0170: Breaking Free from Financial Bondage & Establishing your Financial Future Through Investing with Best Selling Author & CEO of Total Control Financial Damion Lupo

Ea interviews, episode 170.

Inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round.

Seven days a week.

Join Mario Ficcini for today's Expert Authority Effect interview.

We are back with another great episode and I'm excited to share with you.

Damian Lupo, I don't know about you.

But how often do you think about your financial future?

How often do you think about investing?

He's going to be covering all of this and more and how it relates to your business.

Right after I thank our sponsor. How would you like to grow your wealth? Easier than you think with the change you probably don't notice anyhow automatically. That's why I started the compounding interest snowball investing with acorns and advise you do too. Get started simply and easily today at eainterviews.com forward/acorns.

There he is. Ladies and gentlemen, Damian Lupo. Damien, how are you doing today?

I'm awesome, Mario. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Oh, it's my pleasure. I can't wait to hear what you have to share with Expert Authority World because how many people do you feel, in your experience really think about their financial future?

I think most people are reacting to it emotionally, less thinking about it. It's mostly just the fear and the greed that takes over. It's a part of everybody's life because we sit there in this space of just the unknowing and it's a survival space. So. So there's the thinking, but there's a lot more emotion which takes us away from the thinking, which makes us very primal. And then we turn into animals instead of being rational using our frontal lobe. So I don't think there's really anybody that escapes it. Very, very rare that somebody is not thinking about it every day.

Why do you think there is such a fear in it? You know, especially, you know, whether it's business, personal, where does it come from? Because finances affects everyone. But why aren't more people confident with it?

Well, there's a general feeling that we're going to run out of money. That if we don't have enough, that it's a space where if we don't have it, we're going to be homeless, we're going to starve to death. I mean, there's a shift years ago and Ken Honda talked about this in his book and in an interview I listened to recently where when we shifted from rural living into the cities, all of a sudden we had to have money to get food. Because before we grew food and once we shifted to a place where we had to have food and money was required. Then all of a sudden, if we didn't have money, we die. And so there's definitely a focus and that's a very immediate hand to mouth environment or feeling. And then beyond that, there's a general concern and uncertainty around the future because I mean, most of us, if anything, we have this whole stock market plan and that's, that roller coaster is supposed to give us a future. And so I don't think there's a lot of certainty. And that's one of the basic human needs, is to have certainty, especially around money, because we need money to survive. So we go back into like a very reptilian space and we don't really know what to do with it because the system is not really set up to educate us. We just kind of hope and pray and maybe watch a whole bunch of media and it's very confusing. So people are basically just stuck in this panic, fear mode and then other people take advantage of it. So unfortunately, our system is not set up to empower us, it's set up to prey on us.

Now what does that do for an entrepreneur in business who has to deal with money and might not be equipped for it, but they have the greatest idea or the skill set in the world? What do you see as a ripple effect on a personal level coming into business with all of the people you've helped?

Well, here's one thing that I'll point out, that in business as an entrepreneur, you can be the best entrepreneur, you can create a business, but your skill set around being an entrepreneur is very different than being an investor. And, and whether you're an employee or an entrepreneur and then you shift into investing at some point, it's a different, it's a different tool belt that you have to put on. And most of us don't spend any time understanding diversification, risk tolerance. As an entrepreneur, we just go and we, we roll the dice and we hope if it's not black and, or it's not red and, and we end up losing everything. We go, okay, well we try again. With investing, it's a different profile. It's, it's about understanding risk mitigation. It's, it's understanding things like position sizing and really making sure that you have consistency. A lot of people misunderstand what investing is and so they end up becoming speculators. Like our entire system 40 years ago was set up with the whole retirement plans and it really pushed people from being great employees or Great entrepreneurs into a place where they had to be an investor overnight with no training, no skills, and all they did was say, okay, well, I guess I'm going to throw my money into a system that I don't understand, and I hope it works out, but we're totally afraid of it. So it requires us all to say, okay, I'm going to engage and not abdicate responsibility. You can't just say, well, I have a financial advisor. No, what we mostly have is financial people that are selling us stuff. They're not necessarily looking out for our best interests, and some are. Most of them are simply selling their products. And that's fine. They're making a living. But we need to be really conscious and be willing to engage. Otherwise we're going to have a life of total uncertainty and complete panic.

So do you feel that all entrepreneurs should know basic investing, and would you say that investors need to know the side of entrepreneurship for the businesses they're investing in?

I think one has to have the other. I don't think that as an investor you have to be an entrepreneur. I think everybody has to become an investor and understand that. Because ultimately, at some point, if you don't understand that, if you don't understand how to have money working for you and that, that doesn't mean you can't have investments in businesses. So as an entrepreneur, you can use that skill set. But there's a different mindset. There's different things that you have to be able to know how to do and that you have to practice. So everybody has to become an investor. And it's funny, because people say, well, I'm not good with numbers. And then what are you setting yourself up for? You're setting yourself up for a lifetime of uncertainty where people are just going to take advantage of you and you're going to have less options than you would have if you said, I'm committed to my financial future. The goal, Mario, is that people can get to a place where money is not defining them, where we take money out of the equation. Like Forrest Gump said when he made all this money on Apple stock, he said it was just one less thing to think about. And that's exactly what we're trying to get to. But it takes a commitment to designing a life and not having it by default. Most of us have a default life plan where we say it's too complicated. We've been told we're too stupid, and so we sit there and say, okay, well, I guess I just should hand my money over. I see People that are super successful in business doing that, and they say, well, I just. I'm too busy to be bothered. Or it's just. I don't understand it. Well, you don't understand it because the system is rigged to keep you completely confused.

