How To Make MONEY Work For You! | Dawn Dahlby

Money alone is just a tool and it's controlled and defined by our behaviors. And so many times we feel like, you know, money controls us, but we control it. So the real definition of wealth to me is about building both your wealth and your worth at the same time. It's about building that internal personal security like your self esteem, what you think and feel about yourself, and building that at the same time you build your financial wealth.

I know a lot of your experience gets into wealth creation, wealth generation, wealth planning, all of the good stuff. My question is, as someone who didn't grow up wealthy, if you just had a long journey and kind of creating wealth over time, I'm curious to know what kind of roadblocks you see that people have on a continual basis that really prevent them from even focusing on wealth creation.

Oh yeah, that's such a good question. You know, I believe first and foremost, you know, our brains are formed, what we think about ourself and what we think about our wealth by the time we're age 6. Like isn't that crazy?

Yeah.

So what we witness our parents doing, the non verbal conversations, the verbal conversations really get stuck in our subconscious mind. And I think we carry that with us as we age and as we become adults. In fact, I thought the same thing. Like for me, I was so focused on making money, I just wanted to be a multimillionaire. And so that's all I focused on because of my, my scarcity mindset as a child. And so I, that's what I did. I kept building my wealth and building my wealth and building my wealth. And that was my main focus because I had to retra my thought pattern on what was possible for me.

Yeah, no, I think it's so good. And you know, I was also thinking too, it's like, you know, it took me a while before I could even articulate what wealth really meant to me. Right. Yeah, sure, it can be a number, but what's associated with that number? So talk to me a little about how, what wealth really is, especially for our folks who may be on the journey of creation in creating wealth for themselves.

Well, absolutely love this question. I have a book that launches in just a month and the book is called Live well Thee because as a wealth advisor for 23 years, you know, I've sat in over, gosh, 10,000 different client meetings and I have been able to really define what wealth is. And I'm telling you this is that money alone is just a tool and it's controlled and defined by our behaviors. And so Many times we feel like, you know, money controls us, but we control it. So the real definition of wealth to me is about building both your wealth and, and your worth at the same time. It's about building that internal personal security, like your self esteem, what you think and feel about yourself and building that. At the same time you build your financial wealth because the financial wealth is important. We need to understand all the tactics about building wealth. That is like wealth is oxygen for us and we need that. But we also have to take a step back and go, why are we building this wealth? Like how much is enough? And how do we arrive at that enoughness? And that is the key, the secret key to building wealth. It's about aligning that total well being of us to our wealth building journey. It's not just, we don't just start with let's grow our income and let's invest our money and let's minimize our taxes. Super important. But it's taking that step back and going, why are we doing this? How do we align wealth? Because that's where we arrive at living wealthy. And to me that definition is being wealthy versus just being rich and having money in the bank.

Yeah, I think one of my first mentors told me a long time ago that, you know, a wealthy person would continually invest, but not just invest money, invest time, talent, resources, relationships. Like they're continually investing in making their life and the lives of those that they love better on a continual basis. And he said, a poor man will always spend, you know, there will always be more withdrawals than more deposits, I guess you would say. And one of the things that, that you had mentioned to one of our good friends, Evan Carmichael, on a show you guys did recently was, and I thought it was pivotal because I was like, oh, I remember being there too, this ability or desire to spend enough to be enough. Like let's talk about that limiting belief for just a minute because I feel like a lot of people who are chasing wealth are chasing that rather than actually chasing true, you know, living wealthy.

Yeah, I was, I remember, you know, as a story, I did the same thing. I was chasing wealth. In fact, I was at a point in my career, you know, I'm about 23, 24 years in and where I was making five times the amount of money that I was thought I would make, you know, and I was still feared those credit card statements coming in and I was like, I literally had to take a pause and go, what the f is wrong with me? Like, it was the fear of not the, the Money was coming in. But it was the fear of me being enough. It was me being so still insecure in my own skin and comparing my differences to everybody else's so called strengths. And I didn't know my why and, and once I tried it once, once I started doing, which we know personal development is just about what you think and what you feel. Right. It's about what you think and what you feel and really honing in on that journey. And I was like, oh, it's so interesting that my wealth actually started growing faster when I worked on myself.

