The Brutal Money Truth No One Wants to Hear, with Dr. Brad Klontz and Adrian Brambila

24:45That's not the people that we're talking about here. Now, you've been doing this podcast for so long, I would imagine most of your longtime listeners, they're probably those people actually who like their path there. They're investing as much as they'd like and they're also living the best quality of life. So if designer brands is how you'd like to spend your money, that's amazing. we're talking about most people which are not probably these long-time listeners these are people who they're caught up in the status game and thinking because of their insecurities they're making these purchases so i don't want to offend fashion people in craftsmanship my wife loves fashion i'm wearing a shirt that i got in japan and i think it was 50 it's more expensive than my normal shirts but i'm here for a special podcast so i wanted to put it on you know and i and yeah i appreciate the craftsmanship it was really nice but i feel like that when i make that purchase.

25:33I'm not trading my time for it. There's no prominent logo on here. And I didn't buy it to try to flex people. You guys would have never known it's from Japan if I didn't say it. I bought it because it truly felt nice. Yep. And I grew up, like I said, in a lower income area, I saw way more labels there than I see now where I live in Boulder, which is extremely wealthy. And so it's sort of fascinating. It's like, people tend to downplay how much they have. And for many reasons, they don't want to be targeted. During the Great Depression, that the wealthy just fled to the countryside and like mounted machine guns on their homes outside because they were worried about people stealing from them.

26:09And that could be part of it. You know, part of people worry about being judged by flexing if they have a bunch of money and they're worried about being targeted and judged and all that. But the bottom line is that those labels, and Adrian talked about his more expensive t-shirt here, and it doesn't have a big label. And if it did, you know, you would just ask yourself, like, why? You know, why the need to project this outward display of wealth? That's really the question that I want people to ask when they see it on social media, because the untrained eye who does not know the research is going to assume, well, that's what people do.

26:38And then that leads to the people who can't even afford it, buying this stuff and promoting it on social media. And that's really what that chapter is about. It's about flexing it. Like what's the need for the flex? Adrian has nice stuff. And I've yet to see posts that he or I are making, you know, leaning up against our luxury, this or luxury that, I mean, this is, that's, that's not the, we don't need to do that. Lean against the Lambo. Yeah. Maybe we should do that. Maybe we'd sell more books. Get the wrong, should have had that on the cover. That's the sad thing. Yeah. It works. If we were to lean against Lamborghini and talk about our books, start thinking rich.

27:14I think it would work, but it would attract the wrong type of person that we want. how I went from like 100 ,000 followers, like 1.5 million was I was living an example of a contradiction of what people perceived as wealth. I was living in a van and I would transparently say like share. I made$100 ,000 last month and I live in this van by choice. So people would say, there's no way any millionaire wouldn't live in a van. You must be a scammer. This is a fraud because people think if I make that much money or if I'm a millionaire, you wouldn't live in a van, you would have a Lamborghini. I think it would work.

27:48And I think that's the problem with the guru industry and finances and business industries is like they prey on the cultural norm that the Lamborghini is the reason that means you are successful you have to be rich or afford that and I think we can't deny the fact in order to get a Lamborghini whether you max out leverage or not you still have to get to some type of income level to do that they don't just hand out people like loans on Lamborghini so there's some level of income success to get there but income is just one part of the wealth formula, right? So you can have a high income, you'd be living debt, so much debt, living paycheck, paycheck, 50 % of people making six figures do this.

28:26So you just have to be, have to be careful and know that objects, brands, they're not the only reason. They're not a reason why you should be impressed by someone. Yeah. I call them a scamborginis. That's awesome. Lamborgurus driving scamborginis. Love it.

28:45The kids are back in school now and I finally have some extra time to plan a weekend getaway for just us. We've been wanting to visit Lancaster County, Pennsylvania for a while now because I've heard so many people rave about it. We love exploring new places, finding the cutest shops, and eating at restaurants that the locals love. DiscoverLancaster.com is the best place to learn about the unique things to do and upcoming events. Plan your trip alongside us at discoverlankaster.com slash amplified.

29:15This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance, fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home, and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it, so your dollar goes a long way. Visit Progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.

29:56This Friday, the NBA on Prime tips off with their debut doubleheader. First up, Boston brings the action to the Garden as the Celtics face the New York Knicks. Then out west, it's a battle of the superpowers as the Lakers try to poster the relentless pace of the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Celtics and Knicks, who has the most hustle and defense? This game will come down to who wants it more. And the Timberwolves and the Lakers. It's two Western Conference heavyweights going toe-to-toe. Buckle up, folks. This one's going to be electric. Celtics-Knicks. T-Wolves and Lakers. Coverage starts Friday, 7 o 'clock Eastern, only on Prime.

30:46All right, let's talk about the next harsh truth, truth, which is a bit of a controversy between the two of you. I think there's going to be some sparring off that happens here on the couch, which is if you want to be rich, go to college, get married and buy a house or don't. And there's going to be, I think a little bit of a debate going on. Let's go, baby. Yeah. Let's go bring it on. Bust out the spreadsheets. Out of all the chapters in the book, this is one chapter that Brad and I didn't have the exact ideologies on and beliefs. But I also mentioned in one of our previous podcasts, how working with Brad has helped me take what I used to believe was like fully true into a partial truth.

31:25And so one of the things coming from the fire movement, living in a van, I believed before working with Brad closely that like a home is not the answer to the fastest path to achieving financial freedom. And in many ways, that is an illusion that most people have. I was hardcore. That was my stance. I'm not so one-sided anymore. The data shows that most people become millionaires through their home. This is what I tried to argue is like homes, phantom costs, all the things that pop up in home ownership, insurance and taxes. And if you were to rent instead and take the difference of the money, invest the stock market, it would always win versus home ownership.

32:06But that's just not what people do because we're not mathematical creatures. We're emotional creatures. So typically what happens when you get that extra money, we're not robots. We spend it. We don't save it when we don't invest it. So even though on paper, in many, many ways, renting is better, people don't do it. So what a mortgage does is it creates forced savings. I'm basically finding your point for you. It creates forced savings. And that's the secret. Not that necessarily getting a house is the best investment, but it creates forced savings. Yeah. And for this chapter, we're just given the stats because I see tons of misinformation, like the one that, that really gets me.

32:43And by the way, I I'd like to consider myself open-minded and if I'm not, please confront me. But I see on social media, like college isn't worth it anymore. My first thought is always like, Oh, is it not? Oh my goodness. This is interesting. And then I go look for the data and I keep doing this every year. Cause I keep hearing that, but every single year and people say, oh, but that was back then. No, no. Right now, the Department of Labor does studies and they ask, they look at how much people are making each week. And the bottom line is the average college grad in the US makes$1.2 million more over their lifetime.

33:18And that number fluctuates, but it's a lot more. And so it's not true that college isn't worth it anymore. It may be in the future. Also around being married, I think it's between the ages of 25 and 35, the average married couple has 10x the net worth as the average single person. And by the way, I think it's like for men, it's 3x the net worth and for women, it's 7x. So for both, it's like more money. Now, we're not suggesting that you get married. We're not suggesting that you have to go to college. We're not suggesting that you need to buy a house. This is just the common path and it's good to know the numbers.

