9 Life Lessons After 500 Episodes

Join the community built to help you master your money, stay accountable, and reach financial freedom. 👉 Join Master Money Academy https://joinmastermoneyacademy.com/free-trial and get a free gift for 7 days! In this episode of The Personal Finance Podcast, Andrew celebrates episode 500 by sharing 9 life-changing lessons—time is your most valuable asset, your money decisions are rooted in psychology, everything compounds including money and habits, nobody cares what you do so take more shots, simplify everything in your finances and life, income solves most money problems but exposes chaos without systems, privacy is now a wealth-building skill, do more hard things people avoid, and you're one year away from transforming your life. Listen to The Business Show here. Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Partner Deals Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at http://Indeed.com/personalfinance Join the loyalty program for renters at joinbilt.com/PFP Go to http://policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to http://fundrise.com/pfp Get 50% Off Monarch, the all-in-one financial tool at http://www.monarch.com/PFP Find your next dream home, start searching now. Download the http://Realtor.com app today DeleteMe: Go to https://joindeleteme.com/PFP20/ and Use Promo Code PFP for 20% off! Links of the Episode Mentioned: How to Build Wealth on a Low Salary Connect With Andrew on Social Media: Instagram TikTok Twitter Master Money Website Master Money Youtube Channel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Andrew Giancola?

  Now, if you watch this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube, you've probably noticed the wood slat walls behind us. We wanted this podcast set to look professional, but also not be a project that was overly complicated. And I found these slat walls on Wayfair, and it completely changed this space. And it's now basically the background that you see in every single podcast or piece of content that we record. And that's one of the things that I love about Wayfair. You can shop thousands of products across different styles and budgets, use customer photos and reviews to see how things actually look in real homes, and find something that fits your space. They also have Wayfair Verified Products that are hand vetted by product specialists using a 10-point quality inspection.

• 0:44Andrew Giancola?

  And with more than 20 million verified 5-star reviews, you can feel a lot more confident about what you're ordering. I've used Wayfair for this studio and our home, and I absolutely recommend them for your space. So transform your space with pieces that hold up to real life. Join Wayfair Rewards today and get 5% back on every single purchase. Head to wayfair.com or shop the Wayfair app for all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 1:20Andrew Giancola?

  When I started the Personal Finance Podcast, I had no idea how big it could become. I just knew I had something I wanted to share, so I started putting it online. And looking back, I definitely wish I would have started a decade earlier. One of the horror parts about building something online, though, is making it look professional. A website used to mean hiring a developer, figuring out design, and potentially spending thousands of dollars. In fact, on my website, I spent tens of thousands of dollars. That's what impressed me when playing around with Hostinger's AI website builder. I told it what kind of website I wanted, and I built the first version in minutes. No coding, no designer or developer needed. And Hostinger doesn't stop at launch.

• 2:04Andrew Giancola?

  Their AI can help with SEO, website copy, email marketing, and more. Your domain, website, email, and marketing can all live in one account with plans starting at just $3 every single month. Hosting or build your vision step by step. Create your website today. Go to hosting.com/pfp and use code PFP for 10% off now on this episode of the personal finance podcast, nine lessons after 500 episodes.

• 2:41Andrew Giancola?

  What's up everybody and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of mastermoney.co. And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be diving into nine lessons after 500 episodes. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the master money newsletter by going to mastermoney.co/newsletter and you can respond to any of those issues that are there. And don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or whatever your favorite podcast player is. And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite

• 3:19Andrew Giancola?

  podcast player. Now today is a special day because this is episode 500. And I remember when I first started this podcast, I thought through and our initial goal was thought as this, we had no idea what was going to happen with this show. We had no idea which direction we were going to go with this, but I knew I wanted to help people and I knew that I had a vision in my mind where I saw someone who was really just struggling with their money. They were stressed about their money. They were anxious about their money and they didn't know what to do next. And so I said to myself, I want to create something that solves those problems for those people, but also allows them to grow with us where as their income starts to increase and as they start to build wealth and as they are able to do some of these things,

• 4:04Andrew Giancola?

  they can also grow in their finances on this show. My entire goal was to give you hope. My entire goal is to bring as much value as possible to you. That is why we do this. And I say that on a lot of different episodes, but in addition, my goal is to show you that you Have the opportunity to do anything you want in this life and money is the tool to get you there. You have the flexibility and the ability to spend your time doing the things that you want. If you use money as a tool. And so overall, we wanted to bring this message to as many people as we possibly can. Now, as time has gone on, our message has been, I want to create a million millionaires. And I think that is such a fun and powerful goal out there that we are trying to do.

• 4:44Andrew Giancola?

  Now, when we started this show, the interesting thing about it was that we started with just like my mom, my wife and a couple of family members listening. And I remember very early on when we started this show, I had 10 downloads, 15 downloads, 20 downloads. And it started to slowly pick up. In the first episode I ever did, I didn't know that you could do an episode and not do it perfectly all in one take. Now, for the most part, we do that much better where we're, we're kind of doing these in one take. But when I first started and I wasn't even in the know on podcasting, I thought you had to do it perfectly all the way through. So my first episode of this podcast, I recorded it 40 different times. And I was like, this is unsustainable. I don't even know what to do. But then I realized, oh shoot, you could go back and edit these podcasts. That's how little I knew.

• 5:29Andrew Giancola?

  And now the amazing thing is we have seen growth of this show over the course of the last year that has exceeded my expectations beyond anything I could have ever imagined. And I want to thank all of you for being here with me. I want to thank all of you for sticking with me as we have gone through all of these different episodes. Cause episode 500 is special. It is a special place to be that when we started this show in 2020, June of 2020 is when this show began to being here now. And as we are recording this episode, I am looking at the Spotify charts. We are number eight on the Spotify business charts being overall, we are the eighth largest podcast in the world in the business category.

• 6:07Andrew Giancola?

  We are number 111 on the overall charts on Spotify for all podcasts across all categories. And I cannot believe it. It is one of those things that shows a lot of the messages that we're going to be talking about today. Because my goal for each and every single one of you is I want you to thrive with your money. I want you to know that no matter where you started, no matter where you came from, no matter who you are, no matter what your Job is no matter what you're currently doing, you can change your situation and you can build generational wealth for you, but also your family. In Proverbs, it says, "A wise man leaves an inheritance to his children's children." And I want each and every single one of you to be able to do that. Every single person listening to this podcast, I want you to be able, if you want to, to leave an inheritance to your children's children.

• 6:51Andrew Giancola?

  I want you to be able to give to the causes you believe in. I want you to be able to do whatever you want with your time, energy, money, and everything else in life. And money is just a tool that gets you there. It's not about the money, it's what the money can do for you. And so I envisioned, when we started this show, someone who was dead broke, dead poor, who found my podcast. And all of a sudden, when they found my show, they were able to climb themselves out of a situation that honestly wasn't the safest. It wasn't the best for their family. It wasn't the best overall situation. And they were able to do it by using money as a tool. And since then, we have helped people on a low salary. We have helped high earners. We have helped people in every single situation. We talk about advanced tactics. We've talked about beginner tactics. And today on this episode, a lot has changed just with me specifically.

• 7:36Andrew Giancola?

  If you go back and listen to the early episodes, I have developed as a person as well. And so I want to go through nine life lessons after 500 episodes. So this is going to be a fun episode and I am really, really excited for it. So without further ado, let's get into it.

• 7:53Andrew Giancola?

  Number one is that time is your most valuable asset. Now, I think a big key for most people listening to this podcast is they need to realize a lot of the things that we do is to make sure that we spend our time in the most valuable categories that we want to spend it. Because wealth, the ability to build wealth, allows you to spend more time with your family. It allows you to spend more time with your friends. It allows you to spend more time doing the things that you love. It allows you to spend more time pushing the cause as you believe in. And so because of this, wealth is just the tool that gives you more time. But time is the real asset that we all want. We all want the freedom and flexibility to go on those vacations whenever we want. We all want the freedom and flexibility to enjoy a cup of coffee on our back porch in the morning.

