[0:00] I recently put out a video about what
[0:01] you can do in your 30s if you don't have
[0:03] any investments to get started to become
[0:05] wealthy. And the number one type of
[0:06] comment that I got in that video is,
[0:08] "What do I do if I'm in my 40s?" Because
[0:10] guess what? If you're in your 40s, you
[0:12] don't have as much time as somebody in
[0:13] their 20s. Well, the good thing is there
[0:15] are three things that will determine how
[0:16] wealthy you'll become. Number one is the
[0:18] dollars. How much money do you invest?
[0:20] Number two is a return. How fast can you
[0:22] grow your money? And number three is
[0:24] time. How long do you have for your
[0:26] money to grow and compound? Well, the
[0:29] one thing, the one factor that you
[0:31] cannot change is time. None of us can go
[0:33] back in time and start investing when
[0:34] we're 19 or 20 or 25 years old, but we
[0:37] can get started today. The thing that
[0:38] you have to remember is that you can
[0:40] make up for an imbalance in one of these
[0:41] three factors by putting more weight on
[0:43] one of the others. So, if you have less
[0:45] time, you can increase how many dollars
[0:47] you're investing or you can increase the
[0:48] return that you're getting. If you don't
[0:50] have enough dollars to invest, you can
[0:52] increase the type of return that you're
[0:53] getting. And that's what I'm going to be
[0:54] going over in this video. Because if
[0:56] you're in your 40s, your time isn't as
[0:58] much as somebody who's 25. But that does
[1:01] not mean that there's no opportunity for
[1:02] you to become wealthy. But it does mean
[1:04] you're going to have to get laser
[1:06] focused and extremely focused on
[1:08] becoming wealthy. And that requires some
[1:10] sacrifices, some hard work, and putting
[1:12] your money in the right places. And the
[1:14] first thing you want to do is you have
[1:15] to start by assessing your finances
[1:17] where they are right now. Number one, do
[1:19] you have any savings? Number two, do you
[1:21] have any investments, including a 401k
[1:24] or an IRA? Number three, do you have any
[1:26] debts, and what kind of debts are they?
[1:27] Number four, what is your income
[1:30] combined? Number five, are you tracking
[1:32] your money? Number six, what legal or
[1:34] financial shields do you have? These
[1:36] legal or financial shields could be
[1:37] things like a will, an estate, a trust.
[1:40] These could be things like LLC's and
[1:42] different insuranceances to protect you
[1:43] in case you get sued, to protect you in
[1:45] case something bad happens. Now, this is
[1:47] where the first thing that you have to
[1:48] do in order to start improving your
[1:50] finances is you got to get a picture of
[1:52] where you are right now because
[1:54] everybody's going to be in a different
[1:55] boat. Somebody's going to have $3,000
[1:57] worth of debt, no savings, no
[1:58] investments. Somebody else is going to
[2:00] have $40,000 worth of debt with $100,000
[2:03] worth of assets. And somebody else might
[2:04] have no debt and half a million dollars
[2:07] worth of investments put aside. And this
[2:08] is where you got to create that picture
[2:11] of where you are today and where you
[2:12] want to go. And the way you want to
[2:14] start this is you take a piece of paper,
[2:15] take a Google sheet, does not matter.
[2:17] And you want to write down these
[2:18] numbers, right? Number one on the top,
[2:20] what is your income? How much money are
[2:22] you making? And what are the sources of
[2:23] this income? This could be a job. This
[2:26] could be a business. This could be your
[2:27] investments. What is the income that
[2:29] you're making? Then below that, you want
[2:31] to write down your expenses. Now, this
[2:33] is going to be a detailed list of your
[2:36] expenses. You want to take a look at
[2:37] your credit card statements, your debit
[2:39] statements, and your bank statements to
[2:40] see where is your money going. Is it
[2:42] going to restaurants? Is it going to
[2:43] groceries? Is it going to gas? Is it
[2:45] going to your car payments? Is it going
[2:46] to your mortgage? Is it going Write down
[2:48] all the different places where your
[2:49] money is going? Categorize it. That way
[2:51] now you can see your income. Then you
[2:53] see your expenses. Then after the
[2:55] expenses line items, that's where you
[2:57] want to write where else your money is
[2:58] going. How much money are you putting
[3:00] towards your investments? How much money
[3:01] are you putting towards charity? How
[3:03] much money did you put towards your
[3:04] savings? How much money did you put
[3:06] towards anywhere else that's not listed
[3:08] above? Maybe you're saving money for a
[3:09] down payment on a home. Maybe you're
[3:10] saving money to buy a car. Maybe you're
[3:12] saving money to buy a watch. Write that
[3:14] there as well. That way you know exactly
[3:15] where your money is going. Now you have
[3:18] a picture of where your money is going.
[3:21] And then you should also be writing down
[3:22] all of your debts and all of your other
[3:24] assets here as well. This is going to
[3:26] give you a starting point because now
[3:28] you can take a look at this and say how
[3:30] far are you from being able to become
[3:32] wealthy? Because remember three factors
[3:34] time, dollars, and return. We can't
[3:37] change the time, but we can influence
[3:39] the dollars and the return that you get
[3:41] on your money. And this is where now the
[3:43] most successful place to start is by
[3:46] being able to invest more dollars. The
[3:47] more dollars you invest, the wealthier
[3:49] you will be able to become. Period.
[3:52] Because well, if someone's investing
[3:53] $1,000 and somebody else is investing
[3:55] $5,000, you have the ability to see more
[3:58] return on your money if you can invest
[4:00] more money, assuming you invest your
[4:01] money into a good investment. So now,
[4:03] how could you invest more dollars?
[4:04] you're going to have to figure out
[4:06] either a how can you earn more money so
[4:08] you have more money to invest or b how
[4:10] can you cut back on your expenses? And
[4:12] this can be very difficult especially in
[4:14] if you're in your 40s because now you
[4:16] feel like you're established in your
[4:17] career and you don't want to be cutting
[4:19] back now to start putting money aside
[4:21] towards your investments. But you're
[4:22] going to have to get real with yourself
[4:24] and we're going to go over some numbers
[4:25] where you're going to have to put in the
[4:27] sacrifice right now. do whatever it
[4:30] takes because if [snorts] you do not
[4:31] have a solid plan towards building
[4:34] wealth or retirement now, you are going
[4:36] to have to get extremely committed
[4:38] because you don't have the same time as
[4:40] somebody who's 21 or 25. And so you have
[4:43] to get extremely committed and make
[4:45] double the sacrifice because if you want
[4:47] to be able to live wealthy, live
[4:49] financially free, and not have to worry
[4:51] about money anymore, you're going to
[4:52] have to put in that sacrifice now. And
[4:54] yeah, it's not as fun to do that when
[4:56] you're in your 40s as compared to when
[4:57] you're in your 20s. But either you're
[4:59] going to look back when you're in your
[5:00] 50s and 60s and say, "Thank God I made
[5:02] the sacrifice when I did." Or you're
[5:04] going to look back and say, "Man, I wish
[5:05] I did." And that's going to be the
[5:07] decision for you to make. So you got to
[5:08] start by assessing the situation that
[5:10] you're in right now. And then the second
[5:11] thing that you have to do is you're
[5:12] going to have to build the order of
[5:14] operations now of how you are going to
[5:16] get the wealth and the financial freedom
[5:18] that you want. We're going to build out
[5:20] these order of operations. And then
[5:21] number three is you're going to have to
[5:22] attack this order of operations. So
[5:24] you're going to assess, build the right
[5:26] order of operations, and then attack
[5:27] this order of operations. And now when
[5:29] you're talking about this order of
[5:30] operations, there are seven things that
[5:33] you need to work on. The first thing
[5:34] that you need to do is you have to make
[5:36] sure you have your base foundation
[5:38] built, your base savings. Number two is
[5:40] you have to attack the highinterest
[5:41] debts. Number three is you have to build
[5:43] a financial system. Number four is you
[5:44] have to make your lifestyle adjustments.
[5:46] Number five is you have to manage and
[5:48] create the right investments that give
[5:49] you the best rate of return possible.
[5:51] Number six is you have to look at your
[5:53] income. And the number seventh is when
[5:54] you're going to look at your other
[5:55] debts. So, let me start by building that
[5:57] financial base. Starting with building
[5:59] that base savings. If now you don't have
[6:02] any savings, and by savings, I mean an
[6:04] emergency savings cushion that's there
[6:07] not to make you rich, that's there not
[6:08] to help you buy investments, that's
[6:10] there not to help you buy a car, that's
[6:11] there just to protect you against an
[6:13] emergency. Your emergency fund, as some
[6:15] people like to call it. If you don't
[6:17] have any savings, the first thing you
[6:18] got to do is save $2,000 ASAP. Because
[6:22] if you don't have $2,000 saved up, you
[6:24] are in a financial danger zone. Because
[6:27] what happens to so many people now in
[6:28] this instance is when you have no
[6:30] savings put aside, guess what? Life
[6:32] happens. And by life, I don't just mean
[6:34] someone's having a baby and they got to
[6:35] go pay for a baby shower gift. I mean,
[6:37] your car breaks down, your AC breaks,
[6:38] your window breaks, your kid breaks
[6:40] their arm. Something happens. And that
[6:42] something is expensive. And when you
[6:45] don't have savings to cover that
[6:46] expense, well, what do you do? You put
[6:48] it on your credit card. Now, not only do
[6:50] you have to pay that expense back, but
[6:52] then you got to pay it back plus 19%
[6:54] interest. Which means instead of paying
[6:55] that $1,500 to fix the problem, you now
[6:58] have to pay $2,200 because you had to
[7:00] pay the $1,500 from your credit card and
[7:02] then another $700 in interest because it
[7:04] took you so long to pay it back in the
[7:05] first place. So, the first thing you
[7:07] need to do right now is get extremely
[7:10] aggressive to put at least $2,000 aside
[7:13] before you do anything else. Before you
[7:14] worry about putting money in the stock
[7:16] market, before you worry about putting
[7:17] money anywhere else, you got to save
[7:19] this $2,000 ASAP. And the way that you
[7:22] do that is you got to get very
[7:23] aggressive now on not spending money on
[7:26] anything. If you do not have $2,000 put
[7:28] aside to protect you against an
[7:29] emergency, you should not be spending
[7:31] money. You should not be going to
[7:32] restaurants. You should not be having a
[7:34] Netflix subscription. You should not be
[7:36] having any music subscriptions. You
[7:38] should not be having a massage
[7:39] membership. You should not have any of
[7:41] these payments because this is a
[7:43] financial danger zone. And trust me, I
[7:45] know this one's not fun to do, but
[7:47] without this, you're never going to be
[7:49] able to achieve any real wealth. So,
[7:52] until you have the $2,000 saved up, no
[7:54] spending money on anything unless you
[7:57] need it, absolutely need it to survive.
[8:00] You need a pair of shoes, you don't need
[8:01] the new Jordans. You need a place to
[8:02] live, you don't need that nice home. You
[8:04] need a car to get to and from work, but
[8:06] you do not need that Beamer. put aside
[8:08] the $2,000 and then the next thing that
[8:10] you got to do is you have to then pay
[8:12] down the highinterest debts and attack
[8:15] that. And the reason why now we're
[8:16] talking about paying down these
[8:18] highinterest debts before we talk about
[8:20] going out and investing your money in
[8:22] the stock market or trying to go and buy
[8:23] rental properties and create cash flow
[8:25] and build that wealth is because your
[8:28] credit card debt is costing you a lot of
[8:31] money. Credit card debt is 14 to 25%
[8:35] interest rate, sometimes more, but in
[8:37] that range, your investments are paying
[8:40] you 7 to 10% historically on average.
[8:45] Which means if you go out and you put
[8:46] your money into the stock market or into
[8:48] the real estate market and you get an
[8:50] average return of let's just say 10%,
[8:53] which is pretty good. If somebody got
[8:55] 10% a year on their stock market
[8:57] portfolio, that would be considered a
[8:58] great return. But then if you have to go
[9:02] and turn around and pay 15, 20, 25% on
[9:05] your credit card debt, you are losing
[9:08] money. You are losing wealth because now
[9:10] you're getting 10% and you're paying 20.
