Only Poor People Think the System is Rigged | Start Thinking Rich

Speaker 1 When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, like aloe or skins, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, and brilliant marketing, but an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business, making selling and for shoppers, buying simple.

Speaker 1 For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify.

Speaker 1 With Shop Pay, that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts are going abandoned and way more sales happening.

Speaker 1 So, if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell whatever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between.

Speaker 1 Businesses that sell more, sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Skins uses.
Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/slash Westwood One, all lowercase.

Speaker 1 Go to shopify.com/slash Westwood One to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com/slash Westwood One.

Speaker 3 what can 160 years of experience teach you about the future when it comes to protecting what matters pacific life provides life insurance retirement income and employee benefits for people and businesses building a more confident tomorrow strategies rooted in strength and backed by experience ask a financial professional how pacific life can help you today Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

Speaker 4 GoldDealer.com provides one of the nation's largest inventories of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and rhodium bullion, and our website offers live buy and sell prices.

Speaker 4 We specialize in precious metal IRA accounts, charge no setup or shipping fees, and provide one of the best storage programs in the business.

Speaker 4 GoldDealer.com also provides a free audio quote line that is updated twice each day and a gold newsletter that is published every week.

Speaker 5 Chapter 17 is complaining is for losers, but I like stop fucking bitching better. I wish we would have named it that.
It's so easy to complain and bitch. I mean, it's so easy.

Speaker 5 We all fall into it, but the bottom line is it's horrible for you. There's even studies showing that your brain shrinks.
I mean, it like literally makes you dumber.

Speaker 6 Let's go.

Speaker 7 Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look

Speaker 7 like a bad thing.

Speaker 9 The Ryan Hanley show shares the original ideas, habits, and mindsets of world-class original thinkers you can use to produce extraordinary results in your life and business.

Speaker 9 This is the way.

Speaker 2 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show.

Speaker 2 We have one of the best episodes we have ever done on this podcast about money teed up for you today. We are talking to Dr.
Brad.

Speaker 2 Oh my God. Dr.
Brad Klantz and Adrian Brambilla. They are the authors of Start Thinking Rich 21 Harsh Truths to Take You From Broke to Financial Freedom.

Speaker 2 And we discuss some epic topics today and only the way these two guys can deliver them. Why only poor people think the system is rigged.
Why money can't buy you happiness is terrible advice.

Speaker 2 And why your political party doesn't give a shit about you. This is a tremendous episode.
Absolutely tremendous.

Speaker 2 You are going to want to stay for the full conversation because it only gets better as we go. These guys are funny, they're fun, and they deliver incredible tactical advice.

Speaker 2 And they sent me a copy of their book, Start Thinking Rich, and I blew through it in a weekend. It's that good.

Speaker 2 I'd put this on par with the psychology of money and some of the other just perpetual top 10 books on personal finance. This book is right there.
I am just...

Speaker 2 So excited to share this with you because we all have issues with money, all of us. Whether you believe you do or not, you do.

Speaker 2 And sometimes when we think through some of the nuances, particularly the way that Adrian and Dr. Brad deliver them, we start to see why we may, why we may make certain decisions versus others.

Speaker 2 And guys, as always, I love you for listening to this show. I don't run ads on this program.
I have gone back and forth.

Speaker 2 I recently just said no to another sponsor because I want to be able to talk to whoever I want. I want to be able to share

Speaker 2 ideas,

Speaker 2 mindsets, thoughts. I want to be able to bring guests on.

Speaker 2 I want to start talking to people who think outside the box, who take different perspectives, who have unconventional ways of solving problems and thinking about the things that we that impact our lives.

Speaker 2 And I don't want sponsors to dictate that. So the only thing that I ask is you share the show.

Speaker 2 Text message it to a friend, post it on social media, email it out to a colleague.

Speaker 2 And if you don't want to share a like, a subscribe, or even a comment, go over to YouTube, leave a comment on your thoughts. What part of what Dr.

Speaker 2 Brad and Adrian share makes sense, you don't understand, or you just completely and utterly disagree with.

Speaker 2 That engagement helps drive more individuals to this show, which helps it grow, which helps us bring even more amazing guests in, regardless of which way you choose to support the show.

Speaker 2 I love you for being here. Let's get on to Dr.
Brad and Adrian. Guys, incredibly excited to have you on the show.

Speaker 2 The new book is fantastic. I appreciate you sharing an early copy with me.

Speaker 2 I've been through most of it.

Speaker 2 Made me question a lot of the life decisions that I've made with money. So that's a wonderful thing.

Speaker 2 I also very much appreciate, as you said, the aggressive chapter titling, which I think is fantastic.

Speaker 2 I actually want to start on the very first line of the introduction, which you write,

Speaker 2 most people hate the statistic that 90% of millionaires are self-made. Why is that the case?

Speaker 5 Well, I think it's highly confrontational

Speaker 5 because what it really does tell you is that, oh, well, perhaps I can go from poor to rich too.

Speaker 5 Perhaps those individuals got there through their own efforts.

Speaker 5 And the whole phrase self-made really makes people so mad anytime I post about it on social media people get so mad and what they want to do is they want to change the definition of what self-made means

Speaker 5 essentially it it's it could be really rough like I grew up lower income you know Ryan I know you had a lot of hustle early in your life

Speaker 5 and it's the big message of the book is that it is possible for you so really this this is a message of hope and inspiration we're not looking to shame anyone but I think what happens is people have created a narrative in their head about why they can't or why it's really difficult for them or why it's impossible.

Speaker 5 And anything that challenges that narrative, people can resist.

Speaker 5 I think it's a very freeing narrative, but if you've been stuck, if you've been struggling, perhaps even for generations, if not decades in your own life, it's easier psychologically to say it's impossible than to sort of face the reality that people just like me who've come from where I've come from, have experienced what I've experienced, have been able to climb the socioeconomic ladder.

Speaker 5 So I could potentially do it too. Sometimes that's a bitter pill to swallow.

Speaker 2 I hear a lot of people will thrash Elon Musk and say, well, his dad gave him all this money or he got all this stuff.

Speaker 2 And then I started listening to Walter Isaacson's biography of him and learned about how absolutely fucked up his childhood was, how that's like 100% not the case.

Speaker 2 And while brilliant and crazy, some mix of the two,

Speaker 2 this dude really did grind out a lot of stuff. And sure, he made opportunities for himself, but I find it incredible that someone could look at this particular individual

Speaker 2 and use, well, he was given money by his dad early, which is not the case, was given money early as the reason he got to send spaceships to Mars,

Speaker 2 make electric cars a reality,

Speaker 2 create an interface between the brain and machines, put

Speaker 2 the internet around the world in places that, you know, standard corporations. I mean, like, you look at all these things and people go, well, yeah, he was given a bunch of money when he was a kid.

Speaker 2 And it's like,

Speaker 2 what are we talking about here? Like, is that really like you have to tear that down

Speaker 2 even when it's false to like make yourself feel better? I just don't understand that mentality.

Speaker 11 Dude, this riles me up so much.

Speaker 11 I hate, I hate how so much people focus on people's privilege. Like, they'd rather focus on the privilege versus what they've done.

Speaker 11 And in our book, Starting You're Rich, we talk about having a rich skill set and a wealth skill set.

Speaker 11 And a wealth skill set is that, is the people who do get inheritance.

Speaker 11 And just because you receive a lot of money doesn't guarantee anything.

Speaker 11 And the fact, the data behind this is if you look at 70% of people who win huge amounts of lottery in five years, it's all gone. So think of that.
It's like that's almost gaming the system.

Speaker 11 You get hundreds of millions of dollars. It's like, oh, is everything figured out now? Absolutely not.

