A Simpler Way to Build Long-Term Wealth Ft. David Nassief

Building wealth should not feel unnecessarily complicated. In this episode of Vision Pros Live, David Nassief shares a practical perspective on long-term financial growth, why simplicity often leads to better decision-making, and how individuals can create more clarity around their financial future. In this conversation, you will learn: Why simple financial systems are often more sustainable long term. Common habits that create unnecessary financial complexity. How clarity improves financial decision-making and consistency. Principles that support long-term wealth development. The importance of aligning financial strategy with personal goals. Connect with David Nassief: 🌐 https://onepagewealthcompass.com/ 🌐 https://visionproslive.com/vision-pros-podcast-episode-david-nassief 🔔 Follow and subscribe for weekly conversations on leadership, strategy, and growth: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnOhMToMnmF1x6BcmANZo8A https://www.facebook.com/visionproslive https://www.instagram.com/visionproslive/ https://www.tiktok.com/@visionproslive #VisionProsLive #WealthStrategy #FinancialGrowth #MoneyMindset #Leadership #BusinessGrowth #FinancialPlanning

• 0:00Speaker 00

  It is time to, it is time to discuss hammering out our visions. Um, and, and why is that? We got somebody hammering on my wall on the other side. Um, I got David Nassief in the house and we're going to be talking about a simpler way to build long-term wealth. And, uh, David, am I wrong in saying you went homeless? Is that a thing?

• 0:18Speaker 01

  No, no, never went homeless, not even close, but, but, but.

• 0:21Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  We were two years away from being broke, but, but not homeless.

• 0:24Speaker 00

  Two years away from being broke. Okay. So, um, do you mind quantifying for this? Well, what does that mean and look like? Because in, in Central and South America, that's a very different reality than perhaps the United States. In New York, it's different than Texas. So what, give us, give us what that looks like as we get ready to talk about wealth.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  Basically I got fired at 63, uh, after 18 years in the same company. And when I did the math, if we drained all of our savings, we have an emergency fund. Okay. And we drained all of our retirement, which we had a pitiful retirement fund. We would have been scheduled to be broke by the age of 65. Okay. When most people retire, relax and sit back, we would be like, okay, what, what's going on?

• 1:02Speaker 00

  Sounds like average American to me.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, right. But, but hopefully not at 63, but which is our situation was, but yes, that's not.

• 1:11Speaker 00

  Okay. So, and, and again, I say that because I, I do know a lot of people that financially, they don't know what they're going to do. And I think a lot of people my age, jump 38, and I think a lot of people that are my age have worries about like, uh, crap, what's going to happen when I, when I get to that, that's hopefully I have the same energy at 65 I have now. Um, right. I think there's a lot of people who don't really understand how pensions work, 401ks work. They may not have had the type of employment where they had to build up, uh, the, the type of savings, or didn't have the discipline to think through, you know what, maybe I should have an emergency fund at all times. You grew up in a generation that, uh, understood what the depression era individuals went through.

• 1:51Speaker 00

  Um, and so you took that stuff more serious, I feel like than a lot of my counterparts. Um, do you mind speaking to that? Am I wrong? Is there truth in that? And, um, is that something that's still relevant in today's world for those who are maybe not near retirement yet?

• 2:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, in terms of like preparing for the worst situation like an emergency fund, I think possibly, well, I know a lot of young people though, who my, my, my son, for example, he's very, you know, focused on emergency fund. I think it's kind of more of a personality based thing, possibly. I could be wrong there, but that's just not enough. It's just not enough. I mean, it's, it's good. It's, it's much better than nothing. And I'm grateful to this day we had that emergency fund, but boy, that is not enough. We had that for years and it didn't really, you know, it gave us a little cushion at times, but it was a scary cushion at times, just two years. So I strongly, well, in my book and, and, and my talks, I, I strongly recommend at least have a Roth 401k because I mean, different countries have different things, but this is tax free. So

• 2:50Speaker 01

  you can build up easily. If you start early in your twenties or thirties, you can build up a million dollars with the right kind of investments and then withdraw them tax free. That's almost like having a million and a half or more, you know, you can from. So that's kind of a much better way to prepare than just an emergency fund.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  Cool. That's good. And I like that. It is, it is quite simple, my friends. And so we're gonna be diving into more simple concepts as well of, of how to build wealth. David's been a, you know, he's had a very average, normal, American style life in addition to understanding what, what wealth looks like. And so we're gonna be looking at practical perspectives on long-term financial growth. And this applies to every visionary on the planet. And I believe that we are all visionaries. So it's super helpful and important for us to figure out if we want to be wise stewards in what we do, then we gotta also try to lean into wise advice. So David, I'm gonna ask you real quick, if for other visionaries out there, regardless of what they do or how they relate to wealth, and in your background too, what are three resources

• 3:52Speaker 00

  that have helped you in your ability to build out your vision and grow in life? They can be books, movies, et cetera. I'd love to figure out what's helped make the man.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Well, when I was like, when I got back on my feet in terms of making money, I was unemployed and unemployable. At sixty-three, when I interviewed with companies, they basically said, yeah, the company that fired you did the right thing. You're of no value to us anymore, okay, to the corporate world. And they didn't say it like that, but I mean, that was basically the

