The Real Reason You Can't Build Wealth Has Nothing To Do With Money | Myron Golden

People don't lack abundance. They lack awareness to the access they have to abundance.

What does that mean?

That means there's more than enough for everybody to have more than enough, and there'll still be more than enough left over. But most people are unaware that that's the actual case. It would be like walking through life and thinking there's a limited amount of air. And if there's a limited amount of air, then I don't want to breathe too much because there might not be enough left over for everybody else.

A business strategist, bestselling author, went from growing up in From poverty to building a multimillion-dollar business, helping thousands of people change the way they think about money, value, and purpose. Myron Golden in the house.

I think it's the most important skill any entrepreneur can accomplish. Like, they need to develop the skill of selling. I had it so programmed out of me because I thought it was yucky. You're programmed not to like to talk about money. Certainly don't want to ask for money. You don't want to ask strangers for money. So we don't even realize we have all this subconscious program that's against selling.

When we hold on to a story, right, of belief that things were against us, and how do we shift it to believe they're actually for us? Well, first of all, one of the things I appreciate about you the most is your ability to speak about faith and financial abundance at the same time. If someone is financially broke right now, or if they're struggling with their finances, does this mean that they're also spiritually bankrupt?

I don't think it means that they're spiritually bankrupt. I think it means they're probably spiritually deceived.

What does that mean?

Well, what that means is most people believe that money is inherently evil. That's what most people believe. And they believe that in order for you to make a lot of money, I've got to do something evil. And if somebody has a lot of money, they've already done something evil. And even if they don't believe that consciously, they believe that subconsciously. And people who break through and start having some moderate business success, they believe that money is not inherently neutral. I mean, money is not inherently evil, but it's inherently neutral. I don't believe that wealth is inherently evil or inherently neutral. I believe it's inherently good, even though there are people who do bad things with it. Right.

Right.

And so I think that's what I mean when I say they're spiritually deceived, because I believe the Bible. Satan is a spiritual being. God is a spiritual being, but not a religious being. And so wealth is a spiritual concept, but so is poverty. And so, in fact, it's really, it's really interesting. As we, as we study the Bible, we see that the very first temptation in the history of the world was the temptation to focus on lack, because Adam and Eve had everything in the Garden of Eden for free except one thing they didn't have. The enemy, Satan, got their attention on the thing they lacked, and they lost focus on all that— focus on all their abundance. That was the very first temptation in the history of the world.

What do most people lack today?

Awareness.

Around what?

Around almost everything. But I like to say that people don't lack abundance, they lack awareness to the access they have to abundance. Mm. What does that mean? That means there's more than enough for everybody to have more than enough, and there'll still be more than enough left over. But most people are unaware that that's the actual case. It would be like walking through life and thinking there's a limited amount of air. And if there's a limited amount of air, then I don't want to breathe too much because there might not be enough left over for everybody else. If you're a good person, that you might think that, right? And so there are opportunities everywhere. People might— somebody might say, well, Myron, I don't know how to do anything. I don't have any skills. I only know how to cook. You can't make any money cooking. Tell that to Rachael Ray. She's a millionaire with an M, turned on a camera for cooking. I'm just a housewife. Well, there's no such thing. I've never met a married house, but a homemaker. Says, oh, I'm just a homemaker. I don't know how to do anything but like turn my house into a home. Really? Martha Stewart's a billionaire with a B, and she created content around her experience of being a homemaker. It doesn't matter what skill set you have. There is a way— I shouldn't say it doesn't matter because it does matter to some degree. But most— if you're a functional adult, If you're a functional adult who has a family and you take care of yourself, or even if you don't have a family and you have the ability to take care of yourself, oh, there's, there's enough abundance around you for you to be wealthy. You're just unaware of it.

So awareness is the first thing that people lack the most.

Because, because all transformation begins with awareness. Think about it. There was a time when the thing that you wanted the most was to be a football player. But when you broke your Wrist or arm?

Wrist.

Wrist. When you broke your wrist and lost the opportunity to be a football player and you, you kind of lost your way for a little bit, the reason you were lost is because you had no idea that you would become this Lewis Howes. Mm-hmm. You didn't have any idea that this Lewis Howes could exist. Right. But the, the, the capacity to become this Lewis Howes was always inside of you as long as you became aware of the opportunities as they showed themselves. And so your sister who helped you by saying, hey, you're either gonna have to pay rent or you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to move out. She helped you become aware of the fact that, okay, other people expect me to take care of myself, so maybe I can take care of myself. You see what I'm saying? So it's a lack of awareness of your ability and capacity for to grow your ability, and it's a lack of awareness of all the opportunities that are around us all the time.

If someone feels like they're a good spiritual person, they have this perspective of themselves. Maybe they go to church a lot. Maybe they, they talk about their faith a lot. Maybe they feel like they're acting in accordance with their spiritual faith, but they really struggle financially.

Right.

Is the thing they lack the most awareness? Is it courage to act on making more money? Is it the belief that money can actually be good? What is the thing they lack the most?

There are people who are spiritual and are still unaware of spiritual concepts, like, right? And there are people who are religious who are unaware of spiritual concepts. And when I say religion, here's what I mean. Here's what I mean when I say religion, because I don't believe that that God is a religious figure. I don't believe the Bible is a religious book, which is very different than what most people believe. The Bible is, is a governmental document. It is not a religious document. And what I mean by that is religion to me is a man or a group of men or women making a bunch of rules for other— for themselves and other people to live by to appease God. Well, the Bible doesn't teach that at all. The Bible doesn't teach that you need to do something to appease God. And so the Bible is a book about a king, a kingdom, a royal family, and the culturalization of a foreign land called Earth. Now let me ask you a question. Is a kingdom a religion or a government?

I guess it depends your interpretation of kingdom. If it's a spiritual kingdom, what does it say?

Well, the definition of a kingdom is the king's dominion. Okay. The dominion over which the king reigns. Yeah. It's the realm over which the king reigns. So it's a government.

Yeah.

Right? And so most people, when they think of kingdoms, they think of a physical place. Mm-hmm. But a kingdom is a jurisdiction over which a king reigns. And that's why, like, if you even think about like America or you think about Russia or China or any country, they have land, but they also control this thing called airspace above that land, right? And so when I think of a king, I think of a king that rules over a realm. And see, I believe that even if people are unaware of it, Physicality is not reality. It is just one of the manifestations of reality. Spirituality is reality. Invisibility is reality. In fact, this table that's physical sitting here in front of us is made of invisible molecules that we can't see or touch, but we can touch the table. Why? Because it's a picture that just that whole concept of everything physical being made of invisible molecules is a testament that invisibility is the foundation of visibility, and physicality is a manifestation of spirituality.

There's a lot I want to ask you about wealth. Yes. But I feel like you have a unique background where you didn't have wealth growing up.

Oh, I was poor. I was pitiful poor. That's when you're so poor, poor people feel sorry for you.

You were poor, but also you had— I think it was polio. Is that correct?

I had polio as an infant. Yeah.

And you have a brace on your left leg.

I have a brace on my left leg, metal brace from Bottom of my foot all the way up to my hip. Uh-huh.

Yeah. And you just— you didn't start out even in your career. You started out as a trash man or a garbage man.

Trash man.

Trash man.

Driving a trash truck for $6.25 an hour.

Yeah.

As a married man with a wife and a new baby.

So you didn't have wealth.

No.

And you didn't have a wealth mindset, I'm assuming.

I didn't have a wealth mindset, but I did have a wealth awareness because I also, when I was a trash man, I got enrolled in a business selling insurance and investments on the side part-time. So I would wake up at 2:30 in the morning, get ready for work, go to work, get to work at 4, drive a truck for 8 hours, 10 hours, come home, take a nap, and then I would go out and on sales appointments.

Wow.

To sell insurance and investments. So I learned principles in that company about the magic of compound interest, pay yourself first, all these financial principles. And I became aware of the fact that the reason I had to work so hard for money is because I had no money working for me. And so that's where that whole transformational journey started, where I realized, wait a minute, This person is wealthy. They're not any more talented than me. If it can work for them, I, it can work for me. But the only difference is they were actually good at it and I was terrible at sales.

So would you say sales was the, the best skill that helped you generate wealth?

I think it's the mo— most important skill any entrepreneur or anybody who, who desires to succeed can achieve, can accomplish. Like they need to develop the skill of selling and People say, well, I'm just not a natural born salesperson. Well, first of all, I believe that everybody's a natural born salesperson and we have it programmed out of us by the cultural hypnotic societal mechanism. Really? Right. When you got two new babies, they're 4 months old, right? Have they ever woken you up in the middle of the night and persuaded you fully to come and take care of them? Of course. Crying, right?

Crying.

Exactly. And then my granddaughter, she's 6 years old, and when she was 3, she said, my pop, I want you to sit on— she calls me my pop. My pop, I want you to sit on the floor and play with me. But Ari, I can't sit on the floor and play with you right now because I've got to do X, Y, and Z. She said, but my pop, you have to. I was like, why didn't I think of that?

Okay, right, exactly.

So I sat on the floor and played with her, right? And so we're all born to be salesperson, salespeople, and we're natural born salespeople. And we ask and ask and ask, and we hear no, and we ask again, and we hear no, and we ask again. Can I have a cookie?

No.

Can I have a cookie?

No.

Can I have a cookie? Here, have the whole jar. Go play, right?

Right, right.

And so But we have it programmed out of us. But I had it so programmed out of me because I thought it was like, I kind of thought it was yucky. I thought sales was yucky. I didn't want to be begging people for money. You're programmed not to like to talk about money. Certainly don't want to ask for money. You don't want to ask strangers for money. So we don't even realize we have all this subconscious program, subconscious program that's against selling. And even salespeople have subconscious programming against selling. They say, you've probably heard this phrase, people love to buy, but they hate to be sold. I think that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. That's the dumbest. That's like, that doesn't make any sense. I believe people love to buy and they love to be sold, but they hate to be convinced. And convincing is what people in sales who are not good at sales resort to because they're so bad at sales.

What's the difference between convincing someone versus selling someone?

Great question. Selling is persuasion. Convincing is when I attempt to get you to do something I want you to do for my reasons. I call that having commission breath, right? But persuasion is when I help you make a decision you already desire to make for your own reasons. Now, have you ever in your life, and maybe you don't now, but have you ever in your life had a 'when I get enough money, I'm going to get one of these' list?

Uh-huh.

Right. Pretty much everybody has a list like that, right? When I get enough money, I'm going to get one of these.

I'm going to buy a car.

I'm going to buy a house, whatever, vacation, whatever. Right. So I realized one day that there are millions of people in the world, or at least thousands, tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands. But I believe millions, tens of millions of people in the world who would love to buy what I'd love to sell if they only knew I existed. And so what most people in business do and most people in sales do is they go and look for people to sell stuff to. And people ask me that all the time. Myron, how do I find people to sell stuff to? You're asking the wrong question. How can you expect to get the right answer? The better question is, how can I make myself more findable for people who already want to buy what I already want to sell? The reality is, if you've ever bought anything, you bought it because it was sold to you. The people— now, the people who are best in the world at sales do a— use a concept I call seamless selling, which means they will sell you something and they will make you think it is your idea.

If you are down to your last dollar, right? And or in that space where you feel like I'm really lacking, I'm in debt, I'm month to month, whatever it is, paycheck to paycheck.

Right.

And you have this thing that you're trying to sell, right? How do you not feel so needy when you're like, I really need this commission right now, right? I really need this person to buy because I'm not going to survive. So how do I make it so convincing that they need this or persuasive that it's for them, right? Rather than, yep, I really need this.