Yeah.

So it, like, it was so weird. And you think it like these opposite forces building your personal wealth and your external wealth, but they're interconnected forces and it's, it was such a, like eye opening to me and I was like, I need to step back from, you know, for me, I needed to step back in that, from that one on one client interaction that I've had for 23 years. I'm like, I need to tell the world this because if I can achieve it, like I came from nothing too. Like I came from a town of 2000 people. Very limiting thinking. Like, I felt trapped all the time knowing nothing in the financial world. Like as I, as I was like, oh gosh, what do I want to do with my life? I just want to make money. Like, how do you do that? You learn about money. Right? And so I've gone from nothing. I've gone from being broke. No one's given me anything. I'm the sole income provider of my household to this multi million dollar successful financial advisory business. And I don't say that because woe is me. I say that because I was, I, I had nothing but limiting beliefs and I was able to grow by just doing the work.

Yeah, no, it's so good. In fact, I was just, it just dawned on me my greatest mistake in ever building businesses. And my, you know, my first one I started 25 plus years ago was not building myself. Along the way I'd gotten where I'd earned probably a top line of that particular year. This is probably 10 years in maybe 10 or $12 million. Top line. Right. Net income was strong. I was looking at it, I was like, okay, well yeah. And then, but I was running with my office like you know, being a doofus because I had people with CFO and C, like COO and all these different acronyms behind their names with MBAs and CPAs and ABCs and EFGs and you know, kind of thing. Here I was the high school Dropout, Right. I'm like, you know, so that insecurity caused me to be a lot more aggressive than needed to be early on until I realized that this personal and professional development thing is basically its own school.

Yeah, you know, it is. It's its own school. And it's better education than what you get in high school all day long. You know, my kid, my dog. I have two teenage daughters, and my one is like a straight C student if we're lucky. And she hates school, and she's very smart, and it's because she can see beyond, you know, what they're studying there. And I think, fantastic for people that are smart enough to drop out and go, I need something different. Right. And I think, you know, I. You made a great point right there. Is that, gosh, I feel like sometimes when we do that, we feel less than society because we're different and maybe we don't excel in school. Like, I hated school myself, and I feel like, you know, gosh, we use those insecurities and our differences, and it makes us more insecure. And I'm telling you, it wasn't until I was able to go, wow, that's actually like, we know. It's our superpowers, right? We're different. Like, if you asked me to spell something, like, thank God for autocorrect. Can I do numbers? Absolutely. But I was so ingrained at, like, how. How I'm so different than everybody else, and that made me so insecure. And it was finally that light bulb through personal development that I was like, damn it. You know what this is? This is actually that's gonna, you know, throttle me into the future and make me so different and make me, you know, super financially successful. But then I turn into, like, how do I make other people financially successful? Yeah, because we all have those insecurities.

Right.

That's why my book is called Live Wealthy. It's about, you know, building your self esteem and building your financial assets at the same time. Because when you do that.

Yeah.

That's when life becomes meaningful.

Yeah, no, totally. In fact, one of the things I love so much about your work and the stuff that you've been doing is you actually affect behavior change. Right. It's one thing to learn something or to read something. It's another thing to apply something, to measure something. And so, you know, continue on a journey of consistency. Talk to me a little bit about kind of why it's so important to kind of look at wealth creation and all this in more of a holistic approach where it's you know, because it's, it's easy to read a spreadsheet, right? My first mentor was joking around with me a long time. This is, he passed away, you know, 2003. But one of the things I used to struggle with algebra like big time. He said, try, he said, next time you're struggling with algebraic equation, he said, put a dollar sign in front of it. And sure enough, I put dollar signs. All of a sudden I could solve the problem. Right? So we got, we got activity, we got application, we got behavior modification. Talk to me about live wealthy and how that actually affects behavior modification. Because I think you're one of a kind in that aspect.

