Ramit Sethi: How to Spend Without Guilt and Still Build Wealth | Finance | YAPClassic

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23:53Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. I love that. I think that's a really great point. So let's talk about psychology. So one of the reasons why I love having you on Rami is because at Young and Profiting Podcast, our two favorite topics are money and psychology. This is what we talk about all the time. Oh my God, this is my home. Yeah. So it really is your home. You fit right in. You always say that a central topic of yours is that money isn't just about math. It's about psychology. You can give us all the information and knowledge about credit and debt, but until we master our money psychology, nothing really makes a difference.

24:28So you've got this classic book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, and you talk about invisible money scripts. And that was originally coined by Dr. Brad Clonks. I might have butchered that name, but I think that's how you say it. And invisible money scripts are unconscious transgenerational beliefs about money that are developed in your childhood. You mentioned some of those beliefs that you had as a child growing up earlier in the show. But I know that you have this awesome podcast where you essentially bring on couples, you start to unpack their problems around money. And a lot of these couples have invisible scripts.

25:00So can you tell us some of the common things that people believe around money and how that can negatively impact ourselves and the way that we approach life, as well as our partners and spouses and our lives together? One of the easiest ways to discover your invisible scripts is to answer this question. What do you remember your family saying about money when you were a kid? Does anything come to mind for you? Yeah, my dad actually, so also an Arab American immigrant. He was a surgeon. He made a lot of money when he came to America. And then he felt like everything was free because he was so not used to making money that he was very generous and sort of just always gave his money away.

25:42So I have a very, like, I'm not cheap because my dad was like really not cheap. Wow. And what would he say? Do you remember a phrase he said? He would just say, that's free. If something was a hundred bucks, he'd be like, oh, that's free, Baba. And so for me, nothing is expensive. Oh, that's cheap. You know what I mean? So very different, I think, for most people growing up. I think so. But you can already see the connection between your love of luxury goods, et cetera, and trace it back all the way to your family. Good or bad, it just is. And I think a lot of us are startled by the idea that the decisions we are making right now in our 30s or 40s or 50s can actually be traced directly back often to some phrase our parents said around the dinner table.

26:27Here's some examples. We can't afford it. Now imagine hearing that 10 ,000 times as a child and adolescent, and maybe you really couldn't afford it. Maybe, maybe not. Most people don't even know what they actually can afford, but it's just a phrase we reflexively say. Now imagine you come on my podcast, because this has happened many times, and you're now earning$350 ,000 a year. And your partner says, like, we've saved all this money. We've been frugal. Like, can we finally enjoy ourselves? Can we finally put some grass in the front yard? It has dirt. And you have all these logical reasons. Well, we got to save and we got to increase our savings rate by 1%.

27:03But deep down, it's your mom or your dad repeating in your ear, we can't afford it. Okay, so that's one of the most common things that happens. We can't afford it. We don't talk about money in this family is another common phrase that then translates into invisible scripts. Money's not to be talked about. It's shameful. We keep it secret. We don't learn about it, et cetera. That's for rich people, AKA we are good people, but those rich assholes, we don't need to be like them. We don't need to indulge in a fancy restaurant because we're simple and we don't need all that show off stuff. That's one that I think a lot of immigrant families learn.

27:36I certainly absorbed that one. So those are some invisible scripts about money, but we should also remember, like they're positive invisible scripts. My parents taught me that money's usually not the primary thing. Like if you work really hard and you're smart, you can usually find a way to crack the money code. Wow. That's a really powerful invisible script. I later found out when I was in my twenties, I asked my parents about how they raised us. And we had a, we played a lot of sports. It's expensive, right? To have kids in sports at multiple kids at one time. I found out in my 20s that my mom had called up the local soccer league.

28:10And she was like, look, I can't afford like all these fees. I have too many kids in soccer. And they said, okay, if you come early on Saturday morning and chalk the field, meaning put the chalk on the field, we'll waive those fees. So little did I know that my mom was going early to chalk the field in the early morning to a soccer field so that we could play soccer. We didn't even know that. Talk about learning an invisible script. Really powerful stuff. So, so sweet. I love that story. I know that one of the biggest things that couples fight about is money. And a lot of it is due to communication issues around money.

28:45So what are some of the communication barriers around money? And what can we do with our spouses to create a vision for a rich life together? So this is why I started the podcast, because my wife and I, we were engaged and we started talking about money. And I was like, Like, okay, this should be easy. Like, I'm the money guy. It's all good. And we started talking about a prenup. And it was going well at the beginning. And then it got really hard. And what I wished was that I could hear how other couples talked about it. I don't need some three bullet points about like, have the conversation. I'm like, what fucking conversation?

