Mike Brown and Kevin argue that money alone doesn't fix problems: a man claiming $28,000 would let him start living misses the point, and even $100,000 can't heal Kevin's tricep injury. Real wealth comes from becoming someone who creates value, then stacking tiny daily actions that compound over time.
Chapters
Hey friends, welcome to Inner Circle with Kevin and Mike. Today, a hot topic for the episode requested by Tom on Twitter. Kevin posted, for $28,570, I could start living, and people at all levels of wealth fall into this trap. What would have more impact, a check for $28,000 or taking bold action in every area of your life? So the topic du jour is will money solve all your problems? Kevin, I know, I know you have a situation right now. Maybe we can dive into that.
Yeah. So just for, for context, it all started, you know, I had posted, you know, a semi-hot take, I guess, that said, you know, you think you need more money to live your best life. What you really need is more courage. And it's something I really do believe, and we'll dive into it. Someone retweeted or reposted that post and said, no, actually, you know, I'm $28,000 in debt. For $28,000, I could start living. And to me, that was actually exhibit A of this fallacy that people fall into, that we think that, you know, if only I had X dollars, life would be so great. This guy literally said, you know, for $28,000 I could start living. And I responded that actually, I would argue that we gave this guy $28,000. I'm sure it would feel good. It might help, but it would actually make a bigger impact if he just started exhibiting more courage and taking action in all areas of his life. And so obviously, you know, having money is better than not. I think we can all agree on that.
Totally.
But I think in large part, Mike, I mean, part of the message that you and I, you know, talk about all the time is that it's not what you think. Like, you know, it all comes down to something you always say that I've stolen, subsequently stolen, which is money is just the fuel. And, you know, fuel can be powerful if you know how to use it. But it's not going to, it, it, there's nothing inherent to money that solves any problem. You still have to have the courage and the action.
Money solves money problems. Like, let's just, let's just put that on the table unequivocally, right? If you have money problems, money would solve that. And a good friend of mine always used to say, like, if a problem can be solved by money, then it's not a problem. Now, you may not have the money to solve it, right? But truly, there are only a few real problems in life. And, and, you know, on that note, like you have one of those right now. Yeah.
So, um, we were just talking before we started recording that, um, I have a very serious injury to my arm right now. I, I haven't written about it or talked about it until now, but, um, it started, uh, I had a, I took a, a fall when climbing in Mexico a few weeks ago and thought it was gonna, it was improving. And then I was climbing last week. Heard a loud tearing sound, got an MRI, and my tricep tendon is detached from the bone. So I'm gonna be out of commission for, you know, 4 to 6 months probably, which is, you know, devastating to say the least for me. And I made a, a, a comment before we hit the record button that I, and this is literally true, like it today, if I could write a check for $100,000 to make this injury go away, Maybe even $200,000, I would write that check in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, I can't write that check.
Yeah.
Maybe one of the things to talk about is like, I wish more problems were money problems.
Yeah, totally.
Right.
And, and, and again, like it, like it doesn't mean you have the money to solve every problem. It's really nice when you do. Uh, like again, you know, so I'm not trying to say money's not important. Money is important. Right. We live in a Western society where the fuel is a prerequisite, I think, for living at least a comfortable life, not necessarily a content life, but at least a comfortable life. And this is yet another situation where both could be true. The original poster that you mentioned, that's $28,000 in debt. Like, man, I've been in debt. Debt is crippling. Like, it is a noose that you wake up every morning and continually tightens, and it is really hard to be present and cultivate joy in your life when you have an ever-tightening noose around your neck. I mean, simply, you know, debt is a thief of joy. But I've been in and out of debt, and the thing is, yes, there's immediate relief the day you pay off the loan or the debt or whatever, and it fades really, really fast because life is a never-ending conveyor belt of shit sandwiches. And you think it's the debt that's going to solve everything, you get out of it and it turns out all that same, all those same shit sandwiches are still coming down the conveyor belt.
