How To Build Wealth In 2024

This is how you MASTER YOUR FINANCES in 2024! This week, we're tackling a topic that's on everyone's mind but often misunderstood: MONEY💰 This episode reveals my transformational money management tactics, skills and mindset that will set you up for financial success and security. I'm going to guide you through EXACTLY what you need to know to get ahead in the money game including: saving, planning for retirement, managing debt, and MORE. This isn't just theory; I'm sharing lessons learned from my own experiences, the good, the bad, and the ugly💯 There is so much MISINFORMATION out there about money and I’m here to set the record straight about making informed, strategic financial decisions that SERVE YOU! You’ll learn: How you are sabotaging your own financial success How to escape the trap of spending excessively Discover your FIN (financial independence number) Wealth building Tax Strategies The crucial steps to cultivate financial discipline and habits that align with your goals How to manage the balancing act between Debt and Saving How to make the most out of your Investments MONEY and how to get more of it How to instantly feel better about your money situation Remember, it's not just about making more money; it's about making money work for you! This episode is your stepping stone to not just manage but MASTER your finances, to create a life where money becomes a tool for freedom and joy, not a source of constant stress. 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.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

  I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 p.m. And my third day, 6:00 p.m. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it. Waiting weeks on a big bank for capital? Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason.

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

  Over 20 years in business, over $12 billion deployed to small business across America. Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to cardiff.co/ed. That's cardiff.co/ed. Cardiff.co. Real growth, fast funding. Cardiff. Borrow better.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company, for me, of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:18Speaker 03

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You're stalled, you're freezing, that's what.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:25Speaker 03

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:31Ed Mylett?

  Hey, guys. So have you been feeling a little bit stuck or frustrated with your progress? I know that I hear that often from so many of you. And I wanted to tell you about something called Growth Day. Write this down. GrowthDay.com/ed. My friend Brendan Burchard, who here on the show from time to time, has created the single best personal development app that has ever existed on the planet. And it's incredibly affordable. And I am now contributing to that app on a regular basis. So I do Monday motivations in there. I do different trainings in there. Plus, you get access to some of the best courses that have ever been built on business, entrepreneurship, success, time management, peace of mind, your physical body. It's an incredible place. There's all kinds of tools in there like journals and calendars,

• 2:15Ed Mylett?

  accountability tools as well. Brendan Burchard has crushed this thing. So if you go to GrowthDay.com/ed, you can get some information there. Here's the other thing. I'm not going to be speaking a lot next year. It's going to be very difficult to go see me speak. And a lot of you ask me about, hey, can I come see you speak? So here's what's cool. If you become a member of Growth Day, you actually get two tickets to come see me speak in Los Angeles with a host of other speakers on the house. You don't have to pay for it. So if you go to growthday.com/Ed, you can get all the information on Growth Day and become a member there. And if you become a member, you get into one of these one-day events that are in Los Angeles to see me speak, Brendan Burchard, and usually two or three unbelievable influencers.

• 2:57Ed Mylett?

  I'm going to be doing six of those next year for Brendan and his team and for all of you. So if you want to get access to the best personal development app that has ever existed and as a bonus, go see me speak. I can't believe he's doing this. You can do it. You can get all the info one way or the other at growthday.com/Ed.

• 3:25Ed Mylett?

  This is the Ed Miliband Show.

• 3:29Ed Mylett?

  All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. Today, we're going to talk about money. So many have been emailing and DMing the show saying, would you please, Ed, discuss budgeting and finances a little bit more? Saving, retirement, and debt. So that's what we're going to cover today. We're going to talk about savings, retirement, and debt. And it's something I'm very concerned about. It's very much on my heart. Before I get into some of the things I'm going to cover, let me just say, I'm not coming to you on some soapbox, some guru or expert on a high horse, you know, thinking I have everything figured out or that I'm perfect. I'm actually today coming to you. You're listening to somebody who understands. I've had cars repossessed, unfortunately. I know what it's like to be behind on your credit cards and have them taken from you. I know what it's like to have a house foreclosed on. I know what it's like to really consider bankruptcy.