29:20What am I supposed to say literally word for word? Of course, nothing like this exists. And so because of my business and my community, I could create that. And so the way that this podcast started was totally accidental. This couple on Instagram reached out to me, just during COVID, and they're like, hey, we have$525 ,000 of debt, we're drowning, can you help us? I was like, all right, but you gotta do it live. They're like, cool. I'm like, and you have to share all your numbers. They're like, okay. I was like, wait, what? You said yes? So we did it, and it was magic. And that is because none of us has ever actually heard a real couple sharing real numbers from behind closed doors.

30:03So I bring on couples and they have to reveal everything. So they have$825 ,000 of debt. I've got couples like that. I have couples that have over$10 million in net worth and they're arguing or they're disagreeing about money. And sometimes it's that one person is an overspender. Sometimes it's that they just see money completely different culturally. Like the Pakistani couple that I had on, and he was expected to send money back to his family in Pakistan. And there's just a variety of different gay, straight, older, younger, geographically diverse. So the biggest mistake that couples make with money is they lack a rich life vision together.

30:43So they come in, and their presenting case is she spends too much at Target, or he is always using money for XYZ. And they really believe it's about the pickles. Like, I can't believe that. My partner buys the name brand pickles. I was never raised to buy name brand. Generic is fine for me. I go, okay, we're going to talk about these fucking pickles. All right, fine. So we talk about the pickles for like 25 minutes. And then I'm like, out of curiosity, do you remember anything growing up? Yeah, like, you know, my uncle was smothered to death with pickles. I go, wow, I wonder if that has anything to do with what we're talking about.

31:18So what happens really is they're focused on this transactional discussion of pickles or their tires or some target expenditure. But when I ask them, what is your rich life? They have no answer. It's really generic. I want to travel. I want to spend time with family. I go, where do you want to travel? How long do you want to travel? What airplane seat do you want to sit on? And so as we start to craft something together, which is their unique rich life, not mine, but there's suddenly all these transactional discussions about how much somebody spends at the grocery store become totally irrelevant.

31:52In fact, for everybody listening, you really do not need to track how much you spend at the grocery store. I don't. I actually only really track four numbers. And if you track those four numbers, you have more than enough to save, to invest, to even use for guilt-free spending, which can be date night, travel, et cetera. So it's a beautiful illustration of how money is not just about numbers, It's really about communication and psychology. Well, I have to ask you, what are the four things that you track? The four numbers to track. So if you've got a pen, pull it out because I'm going to give you these right now.

32:24These are part of my conscious spending plan. So the first is your fixed costs. Your fixed costs should be 50 to 60 % of your take-home pay. And fixed costs would be your rent or mortgage, utilities, car payment, gas, insurance, anything that is fixed and you're paying it off, even debt payments. That would be 50 to 60%. The next would be your investments. So what percentage of your take-home are you putting in investments? I recommend five to 10 % to start. Of course, I'd like to see that number bigger, but that's a good start. Savings, same thing, five to 10%. That would be money that you don't need for about one to five years.

33:02And finally, my favorite one, guilt-free spending, which is money you get to use for whatever. You want handbags, you want travel, you want face cream, you want to go out for drinks with your friends. 20 to 35 % of take home. All those, if you just do those things, you're going to be in great shape. It means you do not need to track the price of asparagus because it's already baked in. You do not need to worry about inflation. It's already baked into your plan. And you can get all these and a template for the conscious spending plan on my website. Awesome. So I think that's wonderful advice. And I'd love to move into conscious spending money dials.

33:37First, I want to read a quote that you've said in the past. It's about anxiety and money. You say deep down, a lot of people love feeling anxious about money because it's all they've ever known. I want to share a little story. It goes along with a lot of what you just said. My brother and his wife are very successful. My brother's a pediatric neurologist. His wife is a nurse anesthesiologist. Okay, together, they're making over a million dollars a year. They just have two little kids. They live in New York area, so it's pretty expensive. But the thing about my brother and his wife that always makes me go crazy is they always act so broke.

34:11Even though they're well above most people, some families are not anxious about money and make$150 ,000 a year. They're making so much more money than the average family, but always think they're broke. So why is this a thing? And how can people like them become more comfortable spending money? Wow, what a great question. This is one of my most fun topics to talk about because everybody teaches us how to save, but nobody teaches us how to spend. And the psychology of spending is absolutely fascinating. The frank truth is that most of us will go our entire lives without learning the skill of spending our money meaningfully.

34:52If you think of our lives like an orchestra, most of us have only one note, and that is save. That's it. That's all we know. Save, save, save. It's like taking the piano and playing it for every song. It's like, that song sucks now. We need some drums in here. Give me something else. What I want for people is, yes, you got to know how to save. That's a very valuable note. But you've also got to know when to spend on convenience or safety or even luxury. And what's interesting is that we all intuitively get this. In other parts of our life, we do not measure everything. Like, do you measure how long you hug your dad?

