How Much Money Makes You Wealthy with Ryan Deiss

This sounds so I'm gonna get like all kinds of hate for this. I don't think 2.2 million is wealthy.

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Hey everybody, Roland Frazier and Ryan Deiss here with the business launch podcast coming to you live and recorded from our studios in respective different parts of the United States of America. And today we're going to talk about a bunch of fun things. Brian, how you doing today?

I'm doing really, really well. I just coming off of a lovely beach vacation with my bride. Got some reading in, got some writing in. I got a couple of, I'll tell you, the seven levels book coming along nicely. I need to send you over the early stage of the manuscript, but I'm very excited about that.

I like it.

Very, very excited about it.

I love books that will be out before the end of the year, which is really daggone exciting since we've been trying to do it for what, a decade?

Yeah, I think we're going to, in the next few months, I think we're going to make up between now and the end of the year for all of the books we haven't written. And I'm a big believer in, you know, you write a book when you have something to say. I mean, yes, they're a good calling card and good marketing, but I, I think if you're gonna write a book, it needs to be fricking good. And I think we've had relatively high standards on what we would require of ourselves to put a book out in the marketplace. And I like what I'm excited about is we got some good big Books coming that are more like the traditional business book. But as I'm writing the seven levels book, I'm trying to figure out what are the pieces that everybody would dog ear and making sure that there's not too much space in between the sections where somebody would dog ear a page or you know, highlight. Because sometimes you need to build to a bigger point. You can't just have like one after another and you know, there's no context. But making sure the editing is basically driven by how long would people have to go before it's something really that's a nugget, that's a highlight worthy, that's a dog ear page worthy kind of thing. So it should be cool.

I think that's great. That's how the original Leveragex at grow scale was put together. I wanted to do an event. I wanted to be like the best event I could possibly do. And so I went back through five years of presentations and found all the ones that the most people were like, you know, oh man, that's amazing. You just blew my mind. And this is, you know, that I wanted it to be every. And then the hard part, which you're having fun with right now too is well, how do I arrange that in any kind of logical order that seems to flow from a here to there so that I do get all that stuff in and it's contextual and coherent and congruent, which is super fun. So yeah, because I think we've had lots of really valuable things to say. It's just part of it is we're busy doing them right. So that like the whole thing of the book writing can be challenging too because getting your vision across to even really good quality professional writers that we've had come in and help us with things. It's not as easy as you think.

No, it's easy if you want to produce something that is kind of crappy. Right. If you want to produce a calling card type book. But if you want an actual people are glad they picked it up and read it, which man, you and I both read. And God dang, most of the business books are just garbage. I mean, maybe that's unfair.

They're.

They're a couple of mainly fluff with.

Two or three ideas, if not one, that could be summarized in about 10 to 30 pages being.

And they take forever to get there. Like it's. You're 30, 40 pages in, you know, and there's a forward by, you know, somebody who I guess is important. So dispensing with all of that Getting to the good stuff and just stacking good stuff on top of good stuff, but in a way that builds and it compounds and it, you know, is well structured and well ordered. So I'm excited about that. And also, I know there's one more we're talking about, but I'm seeing more and more people putting out mini books where you talk about like these 30, 40 page books on a, on a single subject. And I think there's something to be said for having both. But again, the mini books have to be good too. All too often it's like, oh, got it. It's a transcription of a webinar, a YouTube video. It's like, punch me in the throat. Like, no, thank you. But if it's really, really, really good, I think that could be a very fun thing to put out to the world. Cause there's so much stuff online. I think it'd be fun to get something analog out in the world.

I agree 100%. I think that that's a really good way to go. We've got, we've got a lot of fun things going on. One of the things that I talked with you about that I thought would be fun for us to explore here. And I'm just going to ask you the question. This was a survey that, I think it's Charles Schwab. Yes, the modern wealth survey from Charles Schwab. And it basically asks people, what do they need to have in terms of net worth? Can you put a dollar amount on what it means to be wealthy? So they're asking Americans basically that. And, and I kind of want to see if you can guess the number and then see if you have a number that you're like, yeah, when somebody hits this level, I think they're wealthy. And the other one that I thought was even more interesting than wealthy is to feel financially comfortable. And so. And the two, first, the two are quite different. Well, I kind of want to just get your thought on it because it'll be more organic that way. So let's start with that. What would you guess that most people say they need to have in terms of a net worth to be financially comfortable?

Net worth to be financially comfortable?

Yeah. Hmm.

