Why Everyone Seems to Have More Money Than You (You're Not Behind!)

In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to talk about why it feels like everyone is ahead of you financially. How Andrew Can Help You: Don't let another year pass by without making significant strides toward your dreams. "Master Your Money Goals" is your pathway to a future where your aspirations are not just wishes but realities. Enroll now and make this year count! Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest! Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel! , Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok. Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here. Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/pfp Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Monarch Money: Get an extended 30 day free trial at monarchmoney.com/pfp Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to fundrise.com/pfp Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Right now, my listeners can get a free 2-week trial at 1password.com/PERSONALFINANCE to help secure their growing business. The Rundown by Public.com—your daily financial news podcast. Listen now: The Rundown Podcast Go to joindeleteme.com/pfp20 for 20% off! Relevant Episodes: How to Build Wealth on a Low Income (You Can Do This!) 20 Unconventional Passive Income Ideas! The Best Financial Strategies (BY INCOME!) The 6 Numbers You Must Know to Build Wealth (The Financial Scorecard) Connect With Andrew on Social Media: Instagram TikTok Twitter Master Money Website Master Money Youtube Channel Free Guides: The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money How to Negotiate Your Salary The 75 Day Money Challenge Get out Of Debt Fast Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Andrew Giancola?

  Longtime listeners know, one of the best ways to build wealth is to increase your income. And one way to do that is by starting a side hustle. And that's one reason why I absolutely love Whatnot. Now, my son and I, we love collecting sports cards. And we've used Whatnot to buy and sell cards. It's been a really fun way to enjoy something we love together. Now, Whatnot is a live shopping platform where people sell everything from sports cards to clothing, electronics, and collectibles. And what's really cool about it is you can turn something you're passionate about into a business. And you could do it right from your phone. You don't even need a storefront or a website. So whether you're looking to make some extra money or find great deals on your next shopping trip, check out Whatnot.

• 0:44Andrew Giancola?

  Search Whatnot, that's W H A T N O T, in the App Store. Download and start selling right away. When I started the Personal Finance Podcast, I had no idea how big it could become. I just knew I had something I wanted to share, so I started putting it online. And looking back, I definitely wish I would have started a decade earlier. One of the horror parts about building something online, though, is making it look professional. A website used to mean hiring a developer, figuring out design, and potentially spending thousands of dollars. In fact, on my website, I spent tens of thousands of dollars. That's what impressed me when playing around with Hostinger's AI website builder.

• 1:27Andrew Giancola?

  I told it what kind of website I wanted, and I built the first version in minutes. No coding, no designer or developer needed. And Hostinger doesn't stop at launch. Their AI can help with SEO, website copy, email marketing, and more. Plus, your domain, website, email, and marketing can all live in one account, with plans starting at just $3 every single month. Hostinger builds your vision step by step. Create your website today. Go to hostinger.com/pfp and use code PFP for 10% off now. On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, why it feels like everyone is ahead of you financially, next.

• 2:24Andrew Giancola?

  What's up everybody and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of mastermoney.co and today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be talking about why it feels like everyone is ahead of you financially. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the master money newsletter by going to mastermoney.co/newsletter and you can respond to any of those issues that come out every single week. And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on. And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. And don't

• 3:06Andrew Giancola?

  forget to follow us on YouTube as well. We are putting these episodes all on YouTube and you can follow along there. Now today, we are going to be diving into why it feels like everyone is ahead of you financially. And there's a news flash for you. And I'm going to tell you this right now, I promise you, you are most likely not as far behind as you think that you are. If you scroll social media today, it may look like everybody out there is doing better than you. You may see people taking vacations, or buying brand new cars, or renting high-rise apartments. And it may seem like they're doing way more than you can ever possibly do. And what this does for a lot of people is it causes them stress and it causes them anxiety when it comes to their money because they think, hey,

• 3:49Andrew Giancola?

  I must be doing something wrong. I must be behind. Now, I'm here to tell you that you are not behind. It may feel like that you are behind, but most people are really, really bad at managing money. And they stretch their dollars way farther than what they have to show for it. And it's going to show inside their bank account. It may not show up front when you see them, but it's going to show in their bank account. Now, we did a tweet recently, that we put on a bunch of different social networks that went viral, but it said, hey, someone out there with $150,000 G-Wagon and $1,000 in the bank account, everyone is going to think they're rich. But someone with $150,000 invested? And driving a 2014 Honda Accord? People aren't going to think they're rich at all. They're going to think they're not doing well.