• 8:36Andrew Giancola?

  We all want the freedom and flexibility to go be able to see our kids' games. No matter what, without getting work calls. And this is what money allows you to do. And so because of this, most of us are chasing financial freedom. And financial freedom is the ultimate goal for most of you out there. And so time is your most valuable asset. You must protect it at all costs and you must become a great steward of your time. And so what I would say first is that if you want to become better with your time and you want to think about time in a very different way, I would set goals and parameters around your time specifically. See, a lot of people will set goals in life. Maybe they want to make more money. Maybe they want to get ripped.

• 9:15Andrew Giancola?

  I would think through, how do I set goals to make sure that I'm spending my time intentionally? Now, if you are unsure about how to spend your time with intention, the number one thing that you can do is time block. Now, we have this thing in Master Money Academy called Master Your Money Goals. And inside Master Your Money Goals, we go through time blocking and how important and powerful it can be. It is one of the most important things that most people need to be doing is setting up a timeframe and time blocking their time. Now, this sounds like you're going backwards. It sounds like you're not spending your time doing what you want. But time blocking allows you to actually allocate your time towards the things that you actually value. So each and every single day, you know when you wake up, what you're going to be doing that day.

• 9:59Andrew Giancola?

  If you want to exercise more and spend more time on your health and fitness because you want to live longer, to see your family more, you should be spending more time doing that and you should be time blocking more of that into your calendar. If you want to spend more time thinking about how to build more wealth or on your side hustle, you should be allocating that time in your calendar every single day. If you want to spend more time making sure that you are not wasting time at your day job every single day so that you can become the most productive person, so you can get that promotion and make more money, then time block your entire day. And if you want to spend more time making sure you're intentional with your faith or intentional with your family, time blocking that is going to make sure that it is on your list. Now, there's a book by Cal Newport that goes through this,

• 10:43Andrew Giancola?

  where in that book, Cal Newport introduces the concept of time blocking. And he actually does it in Very interesting way where he does it in a notebook. He does it by hand every single day. Now, how do I do it? I just do it on a Google Calendar. I do a what I call my Sunday night ritual. And every single week I will set up parameters around my entire week of what I want to make sure that I accomplish. And so when you look at this and you set parameters around this, this removes time sucks from your life. How many of you right now are saying to yourself, I am so sick of how much time I am spending on my phone. I am so sick about these six hours of screen time of scrolling every single day. You know why that happens? Because you don't have intention with your time.

• 11:27Andrew Giancola?

  You don't have your time set up in a way that tells you what to do each and every single day. This is the key to success is to make sure that you spend your time doing the actual things that you want to be doing. Because you can do a lot more than you think you can. And really, if you show me your calendar, I will show you what your priorities are. If you show me your calendar and there is nothing on there, guess what your priority is? Your priority to me is going to be that I don't know what I'm going to do today. And so instead, I am going to let life choose what my time is going to be spent on. Because if you let life choose what your time is going to be spent on, that is how you get nowhere in your day to day life. So instead, I highly recommend looking into time blocking and thinking about this.

• 12:11Andrew Giancola?

  Now, most of us out there may feel like we're behind in our careers. You may think that you are not far along in your business. But this is one of the most amazing things that I think most people need to understand about time is that you have way more time in your business and your career than you actually think you do. Let me give you some examples of this. Charlie Munger, who is one of the greatest investors of all time and one of the wealthiest people to ever live, was also Warren Buffett's business partner. This is what he's most famous for. But he didn't join Warren Buffett until he was 54 years old. Another example of this is Colonel Sanders. In fact, he was 65 years old when he started it. So if you're in your 30s or 40s right now and you're listening to this episode, or if you're even in your 50s, you have so much time left.

• 12:55Andrew Giancola?

  And this is where I want you to realize that time is your most valuable asset. And when you have a long-term time horizon, you have the time to allow this to compound. I have seen people in their 50s say, I feel like I have no time left. No, you have a lot of time left. And if you take care of your health and you take care of your health span, you have a lot of great life left where you can do a lot of amazing things. Maybe act one is you just building up that foundation in your 20s and 30s. Maybe act two is in your late 30s and 40s, you are starting to build up some career capital. And now you will have the ability to go out there and start to truly market yourself and make a lot more money. Maybe your 40s and 50s, now you're starting to accelerate how much you can make. And you're starting a business on the side or you're doing something else.

• 13:36Andrew Giancola?

  And you're able to kind of transition your career in act one, two, three, and four. But you have way more time than you actually think when it comes to your career in business. If you're in your 20s, you have a lifetime left. And you don't understand really how much time you have and how valuable that time can be. Because you can reinvent yourself later on in life. And that's the message that most people need to note. Is that if you do think that you're completely done, no, you can reinvent yourself later on in life. I have a great family friend who became a physician, who became a doctor, went back to med school when he had three kids and went back to med school in his late 30s and became a doctor in his early 40s. He retired in his early 60s. And this is something I think most people don't realize is you can change everything that you are doing.

• 14:20Andrew Giancola?

  Now, society is going to say, well, why are you changing your career path? Or why are you changing what you're actually doing? But instead, you need to note, I have so much time left. I have so much time ahead of me that I can do anything I want in life. Honestly, that's one thing you need to realize. You could just do things. You could just do things in life and nobody's going to stop you. And so you've got to make sure that you realize how much time you have. Because a lot of people think, oh, my goodness, time is running out. I am way behind. I don't know what to do within my career. This is one of those areas where in your career, you have so much time left. But here's the other reality is we have less time than we think to spend with our family. And the older I get, the more I realize this. So my family and I were recently on just like a weekend vacation. It was myself, my wife, my two sons and my daughter.

• 15:05Andrew Giancola?

  And we were on this weekend vacation and we were just having such a wonderful time. We were having a great time. And I sat there and I was watching my kids play in this pool. And I was thinking to myself, man, I have a seven-year-old now. I have a almost five-year-old now and I have a one-year-old.

• 15:25Andrew Giancola?

  And just the first seven years of my seven-year-old's life was gone like that. It went by so incredibly fast. And he grew up with this podcast. I mean, I remember recording this podcast next to his room where his crib was in our old house. And it is one of those things where time spent with your family, especially your kids, is going to go by way faster than you think. So you may have way more time in your career than you think. You have way less time with their family than you think. In fact, almost all the time you spend with your kids is going to be in the first 18 years of their life or when they're under your roof. And this is the sad reality of life. This is actually a sad thing as a parent. And this is a sad thing as a child as well, because when you are a child, you've spent the majority of your time that you're going to spend with your parents.

• 16:09Andrew Giancola?

  You've already spent it, especially if you're a grown adult out of the household. And that's the thing I'm realizing more and more about this life is that life is gone in a vapor. It's gone in an instant. And it goes by really, really fast, especially with the ones that we love. Most people on their deathbeds don't say they regret now making more money or staying late at the office. What they regret is not spending more time with their family. And I see it time and time again where folks have a huge regret around their kids. I talked to a dad recently, and he said for his entire life, his son kept asking him to just watch a baseball game with him or watch a sports game with him or watch this thing with him and just spend a little time with him when he was young, when he was six, seven and eight. And his dad was too busy and he was working and he was spending time trying to build

• 16:52Andrew Giancola?

  an income for the family and he thought that was the right thing to do. And now he's built a tremendous amount of wealth. He has this huge company. It's making a lot of money and his son is 25 years old now. And he keeps asking his son, hey, son, can you want to come over for the game? Do you want to come over and spend some time and watch the game with me? And his son always says no, because for the longest time he was so used to getting rejected. And now it's just not part of his pattern anymore to watch the game with his dad. I don't want that to happen to anybody out there. And if it has happened to you, I want you to find a way to fix it. Because this time that we have left is so short. And the trade-off of trying to get more money in order to sacrifice time with your family is absolutely not worth it. Another thing, is another study came out and I've talked about this in the show before,

• 17:35Andrew Giancola?

  but the majority of people with their best childhood memories, they remember taking a vacation with their family. And so I would highly encourage every single person listening to this to make sure that you have some sort of vacation fund in your budget. Even if you're not a big vacationer yourself and you have kids, this is going to be something that they remember for the rest of their life. Spend time thinking about travel hacking if you don't have a lot of money because travel hacking can help you through this process, but also spend time just putting cash to the side so that you can go on vacation. Now, never, ever, ever go into debt on vacation, even if it's a fun little family weekend trip where you can afford that once a year. That is going to be something that they remember for the rest of their life. And I want you to make sure that you're spending time on the vacation fund and making sure you allocate dollars towards that.