• 4:20Speaker 00

  That's the interpretation, though. At least that's a nice, the ruinous empathy version.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so then I decided, okay, this isn't working, obviously. So I need to do something else. So I was gonna start my own company because, I mean, I have to hire myself, no one else will. But the problem is, I had scars from that because I had tried that my forties twice and failed miserably. One time, punched me into a six-figure debt that took me years to pay off. So this was not an easy thing. But, but, but I, I did do it. And it was very tough at the beginning. I was an independent sales agent, no salary, no, you know, benefits, no nothing, no guarantees. And basically, all cold calls, counterrejection, rookie mistakes, bombarded with no's. But I really believed all that rejection was what I needed to build the mental muscles I needed to punch through that situation. Because within

• 5:08Speaker 01

  ten months of grinding, I was suddenly making more money than my good paying corporate seller. But here's the thing, Jackson. For a second, I thought we made it. But then I realized, we didn't make nothing. Because I'd been making halfway decent money for forty years, and look where it got me on the verge of financial collapse. I says, I gotta learn how to build wealth. I gotta learn how to invest. And I didn't have time for stuff, crazy theories and people on commissions trying to get their piece of the pie for me, and all that kind of thing. I had to look. So what I did is, I read twenty-one books on personal finance, listened to thirteen podcasts faithfully, read blogs, newsletters. Every time I got a good idea, Jackson, I put on one piece of paper. And I, once I filled up that one piece of paper, I says, I'm not gonna go and be on one piece of paper because I want to keep it simple. So what I do is, I take the worst idea off, and put the better

• 5:51Speaker 01

  one on. And I kept refining it, and refining it, to a set it and forget it approach. Because I had a company to run. I did not have time to watch Wall Street, worry about stock market, that kind of thing. Okay. Six years, six years later, at age sixty-nine, I did what I thought was impossible. From terrified, and I do mean terrified, of being broke, to a seven-figure portfolio in real finance. Financial freedom. I now know, Jackson, it is never too late to rewrite your story. Cause if I can pull that off, starting as late as sixty-three, and that's as late as you get. Anybody can, I believe, with the right direction. So it wasn't one or two books. I mean, I, I had to distill. See, here's the problem. I've been messing up for forty years on investing. Okay. I didn't have the runway anymore to do that. My runway was more like a helicopter pad.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  I didn't have time to go off on tangents. I needed a clear path. And what that gave me, and I'm going to give this to all your listeners, is I'm not pitching this, it's free. This is literally what I used. It's a one-page compass. And it took me from sixty-three to sixty-nine, from almost broke to a seven-figure portfolio. And by keeping it simple, I got that thirty thousand-foot view. And I didn't go, I don't know about you, Jackson, but I'm the kind of person, when I shiny object, hot tip, I'm off the races in the wrong direction. I, I just had to stay focused this time. I couldn't do that. And if you can stay focused at age twenties or thirties, oh my gosh, what a deal you've got. But, but even at sixty-three, it's not too late if you have laser-like focus, which is what I had to develop.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  Wow, that was awesome. Oh, that was like, just drop the mic, like destroy the mic, burn the mic. That was it, guys. And I caught, I caught four major resources in that to oversimplify it. One was value rejection. Vision Pros, we've got to value the rejection opportunities. Two, books, books, books. Three, podcasts, but with intent. I love how intent, you know, you talked about the intentionality. We heard it in your voice, in your path, and the way that you teach, like, obviously, you listen to those with precision. And then I'm going to add the fourth one, refinement, refinement, refinement, or as I call it, optimize. Same thing, guys. It's so important to continue to put ourselves on the best track possible. There's an old story of a pilot, he was two degrees off course.

• 7:59Speaker 00

  Because he was only two degrees off course, he ended up flying his plane into a mountain and they died. All right. You can be so close to on point, but this doesn't mean we have to be perfect. However, we should look at the opportunity. How do we strive for doing our best? And if we strive for doing our best, I think we'll end up with the best results possible in our life. And that may mean a seven-figure portfolio like David. We're going to come back and dive into depths on that. This was an awesome start. All right. Welcome in to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Callum. I'm your show host. We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  What's up everybody, welcome into Vision Pros Live. I'm your show host, Jackson Callan, founder and CEO of First Class Business down here in Ecuador where the house that is stuck against mine has somebody hammering on it. So we're gonna play with the audio today, but I always want to provide as much value as possible. We've got David Nassief in the house. He is a financial advisor, I will call him that. We're talking about simpler ways to building long-term wealth. He really ultimately got his footing underneath himself past age 63. I love what he said, "It's never too late to start, guys." It is so important, guys and gals, that we look at how do we just, how do we create the best life for ourselves with where we're at right now. And I hope to inspire and help do that today with his guidance. We're gonna provide

• 9:25Speaker 00

  some other resources too, outside the box for this. And this is such a sacred subject for me, because I spent many years myself saying, "I don't care about the money. I got into business to help the world. I really didn't know anything about business." That is 0.37 GPA. And I got in because I wanted to help places like Ecuador succeed. And that mindset was not the healthy mindset. How was I gonna help people succeed when I didn't care about an asset that was super important for being able to sustain my own life? And so that caused havoc for me. And I probably got some religious stuff mixed into that as well. But at the end of the day, my friends, if we want to be great visionaries, if we want to help the world, we've got to be wise stewards. We've got to know what we're doing with what it is that we have available to us. And so again,

