13 Habits I Wish I Started In my 40s

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience. Live it is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. What if you could turn back the clock and start some life changing habits? In your 40s, in your 20s, in your 30s, just things that you knew today would transform your life tomorrow. So listen, if you're feeling like you missed the boat on making some important life decisions, you're not alone. We all do. Or maybe you're just curious about how to enrich your life and financial well being as you start to move through life stages and as you age well, this episode's for you. I'm about to guide you through a journey of habits. Habits that aren't all money or health, but about life. About how do you make the most out of things. Now, some of these are habits that I developed later, maybe through mistakes. And some of these are habits that I just happen to have.

It's been said that the quality of our life is a result of the quality of the habits that we've created. But where do our habits come from? They come from observation. They come from unconscious choices. They come from stories we might tell ourselves. We come from education. They come from a lot of things. But here's the thing that I've realized and the thing that I know from years and years of doing what I do and just living my life is that there's some habits that as I reflect, I wish I had earlier in my life. And so in this episode, I'm going to break some of those things down in hopes to give you a glimpse and maybe kind of check your habits and say, do I have this? Does it make sense for me? Is it something that I should be thinking about?

Of these are because of lessons that I've learned, which means that I did some things wrong. Okay, so I'm going to break some things down. We'll start with some life habits. Then we'll get to some financial habits and everything here. And so the first habit is this is I would do more regular doctor visits and checkups. Now, here's why, why I'm saying this, okay? Now I believe that the body is an amazing, amazing mechanism. When you think about how the spleen, spleens and the lungs, lung and the stomach, how does it all work together to allow us to be here, to exist. It's a phenomenal piece of technology, equipment, whatever you want to call it, but it needs to get checked and it needs to make sure that it's working at its optimal level. And so I'm a huge proponent for preventative health care, proactive wellness and those kinds of things. That means regular checkups with doctors, with consultants, with, with people like that. Now this is, this came home to roost with me.

When I was diagnosed with the cancer. Now see, when they found the tumor, they thought it was five and a half centimeters, but it was seven and a half centimeters when they went in there. Now what many people don't know is that prior to that time, I had not seen a doctor in seven years. My wife and I were living 100 miles north of here and then we moved down to the beach. And when we moved down to the beach, I disconnected from those doctors that were 100 miles away. And because I felt good, because I was working out and I was thinking I was taking care of myself, I just didn't go get checked. So I didn't do regular checkups, I didn't do physicals, I didn't see any doctors. And next thing I know, I start to have symptoms. Well, you know, when you start to have symptoms, it's usually far along the journey of some ailment. And lo and behold, I went in, got checked and they find this tumor that turned out to be a 7.5 centimeter tumor that literally could have lost.

My prostate, my kidney, my bladder and my life. Okay, now would the checkups have prevented the cancer? Probably not. But would we have caught it before it got to that life threatening level of seven and a half centimeters? Probably so. And that's, that's where, where I go with this, is that I, I tell some of my friends and my colleagues, I don't care what it is, I want you to go get checked, I want you to just be preventative. And if all I say it's nothing, great, then you have the peace of mind. Okay? And I think that that's important is that I don't want to.

Wait and go. God, I wish I would have gone to a doctor or gone and got some labs. I do my labs regularly. Every six months I get checked. And part of it is I sit back and say, you know, my wife and I will have been married 14 years. And I said, you have not served enough time for me to let you out on probation yet. So that means that I got to make sure that I stick around. All right? And so that's the first thing is I would see doctors more often or nutritionists or wellness practitioners more often to make sure that my body, my health, is operating at a vibrant, optimal level. That's number one. Number two, I would give more hugs.

It sounds odd for me, but.

There is a psychological benefit of giving hugs. Now, I'm not talking about creepy kind of hugs, but, I mean, the people you love, just give them a hug.

Here's why this is important.