• 18:19Andrew Giancola?

  I don't care if it's $50 a month. I don't care if it's $25 a month. Allocate something towards that vacation fund so that you can go on some sort of trip on a yearly or bi-annual basis, uh, once you have enough cash on hand. Again, never go into debt for a vacation, but always try to be saving for one because I think that is one of the most impactful things for kids. Now, one big thing I want to talk about here as well is we all feel like we have less time than we actually do. We all feel like we're busier than most, we're busier than our sister or our brother or our parents or our in-laws or whatever else. You feel like you're busier than all your peers around you. You're doing so much more, your calendar is fully booked, you're running around left and right from dropping the kids off to school to going and doing these other things, or maybe you're spending time taking care of your parents or whatever else it is.

• 19:03Andrew Giancola?

  We all feel like we are way too busy. On top of all that stuff, we gotta go to work and come back and all this different stuff. But I want you to realize, and I want you to take out your phone right now, and I want you to go to the settings and figure out how much screen time you spend each and every single day. We all have time for more. We all have time to do more. We all have time to accomplish our goals. We all have more time than we actually think we do. And so I would highly encourage people to make sure that you note that most people's lives look better than you because you're not on the inside. You're seeing their highlight reel, you're hearing about their highlight reel, maybe you're seeing it on social media or whatever else, but you have more time than you think you can to try to accomplish those goals. I want you to spend more time and set parameters around your phone. Your phone is the biggest time suck for every single person listening.

• 19:46Andrew Giancola?

  And so let's talk about this because you can labor and you can toil and you can Try to make as much money as possible. You can try to make the highest income possible and build this net worth and this safety net and this all this other stuff. But in the end, time is always going to run out. And so how you spend your time is more important than how much money you make and how much money you earn. That's what people will remember. That is a big part of your legacy and being a good steward of your time is one of the most valuable things that you can do. The most important things in life take the longest to build. And I want you to remember that. The most important things in life take the longest to build. And so you need to be patient. You need to understand that good things take time.

• 20:31Andrew Giancola?

  And really, in reality, if things are happening way too fast, that is typically not good for you. And so your time is one of those things that I want you to be more intentional about this year. If you are not intentional about your time, spend a few hours over the weekend or over the next couple of days saying to yourself, how can I be more intentional about my time? And how can I spend that time wisely? Let's get into number two.

• 20:57Andrew Giancola?

  Number two, let's get into some finance stuff here because your money decisions are fully rooted in psychology. Now, it has become increasingly important that we understand that money psychology runs our life. And there's a book called The Psychology of Money that dives deeper into this, but it is very important that you master the skill of money psychology. Your psychology is 90% of being good with money and only about 10% is the head knowledge that you have. And so mastering your money psychology in steps is going to be one of the most important things that you can do on the path to building wealth. Because when you master your money psychology, you can make better decisions, you can make calm decisions, it reduces your stress around money, it reduces your anxiety around money

• 21:39Andrew Giancola?

  because you know why you're thinking that way, or you understand your why. And you understand why this is happening or why that is happening. And so I want you to think about a couple of different things. One, one of the most important things is how you were raised. How you were raised is going to overspill and overflow, no matter how you want it to be, into your overall financial life. Were you raised in a house? That's poor. Well, if you were, you either are going to start earning more money and that drives you to earn more money for your family because you don't want your family to be in that same exact situation, or you're going to pick up habits from when you grew up and you're going to continue those habits and you're going to be poor. And so here's what I want you to do is, is if you did grow up poor, look at the poor money habits that your family had and ask yourself,

• 22:22Andrew Giancola?

  am I also doing these things? Am I also subconsciously just taking on some of these habits? Progressive has those great commercials where we are just like our parents. If you've seen those commercials that have come out, it's basically these folks who are acting exactly like their parents did just 30 years ago. And they're really funny, but they're also very true, because this can happen to a lot of folks. Now, it is very, very important that you understand how you grew up and you understand some of those things that happened when you were younger. Were you in a family that was well off? Or were you really privileged? Well, if that's the case, you can also have bad money habits because you never learned how to handle money. But you also could have learned some good money habits and become a good steward

• 23:03Andrew Giancola?

  of money. Did you get money as a child? Or did you have to work for it? This is a very important question to ask yourself, because if you did not have to work for your money, then this is going to be one where maybe you have to develop that work ethic and that muscle in order to be able to do this. Where if you never got a single dollar, most likely you're a very hard worker. And so this is something to evaluate. Do your parents still give you money today? Or do you have to find a way? So we did a video recently talking about this. And I was doing a reaction to a girl who was saying, the reality is every single person around me, their parents gave them money, either for their rent, or to buy a house, or to help them with bills, or these different things. And we got a ton of comments that said, actually, for me, it's the

• 23:45Andrew Giancola?

  exact opposite. I had to give my parents money. And so there's two split, divided situations here. Whereas if you are taking care of your parents, This is something where you have a very different psychology than someone who was not taking their parents in the way that you think about money and the way that you operate around money. Here's a big one. Was money taboo in your house? Was it taboo to have a conversation around money? That I think is really, really important. Now, another side of the coin is not just how you were raised, but some of your fears that you developed based on how you were raised around money. And a lot of people make financial decisions based on their fears. And I want you to identify what your fears are. If you have fears around money, or you have thoughts around money, and you don't know what they actually are, I'm going

• 24:27Andrew Giancola?

  to give you some ideas here on what they could be. Are you worried that one day money is going to run out? This is an innate fear that I have. Why do I have this fear? Because I've told this story a number of different times. When I was living paycheck to paycheck, all of a sudden, one day I was going to work, and I went to go fill up my tank of gas, and I did not have enough money to fill up my entire tank of gas. My money ran out one day. And so now, my greatest fear in life is for money to one day run out. And I know a lot of very wealthy people with that same exact fear, and that's what drives them to continue to push. That's what drives them to continue to keep going. It's an inaccurate fear. It is a fear that really is not logical long term. But it is one that I need to get over

• 25:11Andrew Giancola?

  and conquer. So I've spent a lot of time thinking about it. I've spent a lot of time getting over this fact. But that is one of my personal money fears. Now, I want you to think about some of your money fears. I want you to think about what those actually are. Because do you have an abundance mindset? Or do you have a scarcity mindset? An abundance mindset is someone who knows, oh, I can go and earn more money, and I can take those extra dollars and invest those dollars. Whereas somebody with a scarcity mindset is thinking, there's not enough to go around, and I am not going to be able to earn more money. I need to do everything in my power to get my nuts, to go get out there and get what is mine. Another question around fears. Do you actually understand money? Or do you treat it as monopoly money? Is it just something that you do? Is it just something that you get money and you spend it? You don't care about taking on that car loan because you

• 25:54Andrew Giancola?

  don't understand money. You don't even understand the impact of interest rates. Do you look at the monthly payment on a car loan and say, I can afford that. That's how I'm going to do that. You never look at the monthly payment. And so there's a A lot more education to money where if you have that understanding that's going to help your money psychology long term. Are you fearful of falling behind others? Is everyone around you seemingly doing better than you are? Or is this something that you feel like you're falling further and further and further behind? If that's the case, I want you to evaluate why you feel that way. Evaluate your circle and the people that are around you. Are you fearful of not being able to retire? Are you getting closer to retirement age and you're worried about, I'm not going to be able to retire? This is one of my biggest money fears. Are you fearful about making less than you should?