Let's set a reasonable expectation. If someone has no experience in investing right now or. Yeah, let's start with that one. If they have no experience right now or a very minimal. That on the scale of someone seasoned, a seasoned expert like yourself, it might as well be nothing. What is a reasonable expectation? They can say, I'm going to take the next 90 days. 180, you know, a whole year, 12 months. How long do you need before you would say someone is at least equipped to at least know what they're doing and where they're at?

Well, I can tell you that it takes. It takes about a month for somebody to figure out where they're at because you have to get really honest about the numbers and behaviors and look backwards and then you can figure out, okay, where are. Where am I and where am I heading? What's the trajectory? So it's not very hard to figure that one out. What it is, is it's painful to actually acknowledge it because it, like the numbers don't lie. They tell a story. And, and so that's fairly simple. What I can tell you is that it's. It's. There's a process about becoming equipped. And people say, well, what should I invest in? And my answer is always the same. You. And a lot of people say, well, that sounds exhausting. Well, you know, it's exhausting spending your golden years worrying that you're going to run out of money because you don't really have any competency. And I get a lot of people that come to me and they're concerned they're going to run out of money. And I say, okay, are you willing to commit two to three years of going out there, learning, trying things, putting money into different things, and actually getting some scar tissue? And usually people will quit within six to 18 months and it's not enough time. It's not about just learning something. It's not about just going to a seminar and saying, I feel smart. It's about going and learning something and then taking a step to build the muscle. Like you, great analogy is looking at the gym. You can't look at a gym and just focus on a gym without going into the gym and lifting the muscle and sweating and dropping a couple of the plates on your feet. Like there's a process to it. That's how you get strong. And people have to be willing to do that. And you go to the gym, you don't go once and say, I'm done. You go there day after day. And that's the same thing. The question is, how committed are you? It's not how much money you have, it's not how many years. It's literally how committed are you to your own future? And that's the difference. I mean, I started off with negative 6000 and turned that inside of five years into a financial freedom position that my ego then took over and blew up. But it's really a question of are you committed and how committed are you? And then we can talk about the process. But most people aren't committed. They're not willing to give up any type of their time. They'd rather go focus on Netflix and Twinkies. And that's just not going to get it.

Wow, hard hitting right there. And it's the truth. And let's put some numbers to it because that, you know, as if that didn't hit hard enough. I want to really drive the point home because I think it's so important because everyone listening and watching is an entrepreneur. And I know myself. I've told my own clients and audiences, you know, you need to know the numbers. You need to check this stuff out. It's like, how are you planning on getting more leads and profit and helping serving more people if you can't even figure this out or you're going backwards? One of the things I've said for decades has been when someone goes, well, I don't want to raise my price or I don't think, I think that's too much. It's just a mental block. I go, if you're not around in three to five years to serve them, I can guarantee you the competition's not doing it as well as you do. And it's like the more altruistic they are, it's like the more it seems like they want to be away from it. But if someone does implement this versus doesn't in the golden years, what are we talking in the term of numbers in their bank account to have that financial freedom over the long haul?

Well, let's just be really clear. First off, the average 60 year old has about $60,000 in retirement accounts. I mean, the median number is around 60. That means half people have less than that, half people have more of it, more than that. So in relative terms, what does that mean? It means most people are in deep trouble that they don't have the money to go out there and just pile it into an annuity and live into their golden years with lots of options. So what do we do? Well, we ask a question. How committed am I going to be when we're talking about your commitment level? If you're willing to commit to go out and learn how to invest, I can take anybody with a second grade education, and this is not a joke or an exaggeration, I can take you with a second grade education and in five years take you from zero to financially free. And what does that mean? It means that you're at a place where you don't have to wonder whether or not you're going to survive. It means that you're going to learn the skills, the tools, and you're going to have the experience over those five years to get yourself to a point. One, where you're going to have income coming in that's going to keep coming in the rest of your life, and two, if that income went away because something happened, you'd have the intelligence and the experience and the scar tissue to actually be able to go out and redo it. The biggest problem, Mario, is that people don't have the experience. So if you're listening right now or watching and you say, well, you know, I've got a couple million dollars, I don't have any experience, how confident are you? This is what happens to lottery winners. They have a bunch of money, but they don't have any experience. So if I were to hand somebody an apartment building right now that was kicking off $10,000 a month, and they had never done anything, never really done due diligence, hadn't gone through the process, they're going to be scared to death because if that thing ever went away, they'd have no idea how to do it. When I lost my $20 million portfolio, I. I knew how to do it. So I can go do it again if I want to. So it didn't matter so much that I lost it. It mattered that I did it and went through it. And that's the thing that we have to be willing to do. Are you willing to spend those five years? And if you're not, there's nothing that can be done for you because nobody's going to be able to do it for you.

I like it. When you had the gym analogy. You got to put in the work.

It is work. It's a four letter word that most people don't want to do. The reality, though is that it's an option. If you're in America at the moment, there's an option. I, I mean, there are some places where there's simply not an option. I've been all over the world and some of the people that I meet will tell me that they're great entrepreneurs, they're hustling, and they simply don't have an option because their countries and the politics don't allow it. In the United States, if you're broke, it's because you generally have chosen to be broke. And if you're poor, poor is a mindset, Poor is a spirit. If you're poor and you, and you're going to stay there, you're choosing it. And people will say, well, I'm from the wrong part of town. And I go, you know what? Most people aren't. And the people that are, sometimes they make a choice and sometimes they don't, but either way, they have the control to choose. And it's really fascinating to see people become victims. There's a question of how responsible are you? This is the ultimate differentiator between financial freedom and financial, just poverty. It's, are you responsible for everything in your life? And you say, well, I was born into the hood, or I was born, I was born in lower middle class, if that. Where the messaging I got as a kid was, we don't have enough money for the house payment, let alone food and so clothes, forget it. Like, here's a hundred bucks for the year. Like, that is our budget. And I got that messaging so we didn't have great wealth. And so I had to choose. Do I want to take that and say, that's the reality, or do I want to say, I can go create something? We're humans. We have this power to choose. Great book, by the way, the Greatest Power by J. Martin Coe. And it's the ability for us to make decisions and not say, okay, well, my history is my future. Most people that say, well, I've started here and I've got to be here, you're just choosing to be a victim. You're blaming your environment or your situation, and unfortunately you're going to be stuck until you take responsibility and say, if it's going to be, it's up to me. Like, that is the mantra you have to have if you're going to change your life.