[9:12] So this is where right now before you go
[9:14] out and worry about investing your money
[9:16] to grow your wealth, you got to stop the
[9:18] financial bleeding, which means you got
[9:19] to pay down your credit card debt.
[9:21] Because the funny thing when it comes to
[9:22] the topic of investing, everybody talks
[9:24] about how can I get better returns? How
[9:26] can I increase the velocity of my money?
[9:28] How can I make my money faster? How can
[9:30] I double my money quicker? Well, do you
[9:31] want to know who's doing that very
[9:33] quickly at your expense? Your credit
[9:35] card company. Because guess what? Your
[9:38] credit card debt is a liability for you.
[9:40] It's an expense for you. But it's an
[9:43] asset for your bank. It's an asset for
[9:46] your credit card company because now
[9:48] your credit card company is getting that
[9:50] 20% return every time you spend a penny
[9:53] on your credit card. Now look, I love
[9:55] credit cards. I use a credit card for
[9:57] everything because I get cash back. I
[9:59] get perks. I get spending and fraud
[10:01] protection, but I also never pay a penny
[10:04] in interest. If you are paying interest
[10:06] on your credit card, you are using it
[10:08] the wrong way and you should not be
[10:11] using a credit card. Maybe at some point
[10:13] in the future you can consider using a
[10:14] credit card, but right now if you have
[10:15] credit card debt, you should not be
[10:17] using a credit card. And you got to pay
[10:19] down this credit card debt ASAP. There
[10:22] are no exceptions here. You have to pay
[10:24] down this credit card debt because it is
[10:26] skinning you alive. The third thing that
[10:28] you have to attack once you pay down
[10:30] this high interest debt is you have to
[10:31] build now a financial system that's
[10:33] going to make you wealthy before it
[10:34] makes everybody else around you rich.
[10:36] Here's the reality of how our economic
[10:38] system works. The more money you spend,
[10:40] the richer somebody else makes. When you
[10:42] go to Chipotle and you spend money,
[10:44] Chipotle gets richer. When you go to
[10:46] Lululemon and you buy some new leggings,
[10:48] they get richer. When you keep that
[10:50] money in your pocket or when you invest
[10:52] that money now, Chipotle and Lululemon
[10:53] are not getting richer, but you're
[10:55] making yourself richer. Our entire
[10:57] economic system is designed to get you
[11:00] to spend your money. And not just that,
[11:02] it's designed to get you to spend money
[11:03] you don't have. Because now, when you go
[11:05] into Lululemon and you don't have the
[11:07] money to buy those leggings, the$100 or
[11:09] $200 leggings, well, what do you do?
[11:11] Well, you could walk out, which is not
[11:13] good for Lululemon, but you could buy it
[11:15] with 0% APR, or you can put it on your
[11:17] credit card, or I'm sure they probably
[11:19] have their own credit card. I don't know
[11:20] if they do or they don't, but now you
[11:22] just bought something with the help of
[11:24] debt. Now, it's a double whammy for you,
[11:26] but it's making somebody else rich
[11:28] because now when you buy this on your
[11:29] credit card, not only are you making the
[11:31] banker richer, but now you're buying
[11:32] something that you wouldn't have bought
[11:34] in the first place, which is great for
[11:35] the economy, it's great for Lululemon,
[11:37] is great for the corporation, and it's
[11:39] great for the investors, but it's at
[11:41] your expense. And this is where right
[11:43] now, your job is to make yourself rich
[11:45] before you make everybody else rich. And
[11:47] the way that wealthy people do this is
[11:49] [snorts] they always, 100% of the time,
[11:52] is they pay themselves. They work to
[11:54] make themselves rich before making
[11:55] everybody else rich. And the way you do
[11:57] that is by investing your money before
[12:00] you spend your money. You invest and
[12:02] save first and then you spend whatever
[12:05] is left. The majority of America, and
[12:07] this is why the majority of America is
[12:08] broke, the majority of America spends
[12:10] their money first and then they'll save
[12:13] or invest whatever's left. And when you
[12:15] do that, guess what? Most of the time
[12:16] there's never any money left over
[12:18] because it's very easy to spend money
[12:20] but it's not as easy to invest or find
[12:23] that money to invest. And so this is
[12:25] where you need to build a financial
[12:26] system. It can be very simple that will
[12:28] allow you now to always have money to
[12:31] invest. And that means you can build
[12:32] something like a 751510 plan. This is a
[12:35] very easy way to start which says that
[12:37] from now on [snorts] for every dollar
[12:39] that you earn, 75 cents is the maximum
[12:42] that you can spend. 15 is the minimum
[12:46] that you're investing. We'll talk about
[12:47] where to invest in just a bit. And 10
[12:49] cents is the minimum that you're saving.
[12:52] Now, whether you're earning $20,000 a
[12:54] year, $200,000 a year, or $2 million a
[12:56] year, it does not matter. This system is
[12:59] going to scale with your income. And the
[13:01] first response that everybody has to
[13:03] this is just I'm barely getting by as it
[13:07] is. How do you expect me now to live off
[13:08] of only 75% of my income? Well, the
[13:11] response that I always have, you
[13:12] probably heard me say this, is if the
[13:14] government was to impose a brand new 25%
[13:16] tax on you tomorrow, what are you going
[13:18] to do? Complain, cry, letter to your
[13:21] senator, but then you're going to find a
[13:23] way to pay it because if you don't,
[13:24] you're going to end up in jail. And so
[13:25] now you are taxing yourself not to make
[13:28] the IRS richer, but to make yourself
[13:30] richer. So you have to build some sort
[13:32] of system that is going to now make sure
[13:35] you pay yourself first. And by pay
[13:37] yourself first, I mean making yourself
[13:39] wealthier before you make everybody else
[13:40] wealthier. Then once you create this
[13:42] type of system, I want you to create
[13:44] three different bank accounts and go to
[13:46] your bank. You can create these three
[13:48] different bank accounts. And the reason
[13:49] why is because you want to separate your
[13:51] money. You want to have a separate
[13:52] checking account for your spending
[13:53] money. You then you need to have a
[13:55] separate savings account for your
[13:56] savings money. And then you need to have
[13:58] a separate third account. This could be
[13:59] a checkings or a savings. It does not
[14:01] matter. It just depends on what you want
[14:02] to do with it. For your investment
[14:03] money, don't tell the bank this is an
[14:05] investment account because they're going
[14:07] to think of it as something completely
[14:08] different. To the banks, an investment
[14:09] account is something different. They
[14:11] have their own definition of an
[14:13] investment account. You just need a
[14:14] separate account, whether it's checkings
[14:16] or savings. That way, you can store the
[14:17] money that you want to invest. Then
[14:20] there are many banks that will do this
[14:22] completely free that will allow you to
[14:24] build automated systems that will
[14:26] automatically pull money out of one
[14:28] checking account and move it into the
[14:30] second and third account. That way now
[14:32] every time you get paid you have this
[14:34] direct deposit that now is going to pull
[14:36] money out of your checkings account from
[14:38] your paycheck. Put some of this money
[14:39] into your investment cash account and
[14:42] put some of this money into your savings
[14:43] account. That way now you don't
[14:45] accidentally spend your savings money
[14:47] and you don't accidentally use your
[14:49] investment money to finance a brand new
[14:51] pair of leggings from Lululemon. And
[14:53] this is where right now you have to
[14:55] build this. And you might think, but why
[14:56] do I need to go out and create these
[14:57] three different bank accounts? Isn't
[14:58] that overkill? Well, it's much easier to
[15:02] spend less money when you don't see that
[15:04] money. When you see that cash in your
[15:06] bank account, we as humans, especially
[15:08] as humans in America, because we live in
[15:10] a consumerism society where we are bred
[15:13] to spend money. We are bred to have what
[15:16] I call net zero thinking, which is if I
[15:17] have $1,000, I need to spend $1,000.
[15:20] This is our society here in America. It
[15:23] just is what it is. So now, how do you
[15:25] beat that? Well, you should start
[15:27] changing where the money is because now
[15:29] when you look at the money you can spend
[15:30] and you don't see anything in there, you
[15:32] can't go out and spend more money. So
[15:34] now you have your separate savings
[15:35] account, you have your separate
[15:36] investments account, and now you have
[15:37] your separate savings account. The thing
[15:39] that I want to mention about your
[15:40] savings account is you don't need to
[15:42] save your money forever because your
[15:44] savings are not there to make you
[15:45] wealthy. Your savings are just there to
[15:47] protect you against an emergency. Now,
[15:50] there are savings accounts finally
[15:52] online that will pay you some interest.
[15:54] Like as of the time of recording this
[15:56] video, there are online savings accounts
[15:58] that are real banks that are FDIC
[16:00] insured that are paying three, four,
[16:02] even close to 5% in interest a year on
[16:06] your savings. It's not a CD, so your
[16:08] money is not tied up. You can pull your
[16:10] money out whenever you want. And these
[16:12] are FDICins insured banks. So if you
[16:14] want to earn some interest on your
[16:16] savings, consider moving some of your
[16:17] money to one of these highinterest
[16:19] savings accounts. But you need to set a
[16:22] savings goal for yourself. In the
[16:23] beginning, it was just that $2,000. Now,
[16:25] as you're working to build this real
[16:27] savings, you want to have somewhere
[16:29] between 3 months and 12 months worth of
[16:31] expenses. And I know this is a big
[16:32] range. And the reason why is because
[16:34] everybody's different. Some of you are
[16:35] going to be big risktakers. You don't
[16:37] need the savings. Maybe you don't have a
[16:38] whole bunch of financial
[16:39] responsibilities. So, you don't need as
[16:41] much of a savings account. Others of you
[16:43] are going to be much lower on that risk
[16:45] tolerance. You feel like you have a lot
[16:46] of liabilities. You want to have as much
[16:48] cushion as possible that we never have
[16:50] to worry about money and stress about
[16:51] money. In that case, you want to have a
[16:53] bigger savings account. So, you figure
[16:54] out how much savings that you need. And
[16:56] then you're going to keep saving your
[16:58] money until you hit that savings goal.
[16:59] Once you hit that savings goal, you're
[17:01] going to reallocate the 10% that was
[17:03] going towards your savings now towards
[17:05] your investments because your
[17:06] investments are what is going to make
[17:07] you wealthy. Your investments are what's
[17:09] going to be working to increase how much
[17:11] income you get. They're going to be
[17:12] working to produce you cash flow.
[17:13] They're going to be working to
[17:14] appreciate in value. That way, you can
[17:16] become rich. That way, you never have to
[17:18] worry about money again. Wealth is built
[17:20] through owning assets. It's not built
[17:23] through having a big income. This is a
[17:25] big misconception here in America
[17:27] because most people in America are
[17:28] working for a bigger income and then
[17:30] they use that bigger income to drive a
[17:32] nicer car and live in a bigger home. And
[17:34] that's why most of America is broke
[17:35] because well that car and home isn't
[17:38] putting any money in your pocket. But
[17:39] the few percent of people that are
[17:41] wildly successful, it's not that they're
[17:44] rocket scientists, although some of them
[17:45] might be rocket scientists, but a lot of
[17:47] rocket scientists are broke too. And the
[17:49] reason why is because well what wealthy
[17:52] people do these are financially [snorts]
[17:54] educated people is when they make their
[17:55] money they want to buy assets first.
[17:59] They want to own the investments because
[18:00] these investments will continue to pay
[18:02] you even when you're not working.
[18:03] There's a limit to how much you can earn
[18:05] from your job. But there's no limit to
[18:07] how much you can earn from what you own.
[18:09] And this is why the wealthiest people in
[18:12] the world are focused on owning more
[18:15] assets. See, we in this consumerism
[18:18] society are obsessed with spending. And
[18:22] look, there's nothing wrong with having
[18:23] nice things. I want you to have the
[18:25] luxury things. I want you to have the
[18:26] nice things. I want you to have the nice
[18:27] car. I want you to have the big home. I
[18:29] want you to go on the nice vacations. I
[18:30] want all those things for you. That's
[18:32] why we're working hard. That way you can
[18:33] have the nice things that money can buy.
