buy a gucci belt you want to buy a 200 gucci belt fine can't buy five don't buy one you can't buy five don't buy one gotcha the house is different different. The house is an exception. No one's going to be able to buy a house. The house is the one exception here.

When it comes to your liabilities, that's the only liability that I would say is okay to finance. Because everything else, your Gucci belts, your clothes, your vacations, you should not be financing that because it's not putting any money in your pocket. And that's a clear liability. You don't want to be financing that stuff. So that's where now you want to understand how to spend your money and then where to put your money to work. Interest-free living. Yes. And then this brings me now to the next part, which is what I call multiplier income, where going back to the wealth formula, where it's income minus expenses equal your investments plus your savings. We talked

about how to save your money. We talked about how to invest your money. We talked about how to manage your expenses. But now let's talk about the income. Because if now you understand how to live below your means, you understand how to put your money to work, if you want to put fuel on the fire, you just got to earn more money. Now if you earn to put fuel on the fire you just got to earn more money now if you earn a hundred thousand dollars you earn a million dollars you earn whatever you earn more money now you know how to put this money through your system through your funnel whether 75 15 10 or whatever else you know how to take this extra money put it to work that way you have more money to invest more money to save more money to live your life but the key is you don't want to 100 increase your lifestyle to match your income you want to increase your income with your investments and expenses the

same ideally now you can you know marginally increase your expenses but the key is you want to be increasing your income and your investments way more yes so the question is how do you do that well this is where again again, understand you. If you are an employee, you don't want to start a business. You don't want to start a side hustle. Fine. Nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with being an employee. You just have to understand you. But that means now, how can you earn more money? If you like your job, look for ways to get a raise, to get a promotion. See how you can get a bonus. Just be open with your boss. Say, hey, look, I want to be able to contribute more.

I want to earn more money. What can I do? Most people are going to be very open and honest. Say, hey, I would like you to tack on this, this, and this. Do this, and then we will help raise your salary. Maybe if you don't like your job, you go and get a certificate. You go and do something else.

You need to figure out now how you can earn your increase your income. What value can you bring to the business to bring in more money for the business or save more time or create some system exactly so that the business can say okay cool let's give you more opportunities for growth exactly i mean if you can bring in an extra ten thousand dollars a year to the business of profit they're not going to have a problem paying you five thousand dollars or whatever it might be right and this is where you just want to be open because every business is different maybe take on a second job and you know it's just figuring out how can you earn

more money there now if you say well I want to do something outside of my job fine well the first thing you can do is start a side hustle so much more accessible now than ever before I mean you can go on to the internet become a virtual assistant you can become a copywriter. You can become a designer. You can become a video editor. I have paid. So Upwork, they're not paying me. Upwork is a platform that I use to hire freelancers. And I did a video on this. So I looked this up. In the last two years or three years, I have spent more than a quarter million dollars on Upwork alone. Wow. On different individuals different individuals just hiring people in different areas who don't work

for me they work on their own schedule because now this freelancing business has grown so much and so there's a lot of opportunity there where now you can if you can present a service you can make money doing that yeah they might be working an, 10, 20 hours a week on the side or they might just be full-time freelancers. Yeah. And you get to set your hours for the most part.

You can really do something that you like, that you enjoy, that you're good at. So there's a lot of opportunity there where now you can be a freelancer

or start your own side hustle if you have an idea. One of my buddies, his mom is really good at making cakes. And she started this what is it called carrot cake business they're making a good

I don't know how much maybe I think it's like $700 or $1000 a month selling carrot cakes from Instagram he markets on Instagram people say hey can you make me a cake his mom makes the cake and he delivers it it's just the number of opportunities now of course as an attorney I should say there are liabilities selling selling food get insurance and all that but this is where there

are so many opportunities right just being a hustler just getting yourself out there figuring it out and there's an unlimited amount of possibilities and opportunities out there now if you want to take it one step further you could try to build your own business your side hustle can turn into your own business. If you have a business idea, invest in it. First, invest in your mind, invest in your education, and then try to do it.

You want to invest as little money as possible until you start generating revenue. Like, again, mindset versus tool set. We assume that we need all these tools to start doing it,

but the reality is the first thing you need is your mind because there's a lot of alternatives on how you can do it. Like i started i started a sock company a number of years ago when i was trying to figure things out and it was a water resistant sock yeah and the interesting thing was i knew nothing about socks how do you manufacture socks how do you make them waterproof and so i was working with textile engineers i was working on manufacturing companies i was working with a lot of different people i didn't have a

lot of money and they wanted and now we're talking about a real product so i learned to talk and essentially i did not i think my total cost to build my first round of socks was 3500 dollars still a lot of money but relative what, if you want to manufacture products and create a product to go through the prototype after prototype to prototype, it costs typically $100,000 plus. I did it for under $4,000

because I was able to talk to them. I used to talk about the potential and I worked with them to build out these special deals where, hey, work with me here and I'll work with you. Do more business in the future. Exactly. And we're able to get it going so it's the ability to hustle be willing to find a way and that's that mindset that sometimes too much money can be a disease especially if you want to be a side hustler or a business because now you just start spending money and i've been a victim of that too i i'll just give examples.