• 4:32Andrew Giancola?

  And this is the problem with society. See, you have to change your mindset in the way that you see wealth. When you look at people, this is the biggest thing that you need to do is shift your mindset. Wealth cannot be seen with the naked eye. You have to go and uncover layers and most millionaires out there are actually hiding in plain sight. This is the premise of The Millionaire Next Door. If you've never read that book, this is part of the premise of that is most millionaires are hiding in plain sight. The Millionaire Next Door actually said this, they said, one, most millionaires are actually private about their wealth. So a lot of times millionaires want to avoid unwarranted attention or pressure to spend more. So a lot of times they have what's called stealth wealth, or they are quiet millionaires. And this is something that I think a lot of us need to understand.

• 5:15Andrew Giancola?

  It's actually a very important trait to hide your wealth in certain situations. We will have a future episode talking about that and why and diving deeper into that because I think it's really, really important. Secondly, is The Millionaire Next Door found that a lot of millionaires actually live very frugally and/or they have frugal living tendencies. One of the wealthiest people I know, you would never be able to tell they're almost a billionaire if you just looked at them. They drive normal cars, they live normal lives. But if you actually figured out how much money they made, it's absolutely amazing how much wealth they have. If you go into the Berkshire Hathaway Conference, there's not a Gucci belt in sight in that place. That's Warren Buffett's conference. And this is something a lot of people need to understand.

• 5:55Andrew Giancola?

  Is that wealth is not a show off thing. People who show off, a lot of times are not making the best financial decisions in their life. You have to be really, really wealthy to be a good show off. And so for most people, we gotta make sure that we change our mindset when it comes to doing this. Flaunting your wealth means that you can lose it all. If you continuously flaunt your wealth, that can become a habit that gets worse and worse and worse. We call it here in the personal finance community, we call it lifestyle inflation. But really what you're doing is you're flaunting your wealth because you want people to think you're doing better than you actually are. And so most of you out there who are getting discouraged by all of this happening, people taking amazing vacations every single month, people doing amazing things, they're able to send their Kids to private school. They're driving the brand new Tahoe or Suburban.

• 6:40Andrew Giancola?

  They're driving the brand new BMW or Mercedes. Let me tell you something right now. Most of those people that you see in your life are up to their eyeballs in debt. Not you though, because you listen to the personal finance podcast. You are a wealth builder. And so you're going to be able to build a tremendous amount of wealth. If you practice stealth wealth, if you practice becoming a quiet millionaire, I promise you your income will exceed your expenses and you'll be able to invest the difference, which is the gap. So let me say this upfront, getting rich is simple, but it's not easy. We have temptations surrounding us left and right. There's advertisements telling you you need to spend on social media. People are telling you, you need to consume more and more and more.

• 7:25Andrew Giancola?

  And there is nothing wrong with consumption. There's nothing wrong with spending your bankroll on the things that you love. I want that for you. And in long time listeners know that. We want you to spend your dollars though, on your values. We want your dollars to go and stretch further on your values. And we want you to spend less on the things that do not matter to you. Who cares what your neighbors have? Who cares what your friends have? Focus on yourself and the things that you can control. This is what we're going to be talking about today. There's going to be a lot of psychology involved in this episode because psychology is so incredibly involved in our consumption decisions that we want to make sure that we master this stuff. You gotta master the mental side of your money. It is 90% of the battle. And so we'll be talking a lot more about psychology and we'll be talking a lot more

• 8:10Andrew Giancola?

  about how you need to master the mental game of money. Because it is a tremendous thing that once you get this down, my friends, it will change your life. Have you ever been in a cycle where you're just spending dollars? And all of a sudden it starts to get out of control and you're spending more and more and more and more. And then all of a sudden you get this really terrible feeling in the pit of your stomach. Like I just spent way too much. I want that to be avoided for you. And most people continuously do that month over month over month. They treat $500 like $500 is worth nothing anymore. And this is something I want to change for you today. So today we're going to be diving more into this and I'm going to talk through actual seven reasons why you're not as far behind as you think you might be. Let's get into it.