• 26:38Andrew Giancola?

  This is something that I struggled with in my twenties where I felt as though I didn't make as much as I should. And so I did something about it and I constantly was trying to find ways to make more money. But this fear drove me because I knew that overall I should be making more money and I fear I'm not maximizing my potential. And so I push and push and push in order for this to drive you. So as you can see, as I'm talking through this, some of these fears can be positive in terms of what your actions are going to be in the future. But you still need to make sure that you are evaluating and understand that these exist. Because if you don't, you can make some very poor money decisions based on your fears and I don't want that for you. Also, what are some of the preconceived notions that you have around money? Do you believe things like buying a house is always a good decision?

• 27:21Andrew Giancola?

  There are so many people out there who believe that you should always buy a house, no matter what, without running the numbers. And this is a situation where I get so much flack when we talk about running the numbers on a house. And really, if you know the math, you know you have to run the numbers, otherwise you can make a bad buying decision. Are you that type of person? Did you grow up in a household where your family said, no, always buy a house? You must own a house because this is the best financial decision. Well, if they don't have a financial education, they're going to say that. And so you want to make sure that you run the numbers first. Or do you feel like the only way to build wealth is to go to college and get a steady job? A lot of people feel that way and it's not, not true, but it is something that you should evaluate. If it is true or not for your specific situation.

• 28:07Andrew Giancola?

  Do you feel like budgeting means restriction and deprivation? This is a big one I see as well, where people do not want to do any form of budgeting whatsoever. Because they feel like it's restrictive and it's depriving. But guess what? A budget is in fact just telling your dollars what to do. It's the same thing as time blocking. It is telling your dollars where to go and what to do. And in fact, is freeing because it is allowing you to spend more on the things that you value. And spending is a skill. Spending is a skill that most people need to learn. And this allows you to spend more on what you value. Do you feel as though you need to earn a good income to become wealthy? Do you feel like the only way to become wealthy is to earn a good income? We've proven on this podcast time and time again, that you can even build wealth on a low salary.

• 28:50Andrew Giancola?

  We just had an episode about this where you can have a low salary and still build wealth. In fact, Ramsey Solutions did a study, the largest study ever of millionaires, over 10,000 millionaires. And one of the top five jobs of those millionaires was a teacher. You can build wealth on a lower salary. You don't have to have a high income, but do you believe that? Was that a preconceived notion that was put inside of your brain? Do you believe that most millionaires were handed money? There have been a number of different studies now where people believe that most millionaires inherited their money. Do you know that 79% of millionaires did not inherit their money? This is the best news ever for you and I. Why? Because now all of a sudden we realize, well, 79% didn't inherit their money. I can do this too. I can be a self-made millionaire.

• 29:31Andrew Giancola?

  And that's what I want for every single one of you is these preconceived notions are going to kill your activity towards building wealth if you don't take care of them early and often. And you don't understand what the real stats are. There are way too many people out there believe in this stuff when it is absolutely not true. You can build wealth. You can do it today, but it's totally up to you. Do you believe that debt is normal? That everybody has debt, so I should just take on debt. I should take on this car loan. I should take on this personal loan. I should just take on credit card debt. Who cares? Everybody's got it going on. Let me tell you right now, taking on big chunks of debt is not normal and should not be normal. It is not something you should be doing over the long run. Do you believe that creating a retirement plan is for someone later on down the line as they're getting closer to retirement?

• 30:16Andrew Giancola?

  Is that a personal belief you have? Do you believe investing is gambling? I see this time and time again, where people believe investing is gambling because they made a mistake investing because they didn't have a full understanding of how to invest. Do you think the stock market is for rich people? No. Let me just tell you something right now. The stock market is for you and the stock market is for me. The stock market is for everybody. And it is one of those things where you can invest in real estate. You can invest in stocks. You just have to let time do the work and you can build wealth. So this is one of those areas where I want you to evaluate your money psychology. I want you to evaluate why you spend the way that you do, why you save the way that you do, what your fears are, what your preconceived notions are. I want you to think about how you were raised. All of these are so incredibly important to understand your psychology,

• 31:00Andrew Giancola?

  to understand why you think about money the way that you do. Because this, my friends, this is by far one of the most important things that you can do. And the more people I talk to and the more people that we coach inside Master Money Academy, we're seeing this over and over and over again. You have the potential to unlock a tremendous amount of wealth, but it starts with mastering your money psychology. Let's jump to break and we'll be right back.

• 31:24Andrew Giancola?

  If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know it's not just me anymore. It takes a great team behind the scenes to make everything happen. And if I had to hire someone tomorrow, I'd want someone who could jump right in and make an impact. That's why I'd use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. When workplace chaos hits, Indeed Sponsored Jobs helps you reach qualified candidates faster. Your job gets boosted in search results, so you're spending less time searching and more time interviewing the right people. Plus, you only pay for results, which I absolutely love. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored posts. That's a huge advantage when you're trying to grow your business.

• 32:07Andrew Giancola?

  Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all of your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is the job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast.

• 32:39Andrew Giancola?

  Conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. If you've heard any recent episode of Health Corner, you know that I have spent the last few years trying to optimize my sleep. I've tried sleep trackers, cooling my room, changing my nighttime routine, all the different things, but nothing really matters as much as having the right mattress. And that's one of the reasons I love Leesa. A great mattress is one of those things that you use every single night and you spend a third of your life sleeping. And it can make a huge difference on how you feel the next day. Leesa has mattresses designed for different sleep positions and comfort preferences. And their sleep quiz can help you get matched in less than two minutes.

• 33:22Andrew Giancola?

  Plus, they're designed and they're assembled in the USA and they come with free shipping, easy returns and a 120 night free sleep trial. So go to leesa.com for up to 30% off mattress plus and get an extra $50 off with promo code PFP. Exclusive for my listeners. That's L-E-E-S-A.com promo code PFP for 30% off mattresses plus an extra $50 off. Let them know we sent you in the survey after checkout. Leesa.com promo code PFP. It's kind of amazing how much can change in just a single year. Every summer, the kids are a little bigger, a little more independent,

• 34:05Andrew Giancola?

  and life looks a little different than it did the year before. And it reminds me that while we can't predict the future, we can prepare for it. That's one of the reasons I like PolicyGenius. See, PolicyGenius isn't an insurance company. They're an online marketplace that lets you compare life insurance quotes from some of America's top insurers side by side for free. And their licensed team helps you compare coverage, prices and terms, answers your questions and even handles the paperwork so you can get the right policy without the hassle. For me, having life insurance isn't about expecting something to happen. It's about knowing my family is protected so I can actually enjoy these moments together instead of worrying about what comes next. And with PolicyGenius, you can find

• 34:49Andrew Giancola?

  20-year life insurance policies, starting at just $276 a year for $1 million of coverage. Head to policygenius.com to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you can save. That's policygenius.com. One thing I've learned from running multiple businesses is there's usually a gap between how you think work is getting done and how it's actually getting done. And we've had times where we thought we knew the bottleneck, only to realize later, the real issue was somewhere completely different. That's exactly what today's sponsor, Scribe, helps solve. Scribe is a workflow AI platform trusted by 94% of the Fortune 500.

• 35:29Andrew Giancola?

  And Scribe Optimize turns real workflow data into decisions your AI strategy actually needs, automatically capturing how work happens across approved apps, surfacing inefficiency and opportunities with no interviews and no manual discovery and no extra work from your team, which is the key. And the live dashboard shows where work is happening, how much time it's taking, and where the biggest opportunities are right now. It automatically discovers workflows across multiple tools, then highlights your biggest inefficiencies and gives AI-powered recommendations with estimated time-saving. You know I love saving time. It's also built with privacy in mind. It only runs across approved business applications, user-level data is anonymous by default,

• 36:11Andrew Giancola?

  and sensitive information is automatically redacted and never leaves your firewall. To see optimization action, head describe.how/pfp and mention PFP for a 30-day risk-free trial. That's S C R I B E dot H O W slash P F P. All right, lesson number three is that everything in life compounds. Now, the most obvious example of this is money, because we know that if you invest more, or you save more, or you give more, all of these things are going to compound over time, meaning that investing your dollars in the stock market means that you're going to reap the benefits of compound interest. Saving more in a high-yield savings account means that you're going to reap the benefits of compound interest. Giving more means that you're going to be able to do a couple of different things.