33:53Because when it comes down to you, it really does matter. Like for example, if you pick the wrong major, the wrong major, I don't want to say it like that, but let's say that you go to college because you want to make more money. You pick certain majors, 25 to 40 is the average college debt, to get a job that pays minimum wage. That's fine to get a job that pays minimum wage if you want to go to college, as long as you come from a wealthy family. That's fine. And what's so sad about it is when you look at the list of majors that don't pay, they're like the best ones for society and culture and humanity.

34:25I'm hoping actually the humanities have a resurgence with AI, which is probably another conversation, but you got to pick wisely. And so what I see is a lot of first generation college students, immigrants to the US who think if I just go to college, I'll be set. I'll be set for life. And by the way, it used to be that way. It used to be you just go to college, get a degree, you're set. You're already in that higher income. Now it really matters with regard to your major. So especially for people who come from backgrounds like I did, lower income, you want to go to college to advance yourself, make money.

34:57You have to do your research on what major to get. You have to look at, it's the Occupational Outlook Handbook, and it's free online. I think it's Department of Labor, but I consulted that in college to figure out what major to get. So you really have to do the research. Essentially, we just wanted to lay out the stats based on how people get rich and what rich people do. And that's what we found. see how do you argue against that he's got all these data points like sometimes my entrepreneur content would talk about like more of a logical thought like if you want to create an online business if you want to be an entrepreneur instead of going to college like try it like there's ways you can create a youtube channel for free and start creating content you learn so many invaluable skillsets that college won't teach you but again i'm not so extreme anymore my mind is open and i get the data.

35:45And it's so hard to try to argue against, against the data. It's not, there's so much nuance too, of like, you know, who you marry. Absolutely. What college do you go? Like, what do you study? What kind of home do you get? Like, there's so much nuance, but I can't deny the data. Well, and it comes from lies. There's a lot of male generated content that I'm seeing online right now that talks about how marriage is a scam and how women take all your money. I mean, there's these dark areas of the web. And these comments are popping up on my feed all the time. And so I'll literally be like, oh, really?

36:18Is marriage a terrible thing for men nowadays? And so I just go look and I'm like, well, looks like they have 3x the net worth as single men at the same age. I'm like, I guess not. No college is actually worth it. If it wasn't, I'd be happy to tell you it's not. Like I have no skin in the game. Well, I guess I'm a professor, but I don't need to be. So I think we're just trying to challenge some of those myths. And I also hear on social media that it's better for you financially to rent. And so I look at it. And by the way, Adrian has beautiful spreadsheets showing you exactly why. If you did everything the way you should do it, that renting, you'll have a higher net worth at the end than buying with all the phantom costs and investing the difference.

36:59And over a certain number of years with average market returns, by the way, he did a really great job. It's in the appendix, very long. Go ahead and read it. And he's right about that. But when it comes to the actual behavior that most people do, it's like nine out of 10 millionaires own their own home. So if you wanted a formula, we're just sort of laying out the stats. But it really does come down to the individual decision. Part of what I'm hearing is that what's true in the aggregate may not be true for the individual. So I think there's some messaging that sort of gets lost there when you take something that might broadly and directionally be true for a wide swath of millions of people.

37:35but that in a given individual's personal circumstances might not be necessary. That's totally true. And we say that in the chapter too, like we're not telling you to do any of these things because these might be horrible decisions for you as an individual. Right. But these are the general trends. Don't make decisions based on false information. Right. Around what happens in general. We were having this conversation before we started recording over lunch about how no one ever said, what do you want to be when you grow up? People said, are you going to be a doctor or an engineer? because when you grow up around Nepalese Americans, that's what you hear, at least if you or me.

38:08What they were indicating was something that in the aggregate has a high probability of financial success. And so when I said, well, I'm not going to be either a doctor or an engineer, it was like, gasp, scandal. But again, it's what works in the aggregate for a large portion of the population might not be a good fit for a given individual person inside of it. Yeah, absolutely. It might be the absolute worst move. Yeah, I would have been a very mediocre veterinarian. No one wants to take their dog to a mediocre vet. All right, let's talk about the next harsh truth. Oh, this is going to get some people riled up.

38:52Retirement is for dead people. All right, so before you get too mad, I just looked up the definition of retirement. So what does retirement mean? It means to stop working. Then I said, well, what does work mean? And I'm going to get it wrong because we're just talking here. But it's essentially activity designed to produce in pursuit of a purpose or a result. So retirement essentially means to stop engaging in behavior designed to produce a result or a purpose. And I'm just going to suggest to you that's a terrible, terrible idea. for you to stop what having purpose and putting effort into something, you know, that's focused on a result.

39:34And really this is a little bit of us challenging some of people in the fire movement also, and people of like-mindedness around that. Once I stop working, then I'm going to be happy and everything's going to be great. Once I stop engaging in a pursuit and what we have found and what I have found personally in working with people is people end up getting depressed without a purpose, without a reason to get up in the morning, without a passion, without a pursuit. And so not to hang your hat on this idea that once I stop working, then I'm going to be happy and fulfilled. And it also depends on how much of your self esteem is wrapped up in that work because retirement can be a mental health crisis for many people.

40:15In Japan, they have an entire syndrome related to like retired men who just become assholes and their wives actually develop psychological symptoms because now they're home and they actually have training programs. RHS, retired husband syndrome. Yes, retired husband syndrome. Isn't that fascinating? The culture has identified it as a huge issue because these guys all of a sudden have no purpose and they're just sitting around the house and they're not very kind because I think they're struggling with their own existential realities. And I've just seen so many people who've cashed out on what you would think would be incredible, like, oh, sold my business for 25 million.

40:49Now, unfortunately they signed a non-compete. So they have to stay out of that industry for like five years. And I've seen like so many examples of people becoming depressed, becoming suicidal, even under that, under those circumstances, because you have to have a purpose. So that's, we're just throwing that out there that the idea of stopping a pursuit that has a purpose and meaning in it is, is not good for you. I just became aware of someone who on the surface felt like they had it all in Austin, a very prominent entrepreneur who had exited a supplement company in the hundreds of millions. So I have a guess as to who this is.

41:28We'll talk after. Yeah. Although he was a very well respected entrepreneur and grew so fast and made so much money, grew a company, scaled it so fast. And then, you know, he was such a good guy. He donated so much of his money to amazing impacts. He has photos with Tony Robbins. His photos with Tim Ferriss. He's like this guy, he did it. He made a lot of money. Gave it away. Like this guy has it figured out and he's retired. And I can't say these things on a podcast, but they're horrendous. You're saying it right now. No, the specifics, the specifics, such a toxic lifestyle has created from retirement and from losing his sense of purpose to just scandalous relationship stuff.

42:08I was just thinking of this guy of like, this is someone who at first I even looked at his profile page and his bio and I was like, man, that's cool. Like I was even like a fan of saying, dude, I would love to do that. I would love to scale my business to a hundred million, sell and then donate it. And here I am taking photos of Tony Robbins. And then after you exit it, then what do you do after that? And even someone that has gone to that caliber lacks purpose and it can totally ruin and jeopardize your entire life. So this is like such a serious conversation, even in a much more smaller capacity.

42:39Like we were talking just about our parents and their retirement life and how they're just struggling to spend the money that they so rightfully earned. And we both shared it in kind of funny conversations of us saying, please don't leave me inheritance. Like I want you to spend your money. And it affects everyone to try to figure out like, how do we live our life? How do we actually, we make so much content about saving money, but what about spending money to live your, love your best life? So purpose is such a, that's like the purpose of life. That's the hardest question to answer and figuring out and retirement, the act of working, because most people have to work, kind of distract us from the real question of like, what should we do with our lives?

