From RAGS to RICHES: Become a Millionaire in Under a Decade (Escape the Debt TRAP!)

Today we highlight three money experts, each sharing their unique rags-to-riches stories and invaluable financial wisdom. Bill Perkins, a finance titan and author of "Die with Zero," reveals how to achieve financial wealth while living a life with zero regrets, emphasizing the importance of balancing wealth accumulation with fulfilling experiences. Vivian Tu, the founder and CEO of "Your Rich BFF," shares her journey from Wall Street trader to financial educator, highlighting her mission to make personal finance accessible to marginalized communities. George Kamel, a Ramsey Personality, recounts his journey from negative net worth to millionaire status, offering a blueprint for financial success through his book, "Breaking Free From Broke: The Ultimate Guide to More Money and Less Stress."In this episode you will learnbalancing wealth accumulation with living a fulfilling life, ensuring you make the most of both your money and your experiences.strategies for making personal finance accessible and empowering for everyone, with a special focus on inclusivity and reaching marginalized communities.the secrets to transforming a negative net worth into millionaire status in under a decade, providing a blueprint for financial success.practical tips for avoiding common financial pitfalls, such as credit card debt, student loans, and investment traps.making strategic life choices that lead to both financial and personal fulfillment, drawing inspiration from diverse success stories. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1598For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960Full episodes featured in today’s podcast:Bill Perkins – https://link.chtbl.com/1530-podVivian Tu – https://link.chtbl.com/1551-podGeorge Kamel – https://link.chtbl.com/1568-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to this special masterclass. We've 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. There's more ways to make money than ever before. There's more side hustles, side gigs, creative endeavors that people can do to make money. What was the actual moment where you broke the generational conditioning around scarcity? And unlocked it into abundance for you, where it converted into money entering your hands and your bank account?

• 0:36Speaker 01

  I think it's weird because I was a screen clerk. I think I was making like $16,000 a year. You know, and then driving a limo at night to make ends meet.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  And my roommate at the time was a waiter and he was making like $77,000 a year. And I was thinking, I can always wait tables, but I wasn't in it for the 16,000, right? I was in it for a career path and really make a bunch of money. And so it's a kind of weird thing. And I was just kind of like, if I lose my ego, which I had no ego back then, I was driving a limo at night. I was like, if I lose my ego, I can always get a job.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  I can always get a job. I'm not going to be completely busted, right? I might be poor and I've been broke before and I'm okay with that. And I've had great times, right? Like, you know, I'm good friends, we go off, do whatever. But it gave me kind of this freedom. Like there's this safety net of like, I will be able to find something, right? And I remember one of the FCMs, I worked for this guy named Mark and he was like, I used to be a garbage driver. If they shut this place down, I can, I can always drive a garbage truck. You know what I mean? Like, so, you know, if I lose my ego about like, I'm too proud to do this job, right?

• 1:53Speaker 01

  Then I can always go work. You know what? There's way more jobs and way more opportunities and I don't have the fear of like moving to another place to get the job or going to another place, et cetera. You know, it's painful for a lot of people. People have the fear of going into a new environment and moving, which I think limits them to only local opportunities. But for me, I was like, I'll go anywhere for the opportunity. I'll go to Siberia, you know? You know, I was one of those dumb, young, ambitious people that were like, put me on the moon. I will trade, right? So like when I got the chance, I was in New York City, I left, didn't know anybody, had a mattress and an empty room and you know, I'll be there, you know, sir, yes, sir,

• 2:39Speaker 01

  let's go. Right? And so, and if that didn't work out, so what?

• 2:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  I had an adventure. I want, I want the scars. Like I want, like a life with no mistakes to me is a uninteresting life, an unfulfilling life, actually.

• 2:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Like you haven't touched your limits. You, you don't know what your limits are because you never failed.

• 3:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  If everything's always working out and you fail, it's like, well, you never touched your limits. You never really sent this thing until you run so hard where you throw up and you're about to pass out, which, you know, I did in college, when they used to make you run, you know, back and forth. You don't know your limits, right? Like you don't know when you're struggling with the weights, right? Like physically, but like also emotionally, like until you've said, I love you first and you've gone through the break and you've done everything you can for the relationship. Like you just don't know, like this is as much as I can give in a relationship.

• 3:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Right? This is as much as I can do. This is as far as I can go figuring out this business. I need to bring in help or partners or whatever, you know, like all those things. And so, um, wanting a fulfilling ride is the goal. Right?

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Literally the money. The money is only a tool to get the fulfillment. Now, I have fancy fulfillment things, right? And they do it, but, and I am learning how to use that tool to drive my fulfillment. But I'm also learning, hey, from other professionals and other verticals in the health, like, how do I optimize my health? There's time management books. How do I optimize my time? And then even in the what bucket, there's like, how do I get the better deal to get the same experience and the same fulfillment points when I go to Greece? Don't do that hotel, get the Airbnb, it'll be nicer and you actually have more fulfillment, it'll be cheaper and you have more money for the trip into Japan. Right? So I'm just saying like, at the macro level, you know, this is how these things interact and this is how you should be thinking about the arc of your life. But then you can go into each vertical and sub optimize.

• 4:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  And so, um.

• 4:36Lewis Howes?

  But what was that psychological moment for you where you realized, oh, I'm actually good at making money?

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 4:41Lewis Howes?

  And not, not like, okay, I'm making 16 grand a year and I'm working a nights, you know, driving a limo and, but actually I'm breaking through the generational conditioning that I live in scarcity to now I live in abundance or have the potential. To live in abundance. How did you learn that you were worthy and deserving of more money? How did you learn that you were capable of generating wealth?

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. I don't know if I learned it or I just believed it and it became.

• 5:16Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 5:16Speaker 01

  So I always tell people, like, I think one of my advantages was that I was delusional. And so they were like, what do you mean? I was like, like, I believed I can do it. And that drove my decisions. Now, that didn't mean I was gonna be successful. I could have easily believed I was done it and just never have done it, right? Tried a hundred times.

• 5:35Lewis Howes?

  Failed and broken, yeah.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  But the fact that I had that delusion and that belief that I can do it, that you could throw me in the desert and I'd have a fighting chance, I'd figure it out. I'd drink my own pee. I'd do whatever. You know what I mean?

• 5:49Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Whatever it takes.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Whatever it takes. I'm just gonna do it. Like, I had this delusion that I could do it. And because of that.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  The drink of the big Oscar.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Sometimes you gotta drink your pee if you're in the desert and you're dying of thirst, you know? Rehydrate. But, you know, eat the bugs, right? That delusion sent me the course to try and to learn. And so when I was learning, it wasn't like I couldn't learn this or I couldn't learn options trading or whatever. It's like, I can do this. I can do this because I had this delusion. And so I think, I think the belief is powerful. It's very, very helpful.