Many of you know that I lost my mom. She was 91 years old. I lost her this past year. She had a rough last little while because she was six years, six and a half years on dialysis and everything. We were never a physical family, an affectionate family. I didn't grow in a household where we would say, I love you and hugs. And I think that that's something that is missing, this connection in some families, in some relationships. And so I've had to navigate that and learn with my wife and. And everything, you know, my grandkids. And I just want people to know if I care about you.

It sounds odd, but that's. That's. I. It would be more of a habit, and I wish I would have done a lot of that earlier in my life. Okay. At least. Number three, which kind of along the same lines is I would record conversations with people that mattered. My dad passed away 14 years ago, and my dad and I had this amazing conversation four days before he passed. Now, he wasn't supposed to pass. He was in rehab, and we thought everything was going to be fine, and. And he was going to be released and everything. And so I was gonna. I was going to have him tell me that story and have that conversation again, and then I was going to record it.

And it never happened because he passed away four days later. And there's so many times that I just wish I could hear my dad's voice just one more time. And there's people in your life that matter to you. And with technology today, it's easier than it's ever been. I would sit down with them and have the conversations about your history, your heritage, your. Your past. And you may not appreciate it today, but I promise you, as time goes on, the richness of having that is going to be very important. Like, I look at it and say, I wish that my granddaughters, Emily and Aria would be able to hear my dad's, their great grandfather's voice.

And their great grandmother's voice. They certainly are going to hear mine because I'm all over the Internet. But. But, you know, the crazy thing is that Aria, the young one who just turned two, she will wake up in the morning and say, saba video. And she wants to watch the videos. I would record conversations with the people that matter most to you, deep conversations, so you can memorialize them and have them with you. Okay? Have them sharing a personal anecdote. My mom, she used to cook.

Traditional Mideastern foods. And I wish what I would have done with her is had her one explain how she cooked them, because her recipes were a little. That little. This little bit. So it's like, oh, my God. But what it reminded her of as a child, as growing up and getting family stories in that process. I'm going to do that with my aunt, okay? And so that's number three. Number four, I would not take as much personally. Now, this I'm still working on. All right? Because let's face it, we live in a world with social media and media where there's judgment, there's vitriol. There is from people that don't even matter. You don't even know them. They're hiding behind a keyboard. And yet we start to personalize it as if it's true.

But the mental distress that that causes in our life is horrible. And the fact is that when we spend our time over interpreting what other people's actions are or words mean as personal attacks, it erodes the quality of our life and especially for our youth. We need to be able to have that resilient skin.

To not allow things to be taken so personally, to not misunderstand someone's feedback, to put things in context. If I didn't ask for an opinion or pay for your opinion, and you just want to be a troll on the Internet, guess what? You're getting ignored.

Okay? But it's not that I don't want someone's opinion. I ask you for your opinions. But if it is. If it is just vitriol and hate, there's nothing there for me to listen to. Now, I'm human and I struggle with it at times where I can take it personally, it gets me down and I have to check myself. But as much as I can get a bad comment on a video, literally just the other day, my wife and I are walking the dogs and we stopped at the Starbucks by here that know us and we get our Pup cups for the dogs. We get our coffees and in walks in the the armored car security guy to pick up the cash from Starbucks. And he gets in the van, which we happen to be sitting at a table close to the where the van was parked. And he gets in the van, and then he comes out of the van again and he says, excuse me, his name was Juan. And I said, yes. And he says, are you male Abraham? I said, well, depends. I said, but yes, I am. He says, oh, my God. He says, I watch your videos. And I said, really? And we start to have a conversation. He said, and he says, you've helped me so much. And so we had the conversation. And then he said, God bless you for what you do. Those are the things we need to attach to. Those are the things that we need to connect to. And so those are the kind of the life things. Then I think that we can talk about some money things. So number five on this list would be I would get clear on my financial goals. And I just did an episode on a financial plan, the proper way to do a financial plan, but I get clear on my financial goals rather than allowing the world to define the goals, like the world might would tell us that we should be driving, you know, $200,000 cars, living in mansions, traveling in luxury and all that stuff. But you know what? There's people that don't like that. There's people that want.