So, so you have to work with human nature. Instead of working against it. And human nature works like this. If I chase, you run. If I run, you chase. If I lean in, you lean out. If I lean out, you lean in. And so if you have— you have to first begin with an awareness. Okay. Awareness of what? An awareness that I don't have to make this sale. I have to make a sale, but I don't have to make this sale. If I understand the principle— principles are like, they don't, they don't lie. They always tell the truth. And so if I understand the principle of the law of averages, and I understand that everybody in sales has an average, including me, this is how I got good at sales, by the way. I knew I had an average. What do you mean an average? You mean if you talk to X number of people, X number of people are gonna buy, a certain number are gonna buy. And so let's say, let's say your average is 1 out of 10. So if your average is 1 out of 10, every 10 people you talk to, somebody's gonna buy on average, right? So if I know I'm going to talk to 10 people today, I don't care which one buys. Interesting, right? So now I can, I can emotionally lean out because I don't need to make this sale. And me being leaned out, if you desire the thing, makes you more inclined to desire it from me than somebody who's chasing you.

Yeah, you're more resistant to people chasing you.

Exactly. See, because if I'm, if I'm, if I'm selling or if I'm selling, if if a man is dating a woman, a woman's dating a man, it doesn't matter. Boy meets girl, it doesn't matter. If I am making you feel like I need you, you believe you don't need me. But if I can make you feel like you— I don't need you, then you believe you do need me. Now, in order for me to make you feel like I don't need you, I need to feel like I don't need you.

How do you do that?

By realizing I've got a lot of averages and I have to make X number of sales, but you don't have to be one of them. And if I realize that, you know what, it's a privilege to work with me. I'm one of the few people in the world that have your best interest in mind, like who will sell you something and, and be happy as a lark in the park if you say no.

Yeah.

Because people say, well, that's easy for you to say because you have money. But no, I have money because that's easy for me to say. And it's easy for me to say because it's easy for me to feel. Because if I'm selling something to you and it's not in your best interest, When you say no, I'm glad for your sake and my sake you said no. I'm doing an event in Orange County, right, this weekend, tomorrow, and the next day. And I asked you, I said, why don't you come up and speak? You're like, where is it? I said, it's Orange County. You're like, no, that's too far. And when you said no, that's too far, like, it made perfect sense to me.

Yeah, yeah, right.

And I kind of picked and jigged a little bit, of course, but, but, but it made perfect sense. I wouldn't want you to have to deal with like an hour and a half of traffic and come speak at my event and empower a bunch of people and then have to deal with an hour and a half of traffic coming back. And then you feel yucky about that experience. And now every time you think about me, you're thinking about that. I would rather you say no and think, man, when I have the opportunity to do something with him, I'm going to look forward to it. You see what I'm saying? So I really believe that the main ingredient, the most important ingredient that you have to have to be successful in, like super successful in sales is to love the people you sell to so much that you would never sell them anything that would do them harm.

Now, I love this, but life for me is about enrollment. It is. And so when do you know to stop, not trying, but stop enrolling or persuading someone in your vision, in your product, in your speaking thing?

Most people who watch this are not gonna like my answer. I stop when they say no because the first time. Yeah, well, it depends. Yeah, for the most part. Yeah, I do. Because I know they'll be back. Right. Okay. So for instance, if I'm doing an event, I don't hard close. I don't ever hard close. I don't ever like I do a, I do a challenge once a month and at the end of the challenge I say, well, this is the, this is the offer we've created for you. If it makes sense to you and if it's for you, you're smart enough to know it, take advantage of it. If it's not for you, you're smart enough to know that. But if you're waiting for me to sit on this, Zoom call and talk to you for 45 minutes about why you should take advantage of it. That's not going to happen because I've got a tee time. I'm going to the golf course. If you enroll, we'll see you in the program. If not, we'll see you somewhere else across the world. Have a great day. And I'm done. There's zero pressure because I don't want you to buy because I talked you into it. Because if I've got to drag you in, I've got to drag you around. And that's exhausting.

That is exhausting.

And people really respect you when you really respect them.

So how do you persuade people in the hour or 2-hour Zoom call or whatever it might be throughout so that when you're making the offer, you're, you're backing, you're leaning back versus saying, hey, you really need to buy this or whatever, you know, how do you persuade throughout to add value?

Right. So first, the first, the first problem most people have in sales and in persuasion, what they think is persuasion, which is really just a really old school sales model that's very, it's very horrid. It's so bad is they talk about the wrong things in their presentation. They do no positioning and then they feel like they have to beg people to buy. The reason is because you haven't given the people any reason to buy. You've given them your what you value, but you haven't given them what they value. See, in order for somebody to buy from you, you have to uncover value to them. Well, if you have— if you're going to uncover value to them, you have to know what's valuable to them. If you don't know what's valuable to them, you have no ability to uncover value. And I mean, doesn't that make sense?

So you have to— how do you learn what's valuable to them?

Well, first you have to understand where value, where value comes from, right? So where does value come from? Mm-hmm. Right? So value comes from a couple of different places. Number one, value comes from past perceived voids. Things that were missing in the past are things that I value in the present. So when I was 17 years old, my friend Stan, his brother Lonnie had a '68 Pontiac GTO, and I wanted to buy that car from him and he wouldn't sell it to me. So guess what I bought 2 years ago? A 1968 Pontiac GTO convertible, brand new. That car was $3,300. I paid $40,000 for that car.

Right.

And just got it back from being restored. It's immaculate. Well, why would I do that? Why would I buy that car? Like, I've got cars that are so comfortable that when you sit in them, they hug you and say, where do you want to go today, baby?

Right.

And I'm driving this '68 Pontiac GTO and it's all bouncy. Fancy, you know? And I'm like, why did I want this car so bad? Oh, why did I— what was so valuable? Oh, I wanted in the past, I couldn't have it, but I can have it now, so I'm going to have it. So if you can understand what people have been missing out on in the past, you know what to talk to them about in the present. That's one. Number two, present— so past perceived voids, that's one place the value comes from. Number two, present perceived virtues. When somebody perceives something as good right now, they value it. And so most people, when they're selling, when they think they're selling, they're talking to the prospect about what's valuable about their offer to them instead of to the prospect. They have no idea what the prospect perceives as good because they do all the talking. They don't have a dialogue. They have a monologue and a presentation. A really great sales presentation is a dialogue where you don't do all the talking. Okay, so that's number 2, present perceived voids. The last place that values come from is future perceived visions create present perceived values. So if my presentation can show people how they can have all the things they were missing in the past, all the things they think are wonderful in the present, and they can see themselves living a compelling future, oh, it's really hard for them to say no.

Right? Right.

And so that's the first thing. So that's the first thing that has to happen in the presentation. I have to have the basic big idea has to be surrounded by those things. Number 2, I have to position my offer correctly because I would rather, as a salesperson, I would rather have an average presentation with great positioning than a great presentation with average positioning. And so what do I mean when I say positioning? Well, I'm going to position my offer, the thing that I'm selling, next to something they've already paid for that's given them less value. That's one. I'm going to position my offer next to the, the price of my offer next to the cost of not getting the result they've been seeking and show them which one's more expensive. So I'm going to have a position— like, the positioning is of the utmost importance. And then in addition to positioning the offer, when I do the presentation, as much as possible, I'm going to get— if I'm selling something to you, I'm going to get you to give yourself my presentation. And I'm going to do that by asking you questions. I'm going to do that by asking you what?

Questions.

Questions. See, that's what I— exactly. I'm going to get them talking back to me. And so I really believe that for good salespeople, the prospect provides the content and we provide the context. And So I don't want to talk about the pieces of my offer. It's got 17 workbooks and da da da da, or it's got these components and these ingredients. No, I don't want to talk about the pieces. I don't want to talk about the process. And I sure don't want to show them the process because if I show them the process, it's going to distract them from the payoff. So I don't want to show them the pieces. I don't want to show them the process. I don't want to sell my person because I don't want to be married to you. Like, oh, you get so many hours of my time. No, no, I don't want to. No. When I, when I'm selling you hours of my time, I am telling you that it's so hard you can't do it without me. That's not the message I want to convey. Does that make sense? So the only thing that I emphasize when I'm selling, after I do the positioning, after I uncover the value, and then I present the value, the thing that I do is I show them the payoff and I show them what it's going to feel like to have the payoff, what it's going to sound like and how other people are going to look at them and how they're going to feel and what they'll be able to do then that they can't do now. And so when you emphasize the payoff, people have the ability to see themselves in their desirable future, and it makes it easier for them to say yes because you're the first person who's ever talked to them about a bridge that gets them from where they are to where they'd like to be. Right. Does that make sense?

100%. I, I've heard you say, I quote, wealth is a spiritual outcome.

It is.

And you talk often again about faith and finances, and people are conflicted by this a lot.

They are.

They're conflicted by faith and finances.

Yes.

But why do you believe faith and wealth actually belong together?

Well, because God is a God of abundance. In fact, God is so much a God of abundance that when he put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, even though there were only two people there and they were married to each other and all the food was free and there were no stores and there was nothing to buy and there was nothing for sale, he put gold in the Garden of Eden. But he didn't just put gold in the Garden of Eden. He put gold in the Garden of Eden and told us that it was good. Why do I believe that wealth is good? Because God said so. Why do I believe that wealth, that abundance is spiritual? Because Jesus said, "I am come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. But the thief cometh not but for to steal, to kill, and to destroy." Well, if you kill something, you have a lack of life. If you steal something, you have a lack of property. If you destroy something, you have a lack of property as well. Abundance and lack are both spiritual. Abundance is the result of understanding the spiritual principles that lead to wealth. And people think that God wants them to be poor. I find that fascinating because if God wants you to be poor, he also wants you to be a drunkard. He also wants you to be lazy. He also wants you to be a glutton. He wants you to be a fool. Why do I say that? Well, because from a biblical perspective, the Bible says that Love not sleep lest thou come to poverty. So what does that mean? That means if you're lazy, you're gonna be broke. So if God wants me to be broke, then he has to want me to be lazy since brokenness is spiritual. If I think poverty is piety, then if God says that laziness leads to being broke, then he must want me to be lazy if he wants me to be broke. Okay, but it says that if you have wisdom, it'll fill your house with great treasure. So if God doesn't want me to have great treasure, then he must want me to be a fool. The drunkard and the glutton shall lie down together, and drowsiness will clothe a man with rags. So God must want me to be a drunken, gluttonous, lazy fool if he wants me to be broke, because he promised to bless me with wealth if I have the opposite of those characteristics. That's why.

Yeah. Spring is here and Spring Fest is happening now at Lowe's. Refresh your yard with Stay Green Premium 2 cubic foot mulch. 5 bags for just $10. Heading indoors, save up to 40% off select major appliances to help supercharge your chores. The best lineup is here at Lowe's. Valid through April 22nd while supplies last. Selection varies by location. See lowes.com for details. Mulch offer excludes Alaska and Hawaii. When was the moment you felt like you had true financial freedom in your life where you feel like, okay, I'm not living paycheck to paycheck, I've got financial abundance, I don't feel like I'm stressing for what's coming in the next 6 months?

I can tell you the moment when I felt like that, even though I was still not wealthy.

And this was—

it was in April of 1999. And I remember it very specifically.

27 years ago.

Right. 27 years ago, I accidentally made $6,200 in one week. Come on. In one week.

You know what's really— before you go on with that.

Okay.

This is weird. The synchronicity of this, because the moment I felt like I was the richest man in the world was when I made $6,200 in one hour.

Okay. So you did it an hour. I did it in a week.

Well, I was also dating people these days, but the fact that it was $6,200 was how much I made in one hour from a webinar presentation. Wow. To someone else's audience as my first webinar. I made $6,200.