• 6:29Lewis Howes?

  How'd you get that belief? Most people don't believe in themselves enough to believe they're deserving and worthy of money, of wealth, of abundance. How did you get to believe you are deserving?

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Okay, so I had a very topsy-turvy relationship with my dad. He came from a different generation, hard-boiled, right? He was pre-civil rights, you know? Dreams were squashed. It was openly squashed and legally squashed, right? Like, and this, and I was born post-civil rights, okay? And so, one of the things, and I don't want to turn this into a whole racial story, but one of the advantages of growing up in Jersey City being black is that...

• 7:17Speaker 01

  People in that period, people talk about you. You're accused of this, why are your people like this? You know, you're inferior, you can't do this, or whatever. And so what you develop, okay? The, the good side of that is, you don't give a what people think. You've been trained. You know, you, you know what's true about you and your people and your relatives or whatever. Not bad people, we're not criminals, I'm not whatever, not this, I'm not inferior, I'm not whatever. You just learn to brush that all off, right? And my dad was a badass. And he was like, you can, you know, you can do whatever. You, you, we, we, look at all the adversity we have to deal with and we overcome, right? And so that not giving a what people think?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  And only listening to your dreams is a superpower forged in adversity. Right? And so, and so like, I, I just, you just, so, you know, a lot of people walk around like, I don't care what you think, or whatever. And they're thinking this about whatever. I'm just like, I don't give, I don't give. And like, like, I don't care, that's their problem, right? Like, and, and everybody cares a little bit, right? Yeah, yeah. To the extent that people's thoughts will interfere with my priorities, I care more, right? But in general, on the not giving a scale, I'm on the further scale. Because I grew up in a period where, you know, I was born in 69, right? There's, you know, racial attitudes going on, we're just coming out of the 60s, right?

• 8:45Speaker 01

  You know, being, having that and then just having to deal with that prepares you, you know, for this period. Right. Of like, I'm not afraid to look like a fool. You guys thought I was a fool? You know, you thought I was full at birth, but on skin color. You thought I was inferior at birth on skin color. You thought this about me on, you know, on skin color. So you just don't give a. Right? And so my dad and the trainings of being a minority in a city during that time period prepared me for like, who cares? I'm already a fool.

• 9:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Might as well try.

• 9:20Lewis Howes?

  But some people who maybe have grew up in a lot of the similar adversities or worse or a little bit less adversities, they might take that adversity and say, well, I don't have the skills. I'm never going to be able to do this.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:33Lewis Howes?

  And they stay stuck in that. They don't say because of this adversity, I don't care and I'm going to go for it. They say because of this adversity, this is who I am.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  I think, I think, you know, I think it's, I think the victim story is marketed to people. And if you don't take that victim story, I think they would have the same experience as me.

• 9:54Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  But I, you know, I don't want to go too deep in it, but I would just say that

• 10:01Speaker 01

  I wasn't conscious, right? You just felt it. You know, you just had a pride, right? You're the underdog pride and it came. And I guess some people, they might have, you know, I was lucky. I had a father and a mother, right? Who, you know, two college educated parents, my dad via scholarship and my mom later on in life. And so if anybody was designed to succeed, it was me. But there were, you know, when I was led on my own and it's time for me to do it on my own or, you know, who moves from New York City to Texas to go, you know, like the things, the decisions I made were kind of this like, it can be done. You

• 10:42Speaker 01

  know, when I, when I had not that much experience, but I knew I can recruit people to build in to do this solar development project in the Nevada desert, right? And then sold it to Capital Dynamics, right? And mean my friends and myself a good chunk of change and also putting solar on the grid. Like it's just this belief that you could figure it out and you can do it. And so I guess that there are some people who get dealt the clouds of inferiority and it stunts them.

• 11:14Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  And I would, I would, I would hope that somebody, somebody somewhere along the line flips it. For them, you know, flips it for him and said, this is a badge of honor, man. Like you, you got nothing to lose, right?

• 11:28Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  You got, you got nothing to lose, you got no whatever, nobody expects anything from you. So when you

• 11:34Lewis Howes?

  No pressure.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  No pressure, no pressure.

• 11:36Lewis Howes?

  This could be your greatest gift.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  This could be your greatest gift. And so for me, I think it, you know, my greatest gift was like not giving and my willingness to look like a fool.

• 11:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Like I'm just winging life like everybody else, right? Like I'm winging it, right? And so, uh, and I'm trying to figure things out and I'm, I, I wrote this book for me. And then I figured if I, if I can, you know, save my own life, like not waste my own life. Uh, and, and maybe it will be useful to other people.

• 12:05Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Right, but occasionally I'm, I get somehow stuck on autopilot.

• 12:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  And I need to go back in a book or my wife needs to remind me like, hey, hey, hey, you know? Let's think this through, let's, let's, let's get off autopilot. Let's get off, let's get off autopilot. But you know, you're doing these things, your plane's being chest on life. Like, how is this the most fulfilling thing to do for you to be doing in your life right now? It's not, I'm deleting them, okay. You know what I mean? You know, things like that, right? There's, there's more things that are deeper than that, but I think that early experience and my dad gave me the confidence. Uh, seeing him do it in much harder circumstances.

• 12:42Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Much deeper clouds of inferiority. Uh, much more hard knock, like to look at that. And then other people in life, like, I'm like, you know, I, I go places. And I get inspired by people who make it. You know, a lot of people, uh, you know, they, oh, well, they had this help or where they, they look for the thing that was the one piece of help. But they still overcame a lot. I'm like, wow, I'm pretty lazy. Like if that person could do it and look at all the advantages I have, you know? Born in the United States of America, growing economy and growing population. Um, jobs, technology, I just was born in such a great era. Like I, I'm like, I can ride this wave, I could surf this wave, I can do it.

• 13:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  I'm going to surf this wave of life and, and navigate it the way I want to go. You know? And so I just had this delusional belief and it happened to work out.

• 13:33Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing. You've been around a ton of wealthy individuals.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:38Lewis Howes?

  Uh, billionaires, mega billionaires. And you've also been around a lot of broke people who are in a ton of debt or people who've lost all their money. You've seen the both sides of the spectrum. From your perspective at this stage, what would you say are the three keys to really making more money and also being fulfilled with the money you have?

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Um, okay, so three keys to making more money.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  I would have to say that like on the earning part, like, you know, there's a lot of people who speak better to making more money, but I will speak just more in terms of like psychology

• 14:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  and belief is this belief that um you can and you're entitled. And so when you think you can, you read the book. You read the business book, you read the so and so, you make the attempt, et cetera. I, you know, a lot of people will just sit in the stands.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Not go up to bat.