• 36:55Andrew Giancola?

  You can give more through something like a donor-advised fund, which is going to compound. And you can give more over time. And so this is an area where I think most people understand that money compounds. Money compounds over time and you should be putting your dollars in places where money is going to compound more. Assets allow your money to grow, liabilities allow your money to dissipate or disappear. And so you want to make sure that you are putting more dollars into things that grow and less into liabilities. But what other things actually compound? There's a lot of things that actually compound in this life, and this is something I'm realizing more and more and more as I get older. See, in my twenties, I didn't realize this stuff because I couldn't reap or see the benefits of compounding, but now I see it across the board. One is experiences.

• 37:36Andrew Giancola?

  The more experiences that you have, the more that you go out and do, the more things that you go out and see, the more marketable you actually are. So I would highly encourage people to go out and travel more, see different cultures, see what is going on out in the world. Spend more time on the road, spend more time taking that trip. If you have that money on hand, take the trip, because traveling is a really, really powerful way to just see different perspectives. But number two is I would highly recommend that you meet more people. Get out there with experiences and try to meet as many people as you possibly can. Learn how to network, learn how to get out there and meet people within your industry, not just at your day job. You're in this bubble every day where you go to work and you are with the people you're with. And so it feels like you're meeting a lot of people or having conversations with people. You're in a

• 38:21Andrew Giancola?

  very small bubble. Instead, what I want you to do is go out and meet more people and you will reap the benefits of your total experiences and your relationships. Do more things outside of your comfort zone. So one big thing I'm doing this year is I have a list of I want to do something outside of my comfort zone at least once a month, something I would not normally do, something I would not normally decide to go out and do. And so this may be, you know, going to specific events that I'm invited to. This may be going and spending more time just doing random things with my family, but I want to spend more time doing things outside my comfort zone. Your comfort zone is where growth goes to die. And the more you spend in your comfort zone, and the less you spend pushing the limit outside of your comfort zone, the more you just go day to day into slowly, slowly

• 39:05Andrew Giancola?

  declining. And I want you to spend more time outside of that comfort zone. Another thing that Is time. We just talked about this. Where you spend it, who you spend it with will compound. And let me give an example of this. Let's say, for example, your ultimate goal is to become really fit. And your ultimate goal is to, you know, become a hybrid athlete. Or you want to run more, you want to lift more. Or maybe your ultimate goal is to become someone who is really good at golf or whatever else you want to go out and do. Maybe you want to become really good at yoga. And so because of this, you know, your current group of friends that you spend time with are not prioritizing some of this lifestyle. So maybe they're going out to bars all the time. Maybe they're going out drinking and maybe they're spending their time partying. And if you spend your time continuing to hang out with them as they go out drinking and partying, you're not going to accomplish those goals.

• 39:49Andrew Giancola?

  Or maybe you're very career oriented. And if you spend your time only with those specific friends, you're not going to accomplish those goals. And so you got to make sure that you are looking about who you spend your time with, where you spend your time, how you allocate your time and how you prioritize your time. Those four things are going to tell me exactly what your true priorities are. And so if you have some goals that you're just trying to accomplish and you feel like you're just spinning your wheels and you're churning, you're never getting there, look at where your time is spent. Because the more time you spend in other areas, this will compound. This will improve your life over time. And I highly recommend that you look at this. Health, this is a huge one. Do you move daily? Do you make wise nutritional choices? These will compound for the rest of your life.

• 40:32Andrew Giancola?

  Because if you don't, what will happen is that later on in life, you will have a hard time getting up out of a chair. You will have a hard time walking. You will have a hard time bending over and grabbing something. And this is all going to compound over time. Maybe you develop a disease or something else. And so health tremendously is a compound effect. Do you smoke or drink all the time? Because if you do, you got to get a hold of these because it will compound against you if you are not careful. Knowledge, this is a huge one. And this is one of the biggest ones that I have seen in my own life. Is basically all of these I've talked about here thus far. But knowledge is one that I want to show you and I can show you tangibly. So Warren Buffett said, knowledge is the greatest form of compound interest. He talked through why he reads 500 pages every single day.

• 41:17Andrew Giancola?

  And the reason for that is Because he feels as though that was the most important way that he could spend his time in order to be the best investor of all time. And so he spent his time reading. That's what he did was he spent his time on knowledge. So imagine reading one book every single week. Okay. Well, if you read a book every single week, that's 52 books a year. Imagine how much more knowledge you would have over the course of just one year. That's over 250 books every five years. What does that mean? That's over 500 books over the course of a decade. So let's say, for example, you start your career and you work for 40 years. If you read one book every week, you would have read over 2,000 books. Do you think you'd be much better off than the person who didn't read a single thing?

• 41:59Andrew Giancola?

  Who watched Netflix every single night, who spent their time doing stuff that reaps zero benefits whatsoever? Who do you think is going to win in that situation? Because you can pull from the knowledge that you have gained from those books, even if you retain 4%. It is a massive difference in what you can do. But also, part of reading and part of trying to gain knowledge is to ignite your mind, is to actually spark ideas. And so what happens a lot of times is I find that when I read, all of a sudden I begin to spark ideas in other areas of my life. Where this allows me to be more consistent in everything that I do. In addition, if you're a big scroller out there, and I'm going to keep ragging on scrolling. Because if you're a big scroller out there, this is a way to exercise your mind. Because you're consuming, consuming, consuming, consuming, and reading is consumption.

• 42:42Andrew Giancola?

  But it also is going to make sure that you are exercising your mind day in and day out. So reading is so important, and it's really important to time block reading into your day if you have not. Because I can highly, highly encourage you to do this over time. Now imagine the same thing. Imagine you started to listen to podcasts on your commute, just like this one, every single day. Imagine how much your knowledge would compound if you're listening to shows that are going to help improve your life. This is another thing that you can do that I did. My first five years in the corporate world, all I did is I would read books in my spare time. And while I was in my cubicle working, I would listen to podcasts that would help me in my growth journey. I would listen to business podcasts, I've listened to personal finance podcasts. A lot of the knowledge and the baseline that I built started during that timeframe after

• 43:26Andrew Giancola?

  college. Most of the knowledge that I have now came after college. College almost did nothing for me outside of learn how to be an adult. Sure, we got some great perspectives. Sure, we learned some things, but at the same time, the stuff that I learned after on my own knowledge plan was so much more valuable than anything else. Another thing that compounds is your habits. If you start to develop bad habits, then all of a sudden, it's going to be very hard to break those habits. Atomic Habits is a great book if you haven't read it by James Clear, but in that book, he teaches you, hey, if you're starting to develop a bad habit, here's how to break it. And it is something where sometimes the bad habit is just not doing something. So if your goal is to exercise and to spend more time working out, and you start to see that, oh, I'm four days in a row and I haven't done a workout yet. Well, you're starting

• 44:08Andrew Giancola?

  to develop a habit of not working out. And so you need to make sure that you do the things that are going to help you in that specific area. Now, you've heard the saying, we are what we repeatedly do. And so your habits are going to develop who you are, and you need to make sure that you protect that area. Other things that compound, relationships, your skills, you can compound your skills, your skill stack that we talk about all the time is a huge one. Discipline is a huge one. If you start to be undisciplined in one area, it will start to develop in every single area of your life. Whereas if you are disciplined in every area, you are going to develop discipline throughout every single area of your life. This, my friends, is so incredibly important to realize that everything in life compounds, and it's up to

• 44:49Andrew Giancola?

  you to decide which direction you want to compound in. Number four, lesson four is a big one, and this is one that I think most of us need to learn. Nobody cares, and nobody's thinking about you. So I think a lot of people are nervous to take the leap in life into various things because they are worried about what people think about them. And why this often matters is because people are worried about looking foolish, or being judged, or saying the wrong thing, or making a visible mistake. Let me tell you something is, let's get honest here. You guys, Are going to listen to me open up a little bit on this episode. I wanted to start this podcast four years earlier and I never started the podcast because I was worried about, oh, what would my peers think about me? What would my job think about me if I had a podcast?