So when I, when I would ask people how much, like if I'm talking to other entrepreneurs and they're just getting how much they want to make, what's their first goal? It's almost always like nine times out of ten, $10,000 a month. Right.

But we're talking network.

I know.

Yeah. No, I got you income Here in a minute.

I'm getting my. I'm going. I'm going through the thought. I'm thinking out loud. So that tells me that $100,000 a year in income is when people start to feel. And I would think that.

That.

That would loosely align to a million dollars in net worth when people are feeling financially comfortable. Okay. Okay, great. And then they can say they're a millionaire.

Yeah. And as. Do you have a different. Like, do you have a distinction that you would make between those, since they didn't really define them for us in the. In the brief article that I read between, like, financially comfortable and then wealthy, what one means to you versus the other?

Yeah, I mean, to me, financially comfortable means I'm no longer thinking every single day about having enough to basically cover my short term needs. Like, I'm comfortable in, like, comfortable in the short term. Whereas wealthy is when you stop thinking about necessarily earning and you're more thinking about, you know, how do I best allocate and utilize the resources that I have. Like, I've. I've heard it said that rich people sell stuff and wealthy people never sell anything. I don't know if that's necessarily true, but, like, you know, I do think a shift happens when you go from the earning mindset to the how do I best allocate mindset. And to me, that's financially comfortable versus wealthy.

So you said then financially comfortable, you think maybe they said a million? What would you say then? Do you think they would say for wealthy? Wealthy?

I don't know. 5 million, 2 million? It's probably less, actually. It's probably about 2 million. Although it's Schwab people. So they're investors. They got. Yeah, I'm gonna go with my original. I'll go with a million for financially comfortable. 5 million for wealthy. Okay.

And then for you, like, in your mind, do you have thoughts that are different? Those numbers? Like, for you, are those numbers different?

You know, like, financially comfortable? Like, I felt financially comfortable when I had enough in, you know, liquid to where I knew, like, I got a couple of years. Like, if I didn't do anything for a couple of years, I'm comfortable. And then wealthy is like, I could literally stop everything right now and be completely fine. Like, if I got hit by a bus, like, I'd be fine, my family would be fine, everything'd be fine. So to me, and again, I'm not saying this is right just the way.

I'm not and I'm not just so everybody's clear. I'm not asking you to say for you, and therefore I am, and therefore I've got this. I'm asking more like what, what do you think that number should be to feel finance for one to feel financially comfortable and for one to feel wealthy using the definitions that you just said.

Well, so what I think being financially comfortable to me is like as an individual it is if you're relatively debt free, right? I mean, maybe you might have a, you know, home with a mortgage on it or something like that, but relatively debt free with at least, you know, if you got like six months in the bank, I think you should feel financially comfortable. Now for me, I'm pretty conservative and so I have always wanted more. So there's the, what I think it should be, which is that. And then there's, for me, you know, it was when it's like, is there.

A number around that first one then like a net worth number?

No, I mean, I think the net worth number, you know, if you figure most people, you know, three to six months average income probably, then the financial comfortable meter based on that would be maybe a net worth of not including the home, you know, 150, $200,000. If you include the home, then maybe with average home prices right now, maybe you're more like a half a million. Okay, so I guess financially comfortable, I'm between 500,000 and a million net worth. And wealthy. 2 million and 5 million is what I believe people said. Now wealthy, I don't think 5 million net worth is necessarily wealthy, but I bet that's probably what people said.

Okay, I like it. So we're going to take a break here. This is a cliffhanger. Our producer is going to be very happy with us for taking a break here and saying when we come back after this little message from one of our sponsors, we're going to tell you what the numbers are and then talk about this a little bit more.

Ryan here. And look, if you're an entrepreneur, you're busy, right? Whether it's replying to emails or scheduling meetings, whatever, there is a lot of work and a lot of hats that we need to wear as entrepreneurs. And that's why as entrepreneurs, especially if you're a visionary founder, you need help, right? And I don't know about you, but at one point for me I was getting so overwhelmed with all the little day to day tasks that little, face it, they gotta get done, but they don't necessarily need to get done by you. And so when I came to this realization, I said, I gotta get help. I Need to get a virtual assistant. I gotta get a social media manager. And that's when I called my friends at Belay Solutions. Belay Solutions are an incredible organization. Now, look, I don't know about you, but I tried to work with VAs in the past. It was always a disaster. And so I was really, really suspicious of being able to make it work. But their process was fantastic. They found out the type of work that I need done, the type of people I like to work with, and they really did match me with a perfect virtual executive assistant. And this person's been with me now for three years and counting. So obviously it worked for me, and I think it's going to work for you. So here's what you need to do. All right? The good folks at Belay, they're actually giving listeners to this podcast $300 off the startup cost for their virtual assistants. You'll pay less than I did. Here's what you need to do.