And you were like—

And I was like, I am the richest man in the world. Wow. It was more money than I ever made in maybe years. Right? Wow. It unlocked like, is this even possible? Yeah. It was just like a whole nother—

So that was an unlock. $6,200 is an unlock for you. And it was an unlock for me. How crazy is that?

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So watch this.

So what happened? Tell me.

So watch this. So, well, what happened was I read Rich Dad Poor Dad in January. 1999. And I realized the reason I was broke— when I read that book, I realized I was broke because I didn't have any assets. So I said, okay, I'm going to start focusing on my assets. I had some assets, but not— I had this little network marketing income from this little network marketing business I was doing. And then I was a traveling evangelist, so I had my income when churches would give me an offering. And then I had my tape ministry where I'd have my sermons on recording and I would sell them for $5. At the end of the services. So, so, so what happened was I didn't have a goal. I just thought this church invited me to come speak and they wanted me to come speak for like from Sunday through Wednesday. And so I came and spoke Sunday through Wednesday, and when I got done, they gave me a $2,000 honorarium. That week I made $2,100 from my network marketing company and I sold 21— I sold $2,100 worth of tapes. Wow. But when I did that, you gotta understand, in 1998 I only made $48,000, right? So that's an average of $4,000 a month. And now I made $6,200 in one week simply because I shifted my focus to acquiring assets and building assets. Now here's what happened next. As soon as I made that $6,200, I said, I made $6,200 this week. First thing I said was, wow. And I said it backwards.

I said, wow. You're like, now how do I do this again?

Exactly. Well, before I even said how I do this again, I said, That was so easy. Mm. And then I somehow or another, I had this idea, this thought, that must mean it's easier to make a lot of money in a short period of time than just make a little money over a long period of time. As soon as I said that, I said it out loud. I said, from now on, for the rest of my life, I'm gonna ignore all the hard ways to make a little bit of money, and I'm only gonna focus on the easy ways to make a lot. Mm. That shift changed my life. By July of that same year, I made $8,000 in one day in the stock market. Wow. Just because I decided to believe that it's easier to make a lot of money in a short period of time than it is to make a little money over a long period of time. And so even though, even though financially since that time I've been broke, I was aware of the fact that it's easier to make a lot of money in a short period of time than it is to make a little money over a long period of time.

So after that moment, You had a new belief, but you still became broke later is what I'm hearing.

Like, I made millions of dollars and became broke later. Really? Yeah. I had a whole series of situations that started in 2007. My oldest son was in a car accident and he passed away 4 days later. Most devastating, surreal, painful, unbelievable, even to this day, experience of my life.

How old was he?

He was 20.

Oh, man.

Yeah, it was. It was, um, yeah, he passed away 4 days later. The next year, and, and, and not to brush over that, but that was, that, that'll let a whole lot of wind outta your sails, your whole life.

Yeah, right.

Exactly. Even to this day, the most difficult thing I've ever gone through in my life by far, by leaps and bounds.

Before you go on, what was the greatest lesson that taught you about life? Losing your son in that way. What was the greatest lesson that taught me? That season taught you?

It showed me how much God loves me. Really? Yeah.

How so?

As a, as a man, like a real man, you want to protect your family. You want to provide for your family. And I had money. I had lots of money. My money couldn't help me. And I'm sitting in the hospital room watching my son take his last breath.

Oh my gosh.

And as hard as that was, you know what was harder? Watching my wife and my other son and my daughter watch my wife's son and my other two children's brother, watching them watch their brother die, watching my wife watch her son die, and there's nothing I could do about it. And I would've done anything. I would've done anything, including trade places with him. Oh, if I would've had the opportunity. You say, well, how does that show you the love of God? Because God watched his son die for me and he could have done something about it, but he didn't. And that made me hyper-aware of a kind of love and a level of love that I have no ability to understand. But all the ability in the world to appreciate. Wow. So that's the greatest lesson I learned.

When did you learn to, I guess, appreciate or have awareness around the, the loss to where you could actually feel love rather than anger or upset or any other emotion? Because I don't know if that happened right away for you. I'm assuming—

no, that was— that's what I realized when I was sitting there in that hospital room. Watching, experiencing this. That was my— that was what I was thinking about.

God loves you.

God loves me more than I can ever fathom.

How do you even get to that? I don't know if anyone could really think about that in that moment of like, my son—

I couldn't think about anything else, really. I couldn't think about anything else. Now you got to understand though, I came to Christ when I was 16 years old. I started reading the Bible when I was 16, the King James Version. Started reading the Bible when I was 16, started studying it when I was 20. And I had a very acute awareness already at that time that spirituality, that the invisible realm is the real realm, and that the physical realm is just a manifestation of that realm. So I was like, that part of that, a level of awareness I already had. And there are some things, other things that in my study that God had been showing me years leading up to that that put me in a position where that was the conclusion that I came to. In fact, when my son died, as hard as it was, and it was like, I can't describe how hard it was, but I wanted to make sure that I preached my son's funeral because I didn't want somebody else to mess up what it meant because everybody in my family was going to have to live with this conclusion for the rest of our lives. And I wanted to give them a God perspective. So I see most people believe in God kind of as a genie, maybe. And, you know, I get him, I'll pray and he'll do what I want him to do. And I read the Bible to appease him. I don't believe God is my king. He is sovereign. If he does something, it is the best thing that can be done, even if it's not the best feeling thing that can be done. If I can't trust him at that level, he's not really God. He, he's, he might be the God that I'm the God of, but I don't want a God that I'm God of.

I mean, how can someone listening right now when they see that there's wars or injustice believe that? If they're like, okay, all these people are dying around the world, these wars, these challenges, how can I believe that this is the best thing from God?

I'm going to give you two answers. How can I believe that water's wet? It doesn't matter if I believe it or not. It's wet. That's the first answer. Here's the second answer. If God cannot lie and he is good and he says he's good, if I really believe that he is the God he says he is, then he's the one that's sovereign, not me. I can trust him even when I can't understand him. And I think here's the difference between me and anybody else you're gonna talk to, probably, about God and about their faith. I'm not trying to get you to believe what I believe. Believe it or don't believe it.

Mm-hmm.

But the belief that I have, oh, it's unshakable.

Mm.

God is sovereign. It's so fascinating. I mean, I could give you a really long drawn out theological answer to the question you just answered, but the best answer is if God is really God, like the supreme being and the creator of everything, he can do pretty much whatever he wants to. When I was a kid, I used to build model cars. I don't know if you ever did that or not, but I used to build model cars. We didn't have the internet, okay? But guess what else I would do? I'd take them in the basement and blow them up with firecrackers, right? Why? Well, why would you do that? You just spent all that time— I don't know. I wanted, I wanted to see what was going to happen. I'm not saying God wants to see what's going to happen. I'm just saying, but God is God. If, if he If he is really God and he really owns everything, then when he wants me to know why it's working the way it's working, when he knows, when he believes it's time for me to find out, then I'll find out.

You'll find out. There's something you've said, the word you've said multiple times in the last few minutes. Okay. And part of your team was asking me some questions before you got in here and we were chatting. And one of the questions they said, you know, you've interviewed all these people, all these experts over the years. Like, what's the one thing maybe they don't say in the interviews that you've noticed that makes them, you know, accomplish and be great and achieve what they achieve? And right away I just said belief, you know, 100% belief. And this is something you've said over and over now is like this belief. I believe it's possible to make more money with less work. I believe in this. I believe you can make more in less time. Once you shifted belief, right? Then you had to just see how you could do it. The opportunity.

And you can decide to believe. I decided to believe it's easier to make a lot of money in a short period. Yeah. Yeah.

And so how did you get to a place of belief?

Great question.

When you're working as a garbage man, when you're struggling, when you've got, you know, you got polio and you got— yeah, a leg that doesn't work. When you've got all you— I think you were born in a segregation hospital.

Segregated hospital.

Yeah. Like when all these things are against you. But are they? Well, when they perceive to be against you.

There you go.

When you could tell a story to yourself that this was against me. Look how hard this is. Look at this challenge. Look at— I'm only making $6.50 an hour. I'm only—

$6.25, bro.

$6.25 an hour. It's going to be impossible.

But thanks for the raise.

Right, exactly. But when we hold on to a story of belief that things were against us, how do we shift it to believe they're actually for us, right?

You can decide to believe that everything that happens to you happens for you. You can decide to believe that.

So whether it's true or not, you can just decide.

You can decide to believe. Yeah, because people believe things that aren't true. That's right. Whether it's true or not. I happen to know it's true.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you why I know it's true. So, and I'll tell you how I developed the sense of certainty that I have over the 64 years of being on this planet. So one is I believe that the Bible is truth because when I started reading it, I thought I was going to find religion and I found principles. And I found a lot of— in the coding world we call if-then, go-to statements, conditional promises. If this happens, then do this. And I started testing those if-then, go-to statements when I was a kid. When I was 16 years old, I was testing them. I remember the very first one I tested. Proverbs 15:1, "A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger." And I remember doing something in particular to tick off my brother Mike. He was hacked. He was hot. He came in guns blazing. "Man, I can't believe you." I was like, "Wow, man, you know what? You're right. I shouldn't have done that.

Yeah.

You know what? I'm not going to let that happen again. Sorry I did that. It's not going to—" And he just kind of deflated and walked away.

I was like, "That was amazing." It worked.

It worked. It worked. It did exactly what the Bible said it would do. But there are literally hundreds of biblical principles like that that I've tested since I was 16 years old. I've never had one fail. You say, how do you believe that what happens to you happens against you? It's interesting how if you read more and you write more, it gives you the ability to think more clearly, right? And so there's a story in the Bible about this man named Joseph, and Joseph gets thrown into a pit, and then he gets taken out of the pit by some slave traders. He's sold into slavery in Egypt. His brothers threw him in the pit. His 11 old— his 10 older brothers threw him in the pit. So now he's a slave for this man named Potiphar. Potiphar's wife tries to seduce him. This is like, this is like a really tragic situation. He's hundreds of miles away from home. He's a slave in somebody's house. The man's wife tries to seduce him. He doesn't yield to her. She grabs a shirt, snatches off his back, lies to her husband. He gets thrown in prison. His brothers go back and tell his father that, um, well, we think Joseph's dead because we found his coat. They really took it. They tore it in pieces, put goat's blood on it, sheep's blood on it, took it back to— I don't know if this is your son's coat or not, but— and then his father thought he had died, right? And so literally over a decade, Joseph is down in Egypt in Potiphar's house or in prison. Anyway, long story short, Joseph ascends because of his interpretation of a dream to become the prime minister of Egypt. Joseph brings his family to Egypt because there's a famine. He introduces his father to Pharaoh. Pharaoh asks his father, "Sir, how old are you?" Jacob, because of all the things that happened to Joseph, He said, "Few and evil have been the years of the days of the life of my pilgrimage. I'm 138 years old." Few and evil? You just got reunited with your son. He's the prime minister of the country that saved you alive, and all you can focus on is all the stuff, the pain that you were in in the past? Now, Joseph had the same pain that Jacob had, only worse. It was his pain. When he named his two sons, you know what he named them? Ephraim and Manasseh. Do you know what those names mean? One of them means that God has made me to forget all of my trials and my labor in my father's house. The other name means God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. The very same thing that Jacob perceived happening to him, Joseph perceived as happening for him. And you always have a choice when you have an experience of life. Am I going to respond like Jacob or am I going to respond like Joseph? Wow. Like, you go to the gym, you work out. I can tell you have muscles, right? Yeah. You go to the gym. Why do you lift weights? It's hard.

It is hard. It keeps me healthy.

Right. So you lift weights. It's hard. It keeps you healthy. Why does it keep you healthy? Because it breaks your muscles down. But that's bad. It's breaking your muscles down, right? It breaks them down so they can build back up. So can you tell me of anything in life that gets better because it's easy?