The truck and they want to be camping, they want to be hiking. What is it that you want for your life so you can establish financial goals with clarity and direction to make it. Make it real, your financial goals. There's a reason we call this personal finance. This is personal to you. So you get a chance to say, what are my financial goals? Not what my parents wanted, not what my siblings want, not what society wants, but me and getting really clear on that direction and being really clear on that. Earlier on, I didn't have that. I was running a race where I didn't know where the finish line was initially. Okay? And I talk about that in my book building your money machine. And so setting an initial goal and you can move the goal, but being specific and say, what are my financial goals? Do I want to buy a house? Do I want to go on vacations? What kind of life do I want? Because that starts to set in place the journey that you need to create. Okay, which leads to the number six. Number six is I would have been more intentional, get a habit of being more intentional with my spending. There was stuff that I Spent. I remember early on in my career, it was, I was driving home from work on a. It was New Year's Eve day. I was still working in downtown Los Angeles, and I was driving home and first, on some whim, I pulled into a car dealership. So here I am on New Year's Eve day, driving into a car dealership, and I end up buying a car on New Year's Eve day. Now it's a great time to do it because it's the end of the quarter, end of the year, they're trying to make numbers and you can work a deal. And I did. Okay, but. And I love to negotiate, but the bottom line is that wasn't in the plan, that wasn't intentional. It was this emotional spend that I took and bought a depreciating asset that I probably didn't need. Now, I survived it. But the thing is, is that when we're not intentional in spending, there's been many impulsive purchases, momentary pleasures, purchases that we buy because we see it on the Internet. And again, intentional spending becomes the pathway to building a financial life. That makes sense. Having that plan in place to do that.

And people will say, well, are you talking about budgeting? No, I'm talking about permission planning. When we create a plan, we are giving ourselves permission to spend in an intentional way that moves us closer to the goals that we set for ourselves. Okay, so that's number six. Number seven, I would set some specific investing rules. Now, mind you, we need to understand investing. Now, I have a, I have a course that, that I, that I've released called Investing Simplified, where I simplify the things that I do for investing. And if I can build a.

Eight figure portfolio doing simple things, why need complexity? Okay, so what are the specific investing rules? And here's why this is important.

In 2005, I got involved in an investment primarily because I didn't have an investing process like I talk about in my book Building a Money Machine. I didn't have a system and I didn't have rules. I would see an investment, I go, that looks good, and I would jump in. And the challenges, that's what got me caught in an investment in 2005 that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme, wiped out one third of everything I own. And when we don't have investing rules, we will compromise our values, we will compromise our conscience. Because I had the voice inside my head said, this sounds too good to be true. And I didn't check it. We'll compromise our due diligence. The the study and the research we should be doing because they put urgency on us. Oh, it's going to go away. It's going to go away. I need you to. So I have a set of rules and I talk about it in the book and I work with my clients. There is a set of rules. If, if it violates any of those rules, I do not invest in it anymore. The Ponzi scheme and some of my other mistakes gave me a set of rules to invest. By now. Is it possible that I am leaving money on the table and I'm walking away from some good investments because my rules are too tight? Certainly is. And you know what? I'm okay with that because the cost of getting it wrong has been way more than the cost of missing the opportunity, okay? And so I have a tight set of rules that I follow. And you know, it is, it is what I do and I check it off and if it violates a rule, it doesn't, it doesn't become an investment for me. The fact is that we have rules in place to protect us. It's not to protect us today. It's to protect us today, tomorrow, and the future is to protect our legacies, to protect our families, to protect all of that. And so I would have very specific investing rules in place a lot Sooner. Okay? Number eight, I would use Roth IRAs a whole lot more. Okay? Roth IRAs were not usable for me because my income was too high. And, and so, and I didn't really qualify. So I don't being completely transparent, I have no Roth IRA money, okay? That means that all, all of my investments are in tax deferred vehicles and not tax free vehicles, which means that I have a big tax bill down the road, which we're working, we work through and we'll do some things. But imagine for a moment your opportunity to use something that will grow tax free for the rest of your life. Now, it's limited because it's so good. The government will only allow you to put so much in there. But if you are young.

