Mike Brown teaches his three-step Unbreakable framework—Uncover, Align, Connect—to help high-achievers break self-sabotaging money patterns. He draws on neuroscience to explain why successful people chase chaos, then walks through surfacing your money stories, redefining wealth as freedom of time and relationships, and building accountability systems to rewire your brain around money.
Chapters
We actually feel most alive when everything around us is falling apart. Criticism keeps us alive. No one ever trained me on what to do once I had money. We do not rise to the level of our expectations, but we fall to the level of our training. Every time there was money in my bank account, I would deploy that money as quickly as I possibly could to keep the pressure on so I would keep performing. This was at the core of of what allowed me to be successful. When we look at wealth, we usually start somewhere with money, but we usually end up on freedom. So I define wealth with 4 things: freedom of shit. We work our whole lives to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like, right? If you couldn't do what you're doing now, what would you do? And all he needed was the permission to drop out and live life on his own terms. So if you want me to be that person for you, to give you the permission to live life on your own terms, consider this your invitation. When I was 16 years old, I had a dream. And every decision I made and every action that I took over the next 20 years was singularly focused on achieving that dream. And a little over 2 decades later, my dream came true. I sold my company so I would never have to work again. And I don't know how many of you guys have ever sold a company or achieved something that you've worked on for 20 straight years, but it's the best feeling on the planet. And I was celebrating with my closest friends on a private island off the coast of Croatia, and I was falling in love with the woman who would eventually become the love of my life and my wife. And that night was the single greatest night of sleep of my life. My bank account was full, my mind was finally at ease, and I was free. Two years later, there were days I didn't even want to get out of bed because I was so overwhelmed with stress and anxiety. The day I sold my company, I thought I would never be unhappy again. And here I was, I was losing $100,000 a month, my bank account was quickly dwindling towards zero, and even though I was a multimillionaire on paper, I felt completely broke, and I was scared. But even worse, I was ashamed. I couldn't even look myself in the mirror because I had tasted freedom and I blew it. So what happened? Well, in a former life, I flew F-18s for the Navy. And we had a saying in the fighter squadron, "Criticism keeps us alive." So we would go fly a 90-minute flight. We would plan for an hour and a half. We'd go fly the mission. We'd come back and we would debrief for like 3 to 4 hours. And we wouldn't talk about the things that we did right because that was the standard. We would nitpick every little thing that we did wrong and it was that criticism that kept us alive when we were flying in combat. We had another saying in the fighter squadron which is, "We do not rise to the level of our expectations." but we fall to the level of our training. And the fact is, no one ever trained me on what to do once I had money. So what happened? I had acquired a distressed e-commerce company. It was supposed to be a quick 12-month turnaround. I was going to restructure the debt. I had a new marketing plan. I had a world-class team. I was on fire. I was ready to go. And it was an abject failure. And even worse, I was building this house, my house of my dreams with my fiancée, and our builder was calling us every week with cost overruns and rising material costs, and the bills started stacking up. And what I've been doing for the last 2 years was I was deploying all of my capital into deal after deal after deal, because I thought that's what rich people did. So that's what happened practically. But let's go a level deeper and dig into what was happening behind the scenes. So, naturally I'm gonna fall back on this power of debrief, right? I'm gonna fall back to my training from the fighter squadron. And so I started learning everything I could about personal finance. I hired therapists, I hired coaches, I did psychedelic journeys. I read every book I could get my hands on. And then I started interviewing all the wealthy people that I knew. And from my days investing in oil and gas, I knew a lot of family offices, so I went and sat with those family offices, and I started to learn what rich people actually did versus what I thought they did. And through all of this learning, I created a 3-step process for myself to right the ship that eventually became the underpinnings of The Unbreakable framework. So the first step is uncover. So I needed to dive in to my beliefs and my core drivers and understand why I was making these decisions. Decisions. And when I did that, I found two things. The first is that I was addicted to risk. And to understand why I was addicted to risk, we kind of need to dive into some neuroscience. So what happens when we take a risk and it pays off is our brain is flooded with serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins. Right? It creates this sense of well-being and safety and satisfaction. But the problem is, every time that we take a risk and it pays off, the next time we need to take a bigger risk and have a bigger payoff in order to achieve that same level of well-being and satisfaction. Okay, this is called hedonic adaptation. And this is exactly what was happening to me. So every time I made a bet on a startup or invested in a company and I got money back, I had to write an even bigger check and have an even bigger win just to feel the same. And so I was caught in that cycle. And so when neuroscientists look at the brains of driven personality types, we have a couple of things. Either the D2 or D4 gene and a high level of neuropeptide Y. And what that means in layman's terms is that basically when we are in a stressful situation, one that will elicit a fight or flight response in normal people, we actually go into calm in the chaos. We actually feel most alive when everything around us is falling apart. And this is a very useful evolutionary adaptation, right? This is what allows us to make the hard