I don't know. I mean, just maybe that if you're having an easy moment, it feels good in that moment. Right. It feels good.

Yeah, yeah. But it doesn't make the next moment easy. No. And so the fact that I was born in a segregated hospital because Black people weren't allowed to be born in Tampa General, it's a painful thing for my parents, difficult. I contracted polio because the conditions at hospital were so bad. I've been walking with this brace on my leg my whole life. I had a leg stretch operation when I was 13 where they broke my tibia and my fibula and put these screws through my leg and put it on this rack and turn these knobs and stretch the bones. And cut my Achilles tendon and all that other stuff. I've got a metal rod in my ankle right now when I played golf yesterday and walking up and down those hills when I got done yesterday, it was like throbbing. Oh, that's so terrible. It's not terrible. It's just painful. It's just difficult. Like, we— there's not a human being who's ever lived who can tell whether something is good or not looking through the windshield. Good or bad. We can only tell that looking through the rearview mirror. I'm not smart enough to know what's good. I'm smart enough to know it's painful, but I'm also smart enough to know that everything that's painful is not bad.

Mm-hmm. What do you think this experience has provided you with throughout? Having had polio? Yes. Oh, yeah. And having your leg broken and rods and all that stuff. That experience and living with that, do you think you'd be where you're at today? There's not— actually, no.

Spiritually? No galaxy. Really? No.

Where do you think you'd be if that didn't happen? It depends.

I'd probably be a professional athlete of some kind. I was very athletic. Still am very athletic. I would have been very distracted by sports. And when I say distracted, I would have been focused on it. But all focus is a distraction and all distraction is focus. Right. And so I would have been focused on a sport that would have maybe made me famous and maybe made me rich, but maybe I would have lost it by now. Right. Like most professional athletes do. And so I believe that God in his sovereign wisdom ordained before the foundation of the world that I would go through all of these experiences so my body would slow down so my mind could speed up.

Oh my gosh. That's good. But that's the belief you've created with this experience.

Exactly. Yeah. It's the belief. I don't know if I've created it or if I discovered it.

Either one. Yeah. Yeah. It's the belief you've decided.

I've definitely decided to believe that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because I can see it. Like, I can remember being a child because I wanted to run so bad. I couldn't run because my leg wouldn't. There are certain things it just doesn't do. Kind of most things that legs do. And I couldn't run. But I remember watching for hours, watching other people run to see if I could figure out how to make something that could help me run. Right. Because I always wanted to run. Because I always tell people I couldn't run, so I learned how to fight. So I couldn't run. But what it did is it caused me to be hyper-observant.

Yeah, I know that feeling, right?

Yeah. Because when you can't do, you can observe. You watch.

Yeah, I was the same way in school. I was, I was in the bottom of my class pretty much all through school. And I really lacked the skills to connect with people because I was just insecure that I'm not smart enough or funny enough. And so I just didn't really speak much. But I would just watch people speaking and observing them.

Exactly.

And just watch their human dynamics, their behavior, and just be like, huh, why did that person laugh? Why did that person respond? Why did that person give that person a hug? I would just watch people all day long and observe. And I think that allowed me to have a different perspective of why people do certain things or why they say things. And so that insecurity I had in me or that lack that I was facing allowed me to be more observant to see, okay, how can I How can I connect with someone even though no one wants to connect with me? So good. And so it's a similar kind of dynamic. 100%. Yeah.

I, I mean, I, I remember going all the way through the 7th grade and only having one friend the whole year. So I can, I remember what that feels like. Yeah. Yeah.

What is the biggest lie that you think people of faith have been taught about making money and creating wealth?

The more money you make, it makes you more and more distant from God. And if you make too much money, you can't go to heaven. Really? Oh yeah.

Why have people believed that?

Why is that? Well, because Satan is a master deceiver, right? And the best lies are the ones that seem like they're true. And so if you think about it, like when I read the Bible, I see that Satan deceived Eve by twisting God's words, not by giving her his own original words. The first temptation that Satan tempted Jesus with in the wilderness, um, was a twisting of God's word. He quoted the 'cast yourself down,' because in there, um, he shall give his angels charge concerning in their hands. So he used the word of God to attempt to deceive Jesus. So if he's going to use the word of God to attempt Eve, who's never sinned before, she has no sin nature, and she falls for it, and he uses the word of God to tempt Jesus, he's not going to fall for it. Don't think he's not going to use the Bible to deceive you. So they believe that because of the fact that a lot of people who preach and teach the Bible have never learned how to study it properly. They've never learned the law of first mention. They've never learned the law of context. They've never learned the law of definitions. And if you don't— if you don't apply those two laws, you're gonna— whatever you read, you're going to come to an erroneous conclusion because you're not using the framework for understanding it that it was created for. To be interpreted, right? If I use a whole bunch of words, if I say, well, you know, I'm gonna promulgate my esoteric cogitations and articulate my superficial sentimentalities with amicable and philosophical and psychological observations to beware of platitudes and ponderosities. If I said that to you and you didn't know what those words mean, right?

You're just like, uh, what? Right?

But that's how most people read the Bible. And so what they'll do is they'll take the surface inference and think that's an interpretation. It's not. So there is a passage that says, for instance, For instance, this is one of the most misunderstood passages in the entire Bible. Jesus said about this rich young ruler, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now, what does that mean?

What does that mean and how should we interpret that?

Well, what it actually means, and you can't— first of all, I'm going to say this, if you start the story with the rich young ruler, you cannot come to a proper interpretation.

You need the whole context.

You need the whole context. And the context is Right before that happened, Jesus had got done speaking and people were bringing his— bringing their children to him to have him bless them. And the disciples said, get those kids out of here. Jesus said, allow the little children to come unto me and forbid them not. And then he said this, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. So he said, bring them, let those little children come to me. So Jesus is giving an illustration of how salvation, biblical salvation, works. Let the little children come unto me. So what does a child do to provide for itself?

Yeah, I mean, it cries, right?

But does it earn money? It's a crime.

No, to provide? No, it doesn't make money.

Can't provide for— can't provide housing, food. In order for a child to survive, it has to be 100% dependent on someone other than itself for its survival.

Unless it's a child star in Hollywood here and they're making money.

But yeah, yeah, but still, they gotta— they can't walk, they can't feed themselves. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. So, okay, great. So Right after that happens, he blesses the children. It says, and it came to him, this rich young ruler, and he says to Jesus, he asked him this question, good master, what good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? He said, good master, what good thing shall I do? And Jesus said, why are you calling me good? Jesus wasn't asking him, why are you calling me good? Because he wasn't good. He was asking me, why are you calling me good? Because you're saying, good master, what good thing shall I do? Jesus was saying, if you believe I'm good, then you don't need to be good. And if you believe you're good, you don't need me because I am good. So is it going to be you or is it going to be me? And then he said, but if you want to know which commandments— which, by the way, Jesus knew he couldn't keep, the kid couldn't keep the commandments, the young man couldn't keep the commandments— he said, but if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments. He was giving the young man an opportunity to say, I've tried to keep the commandments and I can't, because that's the real answer for everybody who's ever lived. The real answer is, I've tried to keep the commandments, but I can't. But the young man doesn't do that. He tries to play Jesus and he says, well, which ones? And Jesus named a bunch of them that he knew the guy hadn't broken. And then he named one that was evident to everybody around that the man was breaking all day long. Which one? He said, thou shalt not commit murder, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not commit adultery, honor thy father and thy mother. And then he says this, love your neighbor as yourself. The young man says, all these I have kept from my youth up. What lack I yet? Oh, you've kept all of them, have you? Really? That's interesting. You love your neighbor like you love yourself. I can tell by the shoes you're wearing you love yourself. I can tell by the robe you're wearing you love yourself. I can tell by the chariot you rolled up in that you love yourself. You love your neighbor as you love yourself. Okay, if you're gonna lie to me, let's put it to the test. Go sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and come and follow me. And the young man went away sorrowful because he had great possessions. So he didn't love his neighbor as he loved himself, because if he did, he would have been willing to do that. And then Jesus said, "Hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven." Now, the word rich that Jesus used there is the word pluseo in Greek, which means figuratively rich. This man was rich in self-righteousness. Which means he was not willing to receive the righteousness of Christ. Now, it's— and the reason I know this is true, because I study the Bible and I study all the— I do word studies. The only other place that word pluseo is used in the New Testament is in 2 Corinthians 8:9, where it says, and you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, pluseos, rich in righteousness, yet for your sakes he became poor, He became sin that you through his righteousness might be rich. So it's the exact same context and the exact same definition. And then when Jesus said, in fact, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, his disciples were confused. It literally says they were bewildered. Like, and then they said, well, who then can be saved? Well, why did they ask that question? Well, because David was rich. If he was talking about monetarily rich, Abraham is the first person the Bible says was rich. So Abraham couldn't get into heaven. David, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, Solomon, their parents, them, they were businessmen. Well, who then can be saved? And then Jesus told them the answer: with man it is impossible. What's impossible? Salvation through self-righteousness is impossible. But then it says, but with God all things are possible. So that's the interpretation of how the passage actually reads and what it means.

If someone listening or watching was once poor, maybe they didn't grow up with wealth, their family didn't have it. Or maybe they're poor now. Maybe they're poor now, but they all of a sudden start to apply the principles and generate wealth, but they don't know how to hold the wealth. They don't know how to manage the wealth. They don't know how— they've never experienced that level of wealth, abundance. And it's like, it's so unfamiliar. They want it. But then, oh, now I've got $50,000 in my bank. I've got $100,000. I've got a million. Right. And they don't know how to manage it. Right. Navigate it. They don't know how to perceive. Now everyone's saying, oh, give me money. Right. Oh, oh, now you know how to make money or you need to give more of it. And they have all these different things pulling at them, their own insecurities. They don't know how to hold it up. They don't know how to manage it. How do I spend it? Do I blow it? Do I hoard it? Right. That's a fear of a lot of people also. That when I make money, I won't know what to do with it. I want to know what to do with it. People are going to steal from me and people are going to judge me. Yeah. How do you navigate that part of abundance of life? Well, a couple of things.

You can't be free if you're worried about what people think about you. Like, real freedom is when you have nothing to gain, nothing to lose, nothing to hide, nothing to prove. If you have those 4 things, you're free. Whether you have money or not, you have nothing to hide. So if you have nothing to gain, if I have nothing to gain, here's what I mean by nothing to gain. When I am interacting with another person, I am never trying to get anything from them. That's nothing to gain. I didn't come on your show because I hope to gain access to your audience so I can sell more stuff. No, I like you and I like the books you've written and I like the podcast that you have and you seem like a genuinely cool person. If something else happens for me, that's great, but that's not like I want to do it because I want to do it. I've got nothing to hide. I've got nothing to prove. I don't need somebody to believe something about me because the ultimate identity already believes something about me. God believes that I'm worthy of life because I'm still here. I'm worthy of his blessings because I'm blessed. I have health, I have a family, I have people that love me, I have people that I love. And so I have nothing to gain. I have nothing to prove. I have nothing to hide. I'm not doing some sneaky underhanded thing in the shadows and I hope nobody find out about it. It. I've got nothing to lose because I'm just a steward and it's not mine anyway. So how does a person— so that's— you can't be free if you're worried about, oh man, but now I have this money, what if I lose it? Well, I can't really lose— I mean, I could lose if I— if, if something happened and I no longer had money, that's okay. Why? Because knowledge is better than gold. And you can take my money, but you can't take my knowledge. You can't take my skill set. You can't take my mindset. You can't take my toolset. You can take my assets, but I can go build them again. And so it's wise to have a level of caution walking into any new arena, including wealth. But what you want to do is you want to hire people who are smart, where you're not strong, where you're weak. I have a CPA, I have a tax strategist. I have an attorney that set up all of my financial stuff. I don't even want to be good at those things. So you compensate for your weaknesses with automation and delegation.

