The 6 RICH People Habits To Make MORE MONEY ASAP! | Lewis Howes

A bad investment is still better than a smart spin. So wealthy people don't spend money day.

Whatever success I had came more from my knowing how to deal with my not knowing than from anything I knew.

Don't pursue entrepreneurship out of greed of money. You will fail for sure.

If you want to make more money, you need to learn the habits of the rich. That's why in this video, I put together some of the top entrepreneurs to teach you how to start making more money today. This video is presented by Zoom. You'll hear more about them later in this video. So make sure to subscribe to this channel, drop a like and comment below your biggest takeaways. What would you say are the three biggest habits that you've developed over time? Maybe you didn't have early on, but you develop over time and maybe always telling the truth is one of them. that has made you so successful, the three biggest habits that you apply?

Well, you know, I've learned a lot from the CEOs I've invested in over the years. And there was a woman a few years ago, probably 10 years ago now, and she said to me something really interesting. I asked her why she was so successful, because she was. She said, I do something very ordinary and almost boring, but I do it every day. She takes a a sticky note and she writes three things she has to get done before she texts, answers any calls or does anything else. Just three things. And she sticks it on the mirror where she puts her makeup on. And she really, it doesn't have to be business things. It can be whatever it is that are deemed to be important to get done the next day. Maybe it's something that's a holdover from the day before because I've been doing this now for years. And it's really effective. This isn't tech. You're not putting it in your phone. It's not a software program. It's a piece of paper with, and you have it, you know, right, when you're going to bed, brushing your teeth, whatever, you write those three things down, you stick it on the mirror. I do it every night. And then I am myopically focused to.

Get those three things done. Before you do anything else.

Before you text, before you check your email. Before I do anything else, I nail those three things. you cannot believe how productive you get when that happens because you don't let the distractions of all the other crap that's happening around you. I just don't do it until I get the three things done. And it's incredibly powerful. I tell people to try it. Most people try it, get stuck on it and they stick with it. It's really because in life there's so much noise coming at you and every year more noise and all kinds of different distractions and you always say to yourself, well, I can multitask, but you deemed that thing to be very important and you ignored it. Now it's three in the afternoon, you're exhausted, or you're busy with other stuff and you say, oh, shit, I didn't get that done and it's whatever the effects, the domino effects are, they're gonna hurt you. And that's why I tell people, try it out.

It's a really great tool. Okay, that's number one. What's the second big habit?

Okay, so this one's a little funky chicken. It comes with a story, okay? When I was, you know, I wanted to be a photographer or a musician, a rock star. When I was, you know, graduate, when I got out of high school and my dad, my stepdad said to me, you,'re not good enough at either of those. You'll starve to death. If I were you, I would go get any kind of a degree and focus on business, which is what I did. You know, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I learned some stuff. And I ended up going into postgraduate. I went and got an MBA, which at that time was a two-year program, which, you know, we can talk about the merits of that or not because I've come to realize what it was worth and what it wasn't worth. But anyways, I remember on the last week, the graduating class, and in those it's sort of like an amphitheater with about a hundred people in it, and you've been there for two years, you've got your little nameplate in front, and they bring in guest lecturers to talk to you before you jump into the real world. and this guy comes in and he says, I'll never forget it. He walks up, the professor hands him the floor and he just goes in the middle and just looks up at everybody. For maybe like it felt like forever, but it was really maybe 60 seconds. Didn't say a word and the whole room, like you could have heard a pin drop. I'll never forget it. And then he says, You guys think you're so hot. You think that you've come here and you've got an MBA and you're gonna go out in the world and you're gonna rock and you're gonna be incredibly successful. I've got news for you. For two-thirds of you, the world is gonna chew you up and spit you out. You have no idea what's going to happen to you. You are so irrelevant. You have proven nothing. You've done nothing. You think an MBA means something? It's worthless. and for many people they can't make it. It doesn't work out for them. They don't have what it takes to take on the abuse that the world's gonna throw at you. And just to give you full circle in a kumbaya, you know, circle of life, Lion King kind of moment, I got caught saying the same thing a couple of months ago at the Harvard MBA group. And I realized I was saying the same thing that that guy said to me decades ago. I said to these kids, you're all think you're Harvard MBAs. You are nothing, burgers. You are nothing. And so there you have it. What he really explained was the idea of experience and how you have to listen to your gut to navigate the bombs of your career. And you have to trust it. You have to trust your gut. Every time I've lost dough, every time, and I've lost plenty, luckily I've had more successes than failures, is when I didn't listen to my gut, which is my experience. And I should have, he was right, he was absolutely right. It was great information, but I couldn't assimilate it because I couldn't put it in context. Now I understand it. So number two is you need to build that experience and all the way through listen to your gut. Even when you're young, your gut will tell you, you'll know when it's right and wrong, and don't go against your intuition. That is actually your radar, that's your DNA speaking to you. figuring out what the next move is gonna be.

That's a powerful story, yeah.

Did they say the same thing to you in the back of the room and say, what an asshole this guy is when you gave him the speech at Harvard?

Yeah, well, it's Matt Higgins, who was a get-sharp.

Yeah, I know Matt very well, yeah.

Yeah, so Matt, he emailed me the next day and said, Hey, Kevin, I gotta tell you, you're a s*** disturber. I mean, you know, but, you know, much of the class really enjoyed it, but what he was really saying is.

He pissed a few people off. Yeah.

But you know, I know Higgins pretty well. We're good friends. And so, you know, he's, you know, he's really savvy at what he does. We wanted to talk about direct to consumer branding. That's what we were doing in that lesson. It was two hours. It was great. I work with that guy anytime. He's terrific.

Yeah, great guy. Great content on LinkedIn he has. He's always sharing that content with me there. And the third habit that makes you.

Very successful Well, you know, it's, you have to make time in your life for your significant other and your family and it's very hard to do. It's extremely hard to do because you, when you, this is really speaking to more to the entrepreneurial community out there which is basically a third of people. One third will attempt to take the entrepreneurial journey. It's not a destination, it's a journey and the challenges of that are very, very difficult, particularly when you're starting out. And I learned this the hard way and again, I'm going to go to a story of a class that I taught years ago in evening class. This really sums it up and it tells you how important this is. Three-hour class, 6:00 to 9:00, we're almost closing, you know how 10 minutes left. This guy hadn't said a word the whole class. He finally puts up his hand and he says, Listen, Mr. Wonderful, I have a question for you. It's not about the case. What's the case we're doing? I need some advice. I said, okay, you really haven't participated at all. I was kind of a little condescending because I know you kind of know who's engaged in the class, even though it was a huge cohort. I think it was something like 300, 400. I can't remember. It was a lot of people. He said, I'm graduating this year. I'm an engineer and I've developed a cloud-based software enterprise system that helps hedge funds with less than $250 million be compliant. And you know it's very difficult to stay compliant when you're small. You need these 2 and 20 hedge funds. And it was a subscription service. So these guys could use it on a cloud basis. And he had written this code while he was graduating in engineering. And his run rate was $5 million a year in subscriptions. I mean, that is like... And I said, I don't hear a problem here. I hear something incredible going on. This is amazing. And he said, well, here's the problem. My fiance came to me this morning and I'm really disturbed. She said, I have to make a choice. She can't live with me anymore. I never attend any of her family's picnics. I never see anybody on weekends. I'm either studying or I'm working on the code. That's all I can do. And I asked her to come over and sleep with me when she can and we'd be together, but I'm just buried in this. And I need to do both. I need to get my graduation in engineering and I need to keep my customers happy because this is my business. Now, he said, what do I do? Rooms, like, this is getting interesting, right? I mean, I said, okay, which one is easier to replace? Your business or your fiance? And that was probably not the right thing to say at the time, but that's what I was thinking in my head, and I think everybody else was too. This guy's phenomenally successful. clearly has gotten engaged to the wrong person that can't take that journey with him. Most likely outcome is divorce after they marry because he's going to work 25 hours a day, eight days a week because he's got a business, he's an entrepreneur. My point is one of the biggest decisions you're going to make in your life between success and failure as a person is finding that right partner. that, you know, I don't care, you know, who that is. If you're going to take that route, they have to be in sync with who you are. You can't contort yourself to something else. And I think that a lot of people in their 20s really should think this through because, you know, not, I told you I'm in the wedding industry. I've got a lot of companies and I've learned a lot about marriages. The reason marriages fail is not because of infidelity. Any marriage can survive that. I talked about it earlier. But why they fail, why the union breaks up 50% of the time within five years is financial stress. One outspends the other. They're not in sync together. They don't share each other's goals. That's the hardest time in your life, in your 20s, maybe you start a family, whatever you're gonna do. The point is picking that partner is the third thing you either do right or you do wrong. Divorce is incredibly stressful. Many people try it three, four times. They're not in sync with their partner. I'm just, you know, this is kind of like a little Dr. Philish in some ways, but I'm telling you, with the CEOs I work with and all the investors I work with, I see stress in people when their relationships are falling apart. And it's devastating. So there's a story. Those are the three things I care about in giving guidance. and I think everybody knows what I'm talking about and should think about these.

Hey guys, I wanted to quickly take a moment and connect with you on more of a personal level. Over the past year, my entire business has shifted to using Zoom in every way possible. We've hired lots of new employees using Zoom. We do our interviews with our big guests using Zoom who can't be in studios. We do live webinars, online events, all using Zoom. We've even started using Zoom phone to build out our recruiting process and connect with our international members of the Greatness Coaching Program. Zoom phone calls make it so easy to quickly call each other no matter where we are or what we're doing. And I want you to start using Zoom as well. You can click the link in the description or go to zoom.us/greatness for 30% off an unlimited calling plan for an entire year. make sure to check it out below or go to that link and now let's get back to the video. What questions should partners be asking each other before they get married around money? How honest should they be? And what if they have a massive disconnect around money but they have this intimacy and connection and love? Should they just break up before the wedding or what do you think? that would be the right move to make?

So I have given a lot of guidance in this space. In fact, I've written three books about it called Men, Women and Money, Men, Women and Children. It's all kinds of advice about family, but here's how the journey works. You meet somebody. It's a great first date. You have a second date. It's even better. By the time you're having your third date, The only reason you're having your third date is both of you are very interested in each other. And that is the time to start talking about the future. I know that sounds corny.

The third date.

I understand it. Third date, if you're just hooking up for hooking up, I get it. You don't have to worry about this. But if you're actually stopping seeing anybody else and you're on your third date with somebody you've met and they've done the same thing and you're being honest with each other, something's going on, okay? Now it's time to start doing a little due diligence because this is going to get serious. By the fourth date, and you're not seeing anybody else and you're talking about doing whatever you're going to do together, it's a big deal. And you have to understand a little bit about where their heads are at. Number one is talk about family. Do you want to have one? I mean, it's a question. Some people don't. You've got to know that upfront. You make a decision about it. Or can you have one? It's a discussion you've got to have. Tough discussion. Again, staying honest. Number two, what are your goals? How do you see yourself in 10 years? Are you at home? Are you working? Would you be raising kids? I know this sounds corny, but believe me, women want that question and men want it too. If you're on your fourth date, they're dying to get into this because they're starting to really invest their time in what they think they're going to be. Anybody in your family bankrupt? Tough question.

Ooh.

Tough question. Have you ever been bankrupt? Then you ask, how much debt do you have on your credit card?

Tough question.

Do you pay off your credit card every month?

Oh my God.

And then they say, why are you asking me? And if they say, why are you asking me this question? You say, why can't you answer that?

What makes you feel uncomfortable about this question?

Well, I really worry that the reason you've got to be in sync with some... Here's the thing about marriage, about getting together with your married or not, or whoever your significant other is, if those are aligned, if you have an understanding of each other that is in sync, that union could last 50 years. Because after the euphoria is over with, you're in business with each other. You have to build a financial pillar to support growing old together or raising a family or buying a house or doing whatever you're going to do. And you need to be in sync on that stuff.

Three skills you think every entrepreneur should develop, whether they're about to launch a business or they're in the process of building their business. What do you think are three powerful skills that we should all develop?

You have to have an alternative endeavor in the arts. If you're focused on business, what is it? Do you draw? Do you play music? Do you listen to music? Do you cook? Do you paint? Do you do photography? What is it that you do that gets the ying and the yang working together? That's a concept in Korea of ying and yang and it's very important in business. The greatest entrepreneurs are often very good artists in one discipline or another and they spend enough time to hone that talent. So I always play guitar every night. You know, I'm not the best guitarist but I get better all the time and I'm good enough to record stuff that people listen to and seem to like. So I like that. It took me a long time to get there. But the same thing with whatever that discipline is. And I think that's number one, number two, you have to get your three things on the mirror every morning. I think that really works. Otherwise you're not disciplined, you're not organized. And number three, and I've said this a million times, you've got to tell the truth, which is very hard to do. People say they do, but they don't. Very few people, very few people tell the truth.