• 45:34Andrew Giancola?

  What would my friends think about me if I had this show? And I wish I would have started it even earlier because we could have helped that many more people. But instead I was selfishly thinking to myself, well, what is everyone else around me going to think? If I start this show, but instead what I should have done was just start the show. Just get the ball rolling and it wasn't until 2020 when my wife encouraged me and said, hey, you've been talking about this for years. Just go do it. Just get the ball rolling. Just get started. And so that's when I decided to go buy a mic and get started. And so that is an area where I think most people have the same exact fear. They're scared of making a visible mistake and maybe they're quitting at some point in time, or it's just a complete failure. They're scared of saying the wrong thing in front of their friends or family. They're scared of being judged.

• 46:19Andrew Giancola?

  They're scared of looking foolish in front of everybody else. But instead this is an area where you can really push the envelope. If you are bold in your decisions, nobody cares. Everybody in this life is worried about themselves. They are worried about what's going on in their life. They're worried about their own families. They're worried about their own money. They're worried about their own health and fitness and everything else in life. They're all thinking about themselves and not about you. Nobody cares what you do. Maybe they'll, you know, you go out and do something. Let's say for example, that you are someone out there who wants to go out and help people in a specific field. Maybe you're really into health and fitness. And so you decide, I'm going to start my health and fitness, social media channel. And so you go out and start doing it and some of your friends make some comments and remarks.

• 47:02Andrew Giancola?

  They start to make fun of you and in your head, you're thinking, oh, they're thinking about this all the time. They're thinking about me and they're making fun of me to all my friends behind my back. And maybe they are, but they don't really care. Deep down, they don't really care. And it's not really something that you should be worried about. You should be worried about what you want to do and what is best for you. Now this happens a lot in a different areas in real life. Number one is in your career. So people stay stuck because they fear judgment from other people. They fear judgment from their in-laws. They feel judgment from their friends. They feel judgment from their direct family members. And so this is something where they're too. Busy worrying about other people instead of their own performance. And so in your career, you need to make sure that you are thinking about what you need to be doing. Number two is money. People don't invest or they don't negotiate their salary,

• 47:44Andrew Giancola?

  or they don't change their lifestyles because they fear, what will people think? This shows up in health. This shows up in content and creativity. But there is freedom on the other side because when you accept the fact that nobody is thinking about you, that nobody really cares, that nobody's really worried about what you're doing in your day to day life, you can take more shots. You can move a lot faster with things that you actually want to do in life. You can ask for more, meaning that a lot of people are scared. Well, what will they think if I negotiate my salary? No, ask them for more and it's their job to say no. You could try things sooner and you can live life lighter. And that I think is the big message for most people is that nobody's thinking about you. And Morgan Housel gives a great example of this when he talks about,

• 48:25Andrew Giancola?

  and I mentioned this in the podcast before, and I've had some pushback on this, but I do think this is a great example. He talks about the guy driving up in a Ferrari. Now, some people said, well, I just think about the Ferrari and how great of a machine it is. But what a lot of people think is when they buy a Ferrari, they say to themselves, oh, everyone's going to think I'm amazing. But instead, what people think is, wow, I would look amazing in that Ferrari. They're thinking about themselves. They're not thinking about you. And I want you to remember that because this is rooted in your psychology. And again, you'll see your psychology goes across every area of personal finance.

• 49:00Andrew Giancola?

  Number five is the answer is often to simplify. So you need to simplify your life as much as you possibly can, no matter what you are doing. So this comes with finances, for example. So a lot of people have way too many accounts. They have way too many investment accounts. They have way too many checking accounts or savings accounts. They have money all over the place. Simplify down to as little accounts as you possibly can get. This is the number one thing we tell people in Master Money Academy is at the beginning of Master Money Academy, we show you how to set up your accounts. And the number one thing that I talk about in there, and you'll see when you join, is that you need to simplify as much as you possibly can. Simplify, simplify, simplify. The more you can simplify, the easier your life is going to get. And the easier your life is going to get means That you could spend more time with your family, your friends,

• 49:45Andrew Giancola?

  and doing the things that you actually want to do in life. Reduce the number of credit cards that you have. You don't need to have 15 different credit cards. Having one or two credit cards is absolutely fine. Then automating everything. So simplifying your life means that you automatically contribute money to your bills and your bills get paid off automatically. If you're still manually paying your bills in 2026, please stop. Please find a way to automate that process. If you're still saving money in your high-yield savings account manually, please stop and find a way to automate that process. If you are still manually investing your dollars into a brokerage account, please stop and start to automate the process. Automation makes your life so much easier where you don't have to think about money anymore. Because money is really simple. In fact, the way that to build wealth, and this is going to be a very simple concept,

• 50:29Andrew Giancola?

  but it's much harder to put into practice, is to spend less than you make and invest the difference and avoid debt. Those three things, and you will be golden in comparison to what everybody else is doing. And so what I would highly encourage everybody to do when it comes to their money is to create a monthly rhythm. So you don't have to think. Create a rhythm that allows you to, hey, I'm going to check on my automations at this date. I'm going to go ahead and check and make sure all my cards are paid off at this date. I'm going to check my bills on this day. You know, you could do these different things that help you stay in a rhythm every single month, and that's going to be very, very helpful. The same goes for everything else. Want to improve your body composition? Eat the same thing more often. I've talked to a lot of different healthy people, and a lot of times what they will say is that I just eat the same thing a lot. I have the same lunch every single day. It's a healthy lunch. I don't have to think about it.

• 51:13Andrew Giancola?

  I just eat that every single day. Or I just do the same workouts every single week, because what matters most is consistency. You can simplify your wardrobe. And if you wear similar things each and every single day, it is one less thing that you have to think about every day. You can reduce your clutter in your house. I don't think minimalism is for everyone, but I do think that the minimalists have it right in terms of all they're trying to do is simplify your life so that you can think clearly, so that you can be present, so that you can spend more time doing the things that you love. You don't need all this clutter in your house. You don't need all this clutter around you. Instead, what you need to do is just simplify, simplify, simplify. So if you feel like you are running around like a chicken with your head cut off, I want you to spend some time identifying areas that you can simplify your life. Number six.

• 51:58Andrew Giancola?

  Is that income can solve most money problems. Money isn't the root of all happiness. But if you got problems, money can solve your money problems. And so the more income that you can drive to yourself, the better off or the better opportunities you're going to have to be able to build wealth. And so I think what income does solve is a number of different things that actually will help increase happiness over time. Now, if you're making $500,000 per year and you feel as though you're still not happy, well, money's not going to solve that problem. But if you are someone out there who is trying to figure out ways to increase your income and you are making $40,000 per year, I think money can help improve your life dramatically. Improves your cash flow stress, meaning that your income creates margin and margin is going to reduce some of the panic that happens in your life.

• 52:42Andrew Giancola?

  It also too gives you the ability to save. Studies show that when you have savings on hand, your stress and anxiety around money gets reduced. It also increases the speed of progress. So you can achieve financial independence so much faster if you actually know how to handle and manage money. Because again, if you increase your income, but spend it all, then it's not going to help you in life. But if you know how to handle your dollars and where to put those dollars, that is going to help you tremendously. It gives you more options in life. So the more money you have, the more options you have available to you and you can do different things because you have that money on hand. And it gives you resilience. It gives you economic resilience against downturns or market issues. It gives you job loss resilience because you have cash on hands. You don't have to take just the first job that's offered to you. It gives you resilience in every single area of life.

