471 - How to Finish Rich in ANY Economy with David Bach

24:46Most chances are married to somebody who doesn't want to budget. They fight over it all the time. Budgeting, fights over budgeting can lead actually to divorce. You know, I wrote a book, Smart Couples Finish Rich. The number one cause of divorce is fighting over money. So budgeting does not work. The other thing is discipline doesn't work. And I'm going to explain that. What do I mean by saying discipline doesn't work? You're too busy to do these things over and over again. I was at Morgan Stanley nine years. I only had one client bring checks to me for more than six months to save and invest.

25:21Everybody else who saved, they saved automatically. And that's why I just came from a place where I was at a company that just opened up a 401k plan. All right. And I said, you know, it's scary. These single most important financial decision most people make is the day they have that meeting. You know, they bring a pizza, they bring all the employees in, they go, great news, we have a 401k plan. The guy comes up, in this case, it was a Fidelity company, it was Fidelity. And they do that presentation for 45 minutes. People are on their phones, they're eating their pizza, they're talking to their friends, they're not totally paying attention half the time.

25:57They're not realizing that one meeting where I sign up for my 401k plan, that one decision where I automate my financial life is the actual most important financial decision I may make in my entire life. and that one decision determines your financial future. And what is tragic is most people don't pay attention and they often now do what is called accepting the opt-in rate. And the opt-in rate, this has changed. It used to be you had to opt into your 401k plan. With the SECURE Act, this is like a part of the update, the new SECURE Act is requiring most 401k plans, depending on the size of the company, to opt an employee in at a 3 % savings rate.

26:41Now, a 3 % savings rate in technical terms, what that means is you're not saving enough money. Absolutely. And it means that you're saving less than 20 minutes a day of your income. So how much should a person who signs up for a 401k plan at work use? You need to be saving at least one hour a day of your income. Now, one hour a day of your income is 12.5%. If you want to really make this a no-brainer, you save at least 14 % of your gross income in that 401k plan. Why is it 14 %? Because we have all the data now. We know when we look at who became automatic millionaires in 401k plans, we know what they save.

27:21And it's actually Fidelity's data. They save 14%. And they became a millionaire in 26 years. And they had that million dollar status at age 59. and the mixture of their investments was 75 % stocks and 25 % bonds. Most cases, they used a target dated mutual fund. That is, by the way, what you should use. I talk about all of this in the Automatic Millionaire. So you should be maxing out, you know, minimum one hour day of your income in your 401k plan. You should be using a target dated mutual fund based on when you're think you're going to retire. So if I think I'm going to retire in 30 years, that target dated mutual fund is going to have a due date.

28:01It's going to say, what's 30 years from now? It's going to say 2055. By the way, you think that's a long way away and you're going to go like this and 30 years will have gone by. And so that's the most important thing you do. Now the tragic thing is that some people do things actually right. They max, they put this percentage in their 401k plan, but they don't make the second decision, which is you have to choose the investment because if you don't, it goes into a money market account or a savings account and earns nothing. It could earn 1%. There are people listening right now to me, I promise you, who have 401k plans, IRA accounts.

28:42They think they're doing everything right and their money's invested in nothing. And I meet these people every day and they go, what's he talking about? People will come up to me, Maria, and be like, I read your book. I opened up my IRA account just like you told me David and it's a great I always ask questions great where is it it's at Vanguard fabulous what's it invested in what's in the Vanguard IRA great what's it invested in well what do you mean come on did you read the whole book like it's got to be in a mutual fund it's got to be an investment I've had people open up their phone go online and look at and like it's in a money market account go fix that right now So a couple other things I'll share because to get the real nuggets in here, people are not all staying in jobs for 26 years.

29:28Absolutely. They're leaving jobs. Then these are the things that they do that destroy their life too. Do not cash out your 401k plan. You'll pay taxes and penalties. Don't do that. Then you also lose all the growth. Second thing is don't leave the money, in my opinion, at the 401k company. Roll it into an IRA account in your name or move it to your next 401k plan. Here's where the next mistake comes. People do everything right. If they work their way out, not everybody goes from zero to saving 12 % or 14%. A lot of people start at three and then they move it to six, which is great. Then a year later, they move it to nine, right?

30:07They move, they like, like, like training for a marathon. A lot of people just slowly increase, which by the way, if you slowly increase, if you started at 1%, you would never notice the money coming out of your paycheck. If you changed it 1 % a month for one year, you'd be at 12%. You'd be in great shape. However, people do this. They change jobs. They move their money from one 401k plan over to the next, but the new 401k plan then opts them back in at 3%. Oh gosh. And Vanguard just came out with report saying that that one thing is costing many retirees now$300 ,000 in retirement. So, you know, while all of this can be made automatic, what I've realized in the last 20 years, and this is why I think people are also like buying, going to buy, buy, they update and keep hearing about this is everything's not always automatic for 20 years.

31:07If you change jobs, you've got to re-automate it. Absolutely. And re-examine the details. And re-examine the details. That's right. If you have, you know, I talk about paying your home off early, like a biweekly mortgage. Well, people tend to refinance mortgages every seven to 10 years or move. So then you got to automate the mortgage again. Yes. So automation's great. I'd say, you know, do it once you're done, set it and forget it. And that's mostly true unless things change. Then you have to automate again. Yes. No, it's really, really important. I love it because you already answered one of my questions was what are some of the biggest mistakes people make when they try to automate their money which is not paying in my opinion close enough attention to the details to make sure that they are really set up and you know it it can feel like you had a victory you know what I mean if you're like oh my god I enrolled in this thing or I'm doing the most that I possibly can but I think in today's world it's so important more than ever to really triple check yourself.

32:09Like I just am reflecting on life in general, how much more complicated it's become, how many more inputs we have coming at us on a daily basis from so many different social platforms and so many different ways that people can reach you. And I'm just watching in different projects outside of the realm of straight up personal finances where details get lost because so many of us are so flooded. So I just want people to hear this right now. It's like setting it up. it is set it up and check it. Well, and let me give an example too. You said two things. I really want to, I want to make sure we hit them because they're so important.

32:45When you automate your financial life, you actually feel better instantly. So if someone watches this podcast, listens to us and then says, you know what? He's right. I'm going to pay myself first. I'm going to go open up an account and at least save something, whatever it is,$50 a month, a hundred dollars a month, $200 a month. The moment you do that, you feel better. I can't overemphasize how valuable that is because it's beyond giving yourself a pat on the back and having green juice. Okay. It's like you really feel better. People take all these vitamins. This will make you feel better than the vitamins.

33:16You'll feel instantly better. Second thing is, can I just hand me your phone for one second? I'm going to use your phone as a prop here for those of you who are watching us. So these phones today make you automatically rich or make you automatically poor. I said that earlier, because we're on these phones all day long, people click on things and decide to buy things. And many of what we click on and decide to buy is actually designed to have us try it out for free for 14 days. And we tell ourselves, well, I'm going to use it. And if I don't use it, I'm going to cancel it. And we don't. And people have hundreds of dollars a month subscription fees for things they don't use.

33:55Absolutely. So one of the things I would tell you to help you find money, go through your credit cards, download stuff into an app that can show you everybody you're paying monthly. Examples like a company like Monarch does this or YNB. These are apps that you can use to track all your money or just go to your credit card companies and go through the list. Who am I paying automatically? And then I would tell you this, unless it's like life urgent, I would shut it off. Because first of all, when you shut everything off, they will start giving you better deals. So almost anything you shut off, they've automated to try to keep you as a customer.

34:32Everybody wants the lifetime value of a customer. Nobody wants to sell you something monthly for one month. And they know, based on their business model, that most people, it takes them six to eight months to shut something off. And what's fascinating about this is how much crap we buy that we don't use that we're paying for automatically. And we stopped thinking about it. When you buy something that's$30 a month, that's not just$30 a month. That's not just a dollar a day. That's$360 for the year. That's 3 ,600 for the decade. There are people who are still paying for services from 10, 15, 20 years ago that they never use when my dad died.

