708. How to Build Your Money Machine: The Five Incomes to Financial Freedom with Mel Abraham

Hi, I'm Jacqueline Snyder and this is the Product Boss podcast. I've helped launch and grow thousands of product based businesses, even one of my own. And over the last 20 years, I've seen behind the scenes of businesses just like yours. Whether they are makers, manufacturers, artists, or food and beverage businesses. I have spent so many hours studying it all. I've discovered what makes them successful, what mistakes they could have avoided, how did they turn their ideas into successful business, and what are the strategies that they have used to make more sales and be discovered by more customers. And this is what this show is all about. Whether you're just starting out or you're looking to become a million dollar product boss, I'm here to give you the permission to chase your dreams, no matter how big or small. All you need is the right mindset, a little courage, strategy and support, and you too can be the next million dollar product boss. Let's do this. Oh my goodness. Friends, if you are anything like me, you probably spend more time running errands than running your business. Am I right? Like, everything needs something, we gotta run around. And I knew that this was like a major issue for me back in the day, which is why I decided to get help where I could. And I decided to let Instacart handle all of my grocery shopping. So I no longer had to worry about running all the errands and having to run out and get more almond mil for my lattes. Rather, I was like, you know what? We're just gonna let Instacart handle that. So I want you to imagine skipping the store and getting back to designing packaging, orders, making, or maybe actually taking a break, even a nap. Remember those? Okay, so with Instacart, you can get groceries and essentials delivered in as fast as an hour, so you can focus on growing your business without sacrificing a meal. Plus, less stress and more focus. And here's a tip. I've actually used Instacart before to order gifts from my daughter's friend's birthday parties because I haven't had time to run out and get presents. And I've been able to get the packaging, like the gift bag and the g, like hello, Sephora, delivered to my house while I was in the middle of coaching sessions so that I could have the present right. It's like having a personal assistant without having a personal assistant. So if you want to do what I do and get the help where you can, you can try it now if you head to the productboss.com. instacart hey product bosses, quick check in. Is your sales growth feeling stuck, like totally flatlined despite all of your hustle? Or maybe you're like, okay, this should actually just be harder. Maybe you're feeling like you're walking in mud and it's like, why does this feel so hard? 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You're like, which episodes should I listen to, Jacqueline? Here it is. And it's packed with with pure gold. All you have to do is head to the productboss.com growth or click that link in the show notes and then pop into your email and let's do this. It's your time to feel the freedom to find that abundance and to get passionate about your business again. All right, I'll see you in there. Hey. Hey, product bosses. Well, welcome back to the show and I am just thrilled about today's episode. I'm chatting with one of my good friends and someone who I've known for a while and we've been in a mastermind together for the last couple years. He's just so incredible and he's someone that I turn to when it comes to you. Financial advice, financial literacy, planning, mindset, scarcity, all the things. So I'm so excited to introduce you to my friend, Mel Abraham. Now, for those of you who don't know Mel yet, he is a globally recognized thought leader, business advisor, CPA and financial expert. Mel is also a two time best selling author of the Entrepreneur's Solution and Building your money machine learning, which became a USA Today bestseller in its first week of being published. Congratulations, Mel. Basically, he's amazing. And today we're actually going to dig into his latest book, this bestseller, Building your Money Machine, which is all about creating financial freedom through having the right mindset, which, you know, I'm really big on the right process and the right action steps. And in today's episode, we're going to dive deeper into the proven process of the five incomes and what the actual key is to building your money machine. And if you're like me, right, and what I've been working on for years and years and years, and you've struggled with your mindset around financials, or you have financial scarcity, then you're in for a treat because we really dig into this. I know what it feels like and I knew the questions to ask, and I hope you get so much out of this as well. So if you're ready to dig in and learn how you can create financial freedom in your life, I think this episode is going to be just the ticket. All right, my friends, let's dive in. Mel, welcome to the Product Boss podcast. We are friends. We are in groups together. Like, when I say groups, like masterminds, I mean, we've known each other for a while and I'm just so glad to have you here and talking about your brand new book, Building youg Money Machine. Welcome.

Oh, my God. So good to be here. I mean, first off, thanks for having me and just watching your journey and then being part of this is. Is a blessing.

Thank you. I know. And you're just, you're so wise. Like, I think we come to you, you know, in our, in a mastermind that I'm in with you. You know, we'll come to you, be like, mel, what do you think about the numbers? But then you're not only a numbers guy, you're not only in finance, but you also have such, like, this amazing part that's philosophical, the mindset part of it. Like, you're just so holistic with the whole idea of money. And I know that my listeners know that I've through my life dealt with scarcity and money mindset issues and trying to overcome them. So I'm just really excited that you wrote this book and that we're going to get to dig into it a little bit more.

So cool. So cool. Well, I'm glad you say that because I actually think you cannot detach money from life, from love, from every aspect of is a huge thing, because if we just chase the money, then we end up with an empty existence. And that's why so many people are miserably rich.

Miserably rich. It's true, it's true. And I think it's getting that alignment with your values. What do they say? Like if you make like a jerk richer, he's still. He's just a rich jerk at that point.

Yes, he is. He could be a jerk to more people.