Speaker 11 Wealth skill set is your ability to take whatever money that you are either making or inherited or have, and then have that money make money. And

Speaker 11 that's a rare skill set. So, just because someone did get something, you can't discredit them.

Speaker 11 If anything, you're analyzing from where they started and where they went. And we could do that with everyone.

Speaker 11 A lot of people here, and my parents immigrated from Mexico, they started with, I would say, in the negative, right?

Speaker 11 and they built a platform for me that platform was they paid for my college they saved their whole life to do that and now I've taken it and I feel like I've I've I've changed my family tree with with what I've done I couldn't have done it without that platform and I think I always try to acknowledge that was a privilege privilege I got but don't measure me it's like well your parents paid for your college that's why you're a multi-millionaire now no you're you're you're discrediting everything and also just a comment rich skill set we we say is your ability to earn income And so some people think, well, that person makes six figures, so they have to be successful.

Speaker 11 But a rich skill set and a wealth skill set, they're not related, which is why 50% of people that make six figures live paycheck to paycheck. So these are people who are high-income earners, but

Speaker 11 being a doctor or a lawyer doesn't mean you're going to be good with your money. So you need to have a rich skill set and a wealth skill set.

Speaker 11 It's not just you can't just earn your way to financial freedom. You do have to be able to live underneath your means no matter how much money you make.

Speaker 11 And then you have to be able to learn how to invest with that money, continue to make money. It is a, it's like this whole formula, and just being good at one thing isn't enough.

Speaker 2 I call these 19th hole confessions.

Speaker 2 So when you're out on the golf course, everyone likes to talk about their fancy watch and their new driver and the Porsche they have in the country club parking lot.

Speaker 2 And then when they get a couple pops in them in the 19th hole, you start to hear about how they can barely make the payments on the car.

Speaker 2 You know, their wife is yelling at them because they're late on the mortgage payment.

Speaker 2 They're, you know, fighting with their boss for a raise at work. And you're like, wait a minute.

Speaker 2 Nine holes ago, you were, you know, Mr. Blinged out.
Look at my life. You know, here we are.
You got a couple drinks and you all of a sudden wife's not so good. You know, like, it's just,

Speaker 2 I don't know. I just, I've always found that to be interesting how that happens almost every time you're, you do a country club round of golf.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I was hoping that you could break down.

Speaker 2 So for you guys listening at home, this book is going to be an absolute musk. It's going to be on my recommendation list.

Speaker 2 I've read a bunch of books about wealth, money, this kind of stuff. I just, I read a lot.

Speaker 2 I think the language that you use and the way that you break down these topics is very digestible and allows someone to actually take in the difference in these concepts.

Speaker 2 And the first one that I pulled out was just maybe define broke versus poor.

Speaker 1 Because I think when you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, like aloe or skins, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, and brilliant marketing, but an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business making selling and for shoppers, buying simple.

Speaker 1 For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify.

Speaker 1 With Shop Pay, that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts are going abandoned and way more sales happening.

Speaker 1 So, if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell whatever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between.

Speaker 1 Businesses that sell more, sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Skins uses.
Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/slash Westwood One, all lowercase.

Speaker 1 Go to shopify.com/slash Westwood One to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash Westwood One.

Speaker 12 Worried about your future in tech?

Speaker 12 Master new skills, accelerate your team's impact, and redefine what's possible with Plural Sight.

Speaker 12 We're more than just another online learning platform.

Speaker 5 We're shattering the skills gap and shaping future generations of technologists.

Speaker 12 Transform your work. Transform your team.

Speaker 8 Ready to tap in?

Speaker 12 Visit us at pluralsight.com to learn more.

Speaker 6 Here for the Lowe's early Black Friday deals? You're right on time for some of our biggest savings.

Speaker 6 We're talking up to 50% off select major appliances, plus up to an extra 25% off when you bundle select major appliances. Holiday lights going up soon? Select ladders are up to 50% off right now.

Speaker 6 Get Black Friday prices without the Black Friday crowds. Lowe's, we help.
You save. Valent through 1119.
Selection varies by location. Select locations only while supplies last.

Speaker 6 See Lowe's.com for more details.

Speaker 2 So many people use these terms interchangeably, and you guys really kind of clearly set what the difference is between the two.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I think we had to because one of the chapter titles says that if you want to get rich, you have to get rid of your poor friends. And that one we've already got a lot of heat about.

Speaker 2 But poor

Speaker 11 has nothing to do with how much money or lack of money you have. It's actually your mindset.
So we describe poor as a mindset, it's a way of thinking, it's a bad way of thinking.

Speaker 11 People that have a poor mindset, they don't believe in saving. What's the point?

Speaker 11 These are also people that have a poor mindset that have great jobs.

Speaker 11 They're the ones that, as soon as Friday hits, they go out to the clubs and they, and then when they go to a restaurant, they're getting an appetizer, they're going, they're getting wine, which, by the way, nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 11 You know, if it's within under your means and you're saving and investing, like your your

Speaker 11 person has a rich mindset, can still do those things, but they also, their their biggest expense every month is investing. And then they're kind of living their lifestyle off those investments.

Speaker 11 But a poor mindset is, again,

Speaker 11 I think the golf analogy is perfect.

Speaker 11 Those people who, by that 19 total, they're demonstrating that the facade of rich,

Speaker 11 at the end of it, a couple drinks in, it's like they actually have a poor mindset because they're living way outside their means.

Speaker 11 And being broke is something that I've been, Brad's been, I don't know,

Speaker 11 yes, we've all been.

Speaker 11 Typically, unless you were were born with a silver spoon, we're all broke at some point. And that's a temporary state.

Speaker 11 And so when we define broke and poor, people that are poor, have a poor mindset, or probably going to be not just a temporary, but a very, very long-term

Speaker 11 in being broke. And so I think

Speaker 11 if you have that recognition of how you think, broke doesn't have to be a long place.

Speaker 11 Maybe you come from a family of

Speaker 11 that was always broke. Money was always hard.
You can change that, and it starts with just the way you think.

Speaker 2 Well, one of the things that I liked about that you broke out was that you could go broke multiple times, but if you have this rich mindset, you can remake the money.

Speaker 2 You know, that's one of the things that I've always,

Speaker 2 I had to reset a lot of my friendships in the last, say, 10 years of my life because

Speaker 2 I, for a bunch of reasons, have a very high risk tolerance. And, you know, I have goals and I want to go after things.
And sometimes those things don't work, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, it just, that's what happens. And you have to, and you'll reset.
I've had buddies go,

Speaker 2 you know, geez, man, why, why are you always doing this? Like, it feels like you have to keep resetting. And I'm like, well, that was a tremendous four-year experience.

Speaker 2 And a lot of good things came out of it. And yeah, I got to reset because, you know,

Speaker 2 life happens, this, you know, different things happen. But

Speaker 2 now I remade that in two years instead of four.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, I can, if something else happens, I can do it even faster because I've learned because now I know what needs to be done to get back to that place.

Speaker 2 But as you guys lay out and, you know, I love the way that you lay it out and the way that you focus on mindset is because

Speaker 2 it forces you to remove yourself from this particular moment in time and focus more on the activities that get you to the place that you want to be. Because it's like this snapshot mentality.

Speaker 2 I currently am not in a position that I want to be. So screw it.
I'm never going to get there.

Speaker 2 And I might as well just, you know, blow it all on Netflix and DoorDash and all these other things and live for today or whatever. And

Speaker 2 this is kind of where I want to ask my next question. I just had a guest on a couple weeks ago.
His name is Dr. Eric Peoples, a wonderful guy, and we were talking about generational thinking.

Speaker 2 How much does this rich mindset, poor mindset play into, you know, I'm just living for me and my kids are on their own versus this concept that I feel like we've lost in our country,

Speaker 2 which is thinking about the generations to come, not just our current moment in time.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, a couple things, Ryan, that you said that were so wise.