decisions and be the leaders and build companies, right? Really useful, except for when we're safe. When there is no chaos, we love to throw a wrench into things and create chaos because that's what makes us feel alive. That's what elicits our highest performance. So this is the science of self-sabotage. This is why, when things are going well, we create a new fire so that we can elicit that performance. So that's exactly what I was doing. Every time there was money in my bank account, I would deploy that money as quickly as I possibly could to keep the pressure on so I would keep performing. So that's the first thing I was doing. The second thing— was even deeper and more insidious, and it started a long time before I ever sold my company. When I was growing up, I watched my parents fight every single night. I watched the two people that I cared about the most in the world tear each other apart night after night. And my parents only fought about one thing. Money. Yeah. And so as a child, I made a vow. I made a promise to myself that I would have so much money when I grew up that I would never have to worry about money. And this is a very useful promise that I made to myself, right? This was the core driver of everything I did. 20-year dream from when I was 16 years old till the day I sold my company. This was at the core of what allowed me to be successful. That first part of that statement, "I'm going to have so much money." But the second part, "I'll never have to worry about money." What happened is my child brain equated worrying about money to being responsible with money. So now, if I vetted an investment or, you know, looked at how to manage my money effectively, I was worrying about money. So, I was just so freewheeling. I would invest in anything that came across my desk and it was all driven by this subconscious pattern. And the irony is, is that it served me really well. It allowed me to get to where I was. But then it became a limitation. And that's what happens with our patterns. So now that I knew these two things, I had to start doing the work of rewiring those, and we'll get to that a little bit later. But before that, we're gonna do the second step of the framework— which is align. Align. A-line? Line! Ahh... Okay. Our society tells us that our worth is determined by the number of zeros in our bank account. So I was trying to fill this hole inside of me with money. Newsflash: that doesn't work. So I was solving for the wrong variable, right? Most of us are taught that we just need to get as much money as we possibly can and that's going to make us happy. Well, if that doesn't work, what is it we should be solving for? I would argue that it's fulfillment. Okay, and not happiness. Happiness is a fleeting emotion. Happiness is a trap. Okay, fulfillment is created when we align our actions to our values. Okay, so yesterday Dan said, "Show me your calendar and show me your bank account and I will tell you what you value." So what I wanna do, I wanna turn that on its head. Okay? I wanna determine what I value first, and then I wanna align my bank account and my calendar to serving my values. That's how we create long-term fulfillment. And if we're doing that, if we're truly living in alignment, then money just becomes a byproduct. It becomes a byproduct of solving problems. It becomes a byproduct of serving people. Money becomes a tool for creating the life that we want, right? So when we look at wealth, the first thing I have people do is define what is wealth, and we usually start somewhere with money, right? People start talking about money. But as we collectively define what wealth means, we usually end up on freedom. So I define wealth with 4 things: freedom of time, freedom of health, freedom of relationships, and freedom of mind. Because all the money doesn't matter. All the money in the world does not matter if I'm laying awake at night staring at the ceiling wondering how I'm gonna pay these bills stacking up, right? Or if I'm losing $100,000 a month on a startup. So wealth is freedom. And then once we come up with what our values are and we start to align our actions and our bank account toward creating a life of fulfillment, now, We can get into the tactical. Now we can look at asset classes and balancing our portfolio and what's going to serve our goals, right? But I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret. Most entrepreneurs have no kind of investment plan or investment thesis, right? We just throw a bunch of spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks. And we're always looking to invest in whatever the new hot thing is. You know, one year it was crypto, then it was short-term rentals. And we're always chasing these market trends. We're putting $50K here and $100K here, but there's no cohesive plan. And that's because there can't be a cohesive plan unless we understand what our values are, and then we set goals based on those values, and then we create a wealth plan that serves those values. And now I've created a framework that I can stick to because it makes sense with what I want to achieve. And I didn't understand the value of having a framework until after I sold my company and I was gonna raise a VC fund. And I had an anchor investor in this VC fund who was a very large family office that all of you would know. And I went to my other friend who runs also a multifamily office, and I sat down and I told him my whole investment thesis. And I was expecting this to be an easy win. And at the end, he thanked me for my time and said, "Thanks, but no thanks. We're not gonna invest." And I was shocked. I was like, I have made this guy easily 9 figures in returns with my oil and gas company. Right? So I just kind of expected this quid pro quo, like, why would you not invest with my new fund? "Here's the thing. We don't invest in first-time fund managers. And even though I know you were going to go out and crush it, you're a first-time fund manager and that violates our rules. And the number 1 rule of this family office is that we don't lose money. So, I would rather miss out on the returns that you're going to generate that I'm sure you're going to generate for your investors and sit on the sidelines and we'll invest in your second fund, no problem." That's when I learned the value of having an investment thesis and having the discipline to stick to that investment thesis. Okay, so now that