When you were working as a trash man for many years, what was the inner dialogue that you were thinking while you were working? Because I think you were listening to personal development tapes. I was. So you were listening to things, you were hearing different perspectives, you were trying to develop your mind, but what was the inner dialogue Because I'm assuming being a trash man is not where you wanted to be in the future. You're not thinking, I hope I'm here forever, right?

In fact, when I was working for the trash company, my— the general manager, they would always see me on my break. Like, it was break time or I was just getting there waiting for the mechanic to finish fixing my truck. They'd see me reading books. What are you reading? I'm reading The Greatest Salesman in the World. Why are you reading that? You're a trash man. No trash. I'm a trash man. I'm not going to be a trash man forever. I'm learning how to— like, I have a business. I'm learning how to do stuff. And so my inner dialogue, my inner dialogue has always been strong. And I think that's a result of my parents. Because I had polio, they really overcompensated with me, telling me I can do anything I want to do and be anything I want to be. Really? Yeah. That's good. Yeah, that's— that's wealth. That's wealth beyond measure, right? I've got 6 brothers, 1 older brother, 5 younger brothers. And my parents were amazing. Because like all 7 of us, we're adults and we all get along. We enjoy spending time with each other, right? Because my parents wouldn't allow us in their presence to fight and argue with each other. And one of the things that my parents taught us, when you're out there in the streets, if your brother's in a fight, you better be in a fight with him. Wow. So we learned team dynamic in our family, right?

Right. It was like a sport. —It was. You're a professional athlete in your family.

In my family, in our family dynamics, for sure.

Looking back then, what was the hardest part of growing up?

The hardest part of growing up? There was— there were a lot of hard parts of growing up, like lots and lots. I wasn't good in school. In fact, I did really well in school all the way through the third grade and went downhill from there because I didn't like it. It was boring. And third grade, I was like, why are we still doing this? And I became disinterested in the third grade. So that's one. My dad, who was a wonderful, great man, had an alcohol problem, which created a lot of challenges for us, but a lot of great opportunities in those challenges, like learning how to manage the delicate interaction of adults when you're a child to keep from doing something that gets them angry, upsets the apple cart. Yeah. Okay. So you do that. So that's, that was difficult. The fact that we moved around a lot. So you had to get used to a new school. I think I went to 9 different schools growing up, so that was difficult. But all of those difficult things were such an absolute vital part of everything that I do now. Like everything that I do and everything that I am such a vital part. Like if God gave me an opportunity to do a do-over without any of those challenges, I would say, nah, I mean, if you want to give me a do-over and I get to do the whole thing again, and knowing what I know now, I'd love to do that. But even not knowing, I wouldn't like— I wouldn't want a different do-over. I wouldn't want to go and have a do-over and have a life of being Myron without polio. Really? No. Why is that? Because then I'd end up something other than what I am. And I love— I love who God has turned me into, and I love being me. I love getting to be Myron Golden. It's— and that may sound arrogant. I don't mean it like that. Like, because I realize that anything good about me is not because of me. It's a gift. Even— yeah, yeah. And people would say, yeah, it was— it's because of you, because you worked hard. Yeah, but even the ability to work hard and the inclination to work hard is a gift. And so if I have— if ever— if I look at everything good about me as a gift, It gives me everything to be thankful for and nothing to be proud of. And now I can treat other people with respect and honor, even people who may not act out of respectability because maybe they didn't receive all the gifts I received. And if they had, maybe they would've done more with them than I have. You see, there's always a perspective that can help you become a better and more fulfilled person.

I think when someone in your— in life now crosses a boundary of yours or does something really hard to do, but okay, or someone that tries to lie to you or steal from you or hurt you in some ways, or, you know, they want to inflict pain in some way, whether financially or whatever. Right. How do you interpret that? How do you respond to that? What do you do?

It depends on who they are. Okay. And what my relationship is with them. Yeah. If somebody does something dishonest and they work for me, if it's like really dishonest, I'm probably going to fire them. Yeah. Right. But I'll still be friends with them. Really? And by friends with them, if they need help, I'd help them.

Even if they intentionally tried to harm you or if they stole from you or they lied?

No. Okay. Now we're talking about a different—

They stole money from you and then they—

So I can think of somebody right now. So there are other influencers we'll call them that for lack of a better word. Sure. Who I've done business with, who've not done the right thing. And I don't put them on full blast, but if somebody asks me about them, you let them know. I'll let them know, of course. But I would never say anything about that influencer behind their back that I wouldn't say to their face or that I haven't said to their face. Of course. Yeah. Right. I remember one guy is like, you're a pathological liar. But you knew you were a pathological liar, and I know you're a pathological liar. You're telling people that I'm not honest. Well, I'm telling them you're not honest because you're not honest. And I'm telling you to your face. Yeah, I'm telling you to I wouldn't say anything to them, I won't say to you. So I don't have any problems confronting people. I don't like to fight, but I don't mind. Right? Right? Like I would rather have a great and maintain a great relationship with them. And even if I have a friend who's doing something that is a little off for how I perceive them, I'd go to 'em and say, you know, I don't have any judgment for you, but I'm really like dumbfounded. Yeah. Confused.

Why are you doing this? Confused. Why are you—

this is what you purport, but this is what you allow. Why? It doesn't match.

It's funny because I have— if you've been in this kind of online world for a long time, I've been since 2008, 2009 is when I kind of got into it. So 18+ years. Yeah, I've seen— I've seen a lot of people. I've worked with a lot of people. I've been in masterminds, I've been on stages, I've interviewed a lot of people. And you just You know, I have— so I have other friends who are kind of like up and coming and they're like, hey, this person reached out to me and I'm like, just call me. And they're like, you know, they'll text me, what do you think about this person? I go, call me. And they're like, okay, I'll know not to work with them. It's like, all right, there's something here. You know, I'm like, I'm not going to put this in text, but you just want to make sure you're aligning yourself. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to try to trust people you think are good.

Anybody can be honest. Yeah, right. Exactly. And if you tell somebody you're going to do something, even if it costs you time, effort, energy, and money, do it. Do it.

Or don't commit to it.

Or don't commit to it. Don't say you can do it. Just say no. Yeah. Yeah. No is a complete sentence.

I'm curious, in your mind, how are people actually blocking abundance and staying broke without even realizing they're doing it?

A lot of ways, but probably the primary way is people believe more in their lie-identity than they do in their identity. Lie-identity? Lie-identity. What does that mean? What is a lie-identity? A lie-identity is all the things, all the people all your life told you you are not. You're not smart enough. You're not tall enough. You're not athletic enough. You're not handsome enough, pretty enough. Don't dance well enough. Can't sing well enough. You don't talk good enough. So they are more in tune with who they aren't than they are with who they are. Right? That's the biggest one. Because everything in life pours out of identity. The very first success principle in the history of the world is this. It came straight from God. First thing God ever said to man is what he said: be fruitful. The word fruit— fruit, a fruit is a living organism whose seed is in itself. So when God said be fruitful, he's saying you produce on the outside of you based on what I plant, the creativity I planted on the inside of you. Be fruitful. And then he said multiply. Multiply is not a be, multiply is a do. Do multiply. What does multiply mean? It means increase. Do replenish. What's replenish mean? It means fill up the earth. Why? Because you're multiplying. And then subdue it. Subdue is also a do. What's subdue mean? Subdue means to trample. It seems to not fit, but God is showing us that disruption always follows intention. When you decide to do something new that's good, the first thing that shows up is something difficult and painful. You decide to start working out and you haven't worked out in a while, hurts. You don't feel stronger first, you feel weaker. Yeah, it hurts. It doesn't feel good first. It feels bad first, right? So disruption always follows intention. It doesn't matter what the thing is. Okay, so that's the next thing. And then he said, and have dominion. Dominion means authority over. So here's the first success principle in the history of the world. You ready? Be, do, have. Wow. Don't be, can't do, can't do, can't have. Watch this. It gets better. Be a little, do a little, do a little, have a little. But everybody can get excited now. If you'll be a lot, you can do a lot. If you'll do a lot, you can have a lot. Wow. Because everything that you have is the result of what you have done, and everything that you will have is the result of what you will do. And everything you will do is the result of who you are becoming right now. That's so powerful.

That's so funny because kind of emotional intelligence 101 is be, do, have, not if I have something, then I'll be happy.

And that's what most people believe. They believe, well, if I had this thing, then I could do X, Y, and Z, and then I'd be— no, no, no. You got it exactly. Or here's what's really interesting. Being speaks to my identity, right? Who I am. Doing speaks to my activity. All of our activity flows out of our identity. But having speaks to our property. Do you realize there is everybody who's alive and has ever been alive, there is a capacity gap. There's a gap in their capacity between who they are and who they could be, between what they're doing and what they could be doing. And between what they have and what they could have. It doesn't matter how much you have and who you are and what you're doing. Elon Musk has a capacity gap in his be/do/have. So the question is, how can I fill up this capacity gap? Right? So I fill up the capacity gap in my beingness. Like, how do I become more than I've been being?

How do you do it with where you're at in your life? You know, you've got a lot of success, accomplishments, impact, service as well.

But do I have as much as I could have? Absolutely not. Not even close. Do you need more? I don't need more. But does— do the people I serve need me to be more? That's a better question because God put me here by myself, not for myself.

Interesting. But what's missing for you then?

What's in the gap? Nothing's missing, but there's a gap. Here's what A gap doesn't mean something's missing. A gap just means there's room for more. That's what the gap means. And so how do I fill the gap? I fill the gap with intentionality. The, the, the, the— I believe that one of the number one common denominators in all successful people is they hyperfocus on intention and ignore distraction like it's the plague. And by the way, by intention and distraction, I'm going to define both words. By intention, I mean anything that I focus on that moves the needle in my favor. By distraction, I mean anything I focus on that doesn't move the needle in my favor. That's funny. Yeah. Right.

I was, I was telling your team not to cut you off. I was telling your team beforehand, I was like saying the same thing because, you know, belief is one thing, but then you could also believe you can do anything. And the distraction of, I know you have lots of money-making opportunities. Just because I can start a toothbrush company doesn't mean I should. Doesn't mean I should. Just because I can create a nail salon and do well at it, probably. Right. Is that really my purpose or what's meant for me? Exactly. It's not just 'cause there's money there. It doesn't mean I should spend time doing this. 1000%. And it's gonna pull me away from the bigger intention, the bigger purpose, the bigger mission that I can uniquely serve.

Exactly. It's your hyper-intentionality that makes you— Exactly. That continues to fill that gap.

Yes. What is the gap for you then from where you are to what is possible at the next level?

Yeah, I think it's always who and how many. And what I mean by that is who am I serving and how many of those people am I serving? Serving? That's really the question, because fulfillment, fulfillment comes from 3 things. Fulfillment comes from creation. I have to create something. God planted a different aspect of his creativity inside of all of us. But if I create something and I don't have anybody to enjoy it with, then it feels empty. People who create something— that's why you have people who build multi-billion dollar companies and they're miserable, because they, they alienated themselves from their families and they're disconnected from the people that were put in their life for connection. So you create, but then you connect because your connection gives you somebody to appreciate your creation with. Yeah. And then the last one is contribution. I don't contribute to justify my creation or justify the wealth that comes from my creation. I contribute because I can, and contributing makes me a better person. I contribute because I believe there is no lack and there is no limitation. I contribute because It doesn't cost me anything to contribute even though I'm spending money. I don't have an infinite amount of money, but I have an infinite amount of access to all the money I ever want to make. Like we ate breakfast a little while ago right around the corner at this little place called Eat. I don't know if you've ever eaten there. Eat? No. Yeah. I don't know that. So good.