I would use these as much as possible to put as much in there. Because when you start to get older, you can start pulling money out of Roth IRA completely tax free. Look, Peter Thiel gets a whole lot of grief about this, but you know, he's got a billion dollars in a Roth IRA and a lot of people are up in arms saying, saying that's not fair. What do you mean? He worked on the same rules that we did. He was just more strategic and smarter about it because he realized when he was going to buy the stock in PayPal, why not buy it in a Roth IRA? So he put money into the Roth IRA, the Roth IRA invested in PayPal, PayPal grew like crazy.

And now he had this billion dollar stock in his Roth IRA when it sold, and now he's got a billion dollars in there. You and I, and everyone has the opportunity to the same thing. You put money in an ira, you invest it in something, it grows, it's fully tax free. He didn't do anything that none of us, that any of us couldn't do. He just did it sooner. He did it right. Okay. So for me, I would, I would take advantage of Roth IRA's, especially if I'm young, sooner and I talk about this, the structure and in the sequence of when to do it and how to do it in the book. So if you want more detail about that, get my book or go to some of the other videos, because there is a hierarchy to make it happen. But bottom line is I would have focused on Roth IRA's.

Earlier. So, number nine, I would buy my cars for cash. I did a lot of leasing of cars over the years. I did a lot of rolling over the negatives in the lease, the overages in the lease, into the next lease, into the next purchase. A car, unless I am a collector of cars, is a vehicle to get me from point A to point B. It doesn't appreciate, it depreciates.

I'm not going to go and say I'm going to buy a depreciating asset. So I put money into a depreciating asset and then have it continue to go down at the same time. I'm going to pay interest or, or a lease fee on it and everything. I would buy my cars cash and hold them for a longer period of time. And that's what I do now. Okay. I don't do a lot of driving, but we buy our cars cash and we hold them for seven years, you know, and we take care of them. I avoid interest, I avoid monthly payments. I have the freedom to drive as many miles as I want. I'm not worried about lease limitations. I'm not worried about the lease turn ins, I'm not financing cars for 72 months, which is ludicrous. Okay, so that's what I would do. Now, does that mean that I wouldn't be rolling in and out of cars as quickly as I did because I was rolling in and out of cars about every two to three years? Yes, and that would have been a Sound thing to do because I wasted a lot of money rolling in and out of cars. Number 10, I would expand my streams of income sooner. This is an interesting one for me because.

I saw myself initially as a CPA that was valuing businesses, buying and selling businesses, and expert witness and consulting. So that was the way in my mind I thought I had to make money. So I was looking at it saying, the only way I make money is I get a project and I get paid. But in order to get that project, what did I do? I was writing, I was speaking, I was doing workshops.

I was doing all these things.

So I would get the project, the client, and then finally get paid. But I was doing all those things for free. And then it dawned on me. I said, well, wait a second, what would happen.

If I got paid along the journey.

To getting the project? Then all of a sudden I started to, to charge to, to write things, charge to get to speak and charge for the project when I got it. So now all of a sudden I had the same thing that I was doing, but I was getting paid four or five different ways on that journey to get the big project. And then I turned it in and said, how do I leverage it into courses and other things? And now I started building. Now in the book I talk about the five incomes. All of that still required my efforts. And it wasn't until I realized that I. I will never be free until I separate my ability to earn from the efforts to earn it. Now I still travel and speak, I keynote all around the world and everything. I still write, I still have my books and the videos. But I also built the money machine because the money machine is how I now took the money I earned and put it to work for me. And I would have done that sooner because the sooner I can get the income stream is generating that don't require my efforts as much efforts, then the sooner I get myself off the treadmill of earnings and give me some freedom.