More people. So how did you. Let's talk a little bit about how you were able to hit financial freedom and why that was. It was so important to actually like the. And I talk about safety and security a lot. So the safety and security of your family for you, yourself, mental health and just kind of like your process and when you had that aha moment of really discovering that we all need to be building a money machine.

So I was a single full time dad. So I was raising my son, came to live with me at five and a half years old. And I was a typical entrepreneur. I'm a CPA by education. And so we've got the worst business model in the world. We swap hours for dollars. It's horrible, you know, so that meant that in order for me to make money, I had to be on the treadmill and I had to be running all the time. And, and I had been doing that. I'm building my business. Things are going great. I think that things are wonderful. And my son is doing well in school. And the next thing I know, he comes running home and he says, daddy, daddy, I drew a picture of you at school today. And so I kneel down and I look at this, this picture thinking it's going to be us playing ball. It's going to be us having fun. No, it was me standing in front of two computer screens and a phone in each ear. And this picture was this mirror into my soul from a six year old that got me to realize that, oh my God. And then you have all these people around you that say, well, see, your problem is Mel, that you don't have work, life, balance. But the more I thought about it, balance isn't really what we want because balance is like you have two counterweights that are playing tug of war. Tug of war is friction. It's, it's not going to feel good. So it wasn't really balance I needed, it was harmony. And harmony would only come from intent. Because I struggled with this question of can I build a business? Can I do what I want to do what I want, what I really want to do professionally and serve the greatest gift that I was given and that's to be a dad, to be a, to, to be a parent to this, this Wonderful child and, and everything. And I mean, the short answer is yes. But what gave birth to the concept of the money machine was that I came to the realization that until I was able to separate the earnings from the efforts to earn them, I will always be held ransom to the treadmill. And then you have some of these other folks that say, well, you have multiple streams of income. And I know you talk about that, but the difference is that if you're saying multiple streams of income, meaning that you have to run on three treadmills instead of one, that's even worse. But that's not what you, what you teach and, and everything. But that was the, that was the, the big aha to get me obsessed about how do you do business and money differently? To be able to at some point have a life that was built on choice and not the demands of the day.

Mm. So good choice, but not the demands of the day. Which I think especially when you're in it, right? You had a younger son, you're a full time dad. Like there's so many demands that are out of our control. It's like last night my daughter needed to stay up with me. She didn't want to go to sleep, but I was like, I have a huge deadline. Right. It was just like, you don't get to control when this kid can't go to sleep. So I love that. That's a way to think through it. And then what do you think is. And I think we all know this innately in our bodies. And I agree with you. For my product bosses that are listening, it's the idea of like if you are making your money by going in person markets all the time and if you don't do the in person market, you're not making the money. Right. And we talk about it from multi stream machine perspective where you know, you could be making sales while you sleep with your product in other sales channels. And then we think about this and I would always kind of reference back, like how a millionaire becomes a millionaire with. And we talked about all their multiple streams of revenue. And then you have. Which I think is really cool. You made it even easier. You have the five incomes. So when we talk about money and we talk about what do you think makes your approach to it different than the other money books out there of like this is how you build wealth sort of thing.

I think there's one big thing. First off, I wrote it.

No, you're really right.

But I look at. So here's what I realized. We have been raised with the concept of you've got to go make a good living, go make money, make money, make money, earn, earn, earn. And they, they present it as if that's the magical solution to all our financial woes. And if it were, then the people making hundreds of million dollars would live these magical lives. And we know that many of them end up bankrupt. Many of them are miserable. Many of them have five, six, I don't know how many marriages. And so what's happening, and what I realize is that they're teaching us one journey, which is an industrial age journey of earnings. And at the time, it worked because there was something called pension plans. So if I did the earnings and I was loyal to a company, once I decided to retire, they would say, that's good, we got a pension plan for you, we'll take care of you the rest of your life. But we all started living longer. They all started getting more expensive. So they said, we're not going to do that anymore. And, but they never taught us or talked to us about how do you replace a pension plan. They made you feel like maybe a 401k, an IRA or any other, the, the SIP accounts in different countries, those kinds of, would be the replacement. But it isn't the replacement if you don't do it right. And so what I realized is that there's actually two journeys an entrepreneur and individuals in general need to be thinking about and on at the same time. One is the earnings journey. Okay? And that is because the earnings journey is where we make the money. The only reason we go into an earnings journey is solely to optimize cash flow to provide a solution to someone, whether it's our employer or a customer. But nowhere in there is it to give us control or freedom. That comes from the second journey called the money journey. The money journey is about the money machine because now we take the cash flow from that. We use it to create income streams that aren't tied to my efforts or as closely tied to my efforts, because there'll always be some effort. And when I do that, I now optimize my assets and I optimize my time. I get my time back. And, and when you run these together, that's the, that's the big difference. Okay? And I think that a lot of personal finance texts, they say it's personal, so they talk about the personal side and there's business texts that talk about the business side, but they're together. We need to earn whether we're in a job, career or professional path, or we're in a business. But we need to do it right so we can build financial freedom and choice in our life by having the right money side of it. And they got to be married together. And that's kind of the way I looked at it and saying, how do we do them at the same time to give us the path to be able to live a life of choice.