• 14:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  They won't take the chance. Not only will you take the swing, you'll strike out and you'll do it again and you do it again and you do it again. I was just talking with somebody on Twitter and like, oh yeah, and I break, break rep. I said, isn't it great that you're bankrupt and now you can still go out and earn and take another swing? Lose the ego attachment, let get, get the out there and let's rip it again.

• 14:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  You know, and so that's, that's what it is in America, right? Like there's so many people and failure stories and like Steve Jobs got fired, then rehired, you know, like things like that. Right? Like, like all these learnings that you get like, wow, you went to school. This is expensive school, but you know, let's go, you got subject matter expertise. What's the next thing? What's the next dream on your plate?

• 15:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  And so when you believe you can, you start to take actions that actually develop your ability to do it.

• 15:21Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  And then, and then so that, that is one.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  The, the, the, we've already been talking about it. You have to, you know, there's a saying like, never tell your dreams to your parents that you want to do it. Because even though they love you, they saw you as a teenager and you didn't take out the garbage. Right? So they're always like, oh, you sure you really want to do that? Is this a safe job? Like you have such a good thing going on, like you can just get a job at the post office or whatever. Like they are afraid for you, right? To go on your adventure, they want to protect you and they also seen you in your clown years, right? Not the new bad bald Jew, right? And so, and then also, you know,

• 16:06Speaker 01

  as, as much as your uh friends and, and, and, and, and maybe some of your peer group may love you or not.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  A lot of people behave out of fear. They don't want to look like an idiot. They had a great idea. They had a thing they want to do and they don't do it.

• 16:23Lewis Howes?

  They tried it and it failed, or they don't want to do it again.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  No, they don't do it.

• 16:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  So your success exposes their cowardice.

• 16:31Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Right?

• 16:32Lewis Howes?

  Say it again?

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Their, your success exposes their cowardice.

• 16:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  So when you go out and you fail, they're like, see? I'm, I'm right not to go do that. See what he did? He went out and failed. Hey, I told him, you shouldn't have did that. That was crazy. Why'd he do that? Right? So they feel comfortable in their safe life and their cowardice. They didn't go live their dreams or take the risk or whatever. But if you go succeed, they're like,

• 16:57Speaker 01

  I'm a coward. Like, I had a chance to do, I could have done this. I could have been to work. I could have grinded for a year or two years with no award, lived and eaten ramen and, and, and, and been successful, right? So I always say people like success, but they love a failure.

• 17:14Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Right? They love a failure because it reaffirms that they're doing the right thing and, and, and you're not cowards. And so be very, very careful about your mindset that you're getting from other people.

• 17:30Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Right? And success is not just doing the thing and making it. Success is living a fulfilled life. It is about the ride, you know? A lot of people like say, oh, it's easy for you to say when, listen, I've gone like busted twice. Like I've been fired. I've been whatever. And it's been, that has been great. That has been great.

• 17:51Lewis Howes?

  Losing your money, getting fired.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Getting fired, getting embarrassed, humiliated, people talking behind your back, you know what I mean? Oh, he's a clown or he can't do this. Like, it's part of it. It's like, I learned who my friends were and who weren't. I know who my supporters were and who, who weren't. I learned about myself. Like, do I care or do I not care? What things really upset me? What mistakes did I, what did I mistakes? Like, where did I get lazy? Where did I get off track on vision? You know? I, um. It it it's about that. It was great. And then, you know, here I am on this side of the coin. But like, still would have been great. You know, I did. I tried to do some huge project in Central America, went bustle vaporized $10 million. Learned a lot. Gone. Like years, time, meetings, whatever, you know?

• 18:39Speaker 01

  And and and it's gone. I tried to do an importation project in California, learned all about permitting in California, the the the interest groups, et cetera. Gone. The ride, you know? And and it wasn't. It wasn't like now where I have a bunch of money. It was like, that was a very significant.

• 18:54Lewis Howes?

  That was all your money.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  It was like, oh, we might have to come back on staff here, Mr. Perkins, you know? And so I think it's like, really be careful about how you speak to yourself and the people you keep around you and who you share your dreams with.

• 19:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's interesting. And the third thing?

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Oh, man, third thing.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  The third thing, consistency.

• 19:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Take it seriously. I I hear a lot of people like they'll have an idea and they're about to go into the execution phase. So ideas are like a dime a dozen, right? It it. There's no market for ideas that I think Paul Graham says, right? You can't just go, I'm gonna sell you this idea. No, you can sell the business, you can sell the execution. So like 90 something percent of it is the execution. And they go in the execution phase and they don't take it seriously.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  You know, this is your dream. This is your life. You know, people take video games, um, simple things, you know, party things more seriously and then they'll take their their dreams, right? And so if your dream is this business or this idea or take some way of making money,

• 20:03Speaker 01

  and it could just be like showing up for work on time, right? Like it doesn't have to be this like, I'm starting this entrepreneurial thing. It just be like, I want to be the best person being consistent and taking it seriously.

• 20:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  Taking it very seriously.

• 20:15Lewis Howes?

  Like more money comes to you when you show the universe how consistent you are with what you care about.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Use all your resources like as if your life depends on it. And and the funny thing is, these are the hours of your life. So your life does depend on it. This is your life. This is the time period. And some people don't take, you know, I'll see guys come in with pitches or things. I'm like, did you do this? Did you use this resource? Did you whatever? It's not like they couldn't have thought of it. It's not like they couldn't have done it. They just didn't because they didn't take it seriously enough. You know, so use all your resources at your disposal to drive your fulfillment. If your fulfillment is this job and making money or this idea, use all your resources at your disposal to make it happen and take it seriously. And so I think a lot of people are flip it with their own dreams. I don't know why, and I think it comes down to the,

• 21:06Speaker 01

  I've done it before too. I've done it in school. It's one of those things where like you have this fear that you can't do well. So you don't try your best. You know what I mean? Like they like, oh, I'm afraid of failing. So I'm just not gonna do my best. And so when I, when I fail, I'll be like, no, I didn't, I didn't really try that hard. You know what I mean?

• 21:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Oh, I wasn't really trying to lift it, you know, like that much. I wasn't really stretched out or whatever. And so you're like, you have this excuse that you didn't try hard. So that's why you failed.

• 21:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  And so it makes your ego feel good. And I, I've done that before, and I think other people do it too. I don't know if these are the three keys. I don't know what you could take out of that, but

• 21:39Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  I, I think it's something that, you know, people can take home with and like, see if that applies to them.

• 21:50Lewis Howes?

  There's been a lot of changes over the last few years with the, with the financial world, with interest rates, with real estate, with people losing jobs, with, you know, whoever knows what's happening. How can we be prepared for what's to come financially? Whether it's incredible financially or it's a nightmare financially. What can we do today to start being better prepared? So that we are not as affected as we could be.

• 22:17Vivian Tu?