Right. Well, that's exactly, that was sort of my response to this guy is like, to your point, if we, if I cut this guy a check for $28,000 and he paid off all his debt, it would feel amazing. What we haven't done is address the behaviors that led to the debt. And my argument was, as hard as it may be to believe, You'd actually be better off not receiving the $28,000 to pay off your debt and changing the behaviors that over the long run, the $28,000 is nothing. Like if you change the behaviors, you'll not only eliminate the $28,000, but you'll make sure that you, it never happens again, which is the more important part, or that you're in a stronger financial position.
Yeah, I mean, this is a concept I call the inevitable millionaire. Which, you know, if someone tells me that they want to be a millionaire, what I tell them is you need to become the person capable of being a millionaire.
Right.
And if you build the habits, if you take the actions, if you start actually becoming the person that has the skills, that's creating the value that a millionaire creates in the world, you will be an inevitable millionaire. And it's actually not the day that your bank account crosses $1 million. It's the day you change to become that person, that being a millionaire becomes inevitable. And so it's not how do I get a million dollars? It's how do I become the person capable of getting a million dollars?
You know, somebody I follow on X, uh, named Mike Brown, um, posted something today and it was a framework that I had never heard it put this way. And I thought it was super powerful and it directly relates to what you just said. It was this last step, next step thing. Explain what that is. I thought that was a really cool way to put it.
You know, as many of our posts are, this was a reminder to self. So, uh, lest you think I am preaching this from the top of the mountain, this is my current lived reality. Correct. But basically what I said is that when it comes to achieving a dream, there are only two important things: the last thing and the next thing. And the last thing is the dream itself. So, so what is it that I am that I'm striving for, that I'm imagining. And here's the thing about dreams. So many of our dreams are just inherited. They're, they're, you know, I think everything's going to be amazing when I'm a millionaire or all of these things. And those might burn brightly for a little bit, but they fade really, really fast. You're not going to wake up and keep doing the thing unless you are deeply tied to, to this thing. And this is, this is something you and I talk about is process goals versus outcome goals. Like, You know, the dream can't be, I want a million dollars. The dream has to be embodied. It has to be, I want to become the person capable of being a millionaire or creating a million dollars worth of value in the world. So getting really clear on the last thing, what is the endpoint? What is the ideal end state, if you will, from a friend I have on Twitter, right? Once I get really clear on the ideal end state, The only thing left that matters is the next right step. What is the one thing that if I woke up today and did would get me closer to that ideal end state? And steps 2 through 999 have actually no relevance or bearing. I mean, yeah, it's cool to have, you need a little vector, you need a, you need a direction, but the only thing that actually matters is the next right step. And every time you take the next right step, The next one reveals itself, right? And, and we spend so much time in that messy middle. We spend so much time thinking about, you know, the problems that we're going to have in a year if we take that action. It's a sophisticated trap. All it's doing is actually delaying us from taking that next right step. Everybody knows what their next right step is.
Yeah. The reason I think that's incredibly powerful is because you're right. When people have a big goal or a dream. They tend to obsess over trying to understand the entire path to get there. And what you're basically saying is you can ignore the whole middle part where people get stuck, define the dream, and then just take the first step. And it reminded me of the quote, quote from Rumi, which is, um, walk the way and the way will appear. Like, you don't have to have everything mapped out. Take the first step and then the next day, take the second step and the third step, because guess what? The path is gonna change anyway. And so I think that's really powerful is, you know, whatever you want out of life, um, let's say it, it is $1 million and, you know, let's set aside like the reasons, like the feeling you're actually going after. Let's say your goal is $1 million. You don't have to figure out everything that has to happen for you to make $1 million. You need to figure out like, a first step you can take.
Well, how do I make $100 today?
