Money Principles I Know At 63 But I Wish I Knew At 40

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 the way you've been thinking about money is keeping you from the very life that you're working so hard to build? Listen, if you're in your 30s or 40s and feeling like maybe you're just behind or you're overwhelmed or you're unsure whether the efforts will ever lead to real freedom, this episode's for you. So I'm going to share with you the money principles that I wish I had decades ago. Not just to grow my bank account, but to build that life that is rich. Rich with experiences, rich with memories, rich with meaning.

I've been through four recessions, I've survived cancer. I was a single full time dad raising my son from 6 years old. He's now 35, with two kids of his own. I've built, I've bought, I've sold businesses. And today I get a chance to live financially free. But at 40, I was still figuring it out, you know, so if, if you're somewhere on the path, whether you're 20, 30, 40, 50, feeling behind or uncertain, this is what I tell my 40 year old self. In fact, it's probably what I would tell my 20 and 30 year old self about money, about life, about what really matters. Okay, I don't want to give it to you. So the first thing is this, number one. And these are what I think are money truths. But number one is this money doesn't set you free. Clarity and purpose do.

See, at 40, I believe that freedom came from hitting a certain number. I thought that that was the key. So set that number, set that trajectory and go there. Don't get me wrong, you need to know what your freedom number is. You need to know what it is. But more importantly, you also need to know why. Because after my cancer diagnosis, a lot of things shifted. You know, what mattered wasn't how much I had. What mattered was I wanted a specific life. I wanted life to look a certain way. I wanted choices. I wanted to be able to do things because money actually isn't freedom, but choice is. And this is the thing that I think we, we miss as we start to chase. We get so caught up dogmatically and chasing a number, chasing a number. And we need the number. But what's the sacrifice on the journey to make it happen? See, we need to know what our finish line. And without that clarity, we're going to overwork. Without that clarity, we're going to overextend ourselves. Without that clarity, we're going to. We might affect our, our, our health. Without that clarity, we might affect our relationships. Without that clarity, we might become misers and over save. Without that clarity, we might go the other way and overspend. See.

We need to know the destination so we have the clarity of the path. And this is why when we work with our clients, whether it's in our money, Money machine master plan or in some of our courses, is to specifically start with the vision first, design your life first, then build the money machine around it. Because it makes no sense to build a money machine to, to build a net worth that's going to that need. You think you need $5 million and you find out that all you needed was 2 million. Or you build $5 million and you find out too late that you need 10 million. Okay. The key is to design the life first. Not from the number out, but from the life out. Right. That leads me to number two. Number two is you don't need a fortune, need a system. Okay. I thought that the goal was to hustle until I had enough to, to just keep running, get on that treadmill, that earnings treadmill as I talk about it, and to run and run and run. And that if I ran long enough, I ran hard enough, I ran, ran fast enough, I would get there. But I never, I never defined enough. I didn't know what it was. This goes back to knowing what your clarity is. But the shift came when I stopped trading time for money and started building systems to create income streams. You know, it's the essence of building your money machine to create a predictable income without the daily effort. Because here's what I realized, is that until I was able to separate my ability to earn from the efforts to earn it, I would always be imprisoned by the earnings treadmill. Now, granted, we, we start there doesn't mean we need to stay there. I'm on the earnings treadmill. But now I'm on it because of choice, not because of demands, not because of need. And I, I was able to build this repeatable system that would Allow perform any kind of relentless hustle every time. And so the question is, in your life, do you have a system for earning money? Do you have a system for multiplying the money, for growing the money? Do you have a system for guarding the money? I mean, those are the three pillars of the money machine. Do you have a system that's going to do that? A repeatable system that will operate to allow that to happen?

That's, that's the key. Because having money without a system means that, that the, you don't know what the money's doing. We gotta, we have to know.

What every single dollar that comes into our life is gonna do. And we need to know that beforehand. And the way you do that is you have a vision, a plan, strategy, and a system to make it happen. Okay, that leads me to number three. Your experiences compound faster than interest. Okay? And this is contrary to what a lot of people will say, oh, you know, invest as much as you can. I agree with that. In fact, I think that it's really important. That's part of the premise of some of the things that we do. But not by forsaking the joys of life. Now, it doesn't mean that you just flippantly spend is why when we're building a plan and what I tell my students and the people that I work with is to make sure that you have built into your plan 3 to 4 sustainable, visceral joy points. The things that really matter, not momentary pleasures. Because the best return on investment that I've ever got is time with my son, time with my wife.

Like, like real time presence with my granddaughters.

I don't remember the client call that I skipped, but I do remember the beach walks. I do remember the games. I do remember the travel. I do remember the point where we almost missed getting back on a cruise ship. I do remember trying to figure out where we lost our luggage.

See, early on I was busy building and I was missing living. And that's the thing that I don't want you to do, is that, yes, let's get a plan in place and let's build your wealth. Let's get you financial freedom, but make sure that you don't forsake everything else. Your health, your, your, your well being, your relationships and everything in the process. Because wealth is what you can afford to experience, not just what you can store in your accounts. It is about creating the experiences, the memories that actually matter. If you look back 20 years from now, I mean, you're in those, those golden years and Then you look backward 20 years. What would you wish you made time for? What do you wish you make time for? Now.