• 8:55Andrew Giancola?

  Reason number one is we as humans tend to compare ourselves to others. Now, I've said this before and it is one of my favorite parts of the book, The Psychology of Money, that Morgan Housel talks about this concept. But whenever you see someone driving a fancy car, do you think to yourself, "Man, that person looks really, really cool in that car?" Or do you think to yourself, "Man, I would look really, really cool in my car." For most people, it's the latter. And one thing we actually do is we tend to compare ourselves to someone else and we see them having something, but we really think about ourselves in that specific situation. It's not like we actually think that person is elevated because of some of the things that they have. Instead, what a lot of people do is they wish they were in that situation.

• 9:40Andrew Giancola?

  Now, this is something that you gotta make sure that you understand that you're going to do this. This is human nature. Humans will compare themselves to those who appear more successful. It is human nature. This is how it works. This is how our minds work. It has happened since the beginning of time. The key is to recognize this, though, so you don't feel bad about it. So it doesn't induce stress or anxiety. Instead, we're going to be able to control these feelings because we understand how this works. Psychology actually has a term for this. It's called the social comparison theory. And in the social comparison theory, it actually explains how we constantly evaluate our own status based on others. So we're actually comparing ourselves to others instead of realizing that we're actually in a very good situation.

• 10:24Andrew Giancola?

  When we see outward markers of wealth, we instinctively feel bad, even though those markers often hide financial instability. This is something that you need to recognize, is the social comparison theory. It is something that you are going to do time in and time out. If somebody gets something brand new that is better than the thing that you have, you're gonna want that thing, especially if it's your taste or your style or something along those lines. Have you ever had a friend who got just a beautiful, amazing, brand-new house? Maybe it's a custom-built house and it's got all the warm undertones that are in style right now. Maybe it's got beige galore going all the way across the house. You know who you are, who you like those.

• 11:04Andrew Giancola?

  So this is something that I think a lot of people become very envious because now this person abides in a place that I wish I could have. Well, let me tell you something here. Unless somebody made that purchase responsibly, 30% or less of their income. We teach how to buy a house on this podcast very specifically, total cost of ownership. They ran the maintenance costs. They most likely made a bad financial decision if they do not have the means to do so. If they listen to their mortgage lender who said they could afford a 40% of their income on a mortgage, they're in big, big trouble, my friends. And so this is something you cannot compare yourself to other people. You have no idea what is going on in closed doors. And so

• 11:45Andrew Giancola?

  number two is most of these lifestyles that we are jealous of are just a facade. We compare ourselves to people, but most of the time they are just a facade of what is actually going on behind closed doors, behind the financial veil. Debt levels are rising at massive records across the country. And the more that we compare ourselves to people and try to keep up with people because of that comparison, the worse off we are going to be. So you need to recognize this upfront. It is the new year. It's about to be the new year. And guess what, my friends? We gotta change our mindset when it comes to this stuff. Do not try to keep up with the Joneses. What we need to realize is that true wealth comes from investing in the future, personal growth, and skills. It does not come from outward appearances. So what can we do about

• 12:28Andrew Giancola?

  this? One, is you can track what really matters. You can track what really matters, which is your net worth. It is not even how much money you have coming in, although that really does matter, and it makes the entire situation much easier. But if your net worth is growing every single month, that is a huge, huge win, my friends. It is huge for you to see your net worth rising over time. So you can use a tool like Monarch Money, for example, you can use promo code PFP, and you get 20% off on that. There's other tools out there as well. You can use a spreadsheet if you want a free version. There's so many different things that you can use, but make sure you understand your net worth is the scoreboard. That's what you need to focus on. Stop comparing yourself to other people. Instead, focus on the scoreboard, which is your net worth. Now, reason number two, why it feels like we are behind everyone else is invisible.

• 13:14Andrew Giancola?

