From Worthiness to Wealth: Expert Advice for Tough Financial Times EP 1479

The Summit of Greatness is back! Buy your tickets today – summitofgreatness.com – Rachel Rodgers is the founder of Hello Seven, a multi-million dollar company that teaches you how to earn more money and build wealth. In this episode, we discuss how to feel worthy if you’re going through a difficult financial situation, how everyone can become a millionaire and the fastest way to do it, why it’s so difficult for people to be transparent about money. Ray Dalio is the Founder, Co-Chairman, and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Bridgewater Associates, the fifth most important private company in the U. S., according to Fortune magazine. Forbes named him the 69th richest person in the world, and he has been called the “Steve Jobs of Investing” by Wired magazine, and named one of the top 100 Most Influential People by TIME magazine. Chris Hogan is a best-selling author and America’s leading voice on retirement, investing, and building wealth. His goal is to help as many people as possible avoid financial traps and set their families up for the future. For more than a decade Chris has served at Ramsey Solutions and spreads a message of hope to audiences across the country. Grant Cardone is the author of eight business books, thirteen business programs, and is the CEO of seven privately held companies. Forbes calls him one of the top social media business influencers in the world. Seriously, this guy knows how to maximize growth and success. In this episode you will learn,How to feel worthy if you’re going through a difficult financial situation. How everyone can become a millionaire and the fastest way to do it. Why it’s so difficult for people to be transparent about money. The most important conversations to have around money. The 3 things to know to develop a millionaire mindset. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1479For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960Rachel Rodgers full episode: https://link.chtbl.com/1184-podRay Dalio’s full episode: https://link.chtbl.com/1266-podChris Hogan’s full episode: https://lewishowes.com/podcast/become-an-everyday-millionaire-with-chris-hogan/Grant Cardone’s full episode: https://link.chtbl.com/1439-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.

• 0:01Lewis Howes?

  Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection. I've got an invitation for you. Join me at this year's Summit of Greatness this September 7th through 9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio to unleash your true greatness. This is the one time a year that I gather the greatness community together in person for a powerful transformative weekend. People come from all over the world and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Josprey Singh, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Sincero, and many more. You'll also be able to dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts, and connect with others at our evening socials.

• 0:44Lewis Howes?

  So if you're ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com/summit2023. Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I'll see you there.

• 1:01Rachel Rodgers?

  I think society was sort of designed so that we wouldn't talk about money. It's designed so that we have a few people at the top and a lot of people at the bottom. I think that's part of the reason why. It's like employers saying, don't tell your coworkers how much you're making because I'm paying you more than I'm paying this one and I don't want y'all to know.

• 1:20Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a 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.

• 1:44Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to this special masterclass. We brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in.

• 2:02Lewis Howes?

  Why is it such a taboo topic in general?

• 2:05Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes.

• 2:05Lewis Howes?

  I think for all classes, all individuals.

• 2:08Rachel Rodgers?

  I totally agree. It's like you have, it's so funny because, and I wrote about this in my book, like for women, we have shame if we don't have enough money, but we also have shame if we have quote unquote, too much.

• 2:18Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 2:19Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes.

• 2:20Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 2:20Rachel Rodgers?

  Because it's like, you know, oh, I have more than them and let me hide it because people are going to think I'm showing off or they have imposter syndrome, right? Am I worthy of having this much money? I've experienced that myself at different times, right? Like you've worked hard for it, but you think that you don't deserve it for some reason. And I think that we just have, I think society was sort of designed so that we wouldn't talk about money.

• 2:45Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 2:46Rachel Rodgers?

  Because I think it's designed so that we have a few people at the top and a lot of people at the bottom. And so now, you know, then of course the middle class emerged and we've gone through different things as a middle class, as a collective, right? But I think it's, I think that's part of the reason why it's like, don't tell, you know, employer saying, don't tell your coworkers how much you're making because I'm paying you more than I'm paying this one and I don't want y'all to know. Right? So it's like, it comes from those places, but it's reinforced everywhere, you know?

• 3:17Lewis Howes?

  Right. Everyone's reinforcing it.

• 3:19Rachel Rodgers?

  Exactly. And I think-

• 3:20Lewis Howes?

  Not just corporations or-

• 3:21Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes. And because there's so much mystery, it's like, I don't, I don't know how much you make, right? You don't know, maybe you know how much I make because I talk about it all the time, but, but I don't, you know what I mean? So like, we, we don't know and we're scared to make assumptions and we're sort of guessing and we're like, well, if I put mine out there, I might be embarrassed because I discovered that like, I'm actually either making too much related to my peers or too little. And I think it goes back to belonging. We just want to belong to a community, to a group. You know what I mean? And so because of that, it's like, we don't want to do anything that's going to make us not belong. It's such an inherent human need to belong. And so I think that we don't talk about money because we think it's going to affect

• 4:02Rachel Rodgers?

  our ability to belong, whether it means we're too broke or we have too much, you know, or somewhere in the middle.

• 4:08Lewis Howes?

  So what conversations should we be having around money? How consistently should we be having them and with who?

• 4:14Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes. Okay. So- In terms of the conversations I'm having, I'm telling people like, if I get a speaking gig, here's how much they paid me, right? And I asked for more and they gave it to me. So make sure you do that too. Right? Like, or I negotiated for higher pay, or I negotiated for profit sharing, or I asked for more vacation days. Right? Like, we need to share our money-earning strategies with each other, especially with, you know, women and people of color, right? Like, putting more money, like, that's what allyship is, in my opinion, is putting money in the, in the pockets of the groups who need them, right? Um, and who, you know, we have this huge wealth chasm in this country. So like, how can we start to change that? And so that's why I share how much I got paid for a book deal, like, all these things that you're not supposed to share.

• 4:58Rachel Rodgers?

  I'm like, I'mma tell y'all. This is how much I got, this is how I got it, you know? Um, and I think it's important. So I think sharing money-making strategies is very important. I also think one of the things that has been so valuable to me with some of my, my peers, especially, I will say, my white guy peers in particular, have showed me, like, they have taught me things about like, you know, uh, investing strategies, or, you know, like, oh, here's a strategy that I'm doing with my money, or I'm investing in real estate, or I'm doing these different things. Like, what are people doing with money once you have some, right? Like, once you have a little bit more than you need to live off of, what do you do with the excess? And sharing those things, right? Sharing that information, because it's usually hidden.

• 5:42Rachel Rodgers?

  And it's like, there's a small group of people that know, and you don't know until you have peers who have done it, and then you find out, right?

• 5:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:49Rachel Rodgers?

  In those quiet conversations that aren't on, you know, on Facebook, right?

• 5:53Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 5:54Rachel Rodgers?

  So.

• 5:55Lewis Howes?

  Should people be talking with their friends, their, their family members, their spouses?

• 6:00Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes.

• 6:00Lewis Howes?

  About money?

• 6:01Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes.