43:18And then when you retire, you're faced with that question. Instead of answering it, people can struggle emotionally and through relationships. I've already heard you say this a couple times today, like mentioning Warren Buffett and how he's 92 and he's still working. 94. 94. And I asked you also like, do you have an exit plan? You're like, no, I'm gonna do this. I'm in for the long run. And you found your, you found your thing, you know, like you're going to create content. You're doing this by choice. And I shared, like, I'm always going to be creating content. I shared also, I don't know if I'll always be creating content about finance, but I'll always be creating.

43:51I like the act of creating. So you've got to find something that compels you, that drives you. And if you don't, life can get rough. Right. And it sounds like in the example that you shared, it sounds to me like this person is spiraling into self-destructive behaviors. Yeah. Lack of purpose can do that. You would probably have studied this more than either of us. The triggers that can lead somebody down a self-destructive path. Yeah. And work has built-in meaning, built-in purpose. a lot of times built in social interactions. And the call to action here is not to discourage you from transitioning from a job you don't enjoy.

44:30I mean, we would actually love for you to do that. That sounds like a terrible thing to have a job you don't enjoy. But it's like, don't think that you stopping working is going to lead you being happy. Don't wait for that because you could be sorely disappointed, especially if you're dedicating so much time and energy to that purpose because you want to get there fast. Because at the end of the day, you're going to still need something you should do and a purpose so you don't have retired husband syndrome and you don't make your life miserable and your partner miserable. That's really the call to action with that.

45:00And part of that is build some of that now. Don't wait to the end. Just like stuff's not going to make you happier, stopping your pursuits, you know, which have passion typically and drive, that's not going to make you happy either. Let's talk about the next harsh truth, which is only poor people are afraid to ask for help. And we should take a moment here, since this is a new episode, to redefine for the people who missed it in the last one, what you mean by poor in this context. Because you're not talking about an income status or a net worth status. Absolutely. Poor is a state of mind, just like rich is a state of mind.

45:39Broke is having no money. Broke is supposed to be a temporary thing. We've all been broke. And the only thing that makes the temporary into a longer duration is having a poor mindset. Someone that has a rich mindset, but is broke, it's just a matter of time until they're elevated because they're doing the right things like saving and learning and trying to educate. So when we talk about poor people, we really are talking about people that have a poor mindset or toxic mindset with money. Right. All right. So only those of a poor mindset are afraid to ask for help. Why be afraid to ask for help?

46:13One of the studies that I conducted, we actually asked people whether they're asking for help and who they get help from. And we saw a very clear pattern where ultra wealthy people more likely to be asking for help with things than people who are lower net worth. Adrian, as he's becoming wealthy, is asking for more and more help along the way. Help me do this. Help me do that. Most ultra wealthy individuals hire out help for their investments. Most middle class, lower income people are much more hesitant to do it. And it really comes down to a culture, a culture. I call it do-it-yourself-itis.

46:48And by the way, I'm still in recovery. Adrian's doing interventions on me yesterday, doing an intervention on me. I have much more do-it-yourself-itis. I wanted to share actually, when I reached out to you, there was a year that I had tripled my income and I was looking at the taxes I have to pay. And I was like, holy moly, this is insane. So I texted Brad. I was just asking him for help because I know he's worked with billionaires. He works with hundreds of millionaires. So I'm like, I'm going to pay so much in taxes or any strategies I could do. Like, what are the really rich ultra wealthy people do?

47:19Like, am I even there yet? What are my options? And Brad reached out. Every single wealthy person I know pays a ton in taxes. And he educated me despite on the media. We hear like, well, rich people don't pay taxes. He's like, it's not true. Every rich person I know pays a lot in taxes. I reached out for help and he was that person. When I asked for help, you have to almost like humble yourself that you don't know all the answers, but any successful rich wealth mindset, like we never assume that we know all things. All right. So this is the metaphor I use. I know you have pliers in your garage, but you should outsource your dentistry.

47:53And I feel like the same is true for taxes. And the sort of the middle class, lower income mindset is I have to do it all myself. And this is sort of trading your time for money and that kind of thing too. And it's like the bottom line is that especially if you're starting a business or even not hiring somebody due to your taxes might cost you hundreds when you start out and it could save you thousands. Having an investment advisor so you're not up trading all night thinking that this is what wealthy people do. That's not what they do. Wealthy people are out there doing their thing, whatever that thing is that brings in income, and they're outsourcing some of that.

48:27And so it's really a call to action because the middle-class lower income mindset, we feel bad about not doing it ourselves. We feel bad that we can't do it ourselves. I felt like I needed to know taxes. That's what wealthy people know. A lot of them don't even know what any of the forms mean on a tax return. I mean, they outsource that. They're not reading tax journals. Are you reading the updates to the tax law every year? Of course not, unless you're an accountant. It's sort of like we're trying to combat the belief that I need to know all of this by letting people in on the fact, the secret, if you will, that wealthier people tend to ask for help.

49:04And it's easier for them. It's easier for them to admit that they made mistakes. It's easier for them to admit that they don't know something, which I think is fascinating. And it could be that locus control that they have, more of an internal locus control. but their ability to outsource things like having an attorney help them set up a business, having an accountant help do their taxes, having a financial professional manage their portfolios. One of the barriers I'll hear from middle-class law firms, I can't afford it. Of course they can afford the help. It doesn't really cost that much. Like you could actually hire a CPA, pay them for their hour, an attorney, a financial planner, and just pick their brain until you can actually afford to have them on like staff full time or whatever, or hire them for particular jobs.

49:45So it's a big mindset shift that will accelerate your net worth and your success in business too by asking for help. There's often though a bit of an inflection point. So when you're really lower income, you simply cannot shell out$500 an hour to an attorney. As you ascend into middle class, then some of the services start becoming more available, but they take up a disproportionately large percentage of your income, but you are able to do it. But there's a little bit of this like funny inflection point. I call it the murky middle of, do you spend$7 ,000 a year on a financial advisor? Because on one hand, you can see the value in it.

50:34But on the other hand, you made a total of$120 ,000 this year. And so that$7 ,000, you made$120 ,000 pre-tax. And so that$7 ,000 represents a large portion of your income after tax. And you don't quite know if you make enough such that the ROI is there. Yeah, well, and also like I had to go to court when I was in my 20s. I had no money. I was broke. They had legal aid. You know, I had somebody there. I could get it for free. I know there's a lot of CFPs that would be happy to sit down with people pro bono and just review your portfolio. I'm a CFP and I report my pro bono hours. They collect this information.

51:11There's all sorts of resources. And then also people who are a step or two ahead of you with regard to business will very often sit down with you and have conversations with you and share some of that knowledge with you. So I think there's a lot of help out there. But I think for me, the big psychological barrier is even asking for help to begin with. and that is a block certainly for my father trained me like growing up on a farm you don't ask people for help and not only that you don't ask outsiders okay when i was growing up i didn't know a cpa i didn't like growing up in a wealthier area you might have friends of your parents who are cpas or investment advisors or attorneys and so there's this general sense of a culture of trust in that area and when you grow up lower income you don't even know any of those people So it literally feels like a, another world, another culture.