35:14We had to do all this, you know, help my mom. And one of the things I'm like, mom, I'm going to the cable bill. I'm like, there's five cable boxes in this house on your bill. Where are these cables? Do you use cable boxes anymore? Because everything's plugged into the back of the television set. You're watching Apple TV. She's like, I don't know. They're just sitting underneath all the television set. They had been paying for cable boxes for God knows how long, but like all just the stuff. And I will say this, I know I'm on different tangents here, but like, if you ever buy something that you're going to pay for monthly, do, and you use Apple, do it inside Apple, use the Apple pay process.

35:55And the reason is Apple's the easiest way to shut everything off, right? Because I can open up an Apple, everybody I'm paying monthly and I can go click, click, click, click, click, and it's done. Yep. When you pay the company directly, they make it hard for you to figure out how to turn these things off. Oh, they almost make it impossible. I mean, you're talking about when your dad passed, which I'm so sorry about. And you know, I've been going through quite a lot with my folks. I know. Trying to cancel their cable box in Xfinity. You can go yourself. I have never lost it on a line more than with this company.

36:31They were like, is he dead? I'm like, my dad has dementia and they will not let me cancel. you know they're like well he needs to show up i'm like good luck with that anyway just uh that was it's so outrageous so outrageous i have never like jersey marie comes you know jersey marie she comes out i have not seen her come out like this i was like oh xfinity you want me to show up on your doorstep i man i gave them not even a piece and then they want you to bring the box back which they're just gonna throw the box away anyway because it's 10 years old just to make that point though. I think it is, it's so, it's so incredibly important.

37:07I want to talk about folks who might be watching or listening right now. And they're like, this all sounds good, but I'll start saving when I make more. What would you say to someone who feels like they're so already behind or barely getting by? And that is their truth. Obviously we can go through the subscriptions, like that's one place, but even if they just needed a shift in their mindset, even if they just needed some encouragement outside of a tactic. How would you address that person? Here's what I would say. And back in the day, I used to do a lot of speeches. And I would say on stage, let me ask you all a question.

37:43Let's just be honest with each other for a second. If you go back in the office tomorrow and your boss sits you down and says, David, you're amazing. We love working with you. You've added so much value to this company, and we want you to be with us for years. But we're going through a difficult time right now. And we're really sorry to say this, but we definitely don't want to let you go, but we're going to need to cut back your pay by 10%. It won't be permanent, but we're going to have to cut you back by 10%. Would you stay with the job, or would you walk out the door? And when you say that in a live room of people, it's fascinating because you watch them think about this, right?

38:31And when you talk about it, what most people will say is, I wouldn't walk out the door. I need the job, right? I can't, maybe I'll go look for another job, but I'm not leaving this job. I need the money. So how will you survive by giving yourself a 10 % pay cut? You didn't actually give it to yourself. Somebody else gave it to you. And you know what everybody says? I'll figure it out. Yes. Wait, wait, there's a book here. Oh my God. Everything's figureoutable. What? This is literally what people say. They go, well, I'll figure it out. Yes. So what I would say to someone, it gives me chills saying this because it's so true, is like, figure it out.

39:09Yeah. Figure it out. It's so much easier to figure it out the younger you are. Yes. It's so much easier to figure it out today. Today, while you're sitting here, you're hopefully healthy, you have energy, you see a future in front of you. that's the time to figure it out. You know, I always say in our twenties, we hear about money in our thirties, we start to worry about it. In our forties, we start to get super nervous. And in our fifties, we hyperventilate. Right. And so every decade gets harder and wherever you are today, today is your day to start. I would say if you're listening to this podcast, it's not a coincidence.

39:41You came here because there's something that you're looking for involving your money. And if anything we're saying sounds like, huh, I don't know, maybe I should think about this. Don't know. You shouldn't think about this. You should make a decision today. At least make some decision. Whatever that decision is, make something. Also, you have to get leverage over yourself. In the automatic millionaire, I talk about the fact that people will work 90 ,000 hours over their lifetime. Some people more. So if you're a double income household, you're looking at 180 ,000 hours, maybe 200 ,000 hours. You know what sucks?

40:17get to your 50s and 60s and having had spent all those hours of your life making money and you didn't keep any. Now, you didn't keep any because again, the system was set up for you to not keep it. Who gets paid first? The IRS. They take the first three hours a day of your income to taxes. Then you start to pay everybody else automatically. The whole key to building wealth is that you become selfish and you say, no, no, no, no. Done. I'm paying myself first. Me, David, I'm paying myself first. Me, Marie, I'm paying myself first. Every time you earn a dollar, you pay yourself first. The first person who gets paid, who is it?

40:51It's you. I could save this for the rest of my life. It just turns out this is the, this is the end of my show. So literally pay yourself first. People should put this on their, you know, tattoo it, tattoo it, like pay yourself first, pay yourself first. Money comes in, money should not just go out. And the problem is if you believe that you have to make more money to save, you will never get around to saving. I mean, I know I believe this, by the way, I'm sitting here like I'm the pro, but the reality is I made all kinds of mistakes when I was young. When I was young, I was living paycheck to paycheck.

41:25I had credit card debt. I did all the stupid shit you're not supposed to do. Then I made$50 ,000 a year, which was a lot of money out of college. And I spent more than that. And then I made 75 ,000 and I spent more than that. Then I made a hundred thousand. and I spent more than that. I was on that rat race of make more, spend more until I met the McIntyres that the Automatic Millionaire book is based on. And when I met this couple that came into my office earning half of what I earned, able to retire in their early 50s, that was the moment that changed my life. Can I be honest with you? You are too nice and it's costing you money because every time you say yes to someone's quick question or tiny favor, you're saying no to that one big project that'll get you the income you want.

42:10Watch this free 12-minute class, and I'm going to show you how to double your productivity and escape the three toxic lies that keep most nice people stuck. Go to marieforleo.com slash free class or scan the QR code on screen right now. So speaking of stories and speaking of the McIntyres and what's possible, the other thing I love about this new version is there are so many stories from people from all walks of life who have used this system to create their version of financial freedom and to get themselves out of that terrible sinking place of despair where they feel like they're going to be working their whole lives until they drop.

42:51So out of all the stories that have come in, and I know even a new one came in that I'll read in a moment, was there one that's in the book that made you just say, this is why, this is why I'm back here again doing this? Well, yes, there's a couple in here. And it's interesting how this all works for me. Because I actually think none of this was me doing. This was all God doing. God gave me this message. God said, you know, I felt like I was put here to do this. This was my purpose in life was to free people financially, actually so that they could then listen and use their God-given talents. That's why I think I did this work.

43:24And there have been a lot of points in my life where I wanted to quit. And there was a point where I'm updating this book where I was so freaking frustrated. because updating these books is actually so hard. And I was sitting there working at my desk, doing the old school stuff that we do, updating the manuscript. And I get, I was in the process of needing to get testimonials. And you know what a nightmare this is. Absolutely. As authors, we hate getting testimonials. And I'm like, I need some new testimonials, people I don't know. And so I reached out to Tiffany Alecci, the budgetista. I didn't know Tiffany.

44:02Tiffany I knew of Tiffany but I didn't know her personally and so I sent her a message and I said Tiffany I don't know if there's any way you would consider doing this but could I send you the automatic millionaire and would you be willing to maybe give me a testimonial and Tiffany messages me back and she says yes I'll give you a testimonial but I'm going to give you more than that and so she sends me this audio file and she records like a seven minute audio file and she tells me how the automatic millionaire book totally changed her life and she walks me all the way through it she's like I was a school teacher making$39 ,000 a year.