I love that. And I think you. And like you said, it's like the freedom, but the freedom is different. The way that you're approaching freedom, it's that time freedom. It's that time with your family. It's the time doing things that you love, like living your dream life. And so it's not to buy the mega yachts and the Ferraris and like you said, the six wives later sort of thing, but rather living the life that we all imagine for ourselves. So if we were going to dig into some key takeaways from the book that we could share, do you want to go into, what do you think, the wealth priority ladder or the five incomes?

I think, I think we can start with the five incomes because we started there and just see where it goes. Because I want to dispel a myth. Because you hear this also in finance texts and all that stuff, they say you need passive income, y'. All. There is no such thing as passive income, okay? Your relationship with wealth, your relationship with money, your relationship with, with all of that is truly a relationship. And it can have the dysfunctions of a relationship. And if we come at it with a very, very passive approach, like, like they're saying, hey, set it, forget it, and don't worry about it. Well, I just crossed my wife and I just crossed 13 years married. I happen to know for a fact that I wouldn't, we wouldn't have lasted 13 minutes if I was passive about it. And, and so I try to look at income, and this is the. How that five incomes model was, was built from the, through the eyes of leverage. In other words, how much effort does it take for me to get the rewards? So at the bottom rung is what I call active income. These are our solopreneurs. They're your jobs.

They're.

We all start there with one ounce of effort and you get one ounce of reward back. And, and it's a one, it's very much a one on one relationship. As we move through that now, most people will stay there. That's what they do all their life. And so it's this, this treadmill that they're on all their life. And at some point at some day I'll retire and then I'll, I'll enjoy. I don't think that we should be. I don't agree with some of the folks that say, well, you live on macaroni and cheese until you get there. Here's what I know. If we don't enjoy the path to financial freedom, we will never enjoy the destination of financial freedom. And so I want us to do things a little differently and have joy along the way. So I don't want us necessarily to live in the active space, but to be able to be there by choice. I do a lot of active work. I go speak. I can't, I can't sub that out. So I get paid to do keynotes, to do one on one. I consult with families as a family cfo, all those kinds of things. But I do it by choice. That's the key. And I can do it at whatever level I want and do it that way. So the first level is active income. And then the second level of, of, of leverage is what I call business income. It's a term that, that I use. You may or may not be in a business because it can happen in your personal life. This is where we start to outsour things in our lives or our business. So we're not doing all of it. It could be the, the housekeeper, the yard, the pool, or it could be people in your business that are giving you time back so you can do other things. And so now you, you are a little more leveraged, but it's still dependent on you. And so these bottom two rungs are where most people play most of their life. And in fact, complete transparency right now, 100% of our lifestyle and beyond is funded by those bottom two in my life. Okay, but then there's, then there's three more. And in these three more, this is where your money machine's built. This is where you actually start to get leverage that is beyond this kind of active role. And so the, the next stage up is what we call asset based income. And this is where we're going to spend some time up front, acquire an asset. It could be a piece of property, it could be a piece of equipment, it could be. I've got like, I've got a client that they, they have vehicles and they rent the vehicles for movies. So it could be transport vehicles or it could be move, could be a Ferrari in one of, in, in, in Fast and Furious. So, so they rent them out, but they have this warehouse they bought. They, they put the money out and did it, but now they rent it out. There's very, there's a lot less activity involved with that. Or I buy a rental property or an Airbnb or a commercial building or something like that. So asset based income will take an upfront investment of time, effort and money. But then we have the opportunity to get paid on it with a lot less effort and time money. And so that's the next stage up. Then just above that at the fourth stage is what I call residual income. Residual income is the kind of stuff where we build something once and we get paid on it on a regular basis. You got to think about creatives. My book, for instance, okay, took a lot of time to get it written, took a lot of time to get it done, but I'll get paid on it for years. I got a book from 2015, I still get royalties on it. Songwriters, actors, actresses, you know, your, your content can be licensed, white labeled and things like that that you can, you can create and do that even, even indirectly. Downlines in network marketing or affiliate types of situations that don't require fulfillment, don't require so much active, active work that you can get paid on. I, I have done affiliates for, for just a couple of people, but then they pay me for the rest of the year, you know. And so, so residual is the next level up of leverage. And then the final level at the top is what we call portfolio income. It's the typical investing that you see. It's paper assets, it's stocks, bonds, ETFs, index funds. Very little effort. You're going to check, you're going to check the accounts, you're going to check with your advisors. If you have advisors, you're going to follow a scorecard and you're going to do that maybe monthly or quarterly and definitely annually. But at the same time there's much less effort. So at that level. Now here's the, here's the key to the money machine. I want to have the capacity and the ability to pay for at least 80% of my lifestyle from the top three. Now I said earlier that I got 100% or more being being paid from the bottom two. I also have the capacity to pay 100% or more from the top three because we built the machine. Cause we did it right. But right now we don't need it. So we're just letting the machine grow and grow and grow and at some point we can flip the machine on. And in fact we had to because of something that happened in my life. But that's the Power of it. And look, it takes time to do it right, but once it's in place, it's not just in place for you, it's in place for everyone around you and your heirs and, and everything to, to do it right. And so what I try to do is say, let's use the business. Let's use our active business income as the fuel to create the top three to make that happen. Now, I want to clarify something because sometimes this question comes up of does that mean that that's the order you go in? And the answer is no. The top three will be determined more around the lifestyle you choose than anything else. For instance, I have a dear, dear friend who loves real estate. So he owns a bunch of properties. He doesn't have much in portfolio, but he loves the properties. I love real estate, but I don't love managing it. So I don't want to be the landlord. I don't want to get the call at 10 o' clock at night saying the toilet's clogged or anything like that. So I don't own directly a lot of real estate, but I have exposure to real estate. And so you design your money machine based upon the lifestyle that fits for you. But bottom line is I want 80% plus of our income coming from the top.