You were the king at this, and one of the things I love about telling the truth is that you build confidence with yourself. You know, when you're lying or even a white lie, you lack the confidence because you know you're out of integrity with yourself. And you're obviously the king of telling the truth, especially on Shark Tank. You do it in a very specific, deliberate way where you always tell the facts and how you feel about the facts of things or how things will work out. How can someone do communicate in a way where they're telling the truth and telling the facts and being honest, but also caring for someone's feelings as you you might put kumbaya-ing it like Barbara might do. How can someone do both? Or is it not possible? Should you just say the facts and not care about someone's feelings?

It's not possible. You know, it just isn't. You can try and sugarcoat it, but if the more you do and you leave hope where there is none, that's a huge mistake, particularly when it comes to matters of finance. It's very binary. You don't, there's nothing between losing and making money is just the abyss. You either make money or you lose it. You have to decide which, you know, you got to tell the truth. And I think, you know, there's a lot of angst that goes into people trying to, you just can't serve both masters. You have to choose one. And I prefer the truth. And, you know, you can try and say, well, I'm telling the truth in a sugar-coated way, but you're not, you're.

Just lying to them. That's all. That's it. Was there any investments you passed on that you and your gut was like, this is not going to work out. This is a horrible idea. It won't work out. But then years later, it ended up being a big success.

There always are, but I don't even think about them. I see so many deals now. My deal flow is insane. I see so much stuff inside of Shark Tank and outside of it. I just look forward. I don't look backwards. I don't care. I might have missed one. and I've had another successful one. My portfolio we review it weekly, we talk to our entrepreneurs. I have winners, I have losers, but I also have some fantastic successes and catastrophic failures. It's sort of, it's a passion play. I have people calling me every day, you know, crying, saying, we're gonna go out of business, and I have other people saying, I can't believe it, somebody just offered us 20 times sales in cash. Are you a seller? I mean, I get the same call. in the same day. So, you know, that's the nature of being diverse as an investor, but also to realize that outcomes are unknown. You don't control it. You have to just understand that there's some things out of your control and you have to deal with them. And if you tell the truth, you don't have to remember what you said.

But.

And I also, and I, you know, we talked about it earlier, I can't make everybody happy, so I don't try. I really don't.

Yeah.

And I don't worry about it. I don't spend a single second worrying about that, because I can't do it. It's not possible. The most miserable people on earth are the ones trying to make everybody else happy.

That's so true. That's a good line right there.

A bad investment is still better than a smart spin. Wealthy people don't spend money, they invest money. Number two, they also know that money is not required. I think a lot of us, if we grew up poor, we believe it takes money to make money. Our parents told us that. Maybe a grandparent or the neighbor or somebody said that to us because that was their, how they justified not having their breakthrough and getting trapped. They're like, oh, the reason I didn't, get out. And we know everybody's got an excuse in their lifetime. Everybody uses them at some point in their lifetime to trap themselves. This idea that it takes money to make money is not true. It's a myth. It's the number one reason why I did the show, the Discovery show, to debunk that on TV, that I didn't need any money at all. They offered me a hundred bucks. I'm like, Just keep it. No, no, we got to give it to you. It's part of the show. And I'm like, I don't need the 100. They're like, no, but you gotta take the 100 as part of the show. So the third thing I would say about wealthy people is they're, I mean, different people have different ways they invest, but they tend to be more focused on the long-term appreciation of an asset rather than give me money this second. And I think they're not stuck in this get rich quick thing.

It's a delayed gratification.

Yeah, they're more like, yeah, I'd rather have wealth tomorrow than rich today. And they do have a distinction between the rich and the wealthy. The super wealthy are looking to create wealth beyond their own means and needs. They're not thinking about their kids, their boat, their plane. I know people think that, but that's not actually true. They're actually thinking about how do I create wealth for a lot of people? Amazon's got a million employees. Now, most of them only earn minimum wage, but there's some people at the upper level of Amazon that are making fortunes.

Yeah, and I'm curious, you wanted to debunk this myth of that it takes money to make money, which is something I heard a lot growing up and a lot of people think, well, unless I can't make it because I can't invest it until I have it. So, what were the lessons you learned starting from essentially zero, having no money, no context, no relationships, no opportunities in a town that you went to for this show, what did you realize were the keys to actually making money, even if you didn't have any?

Well, as you see the show, you see that I actually never make any money, right? So, the two girls, they actually follow three of us, and the two girls went out and got a job in the first week. And I'm not saying that's right or wrong, or my way is better or worse, But they are strategies, okay? They're different strategies. I was not there to get a job or to earn money. I was there looking for one thing, opportunity. I never spent time looking for money ever the entire 90 days, okay? I'm not looking for money. I was actually looking for contracts through the contacts. I wasn't looking for money because I knew the evaluation of the company in the last segment. an evaluator will come in and determine what my company's worth, my new company, right, that I created. And at that point, I just need to validate to him, dude, my company's worth this based on that. The entire 90 days, I never touched the first 100 they gave me. And this was to prove to people, dude, you do not need money. Like, it's just, it's not true you need money. You do need contacts.

You need people. You need relationships.

You need people. You need the right people, though. The right people that are already in play, okay? Just 'cause the guy's got money. I remember a billionaire friend of mine, you know, he could buy a jet. And I said, Hey, Bob, should I buy a jet? He said, you, should, I shouldn't. Meaning Grant should because, and he's way wealthier than I am. He could have bought 40 of them. He's like, I don't have a place to go in mine. You could use yours every day. So you gotta find somebody that's in play, somebody that not just has money, but somebody that wants to do more with their money. So you'll notice in the first 10 days, I don't spend any money. I don't spend money on shelter, not on food, and not on water. Nothing. Then what I do is I end up accumulating assets. And it's unfortunate that the viewer doesn't see this. Within five days, I have two vehicles. One was given to me by Discovery, and the other one was a $40,000 Jeep that I basically used from Ryan, this guy I met, and told him, I'm gonna sell your Jeep, I'm gonna drive it around town and put 10 miles a day on it, and I'm gonna sell it. Well, that's a $43,000 asset. My truck was worth four grand. I still had my $100. I lived in a $46,000 RV that I was trying to sell. So, and what's the other thing I did? And I picked up $10,000. to do in a 15% partnership in the equity of the upside of this guy's company. So literally in 10 days, I was accumulating contacts that could get me equity. And the important part of that story is, man, go get you some equity. You know, Jay-Z talks about this. You're getting, you know, so many of you young brothers are getting in advance while I'm picking up the equity.

Ooh, yeah, they're trying to get the get rich quick. Let me give you the money now.

Give it to me now.

Where the publisher is getting long-term residual income for decades off of Kevin Hart.

Kevin Hart, look at what Kevin Hart did with this show, right? He owns that show, he owns the ticket sales, he was willing to promote it, not just be a comedian where Richard Pryor showed up and got his check, told his jokes. Kevin Hart says, yeah, I'm gonna show up, I'm gonna tell my jokes, but I'm gonna own, I'm gonna own the entire platform. the equity.

So how do you get someone to give you $10,000 when you have nothing to give them in return? Or what is it that you're selling them a greater promise in return?

So what I did was I pitched this guy. I said, look, he's a business owner. He wants traffic in his company. Every business owner wants traffic. Every entrepreneur wants traffic to their website. And I said, look, I'm gonna drive traffic to your store. He owned a mattress store. big margins. And I said, I'm going to make sure you have the biggest weekend that you've ever been here. And I said, if you give me $6,000, I'll take the six grand to the store. In fact, you don't give me the money, just call it in and approve it. I didn't want to touch his money. I never asked anybody for any money. And I said, I'm going to go run a promotion for you. I'm going to put together the banners, the logos, I'm gonna stand out in the street, I'm gonna drive the traffic to your place. What do you want, Grant? Or, Louis? What do you want, Louis? I did that more than once, by the way. What do you want, Louis?

You did?

Because my name was Louis, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said, dude, I don't want anything. He tried to give me money to do this. I don't want your money.

I just want the opportunity.

I want to prove myself. Because what I really wanted from him was I wanted him to front the bill at the print shop. so that he could put me in play. Well, I went and ran the whole promotion that weekend. I said, if you send them, if you just authorize the spend, I'll conduct the promo. I'll run it and do it. We did $91,000 worth of mattress sales. We did 15,000 that weekend and then another 65,000 over the next three weeks. and he's like, dude, you're a star. Now he's like, Hey, what do you want for what you did for me this weekend? That was the best weekend we've ever had. And I'm like, I don't want anything except to be your partner.

So you wanted equity?

I wanna be your partner, dude. And I said, I want 15% of the upside of your company. I said, what's fair? He's like, 15%. Everything above what I'm doing now, I'll give you 15%. He's the one that made the offer. I said, that's awesome. and then that's when I said, Hey, can you give me an advance of 10,000 on the 15%? People think that I asked for 10 grand, I actually didn't get 10,000. I got an advance on a partnership, which is even better.

Wow, that's fascinating. So you never really, you never asked for money, you said, Give me equity with everything.

Give me equity, and then once I got the equity agreement on the upside, most people are willing to give you this.

Because it's more than they've already made, they're already making a certain amount, they've never crossed past that probably in years, so they're like, okay, if you can help me, 10X it, I'll give you a 15%.

I don't want a piece of what you're already doing. That's not fair. That's an unfair deal. I mean, you know, people are like, I need to ask for more. Yeah, but you don't want to ask and be, look stupid. Like you can't ask somebody to give you something of a company they already have. Also, it's interesting, 'cause again, they didn't show this, and I look forward to kind of breaking this thing down. We're gonna actually, I'm gonna create a whole platform where I go in and break the show up and show people what they didn't see. When I left Vegas to fly to Pueblo, the production company said, Hey, what's your first move? First move, I'm going to the bank to drop off the hundred. Second thing, I'm going to the gym to meet people. Third thing is I'm going to find a business for sale and I'm going to see if the guy that owns the company can give me a place to sleep. Those three things happened exactly the way I predicted before I got to Pueblo, before I even knew I was going to Pueblo. I mean, it happened just every one of them. And then Discovery came to me at four days and said, bro, you gotta slow down. I said, what do you mean? We don't have a TV show if you keep winning.

Right. If you make it happen in two weeks, what are we gonna do?

I'm like, okay, come out here and watch me throw up. Okay, come out here and watch. I'm sick. I was sick from altitude sickness. I'm like, you guys gotta cover how hard this is for me. I'm terrified, I'm cold, my back hurts, I don't have a good place to sleep, I'm pissing in a bottle, and then they cut all that out of the show. So the point of that story is quit going for some dead Benjamins and start getting you some equity. Okay? $100 bills are dead. They're from the past. Equity is the future. You're better off with the future if you believe in yourself than you are with the dead Benjamin.

What are some things people should be looking for in terms of the right people or the right products or companies to say, okay, and how to position and package themselves to make a partnership equity deal. What should they be looking for and how can they position and package the way you did?

Yeah, so like in Pueblo, there's 112,000 people that live there. The average household income there is $24,000 a year. Household income, like it's one of the most beat up, economically beat up cities in America. they were at 8% unemployment when the country was at 3. When COVID hit, it went to 22.

Wow.

Like just ridiculous, right? So now when I'm in a problem environment like that, you have to do the math. So I'm like, okay, there's 112,000 people there. I can't meet them all and I don't want to meet them all. I only have 90 days. So then I said, okay, who's got the money in this town? The businesses have the money in the town. this is the unfair advantage I have in this show is that I did not go there to start a new business. I went there to find a business that was already banking. A lot of people think I did.

You have that intention before?

100%. I said, there's no way I'm going to start a new business. There's 34 million businesses in America. America does not need a new business.

And it's so hard to launch and create momentum, especially if you don't, even with your audience, it's hard to launch a new business.

It is so ridiculous. It is so stupid what people are doing today. start a new beauty salon. I'm gonna start a new masseuse place. I'm gonna start a new cosmetologist house. I'm gonna start a new, you got a new idea. Nobody needs it. Like if you were an alien looking down at the United States of America and saying, okay, what is there too much of? Restaurants, bars, and businesses. There's too many of them. And then some kid pops up, Paul pops up and says, I'm gonna start a new business. and the guy from outside the planet is looking down there saying, well, that's stupid. Why don't you just go two-thirds of.

All the businesses in America break even or lose money? So what I'm hearing you say, Grant, is a lot of people have the dream of wanting to start and launch a business. But what I'm hearing you say is it's probably a lot smarter to go find a failing business or a business that's breaking even, jump in, add value.