Like the minority mindset blog, I didn't know how to build a blog. And my time was so eaten up with things like market briefs, talking about building this tax business, although that's much newer, but building my companies, building my YouTube channel, doing all these other things, investing in real estate that I didn't really care about building a blog.

Like I cared about it, but I didn't have the brain capacity at the time to sit here and come up with a strategy to do it so I outsourced it I hired some of literally the top blog managers in the world and they charged me a lot of money like as in six figures plus right $100, dollars plus to manage the blog and they promised all this stuff I was like fine do it so hundred thousand dollars for the blog manager at least another hundred thousand dollars on blog content over the course of 12 months and guess what

no results zero nothing the worst what did I do too much money problem I just I said I don't got the time. Just going to throw money at it. Hopefully that will fix the problem. Because if you can get the top blog manager, you can hire people to write. It's easy, right?

Well, after those 12 months, the contract was over, fired them. And this is where I was like, all right, you know what? Let me figure this out.

Because I do want to build a blog. And so we built a brand new strategy. It costs us a fraction, like a teeny tiny fraction of what we were paying before. Let's get bigger results. Our blog is growing. We're generating revenue now.

I mean, it's a complete turnaround but it's that mindset versus tool set. Yes. And these are real stories, real things that I have gone through. So you need to know now

how do you multiply your income and understand that you don't need thousands of dollars. My first business I started with nothing essentially when I started my bed planning company. I started Minority Mindset with under a few hundred dollars. I was making videos off of my cell phone.

You just need some hustle, some creativity, some actions, some consistency, some relationships, some communication and just making stuff happen. The hustle, man. And that's why I always say keep hustling at the end of my videos because the hustle mentality is so crucial and you can't teach that, you can't read that in books. You have to actually live it.

Yes. And so this is where now if you wanna really do that, you have to understand the hustle mentality to be able to put it to work. And this brings me now to the be great aspect last part now like now you've speaking my language exactly right exactly greatness so you've built the base you're putting some money to work you're leading your money you are either paying off your home or you're understanding how to use your extra cash

the right way you're increasing income that way you can build your wealth even faster now it's all about being great and there's two aspects to this the first aspect that i want to talk about is protecting yourself because the reality is when people realize that you have money they're going to try to take their hand put it in your pocket and keep some for themselves you know to pause on you there i remember hearing oprah talk about this one time years Years ago, I heard her on some podcast or somewhere she said something like, as she started to rise to fame with her talk show and started to make a lot more money,

what do you think happened? Everyone's reaching out with a handout, right? Oh, you got money now? Can you help me with $1,000 here? Can you help me with this? Well, you've made the money. Can you help me? She said, I'm paraphrasing this,

but after like, I don't know, a decade of this or something it just felt like everyone was using her yeah I suppose they're just being in relationship with her and having an actual friendship or relationship and she said that she decided after a period of time she was tired of just giving giving giving giving to people who had a handout and so she said'm going to do a big dinner and I'm going to invite everyone, friends, family, everyone, you know, third cousins, you know,

twice removed, everyone who's been asked for a handout, I'm going to invite them all. And she said, it's like, she gave out, she had this massive dinner for everyone, like all of the, everything you could eat. And she started giving out envelopes and gifts and cars and cash. And just like she gave out gifts based on what she wanted to give to each person.

Yeah. Everyone got something. And she said, she gave a speech at the end and said, this is all I'm going to give you. Don't ask for anything else after this. And she said, still people were complaining

oh you gave this person 10 grand i only got 5 000 it's like you got to learn to protect yourself mentally psychologically financially because you could just be giving and giving and giving it can never end right right a hundred percent and so how do you do this that's that's a huge relationship aspect i'm going to take a one step a little bit deeper on the legal side because you're absolutely right. I struggle with that relationship side as well because— I'm not saying don't be generous, but also it's like when you feel like you're being taken advantage of, then it becomes challenging. So my family is from a state in India called Punjab. challenging so my family's from a state in india called punjab and uh what happens a lot of people is you come here to america or to you know somewhere like canada my family came to america

and your family's in india and they think oh my god you're wealthy in america so you're working your butt off here while sending money back to india so you know my parents did this my dad did this a lot where especially when we were young, he wasn't making a lot of money, but he was always sending money back to his siblings or people just to help take care of them because that's our culture to help take care of people.

