I Will Teach You To Be Rich in 10 Minutes

In 10 minutes, I'll teach you how to be rich, regardless of where you came from, regardless of your income. And it is easier than you think. See, back in 2009, I wrote this book. This is the updated version 10 years later. It's now a New York Times bestseller. And it has literally helped millions of people on their path to living a rich life. And it's all about taking the first step to taking control of your money. The book helps you understand the barriers that keep you from managing your money. And then it tears them down so you can use your money to live a rich life. Now, I know and you know that your goal is not to become a financial expert. Nobody wants to be sitting around playing Excel all day. The goal is to use your money to live a rich life and let your money work for you. So let's keep it simple. Here are the five essential messages from my book, I Will Teach youh to be rich. Message 1. Use your money to live your rich life. You know, I've talked to millions of people over the last 20 years through my website, my speaking, my email list. And and my favorite question to ask people is what is your rich life? You know that most people never even spend 10 minutes thinking about what rich means to them. Rich can be different for everyone. And money is just a small but important part of being rich. Rich can be traveling for three months a year, rich can be buying a thousand dollar cashmere coat, or rich can be picking up your kids from school every afternoon. But I can tell you that living a rich life isn't simply about frugality. There are plenty of people who are going to lecture you about disabling your oven light to save 11 cents per year. No thank you. I believe that living a smaller life than you have to is a tragedy. Think about it. What's the point of saving and investing if you're waiting 50 years to live your rich life? I don't believe that. I think money allows you to live a rich life today and a richer life tomorrow. What I want you to do is to think about what your rich life is and get really specific. Don't be embarrassed about how small or how big your vision is. I'll give you an example from my own life. When I wrote down my first list of a rich life, one of the key goals was being able to order appetizers from a restaurant. Why appetizers? Like 10 bucks. Why? Because when I was a kid, we could rarely afford to order appetizers. Now, as time went on, my goals got bigger and I hope yours do too. And instead of asking, how much money do I need to make? Ask yourself, what do I want to do with my life? What does the best year look like? The best month, even the best Friday? And how can I use my money to do that? All right, so how do you actually spend money to live your rich life? Well, that brings us to message 2. Spend extravagantly on the things you love and cut costs mercilessly on the things you don't. Alright, have you ever heard typical money advice like this? Don't buy lattes. Don't go on vacation. Don't get new jeans. No, no, no. In fact, just eat asparagus and hoard your money. And maybe when you turn 85 years old, then you can use it. I'm not interested in living a life like that. I don't know about you, but not me. Here's a radical suggestion. What if you use your money to say yes instead of saying no? One of my friends once called me to tell me he'd gotten a raise at work. And. And on the same day he moved into a smaller apartment. Why? Because he didn't really care about where he lives. But he loves spending money on camping and biking. For me, I love spending tons of money on luxury hotels, but I still drive a 2005 Honda Accord. That's what I call conscious spending. You choose what's important to you and you choose what's not. The idea of conscious spending is that you figure out where you want your money to go and then you set it up automatically. For example, maybe you want to save for a vacation to Italy and in fact, you want to splurge. Maybe you love to try a new restaurant in your area every single weekend. Or maybe you want to aggressively grow your investments and retire by the age of 50. Well, by following conscious spending, you can save hundreds, even thousands of dollars a month and still buy what you love. Here's a suggestion. You can actually decide where you want to spend more money on by identifying what I call your money dial. A money dial is what you would say if I said, hey, what do you love to spend money on? That's a money dial. It's an area you just love to spend money. Let me give you some common examples. The most common money dial is eating out or food. The next one is travel. The third money dial is health and wellness. And then convenience, experiences, freedom, relationship generosity, social status, self improvement. There's many of them from just looking at that list. Which one of those excites you and which one of those Would you want to turn up like a dial and actually spend more on. Well, if you follow the plan that I outline, you can actually spend more on your money dial and you can cut back mercilessly in other areas. Now that I've talked about using your money to live your rich life and to actually give you permission to spend extravagantly on the things you love, you might be wondering, alright, well how do I cut back more than I already have? I already don't have enough