How to Master Money Game | Top Strategies for Financial Growth in 29 Minutes

Mr. Buffett, how can I make $30 billion?

Start young. The big thing about it is we started building this little snowball on top of a very long hill. So we started at a very early age in rolling the snowball down. And of course, the snowball— the nature of compound interest is it behaves like a snowball of sticky snow. And the trick is to have a very long hill, which means either starting very young or living very—

to be very old.

I, you know, I would do it exactly the same way if I were doing it in the investment world. I mean, if I were getting out of school today and I had $10,000 to invest, I'd start with the A's. I would start going right through companies. And I probably would focus on smaller companies because I would be working with smaller sums and there's more chance that something is overlooked. But I mean, you have to buy businesses and you— or little pieces of businesses called stocks— and you have to buy them at attractive prices and you have to buy into good businesses. And that advice will be the same 100 years from now in terms of investing. That's, that's what it's all about. And you can't expect anybody else to do it for you. You've got to learn what you, what you know and what you don't know. And within the arena of what you know, you have to just pursue it very vigorously and, and act on it when you find You can't look around for people to agree with you. You know, you have to think for yourself.

I started off investing at a really young age.

How early?

7. Which is just completely bizarre, right? Totally. But here's the thing. I was obsessed with money as a kid. So when I would go and visit my grandmother, all I wanted to do was play Monopoly. It was my favorite game in the whole world. And my parents hated playing with me because I would always win. So when I would go visit my grandmother in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, She would do whatever I wanted and I wanted to play Monopoly. So at 7 years old, the other thing she would do that my parents wouldn't do, my parents are very mean. No, I'm kidding. I would want to go to McDonald's. So my grandma would go, you want to go to McDonald's? Well, go to McDonald's, right? We could go to McDonald's twice a day even. It was amazing.

Whoa.

So 7 years old, I'm at McDonald's and my grandmother says to me, she leans forward and she says, you know, David, I'm going to teach you how to play Monopoly today for real. I go, what do you mean? She says, well, you love to play the game of money. How about I teach you how to play money for real? So she taught me a lesson at 7.

This is not my 7-year-old experience.

She taught me a lesson at 7 that, by the way, all of you can teach your kids. You can teach yourself. 'Cause at 7, I got it. She said at 7, she's like, there's 3 types of people in the world and I'm gonna explain it to you right now. The person right now who's working at the cash register has a job. That job pays minimum wage. At the time, I think it was like 85 cents an hour. Literally, that was what minimum wage was. She said, it's a very hard way to make a living. And I feel for those people. You should always appreciate them 'cause they work so hard, but it's tough to build wealth that way. She said, the second type of person is somebody like you who comes here and eats and spends money. You're called a consumer. And everybody does that. And then the third type of person is the person who gets rich. There's a person who actually owns McDonald's. And she said, if you own McDonald's, you can become very wealthy. I'm like, Grandma, how would I own McDonald's? So she says, well—

I've got a plan. I'm gonna have the best Big Macs.

She said, I'm gonna teach you. So we went home and she took out the Wall Street Journal. Remember, I'm 7. But she opens up the Wall Street Journal. She circles MCD. For those of you who don't know, MCD to this day is still the stock ticker symbol. From McDonald's. She said, now I'm gonna teach you. So she showed me the price, but that price was yesterday. So she said, that was yesterday's price. Now I'm gonna teach you how to know what today's price is. This is before the internet. So she brings me into the family room, puts me in front of a TV screen and teaches me how to read a stock ticker symbol. And she says, every time you see MCD go by, call out the price. That's the price at that moment. She says, tomorrow I'm gonna take you down to a stock brokerage firm and we'll buy you a share of McDonald's and you will own this place. Every time you come here now, you'll make money from yourself. Every time your friends come here, you'll make money. This is how people in America get rich. And my grandmother at 30 was poor. She didn't have a college education, sold wigs at Gimbel's Department Store. And through investing became a self-made millionaire over her lifetime. Passed those lessons on to me, my father, my sister. My family's now been in the financial service industry for 50 years.

Hey, it's Evan Carmichael, and I make these videos because the thing that saved me as an entrepreneur was watching the stories of other successful entrepreneurs. And I learned from their advice, I learned from their motivation, and honestly, I have no idea where I would be if I didn't have those videos to inspire me. I still need them for myself today too, and I hope that they can inspire you as well. So today, let's learn how to master our money from some of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in the world. Enjoy. Rule number 2 is learn how money works with Grant Cardone.