And it becomes difficult because it's that, at least for me, that cultural aspect of giving, which I like, taking care of family, but then also not making them reliant on you because now once you start giving,

then they say, well, I don't need to step up. Yeah. And so it's a very tough balance. And I don't have a good answer for you here because, you know, I do like taking care of people. I like helping people, especially, you know, within my family. You know, I want to make sure I can take care of everyone. That's why I work hard because I want to make sure that I can give you.

And so when I, because I have given money to people around me, my family and my friends. The way that I look at it is I don't want that money back. I know when I give you money, I'm never going to ask for it back. And I don't want it back. If you give it back to me, maybe I'll take it.

But I'm never going to ask for it back. And I will give based off of what I can. But I know that's money in my mind. I'm never getting back. And I have to be okay with that for myself and if i'm okay with that that's fine and i think that's one of those things where i don't because i don't want to mess up the relationship right with my family that's more important to me and so look if i'm okay giving you a thousand dollars here's a thousand never

talk to me about it again right and really that's it and if i see you blow the money in dumb ways guess what when you ask me for another grand you're not getting it yeah you know it's as simple as that i'm gonna forget about it i don't like arguing over money i think that's it and if I see you blow the money in dumb ways guess what when you ask me for another grand you're not getting it you know it's as simple as that I'm going to forget about it I don't like arguing over money I think that's very dirty and evil so you know

I am generous in that sense but you know I'm also very straightforward where if I feel like hey I'm not going to give it to you I'm not going to do it but I also don't

sit here and ask for it back but you're talking about protecting yourself legally legally which means now having the right advisors accountants and insurance to protect you we're back. But you're talking about protecting yourself legally. Legally, which means now having the right advisors, accountants, and insurance to protect you. And so when you start earning money, people are going to try to reach into your pockets and get it also legally. I had a tenant

in one of my properties, Summa Real Estate Company, because they said that the bathtub got too slippery when the water was on. Jeez. And because it was so slippery when the water was on, it caused them to slip and fall, which then...

It's a bathtub. It's a bathtub with water. And because of that, they wanted damages for injuries. But you just have to defend yourself even if it's not

your problem. And so this is where how do you protect yourself? So I had a couple of things. One, I had an LLC. Second, I had insurance. And third, I had a property manager company, property management company.

And so I'll go through the different layers. You can see all the different levels of insurance and how they worked. Because now the first thing that happens is my property management company documented everything because prior to them slipping, they made a complaint that there was about a quarter inch by quarter inch chip in the bathtub. And they said, oh, there's a little paint chip. We want to get this fixed. So my contractor goes out there. He

says, okay, yeah, we can fix this. And my contractor said, you know, the tenants here are kind of old. Let's install them a handicap pool just to be nice. We weren't required to do this. We were fully licensed by the city, but my contractor offered to do this. We were fully licensed by the city but the contractor offered to do this. So now they go back to do the work. The tenants say, we don't want you to do it. We're tired. He goes back to do it again.

They said, we don't want you to do it. The tenant slipped and fell at a barbecue. They go back. He said, no, he's still injured from the barbecue.

So we have notes of all this. Sure. And then they go and say that they slipped and fell in the bathtub. We have records of all this where they said they slipped and fell at a barbecue. And now they're saying they slipped and fell in the bathtub we have records of all this where they said they slipped and fell at a barbecue and now they're saying they slipped and fell at a bathtub

why are they doing that well maybe they can try to get some money out of the quote-unquote rich landlord i was a very young kid at this time i was still in college um trying to dig into those pockets thinking that oh he's a real estate, he must have a lot of money. And so they use one of those free attorneys to go after my insurance. So now I have insurance. So now my insurance company gives me an attorney to protect me through this process. And the judge laughed at the case. Even the attorney laughed at the case. He was like, look, man, this is just, they're just trying to grab money. There's nothing here. a frivolous lawsuit so we just have to do it and the insurance company wants to settle because it's cheaper to settle than to pay 350 to 400 an hour to the attorney to fight it and actually win the case and so that's where the insurance came in and protected me they fought me for me and defended me and then paid out

the settlement now if it had escalated further, that's where the LLC protects me, which is where you want to have a good attorney there to recommend what's best for you because that LLC then kind of creates a shield where you can only take what the LLC owns and you can't go after my personal assets. So if the LLC only owns that property, so if the LLC only owns that property you can't go after anything that I own because the LLC is what owns the real estate so you want to make sure you protect yourself there right so this is where having those right shields to protect you are so important because especially in America we are the most litigious country in the world and you want to make sure you protect yourself against that and there's a funny saying in real estate that if you haven't been sued as a real estate

investor, you haven't been in business long enough. Wow. So it's just one of those things where you want to protect yourself. I think people also got to also understand this is a full contact sport, you know, learning how to follow these six steps that you've laid out, which I think are great, but learning how to be an investor, it doesn't come easy for everyone right away. You're going to make some mistakes. There's going to be some challenges to face.