I love that and I'm glad you answered that because that was my question was gonna be where do we go? Do we start at assets and work our way up or down? And I think you're right. It's your risk tolerance. It's the thing that you wanna get into. There's some people who get it. They get Airbnbs, they get real estate. That's the thing that they wanna do. And so I like that you have options for people. One thing I want to kind of connect the dots for my product bosses is when we talk about affiliate, because I know a lot of you are like, well, we can't do affiliate or sell for other people. So one way that I've seen some of our students do really well at that might be complimentary products that they become an Amazon affiliate. And they're like, here's a jewelry cleaner that we love and here's this and that, and they're selling jewelry. And so it's a way that you don't have to worry about stocking product or having anything and you can share with your customers. We've also had other students that have been somewhat like creators themselves. For example, Brooke of Be Happy, she lived her life with her three kids in an RV Traveling around America and homeschooling. So people started asking her, what do you put in your rv? What's this? What's that? And so she also became an affiliate of brands. And so even though she's got her product based business, she had this other form of revenue and income coming in. So get creative. I'm going to actually do this and I'm going to drop a link into the show notes. So for those of you who are listening to this, obviously we're going to share the book, but I'm going to give you all a link of a freebie download for you. That's ways to make money. And one of the things could be, there's places you could rent out your driveway, you could rent out your pool, you could rent out your car. So these are other ways, like Mel was saying, you have these assets that you could make money on that you don't even realize. There's even ones where you could rent out your backyard for people, for their pets. And so I'm going to share that with you too because this is super aligned. If we're feeling stuck on how do I get these five incomes, I want to share that with you as well.

I love that you're doing that. And the other thing is just start somewhere. Because wealth creation is less about the money and more about the behaviors. It's a habit, it's a choice, it's a behavior. There's a study out there that says 10,000 millionaires. 10,000 millionaires. 79% were first generation. They didn't win it, they didn't inherit it. It wasn't gifted to them, they created it. 8 out of 10 created. That's pretty good odds. Yeah.

And me, right?

And.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm.

I'm a son of an immigrant. My dad came here at 17. You know, now 31% of them never made much more than $100,000 a year. So it isn't the amount of money that matters, it's what we do with it. Sorry about my doggies.

It's okay. We love dogs here. It's not the money you earn, it's what you do with it. Yes. And I think. And you know, is it ever too late to start? What if people are feeling like, you know, I've been working and I've had this career forever and I'm. I don't know if I can do all this. What would you say to people who are kind of a little bit later on in terms of. I mean, I don't think I started Saving until I was 40 to be honest, because I was living paycheck to paycheck for so long. So would your recommendations be there? Hey, friends. Okay, so I don't know if you wrote anything like me, but sometimes it feels like my self care routine is slipping through the cracks because when I'm juggling and wearing all the hats in my business and doing all the things, I mean the last thing I have to do is like really fulfill that self care routine that my do talking about. She's like, mom, so listen, so when it comes to running a successful business, you can't really pour from an empty cup. And a lot of times that self care is like one of the first things to get yourself recalibrated. So that's why I want you to meet Glossy. Now Glossy is my favorite daily beauty supplement designed to transform your skin and gut health from the inside out. And I'm actually an investor in this business because I so believe in this idea of science backed ingredients for digestion and skin hydration. And Glossy makes it really easy to look and feel your best without that whole 10 step routine in the mirror. The thing I don't actually have time for, all I have to do is simply mix the stick into my water and I'm good to go. So if you want to try this because I so believe in this business, I think it's amazing. It's done so many wonders for my skin and my gut, which are two things that I need help with. And you want to simplify your wellness and your beauty. All you have to do is click in the show notes and you can use the code Jacqueline Snyder. So it's my full name. Use the code Jacqueline Snyder and I'm hooking you up with 15% off your order. So cheers to glowing skin and a thriving business.