  I think diversification is really important. So that's making sure that you have that emergency fund, making sure that there's money you are investing in the stock market through index funds that are all diversified. You're not just buying like one stock and being like, that's it, like,

• 22:32Lewis Howes?

  Roll the dice.

• 22:32Vivian Tu?

  Yeah, like it's not like that. Um, you want to be really diversified. You want to be buying some bonds. You want to be buying, you know, equities. You want to consider maybe investing in real estate. Maybe that's buying, you know, an actual physical property or just investing in

• 22:47Lewis Howes?

  Funds.

• 22:47Vivian Tu?

  REITs or something like that. Um, I also think that like,

• 22:53Vivian Tu?

  There is a disconnect right now from like a mindset perspective of a lot of people. And not to get on this like rah rah soapbox again, but so many people now aspire to a life that frankly, they will never be within their means.

• 23:17Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:17Vivian Tu?

  And I say that and I, I know it's harsh, but keeping up with the Joneses has become keeping up with the Kardashians because you have it all on your phone. You can see this immense amount of wealth that like in any other reality, like before our, you know, our parents' time, our grandparents' time, you were never able to see it.

• 23:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:35Vivian Tu?

  Like people have always had yachts, but now you see a yacht, like every other day, you're like par for the course. Like this is great, whatever. Like I should have a yacht too. And so you've got people spending money like it's going out of style to keep up and it doesn't make sense.

• 23:49Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 23:50Vivian Tu?

  I know people who only take black cars. I make seven figures a year and I am ready to get into the Toyota Camry that picks me up.

• 24:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:02Vivian Tu?

  Like it's crazy to me that there is just, again, this almost like desire to like fake it till you make it of like, you know, this, this trend of like delulu, like delusional. Like, yes, in some ways it's great because you want to apply for jobs that you're unqualified for. You want to do things that are outside of your comfort zone, but like that can also put you in a really precarious situation very quickly.

• 24:31Lewis Howes?

  Right. Is it possible for anyone to become wealthy or to become rich? Or is it only for a certain mindset or a certain demographic of people?

• 24:40Vivian Tu?

  Yeah, I think anybody who wants to have money, anybody who wants to have richness can get there, but it certainly is not as easy as everyone on the internet makes it seem. It's not rah rah, Amazon dropshipping, rah rah, wholesale, real estate, rah rah, buy some life insurance and you're good to go. Like that's just not it. Um, and I think a big conversation that like, we don't talk about is like proximity, right? So like.

• 25:12Vivian Tu?

  In my life now, I have many rich friends. And those rich friends provide me additional rich opportunities. So I got to go to the US Open on a bank's dime. Because my fiance worked with a guy who is at an investment bank. And he had four tickets, took him, his wife, my fiance and myself. Those tickets are thousands of dollars. Like, they're very, very expensive. I have friends who had an incredible accountant. Had, you know, great team in terms of financials for business. And they were like, you should talk to my team. That's how I got hooked up with my business manager.

• 25:56Vivian Tu?

  If you don't have that proximity to people who have money, who've done it, who played the playbook, how are you going to learn it? Because, sure, if you are a young person growing up low income, and you want to make smart money decisions, work very hard in school, get good grades, do the American dream thing, and you go, you get to Harvard, okay? You get to Harvard, the rich kids still don't want to be friends with you.

• 26:22Lewis Howes?

  Why not?

• 26:23Vivian Tu?

  Because you can't afford to split the table at the club on Friday night. You can't afford to pay for the dues for your finals club, or whatever they call it. Like, you don't have that money to get you there. So I think the process of becoming wealthy and becoming rich and having money, it's available to anyone. But the trajectory and the timeline is very, very different.

• 26:46Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. So proximity alone isn't enough, is what I'm hearing you say. Because you could have the grades or the skills and the proximity, but if you don't have the money still, then people may not, what are you, what are you saying?

• 26:58Vivian Tu?

  So I'm saying that proximity makes it easier.

• 27:01Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 27:01Vivian Tu?

  So if you grow up rich and your parents are, you know...

• 27:07Vivian Tu?

  Very, very tough. And they're like, we're not leaving a penny to you guys. You still grew up around all those rich people.

• 27:14Lewis Howes?

  You still have access, contacts, information.

• 27:17Vivian Tu?

  Exactly. And you still got all those soft skills. Whereas someone whose parents are like, I will leave you every dollar I have. But they grow up lower middle class. They don't have that proximity that you had growing up.

• 27:30Lewis Howes?

  What skills should employees be developing throughout the year or years at, um, you know, a career or multiple careers? What, what can they develop to make themselves more indispensable? Besides just like, okay, I'm doing the job and I'm showing up and doing it. But should I be taking classes? Should I be learning public speaking? Should I be, I don't know, some other skills? Learning to make myself more desirable at the current job or on another place?

• 27:56Vivian Tu?

  Yeah. Um, I think every job, being good at your technical skills is great. But you want to have transferable skills. And these are the soft skills.

• 28:05Lewis Howes?

  Bring it.

• 28:06Vivian Tu?

  But, you know.

• 28:06Lewis Howes?

  What is it? Talby.

• 28:08Vivian Tu?

  Just, again, it goes back to those fork and knife skills.

• 28:11Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 28:11Vivian Tu?

  You want to be able to have a conversation with just about anyone. You want to be able to make someone feel special. And I feel so lucky because after my stint on Wall Street, I went and worked at a media company in strategy sales. And let me tell you, sales, that is another beast. Because you eat what you kill.

• 28:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:35Vivian Tu?

  And I got some sales training that, you know, my company obviously paid thousands and thousands of dollars for. And I don't remember any of it, except for one thing. W I I F M.

• 28:49Vivian Tu?

  So you guess what that means?

• 28:50Lewis Howes?

  W I.

• 28:51Vivian Tu?

  I.

• 28:52Lewis Howes?

  F.

• 28:52Vivian Tu?

  Two I's. F M.

• 28:53Lewis Howes?

  F M.

• 29:01Lewis Howes?

  I was thinking, what if something, but I'm not sure.

• 29:03Vivian Tu?

  Okay, so you got the W.

• 29:05Lewis Howes?

  What?

• 29:06Vivian Tu?

  What's in it for me?

• 29:07Lewis Howes?

  Ah, yeah.

• 29:08Vivian Tu?

  So, we always know what we want, what's in it for us. But what's in it for me for, for the other person? Why do they need to help you do that thing? And this is how I always get what I want. I, no, no, think about it. I always think at the other end of the table, what's in it for that person?

• 29:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Like, it's like the prenup.

• 29:30Vivian Tu?

  It's a prenup.

• 29:31Lewis Howes?

  What was in it for your, if you're.

• 29:32Vivian Tu?

