Rob Moore - How to Improve Your Relationship with Money

0:01I am so glad you could join us. I'm your host, Mo Gaudet This podcast is nothing more than a conversation between two good friends sharing inspiring life stories and perhaps some nuggets of wisdom along the way This is your invitation to slow down with us Welcome to Slow Mo

0:34Welcome back. I'm in London today with a guest that I think you will find incredibly valuable for an interesting year that is upon us. Today I'm hosting Rob Moore, who is an entrepreneur, started in real estate, went into all kinds of ventures. He's an author and a speaker. He wrote 19 books, I need to know how, including many bestsellers. and he teaches about money in a way that I think many of us need to listen to. His podcast, The Disruptors, is a very successful podcast on the topic. I have been a guest on the podcast, so I urge you to go and take a listen. His work in philanthropy is remarkable helping young, underprivileged entrepreneurs through his foundation, the Rob Moore Foundation.

1:30Rob and I are different. He is intense, on the point. I'm slow and chill. We both, however, agree that there is good and evil in money and that if you take the good of it, you go very far. So I think you'll have a wonderful listen today with me and Rob Moore. Rob, it's been, I'll be open. I mean, when I looked at your Instagram page the first time you reached out, I was like, oh my God, I don't know if I can slow you down to the pace of slow-mo. You seem to be in your public appearances to be on the dot, very fast, very quick, very determined. When I met you, however, such a chill, easygoing, wonderful man, actually, very huggable in many ways.

2:21Tell me about that. Which one are you? So it fills me with joy for you to say that your first reaction to me was, oh my God. Yeah, it was. I can tell you that. Because that's my job. My show is called Disruptors. And I believe that my mission in life, what I was born to do, is to help as many people on this planet get better financial knowledge. and people aren't going to learn to manage their money and master their life without an oh my God moment. Interesting, okay. Oh my God, I've wasted opportunity. Oh my God, I'm in a huge amount of debt. Oh my God, the banks and the system, they're not helping me.

3:07They're not my friends. Yeah, they're not. Banks aren't there to look after my money. Banks are there to make profit. So your initial response, that's the experience I want everyone to have about me. The problem with that is I'm quite behind the exterior of bravado for presentation purposes. I want to be everyone's friend and I want everyone to like me and I want the world to be a better place and I want less conflict and I'm naturally a people-pleaser conflict avoider. Wow. Which in business and life, no. You don't come across that way at all online. No, no, I suppose it wouldn't because it's interesting because the first thing I said to you when you said I look the same, I said that's good because I don't use filters and I want people to see the real me visually, which I do.

3:59But it takes time to learn the real me emotionally. But that's how it should be. You don't go on a date and the first date you're like, yeah, well, I figured you all out and I know you now. I did that, I swear to you on my first date with my wife. I swear. And she got really upset. I was like, oh, I know this about you. I know that about you. And she was like, oh, you're mad. Like, don't ever want to meet you again. So, yeah. She clearly did. Yeah, clever salesman. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, surely the process of getting to know someone is months or even years. That's how life should be. So there isn't two different me's.

4:38One on Instagram, ranty and shouty, and even more on Facebook and even more on my podcast. And then the me. It's just what you see on social media is the first impression of me. and that's the first impression of you I want. When you get to know me, I hope you get a different impression. I love that. I mean, I also love that you say it so openly that you've thought through it and you really know what it is that fits with each of those channels, if you want. Human channel and digital channel. The question for me, though, is you seem to be championing, quietly in a way, the idea that a lot of what you see about money is not true.

5:19A lot of what they've taught you about money is not true. And I'm completely in line with that. But I think for the favor of our listeners, let's align on one thing first. What is money to you? Well, there's what money is to me and there's what money actually is. Exactly. And I think there are two truths in most things in life. I don't think some things are absolute. but if we had a hammer on this table, we could use it to tap in a nail, pull out a nail, or I could smash your skull in with it. So we could universally... Hopefully not. Hopefully not. Yeah, yeah. Let's see how the episode goes. That upsets you that much already.

