Tech, Money & AI Legacy with Mel Abraham

All right, Today I am joined by not just a dear friend, but a very, very special guest. Someone who has been someone that I've looked up to ever since. Geez, what was it, Mel? Probably 2021, I think was the first time we met in person. Chris had brought you into the Mastermind to teach. And you guys, I'm, I'm just, I'm overjoyed to spend this time today and share this conversation with all of you. My good friend Mel Abraham. Mel, thanks for joining me for just a fun conversation.

Oh my God, it's so cool to be here and to get a chance to have this conversation, you know, and I'm looking forward to it because it's going to be a little different than some of the conversations I've been having. Yes, it's cool.

And I assume so. So for those of you that haven't heard of Mel Abraham, you need to follow him, you need to check him out. I'm going to put all that in the show notes. We're going to talk about how you can connect with them after. But what you need to know about Mel is not only is he just a financial expert, a genius when it comes to putting together plans to not just support entrepreneurs on their, their entrepreneur journey, but Mel has one of the biggest hearts. He's one of the kindest humans and he goes out of his way to, I love the word that you use. Have affluent entrepreneurs and someone who really not only feels empowered but feels like their money is working for them. Which is so cool because it's all timed around the recent book that you just launched. I'm so pumped for you, dude. I've got it right here. I'm going to be holding it up for anybody who's watching video. I have a bunch I big old stack in my house so I can hand them out to whoever comes over. And Mel, not only did I want to introduce you and what everything that you put into this to everybody who just follows me, the show, the newsletter, but I just thought we could, we could talk a little bit about how you're doing things a little bit differently because those that know me in my show, they know that I talk about tech automations and everything else. So whoever's listening today, you're not gonna get a financial lesson. What I thought we could do is really do it a little bit different. And first of all, I just want you to kind of really quick talk about what this book is, maybe how it's a little different than your last one and why now is the right Time, why Now is the time that we just have to pay more attention than ever to our money. The way that we're doing things and just, just why this book matters is kind of a lead in. And then I want to unpack some of the stuff that I know happen behind the scenes, but I also want to ask some fun questions that I don't know about what led into this book launch that I, that I'm really, really excited to learn about.

So I literally, before I got on this, and there was an article that came out about Gen Xers, okay. And those are people that are born, I think, from 65 to 80 or something like that. During that time. During that time is the same time frame that really 401ks took. Took hold. But what people don't realize is, okay, we got the 401ks. What really happened during that time is your financial future got dumped in your lap. It got dunked on you and saying, here's this 401k because we're no longer doing pensions because y' all are living way too long and it's too expensive. Okay? I mean, that's, that's the short version of what really happened. Unless you're military, government, or something else, you probably don't have a pension. So they dumped it in your lap. Here's the challenge. A Northwestern Mutual study said that the expectation of what you need to retire is $1.46 million right now. 1.46 million. It went up. It went up tremendously. Just in four years. The median, the median savings for retirement right now is $89,000. We have not taken the control of our finances because we didn't understand. We don't talk about it. We don't have the, the conversations. It's too complicated. And, and I'm not good with money. All the excuses you hear. And so now's the time to sit back and say, hold on a second. The madness stops here. We have a conversation around money. We make it simple. It doesn't have to be complicated. That if you follow just some simple, proven process, if you have the right recipe, follow the recipe, it's going to come out okay. And, and that's why I think it's. It's time to do it and take. Because we actually have more access today to information technology and, and investments that actually will. Will carry us for the long term and be sustainable than we've ever had in our lifetime. We're just not talking about it. And so, so this is why I think now's the time to have these conversations because we not only change your life, but we change everyone else's life beyond you. And you become this financial inflection point in your family tree.