[18:36] It's no fun to just have a big bank
[18:37] account and never be able to actually
[18:38] enjoy that money. But in order for you
[18:40] to actually be able to enjoy that, I
[18:42] want you to be rich first. I want you to
[18:44] be wealthy first. And in order for you
[18:46] to be wealthy first, that means you got
[18:47] to own the assets first. Because when
[18:50] you own the assets, if you have
[18:51] investments that are paying for all of
[18:53] your expenses, well, yeah, who cares? Go
[18:55] on and buy that expensive car. Go and
[18:57] buy that expensive vacation. Go and buy
[18:59] that stupid watch. It does not matter
[19:00] because you can afford it. At that
[19:02] point, it doesn't matter what the price
[19:04] is. You have investments, your assets
[19:06] that are paying for you to do that. But
[19:08] in order for you to get these
[19:08] investments, you don't have to be born a
[19:10] multi-millionaire. You don't have to be
[19:11] born to rich parents, but you have to
[19:14] make that financial sacrifice to have
[19:15] more money to invest. You can spend less
[19:17] and you can work to earn more. Now, we
[19:19] talked about different ways that you can
[19:20] spend less, right? You got to make the
[19:21] sacrifices.
[19:23] But this is where right now you got to
[19:24] figure out how [sighs] can you have more
[19:27] money to invest? And then the next
[19:29] natural question is, well, where do I
[19:30] invest my money? Which brings me to
[19:32] point number four, which is the
[19:34] lifestyle adjustment. Now, we already
[19:35] kind of covered this, but the reality is
[19:37] most Americans are broke not because of
[19:40] their incomes, not because of their
[19:41] boss, not because of the government, not
[19:43] because of banks, but because of the
[19:45] lifestyles that we have and because of
[19:47] the decisions that we make. Now, I know
[19:48] that's hard for a lot of us to hear
[19:50] because we never want to blame
[19:51] ourselves. It's much easier to blame
[19:52] everybody else. But when you're pointing
[19:53] your fingers and blaming everybody else,
[19:55] there's three fingers pointing right
[19:57] back at you. Now, we covered this story
[19:58] in market briefs recently, but the vast
[20:03] majority of Americans are living
[20:05] paycheck to paycheck, as in more than
[20:07] 50% of Americans are living paycheck to
[20:09] paycheck. And this is where most people
[20:10] say, "Well, if I earn more money, then
[20:13] I'd be able to solve my financial
[20:15] problems." But that's not the case.
[20:16] Because what we've also seen is that the
[20:18] majority of Americans, more than 50% of
[20:21] Americans earning over six figures a
[20:24] year, more than $100,000 a year, are
[20:26] also living paycheck to paycheck. It's
[20:29] not how much money you make, it's what
[20:31] we do with the money you make. And what
[20:33] we've seen statistically is with when
[20:35] the majority of Americans get a bigger
[20:37] raise, they get a bigger salary, they
[20:38] dig themselves into a deeper financial
[20:40] hole because now you have more access to
[20:42] spend. and banks look at you and say,
[20:44] "Oh, you're making more money. How about
[20:47] a bigger line of credit on your credit
[20:48] card? How about a bigger home equity
[20:50] line of credit from your home? How about
[20:51] a bigger cash up refinance? How about
[20:53] more debt that we can go out and spend?"
[20:56] Now, what the majority of Americans do
[20:58] with that is they go out and they buy
[20:59] more liabilities, things that lose that
[21:01] money, things that make them look rich,
[21:03] right? You have all the fancy brand name
[21:05] stuff, you got the nice car, you got the
[21:06] big home, you got the nice vacations.
[21:08] And when you finance all these things,
[21:10] not only do you have to pay this money
[21:11] back, but then you got to pay interest,
[21:13] which means now your future income is
[21:14] being used to pay for yesterday's
[21:16] spending. And now you're living this rat
[21:19] race. You're working to spend. You're
[21:21] working to pay back the bills, and
[21:23] you're working to pay off the interest.
[21:24] And when you live in that cycle, you are
[21:26] never going to have the ability to get
[21:28] ahead. And this is where right now the
[21:30] most accessible thing that you can do,
[21:31] not the easiest, not the funnest, not
[21:33] the nicest thing to do, but the most
[21:34] accessible thing that you can do is give
[21:37] yourself a lifestyle adjustment. Which
[21:39] means now you got to cut back on some of
[21:41] the crap. Now, this is not fun, right?
[21:43] When you go from ordering the double
[21:44] guac at Chipotle and then you stop
[21:46] ordering extra guac, that's not fun.
[21:48] It's not as tasty of a bowl. But you got
[21:50] to find the ways now to cut back on your
[21:52] expenses. That might mean that you can
[21:55] cut back on your home. Maybe you live in
[21:57] a smaller apartment for a little while,
[21:58] for a couple years. Not fun, but you can
[22:00] save a lot of money doing that. If you
[22:02] get rid of the BMW that you financed and
[22:04] now you go to drive a Toyota Corolla
[22:06] with cash, you're going to save a lot of
[22:08] money every single month. Not just on
[22:09] the premium gas, not just on the
[22:11] insurance, not just on the maintenance,
[22:13] but also the monthly payments that you
[22:14] don't have to make anymore. And that's
[22:16] money that you can put directly towards
[22:17] your investments. When you get rid of
[22:19] some of the monthly subscriptions that
[22:20] you're not using, that are not adding
[22:22] any real value to your life, that's
[22:23] going to put some more money in your
[22:24] pocket. When you stop going out to eat
[22:26] so much, that's going to put some more
[22:28] money in your pocket. When you sacrifice
[22:29] a couple vacations, that's going to put
[22:31] thousands of dollars back into your
[22:33] pocket. Because right now, you got to
[22:34] get focused, right? We know the three
[22:35] things that are going to determine how
[22:36] wealthy you're going to become. We can't
[22:39] change the time, but you can change the
[22:40] dollars and the return. I haven't talked
[22:42] about the return yet, but right now,
[22:43] we're trying to get more dollars into
[22:45] your investment portfolio because that's
[22:46] going to make you wealthier. How do you
[22:48] get more dollars in there? Well, you can
[22:49] spend less or you can earn more. And the
[22:52] most accessible thing that you can do is
[22:53] make the lifestyle adjustment. That way
[22:55] you can spend less. Yeah. Erk to earn
[22:57] more too. That way you have more money
[22:59] going into your investments. But the
[23:01] most accessible thing that you can do is
[23:02] you got to learn how to spend less
[23:03] money. That way you have more money just
[23:06] throwing into your investments cuz
[23:07] that's what's going to make you wealthy.
[23:09] And again, this is not fun. Your friends
[23:11] are going to look at you like you lost
[23:12] your mind when you pull up in the Toyota
[23:14] Corolla after you were driving that BMW
[23:16] 4 series. But this is your time to
[23:20] shine. And then a few years later, once
[23:23] you were to build that wealth, now you
[23:24] can go out and buy the BMW 6 series and
[23:27] maybe you can buy it with cash. That way
[23:29] you don't even have to worry about the
[23:30] price. And now you don't got to worry
[23:32] about the payments. And then when you go
[23:33] to pump gas, you're not going to be
[23:34] stressing about gas prices, which is
[23:36] probably one of the most ironic things
[23:38] in the world. You see people go into
[23:40] huge debt to buy these fancy premium gas
[23:43] cars and then you start complaining
[23:45] about the price of gas. If you're
[23:47] complaining about the price of gas, the
[23:48] problem isn't the price of gas. The
[23:50] problem is the car that you're driving.
[23:51] And so, right now, you got to figure out
[23:54] how you can adjust that lifestyle that
[23:57] we have less money going out. The fifth
[23:59] step that you have to then work on is
[24:01] where do you actually invest your money?
[24:04] How do you invest your money? And
[24:06] there's a couple different categories of
[24:07] things that you want to pay attention
[24:08] to. Number one is are you going to be
[24:12] investing your money into cash flow
[24:14] producing assets? Number two, are you
[24:16] investing your money passively or
[24:18] actively? If you're an investor or want
[24:20] to be an investor and you want to see my
[24:22] investing strategy, I'll put together a
[24:24] brand new and free investing master
[24:26] class where I walk you through how you
[24:28] can start investing and find hidden
[24:30] investment opportunities before they hit
[24:31] the headlines. I'll even show you the
[24:33] exact framework that my firm and I use
[24:35] to research investment opportunities and
[24:37] find investment opportunities. It's a
[24:39] completely free master class. And when
[24:41] you sign up for the master class as a
[24:42] bonus, you're also going to get access
[24:44] to market briefs, which is my newsletter
[24:46] for investors. It's read by hundreds of
[24:48] thousands of investors every single
[24:49] morning to keep you up to date with
[24:51] what's happening in the economy. So, if
[24:53] you want to get the investing master
[24:54] class and market briefs all for free,
[24:56] all you have to do is sign up and I have
[24:58] that link for you down in the
[24:59] description. Some investments, like your
[25:01] rental properties, like stocks [snorts]
[25:03] that pay out dividends, pay out cash
[25:05] flow. Other investments don't. Like you
[25:08] can go out and invest in real estate and
[25:10] hope to flip it in six months to three
[25:12] years or five years or whatever and make
[25:14] a huge profit. Same in the stock market.
[25:16] You can go out and buy stocks with the
[25:18] goal of trying to sell the stock for a
[25:20] huge profit in the future. Or you can
[25:22] buy stocks that are going to pay you for
[25:23] doing nothing except owning the stock.
[25:26] This is called a dividend. A dividend is
[25:28] when a company is going to pay you every
[25:29] three months, generally every quarter,
[25:31] and they're going to give you a check or
[25:33] deposit this money directly into your
[25:35] stock brokerage account for doing
[25:36] nothing except owning the stock. Now,
[25:39] what you have to understand about cash
[25:41] flow investing is you're not going to
[25:42] get rich by investing your money into
[25:44] cash flow, especially in the short term.
[25:47] Cash flow investing is a long-term game
[25:49] where you're going to have to constantly
[25:51] keep buying more of these cash flow
[25:53] producing assets and do this for a long
[25:55] enough period of time. That way now you
[25:57] can build a significant stream of cash
[25:59] flow. But it's not going to happen
[26:01] today. It's not going to happen next
[26:02] year. It's not going to happen the year
[26:03] after that. But you're going to have to
[26:05] stay consistent if that's what you want.
[26:07] Cash flow investing to build real wealth
[26:10] takes time and it takes commitment and
[26:13] it takes you consistently putting more
[26:15] dollars into it. A lot of people think
[26:17] that, oh, if I buy some cash flow, I'm
[26:18] going to be rich. You don't get rich by
[26:20] buying cash flow. You have to make the
[26:22] money first and then you use this money
[26:23] to generate cash flow. You got to get
[26:25] rich and then use this money to buy the
[26:27] cash flow. When you put enough riches
[26:29] into these cash producing assets, you're
[26:31] going to [snorts] get more cash flow
[26:32] back. The general rule of thumb, what
[26:34] you're going to see from real estate to
[26:36] stocks is somewhere between two to 7%
[26:39] cash flow. That is kind of your your
[26:42] general range. Sometimes a little bit
[26:43] less, potentially, sometimes more, but
[26:45] generally $2 to $7 worth of cash flow,
[26:48] which means for every $100 you invest,
[26:50] you're going to get $2 to $7 a year in
[26:53] cash flow. Again, it's not going to seem
[26:55] like a lot of money, but now when you
[26:56] change that up to investing $100 a week,
[27:00] every week over 10 years, now you can
[27:03] start to see where the cash flow starts
[27:05] to grow because then when you get that
[27:06] cash flow, you can also reinvest that
[27:09] cash flow to earn more cash flow. So now
[27:11] you're slapping $100 every week to buy
[27:13] more cash flow. And then when you get
[27:15] that cash flow check, instead of taking
[27:16] that and using it to go out and buy
[27:18] something nice, you take that money and
[27:19] you use it to buy more cash flow. That
[27:21] way every three months you're buying
[27:23] more cash flow because you're just
[27:24] throwing more money into this machine
[27:26] that's printing you cash. That is how
[27:28] you build wealth by investing for cash
[27:30] flow. The alternative is well now you're
[27:32] not investing for cash flow. You are
[27:34] buying something for say $100 and you
[27:36] want this to go up to $200. Again,
[27:39] that's okay. It's just an alternative
[27:41] way to get paid. And this is where now
[27:43] you have to be able to analyze your
[27:44] investments. You have to know how to
[27:45] invest your money. And you have to know
[27:46] the different places where you can
[27:48] invest. Again, the two most well-known
[27:50] places where you can invest is in the
[27:52] stock market and into real estate. Now,
[27:54] if you want to get started in real
[27:55] estate by owning physical properties,
[27:57] it's going to take more money. It's
[27:58] going to take more time. It's going to
[27:59] take more resources. It's going to take
[28:00] more risk. There are alternative ways
[28:02] for you to invest in real estate by
[28:04] investing in funds online. I have some
[28:06] of these resources in the description if
[28:07] you want to see some of the companies
[28:08] that I work with. They are affiliate
[28:10] companies of mine. But it is a way for
[28:13] you to get exposure to real estate. Real
[28:16] estate generally is going to take more
[28:17] work, more time, more risk, and more
[28:19] money. With the stock market, you don't
[28:21] need as much time, risk, or money
[28:23] because you can just throw your money
[28:24] into the market. And this is where you
[28:25] have to decide now if you want to be an
[28:28] active investor versus a passive
[28:30] investor or a hybrid of both. And
[28:35] if you ask me, the vast majority of
[28:37] America, 90 to 95%, maybe even 98% of
[28:40] Americans should be passive investors.