Yeah. How do I make $100 today? How do I learn something that the marketplace values? At least one little thing, like whatever that might be. And then another step. And that's the inevitability you talk about. Um, you know, when you embrace the process, um, what is it? What is it you say? The, the outcome becomes both irrelevant and inevitable. That's the irony.
Yeah. It's, it's the great irony, right? Like when I, when I embrace a process that makes my outcome inevitable, right? If I, if I decide to become the person who creates enough value to be, to have a business valued at $1 million, and I take that next right step every single day, like, eventually I will be a millionaire, right? It may be in 5 years, it may be in 10 years, it may be in 20, but the outcome actually becomes inevitable if you commit to the process and don't give up before you get there. And the crazy thing about these dreams is that they operate just like compound interest, which we, uh, as linear thinkers have a really hard time understanding, right? You're on the flat part of the curve. It feels like nothing's happening. And then all of a sudden the curve starts to go steep and goes hyperbolic. And, and the problem is all of us give up on the flat part of the curve before we start to reach that, that, uh, that hyperbolic piece, right? So it feels like nothing's happening until it all happens at once, right? And this, this is where the overnight successes come from. Yes.
100%. Well, and to tie all this back to kind of that story that we started with, that the guy who is $28,000 in debt and says $28,000 would allow him to start living his life. I would ask him actually, well, first of all, no one's going to give you $28,000. So that's not even an option anyway. The question is, how would you make the erasure of that debt inevitable? Because If you do that, not only will the $28,000 in debt disappear, but you're going to be, you know, it's going to begin to compound from there. You're never going to be in that situation again. You're going to be on a, on the right trajectory because my guess is, you know, it's the classic situation where, you know, you try to solve a non-money problem with money. We see this a lot with charities, whatever. Like you erase the problem with money, the problem just reappears. It's like whack-a-mole.
Yeah, 100%. And in that process of clearing out the $28,000, right? You might start with $100 a month and then maybe it's $200 a month and then maybe it's $500, right? And over time it compounds, your interest payments go lower, your monthly payment goes lower and literally compounds over time as you pay off the debt. Right? So the end accelerates faster, but it's that first step and that next step. And by the way, when you are $28,000 in debt, $100, $100 a month doesn't feel like it's doing anything, right? And that really is the big problem, is we think we need to take out chunks of $5K or $10K, and that's the only way to get out of it. But it really is the way compounding works. It also works in reverse on debt. The more you pay, the less you owe, and the less your payments are, right? So the more can go to principal over time. That's how it gets eliminated, and it's the only way it gets eliminated. And, and the cool thing is, when you build that discipline, You actually become the person to never go in debt again because you know what it takes to get out of it. So you're not only doing the thing that you, that you really want to do, but you're training yourself, your future self, to not go down that road again. 'Cause you know how fucking hard it is to get out of it.
Yeah. So I think to me, the takeaway from this, this episode is that, um, you know, uh, I'm reminded of a quote I read one time that said, said everything is easy over a sufficiently long timeframe. So we get overwhelmed with our goals and it's good to dream big and have big goals, big aspirations, but it can be, it quickly becomes overwhelming when we try to think about like, how am I gonna get there? Because we, we tend to think in short timeframes, to be honest. But if you think about even something like a $28,000 credit card debt load. What if you thought about it over 5 years or even 10 years? How do I chip away and get rid of this? Um, you know, baby steps and compounding is the key to everything. Like, I'm just amazed every day in my life because I have very much adopted this mindset of like one little task. Like the emotional hurdle sometimes for doing a task you don't want to do is so high. And then you do the task and you realize it was way easier than I expected. And then you do it again, you do it again. You look back in a month and you're like, oh, Holy cow, I've made, I've started businesses that way with just like little baby steps in 10-minute increments every day. And eventually it starts to kind of compound and all of a sudden you've got something. So I think the question that everybody out there who's listening to this should ask is, whatever my dream is or whatever my challenge is, what are the behaviors I can adopt that make it inevitable? And the behaviors don't have to be major radical things like, What's the first step I could take today? And then tomorrow, ask yourself the same question.