  Spending habits. So most people out there are going to have different spending priorities and not all spending is visible. So let's give an example here. Let's say, for example, your friend takes a bunch of luxury vacations. You see them going to Hawaii. You see them going to Cabo. You see them going to Sandropay, which I don't even know where that is. You see them going all over the place. But guess what? That same exact person saves $0 in their 401k. They save $0 in their Roth IRA. They bought $1,000 worth of Bitcoin one time and they have no idea what they're doing for retirement. They spend all their money on kids' activities and they spend all their money on these extracurricular activities, but they have $0 saved for retirement. Well, my friends, that person has a real problem.

• 13:56Andrew Giancola?

  They're gaining life experience, which is absolutely beautiful, and I want you to travel more. And I want you to go to all these places, including Sandropay, which I don't know where it is. But I want you to do it in a way that makes sense, where you're hitting your investment goals and you can do that. Imagine if you could do both, how beautiful and amazing that would feel for your life. This is where true wealth is built. When you can do both, man, you've got it all. You've got it all financially when you can do both. So I want that for you specifically. I want you to see the difference in that and see how powerful that truly can be. Meanwhile, your coworker out there who's wearing plain jeans and plain clothes and driving a plain old car, but they have maybe six, even seven figures in their 401k. Boy, oh, boy, that is a major difference from someone who's taking vacations left and right

• 14:40Andrew Giancola?

  and not even being able to take on this situation. The Federal Reserve reports that 39% of Americans couldn't cover a $400 emergency expense. My goodness, it is really foolish to compare yourself to people when four out of the 10 people that you're comparing yourself to can't even cover a $400 expense. You've got to be able to make sure that you know and understand that most people are not in as good of a financial situation as it may look. It doesn't tell the real story. They may have credit card debt. They may have payday loans. They may have drained savings. They may have a HELOC that's just locked up. And so you've got to make sure that you understand this. In behavioral economics, there's something called the availability heuristic. And this causes us to judge situations based on the most visible.

• 15:24Andrew Giancola?

  Invisible evidence, ignoring the unseen. So ignoring the savings, the investments, the debt, all this stuff. We ignore that and we only focus on the most visible thing. And stealth wealth is something that really does matter tremendously in the long run. And it's something we really got to think about. So celebrate your invisible wins. Think about your invisible wins and the things that you're actually doing that nobody else can see. It's not like you're going out there and maxing out your 401k and then posting about it left and right. Your boy does it because your boy talks about money all day long. But it's not like you're doing that with your friends. You're not making a Facebook post after you maxed out your 401k saying, "Bollin' just maxed out my 401k." No, nobody does that. And if you do do that, people are going to be like, "Well, this guy's just bragging." It's weird how people won't celebrate stuff like that, but they'll celebrate your brand new car,

• 16:09Andrew Giancola?

  which is a depreciating asset. Isn't that interesting? It is interesting to me. Reason number three is that true wealth is actually stealth. Now stealth wealth, that term I first originally heard, I think from Financial Samurai. But I love just that it rhymes and it's an interesting way to say it. But the people call it quiet millionaires, the millionaire next door. There's different ways to say this, but we have seen over and over again, examples of stealth wealth. Usually the people who flaunt less may have a little more than you think. Now, if you want to practice stealth wealth, we'll have an episode talking all about this and why it is important even more so. But it starts with the big things. Houses and cars are the big ones. So making sure that you control your housing expenses by keeping your housing expenses under 30% of your gross income and all-in housing expenses.

• 16:52Andrew Giancola?

  That's your mortgage, that's your maintenance, that's your repairs, that's everything. Under 30% of your gross income is going to be really, really important. In addition, your cars are something that you really got to control that expense tremendously. Cash for cars is king. Always paying cash for cars is number one. If you can't pay cash, which most people out there cannot, then I want you to follow simple rules. 10, meaning 10 years or longer is how long I want you to drive a car that you're going to finance. 2 is 20. I want you to at least put 20% down, or you can get gap insurance if you really don't have it. But gap insurance or 20% down specifically if it's a brand new car. Why? Because if you get in a car accident, you drive that car off the lot and you get in an accident that totals your car, you are 20% in the hole.

• 17:33Andrew Giancola?

