The MONEY Expert: The Simple Plan That Made Me A MILLIONAIRE (ANYONE Can Do THIS!) | George Kamel

Today, we're joined by George Kamel, a renowned Ramsey Personality and personal finance expert. George's journey from a negative net worth to millionaire status in under a decade is not just inspiring, it's a blueprint for financial success. His book, 'Breaking Free From Broke: The Ultimate Guide to More Money and Less Stress,' is a must-read for anyone looking to escape the pitfalls of modern financial traps. From credit card debts to student loans, and from mortgage mishaps to investment traps, George tackles it all. Buy his book, Breaking Free From Broke: The Ultimate Guide to More Money and Less StressIn this episode you will learnThe key habits of millionaires that lead to financial success. Strategies to manage overwhelming financial situations and gain control over money. The psychological aspects of spending and how to avoid unnecessary expenditures. Insights into the impact of lifestyle choices on financial health and wealth accumulation. The true cost of higher education and student loans in today's economic climate. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1568For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More MONEY episodes we think you’ll love:Alex Hormozi: https://link.chtbl.com/1522-podJaspreet Singh: https://link.chtbl.com/1411-podRory Vaden: https://link.chtbl.com/1148-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  Hey my friend, thank you so much for being here. I wanted to ask you for a quick request before we get started with today's episode. Apple decided to shake things up a bit and you may no longer be following the School of Greatness, but luckily there's an easy fix. So really quick, if you can, double check for me that you're not missing out on greatness. Just go to your app on Apple Podcast and hit follow on the top right-hand corner of the School of Greatness show page on Apple Podcast. Once you click the follow button on the top right corner, you're all set to get updated with the latest in greatness here from the School of Greatness. And if you haven't already, make sure to leave a quick review while you're there. Your thoughts matter to me. I read all of the reviews and I'm so grateful that you're here. Thanks so much. Now let's jump into this episode.

• 0:41George Kamel?

  When it comes to stress, I think a lot of stress is based on fear of the unknown. And when you have headlines and economic uncertainty and what's the president gonna do or not gonna do and are they gonna forgive student loans? And I have so much peace when it comes to personal finances because I ignore all of the noise and I only focus on what I can control.

• 1:01Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 1:25Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring and hilarious George Kamel in the house. Good to see you.

• 1:32George Kamel?

  So good, man. It's an honor to be here. I'm a longtime fan and I feel like I'm inside of.

• 1:37Lewis Howes?

  You're here, man. You're here, man.

• 1:38George Kamel?

  We made it in the simulation.

• 1:39Lewis Howes?

  We made it, man. You are a personal finance expert and also a Ramsey, Dave Ramsey personality. And you're, you know, the show's number one in the world right now. So congratulations.

• 1:50George Kamel?

  Thank you.

• 1:50Lewis Howes?

  Ramsey's.

• 1:51George Kamel?

  Thank you to everyone who's listening who made it happen. I have very little to do with it.

• 1:54Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing, man. You've got this new book, which I'm excited about. I've been diving in. I'm really excited to dive into it with the audience. Breaking Free From Broke, The Ultimate Guide to More Money and Less Stress. Now here's a question for you to get started. This is what I read about you. You went from a negative net worth to millionaire status in under a decade. And I'm curious, to start this off, what would be the top five habits of millionaires that you studied and also you've applied in order to get that status?

• 2:24George Kamel?

  Oh, that's a great question. So we did the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America, and I think there's a lot of overlap in the habits that we talk about with the Ramsey baby steps and what we found with millionaires. So it was encouraging, because it just gave us some great confidence in the Ramsey plan to go like, this works. Every time you work it, it works, whether you make forty thousand or four hundred thousand. And so one of those habits is living on less than you make. If you can't do that, this is not for you. Like, if you make forty thousand and you spend sixty thousand a year, that's a problem. The other one we found is leg gratification.

• 3:00Lewis Howes?

  For that first one, why do you think people feel the need to spend more than they actually make?

• 3:06George Kamel?

  I think at the root of it, it's discontentment. We're not content with what we have. It's never enough. And thanks to debt, you're able to do that. Like, before debt existed, you couldn't spend more than you made. It was physically impossible. And all of a sudden, with the advent of debt, and I talk about the history of each piece of the puzzle here, like, where did credit cards come from? Where did auto loans originate? What about student loans? How did this all happen? And most of it was good intentions that turned into huge profits for companies and corporations going like, we can screw a lot of people over and make a lot of money from interest if we convince them they need that newer car. And look at colleges. What do they do? They raise prices, because you can get as much student loans as you want. Sally Mae is happy to give you the monopoly money,

• 3:50George Kamel?

  so colleges go, let's double the price. People will pay for it. And so because of that, people just have been spending more than they made for a long time now, and putting it on the tab and going, I'll worry about that later.

• 4:00Lewis Howes?

  Okay. What's the second habit?

• 4:03George Kamel?

  The second habit is practicing delay gratification. That's a discipline that we have lost in an instant gratification culture. We have instant access, twenty-four seven, all the time, in the palm of our hand, two-hour shipping. And that has caused our brains to just get fried where we're like, I can't wait a week. I can't wait 10 years to build wealth.

• 4:23Lewis Howes?

  I need this now.

• 4:24George Kamel?

  I need it now. And we found millionaires are okay with the long term. They're playing the long game and it's a, that's a very different mentality to have.

• 4:32Lewis Howes?

  They don't need it right now. They can say, I'm going to put 10% or 5% or a certain amount of dollar amount every month away automatically that I don't need to buy something with this. It's going to go to my future self.

• 4:42George Kamel?

  Yeah. Or I'm going to pay cash for that car. That means putting a thousand bucks away for 24 months to save up for a $24,000 car.

• 4:50Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's interesting, when I moved to, my dad always had used cars until he started to make some real money. Then he, then he bought a new car, right? But it wasn't for many, many years. He like had that car until he rode it to the, to the last, I guess, mile. And when I moved to LA, I had a million dollars in my account already. By the time I moved to LA, I don't know, 12 years ago, I had built this marketing company up before the podcast. I wasn't like mega millionaire, but I had a million dollars in the account of net worth, right? And I came here and everyone had these flashy cars. And I was like, I just don't feel the need to try to live up to some standard in Los Angeles.

• 5:32Lewis Howes?

  And I got this car for $4,000 that I drove for the first five years I lived here. And the only reason I got a new car was really for like a tax break into like, you know, write off on taxes. But this was a 1997 year car.

• 5:49George Kamel?

  Wow.

• 5:49Lewis Howes?

  And I drove it around for five years happy. It didn't have Bluetooth. It didn't have like, it had a CD player and I'm like.

• 5:56George Kamel?

  That's all you need.

• 5:57Lewis Howes?

  That's all I needed. And the radio didn't work, but it was like, I don't need some fancy car to feel like.

• 6:03George Kamel?

  Well, you weren't trying to flex.

• 6:04Lewis Howes?

  I wasn't trying to.

• 6:05George Kamel?

  You were focused on what was ahead of you instead of what was, who the people around you.

• 6:08Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. And it was, it was good enough. It got me around, you know? Eventually, I was like, okay, it's time to like upgrade, but not because I felt like I needed to to impress, but because I wanted it.

• 6:18George Kamel?

  It wasn't a flex.

• 6:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 6:20George Kamel?

  That's the third habit. Right there is, we found millionaires, they drive four-year-old cars on average, and they're all used.

• 6:27Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 6:27George Kamel?

  You would think like millionaires, well, they can afford the new car, like they could do it, but they don't, because they understand that cars are a depreciating asset. Every time you get in that car, it's just going down in value. And when you compound that with a car payment, you're paying interest on something going down in value. It's about the dumbest thing you can do, and I think it's one of the biggest wealth killers today. So that's definitely the third habit.

• 6:47Lewis Howes?

  Okay. What was, getting a used car, or what would be?

• 6:51George Kamel?

  Yeah, they drive, driving used cars, just, and that's part of delayed gratification. It all stems from living on less than you make and delayed gratification.

• 6:57Lewis Howes?

  Okay. And what's the fourth one?

• 6:59George Kamel?

  The most interesting one to me was that 97% of millionaires in the study believe they control their financial destiny. That was a, like, I was shocked they even put that question in the study, but it was such an empowering one, because it, it's less about money, it's more about belief. And what, the limiting beliefs we have about like, well, I didn't grow up with money. Well, my parents made money mistake. No, you don't understand, I got baggage, man. I made, I made too many mistakes with zeros on the end. And too many people live their life with that Eeyore mentality. But 97% said, I believe I have a sense of control and autonomy and agency over what happens with my money.

• 7:34Lewis Howes?

  This was a, a question from our, our YouTube community. We did a poll, and this was the number one thing they wanted me to ask you. What's the one piece of advice you would give someone feeling completely overwhelmed by their financial situation? And seeking a way out of that?

• 7:51George Kamel?

  I'm gonna go with, in the conclusion of my book, I end with a very non-financial answer, and I think it's the right answer for someone like this. And it's the, there's this gap between cynicism and hope. And I think people have lost hope in America today, when it comes to finances. They've resigned themselves to, whether I got myself in this mess, or it's someone else's fault, or whatever's happening to me, or the inflation. I believe both are a choice. Like, hope is a choice, and for me, it was the hardest choice.

• 8:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:23George Kamel?

  Because I was, I was the guy who was cynical. When I graduated college, I was 23, 40 grand in consumer debt, and I was angry at the world.

• 8:29Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 8:30George Kamel?

  I felt lied to, because I was like, I followed this path, I got good grades, I got the degree, where's my wonderful life? Instead, I'm out here trying to get cash back and get enough SkyMiles to go home for Christmas, wondering how I'm going to achieve my financial goals. And so that, to me, I think that's the feeling a lot of people have, is this pit of the stomach, lump in the throat, hopelessness, and cynicism becomes the easier choice. It's easier to complain and just go like, someone's got to fix my life.

• 8:59Lewis Howes?

  And blame people, systems, or whatever, yeah.

• 9:01George Kamel?