• 4:14Ed Mylett?

  I've had my power turned off. I've had my mobile phone turned off before. This is not stuff I'm proud of. I've had the water turned off. Man, you don't want that to happen. And most of that stuff was self-inflicted for mistakes that I made. And so I don't want you to make those mistakes. And I see so much terrible advice on podcasts from these gurus, social media, the different examples that are held out there about what wealth looks like and what being rich looks like and what the right things are to do financially. And so we're going to talk about some of those mistakes I've made and that I see being made. In the world today, and it pains me. Let me give you some statistics first. If you make $80,000 a year, do you know about how much money you have to have saved in order to retire just at the same standard of living?

• 4:58Ed Mylett?

  And when I say same standard of living, I'm not talking about now you're retired, you get to take extravagant vacations or anything like that. I mean, just to live the same as you live right now with your job. If you make $80,000 a year, how much money you think you have to have saved? Well, the data tells us you need about $2 million saved after taxes. So what that means is a lot of you say, well, I've got money in my 401k. You do understand you haven't paid your taxes yet when that money comes out of that 401k or that IRA. So after taxes, you need about $2 million saved if you make $80,000 a year to provide the same standard of living. How do we know that? Well, at a $2 million amount of money, 4% interest on that would spit off about $80,000 a year. You could live at about the same standard of living that you currently live at now.

• 5:42Ed Mylett?

  Are you on pace to do that? Because let me tell you what the average American, the median American has saved in the median. $5,000. $5,000 bucks is the median. There's a difference between the median and the average. The median is the person in the middle. The average is when you take all of the affluent people, wealthy people, and all the people that have nothing. The average savings is about $100,000 currently. The median's five grand. That's a problem because when you look at debt, the average American has $114,000 of consumer debt. $114,000, that doesn't count their home loan. That's college loans, car loans, credit card debt. Average person carries about $10,000 on a credit card, average interest rate about 15%.

• 6:26Ed Mylett?

  Can you see there's a problem? We are in a consumer culture. We're in a culture that tells us to spend, spend, spend to keep up with people. We've also got a lot of influencers out there telling you to get rid of all of your money, that you should just, every dollar you get, you should get rid of it, spend it somehow, or invest it, and stay broke so you stay hungry. Let me say something to you about that, first of all. That's terrible advice. This idea that the only way you can stay driven and hungry is to remain broke or to get rid of all of your money is insane. If your motivation level is so low that you need to deplete all of your cash in order to stay hungry and motivated, you don't need to check your bank account, you need to check your actual inspiration level. That's insane. And so the other thing that's in our culture today, and then I'm going to give you some of the keys.

• 7:10Ed Mylett?

  Is that we're trying to keep up with the Joneses. We're trying to impress people by buying really expensive things. Let me say something to you. I've been very fortunate. I've had, you know, like I said, I've been, you're listening to somebody today who said their car repossessed, home foreclosed on, power turned off, water turned off. None of those are things that I'm very proud of. Okay. But I've also been blessed to become very wealthy. I've been blessed to, you know, I've driven every car you could possibly ever have. I've owned them all, basically most all of them. I've had six different jets, including a global express that I bought from Oracle. I own my own island, right? I've owned multiple oceanfront homes. My studio right now is in one of them. I've owned some of the homes in the nicest neighborhoods in the world. I've had, you know, all the material things you could possibly want. And let me tell you something, they're really nice to have, but you can't enjoy them if you're broke.

• 7:56Ed Mylett?

  Living in a really nice house that you can't afford and that you're sweating the payment on all the time is no way to live. And trying to keep up with people, to impress people who don't care by buying stuff you don't need is insane. And I see it happening. And so striving to impress people with material things, let me just say this to you upfront, doesn't work. It doesn't impress them. And for the few that it does impress, those are the wrong types of people. You want people to be impressed with the content of your character, with the way you live your life, the way you treat your family and other people. And if to get them to be impressed by you, you need a particular purse or a particular jacket or pair of shoes, those are people whose approval you don't want anyway. Yet we seek it, don't we?