35:27Oh, I'm going to optimize my hug for 3.2 seconds because otherwise it's too long. No, we just intuitively know that we want to hug our loved ones. We want to spend time with them. And what I love to see is for people to combine the rigor of knowing their numbers, like the conscious spending plan and things like the rule of 72. These are all things that can be learned. They're not complicated. As well as the intuitive fun side of saying, you know what? Gosh, we have two kids. Wouldn't it be amazing if we took them to the zoo and we make a million dollars a year? Can we arrange some kind of behind the scenes exhibit?

36:06And you know what? We make so much money. Let's bring a couple of their friends with us. Maybe friends who couldn't afford to do that. Let's bring them with us. What a beautiful way to use your money to create these magical memories. So that's my vision for how spending is a skill. I think with folks like your brother and many others who I talk to on the podcast, by the way, you can actually hear them agonizing. Here's the psychology of it. They grew up hearing about saving, saving, saving. They've internalized that as their only note. They believe deep down that there's some day where they will finally feel good.

36:39And they believe that that day is a number. When I have 1 million, 2 million, 5 million, the truth is the way you feel about your money is highly uncorrelated with how much you've got in the bank. I talked to 10 million people with$10 million and they feel anxious and guilty. As my quote said, some people come to love feeling anxious. It becomes comfortable. If they don't feel anxious, then it's a new uncomfortable feeling, which they then become anxious about that. Better to go with the anxiety they know than the one they don't. And so it's possible to change. And the way that I do that is really by going deep into what they love and encouraging them that if you spend a little bit more, it's not going to destroy your life.

37:20And of course I show them the math, but the math is irrelevant. It's a feeling. But on the other hand, there are a lot of people who will never change because deep down they don't actually think it's a problem. Yeah. Let's move on to money dials because I think it fits right into this. And then don't forget to circle back to the rule of 72. I don't want to forget that whenever you feel like it makes sense. So with money dials, you've said in the past, show me a person's spending and I'll show you what they love. So fit people spend time to be fit. They spend money on the gym, fashionable people.

37:48They spend time on shopping and clothes. So tell us about money dials and some of the common money dials out there. Okay. Should we just do it for you? Let's just do the exercise together so everyone can see it. Yeah, yeah. All right. So let me explain what a money dial is. A money dial is something that you love to spend money on. Not just like, but love. So if I were to ask you, what do you love to spend money on? What would you say? Bags. Beautiful. So you love bags. I love it. So for everybody listening, think about what your money dial is. The answer we just got is kind of unusual, but I love how quick you were.

38:23You've clearly thought about it. The most common money dial, the most common area people love to spend on is eating out. Number two is travel. Number three is health and wellness. Number four is convenience. And there's a variety of other ones if you just search for money dials. So you said bags. Fantastic. Here's my second question for you. If you were to quadruple the amount you spent on bags, what would it look and feel like? If I would quadruple the amount of money I spent on bags, I would look really fly. I would feel really powerful and accomplished. Would you buy the same type of bag you have now, just four of them?

39:02What would you be getting? Honestly, I don't know if I would buy such an, there might be a threshold to how much I would spend on a bag, but I'm guessing I would buy more expensive bags. Okay. More expensive bags. What else? Turn that dial up. Let's go to 5X, 6X, 7X. Maybe I would have a custom bag. Okay. What else? I'm not sure. I mean, I love designer shoes. I don't know if I would keep spending it just on bags, but just in general, I'd probably be leveling up all my stuff to be designer ready to wear or whatever. Love it. All right. So let me explain what's going on here. So I call a money dial a money dial because just like a radio dial, you can turn it up.

39:38I always want to understand what do you love to spend money on? And then I want to understand what would it look like if you could actually spend more? Why? Because I believe you should spend extravagantly on the things you love as long as you cut costs mercilessly on the things you don't. And the sad fact is most of us have never actually thought of spending more on the things we love because what's the note that we're taught by everybody? Save. And so we do it so poorly. We save, we go, uh, I should probably save. And I go, why should you save? They go, uh, you just should, right? I go, this sucks.

40:11So they go, I tried to save 5 % on beans. I tried to save 5 % on parking tickets. I tried to save, I go, this is so ineffective. Why don't you take the area you love and spend more? And then once you know what your vision is and you're excited and motivated by it, then suddenly it becomes much easier to look at your expenses and cut back on the stuff that's not serving it. So if I were to come to you and we were to really work together and I were to say, okay, look, you want to buy this, I don't know, Birkin bag? And okay. And you go, oh my God. Yeah. I go, okay. Let's not just say Birkin. Show me the color.