• 10:09Speaker 00

  I'm gonna bring on the legend to talk about that. He knows more about that aspect than me, but I'm also gonna empower you with other tools. Up here, guys, these sponsors, they don't pay for these spots. Well, I do, one of them's mine. But the AI Mavericks, I pay them. And I put them on here because I love what Austin Armstrong and Scott Simpson are doing to lead in the advanced world of AI. I don't actually get the opportunity to attend as much as I like because of what I built, but the fact that I have access to people who are constantly researching what's going on with AI, how do we use it? Well, how can we maximize it? What do we do with these things called agents? It's so important to align ourselves with the people who know how to use the tools as best as possible, so we can do the same. So feel free to join. us over there and that you can also join us in what I call the AI marketplace.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  We launched the AI marketplace so that everybody in the world could have access to using AI in a way that builds productivity. And profitability, those are the two things that I look at in business. If it's not productive and it's not profitable. I really don't want to be involved. I've got family to feed. I've got people I want to provide for. It's so important to do things. The right way and most of you have access to what you already need. You're already AI experts. But you may not know the language of how to use the tools and maximize the tools. It's exactly what we teach. We have two tracks. A professional track for those who are not entrepreneurs, but want to improve their resumes, improve. Their LinkedIn profiles and also learn how to become executives in the AI world.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  This helps you learn how to interview for those jobs to take full advantage of this guys. And then on the other side, the business side is about the bottlenecks. There's so many business solutions coming out that are hurting businesses more than helping with AI. We lean into this from a practical standpoint of what can it actually produce in today's world? Again, in order to drive a return on your investment. We have the founding members open for $50 a month or $500 for lifetime access. And my friends, if you don't have the finances to be able to afford that, we have a grant application program. You can join us for free. I don't want. Anybody left behind in the world of AI. Everybody can come into this. It's not about. The investment alone, but I will tell you the more you invest in opportunities like this with the right people, the more that empowers us to create better and better systems on everybody's behalf. So it's all about.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  It's all about that quote of the the rising tide lifts all ships. We want to lift your ship along with ours. So then there's the water project. The water project is something that's near and dear to my heart. I'm not a member of it. I do pay monthly for us to support these projects because. Guys, I've never been thirsty in my life. I don't even know what that's like to to really truly be thirsty and not have the ability to find where drinking water is or to send your kids. To some awkward source of water and they have to bring it back to wash clothes or to perhaps. Eat dinner. You don't. I don't know what they have to go through. I can't imagine it, but what I see is these kids. Celebrating water like my kids celebrate Christmas day. And that's a humbling reality. There's millions of people who don't have access to that. So as long as I'm going to rock this microphone, I'm going to continue to ask people to at least.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  At least spare, spread the word about the water project. Tell people about it. You never know. The person you talk about this over dinner with. Might end up funding an entire community. And what I love about the water project is when I choose which project I'm going to donate to. I get to see the outcome of that project. I get to see that they actually brought it to fruition. It's one of the most transparent causes I've ever seen. And lastly, my friends, there's eight billion people to help on this planet. So if you know of a cause that draws your heart in and that draws your mind, please drop a comment with that cause. Like right now, go and find the cause, bring it back to me. I promise you, I will personally look at what that cause is. I might even bring it up on this show, but if I can do something to help even more people, then I'm all in, guys. It's one of the funnest things on the planet, in my opinion.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  So let's get back to helping every single one of you with figuring out, well, how do we find simpler ways to build long-term wealth? This isn't about get rich quick, guys. This is about doing things the right way, long-term. And you can do things quite fast if you are disciplined. David's exact proof of that. David, thanks for joining us on Vision Pros Live today.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Thank you, Jackson. I'm thrilled to be here with you today.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Now, guys, David and I had actually some conflict in our first meeting, quite a bit. And I do that on purpose. I'm looking for the leaders who actually know their stuff. And we're going to stand their ground and really bring truth with us. And so I hammered David pretty hard and he was kind of like, dude, who is this guy? You know, and so I'd love for you to speak to that a little bit, David. Feel free, good, bad, and ugly. What was our first experience like? And what did you glean from it?

• 14:31Speaker 01

  You know, it was very different. It's the only pre-interview I ever had quite like that one. You were challenging me on some things, but I, I believe what I'm doing, Jackson, I really do. And I, this is not a money thing for me at all. I have a very successful business, making wonderful money. We had our best year ever last year. This is a passion project. I will probably lose money, certainly, making this book, making this book. But it was a number one Amazon Hotnew release, 600 some Goodreads requests in the first month out. I mean, it's being taken very seriously and people are, the comments are really amazing, what people are getting out of it. So I'm thrilled to be here with you and I'm grateful that we got to have our first interview and made it through that.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  I am too, man. I'm so glad we survived that. My friends, Vision Pros, like I take it so serious when I bring these people on, you know. If I met a doctor who says they've got the best, like the cure for cancer, I have to do due diligence on that. I don't know if he really has it or not. And so, you know, David wasn't necessarily used to that because a lot of podcasters bring people on with with the flow. But audience, this is for you. I want to make sure that the people actually really walk the walk and not just talk the talk. And I got to see that with David. I was like, okay, cool. I gotta get this guy on the show. And so I'm really glad you didn't you didn't cut me off, David. Let's talk about why simple financial systems are often more sustainable long term. And let's try to dive in a little bit deep into what is what is that simple financial system to?

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Well, Jackson, since this is a podcast for visionaries, can I just tell you the brief story about the vision of how this all came about? The simplicity of all, because I think

• 16:04Speaker 00

  Oh, man, tell me about your vision. Let's do that. I want to go back. Let's go back to the basics. That's the fundamentals.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Well, when I was going through this dark period of being unemployed at 63 and no prospect of a job and no prospect of anything. I heard this story that it's a true story, actually, that I've heard from several different sources since then. It was a scientist at the Max Planck Institute did an experiment. What they did is they placed people in the center of a dense German forest and told them to walk in a straight line to the edge. Now, these were confident and capable people, but when the clouds covered the sun and they lost their point of reference, the GPS tracking showed they were gradually starting to walk in circular motions. Some of them were actually ending up right back where they began. And yet each and every one of them was absolutely convinced they were walking in a perfectly straight line the entire time.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Jackson, that is my life story for 40 years. I was working hard, making good money.