we've aligned our values, I'll tell you another story about the best investment I ever made, and that's my house. So my house, since I closed, has gone up roughly $1 million, which is by no means the best investment for an ROI perspective that I've ever made. So what makes it my best investment to date? It's the ROH, return on happiness. By creating this house, by spending 2 years blood, sweat, and tears dedicated to designing every detail, I wake up every day in such deep gratitude in this beautiful place that I've created for myself and my wife and my family. And it's become a community hub for all kinds of interesting and inspiring people like Dan and Renee, to come visit. It's where I host founder dinners every month. It's created so much joy in my life. And when I was designing it, I envisioned hosting retreats there eventually. So when it was built, I hosted my first retreat. I wouldn't be standing up here today talking to you guys about this had I not hosted that retreat, and I wouldn't have been able to host that retreat unless I built the house. So I have created this entire life that I get to leap out of bed, that I am so excited to work, as a result of this investment. That is what alignment looks like. But what happens when we have this wealth plan and we have created this roadmap that's in alignment with our values and we've dug into our subconscious stories and those fail us. Well, that's where the third step comes in. And that's connect. So once I've gone through these first two, now I need to create systems to make sure that I stay on track. We have two types of systems. We have people and we have processes. So on the process side, I want to plan. I want to know where every dollar is going to go, where it's going to be allocated before it ever hits my bank account. Right, that keeps me from making bad decisions. And then on the people side, I need two teams. So the first team is I need to create a virtual family office. So I'm going to take a page out of the Wealthy People's Playbook and We can build a team of advisors. So they hire, they have all these people on staff to help them make better decisions with their finances. We can do the same thing, right? And this is estate planning, tax planning, trusts, insurance. We can use all of these things to build a moat because it's not about what you make, it's about what you keep, right? So that's the tactical side. But the other team of people is perhaps even more important. So our whole life, we're told to never talk about money. There's 3 things that you don't talk about at the dinner table, right? Religion, politics, and money. And what this allows us to do is allows us to operate in secrecy. And that secrecy— who's ever heard the saying, We work our whole lives to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like, right? The reason we can do that is because no one has insight into our personal finances, right? You guys remember that commercial, the guy's like, "I'm in debt up to my eyeballs," right? We can do that because it's impolite to talk about finances. So the other page out of the family office playbook that we're gonna take is creating a peer board of advisors. Okay, so how many people have a board of advisors for their company? Right? How useful would that board be if they didn't have insight into the company finances? Would they be able to give you any good advice? No, right? Absolutely not. So why wouldn't we do the same thing in our personal life? I told you guys about buying my e-commerce company. If I had called Dan and said, "Here's my personal net worth sheet. Here's all my investments. Here's my liquidity position. Here's the check that I'm about to stroke to buy this company. What do you think?" He would have laughed me out of the room. But I didn't call Dan. And I didn't call Dan 'cause I knew. I knew in my gut. I knew with my whole being that if I had to justify this decision to anybody else on the planet, there's no way they would give me the green light, right? And here's the craziest thing. My coaching business was just starting to take off. I was starting to gain some real traction. I was starting— referrals were starting to pile in and I was honing my craft and really becoming a great coach. And so I bought a failing ecommerce company as a distraction. 'Cause I was afraid. I was afraid of the person I would have to become to be a world-class coach. And distraction is the greatest destroyer of wealth. And on the flip side of that, focus, rinse and repeat, is the most powerful wealth-building strategy on the planet. So that is the foundation of the Unbreakable Wealth Framework. Uncover our money stories to see what's operating in the background keeping us in self-sabotage from making good decisions. Align our wealth plan to our values. Create a framework that serves the life that we want to create. And then connect with a virtual family office and a pure board of advisors to keep us on track, to hold us accountable to the plan that we've created and said, "This is the life I want to create." And normally, that's where I would end the keynote, but instead Dan said, "Hey look, I think these guys wanna go one level deeper." And after talking to you guys, I mean the first night at dinner I sat down and we were in the submarine, right? Diving deep immediately. So we're gonna take it one level deeper and I'm gonna ask you guys, to dive into step 1 here. I'm gonna ask you guys to uncover some of your money stories. And this is why Dan asked you guys to put your cell phones away and stay present here, because this can get uncomfortable. And what happens when we get uncomfortable is we distract ourselves. And so not only is distraction the greatest destroyer of wealth, but distraction is the greatest destroyer of self. Okay, so as something comes up for you and it might start to get uncomfortable, I would just ask you guys to be really curious. Pull on that thread. Find out where this discomfort is coming from. Okay? So I'm gonna ask a single question in two parts, okay? And I'd like you guys to— we're gonna take 3 to 5 minutes here. We're gonna journal on this question. And if nothing comes up immediately, just start writing. Okay, there's something about the power of journaling that if you just start writing, things kind of magically surface. Whatever needs to come out will come out. So here's the question. What is a childhood story that shaped my relationship