  So I think it starts with, you know, while, yes, we got to do, we got to get on a budget, we got to make sacrifices, we got to get rid of this debt, using the debt snowball, get the emergency fund, those are the real tactical steps. But I think it starts with an emotional place where we go, alright, we cried it out, now we wake up and we're like, we got to go to work. And so, the question is, the gap between financial stress and financial peace is littered with traps, and myths, and distractions, and noise, and whole life insurance bros trying to sell you on some tax-free wealth strategy. And so what you have to do, if that's you, is go like, I'm cutting out all the noise

• 9:41George Kamel?

  and inputs, I'm going to follow a proven plan, do one thing at a time, with focus intensity, and go all in. And if, listen, if you get out of debt and follow the Ramsey Plan and you hate it, you can always go back into debt. The companies will always be ready to hand you more Monopoly money to play with. But I've rarely seen that happen. When people get out of debt, the sacrifice they make to get out, 18 to 24 months, that's the average it takes to get out, they never go back. They go, I touched the hot stove, done with that life, I got goals, I'm not trying to pay lenders for the rest of my life, I'm trying to leave a legacy, I want to have generational impact. And so that, those are the people that inspire me, are the ones that, they start there, but it doesn't end there.

• 10:21George Kamel?

  And unfortunately, too many of us are willing to live in mediocrity for 30 years, instead of sacrificing for three.

• 10:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:29George Kamel?

  To have freedom for the next 27.

• 10:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:31George Kamel?

  But it's a, it's a very different lifestyle.

• 10:33Lewis Howes?

  And...

• 10:34George Kamel?

  So that, it takes transformation, and you know how difficult that is, you talk about that a lot on this show.

• 10:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, delayed gratification is one of those key things, a lot of people are willing to sacrifice three years of...

• 10:45Lewis Howes?

  Delayed gratification and not having all the extra things that their friends are doing and not going out every weekend or not going on that trip that they wanted to go on.

• 10:54George Kamel?

  You're not getting that house, you're not driving that car.

• 10:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, man.

• 10:57George Kamel?

  It's hard.

• 10:57Lewis Howes?

  If you can, if you can stay committed for a few years of sacrifice and find joy in the small and then big wins and find joy in doing things for free or just playing board games with friends or being creative with your time as opposed to feeling like you always need to spend to enjoy your time, I think you'll, you'll live a much better life.

• 11:18George Kamel?

  That's the heart of all this. It's discontentment and FOMO, right? It's fear of missing out. What I talk about in the book is JOMO. It's the joy of missing out. It's the joy of going like, dude, I don't care about all that. I'm running my own race. And the problem with running other people's race is that there is no finish line. Like when you're trying to keep up with someone else, well, they have a whole different life and they have different goals. And so why are you trying to keep up with these people that you don't really care about that much? And so if you really have strong friends in your, in your corner, they're going to be cheering you on and going like, dude, I totally get it. I'll come over tonight. I'll bring a pizza. We'll hang. We don't have to go out to the bar. You know what I mean? And so that takes a level of sacrifice, especially when you're young. Cause when you're young, it's all about like, these are the best years of my life. I can't skip that vacation. But

• 12:03George Kamel?

  man, just two years out of the next 40, if you can sacrifice, it changes everything.

• 12:08Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 12:09George Kamel?

  It changes the trajectory of your life. So that's what I, I hope people are willing to do at the end of this.

• 12:14Lewis Howes?

  How does, how does someone create that belief that they can have control over their money?

• 12:18George Kamel?

  I think it starts with dealing with the, their past. I mean, our friend, Dr. John Deloney has a book called Own Your Past, Change Your Future. And you have to own the shame and the guilt and the baggage and the mistakes and the hurt and the financial trauma and your parents divorced and it was money stress and money fights and you took on all this debt. And so who are you to ever build wealth and become debt free? You have to grapple with that and go like, that's not who I am. Those are things that happened and yes, they may have happened to me, but that's not going to control my destiny. And so it starts with that realizing like this is my past. That's fine. That's not where I'm headed. And so we always say the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror for a reason. So if you can start looking ahead going regardless and

• 13:00George Kamel?

  in spite of all of that, I am going to change my family tree. That's what we call it. Build generational wealth, break the cycles and chains that have come before me. Those people are the ones that inspire me every day when they call the show and they didn't come from money. They didn't come from trust funds. They came from broken homes and little incomes and they overcame. Those are the heroes.

• 13:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think I saw someone earlier this week, a woman come on the show says she got like 300,000 in debt in like 18 months or something on your show. And maybe it's 300, maybe it was 170,000, I think it was that she got out of debt in 18 months. And the amount of peace that she had in her facial expression and her body language around being debt free from these, I guess, bad debts really looked empowering on what she was capable of doing now without that debt weighing her down. And I'm curious, before we get into the next, the fifth habit, how does someone develop that, that belief that they can pay

• 14:05Lewis Howes?

  down their debts if it seems so daunting and so overwhelming?

• 14:09George Kamel?

  Realizing that you're not alone, I think is a really important step. Too many people feel like, well, my situation's different and I'm unique and I'm special and they don't get it. But then I meet people every day and I get in a financial peace university class and there's all these other people who made money mistakes. And I go, I'm not alone. I'm not, I'm not the only idiot out there. I'm not the only average George out there. That to me is encouraging because it tells me that this path is something that other people have done before me that will come after me and that I can do this too. And so I think it's important to get other people around you and that might mean cutting out some toxic friends who are not trying to be on that journey.

• 14:46Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 14:46George Kamel?

  Finding people who aren't trying to live on less than they make. That's an important piece. And the other piece is feeling progress. And that's why I think those baby steps are so important. When you start with just, hey, a thousand bucks, can you get a thousand bucks? Most of us would say, yeah, I can sell some stuff. I can get the second job. I can, you know, not eat out this month. Now it's like, all right, let's attack that consumer debt. Debt snowball, smallest to largest. Let's just attack the small debt. Can we just do that? One thing at a time. We're not saving. We're not investing. Where it's gonna do one thing at a time. And that to me is what builds that hope and builds that progress and momentum and keeps you motivated on the journey. You have to have a little win early on or else you give up.

• 15:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's good. And what about the fifth habit?

• 15:27George Kamel?

  Ooh, the fifth habit is so boring and unsexy that it will upset you, but it is getting on the budget. It's making a plan. And what I found was that budgets are not for broke people. Budgets are not for wealthy people. Budgets are for intentional people. That was a game changer for me because I always thought like, we have to be a super nerd and love Excel. Or you have to be like really broke because you think budget, you think this person's real frugal and stingy and cheap. And they can't spend anything. You say, I'm on a budget. That means I can't go out with your friend, with the friends. But to me, it's just putting a plan on paper and looking at reality going, my income is 5,000. I need to spend, I'm gonna make a plan for every single dollar because otherwise what happens?

• 16:08George Kamel?

  Dollars float away. You go, where do, where, oh my gosh, we spent 600 bucks eating out this month and doordashing a burrito. You know, all of that unintentional spending and impulse leads to you not hitting financial goals.

• 16:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So it's not, it's conscious spending habits. It's being aware of where you're spending your money. Um, there was a quote in here, let me see this quote real quick. Let's solve this based on budgeting.

• 16:34George Kamel?

  Yeah, I had a whole chapter on, called budgeting is freedom. That's the first one in the breaking free section to help people.

• 16:40Lewis Howes?

  And the quote on that is from John Maxwell. Said, "A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went." And I think a lot of people aren't conscious about their spending habits. And they're not intentional about where they want their money to go. They buy things based on impulse and based on pleasure and based on desire. And then they realize like, oh, I don't have as much money as I thought I had because they're not intentional about it. How often should we be looking at all of our accounts? Should this be a daily thing? Should it be monthly? Is it too, is it, you know, is there too much to look at it where it's an obsession and you're over obsessing versus like a natural flow? What do you think?

• 17:19George Kamel?

  Yeah, that's a great question. Well, we tell people to make a budget every month. And so actually creating the budget on paper before the next month begins is key. So that will happen one time. And if you've got a spouse, you need to do that together with a quick budget meeting. This is not a four hour, you know, Lord of the Rings saga here. This is going, hey, what's going on this month? Hey, we got that birthday party. We gotta get that gift for this thing. Remember, we have that vacation coming up. Let's start saving. And so that's all it is. But as far as tracking your transactions, because that's a really important part of the budget people forget to do. Looks great on paper, and then we just spend the rest of the month and hope. Fingers crossed, we have money in the account at the end of the month and don't overdraft. That's most people. But tracking your transactions is a key, and you want to do that once every day or other day. And again, if you do it once every other day, it's like

• 18:04George Kamel?

  cleaning your room. You don't ever have to clean your room if you just tidy up real quick. And so with every dollar, our budgeting app, this is as easy as dragging the transaction. Like Amazon, drag it up to shopping. We're done. And so when you do that, you can actually see, do we have any money left for XYZ? Or, hey, we're over budget, we gotta figure something out. We gotta sacrifice, we gotta cut this category here. What most people do is just overspend in four different categories. And they go, we're a thousand bucks over and we put it on the credit card. We'll figure it out next month. And that's why it's important to not only do a budget, but to use your own money. And I only have, I have a one debit card, and I use cash occasionally. That's it. My life is very simple in that way. And I have my business, my Ramsey business debit card as well.

• 18:49Lewis Howes?

  What do you say to people that say, you know, well, I love having a credit card because it allows me to get points for flights or, you know, whatever it might be for other perks. And if I'm tracking it, just like I would a debit card, then I'm missing out on all these other perks.

• 19:05George Kamel?

  Well, I found the people who actually could stand to benefit and actually have any meaningful rewards, make enough money and spend enough that they don't need the rewards. So it's kind of hilarious at that point to be like, if you make $150,000, the thousand dollars in rewards is not changing your life whatsoever. And the mental calories you're spending to play the game and maximize is not worth your time. And so I break down, there's in, in chapter three on credit cards, I break down eight different character archetypes that I found with credit cards. And so there was the rewards redeemer. There's the world traveler. The person's like, I gotta have my airline miles. And I break down, you gotta spend $50,000 in order, in order to get your $250 flight. But you don't even know that because what do they give you?

• 19:47George Kamel?

  Points and miles. What is 100,000 miles? We don't know anymore. The credit card companies want to confuse us. And I found this out from an ex Capital One employee. She told me verbatim that these credit card companies run 10,000 experiments a year on consumers and A B test them to go, oh, if we switch it from cash back to points, it triggers something different in their brain. It's like Chuck E. Cheese. Wow. You're like, I don't know what 100,000 points is, but it feels like a lot. Let's sign up for the bonus. That's like two candy bars. Yeah. Exactly. So most people, they're stepping over a dollar to hopefully pick up a quarter. And the average credit card interest rate now is 22% APR. Wow. But we're doing all this in hopes of getting 2% cash back. You're like, is it worth spending 100 bucks to get two bucks?