• 8:37Ed Mylett?

  To keep up with people, we're in a consumer culture, which is why consumer debt is so high relative to savings. And so, and by the way, if you're a young person, listeners, you go, well, I don't care about retirement. That's 30, 40 years away. First off, it's going to happen faster than you think. But let me ask you this, do you want to be in control of your life? Do you want to be able to call the shots and not have the world dictate shots to you? Do you want to be able to help your parents or your siblings or your friends at any time you want to? Do you want to be able to take advantage of opportunities when they come along and be able to write a check at any time you want to buy something on discount that's an asset as opposed to a liability? So at any age, you should be saving money. I figured this out by the time I was about 23, I had made some money. And like I said, I had a house foreclosed, a car repoed, and I started to change the way I viewed things.

• 9:21Ed Mylett?

  I found out most of these people I was impressing with these cars that I had, they weren't around once I didn't have them. They weren't impressed with me, they were impressed with the car. And you know the other thing about nice stuff? It's out of style in like two or three years anyway. Right? Like, the truth is, even a nice house you have, stylistically, in 10 or 12 years, it's dated. It just is. What I started to get addicted to was watching my savings account grow, watching my investments grow, watching my assets grow. I got more fired up every month saving money, stacking paper, than I did with what I was buying to impress people. And then I'm gonna give you the keys in a minute. I'm 52 years old, I'm worth hundreds of millions of dollars, I've made hundreds of millions of dollars, and I've only bought two new cars in

• 10:03Ed Mylett?

  my entire life. Because buying a new car is one of the dumbest things you could do. You should be either leasing your cars or buying them used. Let someone else pay all that depreciation. You let that thing drive off the car lot, let them drive it for a year or two, and then you buy that thing on a discount. It's still gonna drop after you buy it, but not at the same rate as the dummy who buys the new car. So, let's go through a few things here that can help you. Number one, by the way, that stat I gave you earlier, if you make $80,000 a year, you need $2 million. That's if you're retiring today. If you make $80,000 a year and you're retiring 30 years from now, if you factor in inflation, you'll need $5 million. So you have to start to ask yourself, are you on pace? Are you doing the things that will get you wealthy? And that's where I want to begin. The first thing you have to do when it comes to money is get some goals

• 10:47Ed Mylett?

  and some outcomes. And this is for everybody who makes minimum wage, all the way up to those of you that are making six, or seven, and even eight figures. You need to have financial outcomes, a financial focus. If you don't invest or save money when you're making very little, you will not invest or save money when you're making a lot. That's one of the great fallacies and lies about money, is that people think, "Well, I'm on this limited amount of income, so once I make more, I'll save more." That's not what I see happen. I see someone making $40,000 a year, living paycheck to paycheck, and then when they're making $70,000, now instead of driving a Honda, maybe they got a Lexus, instead of having a so-so apartment, they got a nice

• 11:30Ed Mylett?

  apartment. And then when they go from $70,000 to $100,000, then they upgrade from the Lexus to the Mercedes, and they buy a house. And they deplete their savings buying a house. And then when they go from 100, if they do, to 150,000, they get rid of that house, they get a more expensive house, and then they got a second car. And a second house and they never get around to really accumulating any savings. In other words, they upgrade their lifestyle as they make more money. Smart people don't change their lifestyle for a long, long time. When they begin to make more money and they begin to build the habits and disciplines of a wealthy person when they're a broke person. I was saving money. See, here's how old I am.

• 12:11Ed Mylett?

  I was making minimum wage working McKinley Home for Boys, working at an orphanage that I worked at. And I was making minimum wage, which back then was $8 an hour. And I was still finding a way to save $50 a month in a savings, in a forced savings. Because I wasn't going to Starbucks, I didn't have cable TV. I eliminated basic things because I wanted to build it and I started to get excited. Wow, I got $300 saved. I've got $1,500 saved. I've got $6,000 saved. As my friends were buying expensive cars. In fact, there's a great story I tell often that even when I started to make money, I wanted to buy a Mercedes. I bought a fake one. I bought a kit car. I bought a Chrysler LeBaron with a Mercedes body on it. Because I wanted to look like I was driving a Mercedes, but I want to spend the money. That's a true story, by the way. I had a kit car.