If I did it all over again today, the first thing I would learn today is the money game. I believe this is the single most important thing your staff can learn, your executives can learn, your financial person, your CEO. By the way, the person, your CFO, your chief financial officer, they don't even know anything about finance. About taxes. What they actually— actually, let me change that. It's not that they don't know anything about finances. What they know is actually one of the people holding you back. Uh, the, uh, KPI, the return—

the—

we're not getting an ROI on this investment. The return on investment is Terrible. This is not a good return. You know, like, like, you got to understand, they're counting money, they're not creating it, right? So our expenses are too high, we need to reduce our expenses, and we pay salespeople too much money. In our, in our company, number one most important protected group in the company is the sales team. I think we're going to overpay anybody. If we overpay anybody, it is the guy and the gal that is going out bringing in the kill. That's right. Okay, so the income line, man, this money thing, this money game, this is, this is how a financial statement works. Income, expenses, Net. Okay, I, I screwed the whole deal up. I spent more time on this line than I did on this line. How many of you know people do this? Reduce the expenses, reduce the expenses, reduce the expenses, reduce the expenses. How low can you go? To zero. How high can you fly? See, I can take this number to infinity. I can only take this number to zero. Everybody agree? So I spend today 95% of my time on income and less than 5% of my time on expenses. So your, your, your financial officer is spending all their time on what? Oh, this expense and that expense and where this went and where that went. I saw Brandon the other night. We went to dinner with Brandon and some of his clients, some of this very, very special elite clients. And, um, we were having dinner and, and, and Brandon, when the bill came and Brandon picked up the bill and, and, and he took a picture of it, I said, why are you taking a picture of it? Well, to send this to the, to whoever collects history. Because once it's an expense, it's history. Everybody agree? Now, have you ever gotten rich off of history? And that's what accountants do. They record history, something that was done. Where's your, where's your future going to come from? Income is the future, right? So I spend 95% of my time on two things: marketing and income. And if I spend too much, big deal. I'm going to go find— this is the solution to all my problems: marketing and income. Everybody agree? I'm going to go expand. Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Google. They don't worry about their expenses. They're like, how much can we spend? How many people can we hire? How big can we get? How long can we bleed? And one day we'll own the world.

Rule number 3 is outwork everyone with Mark Cuban.

Most people do a lot of talking and most people don't put in the effort. There's there's nothing you can't accomplish in life with the right amount of work. The challenge is, you know, are you willing to do the work? And the reality is most people aren't. But that's the opportunity, right? I mean, it's like people you know at school. Most people are lazy, right? They just, they barely get through it. And so that creates opportunity. I tell my kids that, A, if they want something, A, they're gonna have to earn it.

Yeah.

And B, if they don't work hard enough to earn it, I'm gonna sell them off as medical experiments. That's the line in our house, right? I'm gonna sell you off as medical experiments. You need money? Okay, we'll sell you off as a medical experiment. We can get you money that way. Go give blood. Dad, I'm 7.

I don't care.

Rule number 4 is get strategic with Paul Orfalea.

Business is an art form. If Da Vinci came back, he'd say, "Wow, man, I think I could have done some more pink in that picture, a little more blue." They're artists. It always can be done better. Then you're never done. It's never perfect. It can always be improved.

What was your first job? What was the first business you started and the first job you had?

Went to the market and bought some strawberries and sold them door to door. I was about 9 years old. I just bought them at the retail store and sold them. I was doing door-to-door stuff. I was hustling. That's my favorite. If anything I like the best is sales.

How did you learn to?

I don't know. You just do it. Sell newspapers. You just hustle. You know, the Easter Seals or the Christmas stamps? I used to hustle those in grade school. It just came easy to me. I don't know how. I just sold.

How did you make your money?

Where, at the Kinkos?

Yeah.

How did I make— I was a saver my whole life. I'm not a very good reader and I had a lot of problems in school. And I kind of figured out I'd have to do it with my savings account. Your children ought to be successful in either one of two ways. They had to be good in the school thing where they're a doctor, or something with their education, or they better be good with their money. And I was always saving my money and trying to figure out what to do with my money. So I was a saver.

And you made the majority of your fortune through Kinko's?