• 20:30George Kamel?

  What they tell me is, well, I'm not spending any differently than if it was my own money. I'm like, you want to bet? Here's the $1,000 cash of your own money. Go hand over $1,000 and see the emotional pain it causes. And so adding friction back into our life will actually help us spend less. And that's what happens when you use cash especially, but even a debit card. Your brain knows. This is coming right out of my account. That's Lewis's money right now. And so in the book, the thesis of that chapter is when it hurts, when it hurts less, it costs more. When we remove the friction, you're going to spend more. And I, I quote, MIT studies using FMRI technology on the brain and they're seeing when people swipe that credit card, it releases the brakes on spending and hits the accelerator. Really? And so it's like both and.

• 21:13George Kamel?

  And every study shows you spend more when you swipe that card. And so I try to hit every single objection here because we've heard so much on the Ramsey show. What if I paid the, the perfect spender is the first one in there? I never pay a dime in interest. What's wrong with using my credit card? You know, all of those excuses.

• 21:27Lewis Howes?

  Pay it off every month, all that different things.

• 21:29George Kamel?

  Yeah, but even then, think about it. You could have zero bucks in the bank at the end of that month. You're not building wealth just because you have a zero credit card balance. I want people to build wealth.

• 21:39Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 21:39George Kamel?

  Not just play the game perfectly of Capital One.

• 21:42Lewis Howes?

  Right, and if you're coming out of a debit card, you'd be much more conscious of like, do I really need this thing? Or is this, uh, whatever I'm gonna buy right now, is it really gonna be the thing that I want right now? It gonna make me happy?

• 21:53George Kamel?

  Well, it's all rotating cash back. So when you tell me I spend just like I would, and like, no, you're going out to eat because you get 5% this month on restaurants.

• 22:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:01George Kamel?

  Like, they know what they're doing. It's always on travel and restaurants. It's never, hey, pay your utility bills and we'll give you 5% cash back. It's never the boring stuff. It's the frivolous spending.

• 22:10Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 22:10George Kamel?

  So there's so much in there that was fascinating, especially the Fed Reserve study that shows that $15 billion moves from the poor, uneducated, to the wealthier, educated, through credit card rewards. And so when people tell me, well, George, I'm not, like, who's benefiting from this? Like, I'm not hurting anyone by doing this. Like, technically, I'm not, this is not, I'm not on a moral high horse, but the study shows that the poorest, most uneducated people is who's paying for your flight.

• 22:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:38George Kamel?

  Who's paying for your cash back? And to me, that's not a system I wanna be a part of, if I can opt out of it by using my own money.

• 22:44Lewis Howes?

  What do you think is the number one thing about money that stresses them out the most? The idea of money, is it the debt of money? Is it having lots of money? Is it relationships and money? Is it people's opinions about your money? What is the number one thing about money that stresses people out the most?

• 23:03George Kamel?

  When it comes to stress, I think a lot of stress is based on fear of the unknown. And when you have headlines and economic uncertainty, and what's the president gonna do or not gonna do? And are they gonna forgive student loans? And I have so much peace when it comes to personal finances because I ignore all of the noise, and I only focus on what I can control. When you start pointing fingers at, well, what are we gonna do about inflation? The cost of eggs and dude, Congress has got to get their act together and the Fed, they keep messing with these interest rates and the guy in the White House is to blame. And all of that is, we can always complain about that for a moment. But at the end of the day, we got bills to pay. We got goals to achieve. And so I go through all of those excuses in chapter one to tell people like, hey, we can point fingers and enjoy it and that's cathartic.

• 23:48George Kamel?

  But at the end of the day, what you can control is the guy in the mirror and how he spends his money and how she saves her money. And to me, that, that at first is kind of like, okay, I can control me, whoop, whoop. But it's so empowering when you realize like, oh, if I'm the problem, I'm the solution. This is amazing. And so I think that stress comes from the fear of the unknown and what could happen? And what if the stock market tanks? But when you have no debt, no lenders to pay, you have a fully funded emergency fund and you've got wealth being built for the future and you're thinking long-term, you're not worried about what happens.

• 24:22Lewis Howes?

  Right, because you've got your plan and you're sticking to it.

• 24:24George Kamel?

  Exactly. I'm so confident in my plan and it's not because I'm some like multimillionaire. It's, it's because I'm content with where I'm at. I don't need another million dollars tomorrow.

• 24:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you don't need a new watch, don't need a new car. You don't need to go on five extra trips that you see other people doing.

• 24:40George Kamel?

  Exactly.

• 24:41Lewis Howes?

  You don't need to overspend because you have financial peace.

• 24:44George Kamel?

  And the simpler you can create, the simpler life you can create, the better off you're gonna be. Cause the more stuff you own, the more it kind of owns you. More complicated life gets. And so, you know, I was just hanging out with the minimalist and we were talking about all of this stuff because we're seeing anxiety stems from the stuff around us. And the less clutter in our life, emotionally, physically, financially, the better off we are. And I've never seen someone debt free who's like, my life is worse now that I have no debt. Not once, they always are levitating because they just have a piece about them. Cause they're not, keeping their bodies, not keeping the score anymore of the debt that they owe.

• 25:19Lewis Howes?

  Do you think people have more shame around being in debt? Or more shame today about having an abundance of money?

• 25:30George Kamel?

  Oh, like, is there, is there a shame in like, well, I don't wanna, because other people are hurting.

• 25:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, I've got.

• 25:36George Kamel?

  I have wealth.

• 25:36Lewis Howes?

  I figured out how to like, take responsibility for my life and, you know, pay off the debts and then start building wealth. And I've actually done it now. I spent ten, twenty, thirty years of actually creating something of value. And I've been smart with my money. Now I have it, which used to be like celebrated.

• 25:52George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 25:53Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's like, but now it's kind of like.

• 25:54George Kamel?

  Vilainize wealth.

• 25:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So do you feel like people have more shame around being in debt and broke? And a victim that they don't have control of their life financially, or more shame about being rich?

• 26:05George Kamel?

  Hmm. Well, in a culture where debt has become celebrated, I think we've lost a level of shame that we ought to have. Like, back in our grandparents' days, it was not okay to owe people money. It was a goal to not owe people money. Now there's TikToks about people going, I'm fifteen million dollars in debt and I'm proud of it. And you should be fifteen million dollars in debt too. And the people who have wealth and have earned it with integrity are going like, well, I don't wanna, I don't wanna hurt anyone's feelings.

• 26:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:33George Kamel?

  Because everyone's upset. And at the heart of it is, I don't think it's fair that Louis has more than me. And it's this comparison culture and mentality of if he has something I don't, that's not fair. And, you know, he goes into basically social and socialist anarchy at that point. Um, and so the best thing we can do, whether you, you know, we have people with all the baby steps and they're whispering to us like, hey, we're millionaires.

• 26:55Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. They're not, they're not like owning it.

• 26:57George Kamel?

  They're not like shouting from the rooftops, but we live in such a weird world at Ramsey where we're celebrating people paying off debt. We're asking about income all day long. And so it's, there's, there's less shame in our Ramsey bubble, but it's weird that we whisper that.

• 27:11Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think there's so much shame for people that have, you know, a hundred grand or a million dollars of net worth? Where they can't speak about it to their friends and family openly without feeling judged, attacked? Having handouts everywhere where people now, now you gotta pay off my debts? Is that what it is? That people are just shaming?

• 27:29George Kamel?

  I think.

• 27:29Lewis Howes?

  People that have taken responsibility for their money?

• 27:32George Kamel?

  The heart behind it is, there's, there's wisdom to it. You know, me telling a random person or my friend like, hey, bro, I got a million bucks, like. It's out of context and it's going to make them feel small and less than. And so I think the heart of it is is good. It's good intentions.

• 27:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:49George Kamel?

  And there's a time and a place to talk about it. The Ramsey Show is one of them. We love celebrating people. But going down the street being like, I'm a millionaire. What are you guys doing? It's hard. And so even with this book, like, I don't brag that I'm a millionaire. I tell people like, I'm the average George. If I can go from broke to millionaire, you can too. So it's never a flex on my part. All it is, is I want to empower other people that I didn't come from money. I am a W2 employee. I didn't start my own business. I'm not a self-made entrepreneur. I'm a guy who just followed a simple plan and believes that anyone can become a millionaire in America today. And so I talk about money so that we don't have to talk about money. It's like, let's, let's take the shame out of it and let's just make it fun and conversational. And it's not about a flex. It's about encouraging and empowering each other.

• 28:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So you're telling me you can work somewhere for a decade, not start your own business, not be hustling on the side constantly and, you know, spending all your time trying to earn more constantly, and you could get to millionaire status? Is that what you're telling me? It's possible?

• 28:50George Kamel?

  It's possible. I think it looks different for a lot of people. You know, a part of my wealth building was my spouse, Whitney. I met her at Ramsey and, you know, we're, we are net worth millionaires together as a household. And people are always like, well, that doesn't count because really you have to take half of that. Because what if you divorce? I'm like, that's such a weird, that's like saying like, well, what if the stock market goes to zero? You're not a millionaire anymore. I'm like, you're right. I, I wouldn't be. But I think a spouse is one of the most powerful wealth building tools.

• 29:16Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 29:16George Kamel?

  It's underrated.

• 29:17Lewis Howes?

  Tell me why?

• 29:18George Kamel?

  Because when my wife and I met, we were so aligned, obviously. We both worked at Ramsey. We drank the Kool-Aid and it was good. And we were like, we started off our marriage debt-free. I had paid off my consumer debt at that point. She was much smarter than me, much better looking, much better at money management. And so like, It's a life hack to start your marriage off debt free.

• 29:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:37George Kamel?

  Already investing for the future, having an emergency fund, getting into a home. And we ended up paying off that home in 26 months because we were on the same page, got a modest home. That was within our means and we both had the goal of like, what would it be like to not have a mortgage payment in our early 30s? What can we do? How could we give? What options would we have? And that led us down the path of paying off the house. That house appreciates in value over, over time. We've been investing 15% that whole time into our Roth 401ks at Ramsey, boring investing stuff. And all of a sudden you look up at your net worth calculation and like the equity in our home and in retirement accounts, we're millionaires. And so it's, it's, I don't say that to minimize how, you know, the sacrifice that we made and the

• 30:21George Kamel?

  side hustles that I did and us getting promoted over the years, over a decade. Uh, it may take people 15 years or 20 years. Uh, it may take dual income. You know, we had dual income, no kids at the time. We got two French Bulldogs, which was a real net worth.