Speaker 5 So when we've done research on millionaires, we find that the average multi-millionaires has faced three major financial catastrophes.

Speaker 5 And the average non-millionaire has faced slightly less than one, which is sort of a statistical anomaly. But essentially,

Speaker 5 what that tells us is that they try and then they're like, oh, forget it.

Speaker 5 I'm never gonna try again

Speaker 5 and because the world is set against me because X Y and Z Meanwhile people with a rich mindset they have an what we call in psychology an internal locus control so they look at okay all right so I had this massive failure by the way very embarrassing I lost a bunch of money everybody knows my business failed

Speaker 5 Where did my thinking go wrong? What did I miss? What can I learn from this experience?

Speaker 5 And it's that mindset versus blaming the world because there is a never-ending supply of people to blame your misery on. By the way, I'm married to a wonderful woman,

Speaker 5 but I could spend all my time blaming my bad mood on her. I mean, right? She's an imperfect person.
And it's not a very effective way to live, though.

Speaker 5 Not in your marriage, not in your relationships, and definitely not in your business and financial life. So it's really being able to take that sense of personal responsibility.
Where is my thinking?

Speaker 5 Where did it go wrong? And I'm going to segue from that into this multi-generational mindset thing.

Speaker 5 Because certainly your beliefs around money are getting you the results that you have right now. And a lot of these beliefs weren't inherited.

Speaker 5 So we talk about generational wealth, but we also have generational beliefs that have been transferred down to us.

Speaker 5 And so part of really getting a handle on a relationship with money is really understanding our family story.

Speaker 5 And it's really, really important.

Speaker 5 So probably the best psychology you could do for yourself is to interview your parents, your grandparents, if you're lucky enough that they're around, your siblings, your aunts, your uncles, to try to figure out what is the psychology around money that I inherited from my family.

Speaker 5 And so I lost a bunch of money day trading. I thought this is how people got rich when I was in my 20s.
And I had such a painful realization after I lost all my money day trading.

Speaker 5 Now the tech bubble burst. Otherwise, I'm sure it would have gone great.

Speaker 5 But I actually went home and I interviewed my parents and I sat my mom down and I'm like, mom, what was it like for you growing up around money? And she told me these stories.

Speaker 2 Are you tired of endless follow-ups and missed opportunities in your sales process? Chasing leads is a losing game.

Speaker 2 That's why I created the one-call close system, a battle-tested sales system that uses behavioral psychology to close deals in just one call. No more, let me think about it.

Speaker 2 No more, I'll get back to you. Using the one-call close system, we took new reps from 25% close ratio to over 80% in just three months.

Speaker 2 To grow fast, you must close deals faster at zero extra marketing cost.

Speaker 2 The one-call close system allows you and your reps to build trust, address pain points, all while watching your revenue skyrocket. Ready to stop chasing leads and start closing?

Speaker 2 Visit masteroftheclose.com today. Close twice as many deals this time next week.
Visit masteroftheclose.com to learn how.

Speaker 5 That blew my mind. Turns out my grandpa went to the bank one day in his 20s and all his money was gone.
It was the Great Depression. Bank was locked.
Zero dollars. It doesn't even exist anymore.

Speaker 5 Imagine having that experience. Imagine having that experience.

Speaker 5 So now all of a sudden, the fact that my very hardworking, wonderful grandfather grandfather lived in a trailer park made sense to me he never put a dollar in the bank the rest of his life he lived into his 90s and he was so afraid he went unbanked his entire life and then my mom's anxiety around money started to make sense to me she she would only put money in cds she would never put it in the stock market so she was so risk averse and then i came along and i'm like I know what you guys are doing isn't working and I don't want to be poor like you.

Speaker 5 And so

Speaker 5 I call it a dysfunctional pendulum swing. I swang all the way to the other side, taking the most possible risk I could take.
Lost all my money.

Speaker 5 And if I wasn't aware of this belief pattern in my family, I guarantee you this, and a bunch of people have done this, a bunch of millennials especially, I would have said, I'm never trusting the stock market.

Speaker 5 And so I would have sort of adopted that same mindset. And so

Speaker 5 we have, just like drug abuse and alcoholism can pass through the generations where people have this distorted relationship with it.

Speaker 5 So someone's an alcoholic, next generation won't touch it, you know, which is an extreme relationship with alcohol. It's fine if you don't drink.

Speaker 5 It's probably better for you, but it's kind of extreme. It has a bunch of energy.
And then you're going to pass that energy to your kids who then become alcoholics, you know?

Speaker 5 And so understanding your family history, very, very important if you want to get a handle on how, on your wealth building.

Speaker 2 I love, I'm going to touch on the first part of your story first.

Speaker 2 I love this idea of self-reflection in general on these experiences, particularly experiences where around money, losing money, and if it's public.

Speaker 2 I heard this story the other day about Kobe Bryant.

Speaker 2 There was a game, and he had three shots at the end of the game that if he had hit one of them, would have won the game, right?

Speaker 2 So game's over, he's sitting on the bench, towel on his head, hands on over the towel, head down, and you know, kind of everyone starts to clear.

Speaker 2 He gets up, he starts to walk off the court, and a reporter comes up to him and says, Kobe, what were you thinking about when you missed those shots? Blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 And, you know, how are you feeling?

Speaker 2 And he goes, feeling? He goes, I don't feel anything. He goes, I was thinking about the things that I did

Speaker 2 during those shots that made me miss. I now know what I did wrong, and I'm going to go work on it after the game.

Speaker 2 Right? So instead of sitting there, I mean, this is as public as it gets. This is a superstar, right? Three shots to win the game, misses all three.
And the reporter is saying, how are you feeling?

Speaker 2 You know, what are your, are you, I mean, what they're looking for is is you sad, you frustrated, you mad, they're looking for something.

Speaker 2 And he's going, no, all I did was dissect what happened so that I don't make that mistake again. And we just don't go back and reflect.

Speaker 2 I really appreciate

Speaker 2 the second part,

Speaker 2 the idea of interviewing your family. And as you're saying that, I was thinking about, you know, my own.
And I think I have a similar, not the

Speaker 2 grandfather losing all their money in the Great Depression, but I think my parents were the same way. Like, don't invest, put it in a savings account.

Speaker 2 You know, my dad's like one of those guys who's like, you know, he doesn't make a ton of money, but he also doesn't save any money. He's like, if I got it, spend it.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Like, that's what we make the money for kind of mentality. And, and it was always like, you know, we also very low income.

Speaker 2 And I think that plays a role in my own risk taking because I was like, I don't want to be like that. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to live paychecked.

Speaker 2 I I don't want to worry about, you know, the man firing me or whatever. And

Speaker 2 that kind of takes me to my next question.

Speaker 2 There's a, and I don't remember which chapter it is, so I apologize, but it was the idea of

Speaker 2 poor, only poor people think the system is rigged, right? My dad thinks the system is rigged. And he's a great guy.

Speaker 2 I don't mean that as a negative to him, but his mentality is the system is out to get him. He's not one of, you know, the elites.

Speaker 2 So therefore, everything he does is always going to be throttled it's always going to work against him and that kind of really corrupts his mentality particularly around making money and money in general so maybe just break down this idea and go as far as you want to on it

Speaker 11 i think the the concept we teach money

Speaker 11 can which can have so much baggage we try to teach in the perspective of like a like a game that we're playing and uh for some people that already is a challenge because it has so much emotional baggage but if you just allow yourself to think, like, what if money was a game?

Speaker 11 I like, who doesn't like playing games, games, games for fun?