Oh wait, no, I know which one it is. Yeah, yeah. The food is great. No, no, no. The service is great.

So anyway, I've been there. Yep. Okay. So went around there and so the bill was for me and my, some people on my team, and my granddaughter was with us as well. And so it was 4— there were 4 of us, and it came to $89. And so I pulled out my American Express. She said, "Ah, we don't take American Express." Okay, cool. So I took out some cash. Yeah. And so I gave her a $100 bill. I said, "Here. Okay, well, let me give you some, and you keep the change, but here, here's some more change." And I gave her a $20 bill. She said, "You want me to keep the whole thing?" Well, yeah, I want you to keep the whole thing. And that $30 tip on a $90 meal probably made her day. I'll probably never think about it again in my life. I won't miss it at all. Right. And so, so the contribution, I think, I think one of the Professor Arthur Brooks at Harvard University, you know, on the show.

Yeah.

Okay, great. Brilliant guy, bro. I love that. I love that dude. Anyway, he talks about real friends and deal friends. Right, right. And so we all need more real friends, but we think we need more deal friends. Sense, right? And when you contribute to somebody that can't give you anything in return, we all need those kinds of contributions. Yes. And so I talked about the capacity gap in our identity, but I didn't talk about the capacity gap in our activity. Like, how do you fill the capacity gap in your activity?

You only got 24 hours in a day. That's right. So what do you do? So what do you do?

You do it through ingenuity. What's ingenuity? You find a more efficient approach. We live in the most amazing time in human history. Exactly. AI agents. Like, what? We used to have to have automation as one thing and delegation as another thing. Now we have automation that can be delegation, and they have both. And the people that we delegate can have automation and delegate. It's like we literally have the ability to compound our results at levels that right now we can't even imagine. So we find a new approach. And then lastly, we increase our property gap with intensity. And what I mean by intensity— focus— is that increasing the velocity of our investing. For me, the reason I hyperfocus on investing is because one of my desires is to never, ever, ever, ever, ever again in my family's genealogy from me forward to ever have anybody who starts from scratch. So I'm intentionally investing the wealth for my granddaughter and her children and their children and their children. So when they start, they start with a foundation. And I know people believe that if you have money and you raise your children in a wealthy, abundant experience, that'll ruin them. That's not what ruined them. Ruins them. What ruins them is not teaching them while you're raising them and giving them money. Yes, right. Give them opportunities to learn, earn money. My daughter is a brilliant, brilliant business person. My son's a brilliant, brilliant business person. They're brilliant in their own right. They're brilliant. They're both more brilliant than I am in so many ways. They can do stuff I don't have any idea how to do. But it's because when they were kids, I didn't give them money. I heard one of my kids say one time, We're rich. I said, y'all ain't rich. I'm rich. Me and your mom are rich. Y'all ain't rich. Y'all just are privileged to live with two rich people. Yeah, right. But the fact that we— I gave them opportunities. And you know what? You know, you haven't experienced this yet because your children are still young, but like from age 14 to about 28, you become an idiot. Like, you won't know anything. They will think you are the biggest dodo head that they've ever met.

You're the smartest guy ever. And then you're the biggest idiot.

And then you become the biggest idiot. And then when they turn 28, you're the smartest guy ever again. You even become smarter than people who they used to use to make you feel like you're an idiot. Right? And it's mind-blowing that my kids, my son or my daughter, neither one of them wanted to work with me for a while. They wanted to go do their own thing. I'm like, hey, great, go do your own thing. And then they both came and started working with the business and the business started growing even more. And now they're— I mean, they have their own stuff, but they also work in the business and in our family business. And it's just— it's an amazing thing. It's a family business is an amazing thing.

That's cool. If you've taught them the right way, if you taught them the right way, if they're greedy and if they're this. Yeah. Yeah.

And my, both my son and my daughter are very frugal and very smart. Very smart with their money. Yeah.

What is the specific identity that most people need to let go of or allow to die before they can step into true abundance or wealth?

Anything that takes God's name in vain. I bet you weren't expecting that answer, were you? No. So what does that mean? So, so what does vain mean? It means empty. It means waste. Moses asked God when God told him to go to Pharaoh and tell him, "I said, 'Let my people go.'" He said, "Who shall I say has sent me?" God said, "Tell him that I AM THAT I AM has sent thee." What does that mean? Every time you say, "I am not," I'm not smart, I'm not rich, I'm not good enough, I'm not talented. Every time you emphasize your I am nots, you're taking God's name in vain because you're saying I am. Think about it. Think about I am. I am. Is that a past, present, or future statement?

I am. It's a now.

That's a present. That's a now. Okay, cool. Just want to make sure we're on the same page. It's in this moment. It's in this moment. It's your being. Exactly. It's your beingness. So here's what's really fascinating.

I was experiencing this is different.

And I'm going to, but that's not the same thing as I am. Okay, so watch this. In the realm of time, we don't really have the ability to experience the present because as soon as I say now, it becomes then.

Or it becomes the past.

Right, exactly. It becomes the past. That's what I mean. As soon as I say now, it becomes then. So it doesn't matter how fast I say now, it turns into then. Right? As soon as the W gets out of my mouth, it becomes that. Okay. Okay. But in eternity, there's no such thing as the past or the future. There's only the present. That's why God is the I Am That I Am, not the I Was That I Was or the I Will Be That I Will Be. Because God is the forever I Am because he lives in the forever now, which is what eternity is. So every time you say, "I am not," you are taking your limitation of not and infusing it with the power of eternity. No wonder you're stuck.

So how does someone learn how to remove the belief that I am not good at something, or I am not beautiful, or I'm not talented, I'm not smart? How do they, when all they see and feel and experience and know around them is that they are not, like their environment, their friends, their situation is reminding them they are lacking.

If they're watching the show, they're already shifting.

Yeah, of course. Right.

Because they're becoming aware of the fact that there's more than they've been aware of in the past. You have exposure, like constant, intense, perpetual exposure to anything shapes you. People who perpetually watch the news are negative because the news is perpetually negative. Yes. I don't watch the news. I don't either. I don't, but I don't need to. People say, well, how will you know what's going on in the world?

How will you know what's going on around the world?

Well, can I ask you a better question than how will I know what's going on in the world? If I can't fix what's going on in my world, what am I going to do about the problems in the world? Amen. People are so focused on stuff that's going on around the world. You can't even pay your light bill. Why would somebody listen to you about a world problem? So that's question number one. But then again, like you said, we're surrounded by negative people. If something negative is going on in the world, we will find out about it. We are surrounded by people who are— who have a media negative news umbilical cord. And it doesn't matter whether it's consistently negative news, CNN, or slice of Fox News or always been critical news, ABC. They're all bad. Why would I want to fill my mind with problems? Like, people don't even understand how much of an energy suck that is. If I fill my mind with problems I can't solve, I don't have any energy left to solve the problems I can. And so you don't realize, and if all I do is watch other people, all I do is watch other people win vicariously. And like, we didn't— when I was broke, we, we didn't have a television. My daughter was 16, we got our first cable TV in our house. Wow. As it— why? Because I'm not going to watch other people live their dreams while I'm living a nightmare. Why would I want to watch somebody else win and I'm losing? That doesn't make any sense. I'm cheering for them. My team won. Your team does not know you exist. Right? My favorite movie's on. It may be your favorite movie, but you're not their favorite person watching. They don't even know you exist. Like, it's a distraction. Most people anesthetize themselves from their unwillingness to yield to becoming the person they can be by watching other people win. It's not worth it.

Yeah. For years I didn't have a TV as well when I was like just getting into the business And it's funny because my dad would never let us watch the news and he would always turn the commercials off or he would turn it on silent so we couldn't hear the programming of commercials that were around medical problems, disease, like, and medication. Because most of the commercials, probably, I don't know, 40, 50% around healthcare medications, right? Sick care that they call healthcare. Exactly. And so it was just always programmed. Programming. If you have this, when you have this, look out for this symptom, and here's what this drug will do for you to help heal you. And my dad always turned it off because he was like, it's just programming you.

Well, that's why they're called television programs, because they program you. That's why it's called broadcasting. They're broadly casting a spell on everybody.

Yeah. And I think it's funny because I did an interview, I don't know, maybe 8 years ago with a pretty big political figure. And, and I normally don't do political figures, but we weren't talking about politics. It was more of a life story. And this person was actually running for president one day. And I was like, yeah, I don't watch the news. And they got kind of upset at me. They were like, you're doing a disservice by not being aware of what's happening and not watching the news. It was very like almost a make wrong. And I was kind of like, I can still get informed of what's happening in the world without watching fear-based news or programming that is keeping me tied to the TV, being worried about my life. Right, exactly.

It doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. You're like manufacturing anxiety. Yes. Which is the anxiety is the thief of your dreams. Why would I want to manufacture anxiety when I can manufacture anticipation instead?

Exactly. You can't be creative when you're living in fear necessarily. You know, it's so much harder. So I got a couple of final questions for you. This has been awesome. Do your thing, bro. If money is a byproduct of value. Yes. And offering value and providing value to someone. Sure. What do most entrepreneurs completely misunderstand about creating real value? Value.

They create what's valuable to them instead of what's valuable to the marketplace. I would say if you're going to build a really successful business, it has to start out there. It can't start in here. You can't write the book you've always wanted to write. You have to write the book the marketplace has always wanted to read. You can't start the business and invent the product you've always wanted to invent. You have to invent the product the marketplace has always been screaming for. The people want. Want. Exactly. The thing that people desire. The two things that will make our life complete, I believe, pleasing God, serving people. You cannot lose in those two arenas.

Not serving God and pleasing people? No, definitely not.

Why? Because I was created to please God, because he created everything to please him. And God created me for the purpose of serving other human beings. In fact, Jesus said to those religious leaders, he said, here's what you did: I was sick, you didn't visit me. I was in prison, I was sick, you didn't minister to me. I was hungry, you didn't feed me. I was thirsty, you didn't give me anything to drink. I was in prison, you didn't visit They said, when did we see all these things? He said, inasmuch as you've done it unto the least of these people who have nothing to offer you, you've done it also unto me. How you treat other people is how you treat God. Not because those other people are God, but he put them here for you to serve. And it doesn't matter if it's a cashier at a grocery store who's having a quote, bad day, or if it's a client, or if it's a family member, or if it's some stranger on the street, a homeless person who comes up to your window when you're stopped at a red light. It doesn't matter. I was put here to serve people and I need to discern how am I supposed to serve this person at the highest level while I'm in their presence so that they will know through me that God loves them. It's interesting. The Queen of Sheba came to see Solomon and she asked him a bunch of hard questions because Solomon was a consultant to his contemporaries. That's how he— that's his business model in the Bible is mind-blowing. And so she came to him, she paid him a whole lot of money. Like in today's dollars, it would be like $732 million.

Yeah, it's crazy amount of money, right?

And she was just one of many monarchs that paid him. And so when he got done answering all her questions, here's what she said. Because the Lord loved Israel forever, therefore he made you to be king over Israel. Am I willing to live the kind of life that God can demonstrate his love to people through my existence? That's what I mean when I say serve people.

Yeah. And it doesn't necessarily mean, for those watching, like if there's a homeless person on drugs coming up to you asking for money, then you have to give money. You don't have to do that. No, you don't have to do that.