Such a great way to frame it, man. And I. God, I couldn't agree more. You know, I. I catch myself all the time because my wife is the cook in the house, right? And it's always like, I want to experiment, but why stand in the way of someone who knows what they're doing, right? And even when my daughters, you know, so Olive is 13 now. Hazel is 11 and a half. And when they want to help mom, she's like, well, it's not difficult, honey. Like, they're recipes, you know, you just follow it. But meanwhile, I know I get in there and I botch it, and I'm like, but are they read recipes? So it's kind of this mix of. Yeah, there. There's these blueprints, there's these frameworks. But you also need a guide, right? One of the. One of the oldest storytelling techniques, like. And even just, like, story brand, like, having that guide and moving forward, man, that's why I love the work that you put out there. And that's why I was immediately drawn to the way that you shoot show up. I remember, man, I wrote this quote down. It was 20, 21. It was when. When. When Chris brought you in, you said, earnings are your seeds and live off of the crop, not the seeds. I'm sure you said it a couple times, but, man, I wrote that down in my notebook. I circled that thing I started. I feel like I should have queued it up to make that my next tattoo. And it's just because a lot of the times we think, yeah, we. We have something coming into our world, it's not about immediately spending it, but it's like, well, how can I. How can I live off of the net of it? And you had this really wonderful way of breaking that down, which is why I'm excited, man. You know, I just got started on the book. We're going on a family cruise next. Next week. So I'm looking forward to sitting down, having some Internet free time, and. And. And really just finishing it. But this is why I really believe in the power of having a guide but also distilling the hard things down. And I know you did a great job on it, and this is what I wanted to talk a little bit about. So when it comes to not just releasing this book, but the way that you're getting the message out there, let's just kind of Talk about maybe some of the systems and the things that you have now when you wanted to do a big book launch, I know you put a lot into this launch, right? We started talking about this last year, right? And the conversation kind of started with tech and automations and some AI stuff. But you like tech, you like to dabble, you like gadgets, you, you lean into it a bit more than most, which is another reason that I know we're friends, especially for accountants, right? Talk about status quo and, you know, avoiding anything other than maybe QuickBooks or an advanced calculator. So what was your thought when it came to wanting to do this big book release? Which by the way, you guys, when you, when you get this book and you see some of the massive names that led into this as giving love for it, from Jenna Kutcher to Matthew Hussey to Rory Vaden, Pat Flynn, Trent Shelton, Chris Harder, Randy Garn, I mean, there's so many amazing names that even are just in the beginning of this book. What was your thought on do I need to do this all myself? How can I have tech help me out? You know, where did you start and what kind of went through your mind as you started to find ways to bring a little bit of tech into this process to give you some peace of mind?

So for them to get a little bit of backstory in 2019, before you and I met, I got, I got diagnosed with cancer. They, they found what they thought was a 5 centimeter tumor. Turned out to be 7 and a half centimeter tumor in my bladder. And they said I was at risk of losing the prostate and a bag and a tube in for the kidney. And if it's bad, you lose your bladder. And I mean all this parade of things and they say it's cancer, so life's on the line. So it's just, what I did is I shut things down. Now that was what got me to realize the importance of this concept, the money machine. You know, it was born years, decades before as a single full time dad. And I only say this because it sets the, the stage for the technology, is that I shut things down and I could have retired and I could have stopped and said, let's just enjoy life. You know, I don't need to work, I don't need to do this because I did some of these things right. But I had this, this yearning, I had this call, I had this, this tug at me saying, how do you serve this new season with these new insights? How do you serve? And I knew that I wanted to go and do stuff and do more and serve people. But I also knew what I didn't want. I didn't want a big team. I didn't want to have a bunch of people that I had to manage. And I was constantly in, in huddles and meetings and all that stuff. None. I did that one. I had 29 people. Okay. I didn't want to do that again. I wasn't in that stage of my life. And so I started to investigate and start saying, how do I do this? Lean, mean, but make an impact. And I, and so I, it forced me to, to look at just allowing technology to do some heavy lifting and trusting that even though we stumble and fall and technology can, is, isn't 100%, that in the long run it will, it will multiply me, just like I'm trying to multiply money and give me access to doing things more effectively, more efficiently and more streamlined. And so that's what kind of was the catalyst to saying, okay, if I'm going to do this, we're not doing it with a huge team. I'm not bringing an army in. I'm not hiring a bunch of people. How do we do this in a more refined view?