• 30:36Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's, that's a, that's a couple hundred and months of, you know, yeah.

• 30:39George Kamel?

  We just had a little girl four months ago and I promise you the dogs are still more expensive than a baby.

• 30:43Lewis Howes?

  Congrats, man.

• 30:44George Kamel?

  Thank you. So all of that together, uh, I, I say that to go, it may not look the same for everyone. So this is not a, hey, if I can't do it in 10 years, I'm a failure. But, uh, I think people imagine, well, it's going to take me 35 years to build wealth. It really doesn't take that long when you get intentional and focused and follow the Ramsey baby steps. Average person following the baby steps pays off their home in seven years.

• 31:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 31:07George Kamel?

  That's not a long time. If you're 22, it feels like an eternity.

• 31:10Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 31:10George Kamel?

  But you're gonna be seven years older. So where do you want to be?

• 31:13Lewis Howes?

  Time is gonna pass.

• 31:14George Kamel?

  You want to be debt free or not?

• 31:15Lewis Howes?

  Right. What do you think is the, the three biggest questions everyone should ask? Before they get married?

• 31:24George Kamel?

  Oh, this is a good one. I was just on, uh, Chris Harrison from The Bachelor. So I was talking to him and his wife about this and like what questions to ask when you're dating someone, when to bring all this up. But I think one of the best questions to ask is not about, you know, you don't want to ask about, hey, how much debt do you have on your, on the first date? What's your income? Like, what's your life plan? What you want to ask is, what are your views around debt? Just what are your values when it comes to building wealth? That to me says a whole lot more about a person than their current status. And so I'm never gonna be like, you better find someone who's debt free, who's a million, you know? It's not about that. It's about where are they trying to go? Because if they're trying to hang on to debt and they're gonna continue to spend more than they make, probably not someone I want to be with long term.

• 32:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, if they've got seven credit cards and, you know, they're in a ton of debt, that may not be the, and they think that's good. That may not be a sign of alignment, of financial freedom in the future.

• 32:21George Kamel?

  Exactly. And that's gonna hurt, that's only gonna cause resentment. We see that one of the number one causes of divorce in America today is money fights and money problems. And so if you can avoid that on the front end, which I think you can, by asking some good questions like, what are your values around money? What was it like growing up in your house? Was money talked about? I think that's a really interesting question because it says a lot about how you think about money and your paradigm around money. Is money something that you see as an obstacle versus a tool? Are you wanting to be generous? Are you a saver or a spender? These are fun, lighthearted questions that aren't digging and like prodding on the first date. Now, as you get into the relationship, you can start to ask about, you know, debt levels and like, do you have a plan to pay this off?

• 33:04George Kamel?

  But doing it in encouraging way is very, is the key. You don't want to come at them attacking.

• 33:08Lewis Howes?

  Here's another question. Let's say that you've been, you're in your late twenties, early thirties, and you've been dating for a couple of years. And you've, you've really built this incredible connection. And you've learned to like each other and love each other, and you're excited to get married. But then you start to have these challenging conversations. You start to ask some of these things. Maybe you were too timid, you didn't want to ask about it because life was just good. And now it's into asking about debt, money values, vision around money, all these different things. And you realize you're completely opposite spectrums around values and money.

• 33:46Lewis Howes?

  Do you think love is enough to keep a marriage going without a lot of conflict? Or if you're complete opposites around views on money? Do you think that is going to cause more pain and friction than the love will keep you together?

• 34:00George Kamel?

  Hmm, that's a great question.

• 34:02Lewis Howes?

  Based on all the case studies you've seen come through and the Ramsey show and your experience and people you know? What do you think?

• 34:09George Kamel?

  I think there's a good distinction to make between you don't need to have two savers in a relationship to make it work. You can have the free spirit spender and you can have the nerd saver who loves to do the budget. You can have a long, healthy marriage that way. But if you have someone who's saying, I want to hang on to debt. I want to continue to spend more than we make. I don't care. YOLO, forget about the future. And this other person who has, you know, a real fear about like, we're going to be screwed. We're never going to be able to retire. Eventually that's going to cause enough strife in the relationship. That either you shut down and brush it all under the rug and there's a lot of resentment. Or it ends up in divorce.

• 34:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 34:46George Kamel?

  And that's what we've seen is there's financial infidelity and one of the.

• 34:50Lewis Howes?

  What is financial infidelity?

• 34:52George Kamel?

  Well, it's, it's not cheating on your spouse, but it's not communicating honestly about finances. This is when you have that other account over here and we bought this thing and I didn't tell you about it. Because of fear or because I knew what they would say if I bought this thing. And what that does is you, you lose trust and relationships are entirely built on trust. And money is a really emotional piece of that trust puzzle. And it's hard to rebuild trust, really easy to break. All it takes is one purchase without the spouse knowing. And we've seen this time and time again on the Ramsey show where one spouse spends over here. The other spouse didn't know about it and they're calling in going, what do I do? How do I repair this relationship? And it's less of a financial question at that point. You know, we know what to do financially, but it's how do we move forward in the relationship?

• 35:37George Kamel?

  That's really tough.

• 35:38Lewis Howes?

  How do you repair a relationship if there's been financial infidelity?

• 35:43George Kamel?

  Well, counseling is always a start and more open, honest communication together over a long period of time.

• 35:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:50George Kamel?

  Trust is one of those things where I have to see a pattern of trustworthiness. And that takes a long time. Sometimes it can take years to fully repair that.

• 35:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 35:58George Kamel?

  Because it's always in the back of that person's mind. It could happen anytime now. Just like with a cheater, you're like, they could cheat again. We don't, we don't truly know. And so what that looks like is making that monthly budget together, combining bank accounts for transparency. And that's one of the biggest things I've seen today is people are so against combining bank accounts. I'm like, you share a bed, you share DNA, you have a baby together, but you can't share a bank account? This is crazy. So they live like roommates, Venmo-ing each other back and forth, splitting expenses and hairs, and then wondering why they don't have a great marriage.

• 36:31Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 36:31George Kamel?

  So the best couples I know have full transparency and communication around money. They have combined bank accounts and they still have their independence. Louis has his line item in the budget for fun money. It's not about control on one person's part of going, you can't spend that way. It's, we agreed Louis has $500 to spend on shoes this month.

• 36:50Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 36:50George Kamel?

  And she has $600 because that's how it should be. You know? That adds some self-care in there.

• 36:55Lewis Howes?

  Right, and well, maybe they have like separate bank account for personal and then like a shared combined account or something like that. Are you saying all accounts should be shared?

• 37:03George Kamel?

  My wife and I have one shared checking account. And it works the same. Because when you think about a line item in the budget, that's really telling the money where it's going to go.

• 37:11Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 37:12George Kamel?

  And so sending it to the personal accounts, that's fine. I think it can create a layer of financial infidelity because we don't know, wait, Louis had all this money? I've seen this happen where they go, I didn't know you had all that money saved up in there. And I, and here's what we've seen, they go, well, that's her debt to pay off. She's going to do that out of her own money in her own account. And so what happens is you lose the we when it comes to relationships and money and it becomes, yeah, but that's her mistake. She's going to pay that off. And nothing builds a marriage like going, that's her thing to deal with. Like, you gotta be in this together.

• 37:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 37:42George Kamel?

  And so that's a hard thing too. One person brings in a whole bunch of debt to the relationship and you get married, well, Louis has been saving $100,000 in a savings account, she comes in with $100,000 and we go, that savings account for that house just turned into the payoff her debt fund.

• 37:55Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 37:56George Kamel?

  And that hurts.

• 37:57Lewis Howes?

  That's got to create some resentment for people, right?

• 37:58George Kamel?

  100%.

• 37:59Lewis Howes?

  So how do you, I mean, that's why you gotta choose wisely, I guess.

• 38:02George Kamel?

  That's part of it.

• 38:03Lewis Howes?

  Or no, like, okay, I'm choosing this, knowing my money is gonna support this debt. Or this person's past decision making, right? That that got her in this position.

• 38:13George Kamel?

  You're taking that whole person on in marriage. Not just the good parts you like.

• 38:16Lewis Howes?

  You gotta accept them. That's one of the reasons, you know, you gotta. Most people hope for like potential for that they're gonna change, but you gotta accept who they are. When you're getting into a relationship, that's a whole nother conversation around this.

• 38:27George Kamel?

  Oh, yeah. But that's a hard part that I totally understand. Cause one person worked really hard to save up this money and they were diligent and disciplined. And one person made this financial mistake, probably before marriage happened. And they're still grappling with the reality of student loans and the car loan. And it hurts, but.

• 38:43Lewis Howes?

  Is there an amount of debt? Is there an amount of debt where love is not enough?

• 38:48George Kamel?

  Who? That one person has. A million dollars in debt?

• 38:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, someone has got so much debt. Yeah, they're 400 grand from their doctor's school or whatever it is. Then they made a, you know, poor purchase or tried to invest in something and went bankrupt or whatever it is. But man, you've got a connection. You've got an intimacy, you've got a.

• 39:05George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 39:05Lewis Howes?

  A shared two years of experiences and a love that feels really strong. And then you learn about four or 500 grand in debt. Is love strong enough to make a relationship last long term with that much debt from one person?

• 39:19George Kamel?

  I I do think love can overcome, but I don't think it's like a squishy hallmark feeling. I think it's a, there is such a strong partnership of like. We're gonna get through this together. And my friend Jade Warshaw, Ramsey personality, she's living proof of that. Her husband and or they had almost half a million dollars in consumer debt.

• 39:35Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 39:36George Kamel?

  And they paid it all off over seven years.

• 39:39Lewis Howes?

  Oh, was it before they got married or together they?

• 39:41George Kamel?

  So, once they got married, they had looked at all their debts and combined.

• 39:45Lewis Howes?

  They were both messy.

• 39:46George Kamel?

  They were both a mess.

• 39:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 39:48George Kamel?

  But to me, it wasn't just this like love will overcome. It was an alignment in our goals and where we're headed. And our new values and our new identities of who we wanted to become.

• 39:57Lewis Howes?

  See, they both were at fault of their debts. It wasn't like one person was.

• 40:01George Kamel?

  One person comes in with half a million, the other person is like, I'm doing great.

• 40:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:05George Kamel?