  You need to make sure that you cover that cost and do not get yourself in sticky situations. 4, your auto loan should be no longer than four years. And then 7, it should be 7% or less of your gross income spent on payments per year. I think that 7% or less is generous. If you make a hundred grand a year, you're spending $7,000 per year on car payments. So the higher your income goes, the more generous that gets, which is why income solves a lot of different problems in a lot of these different situations. So that's housing and cars. What about debt? Most quiet millionaires, people who are really building up that stealth wealth and you can't really see it, most of them avoid high interest at all costs, meaning any debt above a 6% interest rate, they're avoiding that at all costs. And I want you to avoid that at all costs as well.

• 18:17Andrew Giancola?

  In addition, you don't want to overcomplicate your investments. Your asset allocation should be simple. You should have a simple process. It should be fully automated. It is the number one thing that you could do is automate your money. If you want to become an automatic millionaire, if you want to be a person who becomes a millionaire on autopilot, you need to make sure that you are automating and not overcomplicating your investments. And then lifestyle inflation. Now, I would argue some lifestyle inflation is healthy. You know, if you have kids or if you have, your family is growing over time, your lifestyle's going to inflate. You've got more people involved in the situation here, you've got to pay for more food, you've got daycare, you've got all these things you're juggling, you've got school activities. Lifestyle inflation is normal. Or if you're just getting older and you're making more money, you know, increasing your lifestyle to enjoy the fruits of your labor is absolutely beautiful. You should be doing that. You should enjoy your money.

• 19:01Andrew Giancola?

  Money is a tool for you to utilize to get what you want out of life. If you want more time, you're going to invest those dollars so you can retire faster. If you want more stuff, you're going to invest those dollars in the stuff that you want. But balancing both is a beautiful thing, and I think most people need to be doing that. So people who are quiet millionaires, they avoid flaunting and really just trying to overshare things about wealth. They don't chase trends and they don't do impulse purchases. Impulse purchases are the number one enemy for big spenders. You need to create some rules surrounding the way that you purchase things, specifically big ticket items. You know, if you've got a $500 purchase coming up, wait a week before you actually buy that thing to make sure you like it. Come on now. Let's not buy things when it's 11 o'clock at night, you had a couple of cocktails and it's $500. How about we don't do that? Okay?

• 19:46Andrew Giancola?

  Okay. Let's jump into a break and we'll get right back. My relationship with money has changed a lot over the years. Early on, I thought building wealth was about making more money. Now, I know it's really about having clarity. When you know exactly where your money is going and whether you're on track, you make better decisions. That's one of the reasons I love Monarch. It's the personal finance app that tracks everything, from your accounts and investments to your savings, goals, and spending, so you can see your entire financial picture in one place. One habit that's made a huge difference for me is my five-minute drill every single morning. I open Monarch, check my spending, investments, cash flow, and net worth, and I'm done in just a few minutes. It gives me confidence that nothing is slipping through the cracks.

• 20:30Andrew Giancola?

  I also love the AI weekly recap, because it'll flag spending changes, upcoming expenses, or shifts in my net worth before they become a problem. Instead of reacting after the fact, I can make adjustments early. It really feels like having a financial advisor in your pocket. Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code PFP at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code PFP. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know it's not just me anymore. It takes a great team behind the scenes to make everything happen. And if I had to hire someone tomorrow, I'd want someone who could jump right in and make an impact.

• 21:14Andrew Giancola?

  That's why I'd use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. When workplace chaos hits, Indeed Sponsored Jobs helps you reach qualified candidates faster. Your job gets boosted in search results, so you're spending less time searching and more time interviewing the right people. Plus, you only pay for results, which I absolutely love. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored posts. That's a huge advantage when you're trying to grow your business. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all of your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is the job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show,

• 21:59Andrew Giancola?

  Will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. It's kind of amazing how much can change in just a single year. Every summer, the kids are a little bigger, a little more independent, and life looks a little different than it did the year before. And it reminds me that while we can't predict the future, we can prepare for it. That's one of the reasons I like PolicyGenius. See, PolicyGenius isn't

• 22:41Andrew Giancola?

  an insurance company. They're an online marketplace that lets you compare life insurance quotes from some of America's top insurers, side by side, for free. And their licensed team helps you compare coverage, prices, and terms, answers your questions, and even handles the paperwork so you can get the right policy without the hassle. For me, having life insurance isn't about expecting something to happen. It's about knowing my family is protected so I can actually enjoy these moments together, instead of worrying about what comes next. And with PolicyGenius, you can find 20-year life insurance policies, starting at just $276 a year for $1 million of coverage. Head to PolicyGenius.com to compare life insurance