6:01Let's see how the downloads do. So we universally agree that it's a tool, it's a lever, but then how we interpret, how we use it is different. That's how I see money. Universally, money is a universally agreed exchange of value, a unit of account, a measure of worth. And that's the economic definition, but I think that's pretty accurate. You know, it's a story that we've all agreed that we use in replace of barter to exchange goods and services to remove friction and increase speed of human interaction. you know I need what you make you need what I make we all need what each other make if we all make different things we can all exchange different things so that's really what money is and means but what it means to me and what it means to you that is a whole world of our upbringing our beliefs the society that we're in our own fears and failures and phobias I think you have the best relationship with money when you know what money is I think you have the worst relationship with money when you don't know who you are and you start to believe other people's projected, misinformed beliefs about what money is.

7:19Because if you merge those two concepts together, money isn't what it is. Money is what you are. Oh, wow. Say that again. So your experience with money is a result of your perception, your beliefs, your conditioning around money. Yes. I think this is the most profound thing we can tell our listeners, honestly. It is if you live in a world of scarcity, right? And your view of life is that money is so hard to come by. The reflection of that and the way you live and the way money treats you and the way the rest of the whole economic world treats you is based on that belief. And it will treat someone else very differently.

8:03Someone else will enjoy it very differently because of a different belief. Is that what you're saying? That is exactly what I'm saying. And I'll tell you where most people go wrong with money. They want things. I want this, I want that. I want house, I want car, I want freedom. I want this, I want that. But you don't get what you want. Because if you did, you'd already have it. Yeah. You get what you are, not what you want. And so this is where most of the law of attraction is completely wrong. Because we've been fed this narrative to believe that we can write goals and do mantras and incantations and I want and I want and I want.

8:38The only type of person that truly wants and is allowed to truly want is a child. Because it's dependent. It's the only way to get is to want because it can't go and get. But if you want to be a successful human, however you define that, You have to go and get, which is why when you see people who just want and don't get, they're juvenile, they're dependent, they're on welfare, they're victims. And money doesn't love that because that isn't valuable. Money loves speed, ease, friction, value. So let's do a quick analogy and then I'll answer the question. So many people in this world believe that there's a human out there that is everything they want in a life partner.

9:29And the more you want a life partner and the more clear and specific you list out all the things you want in a human, the more you're going to push it away and you're not going to get it. Because the universe will give you the lesson you need, not the lesson you want. And so it will give you the opposite of that to teach you your delusion. So if you want a great life partner, you have to decide who you're going to be to attract that other human. So let's say I'm single and lonely and I'm overweight and I'm broke and I'm a moaner. The best way to attract an amazing life partner is go down the gym, get fit, sort my life out, get a good job, get a good career, make money, start to value myself, become the man I want to be and then all of a sudden I find the woman that I want because the woman is attracted to that man.

10:17Instead of me going, I want a woman who, well, she does this for me and that for me and that's just selfish and delusional. So money is the same. Become who you want to be that has the money that you want and you have the money that you want. But keep wanting and asking the universe and writing goals and thinking you should have that thing. It will always be away from you. Incredibly well said. I really don't know what to tell you other than the truth of the matter is that most people who succeed in life are people who simply accept that they fail, right? And then they don't sit there and say, life has given me difficult circumstances.

11:05By the way, everyone gets difficult circumstances. It's so funny when you look at it that everyone personalizes and thinks that, yeah, life has woken up today and just out of 7.8 billion people chosen me to annoy me, like as if you're really the target, right? And life just ignores everyone else and focuses on you. When in reality, life is just rolling, really. But it is the way you deliver it. Don't mind me saying this, please. Comes from someone who's been successful, right? So you have the privilege of saying, hey, by the way, I think that if you don't work hard, you don't succeed. Some people are convinced in their mind that even if you work hard, you don't succeed.

11:47because life is against them, because the story is not working in their favor. I mean, have you always been in privilege? Yeah, for me, there's a few questions in there. So I actually don't think that the harder you work, the more successful you become because nurses work really hard and people who are in coal mines as virtual slaves work really hard. So it's a bit of a false narrative and a soundbite to say that work hard makes you successful. for. You have to work hard on the right thing. So I know it's a bit of a cliche, but work hard and smart. I can work really hard all day on the wrong things and make no money.