40:46Show me the style. Show me the website where it's currently for sale right now. And you're like, oh my God, no money guys ever talked about this. So we're sitting there, we're going, and you're getting excited. And I'm like, look, this is a reality. It might take longer than you think, but we can model it all out. And you're like, oh my God, this could be mine. Because again, it drives you. Then I go, okay, now let's look at your expenses. If you want to get that Birkin bag, this is what we need to make some changes. What would you do? And suddenly people are totally amenable to it. I also want to point out one more thing.

41:17Most people are very linear in their thinking. When I ask them, you like to eat out, what would you do if you could quadruple your spend? And one guy goes, I'd probably have to go on a diet because I'd be eating out four times a week. Ha ha ha. And I go, ha ha ha. That's not actually funny. I go, when you turn your money dial up, it's not just linear. It doesn't just mean more bags or more eating out. Think multidimensionally. For example, maybe as in his case, he had a list of every Michelin starred restaurant in his city, DC. And I go, who'd you take with you? He goes, I'd take my family because they can never afford to eat there.

41:50I go, that's beautiful. Maybe like the young woman in Pasadena who loves fashion, she wouldn't just shop at H &M. She would, if she turned it way up, she would take her mom to Italy and they would go on a shopping trip and get something custom made just for the two of them. The vision can get as big as you want. The point is you've got to have something you are working for, something inspirational, aspirational. Otherwise, life is just a series of episodic transactional decisions and there is no inspiration whatsoever. Totally. I want to talk about how society actually demonizes spending and shopping, especially for somebody like me who likes luxury.

42:30I love that you say it too. I'm sorry to cut you off. I just love that you're so open about it. It's actually so refreshing to me. And I think clothes in particular get demonized as stupid and frivolous. And personally, and I think part, there's many reasons for that. Part of it is that historically, things that women have been interested in tend to be trivialized. And I'm fighting against that. I love clothes. I love that you love clothes. And I think that if your thing is handbags, like you saw my reaction. I'm like, fantastic. That's your thing. That's your money dial. Let's figure it out. Exactly.

43:02Because everybody has their thing. But let me tell you a story. So my mom was really cheap. My dad was really generous, right? So my mom grew up getting like two new sweaters a year. and for her, my obsession with clothes is something that she's always struggled with. Even now, you know, I'm a successful entrepreneur, multi-million dollar company. I make money off my photo shoots, dressing nice. I'm an influencer on LinkedIn. I always have to have new clothes and it's part of my personality, my business, but she's constantly giving me, even now, like if she comes over my apartment, I'm like hiding my bag, like hiding my stuff.

43:39I have to give her the parent price for everything. Oh, these jeans, they were like 40 bucks. I got them on sale. Exactly. So it's like parent price for everything. And so what should we do about people who shame us for the things that we buy? How should we treat those people? I know exactly what you are referring to. And I'll share what I've done, my model. So I remember when I first started to try to dress a little better. And whenever we're trying something new, it could be dressing better. It could be going to a gym for the first time or anything new. We are insecure. I was. Here I am wearing these pants that I've never worn before, and they're a little different style.

44:17And it's at that moment where if somebody says something mean to you, it can be crushing. And it can actually change the trajectory of your life forever. And I actually remember wearing something new and my friends being like, what are you going to an interview? It actually really hurt in retrospect. I didn't have the words for it at the time. But deep down, I knew that I wanted to get to be a better dresser. And I looked around at the folks. I was in Silicon Valley at the time, and I'm like, why am I even listening to you? Like you're wearing an extra large shirt from Cisco. What the hell? Why am I even taking advice from you?

44:48So my approach was simply to say like, hey, like cool, but I'm not listening to this person. Like they're the last person I take fashion advice from. As I have become more comfortable with my rich life and as I have refined it, it's actually become absolutely bewildering to other people. And that's exactly how it should be. So people are shocked. I'll give you an example. I have a sweater that costs more than my car. Wow. People go, what the fuck are you talking about? That's insane. That's exactly as it should be. I have a reader of mine who is living his rich life. He used my material. He and his wife retired in their 30s.

45:23They drive around the country in an RV. Okay, that's my personal hell. I don't want to get in an RV, right? Do you? No. Okay, so I'm like, but I love that that's their rich life and they are living it. The more you turn those dials uniquely to fit your life like a handmade glove, the more that the rest of the world will not understand you. And at a certain point where you are comfortable with your clothes or your bags or your decisions on where to go to eat, you go, I actually love it because it's okay that they don't understand. I'm not going to judge them. They're living their own life. But this is my life, my rich life, and I feel great about it.

46:08Young and profiters. I know there's so many people tuning in right now that end their workday wondering why certain tasks take forever, why they're procrastinating certain things, why they don't feel confident in their work, why they feel drained and frustrated and unfulfilled. But here's the thing you need to know. It's not a character flaw that you're feeling this way. It's actually your natural wiring. And here's the thing. When it comes to burnout, it's really about the type of work that you're doing. Some work gives you energy and some work simply drains you. So it's key to understand your six types of working genius.

