Anthony O'Neal: Tired of Living Paycheck to Paycheck? Break the Money Habits Blocking Your Financial Freedom | Finance | E413

20:56I don't like debt. I completely run away from consumer debt. But I do understand the benefits of having a credit card, which I have Amex, a charge card, you got paid off every single month. You know, I won't even get a card that will let you pay it off over, you know what I'm saying, over months because I don't want to pay out any interest. I still do believe that paying out interest is a penalty and it's not worth it. I want to receive interest rather than pay out interest. So I'm going to put it on my Amex, get my points, have the security. And I love the added benefits that come with the Amex.

21:36I had a trip come up and unfortunately it got canceled and Amex took care of it for me. Oh, nice. Right? And so I do. So I respect and love and I believe that his system works because the reason why I am consumer debt free today is because of the baby steps. Right? And so now with me evolving and I have just a different audience, I have veered off some things from what I used to teach with Dave.

22:02Hala Taha:Yeah. So if you have good behavior with your credit card, use it. Use your points for flights, for hotels. Now, why every Monday? I feel like that must be like a mindset thing with you. Like, do you just hate seeing debt? Yeah. And I just don't want to be caught lying. You know what I'm saying? And so I think for me, it's just more so of I build that habit. I just build the habit of making sure that I stay consumer debt free. Yeah. Because what Dave teaches is honestly the truth. You're going to swipe it. You're going to spend more. Yeah. And I think for me, it's I before I even swipe it, I look at my budget.

22:37And if it's in my budget, then I'll swipe it. If it's not in my budget, then I won't swipe it. Now, let me be completely honest. Is that difficult, though? To not swipe. Absolutely. I'm human. I got flesh. I want that. But for me, here's what I've learned. I want freedom more than I want to be impressive. And one thing I have learned that debt robs us from freedom. And the moment that you borrow money from somebody, you are now enslaved to them. They get to tell you if you can take off for a month and go enjoy time with your family. And I just said, I do not want to be enslaved to no other person, but to my decisions and my habits.

23:24Hala Taha:I love that. And so I refuse to allow my debt to be someone else's gain. That reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from you. The goal is not to be rich. The goal is to be free. Free. Yeah. Freedom is everything that I'm aiming for. You know, I think this culture is driving off of like, oh, man, I want to make a million dollars in a month and I want to make this. I want to make that. I'm like, man, I just want to be free. You know, I just came back from a two week cruise out in Greece that I paid cash for. Nice. Right. And throughout the entire month of July, my company is off and I pay all my staff and my team members a full month.

24:04Hey, go take it off. Why? Because we've built a business without any consumer debt that allows us to have freedom. And freedom for me may look different from freedom from what you may call freedom for yourself and for your family. But for me, it's if I want to take off for the month of July, unplug, go travel the world, let my team off and pay them their full salary for the month, man, I get to do that. But if I was just in debt, I couldn't do that. You know, and so I'm single and I'm looking forward to being married one day and I want to have the freedom. And I'm practicing that now because of my situation.

24:46Like every Friday I don't work. So we're recording this today that tomorrow will be Friday. I'm going home and I'm playing golf in the morning and I am going to take myself out to a movie and a nice little dinner on tomorrow night because I want to practice freedom. I desire freedom. So that way, when I get a family, I can take my children to school if I get married with kids. If I can say, hey, bae, after I play golf with my best friend on the morning, me and you going out every Friday night, no matter what. Right. And so that to me is way more important than rich because rich is temporarily, you know, and I think wealth positions you to have true freedom.

25:29Hala Taha:Yeah. Well, you've done an incredible job with your career with acquiring wealth. And, you know, it all started from when you were 19, homeless in your car. How did you get to where you are today? Like, what were some of the first steps that you took? You know, I had to be honest with myself. And I won't say that it started at 2021, 22, when I started changing things around. It took me a while to really figure out some things. If I'm being honest, I think the reason why a lot of people do not experience success is because they do not have a strategy or plan. I think that a lot of us, we know how to work hard, but we don't know how to steward that hard work and turn it and follow a solid plan.

26:17So for me, when I was trying to get out of it, man, I was reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki. I seen you had him on your show. I read Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, and I've read so many books, and I was watching so many things on YouTube. And at that time of that season, Yahoo was real live. So I'll look up some things on Yahoo and I had to teach myself, you know, these principles. And so I think for me, when I resonated with the seven baby steps, it just, I was like, okay, cool. This is what I want to do. I'm going to follow this. And that's what I did. And this is what I tell everybody.

26:55Even if you don't agree with everything, you can, seven baby steps, what you teach.

26:59Hala Taha:And that's to get out of debt. That's like Dave Ramsey's famous thing, seven baby steps to get out of debt. Yeah. And so it's like, even if you don't agree with the stuff, still do it because it's a proven system that works. And so that's what I did. I literally followed that. Some days I'll fall off. Some months I will fall off, but I'll get right back on it. And I did that until I was debt free. You know, and so for me, it's it was I found a plan. I found a strategy. I worked the plan and strategy until I saw a difference in my finances. And how did you turn that into your purpose in your career?

27:32Hala Taha:What were the first things that you did to start speaking about financial advice and getting your foot into Ramsey? The foot into Ramsey was simply because Dave and his team noticed that I was teaching it. So I was a youth pastor for years. And I would go around to different high schools. We built probably one of the largest African-American youth ministries in the world. We would have 3 ,000 to 4 ,000 people at our youth conference and see thousands come throughout the week. But it was because I was going inside the high schools during the day. So my pastor at the time would allow me, instead of coming into the church office, he would allow me to go into the schools.

28:08When I would go into the schools, I would sub for some of the teachers. And when I say sub, I'm going in there while they may be doing work study or doing something like that. I can go in there and I would talk to kids about how to look up scholarships. You know, what is a credit card? What is a credit report? I was teaching financial literacy to kids. Then what we end up doing, because we saw that that was working, I would then come back. And on Wednesdays for our midweek days, instead of me teaching, quote unquote, the Bible, I taught them life skills around finances.

28:39Hala Taha:Oh, cool. You know, teenagers want to know, how can I get a pair of Jordans at the time? You know, how can I do this? What can I do? So Wednesdays was our life financial days and Sundays was our biblical days. So when that started blowing up, man, I was getting calls from all kind of churches, from organizations. Hey, can you come teach our students this? And so then that was my journey to really build the talking, I would say, ministry and the talking platform around finances. When I first joined Dave, I was the youth guy. And of course, I evolved, got too old to be speaking to young people. And so that's one thing that I did there is just really started my youth career around.

29:17Hala Taha:And how long did you work at Ramsey Solutions? I was there for six years, I think. Six years. Six years, yeah.