You can give them something. You can take them, I'll take you over there and buy you something to eat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes if I'm in a hurry and I don't have time to take them and get something to eat, I'll give them money. Because I'm not— I don't know if they're on drugs or not. Maybe they're a disabled vet and they just not— they've not been able to get back on their feet. I don't know. Yeah. But if I feel like I'm— if I feel led, like I'm— if I feel impressed that I should give this person some money, I'm going to give them some money. Yeah. And then I'll let how they used it shake out with them and God later. Like, but I got to do the thing I was put here to do, and that is, please God, serve people.

Wow. If you could only share 3 lessons on wealth creation and abundance. Yes. From all the lessons you know and all the wisdom and all the experience you have, 3 lessons on wealth creation and abundance. What would those lessons be?

I've already shared one. It's easier to make a lot of money in a short period of time than it is to make a little money over a long period of time. Like, literally, I believe that deciding to believe that and then deciding to only look for and look at easier ways to make a lot will change your life. That's one. Time to— this blew my mind. I didn't discover this until 2022. Poor people and middle-class people feel like everything's expensive because they pay for things with money they've exchanged their time for. So they feel like they're paying for everything with their life because they are. Somebody makes $100,000 a year, they buy a $100,000 car. They're asking themselves, is it worth it? Is this car worth a year of my life? They buy $500,000 houses. It's worth 5 years of my life plus interest. Wow. Right. But wealthy creative entrepreneurs, if you want to become wealthy, become a creative entrepreneur. Why? Because we don't pay for things with money we exchange our time for. We pay for things according to our creativity. What does that mean? Notice I didn't say with my creativity. I didn't say from my creativity. I didn't say out of my creativity. Why didn't I say that? Because I paid for it with my creativity. From my creativity or out of my creativity, I would have less creativity after I paid for it than I had before I paid for it. But if I pay for it according to my creativity, I can use my creativity to pay for it. And I have no less creativity after I'm done paying for it than I had before I paid for it. For instance, you know, I used to be a trash man. So guess what I did? I wrote a book about my journey and how I went from being the trash man to now becoming the cash man. You know how long ago I wrote that book, Lewis? 20 years ago. Wow. You know what? You know how that book that I worked— this is work I did 20 years ago.

Yeah.

Still makes you money today. Made me how much? You want to know how much money that book made me in the last year? $81,000 from work I did 20 years ago.

Just on the book sales, not on the potential— All the other business stuff that's come from it.

Okay. But I wrote another book 5 years ago in 2021 called Boss Moves. That book in the last year has made me $186,000. So I've made over $260,000 in the last year from work that's 25 years old. Why? Because I've created an offer. See, here's what I mean. A wealthy person uses our— we use our creativity. We create an offer. Offer in that case was a book. The offer then pays for the thing. So if you're exchanging your time for money, you exchange the time, you get the money, you go buy the car, you don't have the time anymore, you don't have the money anymore. You only have the car. Eventually the car becomes worth nothing unless it's a classic. Right. Okay. Watch this. I go into my creativity. I create an asset. I write a book. Do I still have the creativity after I write the book? Yes. I write the book. I sell a book. Do I still have books to sell after I sell the book? Yes. So I still have the— I still have the creativity. I still have the book. I get the money. If I spend the money, I don't have the money anymore. But do I have another book to sell to replace the money? Yes. So the creativity never runs out, the asset never runs out, and the money never runs out. Because if you create the right kind of offer, it's what I call an SRA, a self-replenishing asset. It's one of the greatest wealth lessons I've ever learned in my life. To me, it doesn't matter if I'm buying a pack of Tic Tacs, pack of gum, or breakfast, or flying across the world on a private jet. It all costs the same amount. How can I say it all costs the same amount? Because I pay for all of it the same way. I pay for according to my creativity, anything that I buy, I create an offer to pay for it. And so I turn— I literally turn every expense into a profit center. I just bought a house. The house was $2.4 million, which in California, it's a bungalow.

Yeah. In Tampa, it's a mansion.

Yeah. 70-some-odd, 70-some-odd hundred square feet. Okay, nice. Cool. Yeah. And I, and I like being at home. But guess what? I haven't started my golf YouTube channel yet, but I love golf. Golf, but I'm going to start a golf YouTube channel. Some of it's going to be simulator golf, some of it's going to be golf course golf. Yeah, I believe that golf channel will pay for that house. That's cool. So when I create an asset— so when I moved out of my old house, I didn't sell it. Why didn't you sell it? Well, because we have family coming to town. We have a big family. I want to have some place for them to stay, but it still needs to pay for itself. So we're going to put a podcast studio in it, and my daughter and I are going to start a podcast.

That's cool.

You see what I'm saying? So you— I'm using my creativity. So that's the second one. Here's the last one. Here's the last principle. It's called Price's Law. Are you familiar with Price's Law? I heard Jordan Peterson talk about this. This blew my mind.

Price's Law.

Price's Law. Professor Richard Price discovered this principle that 50% of the production of any domain is produced by the square root of that domain, which sounds like a big scientific formula. Basically what it means is if you have 4 tomato plants in a garden, 2 of the tomato plants will produce half the tomatoes. If you have 4 salespeople on a sales team, 2 of the salespeople will produce half of the sales. But if you increase the square root to 3 from 2, because 2 is the square root of 4, right? 2 is the square root of 4, but it's also half of 4. But if you increase the square root to 3, if you have 9— 3 times 3 is 9. If you have 9 tomato plants, half of the tomatoes are produced by 3 of the plants. If you have 9 people on a sales team, not half anymore. You have 9, Half is created by 3. Half of the commissions are generated by 3 of the salespeople. If you have, let's say that 10 is the square root, 10 times 10 is 100. If you have 100 salespeople on a sales team, 10 of those salespeople will make half the sales, half the commissions.

Wow. Yes. Is this similar to 80/20?

It's similar, but it's very different because it shows you like 80/20 shows you that 80% of your results are produced by 20% of your efforts. This is showing you something Totally different, but in a cool way. I share this with Ben Hardy. It like we became friends immediately, right? So if you go up to $10,000, you got a big insurance company, for instance, like New York Life, 100 times $10,000. That can't be right. 100 salespeople are producing half the sales. If Price's Law is true, that would have to be true. Okay, cool. I'm going to prove it's true for the country. Are you ready? Okay. There are 30 million businesses in the United States of America. The square root of 30 million is 5,477, which means 5,477 businesses are producing half of the gross domestic product in the United States of America.

Might be less. Who knows? You got Apple and Google and you're picking up on that. Exactly.

So what does Price's Law show us? Here's what I believe it shows us. Two things. One, Mediocrity scales exponentially. Excellence only scales incrementally. What does that mean? It means almost everybody is willing to do enough to be one of the mediocre many, but only a very small percentage of people are willing to do what it takes to be one of the fantastic few. Yeah, that's what it means. Mediocrity scales exponentially. Why? Maybe because only a handful of people are willing to pay the price of Price's Law to become one of the fantastic. That's true.

Isn't that mind-blowing? That's true, man. That's interesting.

I know it blew my mind too.

Based on that law then, what do you think separates people who make six figures and only stay at a six-figure level to those that break through that level to seven figures consistently or even eight and beyond?

Month? Yeah, um, well, that's easy. I, I think that one of the things that keeps people from $100,000 a month is $100,000 a year. One thing that keeps people from $500,000 a month is $100,000 a month. What do I mean by that? Like, you get to the place, you think, I'm, I'm there, I'm good, I made it. But I've got news for everybody, and this is a great financial principle: there is no there there. The journey is the there. And so if that's the case, if I become, let's say, a millionaire or a multimillionaire or a decamillionaire, hectamillionaire, if I become that, am I there? I'm not there because the whole purpose of me being is for me to be becoming. And so it's not necessarily all about the money. Robert Allen did me a favor. You know who Robert G. Allen is? Author of Multiple Streams of Income. Okay. Okay. Creating wealth. I was at one of his wealth retreats one time and he asked for a testimonial and I literally had one of his audio programs in my car for probably 6 years. It was called Infopreneuring. I had it in my car for 6 years and I applied a lot of stuff and it helped me make a lot of money. And he asked for a testimony. I'm like, yeah, I used to be a trash man making— I came up on stage, there's 700 people there. I used to be a trash man making, you know, $6.25 an hour. Now I make $30,000 a month. I'm living like a king. He said to me, wow, you're doing really good. Here's what he said to me. He said, you're about to have a breakthrough to the really big money. And I thought, my first thought was, $30,000 a month.

It's not a lot of money already, right?

I thought, did this guy just diss my $30,000 a month in front of 700 people? That was my first thought.

From $6.25 an hour to $30,000 a month.

Right. And then I thought, wait, there's a level where $30,000 a month is not a lot of money. Well, now I have a business where if it does $30,000 a day, it's not a big deal. Deal. Like, and I don't mean $30,000 in a day, I mean $30,000 a day, 365 days a year. That's not a big deal. But if Robert Allen wouldn't have said that to me, that expanded my thinking in ways that inspiring me couldn't, motivating me couldn't. He just said, yeah, you're about to have a breakthrough. You think— basically he said, you think you're doing good, you don't even know what good looks like.

Yeah, it's interesting. I had, I had Grant Cardone on the show a few times back in the day, and I think he was at like, I don't know, $300 million in assets or $500 million or something. And I go, what's holding you back from a billion? And he kind of got like really frustrated. He's like, well, it's just not possible right now. And I was like, well, if it was possible, what would need to happen? Come on now. And he's like, he just kind of getting frustrated. He was like, well, I'd have to do this and this and this, and I have to all these things. And then a year later he comes back and he crossed that billion mark. And I go, why don't you have $5 billion? Like, just, not that you have to, but why not?

What would it take? What's the difference?

He goes, well, now, like, a billion was, that was the number. Like, come on. This is just too unrealistic now. It's like, it's not going to happen. I go, but if it had to happen, what would need to happen in order for that to happen? And he got really frustrated this time. And then he said, you know what? Gosh dang it, Lewis. You know, you always do this to me. And then a year later he came back and he was at $5 billion. And I'm not saying I'm the one who did this, but I was just allowing someone to think differently.

Right. If you challenge somebody who's a fighter. Oh yeah. Right. If you challenge someone who's a fighter, they're going to go, they're going to go prove it. They're going to go figure it out.

Yeah. I'll show you guys. Exactly. Yeah. But it also, you know, and I think we all need someone to challenge us. To just see a different possibility, right? Like, cool, what you've done is great. See past the horizon. And that means you have to make 10 times more to live a good life.

You're living a good life. Living a good life. Yeah. But, but if I could make 10 times more, why wouldn't I? Yeah.

And what would need to happen without you burning out? Right. You having more free time?

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And then the answer goes back to the same thing I said before. Who and how many? The who I serve would have to be different. And how many of those who would be different? Yeah. And most people think I'd need to serve more of a different group. It's actually that you need to serve fewer of a different kind of client.

Give them greater value and charge them more.

Give them greater value and charge them more, or give more of the right ones of them greater value, charge them less, but give them— see, most people, most people, they, people say under-promise and over-deliver. I don't, I hate that. I hate that phrase. Under-promise and over-deliver. Just how about this? Promise big and deliver even bigger. Yeah. Yeah. How about that? And most people, when they think of overdelivering, what they mean is cramming a bunch of junk in there that's useless. So you become overwhelmed. Get more results, right?

Exactly. Make it easier.

More is not better.

Faster is better. Exactly. Exactly. That's powerful, man. What's a question you wish more people would ask you that they don't ask?

You know what's really fascinating to me? Like, I have a lot of friends, like friend friends, like people that I love that are friends of mine and probably as many family members. My mom had like 11 siblings. Siblings in her family. My dad had 6 in his family. Like, I've got a lot of cousins. I've got cousins I haven't even met. Like, first cousins. No, not first cousins. Second cousins I haven't even met. Okay, so cool. I'm shocked that people don't say, hey, Myron, you know, I'd like to do better financially. What do I need to do? I'd happily tell them. I don't know that they'd happily do it, but I'd happily tell them. It blows my mind.