• 23:22Andrew Giancola?

  quotes from top companies and see how much you can save. That's PolicyGenius.com. Reason number four is understanding trade-offs. Most people out there do not understand trade-offs. They don't understand the power of opportunity cost, which is something I think everybody needs to know. If you haven't heard our million-dollar money decisions, it shocks about the power of opportunity cost and how impactful that can be on your financial life. Most people make decisions based on impulse. And when people make decisions based on impulse, they will appear significantly more wealthy than someone who does not make decisions this way. This is just how the world works. If you made $100,000 a year, and somebody else made $100,000 a year, and your friend makes every single decision based on impulse, you

• 24:06Andrew Giancola?

  know, they want it, they got it. They want that, they got it. They want this, they got it. Whereas you're making slow decisions cautiously to ensure, hey, I want to make sure I got enough cash on hand to buy that thing. I'm not trying to go into credit card debt here, or I want to make sure I got enough cash on hand to spend more on the things that I love. And I'm going to track this a little bit. I'm going to actually automate my spending habits so I can have a little dashboard that just shows me exactly what's going on with my spending. It's all automated. I'm not spending a bunch of time budgeting or anything like that. I could just see this dashboard and it could tell me what's going on with my financial situation. And before I make a purchase that's big, maybe I wait a couple of days, I look at my dashboard real quick, make sure I got that cash on hand, and then I make it rain on that thing if I want to buy it. That is what I want for you all. I do not want you sitting here and making decisions

• 24:51Andrew Giancola?

  on impulse. So here's my lesson, is I implore you to learn about opportunity cost. It is a simple concept that in finance kind of represents what you are foregoing when you decide to spend money on something. So you could decide to take on a $600 car payment, or you could decide to take that $600 and put it towards your retirement. There are two very different outcomes when you think about that. One is if you decide to buy a new car instead of investing your excess cash, you lose out on the potential gain of that money, meaning the dollars that you could have invested, an eight, 10% rate of return, you lose out on that potential gain. But secondly, is that money will also depreciate over time, the dollars that you put into that car. It is a double whammy that

• 25:33Andrew Giancola?

  you want to make sure that you avoid at all costs. So what you need to know is successful people make sacrifices that are not always visible. In luxurious lifestyles, they have major trade-offs to people who live a modest lifestyle. And recognizing this, this promotes unfair comparisons and helps you actually have self-acceptance. I don't want you feeling bad because other people are doing specific things. Instead, it may feel like you're doing worse, but a lot of times it's an illusion, which is reason number five. There is this crazy illusion of quick success online, and there are people, I see it day in and day out of my comments. If I tell somebody that it's going to take them over a decade to build wealth and to invest their dollars and to really watch compound interest start to working, they say, who wants

• 26:18Andrew Giancola?

  To wait a decade. Let me tell you something, everybody. Building wealth takes work. It takes time. It takes energy over time. You can simplify it to be very, very easy with automation, but it still takes work for you to go out there to your job every single day to earn those dollars and to put those dollars into your investment account through automation. You need to make sure that you understand that building wealth takes work. When you're working hard and you're grinding, it can be so discouraging to see somebody else doing all these amazing things. Maybe they're not even just working in the middle of the day and they're just doing whatever they want during the middle of the day. And it can be really discouraging. Or you could see somebody online who just built a business in a year that does millions of dollars. Or you see somebody who bought Bitcoin early and they make millions and millions of dollars from crypto.

• 27:02Andrew Giancola?

  The truth is, this is extremely uncommon for most people. Do not fall into the trap that this is going to be something that you are missing out on. A survey came out that 70% of lottery winners go broke and bankrupt within the first few years, which is one of the most sad statistics of all time. And there's actually a similar statistic with crypto millionaires that are coming out. Crypto millionaires are losing all their money because they take the success and the wins and they put it in something else that's even more risky. And that tendency just allows them to lose it all. And so there's a lot of things that are happening here that people don't understand that true wealth is secured over time. I love building wealth slowly. There are ways to do it faster. Accelerate your path. If you're very good at business, you can accelerate your path. If you're very good at real estate, there's other ways that you can do this faster. But building wealth takes time for the average person.