44:34I was living at home. She'd been a teacher. She'd even lost her job. She was with her mom. She was what they watched the automatic millionaire show with Oprah. And she's like super depressed. Cause she's huge in huge credit card debt. And she's like, I went down to the bookstore because everything you said in that show made sense to me. And I'm like, I think I can do this. She went down to the bookstore. This is her telling me the story in audio. She's like, I got the book. I started reading it. She's like, I'm a teacher. So I'm a student. She's like, I'm like, I can do this. She's like, I can do this.

45:06And then she's like, she starts doing it, getting herself out of debt. She's like, not only can I do this, but David, I think I can teach this too. She's like, you know, I'm a teacher. And she's like, the way you taught me, you weren't condescending. You brought me up. That's how I teach. She's like, if I can get myself out of debt, I can go teach other people like me how to do it. And she didn't. She's now a multimillionaire. 20 years later, she's a multimillionaire. And she's like, David, and I have an eight figure business and I've taught millions of people. I was like sitting in my kitchen.

45:34I'm listening to this story on my phone. And I actually started crying in the kitchen because I was just like, okay, God, I got it. I got it. So that story really touched me. And, you know, I sent you a story today that someone sent me and I read it on the car ride down here. These stories that people send me have been the fuel that's kept me doing this work. Yeah. And I love you saying that too, because sometimes I think people see someone like you, this is 13 books then, right? This is your 13th and you've had, it just, it's insane the career that you have. It's so beautiful. And some people like, oh, it must be so easy.

46:10It's like, no dude, it's hard. It's hard to keep it going. And I just really appreciate you for saying like, there's been so many times and you're like, I'm done. And it is the stories that pull you back. I want to quickly read this one that you texted me as we were about to film. And this one is from Joe who says, hi, David. I just wanted to reach out and say, thanks so much for your books and the impact they had on my life. I'm very grateful for you and sharing your knowledge in such an attainable way. I was a bit of a nerd as a kid, frequently walking out of the library, 12 years old with four or five financial books to consume.

46:41Most gave good advice, but I always struggled knowing how to put them into practice. When I discovered Smart Couples Finish Rich and The Automatic Millionaire, it was like the light bulb clicked on in my head. I've been investing on a regular basis ever since. I've never had a super high paying job, but at 35, I was able to pay off my house last year. And now only about two to three years from being able to retire fully should I choose to. Plus I've had an amazing life of travel along the way. I can't imagine how different things might be if I'd never read your book. Thank you for your very practical and helpful advice.

47:11And that makes me almost cry too, because it's like, you know, you don't have to have a gajillion dollar salary or necessarily, you know, obviously I'm an entrepreneur and that's something I've championed for a very long time for a lot of people, but there's not one way to do this. There are many, many, many different ways and it doesn't require like having financial freedom doesn't mean that you have to be a gajillionaire. You know what I mean? In order to have this beautiful life where money is not a constant source of stress and worry. amen and also you don't need a college degree yeah right like this kid started reading these books because he went he went to the library yes and started reading them at 12 13 and 14 yes um and it's amazing to think that this kid's paid his house off at 35 and could retire he's talking about retiring by the age of 38 yeah um there are a lot of people listening going man i wish i'd started earlier so just start now yes you know i'm sitting here with this huge stack of cash in front of me and for those those of you who are listening yes you can't see the stack of cash show.

48:09But for those of you who are watching Mackenzie, is this in the shot? Can you see the money in the shot? Can I just tell you guys, there's like nothing, no guest on MarieTV has ever come in and just given, like, just put like a stack of cash on the table. And I was like, I like this. Can we have more of this, please? You guys know how much I love money, but please, let's go back to it. I'm like, this makes me very happy. So I'm not one of those people who shows off money in Lamborghinis at all, but this cash is, so this is actually, you're going to know what this is, but guess what this is. If you didn't know how much money you think I'm holding.

48:38I honestly don't know if I would know. I'd probably say$5 ,000 or$6 ,000. It's$10 ,000. Okay. Why did I bring$10 ,000 as an example, as a prop to show everybody? Because the most viral post I ever put online is, what does it take to blow$10 ,000 a year? And the answer is, it's$27.40. So let that sit for a second. What does it take to blow$10 ,000 a year it's$27.40. Now we're sitting here in New York. I'm at a hotel where the cocktails are$31 plus a tip. It makes me want to punch people. Right. It's like, I mean, everything is so expensive, but I promise you that there are a lot of people listening who are not saving any money.

49:23They're not saving$10 ,000 a year. Yes. And they're blowing$27.40 a day. So if you started with, how could I take$27.40 a day, not blow it and invest it instead, you could be a multi-million millionaire. And in the book, and I'm Mac millionaire, I show the math on this now in the latte factor chapter. I'm like, you know,$27 and 40 cents a day done for 40 years invested. You have over$4.4 million if you're invested in the stock market and you earn over 10%, 10 % actually is what the number we used. Um, and you can go run your own calculations. Yeah. People like, well, I don't know if I can get 10%.

49:58Okay, fine. Whatever. Go run your own calculation. Go to investor.gov. I give you the website, but it starts with the money. And here's what I have hundreds here on top. And I think this is really important to show people. I like those hundreds, by the way. I like these hundreds. Okay, so I'm holding$400. Yes. So 37 % of Americans, almost four out of 10, can't get their hands on $400 in case of an emergency. Now, if I add to this and I go five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, and I hold$1 ,000, six out of 10 Americans, according to different research, will tell you that six out of 10 Americans can't get their hands on$1 ,000 in case of emergency purposes.

50:43So we got to fix these things. Yes. And no one's coming to fix this for you. You know, people always say, no one's coming to save you, but I think that people think someone's coming to save them when it comes to money. I think we think presidents will come save us and governments will come save us and someone's coming to save us. No one's coming to save us. Okay, things are actually, when it comes to anybody saving, it's going to get worse. Social security is predicted. And told to us now, these are not like random rumors. Social security is insolvent in 2033. That, my friends, is around the corner.

51:18Yes. Now, what insolvency means is it's not going to be gone, but they're talking about having to lower your benefits by 20%. Your benefits also aren't that high right now. They're like$1 ,900 on average. But there's 30 million Americans dependent on those benefits. Those benefits are going to come down. Medicare, Medicaid, all the things that are entitlement programs in America, they're not going to continue at the same level. So getting your financial act together is not a nice to do, it's a have to do. And the only question for you is, do you do it now or do you face the consequences later?

51:57And I always tell people like, look, do you have a plan for your money? They go, what do you mean? Like a financial plan. Are you paying yourself first? Are you saving money automatically? And I go through all the things. Do you have an emergency account? Have you done a will? Do you have life insurance? Like these basic things that you need to do. Well, no, not really. I'm like, so you have a no plan plan. And people go, what? You have a plan. It's called the no plan plan. This is what most people have. The no plan plan sucks. Yes. Because what happens is you literally, young people don't believe this and I didn't believe it either when I was young.

52:32You snap your fingers and God willing, if you're healthy in your life still, you're going to turn around and be in your 50s and your 60s. Yes. And I can tell you as somebody who's sitting here going into my 59th birthday pretty soon, you're not going to want to work as hard. I know that there's some people on social media who are like, I'm 70, I'm 75, I'm 80, I'm never going to stop working. Yeah, but most people, you're not going to want to work that hard. One of the things that happens is when you're young, you're like, I can deal with anything. Then you, and you know, you're going through, you get a little bit older and you're like, I don't really know if I want to deal with this anymore because you know what, this is aggravating.

53:07So I think I want to go ski and, you know, go to cooking school and take a painting class and learn how to DJ. Like I got a lot of other stuff I think I could do. No, we're going to, we're going to talk about that. So first of all, I love you with the stack of money. So yes, please. Anyone, if you want to be on MarieTV, just bring me money. I'm kidding. But, um, but this is awesome. And I want to take this now because this is important because if we've gotten people over that hump of knowing they're going to take action, that they can find a way to save. Now let's start to talk about just a handful of rules that I think you feel more empowered when you're more educated because then you're like, all right, great.