• 53:26Andrew Giancola?

  And so because of this, we want to make sure that we are increasing our income and pulling that lever. But if you spend reactively, if you're someone out there who inflates your lifestyle with every extra dollar that you make and you avoid systems and automation and you try to tie your identity to how much money you can spend, meaning you want people to feel like you're rich and so you buy the bigger house, you buy the nicer car, you spend on the designer clothes, which is nothing wrong with any of those. But if you're doing it to develop your identity, it's not going to make you happier. It's going to make you more miserable, to be honest. But your income, when you are using it to buy your freedom, when you are using it to spend more time with your family on vacation or whatever else, when you're using it to reduce your stress around money, it really will make the biggest difference overall.

• 54:11Andrew Giancola?

  You can only cut back so much, but you can earn more infinitely. And so the more people that realize this, the more they are going to say, hey, I really need to focus my time and energy on my money so that I can spend more on things that I love. Number seven is that privacy is more important than ever and is now a wealth building skill. Here's something that's happening more and more and more is we are seeing data breaches happening on a daily basis. And I want every single person listening to this to understand this. We talk about privacy with your money and making sure you're protecting your finances a lot in this show because it is becoming increasingly alarming. Whereas we have seen stuff like people getting their financial information stolen at a gas station, people getting their financial information stolen at brokerage accounts.

• 54:56Andrew Giancola?

  Betterment just had 1.4 million people have their accounts breached. We're seeing it at the retailers that you shop at where years ago, Target got breached. We're seeing it every which way that you can think about it. We are seeing data breaches. On top of that, we're seeing AI getting better and better and better and really being able to scam a lot of people. We're seeing crypto scams that are happening left and right. We're seeing scams that are happening where people are doing phishing scams via email where it looks exactly like the retailer that you are going out and buying from. We're seeing AI voice agents being able to sound just like someone in your family saying they need money. And so this is happening more and more and more, and it is becoming increasingly important for you to protect your finances.

• 55:38Andrew Giancola?

  And as someone who thinks about this all the time, I still see how I could fall prey to some of this stuff. Like if I'm working really fast and someone sends me an email and I respond to them with some information, sometimes I'll do that and I'll be like, why did I just do that? What if that wasn't actually that person? I didn't really look through the email to make sure it was them. And so this is truthfully something that you need to spend a lot of time thinking about. And really, if you have a plan in place, it doesn't take a lot of time. You just have to set up the correct plan in place. So how do you do this fast? One is this is a very obvious thing, but if your password is the same thing across a bunch of different websites and you're just using that same password over and over and over again, or you're using the same five different passwords, you need to change that system right now. This is your wake up call to change it. I know it's very obvious, but you need to change it. It needs to be something where everything is a unique.

• 56:24Andrew Giancola?

  Long password, a bunch of letters and numbers jumbled together. Why? Because you can save these in different places now that are going to help you store this information. So you don't have to remember it, but you have it there. So nobody can get into your accounts. Okay, that's one. Two is you need to freeze your credit. If you don't go out and freeze your credit currently, you need to go out and do that and make sure that you are freezing your credit. You go to the three major credit bureaus and you freeze your credit. It takes less than 10 minutes. And then to unfreeze or thaw your credit, then you just go to each of those major credit bureaus. You can do this online now and you unfreeze or thaw that credit. But this makes sure that if somebody gets a piece of your information, they can't open up a bank account in your name. They can't open a credit card in your name. They can't open a student loan in your name. I have had all three of those happen because I had my identity stolen when I was in my twenties. And so because of

• 57:09Andrew Giancola?

  this, I know what the pain is like. I know what it feels like to have to go through this. And so I don't want each and every single one of you to go through that because people are losing their life savings to this stuff. Okay. Number three is you need to remove your personal information from the internet. So we have partnered with Delete Me. Delete Me has been a partner on this show for a very long time because it is a product that I truly believe in. What Delete Me does is they go and take your information and they remove your personal information from the internet. Like if you Google your name or your phone number or anything like that, Delete Me will go in there and remove that information from these data brokers. See, data brokers take your information and they post it online or they find ways to sell it to people who you do not want them to sell it to. And there are not very many laws around

• 57:52Andrew Giancola?

  this. Hopefully the laws will be changing soon, but right now there are not many laws around this. And so Delete Me goes in there and they get your personal information removed. If you did this on your own, it would take you hundreds and hundreds of hours every single year. But Delete Me goes in and does it. And they do it for an amazing price for the amount of work that they are doing. And so I highly recommend Delete Me for anybody out there. If you want a 20% discount on Delete Me, if you go to joindelete.me/pfp20, you can get 20% off of Delete Me. But I highly recommend it for every single person out there to get their personal information removed with Delete Me because it is some of the best dollars I spend. I tried to do it on my own. It took way too long. And so Delete Me is a great option for that. And then number four is I want you to go Go out and use two factor authentication,

• 58:35Andrew Giancola?

  meaning everything that you utilize needs to have some sort of two factor authentication. Now, you can use something like Google Authenticator. Microsoft has one as well. Those are the two that I've used in the past. Maybe you have an authenticator that you like, but those are going to help you make sure that you are protected long term. Those are the four quick things that you can do. And really, if you do those four things, you're going to be way better off than 99% of people because most people use very common passwords. They don't remove their personal information from the internet. They don't freeze their credit and they don't use two factor authentication the correct way. And so because of this, data breaches are going to continue to happen and people are going to keep stealing money over and over and over again. The last thing I want for anybody listening to this show, and this is why I talk about it so much,

• 59:18Andrew Giancola?

  is to get your wealth stolen, your hard earned dollars stolen because you did not factor that in. And I have realized the importance of that. If you've seen as this show have developed, I have talked more and more about privacy and why it is such an important financial skill because I truly, truly believe in it. And I truly believe that you need to make sure that you have a plan in place for you and your family and that everybody is on the same page. Number eight is I believe that you need to spend more time doing hard things, which is usually what most people avoid. Most people avoid doing hard things in life. I think you should even try to do hard things on a daily basis. So the way that I try to do hard things on a daily basis is some sort of fitness thing and/or there's a lot of other things that I'll talk about here. But if it's on a daily basis, I'm just trying to figure out, okay, well, if I haven't done anything hard all day long today,

• 1:00:03Andrew Giancola?

  what I am going to do today is go out for a six mile run and try to beat my last time, something like that. That is how I think about doing hard things. But the more you do hard things, the more you can build that muscle to allow you to be resilient to anything else in life. So what is a hard thing or what is a big example of this? One is asking for a raise. This is one big thing with your money is learning how to build the skill of asking for a raise. Now, we have a system that we talk about a lot. If you want the free ebook, you can go to mastermoney.co/resources. That's where our free ebook is on how to ask for a raise. But I'll talk through the process here really quick. Now, the way that we think about this is that we go and we make sure we have a conversation with our boss about six months before our yearly review. And we say, hey, I want to make more money here.

• 1:00:45Andrew Giancola?

  I want to get a promotion or I want to do whatever I can to get a raise. And in order to do that, I want to have a conversation with you about this to ensure that we are both on the same page on this. What do I need to do in order to ensure that I can make more money here? And you are going to have a conversation. And during that conversation, your boss is going to tell you some things. You're going to note, take those down and you're going to start to do those things. Right after that meeting, I want you to send an email to your boss and say, hey, here's all the things we discussed. Again, I am looking to make more money. Here's all the things that we discussed and I am going to start to take action on these right away. Okay. That email solidifies the conversation and you now have it in writing that you are doing these specific things. Okay.

• 1:01:28Andrew Giancola?