Yeah, I appreciate that question too. I, you know, to me it comes naturally just to take action. But I, you know, I realize in life that our pain, like for you it was all about the scarce, right? I want money. I like, I need money, money. So our pain becomes our passion. And you gotta get really deep into the pain of your life because we all have it. And when we get really deep into that pain, then we can realize like, oh, that's what really, you know, it makes us take that action and change that behavior in our lives. So either you have the pain to do it on your own, or for some of us, we just don't have enough like really deep rooted pain in our life. And that's where, you know, for me, not just writing the book, the book is just, you know, the book is just an entry level into people understanding what my philosophy is about wealth. But it's really about creating this online digital advisory platform where I'm not having people build their wealth on their own. Yeah, because no one does the stuff on their own. No one takes the courses or they take their first, you know, hour and then they're like, eh.

Or they binge watch them all and never do anything.

Anything and never do anything. Right. Because they're learning but they're not applying like you said. And so it's really about this connection. In fact, at the end of this month, I'm doing this own your worth experience event in Las Vegas.

Oh, very cool.

And it's about us women coming together because we know we don't implement on our own. We know because of fear and because of life and just how busy that, you know, we're in this treadmill of life. Like we're just constantly going and scrolling and, and it's, it's, it's for us to take a couple of days together and take a step back and learn together. But Then we are executing together. It's about taking that action together. Because when I need help, I need someone to like, kick me in the ass to go, you know what, get off the couch and let's go. Because I get stuck in my own head sometimes. We all do, and we all need that. So to me, it's about the collaboration and it's really about the community. And that's what's so important, is we need each other to move forward.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's really, really good. I was thinking too, you know, when it comes down to behavior change and, and having an ally and people there to surround you to do that is a, is a huge, huge piece and moving the needle, let's be honest. Yeah. I was also watching recently a good friend of mine, Graham Steffens, he was. Had a piece of content out there he was talking about, you know, the average multi millionaire is, you know, you think the difference between a 1 percenter and then somebody's making $40,000 a year and the choices that they're making along the way that end up driving that behavior change. You said that the average person's net worth, I think you said 75 or 80 of the population, the average net worth is about $12,000, $18,000. Right.

Because of debt.

Because of debt. And then he starts digging into it. He goes, well, and here's the crazy part is most people couldn't tell you what net worth is, let alone net income. So let's break down net worth and net income a little bit because I, I know for me that when I understood that net worth was very different than how much money that I thought I had in my. In my possession, it changed the way in which I look at wealth in general.

Yeah, interesting. So, you know, net worth is really about your assets. Everything that you have as an asset, your home, your investment portfolios, maybe your cars, they are a depreciating asset. But it's everything that you own. And then you take away everything that you owe.

Right.

Your debt. So if I have a house that's worth a million dollars, but I have a $800,000 mortgage on there, that net worth difference is only 200,000. Because if I. Because if I passed away today, I have to take everything that I own minus everything that I owe, and that's what my family has left. And it's important to look at that net worth statement because we want to see the trajectory of that grow every single year. But we as society. Because you said the average net worth is 12 grand. Yeah, it's crazy low, right?

Yeah, exactly.

And it's because. Because we don't manage our entire wealth in a productive way. In fact, we're just looking at, I think so many times we feel like that we're just chasing more income. We're just cha. Like, nobody like us. Anyone that's listening today, if you said how much is enough? They'd like, like more. Right. At any wealth level. I mean, there's been interviews by people that have nothing to people that are multi billionaires. And it's like, how much is enough? And they all say a little bit more because we're on this constant, like this constant treadmill or this constant, like, road of constantly wanting more.

Yeah.

And I believe that we don't take enough time to step back and say, okay, how much is enough income? And all of us, because of that net worth number you gave me, we like, stop and go. All we do is want more because we don't do anything when the money comes in. We don't turn it into our net worth. Right. We're either spending and having that money dissipate in our life, or we're actually having that money grow and work just as hard for us as we do for it. And that is the missing link in building wealth. It's like, you can have the income coming in, but I tell my audience, it's like, gosh, you know, so we all have income coming in. I don't care if it's $50,000 a year or $50 million a year, then what we do is we have to pay taxes on that money. And so we either are going to pay more taxes or we can pay less taxes and turn some of that income into our future.

Yeah.

Because when we turn some of that money into our future and start investing that in the right type of accounts, we pay less in taxes and then that money starts working for us. Because I'm telling you, life is expensive. We all know that. Especially in this inflationary time. Like, it's expensive to live. Right. And we need our money to be producing for us just as much as we produce for it. Because there's not enough time and energy on this planet to just have. Just to look at making income.