• 6:02Lewis Howes?

  What if someone's really uncomfortable and says, you know what, I don't want to talk about the money I make, and how, what we should be doing? What conversation can you have to try to break the wall down?

• 6:11Rachel Rodgers?

  Well, I think you could say, here's why I want to talk about money. And here's why, like, we have to be, I think if we're willing to be transparent, people will be transparent with us. That's what I've found in the conversations that I've had. And that's how I've learned a lot about money is by having conversations. You know, like, um, the friend that I was spending time with last night, she's an investor and a financial advisor, and so I was asking her, like, okay, well, what are you investing in and how are you thinking about it? And what is an investment thesis? Like, I don't even know what that means, right? Like, you know, we were having conversations and she was teaching me all of this stuff because I was willing to tell her, like, okay, here's how much money I want to invest, but I don't know where to, where best to put it, you know, that kind of thing. So I think you just got to be willing to put yourself out there first. And I find that people want to talk about it.

• 6:57Rachel Rodgers?

  So when I bring it up and I start sharing, they immediately start sharing because it's like they were like waiting for an opportunity to talk about this.

• 7:04Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 7:04Rachel Rodgers?

  Is what I find. So I think we just got to start doing it, um, and create more transparency around it. And then, yeah, that creates, it creates opportunity for all. And that's the other piece of it is like, I recognize that, you know, even someone who would be considered a direct competitor, I mean, they sell the same thing I sell. I don't, I don't believe in competition in that way. I think there's more than enough money to go around. I think there's more than enough opportunity to go around.

• 7:31Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 7:32Rachel Rodgers?

  And I choose to, like, be friendly with and, and support my, my competitors, quote unquote, and vice versa. Um, and that just means that we all get better at what we're doing. We all conserve our clients better, right? We all can make more money. But I don't want to be a person who's closed. So I'm just gonna, I just got to be me and it is what it is, right? Like, there's gonna be some occupational hazards when you're being transparent.

• 7:56Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 7:56Rachel Rodgers?

  Um, and you just got to navigate that as best you can. But I just choose to be who I want to be in the world instead of who I feel like I need to protect myself, you know?

• 8:06Lewis Howes?

  What was harder for you, making your first hundred thousand dollars in a year? Or making your first million dollars in a year?

• 8:12Rachel Rodgers?

  One hundred thousand dollars, for sure.

• 8:14Lewis Howes?

  Why is making a hundred thousand harder than making a million in a year?

• 8:18Rachel Rodgers?

  Because it's like, I think we're just figuring it out. I also think we're charging too little for our work at that point.

• 8:26Lewis Howes?

  Is this when you were working as a career? Or when you had your own business?

• 8:29Rachel Rodgers?

  I never made a hundred grand prior to starting my business. You know, I went from college to like, I had a job in between college and law school. And then I went to law school. And then I started my own practice, so.

• 8:40Lewis Howes?

  So you didn't work at a law firm after law school? So you started pretty much right away being an entrepreneur?

• 8:46Rachel Rodgers?

  Right.

• 8:46Lewis Howes?

  Which is really hard to do.

• 8:48Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes, my last salary before I became an entrepreneur is, was forty one thousand dollars a year. And like really good health insurance. And I was thrilled.

• 8:55Lewis Howes?

  That was in between law school or in between school and law schools.

• 8:59Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes, no, in between, um, this was after law school because this was my clerkship.

• 9:04Lewis Howes?

  Okay, got you.

• 9:04Rachel Rodgers?

  Yeah, so you know, you kind of sign on for a year. You, your paycheck is not that big, but like, and you're a lawyer, right?

• 9:12Lewis Howes?

  You're running the ropes, you're getting reps, you're.

• 9:14Rachel Rodgers?

  Exactly. And that's kind of why I decided to start my business at that time. Because I'm like, I already don't have a lot, right? Like, I already know how to live off of this amount of money. Yeah, so I'm like, if I can live off of this now, let me keep my expenses this way or lower them even more. Like I sold my car and we owned a house and we rented it out, moved into a smaller place.

• 9:34Lewis Howes?

  How many kids do you have at this time?

• 9:36Rachel Rodgers?

  I had none yet. Oh, actually, that's not true. I had my, my stepdaughter, but she didn't live with us full time.

• 9:40Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 9:41Rachel Rodgers?

  And so that's what I did at that stage is like, I cut down my expenses as much as I could so that I could build this business.

• 9:48Lewis Howes?

  How old were you then?

• 9:49Rachel Rodgers?

  I was twenty seven, I would say, two thousand nine. Or, yeah, two thousand nine to two thousand ten.

• 9:57Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool.

• 9:57Rachel Rodgers?

  Is, this was that year. And then I clerked for the judge and I started my, my practice. And I was like, you know, I made like, there were months where I made five hundred bucks and months that I made two thousand dollars. And that's why I like linking together, you know, I was doing. My friend bought a salon. She was a stylist. She wanted to buy her first salon. I did the transaction. She was purchasing an existing business. And I charged her 500 bucks for that. I don't think I've actually ever told anybody.

• 10:24Lewis Howes?

  That's cheap.

• 10:25Rachel Rodgers?

  And I, because I was ashamed. I was ashamed that I didn't know what to charge for that. And that I undervalued my services so much that I like literally have never told anybody. I charged 500 bucks for that. Um, and she's still a good friend of mine. Um, and she-

• 10:40Lewis Howes?

  That's not her fault.

• 10:40Rachel Rodgers?

  No, it's not her fault. She made bank with that salon and she's since now, um, sold it.

• 10:46Lewis Howes?

  But you also got experience doing that, you know, doing that transaction, that deal, which you'd probably never done at that level.

• 10:52Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes.

• 10:52Lewis Howes?

  Seems like. So you gained confidence from that.

• 10:55Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes.

• 10:55Lewis Howes?

  So there was a win there for you as well.

• 10:56Rachel Rodgers?

  There was a win. And, but when I saw how many hours of labor were involved.

• 11:01Lewis Howes?

  You put like weeks probably, right?

• 11:02Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes. I'm negotiating with the other side, dealing with like a difficult lawyer.

• 11:06Lewis Howes?

  Then 500 dollars is a steal.

• 11:07Rachel Rodgers?

  I mean, for the whole thing.

• 11:09Lewis Howes?

  Can I hire you for that?

• 11:10Rachel Rodgers?

  I should have, I should have charged 5,000 dollars minimum, you know? Um, but it was like, but I learned from that. Oh, I add value. I could, I can figure it out and I have a skill in that. I'm trained in knowing how to figure it out.

• 11:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:23Rachel Rodgers?

  You know what I mean?

• 11:23Lewis Howes?

  And that was kind of like working on the job experience. Like you weren't fully probably experienced for that yet, it sounds like, but you learned, okay, I didn't need to do these 10 hours of calls that I did here. I could have done this in an email, whatever. I don't know how this works, but whatever it was, you, you learned your process to simplify it, to maximize it. So.