• 27:46Andrew Giancola?

  The average person needs to accept that small amounts of money over time can grow to very large amounts of money. And that's the path for most people to take. Now, you may have some financial windfalls and those windfalls are going to be absolutely amazing. They're going to accelerate your path to wealth and financial independence. And you can do it even faster with a higher savings rate. And as you earn more income, you can take more of that income and put it towards your investment. And this is really going to accelerate that path. But it's a proven way to accelerate that path. It's not just some fantasy land that's on social media. So focus on that slow, steady growth. Understand, wealth is simple, but wealth takes time to build. Reason six is it may look like the grass is always greener on the other side. To truly get ultra wealthy, like I'm talking

• 28:28Andrew Giancola?

  About you want to make 20 to 100 million dollars within your portfolio. And a lot of you out there are super ambitious. A lot of you who listen to this podcast, I've talked to some of you and you are really, really ambitious people. Why else would you listen to a finance podcast if you're not ambitious? If you don't want to turn your life around, if you don't want to change your financial situation. But the people who get to that 20 million to 100 million dollar mark, they have to work so incredibly hard to really do it the right way. You have to work your butt off. I'm talking late nights, I'm talking working some weekends, I'm talking really working very hard, understanding scaling, having a really good financial education. And so really, there's a couple of different ways to think about this. When you own a business, and I own multiple, you're on 24/7.

• 29:10Andrew Giancola?

  It is something that you have to really work at to make sure you're on top of things, especially the types of businesses that I own. And especially when you start, you have to make a tremendous amount of sacrifices because you can't scale with people yet because you don't have the money to scale with people. So think about that. Or think about somebody who is a really, really high earner, somebody on Wall Street. Wall Street employees, a lot of them work 80 hours per week. They make a lot of money, but the hours that they put in and the grind they put in, they really lose out on a lot of social things in life. They lose out on just being able to do very flexible things in life. Or entrepreneurs, they may sacrifice years of stability before they actually have success. Now for me personally, I love it this way. I love kind of grinding through and solving problems and figuring out some of this stuff. It is not for everybody though.

• 29:53Andrew Giancola?

  When I first started out, I actually hated it and I got used to it. And now I developed that muscle and that callus and now I love it. But for a lot of people, it can be overwhelming, it can be stressful. And so you got to analyze the trade offs of what some of these people have done and how much work they have put in. And if you're not willing to put in that, it's fine. Because over time, you can take small amounts of money and grow them to very large amounts of money by just going to work, making sure you put in your time, trying to earn more every single year, trying to increase your investments every single year. And you can very well become very, very wealthy at a day job, very wealthy. In fact, when I was working on this podcast episode, guess what day of the week I did it? I did it on a Saturday because my other businesses were taking so much of my time that I had to go work on this on a Saturday. I got to show up for you, the wealth builders. And so we got to make sure that we.

• 30:38Andrew Giancola?

  Understand how this works. So, action step on this one is I want you to reflect on opportunity cost. I want you to think about every single financial decision and how it has a trade off. I want you to think about, is the grass greener on the other side, or is it something I gotta grind it out to get to where I want to go? And think through that process. This should be something that you're always constantly thinking about, is how this is going to work. If you like hard work, it's great for you. But if you don't like hard work, and you want the easiest path there, it's probably not entrepreneurship. I'll tell you that right now. And the last reason is financial help. So, one thing that you can't see for a lot of people is, financial help is on the rise. And if, I don't want you to think that if you did not receive financial help from anyone, that you cannot become wealthy. Because I'm going to tell you an amazing truth. Seventy-nine

• 31:21Andrew Giancola?

  percent of millionaires, according to a study by Ramsey Solution, which surveyed 10,000 millionaires, seventy-nine percent of them are first generation millionaires. Holy cow, is that an amazing stat. That is one of the most amazing stats I've ever heard. You know why? Because that means, for you and I, is it's up to you, and you can become a first generation millionaire. It was not handed down to them, they did not receive an inheritance. Instead, they were first generation millionaires. That's why I believe anybody in this world can build wealth. I truly, truly believe that. This is why this podcast exists. I want to teach everybody, as many people as possible. I want to create a million millionaires. How do we do that? We spread the message that anybody in this world can build wealth. But right now, we are seeing