with money? What is a childhood story that shape my relationship with money? And the second part is how does that show up for me today? Okay. So before we do that, I'm going to give you another one of my childhood stories. And that's where the model comes in. So you heard about my addiction to risk. And you heard about the fact that I was never gonna worry about money. Well, my dad growing up, he loved cars, and we connected over cars. We would go to car meets on the weekend, we would go to car shows, we talked about cars all the time. And when I was 13, my dad drove a 1985 Pontiac Bonneville, and it was brown, and it was hideous, and it was so embarrassing. I hated being dropped off to junior high in this embarrassing car that was brown with rust coloration, and it had thumbtacks in the headliner to keep it from falling down. And I grew up lower middle class in a very wealthy town, and I just could not understand, my 13-year-old brain could not understand why my dad would drive such an embarrassing car. Now, my dad's my hero and I realized the kind of sacrifices he was making to keep food on the table for 5 kids, right? But my 13-year-old brain didn't understand that. So I made another vow. I'm going to have so much money that I'll buy whatever car I want when I grow up. So I got money and I bought a McLaren. And it was really fun because I loved cars my whole life. It's how my dad and I connected, and I really loved buying this car. But the thing is, it wasn't a choice. It was a compulsive behavior that was part of this rapidly deploying capital, right? So here's how we can dissect our money stories. The first thing is we start with awareness, okay? I'm aware that I have this compulsive behavior around buying cars. The second step is insight, okay? So, how do I move from awareness to insight? I ask a really good question. "Oh, okay. I see why I have this compulsive car buying behavior. It's because my dad drove this embarrassing car and I'm trying to right this wrong from my my childhood. And this is a really important step, but this is where people love to get stuck. Okay, this is where people get stuck in therapy. They become insight junkies. We dig and dig and dig in our childhood looking for these patterns and understanding why we operate the way we operate, and it's really gratifying, but all the insight in the world is nothing without action. Okay, if we don't take an action to re-pattern our brain with a better habit, we're gonna just stay stuck in insight. And the more actions we can take, every time we start to re-pattern this, re-pattern our brain with this action, now we can integrate that into our daily life. But the thing about integration is that you'll notice this is a loop, right? It's not an endpoint in integration. Because I believe that we never can truly get rid of or fix our subconscious patterns, right? They just keep showing up and showing up in more insidious and more sneaky ways. So we constantly have to be going back to the awareness step and go, "Okay, hey, where is this showing up in my life yet again?" And the better we get at that, the better we get at moving from integration and then recognizing those patterns, it all becomes about time to kill. Okay, this is a military term, which is how can we decrease that window from once I become aware of this pattern again, how can I move through this cycle and back to the integration place, okay? And what that's about is becoming at choice with our patterns. So it's not about getting rid of our patterns. So I still buy supercars. I love cars. But now before I'm about to go buy a car, I just ask myself, is this compulsive or am I at choice here? Am I making an informed decision or is my old 13-year-old self driving me? Okay, that's being at choice. So I can choose to still keep this pattern. I don't have to get rid of it. And if we look at my other pattern of I'll never worry about money, right, that was a superpower. Saying I wanna have so much money that I'll never have to worry about money, that created all of the success that I have But then it became a limitation. So I can still choose to put on that hat if I want to, but I'm not driven by it without understanding where it's coming from. Okay? So that's the model that we'll use. So now we're gonna give you 5 minutes to journal on those questions, okay? What is a childhood money story that shaped my relationship with money, and where does that show up in my life today? I'm gonna ask you guys to be really, really present for the next half hour or so. And not just for yourselves, not just to stick with your own money story and be curious about what's coming up, right? But really present for the other members in this room because we're gonna be asking them to share some vulnerable parts of themselves and the greatest gift you can give another human is holding space. And giving 100% of your attention to that person. And in return, they'll give you the same thing. So, who would like to share a money story? Yes. Oh yeah, we probably need this.
We help banks make more loans with confidence. So my awareness is there, and from a childhood, it's my mother-in-law, I mean my grandmother. So she went from Spain to Cuba. We all called her abuela. So she was very, very cheap, like crushingly cheap. And I found out later when she died, She was wildly wealthy, but so much so she'd wear the same dress, she wouldn't buy shampoo. And for some reason, unlike my other family members who are also cheap, it just kind of sunk into my DNA. So some people in the family call me squirrel, like you squirrel away money, right? So the result of being squirrel boy would be, as it shows up in business, is hesitant to invest. Short-sighted on investments. Don't look for the next thing because you're like, mm, it's going to cost money to hire that new person to do that new project. So that resistance, it's— I know it. I have the awareness. It's certainly there. It's the overriding. And sometimes I go the other extreme where it's like, oh, I'll get a free cup of coffee and not spend $7 at Starbucks. But I'll go out and buy something hugely expensive and go, eh. So I'm aware of it and I've kind of struggled. I go squirrel mode, then I go to extravagant mode, right? So it's a weird little vibe. I know it, but I still go to the cheap. My reaction is cheap, cheap. I was like, ah. So I find it frustrating. I don't know if that's where you wanna go with that.