And see if you can 10x that. Dude, that's how you get on planes. That's how you, you know, you go to the hospital, you need Emergency care, you don't build a hospital, you just go to the hospital. You want food, you go to Whole Foods. You want gas, you go to the gas station. It's no different in business. It's called a going concern for a reason. Find a going concern that's got a brand, go in, that's what I did, I just went in and added value. Once I added value, actually we end up splitting off another business out of that. So out of that relationship, your first question was, hey, who are you looking for? I'm looking for contacts, that can actually become contracts. I'm looking for specific relationships. They have to have money, they have to have credibility, they have to have credit lines. That's the only people I was looking for in Pueblo. Out of 112,000 people, are there 50 of them? I need to meet 50 people that have money, credit, and credibility.

How did you feel, because I saw in the first episode that you got rejected a few times. How did you feel from someone who is getting yeses a lot and building their business so fast to go into a place where people just say, Nah, I don't believe in you, or, Eh, you don't seem credible, or, How did you take it security-wise internally?

Well, what, again, pieces you don't hear is I was in this meeting and this guy starts flexing on me. And he literally, like, I had to sit there and listen to his, well, I did 30, I raised $30 million, I bought all this and I put this together and I'm the king and la la la. And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, dude, I'd like to just drop, you want to see a flex right now? You know, the same day I had written a check for like $45 million and I'm having to bite my tongue. Like he doesn't know I could be his investor. By the way, there was a great lesson in that. Like I was nobody, shaved head, old truck, no name, no social media following. And this guy, treated me just like that, like I'm a nobody.

And you never know who you're talking to or who they're friends with or who their family is that could support you potentially.

Totally. Like the same day this guy's flexing on me about how he raised 30 million and he's the king of Pueblo and blah, blah, blah. I mean, like what I had in my checking account that day is Grant Cardone. I just wanted to pop it out on him. Shut up, dog. Treat everybody like you never know who you're dealing with. And just because they're having a bad day, one, you don't know who you're dealing with and number two, more importantly, you don't know who they're going to become.

Yeah, they may not have money yet, but in 10 years they might have a brand or audience or something that could support you.

Every accredited investor was a non-accredited investor at one time. Every whale was a minnow.

I mean, you've been doing sales for, what, four decades now?

Yeah.

And you've been selling from cars to real estate to everything in between, you know, 11 best selling books. You've been even a selling machine. How did it feel to go in without being able to use any of that and go back to kind of the basics of like, okay, I'm a brand new car salesman just trying to figure out how to do this thing. How did you have the confidence or the courage to go in blind and try to build these relationships?

Because I had the commitment. You know, I was committed to the outcome. I always say, Man, commitment comes with time and money.

The thing that you do extremely well is you're a master enroller grant. And I believe that we're either enrolling people in our vision or we're unenrolling them in our vision every moment, every day with our content, our posts, our interactions, and we could be unenrolling people in our brand from one conversation or one thing that we we do to piss someone off. Where did you learn the skill of enrollment of getting people to buy into you and your vision?

I think what I do is, and I talk about this in seller be sold. I've been a sales guy for a long time and I just learned early on and I was terrible at sales 17 years old, 18, 19 part time part time sales guy. I was awful. When I finally realized that sales was the only job I could get at 25 years old, I'm just like, dude, I just got to tell people the truth, 'cause I can't do all these tricks. The NLP, the, and look, if it works for you, good, whatever, but the mirroring, the matching, they ask a question, you ask a question, the hot potato, I've heard all these strategies. And I'm like, dude, I just can't do it. I'm just gonna be me. Hey, guys, I'm moving from LA. I'm out of work. I'm looking for opportunity. trying to move my family here. My name's Louis Curtis. 2008 beat me up. I got to get my family out of LA. Real estate's impossible. I can't buy it there. It's priced out of the market. And I'm here in Pueblo because I think there's opportunity here. And that's all I'm looking for. No handouts, no help. I don't. I got an old truck with me. I got no money. I left my kids with. You got to have your story so people enroll. But you also have to be talking to the right audience. I only spent time with people that were able, capable, qualified. I spent no time. I was in a meeting once in Pueblo. I walked into the meeting, assessed the situation, and bounced. I said, Guys, I'm done. I'm out of here. Boom. And I walked out. And my partner at that time, you'll see it later in the later shows. He's like, what just happened? I'm like, There's nothing here, bro.

There's no money here.

There's no opportunity here. and I'm on a clock. I couldn't tell him I'm on a clock. I couldn't tell, I couldn't tell anybody. So I had these little secrets going on. So, you know, how do you enroll people? It's like, you got to get enrolled. You know, my, my, my personal integrity and ethics is why I can sell so hard. And because I believe in my product, I believe in my investment vehicle, I believe in my company. I don't trick people, screw people. Like 35 years I've been in business. There's not one person in 35 years that says, I owe them money. There's people that try to get stuff from me using lawyers and bull, but there's nobody that can say, I ever financially damaged them in any way, not a penny. And so that allows me to go back into the world and push.

I started my business in 1975. investing. And it's, you know, it's easy to be wrong in investing. That's part of the game. But in 1980, 81, I calculated that American banks had lent a lot more money to countries than those countries were going to be able to pay back, and that they would therefore have a big debt default, and that would cause an economic crisis. And it got a lot of attention because it was a controversial view. And then in Mexico defaulted in August 1982. So that prediction sort of, wow, came right and some countries did. And I got a lot more attention because of that was right. And I thought we were going to go into an economic spiral, a depression, a big debt crisis. And I couldn't have been more wrong.

And.

I was exact, that was the exact bottom in the stock market. And I lost money. I lost money for myself. I lost money for my clients. I had to let everybody in my company go. And I had to, I was so broke, I had to borrow $4,000 from my dad.

Wow.

To pay some of my family bills. So, I mean, it was a lot of pain.

This was 82. Yeah. So you're broke then. 82. Broke.

Totally.

No money.

No money.

No. Wow.

And that was one of the best things that ever happened to me. It was very painful, but it was one of the best things for. Because it gave me the fear of being wrong without me losing my audacity. In other words, it gave me an open-mindedness It made me start to think, how do I deal with what I don't know? So it made me find the smartest people I could find who disagreed with me to start to understand their thinking. It made me think about how I could maintain that upside. Risk goes with return. So I didn't want to have an ordinary life.

Mm-.

So I still wanted the big upside return, but how could I do that without less risk?

-Big downside.

That's right. And I, and so that was a problem that that was part of my reflection. And that reflection led me to understand how I could diversify better, how I could stress test my thinking better, and so on. Then I brought in the smartest people I could find who were independent thinkers who would disagree with me. And then I, and, and, and, and I did that. And that was, the exact bottom financially and so on in my life. From that point up to not long ago, Fortune described Bridgewater as the fifth most important private company in the country, in the US. And so it was that pain and reflecting well on that pain that gave me a greater ability to deal with what I don't know. and I learned, this is an important thing to learn, that I learned that whatever success I had came more from my knowing how to deal with my not knowing than from anything I knew. In other words, what you know in your head is only a small percentage of what the important things and the right things to know is. And so to be able to go outside of one's head, and to take in the best of the best of the best wherever it comes and then use that to make decisions. And all of that came from that painful, very painful mistake.

Where do you think you'd be today if in '82 you didn't go broke and have that massive pain?

I'm sure I'd have a very ordinary, I don't know, life. I don't know. because I wouldn't have known how to have great upside while having acceptable risks.

Right?

In other words, like, at the time, I reflected it. I felt it was like the following. I'm on one side of a jungle, and I'm on this one side of a jungle, and you could go in order to imagine you could have great success if you can cross the jungle alive to get to the other side, but in the jungle are all sorts of terrible things that could kill you and so on. And you have a choice. You can have this boring, or you can have this ordinary life, or you can try to cross the jungle. Now, each one of us would approach that differently. For me, I had to, have the greatest life I could have. So I had, and I have a little bit of a taste of adventure. So how would you cross that jungle? And what I learned was that the best way to cross that jungle would be with a team of people, people who I cared about, they cared about with me, who could see things that I couldn't see, and I could see things that they couldn't see. and that way you could be effective together. And so that's what I did. That's how it worked. And what I also learned through that thing is like, I don't want to get out of the jungle. I don't want to get to the other side because the actual act of being in it with them and to do those things is itself rewarding. So I'm confident that I wouldn't have learned that. if I didn't have that kind of experience.

So you're still in the jungle today?

Yeah, I'm in my jungle. But my jungle, everyone's jungle is a life arc. There's a life arc, right? You have to recognize the life arc. You know, 0 to, I don't know, 8085 or something is the life arc. Something like that. I'm 71. I know where I am on that journey. Okay? It's important to know where are you on your journey. And then when you start to think about that, like, where will I be in 10 years? I'm gonna be a different person in 10 years.

Okay?

Where will the people I love be? Think about yourself. Where will you be in 10 years? And where will the people you love be? It could be your kids, it could be your parents, where will they be and what will their experiences and the journey that they're going through and you're going through. And this script in the journey, by the way, is pretty well known, right? Like, I think, I'll give you example, I think it comes kind of in three phases. The first phase is when you're dependent on others and you're learning, okay? Then what happens is you get out of school, and you become independent and you go to work, and then it's entirely different. You're in the second phase of your life when others are dependent on you and you're working and you're trying to be successful. And then you, but there are the arcs and you could see markers along those lines. You know, do you get married? When do you have a kid? Like I realized, like when my kids have kids, I'm now in my third phase. Okay, so you see these things. Yeah, and so you have to see that. So what I want at this phase of my life at 71, I'm in transition from my second phase in which I've worked and I've won and I've played, it's like I had my battles and it was great and so on. And now I'm in a mission to pass along the things that were valuable to me I want to pass them along to others, and then I'm going to go quiet, and then I'm in that other phase, but you learn things. And so, this is kind of a mentor, pass it along phase.

How do you stay confident in transition from kind of one identity to a new identity that's something new, that's something unknown, whether it be in your personal transition life or in the financial world where things are unknown, things are transitioning, or it might seem like it, how do you personally stay confident in the transition?

First of all, you're really talking about comfort with ambiguity.

Yeah.

Okay. And the way that I feel it is life is like an adventure. I mean, if you knew everything, it wouldn't be nearly as good, right? So the ambiguity is part of it. It's part of the game. It's just the way it is. And then, so to then experience that and to know how to deal with ambiguity, because the same rules apply. You know, feel it, feel it. What's it like? How does it feel? Where are the pulls to? How do you learn? How do you learn how to approach it? What's it like? Speak to others who have been in there in that spot before. you know, taste it and so on. Our preferences change, you know, as you're going through all those things. So you feel it out, you learn about it, you go to the things that you feel the pull toward.

I'm curious. You have feelings you've been talking about for a few moments, but I know you're a very thoughtful human being. You create algorithms for your entire work, your team, everything is based on algorithms, kind of thoughts and ideas. But I'm hearing you say you're a deep feeler as well. Are you, would you say you're more led by thoughts or your feelings?

No, I think it's the alignment of them. Okay, here's the facts pertaining them. There is a subliminal mind that we have and there's a conscious mind. Freud discovered that there's a subliminal mind. So we have, and in that subliminal mind, We just don't see it because it's not conscious, but it has a big effect. And so feelings and those things are coming through that subliminal mind and it really has a big control. And then there's a conscious logical mind for everybody. And so in your mind, they're like everybody's mind. They're these kind of two minds that are working. Now, I find that when I align them, meditation has had a big effect on me. I've been meditating since 1969.

Wow.

So for a long time. Because what that does, literally, it's an exercise where you repeat a mantra, the sound, and then you lose sort of a consciousness and you go into the subconscious mind. But in any case, to reconcile feelings with thoughts to recognize feelings with logic and align them. Like each has to double check for me. Like if my feelings, yes, I'm a big feeling person. The most important things in life for me are what? Inspiration, love, you know, what is it about? I mean, what are you doing it for? But at the same time, to be able to get there, logic and be able to express oneself, And in algorithms or so, is a good thing. So when they're aligned, it's kind of a double check and it works at both levels. So I think that's most important.

When you doubt a decision or maybe just a moment in your life, personal or business related, doesn't matter. When you're in doubt of something, what is your personal mantra to get you back to a centered aligned place where you can make better decisions?

Well, on the doubts, the question is always like, how big of a deal is it and what is this type of bed and so on? And little doubts, okay, that's no big thing. Life and death decisions, those kinds of things, those are the big questions. And what I realize on those is doubting is part of that process. You can only be sure a certain amount. How do you get to to the best triangulation. In other words, take in from the smartest people and your own thoughts and so on so that you are making that. Understand how reality works and then try to make sure that none of your decisions are the ones that knock you out of the game. In other words, I've got an expression for people who work for me. You can scratch the car, but you can't total the car. you know, you could so realize, okay, you don't win it all, you make your best bets, but don't have the one. So you have to eliminate the killer ones because you have enough killer ones and odds are one of them is going to get you. So I approach it basically that way, you know, try to make the diversification, try not to have any killer, eliminate all of those that are unacceptable and then go for the upside and doubt. But, you know, I'm used to doubt. I doubt, you know, there's, there's everything. Every time you put on a position in the markets, for example, I am never sure if it would be easy if I knew. So there's a lot of doubt.