53:44I can save$10 ,000 a year or$5 ,000 a year or$20 ,000 or$25 ,000, whatever that number is. The thing is you can look at historical returns on money and you can go, well, if I'm in cash, like the historical return has been 2 % or 3%. If I'm in bonds, the historical return has been between 4 % to 5%. If I'm in a balanced portfolio, the historical returns have been 7 % to 8%. These are annual returns. If I'm in 100 % boring generic S &P 500 stock fund, the returns, this is with reinvested dividends, has been 10%. If I'm in an aggressive growth portfolio like the NASDAQ, the annual returns have been over 12%.

54:25So when you build a diversified portfolio, because I don't think people should necessarily be all stocks. When you build a diversified portfolio, let's just use like a target data mutual fund again, or a balanced portfolio. Your returns on a balanced portfolio are going to, I believe historically are going to come in somewhere around seven or 8%, which by the way is a very solid rate of return. People get so caught up on these rate of returns. And the most important rate is what you save. The most important rate is are you saving at least 10 % of your income? Yes. Then it's what is your money earning?

55:00Because you need your money to make money for you. That's how everyone, those who are getting wealthier right now, it's because their money is just compounding. Yep. You know, one of the things that blew my mind away because of this compounding growth is there's$44 trillion right now in retirement accounts. So one out of every$3 in America right now is actually now in retirement accounts. It's in 401k plans. It's in IRA accounts. It's in SEP IRAs. It's in everything I teach in the automatic millionaire. The money is now in these accounts and they've grown exponentially. So 20 years ago, there was 11 trillion.

55:38Now there's 44 trillion. You know, if you take this out another 15 years, probably going to be at a point where we have$100 trillion of US money in these retirement accounts. Which is almost like a number that is unfathomable to most of us to even wrap our heads around. It's beyond. It's actually beyond. And, you know, we can talk. I have this idea about something that should be done and to change some of these things. And because I've spent 30 years inspiring people to save and invest, which is very important, but it's a two-legged stool. It's a two-legged journey. The first part of the journey is save and invest.

56:14The second part of the journey is spend and enjoy. Now, the problem is some people get the journey backwards. They spend and enjoy first. You do have to save and invest. Yes. But once you get into your 60s, specifically your 60s, you know, there's three stages to retirement. There's the first decade in your 60s. They call this the go-go decade. You have your health. You have money. You have time. You have family. You have friends. That is the decade to enjoy your wealth. Many baby boomers and anyone who's listening right now in their 60s, in many cases, they don't have a financial planner. they are afraid to spend money.

56:49Yes. Now, what are they most afraid of with the retirement accounts? They're afraid of paying taxes. So what's happening is that people are not taking, I didn't, I was able to do all the research when I updated the book using all the AI engines. What I found out, and I knew this intuitively as a financial advisor, because when financial advisors run your plan and your plan included in my plan, those plans, when they do them, they have you take your IRA money out last. So they say, Marie, here's all your taxable money. We're going to spend that. And then when you, in your case, it's going to be 75.

57:23But depending on your age, it's like for most people now, it's 73. You, Marie, will have to start taking money out of your IRA account. And it's called an RMD, Required Mandatory Distribution. Because the government realized, well, at some point, we got to start getting this money out of this account. So they created this RMD law. Well, worst phone call when you're a financial advisor, when you call your clients and you tell them they have to take the money out. They know it's coming, but they still hate it. Why do they hate it? They don't want to pay taxes. So it occurred to me as I updated this book that we should change the tax laws on IRA accounts.

57:57And I have an idea, which I'll be sharing publicly in a few weeks here, and there'll be a website. You can go to iraflattax.com. I have an idea that if the government changed the tax laws on IRA accounts for people over the age of 60 and creating an eight-year window, so it would be, you know, it's a classic tax law maneuver, create an eight-year tax law, incentivize people to take money out of these accounts, give them a flat tax, not an ordinary income tax. Could be 10%, could be 12%, could be 15%. You know, we ran an analysis where we compared all the different rates. What would it do? And what it would do is a lot of retirees would take the money out earlier.

58:37Now, what would they do with the money? Depends. Some of them might take it out and just leave in the exact same investments and put it in a taxable account. Some people might go out and spend some. They might take more trips. They might help their kids buy their first home, which a lot of kids now need help buying their first home. They might pay off debt. They might use the money for healthcare needs. Like you have a lot of people who are afraid to even tap their IRA accounts when they're retired for healthcare costs. And again, the number one reason is they don't want to pay taxes. So I think if we gave retirees, 73 million baby boomers, a break on their taxes on these distributions, well, what the analysis came back using, again, ChachiBT, Gemini, perplexity, we have a whole notebook LM on all this.

59:21The research came back and said that it would pull forward a trillion dollars in tax revenue. Wow. And it would pull forward another trillion dollars potentially in economic spending. the bulk of that money would go into communities and it would give a psychological boost to retirees. Who need it. Who need it. Absolutely. It would encourage people in their 50s to save more money. Because if you're, in this case, 53 all the way to 60, you'd have an eight-year window where you knew, well, I'll just put as much money as I can in these retirement accounts because I get a tax deduction and then I can take it out at whatever the flat tax is.

59:57That's amazing. So that's this idea that I'll be sharing. Again, I'm not going to know, I'm not a lobbyist. I'm not going into politics. Totally. Not running for anything. I just think it's something that the powers that be should look at because I think it can help a lot of people. You're talking about 120 million people I think could be impacted by simply creating a flat tax on IRA distributions for a small window, an eight-year window. And then by the way, if it goes great, they could always renew it, but it would give people an incentive to get going. Brilliant. I love it. But when you first mentioned this to me, I was like, yay, let's talk about it.

1:00:32And hopefully someone with the power to enact it will bring that to fruition. Let's also talk about the rule of 4%, because I think that one of the other things besides not wanting to pay taxes, I think folks that are kind of starting to near retirement. And by the way, you guys, in a few minutes, we're going to talk about money advice for people across ages. But going back to the 4 % rule, another fear is that people are going to run out of money. So let's talk about the rule of 4%. So interestingly, coming right behind the RMD rule, the RMD rule is basically 4%. What is the 4 % rule? The 4 % rule is whatever amount of money you have, if provided it's not just sitting in cash, it's invested.

1:01:11If it's invested in a balanced portfolio and you spend 4%, so if you have a million dollars, that means the million dollars produces$40 ,000 a year in income. If you spend$40 ,000 a year in income and that money is growing at more than 4%, well, then you're never going to be using principal and the money is always going to keep growing. And believe it or not, a lot of people who have done well saving investing, they're not spending 4%. They're spending less. Now, the balancing act with what you spend, and this is where the financial plan always comes in, you don't want to, like if your portfolio earns 10 % because the market went up 10%, you do not want to be spending 10%.

1:01:50Right. Because the market's not going to always go up 10%. So like this year, my stock portfolio, I looked at yesterday, I'm up 19 % of my stock portfolio. I'm not spending 19%. The way I spend money is I'm actually spending right around 4%. Yeah. And in fact, it's, you know, literally I use the 4 % rule. When we do all of our financial planning as a family, what I've decided is going over here towards the way we spend our money is we're right now using that 4 % rule. Now in five to 10 years, maybe we'll tick it up a little bit, but it's a great rule. Let's talk about money advice for people across the ages.

1:02:26So again, you've written 13 books on this, incredibly diverse audience. Let's run through which book specifically. Obviously, we want everybody getting the automatic millionaire. That's what we are talking about. However, I think there could be some additional add-ons, right? Like a little order bump for some people specifically. So if someone is young and just starting out, like college grad, beginning of career, all the way up to, let's say, like 30, early 30s, automatic millionaire, yes. but is there anything else depending on like if they're a woman, I would say you should read smart women, finish rich, just because it's so fricking inspiring.