  That's a much harder thing. You have, you have to overcome it, but you also have to realize. Marriage is long term. So you've got to think about 30 years from now. Are we really going to look back and go, well, that $500,000 really set us back?

• 40:18Lewis Howes?

  Maybe, maybe that's seven years of your life that you've got to make different decisions. You can't go take a trip. You can't live a life that you dreamed of. That dream has to shift.

• 40:27George Kamel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:28Lewis Howes?

  So there's a lot of like.

• 40:29George Kamel?

  There's a lot to overcome. Your life looks different.

• 40:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, but you make a decision for one person that hopefully they'll get out of this with you, right? It's like, hopefully they'll make better decisions, but what if they don't? What if they haven't broken the habit? What if they haven't healed their pain that's gotten them into this place? All these different things.

• 40:45George Kamel?

  That's true. I mean, debt, it can hurt a relationship for sure. I've also seen it where it strengthens it because it causes them to communicate on a different level.

• 40:54Lewis Howes?

  Come together.

• 40:55George Kamel?

  We've seen the debt-free journey actually heal marriages. It's inspiring.

• 40:59Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 40:59George Kamel?

  Where they were on the brink of divorce, they go through Financial Peace University, they finally get aligned about, they're running the same direction, maybe for the first time. And all of a sudden, at the end, they're like, well, what did all that debt-free stuff do? It helped us communicate better, get aligned, have the same vision. And what that does is create a better marriage.

• 41:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 41:18George Kamel?

  And so I think there's a beautiful part that is underpinning all this financial stuff we do that creates transformation in other areas of life. We've seen people lose 100 pounds while on the debt-free journey because transformation begets transformation.

• 41:30Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's not just one area. It's like you have to take inventory and stock of every area of life and start being disciplined and have better habits and all these different things.

• 41:39George Kamel?

  It goes back to, 97% believe they control their financial destiny. Once you realize you have a sense of agency and autonomy over your life, you're like, what else can't I do? Tell me I can't go run that marathon or lose 100 pounds or switch career paths. It's like an invincible feeling that is, that's really the empowerment and inspiration behind The Ramsey Show.

• 41:58Lewis Howes?

  You build that momentum. What do you think is the thing that keeps people in a victim mentality the most around money?

• 42:05George Kamel?

  So one of my core beliefs, and I talk about it in the book, is that it's not all your fault, but it's your responsibility. And one of the biggest keys to staying in this victim mentality, and I understand people had some real things happen to them. And so I don't want to minimize the fact that there's people who are, have been hurt and there's been trauma and life has really happened to them. But the key is they realize it's my responsibility to move forward. I can't wait for someone else to come fix all of this. That's what I think keeps people in the victim mentality, whether it's student loan forgiveness. That's just one area that's easy to point at and go like, are you gonna wait and hope that the next person running for office actually comes through with the promise to get your vote?

• 42:49George Kamel?

  Or you can do the hard work and work that side job and not eat out in order to create margin to pay off the debt yourself. And that to me is the single variant of a victor or a victim is am I in control? Yes, it's not all my fault, but it's my responsibility, not by my hand, but it's in my lap. What am I gonna do? And those are the heroes we celebrate, the ones that in spite of all that go, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna freaking take down Goliath. I don't care. Nothing's gonna stop me. Those are the ones we want to root for.

• 43:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. If someone's got, if someone's making around 70,000 to 120,000 dollars a year in that range, and they feel overwhelmed with money, what is the root of that overwhelm? If they're in that 70,000 to 120,000 range, is it they're overspending? Is it they don't feel like they're keeping up with their friends? Is it, what do you think is that, that cause of stress and anxiety around money in that range?

• 43:46George Kamel?

  Well, the average household income in America is about 71 grand. And so if you're making 71 grand, you're doing pretty well. And if you're making 70 to 120 in most areas, right? Like LA 120 is very different from an Idaho 120. And so a lot of it is cost of living.

• 44:01Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 44:02George Kamel?

  But a lot of it stems from lifestyle creep. You know, very rarely do we start making 120. We get there over time and you would think, well, if I just made more money, I could solve all this. I'd get rid of the debt. I'd be doing so well. But what happens is you just go, I can afford a little more payment and I could afford a little nicer car. We can get in that house. We can afford the mortgage. We can stomach it. So over time, you just start collecting payments like it's a game. And you realize we got no margin at the end of the month to save for retirement and go on that vacation. And so I think that's the biggest key. It goes back to not living on less than you make.

• 44:38Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 44:38George Kamel?

  And so it's rarely an income problem because we know there are a third of people making six figures are living paycheck to paycheck. And that makes people irate.

• 44:46Lewis Howes?

  A third of people making six figures a year are living paycheck to paycheck.

• 44:49George Kamel?

  One paycheck didn't show up. They're screwed.

• 44:52Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 44:52George Kamel?

  That was a shocking stat. That wasn't even Ramsey research. That was outside of research. We were like, That makes sense because people calling the Ramsey show just this last week. We're taking calls from people making a hundred ninety grand, two hundred fifty grand, and they can't breathe.

• 45:05Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 45:06George Kamel?

  Well, you start adding up all the toys they have and the luxury cars. They got a hundred, like sixty thousand dollar car loan here. They're underwater on it. It's only worth forty now. And they bought a house that was a little too much house. They bit off more than they can chew. And the mortgage payment is sixty percent of their take home pay. And so you add up all that and they got a credit card balance now. And they got the personal loan and they still have the student loan. And all of this just compounds.

• 45:32Lewis Howes?

  And they gotta fix stuff. They gotta, you know.

• 45:34George Kamel?

  They have no emergency fund. Four in ten people have zero dollars in savings. And so you add up all these stats and you're going like, America has become land of the free and home of the broke. Like, how did we get here? This is an amazing country with so much opportunity. We have more ti- we have the most advanced society in the world and we have less time and money than ever before. Like, when are we gonna wake up and just break free from all this and go like, this ain't working? Let's try a different way.

• 45:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:58George Kamel?

  And that's why I'm out here from the rooftops going like, here's how to do it. Break free from the system. Like, you don't need a credit. Just ditch the credit cards. Screw the student loans. And it's, it's a hard road to travel. It's swimming upstream. Because we are so desensitized to debt in today's world.

• 46:15Lewis Howes?

  Here's a stat that I saw that you mentioned in the book. Forty-three million Americans carry a total of one point six trillion in student loans. And also, the average student loan debt per borrower is almost forty thousand dollars. An average interest rate of five point five percent. Uh, so this amounts to a payment of about three hundred ninety-three dollars a month. Based on those numbers, let's do some math that will move you from sad to angry. If you pay three ninety-three per month for twenty years, you will have paid more than ninety-four thousand dollars in total payments on a loan that was forty thousand dollars at graduation. And um, then you say, are you punching a hole in the wall yet? You know, what is your thoughts on?

• 47:01Lewis Howes?

  Getting into a good school, taking on twenty, forty thousand dollars a year in student loans, and graduating with two to four hundred thousand dollars in student loans. What's your thoughts on that dream that universities and colleges are selling teenage students today?

• 47:18George Kamel?

  Well, I think student loans and higher education has become a normalized scam in America today. And I'm very pro education. Hear me say that. I think education is great. But I don't think going to the dream school and taking on student loans to do it has the ROI that it used to.

• 47:36Lewis Howes?

  Really? You think it's a scam?

• 47:38George Kamel?

  Yeah, I mean, look at college tuition. It's risen four hundred percent. And you're like, is this still worth it? Because it's not like-

• 47:45Lewis Howes?

  Am I getting better education?

• 47:46George Kamel?

  Salaries have an increase by four hundred percent.

• 47:49Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:49George Kamel?

  Degrees are not all rated equally. And so, we tell people, only go to school if it's the only way and it's the best way. And even then, choose the most affordable school. And that might not be the dream school.

• 48:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, my nephew, I think he's a genius. Like, he's smarter than me today at like nineteen, right? He's read, I don't know, hundreds of books-

• 48:09George Kamel?

  He's like prodigy level then.

• 48:10Lewis Howes?

  Prodigy level, like, just so intelligent, emotionally intelligent, IQ, EQ, all of it. But he went to a community college for the first two years because it was five hundred bucks a quarter or something, whatever it is, just a paper book. Exactly. And I was like, good for you. You could have like went to, and now he's going to Ohio State for his final two years.

• 48:29George Kamel?

  Transferred to the four years, finish.

• 48:30Lewis Howes?

  And it's a state school, it's a lot cheaper. Like, he can pay it off while, he's working while he's in school to pay it off by the time he's done. And I'm like, that is a smart way to do it. Unless you're going for some specialty skill. Like, I was an athlete, so I wanted to play at a university where I could play sports. That was different to help me get into being a professional athlete. I took on debt, but I was able to pay it off within like seven years. And or some other like specially skilled, but usually you can find an internship, a mentorship. You can learn stuff online now that's affordable or free and learn these things and try to work somewhere during there as well. Is there ever a time, you know, Winston Churchill, you said in the book, a quote from Winston Churchill.

• 49:15Lewis Howes?

  I began my education at a very early age. In fact, right after I left college. I think it was someone else, maybe it was Einstein, someone that said, don't let schooling get in the way of your education.

• 49:27George Kamel?

  Maybe in a Twain quote or something.

• 49:28Lewis Howes?

  Mark Twain, yeah, don't let schooling get in the way of your education. Yeah.

• 49:32George Kamel?

  Well, it's become about the experience. I think we can admit that now. Look at colleges. They got, you know, they got whirlpools that they're selling in the, in the college.

• 49:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:40George Kamel?

  Brochures and look at the world-class cafeteria and the chefs. It's not about the education anymore. It's now become about mom and dad's reputation.

• 49:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:48George Kamel?

  And the parents can't brag to their friends about the kid going to community college down roads. And so what parents are doing is saying, hey, go to that school. We'll, we'll figure it out. What that turns into is we'll take out student loans in their name. We've seen that on the Ramsey show. We'll co-sign parent plus loans, which just means the parent just took out debt. And here's what we've seen. The kids can't always pay and it falls back on the parent and it makes Thanksgiving dinner real awkward. And so all of that, it, it turns into people paying for student loans for 20 years is the average. And the balance grows over time. They're paying this down with the minimum payment. So they think, or these income-driven repayment plans, and they started with 40 grand.

• 50:29George Kamel?