Speaker 11 And for me, I played, like, Final Fantasy as a kid in Tekken, and, like, I played video games, and to me, it's kind of like a video game because all my money comes from online.

Speaker 11 But the first person I saw that really, like, actually shaped me to become an online entrepreneur was back in the day. I used to be a professional hip-hop dancer.
I danced for T-Payne.

Speaker 11 And there was one time, this is a big one.

Speaker 2 It makes me like you even more, just to be clear. I just, I have to get that in there.
That's awesome.

Speaker 11 T-Payne released a song in front of us one time,

Speaker 11 and it was called Reverse Cowgirl. Terrible song, actually.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 11 he was able to launch, and this is in his prime, this is 2010 era. And he looks over at his manager, and he had his own liquor company.
It was like 10 o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 11 He's already kind of buzzed. And he looks over at the manager, and he's like, you guys want to see the video before we drop it? He plays it for us.
Super awesome.

Speaker 11 And he looks at the manager. He's like, yeah,

Speaker 11 you guys ready? Okay, cool. And they hit play.
And this is back in the day in iTunes. You had to buy every song was like 99 cents.
And I remember looking at how many downloads.

Speaker 11 And within like 10 minutes, there was like 5 million downloads. So I had watched him make like 5 million bucks while getting drunk from hitting a button.
And I was like, to me,

Speaker 11 he figured out the game. Like, he figured, like, he could live his dream life.
He's drunk at 11 a.m. He's made $5 million.
He's going to chill the rest of the day.

Speaker 11 And we use an analogy like that. Making money is a game.
And there's a lot of different games, a lot of different ways to do it.

Speaker 11 And the only

Speaker 11 reason why you don't like making money is because you're probably playing the wrong game.

Speaker 11 And the best analogy is like a lot of people that I talk to, they look and they learn from me on how to monetize and become an influencer because they hate their job.

Speaker 11 So this is like what, for whatever reason they went to school or they didn't go to school and they're in this job and they and they hate it and they're recognizing like, is this what I'm supposed to be doing?

Speaker 11 And it's just because they're in the wrong game where they could be just placed in a different area and have fun. And like when I make money, it's actually it brings me energy.
It's like a game.

Speaker 11 I love doing it and

Speaker 11 I've found my outlet. And I think everyone can do that.

Speaker 11 But first understanding

Speaker 11 that mindset, it's different because

Speaker 11 most people are just playing the wrong game and instead of having that recognition, they think the system's rigged. But the system actually is rigged.
It actually is.

Speaker 11 Like, it is, there's, there's tax laws, for example. If you were to start a business, you could do things like right off your phone, like right off your Wi-Fi.

Speaker 11 These are things where people say they're rich, keep getting richer. Entrepreneurs, there's advantages for us to do things like this.

Speaker 11 Also, have to mention because Brad and I, we come from totally opposite backgrounds. I know he's going to clap back and say, you know, 95% of businesses do fail, which is true.

Speaker 11 But having this recognition on the game you're playing and recognizing that the system is rigged if you're playing the wrong game.

Speaker 11 So if you're trying to play football in a basketball court, of course you can say, it's rigged, man. What the heck's happening? And I think that's where we kind of dive into the chapters of

Speaker 11 recognizing what game you're actually playing. And also, like, I'm a big believer that you can learn pretty much anything from YouTube these days.

Speaker 11 So it's not like we don't say, oh, you have to go back to four-year university.

Speaker 11 No, it's like there's tons of different opportunities in e-lancing and AI that are making it easier for us to diversify our income and find a game that you like to play.

Speaker 2 To me,

Speaker 2 when I hear that, all I really hear is you don't want to put in the work to learn the rules.

Speaker 2 Right?

Speaker 2 I mean, that's, that's, I mean, the deeper that I've gotten into, so, you know, I don't know how much you guys know about my history, but 20 years in the insurance industry, executive positions, all different kinds of stuff, goods and bads.

Speaker 2 And then I started my own business and I exited in November in the insurance industry. And when I did that, I kind of kept one foot in the insurance industry just because I love it.

Speaker 2 It's my home industry and it's great. But I then broadened out and I've started doing entrepreneurial coaching and online business stuff like what you described.

Speaker 2 And as I've gotten deeper into that, I knew how to play the insurance game.

Speaker 2 Like I knew what to do, who to talk to, where to go, what message had to be said, how the message had to be delivered in order to get people to buy stuff in that space.

Speaker 2 And then when I got into the broader kind of entrepreneurial influencer podcast game, I started, I was like, why aren't these things working the same?

Speaker 2 Like, how come I could, when I was purely talking to the insurance industry, I could create a video on LinkedIn that would get 50,000 views, and now I get 1,700 views.

Speaker 2 What's going, you know, and what I've, and what's been interesting is like, I've just had to relearn a new set of rules for a different game. I love that analogy.

Speaker 2 And then people be like, wow, you know, you know,

Speaker 2 this system, you know, it's just the most influential people just work with each other and they don't work with anyone else. I'm like, mmm,

Speaker 2 that's not true. I haven't found that to be the case.
They just aren't going to play with you if you don't know how to play the game. It's just, but they don't want to learn.
Why? I guess my,

Speaker 2 and as much as you can answer this, and maybe Brad, this is for you because you're the

Speaker 5 psychologist and probably the smartest of all of us here at least from a degree best looking at least yeah I'm not sure about smart

Speaker 2 yeah best hoodie on the show you know

Speaker 2 so you know why

Speaker 2 why don't we want to do this like why are why do people settle into these places where they're willing to bitch but unwilling to work

Speaker 5 yeah so it's such an awakening awakening to just sort of

Speaker 5 if you understand that it's a game, you are already better off than nine out of ten people.

Speaker 5 Because nine out of ten people think, well, this is the way the world works, you know, and they're sort of stuck in this little bubble and they have a bad experience, you know, and they're like, oh, you know, so for example, they have, they saw their parents get evicted, you know, from a housing unit.

Speaker 5 And they're like, oh my God, rich people are terrible. You know, they're nasty.
And then, so, because they just saw a rich person treat their family in a bad way. Like, this stuff happens.

Speaker 5 Now, though, they've figured it out. If you have have money, you're a bad person.

Speaker 5 And so they will hold this in the back of their brain for the rest of their lives. They will sabotage themselves.

Speaker 5 Anytime they start to have some success, and I've worked with people like this, I don't understand, Dr. Brad.
Like I'll start to get some success and then I sabotage it.

Speaker 5 Well, it comes down to this experience they had as a kid where they associated money with bad. You know, the other thing that keeps us stuck is we are tribal in nature.

Speaker 5 And this is probably one of the hardest things that

Speaker 5 keeps people stuck in their

Speaker 5 socioeconomic level, which is great if you're wealthy and you love it. It's bad if you're poor and you don't like it.

Speaker 5 But essentially, we surround ourselves with people who look at the world the way we do. So they're all playing the same game.
They all know the same world. They don't know the other game.

Speaker 5 It's a foreign game to them. That's a foreign tribe, right? That's scary over there.

Speaker 5 But we know how to do this. This is what we know how to do.

Speaker 5 And then once we start, once we say, hey, but look at that tribe over there, you know, it's like, it looks like they have some fancier things. It looks like they might have more time off.

Speaker 5 You know, that looks good. No, no, no.
Those people are bad. And once we start to leave our tribe, people will try to sabotage us.
Not because they hate us.

Speaker 5 The irony is it's because they love us. They don't want to lose us.
They're afraid that we're going to leave them. And so they'll make us feel guilty or they'll encourage us to overspend.

Speaker 5 They'll do all sorts of things because they're so desperate and afraid to lose us.

Speaker 5 But ultimately, I think one of the things that keeps people stuck in this, the system is rigged, everybody's everybody's out to get me.