It's a, it's just the way it needs to be. You know, so many, so many times we get lost in the, I don't know where to start all these things. It's the same with finances, it's the same with tech. I, I get the same type of approach here. So many of the, like, if I ever jump on a coaching call when I start with the new clients, like, all right, we're getting started. Where do we start? It's like, well, where do we need to start? Always with the fundamentals. Where, where is all the time being sucked out on the finance side? It's, where is all the cash flow going away? So I see a lot of parallels to it. And when I'm so glad to hear that you're, you're going further with less. Right? Because that's such, such a blessing and one of the promises you can get with technology. So when thinking about that, who are you looking for on your team? And I, I know at least one of them because she's a badass. I, I, I do love Courtney and I know she's going to listen to this. So Courtney, big shout out to you, but not just her. When, when you're thinking about this team going further with doing less or at least being more focused, maybe less is the wrong word. What were some of the things that kind of went through your mind of like, all right, if. If I'm going to now give myself this blessing of not going so big with it, who did. Who did some of those players need to be and maybe what were a couple of those key things they could give you?

I think that the first thing I had to get clear on was my role. Where was my highest value? My highest value was in delivery, in ideation and recording and that kind of thing. So anything that didn't fall in that realm, I had to look. I needed to look for an avenue to either streamline it, outsource it, or make it something that's more automated. Okay. And so because I knew that if I got caught into building pages, doing copy, editing videos, this thing wasn't going to get off the. It would get off the ground, but it would. It would be 10ft off the ground instead of soaring. And, you know, we've hit number one in multiple categories and all that stuff. It's like. So I knew that everything else I needed to. I needed to allow them to. To do so. The first thing was for me to get someone in place that could. Could carry the ball for me. So I could. I could data dump and say, here's my ideas. Here's what I'm going to do. I want to hand it to you, and. And I want it to go these 12 directions, okay? And in some cases, I knew how to make the 12 it go 12 directions. Because, in fact, when. When Courtney came on board, I had a system for content that I was using with technology that automated, you know, uploads and things like that. But I knew that I had to have more than that if we're going to do a book launch. And. But I didn't get caught up in what that was. I kind of, once. Once I had her in place, I said, it's on you. Create the process as automated, as effective and as efficient as we can document the process, record the process so we have it documented, and if someone comes in, we can transfer. And I said, and in the process, this was really important to me. I don't want to lose the human touch. So if there are places that we need to have that human touch, then let's make sure that I get involved with it. Because I am not transactional. I'm relational. It's just the way I. I live my life. Those that have bought the book, at some level, I want to be in a relationship with you, okay? Not in a creepy way. Just I want to be in a relationship with you. You know, I want to know that we're on a journey and if there's something that I can do, I don't. Just because you swiped your credit card and, and bought the book, that's. That's not the kind of relationship I want. I want to make sure that you carry it the next stage, the next way, and, and, and everything, because that's the other, the other piece. So I, I kind of tasked her with, you know, how can we do this and find a way to make it happen? I also knew that I had a tremendous amount of content out there that I had because I record everything. I do. I try to. Okay. And I didn't have a way to catalog it, document it, cut it up, use it. And I was wasting an asset, I was wasting valuable asset to allowing myself to have those fingers of, of contact in the world and to create those relationships in a way that really, really worked. And so, so that those, I think, were the biggest problems I was trying to look at and say, how do we solve? And, and that's kind of partly when, when you came into the picture in a different way in, in more of a capacity of an advisor and saying, hey, well, you know, what am I. What are the alternatives? What can we make happen?

Yeah, yeah, let's go deeper on that one that you just talked about, like human review or having personality in the middle of the process. What's one example? Could be big, could be small, where Courtney teed something up, where there was a awesome automation, put everything together for you, but it still gave you that control or that review step. And then let's actually just think about how much time that saved. What, what, what did that save you on kind of having everything prepped for you and then being able to say, like, sign off, make these edits or don't like it, throw it away, let's do it again.