[Speaker] Yeah, that's great. So a couple things. Number one is, I hear you when you're like, I'm gonna pass on the Starbucks, and then all of a sudden I'm gonna go out and buy something extravagant. This is a blow-off valve, right? Like, in a system, when we create too much pressure, that pressure has to go somewhere, and it's gonna burst, right? So, you know congruently in your mind you have enough money to buy Starbucks, but every time you deny yourself, it creates pressure, and we just shove that down, we shove that down, and then it explodes in making a bad decision, right? So when you are, when you think about or feel into your grandmother, and what are the feelings that come up when you make a decision to save money or not invest? What comes up for you?
It feels safe. It feels like maybe not the freedom, but not that I'm going to run out of money. So it's more of the fear, like, oh, I feel like I'm going to have more money down the road. More of a safety net.
Yeah. It's perfect because the ultimate human question is, am I safe? Right. So if you think about how our brains evolved, You go back to caveman days, 10,000 years ago, right? We are constantly scanning for threats. We're in a clearing, we got a fire, and we're scanning the tree line to make sure a saber-tooth tiger's not gonna jump out and eat us, right? So our brain evolved to constantly scan for threats. And our brains also became pattern-matching machines. So, I ate the red berries, the berries make me sick, I don't eat red berries, right? And our brains do that in order to keep us safe. That's their number one function. That's the only thing our brains evolved to do. Is keep us safe. So that's where these patterns come from. So for you and your family, safety comes from not spending. [Speaker:BRAD_STONE] Yes. [Speaker:DAVID_PERRY] So it makes sense, right, that your reward centers light up every time you don't spend because your brain goes, "Yeah, this is how we stay safe." Right? So— to action, here's a 3-step action that I love, specifically for these safety stories. So what we can all do, anytime we notice that this, maybe I have a potential to make an investment in the business, and I kinda know it's the right thing to do, but I feel this safety thing start to get triggered, it's 3 questions you can ask yourself. So take 3 deep breaths and then ask yourself, number 1, is this true or is this real? Right? If I don't invest in this new endeavor, is it actually gonna keep me safe? Is this true? The second thing you can ask yourself is how old is this? Right? How old is this? Where does this come from? Oh yeah. I know this actually comes from my grandmother. This has been passed down through generations in my family. And then number 3 is, what do I need to feel safe right now? So in this case, what do I need to feel safe might be, hey, what happens if this investment doesn't actually work out? Is it going to sabotage the business? Am I going to lose everything if I don't make this decision? Or if I make this investment in a new marketing initiative and it doesn't work out, is that going to tank my business? 'Cause that's what your brain's equating it to, right? If I make a bad decision, I'm gonna lose everything I've built. So number one, is that true? No, it's not true, right? How old is this? Oh yeah, this comes from my grandmother. What do I need to feel safe? Can either be, you can give yourself your own safety and just kind of go through a worst-case scenario, you know, fear visioning exercise, or, You can actually lean on peer support. Hey Dan, if I make this investment decision, how do you see this? We can bring other people in to help us create that safety and re-pattern. And after you do that enough times, that's how you get to integration. Can I ask you to clarify part of that? Yeah.
You're saying that this is about an investment decision.
Does that hold true for any sort of spending? Like if you want to go buy a car, that's not really an investment. Mike, repeat it back for the audio. Yeah. Oh yeah, for the audio. So, does this apply to every decision? Here's what I love. So, we hear a lot about abundance and scarcity when we talk about money. And there's this idea that abundance is good and scarcity is bad. And if all of you guys would just be more abundant, we'd all be rich. Right? I am here to give you guys permission to use your scarcity as a superpower. Scarcity might mean— you could reframe scarcity as, "I am a good steward of my wealth." Because you guys, I was the most abundant guy on the planet. I was like, "I'll spend money indiscriminately and it'll just come back." Right? I could have used a little scarcity. So I hate this idea that abundance is good and scarcity is bad, right? It's only bad if it limits your growth. If it's keeping you from making the decisions that you know you need to make to the next level. So there are places where you can embrace your scarcity and go, "Hey, I am a good steward of wealth." Like, it makes me feel good to not spend at Starbucks. Right? Like, you don't need to spend $7 on coffee to be a better person. But if you want to be that 11 out of 10 that we were talking about and take your business to the next level, you've got to overcome those thought patterns and limitations, right? So, that's what being a choice is about. You don't have to get rid of this. You don't have to switch to the other end of the spectrum. It's not a black or white decision tree. Does that make sense?