1:02:58Well, thank you. Of course. Latte factor, like any of the other books. So. I'm literally imagining how I've done this recently with my friends kids. Yes. Right. Because what happens is if I go over and see my friend's kids, I give them the automatic millionaire. Yep. Then I often give, especially young women, not that, not that the men can't read this too, but I give them also the latte factor book. The latte factor book is I give it to a lot of young people because it's a parable and you can read it in 90 minutes. Yes. And all these life lessons are in a story. Yeah. And so I know people who are young will really, they read that book.

1:03:31Right. But I would try to get them to read the automatic millionaire first. Then I get the latte factor. Then I also give young women, smart women finish rich. Now I know that smart women finish rich for a 19 or 20 year old, not every 19 or 20 year olds going through a full blown book like smart women finish rich. Cause smart women finish rich covers everything, right? It covers your values, your dreams, your goal planning, your career, everything about investing. I mean, honestly, smart women finish rich covers everything. It's the first book I wrote. It's everything I did for clients. It goes into life insurance, health insurance.

1:04:03it's a full-blown financial planning book it's really everything you need to know and it's pretty thick it's like a real book so um that's great for women smart couples is a phenomenal book for couples yes especially newlyweds i mean a lot of people get this book out as newlywed gifts right you know you go to the wedding and you're like actually a great idea yeah it's a great book to start with i'm thinking for zaynabubba okay i'll get so it's a great book to give to people who are getting married and it's like winning season coming up. And those are the four primary books because those books are the books are updated.

1:04:36Those are actually my biggest bestselling books other than Start Late, Finish Rich, which is a phenomenal book. That was a number one New York Times bestselling book. And I'm never updating it because that book needs so much updating. I'm just not doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless the publisher gives me that book back. Absolutely. But let's talk about that for a second because I feel like starting late or just a midlife money reinvention, You know, so many people watching right now, they are in their 40s, 50s, or 60s, and probably some of them, again, I can hear them. Marie, I'm starting late.

1:05:06They might feel like they've got debt right now. There's no savings. They might be recovering from what is now known as a gray divorce, meaning after 50, their significant other split. Where do they even begin? Like for someone at that particular stage, and they feel like whether they are not starting at zero, what's realistic? What's realistic is you double down on getting going, right? So like how startling a finish rich came to be, and I'll tell this story because it'll lead into what you need to do. I was doing one of my first book signings for the Automatic Millionaire at Barnes and Noble, Uptown.

1:05:39And it's great. It's one of those, you know, great book signings, rooms filled. I'm taking questions. I love taking questions at book signings. And I get a question. This woman stands up and she's like, David, I love your books. I've read Smart Women Finish Rich, Smart Couples Finish Rich, The Finisher's Workbook. I'm going to go get your Automatic Millionaire book today. but you haven't written the book that I need. And I go, well, I get a lot of my titles from my readers. Tell me what you need. And she says, I need start late, finish rich. And everybody busted up. So I go, well, walk me through what's going on with you.

1:06:11And she's like, okay, well, I'm in my fifties and I think she'd been through a divorce and she's like, you know, I'm behind and she was in a new relationship. And I said, okay, well, can you save$20 a day? and she's like yes I can't so can you get your partner save$20 a day right like so like take my little doll my little thing out here can you save$20 that's literally what I said this 20 years ago but could you save$20 a day yeah if you and your partner can save$20 a day well let's take a look at what that would be worth in 15 years and then I ran the math for her and I think it was like half a million dollars depending on what she invests in quarter of a million to half a million dollars depending what she invests in so I was like you save$20 a day you invest it and get your husband or your partner to invest the$20 a day, do at least that.

1:06:57And she's like, okay, I can do that. And it's important to keep it that simple, right? Now, if you're 50 and you are going, you've mentioned great divorce. There's a lot of other stuff you need to do. Let's go through them really quickly. Number one, you need a new will. You got to get your ex-husband off all your assets. People are like, oh, duh. People leave their ex-husbands on as beneficiaries on IRA accounts. on insurance policies. So you need a new will. You need a new healthcare directive. Did you want your ex-husband being the one who decides what happens to you when you go to the hospital?

1:07:30People don't update these things. They get their divorce done. They have the old will, their husband's on their stuff. They die. Assets go to their ex-husband. So be a grownup, get an updated will done, make sure the beneficiaries are up to date. If you no longer have a spouse, then the beneficiary should for sure be the kids, right? If you got kids. So get the basics covered and stop thinking about it. Yes. And what do you think in terms of like any mindset stuff? And I think you just said it, but it's like on the emotional side, it's like, let's, how can we just drop the shame and just get started?

1:08:07Right. It's like, forget about the past. We can't go back there. It's like, start today. Well, start today. And also people look, I feel for people. People come up to me and they're like, I got divorced. You know, my husband left with, there's nothing. We had nothing to split up. Right? By the way, ladies, you need to know where all the money is. That's why you should read Smart Women Finish Rich. Yes. Because if you don't know where the money is and the divorce happens, you do not get half. Never happens. Men always get more money in the divorce than you do if you don't know where the money is.

1:08:38Guys, if you don't know where the money is, it's a problem for you too. You got to know where the money is. Okay? So, and by the way, do not go half off, like half cocked in an angry fight and say, I want a divorce. Plan your divorce in advance. I'm sorry. Like this is stuff that people should really think through. Yeah. But when people come to me and they're like, you know, I am really starting over and I've had a lot of people say, you know, I am going to work. I'm going to be working if I can until my seventies. And I'm like, well, are you working now? Yeah, I am. Do they have a 401k plan? They do.

1:09:11Are you using it? No. start there. Yeah. Start where you are. Start where your feet are planted. I will say this, if you're in your fifties or your sixties or your seventies and you have a job, it's very important to get a job somewhere where there is a 401k plan. And if there's not, then you have to go open up an IRA account. You're going to have to put away money for retirement. Yes. I just, I'm not trying to be a negative Nelly. I'm just telling you, but like, guys, this is like, ultimately you have got to own the power that is you. You own your own power. You can do this. And people turn their lives around, by the way, all the time.

1:09:49It is never too late to start over. You have people who've come through your program, right? Your B school. And they have come here in their 40s and their 50s and their 60s. And there's probably some people in their 70s. And there's no, the only age that you can't start over is the day you give up. You know, my, my mom lost my father last year. My mom has moved. If she sold her home, she's, she's starting over, right? She's 83 years old. She's moved to a whole new community. She's making new friends. She's learning new skills. She went out and bought a new car that drives itself because she's having a hard time driving, but the car is driving itself and she's still learning.

1:10:30She's still growing. And I think like if I learn anything from my mother through this whole situation, my mom has lived life all the way through. She's fully living her life right now. I'm going to go to Chicago and see her on Thursday, meet her at the airport. You know, she's flying in to see her family and see my son, her grandson. You know, I took my mom on a cruise, every excursion that was available. She's like, yeah, let's do it. You know, we went on an excursion in Alaska and we took the helicopter to the glaciers and my mom is walking around the glaciers with me at 83. And I just think, don't stop.

1:11:06Don't quit on yourself. Too many people quit on themselves in their fifties and their sixties. Don't quit on yourself. Now let's talk about, uh, fifties and sixties and just this notion too, which you talk about in this book, and I'm so happy you do it. This is one of my favorite topics from you is mini sabbaticals and, uh, excuse me, sabbaticals and mini retirements. So you've been very open about this, taking your first sabbatical at 46 and then again at 52. So I want to talk about one of the stories that you've shared with me, which I love where, you You know, you were in a room coaching mastermind, other high powered entrepreneurs and everyone, part of the exercise was like, okay, how are we going to 10X our business, right?

1:11:43And really look at kind of where you want your vision to go and what are we going to do to take this thing to an even bigger scale? And then you had kind of an aha moment to quote Oprah. Can you take us through that story and then just talk to us a little bit about, and I have other questions, of course, about mini retirements and sabbaticals. It's a totally true story. And I paid a lot of money, by the way, to be in that coaching program. Yeah. Which was a phenomenal coaching program. Oh, most of them are. I mean, they get us to sit down and actually pause and think and plan. Yeah, I had been in that program for years.