51:58And so that's a barrier to asking for help. And so that, that's sort of the, the mindset shift here is that, look, you don't need to do it all yourself. You're probably going to mess it up and wealthier people do not have the same inhibitions as you do to asking for some of that professional help. And I truly believe you can access it very cheaply at the start because you're just asking for an hour of their time. the other thing about asking for help is you actually don't need to ask for help but you need to look at the world through a lens that you can learn something from everyone some of the most profound things i've learned wasn't because of a question i asked but it was because of witnessing something or seeing something or being around someone so like actually this is real talk from the bottom of my heart like you're an inspiration to me over 500 in podcasts years and you're still building your empire.

52:47And podcast is a medium that I've never created before. You didn't teach me how to podcast. You didn't break out any tutorial. I didn't ask you what's your mic. I haven't asked any questions. But just by being around you, every time I'm around someone, I look through my lens of the world, like what can I learn from the people around me? And they're living proof of realities that can be attained. Like, wow, maybe I could do that. The other lens of looking at the world is when you see successful people, you have, I would say the poor mindset, like, what were your privileges? What got you here? Like what lucky break did you get?

53:19Or some other ones like, oh, I could never be like you. I'm imagining your podcast one isn't the same quality as this one, you know, or in the studio. So the lens that you view the world, it's not necessarily where you need to actually ask the right question. It's just when you were around people, how do you think about them? And for me, I was like, what can I learn. Right now, like your person today, we met for the first time, like, man, 500 podcasts, years, building an empire. I'm inspired. Thank you. And you see you're learning in public, learning in real time. So there's an element of learning in public, iterating in public that happens.

53:56I want to shout out to all the small business owners out there. You wear a million hats. You're doing a lot of things and you show up for your team every single day. Gusto can help you take some of that load off, especially when it comes to payroll, benefits, and compliance. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all-in-one, remote-friendly, and incredibly easy to use. So you can pay, hire, onboard, and support your team from anywhere. We're talking about automatic payroll tax filing, simple direct deposits, health benefits, commuter benefits, workers' comp, 401k, you name it, Gusto makes it simple.

54:34One monthly price, no hidden fees, and you get automated tools that are built right in. Offer letters, onboarding materials. So you save lots of time. You get direct access to certified HR experts, and it's quick and simple to switch. I've been using Gusto since 2017 or 18. It's been a long time. I remember I was living in Las Vegas at the time, and I brought on my first team member, a woman by the name of Erin, who ended up working with us for six years. That was when I got on Gusto, and I'm still there today. Try Gusto today at gusto.com slash paula and get three months free when you run your first payroll.

55:10That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com slash paula. One more time, gusto.com slash paula, G-U-S-T-O dot com slash P-A-U-L-A. This episode is brought to you by Marshalls, where you never have to compromise between quality and price. The buyers of Marshalls hustle hard, working to bring you great deals on brand name and designer pieces. Because Marshalls believes everyone deserves access to the good stuff. Visit a Marshalls store near you or shop online at marshalls.com.

56:14When did making plans get this complicated?

56:22let's talk about the next harsh truth and this is particularly apt for this moment in time your political party does not give a about you they don't i i don't want to keep saying that i lower income but i did and what i remember is every election and i heard this talk to my family This person's going to help us. Almost brings tears in my eyes. This person's going to save us, you know. This politician, this party, this, you know. And there's such a sense of disempowerment when you're in that situation. And then if you can just pin your hopes on this political party that's going to come in and they're going to solve your problems.

57:05In preparing for this book, I went back and looked. And the poverty rate in the United States since I was a kid to now has not changed an ounce. Okay. Now, it has over the last 150 years. It's like 80 % of the world was in extreme poverty, and now it's like 17%. So great there. But in terms of these political promises, it doesn't happen. We're not hating on any particular political party other than politics in general. But really, it comes down to what are you pinning your hopes on? And I see a lot of people talk about how unfair the system is, how the corporations don't care about you, all the fairly valid points.

57:44But what I see them doing is waiting. You know, we need to change this political landscape. We need to change the system. We need to change this law, that law, the other law. Then we're going to be okay financially. And it's so sad to see because it's not going to happen. When I see people stuck on that external locus of control, they then sit still and they wait for the powers to be to change things so that now they can start to make advancements in their life. and really essentially that we're trying to have a real hard, tough love conversation here and saying, it's not going to happen. They actually don't care about you.

58:20Even if they tweak a little law here and there's a, I don't know, a child tax credit, whatever the heck it is. It's like, okay, here's an extra thousand bucks for you. I mean, we've had presidents in various times, send out money, like literally write checks to people. I think both parties have done that. And by the way, keep the checks coming, but it's not going to help you become financially free. It's not going to solve your big problems in life. That essentially, it's going to come down to you. And not only that, the government has been working against us. And so have corporations, like quite literally.

58:50And my best example of that is pensions. Like when my grandpa worked for GM, he got a pension. And by the way, back then you worked at a job forever. And then at the end of it, they're like, you know what? You did such a great job. We're going to fund your retirement. And then when you die, we're going to give money to your spouse until they die. The companies were going to take care of you. And one of the challenges is that's not the case anymore at all. So we went from defined benefits plans where the corporations took the liability of funding your retirement. You have to contribute yourself.

59:22You have to do your 401k. It's crazy when you think about it. So it went from that, the company's taking care of you to all of a sudden it's 100 % on you. Did you get the memo in the mail? Did Americans get the memo that said, oh, guess what? From now on, your company doesn't give a shit about you. Your government's not going to take care of you either because Social Security may not be there. It's 100 % on you. And no, we didn't get that memo. And so we look at people who are like, what is wrong with you that you're not saving and investing for the future? Well, the bottom line is all that was taken care of a couple generations ago.

59:55So it wasn't even in the collective consciousness of people that they had to do that. Anyway, this is another reason why not to feel bad about it. Because your parents didn't teach you. your grandparents didn't teach you, they didn't have to do it. They had corporations taking care of them with their pensions. They had the promise of social security. And all that is sort of being ripped away by the current generation. Like I don't trust that social security would be there for me, let alone like Gen Z's. Is it going to be around for them? I mean, no, not the way it's going. And so essentially it went from the government corporations literally taking care of you to they're not going to do it anymore.

1:00:29We really don't want people to wait and hope that they're going to be taken care of from an outside source because we're pretty sure it's not going to happen. So we have to do it ourselves. Right. Just for clarification here, Social Security Trust Fund is going to not be able to meet its full obligations as of 2030, but it will be able to provide 70 % of its obligations starting from that point forward. That is assuming that there is no policy change between now and 2030. Yeah, or further mismanagement to speed up the demise. Yeah. So even when the Social Security Trust Fund becomes insolvent, which is currently set to happen in 2030, it will be able to meet 70 % of its current obligations.

1:01:12It also remains to be seen the Supreme Court Chevron decision, which changes how governmental agencies are administered, how that will impact Social Security moving forward. I think of the energy around political affairs and as our civilian duty, we need to vote. That's our duty. How much time it takes you to get that information to vote, that's the variable. I think we talk a lot about optimizing for time and how you spend your time. I think another distraction, and that happens every four years is actually doesn't even happen every four years. Usually the politics leaves after the six month ish period of the before and after of a new president.