Yeah, no, absolutely. In fact, I think most people. One of the things that most people don't do is they put compound interest or compounding. They don't put it to work for them. Right. They go get a bunch of credit cards, for example, go heavily in debt, you know, with credit cards, because they, you're. They're the behavior, I would argue that the behavior that they're actually doing is impulsivity. Been there, done that. Like no, like not, not throwing shade or casting, casting anything out. And then you end up letting the, the people with the bigger buildings end up making all the interest on the money that you're now paying them versus taking that same extra resource by smart tax planning or smart investing and stuff like that. Getting extra capital to then deploy in a compounding way for yourself. What are some of the tools and the tricks that you see you've used? Maybe some of the things in living live wealthy that maybe you can share with the audience that maybe they could do today if they're only making 60, $80,000 a year.

Yeah, well, at any income level, like I just said, the first thing you need to do is pay yourself first. And that is, you know, we all have this money coming in and we have to pay taxes on it, which is a non negotiable. And we have to save a portion of our gross income, which also should be non negotiable. I'm telling you, in my 23 years of advising clients, one on one and I've told like clients, you have to put a percentage of your income away. I always like to say 15%. But some people can't afford to do that. I understand that. Right. I'm a realist too. But Even if it's 5% of your, of your gross income away, I'm telling you, I have never had anyone come back to me and say they've missed the money. It's super simple. All you do is meet with someone like myself, a fiduciary advisor, and say, just take 5% of my money, take 5% of my money and start putting it away. And by the way, you do have to meet with a fiduciary advisor because a fiduciary is someone who has your best interests at heart. So you don't just like, you know, they have to by law, like we could go to jail if we do something inappropriately for clients because money's so sensitive. But if you work with someone that, that literally has the oath of you have to trust me because I'm under that umbrella of trust, that umbrella of fiduciary, then that person can put the money away in your best interest in a diversified investment portfolio of stocks and bonds. And then that money starts compounding for you. And I'm telling you, you never miss it. Why? Because you would pay the majority of that money to the IRS anyways.

Yeah.

So like it's a no brainer because in my book Live Wealthy I teach people that, you know what, so many times like our audiences are afraid to start saving money because they're like, oh, I don't want to give up today and I don't have enough money coming in and I still want to go up for happy hour and I want to be with my friends and I want to travel and blah blah, blah, blah blah blah. And, and what happens is that you can still do that. Like you don't have to give up your today to save for tomorrow. Like if you play the tax game and it's like the, the, the IRS makes it so difficult for us to understand the tax game because they want us to pay more taxes. But if you work with someone like me and you work with a cpa, my God, like you don't have to give up today to do it. It's so powerful. It's like, okay. I mean I've literally taken client A and client B. Same incomes. Okay. Same incomes and one saves for the future and one doesn't. Both of them don't have to give up today because they're still doing the fun stuff today. But the other one either has debt or has nothing 20 years from now. And that other same, that other client would actually have a million plus in their investment portfolio so they can actually like enjoy. What we all want to do in life is have freedom. Right. We all want to enjoy our, our time here on this planet. It's short lived for all of us. And it's like, you know what? Like literally just take a step back and start like the non negotiable is putting a percentage of your income away. And I'm telling you, you won't freaking miss it.

Yeah.

And you will love yourself and your life 20 years from now.

Yeah. And the best thing you can do is get it and forget it. I mean honestly. And do exactly what you're talking about.

Automation.

Just forget about it.

Yeah.

It's going to compound while you're not looking. If it's done well it's going to, it's going to. The average of whether you know that's that particular investment does will go up and down based on all kinds of conditions. But staying in the long game. I see a lot of people, as soon as fear starts getting some would call it fear porn starts going out into the media. Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh God. I gotta get, give me all my stuff back. Give me, go back. I got, I got, I got to squirrel it away. I got to put it under my pillow and, you know, all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's the absolute worst thing you can do.

Yeah.

I was talking to a good friend of mine who also likes. Enjoys the real estate space like I do. And, you know, he and I were chatting it up and, you know, it's funny that so many people get so emotionally tied to an economic environment that fear takes over and they sell at the exact moment they should hold.

Yeah.