• 12:56Ed Mylett?

  It was a LeBaron with a Mercedes body on it because I was so addicted to saving and accumulating money.

• 13:04Ed Mylett?

  So it's that time of year, everybody's talking about forming new habits. You change your habits, you're going to change your life, right? Well, I'm sure you've started some new habits this year. But how are you going to track those habits? Have you ever wondered which habits matter more than the other ones? What do the high performers do in life? What do the ultra successful do? You should track them daily, monthly, weekly. There's all these different things. And a lot of people know they need to improve their habits, but they don't know where to start. And that's why I think you're going to love Growth Day. You keep hearing me talk about Growth Day over and over again. Because I'm such a believer in the tools and the environment and the system that Growth Day provides. And it's affordable, which is most important. Growth Day is the number one personal development system in the world.

• 13:46Ed Mylett?

  Help you track your habits, lead to long-term success and well-being. You can score your life every day, week and month in there. Plus, you're part of a community of people that are achieving and changing their lives at the same time. You get target video training, you get live training from people like me in there. Brendon Burchard, Trent Shelton, just to name a few. Courses from some of the top leaders that have ever existed in personal development and business. All come as a part of the package. So you can even score your life in different categories on there. Finances, mission, relationships, mindset. And the reason I think people love Growth Day the most is that you can finally understand what matters and you can score your habits. And actually create a real change in your life. And like I said, I feel like it's very affordable.

• 14:28Ed Mylett?

  What you measure, you can change. So hop into growthday.com/ed today. And start being serious about measuring and improving every area of your life. Listen. You deserve the know and you deserve to grow and win. So. Monday motivation videos by me are in there every Monday. You get a free trial at growthday.com/ed. Let me say that to you again. You can actually get a free trial right now at growthday.com/ed. Go check it out. Growth Day is the place where I can help you stay on track and have your A game all year long. GrowthDay.com/ed. This episode is sponsored by Ro. A lot of people assume GLP-1's cost a fortune.

• 15:11Ed Mylett?

  And that assumption keeps them from even looking into treatment. Ro helps people find a more affordable path to FDA-approved GLP-1 treatment. Ro wants to help people lose weight. That's why they have more affordable GLP-1 options. Whether you're paying with insurance or cash. Ro's free insurance checker makes it easy to see if you're covered for GLP-1 injections. Just submit your insurance card and Ro handles the rest. No paperwork, no waiting on hold, no confusing phone calls. And if insurance doesn't cover treatment, there are still options. Ro offers the lowest cost cash pay FDA-approved GLP-1s. Such as daily pills and multi-dose pens. I use products by Ro and you should too.

• 15:50Ed Mylett?

  Go to ro.co/milet to see if you qualify. That's R-O dot C-O slash Milet to get started on Ro. For side effects of GLP-1 medication. Including boxed warning, go to ro.co forward slash safety, ro.co slash safety. So when I end, when I end up buying the island, we had to do all of our outdoor decorating and I spent a fortune in the first half of the place. And I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore, but I want the best stuff. And that's where Wayfair came in. My wife wanted to get this new garden bed and Wayfair was the place that offered the perfect solution. Wayfair also helps you create a home that stands up to real life with quality products, great value and trusted reviews. Wayfair verified products are hand vetted by product specialists. They use a 10 point quality inspection system. Here's what I could tell you, the stuff has lasted over time. It looks great and I get compliments on it.

• 16:35Ed Mylett?

  Shop thousands of products across every style and budget, whether you're trying to refresh your space for fall or transform your space for Halloween. Use filters, custom photos and reviews to find the right fit for your home. More than 20 million verified five star reviews, 20 million. So transform your space with the pieces that hold up to real life. Join Wayfair rewards today and get 5% back on every 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.