[28:42] But everybody gets attracted to the idea
[28:44] of being an active investor. And what
[28:45] that means is when you try to put your
[28:47] money in the stock market, most people
[28:49] think you have to find the next Amazon
[28:51] or the next Google or maybe the next
[28:53] Apple if you want to get rich. But
[28:55] that's not how the vast majority of
[28:57] people will get rich because when you
[28:59] play that game of trying to find the
[29:00] next hot stock, most of the time, the
[29:02] vast majority of the time, you're going
[29:04] to lose. And most people don't have the
[29:05] psychology to know how to manage their
[29:07] investments, when to buy, when to sell,
[29:08] and when to hold. And most people don't
[29:10] know how to analyze their investments.
[29:13] Maybe you find some cool companies that
[29:14] you want to invest in, but how do you
[29:15] analyze the financials? How do you know
[29:16] if the cash flow is growing? How do you
[29:18] know if the profits are growing? How do
[29:20] you know if they're using their cash the
[29:21] right way? How do you know if the
[29:23] executives who are running the company
[29:25] are doing good things? How do you know
[29:27] how strong the mo is, meaning how hard
[29:29] it is for another competitor to come in
[29:31] and take their spot? How do you know if
[29:32] they're using the cash flow the right
[29:34] way? How do you know if they have good
[29:35] assets and liabilities on their balance
[29:37] sheets? If that sounds interesting to
[29:38] you, which unless you're a money nerd,
[29:40] that's not going to sound very
[29:41] interesting to you, you should be
[29:45] looking for something that's going to
[29:46] appeal to the interest and the time that
[29:48] you have. Being an active investor is
[29:51] difficult. This is what Warren Buffett
[29:52] spends his days doing. He's an active
[29:54] investor. He loves researching
[29:56] companies. He loves studying their
[29:58] financials. He loves studying the
[29:59] products. He loves studying the
[30:01] executives at their company. He loves
[30:02] studying the innovation. He loves
[30:04] studying the branding of the company.
[30:05] That's what he's doing. When you're
[30:07] investing in the stock market, you're
[30:08] literally buying companies. When you buy
[30:10] one share of Amazon, you become one of
[30:12] the owners of Amazon. And if you don't
[30:14] want to treat it like that, then you're
[30:15] essentially gambling. Sure, you can make
[30:17] some money. You might find a cool
[30:18] company that you like before it pops
[30:19] off, but you might not. And you might
[30:22] not have any way of knowing if your
[30:24] company is a good investment or not. If
[30:26] that's something you want to do, you
[30:27] want to invest in individual companies,
[30:29] fine. But just understand the risk. And
[30:32] the more research you do, the more you
[30:33] learn, the more time you spend, and the
[30:35] more money you spend learning how to do
[30:36] it, the better you're going to do. But
[30:38] again, this is long-term investing. I'm
[30:39] not talking about trading. Talking about
[30:41] long-term investing. If you want to
[30:42] invest in individual companies,
[30:43] understand that that is a real skill if
[30:47] you want to succeed. The alternative is
[30:50] being a passive investor. A passive
[30:52] investor is now instead of you trying to
[30:54] find the next hot Amazon or the next hot
[30:56] Apple. Now what you're doing is you're
[30:59] just investing your money into the stock
[31:01] market. You're investing your money into
[31:02] America. And if America grows and our
[31:05] stock market grows, you make money. And
[31:08] now you don't really have to try to find
[31:10] the best time to buy. You don't have to
[31:12] find the best price. All you're going to
[31:13] do is set up a system where now every
[31:15] time you get paid, you're just going to
[31:16] throw money into the market. And this
[31:18] can be completely passive. You don't
[31:20] have to spend any time doing this
[31:21] besides finding the right funds to
[31:23] invest in in the first place. Then you
[31:25] just automate it, set it and forget it.
[31:27] And so it's much less time, much less
[31:29] risk because now if you invest in there
[31:31] are funds for example that will give you
[31:32] exposure to the entire stock market. For
[31:35] example, there is an ETF, an
[31:37] exchangeraded [snorts]
[31:38] fund called VTI. It trades just like any
[31:42] other stock on the stock market. But
[31:44] when you buy one share of VTI, you're in
[31:47] essence buying the total stock market,
[31:49] which means now you're just getting
[31:51] exposure to America and the stock
[31:53] market. Now you have hundreds or
[31:55] thousands of companies that you're
[31:56] investing in. And so if one company goes
[31:59] bankrupt, it doesn't bankrupt you. It
[32:01] just gets kicked out and now another
[32:03] company might come in. It's gets
[32:04] balanced out by the losers. If one
[32:06] company goes really big, yeah, that's
[32:08] going to benefit you, but it's also
[32:09] going to be balanced out by some of the
[32:10] losers. So these funds like ETFs, you
[32:13] can also look at index funds. Some
[32:15] mutual funds might alo also work. These
[32:18] funds are giving you exposure to baskets
[32:20] or groups of stocks. So that way you
[32:22] don't have to find the perfect company.
[32:24] But the key to win in this type of
[32:27] passive investing game is you got to
[32:28] just keep throwing money into the ETFs
[32:31] every week, every two weeks, every
[32:32] month. I am a passive investor and an
[32:35] active investor. I cannot tell you what
[32:37] to do. Do not blindly follow anything
[32:38] that I do. And I don't recommend what I
[32:39] do to anybody, but what I do is I have a
[32:42] passive investing strategy and an active
[32:44] investing strategy because I'm a weirdo
[32:46] and I like researching companies. Those
[32:48] numbers are very interesting to me. But
[32:50] I have a passive and an active investing
[32:52] strategy. In my passive investing
[32:54] strategy, every Wednesday, I don't have
[32:56] a secret sauce as to why Wednesday, just
[32:58] for me, I picked Wednesdays because it's
[32:59] in the middle of the week. Every
[33:01] Wednesday, cash is leaving my bank
[33:03] account and it's automatically being
[33:05] invested into my portfolio of ETFs. I
[33:07] have ETFs that give me exposure to value
[33:10] companies, things like the S&P 500. I
[33:13] have ETFs that are giving me exposure to
[33:15] dividends. This is actually the biggest
[33:16] piece of my entire passive investing
[33:20] portfolio. I like dividends because I
[33:22] like cash flow. Cash flow is the bulk of
[33:24] my investment portfolio because my
[33:26] rental properties are there for cash
[33:27] flow and the majority of my stock market
[33:29] passive portfolio is there for cash
[33:31] flow. So now I have the the value, the
[33:35] S&P 500s. I have the dividend paying
[33:38] companies, ETFs, and then I have some
[33:40] investing into innovation. This is a
[33:42] little bit more of the speculative side.
[33:43] These are more of like the growth
[33:45] potential type of companies. And then I
[33:47] also have ETFs that give me exposure to
[33:49] international companies, emerging
[33:51] markets, because that's kind of like a
[33:52] hedge because if things go down in the
[33:54] United States, well, some countries that
[33:56] don't rely on the United States, that
[33:57] don't rely on the dollar, might not be
[33:59] hurt as bad. And so, it creates a little
[34:01] bit of a hedge. Now again, every
[34:02] Wednesday, cash leaves my checking
[34:04] account and it's automatically invested
[34:06] into my portfolio of ETFs. I don't touch
[34:08] it. I don't think about it. I don't
[34:09] worry about it. It just happens every
[34:10] Wednesday whether the market's up,
[34:12] whether the market's down. And that's
[34:14] the key to win. Not only do you need the
[34:16] time now where you're investing your
[34:18] money into these types of ETFs for a
[34:19] long time, but you're doing this in a
[34:21] way where it's consistent, passive, and
[34:23] automatic. Because if you choose when to
[34:25] do it, well, you might miss a week. And
[34:28] when you're just waiting for the best
[34:29] opportunities, you're not going to keep
[34:31] investing your money. The way that you
[34:32] do this is whether the market's up or
[34:34] down, you're going to keep investing
[34:35] your money no matter what. The only
[34:38] change that you're ever going to make is
[34:39] potentially
[34:41] when you see markets drop, you could
[34:43] potentially buy more. But besides that,
[34:45] you don't change the system. That's how
[34:48] you win in this passive investing game.
[34:50] And you just keep throwing more money
[34:51] into it. Now, this is where you got to
[34:53] make the decision of number one, where
[34:55] do you want to invest? What types of
[34:57] assets? Is it stocks? Is it real estate?
[35:00] Is it startups? Is it something else?
[35:01] You got to figure out the assets that it
[35:03] is that you want to invest in. Second,
[35:05] do you prefer cash flow, non-cash flow?
[35:08] Third, are you going to be passive or an
[35:10] active investor? And now you just kind
[35:12] of work down the list and you start
[35:13] taking that money that you're putting
[35:14] aside towards investments and you put it
[35:16] to work. Now, if you remember what I was
[35:17] saying just a little bit ago that there
[35:18] are three factors that will determine
[35:20] how wealthy you become. Number one is
[35:22] the dollars. Number two is the return.
[35:23] Number three is the time. We cannot
[35:25] control the time, but you can control
[35:26] the dollars and the return. When you
[35:28] spend less or you earn more, that's
[35:30] influencing how many dollars you're
[35:32] investing. The next thing that you can
[35:33] do is influence the return that you're
[35:35] getting. And that's where now your
[35:36] investments are going to determine the
[35:38] types of returns that you're getting. If
[35:40] you want to get better returns,
[35:42] generally that means you might have to
[35:44] take on a little bit more risk. For
[35:45] example, you have the potential to get
[35:47] better returns when you actively invest
[35:49] your money versus when you passively
[35:51] invest your money. But the higher risk
[35:53] also comes with the higher potential to
[35:55] lose more money. And so now, how do you
[35:57] get better returns? You get more
[35:59] financially educated because the more
[36:00] you learn, the more opportunities that
[36:02] you're going to see. And in addition to
[36:04] that, what else creates opportunities?
[36:07] Well, finding distressed assets. If you
[36:09] find a rental property that's beat up,
[36:11] that's in an area that's coming up, but
[36:13] it's just so bad that nobody wants to
[36:15] buy it, that could give you the
[36:16] opportunity to buy a good property
[36:18] that's beat up, that you can fix up at a
[36:20] huge discounted price. It's the same
[36:22] thing in the stock market. If you find a
[36:23] beatdown stock that everybody's selling
[36:26] that's on the verge of a turnaround,
[36:28] that can create opportunity for you.
[36:29] Again, higher risk because this company
[36:31] could then go into bankruptcy. But if
[36:33] you can buy it cheap, you can make a lot
[36:35] more money. And this is where now that
[36:37] financial education comes in. How can
[36:39] you find these types of opportunities?