• 11:41Rachel Rodgers?

  Exactly. And back to that 100 grand question, I think that's why. It's like, we're figuring it out. Usually we don't know exactly what we sell in those early stages of the business. So we're selling everything.

• 11:50Lewis Howes?

  Everything.

• 11:51Rachel Rodgers?

  Whatever people come to us with, we're like, yeah, we could do that. We just create a custom offer for them.

• 11:55Lewis Howes?

  Whatever money we can bring in, we'll do it.

• 11:56Rachel Rodgers?

  We will take it. And so you're very busy. Uh, I call this stage busy B because you're very busy at this stage, but you're, nothing's refined, nothing's efficient. Everything is just sort of like your mass of labor towards whatever you can make happen. And so that first 100 grand, I think you are hustling for that. But in order to get to a million, or at least to do it in a way that feels sustainable, you need systems, you need process, you need team, right? And so now you're starting to build a sustainable business. You're not just, you know, by brute force, making money.

• 12:32Lewis Howes?

  And you need to clarify your offering and your, your audience and your niche and what your specialty is.

• 12:36Rachel Rodgers?

  Exactly.

• 12:37Lewis Howes?

  I'm not just a lawyer that can do anything you want me to do, but here's what I really specialize in.

• 12:41Rachel Rodgers?

  Exactly.

• 12:41Lewis Howes?

  Here are my three packages at these different levels and

• 12:44Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes.

• 12:44Lewis Howes?

  And you go all in on marketing that.

• 12:46Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes, and there's money that you're saying no to.

• 12:48Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 12:49Rachel Rodgers?

  You learn that lesson that not all money is good money.

• 12:51Lewis Howes?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 12:52Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes.

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  I've said this a lot to people, I go, it's weird that I'll turn down massive checks all the time.

• 12:58Rachel Rodgers?

  Yep.

• 12:58Lewis Howes?

  But I'm just like, that's not what I want to do and it doesn't serve my mission.

• 13:01Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes.

• 13:02Lewis Howes?

  If it's not serving the mission and I don't need the money, then I shouldn't do something just to bring in more money.

• 13:08Rachel Rodgers?

  Exactly.

• 13:08Lewis Howes?

  For me.

• 13:09Rachel Rodgers?

  It's a distraction.

• 13:10Lewis Howes?

  At different stages of my life, a different season, now that I've said yes to everything, you know, when I'm broke, you say yes to all these things.

• 13:15Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes.

• 13:16Lewis Howes?

  But then when you're like, okay, I'm here for a mission and to serve at the highest level of my skills and abilities that brings me the most joy and brings others the most joy and benefits the most number of people, then you start saying no to money, which is crazy.

• 13:28Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes.

• 13:29Lewis Howes?

  It sounds crazy, doesn't it?

• 13:30Rachel Rodgers?

  It's delightful. I love it. I feel, I feel like, to me, it lets me know that I'm not, it's like I've not made money my master.

• 13:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 13:40Rachel Rodgers?

  Right? Like, it's very important, but it is a tool.

• 13:42Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 13:43Rachel Rodgers?

  You know what I mean? And I'm not beholden to it and I won't trade anything for it. There is plenty of things that I will not do and I don't care how much you pay me, you know? So I think that it's good to remember that. And so when you're turning down opportunities, it's, it's just an example of like, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm doing things right.

• 13:59Lewis Howes?

  Well, I think you gotta understand that just because you turn down money over here, doesn't mean it's not gonna keep coming to you. Like, just because you turned down something that's not right for you, doesn't mean abundance of something that is right

• 14:11Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes.

• 14:11Lewis Howes?

  will keep coming to you.

• 14:12Rachel Rodgers?

  There's so much opportunity, there's always more where that came from.

• 14:15Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 14:15Rachel Rodgers?

  You know?

• 14:17Lewis Howes?

  That's powerful. Okay, so the first hundred thousand, how long did it take you? How many years until you made a hundred thousand in one year?

• 14:23Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes. So my first year in business, and it was like, I started September 1st, 2010. And so from that year till like September 2011, I made like sixty grand that first year.

• 14:34Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 14:35Rachel Rodgers?

  But I think the first full twelve month calendar year was like year two. So it wasn't, it didn't take too long.

• 14:41Lewis Howes?

  And then how long until you made seven figures in one year?

• 14:45Rachel Rodgers?

  Yeah, that took me seven years.

• 14:47Lewis Howes?

  After that, yeah. From starting business.

• 14:49Rachel Rodgers?

  From, from, from September 2010, I think it was, maybe it was six. It was like 2016, 2017.

• 14:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:55Rachel Rodgers?

  Um, I think 2017 was my first seven-figure year. And I had gotten close, but not, you know, like almost there, but not quite. And twice, and you know what? It was interesting. What happened is, like, I had my business, my revenue was doubling in the beginning. It was like, I made a hundred grand, then I made two or two fifty. And then, you know, then I made five hundred.

• 15:16Lewis Howes?

  But then it's like...

• 15:17Rachel Rodgers?

  I plateaued.

• 15:18Lewis Howes?

  It's like, okay, five sixty, and then six twenty.

• 15:21Rachel Rodgers?

  I know. It started to make me mad, like from five hundred to seven hundred thousand. I think I was there for like three years.

• 15:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 15:27Rachel Rodgers?

  And there was all kinds of stuff going on in my life. One, there was a lawsuit that I, one of my business partners. So like, this is one of the things where you too trusting too quickly caused some issues. So that was a huge distraction for me at that time. I had had two babies back to back.

• 15:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 15:42Rachel Rodgers?

  So, you know, I was busy with them. And then there were just a lot of lessons I needed to learn. Like, I had all these people working for me, but I didn't have good boundaries. And I didn't, I just kind of let them do whatever they wanted and didn't have, you know, like, I was learning how to become a boss. I was learning how to become a leader and a manager.

• 16:00Lewis Howes?

  So much more challenging than just doing your skill.

• 16:03Rachel Rodgers?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:03Lewis Howes?

  Like, let me just be good at the law thing, which is what people wanted me for.

• 16:08Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes.

• 16:09Lewis Howes?

  Now they want my business for that and me, but I've got to train the team and...

• 16:13Rachel Rodgers?

  To deliver, right. Exactly.

• 16:15Lewis Howes?

  It's a different skill.

• 16:16Rachel Rodgers?

  It's totally different, and it's, it can be challenging. And I think that's why a lot of times we're like, well, I'm just gonna go back to doing it myself. And it's like, you can, but it's gonna keep you small.

• 16:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:24Rachel Rodgers?

  You have to say yes to those challenges and learn that new skill, right? Um, and I think leadership skills are so valuable for everybody, so... Um, yeah, I had to learn that and it took me a couple of years to like, figure out how to have stronger boundaries, figure out how to stop letting people waste my time. Figure out how to charge for what I, what my services are worth, right? All of those things, those were lessons that I was learning in that time.