• 17:07Speaker 04

  Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 17:10Ed Mylett?

  First things first, let me give you some keys. Number one is you need to decide what your outcomes are and what your goals are financially. Do you want to have financial freedom and independence? Right? That's one level of wealth. Or do you want to be like stone ass wealthy? Those are two totally different things. And for a lot of people, the answer is I just like some financial peace and independence. I don't have to have Lamborghinis and jets and islands and all these other things. But I sure would like to live financially peacefully. I'd like to someday not have to work. I'd like to pay off my house. I'd like to have a bunch of money saved, whatever that is for you. I want some element, I don't want debt. Scriptures tell us, oh, no man, nothing. I'd like some financial peace in my life. And the truth is,

• 17:54Ed Mylett?

  I think most people see the wealthy thing on Instagram all the time and think that's what they want, but maybe it's not what you want. Maybe the truth is you just like more time. If you could just save enough money to pay all your bills and have your house taken care of and some basic stuff, maybe you'd like to take more time off. And if you're one of those people who say money's not that big of a deal to me, I get that. And the truth of the matter is that's how I started out. It was not that big of a deal to me, but I knew the lack of money, man, I knew that was a real big deal. I didn't want to be broke. I don't want to be stressed. I did not want to be in a position in my life where I couldn't help my family if I needed to. And so my first goals were not to be super wealthy, they were to get financially independent. And the first step in doing that is you need to know your financial independence number, your FIN number.

• 18:37Ed Mylett?

  Your FIN number is the amount of money you need saved so that living off the interest on that money, you no longer need to work anymore. The next thing is this, you gotta stop going into debt. You gotta stop spending money to impress people. You gotta stop it. You gotta stop buying meals on credit. Stay out of malls, frankly. I've been to a mall maybe five times in 15 years. You know what? Monitor and really be smart about your Amazon account. Don't have people shipping you stuff you don't need to your house. Take a look at all your subscriptions. Do you need all of them? Do you need every single one of those subscriptions? Or could you eliminate some of those things if you're on a budget and start to put that money into savings? The next thing is to understand the distinction between three separate things. You need an emergency fund set up.

• 19:22Ed Mylett?

  An emergency fund is three to six months of your current expenses accessible at any given time. You need that money set aside. That's a case of a job loss, car breaks down, somebody needs some help, emergency. Quite frankly, life's just going to happen. So the first things first is you need three to six months of money set aside in an emergency fund. You should start to make that your goal and in your ambition and start chipping away at doing that. If you're someone making a lot of money, right now carve that amount out and put it to the side. The second thing that you need to do is you need to have savings. Savings is just money that you're accumulating that in case you need it, it's there for a rainy day. You should have some savings. Anybody who tells you you shouldn't is wrong. Okay, so you have some measure of savings.

• 20:06Ed Mylett?

  And then the third thing is investing. That's money you're going to take that has some risk to it that you're going to try to get rates of return on. And I'm not going to tell you where to put that money today. But I can tell you that you need an emergency fund, savings, and then investments. The only advice I'll give you on saving money, because I'm licensed, I'm not, I can't recommend particular investments. What I will say to you is this, if you can't explain it to me, you shouldn't be putting your money in it. If you can't understand it and explain it back to me, it's not the place for you to be putting your money yet. And if you don't have a financial professional in your life who can explain things to you in a basic way so that you can understand them, you have to ask yourself why they're confusing you. You have to ask yourself that, right? Sometimes people like to make things seem very sophisticated and complex so that you

• 20:50Ed Mylett?

  think you need them, and that maybe potentially you make a bad decision. You ought to be able to explain to me why your money's in there and how it works and what it's doing, and anybody can do it. Even somebody who doesn't want to know a lot about financial education, doesn't matter, you should be able to do that. Okay, so that's number one. The next thing is, as soon as you can afford it, make sure you have a competent tax person and CPA in your life. If you're someone making a lot of money, you really need a good tax person in your life, a professional competent tax or CPA, and you probably ought to be working with somebody who can help you with your money as well. Make sure you have a financial game plan and direct it, and make sure you're running a budget. Now, in my budget recommendations, here's what I'm going to ask you to do. I'm going to ask you to take the first 30% of your money, if you can afford it, 30%