money for my rich life. Which brings me to my third message. There's a limit to how much you can cut, but no limit to how much you can earn. You know, some people find it difficult to spend more money on themselves. Every one of us knows some retiree who can't bring themselves to go to a nice restaurant because they are petrified of running out of money. If that's you, it's important to look at your numbers and to improve your money psychology to change the way you feel about money. Let's talk about it. Do you have debt looming over you? Are your fixed costs exceeding 60% of your take home pay? If you have scenarios like this, it is difficult to spend money. That's because all of your income goes to needs and bills. Even if you have a plan to pay down your debt and reduce your fixed costs, that can take a while. That's why I always recommend that people consider the other side of the equation, which is to earn more. Earning lets you get out of debt sooner. Reduce your fixed cost number so you've got more money, makes you feel a little bit better about having some extra and you can actually spend on the things you love, not just on basic requirements. Let me give you three strategies that I recommend to my students that you can use to earn more. Number one, negotiate a raise. If you already have a job, it can be a no brainer to negotiate for a raise, but it takes a little bit of planning. You don't just walk in the door and ask for more money. Remember that getting a raise is not about you, it's about you demonstrating your value to your employer. You can't tell them you need more money because your apartment costs more. Nobody cares. Instead, you can show them how your work has contributed to the company's success and ask to be compensated fairly. Now I show you exactly how to do this in my book with the word for word scripts and the timing to use with your boss. Number two, get a higher paying job. If you find that your existing company doesn't offer you growth potential, look for a Better paying job. During the job hiring process, you'll have more leverage than you'll ever have to negotiate your salary. And number three, create a side business. When you embrace the idea that you can earn more, that your money is not just this fixed pie that you have to fight to protect, but you can actually earn more, you'll discover a huge surprise. You already possess skills that other people would pay for and you may have never even realized it. It could be dog walking, it could be teaching high school math. There's so many different ways and businesses you can create on the side with skills you already have. Now, what is the simplest and most effective way to build wealth over the long term? Well, the answer is investing. Which brings me to number four. Simple long term investing works. Most people think that investing means buying stocks as if they should be sitting at their computer and looking at PE ratios and trading all day. No, that's not what investing really is. That's just what you see on tv. They've started with a mistaken assumption that investing means actively picking random stocks. And so they end up down this rabbit hole of terms like hedge funds, derivatives, options. But the truth is, investing is not about picking stocks. In fact, your plan, your investment plan is actually more than any individual investment you make. Think about it. It's like this. The table of contents in this book is more important than any individual word on any individual page. Now, you don't need to be a genius to start investing. For individual investors like you and me. You can set up your investment plan. You can set your money up to automatically get invested, and then you don't have to pay attention to it hardly at all. That is how simple it is. In fact, investing should be as boring as watching concrete dry. I get more excited about choosing what taco I'm going to get than checking my investment returns. So simple long term investing works. And. And it is highly profitable over the long term. Which brings me to the fifth essential message of my book. I will teach you to be rich. Focus on the big wins. A $5 coffee is not gonna change your financial life. If you wanna buy the coffee, buy the coffee. But focusing on what I call the big wins, that will change your life. The big WINS Are the five to 10 things in your life where if you get these right, you never have to worry about the price of coffee or dessert ever again. Let me give you some examples. Learning the basics of personal finance. Automating your savings so that money is automatically going, being invested and saved every single month. Finding a job you love. Earning money on the side and having a stable and affordable place to live. Just five wins. There's five to 10 in your life in if you get those right, you will almost never have to worry about those small, tiny considerations. Remember this, we got to focus more on the $30,000 questions instead of the $3 questions. So when you really internalize this idea of focusing on the big wins, not the minutia, then you get to live your rich life outside of the spreadsheet. I hope this video helps you rethink your relationship with money. It helps you become more expansive with money, and it helps you on your path to a rich life. Check out this video popping up on screen right now to watch more.