Right.

So, so doubt is part of it. But, you know, don't have, don't put yourself in a position that you can have unacceptable.

Where you go, bro.

Being ganged around a little bit is okay.

Yeah. Right.

Okay.

So how do you have confidence when you're doubting yourself and you're like, I think this is going to do well based on all the math and historical evidence and feelings? How do you have confidence when you, you know, place that bet?

I have enough bets that I make the bet so that no one of them, I won't allow anyone that'll kill me.

Right.

And then I raise and I'll typically only want to make bets that I feel good about and I will have them stress tested my bets by having other people stress tested. So yeah, just imagine, I don't know, you're playing a chess game. Okay, now, okay, maybe you're a chess master, but okay, what are you going to do? You have to still make a move. So, okay, what's the best thing to do? Now imagine you could ask the best chess masters in the world, what you do and think about the pros and cons and make your decision and just not make it that also when it's going to knock out of the game.

Why is a time like this a great time to make money?

Well, it's a great time to be introspective and to pivot and to do resets. and to try stuff you never tried before.

Yeah.

Because you might as well, right? We're all sitting at home, we got to try something. We got those free samples. I mean, we pivoted a whole bunch of product lines here at Ramsey and all kinds of things and we could throw all these offerings out there. Stuff that we might have messed around with split tests for a year or whatever, instead we just dumped it on the street. Let's just try it. Let's see if we can help some people and give some people something to do while they're at home with some digital products. And so that's exciting. You may have a situation where you hated your job. I mean, statistics tell us that 68% of Americans hate their job. And some of you don't have that job anymore. So you get the opportunity to get one you like now. And you might not have done that on your own. So this could be the best thing that ever happened to you. There's a lot of good that comes out of this much pressure because it forces you to reset. It forces you to rethink. And two or three, four crises ago, I don't know, back, I'm an old guy now, I had a personal crisis of losing everything. I decided I was never going to be the victim of the things I can control. when one of these things that I can't control come at me again. And so we got out of debt and we built an emergency fund and we were in the last downturn of 2008, we were in a position of we had piles of cash. And so I was able to buy real estate at a nickel and a dime on the dollar. It was a wonderful time. But there were other times I was broke and couldn't take advantage of stuff being on sale. But if you're in a position you got money right now, the stock market's on sale, real estate's not moved much yet. But if you're buying even consumer items other than toilet paper, most things are on sale.

I know. How much deeper down do you think this will take in terms of, you said real estate's not on sale yet, but it probably will be. How much farther down do you think things are to go and for how long with your, just your guess on this?

I mean, you know, weather forecasters and economists, the only people can be wrong all the time and still keep their job. So I have no idea, but I do know there's going to be a direct correlation between how long we stay out and how long it takes us to recover. No kidding. It's kind of common sense. The obvious is every week that we're out, there's another series of businesses that will never reopen, that will close. And so, and that's a recession is two consecutive quarters of the gross domestic product, all the goods and services produced in the US, shrinking rather than growing. That's all it is. It receded rather than expanded. and so recession sounds like a big scary depression type word, but it simply means two quarters. We've not had one quarter yet. Shrinkage. So it would have to be up into the fall before you can officially declare this a recession or what results from the corona shutdowns, a recession. So I don't know. But I'm sure hoping that the folks are not ill and that nobody dies and it's a horrible thing. the, the, but, and the juxtaposition with that is the sooner we can get back to work, the fewer people are going to be, you know, affected by the economics of this. And it's not saying I'm trading a dollar for a life, but today, actually, that we've lost about a hundred jobs per case of Corona right now.

Wow.

So the Corona shutdown in America?

In America.

In America.

Yeah. We've lost about, you know, the Corona shutdowns affected 100 families jobs. for every case, not death, for every case of the virus. And I don't want anybody to be sick, I don't want anybody to die, and I don't want the hospital beds and the ventilators to run out. I don't want any bad stuff. I'm not a medical person, but I am an entrepreneur and every day we're not working is a trade-off and it is a good trade-off because you don't want to kill people, believe me, I'm not saying that. But man, it's painful to watch these people lose their businesses.

Yeah, from your you mentioned you've been through three or four recessions. I don't want to say your age out here, but it sounds like you've been around the block. You've experienced some stuff. I only went through really, I guess my adult life when I was 24, I guess it was the 2008 to 2009 time frame. I just got out of school and I was trying to figure out my life. I had three credit cards I was living off of, living on my sister's couch for a year and a half. in college debt and I didn't have any skills that I thought were usable to get a job or do anything. And when I look back, you know, 11, 12 years ago, that was actually the greatest time and the greatest gift for me to develop skills, to work hard, to hustle, to try to see how can I make $100 here and there and then turn that into a business. And it was the greatest, it was the hardest time and the greatest time for me. I'm curious with your experience in watching these over the years, what were the greatest lessons you learned from each one that you applied in the last three weeks with your personal business?

Well, it is cliche, but cliches come from truth.

That.

You know, it's the greatest time and the worst time in your life. You don't want to go back there.

No.

Good Lord, no. I don't want to go back there. I went bankrupt. I lost everything in my 20s. I don't want to go back there. But the lessons that I learned from that pain were so thorough pain is a thorough teacher.

Yes.

That, you know, I, I, it was a rich time. The fertilizer was everywhere. Lots of places to grow stuff, you know, lots of poop. So, you know, and, and that's, you know, that's what you had there in 2008. There weren't any jobs. You couldn't like, you could just, I mean, there was a con, a contraction of the economy, a recession, and you're, there you are on your sister's couch. And so you found out that the secret sauce in your life is the guy in your mirror. That it's not some outside variable that's gonna come and save you. The Calvary's not coming. Santa Claus doesn't live in Washington, DC. It's up to you, baby. Get up off the couch. I gotta go leave the cave, kill something and drag it home. You found that truth in that moment. I found that truth that, you know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. You know, that old saying, I found that truth. And so nowadays, now that I've been through, you know, Y2K or 911 or all these initials come at you, you know, the, the, the horrible thing of 2008, now the corona. The only thing I am sure is we're gonna get through this.

Yeah.

You get hope because you go, it's not gonna kill you. Well, I guess you could get the virus. I don't mean that. But i'm saying the, the economic stress that we're under, the fear that we have, the concern or the worry that we have, it doesn't, you don't die from it. You, but, but you feel, you feel like like there's this hopelessness and the truth is that's unfounded. The truth is there's a lot of reason to have hope. By September, where do you really think we're going to be? By this time next year, are you not 90 something percent sure that the economy will be roaring again and your life will be back to some level of normalcy? You think it's going to be 10 years for you to personally recover from this? No, that's absurd. and you know that once you've walked through several of them. And so it's just to me, it's like, yeah, you're gonna make it. We're gonna be okay.

Yeah. And so your personal, I guess I'm just curious about your personal thoughts. Do you think to yourself, like, I'm fine because I've, I've followed my seven steps for years and I've got, you know, cash and I feel safe and protected. So now how can I shift and adapt and pivot and serve my community and customers more? or do you feel any, do you feel any anxiety personally at all or.

Oh, no, none. No, I mean, I'm, we're, we're in fabulous Financial shape. It's not a, yeah. All right. I've got a lot of money invested in the stock market. It's going down. I'm gonna put some more money in while it's on sale, you know? I mean, it's, if real estate goes.

On sale again, I'll buy some more.

So, no, I mean, my personal stuff, it's, it's, it's not arrogance. It's just, I've been doing this a long time. You're the king of it.

Yeah.

I'm the, I'm the little pig in the brick house, you know? I mean, huff and puff, baby. And so, but, but I do, it does put you in a position to serve then, and truthfully, you get more joy even in a crisis and serving than you do in sitting in the basement and counting your coins. I mean, so the opportunity, I got a thousand folks on our team and, you know, the struggle and the scratching and the scrappiness and the clawing to keep this place running and all of them not have their incomes interrupted. in any way during this time. That's an act of service in leadership. The act of service of speaking hope and life into the communities around America right now is an act of service on my part. It's being on the air three hours a day, the Dave Ramsey Show, saying it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay over and over and over again. Right now that's my job. That's what I do. that's just so much more satisfying than counting coins.

Yeah. Now, I followed your steps when I was, you know, 25-26 when I started making some money, when I was like, it's hard to, it's hard to follow the step when you feel like you're, you're living off credit cards and in debt and you're not making any money. You feel like this sense of helplessness, really. And I know I've listened to a lot of your shows with people where they feel helpless, and it takes that initial momentum to kind of kick-start it and see little savings here and there and then pay off one thing here and there. But I tell you, once I finished those, I guess really the, the first five to six steps, I don't have a home still. I still rent for personal reasons, but the first five to six steps and then building wealth and giving and giving. Once I got through these, it's just like, man, you feel so much more bulletproof. I feel so much more bulletproof now after 10 years of building into this recession, I feel safe. I feel fine. I feel protected. And it gives me so much more peace of mind since I did follow your steps. So I would first want to acknowledge you for that, for creating something so simple for us and providing this three hours a day for everybody. I think it's amazing. You sound like a preacher and a motivational speaker to me in the last few minutes. Just speaking life and hope into us. So I appreciate that. What are you telling the people right now who are saying, you know what? I didn't follow your advice. I didn't do what I should have done. I still love off credit cards. I overbought, paid for my house, and I've got this expensive lifestyle and credit cards that I know I'm wrong. I made a mistake. I own it, and now I'm screwed. And I just got 50% cut of my work. I might lose my job in two months. I got all these bills. How do you even respond to something like that?

Well, I certainly don't say I told you so. That's not, that's not the message because I've been there. I've done stupid stuff, too, and that's not helpful. And it doesn't bring, it doesn't bring any healing. The thing is this. We all get wake-up calls. We get wake-up calls in our relationships, our spiritual walk, our leadership Styles. We get wake-up calls in our finances and. Some people, the phones ringing off the hook right now. They're getting wake up calls on a bunch of things. They're at home with their family and they're starting to realize, I was disconnected from my family. I haven't been plugged in. They got a wake up call on their relationships at home. They've gotten a wake up call on, you know, I don't have any savings and I'm deeply in debt. This isn't working. And so the cool thing is when you get the call, then you have to make the choice. Are you going to answer the phone? If you pick the phone up, that means baby, it's time to change. And you can look back and you might be 27 years old right now watching this and you're screwed. You lost your job, you got no money, you got no savings and you feel like it's all over. And I remember in 1970, I was 10 years old and I was in my grandpa's backyard. We were tearing down an old deck. and I pulled some nails out of those old boards as we were taking the boards off. And he taught me to put them down and straighten them with a hammer and save those used nails in a coffee can. Now, my grandpa Ramsey was one of my favorite people on the planet. This is 1970, and he was still answering the phone that rang in the Great Depression. It changed his life. He was Frugal. and careful and wise with money the rest of his life. And so someday, 27 year old, you're going to be sitting on the back porch with your grandkid, and you're going to remember back in alt 20, there was the coronavirus, and it changed my life, you know, and that you're going to be that guy. You're going to be giving dad jokes, you know, and grandpa jokes, right? Like I am now. and you're going to get that opportunity. I was 28 years old when I lost everything. It was my fault. It was the SNL crisis, the banking climate changed, I'd built a house of cards, I was stupid. And the phone rang. It was my wake up call. Are you going to answer the phone? Are you going to change your life to where you say, never again, I'm going to control the controllables to where I'm the little pig in the brick house. Never. again, that may be the only thing you get out of this crisis. And if it is, you got enough.

Preach to me, Dave. Come on now. I love this. What's the, what's the biggest wake-up call for you that this has had? Maybe it's not the financial side of things or business, because you guys are thriving. Is there something, you know, relationship, family, friendships, health? Is there anything that's woken you up now or in the near future and recently?

Well, I've spent the last 15 years pouring into our leadership team and into the Ramsey personalities, creating the succession plan of, and so it's not a wake-up call is more of a source of pride as to how our leadership team and our Ramsey personalities are reacting in the moment here without me coaching them. They already knew what to do.

They're leading.

They're out there doing it. They're doing it. They're out there.

They're not waiting for Grandpa Dave to say, what do I do? Tell me the steps. They already did it.

They already did it and then I found out about it, you know, and that's awesome. And so it's just a sense of, ah, this is starting to work, you know, I mean, when Rachel Cruz and Ken Hogan and these guys are doing, Ken Coleman are doing all these hits and Chris Hogan, all these guys are doing all these hits, these radio and TV and appearances and all this stuff everywhere and the networks are calling and asking for them. which is awesome. And so, you know, that kind of thing is, I don't know if it's a wake-up call as much as it is, it's very satisfying to say, you know, all that work of the last decade and a half of getting everybody ready to win because we were winning in a winning environment. But then when you get the pressures on and you get squeezed, you see what comes out and it's good stuff coming out.