So this is a question I get a lot and I don't mean to be. It may come across really flippant, but what's your alternative? Okay, I don't think it's ever too late. The question. So it's a math equation. So the more time we have, the less money we need. The less time we have, the more money we need. So if I have a shorter time frame, I have to be more deliberate and controlled in my income and my spending. I got to get as big a shovel as I possibly can and put as much towards my future as I possibly can. But the key is if you're, if you haven't started, you're sitting in the stands. If you're just, if you're not sure what to do, and you're just putting in a savings account. At least you're on the sidelines. But the only way you're going to win this game is to get in the field. We got to get in the game, we got to start investing. And here's some things to kind of think about when you talk about the stock market, for instance. The stock market goes up 8 out of 10. 10 years. 8 out of 10 years. So 80% of the time you're going to be up. In fact, if you look at any 20 year period, any 20 year period, okay, the lowest return that you got was 4%. 90% of the time it was at 8% or above. 59% of the time it was at 10% or above. So as long as we get in the game and stay in the game for the long run, the probability of success is really high. The challenge is we don't get in the game or we don't stay in the game. We get in and all of a sudden we see the market drop or something, our investment portfolio drop, and we go, I'm done, I'm out. I did it. I got scared and I put everything in cash and I sat in cash for a decade. You know, when I did the math on it had, I kept investing what I was doing all that time, $3.9 million more. My fear cost me $4 million. So wherever you are, age, stage or circumstance, the key is getting in the game. And even if you're sitting back saying, mel, all I got is $5 good, $5 will develop a habit. It'll develop a habit that will turn in 10 to 100 to a thousand. Okay? And one thing that I want to be real clear on, because when I first came into doing this, I was the accountant. I thought I was going to give you the math on wealth. I was going to give you the columns, the rows, and that's it. But I found out really quickly that until I dealt with the things between our ears and the thing in our heart, I couldn't deal with a pocketbook. And so there's a tendency, especially if you feel like you're late. Like, I did a live call. Yes. Yesterday. And a gal sent me an email afterwards that said, I stepped away from the zoom call just to be off camera because I got emotional. And I didn't want to be in tears on the call because someone asked the question, what do you do if you're late to the game? And she. It hit her really hard. And so that kind of regret, that kind of blame, that kind of feeling is natural, and we all have it. Look, I wish I started at 10. I got my son started at 10. He's now 34. Okay? But. But I didn't. And for some reason, we find ourselves here, and instead of beating ourself up on should haves, would haves, could haves, that doesn't serve us. We just accept this is where we're at. And we say, what can we do? What. Where do we go from here? And where we go from here is we take lessons, learnings, and a commitment and say, I'm stepping in the game. And if I don't understand the game, then let me get some rules, let me get some understanding, Let me follow a process or a recipe, because building wealth is a skill set, and all skill sets are learnable then. And let's just get in the game. Now. You may not hit all your numbers because you're sitting back saying, I have a decade or two decades, and maybe I don't hit all my numbers, but if we just got you 70% of the way there, you're still 70% better off. So I don't ever sit back and go, hey, it's too late. Why even try? You know? So I try to get people in the game no matter where they're at. No judgment, no blame. I've made horrible decisions. I lost money. I wiped out one third of my net worth once. I had to rebuild. So I'm just a normal guy that figured it out and got frustrated watching people in pain when I felt like they didn't need to be in pain.

Yeah. And there's a lot of pain there. And then I think looking at money as a tool, and we always say, my life coach says math, not drama. And that's what you're saying. It's like, let's just math the math. Let's just figure it out. So I think a lot of things that get in the way, like you said, it's kind of like the thing between your ears needed to be fixed before you could fix your money. And I know that there were times for me where I was like, I do not want to open it. Even if I had money in there, I didn't want to go to my bank account and open it. I didn't even want to know because I had this fear of what I was going to see. And like you said, I mean, the more I got comfortable with it, the more I was able to measure it. I was able to just know that money flows. I Think money flows like the ocean tide. So it flows in, it flows out. Sometimes it's high tide, sometimes it's low tide, you know. So what could be some things that you recommend to people to slowly start to shift their mindset to gain more confidence when it comes to building their money machine?

So confidence, especially when it comes to money, comes from competence. So the first, the first thing is education. I actually talk in, in the book, I talk about the, the, the stack of fear, of fear, the stack of lack it fear. Most of the time the fear is not real fear. It's that we're missing something, there's something not there, and, and if we can fix that gap, then the confidence comes up and it could be a lack of clarity, which is, Am I clear on why? What, what am I doing? What's the purpose of it? Where do I want to go? Because if there's no clarity, then we won't move. But it will feel like I'm scared to move, but it's because there's a lack of clarity. Could be that there's a lack of information or understanding, if you will. Which means that, okay, what information are you lacking? What information do we need to give you? What kind of training, skills or teaching can we give you to replace that? There could be a lack of action. Okay, lack of action. We can contemplate it, read about it. It's like riding a bike. I can read about it, but until I get on that bike, you're not going to learn how to do it. Now that doesn't mean you take all your life savings and say, hey, let's just dump it into an investment. Follow a process, follow a recipe. So it could be that, it could be a lack of support. Having the right people, mentors, coaches, and people that you can have the conversations with. It could be a lack of commitment. Okay, I see a lot of people that say, I want, I want to get out of debt. But I, but at the same time, they're swiping their credit card, it's like saying, I want to, I want to lose weight, but you're eating a Snickers bar. Okay, so lack of action and then, you know, a lack of alternatives. You know, is it if, if you're creating a plan where all the planets have to line up and you don't know that there's alternatives, then, then it's, it's a scary thing. So when we strip some of that away, then it, that it helps. So the first thing is that. But the other thing to realize is that most of our money. The stuff that's in here is caught, not taught, it's not real. The first story I tell in the book is the. Is when I, at about the same age that my son drew the picture of me, was seeing my dad cry. Now, my dad was an immigrant. He came from a country where he was being hunted at 17 years old, with nothing. He was my hero. And I watched him in tears as a five and a half year old, six year old kid. And I knew that it was about money, but I didn't know specifics. All I just remember was him saying, I feel to my mom, I feel like I'm letting the people I love the most down. And so what did I do? I took that. The fact was he was telling my mom we couldn't do something and they were having a discussion, a heated discussion. But I interpreted it, I took it in, I observed it and I made it mean something. And what I made it mean was, oh, if you don't make money, you're going to disappoint the people you love. So now all of a sudden, I had to make money. Had to make money, had to make money. And then along comes Jeremy drawing that picture of me. Here I am making money doing what I thought I needed to do because that story in my head and next thing I know, I go, wow, I'm making money and I'm still disappointing the people I love. I was like, oh man. So what we have to do is separate the interpretation of what we have seen, what we have observed from the facts. And that's where the problem is, is that we take it in as if it is a fact. And if we want to separate. So you start to. If I was sitting with someone, I said, I want you to write down all the different beliefs you have around money. No filter, no judgment, nothing. What they are, where do you think they come from? What was the story? What was the occurrence? What was the observation? Where with, you know, the, the wealthy are greedy or they had to hurt people to get there, or money's dirty, whatever it is, where did it come from? Okay? And then take that story, that observation, and I want you to look at it through a lens. You're going to sit there and you're going to look through a lens of a camera. You're going to put earmuffs on so you cannot hear the voices around the environment or the voices in your head. And all you do is see what's happening. What you see happening is the facts. All the voices that you just shut out that's the interpretation. It's the interpretation that gets us in trouble and holds us back. And so when I can separate the facts from the interpretation, I now can look at the facts objectively and say what was actually the lesson in this. And now we can give it a positive meaning, a positive structure to move beyond it. But we don't. We don't take the time to consciously decide how we are going to relate to money. And what we end up with is this unconscious relationship that ends up dysfunctional because we added all these interpretations of what we saw in the media, social media, our parents, neighbors, and we think that it's true and it's not.