1:12:13And so I had, you know, in this program, we have these forms that you fill out. It's a long form. Like we're sitting at big tables and it's filled out. And the whole exercise was that day to look at how do we 10X our income? What really needs to happen with our business to 10X? and I had already 25x my business from the beginning of this program. So I am working on all the things that need to be done and I'm taking this out 10 years. And then I asked myself a question. What would I do at the end of those 10 years after I've hit these goals? And I'm like, well, probably take a year off and I just do nothing.

1:12:52I just, you know, enjoy myself. And I started thinking about all the things I would do. and then I was like, huh, I'm gonna do all this work so I can take a year off. What if I 10x my free time now? So I took, I'd done like half the day had gone into this exercise and I took the form and I flipped it over and while everybody was working on their 10x program for their income, I started writing out how I would 10x my free time and at the point I was doing this exercise, my entire year was booked out. So, but the next year wasn't fully booked out. So I started going through the list of things that would have to change in my life to not work the next year.

1:13:37And you were about 46 at this point? Yeah. Roughly. Yes. I'm about 46 years old. Now I came home from that coaching program and I didn't say to my wife, oh, I've worked on this program to 10X my free time. What happened was in bed, Alicia said to me, what do you want for your birthday? And I'm like, you know what I want for my birthday? I want a year off. And she's like, what do you mean? And I'm like, well, I, she's like, you mean you don't want to write more books? I'm like, nope, no more books. What about doing the, I did the today show every week. What about the today show? Nope. No more today show.

1:14:04What about the speeches? No more speeches. What about your office and all the people in there? Well, I'm like, they can stay there, but I don't want to go there anymore. I want a year off. And she said, well, what would you do? I'm like, I don't know. I could wake up, take the kids to school, and then I could go to the gym. I could meet a friend for lunch and I could pick the kids back up from school. Like, yeah, yeah. Like that looks kind of fun. Yeah. Um, and she's like, huh. All right. Well, can we afford for you to do that? This is a classic moment too. I go, you know, I was thinking about if we, if we cut back on some of these expenses and she goes, wait a minute, I didn't say anything about us cutting back on our expenses.

1:14:43I want to know, can we afford for you to not work for a year? And I said, yeah, we can afford for not work for a year. And she's like, then you should do it. So, um, and then the way the world works is everything starts to show up in your life to make that happen. Yeah. And I mean, like literally I had this amazing Tribeca condo that was my office was in, which I, I didn't really think about selling it, but it was on my list. Like, what do I do with this big office? You know, cause maybe I can downsize the office and move them into smaller office. I get a phone call the next day. I have a buyer for your condo for my broker.

1:15:15I guess it's not for sale. She's like, I know it's not for sale, but they really want your unit? Would you show it to them? And I literally go to Roxanne and I go, here's the price that I want for this condo. And so much more than what it should have gone for. And she's like, oh, that's really high, but they really want to see it. So she comes and she looks at that condo the next day and she says, okay, well, here's what they want to offer you. I'm like, no, no, you didn't hear what I said. That's the price. And they turned around that day and said, okay, we'll take it. Wow. And so like one by one, all this stuff just lined up for me.

1:15:48And then I took that year off. Now I will say that taking the year off was the scariest thing I ever did. I was terrified to stop working because I had worked so hard my entire life. You don't know if you can get off. What happens if you stop? Right. And what were you terrified of specifically? Like I'm sure it was many things. Well, I'll tell you the best way to answer this question is it came out of my son Jack's voice. So you fast. So you, I've stopped working. It's January 1st. I'm about 10, 12 weeks into this sabbatical. Yeah. And I feel the best I have felt in years. Like I feel 10 years younger.

1:16:23I'm sleeping again. I'm sleeping through the night. I'm, I'm not stressed. I'm basically glowing and bouncing down the street. And so I am bouncing down the street like a little kangaroo and I'm here with Winnie the Pooh my son and Winnie the Pooh my son says um you know I'm like tigger boing boing boing dad's all excited and happy taking my son to school he's in fifth grade and and he says to me dad dad do you ever worry now that you're not working and you're not writing books and you're not going on tv shows and you're not speaking do you ever worry that you'll never be able to do that work again and that no one ever will do anything with you and that you won't make any money and that that's just it.

1:17:06I just go like, you know, he's coming from a fifth grader, right? I'm literally Winnie the Pooh with his wisdom. Like I'm walking him to school and I just go, oh my God, God. Okay. That's funny. I get it. Because literally it was like every fear that I had got voiced through my son. Yes. So hearing him say all my fears out loud, because those were all my fears. Yeah, absolutely. How will I ever get, you know, will I be able to come back? Oh, relevance. And is it done? You know, what happens if you take a year off? Yeah. People forget about you. You know, what happened was I got re-energized. You know, what happened is instead of like reducing my battery, I replaced my battery.

1:17:46And then from there, I went off and became vice chairman of a financial service company. And then I updated four of my books. And then I co-founded another financial service company. And, um, you know, my last 12, 13 years have actually been remarkably impactful. Yeah. Maybe even more impactful in some ways than what I did before that sabbatical. And then I took another break. I went to Florence, Italy, and that was going to be a one-year break. Yeah. And, uh, you know, we were going to go for nine months. Now I've lived in Italy for six years. Yeah. No, I remember that because I think I was coming on your show when everything is figureoutable was just about to come out and you guys were, it was like you were using the book to figure out, remember there were like things with your visa process and your family.

1:18:24and was just like, wait, how are we going to do it? Do you remember that? Oh my God. Do I remember that? Because first of all, you were my last thing that I did before I moved, before I was supposed to move. Yes. We, everything was done. Apartment sold. We, a new apartment in Florence. Yep. Kids in school. Only thing missing was the visa. We even had the plane tickets and that was like a Wednesday and we're supposed to leave on a Friday. I remember. And, um, all came through. we got the visa and everything is figureoutable. Everything is figureoutable. And, um, we got on that plane and we went to Florence and, you know, part of that was also, I was writing the latte factor talking about Zoe Daniels, taking the sabbaticals and the power of taking a break.

1:19:04And I say in that book, and I'm about to leave for, for Italy. Yes. And you know, what happens in life when you make these decisions is then things just, your world changes. Right. And I didn't know we would move there and stay there. Um, but it's changed our whole life and changed my kids' life. And so it's been six years now. And so I have a couple more questions on this. Like first, what does your life look like now? And then were there any, I want to call them mistakes, but like looking back because you've made a couple of big shifts, like taking a year off is something that is so exciting and many people will never think that they can do, give themselves the chance to do, set it up so they actually do it.

1:19:42But then this longer break, and I want to talk about that as well. Is there anything that you wish you knew or that you, you feel like, Oh God, you know, and we've talked about this for myself. It's like, what, what lessons would you want to pass on before someone makes a big shift like that? Well, yeah. Okay. So first of all, there was two years of planning that actually went into it. Yeah. Right. Like it wasn't just like, Oh, we should do this. There was a lot of planning involved and partially it's because the kids, we were intentionally going when my son was going to be a sophomore in high school.

1:20:10We felt that was the one year we could take him out of his high school here and then come back. So there was a lot of planning. I think planning is really important. Everything's easier when you plan it. Right. And then the second thing I would say is, you know, we went there, we moved into a furnished apartment, right? So everything's done. And we went there each with two bags. So all of our, all of our stuff was put in storage from New York. And the freedom that we had when we moved to Florence, where we just basically brought our bags into this apartment, unpacked, and then started traveling.