• 16:50Lewis Howes?

  Who was wasting your time, like clients or employees?

• 16:54Rachel Rodgers?

  Clients were wasting my time, team were wasting my time. Um, even family members, right? Like I, I, my desk was like right in the front door. So like, it's like the door is here, my desk is right here. My husband would like be coming in and out. He's a stay at home dad at the time, taking care of the kids. Um, and he just ran a tight ship with our household. It was amazing, like I had so much support in that way. Uh, but he would like, every time he came through the door, would talk to me, interrupt me.

• 17:19Lewis Howes?

  I gotta focus.

• 17:19Rachel Rodgers?

  Yes, exactly. It was like, I didn't know how to create boundaries around my work time. Um, and I did eventually learn it. I started getting up at four AM because I was like, I'd get up at six and these kids would, it's like they could tell, like they had a radar the moment I woke up. So then I would get up at six, like I would be like, okay, I'm going to beat them. I'm going to get up at five thirty. Nope, still get up with me. Five, nope, four thirty, nope, four AM and they stayed in their beds. So I was like, fine, I'm getting up at four AM every day then.

• 17:50Lewis Howes?

  Is now the time to start investing? Or is it more just save up some reserves for six months to have some cash to live your life? Before you start investing? Or is it important to build the discipline and the habit of investing 50 bucks a month, a hundred bucks a month in a diversified portfolio, no matter how much you're making?

• 18:07Ray Dalio?

  I, I, I remember going through this because I, I didn't have any money and I.

• 18:13Lewis Howes?

  When was, when was this, right?

• 18:14Ray Dalio?

  Oh, um, this was, um, nineteen eighty-two, eighty-three. Um, I didn't, I had to borrow $4,000 from my dad to help to take care of my family bills. Uh, so, um, but I, so I remember thinking, um, how many weeks could I live if I lost my income? And I started counting in weeks and I would try to go out because if I got hit, I, so I think, um, I think that's the way to do it. You know, you start to count, uh, how many weeks. Can it be a month? Can a year? Can I get up to a year? I didn't like that because of the fact that

• 18:57Ray Dalio?

  there's an obligation and it's like, oh, if I get, then I'm going to be drowning. I'm trying to keep my head against water. This is just my own bias. But anyway, count the, how many you can, um, and then

• 19:12Ray Dalio?

  assume that its buying power over the next number of years can fall by three or four percent a year, uh, or if, or if you put it in a risky investment, like stocks or something, it can fall by more. So cut that number maybe in half and have twice as much. Because you have to understand that that's your freedom. That is your safety. So that first band you must take care of that first band. Take care of that. Once you get past that and you feel, okay, I could take care of my family and I could take care of mine in a worst case scenario. Then you have the freedom to then take other kinds of risk.

• 19:57Ray Dalio?

  But when you're building that portfolio, um, it, it's the same thing as when you have a lot of portfolio past that, just you want to diversify well. Because you could see what happens to the, to the markets. Every market, stock market, bond market, most markets have had times where they've gone down, um, over an extended period, sixty or seventy percent. So in buying power. So I think diversify, count that and build it and realize that your, um, that's your saving. I, one thing I do for my, um, for my

• 20:38Ray Dalio?

  kids and grandkids and always did, or as long as I could start to afford it, uh, was, um, for every, uh, holiday like Christmas or their birthday, I would give them a gold coin.

• 20:53Ray Dalio?

  And I said, I never want you to sell that gold coin until there's an emergency, a real emergency, never because you want to buy things. And the reason I did that, and they'll build over a period of time, that'll, that'll build something. And I said, don't even sell it. You pass it to your kids unless there's an emergency. Okay. And so you're building that savings because I think we so easily spend so much money on junk. You know, so anything that I would give them, whatever it would be, I don't know, a piece of clothing, a, a, a thing of a jig, a toy or something,

• 21:36Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 21:36Ray Dalio?

  will probably be gone in a year.

• 21:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:40Ray Dalio?

  Okay. And so the power of saving and, you know, and that resource, the relief it gives you and the power it gives you was so great. So yes, save it, diversify it.

• 21:54Lewis Howes?

  I want, I'm going to, I'm going to continue to stay on this topic, but also go off a little bit because you mentioned how, I guess it was 40 years ago, you, you lost your money and you had to borrow 4,000 from your father to just kind of survive and, and pay your bills. How much money had you built before then, before losing it?

• 22:14Ray Dalio?

  Uh, I don't remember. It, it, it wasn't like it was a ton.

• 22:19Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 22:20Ray Dalio?

  You know, I was early, fairly early in my career.

• 22:23Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 22:24Ray Dalio?

  I had a small investment business. Um, I don't remember what it was exactly, but it was, it wasn't a ton.

• 22:33Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious how you, from having some money to losing it, how you then went on a 40 year, four decade run of getting to where you're at now. Was there something in your mindset that allowed you to believe in yourself still?

• 22:49Ray Dalio?

  Yeah.

• 22:49Lewis Howes?

  That didn't say, oh, I've lost it all out. You know, I, I don't believe in myself anymore because I just ruined my finances.

• 22:55Ray Dalio?

  That extremely painful experience.

• 23:00Ray Dalio?

  Was probably the best experience of my life. Really? And it changed my way of thinking ways I'll describe. But let me, let me say before that I didn't have much money. My, um, my dad was a jazz musician. My mom was a stay at home mom. Um, and, uh, I, I, I felt of course, rich. I had two parents who loved me. I went to a public school, but I, and then when I was a kid, I, I, I did odd jobs and I caddied. And so when I put in the stock market when I was 12 and I got hooked on the game. So I never had much money, uh, but then I built up some and then had that experience. And, and so that experience, and which was also a very public experience.

• 23:45Ray Dalio?

  Um, um, was, uh, was very painful, but it, it, it, it changed my approach. Um, to decision making and really a profound way. Um, first, um, it gave me the humility and fear of being wrong. That, um, balanced my audacity, um, to double check myself. And in fact, try to find the smartest people I could who disagreed with me to have them stress test my thinking. So I'm never sure if I'm right. Like my, my track record of being right is probably 70 or 75% ish, somewhere in that 70%.

• 24:30Ray Dalio?