29:25Hala Taha:Yeah, fam, I genuinely feel ahead of the curve with AI for the first time because last year I felt like I couldn't see the value from it. I would use AI and it would give me back dumb responses. And I was using ChatGPT like a search engine to draft an email here or there, but I wasn't using it effectively. So I went to MindStone's AI Breakthrough Weekend with my business partner, Kate. I learned so many foundational skills that I use every day at Yap Media. Everything that I touch now involves AI. and Mindstone gave me the tools to actually make AI effective rather than just feeling like it was a bunch of hype.

29:59Hala Taha:And in fact, I built an app in 15 minutes at this retreat. And when I came back, me and Kate were like, we've got to put our team through this training. And so Mindstone has this AI competency program. It's a four week, totally online training that's super affordable. And we put the entire team, 60 people through this program. The productivity and the efficiency increase at App Media has been absolutely incredible. They've got their own proprietary tool called Rebel. It connects our email, our Slack. It attends all of our meetings and takes notes. And then it basically acts as like a second brain.

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33:23Hala Taha:Try 11 Agents by 11 Labs at 11labs.io slash profiting. That's E-L-E-V-E-N-L-A-B-S dot I-O slash profiting. 11labs.io slash profiting. And then at some point you decided you wanted to go out on your own. For sure. What was the moment where you're like, all right, it's time for me to go independent. I want to be an entrepreneur. Yeah. I think for me, it was Dave and I both agreed. I grew such a hard passion, always had it, but just didn't really have it that well. That established, I would say, but I have a heart for the minority community. And so I wanted to really learn more about some of our history, to learn more about some of the struggles that we dealt with and some of the struggles we're still dealing with.

34:09And I'll never forget, I went back to my high school in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and I looked around and there was not one curriculum around financial literacy. And our counselors are, you got five counselors to three, four thousand students. They can't talk to every kid. And I was like, wait a minute. We don't have access to certain things. And I say this respectfully, but different cultures experience different things and a different message for different cultures. And so I say, you know what? I want to do that. And Dave and I and his board agreed that it was just best for me just to do that.

34:50And they supported me in my transition because I really wanted to make sure that I can go back to the African-American community, the minority community, and really speak our language to us to help us make some massive changes, which is important to me.

35:05Hala Taha:Yeah. Help us understand the current situation of the African-American community financially compared to other people in America. Like, how much worse is it? Man, it's an interesting question. There's a stat that just came out here recently that from 2009 to 2017, the wealth gap didn't just stay, it got wider by$50 ,000. Wow. Right. So we're not talking about this happened in the 60s and the 70s. We're talking about during the Internet boom, during this time that the wealth gap even got wider. And I think it's just because, one, the lack of information, the lack of access, and us really not really narrowing down and having the right plan.

35:54I have a lot of white friends and they'll be like, well, do you want me to stop working? I'm like, absolutely not.

35:59Hala Taha:Yeah, no. I don't want you to stop working because, I mean, that's important. And so my philosophy when I speak to my community is like, hey, we can't really close the wealth gap because if that's the case, then I got to ask my friends to stop making money. I don't want that. What we can do is focus on our family and narrow the wealth gap, meaning that Anthony O 'Neill today, I'm thinking about my black children, my black great grandchildren, and I'm putting in things that way when they're born, they're already at$100 ,000,$200 ,000 of a head start rather than being at the negative when I graduated high school.

36:33And so I wouldn't say it is worse. I would just say that we are behind and we got to do some things on our end to really close the wealth gap and close and narrow it for our particular families.

36:46Hala Taha:Yeah. Well, one of the first steps is to stop living paycheck to paycheck. That's a fact. The theme of your new book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How big of a problem is this? How many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck? Yeah, just on the news yesterday, I was watching this, preparing to fly here, and CNBC really touched my heart and said that right now, their numbers, their data is showing close to 62 % of people are living paycheck to paycheck. Right. So that means the majority of them. When you're looking at the paycheck, what's hurting them is going to be car insurance. Interesting. Debt, which I looked at that is unnecessary debt.

37:31And then the other one was just the cost of living of today. Yeah. And when you really study that report, the average household is going to be making in between 60 and 100 thousand dollars, depending on where you are. Right. And so it's really not that it's really not because we lack income. I believe it comes down to two things. Number one, we're overspending in certain areas. Right. And number two, we don't really just have an understanding of what to do. when I really go back to myself I was selling cars and I made$100 ,000 when I was 26 27 I made$130 ,000 28 the car dealership closed down I was fired I called my dad and my dad says well you should be straight son your rent is only $500 you made at least$10 ,000$15 ,000 a month you should be straight I opened up and it opened my called the bank because apps wasn't really a thing by thing yet.

38:37I had$400 to my name. And it was because I didn't have access. I had the income.

38:44Hala Taha:Yeah. Like, I think I didn't have access. And so for me... Access to information. Exactly. I had access to income. I didn't have access on what do I do with this kind of money. But I was taking my money and going to strip clubs and doing all this type of stuff at a young age. And I really wasn't making the right decisions because again, I was trying to be impressive. And so I think for me, which is so funny, and which is why I could understand it, at 26, 27, I'm making the most money I've ever made in my life at the time. And I'm still living paycheck to paycheck. So what are the three things people should do once they receive their paycheck?

39:22The very first thing that I tell everyone who received a paycheck is before you even receive it, the very first thing you should do is have a plan for your money. People don't like the term budget. And I can understand that. In my book, I call it, have a vision meeting for your money and sit down and tell your money what to do. There's this viral post that went around with a young lady. She was being interviewed on a podcast and the podcaster asked her about budgeting. She said, you know, one of my friends, we invited her to go on this trip with us and her friend didn't say yes or no. Her friend said, let me go check my budget first.

39:55Well, when she said that, her friend said, we never even called her back. And the podcast host says, well, why didn't you call it back? Because I don't want to be on a trip with someone who's counting every single penny. And I was like, well, that has to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Like, you don't want to budget. You don't want to steward. You don't want to know what you're doing with your money. And so for me, I actually enjoy budgeting. Like, it is fun today because I get to tell myself, you know what? I'm going to save to buy my dream car. I just purchased an estate home, a big home out in Maryland.

40:32And I've been saving because I knew eventually I would like to have a home on a golf course. And so I was trying to wait until I got married. That didn't happen. So I just went and just bought me a wife. Anyways. And so, but for years I saved up for it, right? It was on my budget. And I love the fact that I'm able to sit down on paper. and sometimes when I'm really dreaming, I'll pull up the wall and I'll just write on my wall on a sheet of paper and I'll say, okay, I want to do this. This is going to do my money this year. 2026, I want to make this much money and pay myself this much money and every single month, these are the categories that I got to cover.