• 16:56Speaker 00

  You and Moses.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Doing what I thought was good, making investments, but literally just going in circles. They ended up putting me on the edge of a financial cliff that almost I almost fell over. But with that point, I said to myself, that's what I need, a compass, not a metal compass like traveler's shoes. I need a simple one page compass because I need that clarity, that 30,000 foot view to keep me going in the right direction. Because I we mentioned earlier, I can get sidetracked really easy. I get distracted really easy. I couldn't afford to do that anymore. And that's how this whole thing came about. And to this day, I still use that compass. I mean, right now, my prefer was much bigger than it was when I at 69, but I still use it.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Every week I have a quick two minute meeting with myself with my compass, just to make sure I'm staying on the course.

• 17:43Speaker 00

  That is fascinating. And, and again, I love that you brought up the study. I was, I was being serious about the whole Moses thing because they were stuck for 40 years in a very small territory. And so those who aren't religious, it's still, it's still a history book. And now it's been proven by other studies. It's like, and, and there's parallels in this reality for all of our lives, like you're talking about. And so I, I got to see this same type of thing at video power marketing with the revenue growth workbook. We had winner after winner after winner after winner after winner, because that Jake had figured out what his compass was for guiding companies to profitable campaigns. And so I'm, I'm really excited to dive into that one pitch compass. Do you mind revealing some of the, the deeper secret truths that exist in it?

• 18:24Speaker 01

  No, this is, this is the secret sauce that all your listeners are going to get for free. There's no hook or trip or anything like that. Basically, it's two columns, and it's one column is the nine trail markers. And what I like about this, Jackson, is it takes you from where you are to financial freedom. Because so many people ask me, well, where should the average person start? Or where should we all? There's no one place. It depends on where you are. For example, I put career and income success first. Most of the books I read on finance and investing, they didn't even touch on that. They assumed, well, if you're reading my book on investing, you must have money, or you wouldn't be in reading the book. And so that's not true, though. A lot of people are underemployed, underappreciated, underpaid, and that's the stumbling block for them. And if they don't get that fixed right in the beginning at the start, they can still

• 19:07Speaker 01

  succeed, but it's going to take a lot longer and be a lot more difficult than it really has to be. And that's why I devote the first two chapters of my book just to that. But then you might say, somebody's like, David, I do have a good job, and I make good money, but I got a credit card that like, you wouldn't believe. I mean, I got to get rid of this. This is this. Okay. Well, then you would go to step three. Now, some people are going to say, well, David, this is nice. You're saying debt freedom strategy and a few other things, but I need a little bit more than that. So that's where the book comes in. Okay, this is the 30,000 of you. This is the ground game. It tells you, take a right at the light, take a left at the stop sign. This tells you, are we going in the right way? And so you go to chapter four in the book, and it takes you right to the section you need for the step you're on. Okay. And it keeps going like that. Here's one thing that a lot of the gurus get wrong. Because, Jackson, when I started this, I guess I didn't have any room for mistakes.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Questioned everything, even the gurus that we all know their names, they've been around forever. And I said, okay, does the math really plow? Here's one thing they all say. They say, okay, once you get out of debt, get a three to six month emergency fund. Now, I don't necessarily disagree with the emergency fund at all because I believe in it, saved me for sure. But the order, the order is important. They're saying first get the emergency fund, then start investing. Okay. Well, let's take a 25 year old just starting out. Okay. And so they're in student loan debt or credit card debt. And so they follow that advice. They waited, how long was it take the average person to get a three to six month emergency fund? At least a year for most people. I mean, that's a pretty chunk of your life. So maybe two years, but let's just say it's one year. So at 25, you do that, you, you wait and you're not in the market now investing.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  You do the emergency fund, then you start investing. So that late, that year you lost, if you fast forward 40 years, that's going to cost you at least a half a million dollars invested in the right way, which, which I, I show and I, we could talk about. That's a big mistake. Here's the tweak in my path. When you get debt free, now all of a sudden you have cash flow. Okay. So rather than raising your spot, living standards, do them both at the same time. Yes, get that emergency fund started, but yes, the same day, the same time, start the investment process. Don't sit on the sidelines for a year. That's a very expensive, especially when you're young and you've got all that compounding to work for you. Little tweaks like that, these gurus are saying, I found, hey, this is going to cost you money.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  I found another one that could cost you literally a million dollars, not a half million dollars. And, but they're little subtle things like how hard is that to tweak? It's just not hard. But they don't do it. They don't talk, because for 40 years they did it one way and they don't want to, I don't know what the reason is. I'm not here to judge. The other side of the company is the five North Star principles. This is what keeps, these are like mental guard rails to keep you out of the ditch. For example, live on less than urine is the first one. If you don't get that right.