In fact, I would argue that they should not be major radical things because I'm sure, Kevin, that you're, you're gonna, uh, resonate with this. How many times have I woken up and been like, today's the day, and I do an hour-long workout, and then I do an hour-long sauna, and then I eat perfectly clean, uh, you know, carnivore, paleo type diet. Like I make all the changes at once. And man, I feel great for about 2 weeks. And then I start to slip. I've done this so many times in my life. The reality is I shouldn't have tried to change everything at once because it never works. Right? I should have woken up and go, okay, cool. Today I'm going to do my 20-minute workout and I'm just going to stack this for a month. Right? And then let me build those changes over time. So the more you change at once, the less likelihood you have of actually sticking to it and succeeding.
Totally. A term I heard recently, and maybe you know where it came from, um, is stacking days. And it's a really simple idea is like, you know, when you get overwhelmed, I, I actually, the last person I heard say this was, uh, Sahil Bloom. He's like, when you get overwhelmed, like just start stacking days. Like just put your head down, do a few things that move the ball forward, and then wake up tomorrow, do it again, do it again the next day. And stack a few days and all of a sudden you're like, wow, I'm actually in a very different position than I was 3 weeks ago.
Look, I had the incredible privilege of going to see Mel Robbins speak this week. Sold out Belco Theater, downtown Denver. I mean, the lines to get into the place were absolutely nuts. And I was there doing a little bit of market research. She just crossed 10 million copies sold of Let Them Theory, which, I mean, makes it one of the most successful book launches of all time, the fastest book, I think, in history to ever hit that many copies. I mean, this, this woman is absolutely at the top of her game. And 13 years ago, she didn't want to get out of bed. And if you think about not wanting to get out of bed to selling 10 million copies of a book, right? It's not possible in 3 years, but in 13, it's pretty wild what she's actually been able to accomplish. And she started with her signature story, which is that day she was laying in bed. And counted down from 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, get up. And that was the first right action for her. Wow. And literally has compounded since that day into 10 million copies sold of this book that's resonated with so many people, started with that single tiny action. And I'm telling you, it was, you know, say what you will about Mel, but she has really a great message. I think that's underscoring what we're talking about right now. What's that next right step?
And I would add, like, when you hear a story like that, like literally a rags to riches story, it's easy to say, well, you know, that's an outlier story. They got really lucky. And maybe you're right, but one thing's for sure is how do you increase your surface area for luck or serendipity? It's doing the, it's, it's taking those daily steps, stacking days, taking actions, uh, day after day. Yes. Like maybe she, Mel's extraordinarily talented. Maybe she got lucky. But you build talent and you increase your chances of getting lucky by 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, get outta bed and then build from there.
And another cool thing that she did, I really like this. You know, a lot of influencers will go back and clean up their timelines from their early stuff. She actually went all the way back on our Instagram feed and showed post after post with zero likes and zero comments. Yeah. Uh, and they still exist on her feed. You can actually scroll back, you know, 10 years and, and look at the beginning. I think that's so fucking cool, right? Is to, is to go back and be like, oh man, I'm actually me. I am already getting more likes at this point in my career than Mel was at this point in her career. Like, oh, I'm actually ahead of the game.
Yes. Well, and even if you're not, even if you're still getting zero likes, um, the, you know, the, the, the, the, the formula doesn't change. Like, You're in the flat part of the curve and you need to just keep going and you make things inevitable.
I love it, man. Well, this is an endless topic, but we're bumping up on 20 minutes, so I think we'll put a pin in it here. But look, you guys, if you're out there, if you're listening on, we would love more ideas on Twitter. Tom, thanks for the idea today. This was a great episode. So if there's topics you want Kevin and I to cover, please shoot 'em our way, comment below the episode, and we'll, we'll pick a few lucky winners and, and dive in.
Awesome. Thanks, brother.
