3 TAX HACKS to CRUSH Your Money Goals in the NEW YEAR

Your savings are not there to make you wealthy. They're there to protect you against an emergency. You take your income, you subtract your expenses, and that equals your investments plus your savings. So if you want to become wealthy, it ultimately comes down to Welcome to.

The School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome to this special masterclass. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in.

We talked about how to save your money. We talked about how to invest your money. We talked about how to manage your expenses. Now let's talk about the income. Because if now you understand how to live below your means, you understand how to put your money to work, if you want to put fuel on the fire, you just got to earn more money. Now if you earn a hundred thousand dollars, you earn a million dollars, you earn whatever, you earn more money. Now you know how to put this money through your system, through your funnel, whether it's 75, 15, 10 or whatever else, you know how to take this extra money, put it to work, that way you have more money to invest, more money to save, more money to live your life. But the key is you don't want to 100% increase your lifestyle to match your income. You want to increase your income with your investments.

And keep your expenses the same.

Keep it ideally. Now you can marginally increase your expenses, but the key is you want to be increasing your income and your investments way more. So the question is how do you do that? Well, this is where again, understand you. If you are an employee, you don't want to start a business, you don't want to start a side hustle. Fine, nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with being an employee. You just have to understand you. But that means now how can you earn more money? If you like your job, look for ways to get a raise, to get a promotion, see how you can get a bonus. Just be open with your boss. Say, Hey, look, I want to be able to contribute more. I want to earn more money. What can I do? Most people are going to be very open and honest. Say, Hey, I would like you to attack on this, this and this, do this and then we will help raise your salary. Maybe if you don't like your job, you go and get a certificate. You go and do something else. You need to figure out now how.

You can earn your increase your income. Maybe you can- what value can you bring to the business to bring in more money for the business or save more time or create some system so that the business can say, okay, cool. give you more opportunities for growth.

Exactly. I mean, if you can bring in an extra $10,000 a year to the business of profit, they're not going to have a problem paying you $5,000 or whatever it might be, right? And this is where you just want to be open because every business is different. Maybe take on a second job and, you know, it's just figuring out how can you earn more money there. Now, if you say, well, I want to do something outside of my job, fine. Well, the first thing you can do is start a side hustle. So much more accessible now than ever before. I mean, you can go onto the internet, become a virtual assistant, you can become a copywriter, you can become a designer, you can become a video editor. I have paid, so Upwork, they're not paying me. Upwork is a platform that I use to hire freelancers. And I did a video on this, so I looked this up. In the last two years or three years, I have spent more than a quarter million dollars on Upwork alone.

Wow. On different individuals.

Different individuals. Just hiring people in different areas who don't work for me. They work on their own schedule. because now this freelancing business has grown so much. And so there's a lot of opportunity there where now you can, if you can present a service, you can make money doing that. Yeah.

They might be working an extra 5, 10, 20 hours a week on the side, or they might just be full-time Freelancers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you get to set your hours for the most part. You can really do something that you like, that you enjoy, that you're good at. So there's a lot of opportunity there where now you can be a freelancer or start your own side also if you have idea. One of my buddies, his mom is really good at making cakes. And she started this, what is it called, carrot cake business. They're making a good, I don't know how much, maybe I think it's like 700 or $1,000 a month selling carrot cakes from Instagram. He markets on Instagram. People say, Hey, can you make me a cake? His mom makes the cake and he delivers it. It's just the number of opportunities. Now, of course, as an attorney, I should say there are liabilities in selling food. get insurance and all that, but this is where there are so many opportunities, right? Just being a hustler, just getting yourself out there, figuring it out, and there's an unlimited amount of possibilities and opportunities out there. Now, if you want to take it one step further, you could try to build your own business. Just side hustle, can turn into your own business. If you have a business idea, invest in it. First, invest in your mind, invest in your education, and then try to do it. You want to invest as little money as possible until you start generating revenue. Like again, mindset versus toolset, we assume that we need all these tools to start doing it, but the reality is the first thing you need is your mind because there's a lot of alternatives on how you can do it. Like when I started, I started a sock company a number of years ago when I was trying to figure things out and it was a water resistant sock. And the interesting thing was I knew nothing about socks. How do you manufacture socks? How do you make them waterproof? And so I was working with textile engineers. I was working with manufacturing companies. I was working with a lot of different people. I didn't have a lot of money. And they wanted, and now we're talking about a real product. So I learned to talk. And essentially, I did not, I think my total cost to build my first round of socks was $3,500. It's not a lot of money, but relative to what, if you want a manufacturer, products and create a product to go through the prototype after prototype to prototype. It costs typically $100,000 plus. I did it for under four grand because I was able to talk to them. I used to talk about the potential and I worked with them to build out these special deals where, hey, work with me here and, you know, I'll work with you in the future. Exactly. And we were able to get it going. So it's the ability to hustle, be willing to find a way and that's that mindset that sometimes too much money can be a disease, especially if you want to be a side Hustler or a business, because now you just start spending money. I've been a victim of that, too. I I'll just give examples, like the minority mindset blog. I didn't know how to build a blog, and my time was so eaten up with things like Market briefs, talking about building this tax business, although that's much newer. But building my companies, building my YouTube channel, doing all these other things, investing in real estate that I didn't really care about building a blog, like I cared about it, but I didn't have the brain capacity and the time to sit here and come up with a strategy to do it. So I outsourced it. I hired some of literally the top blog managers in the world and they charged me a lot of money, like as in six figures plus, $100,000 plus to manage the blog and they promised all this stuff I was like fine, do it. So $100,000 for the blog manager, at least another $100,000 on blog content over the course of 12 months. And guess what?