• 32:04Andrew Giancola?

  more people than ever, getting financial help. Specifically, the millennial generation and Gen Z. Now, they've had a harder path than anybody else. The cost of living has been rising. The cost of student loans is rising. The cost of housing is astronomical. Let alone inflation is just every single year beating everybody down. And so, they've had a harder path than anybody else. And if you don't believe that, if you're from a different generation, and you don't believe that that is the case, go look at the numbers. The numbers are very, very clear on this. But at the same time, we have to take personal responsibility and think about this. Now, there are more people now, getting help from their parents, or family members than anybody else. Now, I have friends who are getting help with their rent. I have friends who are getting help with their mortgage. I have friends-

• 32:48Andrew Giancola?

  whose parents let them live in their house. You may have friends who their parents helped them with the down payment on a house. Or maybe they pay some of their bills, or maybe they provide childcare for them, which is a huge expense. If you have a grandparent who is helping you with childcare, you're saving a ton of money right there. And you have kids, or maybe they're just paying the big one. Most people are still on their parents' cellphone bill. But there's a lot of different scenarios here where people are getting help. Now, I'm not going to say getting help is good, is it getting bad? That's not for me to decide. You know your own financial situation. But we do know that people who receive early financial help, if you get a lot of financial help and you're making the same income as somebody else, they may seem like they're way more successful than you, even though they're making the same amount. Well, somebody out there is helping them. They're getting financial help, they're getting their rent paid for, their mortgage, or they're getting subsidized for specific bills.

• 33:31Andrew Giancola?

  And so how are you going to keep up with somebody who is getting subsidies from somewhere else? You can't. And so comparing yourself to people that are doing those things is not something you want to be doing. Now, parents out there, I will say that most studies that come back state that, especially even the millionaire next door talks about this, is that most of the people that they survey, they do not have children who are financially dependent on them. Meaning that they raise financially stable individuals so that they are not dependent on their parents. And that is something I think we should all strive for as we progress towards, you know, raising our children and making sure they have that financial education. The number one thing you can give to your children is a financial education. You can teach them the stuff that you're learning here in basic ways.

• 34:15Andrew Giancola?

  There's a bunch of different cool ways to do this. And as we start to build out some of the things that we want to be doing next year, we're probably going to have a section of some communities that we're building out, where we're going to teach you just even how to teach your kids some of this stuff. It's going to be really, really cool. I'm excited about some of the stuff we're going to be doing there to really help people, teach their kids and pass it on to the next generation. It's going to be so incredibly powerful what you can do with your dollars. If you didn't get a head start, if somebody else isn't helping you, if somebody didn't give you inheritance, if you did not get that head start, create your own. Do it yourself. I truly believe that you can do it yourself. Hey, privilege is real. People are going to have more privilege than you out there. But guess what? It doesn't matter where you started, it matters where you finish financially. I know you can do this. So what do you do? You build up skills that are going to help you earn.

• 34:58Andrew Giancola?

  Earn more income so that you can be the person that gives those dollars to your kids. Focus on side hustles, skill building, networking, level the playing field. Because if you can actually earn more, you're going to blow everybody who just collects checks out of the water because you're going to have more skills in them. If you didn't earn your income, it feels a lot better to earn it by acquiring your skills than it does by having it given to you. So these are the key takeaways of this episode is you're not behind. The wealth you often see with other people is a mirage. Most of the time it is not what it actually appears to be in the grass. Could always be greener on the other side. So here's your challenge. I want you to stop comparing yourself to other people. I want you to start tracking your own progress. It's you versus you. That's what we're looking at here.

• 35:40Andrew Giancola?

  And remember, appearances can fool others, but they won't fool you if you know what you're worth. Understand what you're worth. It's the most powerful thing that you can do and understand this money psychology. Listen, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I had a fun time making this one for you guys. I truly, truly appreciate you being here and thank you for investing in yourself because that's exactly what you do when you listen to this podcast is you are investing in yourself. I truly appreciate each and every single one of you being here. Thank you so much and we will see you on the next episode.

• 36:27Speaker 01

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