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47:14I don't like it when people slow me down. I don't like hand-holding. I like to move fast, invent, rally people, inspire. But what I do need to do is ensure that somebody else can fill the enablement role, which I do have, Kate, on my team. So Working Genius helps you uncover these genius gaps, helps you work better with your team, helps you reduce friction, helps you collaborate better, understand why people are the way that they are, It's helped me restructure my team, put people in the spots that they're going to really excel. And it's also helped me in hiring. Working Genius is absolutely amazing.

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51:05There's probably more. But two of them I think are really interesting, convenience and social status. So I'd love for you to explain how those two can actually be money dials. Well, convenience is my money dial. And I love my life to be convenient. I'm going to tell you about my life and you're going to think I'm a serial killer. and I don't care because this is my rich life. So when I wake up in the morning, I want to know that my coffee, which is my favorite coffee, is in exactly the right place. I want to open up the fridge. Everything is perfectly organized and ready to go. When I open up my calendar, I can double click and the link is correct.

51:44And when I click the link, it takes me to the correct place in the dock. Basically, I want to have my life running so that even if I go blind, everything is seamless. Everything's where it needs to be. Now, if you're listening to this, you're like, this guy's a psycho. What does it matter to have to click an extra two pages down? It doesn't matter to you. To me, I love the idea of just beautiful orchestra of life, everything organized. It gets me going. I love it. If I can use money to do that, then I'm going to use money. That means having an amazing personal assistant. That means having all my stuff automated so I spend less than one hour per month on my finances.

52:21It means setting up SOPs, standard operating procedures. So for example, when I fly, my assistant knows exactly what seat, what airline, like there's no questions. It just runs. And I love that. A money dial is one of those things where you're constantly looking for new stuff and reading magazines and like social status is a really interesting one. Zero people admit to social status, zero. It's the least popular money dial. Ironically, I believe it's the one that people spend the most money on. because when you think about buying a house, and if you ask people like, why are you buying a house?

52:54And you really unpack it. A lot of people buy a house purely for social status because that's what they think you should do. That's what they think success is. In fact, in Jersey or Manhattan, it often makes no financial sense to buy a house. I've run the numbers. I lived in Manhattan for over 10 years. It made no sense. I rented and made more money renting because I invested the difference than to own. So again, people right now are going, this guy's insane. No, I just know how to run the numbers. And that's what I encourage you to do too. Chapter nine of my book. Social status is one of those things that is demonized and stigmatized.

53:27But actually, if you want to spend money for social status and you acknowledge it, I have no problem at all. You want to go to a pay for a nicer gym, Equinox or a private gym where it's always clean and you can always get on the machines. Fantastic. There's no problem with that. But let's just admit what we are paying for and then get clear. Hey, that's actually important to me and I'm okay with that. I love what you're saying because basically you're giving us guilt free permission to spend what we love spending on whatever is going to make us happy. We live once. What's the point of taking all that money to the grave or spending it on things that we personally don't care about and just like what we've been told to care about historically?

54:07I want to remind everybody, you have to be able to afford it. Absolutely. That is critical. So you can't just like twirl around three times and be like rich life, rich life, and then go buy a private jet. You need to be able to afford it. Same thing with buying a house. You know how many people I talk to buy a house just because they think they should, but they can't actually afford it because they don't measure TCO? That's a problem. But I do agree that when you really know what you love, life becomes quite rich for you. So that is why when you look at my spending, it's very heavy in certain areas.

54:37Travel, convenience, fitness makes perfect sense for me, but it's really light in other areas, like my car and things that I'm just not interested in. In fact, as a good example, my wife and I, we once had sushi in the city at this really nice place, and it was mind-blowing. It was amazing, the presentation, the food, all of it. That was for our anniversary. And we kind of looked at each other after and were like, wow, we would love to do this more. And also, why are we going to sushi once every month or two, just like cheap sushi, which isn't even satisfying. We'd rather not do that. and then do this once a year.

55:12So that's the kind of decisions that you may start to make. Or you may go, look, I don't need all this fancy stuff. I would rather have sushi once every month. Also cool. But I want you to make those decisions for yourself. Yeah, and to your point, it's all about balance. You can spend extravagantly on your money dials and then pull back on the things that you don't care about. And so it's all about balance and what you can afford, like you said. So one more question on spending. You've got spending frameworks. An interesting framework that you have is your book buying rule. So when you're thinking about buying a book, you just automatically buying it.