No results.

Zero. Nothing. The worst. What did I do? Too much money problem. I said, I don't got the time, just gonna throw money at it. Hopefully that will fix the problem. Because if you can get the top blog manager, you can hire people to write. It's easy, right? Well, after those 12 months, the contract was over.

Fired them.

And this is where I was like, all right, you know what? Let me figure this out, because I do want to build a blog. And so we built a brand new strategy. It costs us a fraction, like a teeny tiny fraction of what we were paying before. We get bigger results. And we're, our blog is growing. We're generating Revenue now. I mean, it's, it's a complete turnaround, but it's that mindset versus tool set. Yes. And these are real stories, real things that I have gone through. So you need to know now, how do you multiply your income and understand that you don't need thousands of dollars. My first business, I started with nothing, essentially. When I started my event planning company, I started a minority mindset with under a few hundred dollars. Yeah. When I was making videos off of my cell phone, you just need some.

Hustle, some creativity, some actions, some consistency, some relationships, some communication, and just making stuff happen.

The hustle, man. That's why I always say keep hustling at the end of my videos, because that hustle mentality is so crucial and you can't teach that, you can't read that in books, you have to actually live it. And so this is where now if you want to really do that, you have to understand the hustle mentality in order to go to work. And this brings me now to the be great aspect. The last part now, speaking my language. Exactly, right, exactly, greatness. So you've built the base, you're putting some money to work, you're leading your money, you are either paying off your home or you're understanding how to use your extra cash the right way, you're increasing your income, that way you can build your wealth even faster. Now it's all about being great. And there's two aspects to this. The first aspect that I want to talk about is protecting yourself because the reality is when people realize that you have money, they're gonna try to take their hand, put it in your pocket and keep some for themselves.

You know, to pause on you there, I remember hearing Oprah talk about this one time. Years ago, I heard her on some podcast or somewhere she said something like, As she started to rise to fame with her talk show and started to make a lot more money, what do you think happened? Everyone's reaching out with a handout, right? Oh, you got money now, can you help me with the thousand dollars here? Can you help me with this? Well, you've made the money, can you help me? She said, I'm paraphrasing this, but after like, I don't know, a decade of this or something, it just felt like everyone was using her, as opposed to just being in relationship with her and having an actual friendship or relationship. and she said that she decided after a period of time, she was tired of just giving, giving, giving, giving to people who had a handout. And so she said, I'm gonna do a big dinner, and I'm gonna invite everyone. Friends, family, everyone, you know, third cousins, you know, twice removed, everyone who's been asked for a handout, I'm gonna invite them all. And she said, like, she, she gave out. She had this massive dinner for everyone, like all of everything you could eat. And she started giving out envelopes and gifts and cars and cash and just like she gave out gifts based on what she wanted to give to each person. Everyone got something. And she said, she gave a speech at the end and said, this is all I'm gonna give you. Don't ask for anything else after this. And she said, still, people were complaining, oh, you gave this person 10 grand. I only got 5,000. It's like, you gotta learn to protect yourself mentally, psychologically, financially, because you could just be giving and giving and giving and it can never end.

Right. Right? 100%.

And so how do you do this?

That's a huge relationship aspect. I'm gonna take it one step a little bit deeper on the legal side.

Because.

You'Re absolutely right. You know, I struggle with that relationship side as well because I'm not saying.

Don'T be generous, but also it's like when you feel like you're being taken advantage of, then it becomes challenging.

So my family is from a state in India called Punjab. And what happens a lot of people is you come here to America or to somewhere like Canada. My family came to America and your family is in India and they think, oh my God, you're wealthy in America. So you're working your butt off here while sending money back to India. So, you know, my parents did this. My dad did this a lot where especially when we were young, he wasn't making a lot of money. But he was always sending money back to his siblings or people just to help take care of them because that's our culture, to help take care of people. And it becomes difficult because, you know, it's that for, at least for me, that cultural aspect of giving, which I like taking care of family, but then also not making them reliant on you because now once you start giving, then they say, well, I'm telling you to step up. Yeah. And so it's a very tough balance. And I don't have a good answer for you here because, you know, I do like taking care of people. I like helping people, especially within my family. I want to make sure I can take care of everyone. That's why I work hard, because I want to make sure that I can give you. And so when I, because I have given money to people around me, my family and my friends, the way that I look at it is I don't want that money back. I know when I give you money, I'm never gonna ask for it back and I don't want it back. If you give it back to me, maybe I'll take it, but I'm never gonna ask for it back and I will give based off of what I can. But I know that's money in my mind, I'm never getting back. And I have to be okay with that for myself. And if I'm okay with that, that's fine. And I think that's one of those things where I don't, because I don't want to mess up the relationship, right? With my family, that's more important to me. And so look, if I'm okay giving you $1,000, here's $1,000, never talk to me about it again. Right. And really that's it. And if I see you blow that money in dumb ways, that's what, when you ask me for another grand, you're not getting it.

Yeah.

You know, it's as simple as that. I'm going to forget about it. I don't like arguing over money. I think that's very dirty and evil. So, you know, I am generous. in that sense, but I'm also very straightforward where if I feel like, hey, I'm not going to give it to you, I'm not going to do it. But I also don't sit here and ask for it back.

But you're talking about protecting yourself legally.