  What's in it for my fiance? Um, what's in it for, you know, I'll talk about you. I know that you have, you know, a very, very successful podcast. But what's in it for you interviewing me? You want a lot of people to listen to this. You want to get those, you know, charitable numbers up. You want to be up the ranks. You want a big social splash. You want all of these things. And I position myself in a certain way to make those things happen. If I go to a car dealership, I'm like, okay, it's the end of the month. It's the end of October. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna ask for the floor mats. I'm gonna do all of these things. But I'm like, but what's in it for that guy? That guy's getting a commission because it's the end of the month and they need to make their number. They want to hit their quota. They want to get the kicker and they get paid upon delivery.

• 30:17Vivian Tu?

  So I'm gonna go four days before the end of the month and blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm gonna have to buy, you know, an Aziz car on the lot, blah, blah, blah. But I think about what's in it for them.

• 30:25Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 30:26Vivian Tu?

  When I'm at a gate and my flight's been delayed and I'm mad and I'm angry. I'm like, this gate agent wants to kill me. She does not like me. She doesn't want to help me. What can I say that is going to make her want to help me? So maybe it's, hey, I know you've got a crazy crowd control thing happening going on. When do you think we are going to have an answer? If not, I would like to just rebook my flight. That way I can get out of your hair. And then they're like, oh, okay, this person has already thought through solutions.

• 31:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:01Vivian Tu?

  I can just A, B, C, pick one for them. Whichever one that I think is going to make the most sense, based on when I think the plane's gonna arrive to the gate.

• 31:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 31:08Vivian Tu?

  Versus, what's going on? No gate agent wants to answer that question. Because it's always bad news. You're always gonna be mad.

• 31:15Lewis Howes?

  I know.

• 31:16Vivian Tu?

  So think about what's in it for me? What's in it for them?

• 31:20Lewis Howes?

  Man, I'm excited about this. Rich AF, the winning money mindset that will change your life. Make sure you guys get a few copies of this. Give them to your friends. If you want to learn how to really maximize your earnings, to get more out of your current job, your career, if you want to understand the difference between savings, accounts, investing, all these different things, the, the, the, the technical side of things here as well. If you want to learn more tax strategies, legal loopholes, it's all in here. Make sure to check it out. You've also got an amazing podcast that I want people to check out as well. We'll have all these things linked up. That's called Net Worth and Chill.

• 31:58Vivian Tu?

  Net Worth and Chill.

• 31:58Lewis Howes?

  You've got Your Rich BFF. You've got so many different things. Your social media is great. I love seeing your content online, your TikTok, your Instagram. We'll have all that linked up. What can we, what else can we do to be of service to you today? Besides get a copy of the book, check out your content, all the things.

• 32:15Vivian Tu?

  Yeah. So you can get a pre-order copy of Rich AF, at richaf.me. Yes, I made the URL a manifestation. And you can find me on social as Your Rich BFF. But if there is one favor that you can do for me that I would so, so appreciate is just talk to your friends about money.

• 32:35Lewis Howes?

  I love that.

• 32:36Vivian Tu?

  Because we've been told for so long that it's taboo and tacky, and you are doing nobody any favors, except for big old corporations, when you keep that information hidden. When you hold that shame, let me tell you, when you talk to your friend about money, and they make more than you, they don't suddenly make less for having told you. But you now know, and you can go and ask your boss for more. So please, please, talk to your friends about money.

• 33:00Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful. I think the earlier you can speak about money and make it more of a common practice is just having a conversation over coffee and just relaxing. It will be less stressful in the future.

• 33:12Vivian Tu?

  It doesn't have to be an icky topic.

• 33:13Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't have to be. I love that. Vivian, this is powerful. I've got two final questions for you. This is a question I ask everyone towards the end. It's called the three truths. Hypothetical question and scenario. Imagine you get to live as long as you want, but it's your last day. So you live as long as you want in this life, but we're at the last day of your, your life. Can be a hundred something years old, 200.

• 33:38Vivian Tu?

  Okay, but has my body deteriorated?

• 33:40Lewis Howes?

  You're still in perfect health. You know, yeah, you still look great. You're filthy rich. You've accomplished everything you want to accomplish. You've got a beautiful life, family, everything you want. It's happened. But it's the last day and you've got to take all of your work with you to the next place. So the book is gone. This interview is gone. Everything you've ever created, for whatever reason, is gone. But you get to leave behind three lessons with the world. And this is all we have to remember you by. I call it three truths. What would be that for you?

• 34:11Vivian Tu?

  Wow, okay. Wasn't prepared for that one. That is an excellent question.

• 34:18Vivian Tu?

  I would say

• 34:22Vivian Tu?

  the first, always buy them the chicken parm. And this has to, you know, there's a little bit of an explanation behind this.

• 34:30Lewis Howes?

  I love chicken parm. It's incredible.

• 34:32Vivian Tu?

  Okay, so the first-

• 34:33Lewis Howes?

  There's amazing chicken parm here in LA.

• 34:34Vivian Tu?

  Oh, really?

• 34:35Lewis Howes?

  Amazing chicken parm, yeah.

• 34:37Vivian Tu?

  The first guy I worked for on Wall Street, my boss's boss, was this super Italian guy. Like, just the most Italian, Italian man you've ever seen. And he told me one day, he was like, Liv, you always gotta buy them the chicken parm. And I'm like, sir, I'm lactose intolerant. What are you talking about?

• 34:54Lewis Howes?

  I'm vegan.

• 34:55Vivian Tu?

  I'm like, I don't even eat cheese.

• 34:58Vivian Tu?

  But what he meant by that was every so often, out of just the random kindness of his heart, he would buy a bunch of chicken parms. And he would dish them out to the people on our team. And then, you know, the guys on IT, the guys in the back office, the guys in the middle office, and, you know, he must be sending like, almost a thousand dollars on chicken parm. And he meant by like, just treat people with kindness, not because, you know, you have to, but because you want to. And then, when he ever had an issue, those people came running to his desk.

• 35:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:34Vivian Tu?

  If multiple people were having issues, they only ran to his desk. Because he had genuinely treated them with kindness when it didn't serve him. When it was just a random Wednesday, he would be like, oh, how's your kid's, like, little league game going? And like, took a genuine interest in people. And to your point of being interesting and asking questions, just being kind, I think that's really important.

• 35:55Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. Okay, that's the first one.

• 35:56Vivian Tu?

  That's a good one. I would say-

• 36:01Vivian Tu?

  If you are a woman,

• 36:06Vivian Tu?

  just know yourself and know your worth. I think we compete a lot with other women. Because we have that scarcity mindset and we think that another person's success is our downfall. And that, you know, if you're number one on the podcast charts, it means I'm not number one. Okay. But there's always room for more people to succeed. Like, there's enough white space for all of us to get there, for all of us to have what we want and get what we need. And I think it took me a very long time to learn that. I would always be like, if that girl has XYZ, I can't have it. Like, I need to do this. It was just like so unhealthy.