• 21:49Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Forget about any book, for any guru, you can forget it all. You're going to suffer. You're going to be.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  I'll speak to that. I'll speak to that. My, my dad earned a ton of money. Um, and I, it turned, I think he made $800 every other day. Um, and what he did, but he spent. Eight hundred dollars every day, um, you know, and and that reality is like, how could you do it? People find a way, um, you know, whether it's alcohol, whether it's addictions of certain types, whether it's vacation, like, it is, it is a discipline that is so necessary to live within our means. Meanwhile, my mom was a single mom of six children, um, you know, and she had to do everything that she could in order to make sure that she was responsible with us. And, uh, you know, my, my dad, last I heard, was living in a train cart, um, in the middle of some like Texas desert. Um, and my mom, uh, on the other hand, she said she, she's, she's good. They've got their retirement plan. They own a number of different houses that they rent out and beyond.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  And, and so this reality, there's somebody who lived within their means and still built a beautiful life and has gotten to do amazing things. And then there's the other person who made tons of money and completely wasted life, you know, in essence. We don't have to choose either or today, though. We've got people like, I'll, I'll pay, I'll pick, um, for our work week, Tim Ferriss, you know, taught us that we can also have like a balanced middle ground where we're able to have our cake and eat it too. And I think my generation's kind of leaving the cause for like, we want that, uh, we want to have both. So continue, David. This is fascinating.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Well, you just made such a powerful point. I just got to take a minute because it's just too important to just run by you. So many people think, oh, if I made the kind of money you made, David, the kind of money Jackson made, I could invest, but I live in paycheck to paycheck, buddy. I don't got that money. I, I don't have any spare cash. Matter of fact, I need more money, not more. Well, that's a lot. And let me explain why it's a lot and it goes very long with Jackson. The NBA, the National Basketball Association, the average player makes over 10 million dollars a year. Jackson, I didn't say 10 million dollars was lifetime in his career. I said in one year. And yet, five years after retirement, 60% of them are broke, according to the Netflix documentary Broke. And the NFL is even worse after only two years of retirement.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  78% of them are either bankrupt or in serious financial stress. That's according to Sports Illustrated. Now let's compare that to Dale Schroder, a basketball-loving carpenter, who made average to below average income his entire career, but he chose to. Live at less than he earned and invest the difference wisely. He ended up with a three million dollar portfolio. Jackson, that's more money than most of the NBA and most of the NFL players with their tens of millions of dollars. So please understand, this is what I found when I made my company. This is a profound thing. It's making money is different than building wealth. Those pro athletes are amazing at making money. I mean, how many people do you know make ten million dollars a year?

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Okay, yes, they were most of them, not all of them, some of them were good. Most of them were terrible at building wealth. Dale Schroder, not good at making money much really at all, but he was a master at building wealth. So please don't, anybody think, oh, I'm disadvantaged here. No, it can work on any income level, no matter how high or low.

• 24:59Speaker 00

  I think that's, that's so huge. And mastering the principles early, my friends too, for anybody who's got kids, nephews, etc. They want to help with this. My mom gave me the book, um, The Investment Guide, The Motley Fool's Investment Guide for Teenagers. When I was seven years old, uh, right? That, that's the type of, of preparation that we're able to empower our kids with. And, and then on the vision, on the visionary side, those of you who are founders and entrepreneurs and stuff. We're going to dive into something, we're going to go off course here and we're going to talk about something that's super important and maybe a little bit controversial. But, um, I'm a big fan and believer of investing in yourself and making sure that you create the right profit margins in your business. You guys, we, we take risks unlike anybody else. Alex Ramosi, thank you for a hundred million dollar offer, phenomenal book.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  Helped me also to see like, okay, no, this is actually why I swing the bat over and over and over in business. Um, is we do have the opportunity to build exponential wealth. And so I'm going to go over to a tool real quick, David, that I created this week. And it is actually called the Revenue Growth System. And it is part of the Revenue Growth Workbook. It's, that's the base that we use at Video Power Marketing, but I've been dying for years to get this on the market so that everybody can see it. And guys, this is going to blow your freaking mind. Right now, what you're seeing on your screen, this calculator is the reason why most founders quit advertising forever. And that's because we like to think that we're being responsible, but in reality, we gamble with our businesses. We invest very low amounts of money. And so if we spend five hundred dollars on ad spend, um, to boost our product growth and to drive our revenues and to get clients and you can zero clients.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  Most people just hate Mark Zuckerberg and say, Mark Zuckerberg stole my money. Um, and that's not true. We just don't know how to reverse engineer the success. But if in this exact scenario on metrics, if we had just spent forty dollars more. We would have made a $2,000 customer, we would have made $1,460 as a net return. That's, that's still ROAS of this. I'm talking about ad management, who we worked with to build the assets for this. But if we invested $5,000 in the exact same scenario for our brand, we would make $13,000. And if we learn how to optimize all the metrics, create actual great ads, create actual great landing pages, create the infrastructure necessary. Nobody wants to talk about infrastructure in business. I want to talk about get rich quick schemes. Look at what would happen if we hit all the optimized metrics.

• 27:09Speaker 00

  You spend $5,000 on ads and you make over $6.5 million with these metrics in place. And these metrics aren't unheard of. These are the types of metrics that my companies and campaigns hit. But what happens is you have to be in a position in order to fulfill 1,312 customers. How do you do that? Building a phenomenal infrastructure for your brand. So this is not easy. This is just simple, but simple is often extremely hard. But I want to open everybody's eyes to the reality that there are lots of things that can be done on a simple path to building long-term, sustainable wealth. And David, you don't have to talk directly to that, but if you want to talk to entrepreneurs a little bit,

• 27:47Speaker 00

  or how, as an entrepreneur, how do you balance the desire to 100% only invest in your own basket of eggs? Versus should I have a Roth? Should I also look in a 401k? Should I be investing in the stock market, etc.? I'm open to hearing your insights on it because you're very principally driven. And I love that. Like, holy crap, this guy gets it in your compass. Probably goes hand in hand with the same things that I do on the risk side. But I'm also opposed as an entrepreneur. I'm like, I don't want to invest in external companies that I can't control that may be affected by social backlash due to some founder getting involved in some type of scandal. Or that's affected by what's going on in different, different political environments throughout the world.