Legally, which means now having the right advisors, accountants, and insurance to protect you. And so when you start earning money, people are going to try to reach into your pockets and get it. Also legally, I had a tenant in one of my properties, Suma Real Estate Company, because they said that the bathtub got too slippery when the water was on. Geez. And because it was so slippery when the water was on, it caused them to slip and fall, which then- It's a bathtub. It's a bathtub with water. And because of that, they wanted damages for injuries.

But you just have to defend yourself even if it's not your problem.

And so this is where how do you protect yourself? So I had a couple things. One, I had an LLC. Second, I had a rental insurance or yeah. And third, I had a property manager company, property management company. And so I'll go through the different layers so you can see all the different levels of insurance and how they worked because now the first thing that happens is my property management company documented everything because prior to them slipping, they made a complaint that there was about a quarter inch by quarter inch chip in the bathtub. And they said, oh, there's a little paint chip. We want to get this fixed. So my contractor goes out there. He says, okay, yeah, we can fix this. And my contractor said, you know, the tenants here are kind of old, let's install them a handicap pool just to be nice. We weren't required to do this. We were fully licensed by the city, but my contractor offered to do this. So now they go back to do the work. The tenants say, we don't want you to do it, we're tired. He goes back to do it again. They said, we don't want you to do it. The tenant slipped and fell at a barbecue. They go back and said, no, he's still injured from the barbecue. So we have notes of all this. Sure. and then they go and say that they slipped and fell in the bathtub. We have records of all this where they said they slipped and fell at a barbecue and now they're saying they slipped and fell at the bathtub. Why are they doing that? Well, maybe they can try to get some money out of the quote unquote rich landlord. I was a very young kid at this time. I was still in college trying to dig into those pockets, thinking that, oh, if he's a real estate investor, he must have a lot of money. And so they use one of those free attorneys to go after my insurance. So now I have insurance. So now my insurance company gives me an attorney to protect me through this process. And the judge laughed at the case, even the attorney laughed at the case. He was like, look man, they're just trying to grab money. There's nothing here. It's a frivolous lawsuit. So we just have to do it. And the insurance company wants to settle because it's cheaper to settle than to pay $350 to $400 an hour to the attorney to fight it and actually win the case. And so that's where the insurance came in and protected me, they fought me for me and defended me and then paid out the settlement. Now, if it had escalated further, that's where the LLC protects me, just where you want to have a good attorney there to recommend what's best for you, because that LLC then kind of creates a shield where you can only take what the LLC owns and you can't go after my personal assets. So if the LLC only owns that property, you can't go after anything that I own because the LLC is what owns the real estate. So you want to make sure you protect yourself there. Right. So this is where having those right shields to protect you are so important because especially in America, we are the most litigious country in the world. And you want to make sure you protect yourself against that. Right. And there's a funny saying in real estate that if you haven't been sued as a real estate investor, you haven't been in business long enough.

Wow.

So it's just one of those things where you want to protect yourself.

I think people also gotta also understand this is a full contact sport.

Yeah.

You know, learning how to follow these six steps that you've laid out, which I think are great, but learning how to be, you know, an investor, it doesn't come easy for everyone right away. You're gonna make some mistakes. There's gonna be some challenges to face, and the longer you're in it, you just have to deal with stuff that's not fun, right? This is something you had to deal with. There's probably months of a back and forth thing and there's some stress, there's some worry, there's conversation, it's time, it's energy with insurance, with lawyers, just to deal with something that even isn't your fault.

100% and you know, this is just one of the realities of being an investor and entrepreneur where, you know, understanding the aspects and there are going to be some things that are not fun. Like I talked about in our previous podcast, the tax issue. Oh, no. It was a, where my accountant calls me up saying that, hey, just believe this is nine in the morning. You owe a hundred thousand dollars by the end of the day. Sucks. Send it in to the IRS. That sucks. And now I have to go figure out how to do this, send it in. And then he tells me that I also have to pay a penalty on this because he did something wrong. So it's one of those things that's not fun. It's a, a problem. But then as an entrepreneur, how do you find the opportunity? Well, first I fired the accountant. I go on the hunt for a new accountant, a new tax advisor. I start working with this new tax advisor and I see the difference between a bad accountant and a good accountant. I start learning, wow, you're telling me that every month we can meet and you can advise me on what I can do with my money. That way I can legally limit my tax liability and you're going to do all this work in advance and I don't have to worry about this ever.

I love that.

Now with my entrepreneurial brain, I'm like, let's start working together because there's so many small businesses that need this. It is a real problem because there's a lot of bad accountants out there and we need more good accountants. We need more good tax advisors who's going to help people, especially in this new age where we have more IRS agents joining the workforce. We have a lot of things changing. We're probably going to see a change in tax laws. So you want to make sure that you're taking care of yourself. So this is one of the things that I'm working on with him is to To fix that, we don't have a website or anything. So if you want to learn more, shoot me a DM on Instagram@minoritymindset or email me at team@themminoritymindset.com But this is just one of those things where you want to make sure you have the right resources there to first be great to protect yourself for your family. And I'm going to take that one step further because as an attorney, you also want to make sure you have the right estate planning in place because this is one of those things that is really not fun. but so crucial if you build any sort of wealth, you want to tell the world and when I die, where does it go? Where is it gonna go? Because if you don't, your family is gonna fight over it.

Oh man.