What was the last, I mean, what year would you say was the last big wake-up call for you? around, you know, one of the main areas of your life. Do you remember when that was where you're like, oh, you know, I'm eating a little too many candy bars or, you know, my relationship or, you know, what? It sounds like you've had the finances down for many years, but is there another? Yeah. Yeah. Where you're like, oh, you know what? I really didn't do as good as I should have done here.

I I guess it's probably leadership, and I probably get one of those calls every day. there's some days I'm a world class leader and some days I'm just a butt.

In what way? Like how are you?

I mean, sometimes I do a better job than other times as a leader.

And.

I own it. I get it. But you'd think as old as I am, I'd be doing better. So, but I know what I'm supposed to do, but sometimes I just don't have the energy to do it. I don't care. Yeah, and I should just care more. I really shouldn't be such a grouch.

Oh, no, you care a lot about a lot of people. I'm curious, what's the best dad joke you share?

Oh, Lord, I can't, I don't have no idea. Oh, you got me. I'm not a dad joke guy, really, other than just stupid stuff off the cuff that doesn't even make sense generationally.

So yeah, no good dad jokes. What? what is the most common thing that you're hearing with the people that are calling in for you right now? What's the thing that you hear over and over again that they need the most support with?

I think there's a sense, I think when hope gets gut punched the way it has for folks right now.

The.

Answers fall, a lot of them fall in the category of this is not going to last forever. because there's this sense that, you know, stock market's down. Do I take my investments out? Well, only if you think it's going to stay down forever.

Right.

Because, you know, you're, you're 35. You're going to be investing for 30 more years. You don't think it's going to come up in 30 more years? I mean, really, you're predicting the end of America. I mean, that's, that's silly. But your emotions tell you lies when, when they're based in fear and when they're based in anger. and they tell you lies and they tell me lies. We believe those lies in situations like this. So, you know, I lost my job. I know, but that's happened before and probably happened again. Just get you another one. Well, yeah, there's a lot of people hiring right now.

There are a lot of people hiring.

Amazon's hiring 100,000 people right now.

Yeah.

So, I mean, there's jobs. It may not be the one you want, but you can get some food. I mean, get you a leaf blower and rich people are afraid of leaves. I mean, you can make some money. So there's some stuff to do out there. so the thing that the sense that the thing you're afraid of is going to last longer than it is.

Yeah.

Whether it's the actual virus, whether it's the shutdowns, whether it's the economic repercussions of the shutdowns, whether it's the employment situation, whether it's the quarantine, it feels like it's gonna last forever. But I mean, the chances of you being in the exact situation you're in, in a few months is almost zero. Your life is not a snapshot. You're not trapped in this moment. It's a film strip. The story is going to continue to unfold. And so that when hope takes a gut punch though, and we get down in that fear or we're mad or however it is we manifest that stuff, that those negative things, the emotions that we all have in these situations, that's where a lot of my questions are coming. They're all built in that. And I'm spending all my time going, Yeah, but it's not gonna last forever. Yeah, but it's not gonna last forever. Yeah, but let's visit this in May. I think you're gonna be okay. By June, are you even gonna remember this? It's the great toilet paper shortage of the supply chain.

I don't know.

I mean, what is it? You know, it's, you know, some people are gonna have devastating, horrible things that are gonna be life changing, but that's a very small percentage compared to the number of that are worried about it.

Yeah.

And so, you know, you.

And you're gonna get out of it. You're gonna get out.

You'll be okay. Most. I mean, you're. You're gonna be okay.

I like. I like Preacher Dave, man. This is a. This is just a preacher show. You know, I like this. What is the worst investment people should be making during this time? And what's the best investment they can make?

In my life, when I have become desperate. Right after that's when I become stupid.

Yeah.

And explain the other one. The other one is when I get. Well, when, you know, when you get scared and you go rushing towards something out of fear, that sense of desperation.

This.

Thing, when you do that, you're getting ready to screw up. I mean, just count on it. And the other time you do that is if you're greedy. If you think you, okay, I got this one. I can take advantage of this. And I mean greedy as a lack of virtue greedy. I don't mean greedy in a positive way where I'm being ambitious, okay? I mean the negative sides of greed. And so if you're functioning in desperation or in this no holds barred, I've I'm gonna just clean up on other people's pain thing. That's when you're getting ready to screw up and you're getting ready to make a major mistake. And so you're set up also for con artists when you do that. And so if you're functioning in high emotion, your brain just doesn't work good. My friend Art Laffer says, when you're panicked and when you're drunk, you don't make good decisions. And so, you know, when you're on high emotion, your brain is your critical thinking skills shut down. And so that's when I've made the biggest mistakes in my life is when I was desperate and the few times that I was greedy where I thought, oh, I'm gonna slip in there and that's gonna be easy money.

As a comedian growing up, you had to do so many horrible shows where three people were in to attendance, one person, whatever, 10 people. And it didn't go well. People aren't standing up laughing. They're not giving you standing ovations. They're booing, whatever it is. How do you get to the point where you show up day in, day out, every night to these places if you're not being liked or likable, and no one's giving you reassurance that you're actually any good in the beginning?

You know, I think that for me, the the best thing is this is like, look, I understand that everybody's not gonna like you.

That's.

That's. That's a fact. Everybody's not gonna like you. And there was one moment where I felt like everybody was supposed to. I felt like, really? Everybody is supposed to like me, man. I'm a nice guy. I'm a lovable, nice guy. Why wouldn't you like me? What I found, I was like, look, everybody's not gonna like you and.

And.

You can't change that. You can't control that. So it's my job to be happy with my attempt and what it is that I'm trying to do. That's my job. So, you know, as you're going to perform at said shithole or said small environment, I realized that each one of those opportunities was a way for me to work on me, my craft. and I'm supposed to take something out of that moment that's good, whether it's two laughs, whether it's 20, whether it's a hundred, I have to take something away from this experience and. And basically hold on to it and improve off of that. Yeah. If. If I go do these things and everything about these things are always bad, what does that mean? That I'm. I'm doing something wrong.

Right.

It can't always be bad. There has to be something good that's coming out of it. I'm just not. I'm not searching for it. So I found a way to search for the good. I found a way to search for, you know, the. The positive side of my experiences, whether they're good or bad, there's a way to search for the good. And as I continue to do that, I've developed a high level of shoulder shrug.

Yeah, you know, but that's not easy to do when you're, I mean, a foot shorter than all the comedians out there. There's no one that's, you know, people are just doubting you. You were talking about in your book how you can't even get an audition in the early days to the movie side of things. How do you increase confidence in yourself when it's just no, no, no, no?

Well, because everybody's story is different. everybody's story is different. And what I find is that it takes time for everyone. For everyone. Nobody, nobody. Even the easiest Road is still met with some degrees of difficulty. And somewhere, some point, you're going to go into some degree of difficulty. For example, I'm watching, you know. the Jordan documentary.

Oh, man. Last dance. It's amazing. Did you finish it? Right.

I'm gonna tell you what I realized from the Jordan documentary.

Wow.

It's so dope. So amazing. You wanna know who I've been actually in awe of since watching this? Steve Kerr.

Oh, man. The last two episodes with him, he's unbelievable.

Steve Kerr. People don't even realize this. Steve Kerr. is sitting on eight championships.

Eight championships.

Listen, forward the Bulls won with the Spurs and he has three with the Warriors. But in between all of that, what seems like an easy road with a great road, you find out that Steve got punched in the face by Mike Jordan. You find out that there was these bumps on the way that you would have never known. From the outside, you would have never known that Mike challenged Steve and the pressure that Steve felt when he was on his franchise to do certain thing and I didn't have the athleticism. If I got passable, I had to hit the shot.

You only got five shots a game, all that.

But if I missed any of those shots, the ball wasn't coming my way anymore. So I had to make sure you wouldn't have never known. You would have never known. I say that to stay and use it as an example for there are no easy roads. So when I was coming up, and I'm not getting the auditions, I'm not getting the opportunities. I had to say to myself, it's going to come. If I put the work in, it has no choice but to come. Now, as I'm saying that and doing that, I'm looking around. There's certain comedians that were doing the same stuff over and over again for years on years on years. Certain comedians that felt comfortable with just making whatever the money was. It wasn't about the money, it was about the craft. So I knew that if I got better at the craft that I would eventually get to the money. And that's what my focus was. Granted, I'm a part of a very small percentage and I, you know, you have to attach some luck to it. And in the hard work with the luck is an amazing collaboration.

Yeah.

So it ended up paying off, but I knew what I had to do. So there were no other options. I didn't have other baskets with eggs in it. This was it.

There's no backup plan. No backup plans. So you weren't thinking of, like, I'm gonna go to a job here. This is the only thing I've got.

No.

Now, when you were getting, you know, bud at and it wasn't going your way for years, was it your mom that you come back to and say, well, I still believe in you. You're funny. You've got this. Did you have a group of friends that would actually encourage you? Or were they kind of saying, what are you doing this for? you know, go get a real job.

There are no, there were no other options, right? And there was nobody to really lean on because nobody saw the gold in comedy. You know, when you're trying to, you tell your friends or, or your family members that you're doing stand-up comedy, it's.

Not like everybody's got money. Yeah.

You're about to be a millionaire. You're gonna make. Oh, nobody says that.

They're like, what?

You tell them, good luck with that, buddy. Nobody sees light at the end of that tunnel. So that's, that's a vision that you had.

Wow.

And that you have to hone in on because nobody else has that.

How did you see that? That this is something you could make potentially a lot of money with or enough to live?

I loved it. I loved it. And there were people who did. So they obviously, there's obviously a A world of revenue that funnels through comedy. Why do all these comedy clubs all over exist? Why do these colleges book comedians every year and the colleges have to spend a certain amount of money on entertainment? Why are comedians the ones that are best suitable for hosting jobs, personality driven jobs, et cetera, radio personalities? There's so many doors that get open.

Talk shows, yeah. yeah.

From the world of Comedy. So when you look at that and you realize that it's just about figuring out how to get there. Yeah, that's the hardest part. How do you get there? How do you go down that road? What are the. What are the goals? What are the accomplishments that are baby accomplishments, but they become bigger? The first one is getting to the comedy clubs. I can get into the comedy club. That's major. Now I'm working comedian and I'm. I'm working. Am I a regular host? Am I the comedy clubs feature? All right, that's here. So now how do I work on being a headliner? Let me get some material so that way when I do get the opportunity, I'm ready.

Yeah.

Oh, wait.

But how do people come see me? I gotta figure that out.

Oh, shit.

I'm gonna start doing what? I gotta get, I gotta get my likeliness up at the time. This is, these are all little hills that you have to climb, but after climbing them, they pay off.

Do you think it was harder for you to learn how to be a great comedian or learn about the business of building your personal brand, your audience, selling tickets, marketing, sales, packaging, positioning? Which one was harder?

Becoming a good comedian is definitely the hardest. Comedy doesn't come easy.

Yeah.

The most talented. You still gotta learn how to be a comedian. You still have to learn how to tell a joke. You still gotta know beginning, middle, and end, a punchline, a segue, a set. You still have to do all those things. So, you know, we're in one of the most critiqued professions in the world. You know, if you're not funny, boo you.

Whoa.

It's the easiest shit in the world.

Boom.

It's the easiest shit to do in the world. It takes a lot of skill and craftsmanship to be a good comedian. So honing in on that craft and perfecting that craft for doing your best attempt, too, that's a job within itself. Making people laugh is easy. If you're funny, naturally funny, but being comedian is a different ball game.

I've got kind of a personal question for you. I want to ask you about. I don't have kids. I've got a girlfriend just moved in a few months ago. I'm curious, and I asked this to a lot of successful men out there in the world. I'm curious, do you think that you'd be able to build the empire you have? as a single man with essentially, quote unquote, more time to go out and do the things you want to do, master your craft, build your business, or do you believe that having a great family, a great wife, is the key to part of your success and growth as well?

It's, I think that you, you definitely need that, you know, you have to understand the amazing benefit that goes within a strong, a strong woman in your corner. And. And here's what I mean by that. Okay? You know, can you be single and have success? Of course there's several people out there that. That do. Can you also not be focused? Absolutely. You know, the world of fun is never ending if you wanted to be. Every night can be a fantastic night, but every morning can be a rough groggy one, you know? And that's what the single life that's the attraction. It's just freedom. And there's. There's an amazing reward that comes within that. But for. For me, I don't. I don't want that. I wouldn't be good with that. And I don't think that.

The level.

Of success that I have reached, I would have been able to reach wisdom.

Really?