55:44Why is that such an essential spend for you? And how does that sort of turn the rule of logic in terms of how to spend on its head? Well, I have a, I call it Ramit's book buying rule. And the rule is simple. If I see a book that I'm even remotely interested in for five seconds, I just buy it. I don't question it. I don't bother checking the review. I just buy it. Why? Why? Because I know that to be able to get an author's life work for 10 or 15 bucks is the best deal you can ever get. And if I can just get one thing from it, it could change my life. So my belief with money is we should stop asking$3 questions and start asking$30 ,000 questions.

56:22A$3 question is, oh, should I buy this book? And like, let me open up 20 different tabs. It's like, just get the book. If you want the book, get the book. That's a$3 question. Same thing with, should I switch banks to get an extra 0.01 % or should I get the extra large Coke? It's like, that's a$3 question. You don't need to be asking that. But we ignore the$30 ,000 and$300 ,000 questions. What's my savings rate? What's my investment rate? What's my expense ratio and asset allocation? Most people don't even know what these terms are. And so we're sitting here fighting over the scraps of cheesecake and forgetting that you're actually paying 28 % of your returns to a financial advisor whose fees are 1 % and you don't even understand that fee structure.

57:04I want people to stop agonizing over$3 questions and start asking$30 ,000 questions. Yeah, I love that. Anybody who listens to this podcast, we're all trying to be young and profiting. We're all trying to build our wealth. So this is such a good segue to talk about your advice in the last 10 minutes that we have together about building wealth. So So let's talk about getting a well-paying job because this is aligned to those$30 ,000 questions. One of the ways to really make a big difference is to get a really good, well-paying job. So what's your advice on getting your dream job? Oh my God, I have so much to say about this.

57:39So I totally agree. I think that sometimes getting a job is demonized online. Everyone's like, oh, only losers get jobs. Like entrepreneurs are so cool. I'm like, it's cool being an entrepreneur, but it's also hard. and a lot of people want to work at an amazing job where they're respected and challenged and they can contribute more together than they could alone and they're paid well. So, you know, I have an entire course called Find Your Dream Job. There's a couple things that I would suggest that to extract from that course. Number one, finding a job is a skill, okay? It's a skill. It's not just like throwing your resume out there.

58:12In fact, that's what everyone else does. Like, you don't want to be a loser candidate who just posts their resume and waits. That's how people who get bad jobs get jobs. Finding a dream job means first start off, identify your dream role. What's the title? Then identify the dream company. At this point, you've narrowed it down to roughly 15 or so companies, maybe 10. Now you can get surgical. You can circle them like a shark. You can start going through their LinkedIn. You can start doing informational interviews with employees currently there or employees even better who used to work there. It's better because they'll tell you the truth.

58:44You can network your way in. Ask them like, what's the key strategy? I'm transitioning from this industry to that. What would you recommend? By the time you walk in that room, first of all, your resume has already been forwarded instead of gone through the front door. That's a key distinction. Second, you know what the company cares about so you can position yourself as such. And third, you're ready to nail the interview. Let's talk about the interview and the negotiation for a second. People mistakenly think that their job in an interview is to answer questions. If you believe that, you've already lost.

59:11Nobody wants a transcriptionist when you're interviewing. Your job is to deliver your key messages. So if they say, why are you interested in this role? You better have a crisp answer. That's a layup. You better be able to nail that. And you should be able to do it in about 15 seconds. If they ask you, tell me about your last position, you better nail that. And you're not just answering that. Oh, well, I walked in the door and I unlocked the door and then I sit down at my desk. Nobody cares. Tell them your key messages. Well, there's three reasons that I'm really interested in this role. First, I've always demonstrated an interest in psychology and money.

59:41And that's why at my last company, I helped improve conversion rates by 16%. Looking at this company, one of the things that most interests me is blank, blank, blank. You better have those answers ready to go. I show you how to do that stuff in the course. And then finally, of course, you can negotiate your salary. That's a skill. And please, please, please do not say, Ramit, how are you going to negotiate in an economy like this? People have been saying that for the last 15 years. The economy is actually fantastic. Unemployment is unbelievably low. And so maybe the same people who constantly talk about this economy when things are good, bad or in the middle are actually just talking about themselves.

1:00:17You can learn the skills of finding a dream job and interviewing and negotiating, and you can land that dream job, which will pay you well and potentially change the trajectory of your life. Totally. And once we have that job, another way to really move the needle towards our rich life and do those$30 ,000 questions or moves that you talk about is getting a raise. So what's your advice in terms of increasing the frequency in which we get raises? I love this too. So I love talking about salary negotiation, also part of the program. Let me tell you what I would do. The common way that people do it is they wait until their review and they go in there and they go, and they sort of like shrink in their seat.