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Okay, so now we're back. So here are the numbers. You were very, very close. So for. For feeling comfortable, they said 774,000 was the average to feel comfortable. Okay, so it's not that everybody said $774,000.

It's the average.

So which is.

And this just sort of clear net worth, including, inclusive of home. Right.

This. It didn't specify, so.

But it usually does. Right? Net worth is assets minus.

It would include your home, you know, and it's a fan. It's the family net worth. Not like. Like one person there. And then I was actually surprised because this, to me, I guess it was higher than I would have thought for a survey. But 2.2 million was wealthy, so 774 for financially comfortable and 2.2 for wealth. What do you think about that?

I don't. I mean, I don't think that's. I think you're doing very. I think you're doing astoundingly great. This sounds. So I'm going to get, like, all kinds of hate for this. I don't think 2.2 million is wealthy. I don't. I think. I think you've done. And I'm not knocking it.

It's because of your definition of wealth. Your definition, of course, you said is basically, I Don't have to work anymore. Right. So if you're going to. And you said you're conservative. So if you're going to conservatively invest $2.2 million and you're going to take your house out of that, you know, that's not a lot of income that that's going to generate to make you feel like you don't have to work again. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing, like for me to feel wealthy, I think financially comfortable is I know that I've got enough Runway to where if something bad happens and everything blows up, I'll be able to figure something out before I run out of money. Wealth is my assets more than pay for my current lifestyle. So I don't have to go backwards in lifestyle. Yeah. And inflation, you know, and whatever else. You know, I got kids going to college, so it needs to cover, you know, I would call my lifestyle whatever I have right now projected out to where it's going to go. Which depending on who you are, it could be. That could be more, it could be less. But, but that to me is when you're wealthy.

The other thing I liked that that you said, which is, is for me too, because from financially comfortable, I'm going to think much more income y than I am net worthy. Like, like to be financially comfortable to me is I don't have to look at prices for anything. I can get what I want when I want it. And I'm not worried about that. That's to me financially comfortable and I've got some level of savings above and beyond that. And my net worth doesn't. I'm not thinking net worthy on that. Maybe I should be because like if I was thinking, well what if I couldn't work at all? Then financially comfortable would be the amount that I need to do the income things I need divided by my estimated amount of return and that would come up with some net worth. But that's pretty esoteric and not real world. Real world, I'm with you. I don't define it. Even with that it's not a million because a million wouldn't. With house equity. Considering what it costs to live in the places that you and I choose to live in, you know, just cities, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. But, but wealthy, I think wealthy's 10 for, you know, like, like wealthiest 10 to get to the point where you don't have to work or worry about anything. I think you got to be around there because assume a very conservative interest rate that you could, you know, from a combined portfolio of investments, which you would want if you were not going to work again, let's say maybe you could get 5% after taxes. So you're talking about $500,000.

To be.

Able to do what you want and be able to kind of perpetuate your life, that it's not like 10 million is a lot, but it's not as much as you might think it is. That's like when, when you watch shows where it's like, we're going to do one more bank robbery, you know, a movie, we're going to get a million dollars each and then we're going to go off in the sunset. It's like, no, you're not.

Yeah, you went on a really nice vacation, then you went back to work, I guess. Although if you rob the bank, you're probably not paying taxes on it.

So I dug down into this a little bit. So sadly, that means that only about 15% of the US population feels financially comfortable because you have to be in the top 85, at the top, like 85% plus to have a net worth of 774,000. That's. So I thought that was interesting. That means that based on that poll, 85% of the people that are out there are feeling financially uncomfortable, which is.

I bet it's a lot higher than that, too. I bet it's way higher than that. Because I bet the people who said that, Yeah, I think 700 some thousand. And that's why I said, does it include the house? It would have to if you're talking net worth. I mean, there's not really a net worth calculation that doesn't include, you know, your home. But boy, I mean, if I'm sitting on, let's say I got, you know, 400,000 in equity on my house and 300 something thousand in the bank. And almost all of that is in some kind of retirement account that I can't touch for 10, 20 years.

You're not. I don't think I'm feeling.

Yeah, I don't think I'm feeling flush, you know. Yeah, exactly. So I think, I think your 15% number, as that hit me, I was like, God, that seems low. I think it's actually worse than that.