12:25I can work one hour. I did a launch, did 450 ,000 pounds, basically in about half an hour. Or I could spend all day doing emails and earn nothing. So be careful of the rhetoric of hard work because there are many great, honest, honorable, hardworking people who are broke. And that makes me sad. So was I always of privilege? I've got so much to say on this, Mo, but I don't want to take up the whole podcast. In some ways, I am one of the most privileged humans alive. I was born at the best time to be alive, with the greatest technology to be alive, in a safe, developed country of loving parents, white, middle-aged male.

13:11I mean, from the outside world, I am the most privileged human in the world. And yet, 26 years old, I was 50 grand in debt, completely dependent on my parents living in their pub, so unhappy. So, it was my privilege a gift or a curse. I can't help that I'm white, and I can't help that I'm in my mid-40s, and I can't help where I was born. And I can't help if other people think that that's a privilege. But if other people think that I'm privileged, essentially, they're saying they're not, and essentially they're saying they're not in control of their own life. Here's what I can say. I became broke and self-loathing in my mid-20s and I became a millionaire before age 31 because I decided that my environment and my circumstance didn't have to dictate my future.

14:03It was just my circumstance and I can change my circumstance. else. Now, what happened with me was on December the 15th, 2005, I was working in my dad's pub, a normal day. I was unhappy working for my dad. My dad was unhappy that I was working for him, but we didn't either have the courage to say it to each other. You know, what I should have said was, dad, I love you. I hate working here. What my dad should have said is, I love you, son, leave. You have no job here because you need to go and get a real one. But that was the unsaid thing between me and my dad. And on December the 15th at one o 'clock in his busy pub full of all of his customers.

14:37He had a public nervous breakdown. Started spitting and convulsing. The police were called. They beat him up in front of everybody. My mum and my sister were there crying their eyes out outside the front of the pub. They arrested him. They sectioned him. And they wouldn't let us see him for months. And ever since that day, I mean, he just turned 80, and I'm so grateful he's still with us. But ever since that day, it's been a horrendous fight battling with my dad's mental health. And that was the worst day of my life. And the start of my life. And I only, I took everything for granted in life before age 26 and 11 months.

15:16So my privilege was my greatest curse. And the greatest gift was the worst day of my life. And now, I don't want to reel off and brag everything I've achieved in my life. I'm English and I don't really like blow my own trumpet. But I've done a fucking lot since. and I'm still young and I've got 50 years of doing it. I've written 19 books, built the biggest property training business in the UK, got one of the biggest podcasts in the world, done core of a billion in sales, helped, I just hit 3 million followers, probably pushing nearly a billion views and downloads from a young Peterborian English chap.

15:59It's quite rare. It's normally the Americans. and the privilege was the curse and the reality and the wake up call that I deserve nothing and I have to go and find out how to get it was the gift the way you deliver it is going to upset some people I just well that's their responsibility I was going to say if you feel a little aggravated by what Rob is saying here then I'd really suggest that you look inside honestly because a lot of people will tell you it's not a secret that a lot of successful people will claim that their success is the result of their hard work, right? Of course, why not take credit for it?

16:41But, you know, of course, we all realize that there is sometimes, you know, lucky breaks from life. You get to meet the right person at the right time. You get born, you know, like if, you know, Malcolm Gladwell's work on Outliers is one of my favorite books of all time. And, And, you know, you could, I, for example, was born at a time where I could, you know, have on a computer when I was eight and learn to program when I was eight. If I was born three years earlier, I wouldn't have. I would have learned programming later and I wouldn't have had the career I had and so on. But the truth is nobody actually gets anywhere without a bit of pain, a bit of a test, a bit of an awakening and a realization, and then a lot of hard work.

17:22Right. And, you know, if someone doesn't want to admit that, then you're sort of, you know, reinforcing the script of, yeah, life needs to be nicer to me. Otherwise, I'm not going to do my thing. You know, in a very interesting way, sometimes being delivered the message in a way that is harsh. Get up, get on your feet, go to the gym if you need to get fitter. Work on yourself if you need to find love. work on yourself if you need to succeed and find a different career and so on. That's a harsh message, but I think it's the most important message anyone can ever hear. Question though is, when you talk about success, you often refer to success in terms of business success, financial success, and so on.