  Let's say something like that. And I'm, I'm, I'm used to being wrong sometimes and, uh, and, and it's painful. So the stress testing of my opinions, um, gave me an open mindedness to learn a lot. Um, and, um, also, uh, diversification. I learned how to diversify without reducing my risks. If I could take a lot of uncorrelated bets. The return will equal the average of those bets, but the risk can be up to eighty percent less. And it changed my, it, it really caused me to reflect because I remember thinking to

• 25:10Ray Dalio?

  myself, it felt like I was sitting next to a jungle and I could sit on the safe side. There's always risk and return. And, and what would I do? Would I have a less great upside and be safe? Or would I go through crossing this jungle and which things could kill me or whatever in an attempt to have a great upside, a great, a great life, a great upside? And so that puzzle led me to do the things I described, but also I knew that I had to

• 25:53Ray Dalio?

  go have the great upside and not be constrained by the risk. And so I did the two things that I've described, but going into the puzzle, I found that it was great that to find people who could see things that I couldn't see and vice versa, so that we were on the mission together because people see things differently. I learned how people see things differently. Somebody will spot this or that, and then that back and forth helps you make better decisions. And if you're on the same mission with them. So one of the things I wanted was this meaningful work and meaningful relationships.

• 26:33Ray Dalio?

  And I found that that was so good that when I, you know, sort of got to the other side, like, you know, I had enough money and upside or whatever, I still wanted to stay in the jungle and I still wanted to do this because the act of, of, of doing that with people that I was doing this meaningful work and meaningful relationships with was rewarding in and of itself as well as success. So one of the things that you can learn is that you can see through other people's eyes. That doesn't mean you accept what they say blindly. It's that you think about their reasoning and if you do that, that's good. It also gave me a principle, which is like one of my fundamental principles, which is

• 27:17Ray Dalio?

  pain plus reflection equals progress.

• 27:21Grant Cardone?

  Hmm.

• 27:22Ray Dalio?

  Okay. We have this pain, whatever it is. And, okay, the reaction is a negative reaction and can almost be, why did that thing happen to me? And, and so on. If instead, when one calms down from the pain, there are, is a lesson there about how reality works. Okay? It happened. It, reality works that way. And then, um, there's a thought, how do I deal with it better?

• 27:59Chris Hogan?

  Right.

• 28:00Ray Dalio?

  To produce better, what's my lesson? And if you acquire that, I used to acquire, I would acquire that, I still acquire that. And then I wrote them down as principles in my books. That's why the collection of principles, it's like a journal. I wrote pain plus reflection equals that. And, and then you write down the principle like a, and that's what the collection of principles came from. That has, so that event, that painful event was the basis.

• 28:28Chris Hogan?

  Most people believe they inherited it all. Right? You see somebody with money, you think, oh, mom or dad handed it to them. The truth is 79% of the millionaires that I talk to, first generation wealth builders. They didn't come from anything. These are people that focused and built money over time. Next myth, well, if you're a millionaire, you make a high paying job, right? You got big in, big income. Yeah, yeah. Nope. A third of the millionaires that we talked to never made six figures in a single working year. Really? Think about that for a second. Dual income, never made six figures? So that blows that myth out of the water. A third of the millionaires that we talked to. Wow. Right? Now you think about six figures nowadays, it's more prevalent than it's ever been, but for

• 29:13Chris Hogan?

  A lot of people with six figure salaries have nothing in the bank. That, thank you. Cause they just spend it all. That's exactly right. And they're using credit constantly to buy bigger things. That's right. No, no, you're absolutely right. So what happens is, is people tend to think that income is so important. And I tell you, no, it's not. Because I was one of those people, I remember I was making about 30 grand and I thought All right, when I get serious, I'm one year out of grad school, making thirty, forty grand. I was all right, when I make this amount, I'll start to get serious about my money. Well, you know, that path, right? Well, when I make this amount, the next thing you know, lifestyle grows and you never end up taking control. But these are regular, everyday people that took control and were focused. Uh, it's amazing. So let me tell you this, top three positions of the ten thousand millionaires we studied.

• 29:56Chris Hogan?

  Number one was engineer, which doesn't surprise you, right? They're good at planning.

• 30:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:00Chris Hogan?

  Accountants.

• 30:01Lewis Howes?

  Organized.

• 30:01Chris Hogan?

  Yeah, accountant, same thing. They were number two. They're good at counting stuff. Number three was teachers.

• 30:08Chris Hogan?

  Teachers.

• 30:08Lewis Howes?

  They're not making that much.

• 30:10Chris Hogan?

  Exactly. And you think that they're undervalued, underpaid. How are teachers doing this? Well, if you think about what it is, wealth building is a long-term view, right? Not a quick hit. And so these get rich quick schemes that we see on TV at late night, they get me riled up. Cause they're preying on people. But these people were people that built wealth over time, investing in their 401K, their 403Bs. So anyway, the goal of this book is to let people know the American dream is not dead.

• 30:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:35Chris Hogan?

  It's alive and it's well, and it's available to people. We just have to take action.

• 30:38Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. What are some of the things that they do on a daily basis, these millionaires? What are some of the steps to take? And how do they think differently than non-millionaires?

• 30:47Chris Hogan?

  Great. Ninety-seven percent of the millionaires that we studied feel that they control their own destiny. Now, think about that for a minute, because we have a victim mentality issue in America today. Where we want to blame somebody for us not achieving something or getting in our way. So these millionaires think differently. Uh, ninety-four percent of them live on less than they make. So that means if they're making a hundred thousand, they're living on seventy or eighty, right?

• 31:11Lewis Howes?

  You can't build wealth if you live on more than you make.

• 31:14Chris Hogan?

  That's exactly right. And that's where the credit cards, people start extending themselves and using credit cards. But seventy-three percent of these millionaires never carried a dime of credit card debt.

• 31:23Lewis Howes?

  They never create, carried debt?

• 31:24Chris Hogan?

  Debt.

• 31:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:25Chris Hogan?

  Right.

• 31:25Lewis Howes?

  Might use a card, pay it off every month.

• 31:27Chris Hogan?

  Pay it off. And so the mindset, and I love to give people an economics and, and, and a PhD in economics. Interest that you pay is a penalty, right? If I use someone else's money, they charge me.

• 31:37Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 31:38Chris Hogan?

  Right? That's a penalty. Interest that I earn on my investments is a reward.

• 31:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 31:41Chris Hogan?

  Right? So why choose to penalize yourself? Don't use debt, get yourself out of debt and invest and grow your money to reward yourself.

• 31:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Powerful.

• 31:50Chris Hogan?

  Yeah.

• 31:51Lewis Howes?

  Now. How have you uh managed to through all this stuff you've gone through, I'm assuming the last, you know, fifteen, twenty years, you've gone through some challenges. You told me before off camera that you have a a child who has special needs and was told that they wouldn't live past a certain age. You're, you know, I'm assuming you've had challenges in relationships with business partnerships, intimate relationships, family.

• 32:16Chris Hogan?

  Yeah.

• 32:16Lewis Howes?

  The more wealth that I've accumulated and the attention that I've gained, there's more people with handouts.

• 32:22Chris Hogan?

  Yes.

• 32:22Lewis Howes?

  Expecting whatever it may be. How have you personally managed the emotional challenges that have come your way by not letting it affect your mindset around money? So that you don't do things emotionally with your money.

• 32:36Chris Hogan?

  Right. Well, I mean, I've been there. I don't know about you, but I've made some mistakes.