41:09And I honestly get excited about it because when I go and drop money to be on a yacht, I'm not burdened by that because I gave myself permission to enjoy it. And I already know when I get back, while everything else is straight.

41:23Hala Taha:Yeah. And it's also like visioning your future and making sure you get to do the things that you dream of doing. That's a fact. And it's like, even on my budget, I have a line item on there for my children who I haven't even met yet. Every single month, I am setting aside money for them. And I see it getting bigger and bigger and bigger every single month. But that's because I'm budgeting. It's because I'm putting it on paper and I see it. And on the 27th, in between the 27th and the 29th of the month, I always take myself to Ruth Chris. I get me a nice cocktail and I sit there and I write out my budget for the next month.

42:06Hala Taha:Now, one of the ways that we can make sure that we're not living a paycheck to paycheck is making more money. Yeah, yeah. And you talk about this thing called financial margin. Yeah. What is that? Well, margin for me is your biggest wealth building tool. Everyone thinks that, oh my gosh, I need to make$100 ,000 to become a millionaire. No, you don't. I know millionaires and I mentor several athletes who make millions of dollars, right? And they are broke. They live paycheck to paycheck. And one of the very first things when I'm sitting down with some of these athletes and I'm just asking them the very first question, what's your margin?

42:45And I'm a professor at Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia. And that's the very first thing that I write on the board on our very first day of class. I tell them, hey, listen, your biggest wealth building tool is margin. It is not the salary that you're going to get from your job. And you'll be so surprised when I say margin. my students on day one do not know what the word margin means when it comes to finances. And by the end of our semester, they totally get it. But I think for me, that's one thing that I work on now is how can I create more margin in my business? How can I create more margin in my own personal home?

43:28And I have goals for my own personal. When I see my margins getting below this, hold up, wait a minute. What do I need to go back into my budget and fix so that way I'm not getting below this. Because I want to be prepared for what if a brand deal says, hey, we no longer want to partner with you. Okay, cool, great. I have some margin within my income. I don't have to touch my emergency savings account, right? And so I think margin is just a solid break in between your income, what you have coming in, and your outcome, what you have going out, and whatever's in between of that, that's where I play with and I invest and I strategize and I multiply.

44:09That is the tool that's going to get me to, my goal is 50. When I turn 50, it's in eight years. I'm building a house in Accra, Ghana right now. It should be done by the end of this year. I want to retire in Accra, Ghana. And the margin is going to be at a certain number inside of my portfolio. And I will live off of the interest of that portfolio that my margin allowed me to have.

44:33Hala Taha:So cool. I love this concept because margin, we always think about it in business, but we don't actually look at our personal life and think margin. So what is like the practical way for people to figure out what their margin is? I know it seems like an easy question, but break it down for people. No, I mean, it's an easy question, but it's also not easy for people who really don't understand it. Yeah. So I think for an example, let's say if you have, let's just go round number, if you have$5 ,000, right, of income, your net income, not gross, net income coming in, you write that down. and then you're going to look down and this is what we call a zero base budget.

45:09You're going to write down all of your expenses. And I tell everyone, man, write down your student loans, write down your hair, write down your makeup, write down your shoes, write down the apps that you're, every single thing that you're spending money on, if you're in a church and you tithe in offerings, you got to write that down as an expense. And then you will see, once you get done with that, before you get to zero, you will see how much money you have left. I call that margin and sometimes the majority of us are at negative because we're overspending what we have coming in

45:43Hala Taha:that's living above your means basically that's exactly what that is yes so we're using credit cards and payday loans and all type of stuff and so I'm like for me that's how you can identify if you have margin margin is going to build your net worth and if you are negative then you got to go back to your budget and you got to figure out okay wait Can I cut? And sometimes, a lot of times, honestly, you can't cut nothing else, which goes back to what you said earlier. We got to get some more income coming in. And so, but if you have, let's say$5 ,000 and you have, let's say,$3 ,500 going out, this means that you have$1 ,500 in margin.

46:23So now you understand that. Cool. Great. Now on the paper, on your budget, go back and say, how am I going to invest and spend this$1 ,500?

46:32Hala Taha:Yeah. And that's what I tell everyone, man. I think for years, I grew the, I would say people thought that I was very strict. And I think that with that margin, you have to determine how much of that do you just want to spend and enjoy. Because I do believe that there has to be a moment and some time and resources in our life that we can just spend money on what everyone's spending on. Yeah. And enjoy life. Yeah. Because every single day, the majority of us are getting up every day working hard, sunup and sundown. You're an entrepreneur. We can't work 8 to 5. Sometimes we got to work 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., right?

47:11And so I want to enjoy.

47:14Hala Taha:Especially while we're young and we can do the fun things, right? Go traveling and everything like that. But that means that we need to make sure that while we're young, we have a big enough margin, right, to do what we need to do. And I just think this generation has the opportunity to do some things that our parents and great-grandparents could not do. You know, I think we can get to margin quicker. All of my mentees who I mentor, they all signed a contract and an agreement with me that they will maintain a certain amount of margin. And we just had one young guy. He is 26, started with me four years ago.

47:52He graduated college, got a job making about$62 ,000, and he went back home. He saved$13.80 a month, every single month, and he did some extra things on the side. He's 26, just bought a home, put down$100 ,000, paid cash for BMW, still has six figures inside of his account, and has a job now paying him about$82 ,000. Nice. And he's 26.

48:26Hala Taha:Amazing. So now he understands it. And we laugh all the time because he's like, man, everyone thinks because I had his BMW and I have this townhome that I'm just going to be balling out like that. And they still don't understand. They're like, no, no. Because he values traveling. He values going to play basketball with his big brother overseas. so he can take off work for two weeks and go do that because he has the resources and the funds to do it. So I think this generation just has so much freedom that I didn't have growing up, which I love though, because now I'm able to utilize it. Let's stick on margin a bit.

49:07Hala Taha:So when we have our margin, I'm assuming some of it goes to emergency savings, some of it goes to investing, some of it goes to debt. Is that right? Am I missing anything? For sure. I mean, here's my thing. If you have consumer debt, 90 % of it should be going towards your consumer debt. Got it. Okay. And then I would even say, if you have consumer debt, this is where I differ from the guru himself, Dave, I do believe that you still should be maximizing on your 401k match. If they're giving you a match, let's say if it's 3%, we'll take some of your margin and give them 3 % of your margin to do that.

49:42But let me rewind. If you're drowning in debt, you really don't have margin. Right? And so you need to utilize as much as the extra cash that's not going to mandatory bills. You need to utilize that to get you out of consumer debt. Got it.