Find the space and the place to try to give yourself the gift of those experiences. Because the compounding effect of experiences with the people you love is what's going to give you the richness in life versus just the wealth in the banking. Right? Number four, chasing money is the fastest way to lose it. And I think this comes down to the mental state in which you chase it. Okay? When you're focused on money, money, money, money, it always feels scarce. It's the way I was at the beginning is it felt scarce and I was, I was so focused on the money, the dollar amount, what's my raise, what's this, what's that?

But when I shifted from a money focus to a value focus.

The money flowed. Here's what I mean by this one. I shifted from what value can I give to the world? What value can I give to my clients? What value can I give to my students? What value can I give to my employer? When I focused on value and giving value, money flowed, opportunities flowed. Because we truly are in a value exchange economy. It's value for value. The wealthiest people I know, the wealthiest people I know, they're obsessed with solving problems. And they know that a byproduct of solving the problems is that their wealth will grow. But if they're obsessed at padding their bank accounts instead of solving problems, providing value.

Then that's where you start to hear the, the stories of greed compromising ethics, compromising your values because you're driven by a number versus driven by value. Someone asked me on an interview actually today about how do we move forward in a time for money type of economy. I said, first is to own your value, to own what you bring to the table. What it is to know with conviction that it matters. Money is something that when you cling too tightly to, will run from you. There's a reason they call it cash flow. It needs to flow. Serve first, create value in other people's lives. The people, the saying of, well, do what you love and the money will follow. It's hogwash.

I just said hogwash. But it truly is. It's not. Do, do what you love in the money will follow. Look, I love chocolate. If I ate chocolate, all I'm going to get is a bigger waistline.

Here's the real saying, create value with what you love in someone else's life and the money will follow. It's value. First serve first help people create solutions. Money shows up as a byproduct of your impact. Have bigger impact, have bigger impact. A lot more. Money leads me to number five. Number five is your net worth, is not your self worth? Too many times I see this where people are defining how good they are, who they can be, who they can be with based upon the dollar amount in their account. What is their net worth? Look, I used to look at others myself and wonder why I wasn't further along. I was a cpa. I was doing tax returns. I could see the money people were making. I could see their bal sheets. I knew what they had. I'm going, wow. And I was envious.

And. And yet.

I was looking at them as a person. And some of them were great people. Others, yeah. But here's what I do know. That comparison nearly stole my piece.

And stole my progress because I was so focused on, oh my gosh, they got so much. How did they get there? And I wasn't curious. I didn't come from place of service. All of a sudden, I allowed it to start to define me. True wealth is not. Is not what you see in the bank account. No one sees what's in the bank unless you want to put it on a T shirt, broadcast it out there. But true wealth is waking up, proud of who you are, not just what you own. And when you finally realize that you're not behind that, you're just on your timeline. You take your power back. You don't look at it through the eyes of comparison of what that number is in the bank account because no number in the bank account can validate who you are. Only you can. You're a gift that was put here to live truly into your calling. And it's only for you to live into it. And that's where your self worth comes from, not your network. Okay, number six, who you become is more important than what you accumulate. Similar to number five. But here's what I think is that money didn't just change me.

It didn't change just my life. It changed me as to who I am.

Now. Hear me out on this. And it allowed me to expand the nature of me because I had more choice. It didn't change me in the sense of I went from greedy to being generous or generous to being greedy. I went from being a nice guy to a jerk. At least I hope it didn't. All right. But it changed me in the sense that it required me to refine how I showed up in life, how I navigated challenges, whether there were health challenges, relationship challenges. Work challenges, money challenges. Every season taught me something. As I grew my net worth, as I grew my wealth, I had to become something more to be able to steward it, to be able to possess it in a way, to be able to have earned it. The goal isn't this bigger pile.

Of stuff. What I realized is that the goal was to become better and a better version of myself in the process. And that actually is much more important than the accumulation. Because if I don't become better, if I don't build and become more of who I need to be, then the money will go. It will not stay. See, you're not.

In one sense, you're not building wealth. You're allowing the wealth to build you. And what I. And. And the important thing there is. It doesn't define you, but it forces you to become more. It forces you to step up more. It forces you to come from a place of service, a place of generosity, a place of that. If you don't. I get it. There's a lot of people out there that are greedy, that aren't generous. They're kind of crappy to people. I believe in karma. It'll come their way. All right. You know, unfortunately, number seven, generosity is a wealth strategy. The most generous people I have met are also the most fulfilled and often.

The most successful. Giving multiplies, hoarding, isolates. If you think about it, you. You meet someone that is hoarding things and. And everything, you don't want to be around them if they're trying to claim things and they're. They're. That kind of thing. You remember the kid in the sandbox that just wanted to accumulate the toys in the corner and didn't want to share it with anyone. Don't want to play with him. Okay? The thing is that the more generous you are, the giving of your soul, giving of your heart, giving of your services, giving at that level, giving of your time, mentorship, all that, it always comes back in ways that you can't expect. And I think that those that are living the truly rich life.