That is a good mindset to have and to live by. Because, you know, no matter if you had a lot of money growing up or none, everyone has their own personal circumstances and differences and you have that Choice, like you were saying, you know, I found that if you look at a lot of entrepreneurs and people who have become successful, they had harder times growing up because the more successful they were or the parents were successful early on and they're more complacent and comfortable their life was. There was no real, you know, if they built a cool business, great. If they didn't, they're kind of okay. When it's a matter of life and death or food or not, like you said, that thing starts kicking some things in, you know, kick you into gear.

It's true. I remember as a kid being a little bit envious of these kids. A couple twins, they both had brand new trucks. When they turned 16 years old, I thought, that's really cool. And I was out there hustling. I had a paper route where I was up seven days a week at 3 o' clock in the morning. I mean, my senior year in high school, I was doing that kind of stuff. Whereas other kids were entitled. And I guarantee you they have not gone anywhere. So I don't know that it being entitled or having this super successful or rich childhood isn't necessarily a good thing. And so somebody says, well, I've always been in the hood or whatever, the environment was good, you know what, you want to stay there. And you know, we really do have this power and it's, we just give it away. The greatest sin I think any of us make is that we don't live up to our potential because we give up on ourselves. And it's, it's really sad to see people that have just said, okay, well it's just not going to be like, you've got one choice. What are you just going to say, okay, I'm going to die? I mean, give me a break. It's so sad to see people and then complaining and then watching the news, obsessed over the negativity. Instead of saying, okay, like you said earlier, are you going to go charge more? Are you going to serve more? I mean, the questions we ask define our lives. And the questions, how can you serve people better, become better? Don't ask, don't say, well, I need an opportunity. Create the damn opportunity. You know, like go out there and do something. If you go out, there's a, there's a really simple way to become a billionaire. You go figure out what people need, you go get it and then you bring it to them. Like it, it's not hard. And people need stuff all the time, like in every aspect of, of society, in our lives. And there's people that are in pain. So how do you, how do you fix people? You find ways to give them aspirin in whatever way it is. It's an unlimited opportunity. There is no limit unless you create that. And so it's really a choice.

Yeah, ease that suffering or eliminate it completely.

That's all you are. You're like human aspirin for somebody's thing. Whether you're making pencils or penicillin or whatever you're doing there, there's something that you're doing that's helping somebody else. If you think about that and what your role is, it's like the person. I love this story where you, you look at people that are moving bricks around and maybe they're building something. You ask three different people what they're doing. One of them says, well, I'm, I'm moving bricks around. The other one says, well, well, I'm building a building. The other one says, I am helping people connect with their creator because they're building a church or cathedral or synagogue. And it's really fascinating to see how people have a perspective on what their work is. And if you fall in love with the work, the first person has a totally different perspective than the third one. The third one's on a mission. And when we find a way to connect to a mission, it changes everything because you're asking better questions like how can I serve more? What's important about my work? There's always something important about your work. There's. That's just how it is. And if you say, well, I'm just doing this because I have to, you're basically a slave and you're in prison in your own mind. So the question is, how could you shift that?

There's a great expert authority mindset because one of my favorite quotes is from Helen Keller and it says the only thing, roughly the only thing worse than not being able to see is having sight and no vision.

And so many people, they're just going through the motions and doing whatever. I mean, they might have the best skill set in the world, but they don't see it as a long term thing. I'm just doing a insert blank here. Like you said, I'm just laying bricks versus building a business versus changing lives.

Well, one of the keys I talk about this in my book Unicornomics, that to start a business, it's not about saying, I got this cool widget or I've got this great service and I'm going to go help people with it. It's really asking how are you going to transform lives and change the world? And the world is. Is changed one person at a time or one thing at a time. Maybe it's an animal. Whatever it is that you're doing, it's the work. And so when, when I looked at my mission a number of years ago, after I lost everything and had to start over, I said, okay, what is my mission? Because I didn't have one before. My mission was just more money. And that is not a good enough mission. I mean, it's just not. We're not meant to chase money. Money is a side effect. And if you're focused on something that matters. And my mission and the company's mission and my team's mission is to break a million people's shackles, their financial shackles, get them out of bondage. Our bondage is self imposed. It is absolutely something that we choose every day or we choose to break it. And so we're part of that mission. So what we do is we ask the question, how are we helping break those shackles today? And how can we do it better? How can we do it more? So when somebody calls us and they're mad or they're frustrated, the question is, how can I help you break your shackles? Because this isn't about me. This is about something happening in your life. It changes when you have a mission. It's really different than just saying, oh boy, I've got somebody upset or I rate or I've got to go to work. Like, the mission pulls you.

Wow, you're hitting home here for me also, because when I. And I thank you because when I started the show, I had actually helped probably about a dozen people with their own shows. I've always had a team. I've always helped businesses and you know, I've always been. Started my first business at 12, but I never started my show until I started my show and everyone asked me. I had done literally 3,000 plus Facebook Lives videos, this and that, and everyone goes, I love your show. I go, I don't have a show. I don't have a show. I don't have a show. And one day I just changed the label on the screen and I was joking around about it and I still have the videos to prove it. And then I go, oh my gosh. And when I started expert authority effect interviews here, it was after I lost my dad in April of 2017 and I was just like, I felt lost. And I was in church and the message was, how are you honoring God in your work? And I was just like, no, are you? And I'm like, maybe, kinda, mostly. But like you said, if you get real, the answer was no, not really. Not as well as I could. And it was always like, you know, on my idea list or this and that. And then it hit me, and I was like, I have to do this. I'm gonna launch it. And the mission of the show is to exponentially elevate the identity of humanity.