49:57Hala Taha:So pay off your consumer debt and then you can focus on margin. Absolutely. Got it. Absolutely. Cool. And then how much of that do you think should go towards savings versus investing? Yeah. So for me, I don't really have a certain amount. I have an amount that you should land on. I believe that we should be at at least six months of our net pay inside of an emergency account. Okay. And the reason why that is because it's taken on average about 90 days, 90 to about 120 days for someone to lose their job to get a new job. And so I want you to be comfortable and not have to change your lifestyle at all for those 90 days.

50:32Because what studies are showing is that if we can operate out of our slow mind, we make better decisions. If I only have$1 ,000, right, to my name and I just got fired. I gotta operate off my fast mind and that's when we tend to make the wrong decisions and so for me when I can just still be Anthony O 'Neill and not stress I'm gonna sit down I'm gonna call you hey sis I just what do you think I should do because I have time to think you're not just like

51:06Hala Taha:making like you know crazy moves that are gonna put you in a bad situation that's it and so I think six months after six months I say in my book, and I talk about this, some people may disagree with it, you shouldn't invest up to 22 % of your income. 22 % of your income is gonna be 10 % to tithe and offerings if you are practicing Christian, and then right around 12 to 15 % into investment accounts and portfolios. Nice. Okay, so let's say you're a high income earner. A lot of our listeners are entrepreneurs. This is an entrepreneurship show. And some of us are making millions of dollars a year and we have a lot of income.

51:46Hala Taha:So for me, for example, if I was to save six months of my income, that's a lot of cash. Good. And like, would you want me to put that in a high yield savings account or is stocks considered okay? No. Okay. No, I need you to keep it liquid. You know, we're blessed to do, you know, a lot of money as well. And I honestly have a year. I have a year because of my expenses. I still have a mortgage. So I still have debt. I don't really believe in a term, good debt, bad debt. I have debt that's on an asset, right? And so I wanted to make sure that I have enough money to pay my mortgages, right? Because I have more than one.

52:30I have rental properties as well. And then I could still play golf, right? I could still do whatever I want to do. So when I say your net pay, your net pay should be able to cover every single thing. So I keep that park into a high yield savings account. There's several out there that if you have more than six figures, let's say for an example, you can get about 5.5 to 6 % on some of that. Which one?

52:52Hala Taha:Because Amex, I was putting it in American Express and it just reduced it from like five and a half to three and a half. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When I opened up Mines, I was with Baint Purely. Okay. And it was offering 5.7. Nice. I haven't checked them lately because I don't look at that account. Yeah, that's just rainy day money. Yeah, I don't even want to see that money. I know it's there. I don't even have a card to that account. I just know that it's there. And if I ever have an emergency, then boom, I can go to it. But I haven't seen that account, honestly, in maybe about four years. Nice.

53:24I just put the money there and I let it sit there. But I get that a lot of people, especially in our bracket, they're fearful to let their money sit there liquid. Totally, yeah. Right? Yeah. Because they say it's not growing. But in today's economy, you need some funds liquid to make sure that you're prepared for when the storm is coming.

53:45Hala Taha:Yeah. Because it's coming. I mean, I've been doing this now on my own going on for now six years, right? And there's been some months that my business did not make any money. There's been some months that my business made a little bit of money, right? And so because I had the funds liquid, I was able to pay my staff and my team and just didn't take a check for myself. Yeah. And just lived off of my savings. So important for entrepreneurs whose income is always fluctuating and everything like that. Yeah. I think it's bad management. And it's not really good entrepreneurship if your personal life is not taken care of.

54:22The reason why I can focus on my business and really excel on my business is because I know personally I'm covered.

54:29Hala Taha:Yeah. And this is what I tell all the entrepreneurs. Never go into your personal income to fund your business. I will let my business go before I pull for my personal. Why? Because my personal is my life. That's my livelihood. You know, that's my family. So I'm not going to take money from my family to fund, I hate to say it like this, someone else's family. No. Hey, I teach it to my staff. When you first join my team, save money, bro. Because if I have to shut this down to protect my family, I'm going to do that. Right? And so I'm not going to pull money out of that to go save this because your business account should already have an emergency account.

55:06So we have an emergency fund. If I have to use all that for some odd reason, I'm not going to pull from my wife and my children to go fund this just to make payroll.

55:16Hala Taha:In the beginning, though, you might want to save up money to bootstrap your company. For sure. And then at a certain point, you're like, OK, that's what happened to me. At a certain point, I was like, OK, the business needs to work on its own. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in the beginning, you should be your number one investor. But if we're talking about entrepreneurship and we've made millions and we still don't have an emergency account on that account. Yeah, no, you unfortunately made a bad decision. And so I do not, I will not do that. And that was just one thing that my mentors told me.

55:46They said, hey, man, for that first year when I stepped out on my own, man, I paid myself a very small fee. And I was so fearful because I was like, hey, man, entrepreneurship is not easy.

55:59Hala Taha:Yeah. And what you don't want to do is build this, make all this money, then you got to rob from your future family just to make payroll. It's like, man, you need to have X amount of dollars sitting inside of a high-yield savings account, not invested yet. and then really start building things. Because I already had the savings account on this and I was about to pull money out of my emergency savings account to fund the business. And my mentor told me no. Let's talk about making more margin. One of the ways that we can do that is by taking a second job, becoming an entrepreneur where there's no ceiling.

56:36Hala Taha:And something really interesting that I heard you say is that you wouldn't advise people taking a high six-figure job, like a$350K job a year, you wouldn't advise doing that because it's kind of like golden handcuffs, right? Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, if I pay, if you come work for me and I'm paying you$150K and you don't pick up the phone call at 7.30 at night talking about you was with your husband, I'd be like, no ma 'am, I paid too much money for that. And so my suggestion, right, for if we're speaking to your audience, right, we are in a unique time. I think within the next five to 10 years, we're going to see a major wealth transfer happening.

57:15And I had the opportunity to sit down with the president of the Black Chambers in Washington, D.C., and just listen to him talk. I was like, wait a minute.

57:26Hala Taha:Okay. For an example, we're living in a day and time to where people who know how to work AI, they're going to get some good jobs. Yeah. For sure, right? But AI can't touch the AC companies. AI can't touch roofing. AI can't touch plumbing. And so what I'm telling these young guys coming out, I'm like, hey man, if I was you, I would go work for a trade company, learn the trade, right? Do that on the side and start your business. Because AI can't come in there and figure out why is it not getting cold. They can help you with some coding and let you figure out, okay, this is the problem, but you got to actually go in there and fix it.