Happy holidays. Okay, don't think. Jacqueline, what are you talking about? It's still warm outside. I know. But guess what? We want to get you uber prepared for this holiday season. Because what we want is that you can get consistent sales, right? Have steady growth and keep growing your business beyond always having to offer a discount during the holiday season to drive sales. So if you want to get prepared while it's still warm outside, you can jump in and, and grab 101 content ideas beyond the Holiday Discount. And it is a bundle of content prompts, tools, hashtags and templates. And it includes a three month calendar with things to say every single day from October to December. It is so helpful. So go out, enjoy the sunshine and feel uber prepared for the holiday season when you grab yours. Now just head toholiday content ideas.com. i've even seen people in our community, you know, my students, that have been embarrassed when they started to make money. So there's a couple that I've coached and worked with for years and he used to be a youth pastor and they live, you know, in Texas. And so they live in, you know, a small rural town. And I remember they were so proud of themselves that they had bought a truck, cash, right? And then they were rolling up to their family and then, you know, their family was like, kind of like, who do you think you are now? Or it was these other people's opinions. They had finally had this success and they had built this amazing product and this amazing business and all the things. So I think that there's this other side to it too where it's like you've got to shut out. It's their noise. Like you said, it's caught, not taught. And it's their own noise that they're putting onto you.

I don't really talk about this often. So I've got an identical twin brother. We're Very, very close. And in fact, he's here visiting. He's not here yet, so I can talk about it and not worry about it. But we took different paths. He's a CPA also, but he worked in corporate and everything. I took the entrepreneurial path and he worked for a guy for 35 years that if that was the epitome of an abusive work relationship, it was that because there was no appreciation, there was no value. And he was, he's tremendously smart, but he was not in a good place financially in the sense of where he believed he should be. He still was good. He was fine. But then he would look at me. I. I love Teslas. So I'm on my third or fourth Tesla, but I bought my first Tesla. And do you know that? Because I didn't want him to feel bad because he didn't live here, he lived in Georgia. I never told him that I bought a Tesla. I never posted anything about it, I never posted anything in it. And I was trying to shield him from it, but in the process, I shrunk. In the process, I didn't show up the way I should have shown up to live bigger, to be an example, not to parade it at all. But what else was I shrinking down in? But I, it's, it's real. It's real that you might sit back that I've worked with people that are billionaires and believe it or not, they too have shame and guilt around money. It doesn't matter. It's just, does it control us? And it's okay. I. What I'd love people to take away a little bit is to say, I. Oh, I'm normal. Yeah.