• 32:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:41Chris Hogan?

  Okay, and uh, you know, a mistake that you make one or two times, you can call it a mistake. But when you keep doing it over and over, it's not a mistake anymore. It's called a choice.

• 32:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:49Chris Hogan?

  So for me, I'm very, I'm a man of faith, so obviously I'm I'm rooted there. Uh, but I got good people around me.

• 32:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:56Chris Hogan?

  Uh, I got good friends, people that have known me since my childhood. People that know me for who I am. So I'm not an author and speaker with these people. I'm just Chris. And so those people keep me rooted, right? Mama Hogan is no joke either, okay? She'll keep me rooted. And so I think it's really important to understand what am I trying to accomplish? Like, I don't want notoriety. I don't want to be famous. I want to be known that I help people think bigger. Right? And so staying rooted in that, it helps me to be very, very clear on what I'm doing. People will come up and tell me, oh, Chris, you changed my life financially. And I go, whoa, uh-uh. Pump the brakes. I didn't change anything. I gave you some information. You did the changing.

• 33:36Chris Hogan?

  And so I think it's really important as as as we help people that we stay aware of who's doing what and our role.

• 33:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think there's a there's a story about Marcus Aurelius where he would go around the town and he had uh someone just walk with him beside him and say, you're just a man.

• 33:53Chris Hogan?

  I remember that.

• 33:54Lewis Howes?

  Every time someone would praise him, be like, you're just a man.

• 33:56Chris Hogan?

  Can you imagine that? I mean, seriously.

• 33:58Grant Cardone?

  Isn't that cool?

• 33:59Chris Hogan?

  How rooted does that keep you? You know, so, you know, John Wooden's got a quote. And he says, you know, be careful of fame because fame is man-made. And if man giveth, man can take it away.

• 34:10Grant Cardone?

  Absolutely.

• 34:10Chris Hogan?

  You know, and so being aware of that, I think is really, really important. What's the heart behind what I'm trying to do?

• 34:16Grant Cardone?

  Yeah.

• 34:16Chris Hogan?

  And so, you know, if I travel and I go speak to 10,000 people, if I get one person whose eyes light up and they start thinking differently, then I've done my mission.

• 34:25Grant Cardone?

  Yeah.

• 34:25Chris Hogan?

  Yeah.

• 34:29Grant Cardone?

  If you've got a thousand dollars, I would like just keep, you know, keep investing in yourself until you've got another thousand. Okay. And, and then invest in yourself, you know, now, now you've got 2,000 invested in you. You go, go, go, you should start making money faster. At some point, you should start like, every time you make an investment in yourself, if I put fuel in my car, it's supposed to take me further. Right. Right, so if I invest in myself, then, and look, you know, there's things I bought that I didn't get a return on right away. But I didn't quit investing in a course or a workshop or training or education because it didn't work. Or your health or... I spent 17 years going to school. None of it was any good for me. But it did teach me, it did teach me how to go to school. You know? How to study.

• 35:13Grant Cardone?

  How to study, how to go there, how to finish, how to complete a course. Like I completed college. I'm not proud of that, by the way. You're not proud you completed it? No, no, because it was stu-, it was ridiculous. I should have dropped out. Like I, I knew it was a bad thing. What'd you major in? Uh, majored in accounting. It's a good degree. It's not like just some, you know, business degree. Right. But you should have dropped out of it. I should, 100% because I, I mean, I would still, I would still, I would, well, I'd have a five-year jump on my career. But the problem is I was on drugs, so, so, you know. Physical, actual drugs? If I wouldn't have been on drugs, I would have quit college. Because I would have had enough confidence in myself. When you're on drugs, you can't have confidence. Because you know, you know you're drugged. Right.

• 35:56Grant Cardone?

  So everything is second-guessed because my self-esteem was like, like, through, through the basement. And so I'm like, I need to quit college. But everybody around me says, oh, no, you've got to finish college, you've got to finish college. I'm like, what do I know? I'm a drug addict. And if I drop out, I don't have a degree, and who's going to hire me? I didn't even worry about any of that. Because, you know, I didn't worry about that. I just didn't have the confidence to follow my intuition. You can't when you're... On drugs. When you're not yourself. So what do you do with a thousand bucks, right?

• 36:26Grant Cardone?

  You know, I think you've just got to keep investing in you until like, oh, now I'm making $3,000. Okay, boom, reinvest all that again. But what we do is we start taking it off the table, right? We save it, we don't invest it. So, I think people just need to get on that, that cycle of like, okay, I'm gonna keep repeating this activity. I'm gonna reinvest some money in myself, go to the workshop or whatever. Monday, I gotta be hustling again. Until, okay, now I got $4,000. Okay, now I got $5,000. Now the income's starting to pick up. Income has to pick up. The income should be an indication that whatever you're learning is helping you. That's interesting. Until one day you're like, okay, I have more money here than I can actually. Invest in myself. I can't, like, there's nothing I can go to, to get rid of this money. You need to get rid of that money, though.

• 37:09Grant Cardone?

  All my free time is going to my workshops. I don't have more free time to invest in me. Yeah. I'm developing skills, I'm working, I'm earning more. Yeah. Now, what's the next step? Yeah. And now, now, now it would be, okay, I gotta spend money on marketing. I wouldn't go make, I wouldn't go look for an investment right now. Hmm. I'm gonna spend money on marketing now. Now, now, now I'm gonna spend money on marketing to get me more leads. Mm-hmm. And I would, you know, the big mistake I made in my career was not spending more money on marketing. Cause you turned, what, 50 when you really started investing in? I was 50, I was 51 when we started playing the social media game. And, and I was probably 56, 55 or 56 when we started spending money on marketing. Wow. Yeah. 51 when you started doing social media? Yeah, yeah.

• 37:52Grant Cardone?

  And I should've been spending money, I should've been spending money when I was 25 years old. When I was selling cars, I should've spent money, been spending money on ads. But I was scared, man. So. So what made you not scared 25 years later, 26 years later, at 51? I started studying, hey, what do, what do all these successful people have in common? You know, whether it was the mattress dealer, the car dealer, the furniture dealer, or Elon Musk. They spend money, man. You know, they spend money. They spend a lot of money. And they don't worry about money the way I was worried about it. They use money. You know, they used it. They didn't save it. They didn't hoard money.

• 38:34Grant Cardone?

  And the greatest companies on this planet today, the ones that have just like, some of these companies have lost money for 25 years. Look at Amazon. Reinvest. 1.7 million employees. When I started, I remember I looked at Ernst Young, I said, I have a buddy that worked at Ernst Young. I said, how many employees you got? He's like, 240,000. Wow. And I'm worried about 10 people? What am I thinking? So, so when I quit studying individuals and started studying people, everything shifted for me. When I quit trying to be the, you know, when I quit worrying about what Bob was doing, or Pete, or whoever, and started saying, hey, man, what is this big company doing? Because that also relieved me of being competitive with this guy, Pete.