  Well, now the balance is 60 because they were in deferment and they couldn't pay and they're trying to get the job. And there wasn't this magic, you know, job at the end of the college rainbow with the salary they thought they were going to get. I interviewed high schoolers and they were just like flabbergasted when I was like, you're not going to make a hundred grand straight out of college with that degree.

• 50:48Lewis Howes?

  They thought they would?

• 50:49George Kamel?

  Yeah. They all think, well, I'll just make six figures. It'll be fine. So I'll take on 200 grand in debt. I'll pay it. I'll be able to pay it off. Not realizing what your paycheck's going to be after taxes and what that's going to look like when you already have a car payment. And now everyone's telling you when you graduate, you gotta get a house. What are you doing? You're a college graduate. That's the American dream.

• 51:08Lewis Howes?

  Travel the world and, you know, live your life. Yeah.

• 51:10George Kamel?

  And so all of that just turns into this life that, you know, I, I say in the book that we were sold the American dream, but delivered the American nightmare. Especially with this student loan thing and I love education. I think you can get more education from this show than you can from most college campuses, to be honest. And the people I've seen that are successful are not successful because of a piece of paper. They're the secret sauce. And they just found the right knowledge base and skill set to learn to do the thing they wanted to do.

• 51:38Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's interesting because I felt extremely insecure and stupid almost my entire life because of school. Because I did so poorly in school and I had a tutor every day. I was in special needs classes. When kids were doing lunch and recess, I was with a tutor alone, feeling shameful that I couldn't remember or comprehend the words on a page that I was reading as a middle school and high schooler. It was really, it felt really sad and lonely because everyone else was excelling in school. And I remember thinking like, gosh, I can't wait till the bell to ring at whatever 3:20 or 3:30 every day. So I can get on the sports field or the basketball court or the baseball field.

• 52:21Lewis Howes?

  Because that's where I was learning the most about myself, about how to set goals every day, about how to, you know, be disciplined, about how to listen to a coach and actually implement, okay, you're telling me to do this thing. I'm going to do it. How to get feedback and receive feedback, how to communicate with teammates and work with a team. All those skills, I was like, this is school for me. Like I'm learning more in this two hours of practice than eight hours of a classroom. And I remember saying to myself, like after school was done, because it was just a painful experience emotionally and spiritually in a sense, it was just like, I couldn't wait for things to be done. And I was like, I am an idiot. Like after school was over, I was like, I still don't know anything.

• 53:04Lewis Howes?

  And the things that I, the degree I got, like I'll never use this and all these different things. I was like, I need to learn a lot and there's still so much I need to learn. And I remember thinking to myself, before I started the School of Greatness 10 years ago, I was like, I want to start something where I can learn from the smartest people in the world and get the best education. And it's not going to be uh, sitting in a classroom all day. It's going to be learning one to one and then figuring out, how can I share this with the world? And that's why school, it's a school of greatness. I was like, this is what I wish I learned growing up, stuff that you talk about in your book. No one talks about this stuff. No one teaches you about the, the financial strain you might have for your whole life if you do certain things.

• 53:47Lewis Howes?

  They don't teach us about how to deal with losing or failure or emotions or all these different stuff that we need as adults, this different type of education. That's why I created the School of Greatness.

• 53:57George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 53:57Lewis Howes?

  And that's why I'm glad that you're here talking about financial freedom and breaking free from broke. Uh, like you have in your book. So the biggest financial scam that you think right now is college.

• 54:10George Kamel?

  It's the one, it's the one that our generation was sold. I mean, think about like, from a young age, that's the path you're sold.

• 54:17Lewis Howes?

  What school are you to go to?

• 54:18George Kamel?

  Get good grades, to go to this school, to get a better job that pays more money. So you can have a better financial life. It doesn't pan out these days for most people. They number one, either don't finish school, they don't use their degree. And they're paying it off for so long that there's no ROI there. And yes, that, you know, there's trades, of course, that I think are undervalued in today's world. And you can go to trade school and pay for that in cash.

• 54:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:45George Kamel?

  And be making more than your buddy who has his philosophy degree.

• 54:48Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 54:49George Kamel?

  And so I think there's a lot of value in all kinds of work. And in the world we live in today, I mean, gosh, you can start a YouTube channel and podcast and be just fine. And so there's so many opportunities out there that I think, especially the younger generations, they're starting to sniff this out and go, mom, dad, I'm not going to go to your alma mater.

• 55:06Lewis Howes?

  No, unless your parents want to pay for it and take and say, we're going to pay everything. And you don't have to worry about any debt. And they just want to do it out of their kindness of their heart. And it's like, okay, then, then maybe that's a thing you could do for four years to learn or four and a half, five years or whatever.

• 55:19George Kamel?

  You might be better off going to Europe for, you know, send me to Europe for 30 grand.

• 55:23Lewis Howes?

  Learn a language.

• 55:24George Kamel?

  And it's still cheaper.

• 55:25Lewis Howes?

  In Europe, yeah, exactly.

• 55:26George Kamel?

  If you want the experience and the social, you know, growth and all that. But there's nothing wrong with going to these famous schools and expensive schools. But if you're doing it with debt and doing it for the wrong reasons. And to put the pressure on a 17 year old to be like, what do you want to do for the next 40 years? Cause then there's sunk cost fallacy and there's resentment. Cause you know, I, I grew up in Middle Eastern culture. It was like, well, you're either going to be in medicine or you're going to be an engineer.

• 55:50Lewis Howes?

  Or a failure.

• 55:51George Kamel?

  You get two options. And so I was the failure. My parents were very supportive. I got a communication degree and went the op. The rest of my family are, they're engineers and in medical, in medicine world. Uh, which is great for them, but a lot of them are years later, still paying on those student loans.

• 56:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 56:06George Kamel?

  And you're going from a nurse to a nurse practitioner and a doctor and pharmacist and all of these paths. They take a lot of money and sometimes you go, I thought I was going to make $300,000. I'm in residency and I'm not making squat. You know, and so there's just a lot of misinformation and myths around what the future will look like. And when you do it without debt, you just have less stress. You have more peace about the next step and you can, you have different options.

• 56:32Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 56:32George Kamel?

  You don't have to take that first job. You can wait.

• 56:35Lewis Howes?

  What would you say are the three biggest killers of wealth in America?

• 56:39George Kamel?

  Oh, I, on my YouTube channel, I did a video and it was America's number one wealth killer. And it was about car loans and that one blew up.

• 56:47Lewis Howes?

  Tell me why.

• 56:49George Kamel?

  Because I did the math and math sometimes is offensive. Of what that car payment would be if you had just simply invested it.

• 56:56Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 56:57George Kamel?

  And it was millions of dollars. We're talking like $6 million if you invest the average car payment.

• 57:02Lewis Howes?

  Give me a breakdown of this.

• 57:04George Kamel?

  Well, if you take, you know, the average car payment, I think of the book was, you know, 600 bucks now. 700 bucks for a new car. Yeah. 700 bucks for a new car.

• 57:12Lewis Howes?

  Five grand down probably is 700 a month or something. Yeah.

• 57:14George Kamel?

  That's normal now. Cause new cars are now 40, 50 grand. And so 700 bucks a month invested in the S and P 500, which historically, you know, we'll see a 10% return, 11% return. Well, over 30 years of your career, 700 bucks a month, it's a freaking lot of money and it turns into millions and millions of dollars. Now, the opposite side is, let's say you're gonna be the tortoise. You're gonna be me and you're gonna go, "Well, I'm gonna buy the $6,000 car and I'm gonna slowly upgrade over time to the used $12,000 car, maybe eventually to the $20,000 car, $30,000, whatever. You're gonna do it with cash over a long period of time and that payment you would have had, you can put that away, save it, invest it, sinking funds, all of that, and you're not paying any interest.

• 57:58George Kamel?

  And so I think the choices we make because of loans, we go, "Well, I can't afford a $50,000 car, but I can afford a $500 monthly payment." It's broken. Like wealthy people ask a different question. They don't ask how much down, how much a month, they ask how much? What is the full price? And if I can't afford it, I'm not buying it.

• 58:18Lewis Howes?

  I'm gonna pay it all in cash right now and not have this payment over time.

• 58:23George Kamel?

  Absolutely. So I think car loans are number one.

• 58:25Lewis Howes?

  What's the benefit of, say someone's like, "I wanna buy a really fancy car." You know, "I wanna buy a 50 to maybe an $80,000 car, $100,000 car." And they're saying to themselves, "Why spend a hundred grand on a car when I can just pay, you know, 1,300 a month and keep that cash, I can invest that cash in the market and that's gonna grow for me and pay down my payments over time." What do you say to that?

• 58:48George Kamel?

  Well, I think those people, first of all, they rarely have the margin to be able to do that and usually if they're spending a hundred grand on a car, they're gonna be flexing in other ways and other parts of their life.

• 58:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:58George Kamel?

  And so this idea that I could like arbitrage that money, I'm gonna deploy my cash in this way, I think it's a losing game. And because it stems from comparison and discontentment. It stems from, "I want something that I can't afford, but I want it anyways and debt allows me to have it now."

• 59:16Lewis Howes?

  What if someone can't afford it?

• 59:18George Kamel?

  If they can't afford it, go for it.

• 59:19Lewis Howes?

  Why, if someone can't afford it, should they pay it all in cash and be done with it in one payment? Or should they say, you know, I just, I can afford it, but I'm gonna be able to pay these payments down also and, you know, but I like to have more cash in the bank for whatever reason.

• 59:34George Kamel?

  Yeah, now, I think for most people, you know, if you have, let's say, a hundred thousand dollars in cash, and you're gonna get a hundred thousand dollar car, be like, well, I could just take on the payments, I'll use this elsewhere. I think if you're gonna, if you're actually doing the math, it just doesn't make sense. Cause number one, you're assuming, well, the market's just gonna keep going up and up and up, I'll always make money. It's a roller coaster.

• 59:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 59:56George Kamel?

  So if you're investing for the short term, that's a dangerous game. But on the other side, when you look at that hundred thousand dollar car, and if, the more expensive the car, the more it's gonna depreciate, most likely. You know, a hundred thousand dollar car, we've seen, and I talk about this in the book, in five years, it goes down 60% in value.

• 1:00:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:00:12George Kamel?

  Five years. So a hundred thousand dollars, down to forty thousand dollars. You're like, that hurts my brain to think about.

• 1:00:19Lewis Howes?

  It's depreciating asset, yeah.

• 1:00:21George Kamel?