Speaker 5 And by the way, there are people probably out to get you.

Speaker 5 And things aren't fair. Like, if that's your focus, you will see that everywhere and you'll never go beyond it.
But it's something in psychology called learned helplessness.

Speaker 5 And if you have grown up in a place where

Speaker 5 they've done experiments, we talk about it in the book, like these terrible, terrible experiments with dogs, which are just... terrible if you like dogs.

Speaker 5 But what they would do is they would put a dog in a cage that was

Speaker 5 electrified and they would give it no place to escape.

Speaker 5 And so what they would start to do is start shooting electrical current through the cage, and the dog jumps up and down, runs all over, tries to find a place to escape,

Speaker 5 and then eventually just lays down and whimpers. Okay?

Speaker 5 That is helplessness. You've learned that no matter what you do, you can't change it.
Then, and by the way, a lot of people's childhood is like that. So you're a child.

Speaker 5 You can't escape what's happening in your life. If you grew up poor, there's nothing you can do about it.
You just got to lay down and take it and try to get through childhood. Trauma, abuse.

Speaker 5 So many people grow up with this. Growing up in poverty is just multiple traumas.
Now, here's the problem. They then took that cage.
So imagine now that you're 18 years old.

Speaker 5 Half of it was not electrified. And so all the dog had to do was jump over this little barrier and it was totally free, fine, not getting electrocuted at all.

Speaker 5 Those dogs who grew up in that or had that experience, so the how we relate to that is growing up in that sort of trauma, they didn't even try to escape.

Speaker 5 So literally, inches away was freedom from that pain.

Speaker 5 And that's really what I think happens for many of us. Like, we don't know it.
You know, all it is is one book away.

Speaker 5 All it is is one relationship away, one mindset shift away, but we feel like it's impossible. So, we essentially lay down and just take it.

Speaker 5 And it's so tragic when I see people and as a psychologist, work with people where it's so obvious to me, all you have to do is just hop right over here.

Speaker 5 But they've been trained from that early childhood trauma that escape is impossible and so then they live a life that it's so sad to watch and so that's that's part of what we're trying to do with this book is is wake people up to that reality to realize that it is a game it is a game it's you mean it's a game yes it is learn how to play the game you can win the game yeah it's like we create a ceiling that doesn't exist

Speaker 2 right it's it's uh another good example is um

Speaker 2 I think this came out of in Thailand, they trained the elephants with

Speaker 2 a cord attached to a stick. And then when they hit a certain age, they take the cord off, and the elephant

Speaker 2 won't go anywhere. The elephant will just stay right there because it still believes that the cord is still attached to the stake.

Speaker 2 And the rest of their lives, the rest of their lives, they will stay right by that stake, even though the cord is not attached to them anymore.

Speaker 2 It's crazy. I completely agree with that.

Speaker 2 It's funny, you know, I even look back, you know, looking at my own life, it has been my journey in relationship with money has been,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 I was low income.

Speaker 2 I was blessed to get a scholarship to play baseball at the University of Rochester, which I didn't realize at the time was a safety school for dumbass kids who wanted to go to Ivy schools, but were too dumb to get in.

Speaker 2 So you start being surrounded by all these really rich dummies.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I show up, I have $127 in my bank account. Day one, I show up to college, and

Speaker 2 the kid I'm roomed with is driving a Range Rover and has like a Rolex or something. I can't even remember, some crazy ass, expensive watch on his wrist and, you know, whatever.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, I literally remember saying to myself, I'm fucked. Like, how am I ever going to get there? Like, look where I am.
I'm wearing, I have one pair of jeans. I have two button-down shirts.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? Like, this kid's rolling in in a Range Rover that his dad bought for him with this watch and coats and all this stuff, fancy sunglasses and shit.

Speaker 2 shit like I didn't even have sunglasses you know I mean those are for rich people so like I just you know the gooders didn't exist back then so like it it is wild and then and then only through a life of like experience and then ultimately meeting I have a very good friend he lives in Connecticut I'll give him a shout out.

Speaker 2 He's a co-author on the book.

Speaker 2 We're writing a book together called The Civilized Savage. His name's Chris Paradiso.
I got to know him very early in my professional career.

Speaker 2 And he showed me, like he came, you know, he came from a good family, but he then, he just, he never had that mental ceiling, right? So he just kept growing and building and growing.

Speaker 2 And he would see opportunities. And I'd be like, you can do that? And he's like, why can't we do that? And like that,

Speaker 2 that, like, it's like we can't even imagine that these opportunities are possible for us, even though they're right there. And

Speaker 2 this is why I love podcasting because we get to share this kind of shit.

Speaker 2 I want to briefly talk about something because this is one of my traumas.

Speaker 2 My mother will say to me all the time,

Speaker 2 don't work so hard. Money doesn't buy you happiness.

Speaker 2 You guys address this directly in your book. Now, I don't believe her.
And I will say, well, that makes you sound like a communist, mom. And no, I mean, I give my mom a lot of shit.
She's the best.

Speaker 2 But she does have this very, like, what you're talking about, that relationship of money. She has it.
And she will say that to me all the time, even today.

Speaker 2 Like, I went on vacation last week and she's like, you know, that's great, but, you know, you don't have to go to those fancy places or whatever because, you know, money doesn't buy you happiness.

Speaker 2 I'm like, well, have you ever been on

Speaker 2 Taylor Bay Beach in Turks and Caicos? Because that was great.

Speaker 2 Nice.

Speaker 2 So, you know,

Speaker 2 talk me through this because I think you guys address this head-on in your book.

Speaker 11 I think we, yeah, we say being poor sucks.

Speaker 2 Now,

Speaker 11 it's a fact, and I have to be really honest.

Speaker 11 My dad,

Speaker 11 he came from sub-poverty, like in a village in Mexico where they built their own houses. And

Speaker 11 when they came here,

Speaker 11 it was an hour north of San Diego and Oceanside. And I remember

Speaker 11 there was this one stretch of freeway we would never used to drive on as a kid. And when I got a little older, I remember I was driving, and I made the turn.

Speaker 11 and to go on this one freeway and my dad was like, wait, don't, oh, it's too late.

Speaker 11 And I was like, well, how can we never go down here and then he shared this is the when i was in high school this is the the road i'd have to walk like five miles to go to my part-time job and so he was walking on the he was one of those guys walking on the freeway and it

Speaker 11 that's one of so many hardships that i've got to learn about him he's he's someone that actually struggled uh to find to have food he went hungry i have never i mean i've been hangry i've never been hungry.

Speaker 11 I've never had to go a day wondering what happened. In the book, I share a story with my dad's permission where he had to go into a neighboring farm one time and dig out an onion and bite the onion.

Speaker 11 I remember when he shares his story, it's funny, he doesn't share it from a sad perspective. He's like, it was the best onion I've ever had.
I just took the onion, I took a big,

Speaker 11 it was amazing. And I, and at first, when I heard that story, I was like, that's awesome.
What a good story. And then as I grew up, I was like, wait a second.

Speaker 11 I don't think I've ever been like, I'm just going to take a big bite of this onion because it sounds delicious. No.
But when you're hungry, anything sounds good. So

Speaker 11 I have to learn from these experiences of what actually being, you know, really poor is because those are struggles. So

Speaker 11 the goal of this book is to help people, you know, elevate.

Speaker 11 But I think, you know, learning from your experiences, if you've never been hungry, if you come from a line of people, like a family tree who suffered, you can learn from that.

Speaker 11 You can learn from that.

Speaker 11 And like, I didn't immigrate here. I was born here, first Bramvila, to be born here.
And

Speaker 11 I have an immigrant mindset, but I didn't immigrate here. And I think that's part of the beautiful thing about adopting mindsets.
That's why books are amazing. That's why podcasts are amazing.