[36:41] You can learn, you can start
[36:42] researching, or you can see more broad
[36:45] market opportunities. When you see a
[36:46] market crash, when you see a recession
[36:48] happen, asset prices fall. Why do asset
[36:50] prices fall? Because people start
[36:52] selling. People start panicking. People
[36:53] need money. So they cash out of their
[36:54] investments. And when people are
[36:55] selling, that creates an opportunity for
[36:57] people who are prepared to come in and
[36:59] buy. So if you want to see higher
[37:01] returns, you got to get more financially
[37:03] educated and get more involved with
[37:04] their investments because that's going
[37:06] to allow you to get higher returns. And
[37:08] the higher the returns that you get on
[37:09] the money that you invest, the wealthier
[37:12] you will become. And now when time is a
[37:14] more limited factor, you're going to
[37:16] have to get more focused on that
[37:17] financial education. Not just so you can
[37:19] invest more, but so you can get the
[37:20] better returns on your money. This
[37:22] brings me to then the sixth thing that
[37:24] you have to work on, which is your
[37:25] income. What happens now to 99% of
[37:27] people in this situation is you are now
[37:30] getting into this financial education
[37:31] game. You're working to put more money
[37:33] towards your investments. You're working
[37:34] to invest your money to build wealth.
[37:36] And now you realize, wow, this is kind
[37:38] of fun. I'm seeing the [snorts]
[37:39] opportunity for success. I need more
[37:41] money to invest my money. This is now it
[37:44] pays to earn more money because now when
[37:46] you earn more money, you're earning more
[37:47] money, not to drive a faster car and
[37:49] have a bigger home and go on a nicer
[37:50] vacation, you're earning more money so
[37:52] you can have more investments that will
[37:54] pay for your nicer car, bigger home, and
[37:57] fancy vacations. And this is where now
[37:59] earning more money is so crucial because
[38:02] now your time is more limited. You need
[38:05] to be investing more dollars that way
[38:07] you can have more wealth. But in order
[38:09] for you to invest more dollars, there's
[38:10] only two options. Number one is you can
[38:12] spend less, which is what we've been
[38:13] talking about up until now. The second
[38:15] thing that you can do which can allow
[38:17] you to make way more money to invest to
[38:19] have more money to invest is you got to
[38:21] earn more money. Now, how do you earn
[38:23] more money? Well, there's an unlimited
[38:25] number of options here. And the first
[38:26] thing that I want to say is look, it's
[38:27] never too late to make a change. This is
[38:30] what's going to be probably the most
[38:32] difficult factor in your 40s. And what's
[38:34] interesting is it's not just difficult
[38:36] in your 40s. It becomes difficult when
[38:38] you're 25. People who are 25 say, "Oh
[38:40] man, I'm committed to working in
[38:42] medicine. I'm committed to being an
[38:44] engineer. I'm committed to being an
[38:46] accountant. I can't change now." You're
[38:47] 25 years old. What are you talking
[38:49] about? And then you hit your 30s and
[38:50] you're like, "Dang it, you know, I
[38:52] should have made that change when I was
[38:54] 25. I don't really want to be an
[38:56] engineer. I really don't want to be a
[38:57] doctor. I really don't want to be a
[38:59] teacher. I really don't want to be an
[39:00] accountant. I really don't want to be a
[39:02] technician."
[39:03] Well, then what happens is you just
[39:05] stick with it because like you feel like
[39:07] you've been in this career, in this
[39:08] industry for so long, you can't make a
[39:10] change because now you're older. Nobody
[39:12] wants to hire an older person. You don't
[39:13] have any other experience. And do you
[39:15] really want to start over? And then come
[39:16] your 40s and then you say, "Oh, you
[39:19] know, dude, I was really young in my
[39:20] 30s. I was stupid for not making a
[39:23] change when I should have. But now I'm
[39:24] in my 40s. I've been in this career for
[39:26] so long. I have so many networks now.
[39:29] I've built myself and this experience
[39:31] and I have this this resume that allows
[39:33] me to have the job that I have. It's not
[39:35] the funnest thing. I don't really care
[39:37] about what I do. I'm not making the best
[39:38] money, but do I really want to like I'm
[39:40] 40 years old. I'm 45 years old. Do I
[39:43] really want to make a change now? That
[39:45] what's going to happen when you're in
[39:46] your 50s. You're going to say the exact
[39:48] same thing. When you're in your 60s,
[39:49] you're going to say, "Dude, I wish I
[39:50] would have made that change in my 40s or
[39:52] my 50s." Time is going to keep going on.
[39:56] Period. Like we're not going to stop the
[39:58] earth from spinning. We're not going to
[39:59] stop the days or the nights from coming.
[40:02] That's going to happen regardless. Time
[40:04] is going to go, but what you do in that
[40:06] time is something that you can control.
[40:07] And so if you're not happy what you do,
[40:09] make a change. What's the worst that can
[40:11] happen? And if you don't want to just
[40:12] leave your job, that's okay. Start doing
[40:14] something in the evenings. Start doing
[40:16] something in the weekends. That way you
[40:18] can start learning. If you're an
[40:19] engineer and you want to go into
[40:20] medicine, or if you're an engineer and
[40:22] you want to be an entrepreneur, or if
[40:23] you're a doctor and you want to go and
[40:24] start selling cakes on the internet,
[40:26] that's okay. There's nothing wrong with
[40:28] that. Start figuring out if you're not
[40:30] happy with what you're doing. It's not
[40:32] too late. Even if you're in your 40s,
[40:34] even if you're in your 50s, even if
[40:35] you're in your 60s, it is never too
[40:37] late. And you might surprise yourself at
[40:39] how many new financial opportunities
[40:41] you're going to find when you start
[40:42] doing something that you actually enjoy.
[40:44] Because when you start doing things that
[40:46] you actually enjoy, you don't feel the
[40:48] dread of working. And when you don't
[40:50] feel the dread of working, you end up
[40:51] working more. And when you end up
[40:53] working more, you tend to be better at
[40:54] what you do. When when you get better at
[40:55] what you do, you have the ability to
[40:57] earn more money. And when you have the
[40:58] ability to earn more money, well then,
[40:59] you know, you can live a better life
[41:01] financially. And it can happen very
[41:03] quickly. People talk about how much I
[41:05] work. I work a lot of hours. I work
[41:06] seven days a week. I like working. I
[41:08] work when I'm on my vacations.
[41:10] Vacations.
[41:12] I do it because I don't feel a dread
[41:14] when I work. Actually, I get stress
[41:15] relief when I work. I like what I do.
[41:18] And because of how much I can work, it's
[41:22] harder for people to compete against me.
[41:24] And it allows me to also earn more
[41:26] money. And the funny thing is, I don't
[41:27] feel stressed out because how much I'm
[41:29] working because I like what I do. And
[41:31] this is where now you can create new
[41:33] opportunities for yourself. Whether it
[41:34] is a career change, whether it's getting
[41:36] a certificate, whether it's working
[41:38] harder at your job, whether it's getting
[41:39] a second job, whether it's getting some
[41:41] sort of new qualification that we can
[41:43] earn more money, there's unlimited
[41:45] possibilities here. It is not too late
[41:49] to make a change. And if you don't
[41:50] believe me, I don't know, I can shake
[41:53] the screen to get it through your head,
[41:54] but you got to be the one to believe
[41:55] that for yourself. That is not too late.
[41:58] If you don't want to do that, you can
[41:59] also work to create your own income. You
[42:01] can try to start a side hustle. You can
[42:02] try to start a business. You don't have
[42:04] to quit your job and change everything
[42:05] in your life and hope that you start
[42:06] making millions of dollars tomorrow.
[42:07] That's not how it works. But you can
[42:09] start on the evenings. You can start on
[42:10] the weekends. You can start on the
[42:12] mornings. You can work on a lunch break.
[42:13] You can find time to get committed to
[42:16] start learning to be better to thou
[42:18] creating the new income and doing
[42:20] something different that will allow you
[42:21] to live the life that you want. Because
[42:23] remember, you got to own the assets to
[42:25] become wealthy. How can you own more
[42:26] assets? You can spend less or you can
[42:29] earn more. We talked about how to spend
[42:30] less. This is where now how can you earn
[42:32] more money? not so you can drive a
[42:34] faster car and have a bigger home.
[42:35] Right? You got this now. So you can
[42:37] invest more aggressively. And this then
[42:39] leaves me with number seven, which is
[42:40] talking about all the other debts that
[42:42] you have. You can talk about your car
[42:43] payment. You can talk about your
[42:44] mortgage payment. You can talk about all
[42:46] the other debts that you have, the lower
[42:47] interest rate debts. Because in the
[42:49] beginning, we talked about your high
[42:50] interest rate debts. Now, when we talk
[42:52] about these other debts out there, the
[42:54] real key now is going to be dependent
[42:57] about what type of life that you want to
[42:58] live. Because if your goal is just to be
[43:01] financially free, you know, I don't want
[43:03] to have to worry about money. I want to
[43:04] go to my backyard, never have to worry
[43:05] about payments again. I just want to be
[43:07] able to breathe without having anybody
[43:10] hovering over me and I don't really care
[43:12] about having the nice stuff. I don't
[43:13] really care about the exotic things. I
[43:15] just want to live free. If that's you,
[43:17] then it makes more sense maybe for you
[43:19] to pay down the debt. I said maybe for a
[43:21] reason. I'll get to why in just a
[43:23] second. If you say, you know what,
[43:24] Jasperit,
[43:26] I want to change my life completely. I'm
[43:29] tired of living like crap. I want to
[43:31] have the nice things. I want to drive in
[43:33] Mercedes, BMWs, Rolls-Royces. I want to
[43:37] fly first class. Maybe I want to even
[43:38] fly private. I want to have the nice
[43:41] exotic things. I'm so tired of living
[43:43] like this. Okay, that's fine. But the
[43:46] way you're going to get there is by
[43:47] taking on a little bit more risk than
[43:48] just paying down a 4% interest rate
[43:50] debt. And so now you got to figure out
[43:52] what type of lifestyle do you want to
[43:53] live and what is going to make the most
[43:55] sense financially. And the reason why is
[43:57] because now you got to take a look at
[43:59] your debts. Lay out what interest rates
[44:02] are you getting? If you got a mortgage
[44:04] back in 2020 or 2021 and your mortgage
[44:06] is 2.8% a year.
[44:09] Now you're debating what should I do?
[44:11] Should I pay down my mortgage faster or
[44:14] should I do something else with my
[44:15] money? Well, if one of your options is,
[44:19] I can save my money into a highinterest
[44:21] savings account that pays 4 and a.5%
[44:25] and my mortgage is 2.8%.
[44:28] If this guaranteed savings return
[44:31] interest is paying a higher interest
[44:33] rate than my mortgage, well, then you
[44:35] can just put your money into a high
[44:36] interest savings account and then use
[44:38] the interest from the savings to help
[44:39] pay down your mortgage, right? because
[44:41] at that point financially you have very
[44:43] low risk to get this return from your
[44:45] savings account and so now you can get
[44:48] this return and it's better for you to
[44:49] get that return on your savings because
[44:50] there's a higher rate of return than
[44:52] your debt. See when you put your money
[44:54] into the stock market or into the real
[44:55] estate market now it's different. Now
[44:58] the goal is to get 7 to 10% a year but
[45:00] you might also get minus 5%. which is
[45:02] where now if you have that low interest
[45:04] rate debt and you just want to be
[45:05] financially free then sure it makes
[45:07] sense to maybe not invest the money into
[45:09] the stock market or the real estate
[45:10] market because there's a chance you
[45:12] might not make any money in which case
[45:14] paying down the debt can give you a
[45:16] guaranteed return and can give you that
[45:19] that lifestyle faster. But when you have
[45:21] the high the high interest savings
[45:22] accounts that are paying you 3, four, 5%
[45:25] and if that's more than what your debt
[45:27] interest rate is, well now you might be
[45:30] better off by not paying down that debt
[45:32] faster because you can get the interest
[45:34] from your savings and that might help
[45:37] you actually earn more and use those
[45:39] profits to pay down that debt even
[45:41] faster. And so this is where you just
[45:43] got to figure out what type of lifestyle
[45:44] that you want to live. Again, if you
[45:46] want to live big, you want to have the
[45:47] nice things, you want to you got to be
[45:48] willing to take on more risk. And taking
[45:50] on more risk means maybe instead of
[45:52] paying down the debt right now, you got
[45:53] to be investing into things like
[45:54] yourself that's going to help you earn
[45:56] more money. One of the best investments
[45:57] that you can make is in yourself. That
[45:59] means start by spending your time to
[46:00] learn. Watch YouTube videos, listen to
[46:02] podcasts, listen to articles, read books
[46:05] about ways to earn more money, ways to
[46:07] build a business, ways to grow a
[46:08] business, ways to scale a business, ways
[46:10] to be creative, ways to be innovative.