It probably is. So I was kind of surprised at the spread between financially comfortable and wealthy because it was only, what, a million five spread, which I thought was interesting. So basically, and to feel wealthy, then you would have to be in the top 5% because that's where we get to 2.2 in net worth. I thought that was, that was really interesting. And then I couldn't help go to income because I'm concerned about building wealth because I'm not touching that. And so like income, I'm touching wealth. I'm not, if that makes sense. I don't want to sell things and deplete my wealth to pay for my lifestyle ever. So minimum family income to join the top 1%. Right now, it's $421,000. But that's across the entire country. In the United States, in New York City, to be in the top 1%, it's 744. In San Francisco, it's 943. In Wyoming, of all places, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, it's over a million to be in the top 1%. And so I was thinking, like, the interesting thing to me about the New York number was it was close to the 774 of net worth. So, like, if you think about how long and how much you would have to earn to get to 774 to feel comfortable or 2.2 to feel wealthy, based on the average responder to the Schwab survey versus, I think if you talk to people who have higher net worths, they're going to say higher numbers, but they've got more expensive lifestyles because they have more money to play with. And so to maintain that lifestyle, it's going to take more. So that might explain the lower number that we're looking at. That was my unscientific take, but I thought it was really interesting to say, you know, like for them to ask people that and then it kind of goes to. Well, in the economy now, with the stock market shedding 5 to 8 trillion, depending on when you're measuring of value, there's a lot of people that are feeling a lot less wealthy than they were before. And so then we go to consumer confidence and will we go into a recession or something like that? It's kind of an interesting thing.

I was going to ask when, when was this done? Was it done kind of pre. This most recent crash?

Yeah, so this was done. This is normalized. The survey was just conducted recently, or it was, you know, just published today, I think. But the, the numbers that I was giving you in terms of net worth and stuff, those are inflation adjusted from 2020. The next time that they're going to measure that is 2023. So these are the latest numbers adjusted for the inflation that we've had to get to. Kind of where would you have to be but Pretty fascinating, don't you think?

But the survey, the people who took the survey took it kind of since the most recent crash because I, you know, I know there's a lot of people that have watched, you know, their 401ks take, you know, take a beating. And so, you know, you might be feeling like, you know, I need a little bit more to feel more secure. Hard to say, but. So what do you think is the lesson? Like, what's the takeaway for if I'm going to read that, I'm listening. Like, what, what do I, what do I do now? What do you think?

Yeah, that's a really good question, which I haven't thought about. So I guess to me, I'm always measuring, like, where is it that people can feel that they've accomplished what they want to accomplish and they can feel secure? And so I think in terms of, like your customers, if you're a wealth planner, this is tremendously valuable because it gives you a place, it gives you some measuring sticks to say, where should I be looking for clients and what is their feeling, their state of mind for us out there in the world? I think it's a good measuring stick to say, where am I right now and how do I feel and do I agree with those numbers? And it's interesting. If I'm wealthy and way above those numbers, then maybe it's, hey, how about some gratitude for where I am? And you know, maybe I'm chasing everything and trying to pick up every quarter and working myself to death and not spending time with my family, but maybe you're at 5 or 4 or 3 million, you're like, I'm already wealthy and maybe I'm skewed a little bit in what I'm allocating my time and my life to. That's too much towards money and business and not enough towards these other things and I should enjoy life more. Or maybe you've over indexed in the opposite direction of, you know, I've, I'm traveling. I saw an article in, I think it was the Wall Street Journal about a lady in the UK and she's like, I'm 52 years old and basically have £40,000 in my savings and I've had this great life going around being a publicist for bands. And so I hung out with Bono and all these great people and had this crazy life. But now I'm in my 50s and I don't really have savings and I'm renting a place and the rent's about to go up and I can't afford it, and I can't. I don't have the down payment to buy a house. So maybe she's like, I gotta reallocate my focus. So I think it could be good for that. Just kind of normalizing. Where is your focus on money versus time? How about you?