58:03And we're in Austin. It's 98 degrees here right now. Right. So we know houses are running at AC and an AC unit is going out. And so I think when it comes to margin and growing more margin, if I'm an entrepreneur right now, let's say I have a little bit of margin that I can invest. I'm going to go buy an AC company. I'm looking at any kind of trades that requires physical hands. And I'm going to talk to that 80 year old, 90 year old owner and say, hey, can I come work with you for a year or two and buy this company from you? Now that when I buy this company, man, one of my friends just did that.

58:42Company was making maybe about$700 ,000 a year. He added in new technology, brought in AI to run and to handle the other stuff. Last year, I think he told me he made like 1.3. His investment in it was, I think he said he paid one for it, one million for the business. I'm like, wait a minute. Okay. So even if you can't buy it, if you need to make extra income, man, I will be working in that field right now because that's where a lot of nobody really wants to go out there in the heat. Nobody wants to do the plumbing. And so a lot of people and I will say this and people may disagree with me, but I say I think that's probably the quickest way to become a net worth millionaire.

59:24Hala Taha:Right now is to go into trade work. Absolutely. because everybody wants to set up an AC and just do coding and figure out AI and do automations and stuff like that. Great. I think that world is going to be saturated. I'm always looking for, when I'm doing my stuff, right? And I'm always trying to find different avenues. I'm saying, what is the void and how can I fill it? Even if it's unattractive, even if it looks horrible, if it's a void and I can fill it, oh, I'm going to make a lot of money. Yeah. Because nobody else wants to do it. And because nobody else wants to do it, I can charge a premium price.

1:00:01But now everybody's in AI automations. Everybody's coming out with this AI something, something. Wait a minute. Well, why should I go with you? Let me go. I can go to her. I can go to him. I can go to her. I can get the best quote. Boom. But there's not a lot of trade companies out there. Yeah. So I really believe that if someone really wants to get some extra cash real quick, I'm looking into trade.

1:00:25Hala Taha:When I first started my company, Yap Media, I actually was working for Disney. And I had my podcast already and I started building my social media and podcast agency on the side. I had international employees and I would finish work and I would work on my social media business at night. And within six months, I was making over six figures a month and I quit my job and, you know, became a full-time entrepreneur. But those six months were amazing because it was COVID time. So like I was working from home. Yeah, yeah. And I was like able to kind of build this new thing on the side. And it was because I was getting paid a little bit over six figures, but I wasn't like an executive yet.

1:01:05Hala Taha:If I was getting paid$300 ,000 a year, I would have felt like Disney's my identity. I've got to do everything for this company. And I wouldn't have dared started anything on the side. So it was sort of like a blessing to have like kind of like a lower level job so I could start my own thing. I think that is what I said on that clip. I'm like, hey, if you're looking at this being your forever situation, I understand. But I never really looked at something and said, I'm going to be here forever. I've always looked at something to where I'm going to be a good steward while I'm here. I'm going to serve.

1:01:38I'm going to grow. I'm going to learn and then step out eventually and do my own thing. And I would advise that to anybody, man. If you can get you a job that's paying you 80 grand, 90 grand a year, and you can live way below your means and come home every single day. Eight to five, you work for them. Five to nine, you work for yourself. You will excel. And I believe you'll even pass your goals and your dreams one day.

1:02:03Hala Taha:Now I'm making like at least five times more than my VP was making at Disney. You know, like making so much more than I would have if I just stayed on that corporate track. Yeah, I agree with you. And it feels good. It does feel good. It feels good. But you also have to be giving, right? As an entrepreneur. Absolutely. You were saying as a Christian that you're very generous. You even teach that you should give before you even start investing. For sure. I think generosity is one of the best kept, I can't say wealth secrets. Because every wealthy individual, even Dave, you had him on. I've never seen a more generous entrepreneur outside of Dave Ramsey.

1:02:43Hala Taha:Yeah, he's the best. Yeah, you know. And I believe, okay, wait, wait, wait. If he's doing it, my parents, super generous at their income level. I'm like, wait a minute. And I've never seen my dad frown. I've never seen him miss a mortgage payment. I've never seen him, like, go broke. And what I've learned with all of the individuals who are generous, yeah, they're at different levels, right, income-wise, but they have so much joy in their life. And I said, okay. And a true story, when I first transitioned out on my own, you know, of course my paycheck stopped. And so for the first three months, I didn't make any money.

1:03:28But every single month I still gave away. I paid myself out of my savings and I gave away 10%.

1:03:34Hala Taha:Yeah. Before I paid my mortgage, before I did anything else, I gave 10 % away. and I just believe whether you believe in God or believe in universe, I'm a God-fearing man and so I believe that God said, you know what? Anthony's being faithful with the few. Let me bless him with more. And I was like, okay. And so when I started noticing that my income was going up and when my income would go flat, maybe sometimes down for a season, like for us in the money space, that June, July, August, that's when our money tends to go down. Then it goes back down right around November and December because everyone is going for Christmas.

1:04:16I've never skipped a beat. I've never missed a payroll. I've never been able to not do what I want to do. And so our CFO, she understands that every single month we give away 10%. And specifically within our company, we give away 10 % to single mothers. And we just love it. We've bought a single mother a car before. Sometimes we put it on social, sometimes we don't. But I just really do believe that if you're generous, it activates the spiritual realm for me. And I believe that is the greatest multiplier quicker than stocks, bonds, real estate. Because if God can trust me with this amount, then he'll enlarge my territory.

1:04:59And that's what I love.

1:05:00Hala Taha:I totally agree with that. I'm actually 100 % Palestinian. Oh, I love this. So I feel a lot of guilt because I'm like, oh, I should like use my platform to be an activist. But I already started my career before a lot of this happened. And so something that I did is that I started a charity project called Four Piece Media. And I donate. At first it was more, but now it's 10 % of my sponsorship money every month. There you go. And I basically just fund this project. And it's a whole other platform that basically speaks out about human rights and things like that. Yes. And it does make me feel like I'm getting rewarded for doing that.

1:05:40Hala Taha:And it helps me mentally think about everything that I do. It has a purpose. And the bigger that I get, the more impact that I'll make on the world. No, that's a fact. Listen, me and you are the same way, right? And so I was like, man, I don't want to be Black power on my show with all the stuff that has happened. And so I did the same thing too. I started a nonprofit and we donate to that. And we donate to that, that creates and donates to some of the other causes out there because I want to be a blessing to everybody. Yeah. But I also understand that I am an African-American male in the United States of America.

1:06:21And there are some issues that need to be corrected. That battle is mine, but I fight it differently. I fight it with my resources.