[46:13] Then as you learn, you start doing. You
[46:14] start investing into your business idea.
[46:16] And I can pretty much guarantee that the
[46:18] first idea is going to be a flop. But
[46:19] you got to get started. You got to have
[46:20] the first to have the second to have the
[46:22] third. And then as you do, you're going
[46:24] to learn more. And as you start to grow,
[46:26] that's when you can start investing into
[46:28] more education. Hire a coach, hire a
[46:30] consultant, somebody who's 5 years ahead
[46:32] of you, 10 years ahead of you, because
[46:33] they can teach you a lot that we don't
[46:35] have to go through the five or 10 years
[46:36] of pain and struggle that they went to.
[46:37] Yeah, they're expensive. I get it.
[46:39] online coaches, uh, business coaches,
[46:41] investment coaches are expensive. I've
[46:43] hired a lot of them. I've paid a ton of
[46:45] money in education, but if they can help
[46:47] you reduce how much time you have to
[46:48] spend learning to do it yourself, it
[46:51] might be a very good investment for you.
[46:52] Some of them might be crap. Some of them
[46:54] might be really good. And then you keep
[46:56] investing and building in yourself. And
[46:58] this is where now you are building that
[47:00] trajectory to build that wealth because
[47:02] now you will own the assets. you have
[47:04] the right income and you're spending
[47:05] money in a smart way that's allowing you
[47:08] to scale how many investments you have
[47:10] because that's how you're going to
[47:11] become wealthy. Building wealth is all
[47:13] about the velocity of your money. How
[47:15] fast can you grow your money from $1,000
[47:17] to $10,000? And your job now is to
[47:20] figure out how you can accelerate the
[47:22] velocity of your money. And in order for
[47:24] you to change the trajectory to go from
[47:26] slow and steady growth to fast and
[47:29] booming growth is to focus on these four
[47:31] things. Number one, you got to focus on
[47:33] your mindset. Number two, your
[47:35] commitment. Number three, your
[47:36] discipline. And number four, your risk.
[47:39] Let me start by talking about your
[47:40] mindset. Because the reality is, look,
[47:42] we live in a day and age where people's
[47:44] mindsets are really influenced about
[47:46] what's happening outside, what's
[47:48] happening in the media, what's happening
[47:49] in the traditional media, and what
[47:50] people feel the consensus of on social
[47:53] media. And people generally, I'm not
[47:56] talking about everybody, but you kind of
[47:57] have this like general consensus of,
[48:00] well, I'm not rich, so I hate people who
[48:03] are rich. And I can pretty much
[48:05] guarantee that when you carry that
[48:06] mindset, it's going to be impossible for
[48:08] you to ever become rich. Now, how do I
[48:10] know this? We remember that whole
[48:12] submarine incident recently, which was
[48:14] so devastating, so heartbreaking. It
[48:17] doesn't matter if someone's rich or
[48:18] poor, something's going on. There was a
[48:20] lot of things happening in the world,
[48:21] but when somebody loses their life who's
[48:23] innocent, that's sad. And when you read
[48:25] through the comments, most of them were
[48:27] solely focused on the incomes or wealth
[48:30] of people that were inside of the
[48:32] submarine. And what did they say? Oh,
[48:33] these are rich people problems. Why are
[48:35] we trying to help rich people? Oh,
[48:36] that's what happens when you're rich.
[48:38] And I can guarantee you that when you
[48:40] have that mindset towards rich people
[48:43] that, oh, they're bad because they're
[48:45] rich, you are never going to have the
[48:46] opportunity to be rich because naturally
[48:48] we want to be good people. And if being
[48:50] rich is being bad, why would you want to
[48:52] go out of your way to become bad? And
[48:54] this is where you got to understand,
[48:55] look, money does not make you a good
[48:57] person. Money doesn't make you a bad
[48:58] person. Money is just a tool. It
[49:01] amplifies who you are. When you give a
[49:02] good person more money, they have a tool
[49:04] to do more good. When you give a bad
[49:06] person more money, they have a tool to
[49:07] do more bad. And so, if you want to be
[49:10] wealthy, all you need is more money. And
[49:13] more money is not going to make you a
[49:14] bad person. It's not going to make you a
[49:15] good person. It's going to amplify the
[49:16] type of person that you are. And instead
[49:18] of hating the people who have money, you
[49:20] got to start asking the question of how
[49:22] did they get the money in the first
[49:23] place. And that simple switch in your
[49:26] mindset is going to completely change
[49:27] the trajectory of your life. And you
[49:29] might be thinking, oh, just that's just
[49:30] a bunch of woo wah stuff. You can't just
[49:33] change your life by thinking
[49:34] differently. Yes, you can. And I'm not
[49:37] talking about this abundance of I'm just
[49:39] going to pray on money and money is
[49:40] going to come and fall on my laps.
[49:41] That's not what I'm talking about. I'm
[49:43] talking about changing the way that you
[49:44] think. There are some people out there
[49:46] who think the world is against them. And
[49:48] when you think the world is against you,
[49:50] what's going to happen? Well, you're
[49:52] going to constantly be paranoid and not
[49:54] want to build trust with people, not
[49:56] want to network with people, not want to
[49:59] build businesses and relationships with
[50:01] people because you're going to think the
[50:02] whole world's going to be against you.
[50:03] And as soon as something goes wrong, as
[50:05] soon as something happens in that
[50:07] business, I knew it. I knew the
[50:09] government was going to be after me. I
[50:10] knew customers were going to hate this
[50:12] product. I knew that the internet was
[50:14] going to not like this. I knew that
[50:16] people were going to try to shut me
[50:17] down. Well, you could change that same
[50:20] person. If you put them in a different
[50:22] mindset, it could be completely
[50:24] different because guess what? Every idea
[50:28] is going to have problems. People are
[50:30] going to hate on every idea in the
[50:32] world. You know, there's a meme on the
[50:33] internet that says, "If you don't want
[50:35] to upset people, just sell ice cream or
[50:37] something along those lines." Well,
[50:38] guess what? Even if you sell ice cream,
[50:40] someone's going to be mad. People are
[50:42] going to have issues with everything
[50:44] that you do. They're going to have
[50:45] issues when you don't do things. They're
[50:46] going to have issues when you do do
[50:47] things. That's a part of the world.
[50:49] There's going to be issues of
[50:50] regulations. There's going to be issues
[50:52] of a lot of things. And so now, if you
[50:56] expect that to happen and that's going
[50:58] to be that overwhelming force of why you
[50:59] can't become successful, you can
[51:00] guarantee you're never going to become
[51:02] successful. And this is where that
[51:03] mindset of now understanding
[51:06] the way you think is going to influence
[51:08] what you do. And what you do is going to
[51:10] influence what you get. But it all
[51:12] starts with their mindset. Right? I call
[51:14] this the minority mindset because the
[51:16] minority mindset is about thinking
[51:17] differently than the majority of people.
[51:19] And the majority of people, especially
[51:22] in today's day and age, we live in this
[51:25] complaining society. We live in this
[51:27] self-mering society. We live in this
[51:29] victim mentality. We live in this
[51:31] society where we want to blame instead
[51:34] of wanting to change. Because guess
[51:36] what? It's easier to blame, right? When
[51:38] you feel crappy about where you are,
[51:39] especially financially, it's easy to
[51:42] blame your government and the boss. Man,
[51:44] it's because of all these taxes that we
[51:46] have to pay and all this government
[51:47] spending that we're broke. It's because
[51:49] my boss isn't paying enough that I'm
[51:51] broke. It's because my landlord keeps
[51:53] raising the rent that I'm broke. When
[51:56] what you'll see is some people in the
[52:00] same situation will be able to win
[52:02] despite all that other crap. Because
[52:05] guess what? There's a lot of crap in the
[52:07] world. Period. Now, either you're going
[52:09] to go in with that mindset of despite
[52:10] the crap, I'm going to win or I'm going
[52:12] to let the crap just parade on me. And
[52:14] you got to make that decision for
[52:15] yourself. Which one do you want to be?
[52:16] And this starts here. And I know this
[52:18] one is difficult because I've
[52:20] encountered a lot of different people
[52:21] and worked very closely with people with
[52:23] very different mindsets. And even if
[52:25] somebody is not skilled, they have no
[52:28] idea of how to do a particular task. You
[52:30] might have very little talents, but if
[52:32] you have the mindset, I'll do whatever
[52:34] it takes, you're going to have a much
[52:36] better shot at succeeding than somebody
[52:38] who's very educated, very skilled, very
[52:40] talented, but believes the world is
[52:42] against them and everything is against
[52:43] them. It's not about the skill and the
[52:46] talent, but it's about your mindset
[52:48] towards things. And then now, if you're
[52:51] in the situation, you got to be honest
[52:52] with yourself. I'm not telling you to go
[52:53] immediately change a mindset because
[52:55] that's not how it works. I I get that.
[52:57] in order for you to change your mindset.
[52:58] If you feel like, you know what, I feel
[53:00] negative. Yeah, I I do complain about
[53:01] other people. I do complain. I get
[53:03] jealous when I see people who are rich.
[53:04] I get envious when I see people who are
[53:06] rich. I get upset when I see rich people
[53:08] doing things. I get upset when I see
[53:09] people have nicer things than me. I wish
[53:10] I had them nicer things. Okay. All
[53:12] right. I'm just saying accept that and
[53:14] understand that because this is now
[53:16] going to be a process. And this is where
[53:17] you got to start. And the way that you
[53:18] do that now is you got to start diving
[53:20] into that personal development side of
[53:23] things. And now look, you're not going
[53:26] to change your mindset tomorrow. That's
[53:28] not how it works. But you got to start
[53:30] absorbing things to change the way you
[53:32] think. Because if you are constantly
[53:34] hating on other people, you're hating on
[53:36] other people's success, you wish you had
[53:37] the success and you just feel miserable
[53:39] because you don't have it and you're
[53:40] constantly complaining. And if you don't
[53:42] know this yourself, ask other people. If
[53:44] people around you say, "Man, you got a
[53:46] negative attitude." Or they're telling
[53:47] you this, take that for what it's worth,
[53:50] and start reading some personal
[53:52] development books. Start listening to
[53:54] personal development podcasts. Start
[53:56] watching personal development videos,
[53:58] things about mindset, things about
[54:00] growth mindsets, things about thinking
[54:02] bigger and abundance. And again, with
[54:04] abundance, I'm not saying you got to sit
[54:05] there and just meditate that, oh,
[54:07] everything's going to be bigger and
[54:08] better. No, that's not what I'm saying.
[54:09] I'm talking about just thinking that
[54:11] there's more opportunity out there.
[54:13] Because when you think there's more
[54:14] opportunity out there, you're going to
[54:16] start taking actions very differently.
[54:18] And when you start taking actions
[54:20] differently, you're going to see a whole
[54:22] new world of possibilities.
[54:25] And
[54:27] the life kind of works in this very
[54:28] weird way where we think that your
[54:33] trajectory in life is going to be this
[54:34] linear transaction. But that's not how
[54:37] it works. Life and success kind of work
[54:39] like a pinball machine where when you
[54:41] shoot a pinball, the pinball just goes
[54:43] everywhere. It goes up, down, circular,
[54:45] sideways left right circular
[54:47] straight, up, back. You never know where
[54:49] you're going to go next. And the most
[54:52] weird things might take you to a
[54:53] different trajectory, but that is what
[54:56] allows you to see the opportunities.
[54:58] There was somebody who was saying that
[54:59] success and opportunities are like
[55:02] buses.