1:00:55Do you think that maybe I could like possibly potentially get a raise? Like, it's okay if you can't, but like maybe. And the boss is like, no, get the fuck out of here. Who wants to give anybody like that a raise? Sitting out there with their hand out begging. No, you take control of your career. You set up a meeting with your boss. And you say, you know what? I'd really love to discuss my career. I'd love to get some advice from you. Your boss says, great. You go in there. You say, you know what? I think I'm doing a good job based on what we talked about in my last review, but I want to be a top performer.

1:01:23I want to do an amazing job. Can we discuss what are the three things that would make me be a top performer in this role? In fact, in other words, I want to make your job easier. Your boss is like, oh my God, she's loved it. No one's ever come in there and said that to her. So you discuss this. You agree. Again, if your boss says something like, uh, just like do better. Don't accept that. Your job is not to transcribe it. Your job is to push back and say, can you get specific? I want to make sure that I can quantify that. So you walk out of that meeting, you send an email, hey, I want to summarize.

1:01:50And of course, at the end of that meeting, you go, by the way, over the next six months, I'm going to drive these numbers. I'm going to drive these goals. Assuming I can, I'd love to come back and discuss a compensation adjustment. But first, let me just hit these numbers. Your boss goes, oh my God, I never heard anyone talk like that. So you summarize. Every two weeks, you're sending a written update. By the time six months rolls around, you actually have to hit the numbers, okay? You can't just ask for money for no good reason. You walk in there, and this is what I love. It's theatrical. I call it the briefcase technique.

1:02:15You can Google it and see my video on it. But you could either literally use a briefcase or just a little folder. And you sit down, you go, you know what? I was so happy to talk to you six months ago. Six months ago, we agreed on these three things. I've been updating you. I'm so pleased to report that our goal was a 6 % improvement in conversion. I've actually affected a 7.2%. Boom, theatrically pull it out. Show this beautiful chart. Next is blah, blah, blah. Pull this chart out. And then, this is my favorite part. You go, you know, as we discussed last time, I'd like to discuss a compensation adjustment.

1:02:42Based on my research, which of course you've done salary research to see the comps, I should be getting paid, let's just say 75 to 82. And that's what I'd like to discuss today. Boom. You've laid the groundwork. You've done the work. It's very difficult to say no to you now. And if they do, you can go work at another company. But the point is you have to put the work in and do it strategically in order to get a raise. And this is why top performers get the lion's share of the raises and everybody else gets the scraps. Totally. And one thing that I want to call out, especially to my Gen Z listeners out there and even like younger millennials who are quiet quitting, quiet quitting is the last way you're ever going to get any sort of promotion or raise in your job.

1:03:26I mean, when you decide to do the bare minimum and you're not going above and beyond, like me as an employer, I frequently give raises well before anybody asks because it's actually really expensive to hire from the outside and you want to keep your top talent. And so going above and beyond is really important in order to continue increasing your income. Yeah. I want to point something out about what you just said. It's really cool. A lot of people like, well, my boss doesn't do that. Like my boss never gives a raise. I want to respond in a couple of ways. First off, I always ask people, have you ever asked for a raise?

1:03:55And most people right there go, no. I go, how did you ask for a raise? Most people just walk in and they just say like, I'd like a raise and they have no rationale or justification. Finally, if your boss really does not give you raises, then that tells you it may be time to move on. And when you are interviewing, you want to be selective. Remember, they're not just interviewing you, you're interviewing them. So when you get to the actual manager you're speaking to, and they go, do you have any questions? Don't be like, oh, what do you eat for lunch? No, ask real questions. Hey, I'm a top performer.

1:04:25In my last role, I was a top performer. I generated XYZ, and my boss wouldn't increase my compensation. compensation is important to me. I'd love to understand your compensation policy for top performers. And if they say what we just heard, well, I love to proactively pay my top people more, that may be the right manager for you. And if not, you may need to keep looking. Okay. A couple of last questions on how to build our rich life. This one is about saving. So there are high inflation rates. Everybody is struggling paying grocery bills, higher cost of living, high gas prices. I was doing some research in preparation for this interview.

1:05:01And according to GoBankingRates, 57 % of Americans have less than$1 ,000 saved in their bank account going into 2023. So this is really scary. And I'd love to understand what's your advice for people who are currently living paycheck to paycheck? How do you think they can break out of this cycle? Okay, let's talk about two things. So first of all, if you are living paycheck to paycheck, then it's incredibly difficult. And right now, the things that are most affecting people are housing costs. That is number one. It dwarfs everything else combined. So if your rent has gone up by$300,$400,$500 a month, or mortgage has gone way up because of property taxes, et cetera, it can be very difficult.