• 21:34Ed Mylett?

  of your money, and give it to your tithing and to pay yourself first. If you can't do 30%, if it's down to even 10%, carve something out that you're going to give away, and carve something out because of the law of reciprocity, and carve something out that you pay yourself first every month. Take it off the top. Don't pay yourself last because you're never going to get paid. If you make $3,000 a month, take $50 and pay yourself first and now you make 2950 a month. You say, Ed, that sounds good. You're a rich guy. Listen, I spend every single dollar I do every month. I understand it. I've lived on minimum wage. And I'm telling you that even when I lived on minimum wage, I found a way to pay myself first. You need to get in control of your life. And the way you get in control of your life is you first control your spending.

• 22:19Ed Mylett?

  You control your budgeting. You control your financial discipline. You begin to make this a massive priority in your life, that you're going to become somebody who is financially in control. Because if you start the habits of being financially in control, eventually you will be in control and you will call the shots in your life. So please budget and begin to save your money and don't invest in something you can't. Get clear on what you want. And if you're younger, start saving money now. You'll build the habits of a, trust me, I'm 52 years old. I started doing this in my early twenties and I really believe that's why I'm wealthy. Stay with me on this.

• 22:53Ed Mylett?

  There's a bunch of people you see on social media that won't be rich someday, that look rich right now. I have more friends in my life, listen to me, those of you that are making a little bit of money, that used to be rich than that currently are. I've watched them go seasons of five or eight or 10 years where they were balling. They were making real money. They were driving the nice car, the nice vacation. They bought this or that. And then bam, things changed. They got caught with their pants down financially. They had no money saved, no cash, dead up to their eyeballs. You're not. And so I have more friends that used to be rich than currently are because they weren't in control of themselves.

• 23:33Ed Mylett?

  They didn't have delayed gratification. They had no financial discipline, no budget, no game plan, no goals, no outcome. Now, when it comes to your investments, let me just say this to you. There's lots of places to save money. I can't recommend it. And I know the kind of the cool thing right now, and I've made a lot of money in real estate. That's a great place, you know, start flipping houses. That's one of the real Vogue things. That's great. And you should, maybe that is what you should be doing, but you're one bad flip away from being broke too, which is why you still need cash saved. How about having a plan in your life where if it goes bad, you're still okay? And I'm not talking about, I know maybe you listen, you go, well, Ed, that's just a luxury I don't have. Of course you do. You can save some money. There are ways to do it. And if you're not making enough money, then you need to get a second job.

• 24:15Ed Mylett?

  Work a second job. I've had multiple jobs at any given time, many times. When I was an entrepreneur, many times I had to go back and get a night job to support my entrepreneurial hustle. Being an entrepreneur is not easy. Being an entrepreneur is difficult. You entrepreneurs listen to this? Maybe you're going behind. Maybe you need to get a job two days a week or stocking shelves at night. I stocked shelves at a grocery store for two years while I was building my business because my business wasn't keeping my family afloat and I still had to save money. So some of you that are entrepreneurs, maybe it's getting a second job. Some of you have a full-time job. Maybe it's starting a second business. Maybe you need a second income stream. The truth is that in this day and age, with how crazy things cost and how out of control

• 24:59Ed Mylett?

  taxes are, you may need secondary income. So if you have a job, maybe it's starting a side hustle on the side or a second job. If you're an entrepreneur, maybe it's having a second job on the side that's part-time to support your business. It's okay to work a lot. It's okay to have financial discipline. It's okay to go through a season of your life where you sacrifice lots of things, including time, in order to get wealthy. But the hardest thing that I see, the most heartbreaking thing, are those people doing the grind, making the sacrifice, doing all the things to make money, and then they have no game plan, no financial discipline, and they watch all these idiots on Instagram or social media go, man, I gotta have the car. I gotta have the house. I gotta have the nightclub. I gotta have the steak.