1:06:28Hala Taha:Yeah. And I've funded and people don't really know where Anthony stands because I respect and love everybody. But I think what you're doing, man, keep doing that. Thank you. You know, and there's nothing wrong with that because we all got it. We all got to do it. I like that. I like her even more. Is that my camera right there? I like her even more now, y 'all. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Okay. So I want to play a little game with you. Okay, we're going to play a game. We're going to talk about, so in your book, you talk about escape plans. Yes. Okay. And there's different stages. We don't have time to go over all the stages.

1:07:01Hala Taha:Yes, ma 'am. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a scenario and you're going to tell me what is the next step that the person should do. Okay. So first in this scenario, what is the next step that they should do? Somebody earns$90 ,000 a year, but has no idea where the paycheck goes each month. What do they do? The very first thing is they got to lay down the foundation. That's the very first thing. So that's phase one. So within our, my philosophy, right, is if you're making$90 ,000 and you have no idea where it's going, you need to step back and look out, okay, what am I doing with this money?

1:07:38And one of my friends, I'll talk about this inside the book, she is an ER doctor. And she said one of her biggest complaints is that people will come in to see her. I forgot the correct term for it, but she's like stage two, like gunshot wounds and something major. She goes and she deals with that. And she says the very first thing they ask me or the family asked me is to fix them. And she said, that's the wrong ask. Because if I go in there thinking I'm fixing them, I could honestly kill this individual. The very first thing, I got to get him stable or get her stable, get her heart pumping without us having to pump the heart.

1:08:18Once I get you stable, then I can go in there and assess what is wrong with you. What happened? How do we fix it? And I think that's what we got to do. If you got$90 ,000 and you don't know what's going on. okay, wait, we need to get you stable. And stabling is, all right, very first thing is you need to set aside at least one month of your net pay. So that way you know exactly where one month of your money is going. Then from there, we got to sit down, look at your budget. If you don't know where it's going, what are you spending it on? Okay, what's your mortgage? You know, how much money are you spending on clothes?

1:08:49What's your transportation looking like? What's your food looking like? Do you have childcare, right? Like what's going on with your children over there? Let's lay down the priorities and let's put everything honestly on the table. And I think this is where people mess up at. They're not honest with themselves. They guess. No, go pull up your last three months of your bank statements. Go pull up the last three months of your credit card statements. Go pull up all of your credit reports, all three of them, and put it on the table and put the truth before you because we cannot fix what we refuse to look at.

1:09:23And so that's the very first thing I would do. for that scenario.

1:09:27Hala Taha:So good. A family invests consistently, but they don't have a will, trust, or life insurance. Yeah, so that means your legacy is not cement. It's not locked in, right? And so we talk about this in phase five that I believe that everybody should be focusing on building a legacy, right? And so it just happened to me. It just snapped on me personally five years ago. I was investing, got no consumer debt, making a lot of money. And I woke up one morning feeling guilty that I did not have a trust. I didn't have a will. And I felt convicted that if I was to die today, because I have a unique situation for parents, two siblings, a staff that depends on me, that my family would argue over what I want and what I wanted them to do with my resources.

1:10:24So I literally woke up, called my attorney and said, hey, I need to put an estate plan together. I need to get a will. I need to get a trust. And you know what's so funny is all of them was like, are you okay?

1:10:35Hala Taha:Like, what's about to happen? It was like, do you need to tell us something? And it's so sad that people think when we start talking about wills and trusts and medical power of attorneys and stuff like that, that something's wrong. Like, we need to change the narrative. Like, no, life can just happen. I mean, we see it all over the news every single day that you can think you're going somewhere, you can think you're going to go back to sleep, and life can just happen. And I didn't want life to just happen to me without it being clear of what I want to do. And so I put together my trust, my will, my power of attorneys, and even, watch this, I moved all of my beneficiaries to the trust.

1:11:18So that way, when it goes to probate court, it won't be as expensive for my family.

1:11:23Hala Taha:Is there like a certain like milestone where people should be considering having a will and a trust? Is it like an income level or is it when you have kids? No, no. Like how old do you recommend people do this? As soon as you have a job. Really? Yeah, because there's layers to it, right? And so if you're 22 years old, just got a job making$30 ,000,$35 ,000 a year, you got an apartment, you got a car. start the process because here's why. Yes, you may not have a lot, right? But you're building the habit for yourself. And that's what I want you to do. So if you get a basic will, man, put on their mom day.

1:12:00Hey, don't be crying at my funeral. You know, have a choir and sing some happy songs. Whether it's just something small, cool, great. But then as you get older, wiser, making more money, have more assets, have more things, then it's honestly gonna be even a bit cheaper for you just to go back and to add things to it rather than start from scratch from brand new. And so I tell everyone inside my book, the very first thing is in phase one, as you're getting stable, hey, yes, go ahead and get a basic will, get a basic trust, right? And then build on it as your assets and as you have more income.

1:12:39Hala Taha:Okay, this one's about debt. Uh-oh. A couple has$40 ,000 in consumer debt. And I'd love for you to explain to us, because we said it a bunch, like, what does consumer debt even mean? And only$500 in savings. What should they do? They have$40 ,000 in debt and only$500 in savings. Oh, man. Do they have income? Let's say they're making$100 ,000 together a year. Okay, that's good. That's average. That's middle class. Let's say about$83 ,000 for the middle class individual household income. $40 ,000 in debt,$500 in savings. Okay, cool, great. Very first thing I'm going to tell you is consumer debt, to me, is anything that is requiring me to spend money on a liability, right?

1:13:24And then debt that I have is anything that is going to be on an asset, like land, real estate, right?

1:13:33Hala Taha:So house, car, is that, is car? So, yes, to answer your question, a car is not, that would be for me, considered consumer debt. Some people say, well, wait a minute, if I'm using it for Uber, it's still consumer debt, right? It's not an asset because it depreciates, right? So I think a car is one of the worst things you can actually borrow money for it, respectfully saying that. But for me, if I'm the couple, I'm making$100 ,000 a year, I have$40 ,000 in debt, and I only have$500 in savings, the very first thing I'm doing is I'm going to put at least one month of my family's net pay inside of the savings.

1:14:12So that's for me and my wife. If my wife makes$2 ,500 and I make$2 ,500, we put in$5 ,000 for an example inside that account. Then from there, I'm sitting out with my wife and we're going to list out all of the debt. Now there's two type of ways. Some financial advisors argue with me all the time on this one, but this is where I align with Dave. I'm going to look at all my debt and I'm going to line it all up from smallest to largest when it comes to the amount, not to the interest payment.

1:14:40Hala Taha:And that's debt snowball. The debt snowball, right? Yeah, so I'm not a fan of the debt avalanche. Now, let's be honest, the debt avalanche does make sense. That's starting with the biggest. The biggest interest rate down to the smallest, right? Which makes sense because you would save money, I guess, over time, right? Well, if you do the math, yes. But if my interest rate is 28 % on a$30 ,000 loan, yeah, no, I'm going to pay this payment and I'm not going to see it go down. And so we see success when people can honestly see quick wins. I am in the process of getting my AFC for a financial counselor.