Yeah. I've made other ways of making money too, but I did that.

Love to hear.

Well, I've always invested in stocks, equities, and real estate. I think when you start your career, you have all your money in your business. Then you get a little older, you have liquid instruments like stocks and bonds. 'Cause the best way to destroy your business is not turning money into cash and not paying your bills. Then you get a little older, you have a third in your business, a third in equities or liquid instruments, a third in real estate. Then when you wanna retire, it's paid off real estate, little bit of stocks, stocks and bonds, And if you want aggravation, you can still have employees.

How did you take Kinko's from one store? Like, how did you make it a billion-dollar business?

When I left, it was about $3 billion. How? Yeah, I guess for— You know what? People ask you that. How did you be— When you're 4 years old, how did you get to be 20 years old and so tall? You just do it. I mean, it just happened every day. I'd go and I'd try to make it better. One of the things I've always approached my job as— things went beautifully without me, but whatever I did every day, I made it better. So I didn't go to work, things ran. I had a system where it ran without me very well.

Well, I think for you, maybe it comes a little more naturally. I think for— there's a lot of people out there that are like, I'd like to explore entrepreneurship, I'd like to make a billion dollars, or I'd like to have freedom. And so I think it's more like created your fortune, you found that there's this copiers and opening a bunch of stores, your copiers is a great way to make a fortune.

Well, I think when you go to someone's soul, the question is, do you like to do everything yourself and you put up with the vagaries of human beings? Do you want to eat your alphabet soup alphabetically? I wouldn't try to get an employee. I was always comfortable with ambiguity.

Go on.

Well, businesses, everything I dealt with in my business was an ambiguous decision. If you pay people a little bit too much or do you pay them enough, what's the marginal benefit of a little bit more for health insurance? How much benefit do I get out of that? I think it goes back to microeconomics. And we don't understand you make decisions on the margins and that's all the executive or the owner does is make marginal decisions. And you make marginal decisions every day. If you drive on the freeway at 65, your chance of getting a ticket is zero. If you go at 90, you're going to get a higher probability. We make marginal decisions instinctively every day, but we don't think about it.

Also, to make sure you're actually taking action after watching this video, I've designed a special free worksheet just for this video. The worksheet will highlight all the lessons learned in this video as well as pull out our 3 favorite learnings and quotes that will inspire you to actually do something. The worksheet will also give you space to write down what your key takeaways are and your specific plan of action to make sure you're getting results. If you want the worksheet designed specifically for this video, absolutely for free, there's a link in the description below. Go click on it and start building the momentum in your life and your business.

I'll see you there.

Rule number 5 is make believability-weighted decisions with Ray Dalio.

I should explain believability-weighted decision-making to you if you're sure you're interested. OK. So ordinarily, you know, there were two ways of making decisions. Pretty much. There's the boss has control and so autocratic, autocratic. I'll call that autocratic. Takes in everything and then he makes a decision. Or there's democratic. Pretty much one man, one vote. But really, the best decision-making is believability-weighted decision-making. And if you think about it first conceptually, you would say if you're going to make a decision of what you have, medical condition, and you're going— how are you going to get that? You're going to think, who are the best doctors?

Consult the experts, right?

Consult the experts. But this one knows more and that one knows less. And how do you do it? And then you have this triangulation. And then you make that. That's kind of the idea of believability decision-making. We have ways of assigning believability that we all agree are fair, that we each assess each other, and we get certain amount of believability points. So now imagine that you had believability, your believability on a subject matter. Maybe it's investing, maybe it's accounting, whatever the subject is that you have a certain amount of believability weighted points and you're together. Well, those believability weighted points, when you say, okay, what should I make as a decision? Now I'm responsible for something, but I ask everybody else, and I take a believability weighted vote. I can have a believability weighted vote. When I have that believability weighted vote, I really do believe that it's going to be a better decision than I would individually make. That's believability-weighted decision-making. And it's fantastic when you have independent thinkers. In order to be successful in the markets or as an entrepreneur, one has to be an independent thinker that makes decisions better than the consensus decisions. It's fair in the markets. The consensus is built into the price.

It's beta.

Yeah.

So now you have to bet against the consensus to make money. Therefore, you have to be an independent thinker. The best dynamic is to have a bunch of independent thinkers. Now you've got a bunch of independent thinkers. How are they going to have thoughtful disagreement and get past those disagreements? How we have done that is the key to our success.