One with meaning, one with fulfillment, one that's creating memories, one that is, Is. Is. Is doing that they're generous and that I believe that generosity is a wealth strategy that follows because money flows to those.

It can flow through.

It's a circle number eight. An emergency fund is freedom, not fear. I've heard people say, oh, you know, I'm just gonna throw caution the wind and do that. I'm not afraid of anything. This isn't about being afraid. We have an emergency Fund a peace of mind fund as they call it in my book. Building your money machine. Not because we're scared, because we're smart, because we're strategic. We want to make sure that we are taken care of. We have. I, you know, the three to six month rule I think is too short. In my book, I talk about the nine to 18 months. We do that because it's the smart thing to do. To give you an unshakable foundation to take care of your needs, to take care of your, the people you love, to take care of your missions, your movements, to do the right things. It also gives you the liquidity to take advantage of opportunities when they arise. It also allows you to step away without fear if you need to. Because of health, because of relationships, because of choice.

It's not just about emergencies. It's about empowerment. It's about living on your terms.

Liquidity. Having cash is the ability to say no to bad clients, the ability to say no to bad jobs. The ability to walk away from a deal you don't believe in.

Your emergency fund isn't about fear. It's your freedom fund. It's, it's the thing that's going to allow you to have some choice. Now as the machine builds, you'll have me more choice. But at the very beginning I said there's so much resistance to, well, cash is trash and it's not going to earn much. It's going to be in a high yield cash account. It's going to get, you know, maybe 4%. That's okay. It's not there to build your wealth. It's there to protect your wealth. It's there to protect your well being. It's there to protect your futures. There to give you choice. All right then, number nine. Number nine is, I believe retirement is a myth. Anti retirement. Well, that's the real dream. I never wanted to retire in the traditional sense. I wanted to choose what I do every day. And effectively I've been retired for a decade, okay? Because every day I get a chance to wake up, put my feet on the floor and decide, choose what I do.

I still work, certainly, but not because it's demanded of me. I still work because I find joy in it, because I have a choice.

When you talk about, anti retirement, when you talk about this idea, that means that you're active, you're aligned, you're autonomous, you get choice. The goal in retirement, if you use that term, is not to stop working, it's simply to stop needing to work. We don't build a Life that we want to escape from. We build one that we're excited to live forever. My wife. People say, when are you going to retire? I said, I'm not. I love what I do. I love serving you. I love doing this. I love seeing the light of hope go on in people's eyes, to allow them to see the path to financial freedom, to do the things that they want to do. Because I believe that's what we're put here to do.

At some point, will I slow down? Maybe. But I'm doing what I love with the people I love.

I'm not retiring from something. It leads me to the last one. Money is just a paintbrush. And you, you're the artist. See, at 40, I treated money like it was the masterpiece.

Now I know it's not the masterpiece. It's simply the brush. And I get to be the artist. It is the thing that you use that defines your life, that you get to paint your life. You decide what strokes you use, decide what scenes you want to. You decide what story you want to tell. You decide what brushes to use. You don't worship the tool, but you use it to build a life filled with color, with depth, with legacy. It's something that matters.

Listen, we don't want to live a life that is black and white. And a full bank account and a bankrupt life account.

Is a black and white life. We want that colorful life, that life that's meaningful, that life that's joyous, that life that's. That is fulfilling, that life that is memorable, the life that we were put here to live. And money is the paintbrush that allows you to paint that life. And that is a masterpiece. Now, listen, at 63, I'm not impressed with how much people have saved. And I work with millionaires and billionaires and people just starting out. I care more about how they lived. I care more about how they showed up. I don't wait for things to force change, whether it's your health, whether it's work, whether it's relationships. Don't wait until the kids are gone. Start now. Look at your life. Build your money machine. Yes. But don't forget to live richly, love deeply, to design your days with intention.

Because wealth is simply the fuel. Life is the fire. All right, I hope that this helps. I hope that you start to look at things in a different light and to know what the position, money and wealth is in your life, what really matters. Okay, listen, on this show, I try to do things that are tactical. I try to do things that are life Driven. Because here's what I know. If all I did was give you the tools to build wealth and that's it, and not build life, you'll sit back and say, I got all this money in the bank. I got all this money investments. But I'm missing something. And what is it? I don't want you to miss something because I've done it. I've screwed it up. I've also fixed it. I know the difference. I've been there. I want you there, too. I've watched other people that have crashed and burned and not figured this out. I don't want you to be there. All right, so. So I hope that you found this valuable. I hope that this helps. If this is something that. That made sense, do me a favor. Hit the like button. Hit. Hit the subscribe button. Stay with me on this journey. And you know what? Bring a friend along. Share this with a friend. Let's do this together. All right? I hope I get a chance to see you on your road to your financial freedom. And until I do, always, always strive living life.

Thank you for listening to the Affluent Entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation and to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the Affluent Entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com 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.