It does. Because I think what I do now is I just— I recognize it and I force it out of the way and it's uncomfortable, then it's like easy. Like even being here, right? It's not free, but the decision is like the value is so huge, why would you not do it? But there's still that, oh, there's the cheapo, squirrel mode in my face. And I'm like, get out of the way, oela. Let's evaluate it now without that cheap thing on your shoulders.
Yeah. I love what you said there about kind of the swatting or pushing, because that's our tendency, right? That's distraction. How do I just ignore this, rather than taking the harder step and going, where does this come from, and what do I need to actually feel safe, to feel good about this decision? Now I can spend the money on attending this because I know there's value and I feel good about it, rather than overriding my instincts. Now I'm embracing my instincts. Thanks. All right, who's next?
3, 2, 1.
Yeah. Oh man, hundreds of people. We'll just move this way.
We help real estate investors ditch hamster wheel marketing and attract evergreen leads. The thing that popped up for me, Mike, is as we were starting, first of all, I'm like, I don't have a money mindset issue. Like that was the very first thing that popped up. And I go, well, let me really dig into it. And like, was saying there, the thing that pops up for me is I'm a saver. I remember Halloween, I would pack all my candy in a big old bag and it would be there next Halloween, right? I'd go in there and every now and then grab a piece of candy out of there and then it'd be there for a year and you'd end up throwing it away. And every single year is like that. And my brother, his Halloween candy would be gone in 2 weeks. And I'd be like, "Man, you're wasting all your candy. I've got mine. I'm saving it away." Right? And I would discover the same thing happened with money for me. And I would work hard to make money and then I would hold away, feel proud that it's there and not use it. And the thought that came up even before today is really, you know, weeks ago, I was starting to think about needs versus wants. And I've been really, really good at investing in or buying things that I need. At taking care of my needs. But when it comes to wants, I tend to go, well, I don't, I don't really need that thing, right? I don't, I don't need that cool car. I've got my truck. I love it, right? I need to— I need the truck because I haul sheep around for my son, but I don't need the cool car. And so that's something I've been processing over weeks, the last, like, the last several weeks. Needs versus wants. And I think at least for me, there ends up being a little bit of missing joy that could be there by saying, man, I've been able to build this amazing thing and this money's just sitting here that I'm never touching. And there's a lot of wants that I could step into that could help me or other people as well. But that one popped up and just starting to process it.
How exhausting is that?
Yeah, it is. It is for sure.
Right. Every time You see something that could make your life better, you go, "Uh-uh." Yep. And the needs versus wants is a really interesting thing. Because I would argue that every person in this room is living beyond their needs. Yep.
100%. That I end up justifying raising my need bar and going, "I actually do need that thing." So it's arbitrary. True, yeah.
We are all above our Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Do you need to build a giant company? No. So why are you doing it?
That's a good question, yeah.
And what I find when we dig into needs versus wants is a question of deserving. Right? So what would you need to do to deserve a cool car?
That's a good question. Um, for, for me, as, as I've thought about it, it's honestly like having, having a reason outside of myself. So, um, being able to, to go on cool drives with my dad or with my son who also love cars. So for me, I like I end up stepping out of myself and going, well, I kind of want this thing, but I need it to create these cool experiences with, with other people.
And how long has that story of self-sacrifice been going on for you?
Probably for as long as I can remember.
Yeah. Yep. What's it cost you?
Hmm. Yeah, I don't know.
You touched on it earlier.
Yeah, some of the joy that could be there more on the daily basis, yeah. Yeah.
And this is so ingrained in our culture, right? Let's look at religion, right? Religion tells us that we need to sacrifice, that the best thing we can do— and military teaches us the same thing, right? The best thing we can do is lay down our life for a friend. So we have this so deeply woven into our culture. We won't let ourselves enjoy the things that we want because that's not okay. But if we can do it in the, in the name of somebody else, then that's, then that's okay. That's the way we justify it, right? But what if I told you you're part of the greater good? You're not standing outside the circle of all the people you can serve. You can also be inside that circle.
Yep, yep, that's good, that's good.
How would that feel?
Oh dude, yeah, amazing, making that shift for sure.
So what's something that you would do if you included yourself in the greater good? Hmm.
I don't know, honestly. Buy the car, Trevor.
Yeah. Buy the car. Buy the fucking car, dude. What are you talking about? So you guys, it's fun, but also there's a little discomfort there, right? It's actually hard for Trevor to come up with what including himself in the greater good would look like. And I'm not chastising you guys but look what happened. When he started to get uncomfortable, what do we do? We made a joke.
Yeah.
Let's relieve that pressure. So, I'm going to ask you to lean into that discomfort. What would it look like for you to include yourself in the greater good? What would you do? What's one thing you can do?