Yeah. We're not alone. We're not alone in this. And thank you for sharing that story with us because that guilt and the shame around it, the showiness, and I think, you know, especially in this time now where we're attached to social media and everyone sees, right? It's like what people are showing you the best, what they want to show you. We have no idea. We don't know what their bank accounts are. We don't know if they're over leveraged, if they've been investing. We know none of it. And I think I even realized that similarly, I'm the oldest of five kids and I would compare a lot to my siblings and be like, how is he doing this and how is he doing that and how come I'm the oldest and how come I can't do it? Because I recently bought my dream house and I Was so caught with how long it took me. But then when I started actually finding out this one, how he like his percentage on mortgage, and this one, how he's leveraged, or maybe he's not. Or maybe there are two earners that have like multi six figures. You know, when I started to actually look at it, I was like, I need to keep my mind in my own wallet, in my own bank account. That comparison is the thing that is going to make us feel like crap. And then I think I agree with you too with not. I think I know I agree with you with the shrinking. Because if we didn't model for people what was possible, how do we lift the lid on their glass ceiling? How do we show them what's possible, that there is this alternative way to get to where they want. And like you said, it's not showy and it's not bragging. It's the same way that you and I have parents that immigrated and came to America and had to work from nothing. So you and I think share very similar values in the way we can make money from nothing. But then we're not now with our children. It's modeling this other way. Like, how do you build wealth, how do you build legacy? How do you have this life that doesn't? Because my dad, I don't know if recently passed. And at his funeral, all of us were saying that, you know, he was a hard worker. That was like the value that we took, that he was a hard worker. And I realized that we saw him work hard because he needed to work hard. And he used to say he'd sleep when he died. And we were like, you finally get to rest. And the thing is, is that we don't have to work as hard. We don't have to work ourselves to death. Like that is something that we want to break in terms of the legacy that we're leaving. I want my kids to see me work hard. I want my kids to see me motivated and happy and having impact on other people's lives, having impact on our own. But that it's not gonna take killing myself or picking one or the other. And you talked about it, and I agree with you. I don't believe in balance. I believe in the blend. I talk about like a smoothie. So it's whatever that day requires. Some days we need more business. Some days we're more parent. Some days we're more spouse. You know, some days we get to take care of ourselves. So I think, you know, I'm super aligned with all this but it's that idea of, like, we kind of. You get the choice today, no matter where you are, no matter who you're surrounded by, that you choose a different story around money, and you choose to model a different story around money.

I'm like the person when people say, should I buy this? They said, I'm never going to tell you not to. Very rarely am I going to tell you not to. All I want people to do, and this is why the book starts out the way it does in everything, is that I want you to be intentional with your life. Because we start out with defining what you want for your life, health, relationships, everything. Because that should actually inform everything we do, and it should eliminate the comparison as much as possible. Because I had a conversation with someone who's on my publishing team, and he's a millennial. He says, mel, he goes, I got to tell you, I don't think I'm ever going to own a house. And I said, why do you say that? He said, well, look at the prices. Homes are high, interest rates are high. I just don't see it as possible. I said, well, okay, why do you want to own a house? And he says, well, it's the American dream, isn't it? And I said, yeah, it is the American dream. But is it your dream? And he said, I never thought about that. I go, look, I go, if it's your dream, then we figure it out. But if it's not your dream, you weren't put here to live the American dream. You were here, here to live your dream. And when we allow the influences of TikTok and, and. And social media and the media and the marketing to redefine how we want to exist, that's when we get ourselves in trouble. Because I can promise you, most of these people, they. It is really easy to paint a facade of a perfect life on a payment plan. And there's a guy out there that I happen to know of that literally has a fuselage of a private jet. It never leaves the Runway. It doesn't go anywhere. And he allows these influencers to use it to rent it, to film getting off it, getting on it, sitting on it, doing all of that. Y' all do not believe what you're seeing on TikTok and Instagram.

Oh, my God, you should see my face. Yeah, that's amazing. So he's earning money, right? He's got that residual income so good.

And he doesn't have to worry about fueling it, maintaining it, changing the engines, piloting it, nothing.

Oh, my gosh it's true. I mean, it's true. It is a facade. And we don't know. So I love that. Live your dream life, right? Like, what is your dream? And I think it takes. And I love that you have this in the book. It takes that reflection. It takes that pause. It takes that, like you said, you put the earmuffs on, you look down and you see it so clearly, because we do. And I know this is, for me, like, so many voices. Is it my mom's dream? Is it my dad's dream? Is it mine? Is it something that I saw, you know, like on the feed? Is it something that I saw on a TV show or a movie when I was younger? Right? It's all those things. So I think it's really helpful to start to know your why and what you want your life to be. And then it's so much easier to keep those blinders on. And then just start moving through, especially what you're saying. Start moving through this to build wealth and to get that income once you do that.

So I look at it and say, you always start with a vision. The vision will decide the plan. The plan will set a strategy in place. The strategy will define tactics, and then we know what our actions are. But the tendency is people will come and say, what should I invest in? That's a tactics question. But I can't answer it effectively if I don't know your vision and your plan because the tactics have to match it. So your tactics are different than mine because we're in different stages of life, different places in life, so there isn't a box. But what we should do is come back to it and say, I define the vision. I have the plan, and I know the strategy. And when someone comes to us with something or I see something, we can go back to it and say, does it fit the vision? If it doesn't, it's good for them, not good for me. And I'm okay. I just leave stuff on the table. I don't. I got nothing to prove to anyone, Okay? I just. That's kind of the way I look at it. I go, we're living our life. My wife and I are living our life, and. And we want to live it our way and get to those last days of our life to say, we did it our way. Like the song went, you know, I did it my way.

It's funny. I mean, you and I are both in Southern California, so our cars are important in SoCal, but we moved into this neighborhood. My husband's like, oh no, we're going to need to get a Range Rover G wagon because our 12 year old Ford Edge really sticks out. But we don't prioritize cars in our family. We like a car that will just kind of drive. I mean, of course I'd love a Range Rover, but it's not the thing that I need, that's not the thing I choose to spend on. So it's like, why go do that? Just because I want to keep up with the Joneses. And so I think. And it's from that to anything. It's like the savings, whether you're gonna, you know, you're gonna prioritize money for your kids in college. I remember my wealth manager at one point said, you gotta prioritize you before you prioritize your kids college. Right. Like you gotta make sure you have.