1:20:45The beauty of that first year was because we were so unencumbered with anything. There was a lightness and a freedom to that first year that was just remarkable. You know, everything was exciting. We were making all these new friends. There wasn't things weighing down on us. Now, truthfully, that's kind of continued our life because we realized that our life needed to be about experiences and not stuff. so somehow we have accumulated stuff in our apartment now but but the mistake we made was we put all our stuff in storage and we didn't think we were coming back in a year yeah I mean we thought we're coming back in a year and you know we're the classic thing where you stick stuff in storage and it just stays there yeah and then you just pay for it yes you're just like it's like burning cash and it's just hanging out and then COVID happened and prices went up and yeah and I would the prices would go up on the storage units oh my god people these storage units aren't saying and especially in New York.

1:21:36Right. And I would say to my wife, like, get this stuff out of storage. Yeah. And she'd say, but I don't even know what's in there anymore. And I'd say, then just throw it all away. And she'd say, but there's a lot of stuff in there that's good. And I'm like, it's been five years. And, and, and these, and this bill would cut and the bill would be on my card and I'd see the bill and I get pissed. Right. And so every month I'd be like, when are we getting this stuff either over here or getting rid of this stuff. And eventually she moved it to her card. So I wouldn't see it. That's hilarious. But then I'm like, so I think the lesson is a good lesson for anybody's storage, man, just get rid of the stuff.

1:22:14We ultimately shipped the stuff over. Yeah. And you know, just the stuff doesn't matter. If you've got stuff in storage for two or three years, just dump that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's really good. So, you know, you mentioned in the book, especially in the Q &A section, like you've worked nonstop from 18 through your mid 50s. And you're like, now I'm done with that pace. And I just, I want to tell you how inspiring it is because first of all, there are so many different flavors and ways to do life, right? That's the beauty and the magic of our world. And I know for me, sometimes I've found it like super, super inspiring.

1:22:47You know, you'll see someone like I was watching that great series, live to a hundred, uh, David, Dan Buettner, right. And there's these incredible, like, you know, doctors in their nineties and you know what I mean? They're like, they have the purpose and they're doing that. And like, that's awesome. And I'm like, amazing praise mother F and B. Awesome. And you're one of my first and only friends and colleagues who's like, actually, here's another flavor. Here's pistachio where it's like, I have worked my ass off through this and I'm done with that pace. So you wrote to me in our, in our email exchange, you're like, this is my final round of podcast.

1:23:22Marie, this is it. I am done after this book launch. So it'll be super emotional and special to do this show with you. So I wanted to ask you, how did you come to that truth for yourself? Like, how did you know that this one was it? And I don't know if it relates to the past six years of you being in Italy and really immersing yourself in a whole different lifestyle. Anything that you want to say about how you came to know this truth? Because from my knowing of you, it's not a decision. It is a knowing. It's a truth inside. Oh, now you give me chills as I think about this. You know, the way this whole journey started is a long, long time ago for me.

1:24:04It started because of my grandmother, which will kind of bring this full circle. Because my grandmother, Rose Bach, who I Smart Women Finish Rich, is based on her story. When my grandmother had a stroke, she was 86. And when we moved her from Laguna Beach up to where we lived in the Bay Area and put her in a nursing care facility, and she'd had a stroke, but I didn't know she was going to die. And I just sort of thought she was going to get better. Right. And so I was in the hospital with her and I was finishing Smart Women Finish Rich. And I was like, grandma, the book's almost, book's basically done.

1:24:38Are there any more life lessons, books dedicated to you? Anything else you want to share with me that I should share? And she said, no, you've got all my wisdom. You know, you're in great shape. And I said, do you have any regrets? And she said, no. And then the next day I came to visit her. I said, grandma, how'd you sleep? She said, terrible. I said, why? And she's like, cause I was up all night long thinking about my regrets. And then she went through them with me and she went through five. She went back to age 17, sharing the five regrets. And at the end of the fire, and she, because she had a stroke, it wasn't easy for her to talk.

1:25:14It took a long time to have this conversation and she said um the lesson in my regrets is not what what I why didn't it wasn't this or that she's like the lesson my regrets is that what happened is in my life every one of those points I came to a fork in the road and when I came to the fork in the road there was a little girl inside of me that wanted to go take the risk and then there was the big girl inside of me I was like no Rose go the safe route and she's like I didn't listen to little girl and she said so I took the safe route. And so the, so that my, my regret is I never let my little girl come out and play.

1:25:49And she said, so what I, what I wish for you is that you let your little boy come out and play. She's like, that would be my lesson for you is when you get, when you get to those forks in the road, you let your little boy come out and play. And she's like, you're going to have the big boy. And it's going to be the one saying, no, don't do that. Do this. And you know, it could be your parents. It could be society. She's like, but just give your little boy the chance to come out and play. And I drove back to my office and I parked, my office was Morgan Stanley and I parked in the garage and I broke down crying.

1:26:20Yeah. I broke down crying and I sat there and I looked in the rear view mirror and I looked at myself and I said, okay, I don't want to work at Morgan Stanley anymore. I want to go dedicate my life to teaching at the time more women about money. yes and I looked at the mirror and I said to myself my little boy said three years and you're out of here I just that was my thing I thought okay it's gonna take three years to set myself up to leave Morgan Stanley to go teach yeah and it took four and it's actually you know like amazing to sit here because my grandmother said well tell other people this lesson right like listen to your little boy listen to your little girl and the automatic millionaire was my little boy is like, okay, we have to get out of here and we have to go to New York.

1:27:09Yeah. Because the time the only, I didn't know, I didn't have the idea for the automatic millionaire when I was at Morgan Stanley. I just had the idea. I wanted to move to New York so I could do national TV because it was before podcasts and everything was about television and I needed to be here to get booked and be on these shows. Yeah. And so if I didn't move to New York, it was just so hard. I was flying back and forth to go do these television shows like The View, but The Today Show wasn't having me on. And I'm like, I got to move to New York. And so my little boy convinced my big boy, we're not listening to you, we're going.

1:27:43Everyone tried to convince me to not do this. They flew me to New York to meet with the president of the retail division of Morgan Stanley, who sent me in his huge, massive office, David, we really like you. Are you sure you want to leave? And I said, yes. And they said, you're sure? Because most people would like to be where you are right now. You have the ultimate career at this point. You are set. And I said, I'm sure. And they said, okay, well, if you're going to leave, then we'll hire you to go train all of our financial advisors. And then they took me on a tour around the country to do Smart Couples Finish Rich.

1:28:18But I moved here without this book idea, and then the idea came to me. And so my little boy was able to get the automatic millionaire out into the world because I wanted to teach millions of people to pay themselves first one hour day of their income. And so I've listened mostly to my little boy these last 30 years. Yes. But I've also worked my little boy ass off. And what's interesting is you talk about listening to your soul is that what happened, what led me to write, I decided to update this book was kind of like a moment decision. I was like, you know what? I got all this money. Maybe I could buy back all my publishing rights.

1:29:00it's actually how this happened. Maybe I can buy back all my publishing rights and then I'll just give these books away. Cause I'll go to write and go, I'll go do a deal and I'll go have make, make this an ebook for like 99 cents. Like I already did the work. Let's get this book in more people's hands. So I called my agent and said, buy back all my books. And she's like, what are you talking about? Go, we'll buy back the books. We'll update them. And I'm going to give them away. She's like, you're kidding me. Right? I'm like, no, no, I'm serious. So she goes back to random house. and Random House, six months go on.

1:29:34They won't even give me a number. So then I say, fine. Let's just beg them to buy back The Automatic Millionaire. I will update this book and give it away. How much do you want to pay for it? I'm like, well, don't throw a number out. Get them to give a number. And, you know, I'm going to leave you here today and I'm going to go have drinks with David Drake. David Drake was my first publicist for this book. he's now the president of crown i've kept all my friendships with everybody so we're gonna i'm gonna go have a drink with him and um he's like god david i love you i can't sell you this book back it's just i can't do it it's not my if i could if i could do it i would do it but i can't do it i have bosses too yeah but we'll update the book with you if you want to update it and we'll put it out in hardcover and we'll come behind you and go help you try to help you help a million more people so i was like okay let's do that so in the process of updating this book i'm giving you such a long answer to this question.