[55:03] And you only learn bus schedule when you
[55:06] actually have to get somewhere. That's
[55:08] when you're going to actually notice the
[55:10] bus and be able to get on the bus. Those
[55:12] buses keep running even when you're not
[55:13] paying attention to them. But the only
[55:15] time you're ever going to pay attention
[55:16] is when you see the bus, when you see
[55:18] the bus schedule. But in order for you
[55:20] to see the bus schedule, you have to be
[55:22] willing to see the opportunities in the
[55:24] first place. I started off throwing
[55:26] parties in college. In fact, before
[55:28] parties, I was playing a drum at Indian
[55:30] weddings. Playing that drum at Indian
[55:31] weddings got me to meet DJs. Meeting DJs
[55:34] got me to start hosting parties. Hosting
[55:35] parties got me to realize I hated
[55:37] hosting parties. But that gave me money
[55:38] to start investing in real estate. When
[55:40] I started investing in real estate, I
[55:41] got my real estate salesperson's
[55:42] license. When I got my real estate
[55:44] salesperson's license, I became a real
[55:46] estate wholesaler. When I became a real
[55:47] estate wholesaler, I realized that I
[55:49] needed to do something more scalable.
[55:50] When I started doing that, I started
[55:52] getting more on the internet. I started
[55:54] e-commerce stores. When I started an
[55:55] e-commerce store, I got screwed over.
[55:57] When I got screwed over, I started a
[55:59] class on how to launch a business
[56:00] without getting screwed over. When I
[56:01] started that class, people said I need
[56:02] to get on social media, so I got an
[56:04] Instagram. When I got Instagram, people
[56:06] said I should start a blog. But English
[56:07] is my second language, so I didn't want
[56:08] to start a blog. Instead, I started a
[56:10] YouTube channel. Then I started a
[56:12] YouTube channel. And that gave me the
[56:13] opportunity to start something like
[56:14] Briefs Media. When I started Briefs
[56:16] Media, that opened up even more doors
[56:17] for me. So, you can see it was a
[56:19] pinball. I go from one place to the
[56:20] other to the other to the other. And
[56:22] when I was 18, 17, 19, I would have
[56:25] never predicted where I would be in 5
[56:26] years, 7 years, 10 years from then. But
[56:29] this is where you cannot expect what's
[56:32] going to come next and think, "Oh, this
[56:34] is not going to help me get to where I
[56:35] want to go." You just got to get
[56:36] started. Life is a pinball machine, but
[56:38] you have to start by changing that
[56:40] mindset. That way, you can actually get
[56:42] to the next place that you want to go.
[56:43] The second thing that you have to work
[56:44] on if you want to increase the velocity
[56:46] of your wealth is your commitment. And
[56:48] this might be as a business owner, this
[56:50] might be as an employee, this might be
[56:52] as an investor. And the biggest thing
[56:54] that I hear because especially in
[56:55] today's culture is, "Oh, I don't want to
[56:58] do too much at my company because uh I
[57:00] don't like this idea of doing more than
[57:02] what I'm paid for." Right? We talked
[57:03] about quiet quitting. We talked about
[57:04] all of these things happening in our
[57:06] culture right now where people are like,
[57:07] "I don't feel like I'm treated good
[57:09] enough in my company." But do you want
[57:10] to know what is a common trait amongst
[57:12] 99.9% of leaders, 99.9% of executives,
[57:17] 99.9% of overly compensated people is
[57:21] they had to go through a whole bunch of
[57:22] time of being undercompensated for what
[57:25] they did. These are the people that were
[57:27] the overachievers that did more than
[57:29] what they were paid for, that did more
[57:30] than what they were asked for, and went
[57:32] out of their way to succeed. So now, if
[57:35] your goal is to be overpaid, the way
[57:38] that you become overpaid is by being
[57:40] underpaid first. And you might feel
[57:42] like, what are you talking about? You
[57:44] mean I have to go to work and work
[57:46] harder and do things for my boss and
[57:48] make my boss richer? Yes, if you are an
[57:52] employee, the best way to get richer,
[57:54] meaning through your income now, through
[57:56] investments, right? We know that
[57:57] investments are how you really become
[57:58] wealthy, but the best way for you to
[58:00] make more money is by making your boss
[58:02] richer. Now, that might seem really
[58:04] counterintuitive, but the reality is if
[58:06] you are the person that gets into work
[58:07] early and you're overachieving and
[58:10] you're working harder and you're
[58:11] outperforming everybody else, who's
[58:12] going to be the first person to get that
[58:14] promotion? You. Now, you might be
[58:16] saying, "Oh, there's office politics."
[58:17] If your office politics are constantly
[58:19] overlooking you and treating you bad, go
[58:21] to a new company. Every company is not
[58:24] bad. Are there some crappy companies out
[58:26] there that pick the wrong people
[58:27] consistently and that are favoritising
[58:29] favoritising f picking whatever the word
[58:32] is? They're picking the wrong people
[58:33] that leave the company. Go to a company
[58:36] that will appreciate your hard work and
[58:38] your dedication. Because when you are
[58:40] the most valuable person in your
[58:43] department, the person who's going to
[58:45] get that bigger raise, the bigger
[58:47] promotion, that's going to be the last
[58:48] to get laid off, that's going to be the
[58:50] person that gets the most praise
[58:53] financially is going to be the person
[58:55] who's constantly busting their butt.
[58:58] Because from a company's perspective,
[59:00] what they want is valuable employees.
[59:03] And when you become more valuable,
[59:05] they're going to be willing to pay you
[59:06] more. And the reason why they're going
[59:08] to be willing to pay you more is because
[59:09] you have something that 99% of the other
[59:12] employees don't. And in order for you to
[59:14] do that, you got to make that commitment
[59:16] to put in the work. If you're just
[59:18] trying to coast by, I can guarantee you,
[59:20] you're always going to be struggling
[59:21] because that's the mindset you have
[59:22] towards everything in life. If you're
[59:23] just trying to get by and do the minimum
[59:24] amount of work, you're never going to be
[59:26] able to see the success that you want
[59:27] financially, that real financial
[59:29] success. If you're okay with where you
[59:31] are, then fine, keep coasting. You want
[59:32] to be average, fine, keep coasting. But
[59:34] if you really want to scale, you really
[59:37] want to earn more, you want to see that
[59:39] top level. You want to be the top food,
[59:41] the top dog in your company, you're
[59:43] going to have to outwork people, you're
[59:45] going to have to outperform people.
[59:46] You're going to have to outdo people and
[59:48] you're going to have to put in that
[59:50] commitment in order to do that. And
[59:52] sometimes, guess what? You're not going
[59:53] to get compensated right away, but
[59:54] you're going to have to keep doing
[59:56] things that people don't see. When I
[59:57] first started my YouTube channel, it's
[59:58] kind of funny. I think it took me almost
[60:01] a year and a half of constantly making
[60:04] my videos before I got my first YouTube
[60:06] payday. That meant I was putting out
[60:08] three videos a week, week after week
[60:11] after week, month after month after
[60:13] month after month after month after
[60:15] month after month after month after
[60:16] month. And let me remind you, I am a
[60:17] licensed attorney. My time is valuable.
[60:20] I could charge a lot of money to review
[60:22] contracts and to do business legal work.
[60:26] But I kept making YouTube videos. And
[60:28] for the first eight almost 18 months, I
[60:30] didn't get my first check. And when I
[60:32] got my first check, it was a few
[60:34] hundred.
[60:36] My first check of almost a year and a
[60:37] half worth of work. That's a lot of
[60:39] commitment to something that's not
[60:40] making me any money. But today, guess
[60:42] what? I'm getting overpaid on YouTube.
[60:45] Why? Because I got underpaid in the
[60:46] first place. If you want to get
[60:48] overpaid, you got to get underpaid in
[60:49] the first place and put in the work that
[60:51] other people are not willing to do. The
[60:52] third thing that you have to fix if you
[60:54] want to accelerate your velocity towards
[60:55] wealth is you got to fix your
[60:57] discipline. Now discipline is a lot of
[60:58] things, right? Once you start building
[60:59] that commitment, you're going to be
[61:00] working on that discipline to get to
[61:01] work. But it's also the discipline
[61:03] financially. Because the reality is
[61:06] becoming wealthy is as much mindset as
[61:08] it is what you do with your money.
[61:09] Because the thing that holds so many
[61:11] people back from becoming wealthy is
[61:12] you're telling me I got to invest my
[61:14] money today and invest it for years
[61:16] before I see any return. Yeah, that's
[61:18] the whole name of the game. And people
[61:20] have to see that light at the end of the
[61:22] tunnel right in front of them because
[61:24] they need to see the return today. I
[61:25] need that instant gratification. I need
[61:27] to see the growth today. I want to
[61:28] double my money in six months. And when
[61:30] you don't have the discipline of knowing
[61:32] to trust the system, trust the process,
[61:34] and continuing putting in the reps. It's
[61:37] very hard to do that. It's the same
[61:38] reason why it's so hard to lose weight
[61:40] because unless you see the the the
[61:43] success quickly, it's very hard to stay
[61:45] committed. But the reality is we know,
[61:47] right? If you want to get in shape and
[61:49] lose weight, what do you got to do? You
[61:50] got to eat better. You got to eat
[61:51] healthier, you got to put in more
[61:52] exercise, period. Right? Uh now, you can
[61:54] get into all the nitty-gritty of the
[61:56] types of nutrition and the types of
[61:57] diets and the types of exercise that you
[61:59] do, but at the end of the day, you got
[62:00] to eat better. You got to work out more.
[62:02] You got to put in more reps. And now,
[62:04] maybe in the beginning, you start to see
[62:05] a little bit of success, right? Because
[62:06] when you go to from really fat and
[62:09] unhealthy and you hit the gym for the
[62:10] first time and you start eating salads
[62:12] for the first time, yeah, you might lose
[62:13] some weight very quickly. But then you
[62:14] kind of hit this plateau where yeah, you
[62:17] got two months of solid success. Now
[62:18] you're in month three and now things
[62:19] starting to get hard because now yeah,
[62:21] you're not eating as many Twinkies and
[62:23] Ho Hos anymore. You're not eating the
[62:24] pizza like you were anymore. You're
[62:26] starting to miss the McDonald's. You're
[62:29] starting to miss all the unhealthy
[62:31] foods. And you're also like, you know, I
[62:33] I haven't really noticed a difference in
[62:35] my body in the last two weeks. Do I
[62:38] really want to keep putting in this
[62:39] work? And now you're going to be put to
[62:41] the test of what do you really want to
[62:43] do? And the people that are going to win
[62:45] are going to keep putting in the reps
[62:47] because you got to keep working. And of
[62:48] course, yeah, you got to keep improving
[62:50] the types of reps that you're doing. You
[62:52] got to work on your physical and
[62:53] financial education, but you got to keep
[62:55] putting in them reps. And it's the same
[62:57] thing financially. You got to keep
[62:58] putting in the reps. You got to keep
[63:00] investing your money. Sometimes you're
[63:01] going to see down markets where you're
[63:02] going to feel like you're losing money.
[63:03] You got to keep putting in the reps.
[63:04] Sometimes you're going to see bad things
[63:06] happen in the economy. You got to keep
[63:07] putting in the reps. Sometimes you're
[63:09] going to see the economy booming. You
[63:10] got to keep putting in the reps.
[63:11] Sometimes you're going to lose your job.
[63:12] You got to keep putting in the reps. You
[63:14] got to keep doing the things that are
[63:17] going to make you wealthy, right? You
[63:18] got to keep investing your money. You
[63:19] got to keep living below your means. You
[63:21] got to keep working to build up the
[63:22] savings cushion. You got to keep working
[63:23] to build up the cash flow because that's
[63:25] what's going to make you wealthy. And in
[63:27] the beginning, sure, it's exciting. Oh,
[63:28] I'm going to get rich. And then and then
[63:32] and then you started getting those
[63:33] offers of how you can get rich in six
[63:35] months with the six-step formula. All
[63:37] you got to do is pay me $997.
[63:40] Now, there's not I'm not hating online
[63:42] education. I actually love a lot of
[63:43] online education, but there's a lot of
[63:44] crap out there, too. And if all you're
[63:46] trying to buy is that way to get rich in
[63:48] six months, what do you think is going
[63:50] to happen? Because now you're trying to
[63:52] get away from the real process. You
[63:56] cannot you cannot bypass hard work. You
[63:59] cannot bypass the commitment. You cannot
[64:00] bypass the sacrifice. You cannot bypass
[64:02] the mindset. You cannot bypass the
[64:04] discipline. Period. It takes discipline
[64:06] if you want to be able to succeed. And
[64:07] you got to make sure you're putting in
[64:09] the reps even when things are hard. If
[64:11] you really want to be able to see that
[64:13] success financially, physically, in any
[64:15] part of your life, even in your
[64:16] relationships, guess what? Things are
[64:18] going to get hard with your wife, with
[64:20] your [snorts] husband. Things will go
[64:22] through rough patches, but you got to
[64:24] keep loving that spouse. You got to keep
[64:26] coming back and showing them love if you
[64:28] want to be able to make it work.