• 39:19Grant Cardone?

  And started saying, okay, I'm gonna go do what Coca-Cola does. That's when I bought the plane. Really? Yeah. How old were you when you bought the plane? I was 50, maybe 55, the first one. I bought it because, because I studied what Coca-Cola was doing. They bought planes. I said, why are they buying planes? Oh, then I learned how they write them off. And then I learned how they trade them every three years. That's crazy. So notice every three years, I'm trading a plane. I'm getting rid of it, replacing it with another one. But what are they using it for? They don't use it for pleasure. They're not using it for Instagram photos. They're using it to go and set up headquarters in other countries.

• 39:58Grant Cardone?

  You know, so, so that's when I wrote, If You're Not First, You're Last, because when I started studying these companies, I'm like, Coca-Cola's everywhere. You can't go anyplace and not see Coca-Cola.

• 40:09Grant Cardone?

  And, and I was, I was like this big. I was always thinking about what can I keep? And they were thinking about how many shells can we get on? How many eyeballs can we see? So that's when, that's when it all clicked for me, you know, and, and that goes back to that thing about the financial misinformation, right? It's like, who am I studying? And, and that's, that's when we started, you know, opened up the funds for, for, I was, uh, went to New York City to go walk in Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan's offices. I wanted to walk in and see what it was like. These are a hundred, multi-hundred billion dollar companies. Crazy. You know? And I walked in, I was like, oh my God, man. I just, it just all hit me in a second. I've been doing everything wrong.

• 40:54Grant Cardone?

  What were they doing different? They owned the building. Hmm, they weren't renting the building? They owned the building. Well, they don't care if they rent. They, they could rent it, but they owned it. The elevators were bigger than the studio. Oh, right. One elevator. And sixty people got on that elevator and went to the, went to the hundred and twenty floor. And then there was six, six of these elevators, people going up and down. Everybody told me, don't take people's money. Do not let investors invest when you keep the whole deal for yourself. The second I walked into Goldman Sachs. Cause all they're doing is getting investor money. That's all they do. Okay? And the difference is, what I do is, I, I could go to Goldman Sachs, I was there, they would give me money. And I'm like, I'm not gonna get money from them. I'm gonna do what they do.

• 41:39Grant Cardone?

  From individuals? Exactly. From my friends, from people that follow me, from people that support me, okay? Goldman Sachs will give money to anybody. Right. Okay, they don't know how to go to these people. They're not on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn or TikTok. So I'm gonna create a fund where I can tell my audience, hey, Lewis, you can invest with me. I'm gonna kick Goldman out of the deal. Or JP, or whoever, there, there's a bunch of these, these guys, you know? It's not that they're doing a bad thing or, or anything. I'm not saying they're, they're, they're the devil. But they're close. Okay? Because they, they, they're, they're not gonna call you up and say, how you doing, man? You know, without saying, hey, you got any money to invest?

• 42:21Grant Cardone?

  It's just not, you know, that's not what they do. Their, their, their job is to make money, period. So anyway, when I saw that, I'm like, okay, these people are, these are the richest institutions on the planet. They fund everything that happens. The company BlackRock, BlackRock's gonna be, BlackRock and Vanguard, these are multi, you know, probably gonna be worth 20 trillion dollars each in the next handful of years. They'll own, they say they'll own 99% of all the assets on planet Earth, not just in America.

• 42:48Lewis Howes?

  How are they able to do that?

• 42:50Grant Cardone?

  Because, because they scale, right? Because they think, they think big, so they, you know, they're funding everything. Everything that happens on this planet, from media to pharmaceutical, is gonna be funded by those two companies. So, it just, when you're, when you're studying your rich uncle or the neighbor down the street, the think is only so big. And then, when I started studying these other companies, I was like, okay, this is who, if you wanna create that kinda legacy wealth, and really help a lot of people, cuz they are in a position to help or hurt a lot of people. That's the scale you gotta think at.

• 43:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. But it took you, really, 25 years to get there, to start thinking that way, is that right? Cuz you weren't able to see yourself spending money for 25 years, you were just trying to earn more and more and more.

• 43:37Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, because I was just trying to, because I was, the grind, the grind, the grind was so, it was such a low-level grind.

• 43:44Lewis Howes?

  Let's say you had the right information at 25, let's just say you had a rich uncle that did what these people did, and you got to witness this.

• 43:52Grant Cardone?

  Yeah.

• 43:53Lewis Howes?

  Do you think that you wouldn't have been able to get there faster?

• 43:58Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, 1,000 years.

• 43:59Lewis Howes?

  Or do you feel like money only comes to you when you're ready for it? When you're ready to make it, and when you're ready to take on the risk or the responsibility?

• 44:07Grant Cardone?

  Sabrina will never make the mistakes I made, okay? Because she won't, she won't get in the wrong car. I got in the wrong vehicle. I didn't know, the vehicle I got in when I was 28 years old, I could actually make 100 grand a year doing this. My daughters will never get in that vehicle.

• 44:22Lewis Howes?

  What would they do?

• 44:23Grant Cardone?

  They'll be like, I'm not getting in a $100,000 ride. If it can't bring me, they're gonna be like, hey, if this doesn't have a billion-dollar possibility? They're gonna pick that this is the wealthy, they they put their kids, their kids see things differently. If they're not ruined. Right. You know, if they're not completely ruined and scathed by having whatever they want. Then they'll see, they'll see, they'll see opportunities different. Yeah. You know, and and but when when you see the possibility, then you're like, I'm not gonna get in that car, that car, that car. I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get in a spaceship. So if I was 28 again today, I mean, I would know what what industries to pick. Top three industries to pick.

• 45:07Grant Cardone?

  Uh, well, got hedge funds have to be one of them. Really? You, you, advertising and marketing's gotta be a space to be in. Mm hmm.

• 45:15Grant Cardone?

  And probably, you know, something to do with healthcare. If I could scale healthcare. If I could scale, scale the organic, uh, um, alternative medicines. Um, you know, so those are three massive spaces, maybe, maybe financial too. The, the financial world, you know, in the next 30 years, we're probably gonna have a a disruption of the dollar. Right. You know, and the way money's, maybe we're a cryptocurrency, you know, environment in the future. Yeah. So any of that, any of that's gonna happen, you know, um, but, but there, the reason I would go there is like, like Jeff Bezos. When I, when I saw the first interview with Jeff, when he was saying he was studying algorithms.

• 46:00Grant Cardone?

  I think he was, he was at one of the big firms selling stocks. Before Amazon. Yeah, before Amazon. And then he saw some, he saw something came across his desk where there was a spike in internet activity. Eyeballs going to the internet. That's when he said, I'm gonna go do Amazon. And he followed traffic. I didn't ever follow traffic. He followed scale. He followed scaling possibilities. And then what did he do? He followed this traffic, the possibility, then he invested in the possibility. And then he went into debt on the possibility and then he was willing to not get paid any money. But what did I do? I need money today. I gotta have money this week. I need to have a little more money next week. And if I get a little more money after that, I'm gonna save it all.