Rule number 6 is gamify investments with Ramit Sethi.

We all have to go on our own investment journey. I did when I thought I was a genius in 2000 and I put it all in the market picking individual stocks. And I realized, oh man, I gotta learn how this works. And so there are some basic investment truths and there are some basic truths in every industry. For example, you have people, they struggle to lose weight for example, in my case, I struggled to gain weight. I was a really skinny guy. And you could have sat there and told me, hey Ramit, you need to eat more calories. And I would have said, no, no, no, no, no, you don't understand, like, I have a fast metabolism, blah, blah, blah. And I had to go through this journey. I had to ask friends to help me train at the gym. I had to watch other people, read a bunch of books, and get trainers. And eventually, I realized, oh my gosh, it's actually pretty simple. But to get there, I had to go like this. So I actually have a lot of compassion for anyone who's on their investment journey because this stuff is not easy. Once you really get good at it, it's quite simple and you realize, oh my gosh, I only need to sort of set up 20% automated savings, da da da da da. I need to have these kind of basic ratios, but the rest of it's just like easy. To get there is not easy. So I totally understand that. And for anyone watching, we all start at different places, whether it's on our fitness journey, money journey, spiritual journey. And, you know, the goal, I think, is to find something that fits us, is simple, and helps us lead a rich life.

Rule number 7 is shift your thinking with Dean Graziosi.

People think money doesn't solve problems, or money won't make me a better person, or money won't make me happy. And I think however you want to classify money, but for me, I just know this: if that's a driver for you, I don't think we should drive for money. I think we should drive to be a better version of ourselves. When money was no longer a worry for me, I dove into me. I had been ignoring and tucking down a lot of crap for a lot of years. I was surface level. I looked like the guy that had it all going on. My businesses were doing good. I have amazing children, company thriving. I live in the right neighborhood, drive the right— have the right friends. Everything looked great, but it was all masked. When money got out of the way, I was able to find— dig into me and do my own personal development and my own personal growth. And really find the things that I wanted to fix so I could become a better version. Because I know if I'm pointing— because my son's over there, it doesn't matter what I tell him as a parent. And if you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about. I could teach him everything. I give him lessons. We do Sunday meetings. I could teach him lessons every day. He's going to become who I am, not what I say. And I'm going to lead by example. And I want to be a better version of me. And money's allowed that. Money has not made me evil or done bad things. It's allowed me to not worry about that part so I could focus on me. Simultaneously, the more I focused on me, the more I wanted to take my money and do better for other people. I heard somebody say once when they said they think money is evil, they said, "You haven't made enough and you haven't given enough away yet to see that it's not." That shifted for me as I just want to fine-tune and hone my skills for making more money, then I have the ability to help more people because that's the gift I got. I know you asked about money myths. I think the whole thought of money's evil or it can't help problems or we're hurting other people by taking it, I don't believe in that as long as the byproduct of you making money turns you into a better person and allows you to help more people.

Rule number 8, the last one before some very special bonus clips, is stop wasting money with Jay Shetty.

If you want to have more money, one way is to uncover the areas where you may be wasting money. And that's why we're talking about 5 common ways we throw money away.

Where exactly did your money go?

Money is something a lot of us struggle with. Check this out. In a 2019 employee survey at PwC, 71% of millennials said their money stress had gone up over the past year.

It is stressful.

Listen me out. And nearly half of all respondents said that they spend 3 hours or more every week thinking about or trying to sort out their finances. And money woes don't just affect us individually. 44% of young adults said that money is the number one stressor in their relationship. I need to borrow some money. And check out these stats. According to Erin Lowry, creator of the Broke Millennial blog, blog, the average millennial graduated with $37,000 in student debt. That's in the States, and some have much more. That's enough to buy a brand new car or put a down payment on a house. Maybe you're like, yeah, don't remind me, Jay. Hey, I get it. Lots of us come from tough places financially, and you might be there now. Growing up, my family definitely was not what you'd call wealthy. For some of us, the hard times actually really helped spur us on to success. Here's one of the stories that's really inspired me. It's of a young man who at 14 was evicted with his mother from their apartment and couldn't afford a place to live. By the time he was 16, he was arrested multiple times. Though he went on to secure a spot to play American football at a top college, in his junior year he lost his spot and his NFL career opportunities with it. At one point, he found himself with only $7 in his pocket, but he kept working and striving. And today, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson says that every time he experiences a big moment of success, he reminds himself of those early struggles when his back was up against the wall and the only way to go was forward. And that's why he named his company Seven Bucks Productions. Still, even if you don't have aspirations of becoming a mega movie star, financial security is within reach, and the place to start is to stop wasting money. Now, a little disclaimer first: what I'm going to share with you is for informational purposes only. It is definitely not intended as formal legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. You want to consult a qualified licensed professional for that. Okay, so here are those 5 big areas where you can stop wasting money and get yourself on track financially.