18:07How do you define success? success is maximizing your human potential. Success is full self-actualization. That's the universal definition of success. But of course, there's 7.8 billion of us, like you pointed out, who all have a different, unique individual self. So what success is not, is measuring your flaws and failings based on another human's success. But that's what society almost seems to make us to do. It pedestalizes certain definitions of success and de-pedestalizes the rest and it makes us yearn to be someone we're not.

19:00So there's two ways to look at this. Number one is everything is perfect, there are no mistakes and everyone is the maximum definition of success of yourself right now, spontaneously now. And then there's the other definition, which is figure out your mission and vision in life. I want to help as many people on the planet get better financial knowledge and then do everything you can with equal support and challenge and try and maximize that mission and vision. And the journey, not the destination, but the journey towards that is your definition of success. Why do they not ask us at school to define what...

19:40Why don't we have an exercise at school? Right, Rob, sit down with your pen and paper and think about what a successful life would mean to you would look like. What are you good at? What do you love to do? That doesn't get... Who am I? I mean, probably, I think, the most powerful question in the world to ask yourself, of all questions, is who am I? No one taught me to ask that question. I had to figure that out through 30 years of struggle. Yet we have a school system. My school taught me geography in French. It taught me géographie. What used to me is learning geography in French. Nil. I totally agree.

20:19Nil. Yeah. But they didn't teach me to ask who I am. They didn't teach me to define success for me. They didn't allow me the freedom to go and be me. Because I got good grades at school. I got most A's and my teacher went but you only got a B in maths like what about telling me to go and be an artist because I got 100 % I was the only person in the country to get 100 % art at GCSE when I was 16 and no one said go and be an artist Rob that's you they said oh you only got a B in maths yeah but isn't that what society wants us to you know I mean in a very interesting way I always refer to the industrial revolution I say that basically you know it's easier for the job market to have a unified outcome of molded individuals that all are more or less the same and in a very interesting way they're all factory workers yeah and you know they know a bit of geography that they'll never use they'll you know they it doesn't matter how good they are or not in social studies they've all had a glimpse of that there are teachers that are you know getting jobs as a result of the need of that curriculum but at the end of the day you are none of them.

21:31Theoretically you're not any of the molds at all. You could be an artist or you could be an entrepreneur or you could be something else and you're not investing in that. Yes and surely to live a life as an individual and never discover who you really are would be one of the greatest regrets and failings in this one chance. We may only get one chance. People believe in the afterlife. I'm not here. I don't know. But I'm living life like there's only one and that I only get one chance. And I don't want to get to the end of it and go, I never really knew who I was. That to me would be like... So how do you know who you are?

22:13By asking yourself over and over again, who am I and what am I meant to do with my life? And if you keep asking it, you will find answers. You know, so those answers will be so tainted with the conditioning that you were told. That's why you have to keep asking them to go through those layers until you actually get to self. Because environment isn't self, media isn't self, even parenting isn't self. And these are layers. When you look inside and you connect with who you are, who am I? So you said, you know, the fast Rob on social media, the more chill Rob that you've met face to face. I know I'm meant to be disruptive my show is called Disruptors even though it's painful to be disruptive and shake people up and have all the criticism and the hate and I know it's who I'm meant to be so therefore I take the risk and the downside consequence of being myself because it's quite a risk to be yourself because you will be ridiculed for who you are everyone who is true to themselves will be pushed back by those who are not like them so what do we do?

23:25here's the paradox we disown who we are and try and become someone else so we don't get ridiculed for who we are but we get ridiculed for being someone else correct yeah I always say that oh you're such a fraud 80 % of the world is not going to like you whoever you are pretending or not yeah and as soon as you level because you know it's interesting hearing you talk about reflecting on Mimo Feeling like some people are going to not like what I say or be triggered or it seem harsh. I feel sitting here to you that I'm saying the kindest thing I could ever say. Because it makes a difference. Yeah, because it works.

24:05Yeah, so the courage to be disliked. I mean, there's a book called The Courage to Be Disliked. It's a great book. But just that sentence. If I didn't have my tagline, if you don't risk anything, you risk everything, which I've said thousands of times on my content, it's like on my quote, I would say, embrace the courage to be disliked. Yeah. Yeah. Enjoy it at some point. Yeah. Enjoy it. Yeah. So let's talk about money itself. I have lived with money in almost every possible capacity, right? There were times when I didn't have enough of it. There were times where I could print it on demand, literally, literally on demand.