And it's not fun because no one wants to think about what happens after I die. But it is so, so, so important because when you die, you don't want your family fighting at your funeral. And so create a will. create a trust, have an estate planning attorney that can help guide you there, because you never want to have to worry about that. And the second aspect of being great is being great for the world, where the more you have, the more you can do. You can give back, nor. You can do more things, whether it's your money, whether it's your time, whether it's your education. Because when you can light a candle, well, you can light one candle, but that one candle can also light a million other candles. And this is where now as you're on this journey to build wealth, you have lit your own candle. Now, you can help light someone else. You can help give someone a helping hand, whether you help someone financially, whether you help them with your time, whether you help them through your expertise, because now you've learned the process, because information is meant to be shared. I talk about this stuff on YouTube, not because I wanted to get rich, but because I was so frustrated by the system. I never knew that I could even make money on YouTube. I started making videos We're not even turning advertisements on. I didn't know that you could do that until someone showed me, Hey, you can make money from these videos.

I know.

And so it's the whole idea of helping to spread because, you know, like we've talked about in this video, this podcast, there's so much misinformation out there. There's so much lack of information out there. And financially, like if you don't understand money, if you don't have money, it can ruin so many other aspects of your life. Because if you don't have money, if you're stressing about money, now you can't take your spouse on the vacation that they want. You can't pay for your kids education. You can't fund your retirement. You can't buy that gift that you want. You can't do anything. And now you're stressing. It makes your mental health worse. It can put you into depression. It can make you start eating bad. It can make your physical health worse. It can make you feel so unfulfilled. It can make you feel so spiritually beat. So this is where understanding, hey, more money isn't going to fix every aspect of your life. But if you don't have money, it can impact every aspect of your life.

What do you think are the key things that abundant mindset people around money do differently than scarcity mindset people around money? If you had to say three or five kind of key things, they.

Appreciate it, as you said, that is a biggie. They appreciate it and they speak about it as they love it. They're not weird about it. They're also generous with it because when you pinch yourself off from giving, that is sort of a subconscious way of saying, there's not enough to go around and it's not gonna come, I'm not in the flow. So when you don't give generously, it's 'cause you're scared that it's not gonna come in anymore. They take risks. you know, you got to take risks. You are where you are because you've been doing what you've been doing. So if you want to change your life, you've got to do stuff you've never done. What else? Wealthy people, they learn about money. Like you, you focus on money. Like that was such a big thing for me, too. Like when I was broke, I, I never wanted to think about money, right? I was all about writing songs and, you know, doing much, you know, more Noble things.

Sure, sure.

But then, but when you're broke, All you think about is money. Like, I don't really think about money that much now that I have it, like, but every single decision you make.

When you're broke is about money. So I have enough to pay for this.

Exactly. So I have to afford it. What happens if I don't have it? Right, you wake up in the first thing in the morning in a panic because you got to pay your bills. So you're always thinking about money. So it is really just sort of getting in the flow with that and just, you know, being on good terms with it and focusing on it. And, and, you know, how are you going to make it? Like being realistic about your income streams and, you know, and, if you want to make it, you've got to coax it in, you know?

Give it.

Yeah.

I'm curious about this. Okay, you're a starving artist. You wanted to do noble things, which about art and making art and all these different things. What would have happened if someone would have said, Jen, you know what? I love that you're an artist. I love that you have this, you know, passion for art, and you want to keep doing this, and this is the way you've been for 40 years, and. We don't want you to change. Here's 100 grand a year for the rest of your life. Don't worry about money up to 100 grand. What would that have done to you if someone would have given you 100 grand a year and you would have just been like, okay, I'm gonna write and do whatever I want. And how do you think it would have been mentally, emotionally, spiritually versus you having to risk emotionally, mentally, you getting to heal, let go, overcome, right? Challenge yourself into asking for money, into becoming something greater than that limiting belief. What do you think? Where do you think you'd be now?

Probably would have spent it on beer, honestly, back in those days. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I wasn't. You're absolutely right. It's a frequency, you know? It's like, it's like, I don't know. I mean, I always had I guess, I'm gonna say gall, that's not the right word, but I did do a lot of stuff that was pretty edgy and I pushed the envelope a lot. So I may have gotten there, but I don't think it would have been as exciting as it was to do it myself. You know, there really is, you do grow and they say, you know, starting your own business is the best personal development course you can possibly take. Because all your stuff comes up, right?

All of it. Relationship training, it's leadership training, it's inner child training, everything.

Everything totally misploshed. Totally, so it wouldn't have been as satisfying, I don't think. I think I still would have done it though, 'cause that is kind of my personality. When I'm ready to change, I'm ready to change, and I do. Yeah, yeah. But I think it wouldn't have been as glorious, and I probably wouldn't have.

Written you are a bat, which totally changed my entire life. It changed yours, but it also changed other people's lives. So it's who you become, the lessons you learn, the wisdom you have, to then be able to be of service and teach. yeah. From your own experience.

Exactly.

Yeah.

The book about me getting 100 grand a year just for being would not be that interesting to people.

Right.

Yeah.

Right. That's interesting.

Yeah.

What has been the biggest lesson in the last 10 years? Because that was 10 years ago when you wrote you are a bad, right? And you've written two or three books since then, I believe. What has been the biggest lesson three books since then?

Yeah.

What has been the biggest lesson in 10 years since you were a bad to now personally, physically and financially.

Oh, man.

Let me think. Okay. The biggest lessons since I wrote you.