And then they buy at the exact moments they should hold.

Yes.

Right. That's kind of the complex thing I've seen.

And that's why someone like myself and my team as advisors come in. Because building wealth, it's about the decision making. You know, where to invest, whether you invest in real estate, you invest in the market. You know, it really doesn't matter. Like, chasing returns doesn't matter. What matters is the consistency. And you don't do what you just said because. So, like, I'm telling you, like, over. Let's see, what are we in 20, 23 now? I'm in my 50s. I'm like, what year is it? Like, okay, so last year was hell in the stock market. And the year before that, I was advising clients. Like, clients do, you know you're getting 20% rate of return on your investments? And that's not normal. Like, the market is overpriced. And so what we did is total opposite of what you say people do. Right. So what you do is you sell at the high. Like, when things are going really well, you sell that shit off and then you buy. In, like, this past year, I've had the majority of my clients, I said, we're going to put 10% more of your portfolio into the markets right now because there's a fire sale. And I think that's the difference between, like, you know, there's not a like in it. Working with an advisor because it helps you.

Yeah.

Stop getting in the way of yourself. Because fear drives our decision making. And I'm telling you, as a behavioral advisor, like, I. I'm the first behavioral advisor in the country because I saw that all the time. I'm like, no, you guys, like, you're making the wrong decisions with your wealth at the wrong time. And people get rewarded financially for doing the thing that's uncomfortable in an uncomfortable situation. You get rewarded with your investments that way. You get rewarded with your income that way.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I was just thinking too, you know, scarcity mindset, poverty mindset is 100% emotional. 100% emotional wealth mindset is 100% strategical. Like even though I may feel this, the strategy says we're going to execute this way. And then when you operate by a strategy, nine times out of ten you're in a much better place than you thought you would be in, had you acted in the emotional.

Absolutely. Let me ask you this. For you to get to that journey in your career, I'm guessing you had to hire a team around you to help you make those good decisions, right?

Yeah, absolutely. We, I mean, yeah, you, you have to have people like yourself that, that one does have your best interest at heart. Two has a different view on the marketplace in general. You have, even as, even in your role, you're gonna have, you're gonna have access to different tools and things that your general public's not going to right. Different investment tools the way different options, all kinds of, you know, probably custom APIs and all kinds of really cool stuff to kind of do that. Why not put that stuff to work? Right? And what I see again, and this is, comes, this comes back from my father back in the day, a long time ago. And he's a, he's an amazing guy. Love him to death. But he told me when I was probably 16 or 17, he had just lost his business. He said, hey, Scoggins, don't get ahead, they get by. And if it hadn't been for my first mentor.

We refer to him as old Man Myrick. Now, which was his employer telling me that no, the way you think determines the way you behave. The way you behave will determine how wealthy or not wealthy or whatever you're going to be. He also told me something else that I thought was really pivotal. He said, when everybody else is riding the bull, always know that someone's chasing the bear. So you look at a bull market like you were just talking about 20% returns. Everybody's Yay, this is life. Life is going to be great forever. It's never great forever and it's never rotten forever.

Right.

So you have to have someone like yourself to put those things into place to make sure that you do have that balanced approach.

In fact, I don't really know off the top of my head right now what the actual timing is. But you know, recessions like we're in right now and, and bear markets are so short lived, like they, I mean the depression was seven years. Like we're talking 1920s, right?

Yeah.

But since then, where we've had some bad markets in 20, you know, 2000, in 2008 and now, just a couple years ago, or the, the markets that we're in now, they're short lived. Yeah, like, like maybe like back in 2008, it was 18 months, like literally 18 months. And so it's a short window of time. And we like the media loves that short window of time because it gives them something to talk about. Right. But it's like those short windows of opportunity just right now too. Right now, the opportunity is now for you to become a millionaire. In fact, your time in the short window, in fact, we're already 12 months into it. You guys, I've been sitting in client meetings for 12 months going, I'm sorry, your portfolio is down 8%. I'm sorry, your portfolio is DOWN 14%. But guess what, guess what, let's add a little bit more into that. Because whether it recovers in six months from now or 12 months from now, I don't know exactly the timing of it, but I do know the markets will recover. And I'm telling you the timing is now to put your money to work for you because it's a, you know, it's an opportunity because everything's on sale. So not only is everything on sale, but you get the compounding interest on top of that. Yeah, like, like that's how millionaires are made. And I'm telling your audience like right now, don't wait, don't wait. Like, I know you think, I know you think you can't afford it, but I'm telling you, you can't afford not to take advantage of this opportunity right now. It's huge.