Yeah. And I think that the way, the way that some of our content creation works is, is I'll create. I'll create a video, a long, long form video. And all I do is I determine the outline. I record the video, I upload it. I'm done, I'm out of it. Okay. It's. It's logged into an airtable. It. The airtable automatically notifies the editor, my YouTube guy, Courtney, and it puts things in motion where there is the thumbnails being created, the videos being edited, and, and then the copy and the captions will be, Will get edited. Ultimate ultimately. And then so that it comes back and they tell me hey, it's ready for review. And that now the edit is in the, the videos in frame IO I watch, I, I will typically watch it. And this was a more time consuming process at the beginning because we were, we were working with some new editors trying to get them to understand my style and, and what I want and the nuances. But like I just did an A video and I literally had one change, which is what you want. And at some point now I step away and I let Courtney look at it. And now I don't even watch it. But in, in frame IO we just make the comments. You know, it, it then goes back to them, they send it back and I can compare the two. I just go comment compile. Yeah, they corrected it. Boom, done. I mark it as approved. It notifies Courtney. Now her wheels are in motion. She creates it automatically uploads to YouTube it. She's using automation to create the show notes and the captions. She then uses automation to create the short form videos and, and all of that type of stuff. And then it gets scheduled. But it all will start with, with me making sure that it is my voice and everything. And it is because it's my recording and, and everything. But that's, that's kind of that process. And literally it's. Once I know the topic, I go record, I look at a couple edits, I walk away and, and that's what's allowed me to do some of the things that I've done. Just so people understand, we have put on our YouTube channel. We have increased in the last 28 days, 2400 subscribers in 28 days. We've got a hundred. And almost 142,000 views in 28 days. And, and so, and it wasn't, it didn't start that way. It ramped up. But what's happening is we're creating momentum and what's allowing us to create the momentum is now I'm on a rhythm. I just like, I'm recording. Everything else is getting done and they're doing the thumbnails. I have, I have weekly huddles and the weekly huddles are between Courtney and my YouTube guy. A total sum, total of an hour. So one, one hour a week. Then I, then, then the rest of my time is creating. And now I can go create, relate and deliver. That's it. That's all I want to do. Create, relay and deliver.

It's the living the dream. I mean that, that's what we want, right? Same same reason as you got the money machine. You have, you Have a content machine. Right. And what I love is we you're not using tech to replace yourself. There's a time and a place to even think about that. If anything, I think it's your augmenting. Right. Courtney can give you an awesome automation to maybe help you come up with ideas for what to talk about, some things like that. But you're still doing that recording and I just, I still truly believe in that. You know, I still write my own newsletters. I, I, I have fun with my podcast where I AI generate it because I'm also just showing what's possible but reserving the time to have conversations like this, where this is live, this is real. That's the fun part for me. So I, I feel you when, you know, like you said after 2019 and then having the recovery, it's really reevaluating what's important and standing in it and letting tech do the rest. It's just, it's really important to me that I speak to the importance of that because, you know, me too, man. Over the last year or so, I closed down a lot of business. I was doing everything else you taught with fast foundations. And as much as I loved all that, I realized this stage of my life is still bringing me joy. It's just a different way of doing it. So to be able to, you know, and I don't code anymore either. I have automations that do all this stuff for me as well. So like you finding that, that pinhole and actually just enjoying it.