Dude, I'm— Yeah, I'm challenged with it honestly. So—
What's a little thing?
The first thing, we bought a killer property, killer house, renovating the heck out of it right now. And one of the things we're looking at right now is like, do we do the half-million-dollar porch, deck, pool, all that kind of stuff, or we're looking at like the lower option? And we can afford it. We can pay cash for it all. And the whole thing for me, I kept on justifying again to go, well, if we do the bigger one, then we can have more people here and we can do this and do that, make it an amazing spot for retreats, right? So that part there, I think stepping into that and saying, yes, this is so we can have other amazing people here, but also so I can step into that and enjoy my home even more and not wonder what if, what if we did these things or go for the lower option just because I'm justifying it away. When the financial part's not, not the issue with that.
Yeah. So what would need to be true for you to be able to step up and make the full investment? Hmm.
I think the first thing is just making sure that there's no part of the financial investment where it feels like it's making me not safe anymore to just have this conversation. So making sure that, you know, if there's any shred of anything I need to do to, to process that, like do that tonight and process it. I think the next thing too is honestly just visualizing myself in that space, not in the justified lower version of space, but picture myself waking up, literally looking out that window to that pool over the river and seating myself in that dream space versus the cloudy version that I let be there because you don't think that you deserve it or going back to need it.
Yeah, guys, 3, 2, 1.
Cool. Thank you, man.
Okay, who's up?
Uh, mine is more of an adult story or a young adult story, and I shared it with actually yesterday. Um, so my comes from trust. So at 29 years old, I got locked out of my house and my kids taken away from me. By my ex-husband who was an alcoholic. So I remember the day sitting on the curb when I didn't have anything but the clothes I had on because I couldn't get into my house. I couldn't even find my kids. So I have a major trust issue with money and other people, sharing it with other people, like not even having a bank account shared with my current husband. Mm. And that goes into the businesses and hoarding the money because I swore to myself I would never let that happen to me again. And so the way it bleeds over now is more with trust or even letting other people in because it's— I just don't ever want to be that vulnerable, ever. And I have two houses and properties and other things, so I'm not scared to invest it. I'm scared to share it.
What is that lack of trust costing you in your relationship with your husband, your current husband?
Um, I just feel that it's wrong to be that way. He understands my pain and it doesn't necessarily— he says it doesn't bother him, but I feel that it affects my current relationship and also like the relationship with my kids. And the businesses for not sharing so much. It's like, I'm not going to tell them how much money I have because if they find out, like, it puts me in a vulnerable spot.
Is that true? Like, if your kids knew how much money you had, would they be able to kick you to the curb? No. So what would you need to feel safe sharing that? With your kids?
Probably I just need to get the courage to get over it. Like to, like I told yesterday, I know that my husband isn't going to like take everything again or anybody can because I've put up all these walls everywhere. But it's almost like living in secrecy. And then when you wanna do something, I don't have anybody to go to to ask, like, hey, what do you think about this? Because nobody knows anything. 'Cause you had talked about how we don't talk about money. It's so true. But that event in my life caused so many issues with money. Making money's easy. I don't have that problem with making money. It's sharing the money. And not sharing the money as far as buying stuff for people. It's sharing like the accounts or shared bank accounts or I don't even have a car with my husband's name on it because he could take the car from me.
And, you know, your husband sounds amazing, right? And very understanding. But when I think about this, like, I think about just the ever deepening of our relationship, right? And if we're not sharing ourselves fully with our partner, that's gonna keep us at this level. And the more of ourselves we share with our partner, that relationship just grows and deepens and becomes more enriching and more safe, right? And so, I'm not suggesting that you walk away from this weekend and you go, "Hey everybody, here's all my secrets," right? But what are some first steps? What is an easy step that feels safe enough that you can start building that trust and letting him in?
We do have a joint bank account but I don't— I've chose to never log in or turn the debit card on, and it's all only his money. So I—
Doesn't sound shared at all.
So for the first step is I could actually like engage or maybe set up a meeting with him and say like, oh, I'm going to log into our joint bank account.
Cool.
Or even turn on the debit card. I've never— it probably doesn't even work.
So when can you do that by?
Probably Monday when I'm home. Or, I'm sorry, Sunday.
Okay, does that feel, does that feel like something you can tackle on Sunday, or you want to give yourself a little more time?
No, I think I could tackle it on Sunday.
Okay, who can you be accountable to, to let them know?
I'll be accountable to [MASKED].
Awesome.
We share a very similar story.