• 25:45Ed Mylett?

  Man, sometimes even me, when I show the things I have, I've got, you know, I'm lucky now. In this video, I've got a stupid expensive watch on, right? I didn't start buying expensive watches or cars until I could write checks for them and not just write checks for them, not sweat the check where it didn't make a dent in my savings. Can you imagine saving up $200,000 and dropping $130,000 on a stupid watch? Now you got 70 grand. I didn't start writing checks for watches like that till I had millions of dollars saved. And sometimes I think that's a bad example. Because the truth of the matter is, this watch is great, and you know what? I barely ever look at it, and I got a couple other ones, they're stupid. I've had a lot of nice cars, and you know what? The minute you drive by somebody, they're not impressed anymore.

• 26:31Ed Mylett?

  And if I am impressing them, it's probably the wrong person. That's not to say, part of getting wealthy isn't to have nice stuff. I get that, I like nice stuff. I've become accustomed to it. But I didn't start partaking in it until I had earned it. And I had earned it with the work I did and all of the savings and investing I had done. And then if it's 1% of my money, okay, who cares? That's play money. But if it's 20, 30, 40% of your cash? And you're spending it on stupid stuff like cars and clothes? And steaks? And wine? That's dumb. Right? And trust me, I've had every car you could possibly almost think of. Lambos, Ferraris, Mercedes, Rolls Royce, whatever. I've had six jets. Like I said, the last jet I bought from Oracle, a Global Express jet. I've had all those things, they're amazing.

• 27:16Ed Mylett?

  They're not amazing if you have debt on them. They're not. They're not amazing if you have to worry about paying for them. They're not amazing if they're a major chunk of your cash. They're not. Remember that. The average American has $100,000 in consumer debt. And $5,000 of savings. The average American needs $2 million to retire. And they got 5 grand. Is that sad or what? And so we need to budget, we need to save money. Why is saving money matter, Ed? It gives you control. And whether we like it or not, in this lifetime? We need to be able to protect our families. And protect ourselves. And make decisions. As an entrepreneur? One of the reasons you need to have financial discipline is that lack of financial discipline

• 28:01Ed Mylett?

  will cause you to make bad decisions as a business person. You'll make decisions based on money or pressure because you haven't saved money. As a friend, let me say this to you, you just remember this. Your lack of financial discipline as an entrepreneur will eventually affect your business. It'll eventually affect your business. What's the number one mistake I see entrepreneurs do? They don't pay their taxes. They get behind on taxes. They say, wow, I made $30,000 last month. No, you didn't. You made $30,000 if you're a 1099, you're self-employed, you're 1099, real estate agent, insurance agent, business owner. You made $30,000 last month before taxes. You probably made more like 18,000, but you're living like you made 30. Those of you that are employees that have a job, it's your lack of discipline saving money.

• 28:46Ed Mylett?

  It's your lack of having a game plan. It's running up debt that you don't need. And again, I'm not trying to be insensitive to anybody who doesn't have, you know, a lot of income coming in. I've lived that way. I lived in a single parent, I lived in a family where my mother stayed home and raised our family, the most important job on the planet. And we had one income, which was my dad's. And I know what that can look like. I know when my, I remember one time when my dad lost his job and how absolutely destroyed our family was and worried about what was going to come when my dad was unemployed for a while. And thank God, my dad had an emergency fund and we had money to live off for those months where he was finding work. And so this stuff matters. It has ramifications. Begin to educate yourself. Evaluate what you drive.

• 29:30Ed Mylett?

  If you're on a budget, do you need to drive that car? Or could you get something less expensive, reduce the payment? Or actually cash something out and do something with that savings? Evaluate what you subscribe to, your subscriptions. Get serious and get focused. And stop caring what people think about what your stuff is. I promise you, nobody cares that matters. Nobody does. And I want to say this to you about real estate. A lot of you ask me about real estate. I think that's a great place. I do not believe it's the only place, though. And so begin to educate yourself about the different places you could put money. But the most important thing is to begin to build the habits so that you become long-term financially independent and maybe stone ass wealthy. And for those of you that are making money, please don't be one of these people that was rich just for a little while or successful just for a little while.