It's not a podcast for me. It's not a whatever. It's not a microphone. Those are all just the byproducts of it. So when you're talking about that, I really thank you for bringing that up and letting expert authority world know, because.

I'm one of them, and you're speaking right to me too.

That's awesome. You're talking about finding something to be inspired by and not attached to. A lot of times we get really attached to the thing or the tool and we get stuck on it. And.

Instead of being open to the right thing, we focus on doing things right versus the right thing. And it's very, very destructive when we get attached because we get blinded, we get into tunnel vision, and we're not seeing what's going on. And then we get flanked, we get crushed. So the question is, how aware are you? And usually the reason we're not aware is because we're so tense. We're so much in fear, or we're so obsessed, and our ego takes over, and then we don't see anything other than that one thing, and we get. We get a little nutty about that. So if you can start relaxing and release the tension, then all of a sudden, you start to feel your environment. You start to connect with things all around you, not just a straight line ahead. It really does change things. The conflict and the tension really screws everybody up because we get so obsessed about whatever or in so much fear that we lose track of everything that's actually happening, the reality of what's happening. And usually it's a fear thing that ties us down the most. But the greed can do the same thing. For me, the greed made me really, really stupid because I made way too much money way too fast. And then I said, well, I'm 10ft tall and bulletproof. I'm invincible. And the universe had other ideas. It literally flattened me with a freight train. And I said, oh, guess not. And so it really changes the perspective when you're so attached to something. So the question is, how attached are you to something that's beyond a mission? Or not a mission, your own hedonistic tendencies or just the way it has to be. I think that's one of the things that screws us up a lot is we think that it has to be a certain way. Well, every tech entrepreneur in the world, in every garage around the world or in a village or wherever, is thinking about ways to disrupt the things that you think are certain going forward. So question is, how much can you pivot? How open can you be to adjust? And that's, that's what's really going to create wealth, it's going to create survival. If you're attached to something, you're dead in your tracks.

What would you say is the. Been the greatest blessing from everything you went through that's helped you now that you can look back in hindsight and go, here's why it really happened.

So losing 20 million bucks and, and then spending a couple years getting to the point where I realized that was 100% me. It wasn't the economy, it wasn't the Great Recession. It wasn't somebody in office that was president. It wasn't anything except for me. It wasn't my mom's fault. Like, I hear people saying, well, you know, my mom beat me or my dad did this. And I'm like, you know what we're going to do with that? And so when I took the full responsibility for it and I've had bad partners, I've had great partners, and there's always a reason, there's always an excuse. And the moment that I shifted and said, this is, this is me, then I had the ability to change things. And I said, okay, well, what can I, what, what am I going to start with? I'm going to start with, this is for other people. And it's a, there's a zig Ziglar saying that if you, you can have anything you want in the world as long as you, you can, if you help enough people get what they want, you can have anything you want. And what happens is you keep helping people and that becomes your focus and the other stuff just sort of happens and you stop thinking about it and your focus creates all sorts of providence. And that was the big shift. How can I figure out, like, I wake up at three o' clock in the morning reading tax code to try to figure out how I can help more people get freer. And it's because that pulls me. It's like a north star. It's guiding me and it's for other people. It's not okay. How can I Do something to make more money. The money happens. And the biggest shift is when you go into a place of trust, and people say, well, I have faith. And I say, yeah, but you have faith, but you don't really trust. It's like the Indiana Jones scene where he has to walk across the big gap. Yeah. A lot of people have faith, and they would say, I have faith, and then they would not take a step. And the step is where you have the trust. It's where you take action. That's the biggest difference. When you take trust, it's because you've got something that you trust in so deeply that you're willing to let it pull you and you actually don't resist it.

Wow, that's powerful.

Thank you.

And you're making this super easy for me to transition into the transformation, because I can feel it is your mission now. And when you're saying you wake up at 3am to read tax code, who would you say is the biggest transformation you've been able or the biggest transformation you've been able to give someone through helping them and serving them?

It's an interesting question, because what I've seen is I've seen people I work with have the biggest transformations where they become so committed to something, and I watch how they're at the ripple effect of other people. So the biggest. I've seen people that have taken control of their financial lives, that are no longer on the Wall street roller coaster. What I've really seen is I've seen teammates. In one. In one particular is my business partner. And I've watched him, and I've known him for decades, and I watched him transform and just own it, own his life, own his family's future. And it's fascinating because I believe we all have these gifts in us. And if somebody just encourages us or they can, you know, if people can borrow confidence of somebody else and somebody believes in them enough. And that's really, I think, what happened with this particular relationship. I just believed in him and trusted him. And for. If you think about that, that's one of the greatest gifts you can give somebody to help them transform is your belief and your confidence and your trust in somebody. Because I think we're all capable of. Sometimes we just don't believe that we're worthy of it.

You're spitting fire here today. Thank you.

I want to ask you about what the people that you're helping, how long is it taking you to see for them to see a change on average?