1:01:56I feel like it never left this time. I feel like a constant media attack of both sides of what's happening to keep me up to date with everything that happens. And I'm not a politician. And then to me, I don't know what good it does for me to know every single detail as it happens from a political standpoint. Some people disagree and I totally respect it. I think that energy could be better invested. If you already know who you're going to vote for, what about now learning about your financial freedom? That's where I started to think of like, what a goal. If your goal is financial freedom and you're not there, then that's your time.

1:02:32And how do you want to spend your time? Do you want to spend your time in something that could be productive, like learning about money, learning about side hustles? learning how to invest, how to increase income, learning about real estate, or politics to me is another shiny object that can really distract your time. Could be a hot take. And well, and that brings me to one of the most shocking things that I've heard you say. So this is a pack of cigarettes. Would you rather smoke that pack of cigarettes, or would you rather watch an hour of news? That's good. I'd rather smoke the cigarettes. I'd rather smoke the cigarettes.

1:03:07Oh my gosh. That's so good. And in full disclosure, this is actually a pack of a deck of playing cards. I didn't have a pack of cigarettes and I didn't want to go out and buy one just for the sake of the prop. But I've got a deck of cards right here. I figured it would be a stand-in for a pack of cigarettes. Oh, you called him out. He backed it up. He backed it up. Would you smoke this pack of cards? I would. I'd smoke the pack of cards. And that's coming from someone who's actually never smoked a cigarette in my life. I started saying this many years ago, and it's become one of my most viral videos, millions of views.

1:03:44That's the same. I would rather smoke a pack of cigarettes than watch the news. And I've even said things like, it's actually healthier to smoke a pack of cigarettes than to watch the news every day. And I think - The pro-smoking podcast here. By the way, we haven't actually done a double-blind control study on that. Yes, we haven't done a study. We're looking for funding. I'm an internet marketer. Great marketers are in touch with psychology. And today, a lot of media is actually some of the best marketing. They create the best hooks and headlines to trigger emotional response. And media today, the journalism, the integrity of journalism is not what it once was because the incentives have changed.

1:04:31How is performance measured with media? It's measured in terms of eyeballs and clicks and the time you spend a duration. Same thing as you measure the success of your podcast, the way I measure my social media. How do I know what I'm creating is actually affecting people? I'm going to look at the engagement metrics. Well, one tactic of engagement that sadly works is to trigger on our emotional insecurities and fear. And so fear-based marketing and headlines and trauma and chaos are some of the most effective ways to capture attention. most extreme type of situation scenarios or spun in a way to elicit me and to get me angry emotional or stress and so i feel like the moment you turn on the tv you're inviting uncontrollable stress into your life on what the world is happening i also think as a human beings because we know everything that's happening around the world i don't think we have the emotional capacity to really grasp all the tragic things that happen in the world because you could that's what the news dude, they focus on a lot of the bad.

1:05:32After watching the news, I've never felt, I feel good, right? Things are going well. Yeah, I watch the news and I feel sick. I feel angry. I feel stressed out. And the news is doing a good job. That's the news. They're measuring that. We have more people watching and we're increasing our engagement. We got more clicks. Click-through rates are high. They're saying the most crazy expressive things to, and they're focusing while they you could there's a lot of good that happens in the world too but they're focusing on the most extreme terrible things to try to keep us hooked so i think in terms of your mental health this is why i make the analogy between smoking because i know smoking is now at one point the government actually came out with ads saying that smoking was good for you i equate the news and consuming it on a daily basis like smoking a pack of cigarettes for your brain i'm not gonna ever forget that though that's good that's good i'm just glad she called you out on something.

1:06:29I hope she doesn't have something over there. Oh yeah, just wait. That's so good. I've had this prop with me all day, like waiting for the moment I can slap the pack down on the card table and be like, will you smoke this pack? Oh my gosh. That's so good. Let's talk about the next harsh truth. Complaining is for losers. All right. So it's so harsh. So I'll tell you what. We'll go ahead and complain for like a minute or two. And we'll listen to you complain. I love you. You're my friend. I want to hear all about it. Okay, great, great, great. And at the end of that complaint, because I love you, I'm going to say, okay, so what are you going to do about it?

1:07:12And these are the friends I have in my life. My friends don't let me complain about my wife. Well, I don't really complain about her to them. We don't complain about our wives to each other. We don't. And but every now and then we do. We complain about something. And my friends, though, try to point me back to getting my head right. He's one of them. It's like, okay, I understand. So what are you going to do about it? And that's really what it comes down to. I read a study, too, that complaining shrinks your brain. I mean, it just makes you dumber. And it's a terrible emotional experience. But I think sometimes you got to get it out.

1:07:42So I say, go ahead if you must. I'll hear about it. Your complaints. Your complaints. Okay, got it, got it, got it. Okay, so all that sounds terrible. I really empathize. But the entire time we're going to get to the point because I care I say okay, so what are you going to do about it? And that's really what it comes down to it's locus of control If you spend all your time complaining We'd have to come up with a what's the definition of loser But it's usually like not living up to your potential and it's not succeeding in the ways you want to succeed I mean, it's a very subjective thing and that's what complaining will get you complaining will get you the results of underperforming Of not achieving your goals and of being stuck And so we don't want that for you.

1:08:17We want you to be a winner and as a psychologist just so people have complaints and I'm there to hear them. But essentially, you got to move past that into what are you going to do to take action? Is there a psychological benefit to venting so long as it doesn't cross the threshold into wallowing? Well, there's all sorts of studies that have been done early on around emotional expression of all of this stuff. And I think it can be if it's directed by your therapist, you know, who's going to help you process it and move past it because you definitely can, um, like there's been some studies on like the expression of anger helps you get rid of anger.

1:08:53Well, sometimes it just creates more anger. So it has to be really targeted well and strategically to be therapeutic, frankly. Um, and it's usually around, um, a traumatic experience. It's not around your misperceptions of the world and what other people are doing to you and all of that. That's, that's a rabbit hole you can go down and never get out of because you see it everywhere. You see complaints everywhere. You see villains everywhere. And so it's really hard to get a lot of benefit out of that. It's like processing your feelings about complaints about a villain that is it truly a villain or not?

1:09:31Or is it just your perception because you have a mindset that the world's out to get you, that you can't trust people. It's not a lot of benefit to that. So I think there's a lot of benefit to it if we're we're looking at a traumatic experience that I think it's actually really important to process emotions related to that, to make those beliefs and conclusions less sticky. You can expand your, your thinking and expand your perspective. But a lot of times the complaining becomes an addiction in and of itself because there is some emotional benefit from it. And then if you surround yourself with people who love to complain also, um, you're going to get some social reinforcement for the complaints.

1:10:08So now we have a whole complaining group of people and we And I'll get together and talk about how terrible everyone is to us and how mean the world is and how we're never going to be able to succeed because of everyone else. And we can just collect a group of friends and we all just sort of stay stuck. So the bottom line is it really depends. But being stuck in the complaint cycle is not good for you. What is the emotional benefit to complaining? It's easy to see what the social benefit might be because it creates that group cohesion. But what would be the personal emotional benefit? Well, so first of all, you're complaining.

1:10:40It's typically about what an injustice someone is doing to you. What's so, so tempting for me to complain, let me just be honest about my wife, is if I can just complain about her, then I can feel justified in my own goodness, you know, and the fact that she's just not treating me, Paula, the way I need to be treated, you know, and you're not going to believe what she said to me. She actually raised her voice at me and said something, you know, insulting. And then you can say, oh, my God, Brad, but you're so nice. You don't deserve that. And I can be like, oh, thank you, Paula. It feels so good.