Speaker 11 You get to listen to other people's experiences and learn and adopt those mindsets. But we make it super clear, like,

Speaker 11 being we're not going to sugarcoat coat like having no money. It's, it sucks.
And we also also don't sugarcoat that it's easy too. But

Speaker 11 we make it real.

Speaker 11 There's real, tangible,

Speaker 11 disciplinary actions on how we think about money that affect our actions to change. And if you, just from my personal experience, I watched my parents do it.

Speaker 11 I watched my parents come here and start low.

Speaker 11 nothing and and they were the first millionaires and they did through saving they did through saving like they also did invest in the stock market but just through saving CDs And like, they did things that like most people would be like, that's insane.

Speaker 11 I would never do that. Like, they never, they didn't buy clothes for like three, four years.
No new clothes.

Speaker 11 They never, they didn't eat out for years because they were just so focused on saving. So, like, when you talk about in our, you know, we take things so much for granted.
It's like, what?

Speaker 11 Not go out to a restaurant for a year? Are you insane? Like, that's how, that's privilege, I think. But to an immigrant mindset, they're willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen.

Speaker 2 That is such a lost mentality, I think,

Speaker 2 today

Speaker 2 on this. Just

Speaker 2 like

Speaker 2 sometimes I want to tell, you know, I have friends and I have friends in a spectrum, right? I have my friends from my old life who still struggle with a lot of these things.

Speaker 2 And then I have friends from, I'd say, the second half of my life where I really started to embrace success and money and grow and build a life for myself, you know, kind of break the chain, I guess, is really where part of it was.

Speaker 2 I grew up in a town of 900 people in the middle of nowhere in upstate new york where we used to say you could leave your doors open because the criminals lived there they didn't steal from there and i remember being like 10 years old looking around this town and it's just this dusty ratty town with one one streetlight and i just said i i don't care what i have to do I'm never fucking coming back to this place.

Speaker 2 Like, this isn't going to be where I raise my kids. Like, this never going to happen.
Like, I just have to get out of here. And, you know,

Speaker 2 share that because,

Speaker 2 you know, I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and he was, he, you know, he's bitching about that, you know, whatever bills and money.

Speaker 2 And, and I just, I was like, dude, I mean this with the most love.

Speaker 2 Suck it the fuck up.

Speaker 2 Like, change something. Like, I, and I mean, I mean, I mean that I'll help you.
Like, whatever you need, like, I'll, if you, dude, I'll share with you the things I know.

Speaker 2 I'll introduce you to people that I know that could help you that are smarter than me at this shit. Like, but stop fucking bitching.
Like, like, get after it a little bit.

Speaker 2 Like, instead, all this time, this 20-minute diatribe that you just laid on me about all this shit that's happening, you could be, you know, putting together a side hustle or a business.

Speaker 2 And, and you guys talk a little bit about this. I guess, you know,

Speaker 2 where do people start with this? Do they start, is it, hey, I'm in this place and I have to, is it expense first? Is it go make more money first? Is it a combination of the two?

Speaker 2 Like, if I'm sitting here, and I don't want you to give away all the, everything that's in the book, obviously, I want people to read the book and all that.

Speaker 2 But, like, if I'm sitting here and listening, I'm like, you know what? I freaking, man, these guys are pissing me off. I'm going to do something.
I'm not going to.

Speaker 2 What's like the first thing that they could do tonight after listening to this just to take that first baby step on this path?

Speaker 5 Adrian, I was going to say, our chapter 17 is complaining is for losers, but I like stop fucking bitching better. I wish we would have named it that.
Ryan, that's awesome.

Speaker 5 It's so easy to complain and bitch. I mean, it's so easy.
We all fall into it, but the bottom line is it's horrible for you. There's even studies showing that your brain shrinks.

Speaker 5 I mean, it like literally makes you dumber the more you complain.

Speaker 5 And so, if you really do love your friends, like go ahead, like, okay, so go ahead and complain for a minute and set the timer, you know, and then at the end, it's like, okay, so what the fuck are you going to do about it?

Speaker 2 Yeah. And by the way, I'll help you.

Speaker 5 Let's go.

Speaker 5 Yeah, so it is a mindset shift. And I think first is sort of this awakening: oh my God, you mean I can do it? Wait, wait a second.
You mean success is possible for me?

Speaker 5 But I've never done it before. I've never written a book.
And everyone around me tells me that it's too hard and you'll never have any success. Of course, of course.

Speaker 5 That's the ocean you're swimming in. Oh, wait, there's a different ocean? I mean, to me, that is like the biggest thing: this mindset shift.
So we have a chapter, though, where we

Speaker 5 say, hey, hey, we think that you should immediately start saving and investing. So investing, let's just say,

Speaker 5 you know, most financial experts say 10%. I always shot for 30%.
When Adrian lived in a van, he was investing 95% of his income.

Speaker 5 And by the way, the richest immigrant person I know is an immigrant, he's a billionaire. He invested 95% of his money while sleeping on his mom's couch eating ramen noodles.

Speaker 5 And he's a billionaire now. But we say, hey, go ahead and start investing like right now.
Even if it's 1% of your income, put all those mechanisms in place.

Speaker 5 And if you say you can't afford to invest, oh, we got a great chapter for you where we break it down. We say get a roommate, start riding the bus, get sober, shave your head.

Speaker 5 And we actually ran the numbers on it.

Speaker 5 So the average American, if you got a roommate, if you rode the bus, got rid of your car, if you shaved your head bald like I do, and if you stopped drinking, after 25 years of just investing that and average market returns, it's close to $3 million

Speaker 5 you would have in just 25 years by just doing that. But what we hear people say is, well, I don't want a roommate.

Speaker 5 We actually have a chart in there based on the number of roommates you get and how fast you can become a multimillionaire just to help you out.

Speaker 5 And it's a bit tongue-in-cheek, but also this is what people do. Like, this is what people who grew up like you, Ryan, are like, I am not coming back here.
I am not raising my kids here.

Speaker 5 I had that mentality growing up too, because being poor does suck. And anyone who tells you that, oh, you know, money's not going to make your life better.

Speaker 5 You know, no offense to those individuals, but quite often they're already sort of hit middle class, right? And so they're, you know,

Speaker 5 it doesn't add quite as much happiness, but it does make you happier the more you go. Or they feel like success is impossible for them, or they've actually never been poor.

Speaker 5 So they have no idea how bad it sucks.

Speaker 5 But being poor does suck.

Speaker 5 And the best advice I could give anyone is start investing today.

Speaker 5 Another huge mistake people make, oh, once I pay off my debt, well, if you're the average American, you're never paying off your debt. You know, you're going to go get a house.

Speaker 5 You're going to owe a mortgage on that for 30 years. Start investing today, even if it's a dollar.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Guys, I want, you know, just to, just to share, and I've never shared this on the show before for the longtime listeners.

Speaker 2 I live in a 1,300 square foot ranch.

Speaker 2 I could afford a much bigger house. Probably, I just, but I'm divorced.
I have two boys. We live in a nice part of town.
The house was built in 1960.

Speaker 2 I bought it off a 96-year-old woman who was moving in with her 98-year-old sister. And I got it for an absolute song.
It was a complete and utter disaster.

Speaker 2 And I've spent the last year and a half fixing it up over time.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I have friends that say, like,

Speaker 2 they're nice enough not to like go, why do you live in that small house? But they insinuate that question. I've had that question insinuated to me.
And I'm like,

Speaker 2 because what the why who am I showing off for that I need some big ass house like I would rather go you like, dude, for those listening, you can't see Dr. Brad's shirt, but experiences over stuff.