1:15:21And one of the things they tell us is one of the best things you can do is identify a quick win for your client. And so if we can get people to see quick wins, man, they'll get through that debt snowball very quickly.

1:15:35Hala Taha:Because it's a behavior thing. It's a behavior thing. It's a habit thing. And they can see it. They can see the fruit of their labor and their sacrifices and their hard work. They can see, I'm going to say no to McDonald's today for my family and go cook at home. I'm going to take this money and put it on this debt. They see the payment go down. So it creates this momentum and excitement. And I think that's what I would do for them. I'm getting on the debt snowball method. and watch it. Let me go deeper. You said family. Mom and dad need to have a conversation with the kids and let them know like, hey, we are in debt and we want to make sure that you understand why we may not be able to go to Pizza Hut this weekend.

1:16:15Why we may not be able to do certain things as a family because we want to make sure that when you graduate high school that we can give you a check, that we can help pay for school And not just do it behind closed doors, bring children in because they need to understand about money earlier on and let them help. Hey, go cut some grass. And if you make$100 from cutting grass, you're going to contribute$15 to this.

1:16:45Hala Taha:And now when the parents say no, the budget is the bad guy, not the parents. And that's the thing, too, when it comes to marriage, man. Being a single person, I'm not qualified to give dating advice, right? But I have a lot of married people come to me, and when they come to me with money arguments, what I would say about 70 % of the time, it is not really money arguments. It's just a lack of a clear, defined vision for the finances of the family. She has her own vision for the money. He has his own vision for the money. And so my philosophy is this, no matter what you said, if we sit down as a couple and as a family and say, this is our vision for the family.

1:17:22Son, you want to go to school? Yes, sir. You want to go to school debt-free and take no student loans? Yes, sir. Cool, great. Mom, what you want? Wife, what you want? Boom, husband. Father, what you want? Boom, great. We put it on the table. Here's our goals. Here's our vision. Now, when son comes to me and says, can I have this? You don't got to ask me. Just ask the vision. If my wife came to me and said, babe, I know we got the money. Okay, cool, great. But does that, if we buy that, does it stop us from accomplishing the vision that we set out for? Now it goes back to what you said. I don't have to tell my wife no.

1:17:53The vision told my wife no. My wife doesn't have to tell me no. The vision told me no. And so I think that's very, very important for a family that if you are in that amount of debt and you have that little bit of resources, is the very first thing I'm doing is I'm getting money inside of that and I'm sitting down, I'm getting a clear vision. So if you aim at something, you can get close to that or hit the target. But if you aim at nothing, you want to hit that all the time.

1:18:20Hala Taha:Yeah. I want to move into relationship advice, financial advice. But first I want to talk about the debt snowball because I never really understood what it meant. And then I did learn and it was pretty interesting. Like basically you start with the smallest amount, you pay that off, and then you take take, you go tackle the next one and you roll in whatever you would have spent on the smallest amount on the next debt payment. Yes. So it kind of makes it easier because you're already used to spending that money, right? Absolutely. So what happens is let's say you have three items. One of them is$25 a month.

1:18:52The next one is$50 a month. And let's say the next one is$100 a month. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to make all the minimum payments on all of them. I'm paying at 25, right? But then the debt snowball really works when you can make extra money and put it on top of the very first one. So let's say you go look at your budget. You're already paying$25 here, $50 here,$100 there. But let's say you found an extra, you turned off Netflix, you turned off Spotify, you turned off some extra things, you got an extra$25, just for simple math. Well, I'm already paying$25. I'm not going to spend this$25 on the food.

1:19:26I'm going to take this$25 and put it on top of the first$25. Now I'm paying$50. Okay, now I'm paying regular bills. Then when this one gets done, I have$50 over here that I was paying. Now I'm going to take this 50. I'm going to put on top on the next 50 for the account number two. Now I'm paying$100, right? And I think that's the secret to the debt snowball.

1:19:48Hala Taha:It like gamifies it a bet. For sure, right? And then I'm just a guy to where, man, when I was getting out of debt, I was calling them. I was like, hey, listen, you know, I got some extra money. Can I put it towards principal? Can I cut a deal with you? Can I get out of this quicker? Like, I want to pay you back this money ASAP. I got excited. I got so excited, too, that I think ladies back then when I was dating, they didn't like me because I just would not spend any money. We didn't spend any money on them? I wouldn't do it because I'm like, well, if I— We got to invest in your girl, too, right?

1:20:19Hey, man, listen, man. When I was getting out of debt, man, back then in them days, it was Denny's. We would go to Denny's. Sometimes we'll go to IHOP. And I was like, yo, I can't do it. You know? So I would literally go back to the crib. I'll make a peanut butter and jello sandwich. I remember taking the young lady on a date to the beach and I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, some Cheetos and some Kool-Aid and bought a blanket. And we had a blast. I mean, we didn't we didn't last too long. But I mean, I think for me, it was I was I saw the fruit of me working two, three jobs at that time.

1:20:54I saw my money actually making an impact on my life. And for the first time in my life working that I saw freedom. I didn't see more money. I saw like, wait, wait, wait. I could really be free here.

1:21:06Hala Taha:Yeah. Well, you learned your lesson 19 years old. For sure. And I learned it again at 23 and I learned it again. When I finally got it, I was like, wait, I could really be free and I could be the first family. I could be the first person in my family to have freedom. And that meant a lot to me. More than having a girlfriend and more than impressing people. Because I knew that with me being a man, I got to provide for my family. And I don't want to tell my children I can't buy them shoes because I was at IHOP and Denny's years ago. I love that. Okay, so speaking about family relationships, how do you feel about prenups?

1:21:45Oh, man, you know, such a funny conversation. I feel as if prenups for a certain net worth, certain people is wise. I think prenups are good, right? But if you're coming in or something, you got nothing and she got nothing and he got nothing.

1:22:03Hala Taha:I feel like that's the best, but so many of us are older and not in that situation. Yeah. My attorney, he told me, he was like, Anthony, when you get married, I'm not letting you get married without a prenup. And the Christian side of me was like, what? No, no. You're crazy, man. I'm not getting to this expecting it. He said, yeah, but 52 % of marriages are not working. He said, and out of all of the couples who come to me, they were in love day one. But the truth of the fact is we're all dating a different human being and you never know. And I can say this respectfully without saying too many names, but someone in my family, I would have never thought they was going through a divorce.