Why do you think people don't ask you that?

It goes back to the very first thing we were talking about. They don't believe it's possible for them. They believe more in their I am nots than their I am. I am, you know, I'm, I'm not the kind of person who could become a millionaire. Really? What does that mean? If people would ask you, somebody like you, to help them. Yeah. And you could.

I'd do it. You'd do it.

If somebody that I care about especially would ask me to help them and I could, of course I would do it. Yeah. I, so, um, I, I, I, I don't know that I wish people, more people would ask me, but I'm fascinated that more people don't. Cause if I had known me when I was a trash man, I'd be asking myself every day, bro, what about this? Because I was asking other wealthy friends of mine. I was asking David Mitchell. I was asking Ben Gunder. I was asking Tony Bowling. I was asking people that I got exposed to questions that could help like break something free in my mind that would help me see myself in their shoes.

And what's the thing you're most proud of that most people don't know about you? Maybe something you don't talk about or something that people aren't aware of?

It would be way easier for me to tell you something— the thing I'm most thankful for than the thing I'm most proud of, because I don't think in those terms generally. What's that? I'm thankful that my children turned out to be really, really amazing people. That's good. I'm thankful that my brothers and I, we all love each other. Like, not tolerate each other, like celebrate each other. I'm thankful that I finally started listening to my kids. My son told me about Bitcoin in 2012 and I discounted it. I'm like, eh, but eventually I finally listened and I don't mine Bitcoin. I don't trade Bitcoin. I don't even buy Bitcoin, but I did something in 2017 that made me a cryptocurrency millionaire since I think April of 2017, I've acquired over 100 Bitcoin, hundreds of Ethereum, and I did it without buying it, trading it, or mining it, which sounds like, well, what did you do? I just created some offers and let people pay me in crypto. And there you go. There you go. So that's fascinating. That's cool. Yeah, that's cool.

I heard online, I can't remember who said this, but some wealthy, like, you know, older billionaire guy when he was asked, what's the key to success or what is your definition of success? And he said, having my adult kids want to spend time with me, not because of my money. Oh, yeah. But just because they want to hang out with me. Yeah, that was success.

There's nothing like it. To have my son and my daughter live in the same city as me, to have— we spend time together. Like, I see my granddaughter 4 or 5 times a week.

That's pretty cool. It's, it's, it's a joy beyond words. If you, you know, now that you know that I'm a father of two twins, two different, you know, twin girls, what are three pieces of advice that you would give me or any new parent on if they could apply these three principles or say these things or teach these things about abundance and wealth to their children, to my kids? On repeat daily, weekly, monthly throughout their childhood development, what 3 things should I be doing to support their mindset around abundance? A couple of things.

Say yes when you can. Make yes your default answer for your children instead of no. Now, when I say yes, I don't mean yes, Dad, give me $100 million. No, that's not what I mean. I mean, hey, can we go do this? Yes. But you need to figure out how we're gonna do X, Y, and Z. Like give them part of responsibility. So before I give you that, let me give you what I've discovered, which the framework for parenting that I wish I had discovered when my children were young. Give it to me. Can I give you that? Yes. There are 4 levels of parenting. 4 is an interesting number because 4 is the number of the earth. There are 4 directions on the earth, north, south, east, and west. There are 4 seasons, winter, spring, summer, and fall. 4 elements, water, fire, earth and wind. So, so 4 is an interesting number. There are 4— oftentimes when we find principles on the earth, they often show like that rule the earthworm, they often show up in 4s. There are 4 levels of value, there's 4 levels of teaching for 4 levels of learning, but there are 4 levels of parenting for 4 stages of child development. The first level is training. That's the first level of parenting, and that's when your children are between the ages of day 1 and 4 years old. You train them. And the purpose of training is to get them to respond appropriately to authority. 0 to 4, it could save their lives. And here's the only response to authority when you're 0 to 4, complete and immediate obedience. You do what I said exactly when I said it, not after I explained to you why, but simply because I said it. Because you are not yet 4 years old. So that's the first stage of child development. So that's training. So for the purpose of getting them to respond properly to your authority. Second stage is teaching. This is the hardest stage of parenting. This is age 5, 6, 7, and 8. This is where you start explaining the reasons behind the rules. What's this phase called? Teaching. Teaching. Training and then teaching. Training is for response. But the purpose of teaching is so they can learn to reason properly, appropriately with truth. And so you teach them the reasons behind the rules so that they will keep the rules for the right reasons when you're not around. So you're teaching them. And then 9, 10, 11, and 12, that's transitioning them. And what does that mean? That's where you are preparing them with life skills by them doing things with you, to you doing that thing with them, to you then watching them do the thing. So you ask them, what are we going to eat for dinner this week? What are we going to eat for breakfast? Okay, what are the ingredients we need to get? And they learn how to make a grocery list and they go to the grocery store and they learn how to find these things and then they come home. And then they help you prepare the meal. Or, and if it's not you, whoever, whatever the things are that you're working on, that your children are working on with you, they are doing it with you. Get your children started working in your business as soon as they are able. Like if that's 2, 3 years old and they're doing modeling or whatever and they're holding your book and you're creating whatever, get your children started in your business, pay them money. For the work they do in your business. And you know, there are tax advantages to all of that and all that. When they— from 7 to 17, I think, is the— used to be the ages. I don't know what it is now. My children are grown. That's the third phase of parenting. Transitioning. Transitioning. And then when Jewish children turn 13— actually, when they turn 12, they get bar mitzvah. Do you know what the bar mitzvah means? No. Bar means son. Mitzvah means law. So bar mitzvah is you're a son of the law. You are now responsible to God for keeping the law for yourself. You're an adult. Wow. At 12? At 12, yes. I was in Israel. I was visiting with my friend Reese, and we were out to dinner with her and her husband. And I said, well, what are your children doing? Oh, they're home with my oldest son. I forgot his name, but they're home with my oldest son. He's 13. He's a man now. That's what she said.

I was reckless at 13. Right.

Well, I'll tell you why that whole phenomenon exists America. But anyway, so, so that's trusting your children because now is when you start trusting them as adults. That doesn't mean, right, right, you give them the keys to the car. Sure, sure. But it means they are thinking like an adult. Do you know that in America before the Great Depression, people would graduate from the 8th grade at 13 and then they would go get a job? I believe it. Right. And more— and they were more literate than a lot of high school graduates and some college graduates are now. So why, why are children in America programmed to remain children until they turn 36? Because some of the business moguls of the past believed in a zero-sum game. And so they set it up in such a way so that they would win at the expense of other people instead of at the empowerment and the betterment of other people. And they realized that there are two classifications of people that you can count on for overconsumption of any product? Addicts and children. So if we can get people addicted, which is why the cigarette companies bought the food companies— crazy— and if we can get people to remain children longer, then we can perpetuate our sales to these people forever.

Crazy. Yeah. What's the fourth phase called? Trusting. Trusting. You can trust them as an adult. Trusting. And that's 13 to— from now on— forever. Yeah. This has been powerful, Myron. I appreciate it. I appreciate everything you've been sharing. This has been a lot of fun. I've got 2 final questions for you before I ask them. I want people to follow you. They can go to myrongolden.com or Myron Golden on Instagram, social media, all these different places as well. You've got some great books. We'll make sure to link them up here as well. Thank you. Where's one place people should go to, to learn more about you or to get access to something?

If you want to learn more about my business teachings, just go to YouTube, look up Myron Golden. Okay. One of my, one of my mottos for creating YouTube content is I never post anything on YouTube that I could not have put in a course and sold. So if I can't sell it, if it's not worth selling, it's not worth posting on YouTube. That's great. Right. And why do I do that? I consider YouTube not to be my free content because it's not free. They have to pay with their attention. I consider it my community service content. This is how I serve people who don't have $375,000 to buy a VIP day from me, who don't have $55,000 to join King Solomon's Court, or $25,000 to buy a 2-day event where I train them on high-ticket sales. So I have my YouTube channel as my community service content. For those of people who want to learn more Bible from me, Bible Study with Myron Golden on YouTube. Those are my two channels that would help them get the most out of those two different aspects, which are really the same aspect, but different aspects of how I teach and what I teach. Love it. Love it.

I want to acknowledge you, Myron, for the content you continue to put out, which is the content I see is really around faith and financial freedom. Yeah, that's the stuff I like seeing you talk about because most people only talk about one or the other, right? They don't blend both of them and make it part of their being.

They've segmented their life. Exactly.

Yeah. And I think you've really leaned into it and you've owned it 100%, not been like, oh, let me shy away from this a little bit or only talk a little bit about faith. It's like, here's the principle I've learned that's helped me become wealthy. Let me just share it with you.

Right.

And blending them, I think, is really cool. And there's not many people doing that. So I acknowledge you for— thank you for using your talents and your gifts to serve people and please God. So I acknowledge you for— thank you for showing up in the ways you do. Thank you. This is a question I ask everyone towards the end called the 3 truths.

Okay.

So imagine hypothetical scenario. You get to live as long as you want in this earth, but it's the last day in this physical realm. Sure. You get to accomplish and create everything you want. It all comes true. But for whatever reason, hypothetically, the last day you have to take all of your content, interviews, books, courses, everything's gone. Hypothetically. Cycle. But on the last day, you get to leave behind 3 lessons, and this is all we would have of your content to remember you by in the world. So all your content is gone except for these 3 final truths that you would share about anything. What would these 3 truths be for you?

One is a video that I did on YouTube about the 23rd Psalm called You Have to Go Through the Valley to Get to the Vision. That'd be one, because everybody's going to face difficulty in their lives. Two would probably be my Boss Moves book, because it's the ultimate guide to scaling any business in 4 moves. We literally show our clients how to scale their business 1,280% in 4 moves. And so I would leave that behind for the business owners. And I think because everybody's going to die and everybody's going to have a loved one who dies, I would probably leave the message that I preached at my son's funeral.

What was the main essence of that message?

That funerals remind us of three things: the brevity of life. Even if you did live to be 300 years old, in the scheme, in the realm of time, it's like a fraction of a second. The brevity of life. The reality of eternity. When we die, we don't cease to exist. We just go to a different place. And most people think the place they're going to go to is going to be determined by if their good works outweigh their bad works, they get to go to a good place. And if their bad works outweigh their good works, they get to go to a bad place. It's not how it works biblically. Which brings me to the third point. Everybody needs a Savior. That's the whole point. It's really interesting that everything in the Bible points to Christ, but everything in human history points to Christ. What year is it? What year is this right now?

2026.

What does 2026 mean? It means 2026 years after our Lord. That's what it means. Anno Domini, after our Lord. Our dates are based on the life of Christ. It's either before him or after him. Why? Because everything points to him. That's beautiful.

Yeah. The final question, Myron, what's your definition of greatness?

Oh, that's easy. Serve other people. You want to be great? Serve the most people. He will be greatest among you. In fact, I did a video on that too called How to Be Great Even If You're Not Good. How can I be great if I'm not good? Easy. Serve more people. Jesus said, who will be greatest among you? Let him be servant of all. Think about it. Who do you want to spend the most time with? Somebody who every time they're around you, they're trying to get something from you, or every time they're around you, they're looking for ways to make your life better. That's greatness. Is not what you think you are. Greatness is what other people see you being as you serve other people. Hmm. Amen.

So, my man, thank you, dude.

Appreciate it. Listen, if you got big dreams, here's what I did. It was hard. If you stick it out, it can happen to you as well. That's the concept of, you know, capitalism that most capitalists today don't know how to sell entrepreneurship like they used to back in the days. Today they're embarrassed. There is shame. We have to be comfortable selling that as well.