Cool. And that's, see, that's an easy first step. You don't have to, like, how do we eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time. And now that you're aware and you have this insight, we can just start taking small actions, and this can happen over time. But thank you so much for sharing. You're welcome. Very easy. Yeah. Very easy. All right. You guys can see how important our money stories are and how they show up when it comes to building wealth. And at my first retreat, we had two people, right? One was making $16 million a year and he was spending $17 million, and one had sold his company for $16 million. It was all in a bank account and And he told us that his greatest fear was that he couldn't send his kids to college. And all of us live somewhere on that spectrum, right? But all of us have these subconscious patterns. And so the thing about financial education is, if all we needed was information to be wealthy, there'd be a lot more rich people, right? But there's a reason that we don't follow all the good advice out there, and it's because of these subconscious patterns. Okay? So that's at the core of what we do at Unbreakable Wealth. And then, once we've deep dive into these stories, now we can start taking steps to create the life that we want to create, and a risk-adjusted wealth plan, and building a moat with all of the tactics that are out there and that are available to us. But I'm going to leave you guys with another story. So at another recent event, we were talking about money stories and this girl raises her hand and she goes, "Yeah, but what about Kylie Jenner?" And I was like, "Well, what about Kylie Jenner?" And she goes, "Kylie Jenner just burns me up. She's on the COVID of all these magazines. They talk about how she's a self-made billionaire and there is nothing self-made about Kylie Jenner. She was handed everything she has on a silver platter." She only has that money because of her name, and it just pisses me off. So I asked her a question. What would Kylie Jenner need to do to deserve that money? And she thought about it for a while. She said nothing. There's nothing she could do to deserve that money. So I asked her another question. What would you need to do to deserve that amount of money? And she didn't have an answer. And so a few weeks later, I was telling that story to another client, a private client who was in a transition. He had just sold a 9-figure investment portfolio. He was on his third round of private equity. He had made an insane amount of money, and he was really at this crossroads. He couldn't decide what he was gonna do next. He was really stuck, and he was telling me about all of this, and I told him the Kylie Jenner story. And when I got to the part about that there was nothing she could do to deserve that money, Just silence on the phone for what seemed like an eternity. And finally, he says, "I felt that every single day of my life." Because this client's a billionaire, the son of a billionaire, so every day of his life, He has gone out, busting his ass, and he has taken what he inherited and made so much more out of it. These, you know, fund after fund after fund. He has absolutely knocked it out of the park. And he is exhausted. Because society tells him there is nothing he could do to deserve that money. So I asked him a question. If you couldn't do what you're doing now, what would you do? And to my surprise, this time there's no silence. He knows exactly what he would do. He's gonna move to his ranch. He's gonna ride horses with his daughters every day. He's gonna act in the local musical and sing. He's never been on stage before. He has this whole secret life planned out. That he's been fantasizing about while he's working 100-hour weeks for private equity raising funds to prove something to society that he can never prove. And all he needed was the permission to drop out and live life on his own terms. So if you want me to be that person for you, to give you the permission to live life on your own terms, consider this your invitation. We've got work to do. Give it up to Mike, the dude.
I love you, man. You guys hopefully know I drive a McLaren. If you don't, follow me on social. It's 'cause of Mike. Fuckin' 8 years ago, I run into this dude, cocky fighter jet pilot, I didn't even know if I liked him at first.
True story.
And he's driving a McLaren and he shows me a picture of his McLaren with a road bike on the roof. And I go, that's fuckin' awesome, you do triathlete, like, he goes to races with his McLaren and the bike on the roof, I didn't even know you could do that. And he's like, bro, what are you doing? Because I was like, I want a McLaren. He's like, get a McLaren. I was like, I can't do that. Where's Trevor? Yeah, I can't do that. Trevor's been around, you've seen that, you know what I'm talking about. Fuck yeah, it's because of Mike. Mike goes, what are you doing? And then he does what he just did with all of you guys, and it became the McLaren mindset. That's what I call it amongst my friends, McLaren mindset. Right? Because I had money beliefs about not being flashy, not da-da-da-da-da. But you don't understand how stupid this was. I could have bought that car cash 1,000 times over. And I didn't want to give myself permission. And I will tell you the joy that that car for sure and then the subsequent car. And just being around Mike. When he tells you he'll show you how to live a rich life that doesn't cost you the thing you think it's going to cost you, I've seen him do it for so many people. And I always tell you guys, I bring people in here to serve you guys at the deepest levels. So, I'm going to tell you, if you feel called based on what you heard, you want to work with Mike, don't walk, run. Like, I just don't want to see at the next event you say, "I should have done..." No, no, no, no, no. Honestly, he should charge 5 fucking times more than what he charges. Okay, but what you— if you spend time with him, you'll know his heart is so huge, he doesn't give a shit. I've seen him spend— he spends time with people that honestly don't deserve his time, but he cares because he wants to see everybody win. So by all means, click the QR code, look at it, pay it, hang out with Mike, spend time with him. I know in like a few months your life will be just full of fucking return on happiness.
Does that sound fun? Yes or yes? Yes.
All right, Mike, love you, bro.