That's the same thing I say in the book.

Yeah. Do you wanna speak more to that?

I still say, I say the exact same thing in the book. Prioritize you first.

Yeah. And especially I think as women and I always, I say this too. When we start to earn and we start to make money and we start to have a profit, we tend to spend it on other things. We might be paying, we might be putting it back into the household, we might be putting it, you know, into things for our family, our kids, our savings or whatever. And we don't necessarily spend on us. And I think that there's this level of a little bit to treat yourself for what you're doing and then. But it also is that it's, you're not selfish, you gotta, it's the oxygen, you've gotta put your mask on before you can take care of everyone else, you know, because you then will leave financial burden to your kids if you are not covered. And then what are they supposed to do at that point? So I think it's like always just thinking if you can take care of yourself, if you can learn how to figure that out and work that muscle, you're not being selfish, you're being selfless by not making yourself a burden to others. And then there's so much more open for you.

I totally, I 100% agree. And you're like talking right out of the book. Because I just think that that's. And to make it easier, we do it in advance. So even before you ever earned a dollar. So every dollar. The analogy I use is that if you were going to hire 10 employees, you wouldn't bring 10. Imagine bringing 10 employees in, they're in the conference room, you're looking at them, you say, hey, welcome aboard. If you notice, we do something different around here. I don't give you job titles, I don't give you job descriptions. I'm not giving you goals, I'm not giving you tasks, I'm not giving you anything. But let's double the business in the next 12 months. Like, who does that? But that's what we do with our money. And so what we should be doing is every dollar should have a job description before it's earned. So now when the money comes in, it's already assigned. It's paying the mortgage, it's paying the rent, it's for the car, it's for clothes, it's for the kids, it's for my future. And you follow a recipe. And now that removes temptation. It affects and removes shame and guilt. And now if you go spend $250 on a nice night out. It was in the plan. It was already assigned. There's no shame, there's no guilt. We get to do it because instead of looking, I look at a plan as a permission to spend and grow versus a budget, which is deprivation because we can never. We can't build a wealthy rich life through deprivation. And so in that plan, you take the things that actually mean something to you and you, I call them the joy points, and you make sure they're in the plan because you gotta have. You can't. It's, it's why, it's why people will fall off diets. It's why people will fall off budgets because we restrict them so much and there is no joy in the journey at all. That they, that, that they just, they won't stay on it. And if we're trying to create behavior modification because that's what will drive everything consistently over time, then we have to have some joy along the way. And now for me, joy is something that is meaningful and long lasting, not a momentary pleasure. So there's a $900 coffee maker in that kitchen that I swiped right on, on Instagram. That was a momentary pleasure. Now, I do get caffeine every day from it. But the thing that brings my wife and I joy is our travel. That's at the top of the list. That is part of the plan always. And we know that. And we will forsake other things to make sure that that's funded. And when you do that, it's long lasting. And that's what keeps us in the game.

So good. There's so much more I know you can share and it's in the book. I'm so excited. Mel, please share how we can just keep learning from you.

Oh my God. Thank you so much. I am on Instagram melabraham9 also I have my YouTube channel which is going off the charts right now. We do, I do two videos, two or three videos a week right now. And it's topical and, and stuff like that. So my, my YouTube channel and then the book is YourMoneyMachineBook.com and why I want you, you can. You're gonna end up buying it from like an Amazon or a Barnes and Noble or, or, you know, booksellers. But I want you to go there for a reason first. Because when you go to that bookseller and you get it, you come back and put the receipt in. Because here's what I know. You buy the book. Great. It might put me on a list somewhere that doesn't matter. And it's going to put a few dollars in Jeff Bezos pocket. He doesn't need the money. Read the book. It'll give you a pathway and some hope. But if I can get you to do the book, I'll change your life. And so the reason I want you to do that is because I have, we have some gifts that I have a workbook associated with a book. I have a book club guide if you want to do it as a community, a church, you know, a synagogue, or just as a community, as a family that walk you through chapter to chapter, the different discussion questions. And I have some additional trainings because I want to get you to do the book. As soon as I can integrate it into your life, then I know that we can change your lives and not just yours, the generations beyond.

So good. We will drop all the links for all of you in the show notes. You don't have to worry about a single thing. Go to YourMoneyMachinebook.com to get all of the goodies, to get the. We want to move through this book and want to move through it together. So Mel, thank you again for your time and congratulations on the book. It is so good.

Oh my God. Thank you for having me. Thank you for all you do. And I can't wait to do more of this. So I appreciate it.

Oh my goodness. That was such an incredible and informative interview. I mean, Mel is incredible, right? Like, he's so good at what he talks about. And I think there needs to be more books out there that help people like us really start to feel comfortable about making money around the mindset and making money. None of those huge business books that are, like, hard to understand, and we feel silly reading them in the first place. And that's something that I love about Mel and how supportive he is and how giving he is in his information. So I hope you loved it as much as I did. Now, if you want to grab your book, head over to YourMoneyMachineBook.com because like Mel said, he's got some incredible resources in there. And I'll drop a link in the show notes. All right, my friends, until the next one. I'll see you there.