• 28:31Speaker 00

  Like, I'd rather invest in myself as an alpha. But again, push back on that. What are your thoughts on wealth and entrepreneurship?

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Well, here's my thinking on that is I like diversification because, you know, the best laid plans can sometimes not work out the way you want. Even, even passionate founders of their companies, I've seen them. And so why not have two foundations instead of just one foundation? Let me just share with you a brief example because this might make a point.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Double my portfolio three times in a six-year period. Now, most people in finance will say, David, that's impossible. The market didn't increase that much, or you're either a liar or a delusional. Well, let me explain. First of all, I wasn't day trading, chasing crypto, or trying to tell the market. I was doing the opposite of that. I was doing something so boring, it would put you to sleep. And here's the thing about it, Jackson. When the market-

• 29:21Speaker 00

  It gets me excited. Those are the things that make me happy.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  When the market was down, I was thrilled. When other people were panicking and selling, I was buying more shares at discount prices. My only regret was during that six-year period, the market wasn't down even more. That would have been-

• 29:35Speaker 00

  You haven't worn a bucket.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. But here's the thing that really surprised me was the maths. There's a thing called the rule of 72. And what it says is, if you're getting a 10% return on your money, it will take you 7.2 years to double your money, or roughly 86 months. When I got my compass in place, what happened is, my first double occurred not in 86 months, but in 30 months. Second one, 13. Third one, 29. For an average of 24 months, way less than half the expected 86-month time for it. But it wasn't a returns, Jackson, was the secret. I was doing three things I finally figured out that I didn't figure it out for 40 years. One of them was, I was paying myself first. I know everyone hears that statement, but I was taking a chunk off and saying, okay, before I start spending stuff and paying bills, this is going to the side in savings,

• 30:20Speaker 01

  so I don't touch it, so I can then live off the rest, okay? The second thing I was doing, I was taking that money and putting in the right kind of investments, which I hadn't done for 40 years. What I found was the right kind was low-cost index funds. I only own two. That's how simple this whole thing is. I own one, the entire US market, every publicly traded stock, I own a little piece of. The other one, international, every publicly traded stock outside the country, I own at least a piece of. So, Jackson, I literally own every public trade stock on the planet. For me to go to zero and broke, the entire world economic system would have to collapse to nothing. And if that happens, we've got bigger problems than money. So, I felt comfortable. I could sleep at night. I was diversified. The last thing, the third thing, was market volatility. I used it to work for me instead of against me.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  So many people are buying high and selling low because they're using their emotions to dictate their investment decisions. That's the worst thing you can do.

• 31:12Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Put you to the scene. Jackson, you say you went to a department store and it said, 50% off, sale. Would you go up to the clerk and say, hey, I don't want no 50% off. I want to pay full retail. Wouldn't that thing go back to you? You wouldn't do that. They'd say you're nuts. They'd haul you off to a crazy house. But people do that every day with the stock market. Fifty percent drop. Oh, my gosh. I gotta get to cash. No, that's when you want to buy for two hundred years, for two hundred years. Every time the market has gone down, it has not only fully recovered, it has gone on to new heights. Two hundred years of history is data is good enough for me. I stay really good at night. What I found was the way to build wealth twice as fast, and here's the important part, Jackson, with half the risk compared to how I was doing it and compared to how so many people are doing it today. And that's what I believe. Why not

• 31:56Speaker 01

  diversify entrepreneurs? Why not have two foundations for yourself?

• 32:01Speaker 00

  Super important. I love that. And it does, and it gets to go hand in hand with the reality. And, and that's diversification is one of the business one on one principles, right? Another business one on one principle is supply and demand, right? And so we've got to know these things as entrepreneurs in order to make sure that our visions are sustainable and that we're creating this type of wealth long term. So let's go into that question again. The why, why? So you've, you've covered these simple financial systems. You've given us some fantastic ideas. Thank you for the compass on that. And so, in fact, I'm going to move on to common habits, because we just touched one of them, the habit of accidentally getting out when things are emotional and relying on our emotions for it. But what are the common habits that create unnecessary financial complexity beyond that? Are there others?

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Well, let me tell you the thing, because complexity is a real issue. Wall Street loves complexity. But the truth is, simplicity is for winners, complexity is for victims. And that is so true. The more complex they can make it, Jackson, the more you understand it, and the more you need them. And then now they're in charge. You have to be the CEO of your own personal finance, just like I'm the CEO of my own health, my own spirituality, I'm the own CEO of my own money too. I mean, I can listen to advisors, I do listen to advisors, but that's, I'm in charge. But let me tell you the biggest mistake people made, and it's a painless thing to solve, Jackson. It doesn't have to even do that. It costs you anything if you understand it. And that is fees. Tiny fees are like termites. Okay, you don't even