Easy. It's a crazy amount of freedom. Now granted, fucking human, there's nobody that's gonna get thrown a curveball of success, fame, money, popularity, and not fall victim to any of the consequences. He eventually will, you will. It's just, it's no way It's no way around it, especially if you're younger, you will. And after you fall victim to whatever consequences, and there's so many different variations of them, you know, consequences can be spending money and, you know, not realizing the things that came with making money and blowing that load. It could be drugs, it could be being mean and ignorant to people. It could be infidelity. It could be, you know, you, there's so many different things, you know.

Kids.

All over you get, there's so many different things that can, that can act as a consequence, you know, to.

To.

The, I guess you could say the, the freedom and opportunities that come because of your freedom with success.

Yeah.

I personally, I, I needed the gotta get home, gotta be home, can't do. Did that stop me from being a dickhead in the couple?

No.

You know, did I learn from my mistakes?

Of course.

Are they mistakes that I would take back if I could? No, I wouldn't, because I wouldn't be able to.

To.

To understand the level that I do now. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So.

So without those mistakes and hard punches in the stomach of reality of life, then you don't have any space to grow. you don't. You don't have a lesson to learn.

So.

I can't say that I would have been able to achieve because you. And you also need that. You need the security of an environment that's a good environment and not an environment created off of what you have.

Mm-. Right.

And if you're engulfed in that world.

You know, temptation left and right.

And, and how much of it is for you as an individual and as a good person.

Mm-.

And how much of it is influenced by the world that you're in and what you have.

Yeah.

I love what you said here. And earlier you talked about the expectation that people have as human beings is so great right now. It's so high. that the world is judging everyone who has any influence to be perfect on every level of every word they say, action they take. And yet, what I'm hearing you say is you need to fail, you need to make mistakes, you need to be an idiot sometimes so you have perspective. And it sounds like for the next decade, two, maybe more, you're going to make a lot more mistakes.

You don't know what you're going to do. That's the fucking amazing thing. about life. Like that's the, that's literally the amazing thing about life. You have no idea. It's your job to try to do your best to grow and to set up whatever you can for those around you. And if you don't have people around you, then you're living for yourself. But it's your job. to do the best that you can in doing that.

Yeah.

Along the way, you gotta, you're gonna fucking, you're gonna make mistakes. Here's the shit that is so simplistic that people just don't get. Who do you think plans to go to fucking jail? What bank robber do you think ever put the plan together to rob a bank? to get caught after.

Not many.

Who?

You don't think they all think that they're going to be the ones to get away?

Right.

Yeah.

You don't think that in their mind, this is, this is going to be a life-changing moment. You don't think that people that overdose on drugs think that there's no shot that it can happen to them. You don't think that there's, there's actual mistakes that happen within bad decision making?

There is.

You don't think that the person that bungee jumped thought that this would come back up? You think that person knew it was snap? These are all just really just fucking examples that I'm pulling out my ass. But these are all fucking examples. You know, my little girl, my daughter, she went to go pet a dog and a dog start growling and barking real crazy. my daughter ain't went to go pet a dog since she think that she thought in her mind, this dog is nice because all dogs are supposed to be nice. It's not until you see that they're not that you know they're not. So I say all that to say you have to experience some down to know why you're getting up, you know, like this, this whole, the whole thing of a canceled culture and the consequences being so severe for so many. It's ridiculous. Do I think that there should be consequences for people's actions? Absolutely. Absolutely. But are you telling me that you should never be able to recover from a mistake? Then why the do people go to jail?

Right?

Aren't you supposed to go to jail to learn? To learn from your mistakes so you can get out? and then do better. That's what this whole reform thing is. It's like you send me to jail to go do better and get better, and then I come out and because I was in jail, nobody wants to allow me to get better. It's a backwards thing. So are we teaching lessons or not? Are we, do we want people to improve or do we not?

Right.

What do we, what are we saying?

How do you personally handle the emotional side or the weight or the pressure of media or whatever, just the online internet world or potential sponsors or brands or shows? They're saying like, oh, you're in the middle of some adversity right now or some controversy. How do you personally deal with the emotional weight to not let it affect you? Because it seems like you just continue to thrive no matter What mistake you make here or there?

Well, it's, it's a, there is no pressure. And here's what I mean when I say there's no pressure. Okay? If you make a bed, lay in your bed, bottom line, you made it, lay in it.

Okay?

So in laying in that bed, whatever comes with it is what you're willing to take because you made it. Right now, yes, I have to maneuver differently.

Me.

Yes, I have to make sure I carry myself in a certain way. I'm a CEO, I'm a brand, I'm a business, and there's a lot of layers that go underneath the machine that. That runs the world of. Of Kevin Hart. Now, there's a lot of people that are involved in that world, so.

I.

Don'T have the it attitude. but I do have an attitude of I've done my share of shit and in doing it, I've addressed it. And in addressing it, I made my share of mistakes within addressing it. Learn from that, too. I've done all of that. None of this stuff has affected the character. that I have. None of it has affected me to start to doubt me.

Really?

I am.

Never doubt yourself after all.

I know who I am. I know what I am. And in knowing what I am and who I am, you can go look in the mirror and go, oh, that was a dumb move. Oh, you're. You're a jackass. I'm not a bad person. Mm-. So within my relationships and partnerships, I think that I've done a good job of letting, you know, them all know who I am and they see who I am and we have a really good relationship. So in the future moving forward, I have a job to do to protect those relationships because I care about them. I value them.

Right.

So, so I can't just, I can't just move willy-nilly because that means that I'm not, I'm not staying true to my relationships. And, and that's what the older you get and the more you experience things you learn, not just about you, it's about others that can be affected by what you do. So now I see that. I understand that. The younger version of me didn't see that or understand that. And there was a high level of it, man. Look, I'm not gonna deal with this because this ain't got to do with. With this or not. And that's not the right attitude. But if I didn't have the wrong attitude when I had it then, and if I didn't understand what I know now, I wouldn't be prepared for this next wave of. of shit that may be coming my way or may not.

Right.

But if it does, I'm prepared for it now. I'm at least prepared. I'm at least, I'm in a different space of understanding. I'm in a different space of knowledge.

It's almost like going back to the last dance. You know, Jordan was talking about the, you know, when he had to go through all of it publicly, how much that took a toll on him at first, but then it gave him the experience for the future and for his friends when they went through scandals and stuff to be able to be a leader in that situation and have more knowledge. And it sounds like you're in that situation right now. I'm curious about your wife. I asked this, the Rock did a live about a month ago on his Instagram, and I asked a question on there and he answered it. And it was a really powerful response. And I'm curious what yours is to this question. the question is, what is the thing you admire the most about your wife that most people don't know about?

Strongest person in the world. Strongest person in the world.

And.

Her, her understanding for reality versus false reality is so crystal clear. you know, it's not, it's a, it's a tough seat to sit in.

You.

Know, being my wife. It's a tough seat to sit in. You know, we're, we're, it's, it's, it's crazy to say this, but there's this, there's this movie that people love to watch. and it's called the Rise and Fall. And the tickets to the rise are sold out, but the tickets to see what a fall looks like, I mean, you're talking about a sellout or a type of a sellout. I mean, it's the most watched thing ever. So naturally, when you get to a certain space or a certain level, you know, I don't know why, but there's a root against. And she experienced a lot of that, you know? A lot of that turmoil that we went through, you know, is girl, don't be with no man that's gonna disrespect you or don't do this or don't do that.

It's almost like a lot of people are against her for... Yeah.

Insane.

It's insane. And, you know, the one thing we had to talk in.

The one thing.

That I told my wife, I said, Whatever you do, I'm here. I'm gonna be supportive of, you know, whatever you do. If you decide that you want to go and leave the honey, by all means, no matter what she's taken care of, no matter what, you're the mother of my child. You know, my ex-wife now, not together, but she's taken care of. Mother of my kids. I'm not a bad person.

What'S the lesson you've learned in the last two to three years that you thought you'd already learned, that you, you keep learning that comes the hard way? Is there anything that you still learn or have you seen it all?

No, it's, it's that, as, as you know, a rich dad, poor dad, the story of my rich dad who had no education, but he grew up in business for real. You know, he, he took over the family business at 13. So he kind of grew up in the real world of money where my rich dad was a PhD, poor, helpless, desperate, went to Stanford, Northwestern, very smart guy, good guy in all this. But as you know, teachers don't know shit. They teach stuff they don't know nothing about.

Right. Well, some of them are forced, I mean, they're forced to teach that, right? Some of them try to educate in other ways and inspire.

Don't defend them. Don't defend them. I don't like that. Anyway, you know what happens? When do I get in the most trouble? Is when I criticize going to school. Because to many people, it's their only hope and salvation.

Yeah.

So if I say, well, I don't think school teaches you much, I may as well piss on the Pope. You know, they said, I know. Religion. If you don't go to school and then it tells us, well, you know, Steve Jobs dropped out. He did pretty good.

Yeah.

It's dropped out.

Dell dropped out.

Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg dropped out.

Henry Ford.

Walt Disney. They didn't, you know, they didn't hurt. So anyway, religion is, I mean, education is religion to most people.

Yeah.

So that's why I step on toes and I get dumb.

What did Mark Twain's quote say? Like, don't let schooling get in the way of your education. And the one of the reasons why I started the School of Greatness, I was telling you before we started recording, is that I was in the special needs classes literally every day for as long as I can remember. Since kindergarten until seventh year in college, I had a tutor. I was in the special needs classes with a few kids who had learning disabilities. And it was the most challenging thing for me because I wish they would have taught me things that I'm learning now. And the reason I created the School of Greatness, because I was like, what are the things I wish they would have taught me in school to help me get ahead in my finances, to help me get ahead in my health, my mindset, my how to deal with a breakup in a relationship, a tragic time, like the emotional side of things, the education that I wish they would have taught us. I was like, I'm going to go create it. I'm going to find people like Robert and teach us the ways. So, you're doing that through your work and I'm trying to do that, but I think there's people trying to do good by educating outside of the traditional school system where I think they're more limited. Right.

And that's why I created the cash flow board game is because I learned about money playing Monopoly. I learned more about life playing Monopoly than I did in four years of college. I went to a really good school, you know, the best schools in the world, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. I came out a rich man, but it didn't teach me much about money. I was only a high paid employee. So then I joined the Marine Corps. then I have two professions. I can fly for United Airlines or I could sell for Standard Oil. I didn't want to either because it wasn't challenging anymore. I think if there's a lesson is that I'm looking for the challenge and some people are looking for security. They're two different people. They're very, very, they're extremely different people.

Yeah, and you talk about, you know, Rich favors the bold, those that are willing to take risks and willing to put themselves out there. Do you think you can get rich without taking risks and being bold and taking these big chances? Or can you keep this security mindset and really gain true wealth?

Well, many people have, you look at Cuomo and all those guys, they were born rich kids and their father. Trump could have taken that path too. He was born a rich kid. So, it's not, I think you're either an entrepreneur or not.

Right. You know what's interesting? I never thought I was an entrepreneur until I had a big wake-up call, a tragic experience. And it was kind of like a perfect storm. I didn't know how to make a dollar. I was not like selling baseball cards. I didn't do the lemonade stand. I didn't try to hustle all this stuff as a kid. I literally maybe made a little bit of money in the summers just because my dad put me to work. and I had this dream of playing professional football. And then I made $250 a week. My dad got in a tragic car accident. He was in a coma for three months. I didn't have a college degree. It was 2008. The economy went down. I was living on my sister's couch. She was feeding me. I was making no money. I was living off three credit cards with student loans. And I didn't have my dad as that kind of financial safety net. anymore because he wasn't able to help me and bail me out. So it was more like, what do I do? No one was hiring people with degrees at that time, even master's degrees. I didn't even get a bachelor's degree yet. And I was just like, how do I survive? So it was, I don't think if the worst thing in my life would have happened, I want to be here learning how to be hungry, how did I say, I need to go survive right now and take chances. I think that perfect storm mentality made me into this survivor creative mindset willing to risk it all. Whereas if I had my father to kind of protect me financially or say, because he was like, you,'re going to take over the business, you're going to come work for me. And that was my mindset when he kind of left emotionally and mentally. He's still alive today, but not the same from the brain trauma. It made me step up as a human being as a 24 year old and say, I gotta learn some stuff.

And that's what I say to young people today, look at this pandemic, this coronavirus pandemic, you know, it's really tragic because it attacks the old guys. But even worse is that baby boomers had it the easiest of all generations. But now their pensions are gone, their 401ks are gone. Social Security is broke, Medicare is broke. So I say to younger people, this pandemic, this crisis is the best thing that ever happened to you. You think about that iPhone. You have more power in that iPhone than I had with my Sparrow Univac mainframe computer. And then so when I meet people that say, oh, the economy is bad, I said, the only economy is between this year and that year. There's the economy out here. But this is the best time for your generation, because you're tech savvy. I'm not tech savvy. You know, you got, this was made for you guys. The old guys like me are being cleaned out by the pandemic.