• 36:51Vivian Tu?

  So I think it's more of like knowing yourself, knowing your worth and not being unnecessarily competitive. I think there's a little healthy competition in everything, but

• 37:02Vivian Tu?

  don't let it be to the detriment of, you know, your mental health or like anything in your life. And then, you know, just, I think a third one is, don't kill the golden goose.

• 37:16Lewis Howes?

  You have that on your shoes.

• 37:17Vivian Tu?

  Yeah. Oh, my God. No, don't tell people what kind of shoes I'm wearing. No.

• 37:20Lewis Howes?

  It says golden goose.

• 37:21Vivian Tu?

  Yeah, it does. So not sponsored by the Golden Goose Shoe Brand, but I would like to be. The, the old fable is that, and I'm sure you've heard it, right?

• 37:33Lewis Howes?

  Go ahead, Sarah.

• 37:34Vivian Tu?

  Okay. A farmer's wife, they have this goose. And every single day, this goose lays a golden egg. And they're like, oh, my gosh, like a little nugget of gold. They're like, this is so weird. All the other geese are doing this, but like this gold is amazing. Like, we now have this little pellet of gold. I wish we had more. And so every day they get a little egg of gold. And they're like, well, it's not, you know, happening fast enough. We should kill the goose. And that way, the inside of the goose will be entirely gold, will be able to get it all at once and we'll sell it. So they slaughter this goose. And the inside of the goose is a regular goose body. And there's not a single piece of gold. And I think

• 38:16Vivian Tu?

  this is a bigger metaphor of like, life, of us always wanting the next big thing, wanting more. But like, I am a big, big, like, this is a problem I have.

• 38:32Vivian Tu?

  I currently have the life that I prayed for a couple of months ago. And sometimes I don't get to enjoy it. Sometimes I'm not even enjoying it. And that's sad. I think we need to not kill the golden goose. Enjoy those little nuggets of gold that we get every single day. And it's okay to want to work for more and strive for more. But don't ruin a good thing just because you're always trying to like hit the next milestone. They'll come, but you could, you know, completely lose this entire journey if you don't take a second to stop them roses and stop and smell the roses.

• 39:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's beautiful.

• 39:14Lewis Howes?

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

• 39:18George Kamel?

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

• 40:02George Kamel?

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

• 40:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think I saw someone earlier this week, a woman come on the show and say she got like 300,000 in debt in like 18 months or something on your show. And maybe it was 300, maybe it was 170, 170,000, I think it was. That she got out of debt in 18 months. And the amount of peace that she had in her facial expression and her body language around being debt free from these, I guess, bad debts, really looked empowering on what she was capable of doing now without that debt weighing her down.

• 40:56Lewis Howes?

  And I'm curious, before we get into the next, the fifth habit,

• 41:01Lewis Howes?

  how does someone develop that, that belief that they can pay down their debts? If it seems so daunting and so overwhelming?

• 41:09George Kamel?

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

• 41:46Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 41:46George Kamel?

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

• 42:24Lewis Howes?

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

• 42:27George Kamel?

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

• 43:08George Kamel?

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

• 43:20Lewis Howes?

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

• 43:34George Kamel?

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

• 43:40Lewis Howes?

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

• 44:19George Kamel?

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

• 45:02George Kamel?

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

• 45:46George Kamel?

  And I have my business, my Ramsey business debit card as well.

• 45:48Lewis Howes?

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

• 46:04George Kamel?

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

• 46:48George Kamel?

  What is a hundred thousand miles? We don't know anymore. The credit card companies want to confuse us. And I found this out from an ex Capital One employee. She told me verbatim that these credit card companies run 10,000 experiments a year on consumers and A/B test them to go, oh, if we switch it from cash back to points, it triggers something different in their brain. It's like Chuck E. Cheese.

• 47:10Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:10George Kamel?

  You're like, I don't know what a hundred thousand points is, but it feels like a lot. Let's sign up for the bonus.

• 47:14Lewis Howes?

  It's like two candy bars. Yeah.

• 47:15George Kamel?

  Exactly. So most people, they're stepping over a dollar to hopefully pick up a quarter. And the average credit card interest rate now is 22% APR.

• 47:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:23George Kamel?

  But we're doing all this in hopes of getting 2% cash back? You're like, Is it worth spending a hundred bucks to get two bucks? What they tell me is, well, I'm not spending any differently than if it was my own money. I'm like, you want to bet? Here's a thousand dollars cash of your own money. Go hand over a thousand dollars and see the emotional pain it causes. And so adding friction back into our life will actually help us spend less. And that's what happens when you use cash especially, but even a debit card. Your brain knows.

• 47:49Lewis Howes?

  This is coming right out of my account.

• 47:51George Kamel?

  That's Lewis's money right now. And so in the book, the thesis of that chapter is when it hurts, when it hurts less, it costs more. When we remove the friction, you're going to spend more. And I quote MIT studies using FMRI technology on the brain. And they're seeing when people swipe that credit card, it releases the brakes on spending and hits the accelerator.

• 48:09Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 48:10George Kamel?

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

• 48:27Lewis Howes?

  Pay it off every month, all that different things.

• 48:29George Kamel?

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

• 48:39Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 48:39George Kamel?

  Not just play the game perfectly of Capital One.

• 48:42Lewis Howes?

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

• 48:53George Kamel?

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

• 49:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:01George Kamel?

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

• 49:09Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 49:10George Kamel?

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

• 49:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:38George Kamel?

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

• 49:44Lewis Howes?

  What do you think is the number one thing about money that stresses them out the most?

• 49:51Lewis Howes?

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

• 50:02George Kamel?

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

• 50:47George Kamel?

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

• 51:22Lewis Howes?

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

• 51:24George Kamel?

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

• 51:35Lewis Howes?

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

• 51:40George Kamel?

  Exactly.

• 51:40Lewis Howes?

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

• 51:44George Kamel?

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

• 52:19Lewis Howes?

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

• 52:29George Kamel?

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

• 52:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, I've got.

• 52:35George Kamel?

  I have wealth.

• 52:36Lewis Howes?

  I figured out how to like, take responsibility for my life and, you know, pay off the debts and then start building wealth. And I've actually done it now. I spent 10, 20, 30 years of actually creating something of value. And I've been smart with my money. Now I have it, which used to be like celebrated.

• 52:52George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 52:52Lewis Howes?

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

• 52:54George Kamel?

  Wealth.

• 52:55Lewis Howes?

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

• 53:05George Kamel?

  Hmm. Well, in a culture where debt has become celebrated, I think we've lost a level of shame that we ought to have. Like back in our grandparents' days, it was not okay to owe people money. It was a goal to not owe people money. Now there's TikToks about people going, I'm $15 million in debt and I'm proud of it. And you should be $15 million in debt too. And the people who have wealth and have earned it with integrity are going like, well, I don't wanna, I don't wanna hurt anyone's feelings.