1:22:42They're going through a divorce today. And it is emotional. It is emotional. I cried one night because 42 years of marriage and the hell that she's having to go through, the bills that comes with it. It's just not fair. And because of their situation, it's looking like this particular family member will have to pay him something.

1:23:08Hala Taha:Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And so I'm like, yeah, no, you ain't about to get me at this age with that. So I think that it should be a healthy conversation that both parties bring to each other and just ask, how do you feel about it? This is where I'm at in life. This is where you are in life. And I would not go to the extent of saying that if she or he is not willing to sign a prenup, then you should walk away. I can't say that. But I think that it should be a serious conversation. And I think we need to. I know me, when I'm dating, like, hey, we were to get married. What's the worst case scenario? Like, what do you want?

1:23:44Like, if we were to get divorced, what would you want from your husband? Because right now we're happy. We're in our right minds. We're not hurt. We can be fair up front, right? Yeah. And I think that that's why I like prenups. Because when things go wrong, man, even the good people can turn nasty at times.

1:24:04Hala Taha:Yeah. How often do you think people in relationships should be talking about money? Like, should there be like a monthly meeting? Like, what do you suggest? Married or just in general? Let's say married. Oh, yeah. It should be monthly. I mean, one of my good friends, Darrell and his wife, they actually talk every Tuesday about money. They have a business meeting. I think that marriage, I want to say this correctly. I'm not marrying someone who I only love. Love doesn't pay bills. Love doesn't build legacy. to you. I'm marrying someone that I love and that I can build a business, a dynasty, a family with.

1:24:41And her IQ when it comes to money is important to me. Her IQ when it comes to business. I'm not saying she has to be an entrepreneur. She has to understand how to have the conversation with me around business. And so I think that every week, every other week, at least bare minimum monthly, we should be having a healthy conversation about money. But if we rewind before then, by date three, you should be talking about money.

1:25:11Hala Taha:Oh, really? For sure. What do you think the question should be? Like what should you bring up on date three? Hey man, tell me how was your upbringing when it came to your family? Like what was your money philosophy? What are some of your goals with money? What are some of your goals right now with money? Can you ask, do you suggest asking people like how much they make. Why? Why? It doesn't matter. Because he can make$200 ,000 and still be$300 ,000 in debt. True. She could be making$50 ,000 as a school teacher. She would be like, what's your margin? But I'm just saying, it was like, if I ask a young lady today, hey, what are some of your money goals today that you're working on?

1:25:50And she tells me, yeah, man, you know, I'm trying to invest 15 % of my income. She has margin. I'm trying to save up for a house. Okay, she has margin, right? Or if she says, I mean, I don't really, you know, I don't really got no gold. Okay, so you ain't got no money. Right? And so for me, mindset, how people think around money can give you a ballpark of where they are with their money.

1:26:14Hala Taha:Right? And so, which goes back to what we said in the very beginning. If the young lady would have asked me, well, when she asked me my credit score, that was on day one. And I told her the truth. If she would have came back with a second question, she would have been highly impressed. that, okay, wait. And then it would have started, I think, a conversation that probably would have been intriguing to her because one thing we do know about ladies, and correct me if I'm wrong, because again, I'm still single for a reason, but ladies love to learn something from the man who they're with. Yeah, totally.

1:26:44And so I could have taught her some things about why I have this philosophy of, I want more money in the savings. She would have solved my goals and the vision that I have for my life and how a credit score to me just simply means that I know how to borrow money and pay it back. But you don't know what my portfolio is with an 800 credit score. And so I think that when you're dating, man, have the questions around money because let's be honest, we talk about anything and everything else. So if we can talk about anything and everything else, why can't we talk about money? And there's been several ladies that I've respectfully walked away from just because we weren't aligned when it comes to the money thing.

1:27:27Hala Taha:I love that. Well, Anthony, this has been such an incredible conversation. Yes, ma 'am. And it really has been. I end my show with two questions I ask all of my guests. Okay. The first one is, what is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? Oh, man. That's a good question. make better decisions when it comes to your money. I believe that the caliber of our financial futures will be determined by the choices that we made today. So if you want to make more money, become more profitable, sit back and look at what is a decision today that I can change that would change my tomorrow into my future.

1:28:07Hala Taha:So Anthony, what is your secret to profiting in life? For me, at this season of my life, every decision that I make now has to benefit my future tomorrow. And so that's how I benefit in life. And benefit in life does not mean I make more money. It means does it get me closer to my freedom goal? And so if it does, I'm profiting. That's beautiful. Anthony, thank you so much for joining us on Young and Profiting Podcast. Thank you for having me. I got to have you on my show now. Oh, I'd love that. Yeah, fam, I love these money conversations because they're really never just about money. They're about freedom, peace, options, and ultimately the kind of life you get to create for yourself and the people that you care about.

1:28:51Hala Taha:One of the biggest lessons from Anthony is that wealth is not just about how much money you make. It's not just about your income. It's about how much margin you can create. He talked about how people spend every dollar that they earn trying to maintain a lifestyle they cannot actually afford. They're trying to impress people rather than focusing on their own financial structure. Real financial freedom comes from creating space between what you earn and what you spend. That's called margin. Margin gives you breathing room when life happens. It gives you an emergency fund. And it gives you the ability to act on opportunities when they come your way because you've got the investment to do that.

1:29:27Hala Taha:The second lesson is that consumer debt is one of the biggest obstacles in building wealth. Anthony made a clear distinction between debt that helps you acquire appreciating assets and debt that funds temporary wants. Too many people are financing lifestyles that disappear long before the payments do, like flexing on a vacation for Instagram. The more money that goes towards debt payments, the less money you have available to invest, build, and create long-term security. And the third lesson is that wealth is not the end goal. The goal is not to be rich. The goal is to be free. free enough to give away as much as you want.

1:30:05Hala Taha:Anthony's vision of financial success was much bigger than luxury status or having the nicest things. He talked about building enough wealth to take care of your family, give generously to your community and the causes that you care about, and leave a legacy that continues long after you're gone. That perspective shifts the entire purpose of money. It stops being about impressing people and starts being about serving people. And if you believe what me and Anthony do, the more that you give, the more that the universe will reward you as an entrepreneur. When you put all these lessons together, you realize that building wealth is not a math problem as much as a lifestyle decision.

1:30:41Hala Taha:Create margin and lots of it. Eliminate unnecessary consumer debt. Stop spending money just to impress people and use money as a tool. Do that consistently and your financial future can look very different in a few years. Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting. If you know somebody who earns well but still feels financially trapped, share this episode with them. Anthony flew in all the way to Austin for this interview, so make sure you check us out in the flesh on YouTube or Spotify video. You can also check out his new book, Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck to Go Deeper. As always, this is your host, Halataha, aka the Podcast Princess, signing off.