Are that because when you get more money, more impact, more celebrity Fame in an industry, people change around you. Some people don't, some people do, right? you get to make different choices with your health, in positive or negative. You have more abundance to do bad things or good things. And you get to see how you show up emotionally, spiritually.

Yeah, that's such an interesting question. I definitely feel like since it came out and has had the success, that I've gotten better and better. It really, this sounds cold, but not caring what other people think about me, that is something that I'm really dedicated to right now where it's like, the one star reviews and the five star reviews, you know, it's like, believe me, I'm so grateful anybody reads the book, but the five star reviews are the real dangerous ones, right? Where you're just like, I'm so cool, people think I'm funny and smart, you know, really getting good inside, like just being like, it doesn't matter as long as I think it's good and I think it's funny and I think it's helpful, that's it. And so that has been really important to me because it is weird. I mean, I'm sure you too, like people know who you are and it's like, It's a little uncomfortable sometimes. I mean, it's great too. I love meeting my readers, but it's just like, I can't get too wrapped up in their opinion of me because it's about my opinion of me. So that's been a really big one. Not letting the opinions of others be.

The opinions of you about you.

Right. Yeah.

Interesting. This really coming to the high hype.

And the low low. Yeah, definitely.

'Cause you hear a lot about the.

Low lows, like don't focus on the criticism, but you really gotta watch it with the five star stuff too. That's interesting.

Yeah.

Because then, because then if it goes away, you're screwed, right? You're totally screwed. I mean, that's why so many celebrities wind up in rehab, you know? Especially if you. I always think about this, too, that I'm so glad for me anyway, that.

It started when I was older.

If I was getting all these accolades, I would be such an idiot. I know. Like, no way. So I'm really great. I'm so grateful for all of it. My God.

Yeah. Okay, that's personally, what about. biggest lesson financially.

Financially, I guess I love giving money away. Like I didn't, I really honestly never thought I was that generous of a person, but I am. But so I'm very happy to find that out about myself because I didn't really think that I was, but also that I was just making fun of this this morning with a friend of mine that I'm still kind of cheap with myself in ways. Like I'm not, great at like.

I.

Mean, I have a nice house, I have a nice car, I certainly spend plenty of money on myself, but I can just be like, I'm not good at being rich and like getting room service and like spending, I'm just, I'm still kind of, you know, the Italian immigrant's daughter who sort of pays attention. So not that that's bad, but- It's.

Interesting, I have a little bit of that in me, although in the last couple of years, I've started to learn how to take care of me, like with travel and food and convenience and saving time.

Convenience.

Whereas for, I don't know, The first five years of my business, when I was making money, right? It's like, not like it didn't have money, but I was so afraid to lose it also.

Yeah.

That was just stacking it. Every time I travel, I would try to find, who do I know in this town that I can sleep on their couch?

Yeah.

Isn't it funny? 'Cause I was like, I'm not gonna pay 200 bucks a night for a room. What are you talking about? Like, I can use that money and I can put it somewhere else.

Yeah.

And I was always like, how do I just get on the cheapest bus fare?

Right?

How do I get like the middle backseat on Southwest? Like, how do I get the $39 seat?

Student I, yeah.

And just sit there for six hours in the middle and just, you know, crammed as opposed to, you know, convenience and saving time and having my health optimized and using it to do those things. But I was afraid to lose it. So it's just work, work, work to make it, but I was afraid to lose it for a while.

Yeah.

And also like the value, like I still, and I make myself do, but I hate paying for parking. I would rather drive, and we're talking like $2 in a meter.

Like, I'm so weird about that. I'm like, you rather roll on the.

Block five times and try to find a free parking spot? Yes, waste, yes, waste my time. Like, it's so stupid, but I crack up. But I also have this thing where like, I'll spend 60 grand to put solar on my house, but I won't spend $15 on a wooden spoon.

Like, I'm just, I don't know, it's just kind of funny catching yourself where you're, well, I think there's a, there's a, There's a power in being mindful with your money and being, I would call it frugal, I guess, maybe in certain ways, but abundant in other ways. Yeah.

Right?

It's like be abundant in certain ways, but don't just overspend on everything because you have the money. Yeah, I guess.

I know. So- Be mindful of certain things. -Minding, you know, at whatever level you're at too, you know? Like when you don't have money, you also don't want to be pinched off and stingy with it. Like it really is about, this isn't just, You know, two people with money talking about it, it really is about figuring out where you're at and how to stay in that abundance mindset and in the flow and leaving an extra dollar when you tip or whatever, you know, but just really catching yourself when you're pinching it off. 'Cause it doesn't matter how much we're talking about, but it's that pinching off. If money is currency and currency is energy and you're pinching it off, that.

Is not doing well for you. Blocking it.

Yeah.

What was the big lesson about relationships.

In the last 10 years?

Whether it be friend, colleague, intimate relationships.

Yeah, you know that people are still really uncomfortable with money. And I do feel like it's being of service to talk about it freely and openly and joyfully, and it totally turns people off all the time, and close friends, absolutely. And, but taking a stand and doing it anyway. and really, like, I kind of do have to, I have to be a little careful because it can be braggy. But again, like, if I lost 100 pounds and I was telling you about losing 100 pounds, people would be happy for you. This is the same kind of thing. Like, it's something that really is an achievement that helps me be healthy and happy.

Yes.

And why shouldn't I talk about it? And the fact that you're uncomfortable with it doesn't mean I shouldn't talk about it.

Right.

And sink down to your level, right? So that's been, and I have lost friends over that. Absolutely.