There's something that George Leonard wrote About in the book mastery. And so there's a couple. There's Robert Greene mastery, and then there's George Leonard. The one I'm talking about is George Leonard's because it's about martial arts, and there's something called the plateau. The plateau is where you're doing something over and over in martial arts. You just do this thing for months and years. Nothing seems to be happening. And then one day you pop and you go, oh, I get it. I got it. And that's where there's a transformation almost at a spiritual level, where something happens and there's a flow. And so sometimes that happens in a matter of months. Usually it's a matter of years. And what happens is most people never have that experience because they don't commit and actually stay in the game. They keep moving into a different line. They're like, okay, I'm doing this thing. I'm doing this thing. And they go, ooh, that thing looks way more fun or way more attractive or whatever. And they keep bouncing and they keep starting over. So I've seen people that have transformed, and I've seen people that thought that they knew everything after a year, year and a half. And I go, you're just getting started. It's the same thing. It's analogous to a black belt. You can see them behind me. I've got four black belts, different arts. And people say, well, that's really cool. I want a black belt. How long does that take? And I go, 15 minutes. Go to Dick's Sporting Goods. It cost you 10 bucks. It's really simple. Or you can become a black belt. And what that means is you've committed to becoming a student. And so what's the transformation? How long does it take? The question is, how deeply are you willing to be a student? I'm a student. I've been investing professionally for two decades, more than that. And I'm learning every day. I'm out there at seminars with people, being humbled, learning, making money, losing money. Like it never ends. It ends when you're dead. And people go, I want to just get there and then be good. And I go, why? The universe only looks at you as taking up space at that point. I mean, are you actually contributing something? And I'm contributing because I'm growing with people. And I think the universe encourages that. It encourages it with everybody. There's just a natural flow to growth or you're dying. Question is, which path are you on? If you think you're just flat and you're good, you're dying. You're not growing anymore. So the only other thing. There is no flat. There's no homeostasis in the universe. It's expanding or contracting. And that's really the position we're all in. So which one are you in?

It's a good point you make, because, you know, there's no neutral.

There is no neutral.

You got to be doing something, you know, and it's.

It's fascinating because if you put a car in neutral and you hit the gas, what happens? You just blow up the car eventually. Like, so you have to pick a gear. And it could be reverse, okay, or it could be first gear or fifth gear or whatever it is. But neutral doesn't do anything. It just wastes a lot of energy. And so if you think about that with your life, you're just wasting energy. If you're in neutral, pick a damn gear, go somewhere, do something, because nobody wants you to sit there. Because really, just you're pushing gas through a system until it blows up or dries up, and then you're done.

And at that point, you probably don't want to be sitting in it when it happens.

That's it.

Always a choice.

It's time for the Wheel of whatever.

And your question is.

Oh, it stopped right here.

What would it take to exponentially elevate the financial literacy of the world?

The one word is responsibility. I mean, the moment somebody or somebody takes responsibility and stops pointing a finger is the. Is the moment everything changes. I mean, that. That one thing. It's not about everybody becoming an investor or an entrepreneur or. Or learning how to YouTube or. It's literally saying, it's my life, it's my responsibility. And it. It's like, if I'm going to eat, maybe I can learn how to grow something. If, you know, it doesn't matter what it is. The question is, how responsible are you? What's your level of responsibility? Ultimate responsibility is ultimate freedom, period. If you're not responsible, you'll never be free because there'll always be somebody that can take it away from you. There's always somebody that can change it. And you never have the ability to say, it's mine. Well, we all choose that. This isn't something that somebody can take from you or give to you. It's really a choice. Viktor Frankl talks about this in his book A Man's Search for Meaning.

I don't think we really get this. Most people are just. They complain. Why would you complain? If you owned 100% of your life, there's nothing to complain about. You just go change it.

Again. More hard hitting. That.

I know people are resonating with it and it has to be said. And I'd say most people don't like to address it. That's why they're where they're at. But hopefully this breaks them free.

Well, here's the thing, Mario, that most people don't want to acknowledge. It's why it's very hard to work with somebody like me or for most people, because I don't mess around. I don't pull punches. We look right at the numbers. And unfortunately, most people don't want to look at the numbers because they tell the truth about what they're doing, what they value their behaviors and who they are. And people say, well, just because I spend money on Dunkin donuts every day doesn't mean I am a certain thing. Yeah, it does. Means you have your self worth and how you look. Your self concept is probably pretty crappy. So the question is, what are your numbers saying about your life? So really only one way to figure out what. What matters to you. Look at your calendar and look at your money. I mean, look at your bank account. Look at your credit card and your time. When you look at those three things, I call it the three Cs. Your calendar, your cash, and your credit. And you can see what you're choosing the other C that tells the story. And then the question is, what do you want to do different? Do you want to carve something out or do you want to be complacent? It's all about C ing your life and choosing again. Another C. Just stay with the C's and everything is really clear. Another C. I mean, it's, you know, it's really fascinating how uncomplicated this is if you're willing to tell the truth. That was the work I did with a guy named Frank Allen back about a decade ago after my meltdown. We spent two years. Every week, we would spend an hour or two and talk about what was true. That was the question. It was the entire basis for the book reinvented life. And the question, what is true? Just kept peeling back layers. First layer to look at is what am I doing? And for most of us, we can figure out what we're doing if we just look at our checking account. And then we go, oh, well, why don't we want to talk about it? Why do we say, oh, I don't want to talk about money? Because we don't want to acknowledge what we're actually Doing, it's embarrassing. And so if you want to change your life, you have to own your life. And so just looking at the numbers, you can go, okay, you know What? I spend $2,000 a month on wine. Okay, maybe there's a problem. Maybe I just like really expensive wine. But it really tells you a pretty big story. And I think if we're willing to tell the truth, we can change our lives. If we're not willing to tell the truth, then we're just dead. We're dead in the water. Our lives are going to be the same.

I like that approach. And there was a time about five, six years ago when it was like, yeah, I didn't want to. You know, things are final, just keep running forward. Meanwhile, it's like a black hole internally. But. But I reframed it to be empowering and go, I love this. Because all you have to do is look at the numbers, look at this, look. These are finite things. How much time are you putting into your business? Your friendships, your relationships, your family? Oh, no, I love family. Well, how often do you see them? You're always at the office.

I don't equate that to success either. It's like, maybe financially you're better off, but all the people who are better, better off are nowhere near as well off as, and balanced as most of the people I know through business who prioritize all these other areas. But they're finite. Like you said with the Dunkin Donuts and the wine. It's either an A or B. And the analytical side of me loves that because it's a true or false statement. There's no ambiguous, you know, I'm totally an artist and creative, which can be totally ambiguous. But when it's finite, it's. It's a clear, easy, yes, no move forward or not.