So I would have done that earlier. Whether it's side businesses, other endeavors, like I talk about investments and things like that. Okay, number 11. I would have taken more strategic risks. There's a tendency to get comfortable in what you do. And I would have probably taken more risks sooner that would have led to potential opportunities, investments and things in, in my life. Okay.

You know, instead of staying in a job for a decade or, or longer by looking at the possibility of an opportunity to, to. To go to another, another job or the opportunity of possibly doing another.

Joint venture or something like that, is I would have taken more strategic risks. Now I say strategic. In other words, I'm not going to be reckless. I'm going to analyze it. I'm going to due diligence. Does it make sense if I'm doing something with someone? You know, how do you put a partnership together that makes sense and protects you and all that stuff? But it would, I would have had other opportunities. In fact, there was, there was one opportunity that came to me and I, I hesitated and I didn't get into it because I was unsure. And you know, they had, over a, it was a unicorn. They had a unicorn exit over a billion dollar exit. And I could have been part of it. But that, that happens. Okay, that happens. All right. Leads me to number 12. And that's. I would have put myself outside my comfort zone sooner. I would have forced myself to do some things sooner than, than I did. For instance, my first book, the Entrepreneur Solution, that came out in 2015. We hit Barnes and Noble number one, Denver Post. It did really well. Okay.

The challenge is I wrote that book in 2010. It sat, the manuscript sat on the shelf.

For five years until a dear, dear friend of mine put my feet in the fire. And he says, why is that not out? And I was asking to help me with another project, and I told him that I was afraid to put it out because there was so much of me in that book. And he looked at me and says, I'm not going to help you with another project until you put the book out. He put my feet in the fire. Then I put the book out. We sold 16,000 copies in a matter of weeks. 16,000 souls got served. And I was holding on to that, but I was uncomfortable to do it.

And so I would put myself outside my comfort zone sooner and more often to allow me to challenge myself to grow, to challenge myself to do things that will better me, to challenge myself to do that. Whether it's, it's, you know, speaking more, whether it's writing, whether it's taking on a new hobby, something in your life that makes sense. Okay. And then the last one is this. I would have been more directly involved in my investing. At the early years, I did what most people do. I turned it over to an advisor, a broker, and allowed them to control the investments. And I didn't have regular communication. I didn't have the rules. I didn't have any of that. That's a no. No. That's a problem. I am directly involved in my investing. Even though I have an amazing team working with me, they don't make the decisions without me. And we are on the same page working through it. And I think that we all need to be the same way. Be directly involved in your investing. You don't have to be this sophisticated financial planner, but you do need to take into consideration that this is your legacy. This is your financial future. No one's going to love it more than you. And to be fully involved and engaged in it. So those are them. Those are the 13 habits that. That I look back and I go, God, if I would have known those back in my 20s, 30s, or 40s, it would have shifted and changed my life tremendously. Now, mind you, I'm going to be really clear. I have a wonderful life. I have a wonderful wife, I have a wonderful family, and I love what I do. And would I change anything in the past? No, because it created the person I am today. But would it have been cool to have better habits early on? Certainly would have. All right, so I hope that this helps, and I hope that you'll take some of these habits and start to think about them in your life. And in fact, do me a favor. Let me know if 1, 2, 3, 4 of them resonated with you. Which ones are you going to put in your life? Which ones do you think would change and shift things for you? Okay. And then let's get you. Get you to get them in your life. All right, I'd love to hear from you. If you're not already subscribed to the channel, subscribe to the show. And do me a favor, would you share it out? And if you haven't, I'd love to have you leave a review where the podcast is or the show is and where you're listening. It means the world to me. All right, all right, all right, y'. All. I hope to see you on your road to financial freedom and soaring through the skies to the. To your. To your vision of your dreams. And until I do, always, always strive to live a life that I give you. See you in the next one. Thank you for listening to the Affluent Entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the Affluent Entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com forward/group, and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of Building youg Money Machine, where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcast, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright, and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.