It's, it's, if you understand it, it's like I had to create something. I was having a problem creating something and I didn't have, and I didn't have time to let someone else do it and let the automation run. So I used automation to give me some code to fix a problem. And I said, how do I do this in chat GPT? I go, and I dropped it in. I go, you know, like, oh my God. You know, I think that there's so many different avenues that allow us to magnify our knowledge and access things if we're open to doing it now. There's a level of integrity. I think that we need to be clear on one of the, like, I have people don't, some people might know I have an AI clone. Okay. And you know that, yeah, it's not really launched yet. And the only reason I haven't launched it yet is, is because I need to make sure that the people that come to it know that it's education only. And I Can't. It can't be because I got to protect myself, not financial advice. So it has to have a CYA constantly in there. And I want to make sure it's used in the right context because I care about the people, I want them to get the right advice, doing the right things. And you know, my clone isn't, you know, how do you bake brownies? It is, you know, should I go into an ira, Roth IRA or regular ira. And now you're getting some advice and you might act on it. And, and that's the thing that I need to be really careful about. And so, so I try to, so I, I kind of buffer some of the technology to the point where I want to be comfortable from an integrity standpoint that, that it's there. But man, I used to, even with my partners when I had a firm, I would find ways. And they said, how do you get so much done? And I said, and it's so counterintuitive. I said, because I'm inherently lazy. And they go, what? I go, I know I'm. If I don't have to, if there's a way for me to levitate, levitate £100, why am I going to lift it? Just levitate the dad gone thing. And so I don't have to figure that out. But the fact is that can. Is there a better way to do it? And, and I think the death knell for businesses and, and even, even relationships is, well, that's the way it's always. We've always done it. Let's not just keep doing the same thing. Let's look for better ways. Let's continually improve. And I know that for every minute, every hour your work gets me back, that is an hour I have a choice with. And that choice can go back into the business or I can go back into my relationship with my wife or my grandkids or my kid or out on the beach. And so by getting. And I think that the, I say it in my book and I say it a lot of my speaking that I think our wealth should be measured in time and not dollars in technology, done right is a pathway to get some of that time back. The money machine is, is the other piece to get the choice of the time. But when you do that. And I go, because I'll look at it and go, I'll tell you how rich your life is. Let me see your calendar, let me see how much agency you have of your time and the number of moments you can control will tell me how rich you are. And because I know people that have wealthy bank accounts like, like millions and billions and hundreds of millions in their bank account. You would look at them go, they're, they're wealthy. I said yeah, but they're horribly bankrupt in life. That's not living.

So true, man. So true. And I think you just said it so well is just that if nothing else can pinholing into little pieces of technology help to compound and bring back some, bring back some joy in your life, bring back time, help you get more done a little bit faster? You know, like you said you could have done all this yourself but it would have been 10ft off the ground rather than soaring. Right? So where these investments in automations tech and you guys just, just to be clear, like no, you didn't, you didn't hire an army of operations people to build all this before you started. Like you just layered in the next best thing as it was the right time, right? Yeah. So that led to having that compound growth where now you're able to sit down, screen share teachers, put everything together and just allow the tech to help you. And that's, that's really what I love is the same principle applies, right. The book is about building a money machine. You can also have a tech machine working in the background to help with whatever it is that you're teaching. You're getting out into the world. And I just think you did it brilliantly which is why I wanted to talk about some of these key things. And you also mentioned a fun one which is AI these clones, those that have been hearing me on the show to reading the newsletter. I have a clone as well. I've built one. We have friends that I've been building for. I can't really say all the names just yet publicly, but one of them is a very good joint friend of both of ours. And I spent probably about four or so months doing exactly what has you hesitating, right? The really fine tuning of everything, trying to understand the nuance, trying to make sure that it's, you know, you can't go in and say who should I vote for? I'm going to Vegas. Should I put it on red or black? You know, it, it really brings everything back to that source and it makes it really clear that this may be guiding you, but it's also not advice, it's, it's, it's a very fine line there. And the same way that you personally need to cya, you want tech to CYA as well. And that doesn't come without cost, right? Like I gotta make that really clear for anybody listening and watching. So when thinking, look, this is my question with that context is when thinking about the next tech thing that you want to lean into, what goes, what goes through like the decision making process. When you're thinking about it, like what's coming up for you now post launch, I know you're in the middle of it, but thinking about the next thing, maybe is it actually experimenting with that clone? Is it thinking about maybe some new stuff with AI or is it just using something like ChatGPT some more to find unknowns that could add some more value back?