Unless you have a lot of assets that are bringing you in cash.

The way is clear for you now. The old guys are gone. They're dead.

Right.

What are you gonna do a bunch? You know, so it's really a great time, but exactly as you were talking about, the bad times are leading to the best times. That's it.

Yeah.

If you can see it. But some, unfortunately, as you know, there's a lot of your generation are younger. They'll never recover.

Yeah.

They're going to see this as the worst of times.

I know. And they're gonna, they're gonna reflect back to this in five years and 10 years and say, that's the thing that screwed me up or hurt me and, and be a victim to it, as opposed to saying, okay, this is happening and how can I make the most of it? and what's it going to take for me to learn a new skill or get more creative or be hungrier in this time?

Or more important, who's your teachers?

Who are you listening to?

Well, you know, that's why I keep saying to the young, the Millennials, you know, if they're a pack of wimps, you know, I meet Millennials who are just horrifyingly weak. Snowflakes, I call them, you know.

Yeah.

They go to college. They're taught. trigger events or whatever, you know, the, I don't know what they say today, but they've got to have special rooms where there's no whatever. I'm going holy mackerel. Welcome to the real world, you know, and there's other Millennials who are as tough as Nails. I mean, this is the biggest opportunity they've ever had.

Huge.

So it just depends upon what's between this year and this year. What's in your heart? Yeah.

For the, what do you think is the. the next step, the first step or the number one step for the average person with, you know, the kind of the normal job that they might be losing, they have some debt, they got some credit card, what's the next step for them to not only survive but thrive in this market in this time?

Well, I always say quit your job, but that's not, you know, I don't have a job. I've only had one job. and I never wanted a job after that because I had to be hungry. That's the way to say, you know, but we're all different. We're humans, we're different beings. If I show you this diagram here, you know, it's why I created my cash flow board game. Because we have four different intelligences. We have mental intelligence. We have, I don't know what that one is, but you probably have very good physical to make, you know, all and all that.

Yeah.

Emotional intelligence. but spiritual intelligence. So I went to military school in New York. The first thing is spiritual. You know, I become a marine. It's spiritual.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? Because you're putting your life on the freaking line.

Yeah.

You know, so nazim talib, you know, wrote the book the black swan. He also wrote anti-fragile he says there's three kinds of people in the world. There's fragile, and that's what school systems are putting out. Fragile, wimpy, snowflakes. and that's your choice. You want to be that way? Have a good life. The second type is that so a fragile is like a champagne flute.

Yeah.

You hit it, it shatters. Then the second one is called robust. And a robust person is like the rock. You know, you can pound on them, dump on them. Yeah, they take it, but that's all they do. They take it. and that anti-fragile is somebody like you, where they pound the crap out of you and you get smarter and better because of it. So I love Nassim Taleb, and a lot of people call him Dr. Doom, but the way I look at this whole thing, this economy is quite public going into a depression. You know, we're not going to get out of this.

Really?

Oh yeah. And so the thing is, is this good for you or bad for you? I'm looking forward to it. You know, the last crash was 2008, and I made more money in 2008 than in my whole life. So this one here, 2020, I'm going to get even richer. But other people are going to get poor. And if they're baby boomers, they're going to blame it on this coronavirus, all my health, you know, that, hey, hit the road, put on some running shoes, change your diet, get some sunlight, you know? get healthy.

Don't get.

Don't be a wimp. But, oh, no, I'm so afraid of dying. I'm going, you're already dead. You don't even know it yet. You know, in the Marine Corps, you know, in the Marine Corps, we used.

To call them corpse people, right? Corpse. Not core.

Yeah. A corpse man. No, a corpse man.

A corpse man is a person who's.

Dead but doesn't know it. Wow.

They're so afraid of dying, they're already dead. Yeah. It's about taking action, taking control of your life, taking control of your health, your finances, everything.

This is the best time to be alive right now.

I did an interview with Dave Ramsey last week and he said, you know, the last three or four recessions or down economies, whatever you want to call it, crashes, he said, I made more money during those times than I do in good times. So, I'm hearing him say that, I'm hearing you say that. How did you make more money then and how are you planning to turn this into an opportunity to make more money now for you. What are the things, the actual like action steps? Is it investing more in the stock market? Is it real estate? Is it buying other assets? What does that look like for you?

Well, the lesson is here, you got to choose your teachers wisely. When the market crashed in 2008, guess how much money I borrowed?

A lot.

300 million.

No way.

From private investors, the bank or how is that? How does that work?

Because interest rates were dropping and real estate prices were going to the toilet. And when I walk into my banker, this is what Rich Dad Poor Dad about. Rich Dad Poor Dad is about a financial statement. Income statement, balance sheet, statement of cash flow. It's a book on accounting. People don't even know it's a book on accounting. So I walked into my banker with my partner and had all this property.

That was floating to the surface.

And I say, I'll take them off your hands. I just give me the money to buy the property.

Wow.

That's the honesty.

300 million.

Give me the money and I'll buy your properties for you.

That's crazy.

So it depends, and this is my whole thing. I'm now 700 million, almost a billion in debt.

Really?

You know why? Because I don't pay any taxes. The more debt I have, the less tax I pay. And the average guy goes, how do you do that? Because you have bad teachers. And so it's this whole thing that you got to choose your teachers wisely. That's why I wrote the book, Fake, Fake Money, Fake Teachers, Fake Assets. I don't touch that garbage that Wall Street puts out. I don't have a 401k, I don't have stocks, mutual funds, ETFs. Doesn't mean you shouldn't, but I don't need them. Okay?

Right.

And the other part is, look, for young guys, the best teachers are not in colleges, the best teacher are on YouTube. The best teachers are on YouTube. Wake up. You know those guys, George Gamow, he's fantastic. Patrick Bet-David, fantastic.

He's great.

Jim Rickards. The fake teachers are in colleges. They're telling them to get a job.

Right.

The corporate ladder. You know Patrick Bet-David said it the best, and I love that guy. He says there's two kinds of leaders, wartime and peacetime. and a peacetime leader is a guy like my poor dad. He goes through all the right schools, he has all the pedigrees and credentials, he does all the right things, he climbs the corporate or the government ladder and all that. A wartime leader goes to war. So, Jobs, Steve Jobs, a wartime leader. I'm a wartime leader. The difference is I went to war, I went to war twice on the front lines.

Yeah. And I changed, what happened?

So I joined the Marine Corps, I got a flight pilot in Pensacola, I learned to fly, I went to Camp Pendleton, I strap on my weapons, I go to advanced weapons in Camp Pendleton, I go to Okinawa and then they send me into Vietnam. And I came out of Vietnam about four months later, back to back to re-staging in Okinawa and I thought everybody had changed. I looked at the fellow Marines and I thought, and it wasn't that they were, I had been to war.

You got tougher, you got stronger.

It's different when somebody's trying to kill you. Every single mission, I went down three times.

No way.

Yeah.

And I came back stronger and tougher. So I come back to Okinawa, I got like a week off, and they're gonna ship me back into Vietnam again. I said, what happened to these guys? And it wasn't that they changed, I changed. So what happens to entrepreneurs who go out and they get their ass handed to them, and they survive? if you survive, you see the world differently. So that's what happened to you when you got injured and all this.

Yeah.

You see a different world, whereas peacetime, who's climbing the corporate ladder right now, they just lost their job. They're sucking their thumb. You know, this is the worst time for them. Yet for a wartime leader, this.

They're excited. They're excited about it.

Yeah, it's the best of times.

Yeah.

If you're an entrepreneur right now, the world's open to you. You're an employee. Your world's dead to you.

What? Yeah.

An entrepreneur can create their own success.

Yeah. What advice? Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

It is a job. They're a peace time. Remember? See, watch Patrick Beck David, you know?

He's great.

Later. Peace time later. Which one are you? You know, I mean, no, that's. That's what it comes down to.

Yeah.

That's true.

So this is the best of times for the wartime guys. Horrible time for peacetime.

Right.

And for the people that are the wartime people, what is the best advice you would give them now for the next year or two years to capitalize on how do they make more money, how do they make their millions during this time? What would you suggest?

You can't make money now. You should hang it up. I tell all you guys, Freaking millennials, man. You know, I don't know where it is. I got this iPhone. If you can't make money with that, hang it up. You know, like we used to say, hang up the jockstrap.

You're not going to pick the team.

You can't make money with an iPhone through social media, through marketing. You have the world at your fingertips and you can't make money. The problem is between this year and this year, it's not out here, it's in here. That's why you've got to choose your teachers wisely.

Yeah.

You know? So let me just say it again. The best teachers are on YouTube. So it's the best porno. Take up your mind. Make up your mind what you want to listen to. You know what I mean? So, yeah, I'm just being real to you.

I hear you, man. I hear you.

What's.

What's the best investment people can make then to. To offer capitalizing this opportunity is the investment in education left here.

Look, if you're poor right now.

It.

Was called look in the mirror. That's what Richard had always said to me. He said, if you're looking in the mirror right now and you see a loser, that's what you are. Can't make money in this economy. You've got to change your thinking. Hindsight is 2020, as I said.

Yes.

If you're looking, you don't have any money, you don't have a job, your boyfriend or girlfriend has left you, and then they go, well, how did I get here? How did I get here? There was a great book called Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. So he gets thrown in this concentration camp or a gulag in Siberia and he says, how did I get here? You know how you got there? Because he was at peacetime. Didn't fight back. So people are being sold that they'll go to school, get a job, pay taxes, save money, get out of debt, buy a house, the house is an asset, and invest for the long term in a well-defined portfolio of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs. And I do none of that.

And why do you recommend the opposite? Because I don't have to do that crap.

That's Kool-Aid. Go to school. Go to school. What do they teach about money? Nothing. Get a job, you pay the highest taxes. Pay your taxes. I don't pay taxes. Get out of debt. Well, debt, money is debt after 1971, if you know your history of money. Your house is not an asset. Houses are a liability. And why would it invest for long term in the stock market when I can make my own assets? I don't need the stock market. I'm not saying you shouldn't. But I create my own assets. I create my own cash flow.

Every day I can- you- mean through your business, through your creativity?

I'm an entrepreneur.

Yeah.

Most people are employees. They're looking for jobs. I'm just looking for...

So like right now- Should entrepreneurs invest in the stock market? Do you think if you're entrepreneurial you shouldn't invest?

Look, fine. A stupid teacher is going to tell you what to do?

I'm asking your opinion. I'm curious as a teacher.

I don't give advice. You know, I wouldn't follow Warren Buffett either. You know why? Because he invests the money. Why would I let him invest my money? I want the fun.

So what's the investment you make the most in?

Look, please hear what I'm saying.

Yes.

I made a fortune in 2008. 2020, I'm making more money and paying less taxes. It doesn't mean I don't have problems, but I'm prepared for this. My biggest problem right now is because everybody's taking a vacation, I can't get enough product. I'm selling out, you know, my cash flow game is sold out. It's selling out constantly, all over the world. All over the world, I get royalties from my book sales. My book sales are going through the roof right now. so I'm making more information. Yeah, there's two kinds of discipline. There's internal or self-discipline and then there's external discipline. So right now, if the world's kicking your butt, that's external discipline. And if you're self-disciplined the world's kissing your butt right now, it's up to you. So that's why I love the Marine Corps. That's why I love going to military school and not a university, because I got my ass kicked. every single freaking day. First word I had to learn at the Marine, at the academy, mission. Mission is spiritual. What's your mission? And my mission has always been to serve people. Most people only give a is making money. That's growing people. That's called the Federal Reserve Bank, Wall Street and all that. I want nothing to do with them. So I just don't play their game. but you have to get smarter enough to play their game. So that's why YouTube has the best teachers. This guy George Gammon, Matt, he's a great teacher. Patrick McDavid, fantastic teacher. Cardone, fantastic teachers. So choose your teachers wisely.

Before we continue this video, make sure to subscribe below and turn on the notification bell right now so you don't miss out on these great videos every single day. Sarah, you've had one idea that you've stuck with for 15 or 18 years with Spanx and you create new ideas within the one idea.

I do, which is just a different model. I do, I shared with Jesse and he knows this. I have other ideas. So I have 99 pages single space typed of ideas. and I email them to me myself the minute I have them. And it's 99 pages right now, which is just funny. My assistant keeps going, have you run out? Like, can we hit 100 pages? But I end up just, it's so much more important to me instead of actioning on them instantly, it's more important to me to not lose them. I think an idea is a gift from the universe, and I cannot take for granted that I might forget it. So, the second I have it, I email it to myself. I used to keep it in notebooks, but now I do email. And they're there, and then I revisit them. And then they will come out. They will come out. Like, my belly art book had nothing to do with Spanx. And that was an idea that was on that 99 pages. And some of them will knock on the door enough that I'll say, I'm going to find the extra time to make them happen.