That's the hard question. And it's also the most liberating question. What are you doing? It's, you know, people oftentimes say, well, I want. I want to have. I want to have passive income. And I just want to have. Just tell me the answer. Tell me the answer to my thing. And then I can have money coming in and they don't want to do the work. And I go, okay, so that's like saying, I want to have passive sex with my partner. And it's going to work out. Like, I'm not going to really show up. I'm just going to, like, I just want the sex. Just give me the sex. And then how long is your partner going to stick Around. I just want the food in my garden. And I'm not actually going to go water it, I'm not going to feed it, I'm not going to do anything. How. How much is it going to grow? It's all dead. Partner's gone, money's gone, food is gone. So the question is, what are you engaging in? You're.

And then whose fault is it? Because it's not theirs, right?

It's.

When you own it. And you say, I'm going to choose. It is very binary. Like, I'm going to choose to invest time and energy. I mean, things. What you pay attention to matters, what you pay attention to tends to get. Tends to grow and expand. If you, if you're focusing time and money on something, it's like, why I say, if you're going to, if you want to expand your life, if you want to grow, pay somebody to give you feedback, to be accountable to that has. That's Baller Grayer, more experienced scar tissue than you. You'll tend to pay attention to the things you pay for. If you say, well, I'm just going to read a book, or I'm just going to think about it, or I'm going to do it on my own, you're not going to go nearly as far as. If you say, okay, I'm going to put energy into this and I'm going to be accountable. I'm going to have a pain price. That pain price changes everything where you go, because most of us don't hate our money. And so when you start saying, okay, I'm going to exchange this, I'm going to exchange this for my future because somebody's going to hold me accountable to the thing that I'm more committed to than anything else. That is a huge shift into responsibility. Changes everything.

I agree with that 100% because, you know, it's maybe a good primer, you know, grab the book, have a foundation. So when you're talking to the coach or, you know, mentor, you're at least knowledgeable, and you're not wasting your time or theirs with stuff you could have, you know, been more educated on. But the stuff you pay for, you absolutely do pay attention to. And I'm thinking of things I did five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 and 20. And I'm like, yep, wasn't fun then, but loving it now. Time's going by either way.

It's. It's an amazing transition to. To your point that the things that you do down the road, you're going to be like, I'm really glad there's, there's something that I created a few months ago called a decade by design. Where, where I help people map out the next decade. We're at the beginning of the 2000s and, and there is virtually nothing that you can't create by 2030. If you start now, you start planting the seeds. I mean, if you want an orchard, you want to be a multimillionaire, you want to have a private jet, you want to have a family of 10, like, whatever it is you want, whatever you can dream up, if you're willing to put the seeds in now, you may not actually see anything happening. This is where the trust comes into play because you're out there planting, you know, weeding all this stuff with your life for potentially years. And then what's going to happen is you're going to go, wow, the overnight success story of your life is going to show up at the end of the decade, maybe sooner, and people are going to say, oh, it all happened. And when people say that to me, I laugh. I'm like, did you see the first 10 or 15 or 20 years? That was where all the damn pain was. And now it looks like everything was so easy. And people say, well, I want what you're doing. I go, really? It's like saying, I want to be Arnold Schwarzenegger. Really? You're going to go spend 10 hours a day in the gym for a decade or two? No, you're not willing to do it. Which is why most of us don't have that life or that body. The question is, how much are you willing to commit for how long? Changes everything.

Yeah, the overnight success. I've used the example with actors and actresses and it's like all you have to do is go to IMDb and see the 17 other movies over 8 to 14 years usually, you know. Overnight success, huh?

Yeah, I like that. Like Justin Bieber's thing. I remember there's some videos I saw where he was, I mean, he was doing his thing when he was like three years old. So he showed up as a teenager and made it big. He'd already spent 10 plus years, I mean, just doing this thing. And so it's, it's why there's not really any competition at the top because most people aren't willing to commit long enough to actually get there. They just say, okay, I want it overnight. Well, you know, if it comes overnight, it's going to be gone overnight too, because you're not really planting any roots. It's just like Boom, here it is, there it goes.

And everybody's miserable in the middle.

The middle sucks. The middle is misery. That's what M stands for, misery. You know that the top is terrific. It really is amazing to be up there. It's also kind of lonely sometimes because most people aren't going to join you. Most people, in fact, are going to try to tear you down and pull you back. Because what's happening is when you move up and you start expanding your life, people start to realize that they had a choice and they didn't make that choice. And you're making their choice wrong. And so they think, oh, well, I'm going to keep you here. And it's a very selfish thing. They say, well, I love you. I don't want you to get hurt. No, what they really want to do is they want to keep you close by so they can feel comfortable with their dumb decisions and their mediocrity. That's the big difference. So you have to be willing to say, okay, I'm going to go out there and do it on my own. And if we care about people's judgment more than our life and our potential, then we're going to be stuck in that box hanging out with the crabs.

I was just going to say the crabs in the bucket.

That's another great analogy. All right, now that we're done with the warm up, tell me what you're really thinking.

I'm joking. I'm really thinking that people are just man. That they're just stuck in their own potential and their own, their own blindness. There's people are attached to. I think most people are attached to their past and, and they use the past to justify the future.

And I'd say pleasing everyone, because a lot of people. And I'm, I'm really glad you're talking about this because I agree. And I think over the last five, 10 years, even from trainings and leaderships and stuff like that, people have gotten started softer because of the whole, well, I don't want to upset ABC like anyone, but the reality is, you know, if it was 1889 and you're coming up with the automobile and people are dying in the streets and buildings are getting knocked over and, you know, there's no food or nutrition laws, it was 10 times rougher than it is now, and you had to figure that out. And I think as society progresses and gets better, I'm glad there's a lot of stuff in place now. But at the same point, it was like I was saying, with the grown up if it's like, nothing's really ever hard, there's no sense of urgency. There's no real reason to do it. So I agree. Like, yeah. I mean, when you spend. When you sleep in a car, because it's your only option, you start reevaluating, hey, maybe this isn't so bad, and I should be a little bit more thankful for it.