I think the initial thing is and, and part, part of the reason I wrote the book was to give people access to the information because I don't have the bandwidth nor the desire. You know, unlike some people that are writing financial books, I'm not trying to build a book of business. I don't want to build a bunch of clients that I'm, I'm managing their money for and doing all of that. I actually want to serve. I want to, I want to speak, I want to write, I want to create. I will do my, some group coaching, maybe some high level mastermind. That's it. In this season of life. I, it's not, it's not, I'm not trying to build some monstrosity and bring on team members and do that. So part of that then says to me, what's the next access point for people? And, and I do think that taking the knowledge that, that I have and all the work that, that is continually building the clone and, and the knowledge base in the clone and making that workable. So there could be a, a membership if you will, that has access to me via the clone, if you will, to, to get guidance and to, to feel that they have an unbiased place to come, a safe place to come, a place to have conversations around something that people say is taboo and, and know that they get, they get, they get guided and they know, they know the heart and the soul and the integrity behind the creation of it all. So I think that there's, there is that piece of it. The other thing that, that I am still very intrigued with is the ability, because I see technology and, and AI especially in the ability to process a lot of information so fast to put things together. Like I, I went into the clone at one point and had it write a press release for the book. Y', all. I gotta tell you, I couldn't have written anything better. It was so powerful.

That's right. I Think you, you sent me an audio note and you started reading something off. I was just like, man, that sounds good. I'd buy this. It was so good. Yeah.

And so I'm looking at it saying, and, and I don't get me, I want everyone to not get me wrong. I do not want to replace my writing with, with you know, AI or technology because I want my voice out there and everything. But, but to be able to extract from my content, extract from my recordings and my, and, and put it together and repackage it in a way that delivers it in bite sized chunks that are meaningful and powerful and, and, and compelling, I think is, is, is huge. You know, and the, the, the vast amount of content that I can get through by doing that and, and put out into the world just multiplies tremendously by having those tools at my disposal where something is built from. Every, every time I do a podcast, every time I do a video, it's entering into the equation which is it's just continually growing. And, and, and, and I love that. And there's another. I'm going to kind of be odd saying it, but I'll give it context. My dad. I lost my dad in 14 years ago. And there is very rarely a week that goes by where I didn't wish I could hear his voice and what he thought. And I realized that I've got two right now, two granddaughters, one's three and one's one. And God forbid I'm not here for them to have a chance to hear what I thought, for them to have a chance to hear my voice, whether it's real or AI, it allows me to enter into their lives in a way that I lost with my dad. And I think that it gives me an opportunity to memorialize things. And it could be generations gone by and great grandkids are listening to Grandpa Mel and everything, and you get to hear my voice that I can't hear my dad's anymore.