And the longer you're in it, you just have to deal with stuff that's not fun. This is something you have to deal with. There's probably months of a back and forth thing and there're there's some stress there's some worry there's conversation it's time it's energy with insurance with lawyers just to deal with something that even isn't your fault 100 and you know this is one of the realities of being an investor an entrepreneur where you know understanding the aspects and there are going to be some things that are not fun like i talked about in our previous podcast the tax issue i know it was a uh where my accountant calls me up saying that hey just believe this is nine in the morning you owe a hundred thousand dollars by the end of the day send it into the irs that sucks and now i

have to go figure out how to do this send it in and then he tells me that i also have to pay a penalty on this because he did something wrong so it's one of those things that's not fun. It's a problem. But then as an entrepreneur, how do you find the opportunity? Well, first I fired the accountant. I go on the hunt for a new accountant, a new tax advisor. I start working with this new tax advisor and I see the difference between a bad accountant and a good accountant. I start learning, wow, you're telling me that every month we can meet and you can advise me on what I can do with my money. That way I can legally limit my tax liability and you're going to do all this work in advance and I don't have to worry about this ever. I love that. Now with my entrepreneurial brain, I'm like, let's start working together because there's so many small businesses that

need this. It is a real problem because there's a lot of bad accountants out there and we need more good accountants we need more good tax advisors who's going to help people especially in this new age where we have more irs agents joining the workforce we have a lot of things changing we're probably going to see a change in tax laws so you want to make sure that you're taking care of yourself so this is one of the things that i'm working on with him is to to fix that we don't have a website or anything so if you want to learn more shoot me a dm on instagram at minority mindset or email me at team at the minority mindset.com but this is just one of those things where you want to make sure you have the right resources there to first be great to protect yourself

for your family and i'm going to take that one step further because as an attorney you also want to make sure you have the right estate planning in place because this is one of those things that is really not fun but so crucial. If you build any sort of wealth, you want to tell the world. When I die, where is it going? Where is it going to go? Because if you don't, your family is going to fight over it. Oh, man. Where is it going to go?

Where is it going to go? Because if you don't, your family is going to fight over it. Oh, man. And it's not fun because no one wants to think about what happens after I die. But it is so, so, so important because when you die, you don't want your family fighting at your funeral. And so create a will, create a trust, have an estate planning attorney that can help guide you there. Because you never want to have to worry about that. And the second aspect of being great is being great for the world where the more you have,

the more you can do. You can give back, Noor. You can do more things, whether it's your money, whether it's your time, whether it's your education. Because when you can light a candle, well, you can light one candle,

but that one candle can also light a million other candles. And this is where now, as you're on this journey to build wealth, you have lit your own candle. Now, you can help light someone else. You can help give someone a helping hand, whether you help someone financially, whether you help them with your time, whether you help them through expertise because now you've learned the process. Because information is meant to be shared. I talk about this stuff on YouTube not because I wanted to get rich, but because I was so frustrated by the system right I never knew that I could even make money

on YouTube I started making videos for free when turning the advertisements on I didn't know that you could do that until someone showed me hey you can make money from these right now and so it's the whole idea of helping to spread because in like we've talked about in this video this this podcast there's so much misinformation out there there's so much lack of information out there and financially like if you don't understand money if you don't have money it can ruin so many other aspects of your life because if you don't have money, you're stressing about money, now you can't take your spouse on the vacation that they want.

You can't pay for your kid's education. You can't fund your retirement. You can't buy that gift that you want. You can't do anything. And now you're stressing. It makes your mental health worse. It can put you into depression. It can make you start eating bad.

It can make your physical health worse. It can make you feel so unfulfilled it can make you feel so spiritually beat so this is where understanding hey more money isn't going to fix every aspect of your life but if you don't have money it can impact every aspect of your life and this is that financial education now where okay i'm trying to learn this help spread the message and again through your money through your time through your education there are so many ways that you can do this because the more you have,

the more you can do. And now you've built this wealth and this is where now you want to be great for the world, not just for yourself. Yeah, man. If you guys want more of this information, check out Minority Mindset YouTube, theminoritymindset.com,

Market Briefs as well, which is your newsletter, which is teaching more of this financial education, which I think a lot of people should be subscribing to. And if you guys want more from myself and Jaspreet, then make sure to leave a yes below on this video, subscribe, subscribe to both channels and let us know what you want to hear more on. We've done some incredible interviews so far, some incredible content. I want to keep doing more with you. Let's do it, man.

Just pretty, this is inspiring, teaching people how to, the wealth formula I love, teaching people how to get into the mindset of being able to retire at some point in their life if they want to. You mentioned, what is it, the FIRE concept for a minute. But if you guys want more, subscribe to both the channels, check it out. Just pretty. Louis, thank you for helping spread the word man i hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links and if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel

exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward.

And I wanna remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.