  And so you're paying interest on the depreciating asset. And so you're, you're getting hurt on both ends there. And what we found on the Ramsey show, almost every single caller is saying, help me, I'm underwater in my car. I owe 60, it's only worth 40. What do I do?

• 1:00:36Lewis Howes?

  What do they do?

• 1:00:37George Kamel?

  You don't have that problem when you don't have a car payment.

• 1:00:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:00:40George Kamel?

  When you just paid in cash.

• 1:00:41Lewis Howes?

  What do those people do if they've, in that situation, though? What do you guys suggest?

• 1:00:45George Kamel?

  There's only a few options. Number one is you just hang on to the car and pay it off. Number two, you come up with a difference. So let's say you're 20 grand underwater, you come up with 20 grand in cash, saving up over time, in order to pay off that loan in full.

• 1:00:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:01:00George Kamel?

  Then the other option is you go to your local credit union and get a personal loan for the difference. And say, listen, the same place that gave you the loan in the first place, you go, you got a bad loan on your hands, you got bad collateral here. Cause what you gave me, this asset is not worth that anymore. Can I have the difference in order to get rid of this asset, get it out of my life, get out from under this car payment? So, it's, none of them, none of those options are pretty, by the way.

• 1:01:23Lewis Howes?

  So you don't think you should ever get a car loan?

• 1:01:25George Kamel?

  No.

• 1:01:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:27George Kamel?

  I don't think it's wise. There's a lot of like, you know, financial people out there going like, well, here's the parameters, and if you do it this much down, you know, I've seen it all. But what I've also seen is people who build wealth with intentionality, and they're not trying to flex, they just buy the cars they can afford.

• 1:01:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:01:41George Kamel?

  And once you have no payments, and that's a value you live by, you just make different decisions. Because once payments are normal on one end, you're just gonna go, well, it's fine. I already got a payment here and got a payment there. When you decide I'm done with debt, it is so freeing because you just go, I could save up 20 grand. I know how to do that. I did it for the down payment. I did it for the college. I can do it for the car.

• 1:02:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:02George Kamel?

  And so cars are utility and it's fun. You know, Dave Ramsey's got some really nice cars. He saved cash for all of them. He gets to choose what kind of car he drives. So we always say, drive like no one else, so later you can drive like no one else. And that was me. I drove an 09 Civic just a few years ago. With the bumper hanging off, Dave Ramsey's making fun of me. He's going, come on dude, it's time to upgrade the car. But I was like, I'm paying off the house first and then I'm gonna upgrade. And even then I bought a used car still. And even

• 1:02:27Lewis Howes?

  Nice, nicer used car though.

• 1:02:29George Kamel?

  Nicer.

• 1:02:29Lewis Howes?

  Very nice. Yeah.

• 1:02:30George Kamel?

  Yes. And so we just upgraded my wife's car because she deserves way better than I do. And so it hurt my soul to write that check, but man, it felt good to not have a payment next month.

• 1:02:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:02:40George Kamel?

  And the month after that, and the month after that. So now we're able to invest in my little girl's 529 plan and save up for that vacation. And she can enjoy the car and it can go down in value and it doesn't hurt my soul one bit. I'm like, it's not, we're never gonna be underwater on this car.

• 1:02:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:55George Kamel?

  It's just a toy.

• 1:02:56Lewis Howes?

  It's a toy, but she appreciates it. It allows her to feel safe or an emotional connection or, you know.

• 1:03:01George Kamel?

  It's okay. Like people think that we're against having nice stuff and nice cars. Like they just want you to drive beater cars forever. I'm like, no, drive a beater car while you're broke so you can get, break free from broke to get the car you really want.

• 1:03:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:12George Kamel?

  But you own it and it doesn't own you.

• 1:03:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:15George Kamel?

  And American culture these days is everything owns you. Because you've got payments attached to everything in your life.

• 1:03:20Lewis Howes?

  Now, now what's your thoughts on buying a home being a great decision or a horrible decision?

• 1:03:28George Kamel?

  Ooh.

• 1:03:29Lewis Howes?

  Because you hear a lot of people saying like, never buy a home that you live in, like just rent. And

• 1:03:35George Kamel?

  I know who you're talking about.

• 1:03:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and And also, it's just like, homes are getting more and more expensive. I mean, a home in Los Angeles is pretty unaffordable for a lot of people compared to maybe Idaho or something, where a home might be a different price.

• 1:03:50Lewis Howes?

  But should we be buying our own home and taking on this massive mortgage and this massive debt and these payments every month? And then having to fix things up and, you know, break, you know, fix the roof and the the water or the systems, whatever it is, and all the state taxes and all these other fees that come with owning a house?

• 1:04:08George Kamel?

  It's no joke.

• 1:04:08Lewis Howes?

  Or just rent a house, let someone else take care of all that stress, and you stay in a space that is more flexible for you.

• 1:04:16George Kamel?

  Yeah, well, I think renting has got a real bad rap in today's world, and I hate that because I think renting is very wise and it's buying patience. And for a lot of people, it does make sense. And if you're living in a high cost of living city, you're not entitled to be a homeowner and you live in New York City or LA. Like, it's gonna be harder if you wanna buy a home in San Francisco, and that's where you choose to live. You better have the income to support living in San Francisco. And so, I think homeownership is a great goal that everyone should have, to at some point, be a homeowner and have that house paid off. And we've seen that as part of the millionaire study. A paid off home was a huge part of their net worth.

• 1:04:51Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:04:51George Kamel?

  It was about a third of their net worth of millionaires was in a paid for home. And the average millionaire paid off their home in 10.2 years. And so, I think it's a huge part. I think renting forever is also a bad plan. Of just going, because rent's gonna go up over time, because those homeowners' property taxes go up over time, and someone owns that house. And so, that's also a bad plan. I want you to have a fixed expense of a home and then soon pay that off. And so, we all, here's the way to do it to where you know you're not making a poor decision. Only buy a house when you're financially ready. And that has nothing to do with home prices and interest rates. It has everything to do with your own financial home.

• 1:05:27Lewis Howes?

  How do you know when you're financially ready to buy a home?

• 1:05:30George Kamel?

  Once you're completely debt free of consumer debt, you've done the debt snowball. You have a fully funded emergency fund, three to six months of expenses. Then you save up the down payment. And here's the other kicker, not only do you have the down payment, but you get a 15 year fixed rate mortgage where the payment is no more than a quarter of your after tax income. So that looks a lot like, you know, if you're, you make five grand a month, 1250 should be where that mortgage sits on a 15 year. Now that's hard to do, I'll admit. In today's world with home prices and interest rates, that's going to be hard. So what do you have to do? Make different decisions because the math didn't change. So what has to change is your expectations of your first home. That might mean we get the condo instead of the single family.

• 1:06:11George Kamel?

  It might mean we're 45 minutes outside of the city because that's the one we can afford. It might mean we got to save up a bigger down payment for the next two years in order to do this wisely. But the other option is, and then we get this on the Ramsey show, people call us and say, hey, my parents pressured us to buy a house and now it's 65% of our take home pay and we're broke. Like we can't afford this and that and we can't, you know, put food on the table and cover our bills. And we got to sell the house now. Well, that turns homeownership from a blessing to a burden. And so there's a right way to do it and a right time to do it. But unfortunately, people in their twenties are just like, well, it's time for me to buy a home. It's the American dream. Where's my home? I got the degree. I'm still paying all my student loans, but gosh, I need to get, get a home. And so there's a time and a place for it.

• 1:06:54Lewis Howes?

  Should you buy a home if you have student debt?

• 1:06:57George Kamel?

  Oof. Well, my hot take is no. My hot take is pay off all consumer debt before you get a home.

• 1:07:02Lewis Howes?

  And your student loans.

• 1:07:03George Kamel?

  Everything, student loans, credit cards, car loans. It all needs to go before you become a homeowner, homeowner. Cause it just adds, it compounds the stress. Cause you know, homeownership is, it's real expensive. Like you think it's apples to apples, $2,000 in rent is not $2,000 in mortgage. Cause the rent is the least you'll pay, the mortgage, that's just the starting point. Before you start dealing with maintenance and repairs and the HVAC went out and the roof needs to be replaced four years from now. I mean, those are some big ticket items.

• 1:07:33Lewis Howes?

  And your time to fixing stuff or whatever, managing things differently.

• 1:07:37George Kamel?

  So sometimes I miss the days of renting when I could just call the apartment complex and be like, you got a problem to fix over here. And so it really is a blessing while you're renting. I know it stinks because you're like, I'm not building equity. But building that patience muscle is so important. And ignoring everyone else's noise of like, you gotta get a house, man. If you don't get in now, you'll never get in.

• 1:07:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I lived in a two bedroom apartment. For, I don't know, fifteen years, you know, until I was forty.

• 1:08:03George Kamel?

  Wow.

• 1:08:04Lewis Howes?

  I lived in a two-bedroom apartment and I felt completely fine with that.

• 1:08:07George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:08Lewis Howes?

  It was, it was a nice apartment. I had like what I needed and I upgraded, you know, over time into a nicer apartments. But I did not feel like I'm missing out by not having a home. And I didn't have debt also. I liked the flexibility of renting and having the convenience to be able to travel and making sure someone's taking care of my stuff.

• 1:08:25George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:26Lewis Howes?

  And I didn't know what city I was gonna be in.

• 1:08:28George Kamel?

  You're more flexible.

• 1:08:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:08:29George Kamel?

  If you're renting, like, if you wanna move cities in a different job.

• 1:08:31Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:08:32George Kamel?

  Versus, what do I do now? The house isn't selling and I gotta get to this job. Like, you're, you're more planted when you become a homeowner and it's not easy to get out. There could be tax implications if you sell too soon. So it definitely complicates things, but it's overall, it's a great part of your wealth building journey and I encourage everyone to do it. But don't feel pressured and don't do it before you're ready.

• 1:08:51Lewis Howes?

  Is there such a thing as good debt versus bad debt?

• 1:08:55George Kamel?

  Well, I wrote a chapter in the book called Debt is a Thief. And it's not bad debt is a thief, it's just debt is a thief.

• 1:09:01Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:09:02George Kamel?

  And so the hot take here is that your greatest wealth building tool is your income. And when you're giving any part of that to a lender, you don't have your greatest wealth building tool at your disposal completely. And so I've never seen, you know, you always hear stories about people leveraging debt and, you know, mortgages in a, in a sense with your home appreciating. People are like, well, that's good debt, but it doesn't mean wanna hang on to the debt. The home is the part that's amazing. It's not hanging on to the debt.