• 53:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:33George Kamel?

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

• 53:55Lewis Howes?

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

• 53:57George Kamel?

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

• 54:10Lewis Howes?

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

• 54:29George Kamel?

  I think-

• 54:29Lewis Howes?

  People that have taken responsibility for their money?

• 54:32George Kamel?

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

• 54:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:49George Kamel?

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

• 55:33Lewis Howes?

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

• 55:50George Kamel?

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

• 56:15Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 56:16George Kamel?

  It's underrated.

• 56:17Lewis Howes?

  Tell me why?

• 56:18George Kamel?

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

• 56:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 56:37George Kamel?

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

• 57:19George Kamel?

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

• 57:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's, that's a couple hundred and months.

• 57:37George Kamel?

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

• 57:43Lewis Howes?

  Congrats, man.

• 57:43George Kamel?

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

• 58:06Lewis Howes?

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

• 58:14George Kamel?

  Ooh.

• 58:14Lewis Howes?

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

• 58:20George Kamel?

  I know who you're talking about.

• 58:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And, and also it's just like, homes are getting more and more expensive. I mean, a home in Los Angeles is pretty unaffordable for a lot of people compared to maybe Idaho or something where a home might be a different price. But should we be buying our own home and taking on this massive mortgage and this massive debt and these payments every month? And then having to fix things up and, you know, break, you know, fix the roof and the the water or the systems, whatever it is, and all the state taxes and all these other fees that come with owning a house?

• 58:53George Kamel?

  It's no joke.

• 58:54Lewis Howes?

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

• 59:01George Kamel?

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

• 59:36Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 59:36George Kamel?

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

• 1:00:13Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:00:16George Kamel?

  Once you're completely debt free of consumer debt, you've done the debt snowball, you have a fully funded emergency fund, three to six months of expenses, then you save up the down payment. And here's the other kicker. Not only do you have the down payment, but you get a 15-year fixed rate mortgage where the payment is no more than a quarter of your after-tax income. So that looks a lot like, you know, if you're, you make five grand a month, 1250 should be where that mortgage sits on a 15-year. Now, that's hard to do, I'll admit. In today's world, with home prices and interest rates, that's gonna be hard. So what do you have to do? Make different decisions. Because the math didn't change. So what has to change is your expectations of your first home. That might mean we get the condo instead of the single family. It might mean we're 45 minutes outside of the city.

• 1:01:00George Kamel?

  Because that's the one we can afford. It might mean we gotta save up a bigger down payment for the next two years in order to do this wisely.

• 1:01:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:01:07George Kamel?

  But the other option is, and then we get this on the Ramsey show, people call us and say, "Hey, my parents pressured us to buy a house and now it's 65% of our take home pay and we're broke. Like, we can't afford this and that and we can't, you know, put food on the table and cover our bills and we gotta sell the house now." Well, that turns homeownership from a blessing to a burden. And so there's a right way to do it and a right time to do it. But unfortunately, people in their twenties are just like, "Well, it's time for me to buy a home. It's the American dream. Where's my home? I got the degree. I'm still paying all my student loans."

• 1:01:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:01:36George Kamel?

  "Gosh, I need to get in a home." And so there's a time and a place for it.

• 1:01:39Lewis Howes?

  Should you buy a home if you have student debt?

• 1:01:42George Kamel?

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

• 1:01:47Lewis Howes?

  And your student loans.

• 1:01:48George Kamel?

  Everything. Student loans, credit cards, car loans. It all needs to go before you become a homeowner. Cause it just adds, it compounds the stress. Cause you know, homeownership is, it's real expensive. Like, you think it's apples to apples. $2,000 in rent is not $2,000 in mortgage. Cause the rent is the least you'll pay. The mortgage, that's just the starting point.

• 1:02:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:09George Kamel?

  Before you start dealing with maintenance and repairs and the HVAC went out and the roof needs to be replaced four years from now. I mean, those are some big ticket items.

• 1:02:18Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:02:22George Kamel?

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

• 1:02:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I lived in a two-bedroom apartment for, I don't know, 15 years, you know, until I was 40.

• 1:02:49George Kamel?

  Wow.

• 1:02:49Lewis Howes?

  I lived in a two-bedroom apartment and I felt completely fine with that. You know, it was, it was a nice apartment. I had like what I needed and I upgraded, you know, over time into a nicer apartments, but... I did not feel like I'm missing out by not having a home. And I didn't have debt also. I liked the flexibility of renting and having the convenience to be able to travel and making sure someone's taking care of my stuff.

• 1:03:11George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:11Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:03:13George Kamel?

  But you're more flexible.

• 1:03:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:03:14George Kamel?

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

• 1:03:17Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:03:17George Kamel?

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

• 1:03:37Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:03:41George Kamel?

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

• 1:03:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:03:47George Kamel?

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

• 1:04:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:04:14George Kamel?

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

• 1:04:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:04:37George Kamel?

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

• 1:04:51Lewis Howes?

  You see a lot of people, especially in kind of the real estate space, saying, you know, it's The only good debt you can have is when you're borrowing money to like get real estate and you're buying more to have more real estate and it's compounding interest over time or you're building equity in that or whatever it might be and you have ten homes now but they're all you're all in debt with all these homes you're borrowing it from the previous home and unfortunately there was a guy I met I don't know, earlier this year, I only met him once but we had a nice kind of two hour dinner conversation and unfortunately it was public about a month or two ago that he committed suicide because he was he was a real estate guy, he had invested in way too much

• 1:05:28George Kamel?

  Overleveraged?

• 1:05:29Lewis Howes?

  Overleveraged, he had a, just had his first child and it would, the pressure was too much for him to take on how am I gonna pay this off now? It was like some, some building that he invested in or something, he was developing, he was investing and he had a lot of I guess net worth on paper but then it was overleveraged and the pressure was too much and he took his own life about a month or month, two ago, two ago and it's just like again you hear some people saying like, yeah, it's cool to have debt but until you feel like everyone's calling you and collecting and you don't know what to do and you can't get access to money to pay this off are you emotionally stable enough to manage that chaos and stress in your life?

• 1:06:13George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:13Lewis Howes?

  Do you want that in your life? And I don't know all the details of what actually happened but I do know that more money doesn't always mean more peace.

• 1:06:22George Kamel?

  Yes.

• 1:06:23Lewis Howes?

  Sometimes more money means more pain if you're not educated or emotionally ready for that amount of money. And do you think that is? Do you think if people got written a million dollar check today? And they were in debt, do you think their lives would be better or more stressful?

• 1:06:42George Kamel?