• 33:29Speaker 01

  notice them until your financial foundation crumbles. And let me explain specifically what I'm talking about. Okay, you got two people, A and B, both say they're 25, both says, okay, we're going to invest $25 a week, pretty modest amount for our future. Okay? Person A goes into a low-cost index fund with a 0.03% annual management fee. Person B goes to an advisor who charges a full 1%, which is standard, and they put him into an active fund with a 5.75% upfront load and a 0.66% ongoing management fee, which is not uncommon. Okay, let's fast forward these people for 40 years to their age 65 now. Okay, same market conditions, same exact contributions. Person A has a $1 million portfolio based on a minus $25 a week.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Person B has a $570,000 portfolio. The same everything except for the fees. That's the only thing. That's a $430,000 difference, Jackson, just because he chose an investment tool that was full of fees and they were so small. I mean, 0.66%. Doesn't that sound tiny to you? 1% sounds tiny to me, but compounded over years, it's huge. And this is assuming they never got a raise. If we factored in regular raises, Jackson, that 430, that could be a half a million, it could be a million dollar difference depending on the person. The tragedy of the whole thing, though, is Person B probably feels like he got excellent service. I like my advisor. He knew my kids' names. We went golfing a couple of times.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Little did he realize that he did the equivalent of funding someone else's retirement with half of his own money. That is my, and my book is wrong. I'm not against advisors. I am against products that are rich Wall Street at the expense of their clients' portfolios. I'll be the first to admit to you, Jackson, for 40 years, I never questioned fees. Matter of fact, I thought those were just part of the rules of the game. Once I made my compass, I realized the rules we don't question can cost us the most. In Person B's case, it cost him $430,000. But isn't that a painless thing to solve, Jackson? They didn't have to give up any lattes or any vacations. They just had to put the money in the right thing, you know? That's, that's the difference. It's crazy.

• 35:39Speaker 00

  Wow. That is, that's a very, very strong perspective and it, it reminds me of kind of my own path of not investing in universities. And I guess I would, you know,

• 35:51Speaker 00

  A lot of people end up creating a lot of debt for themselves by going to school. Um, but the, the, the certain, the, the certainty they feel like they gained from it, the authority they feel like they gained from it, the credibility, like for some people, it really matters. Um, and it, it does a big difference. For me, I'm like, there's my degree, like that wall, but I don't have one. I can say that, that it certainly has created certain challenges, um, for my life and there are pros and cons to, to both realities, but I was never cut out for school. I didn't understand the rules of it. Um, and so, um, I didn't, the nice thing is I didn't have to pay the fees. Um, the, the most of the people I've had to pay related to it. And so I would, I would say that I came out winner on top in that reality, but, um, I'll, I'll juxtaposition that with, there's still, I know there's a value for the institution for

• 36:36Speaker 00

  those who know how to use it. Probably the same is true for those who have fees as, as investors, but you're giving us an opportunity to see things that other, that, that maybe we won't see for 40 years without you talking about it. So I'm incredibly grateful for that. Um, I want to go on to one last topic.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Jessica, I just said something, you may touch on it, but I can't, I can't touch you over this. The thing about college, I'm not against college. I went to college and college is fine, but I am against this whole thing about student loan debt that people, I, it's in my book, I have seen studies, people literally, Jackson, in their sixties, seventies and eighties are still paying student loan debt. And these are some people who never graduate from college. It's like buying a car, not getting the car, but just getting the payment book, you know? It's crazy. And the money is coming out of their social security when they get that old. It's being deducted from them. Letting eight, I, I don't mean letting it, but 18 year olds, without the proper information, going, making these life decisions that are going to curse

• 37:37Speaker 01

  them, and I mean curse them for decades, is wrong. That's why I had to write about that because there's simple ways to get out of debt, go through college without going into debt. There's simple ways to do it. It's not that complicated. You may not go to Harvard, but boy, you can get a great education and, and, and great skills, okay, without.

• 37:57Speaker 00

  Hey, thank you. I mean, you're, you're rallying crying for me and I appreciate it because. I'm I am a big fan of of what's coming for the education centers and it's I wrote a book and I started to write a book and my teenage years called Dead and Broken. Jobs are dead and universities are broken and my mom hated it, so I didn't I didn't go forward with it, but I was right. At the end of the day, I was like, I told her, I was like, Mom, getting a job is like being indentured servant, like the same definition that this book is teaching me and in history, you know, and and she's like, no, it's not, I can't say that. But poor mom, like she grew up in the depression era, you know, like her, her, her parents grew up in the depression era, rather, and she was very affected by that. So she knew different things about wealth and security and she wanted me to, honestly, she wanted to be a technical writer. She wanted me to write manuals for refrigerators.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  I'm like, holy crap, like, I'm not even gonna say what I wanted to say, because it wouldn't be allowed on on YouTube, but like, no, that would have ruined my life. And so I was, I was designed and destined to be an entrepreneur, but the you are, you aren't wrong. You're absolutely right. The education system has put people in a very, very difficult position in life, and I'm super glad that I didn't get eaten alive by the student loans. They scared me too much. I said, no, like, I can't do this. And so I'm glad you spoke to it. Let's talk about how clarity improves financial decision making and consistency and and let's move from how it how it improves financial decision making to how the heck do you get clarity? So you've made it so you've simplified some of it already.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  What else can we add to that? How do we help people feel that sense of clarity where the lights are on and they know exactly where to go?

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Well, here's what I would do. Okay, I don't mean to sound self-serving. Do make up your own compass. Okay, you don't have to use mine, but I'm gonna use mine as an example. Okay. All right. Basically, what I do is I take this and I have it on my electronic calendar. Every Friday at three o'clock, I sit down with myself and have a two-minute meeting and it's really just two minutes. Okay. I identify where I'm at on my compass. Okay. And where my next step is. And then I also look at my five North Star principles to make sure I'm staying out of trouble. Okay. And then this is a very critical piece. For example, I, while back, I, when I did the two-minute meeting, I realized I made an impulse purchase the week before. And that's a no-no. I mean, what it says is wait 24 hours before you make impulse, because half the time After my far, I said, oh, I didn't really need that, you know, but if you do it right then, it's like it's too late.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  That saved me from doing it again the next week and the next week. And then six years later, I spent fifty grand on these impulse things, which a lot of people do. What I'm saying is when you have this accountability, it kind of modifies your behavior. Have you ever read a book, Jackson, and there was some great principle and you go, man, I'm going to use that. It's going to change my life. And then two years later, you come across, I go, oh yeah, I forgot to use that. I remember that. Well, you can't do that with this because when you're saying that myself for two minutes and you're still on the same step and you haven't budged off of it, you say, wait a minute, I'm not doing this. I gotta either do it or whatever. And so it just, that's where most books fail, I find, or many books fail. I should say, the finance, the finance world. Because, oh, they're great. You read all this stuff and then you go about your life like nothing ever changed. But when you have too many meetings with yourself every week, it's not, it's not difficult.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  And, and, and can I just, can I just say, if they just go to, and this is a gift to me, go to one page, wealthcompass.com/free and download it yourself and just look at it. If you don't like it, don't use it. But I think you'll find it's, it'll trigger your mind to think about things that we really should be focused on.