Speaker 2 I'm like, I want to take my kids to ball games. I want to go on vacations with,

Speaker 2 you know, with my girl. Like, I want to go do fun stuff and see shit.
And the place that I sleep is so meaningless to me.

Speaker 2 Like, it's a, I mean, I've made it nice, but, you know, it's me and my stepdad. pounding away at shit, right? So like, I just, we, we,

Speaker 2 I think, like, what society expects of us or what we a better way of positioning that what we perceive society expects from us is a big part of why we stay in this poor mindset is like well you just got a raise get a better car you know what i mean like what does it get you where you need to go like does it if it doesn't break down all the time and it gets you where you need to go i I don't understand the need to upgrade unless you've hit a point in your life where that expense isn't tearing tearing you down, right?

Speaker 2 Like I got a buddy who's got a beautiful second car. It's his convertible Porsche and it's beautiful and it's his baby and he loves it.

Speaker 2 But this dude has worked his ass off and hit a level of income where purchasing that luxury doesn't impact his day-to-day life, right? And good for him that he's there.

Speaker 2 But I have other friends who have similarly nice cars that do the, that are living, as you said, paycheck to friggin paycheck to pay for this thing that they can drive around and show off.

Speaker 2 And that, like, what people, what are people going to think? I think my brain is broken. I've just never given a shit about that.

Speaker 2 And it's like a blessed superpower because it just, I see so many people get bogged down. And, well, what's someone going to think if I don't take my family out to the nicest restaurants or whatever?

Speaker 2 I just, it's such a limiting belief.

Speaker 11 I agree. Living under your means is such an underrated superpower.
And the true wealthy people, they do it. Wealthy people, and you're allowed to have nice stuff, but the difference is

Speaker 11 people that are really wealthy, they don't trade their time for objects. So, if you're a W-2 earner and you have a high-income salary and you purchase a nice vehicle

Speaker 11 without investment income, you're technically trading your time for that asset or for that vehicle, for the nice watch. It's like, how many hours did I have to work to get this, right?

Speaker 11 That's what I would say like a middle-class mentality would wrap their minds at, that buy nice stuff. Wealth people,

Speaker 11 and we have a chapter that says, like, you don't want, you don't actually want to be a millionaire, you just want to spend a million dollars.

Speaker 11 And what a wealthy person will do is from their W-2 income, they'll try to save and invest as much of that as possible to the point where then that investment income is paying them.

Speaker 11 And with that passive income, then they go buy the Porsche, the Porsche.

Speaker 11 And that's the huge difference. Wealthy people,

Speaker 11 you're allowed, everyone's allowed to have nice things, but smart wealthy people, they don't trade their time for it.

Speaker 11 They spend all their money in investments and that investments then purchase their lifestyle. So when I was living in a van, that's when I got really popular online.

Speaker 11 I felt like I gained like a million followers overnight because

Speaker 11 I make like seven figures online and I've been documenting it since my first dollar.

Speaker 11 And I was living in a van showing how much money I was making and and talking about money and and it was a complete contradiction because like if you if you're a millionaire, there's no way you're living in the van.

Speaker 11 Like people can wrap their minds. So it became an accident, but that's why I went so viral.
And it kind of makes me sad a little bit because

Speaker 11 we talk about the most important asset. Why we try to accumulate money.
Why do we save? Why do we invest? It's so we can own our time.

Speaker 11 Time is our most valuable asset. It's the financial freedom is to do what you want to do, whenever you want to do it, for as long as you like to do it.

Speaker 11 So to do something by choice, that's why money allows you to have that freedom to spend as much time with your family, with your kids, working on

Speaker 11 hobbies until you don't want to work on them anymore. Like that is why that's an amazing place to be and most people never get to experience that.

Speaker 11 So it's having that discipline and avoiding the shiny objects and portraying success. And I think social media has made that.

Speaker 11 part a lot worse is is is when you pull up Instagram you look up a friend it's their best version of their life and so you don't know the behind the scenes because rich is what you see but wealth is what you don't see.

Speaker 11 That's behind the scenes. And so

Speaker 11 that's why it's sometimes hard. It's like that person looks successful, but did they trade their time? Are they trading their time? Are they in debt with their time? Are they trapped by their objects?

Speaker 11 Or do they, are they, you know, do they have these, do they have real estate or stock that's actually paying for that? Are they really wealthy?

Speaker 11 And that's, you know, that's sometimes the hardest part is we can't really tell until a crash comes and then you see who's you know swimming naked.

Speaker 2 Resilience. That that is

Speaker 2 resilience. So I coach entrepreneurs and

Speaker 2 they all come in wanting growth strategies. And

Speaker 2 I found that I have to backdoor into resilience because no one wants to hear it. But I'm like,

Speaker 2 it's not the goal, your goal on a day-to-day basis shouldn't be to win the game. The goal is the ability to keep playing the game, right? That's the goal.
Like, how do you keep playing the game?

Speaker 2 Because eventually you're going to get your wins. But if you think about it just as your next win, your next win, you're not going to be prepared for 2008, 2009, or

Speaker 2 the tech stock bubble burst back in 2001, or whatever the next thing is, COVID, whatever the next thing is that's going to come down the pipe, and they seem to be coming a little more frequently.

Speaker 2 And that kind of takes us to the final topic that I want to hit. And I want to be respectful of your time.
You guys have been so amazing. This has been such a great conversation.
But

Speaker 2 you talk about your political party doesn't give a shit about you. And obviously, we're coming up to an election.

Speaker 2 There's, you know, the words communism, socialism, this part, you know, these are the good guys. These guys are the good guys.
It is insane.

Speaker 2 You know, for full disclosure, I have both a Trump sign and a Wu-Tang forever sign in my front yard.

Speaker 2 Just to give you an idea of where I particularly stand, although, you know, obviously Trump has his failings. But I just...

Speaker 2 Why doesn't your political party give a shit for you, shit about you, and how does that impact your wealth? Yeah, they literally don't care about you.

Speaker 5 Politicians are all narcissists. They all care about themselves.
What they really want to do is get re-elected. Okay, that's what they want to do.
And so what they'll do is promise you.

Speaker 5 And by the way, so I grew up lower income. I'm in my early 50s now.

Speaker 5 You know, the poverty rates have not changed. at all.
So now, granted, they are, you know, a couple hundred years ago, it was like 80% of the world's in poverty. Now it's like 17%.

Speaker 5 Look, they're not doing anything for poor people. Okay.

Speaker 5 And so even if they did, even if there's some sort of policy that gave you a tax credit of $1,000 or whatever, that's not going to make you financially free.

Speaker 5 So if you are sitting around, and I run across this all the time on social media and in my trolling comments, and I can always tell who's doing it, but it's like, people are so focused on the system has to change in order for you to then be able to take some action to better your life.

Speaker 5 And I'm a clinical psychologist, so I dare you to

Speaker 5 offer me up the person who has the most stacked against them and me be unable to help them in some way.

Speaker 5 And even if these things are like totally legitimate, they've got all the everything stacked against them.

Speaker 5 I guarantee you they can climb the ladder with a mindset shift and some tips along the way, frankly. Most of it's mindset.

Speaker 5 But if you're sitting waiting around for the system to get unrigged and for a politician to save you, it's never going to happen. We talk about it too.

Speaker 5 Like your boss isn't going to help you be financially free. Your boss probably isn't financially free, right?

Speaker 5 And even if they were, why would they want to eat the cost of trying to train your replacement? So

Speaker 5 they're not going to do it for you. You're going to have to do it for yourself.
And the great news is, like, when I was growing up, you couldn't invest in the stock market.

Speaker 5 Like, you actually had to have a broker make the transactions for you. And you had to have a certain amount of money to even have that relationship.
Now

Speaker 5 you can download the app today and you can invest a dollar today. It's unbelievable.
There's never been a better time to make money. Adrian's a great example of that.