• 46:45Grant Cardone?

  And then I'm gonna go do that again. And I'm gonna feed the bank. And I'm gonna keep feeding the bank. I don't, I don't even know how much money the bank's made off of me for 25 years. We don't know anybody that works harder than Grant Cardone. And as soon as he gets a bag, he brings it to us. What do they do? Hey, y'all wanna borrow this money? Now, repeat that 300 million times.

• 47:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:04Grant Cardone?

  And that's the American people.

• 47:06Lewis Howes?

  What about a family that's thinking, you know, I really feel comfortable having six months to a year of savings because I got kids, I got, you know, the rent, I got the, all the bills.

• 47:15Grant Cardone?

  Yeah.

• 47:16Lewis Howes?

  What do you, what do you say to someone who's like, you know what? I see where you're coming from, but maybe I don't feel that comfortable yet.

• 47:21Grant Cardone?

  Well, then, then keep, you know, money, if you think money's gonna save you, you know, you're just, again, they're stacking, they're stacking information on top of bad information, okay? You know, the money that you have saved in the last six months has probably dropped 11%. So the money that you have, you got 100 grand. I gotta have six months of savings. I need, you know, 4,000. My bills are four, 5,000 bucks. I gotta have 30 grand in the bank. Gotta have 30. But they really have 180. So first of all, I guarantee they have more than six months. And they don't even know it. Because they're living out of terror.

• 47:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:55Grant Cardone?

  This is not logic.

• 47:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:57Grant Cardone?

  You say it's logic. I need six months, but you got three times more than you need.

• 48:03Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 48:03Grant Cardone?

  Number one. Number two, you've never had an emergency that cost you 30 grand in your lifetime. Very few people ever had that emergency. Everybody hears about, oh yeah, my guy got in a bad, this happened, blah, blah, blah.

• 48:14Lewis Howes?

  Car accident or this.

• 48:15Grant Cardone?

  But if you had assets, if you'd been investing in assets, you can always go use those assets for collateral to solve your cancer surgery.

• 48:23Lewis Howes?

  You can get a loan out from the bank.

• 48:24Grant Cardone?

  100%. Or if you just took the money that you earned and keep reinvesting in assets that pay you, not assets that you wish one day will pay you, but assets that pay you every month. If you keep investing in that asset class, one day your cash flow will be your emergency account. My, my emergency account last month paid me a million six. My cash flow, my free cash flow.

• 48:49Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 48:50Grant Cardone?

  That's no work involved. That is not one second of one day.

• 48:56Grant Cardone?

  Okay, that was, and that happens every single month in my place. But that's, that's been because I made a bunch of investments for the last, you know, 25 years. Right. End of every year, I dump all my cash out every year. I'm like, you need to get as close to zero as you can. And replace it with assets that, that in January, if I dump out in December, January, I want a payment from that. It doesn't have to be a big payment, just needs to be a drip off that asset. Something, yeah. So I'm gonna go, I'm not gonna buy a cup because the cup won't pay me. So in December, I had a bunch of money, boom, I'm like, make a deal, you saw, you were in it, yes, a couple of days ago. Yeah, yeah. You bought that house. Take that cash, that garbage that you have, I already had a surplus of money.

• 49:41Grant Cardone?

  So if I can't buy two of these, I'm not gonna buy one of them. If I can't write off some portion of it, I'm not gonna buy it. If I can't do it out of passive income, I'm not gonna touch it. Interesting. So those are my, those are my criteria for making investments, right? And it needs the cash flow. So I took a bunch of this cash that was sitting here, just deteriorating, not providing me with safety, and took it and put it into this asset. And people are like, are you, you're ridiculous, you paid that much money for that thing. Okay, we'll see, you know? So I, I buy this thing, this thing will provide rental income, I think this year I'll make three million bucks on this deal. Wow. In cash flow. And how much do you have to put down, need to buy the whole thing? Well, I paid cash for this asset.

• 50:21Grant Cardone?

  So, so, but the reason I did it is not because this is a great deal, but, but this is a terrible deal. Keeping the cash. Keeping the cash is garbage. This, this Malibu house is probably one of the worst investments I ever made. Why? But, but I had a bunch of surplus cash, I'd already bought, in December, we bought, uh, almost 2,000 apartments. If I could've got another apartment deal, I'd have bought another apartment deal with a 40 million, but I couldn't. You couldn't find one. I couldn't find another deal, okay, I still had this money left over, end of the year, it's just a thing that I do. End of the year, dump out. Literally like flush the toilet on your savings. So every day I look at my savings accounts, okay? It's not because I'm worried about any more money anymore. I, I know for sure the money's going down in value. Everybody knows that this year.

• 51:05Grant Cardone?

  Your money is depreciating, right? It's dropping down in value. What you were told that is a hundred grand is not a hundred grand. The bank's not even telling you the truth. It's a hundred less eleven thousand. It's eleven percent right now? Could be thirty four percent less. Some people think it's going down thirty four percent. That's crazy. But you're going to still see a hundred because this is invisible taxing, right? It's inflation. So I know that. I know it's not a hundred. So when you guys look at your, I got a hundred and eighty thousand. You're lying to yourself because you, because you're not, you're not doing all the math on money. This is why Mike Saylor went and took all that money he had and invested in Bitcoin. Bitcoin, yeah. Because he's done the research. So I would listen to him and I'm not saying you guys should go buy Bitcoin,

• 51:49Grant Cardone?

  but I'm not buying Bitcoin at that, at those levels. Okay, I'm buying assets that can provide you with more cash, with more income. Maybe I should be buying Bitcoin, I don't know. But anyway, so I dumped this out, I dumped this for now. I've been, I've been shopping this piece of real estate for nineteen months. I've been working this deal for nineteen months. So I'm not being like, okay, I just gotta go buy something. I'm not going to do that. But I'm trying to get rid of this cash to go into an asset that has the potential to go up in value over time. I dump out in January, okay? I do three webinars. That's why everybody wants to know, man, what's the rush to make more money? Because I'm broke, man.

• 52:28Grant Cardone?

  And I got a new house. Right. You got, you got bills to pay now, you got expenses. So January first comes, I've done three webinars already to start filling this up again. Right now, if I, if I walked into January first with forty million bucks sitting in a bank account, dude, I. You're not hungry. What's the rush, bro? You're not hungry. Yeah, let's plan, let's do some planning this year. But what I do is I dump out. So every year for the last fifteen years, every January, I end up with more assets.

• 52:57Lewis Howes?

  I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And

• 53:41Lewis Howes?

  now it's time to go out there and do something great.