1:11:12And I just feel better about myself now because I'm in the right and she's in the wrong. And that makes me feel good. I feel really good about that because I'm a good person deep down inside. And so I'm not left to wonder what did I do to precipitate it? What did I do to help create an environment in which my wife is upset or she is feeling that I mistreated her? I mean, it's just a losing strategy for life. And by the way, if it was helpful, that chapter would be, you need to complain more. I'm not, we are agnostic around it. But yeah, it's not a great way to go through life. And frankly, I don't want to say winners, losers, people who are successful and on the road to success and are living the life they want to live, they avoid complainers.

1:11:57They don't want to hear it. And so that is the huge social cost for you in complaining. As a matter of fact, if you're talking shit about, if Adrian's talking shit about a previous business partner and I'm partnering him with business, I'm immediately going, okay, so is he talking like that about me? Because apparently his last business failed because of his business partner. I mean, people who are psychologically minded and have a lot of success and they're like, they avoid you like the plague when you're doing that. And so part of it is like, be careful about that because people who are living their best life and are trying to thrive and climb, climb, whatever ladder is they're trying to climb, they're going to avoid you.

1:12:37Right. I feel like I'm allergic to complaining where when I talk about them, I'm talking about the sense of like, how do I conquer it? Or like, I need help. I'm explaining like, man, I can't get past this point. I keep running into an issue. I'm messing up. So when I do those things, I'm trying to, I'm looking for an answer. A complaint is not looking for a solution. It's to vent. I think there's status in that, like that social status, like social currency to talk about the bad things that you experience. But I'm allergic to that, just like I'm allergic to the news. Like these are things that like, if the news is on in the room, I got to turn it off.

1:13:10Like I just, one of those things. If I hear someone complaining, I'm thinking about how can I escape this conversation as soon as possible? Yeah, that's such an important distinction. Because when bad things happen, and talking about your emotional experience of something that happened to you, that that to me, that's not a complaint. To me, that's processing an emotion around something that was difficult. The complaint starts when something's happening in your life and then you're starting to pin the blame on other people for it. To me, that's a big difference. I can listen all day to the fact that you're really emotionally struggling because your business failed and you're questioning yourself and you're wondering if you...

1:13:48I mean, I can listen to that all day long. That's real. That's real talk. I love that within my friend groups. And then if you start telling me about how it was everyone else's fault. That's when I start to go, oh man, it's like, this is not fruitful. And by the way, I don't want that point. I don't want you to poison my mind with that stuff. Like it's infectious. So I don't want to join you in, in, in that sort of perception of reality and your, and your relationship and all of that, because it's, it's real easy to get stuck in it and it's, it'll keep you stuck. One of the weirdest complaints people do is when they're actually experiencing something good, they explain it through like kind of the bad things that happen.

1:14:26This was like an awakening moment for my wife and I. We went to Dominican Republic and she got to swim with dolphins. She always wanted to do that. It was like a lifelong dream of her to always do this. And she was explaining the Dominican Republic and she shared it like this. Oh, so how was the Dominican Republic? Dominican Republic was amazing. But we found out like after a day, we had like bed bugs in our bed and like, oh no, that's terrible. And I'm like listening to this, like nodding my head. And then And she's like, yeah. And how was the restaurant? It was great. The weather was awesome.

1:14:56But then we had our anniversary dinner and they forgot to bring out like the bottle of wine that we got. And then the person's like listening. And then she shared the dolphins thing, which was like, that was like her ultimate dream to finally swim with dolphins. And then she was like, I know you told us before you were going to go, you're going to swim with dolphins. Like, yeah, but we only got to be with them for an hour. And then the person at that third standpoint was like, they looked at Ashley, like, you you know, you just went to Dominican Republic. You had amazing food. You sat on the beach and you got to swim with dolphins.

1:15:28I was stuck at the office auditing like the new whatever client that they had. And so it gave like a perspective. And I remember talking to Ashley. We were almost afraid to share like the good experiences. So we like almost picked the bad things. No trip goes perfectly. We picked like the bad things that occurred to us. And that was how we were telling our experiences because we were almost like afraid to share how wonderful it was despite the hiccups. hiccups. And I feel like that was a moment now, like if I am, I'm truly having an amazing time. If I have amazing food, if I do something amazing, I don't want to hold back.

1:15:58I want to, I want to share like, man, it was a blast. I loved it. Every single moment was a great went to Lincoln park concert last night. It was amazing. Like they're back together. It's one of my favorite, like childhood bands. I had a blast. I'm not going to tell you about like that. We waited in long, like long lines. And, and the guy behind me was like sweaty. I'm not going to share those things, even though no journey is perfect, but we understand how we tell our own stories, not through complaints. Tell the good stuff. Right. And that makes sense. You might want to underplay it because you think that you don't want to come off as braggy.

1:16:34But people, real friends, want to share in your joy. Let's move to the next one, which is... I know this is the long one. I knew it was coming. I got to stretch. All right. Get a roommate, ride the bus, get sober, get bald, and get a side hustle or shut up about being poor. Yes. Woo. This chapter was inspired by the many comments that we've gotten that start with, I can't afford to invest. And so we're just trying to help you out. We found some ways where you can cut back. And we looked at the average amount that Americans spend in each of these categories. That's what we did. And then we came up with a bit of a solution.

1:17:20So the biggest expense, for example, people have in their lives is rent. Right. And so we have a fabulous idea how you can instantly cut your rent in half. And that is get a roommate. And not only that, we created a very useful and handy table for you where we did the math on two roommates, three roommates, or four roommates. And so we could probably keep going, five, six, seven. The second one is ride a bus. So the average American is spending almost 900 bucks a month on car payments. Just times 12 is a lot of money. I went actually, when we went to Boulder, I was in a minimalist phase and I could actually bike to work and walk to work, snow, sleet.

1:17:53I loved it. This thing I'm doing. And I saved a ton of money because we just had one car. So you can absolutely do that. Get sober. The average American spends about$110 a month on alcohol and shave your head. So by the way, I take my advice. This is me. How much money I save on haircuts and trips to the spa? It's a tremendous amount of money. So the average American woman spends about$1 ,800 a year on haircuts and spa trips. And we just say, hey, you can't afford to invest. Maybe watch YouTube videos about getting your hair cut. Have your friends cut your hair. This is the chapter that fire people are going to love.

1:18:26And I'll say this too. If you did all this and just took that savings and invested it and got average market return, so just average, over 25 years, you would have an additional$2.8 million in 25 years. And so there, very simple, multimillionaire by just doing this formula. Now, you might say to us, well, all that sounds horrific. you know i i like to have a glass of wine and i don't want to live with a roommate and bald are you kidding me nobody can look as good as you dr brad bald then we would say and this is our sort of my preferred plan is like well then maybe how about if you just pay yourself first why don't you make the first bill you pay your financial freedom fund and then you could say well you know i don't have enough money to do that and this is where we bring in adrian who's the side hustle king increase your income so that's the other strategy so So this is sort of meant to show people in a useful, slightly sarcastic way about how they can free up cash.