1:30:30I love it. In the process of updating this book, I forgot how freaking difficult it is to do these books. And my little boy was like, dude, seriously, seriously, we were just in Verbier skiing for 78 days. Did you see how happy we were? What are you doing to us? And my big boy was like, no, no, this will be good. This is good. Like we'll do this work one more time. And my little boy is like, dude, we're done. All right. New stuff. You got that movie idea. You haven't worked on it in a year. Go work on the screenplay. You want to take up painting, take up painting. You want to be a DJ, anything, but talking about pay yourself first.

1:31:10This is your last chance to talk about pay yourself first. We've been doing this for 30 years. Yep. Let's do something new. Yes. And I kind of say that in a way to like be joking and funny, but it's true. And I'm like, okay, I want to meet me at 70. being proud looking back on the next 10 years that I grew and did new things. Yes. I know it's not that this work's not important to me because it's still important is why I'm doing it. Yes. But I want to find out what do I look like at 70 having done new stuff. Yes. I love that. So if I, if I'm hearing you right, it was a knowing it was your inner little boy.

1:31:45And he said, no, this is, this is it. And I think, I think it's really important to talk about this because I've had so many conversations with so many people who are feeling that it doesn't quite matter exactly their age. Like they're feeling like, oh, there is something about who they've been, what they've experienced, what they've done for a portion of their livelihood that feels like it's coming to a close. And then for many, you know, some people don't know what the next thing is. And I loved, I went to this incredible experience and there was this reminder that I had read and heard before, but I loved how it was phrased.

1:32:20And it was like, the small self thinks the higher self knows. And anytime. Small self thinks the higher self knows. And you could sub in divine self, creative self. Soul. Correct. Yeah. Anything that kind of aligns or resonates. And I just found that to be so true for me. where any time in my life, if I am going through pro-con lists, do you know what I mean? Like, oh, what do I think about this? And I'm kind of, you know, jockeying back and forth. It's usually my small self, which is most oftentimes rooted in some kind of fear, a fear of missing out, making the wrong decision. You can kind of go down the list of fears, but the creative self, the divine self, the higher self, it is a knowing.

1:33:11It is a knowing that is undeniable. There is no quote unquote thought necessarily involved. And it is just so clear. It's so undeniable and you must follow it no matter what. You know, it's, it's interesting to hear you say that because also we've had some similar experiences because you, thanks to you and thanks to Lewis Howes, I went and did the Dr. Joe Dispenza week-long intensive meditation program. Yes. Love Dr. Joe. And, you know, when you go and you get really into meditation and you go and you learn how to go really deep. Yes. You actually start to learn that there's a bunch of stuff going on here, right?

1:33:49Like, well, there's just so much more intelligence and there's so much more. There's so much more intelligence and there's a lot of conversation taking place and learning who to, what are you listening to? Yes. And what are you thinking about and believing so that it becomes and putting out into the world? Yes. We have so much more power than we realize. Yes. And so I think learning how to go to that place, because some people are listening to us and they have no freaking idea what we're talking about. And I think the one, the reason why I taught what I taught personal finance. Yes. is I believe that the number one reason people don't actually get to the point that they're clear is that they're so stressed out financially.

1:34:31All they hear is that monkey brain of stress, fear, and anxiety. Yeah. Which is looping and looping, looping, looping. When any human being is in scarcity and there's fear of survival, it's, it's very difficult. Even from like a biophysical standpoint, you get really narrow, you get really focused because that's survival based. And so, and it's a habit. You can stay in, you can stay in survival based mode your whole life, even when you've achieved success. Absolutely. And I see this with a lot of my entrepreneur friends who are very successful. They're still afraid to stop. And part of that's going back to this whole thing with the ego, right?

1:35:08Cause the ego is like, wait, we did all this work to be who we are. What do you mean you want to stop? Right? This is why a lot of entrepreneurs can't stop or entrepreneurs sell a business and they got to go start a new business. And they're not always happy. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting phenomenon. What makes people highly successful doesn't always lead to a high happiness level. Well, I also think too, there's a great conversation to be had around sometimes, and I always use this analogy. It's like a container was wonderful for when you were growing in it. And sometimes you outgrow the container and it doesn't make the container wrong.

1:35:44The container is beautiful for the time and space that it is and was. And sometimes when you're growing and you're evolving, you need to reach beyond for a new vehicle. And that can be really exciting. So tell me what you're feeling right now as you move towards wrapping up this part of your adventure and stepping into a new chapter. Like what are the emotions happening inside of you? They're mixed. You know, they're honestly mixed. And it's interesting because Alisha asked me this question yesterday. Um, cause I'm on a high because I'm getting to see all my dear friends like you and I'm getting to this to me is like a going away experience, but I know you're like, you know, I'm blessed.

1:36:23Cause I know you and I, we're real friends. We're going to stay in each of our lives. Um, it's me. So it's meaningful to me, all the relationships, it's really meaningful to me that I can still do this work. And I'm also, I think for the first time, super clear, like no no I'm done yeah you know like I even I'll be like when I see David Drake today I'm like you guys can put this book on paperback but I'm not updating it because the thing is when you when you hear I've done 13 books it's not even true what I've really done is like 25 books because every single time I wrote a book and then it converted to paperback that book had to be updated again yes some of my books have been actually fully updated five times so there are a lot of these books the automatic million is on its fourth or fifth goat no it's more than that It's on the fifth or sixth go around.

1:37:09And the beauty, you know, the nice thing is because it's financial, it does need to be updated. But sorry, guys, this is it. Go get the Automatic Millionaire and enjoy this book because I'm not coming back here in five to 10 years. So since this may be the last time that we hear from you on this topic, what is the truth about money, freedom, and life that you want to leave people with and you want them to know? Oh, wow. What is the truth? The truth is that you can be free financially on much less money than you think. That's probably the greatest truth. And the greatest truth is that money is just a tool.

1:37:45That's all it is. Money is just a thing. And to me, what money is a tool for is to free you. So again, living in Europe has taught me like people have a lot less money in Europe, but they're way freer. You know, when we talk about sabbaticals, I'm like, yeah, in Europe, they call that a summer. You know, in Europe, people just take the month of August off. Like it's just a given. Yes. And I think we're really busy working really, really hard in the United States. But a lot more of us need to get more of a life in our life. And when you use money as a tool to start freeing yourself, I think you get the opportunity to get more of a life in your life.

1:38:24And most of the important things in life actually don't take money. That's the other thing. You need money. And some of the most beautiful things in life have nothing to do with money. at all. You come visit me in Florence. You still haven't visited me yet. When you come visit me in Florence, I'm going to take you on a walk. Everybody comes visit me. I take them on a walk. I do this loop. And they're like, oh my God, this loop is so beautiful. And I take you up around, you know, through these beautiful areas and I bring you over Piazza Michelangelo and I take you to this church, San Mignotto, and you can see the view of Florence.

1:38:55And people go, God, this is just amazing. And I go, I know. And then how often do you do this? I'm like, every day. Every day I do this walk. It's part of my day. and that that walk is free you know and so I think um your life if you don't have money right now there's a lot you can do in your life that really matters it's beautiful you don't have to have money to have a beautiful life but having money frees you in a way that you don't know about yet and that's what I want for you thank you so much for all the years all the books all the everything You're awesome. I love you. I adore you. I love, wait, I want you to hear this back.

1:39:36I love you and I adore you. I can't wait. I'm so excited for this next adventure for you. Thank you. Having trouble solving a problem or reaching a dream? Well, guess what? The problem is not you. It's that you haven't yet installed the one belief that changes everything. Everything is figureoutable. That also happens to be the name of my instant number one New York Times bestselling book. and I want you to get your hands on it today because everything is figureoutable is not just a fun phrase to say. The book is packed with wisdom and stories and actionable exercises that'll make you unstoppable.

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