Speaker 5 We joke about college and everything since I went all the way and everything.

Speaker 5 I'm still debating about whether I should send my kids to Adrian's house, you know, over the summer so that he can just set them all up to make a bunch of money or if I should send them to med school or something.

Speaker 5 I think I'll probably send them to Adrian's house to be financially free. Then they can go decide if they want to, you know, go to med school or whatever.

Speaker 5 But it's never been a better time.

Speaker 5 But you have to embrace the concept that it's possible for you because it absolutely is.

Speaker 11 I think the other thing, too,

Speaker 11 we don't pick a political side. We talk about red, blue.

Speaker 11 Our approach is at a much higher level is that where your energy is on focus,

Speaker 11 and it has to do back to this... what wealthy people think.
They have an internal locus of control. So they believe that their life, whatever good, bad, ugly,

Speaker 11 they're the person that's most accountable for it to change, for it to improve. They're the ones

Speaker 11 that are in control. And so people that, right now, I feel like everyone is a political activist, consuming every single update.
It's already happening on my social media. It's so annoying.
And

Speaker 11 most of the time, these people, they're not financially free.

Speaker 11 I think if you are financially free and you, and so you control your time and you would like to spend your time being being a political activist to me those are the that's that i think that's great because then it's your freedom of choice if you are not financially free if you're behind on bills if you are in debt if you are not at a job that you love like why are you spending hours of your time debating and and and fighting trolls online and trying to be a political activist and again if you're a politician i think that's what you should do that's your job but if you're a regular person that's in debt, doesn't have a lot of investing and saving, it'd be better to read a financial book.

Speaker 11 It'd It'd be better to start a side household because you're in control. And to think that anyone is going to save you is just not true.

Speaker 11 So it's about energy, it's about focus, and it's about discipline. And politic...
Politics is like another huge, shiny object that can distract just as bad as Netflix.

Speaker 11 We compare, like, if you watch the full Game of Thrones, that's enough time for you to literally start an Amazon business. That's enough time for you to sell something on Etsy.

Speaker 11 Like, it's hours of time. And, you know, I don't know if there's a stat, we should probably look it up.
The average amount of time people spend consuming politics now.

Speaker 11 Because before, it used to just be during election year. And now it seems like it's all year round.
It's the never-ending Netflix, is like what's happening in the political world.

Speaker 11 And ultimately, we all get one vote. So you could spend all year, every single day, and spend days and days and months to get your vote in, or you just catch up in the last couple weeks and vote.

Speaker 11 We do believe you should vote, but ultimately your energy should be spent probably elsewhere if you're not financially free.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I always come back with

Speaker 2 the political pieces, like incentives dictate action. Like, look at how they're incentivized across the board, right? Take my own political affiliation out of the mix.

Speaker 2 What are their incentives? And if they're, like you said, if their incentive is to be re-elected, they're going to do whatever they have to do to make that happen.

Speaker 2 And if,

Speaker 2 you know, I love the, there's a clip from Warren Buffett who's like, I could balance the budget in five minutes.

Speaker 2 Just if they, you know, if the, if at the end of the year, the budget hasn't been balanced, none of them are allowed to be reelected. They're all done.

Speaker 2 Like the budget would be balanced tomorrow, right? It would be over.

Speaker 2 And, you know, you think about it and you look at the actions and it's like, you know, not to, you know, get too like in the granular, but things like, you know, you look at like the tax code and how it's, you know, you know, volumes and volumes and volumes.

Speaker 2 And it's like, if they really wanted your life to be simple, there would be one line: you know, everyone pays X percent, period, done. You know what I mean? And I'd be like, then just live your life.

Speaker 2 You know, we all know what it is, and we all go, you know, but they don't. They build in all this.

Speaker 2 And if you do this, and we, you know, it makes me feel better to get more votes if I tell you you should buy a house.

Speaker 2 So I'm going to stuff this thing in here, but then it's not ever going to look the way I told you it was going to look. And it's just, and that's why I, you know,

Speaker 2 I find it so interesting. And

Speaker 2 I do enjoy, I enjoy politics as theater but not as reality I it's it's theater it's like going to a Broadway play I mean you're just you're watching people perform and

Speaker 2 I just I find it I find it intriguing in that aspect not not so much in that I think any of them and I think this is your point and I think it's 100% the right point and the point for everything you've said which is stop fucking bitching and get to work.

Speaker 2 Adrian, Dr. Brad, this has been phenomenal.

Speaker 2 We're going to push the book hard. I'm going to add it to my recommended reading list.

Speaker 2 I think this is one of the best, most practical, and most real language books on wealth and getting your shit together financially that I've ever read. I appreciate the hell out of you.

Speaker 2 Besides, going and get the books, which will be linked in the show notes, where else can people find out more information about you?

Speaker 11 Well, thanks so much for having us.

Speaker 11 Not just a regular link. So

Speaker 11 if you go to startthinkingrich.com slash Ryan, we want to actually give an extra bonus for everyone that's just part of your audience.

Speaker 11 And that's a way to say thank you to you and then all of your fans as well.

Speaker 11 And so it comes with like a financial masterclass as well as a couple live workshops we're planning on doing after the book is launched. So that's one way for us to say thank you.

Speaker 11 And also a book is really amazing, but the book's just a starting point, right?

Speaker 11 You can have a whole library of financial books, but it's really about taking action. So that's what we hope to, with some of our bonuses for your audience, we could help too.

Speaker 2 Tremendous. Thank you, guys.
I wish you nothing but the best, and I know this will be a huge success as just about everything else you guys do. So, thank you.

Speaker 5 Awesome. Thanks for having us.

Speaker 6 Let's go.

Speaker 7 Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy.

Speaker 9 Thank you for listening to the Ryan Hanley show.

Speaker 10 Be sure to subscribe and leave us a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 2 Close twice as many deals by this time next week. Sound impossible? It's not.
With the one call close system, you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals. in one call.

Speaker 2 This is the exact method we use to close 1200 clients in under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no end-less follow-ups, just results fast.

Speaker 2 Based in behavioral psychology and battle-tested, the one-call close system eliminates excuses and gets the prospect saying yes, more than you ever thought possible.

Speaker 2 If you're ready to stop losing opportunities and start winning, visit mastertheclose.com. That's masteroftheclose.com.
Do it today.

Speaker 12 Worried about your future in tech? Master new skills, accelerate your team's impact, and redefine what's possible with Plural Sight.

Speaker 12 We're more than just another online learning platform.

Speaker 5 We're shattering the skills gap and shaping future generations of technologists.

Speaker 12 Transform your work. Transform your team.

Speaker 8 Ready to tap in?

Speaker 12 Visit us at pluralsight.com to learn more.

Speaker 6 Lowe's knows that saving is always top of mind, especially this season. That's why we've picked some great deals for early Black Friday.

Speaker 6 Get free select Dewalt, Cobalt, or Craftsman tools when you buy a select battery or combo kit. More tools? Why not?

Speaker 6 Plus, we've got select pre-lit artificial Christmas trees starting at $59.98 because it's never too early to think Christmas. Get Black Friday prices without the crowds.
Lowe's, we help. You save.

Speaker 6 While supplies last, selection varies by location.

Speaker 13 AI is changing by the minute, and cybercrime is changing with it. In the future, the businesses that thrive will be the ones prepared for both.

Speaker 13 MasterCard Cybersecurity and Fraud Prevention for Enterprise uses an advanced AI-powered network to assess over 32 million cybersecurity risk events every day, protecting your business in the moment and securing your tomorrow.

Speaker 13 Because a new era of growth demands a new standard of security. Get ready for what's next at mastercard.com/slash cybersecurity.