1:19:32Very effective ways, by the way, which will guarantee you're a multimillionaire. If you're saying you can't afford to invest because we think that you probably can. So my question is to you, I can't afford to invest. I always say, well, how many roommates do you have? And then you'll get this litany of excuses. And by the way, we can talk a lot about this. It's a uniquely sort of American. You guys are more internationally traveled than I am. But there's this concept of you got to live alone. You know, I lived in Hawaii. There's a lot of multi-generational families living in homes. My family, my dad's side on the farm, three generations living in the same home.

1:20:02This is like a sort of a unique idea that the way that human beings need to live is to have your own place. Just understand this. This is a mindset that a lot of the world doesn't share. And so just by shifting that mindset, more than a million dollars, you can save and invest. But people don't want to do it. It's kind of hard and I get it. And so then it's focusing on the other eye in your FII, R-E formula, around increasing your income. Right. And I should add, when you were a child, your mom, she was a single mom of two, including you, you and your sister. And she rented out a portion of the home that you as a child, you and your sister grew up in.

1:20:43So for the people who say, well, I have kids, therefore I can't get a roommate. I mean, you were a child who grew up with a mom who rented out a portion of the home. Yep. And she vetted them and she chose females, significantly reducing the chances that something bad would happen to her children. And we only had one bathroom too. It was a grind, but she did it. And because we needed the money, frankly, out of necessity. But we're sort of trying to free up some ideas and try to shake your thinking a little bit. And ironically, when you run through this experiment and I pull out my razor and say, you want to get going on the bulb?

1:21:18People will suddenly find ways to cut back or find ways to save or invest more. But for me, again, the cutting back is kind of a miserable emotional experience. And so that's why I'm a huge fan of increasing your income. And before Adrian talks about this, and by the way, he's a great mentor for me around this. My couple different examples here. So I had a family member losing a job during the pandemic. And I called Adrian and literally after a half hour, I launched online side hustle that is still generating about$50 ,000 a year. and my son right now who's 11, he wanted a job. And so again, following some of Adrian's advice, this month, my 11 year old son is going to make five grand on Amazon product reviews.

1:22:02And he finds the products, scripts the videos, edits the videos, does the captions. He's learning this entire skillset that is yielding. He's gonna make five grand this month. Wow. And that's my 11 year old son. And he's putting in the work. I'm helping. right? I'm mentoring and all of that. But by the way, I'm spending all my weekend helping him with videos, but I'm spending time with my kids. Right. But there are ways to do it. And so part of it is just sort of trying to shake this up that you're stuck and there's nothing you can do about it because we think you can do a lot. And for any woman who doesn't want to get bald, if you go to Mr.

1:22:36Money Mustache's Instagram page, I did a little video tutorial. This is a couple of years ago of how you can cut your own hair. It's actually, you can find some good tutorials on YouTube as well. You put everything up into, put all your hair into a high ponytail and then you flip your head over. I'm just going to demonstrate. Yeah, I'm going to demonstrate right now. All right. So for those of you watching on YouTube, I know a lot of you are listening to this on audio, but go to YouTube, youtube.com slash afford anything. Okay. You pull all of your hair up to the crown of your head, right? Form, I'm not wearing a ponytail band, form a ponytail.

1:23:11Then you flip your head over and what this does is it creates layers. Naturally, it creates layers because the hair that's on the back of your head right here. So this ends up being the longest layer because it's traveling, as you can see, all the way from the nape of your neck. So this ends up being the bottom layer and it ends up being the longest layer. whereas the hair that is formed closer to like your temples naturally it travels to shorter distance and therefore ends up being the shorter layer and so by gathering everything into a ponytail flipping your head over and then doing a straight cut you can cut layers into your own hair and i'm just going to say this because i because i tracked the math that is 201 000 if you did that instead of going to the salon in 25 years.

1:24:06That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. What assumption are you making for cost of salon cut? 1 ,800 a year on average. That's the average. So we just ran the average numbers. So the average American, by doing these things, $2.8 million more in 25 years. You're welcome, everyone. Get a roommate, ride the bus. Problem solved. Okay, we are down to the final three harsh truths. The next one is, people who binge Netflix without a side hustle will be poor forever. Yeah, I think this one I had a lot of fun making because I have been almost obsessed with the idea of making money online. It reminds me like a video game.

1:24:49I grew up playing Tekken and Final Fantasy and in these games, you could like build up characters and they get different skill sets. And I feel like I equate it to making money online because you're looking at a screen and usually you don't ever get money. it's deposit in a bank account. So it feels almost imaginary, but in a playful kind of perspective, I've always thought like I can make money online by creating or posting something. And I, and I still am romantic about having these create something from scratch and posting online and getting your first sale. It's still always such a great dopamine hit the, have your idea become a reality.

1:25:25And in this chapter, we broke down the most popular Netflix shows, how long it would take to watch each one, like Game of Thrones. And I equated it to instead of if you didn't watch that, that time is actually enough time to learn a business model like how to sell on Etsy. Wait, Game of Thrones is on HBO Max. Fact check, fact check. Clearly, I'm not an avid show watcher. He did research the exact amount of time for each of these shows. Yeah, exact amount of time. So Breaking Bad, I picked Breaking Bad. And just like Friends, like these huge popular shows that they take days, if not months to watch in terms of hours.

1:26:08So equating that to like, if you actually took that time to learn, because there's so many different ways you can make money online. Actually, I'll just make it really specific. Instead of talking high level, if you guys actually wanted to walk away and take a side hustle, you're about to learn one that's amazing that Brad was mentioning with his son. There's an incredible business opportunity right now. It doesn't cost any money to get started. and it is creating Amazon product reviews. This new industry that's kind of coming is called UGC, user generated content. And Amazon is changing the way we shop always.

1:26:39They're the innovator. And one newer thing that they started introducing in shopping is they learn that when you're about to buy a product, they added video and a video helps you buy because you can see instead of a static photo. And then they also learn that when the company makes this high end produced video that it still creates this like almost like, well, of course this company is not going to say anything bad about their own product. They're going to paint it in this perfect light. And so then they introduced this first, it was in beta and now it's a real, real thing. People are making some serious money by doing this because of Amazon.

1:27:12So Amazon's like, we're going to actually let real regular people create the official videos that show up on a product page. And we're not even going to have much guidelines. And when I say much guidelines, I mean, you take out your phone, you point at this coffee mug that's sitting here on this table. And I could say, this is a porcelain coffee mug. And I can kind of talk about it for 60 seconds, 30 seconds. I can demonstrate, I could pour some coffee into it. I can say like, it's really sturdy. I can give it a knock. The way I'm talking now with ums and us, like, it's good enough. They're looking for real raw humans because consumers were, we actually trust real people's almost like versions of like they're explaining product versus like a company that's going to paint in this perfect studio.

1:27:54And so Amazon right now is paying you. If someone watches your video at least 30 seconds, and then they purchase, they're attributing like your assist to the sale. You make a range of commission from two to 5 % on. And so the game is this. Everything in your house, most likely it's on Amazon, you can take out an Amazon app, you can hit the scan button, and it'll show if that product is on Amazon. This program is called the Amazon Influencer Program. By the way, you don't need to be an influencer. When you apply a bot or algorithm, we'll quickly scan your profile and you'll know that if you're accepted or rejected instantly.