Sometimes. Unfortunately, we've spent the last at least 20 years, maybe longer, becoming a nation of snowflakes, People that are just literally, like, fluffy, and everything is good and we're used to a trophy. And there's a certain generation that I beat up on a lot because there's a mentality that we're entitled to something. You're not entitled to anything. I mean, I think this idea that somebody is entitled because they're of a certain class or because they live in a certain place. No, the only thing you're entitled to is a fair playing field, and it's up to you to go do something with it. To say, I should be able to have this thing because you have it. Yeah, that's a really great plan. That does not work, and people are just soft. So some of the struggles we've been going through with this thing, this Covid thing and protests and all this kind of stuff, there's a deeper issue of people blaming and not having respect for other people. And there's a compassion and. And there's a connection piece, and then there's a responsibility piece. And you mesh those together, and everything changes. But the moment that as long as we keep blaming other people for stuff and trying to take things or just be entitled to it, I think it's a demise of our society.

It's one of the reasons I've always loved business and entrepreneurship. I started my first one at 12. And I remember very, very, very vividly being in the middle of summer. It's 80 degrees out, and I see my friends going on their beach boats that the parents bought, and I'm thinking, well, where's mine? And I was sitting there cutting lawns, and I'm like, I'm Gonna buy a WaveRunner by next year. And I did, for cash. And I'll never forget that because my parents said, you can have anything. You can buy anything you want as long as you pay for it. And I was like, anything. And that's what I wanted. And same thing with the car and a lot of other stuff. And it taught me that lesson that I've carried through, and it's like, would I have liked to have it, yeah, at the time, but now I'm like, absolutely not. Because it's just one more thing you don't fully appreciate. And I mean, I was 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. And it's why I was saying I love entrepreneurship because anyone can start a business, and whether you know anything about it now or not, you can learn. At some point, you're either going to continue succeeding or not, and it's on no one else but you.

So it didn't work out. Something didn't. You know, you lost everything. Keep going, you can recover of it. Been there, done that, too.

But when don't. It's that personal choice of, you know, am I going to choose? Victim mentality, success mentality, abundance, you know, moving forward, persevering, determination. It's like, at the very least, you're either trying or you're not.

Well, that's it. I mean, Mario, you've got a choice to where you're going to create wealth with the experience. And people say, well, no, the wealth is the money or the wealth is the cash flow or the wealth is my business thriving.

How much are you going to take with you when you pass?

Well, that's the other problem, that you don't win. If you have a bunch of money at the end, that is not winning. I mean, people have been beat into that, that idea. But, you know, to even get to that point, that the question is, how free are you in the process? You can create your freedom, and freedom is based on wealth, and wealth is not money. It's literally about going and doing things and learning and growing. That's the greatest wealth. My friend Robert Kiyosaki and I were talking about this last year, and we were out in Florida, and he said, you know, people think wealth is about having a bunch of cash flow from property, something, and it's not. It's about the experience of going out there and falling on your face and getting up and going and doing something else and keep. And it's the only thing I don't like about the word try is that I think people say it and it gives them an excuse to say, well, I'm going to try. I'm not actually going to commit. So when you commit and you go do things, doesn't mean it's going to work. But I cringe when I hear the word try. Stop trying to do it.

You caught me on that. What I should have said was, just don't give up. Don't do something different. You know, it's like, oh, I Don't. You're right. Because I know a lot of people say, say, oh, I tried that. Well, I did.

Didn't work the first dozen times.

You know, and it does deal with that commitment. He's one of my favorite authors. I've read dozens of his books and those were some of the first ones I read and would recommend to anyone that's starting off or even if you're in the middle somewhere and haven't read. I mean, he's fantastic.

It's amazing to me that I still run into people consistently that have actually not heard of him or not read his books. And I'm thinking he's the number one best selling author in personal development or personal finance of all time. And I go, how do you have you not run into a Purple Tornado book in the last 25 years since he and Kim publish these things? Anybody that's either read them or heard of him, like I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I don't know how many times I've read it now. And all his other books, you know, he's got all these books, 20 some odd books, 30 books. It's the question is, do you think you're done? And a lot of times people say, well, yeah, I read that. I'm like, really? So tell me about it. I'm like, have you internalized it? Have you.

How well are you implementing it?

That's it. It's not about reading a book. It's like, okay, you scraped it. Have you studied the book? Do you understand what the author was saying? Have you applied it? There's more to a book than just zipping through it. People say, well, I've read this many books and you know, it's like, okay, good. What have you done with that?

Yeah, you're not a contestant on Jeopardy. And here's the kicker. How many people have you taught it to?

That's when you learn. That's, that's how you learn what you're doing. You think you know something. That's why I write books, to make sure that I understand it. Sometimes I'm teaching myself whether or not somebody actually reads anything. When I wrote Unicornomics, it was that I wanted to make sure that I was clear. After starting 50 plus companies, I wanted to get really clear with everything that I'd learned up to that point. And there'll be another version of that 20 years from now with more companies and more lessons. Reinvented life was, I just had a decade I do not want to repeat. So let me make sure that I document it. In black and white. So I can say, oh, going down that road again, let's pivot. And also help other people. Because it really does give you something of value to share your life experiences. Because sometimes they're not an example. Sometimes they're a damn warning, like, don't do this. This is a really bad idea. And yet people still go, well, I want to try it. Like, you want to try the pain? It's like, okay, well, you know, go try it. See if it makes you happy. See if you have a different experience. And they go, wow, that was actually. It still hurt, like, yeah, but it's part of being human, too. We can't take everybody else's experience because then what is the human experience? It's still experience. But the question is, do you want to do the same things, the same mistakes as other people, or do you want to have some new ones that you can write your own book on, you can teach? I think there's plenty of experiences, plenty of mistakes. We don't have to make the same dang ones as everybody else. I think that's stupid.