Wow. It's interesting because we'll see, you know, on social media, these physical transformations of people. Here was me six months ago, here's me now. And you'll see a lot of people celebrating that, right? Like congratulations, amazing, it's the encouragement, it's like look what I was able to do and I'm so proud of myself. And I wish more people would do that around money too. Look, like I was $30,000 in debt and look at my bank statement now. Like I'm debt free and I've got a thousand bucks in the bank. Oh my God, you know, whatever it is. And I think Dave Ramsey celebrates that for people in his, you know, kind of community where it's like when they get out of debt, he brings them on the radio show and they kind of announce it.

But I don't see this on social media that much. Because that's a safe space. Because everybody's listening to his show is talking about money.

Yeah, yeah.

You do it in the public space. You are going down.

Yeah.

Why is that? I don't really know. I don't know. I think about this, too. Like, how did that all get started? When did it become such a dirty thing? I'm sure it has to do with some kind of control. Like some people wanted to control something. So...

Right.

I'm curious about, you know, if you're down to go there, about intimate relationships. How has making money impacted you intimately in relationship?

I am definitely... That is my Achilles heel right now. So that, and it's been a little weird for me 'cause being a very... I have stories around being a very successful woman. and how that's not so feminine and how, yeah, there's a lot of stuff on that. So that's the new frontier, which I'm super psyched about.

Figuring it out.

Yeah.

What do you feel like is the biggest struggle around that?

You know, is it... My own beliefs around it totally. Come on now. I know all this. It's all the same thing, you know, but that's a deep one. And it's kind of a new one, you know, because because I haven't been a successful woman for a long time. And so it's interesting.

Wow.

Yeah.

So is this like, you know, people just are intimidated by you because you have money or what is that?

That's what I think. Because men are supposed to be the providers and supposed to, you know, yeah, be the providers and to be more successful. And I don't really even care about that, you know, but I do care about somebody being at the same level of me spiritually and sort of just, you know, just with what they're into and stuff like that. So that's really important to me. Interesting.

Yeah.

Because that might be a block for some women. Like, if I make more money, will I be in a great intimate relationship? I think if I make more than my partner, right?

Well, the way that it's set up anyway, that is sort of it, you know, that men and, you know, so I just got to find a guy who's either as who's got really good wealth consciousness, who's as successful, who's totally out there. But it's my own story. It's always your own story.

Yeah.

What would you coach another woman.

Who.

Says the same thing?

Or who's like, they've got a, you know, successful growing business, or maybe they're, you know, making a million dollars a year in their business or more.

Yeah.

And they're like, man, I've been struggling because I haven't found a guy who's comfortable with me making this much, they feel like they can't add as much value to the relationship.

Right.

What would you say to that?

Well, of course, Louis, I have had that client because the second you have an issue, that client shows up. I don't know if you fight like every time, because I'm doing this group coaching course and, oh yeah, it's like plenty of people in that group asked me the very question. So what do you say? Super easy when it's them. Well, I mean, I know the answer, but am I really going to limit is, Watch your thoughts. What are you believing about it? What have you decided is true about you, about your environment, about the way the world works? Like, it's all your thoughts. Like, if you keep harping on, It's hard. He's not out there. I'm to this, I'm to that, then that is the truth. -That's what your manifest are, you know, to think what you want to think is to think the truth. -So- that's true.

-Yeah. So- It's interesting because my girlfriend, I was telling you about her a little bit before, she's extremely successful in what she does. She makes- A lot of good money. And I celebrate it. I'm like, yeah. Awesome. For me, it feels great to have someone who's more, you know, energetically aligned or like more of an equal match.

Mm-.

Even though my business does more than her business, but she's making it killing, right, in her own way. And I'm excited for her.

Yeah.

And it doesn't make me feel like I'm not able to provide as much. with her making good money also. For me, it doesn't affect that within me. But maybe 10-15 years ago, it would have. Maybe I would have felt insecure or not enough because I hadn't worked on my stuff. So I think it's just finding someone who's in alignment, who's a good match emotionally, spiritually, psychologically as well, who's done the work and doesn't find it intimidating. Exactly. I find it inspiring. I'm like, wow. And here's the interesting thing for me. not to go off on this too much, but for me, something switched in the last five to eight years where I had this kind of morbid thought where I said, okay, if I'm with a partner and I don't feel like she can be resourceful and I die, can she take care of my kids financially? It was kind of a morbid thought, but I was like, huh. And I struggled in the previous relationships that I was in thinking, would they be able to financially figure it out? If they didn't remarry, that's a great.

Thing that they did.

If they didn't find another man to support them financially, if their parents didn't fund them, whatever happened, if we had kids, I died, could they financially be resourceful and do things that would make our kids proud of them? You know what I mean? And so, and that's my partner now. So it's like she is financially resourceful and creative enough to generate money if she needed to. But I don't need her to anymore. You know what I mean?

So, yeah, yeah.

Anyway, something to think about there. So that's one of your blocks right now, one of your challenges.

Temporary block, yes.

We're releasing the blog very quickly.

Yes, I'm just airing all the laundry here. I hope when I leave this room, it all stays here.

Exactly. We'll open the window so it goes somewhere else.

Please, get a fan.

What is the question you get asked by your readers the most? that you wish they truly could hear and believe the answer to.

Oh, so many. Well, the one that I said about what do you do when the people closest to you don't support you. Another one is how do you keep the motivation? Like, you know, we go to these seminars, we read books, we listen to the podcasts, and we're all raring to go.