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

• 1:07:07Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:07:08George Kamel?

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

• 1:07:18Lewis Howes?

  Gone.

• 1:07:18George Kamel?

  That money's gone.

• 1:07:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:20George Kamel?

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

• 1:07:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:07:34George Kamel?

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

• 1:07:50Lewis Howes?

  That's incredible.

• 1:07:50George Kamel?

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

• 1:08:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:08:12George Kamel?

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

• 1:08:21Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:08:21George Kamel?

  And so, that puts you in control.

• 1:08:24Lewis Howes?

  You started in debt, and then you have, you know, a net worth of over a million dollars now. What is your biggest fear around money with everything you know, with your own personal life moving forward?

• 1:08:40George Kamel?

  That's a great question. I mean, I'm unbelievably blessed and highly favored just to be where I'm at today, and getting the platform of Dave Ramsey, and getting to work with the amazing team I get to work with. And financially speaking, while we don't have any payments, there's always this nagging fear about what could happen and what is enough. And that's something I've been grappling with of, you know, the goalpost is always moving. Like, is it, you know, you could say, like, once we have 2 million in retirement, I'll feel safe. Because if I can withdraw this much, and then we can live off this, we'll be okay. But then what if you get to retirement and the stock market tanks as soon as you enter retirement, it's a five-year, you know, bear market, whatever it is, there's always this

• 1:09:23George Kamel?

  fear of the unknown. And so the only thing I can do is try to prepare without becoming paranoid. I don't want to have to build a bunker and have $500,000 sitting in cash in order to sleep at night. Wow. And so I'm sort of, that's something I'm grappling with of what is enough? What does that even mean? What is enough for you? I don't know. I mean, there's, you know, hey, 20 years from now, if this compound interest works in my 401k and we upgrade this house, I'm such a planner and such a nerd that it's fun to do those calculations. And so to me, it's like, well, we'll upgrade to this type of house five years from now, we'll have a second kid, be a million two house we could pay for in cash, that would be a cool goal. You know, maybe in 25 years,

• 1:10:05George Kamel?

  my retirement account, we should have about $4 million, that should be enough to retire on. You have all of those things on paper, but I don't know what life's going to hold in the meantime. I might have a lot more than that, it might be less. And so that, what I'm grappling with is, are you okay to adapt? And, you know, I've been a guy who wants to plan everything. I want to be prepared for everything in life, and it's hard to let go of that and just be present in the moment and not have to think about what's the next year look like, what are our goals? Like, as someone who's goal-driven, it's so hard to let go and just stare my baby in the eyes and go like, this is all that matters right now. Wow. You know what I mean? That's, that's something I'm truly struggling with, just to be present. My wife is like, can you stop looking at your phone? Like, your little girl is trying to get your attention. Wow.

• 1:10:50George Kamel?

  You know what I mean? And so as someone who's addicted to screens like many of us millennials are, I'm trying to now unlearn and deprogram some of this kind of high anxiety feelings I have. And getting rid of debt was a huge part of that and getting to a good financial spot. I don't have financial stress anymore, but there's still the normal anxiety of, of life and inputs and trying to get more centered and do the quiet time and work out and eat better and all of it is, it's a lot. And so that's something truly that I think of the next year, as a new dad, I'm trying to grapple with is, I got new goals now. It's not about me or even my wife anymore. It's, we got a little girl to raise in this chaotic world. I want to, I want to do her right. You know, my gravestone, it's not gonna have my net worth on it of like,

• 1:11:34George Kamel?

  "Look at what this guy achieved. Look at how many YouTube subscribers he had." It's gonna, it's gonna be like, "Beloved father," you know, "doting husband." It's gonna say that. And so to me, it changes the way I look at money, and changes the generational impact I wanna have. And so the goalpost, I'm trying to just stop looking at it, and not look at the 401k balance, and instead, look at my little girl in the eyes and goes, "This is all that matters right now."

• 1:12:01Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:12:01George Kamel?

  That's it.

• 1:12:02Lewis Howes?

  What's your daughter's name?

• 1:12:03George Kamel?

  Mia.

• 1:12:04Lewis Howes?

  Mia. When she was born, was there something that shifted in you around money and your mission? Or was it all kind of just like, everything was the same? Did something shift inside of you around your views around money when she was born?

• 1:12:20George Kamel?

  I think so. One of the first thoughts was, "I can't believe she gets to grow up in a home where money stress and money fights will never be a problem."

• 1:12:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:12:31George Kamel?

  Like, she's gonna grow up in a home that doesn't have a mortgage attached to it. Like, that is a mind-boggling privilege that I get to give to this girl. There's the fear of, you know, entitlement, because when you're doing well, like, every parent wants their kids to do better than they did. But then the struggle is, "Well, I don't want my kid to, you know, think we have money." So you try to like hide the, you try to hide the wealth, like, "We're not doing that well, honey." You know what I mean? Like, there's, there's that fear, but I think it's a lot more about how you raise them, the character, the integrity, versus money. Cause I've seen Dave Ramsey raise his kids, and his kids are incredible. There's zero entitlement. They are the most humble kids in the world, and, uh, you know, they're inheriting the Ramsey empire, and you wouldn't even know it. Because they're just so kind, so hardworking,

• 1:13:15George Kamel?

  not an ounce of entitlement. And so that's what I hope to do for my kid. And when it comes to money, She's gonna go to college dead free. And that might mean, doesn't mean that we're gonna have unlimited monopoly dollars to hand to her, but I wanna do my part in saving to help her avoid the chains that I fell. When I graduated college, the cynicism that I had. And so it's a beautiful, fresh start when it comes to money to go like, I get to raise this innocent, pure human to be a generous person, not only with their money, but with their time, their resources. I get to raise them in such a way that they spend wisely, that they learn delayed gratification, they learn how to save for things they want over time.

• 1:13:55George Kamel?

  And to me, that is a, it's a huge burden, but it's also a beautiful responsibility. So I'm excited to lean into that. You know, she barely can, can look at me in the eyes, but I'm still looking forward to those days as we learn those lessons and she gets her first little Ramsey piggy bank and starts to understand, money comes from work. There's three things you can do with it. You can give, save, and spend. And so, you know, well, I'm not gonna have her doing a budget at three years old, but I think it's, it's a really cool opportunity for any parent to raise their kid in such a way that they go, I got to be a part of raising a good human. And we need more of those in today's world. So if you're on the fence, if you're a good person and you're on the fence about having kids, please have the kids, cuz there's a lot of stupid people out there having kids

• 1:14:39George Kamel?

  and we have to displace some of that.

• 1:14:41Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:14:42George Kamel?

  With some amazing humans.

• 1:14:43Lewis Howes?

  That's cool, George. 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 wanna remind you, if no one has told you lately,

• 1:15:25Lewis Howes?

  that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.