So I was going through a lot of the same emotions where I was like, I was hearing what I was about to say and wanting to punch myself in the face in terms of, like, well, that doesn't seem very wealthy at all. But I remember being the broke college kid and even the first few years in business and, heck, come in pretty close to bankruptcy a couple of times thinking, wow, I mean, I would do almost anything if I, you know, could put $10,000 in the bank. And so, having lived a lot of those, I think the lesson is that it's very relative. And wealth is, I think, how you feel in a particular moment and what you want to guard against is comparison. You know, comparison is a thief of joy. So I think you want to guard against that and just be very intentional about what it is that you want and why you want it. And I think one of the most helpful things there is that distinction between financially comfortable and wealthy and pursuing this aspect of I'm no longer in fear. So that you can then say, okay, well, now what do I want to do? Because I know for me, I've been in seasons where I was in a state of fear, and that just became habitual. And so it was like, I got to go. I got to go. I got to earn. I got to earn because I'm being chased by a lion, right? It's like, there's a lion and it's chasing me down. And there was a time when that was true and then it wasn't true, and I didn't adjust, and I still pursued, you know, wealth and income with the same kind of ferocity. And that's when you burn out. So I do think it's helpful to say, okay, what is it for me to be financially comfortable as defined by, I'm no longer worried about tomorrow, the next day, or the next day, I'm going to be okay. And then in light of that, what does it look like for me to pursue wealth? Wealth being a construct not just of net worth, but a wealthy life, Right? What kind of lifestyle do I want to lead? Because you and I know people worth hundreds of millions of dollars who are freaking miserable, and we know people who. We'd be like, God dang, dude, you need to borrow some Dough. And they're the happiest people we know. So I would pursue a wealthy life and be intentional on what that is. Because what wealth means to you, if it's only measured by money, will only always change.

Yeah, I love it. I think that is fantastic. So anyway, we'd love to hear what you guys think about this stuff too. We have a call in thing now. We had a question that we will talk about on the next podcast from one of our friends, Jerry Conti, who called in. But what is the. Ryan, do you remember what it is? Is it business lunch?

Businesslunchpodcast.com Ask A S K. That's where you can ask me and Roland. And you know, we like to keep this show just you and I chatting like we do over lunch. And this is everybody's chance to kind of eavesdrop in and like the show is eavesdropping in on one of our business lunch conversations. The businesslunchpodcast.com ask is your chance to kind of, if you were at a restaurant, you saw us having a conversation, sidling on over to our table and being like, hey, can I ask you a quick question? So this is your chance to do that. So we're gonna try to be one.

Of them a week and yeah, that's funny. Now I have this vision that we're gonna be sitting down having lunch and somebody's gonna come and sit down. That's. This sounds terrible. Yeah, it's really great. We'd love to get. Also we have social media, so we've got a YouTube channel. I don't know where you're watching this right now, but we have a YouTube channel, Instagram, and all those things for business lunch podcast we'd love to get because we look at those things. We'd love to get your feedback on this, particularly what does it take for you to feel wealthy and what does it take for you to feel financially comfortable and what do you think is right or wrong about the numbers that you know are accurate or inaccurate about the numbers that came out of that survey. And if you enjoy listening to us and having this little time with us, we would love for you to subscribe so that you don't miss out on any of these. And also give us a five star rating so other people can say those guys are fun to listen to and we'd like to listen to them too. Thank you guys for being here. Ryan, wonderful as always and we'll see you guys next time. Ever wondered how some people build real wealth through acquisitions while others just sit on the sidelines. Well, I'm here to tell you it's not about luck. It's about having the right system, the right deals and the right guidance. And that's exactly what we give you in the EPIC Deal Fast Track. If you've been thinking about buying a business, but you keep getting stuck, whether it's finding the right deal, structuring the financing or negotiating with sellers, you are not alone. Too many people waste months, even years just thinking about acquiring a business while the real opportunities pass them by. The EPIC Deal Fast Track is not another course. It's actually an implementation program. And it's designed to get you from the idea to the acquisition in just 16 weeks or less. We work with you one on one to help you find, fund and close your first or next deal. And once you do, we're going to plug you into our elite EPIC board community so that you can keep scaling through acquisitions. We install three powerful systems in your business. The first is the Deal flow engine so you always have high quality off market deals coming to you. Number two, we give you our offer and funding system so that you can structure offers that get accepted and fund them creatively many times with no money out of your own pocket. And number three, our closing and integration system so that you don't just buy a business, you actually successfully run and scale it once you have acquired it. Plus you'll have direct one on one support from an EPIC Deal Advisor every step of the way. And that's people that have actually come up through this system and done these deals themselves. That's the only way to become an EPIC Deal Advisor. And if you're serious about acquiring a business this year, don't just sit on the sidelines. Just text I'm in to 334-458-9034 and we'll get you in. So text I'm in to 334-458-9034 will get you in. No fluff, no wasted time, just real deal making from people that are actually out there doing deals right now. I'll see you there.