And then a month later, you go back in your old habits.

Exactly, yeah.

So how do you stay motivated?

Yeah.

On your vision and on your growth journey?

Yeah.

Well, I call it going to the spiritual gym, and you've got to have a spiritual gym practice because you do not get to work out physically and then stop going to the gym once you're in shape. So just because you got in shape at the seminar or listen to the podcast or whatever, you don't get to stop doing stuff. So, and it doesn't, and you know, everybody's like, oh, I'm working so hard.

To start my business.

I don't want another thing to do. Wait, wait, wait. So it's like, it can be 20 minutes. You know, you, working out for 20 minutes a day can do a lot of great things. So it's like spiritual gym workout, meditate for 15, read a self-help book for five. Like what music are you listening to? Who are you hanging out with? What makes you feel like you could flip over a car? Like what are those things? And do them every single solitary day for 20 minutes. It's not that big a whoopie do, you know, when you think about that it's gonna change your entire life, you know, so, and take it as seriously as anything else because. that work will make everything else that you're taking seriously and trying to achieve so much easier. And, you know, I'm giving a lot of talks right now, and the thing that I'm just so excited, and I'm so excited to be speaking right now too, because it reminds me, it's my spiritual gym, right? Like we all need it. But the thing about, because we are spiritual creatures having a physical experience, right? And if you, and like instead of just giving it lip service and talking, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that. But think about it. We are the universal intelligence that created everything that is. We are, our thoughts, our universal intelligence, the stuff that created everything that is. Why are we not more stuck up? Why are we not feeling so powerful all of the time? If we're really gonna believe it, if we're really gonna go steroids on woo-woo and go there, And really, like, if you thought about that all day long, about your thoughts being, you know, when you're in alignment, not the garbage thoughts that you think, but when you get quiet and you tap into your inner yippy skippy, as I like to call it, and you're there and you're in the flow, it's like, it's so exciting, right?

What do you think happens to people that never give? that they just earn for themselves or they keep it in their business and they only put it back in their business, but they don't think about giving outside of the business.

I think their growth is stunted.

Really?

But, you know, to me, again, it falls in the same category as integrity. What happens to someone who cuts corners? You can win, you can prosper to a degree, but all the data tells us and all the life experience tells us that the people with fanatical levels of integrity are the ones that do the biggest stuff. The crooks really don't get ahead at the end of the day. The people that are selfish, they can get some stuff done, but the people that are selfless, they just have a tendency because people trust them, that trust factor comes in, things move at the speed of trust, as they say, and all those things come into play and you just don't become all you were designed to be. the other thing that happens with generosity is your creativity increases. Yes. Because you're releasing chemicals that you don't release when you're selfish. Your productivity increases. The quality of your relationships increase. I was speaking at a little Baptist church in Kentucky one time, beautiful little church, and the guy many, many years ago, and the old pastor had been there for 40 years, and I did a tithing lesson, hardcore Baptist tithing lesson, which I love. And the guy came up afterwards and he goes, he left one thing out. Sure, Pastor. I mean, you've been doing this longer than me. What I leave out? He goes, you know, I've been doing this 40 years. I've never had a tithing couple in my church get a divorce. And I went, why? Because the tithe is magical. Because some people think that in Christianity, you know, because I don't think that. He said, no. Because when you're unselfish with your money.

You'Re unselfish with your wife.

And you're unselfish with your husband. and you serve each other in the marriage. If you're serving the community with your giving, it's the same muscle. And he goes, you're just easier to stay married to.

When you're tithing, when you're giving.

When you're giving, when you make giving a standard part of the rhythm of your life, you build that generosity muscle and it affects every relationship you're in. Particularly the key relationship in marriage. It changes the way you parent.

You know, because if you don't give in one area, if you say, I'm gonna hold back my money and I'm gonna keep it here, you're probably not going to give generously to your spouse or to your kids or to your friends or Community. Right.

Because it's a character quality. Interesting. You know, it's like the guy that says, oh, well, you know, I hate the IRS. I hate taxes. So I don't really put everything on my tax return. Okay, so you're a liar, right? You're a cheater.

Where are you gonna cheat me?

And what, that's what I started thinking. I'm not impressed. I hate taxes, but I pay every stinking penny. Not because I believe in taxes, and not because I'm scared of the IRS, because neither one of those things are true, but it's because it says something about me. I gotta look at me, and that's an integrity issue. Every penny, every cash sale of a book on the back table goes into the accounting system, and we pay freaking taxes on it. on it. I got audited not long ago. I paid precisely zero in the audit. We were so stinking clean. And it's not because I'm scared of those duper's, because I'm really not. They're a pain in the butt, but I'm not scared of them. It's a matter of integrity is integrity as integrity is integrity. Generosity is generosity as generosity is generosity. These things, the stuff, these are character.

Qualities of the successful people that I've met. Yeah. that's beautiful. Speaking of marriage, it seems like money affects marriages a lot. I'm curious what, or it could empower marriages or could it hurt marriages if not handled properly. I'm curious if you were to give advice on some, a couple dating for, you know, a few years looking to get married, what are a few questions they must have and align to about money that might be uncomfortable to have those questions, but will actually get you clear on Hey, are we the right match in terms of our money mindset, in terms of what we're going to do with money for the next, and maybe you have this question in the first few months of dating, you don't wait two years. But what are those questions that people should be asking before they align with someone romantically long term?