• 1:09:28Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:09:29George Kamel?

  And even with these low interest rates, people feel stuck because they have a two, three percent interest rate on their home and they're like, I can never get rid of this house. I can never sell, cuz I'll lose this precious debt. Like, the, the idea that we're so obsessed and attached to our debt shows how, how far off the beaten path we are as a culture. So I truly don't believe there's good debt and bad debt cuz I've only seen debt hurt people.

• 1:09:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:09:52George Kamel?

  And the people that say they're winning, like, it's easy to go on TikTok and be like, well, it worked for me and you should do it too. That's terrible advice because you don't know this other person's situation and what life's gonna throw at them.

• 1:10:03Lewis Howes?

  And so it always adds risk. You see a lot of people, especially in kind of the real estate space saying, you know, it's the only good debt you can have is when you're borrowing money to like get real estate and you're buying more to have more real estate and it's compounding interest over time or you're building equity in that or whatever it might be and you have 10 homes now, but they're all, you're all in debt with all these homes. You're borrowing it from the previous home. And unfortunately, there was a guy I met.

• 1:10:28Lewis Howes?

  I don't know, earlier this year, I only met him once. Uh, but we had a nice kind of two hour dinner conversation. And unfortunately, it was public about a month or two ago that he committed suicide because he was, he was a real estate guy. He had invested in way too much. Over leveraged? Over leveraged. He had a, just had his first child. And it would, the pressure was too much for him to take on. How am I going to pay this off now? It was like some, some building that he invested in or something. He was developing, he was investing. And, uh, he had a lot of, I guess, net worth on paper, but then it was over leveraged and the pressure was too much and he took his own life about a month or month, two ago, two ago. And it's just like, again, you hear some people saying like, yeah, it's cool to have debt, but

• 1:11:14Lewis Howes?

  until you feel like everyone's calling you and collecting. And you don't know what to do and you can't get access to money to pay this off. Are you emotionally stable enough to manage that chaos and stress in your life? Yeah. Do you want that in your life? And I don't know all the details of what actually happened, but I do know that more money doesn't always mean more peace. Yeah. Sometimes more money means more pain if you're not educated or emotionally ready for that amount of money. And do you think that is? Do you think if people got written a million dollar check today? And they were in debt, do you think their lives would be better or more stressful?

• 1:11:59George Kamel?

  Well, I think money magnifies who you are. And if you've never managed a lot of money, it's scary. Because if you haven't managed the little money you've had well, what makes you think you're going to manage a million dollars well? Just because you have more of it doesn't mean you're going to make wise decisions. And we see this with the data on lottery winners. It's gone. Like, how did you blow? We got a call the other day and this guy's like, I won a million bucks and it was gone within a few years.

• 1:12:22Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:12:23George Kamel?

  And he just blew it. Doesn't take much, you know? And so it was really sad because a million bucks in the lottery is really 600,000. And you spend 100,000 a year for six years.

• 1:12:33Lewis Howes?

  Gone.

• 1:12:33George Kamel?

  The money's gone.

• 1:12:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:34George Kamel?

  Not that crazy to do. And so, I mean, you've had our friend Dave Ramsey on this show multiple times. And he shared his story of bankruptcy. And he was over leveraged in real estate. The bank called the notes and he couldn't sell off the properties fast enough. And it destroyed his life.

• 1:12:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:12:48George Kamel?

  It almost destroyed his marriage. And so, you know, there's a reason Dave is so risk averse when it comes to debt. And now he has a 600 million dollar real estate portfolio with the Ramsey headquarters and all kinds of properties. And he paid cash for every dang one.

• 1:13:04Lewis Howes?

  That's incredible.

• 1:13:05George Kamel?

  He doesn't have a scent of debt. And so to me, it's inspiring to go like, you don't have to, there's not this one game you have to play to be a real estate investor. You can do it differently. You can go slow until you can go fast. And that's what Dave did. Because when you have all paid for properties, that thing cash flow is like a mother. And so all of a sudden, pretty quickly, you have enough cash to deploy and get more property.

• 1:13:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:13:26George Kamel?

  And so it's a different game. It's the tortoise versus the hare. But Dave's real peaceful with his property. You know what I mean? Like, no one's ever coming after him to collect.

• 1:13:35Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:13:36George Kamel?

  And so that puts you in control.

• 1:13:39Lewis Howes?

  Your book, Breaking Free From Broke, The Ultimate Guide to More Money and Less Stress. People can grab it right now. It's out. So make sure you guys go pick up a copy. Get one for your friends as well. A lot of great content in here to help you get free from the stress of debt and just understanding your money better. So congrats on this.

• 1:13:56George Kamel?

  Thank you.

• 1:13:57Lewis Howes?

  Couple of final questions for you. This one's called the three truths. So I'm going to shift it for you a little bit differently.

• 1:14:02George Kamel?

  Okay.

• 1:14:03Lewis Howes?

  I'd like you to imagine that.

• 1:14:07Lewis Howes?

  This was your last day on earth. And for whatever reason, you would have to take all of your content with you. This book wasn't around, your YouTube channel, anything you've ever shared isn't around. And you didn't get to watch your daughter grow up.

• 1:14:28Lewis Howes?

  But you get to leave behind three lessons to her.

• 1:14:31George Kamel?

  Ooh.

• 1:14:32Lewis Howes?

  And this is all she would have to remember you by. It could be a video that she would get to watch as many times for the rest of her life. What would be those three truths or three lessons you would leave to her?

• 1:14:43George Kamel?

  Man. That's like dropping an atom bomb here. If I could, I need to film one of those videos. It's like in the in case I die video. It's like, here's the lessons. Louis asked me to make this video for you.

• 1:14:53Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:14:54George Kamel?

  Oh, man.

• 1:14:55Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't have to be perfect. I'm putting you on the spot, but what would those kind of lessons be? It wouldn't always be to her, but to the world, what would be those lessons?

• 1:15:02George Kamel?

  I remember watching the last episode of Conan O'Brien's Late Night Show. And I, it has stuck with me and he talks about cynicism. And his final plea on the show is, please do not be cynical. And that's part of the reason I wrote this conclusion and it goes far beyond money. And my, my lesson to her is, don't be cynical. Hope is a choice. Cynicism is a choice. I hope you choose hope. And so that would be my first lesson to her. Because life is so much better and richer when you choose hope, even though it's the hard thing to do. It's the stupid cheesy thing to do. Gosh, there's no use. You're drinking your own poison.

• 1:15:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:15:44George Kamel?

  When you just walk around cynical towards the world. And that leads to, I think, other lessons, which is kindness is currency. Like kindness is such an underrated superpower in today's world. It diffuses bad attitudes. I mean, it's, it's the best revenge. You know what I mean? Just to be all like, just. Unreasonably kind to people regardless of what's happening. I think that's a really cool thing. And the last thing I would say is not caring about what other people think is a superpower. If she can avoid comparisons, especially in the lord knows what kind of world she'll grow up in with social media and the stuff that kids are getting into at, you know,

• 1:16:29George Kamel?

  six, seven, eight, nine, 10 years old and how it shapes their, the image of themselves. Like, I want to raise a daughter who is so confident, so kind, and she knows exactly who she is. And no man, no woman is going to change that because she is so confident in her goals, her values, her identity, her family. And that to me is the most powerful thing is if you can have that kind of mentality of I'm not going to compare my life to others. I'm doing my own thing. I'm gonna be kind to everyone I meet. And I'm gonna be a hopeful person instead of a cynical person. I think that will bleed into all of the financial principles that I'm out here preaching. Delay gratification is going to be part of that,

• 1:17:11George Kamel?

  you know? Wealth is patience is going to be part of that. You're going to be a person of character who's going to build wealth the right way and have the work ethic if you believe those things. And I think those are the people who ultimately become wildly successful.

• 1:17:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:17:24George Kamel?

  It's not the evil people out there who got on the backs of others. It's people with integrity and kindness who are optimistic about the future. I'm gonna need that more than ever.

• 1:17:32Lewis Howes?

  I love that. I love that, man. Well, Mia's got a great, great future.

• 1:17:37George Kamel?

  I hope so.

• 1:17:38Lewis Howes?

  And she'll have you to raise her to teach those things as well.

• 1:17:41George Kamel?

  This is her, by the way.

• 1:17:42Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man, that's cute. Wow. That's awesome, man. Congratulations on that. Breaking Free from Broke, The Ultimate Guide to More Money and Less Stress. Make sure you guys get your copy from George Kamel. Also, check out your channel on YouTube. If you want more great content from George, George Kamel and your name everywhere on social media. Love this stuff, man. This is really powerful. I want to acknowledge you, George, for a moment for being an example for a lot of people. A lot of people who started out or maybe right now are in debt. They got student loans. Maybe they haven't made the best decisions because they weren't educated or they didn't know any better. You're a great example of what's possible with commitment, with consistency,

• 1:18:24Lewis Howes?

  and with really educating yourself and being disciplined over a period of time, and how you can break free from that. So it's really cool to see live examples of individuals right now who are young. How old are you again?

• 1:18:38George Kamel?

  Thirty-four.

• 1:18:38Lewis Howes?

  Thirty-four, yeah. So it doesn't take fifty until you get debt-free and feel like this sense of financial freedom. It doesn't have to take forever, you know? It's just being disciplined and you've been consistent with that, so I acknowledge you.

• 1:18:50George Kamel?

  Thank you.

• 1:18:50Lewis Howes?

  Of course. Final question for you, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:18:54George Kamel?

  Ooh. My definition of greatness, how do, oh, I want to beat everyone else, but I don't have a good enough answer. You've had some greats on this, on this show. My definition of greatness, of greatness is a relentless perseverance for excellence. I think that's the thing I admire in anyone I meet, is they're, they're just not okay with anything less than excellent. And it's not out of a place of perfectionism, or I want to be better than everyone. It's a personal race against themselves and their own creativity and ingenuity and innovation. I think Dave Ramsey has that. I think it's why people love him.

• 1:19:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:36George Kamel?

  And that also bleeds into the other character traits we talked about, of having integrity and being kind. So I think that's what I'm after, is a relentless perseverance of excellence in everything that I do.

• 1:19:48Lewis Howes?

  I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me, as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media, or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcast, and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels, at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you, and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life. Then make sure to sign up for the Greatness Newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox

• 1:20:33Lewis Howes?

  over at greatness.com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.