How many ideas do you think that is? On 99 pages that a thousand is that 10,000 is that 500? What is that range? You think? I don't know.

I don't know.

But you know, it's interesting because we're both entrepreneurs with completely different styles. So Sarah is really good. We're both very ADD. Sarah is very good at staying on one thing, saying no to stuff, monotasking, being single focused. And I have to, I like to operate in a completely different style. I need a lot of balls in the air at once. I need to bounce around from thing to, you know, from one thing to another. It's just the way I operate. I operate better with more balls in the air. So everybody has their own style. And over time, you figure out what it is that works the best. But, you know, Sarah's really disciplined. She's very disciplined. And she works it. She looks at things through a unique lens. It's always customer first. It's always focused on value. It's always focused on she goes right to the story and how she can articulate this to the customer and I'm ready for Ira. I'm like, I gotta start before anybody else starts and I'm gonna figure it out as I go. Just different styles.

Yeah. I mean, are you friends with Buffett, Sarah?

Yes.

Then isn't he the guy who said the quote like successful people and really successful people do things a little bit differently. They say no more than successful people or something like that.

Yeah, it's funny when just we were talking, his quote came to my mind, but there is a Warren Buffett quote that says, you know, the most successful people in life have one thing in common, their ability to say no.

And you say no a lot.

To many things. I have to. I have to. But it doesn't mean that, you know, another style of creating things in the world is any less. It's just, it's interesting. I am very disciplined in what I focus focus on.

I'm kind of like, I probably say I'm in between both of you. Like for me, for me, like I want to create stuff all the time and launch something quickly and put it out there. But then I'm also like, well, you can't truly build something, an empire and something magical for the long term if you're just jumping from one thing to the next, whereas you have been disciplined for decades on building this global brand that just is so inspiring and both are fun. It's like, but you get create your creative expression over here, the Jesse style, but you, it's, you get to create something magical, you know, that stance.

So.

Well, I, you know, it's the two ways to look at it is I also look at Jesse's life as so magical because, no, because literally, I'm like, honey, you went, you became top of the field in rap. He was, like, on MTV and, you know, had hits in the top whatever. And then he went from that to a jet company and did really well, which is so different than rap music. And then he goes from Jets to Coconut Water and is really successful there. And now he's doing, he's an author and he's a motivational speaker. So to me, that's really fascinating that he's been able, it's very unique to find someone who's, it's not that hard to find people who have jumped from sector to sector to sector. It's hard to find people who've mastered or kind of been top of the game in all those different ones. So I always look at him and think, oh my gosh, that really makes for a colorful life. Like I've been plotting along on my own journey, but he's doing quite fine, sweetie.

He's got a colorful life.

He does have a million stories, but.

You'Ve got to-- you- know, when I.

Was starting out in business, my philosophy was say yes to everything. Because, you know, and I-- that's so interesting. Well, it is because it was laughing at jokes that aren't funny, going to every-- Listen, it was, it was, I had nothing.

Show up to every meeting.

I had to build a network. I had to get out there. I had to be someone that want, I wanted an invitation, everything. I'm serious because I didn't have the resources. So for me, I had to say yes to everything. If there was an event, I'm going because there could be a buyer. There could be someone that, that a connection. If there was a basketball game, I'm going. I don't know who's going to be in the audience. So It was yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. When you get married and you have kids and you evolve, your system has to evolve with it. So what worked for me when I was 20 years old, you know, I had dinner when I was at 11 o'clock at night in New York City. Now we have dinner at 5:30 at night. As you evolve, your system has to evolve. So I have said, I am starting to say no to things. And, you know, I have a very simple test. Louis and for friends and for business. I want low aggravation for the highest reward like everybody else. When I'm young, I'm willing to go high aggravation for high reward, but now that reward isn't worth it. So I want low aggravation.

So I'm curious. Jesse, I'll let you start with this. I'm gonna ask you guys both a question. Jesse, what's the thing you're most proud of about Sarah that she probably doesn't know about? and I feel like you tell her all the time and you guys talk all the time about everything, but what's the thing that maybe you don't tell her enough or that you're really proud of that she maybe doesn't think is a big deal, but you do?

The way she uses her success, her wealth and her success is unbelievably inspiring and not just the philanthropy that she does and she does a lot of that behind the scenes that no one knows about that I know about. and in front of the scenes, but just how she treats her friends and her family and me and her kids. And it's inspiring, man. It's actually unbelievable. So she's very selfless and very, she puts herself second. And that's a great quality. And especially because no one, you know, when you come into, to wealth or success, no one teaches you how to do it. It's like we weren't born. I did on the plumbing supply house, you know, I was like, We never talked about anything about that. And she's just intuitively just figured out how to do it. She's been enjoying the giving pledge and all the stuff she's done. It's just unbelievable.

And it's not. Where does that come from, Sarah, and you to, you know, again, you were selling, I think it was fax machines door to door for five or seven years. You didn't have tons of money. And then you became, you know, extremely wealthy with owning this business and building this successful brand for 15 plus years. Where does that generosity come from at such a high level when everyone wants a donation, everyone wants your time, everyone wants you to coach them, everyone wants you to speak, interview you, everyone wants you, you've got a husband, you've got four incredible kids, you've got all your friends, your family, everyone is expecting more from you. How do you stay humble through all that?

Gratitude. I'm so anchored in gratitude. I feel grateful that I am a woman in this country born at the right time. I've talked about that a lot and I feel that when you stay anchored in gratitude for what you have and what you've been able to accomplish, it just can't do anything but keep you humble. I mean, there's no reason to be any different. I really believe that and I've said it before. I think money just makes you more of who you already were. So if you were a jerk, you become a bigger jerk. If you were kind, you become kinder. If you were generous, you become more generous. I can also mention that I've never been doing this for the money, you know? So the money has been a byproduct of following a passion. I did want independence as a woman. So that was important to me. I didn't want to be financially dependent on anyone, but beyond that, it wasn't.

Like.

I'm not driven by material success, really. I like experiences and I like things that can help me spend more time with people I love. But I think that also made it easier for me not to get completely, wholly consumed by the sparkle of it all. It was never really about the sparkle on, you know, like the shiny new car and all of that for me.

I have an inside look into Sarah's lifestyle. It's fascinating, you know, as an entrepreneur, watching as a marketer, it's just unbelievable. I've never seen anything like it. But her decision making is so unique. And for most of us, we make decisions based on as entrepreneurs ROI, return on investment. And for 99.9% of the listeners, that's the bottom line. ROI is I put this much money in, I get this much money out. She looks at ROI through a completely different lens. It's ROI, it's never, it's not really the bottom line. Of course it's factored in. It's experiences, it's how I treat people. ROI could be the gift she gives to our kids in the form of cooking dinner every night.

Her ROI, special pancakes.

No, but if you look at your return on investment, across a bigger platform than just what we normally look at it. And that's her lens. So I think it's really interesting.

You talk about this, Louis, but there's pillars in life, right? So success is, there's different kinds of success. And so there's monetary success. That's one bucket of your life. You know, there's success in your friendships and your relationships. There's success in how you are and behave in the community and what you're contributing. success in, Are you healthy and strong and do you take time to, you know, eat the right things and work out? And so I've kind of always had all of those pillars in my mind also. And I think it's easy for people to get so singularly focused in one pillar and that makes their whole life off kilter.

I think one more thing I will add, Liz. Go ahead, I think that's a really, it's good.

I love it.

Really good point because, you know, people success to me, and everyone is a different definition of success. But when I look at success, it's being good in multiple buckets, like Sarah just said, success, like when I was a kid, I remember going into meetings and I would sit and I'll be in all of these people that had so much wealth that I was trying to do, you know, I was a young kid 23, 24 sitting in boardroom meetings. And as I got older, those superheroes, my superheroes, Some of them turned out to be unbelievably amazing humans, but others I started looking at it's like, man, you're just rich.

I don't like doing a nice person.

Yeah, right.

So success is it's being good in multiple buckets and that's where we put our energy. Yeah, we try to be good parents and we got plenty of flaws, man. We try to be good parents. We try to be good husbands and wives, good kids. We both of our parents are both alive. So investing in, you know, time with them. And it's exhausting, man, because there's so many buckets as you get older.

This is what I want to ask you about, the question about energy. And, yes, you have financial abundance, financial stability, but you still have four kids, you still have hundreds or thousands of employees and people counting on you, people asking questions all the time, people wanting from you. you could have all the help in the world. You could have all the tutors and nannies and cooks or whatever it may be, but still it consumes so much energy of your time, your thoughts and your attention. How do you guys manage energy? Because I can only, I mean, I've got, I don't have kids. I've got a passion of Latina, which is a lot of energy I've got to have, but it's like I've got a small team. You've got a big team. How do you, and it's exhausting for me sometimes. So how do you guys manage? energy, like you said.

You have to really think, prioritize, delegate what you can and let it go and not be too mentally hard on yourself. And as your bubble grows, you invest the time in hiring your weaknesses. So whatever, where are your weaknesses and find the best talent, invest in the talent. And, you know, if you put the right people in place in certain areas, then it will free you up. to be able to prioritize your time. And then you have to take the time to do that. Like, even though I have this leader in place, what is the most important thing for me to be focusing on for Spanx? Even though I may or may not have a nanny, what is the most important thing for me to be doing with my children? What's important to me? And I sat down with Jessie and we wrote out, like, what's important for us to be? What is the quality time that we want to have with our children? And just being intentional about those buckets will really help you figure out energy and how to use it and how to make it go farther?

I would add, I think, three things. I think we've spoken about this in the past, Louis, many times. You know, I think the most important thing is to really be present and be where your feet are. So if we're with our kids, we're with our kids. If Sarah's at work and, you know, I don't want Sarah to be guilty or resent me, you know, for when she's at work. When she's at work, she's at work. and it's fine. When she's with the kids, she's with the kids. You got to be where your feet are. So we communicate about that. Today I was on, I had to do something for two hours. I said, I let her know I need two hours alone. She was like, no problem because I didn't want to feel guilty or, and I don't want her to resent me. So we communicate that, but you got to be mega present. Two, you go in and out of waves. So like, we went on a trip to Poland with 10 friends, brothers, a best friends at a, you know, overnight best friends. If I don't speak to the guys for six months, I'm not going to beat myself up. The relationship's still there. So you have to trust the seeds and know that when that you planted and know when it's time for me to jump back into that group of 10, I'm going to be present and everything's going to be. But you can't beat yourself up that your energy is pulling you somewhere else. That time will come back, you know, and three is you got a plan. You can't like we're not good enough to just wake up and wing it. We plan stuff, man. No, we plan stuff like I plan that i'm going to see my parents a certain amount of times a year then i'm going to go on a certain amount of trips one-on-one trips with my kids. We go away once a quarter. We have we plan a trip alone time. We have date night every wednesday. I might not see sarah every single day every minute of the day during work but we know wednesday nights we're having date night We know we have our family dinners. We know the weekends is our time. So you have to, you know, you have to plan. Otherwise, it's it's it's, you know, you start to spiral and when you spiral, it's hard to get out of it.

It's really hard, especially if you're in quarantine. I heard an interview that Oprah did years ago about I'm going to butcher this, but she essentially said at one point she made a decision in her life to throw a big dinner and bring all of her friends and family who've been asking her for money and stuff for years. And, she threw this big party, huge dinner, threw it the best food and gave away cash and cars and gifts and said, I'm bringing you all here. I'm giving you the last thing I'm going to give you because I assume for years, people just kept asking for more and more and they were never happy and they're never satisfied. satisfied. This is the general concept I might be butchering it. How do you guys manage the expectations of friends, family, people that are just on social media that ask you for things? How do you manage the energy of people getting angry or upset or getting hurt if you don't do something for them when they think you should or could? Do you guys face that at all?

All the time. It's a great question. I mean, first of all, I don't get angry at anyone's reaction. Very time when people ask for something, you're put in a lose-lose situation. I remember my mother told me, and when I was growing up, to never lend people money for a lot of different reasons.

It could be let down.

You'll be let down and why do I have to pay them back? They don't need the money. Or if you do pay them, there's all kinds of guilt and resentment. So, one way to handle this, is you can give people money and just say, this is a gift, not a loan. But it's really case by case. It's really case by case and situational. But I'm not gonna lie, man. It is challenging. It is challenging.

And how do you know when someone is truly a friend versus someone who's always reaches out every year for something monetarily, let's say?

I don't feel like we have that much issue with that.

Oh, that's good. Yeah.

I mean, I personally don't know how you feel about it, but I think, you know, I think it feels very obvious to us who's a friend and who's maybe someone who's more of an opportunist. But we live our life in such a way that we're not in the situations very assistant you have to give yourself permission again to say no to everything else that isn't in that lane. So that's been very helpful.

Yeah.

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