1:28:28And if you get rejected, it's not the end of the world. They just need more engagement on your profile, not followers. That's the only gatekeeper. After that, you simply upload everything in your house, upload it to Amazon, and this is where things get crazy. Last Black Friday, Cyber Monday, I made$2 ,000 in one day. And it all came from one video I made on my shark vacuum cleaner. It's like a Roomba. And so this one video that ended up being like a promotional product on Amazon for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, it was like trending. And so everyone that's going on that page, my video exists there.

1:29:03I'm not telling my social media marketing to go buy this vacuum. My video literally lives on Amazon. And so people would watch people buy and it creates this like one video ends up producing that income and still makes money. And so the last thing I'll say, if you guys want to pursue it, the only gatekeeper is like trying to get accepted. And once you're in, it's a very simple, I would say pretty risk-free side hustle since there's no capital involved. And we have kids doing it. We have senior citizens that do it. And it's a fun one to do. And the only problem with this side hustle is that you're never going to look at the world the same.

1:29:36You're going to think, is that on Amazon? Is that on Amazon? because I could do a review on it. But I went specific, but there's so many different ways to make money. And if you could watch the next big show on Netflix or HBO Max, or you could try to learn a side hustle because there's a lot of amazing opportunities that don't require capital, that don't require risk. They just require a little bit of creativity and some hustle. My friend Caitlin submits user-generated video reviews on Amazon for exactly that reason. She told me recently that her goal is to upload a thousand videos, which I thought was interesting because she wasn't making a revenue goal.

1:30:10She was making an output goal, right? Which I like better because that is a goal that's firmly inside of her locus of control. It's an effort goal. A thousand is for reference. I think I have 700 videos uploaded. It's been two years since I uploaded those. Last year I made, this is a year after, that brought in$43 ,000 for me from these videos I made. 43 ,000? 43 ,000. You have to keep feeding the beast. It's been now almost two years since I originally uploaded those videos. I was really early on the program. And now I make like$1 ,200 to$1 ,500 a month from it. But these videos, again, I'm not uploading new ones.

1:30:47If I was continuing to pursue it, I would be uploading every single day. And I know someone that's uploaded 2 ,600 video reviews and they actually rent out Airbnbs where there's lots of products. And they've really gamified the system. But that's just one of so many amazing opportunities online that you can start online income. Right. One of the things that I do as a consumer on Amazon is I'm conscientious about making sure that I click on a couple of those videos before I buy something so that that way the creator gets something. That's cool. Because I'm going to buy the product anyway. I want a creator to be able to get paid.

1:31:20I love that. All right. The second to last harsh truth, the penultimate harsh truth, you're not allowed to use your credit card if you don't pay it off in full each month. Obvious, right? Yeah. Isn't that obvious for your audience? Yeah, this is, I think the audience know, they're like, neck, I'll be. Yeah, well, what's crazy is that Adrian put a post out with that. And we decided to include it because we were so appalled by the answers, where people were telling us we were wrong, and we didn't understand credit cards. And I almost feel like there's a conspiracy. I became a conspiracy theorist.

1:31:57Pretty sure the earth is round. But I'm slightly concerned that there aren't credit card companies out there trying to sell some lies. Like the one that just came up was if you pay it off each month, your credit score will be demolished. And the way that to have a higher credit score is to always keep 20%. Don't pay it off. Keep 20 % of the max on the credit card. And it's like, whoa, I think that's the opposite of like, you shouldn't go over 20 or hurt your credit. I mean, but it was such a prevalent lie that we got deeply concerned credit cards and credit cards are like the most slippery slope for Americans.

1:32:31And once that racks up, it's just a terrible, terrible thing to try to pay it off because it just keeps compounding in the wrong ways for you. So yeah, that's the chapter that your audience probably already knows, but it was shocking how many people don't know that. Right. There's a lot of credit card misinformation out there, which goes back to the importance of listening to personal finance podcasts, reading personal finance books, not listening to the water cooler chatter because water cooler chatter is so often wrong. And the average American, what's the numbers now? You probably know, but it's like six, 7 ,000 in credit card debt for the average American that has credit cards.

1:33:04I mean, this is a very, very common problem, even for people who know better. So we really tried to lay out exactly what's happening there and steps you need to take to start dialing that down, because that is a very, very challenging obstacle and hurdle for people to overcome once it gets out of control. We have 21 harsh truths. We tested hundreds. This was one I assumed to everyone who knew this, it actually is not true. This is a special audience you have listening here who you've probably dialed this into them so many times, but to the common person, it was shocking to us that it made it in the book, but through our own data of our own audiences, people do not know how to use credit cards.

1:33:42And to assume that everyone knows that's inaccurate. And also to cast blame and judgment also, we feel like if you've never seen someone use a credit card the right way because you're a very family and the only thing they said, you always should have a debt and you always have a balance, you always pay interest, how are you supposed to know otherwise? So yeah, credit cards are ruining financial freedom goals for a lot of people. So it makes sense that most people actually don't know how to use it. Well, and this leads us to the final truth, which is that you need to start thinking rich. So what does that mean?

1:34:13Does that mean, is that the synthesis of the last 20 things that we've just discussed, if you adopt all of those into your mindset, you've now begun to think rich. We had various titles for that chapter, including being rich is awesome. Being poor sucks. Being rich is awesome. And essentially, you'll never get there unless you start thinking rich. And again, that's a mind bender for people because they think other things need to happen. It really does start with your mindset. And if we can get the right mindset drilled into your brain, success is pretty much guaranteed. And it's pretty much automatic, regardless of where you're coming in the door.

1:34:50We're not saying that you need to go do anything drastic, take big risks, become an entrepreneur. You don't need to do anything. There's all sorts of routes to getting there. It's a nine to five route. There's a professional route. There's a go to college route. There's a skip college, become an entrepreneur route. There's a trade school route. But what we've noticed in all of these people who go from humble beginnings to becoming rich is very consistent mindsets that are across the board shared. Adrian and I have very different stories. Paulo, you have a different story than me. But we all share some of these core elements that allowed us to climb the ladder and enjoy success.

1:35:22And so we're trying to make this infectious. We're trying to teach as many people as possible. And in that chapter, we really do outline how having additional resources can help every aspect of your life, your basic security, your belongingness needs, your connection to be able to have time to spend with the people you love. That's so critical all the way up to your professional goals and self-actualization goals. So we talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs there, if you want to nerd out, and how money intersects each one of those things with the ultimate idea that you can self-actualize so that your best self can be put forth into the world and you can maximize your impact to pursue your passions and to make the world a better place.

1:36:01Because that's really what it's all about. We want that for people as individuals, and we want that to leak around so that we can spread it everywhere. Right. And it does make sense if you have secured the bottom of that hierarchy of needs, the bottom of the pyramid, then you can focus on the top, which is that self-actualization. Beautiful. Well, thank you for spending this time with us. Where can people learn more? We mentioned the past couple of podcast episodes. We're obviously on social media. I plan on being a creator for as long as I live, but there's one place that everyone should go to.

1:36:34It's startthingyourrich.com slash Paula. The reason why you should go there is because we have not just a place where you can get our books and you learn about social media. We have extra bonuses that kind of embody all the 21 harsh truths and more of the Start Thinking Rich. We have a ecosystem of community and some masterclasses. And if you go through there versus our like normal place, they'll be rewarded. And that's just one way we can say thanks for having us and collaborating with us. Amazing. So startthinkingrich.com slash Paula. That's right. Well, thank you so much again for spending this time with us.

1:37:04Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. Thank you.