• 30:16Ed Mylett?

  That you had this tremendous blessing of making some money, maybe more than you've ever made for a little window of time. And you blew it on stuff and you didn't save and accumulate and invest. Don't go into debt that you don't need to. Some debt is good debt. We all know this debt on liabilities is terrible. Debt on cars, debt on clothes, debt on food, debt on stuff you don't need. That's terrible. Debt on assets. Everyone says, well, that's great. Well, maybe. I mean, sometimes it's great. You still got to buy the right property at the right price. It's still got to be something you can afford and handle. Right? Just because it's debt on a, on an asset doesn't make it good debt. It just means it's definitely not stupid. Right? I've had so many friends.

• 31:01Ed Mylett?

  That were doing pretty well for a while. And now they're not. And they're not because their lack of savings created pressure in the bad times. And when the bad times came because they were under pressure unnecessarily, they should have had money saved and invested. But because they didn't, they made bad decisions under pressure. And ultimately those decisions were made because of financial pressure. And that financial pressure ruined their businesses. Had they just saved money in the good times, they could have rode out the bad times. And so this is the same whether you have a business or a family. You've got to plan for winter. Listen to me. Winter comes in everyone's life. There's four seasons for a reason. There's summer, spring, winter and fall.

• 31:44Ed Mylett?

  And in, and that metaphorically is true in our lives. You're gonna have a spring in your life, probably at some point where you've got some financial opportunities. And it's going to be sunny out in the summer. And then there's going to be a time where you start to have anxiety and things begin to change. The leaves of your life begin to change and you can feel it maybe not the way you want it to. What's just fall? And ultimately there's going to be a winter. And all of our lives, there's a financial winter. There's a winter where we lose our job. Or our car breaks down, or there's a disaster or a family need. Or our income and our business drops. Or we just have massive expenses in a short window of time that we have to make. So that winter is going to come. Please prepare for winter. Whether you don't make a lot of money or you do make a lot of money.

• 32:28Ed Mylett?

  I can tell you this, if you begin to develop the habits of budgeting and have an emergency fund and saving money and staying out of stupid debt, right? And investing after your savings, wherever you believe that that's appropriate. When you have those habits and you make good choices and you begin to live in some financial harmony and peace consistent with your values, that when winter comes, you can ride it out. I've had probably four or five winters since my mid twenties and I've been able to ride them out. And if I can be really candid with you, because I had saved a lot of cash, I was able to make a lot of money during other people's winters. When they had to sell their house or their business or their asset. I could buy them at a discount because I had cash or I had investments.

• 33:13Ed Mylett?

  So I hope that helps you all very much. I care about this topic tremendously. I care about your family. I care about your wellbeing and I believe at any income level, you can have some measure of financial peace if you just build the habits. And it may be that if you're at that lower income level right now and you're like, man, it's just such a grind. I understand, I relate. I truly do. But I can tell you, you'll feel better about yourself if you can save just a little something. And you're like, man, I'm doing the right thing. I'm building the right habits, man. It's not showing a lot now and man, my friends think I'm silly to be saving $10 here, $8 there, $30 there, $50 there. But I know if I can serve eight, save eight and 30 and 50 now. When my spring comes and I'm making a little bit more money,

• 33:56Ed Mylett?

  that's going to be 500 and 5,000 and 50,000 and someday maybe 500,000. And I'll be able to live my financial dreams or at least control and protect my family like I'm supposed to do. I hope this helped you today. If it did, share it with somebody who's young or old at any stage of their life. They begin to build these habits and I hope you share our show as well. It's the fastest growing show in the world for a reason. And let me say this to you. If you want help on your personal development, you can go to growthday.com. My friend Brendan Burchard's got a great app. Growthday.com/Ed. You can get some information there. God bless you. Max out your life, not your credit cards.