Yeah, for sure. Well, and the reality is, just in being quite honest, it was probably nine months ago, I did an Instagram live and I said, hey guys, this is going to happen. Here's all the indicators, here's all the tea leaves, this thing's gonna happen. Here's what you need to do. And one of those things was not to get involved in fear porn. To be smart, get an advisor, be strategic, get ready, it's gonna be okay. And then, you know, basically just do your due diligence and continue to work the program. And as we're, as we're kind of coming in and this, you know, I would say the market currently is a little, is volatile. Right. It has like one moment, hey, where things are starting to get better and then another moment's like, oh, things are starting to fall apart. And the reality is you just have to look at it from objective. Because another thing that that same mentor told me, he goes, when markets are bad that's when you invest, like in real estate and in the market. Like what? Like that's when stuff's on sale and anybody with capital, anybody that's wealthy, that has cash on hand, that's what they're doing. They're waiting for down markets to buy in at a sale and then ride that margin up to. They get to resell at the upper end like we just talked about a second ago. You know, you start taking all those parts and pieces to put it together. A lot of folks just don't know where to start. Like, okay, well all that sounds great. You guys have become successful. You guys have overcome limiting beliefs or, you know, working through those and stuff like that. That makes total sense. I'm. Where do I start? Like, I, like I don't know how to hop into the market. Like, what does even hop into the market even mean? You know, kind of thing.

Right? Yeah. Well, let me just take a step back first and say, you know, the opportunity right now, if you look at the price to earning ratios, stocks are still a little overpriced. So I think we could still, like you said earlier in the, in the question, like the, the. I think we're still in this volatile road for a little bit, but there's opportunity and fixed income. In fact, fixed income, which are bonds, right? Bonds are just like loans. Like, you know, you give, you give someone a company money and they're in return going to pay you interest on there. And there's so much opportunity in the fixed income market right now. So there's opportunity, but where in the fixed income? Okay, so there's opportunity in fixed income. I still think there's opportunity in the stock market, but if we're looking at stocks and bonds, you know, and obviously real estate, which you dabble in too, or probably the right word isn't dabble, but you have probably a significant portfolio in real estate. But there is opportunity now. But where do people start? You're right, because like, they go, like, where do I go? Do I go in bonds? Do I go in real estate? Like, what the heck? And so I always say, you know, it's about. You start with finding the right human being, the right advisor that's gonna create a financial plan for you. Because I'm telling you, it's not just where do I start investing and how much should I put away? It's like, you gotta have a plan. I call it a wealth alignment plan. That's where you start. You start with meeting with somebody that's going to help you have a Plan for yourself and your family. Like, where are you going? You don't just start investing, right. You got to have, okay, what is the goal? When do you want to be financially independent? Okay. Like how much cash reserves should you have for emergencies? Okay, how much protection planning do you need? Like, nobody hates insurance, but we all need in life insurance. The majority of us need life insurance. Like, how do we protect our wealth should something happen to us?

Yes.

So like, when do I want to be like, done working? Like, when do I want that? When how do I minimize my taxes? Like all those things are a big puzzle and they all fit together. So where do you start? You start with a financial plan because your financial plan is going to tell you how much you really need to put away. So it's the how much first and then the where second. Okay. Because people don't have this plan and then they don't know where the f they're going.

Yeah.

And then if they don't know where they're going, then they're not making good decisions. It starts with a plan so easy. And I, you know, and I'm not here to plug myself, but I'm, you can see I'm super passionate about this. So I have, like, I've, over the last four years, I've created this digital online advisory platform to allow people that don't have the millions yet to create the millions. And it's this financial plan that they can build that actually shows them how to have like really four different buckets of money. And they can plug and play their own information in there. They don't have to share how much debt they have. They don't have to share what their incomes are. You know, they can plug and play into this financial plan and go, oh, this is exactly how much I need if I want to achieve X by this date.