1:05:42So if we boil it down, there are really three ways to get ahead in that situation. And I call it the CEO strategy. Cut costs, which we're all familiar with. Earn more, which most of us don't really think about. And then optimize your spending. That would be things like negotiating the interest rate on your credit card, which can happen, making sure you've got the right loan amount, insurance, all of that. But ultimately, your biggest lever will very likely be to earn more. That's just the way it works. There's a limit to how much you can save, no limit to how much you can earn. I will also say that when I talk to people, this happens all the time in my podcast, they go, inflation's killing me.

1:06:18Groceries are just so crazy. I go, you track your grocery spending? They go, no. So what are you talking about. Inflation is one of those things that's just being thrown about in the air and we use it as a reason to justify why things feel difficult. Things are difficult for a lot of people. There's no doubt about that. But in a recent Wall Street Journal article, there was a quote of a woman who said, inflation is so terrible, it's so hard. And then one paragraph later, they mentioned that she recently took a massive vacation to Disney World with all of her family. It's like, we need to actually be honest.

1:06:50So in a rich life, you've got to be honest with yourself and honest with the people around you. Now, please trust me for everybody listening. I'm not one of those guys who's like, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It's so easy to become successful. If anything, I'm proud of the fact that I've not become one of these center-right blowhards who just tells everyone everybody can make it. No, there are structural problems and we need to address them. That's why I'm such a fierce advocate for housing. But if you are living paycheck to paycheck, the first thing is to build a buffer so that you can psychologically and financially extricate yourself from that cycle.

1:07:25I love that. Okay, last question. And this has to do with side hustle. So I started my business as a side hustle. Now I have over 60 employees. So also a big advocate of side hustles. And so in your research of over 5000 people at IWT, you found that the number one barrier to making more money with a huge margin was actually finding the right idea. So what is the key to finding a good money making idea? Well, it's funny, you know, I have people who have been following on my newsletter for over 10 years, and they want to make more money. They want to start a business. And the number one barrier by far is finding an idea.

1:08:02And my response to that is 10 years is way too long to be sitting around waiting. It's like they open their mouth to the sky. Ah, where's my idea? Ah, that's not how it works. Ideas don't fall down from the sky. You got to go out and find them. A better reframe is I don't need an idea. I need 20 ideas. And then I'm going to test those ideas. I'm going to chop them up and find out which ones are profitable and which ones are not. So many people are holding themselves back waiting for the perfect idea. And I say waiting because they're just like subscribed to a bunch of people on social and newsletters just waiting.

1:08:36That's not how it works. There's a process which you can do in a couple of days. I teach this in my earnable program. And you can find 20 ideas and then you can rapidly test them for profitability. Basically, don't let that excuse get in the way. It should not take you more than approximately six months to find an idea and be generating revenue from that idea. Yeah. And it goes back to what we were saying in terms of your career, even mine and your career journey, us starting blogs and then sort of like pivoting into courses, then launching a podcast, having a book. It's like you have a similar idea, but you're constantly evolving the way in which you monetize it, right?

1:09:15Yeah. Yeah, you got to just, you got to get moving. And you learn more from that first step and that second step, then from pontificating and sitting back and strategizing and drawing grids. Like enough, there's, yes, we should learn, absolutely. But let's get in the game and we're going to learn a lot more doing it. Yeah. Ramit, this has been such an incredible interview. I always end my interview asking two questions that I ask all my guests that come on the show. You've been so insightful. So I appreciate your time. The first question is, what is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today to become more profiting tomorrow?

1:09:50Automatically set aside 10 % of your income to be invested in low cost index funds. If you do that, especially if you are young, you'll be a millionaire and you can still earn more. You can still go out and buy a round of drinks. You can still do all the things you love. When you set it up to happen automatically, it will limit your risk and it will add up to much more than you can even possibly imagine. Very good advice. And what is your secret to profiting in life? And this could be beyond financial. My secret to profiting in life is that I love my vision of a rich life. And I have amazing people, including my wife and my teammates and my family around me who make it fun to pursue.

1:10:33Amazing. And before we go, tell us about your new Netflix show. So this show's out. It's called How to Get Rich. Oh, I'm so I think the magic behind the show is that all I knew about these couples and individuals was their name and I had their financials. That's all I knew. And I then traveled around the country to meet them. Like a detective, you're going to come along with me. And we try to figure out what's the problem, what's really going on, and can we actually help them? And money's money. It's complicated. It's emotional. It's not sitting around a spreadsheet. It's actually dealing with people's real rich lives.

1:11:10And so, you know, a money show has not been done on a network in decades. So I'm very excited and I want everybody to go and check out how to get rich on Netflix. Amazing. I'm sure it's going to be incredible. You're so charismatic, so smart. I can't wait to watch it myself. And where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do? You can find me at iwt.com slash Netflix. I'm actually doing a whole behind the scenes, like what it was like to shoot the show. And you can find me on social media. My name is Ramit Sethi. Amazing. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks a lot.