Yeah. So it's, that's. Man, you definitely touched my heart with that. And it's, it's not strange at all. I've thought about that almost to exhaustion. And the reason why is I lost my dad in 2009 as well. And my dad was a very private man. You know, he was great at what he did, but he was always the one behind the camera recording for everybody else. He was always the silent helper. And as much as I love what my dad taught me, all he did was teach me. You know, he never really taught outside of it. And I Haven't actually shared this with anybody yet except for my kids and, and my wife. But I don't have any recordings of my dad. And I was cleaning out the garage about a month and a half ago and I found a little audio recorder stick. And I had no idea what it was, you know, like an old Sony, you know, or just, you know, you probably see it in a movie at this point. Now we just use our phones, we throw them on the desk. So I put a battery in it and I turn it on and it's my dad having a phone call, doing an interview with somebody that he was helping research, like a military thing for something for our family. I had no idea he did this. And I kid you not, I like it flew back in my seat and it made me realize I forgot my dad's voice. It was the weirdest, strangest, emotional, anxiety filled moment that I can remember in the last few years. And you know, at first I kind of just sat with that and I was like, wow, I actually, I. I have something. And a couple years back I would have just thought, oh, this is a memoir. But. But now I'm like, you know me, man. Like, I know what I can do with that. I have the power to digitally recreate my dad's voice now, and I can actually have a conversation with my dad, who I lost in 2009. And the tricky thing here is it's like, yeah, but what do I have it say? And that's why I'm so proud of you for standing in this and taking these steps and teaching what matters to you. Because you are building an asset that can be tapped into in the future. You know, like, I'm sitting on this, this piece of an asset, but it's not complete. And I haven't decided what I'm going to do with this. I haven't done anything with it yet. But even just to recreate it so I can have my dad's voice. He used to call me sport. Like, just to hear him say that again, I think that would be enough. But the thought that I could actually have a conversation with my pop again, the thought that I could just ask him what he thinks about this thing, just having him repeat my daughter's name who he's never met, like, if you think about the untapped emotional and the support and the power of that to really immortalize yourself, it sounds black magic and crazy. But the fact is it's right in front of us and not all of us are ready to do those kind of things yet. But I would be lying if I didn't say I hadn't been considering it. So I'm right there with you. And I love that you're thinking that big because we may look back in 10 years on a conversation like this and go, man, remember when all we were doing was having a text conversation with the clone of us and we used it to help us with the book launch And Jim had this weird podcast idea where AI was his show and now look at all the things we have. We're going to blink and technology is going to pass us by if we don't lean into it. And I just wanted to share that piece with you too, man. Cause I've been thinking about the exact same thing. And I'm just proud of you for being even open to that, that thought because it's terrifying when you think of the whole thing. But like anything, you know, we fear what we don't know yet. I just love that we're starting to take some of these passes to get more comfortable with it.

Yeah, I just, you know, just like any other tool, if it's misused, it can be problematic. But, you know, you always got to go back to where the heart and the soul are in, in the user of it. And, and for me, I look at it and go, anything that, that's going to make my life easier, more effective, more efficient, give me some time back. One thing that cancer taught me, you know, they told us as we were growing up, your days are limited and usually you don't take it very seriously until mortality smacks you in the forehead and you go, oh, they were right.

That wasn't. They were just told the truth. Right? Yeah, it's the truth, man.

I'm looking at it going, I mean, it's the very reason I want people to build the money machine. I want you to have a life of choice. And I today, I feel privileged, blessed, you know, because I have a life of choice. I get to do what I do. I love to do what I do. I love to talk about the book. I love to go out and speak about, about it. I love to see people's dreams come alive. I don't, you know, yes, I get paid well to do it. It's not the motivation because that's not, that's not the requirement anymore. And, and that's, you know, when we have our ability to have the option of what to do, the control the choice and the get to in our life. I think it's magical because too often we're being driven by Daily demands and expectations of others. And then we get to those last days and we look back and go, well, I wish I would have lived my life and I didn't. And I think that's a sad statement. And technology is giving us the opportunity. You know, I'm speaking because I got a 90 year old mom who is like, she won't even use voicemail. It.

Yeah, voicemail.

Oh my God. You know, so, so. But I, I look at it and go there, there is the. I will say this. We would not have been as effective with bringing this book out into the world. Are there things, more things we could have done? Yes. If I had more time and you know, but, but we would have not been as effective bringing this book out into the world the way we did had it not been for the stack that we put in place of the human element, the tech element, the AI element and guidance with people such as yourself. It just wouldn't happen. You know, I look at my, my last book with 2015, very, very different journey and a very, very different feeling. This book is the culmination of decades of my journey. I feel there is so much of me in this book but we were able to bring it out to the world in a bigger way and know that it will have a lasting impression for, for decades.

Beautifully said, bro. To that note, how can everybody find you? Where can they find this book and how can they best just share any feedback, thoughts or be, be connected with you? Like you said, it's not transactional, it's relational. And I love that about you and I for anybody that wants to start building that relationship, where can they connect with you, man?