Yeah. The definition of insanity, doing it over and over again, expecting different results.

I don't know how people could go a day, a week, a year, let alone a decade just running the hamster wheel. Or better yet, the rat race, if you will.

So we're gonna thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. Appreciate everything you've shared. I'm going to add in another wheel of whatever.

Have you ever played cash flow 111 with Robert and Kim?

I have. I've played with them. And in the middle of the Caribbean, we played together, and, yeah, absolutely.

That's freaking cool. Who won?

It wasn't really about who won. It was about who had the deepest kapow moments. And it's. It's fascinating playing with. With people, because I learned more playing with people from them than I do about, you know, if I. You know, you can get out of the rat race in 15 minutes pretty.

Easily, but how do you get out and can you stay out? And what do you do once you are.

Yeah, and that's. That's the things you learn every single time I played the game hundreds of times. It's. If you haven't played Cash Flow, it may be the best thing that you ever invested in your life. Understand yourself at a deeper level, because you'll play a game and go, oh, my gosh. That's how I am. That's how I operate.

That was one of the first things I Invested in. When I went full time in business in 08, I was like. And at the time it was like Holy crap, 200 bucks. But paying dividends. Still love it.

All right, we're going to thank the sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round.

Invest automatically, save for later and spend today. That's why I love Acorns. I used to think spare change didn't make a difference and saving and investing was an old fashioned manual process. It's not. And it's a game changer. If you're not leveraging compounding interest in your business and life automatically, you're missing out. Acorns not only makes saving and investing easy and automatic, it makes it even more valuable. By investing with diversified portfolios, spare change, extra cash and rounding up everyday transactions, you can even set recurring monthly investments in the amount you desire to make good.

Great.

There is also a debit card option that will continue to help you save and invest even further when you spend plus no minimum balance and overdraft fees. Now for the cherry on top. They have partnered with 250plus companies and brands and growing with their Found Money program to invest back a percentage into your account with the everyday purchases when you shop, two of which you're probably listening to this right now through an Amazon or Apple device. Get started profiting from your everyday life and business simply and easily today@eainterviews.com Acorns Once again, that's eainterviews.com Acorns and we.

Are back with the imperfect action round. Damien, are you ready to take imperfect action every day? Man, love that answer. All right, 60 second responses, rapid fire.

First one, what's the fastest path to the cache?

Focus on one thing is the fastest.

Excellent. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

Waiting for all the lights to go green before they leave the driveway. Not being willing to go out there and run into something or have something run into you. Just go. Take some action. Do something.

Ooh, love that. Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Focus on the relationship and not the transaction. Love on somebody. Ask them not what can I do for you? Ask yourself what am I going to do for them? And then do it without them having to ask. Don't put the burden on somebody else to serve them. Go serve them and then see what happens.

You could do this all day, couldn't you?

This seems like it's beyond effortless. There isn't been anything I've asked so far, and you're just knocking out of the park. Thank you.

All right, we've touched on a few, but we're at the book area. What are some books that have made a big impact on your life?

Well, I mentioned Mastery by George Leonard, and it's because there's a value in pursuing mastery. It's not that you're going to ever get there. It's just, it's a powerful way to approach life where you say, I'm willing to commit. Mastery is a level of commitment. And so that one's huge. And one that I relatively new is called Principles by Ray Dalio. And having principles that guide your life and your business and just who you are is really powerful. When you sit down and ask, who am I? What do I represent? And then making decisions from that instead of saying, well, I'm going to decide whatever I do today based on how I feel, like that is just a recipe for disaster. So having principles and having a commitment is. I think you have to start there, having something that guides you and then actually staying in line without getting in different line every 15 minutes because you're bored.

Great points. You bring up there, the whole shiny object syndrome.

We're a bunch of drunk squirrels chasing shiny nuts. It is a. It's like, it's. It's worse than Covid.

That's hilarious.

And it was around much, much longer. It'll be around much longer than it was around before.

Well, I've thoroughly enjoyed this and I want to know, where would you like everyone to learn more? Because I know Expert Authority World will.

Want to best place to go learn more and hang out is financialunderdogs.com that's the podcast. That's where I live. I mean, I'm fighting against the man against Goliath with you, because I am you. And it's where we go raw, where we get real. We talk numbers, we talk truth. And that's where. That's where the freedom lies. Getting true about where you've been, where you're going, and then pivoting. And so we. That's the conversation that we're having there. Financialunderdogs.com come visit me.

Excellent. Well, thank you very much. And I am excited to learn more myself. You're awesome.

Thanks, Mario. I appreciate that.

Well, Expert Authority World, we have another great episode today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day. God bless.

Why every business needs a book, including yours.

Would you like to save five plus hours with every prospect, Generate more leads.

And profit in your business? Now visit businessbookchecklist.com and learn how you can implement this in your business today.

Spare Change? How's that gonna make a difference? I know that's what I thought before I started investing. With Acorns, throwing change in a jar is not very leverage and time consuming. But what about all the transactions you don't use cash for? You know, like majority, Acorns not only invest your spare change automatically with roundups, it also lets you add a preset amount to each transaction. Regardless, it's pretty inspiring to see how quickly and easily you can end up with a pile of cash instead. A pile of receipts. Get started simply and easily today@eainterviews.com Acorns Once again, that's eainterviews.com Acorns hey, thanks for listening to today's episode.

I hope you got a lot out of it.

I know I sure did. If you haven't done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show. And also be sure to check out eainterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you tomorrow.