  Next, you're going to start to take action on those things and start to do them very well. I mean, home run actions, making sure that you are increasing profitability, making sure you're increasing productivity within that department, making sure you're making your boss look good. All of those different things are going to be very important. Once you start to accomplish those specific things, you get to month two. You follow up with your boss and say, hey, here's some of the stuff that I have been doing based on our conversation. And you can either set up a meeting with them if they are the meeting type folks and or you can send them an email on that same chain. Okay. And you're following up and saying, here's all the things that I'm doing, just giving you some updates and making sure we're on the same page. Month three, you're doing the same exact thing. Month four, you're doing the same exact thing and continuing that conversation.

• 1:02:12Andrew Giancola?

  You're trying to meet with your boss in person and then following up with an email over and over and over again. And by the time you get to month six, all of a sudden you both know what you're asking for and you can walk in and say, hey, I've done all of these different things. It is time for my annual review. I expect to get a raise. If you don't get a raise, you can decide what to do. You have two options. You can either say, hey, I did all these things and I accomplished them and we talked about me making more and me not making more is going to change the way I see this. And you can continue on for another six months or another one year cycle. Or you could decide, well, I'm going to job hop now. I'm going to go to a different job that's going to pay me more and allow me to take these new skills that I just built and developed and these new things that I just wrote.

• 1:02:53Andrew Giancola?

  Down and documented and I can use those as leverage in a new job to help me land a new job. And so this is a win win situation for most people. And we have seen so many people in Master Money Academy doing this process and they are going out and getting raises. We have seen people outside of Master Money Academy as well that have followed this process and they have made a tremendous amount of money just from getting some of these raises. There is one that earned a 50% raise just by going through this process. And so I highly encourage as many people as possible to do something like that. That's an example of a hard thing. It's a six month process and you gotta think about it all the time. You gotta be strategic. You gotta be political. And it's very, very hard, but I want you to try to do more of this stuff. Another example of this would be negotiating your bills. You can negotiate most of your bills

• 1:03:36Andrew Giancola?

  from things like your cell phone bill to things like your insurance, to things like your rent. All of these are areas that you can negotiate. It's very important to learn how to do this. Sitting down and looking at your numbers, that's not something that's easy to do. That's not something most people want to do. But understanding what your numbers are is a hard thing. Making sure you get your workout in even when you're tired. That's another hard thing. Or pushing the envelope when it comes to your workout, trying to lift more weights or trying to run farther or trying to hit different yoga poses or trying out new types of workouts like Pilates or whatever else. All of those are going to be very, very helpful for you doing hard things. You know what else is hard? Saying no more often. Saying no to things that would waste your time and spending more time on things that are going to help improve your life.

• 1:04:19Andrew Giancola?

  That's another one. Admitting you're behind is hard. Starting before you feel ready is hard. These are all examples of things that are pretty difficult, but they are necessary. And so we want to make sure that when we do this, we are developing, hey, this is my hard list for the month. And so you put together a list of some of the things that you want to do and you want to improve. Because building that muscle is going to make you so much better in life. Now, some examples outside of money are things like waking up early so that you can get the things done you want to get done. Or maybe spending less time scrolling and more time reading. Or maybe looking for ways to have those uncomfortable conversations that you wouldn't normally have in order to network and meet more people. All of those are things that you could do and all of those are different ideas that you could have.

• 1:05:00Andrew Giancola?

  All right. So number nine, and number nine is going to tie into the rest of this episode of exactly what we're talking about here in this episode is that I want you to understand that you are one year away from completely changing your life. You are one year away from doubling down, buckling up and changing your financial life, changing your health, changing your career, changing your productivity levels, changing everything you want to change in life. We started this podcast in 2020. By 2021, our entire lives had changed. By 2022, they changed again. And by 2026, at the time of recording this episode, they have changed dramatically. And you can change your life much faster than you think you can. You can change the way that you think about money. You can change

• 1:05:45Andrew Giancola?

  the way you spend your money. You could change the way you save and earn your money. And you can do it a lot faster than you think. And so I highly encourage each and every single one of you to sit down and think about some of the things that you want to do. What is important to you? If you were going to transform your life completely right now, what would be some of the things that you can do? Because if you're sitting right now, listen to this podcast episode, you're saying to yourself, I am not where I want to be. I am not where I want to go. And I feel like life has just gotten a hold of me. And I have done what life has told me to do instead of taking control of my own life. Well, you have the opportunity right now to take control of your own life. You have the opportunity to change your life forever. And the only way to do that is to decide right now to draw a line in the sand and decide right now, I am going to make

• 1:06:28Andrew Giancola?

  a change. Because what I want you to know is I've seen it happen in my life over and over and over again. One year is an eternity when it comes to transformation. You can transform your life so quickly if you want to. But you have to commit, you have to spend the time, you have to spend the energy in doing so. Because if not, if you're not committed, it's never going to happen. But I know that each and every single one of you have the ability to do this. Each and every one of you can do what you want in life. You just have to take the steps to get there. It's all about mapping it out. It's all about allocating your time. It's all about thinking about your money psychology. It's all about making sure that you can find ways to earn more. It's all about all of these things that we talked about today. And you can absolutely change your life for the better.

• 1:07:12Andrew Giancola?

  So listen, I appreciate each and every single one of you for being here. I appreciate each and every single one of you and cannot thank you guys enough for being a part of this podcast through 500 episodes. When we started our first couple of episodes, it was a very different show than it is now. It was a very different show from coming from a spare bedroom in my house. And now we're in a full studio with multiple cameras all over the place and lights all over the place. And just because everything has changed in terms of the exterior of where the show looks, we added video, we've done all these different things. Just because everything has changed, doesn't mean the message has changed. My entire goal for everyone is to know that anybody in this world can build wealth. Anybody in this world has the ability to build wealth.

• 1:07:55Andrew Giancola?

  And you can make that change pretty dramatically and pretty quickly if you want to. And so I thank you all for being here. So I want to give a gift to you. Master Money Academy is where we have a lot of folks who we are seeing life-changing results. We are seeing results from people because we give you the step-by-step roadmap of exactly what to do. We're seeing the results where they are having relief with stress with their money, that they're able to negotiate an increase in their salary, that they have the ability to know when to save and when to pay off debt and when to invest, that they know the exact steps they need to be taking. They know how to automate their money. They know how to set up their savings buckets. They know how to set up their accounts properly and they know which order to invest in and how to think about that based on their own situation. They know how to reduce some of their taxes.

• 1:08:39Andrew Giancola?

  And so this is something where I want to invite each and every single one of you. So on this episode, I think it's pretty hard to see if Master Money Academy is for you without being inside. And so I am going to give on this 500 episode, a free gift to you. I want you to click the link below and we're going to give you a seven day free trial inside Master Money Academy if you're new. And in that seven day free trial, I want to give you the ability to be able to see what it's like inside. Because what happens is that you have the step-by-step roadmap that you can make huge strides over the course of the next three, six, nine, and 12 months towards building a tremendous amount of wealth for you and your family. And inside Master Money Academy, I show you exactly how to do it. But guess what else we do?

• 1:09:22Andrew Giancola?

  We also do weekly coaching calls where if you get stuck somewhere, you get to ask me questions live on the weekly coaching calls. And so our core things is we want you to see what's inside because it'll transform your entire life. And so, risk-free. Zero risk to you. You can go inside Master Money Academy, see exactly what it's like, because the only way to know if this is for you is to see behind the curtain. And so I want you for episode 500 to click the link below, check out Master Money Academy and we'll see you inside. Again, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being here for 500 episodes. I truly appreciate each and every single one of you, and I thank you. And here's to the next 500 episodes, because we want to help as many people as we possibly can and bring you as much value as we possibly can. I'm so grateful,

• 1:10:06Andrew Giancola?

  I'm so thankful for each and every single one of you, and I'll see you on the next episode.

• 1:10:11Speaker 02

  When you spend enough time around great companies, you notice that the best ones treat trust as a growth strategy, not a box to check. Vanta helps companies build and prove trust from day one. Its Agentic Trust Platform connects compliance, risk, and trust at enterprise scale. Vanta delivers a 526% return on investment over three years and pays for itself in just three months. Learn why over 16,000 of the fastest growing companies use Vanta at vanta.com.