• 41:14Speaker 00

  I can't wait. In fact, I'm going to be doing this myself. I'm very excited that because like you said, the nice thing about a tool like that is you can use it and see if it's getting you on track. And if it's not, then you can easily just move on from it. And so I definitely plan on doing that. I have, I'm going to ask a very strong favor. You can say no, can I digitize it? Can I do that? Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna digitize it and send it back to you. And can I, can I create a Spanish version?

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. I'm not here. This is not a money thing for me. I want, I want it in many people's hands as possible, the world.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  But it's your IP, so I want to respect that.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  If you could put this in everyone's hand in the world, I'd say yes.

• 41:49Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm probably going to have that ready by next week. Thanks to Claude, AI. But, but that is, that is something that can be so helpful for so many. It's principally, it's routine, it's boring. So let me, let me be rude, David, you are routine, you are boring, you are simple, and you have, you have done all of that to success and to wealth. Like, congratulations on, on making it, making it easy. Thank you. This is awesome.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Can I, can I add that to the boring thing? Because this is important. A lot of people when they hear a financial book, they go, oh, a financial book. Yeah, I'll read it before I go to bed so I can. Put me to sleep charts and graphs and spreadsheets and all these terms we don't understand. No, I am a simple person like you said, okay? And basically I kept it simple. It's all full of stories, true stories of people who did it and who people who failed. And, and, and me and other people. So when you're reading the stories and you see what, how the guy messed up and how the other lady didn't mess up. And then you read the principle, you're saying, now I get it, David. I've heard of this before, like a Roth IRA or whatever it was, but I never really got into it. But now that you're explaining it so simple terms, I totally get it. It makes perfect sense. So instead of this whole thing, and let me just share with you, if you don't mind.

• 42:57Speaker 00

  It's a rich dad poor dad over and over and over and over.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. This is a, a, a review. I read all the reviews, but I want, I want to read this one review because this, this is from a clinical psychologist with 25 years experience. No financial background at all. He said, the one page compass gave me the exact financial hope and practical steps he needed. But here's the most important part of the quote. I couldn't put the book down. That's what I'm talking about. I wrote it not like a boring, dry financial book. I promise you, yes, you're going to get a lot of great financial principles, but it's going to be an interesting read. And you're going to want to keep reading it because it's, it's not the typical financial book. I promise you, I, I would be, the 21 I read were that way. They were fairly boring, but I says, I can't do that this way. I just can't do it because most people are just, it wouldn't benefit from it.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  I love that. As we wrap up, if I have to force all financial and wealth conversation out of you for this one. If this is the last opportunity that you have to speak to visionary leaders out there and to provide them with advice or counsel. What would the advice be?

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Clear direction beats misdirected speed every time. For 40 years I was misdirected and within six years I did more than I did in 40 years when I got the clear direction. But it's not just financial, Jackson. I did the same thing with my health. Okay. I know we don't have time to talk about this, but I, I did the same thing with the clear direction. And the doctors wanted to put me on medications and all that kind of thing. And I totally did it myself and I'm healthier than I've ever been, healthier than I've ever been on prescriptions. I had clear direction medically, I have clear direction financially, and I have a clear direction spiritually because I, I, I put it on one piece of paper. I'm not talking about finances only. I'm talking about any important area of your life that's really important to you.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  I love that. David, thank you. This has been an amazing opportunity. I've learned a ton throughout this experience. Vision Pros, we talked about the airplane being two degrees off course earlier, and that's misdirected speed. It's exactly what David's talking about. There's a book we all grew up learning about or reading over and over called The Tortoise and the Hare. And oftentimes, we live life and glorify the hare experience, even though we know that the tortoise always wins in that that reality. We love to just be fast and just move and we're we've got all the tools in the world to help us do that. The microwave taught us to be an entitled, you know, creature like we've got everything right there at our fingertips. And yet, I think that is just some of the wisest advice we could possibly have is make sure that we've got clear direction.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  As we prepare to take our next next steps forward, and it doesn't matter if you're two degrees off course right now and you have been for a long time. As David said, it's never too late to start. Get back on track. Let's make that happen. I hope that you do that for your own lives. I hope that our show does that for you. Like, subscribe, find us and look up David Nassief on Google and go find what he's up to. Check out the book. I'm definitely, like I said, I'm going to not only use the book for my life, I'm going to try to digitize it for everybody. And also create a Spanish version of it because we all need this type of clarity. Thank you, David. We'll see you guys on the next episode. And if you have a vision, top right corner, click on the button that says be our guest, come and come and share it with it. You don't have to be one of the wisest financial guys in the world to be on here. You could be brand new at your vision. We'd love to host you.

• 46:10Speaker 00

  Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun and we'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.