[64:30] Everything is going to go through tough
[64:31] phases, but you got to be willing to
[64:33] have that discipline to keep coming back
[64:36] and keep putting in the reps. And the
[64:37] fourth thing that you have to work on if
[64:39] you want to increase the velocity of
[64:40] your money is your risk tolerance. The
[64:42] biggest thing that I hear, the biggest
[64:45] criticism that I hear about investing is
[64:46] what happens if I lose money? What
[64:49] happens if I buy in an investment and
[64:51] then it goes down? What happens if the
[64:53] economy crashes? What happens if the
[64:55] market crashes? Well, let me tell you
[64:56] this. You are going to lose money.
[64:59] Period. When you invest your money,
[65:01] everybody will lose money at some point.
[65:02] Period. That's not just a possibility.
[65:05] It's a fact. Every single person in the
[65:08] game has lost money at some point. But
[65:10] when you don't take that risk, you're
[65:12] also guaranteed to lose money because
[65:14] now, not only are your savings going to
[65:16] lose value to inflation, but you're also
[65:17] missing out on huge opportunities.
[65:19] That's a loss, too. Because if you don't
[65:21] invest your money and you don't see that
[65:22] growth, there's a risk to that because
[65:24] you might be broke now, scared to take
[65:26] that risk and then you're going to be
[65:27] broke 10 years from now, too, because
[65:29] you didn't take that risk. And so, this
[65:30] is where now you have to understand risk
[65:33] is associated with the game. But that's
[65:35] how you learn. You learn through
[65:36] mistakes. You learn by putting your skin
[65:38] in the game. You learn by actually
[65:39] putting your money to work. I have lost
[65:40] money in investments. I've talked about
[65:42] this openly. I made a video on my
[65:44] YouTube channel talking about my worst
[65:46] real estate deal ever. If you haven't
[65:47] seen it yet, go ahead and watch it. see
[65:50] what it's like to lose money. I will
[65:52] walk you through the deal. I walk you
[65:53] through the deal and show you all the
[65:54] things that went wrong because I was
[65:56] early. I was young when I bought that
[65:57] deal. I did not know what I was doing
[66:00] and I made every mistake possible. And
[66:02] you'll see the stress and the financial
[66:03] stress that I went through. It was not a
[66:05] fun time, but I learned so much in that
[66:08] one deal that you cannot bypass that
[66:13] work. Yeah, it was very stressful when
[66:14] it happened. I can look back and laugh
[66:15] at it now. I can look back and talk
[66:17] about all the funny things that happened
[66:18] now, but during that time it was very
[66:20] stressful. I was losing a lot of money
[66:22] at a time when I didn't have that money
[66:23] to lose. But that's a part of the game.
[66:25] You got to be willing to go through the
[66:27] process. And what's interesting is as
[66:28] you get bigger, the the risk also gets
[66:31] bigger. When I was first starting off in
[66:33] my event planning companies, I my first
[66:36] party was a flop because we had some
[66:37] issues with the original club that we
[66:39] were going to work with. That lost me
[66:41] maybe a thousand dollars, which was like
[66:44] a ton of money for me back then. That
[66:46] was pretty much all the money that I had
[66:47] in my bank account when it was my worst
[66:48] real estate deal ever. Now we're talking
[66:50] tens of thousands of dollars, which was
[66:51] again pretty much everything that I had
[66:53] in the bank account. It was a lot of
[66:55] money. And then going forward even more,
[66:57] you know, when I was running the
[66:58] minority mindset trying to build a blog,
[66:59] I spent half a million dollars trying to
[67:01] build a blog because I hired the best
[67:03] consultants. I built a team and I was
[67:04] just trying to throw money at the
[67:05] problem trying to fix it. It was a
[67:07] complete flop. $500,000 down the drain.
[67:10] Yes, risk comes, but without that risk,
[67:13] you're never going to be able to see the
[67:14] growth. And this is where you have to
[67:16] get started, but also understand that
[67:17] those mistakes are not killers of your
[67:20] total financial success. You might have
[67:22] lost a deal, but you'll lose the
[67:24] investment. You'll win the investment
[67:26] game if you keep coming back. And yes,
[67:30] you're going to keep learning. Every
[67:31] phase in your life is going to have new
[67:33] risks, new lessons, and new education.
[67:36] But you got to be willing to come back
[67:37] each and every time. And the reason why
[67:39] all these topics are so important for
[67:41] you to understand right now is because
[67:43] of all the risks that we have in our
[67:44] economy right now. The United States of
[67:46] America needs a recession to save our
[67:49] economy. At least that's according to JP
[67:52] Morgan Chase Bank, who says that our
[67:54] economy needs a recession. Let me read
[67:56] you a JP Morgan Chase Bank, the largest
[67:58] bank in the United States, said in a
[68:00] note to their investors. They said,
[68:02] "While the United States economy's
[68:04] recent resilience may delay the onset of
[68:06] a recession, we believe that most of the
[68:08] lagged effects of 2022's monetary
[68:11] tightening have yet to be felt, and
[68:14] ultimately a recession will likely be
[68:16] necessary to return inflation to target.
[68:20] What does that mean?" In 2022, the
[68:22] Federal Reserve Bank started raising
[68:24] interest rates for the first time. We
[68:25] started off slow with those 25% interest
[68:28] rate hikes, the 0.25% interest rate
[68:30] hikes. Then we got more aggressive with
[68:32] the 75% interest rate hikes and we
[68:34] continued to do that throughout all of
[68:36] 2022 and we're continuing or we have
[68:38] continued to raise interest rates a
[68:40] little bit in 2023. And what JP Morgan
[68:43] Chase Bank is saying is that we haven't
[68:45] felt the full effects of last year's
[68:47] interest rate hikes and we're still
[68:49] raising interest rates now. Now in order
[68:52] to bring inflation down right the Fed
[68:54] has to raise interest rates and there is
[68:57] a lagged effect a delayed effect to the
[69:02] pain from higher interest rates which
[69:04] you haven't felt yet. Uh the general
[69:06] rule of thumb is that it takes somewhere
[69:07] between 12 to 18 months to feel the
[69:09] effects of interest rate hikes. We're
[69:11] now starting to feel the pain of 2022's
[69:14] interest rate hikes which JP Morgan
[69:16] Chase Bank says that we haven't fully
[69:17] felt yet. And they're saying that number
[69:19] one, we still have to feel more of that
[69:21] pain. And number two, in order to really
[69:23] bring inflation down, we're going to
[69:25] have to see more of this economic pain,
[69:27] what they said, a recession that it
[69:29] might be necessary in order to bring
[69:30] inflation down. And the reason why is,
[69:32] well, you can think about it, especially
[69:34] with housing prices because CPI or
[69:37] inflation data is made up of a lot of
[69:38] different components and one of the main
[69:40] components and that is housing. So when
[69:43] you have a lot of people with money to
[69:44] go out and buy a home with low interest
[69:46] rates, what happens? Everybody wants to
[69:48] buy a home. Now you have a home listed
[69:49] for $400,000. You have 35 different
[69:52] offers and the home sells for $475,000.
[69:55] Home prices go up. Now home prices go
[69:57] up. That data goes to the inflation. The
[70:00] CPI data which says home prices went up.
[70:03] Inflation is higher. When inflation is
[70:06] higher, the Federal Reserve Bank has
[70:08] more fuel to continue raising interest
[70:10] rates. So now when you have say higher
[70:12] interest rates, demand starts to go
[70:14] down. But it hasn't gone down to the
[70:17] point where we're seeing inflation
[70:19] really fall to the levels that the
[70:20] Federal Reserve Bank wants. This is why
[70:21] the Fed keeps saying that bringing
[70:23] inflation down has not happened yet and
[70:26] it's going to take more work. So now
[70:28] what happens if you have a recession? If
[70:30] you have a recession now, that means the
[70:32] economy is slowing and generally that
[70:34] would mean that less people are going
[70:35] out to buy homes and generally that
[70:36] would mean that well sellers would be
[70:39] having to cut the prices of their homes
[70:40] to get their home sold. Cuz we've heard
[70:42] a lot of news, especially when the stock
[70:44] market's going up, that the economy is
[70:45] booming and everything is great. And
[70:47] what does that really mean? Because what
[70:48] you have to understand is that
[70:49] recessions don't happen when people
[70:51] expect them to happen. They happen when
[70:53] people stop believing that they're going
[70:54] to happen. And what JP Morgan Chase Bank
[70:57] is saying is that the investment into
[71:00] equity stocks still does not seem like
[71:02] the best investment for them because of
[71:04] all the factors that they highlighted.
[71:06] They talked about the likelihood of a
[71:07] recession coming in the coming quarters.
[71:09] What does a recession do? That generally
[71:11] brings asset prices lower stock prices
[71:13] lower. So because of that they said this
[71:15] might not be a good time for them to be
[71:17] dumping a ton of money into the general
[71:19] stock market. The second thing they said
[71:20] in that same sentence is higher interest
[71:22] rates. What do higher interest rates do?
[71:24] They make borrowing more expensive. They
[71:26] cool down demand. And what they're also
[71:28] saying is that we still have to feel the
[71:30] full effect of the higher interest
[71:31] rates, which we haven't felt yet. So,
[71:33] they're saying that we're going to see
[71:34] more pain coming because of the higher
[71:36] interest rates. Third, tightening
[71:38] liquidity. Tightening liquidity means
[71:40] less money entering our economic system
[71:42] because banks are less likely to loan
[71:43] money. Banks are going through their own
[71:45] regulations to bring less money into the
[71:47] economy. That means less spending, less
[71:50] ability for people and companies to buy
[71:52] assets, less ability for people and
[71:54] companies to spend. Less spending means
[71:56] less economic growth because our
[71:58] economic system is designed on spending.
[72:00] The more money you spend, the richer
[72:02] somebody else makes. And when you have
[72:03] tightening liquidity, there's less
[72:05] spending ability, which means people and
[72:07] companies have less ability to spend
[72:09] money, which means less growth in the
[72:12] economy. And then they said rich
[72:14] valuations which means essentially that
[72:16] they still believe that the stock market
[72:17] is overvalued. They say the stocks
[72:19] essentially companies valuations are too
[72:21] high and because of that they're not
[72:23] investing as aggressively into equities
[72:25] right now. This is directly from JP
[72:27] Morgan Chase Bank. Now you don't want to
[72:28] blindly follow what they do. You don't
[72:29] want to blindly follow what I do. You
[72:31] don't want to blindly follow what
[72:32] anybody does. But rather understand the
[72:34] different opinions out there. That way
[72:36] you can make the best decisions for
[72:37] yourself. Because guess what? When the
[72:38] stock market is booming, you start to
[72:40] see the sentiment that, oh, the economy
[72:42] is not going to see any recession, that
[72:44] the world is great, everything is fine,
[72:45] and nothing can go down. As soon as you
[72:47] start to see the stock market slightly
[72:48] go down, things flip. Everybody says,
[72:50] oh, we're going to enter a recession,
[72:51] everything is bad, everything is going
[72:52] to go wrong, the whole world is going to
[72:54] end. And this is where you as a
[72:56] financially educated person have to be
[72:58] about to cut through the noise, cut
[73:00] through the emotion, learn from
[73:02] different people. Some people think that
[73:04] the world is going to end. Some people
[73:05] think that the world is going to boom
[73:07] and the economy is going to boom and you
[73:08] have to be able to find the right
[73:10] information to help guide your
[73:12] investments. Instead of being an
[73:13] emotionally driven investor, be an
[73:16] educated and financially driven
[73:18] investor. The housing market is about to
[73:20] shift again and this time it's for
[73:22] reasons that you might not expect. And
[73:24] this next shift comes at an interesting
[73:25] time because housing affordability is at
[73:28] the lowest level we have seen since the
[73:29] early 1980s. And for the first sustained
[73:32] period in history, it is cheaper to buy
[73:35] a new house than it is to buy a used
[73:37] house.