Well, there's a couple things to think, keep in mind. I'm talking to a young couple about this, and I do often in a marriage seminar or something like that is our pre-marriage counseling session or something like that. The number one cause of divorce is money fights and money problems out there, the stress of money and the arguments over money. Okay? And so if you said the number one cause of death is getting killed by a bear on the way to the mailbox, right? Then you would analyze how not to get killed by a bear on the way to the mailbox.

Yeah.

Right?

And so if you're going to get married, you should really look at the number one freaking thing. Hello?

This is the number one thing that that either hurts or ends marriage, is.

What I'm hearing you say. Yeah. And the odd thing is, is it's actually circular. It's an infinity loop because it feeds back on itself, meaning that it also, the quality of your marriage is a high data point indicator as to whether.

Or not you build wealth.

Yeah.

And so very few people drag a spouse kicking and screaming into millionaire status, you know?

You mean it doesn't happen by accident?

You know, so I'm bringing the princess with me, right? Come on, baby. And I'm gonna put you on my back and we're gonna haul you over there. It doesn't usually work, okay? Or I'm bringing the guy who's lazy and won't work, and I'm gonna outwork him, and the lady says, and he's a little boy and I'm gonna be his mommy and I'm gonna drag him all the way into millionaire status. Not working, baby. So it goes both directions. So that's thing one. If it's the number one cause, then yeah, it ought to be something really discussed. So preventative maintenance, right? Yes. You know, it's, you know, preventative health. If the number one cause of death is obesity, we probably ought to think about obesity.

You know, I'm curious, Sam, what is, what is a, what's a question a woman should ask to her man, you know, within the first few months of dating about money, where she could get a sense if he's fully honest and Integrity with what he's saying and not just saying something to make her, you know, feel happy. What is a question she can ask to feel like, okay, this man I'm dating and courting, and we're getting into this life with. I feel like I can trust him with money for the future.

Yeah.

Well, money is a reflection of our values, how we handle money. And that's another reason that it's very important. Because if your values are not aligned, you're going to struggle in any relationship, but certainly in a marriage relationship. And so, you know, talk about the basics of money debt. I love debt. I'm gonna use it all the time. You know, I want zero down everything. I'm going to buy a zero down truck. I'm going to buy zero down stereo. I'm going to buy zero down couch. I'm going to put nothing down on the house. And you hate debt. Okay, we got a problem. We're going to have to work through this or we're going to have to, this is a deal killer. Okay, how about saving? I don't think I'll save money. You can always get you some. I always thought you could out-earn your stupidity. I tried that for years. Didn't work, you know? So my wife, however, is a natural saver, right? So when I joined her club is when we started winning.

Yeah.

You know, so bless her heart. she didn't know this going in, but made a hard life for her the first seven years. So saving and debt, how about generosity? I don't believe you ought to give. If you give, you end up with less. It's mathematically factual, which it is actually, but that's short term thinking. That's a finite game instead of an infinite game, again, using Simon's premise on his book. And so generosity, the things we just talked about, how about living on Are we gonna live in chaos? Are we gonna live with a plan? Yeah, I wanna live with peace or chaos. Are we gonna live with future minded or YOLO? You know, you only live once, thank God it's Friday. Living for the weekend. Our marriage theme song is Huey Lewis and the News, right? I mean, come on, is this us? And if it is, then, you know, 'cause this, what's this tell you? Anyone that lives short-term thinking, we know they're emotionally immature.

Yes.

Spiritually immature. And so you're marrying someone or you're dating someone that's emotionally immature and they're fun. They're always fun. But it's not fun in the long term because it brings about stress. The fruit of this is nasty. And so now do we have to be perfectly aligned on all those things? No, we just need to understand where the other person stands and are they so far over away from us that it's a deal killer?

Yeah.

Because my wife is more of a saver than I am by nature. I had saving for me is an intellectual act, a spiritual act of my will. It is not a natural rhythm, okay? She naturally saves everything. The leftovers in our refrigerator are grotesque. I mean, it's just, I mean, you know, she saves everything. So, but so to the extent that I can stay close to her on that, then we've got harmony. We have both obviously with what we've been through agreed, no doubt. We are both plant have become planners over the 40 years of marriage. I'm always been a detailed planner. I had to get her to join me more on that. So, you know, but it's better if you do it on the front end than the way we did. It's a lot harder the way we did by kill each other. So you want to be in agreement on that. And all the data tells us on marriage and divorce statistics. And we've studied this for years is number one cause of divorce money. the other three, if you can be in agreement on them, religion, kids, whether to have them and how to treat them, and how to deal with crazy people in your extended family, your mother-in-law, and your crazy brother, your lazy brother who does cocaine, and whatever it is. How are you gonna deal with that?

How to manage it all?

How to manage boundaries with extended family. And if one of you thinks that children should just be let run wild and the other one is an over-disciplinarian, we're gonna have a problem or I want no children and I want 17. That's gonna be an issue. Or I don't believe there's a God and I think anyone who believes there's a God's an idiot. Oh, by the way, I think there's a God. Oh, see this is a problem because now I'm an idiot. So there you go. And so these are the things. But if you can agree, because all of these things are representative of your values and what your beliefs are. So when you can agree on your money, what you've ended up agreeing on is your dreams, your fears, your visions, you're in agreement, you're in alignment on those, not only what they are, but how we're going to go after them then. And you've got a high probability of building wealth. That's the odd part of it. That's the infinity loop how it comes.

Back in on itself. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And I want to remind you of no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.