As far as the book, go to YourMoneyMachinebook.com there you'll find some links to booksellers to buy the book directly from the bookseller. The only reason I'm telling you to go there is buying the book won't do. It might get me on a list somewhere. It'll put a few dollars in Jeff Bezos pocket. Neither one of us need the list or the money. Reading the book will give you some pathway and some hope, but it's not going to change things in your life. Doing the book will. And so you'll see on that page that I have some tools and gifts for those that do that to help you get to doing the book like a workbook and a book club guide and some things. And so, so if you go to Amazon directly and you don't go to that page and you don't give me the Information, I can't get you the gifts. So that's why I would go there and do it that way. And that way I can give you the gifts to try and get you to do the book. Because if you do, the book will change your life. I completely believe that that's what it's done. My clients and my family. And then the other thing is, I'm on Instagram, on YouTube and I like having conversations. I'm Mel Abraham, nine on Instagram, the number nine. And you can ping me on there, you follow me there? YouTube. I'm doing a couple of videos a week and everything. And if you have questions, a lot of times they end up on a video. They end up, hey, let's make it an episode. Let's, let's get those questions answered. My, I want people to ask the questions so we can get them answered. So we don't. So they don't feel like, you know, I can't ask money questions. No, we're going to have the conversation and it's no longer taboo. Not in my world. Because we can empower people. I gotta give you an idea why this is so important. Sixteen and a half year old kid who joined one of my programs beginning mid last year. He says, I got a job, what do I do? And I said, how old are you? He says, I'm 17. Open up a Roth IRA. Three and a half, four weeks ago, we're on another call. He says, I funded my Roth ira, but I don't know how to invest. Where do I invest it? I said, still 17. Says, no, I'm 18 now. How much do you fund it with? And I. And I'm thinking, he's 18. He did 500 bucks or a thousand bucks, something like that. He says, no, I fully funded 2023 and I already funded 2024. I go, hold on a second. You're 18 years old, you put 60 $500 away for 23 and 7,000 for 24. And he says, yeah. And he says, well, I'm living at home, I don't have any expenses, okay? I said, let me do the math for you. If we just put it away in an index fund, an S&P 500 index fund based on historical returns. By the time you retire, if you never put another dime in, it'll go up 107 times. You're already a millionaire. 1.2, 1.3 million if you did nothing more. But we will keep doing it. I said, the only thing we have to avoid is stupid and you. But here's the thing, we're not having these conversations, we're not telling people about it. Know my son, I started talking to him about money at, at 10 years old, he's 34, he's got a wife of 30 and, and, and two kids, three homes and a multi million dollar net worth. We get a hold of them and get this information out so they can do the simple things and allow time to run. Man, our youth are going to be far better off than, than, than we, we are. They're not going to be pushing a steep hill, they're not going to have a big boulder. We just got to give them the tools, give them the values, give them the process and the recipe to follow early enough and then let, let them use, use it because it's, it's so much easier than it ever was.

Beautifully said, man. It's the truth. And I'm in the, I'm in the same boat. I've been starting to bring my kids in along for the journey. The ups and the downs, you know, they're like, like anyone, you know, I have good months, I have bad months, but it's, it's about continuing on the staples and I'm learning as well. And actually that was one of the things I meant to bring up is at the end of the book, in one of these appendixes, one of the things I love that you ended it, you put in here was how to have some conversation starters, right? So one of the appendixes is how to have conversation starters with kids, how to have one for, you know, starters for couples. Just, just lots of different things here. So man, I'm grateful to have you in my life. I'm, I'm even more grateful to call you friends. I, I wanted to support you the best way I could think of and the best way I knew was just let's talk tech and let's, let's break down what worked for you, even what didn't. And I really just love some of the things you shared here. Everybody who's listening, who watching, go follow Mel, go check out the book and most importantly, support yourself. You know, build, build that money machine. And Mel, grateful for you, man. Thanks for spending some time today and can't wait to, can't wait for you to get the results when we see this thing at the charts.

Oh my God, thank you so, so much, man. And you've been kind of in the back house the whole time I've been on this journey and I appreciate you, man.

Right back at you. See you soon, man.