24:47It's so easy to make it. Okay. And there are times like now where money shows up more than I need. I mean, my needs are very limited and it's not really my primary target. Like you said, you know, I have a very clear target in my life and that target is to make a billion people happy and expand that into a world in the future where artificial intelligence will enable us to be happy. And as a result of being who I am, lots of money comes in, right? But I want to go back to the fundamentals. And again, go back to the question of money. What is money? Money as an exchange of value, I believe, was true until 1971, until the gold standard was removed by Nixon in the US.

25:31And the idea that money is an exchange of value, I heard you talk about that, you know, very frequently in 2024 is fraud because, you know, there is a lot of value that's being consumed by the government and printing money and the current inflation rates and so on. And in my personal view, I don't know if you agree, I think we're about to hit a very serious economic crisis. Where do we stand on this? What's your view on this? What should people know about money that explains to them what's about to happen? So, yeah, I see two questions there, challenging the old definition of money and what is the future of money, the economy, etc.

26:15So the first thing I would say is everything that's happening right now in the world around money is normal and predictable and has happened for centuries. The rise and fall of currencies, the rise and fall of reserve currencies. You know, some people think, Ray Dalio thinks maybe China will be the next reserve currency. We take it for granted that America is the global superpower. It has the reserve currency. The pound had the reserve, global reserve currency, but back in the day. And so the reason we can't see that this is all normal is because we've only lived in a very short amount of time and we haven't experienced the cycles.

26:57And this is why the older people, you know, Ray Dalio is what, he must be in his 70s now. When you've seen three cycles, like Warren Buffett and Ray Dalio have, or four, you're like, oh, this is predictable. So everything that is happening is predictable. Now, I believe you get the best experience in life when you dance with the universe, you don't fight with it. And dancing with the universe is, this is what it is. And I love it as it is. Fighting with the universe is, oh, it shouldn't be like this. It's not fair. It's wrong. I need to change it. You can't beat the universe at jujitsu. It's going to lock your arm straight out.

27:38You're going to tap out immediately. You can't beat the universe. You can beat humans, but you can't beat the universe. So everything that's happening is normal and predictable, including the big recession, the big crash, the big financial crisis. It's just a rise and fall of power, a rise and fall of banks. So I believe a big crash is coming. I've seen house prices drop 23 % in my local area. Kim Kiyosaki and Robert Kiyosaki, who I both interviewed recently on my show, believes the banks are bust and many of them are actually... I mean, the banks are trading insolvently. They get to do legally what we can't do.

28:12They make it illegal for us to trade insolvently and they can do it legally. But they think the manifestation of that is coming, where the banks are going to go. In some ways, banks going bust would be good because then you wouldn't trust them anymore and you shouldn't trust the banks. Because people think the banks are there to look after your money. Yes. Biggest joke in history. It is. Banks are a profit-making corporation. Yeah. That's what they are. That use your money to make their profits on fractional reserve. Yes. Simple as that. Yeah, and they can leverage up£10 on the pound,$10 on the dollar.

28:47So they've got 10 times leverage on your money. You've got minus 10 % leverage on your money because it's going down with inflation while they make 10 times leverage on it. So hold on, Rob. Let me explain this to every one of our listeners. You go and take a mortgage from a bank. You think that the bank is helping you to have a home and a roof on top of your head. Yeah, in a way, that's one of the outcomes of the transaction. In the process, they enslave you for a lifetime, make orders of magnitude of profits on your money, make you pay for the interest before you pay for the principal. And in the process, they pause as a customer service organization when in reality, what you're actually doing is you're just handing over your life to them for the rest of your life.

29:31Mortgage means death pledge. That's the etymology of the word. Now, yes, I completely agree. unless you transcend of knowledge and you educate yourself to play the banks at their own game. Correct. So technically I have 340 mortgages because I own 340 property rental units and I make a profit on every single one. So I have 340 death pledges. Here's the thing. If there's an issue, the banks have got to chase me. They've got to chase me for nearly 100 million. So I've got the control. Whereas if I had a million in the bank, I've got to chase the bank. So whilst you are correct that the banks, what the banks are good at doing is marketing.