Take notes.

Boys, let's start with a super common one that's really simple. Financial expert Suze Orman says if you're buying a coffee every day, you may be literally flushing your chance to be a millionaire down the drain. You know, because after the coffee goes through your body— okay, never mind, you get it. Anyway, Orman says that if you invested that $100 or more per month so many of us spend on coffee in a Roth retirement account over 40 years with compound interest, you'd have $1 million.

What?

That's worth making your own coffee, right? Actually, the entire category of food and drink is a big one. Not only do we spend loads of money eating out for dinner, another big money waster people often overlook is lunch. Here's a quick quiz. How much do you think the average person spends on lunch in a year according to Visa? Is it A) $520, B) $1,280, and C) $2,746. If you guessed C, you're right. The average person spends $2,746 per year on lunches. Now check this out. If instead of buying lunch, you invested that money every month in a basic savings account, over 20 years you'd have— I hope you're sitting down— because this is unbelievable. You'd have $60,760.41. I'm gonna sit down. And that's just with basic compounding interest. Okay, so here's another big way we waste money: buying new. Now here's the thing. I know for lots of us, I'll be honest, myself included, how we look is important. We enjoy fashion. But you can continue to have your unique look and have favorite brands and still spend less money on clothing. Here's a way to do that. I have another friend who's into designer brands but would never pay designer prices. Her secret is to shop at consignment stores. And now that there are lots of these stores online, there are tons of items to choose from, and you can even shop by your favorite brands. The other month, I complimented my friend on a sweater, and she told me she got it for 65% less than the original price, and it came brand new with the tag still attached. Plus, shopping consignment also benefits the environment because we're recirculating clothes instead of just making more stuff. Beyond clothing, there are loads of things we tend to buy brand new that we really don't need to.

And what I found out is that people want to learn about Money IQ, which is about financial intelligence It's about investing, how to buy stocks and how to trade and all the other things. But what I found out is that money EQ is more important than money IQ. Money EQ is emotional intelligence about money, how healthy you feel with money. A healthy relationship is that when you feel happy about money, your money EQ is high. When you constantly worry about money and, you know, You have fear of money, but your money EQ is low. And the highest money IQ people with all the MBAs and all the doctor degrees, they are good at investing and they're super good with business, but these high money IQ people often lose everything because of low money EQ. Even though you built a high tower with money IQ, the foundation is shaky, it's going to fall. So money EQ is a foundation of life. For example, if you get a $500 raise, which is great, but can you keep the money? Probably you will celebrate your raise and spend it all. And then if you get a $2,000 raise, which is great, probably you're going to move to a better and bigger house and then you're going to probably buy a bigger car and more expenses go up. So even though you get a raise, you make more money, your expenses also are trying to match your income. So you have no money at the end of the month anyway. I have known many CEOs who are making a few hundred thousand dollars a year, but still they cannot keep any money left because their lifestyle consumes all the money. So unless you learn about money EQ and have the solid foundation, you'll never be able to feel peace with money and you'll never be able to achieve true financial independence.

Because you made it this far in the video, I want to celebrate you. Most people start and don't finish. Most people never actually follow through. Most people say they want something, but they don't ever do the work to actually get it. But you are different. You are special. Believe Nation, you made it here all the way to the end, and I love you. So as a special celebration, if you put a hashtag #believe down in the comments below on this video, I will showcase you and celebrate you somewhere on the screen in a future video because you are awesome. If you want to learn about wealth and success from Les Brown, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.

Whatever you do, you want to be excited about it. You want to have the kind of excitement that is so contagious that people want to be around you. Because whatever you're doing, whatever you talk to people about, this particular idea that you have