Yeah.

And I think it's so important because, you know, I just sat there, you know, for 23 years, sitting there, helping millionaires become more, like, helping them gain more millions. That's what I've been doing for two decades. And I was like, damn it, you know what? The people that really need the help are the people that want to be the millionaires. Like you know, my two daughters, right? They don't know how to build wealth. Right. The 20 year olds that have $40,000 income, they want the millions, Right. They're entrepreneurs, they want to build. So I was like, gosh, how can I create a platform to serve this community and give the same fiduciary advice that I give to my millionaires. But give it in a way that, that is efficient for them and still private for them and allows them to build their own financial plan. Because I'm telling you, the secret is the plan. That's where you start.

Yeah, absolutely. Such good feedback. You know, it's clear you are passionate. Like you're very passionate about this subject. You're very passionate about helping people in this area. What? What? Why was now the best time to come out with a book and kind of put your thoughts and your heart on paper?

Well, now isn't the best time because I'm telling you, I wrote that freaking book in Covid. Right. 2020. In 2020.

And so it's just taken this long to launch it. But if I'm going to be authentic and real, why is the best time?

Because the timing was right for me. Because I used to be so insecure about like scaling my business. I mean it's multi million dollar business the way it is. It was doing great. Like I don't need to do this. Right. I don't need to like put my neck on the line to do this. But I thought, you know, I finally got to this place where I feel so frickin good in my own skin and I was like, I don't feel this insecurity and this fear so much. I mean, we all have fear still. But. But this anxiety.

Yeah.

Around what I do and how I do it for people. And I was like, you know what, I don't want to like experience life solo anymore. Like I live in this beautiful house, I have a beauty. Like I love my environment. But I was like, I love people more than I love money. And I'm like, how can I bring more people on this journey with me to be able to get to this point where they can have the wealth, support exactly how they choose to live. And I just feel like I'm called. It's a spiritual calling to be able to share this with other people. And I believe now like, you know, we're in a wealth crisis now. I believe it's because it's a worth crisis. Like it's like stand up, like be freaking uncomfortable in your weaknesses. We all have them. I have them. Like, I still struggle with anxiety. I still like get fearful when I get on a freaking airplane. Like I'm a human being, okay. But it's like when we walk through that fear and we get to that other side and we're like, oh my gosh, like this is beautiful together. And I just feel like, like when we Work on our worth, our wealth grows. And it's like, oh, my gosh, like, if I can help people work on both of those at the same time, and I can help people because of the point in life that I'm at, like, I will die a happy girl.

Oh, man. So good. Well, you know, it's. I also know that your live event coming up, significant investment. Yeah, Right. I'm a live events person. That's what I do. Right. That's one of my favorite niches that we're in is doing live events and hosting them and all that kind of stuff. So I know the investment, the time, the resource, you know, bringing in the speakers, putting the things together, making sure there's an experience, all this kind of stuff. What's at your heart of this live event? Like, what is it you're hoping to inspire or change in the hearts of the people that come to it?

Yeah, I love that question, too. You are so good. Oh, my gosh. I think this is, like, my favorite podcast.

You. Thank you.

Amazing. We. And by the way, we didn't even talk prior to this. Right. We didn't have any questions rehearsed like this.

My research. Thank you very much. How amazing you are. And that's why you're on. That's why you had to get from the audience.

Well, I'm telling you, you're amazing. That's what I'm really telling. But I think. I think you kind of hit the nail on the head earlier.

It's about the collaboration, and when we own our work together, we don't have to do life on our own. And when entrepreneurs come in and they're like, I have so many decisions to make. I don't know if I should hire this person or not. Should I invest in my business or not? Should I engage in this new partnership? There's so many questions, and we need support. And that's kind of the catalyst of this event, because it's like it is for entrepreneurs. It's like, oh, my gosh. When you're stuck, you have a resource now to go to. Someone says, not just going to sell you a course or sell you into their platform. It's like, no, we got. We're there together to support one another and be like, you know what? I got your back. Because when you build true wealth, it doesn't become so much about you.

Yeah.

It becomes about giving to others. And you know as well as I know is when you give, like, authentically give and want to help and serve, it does come back to you. Because we all want to grow. Like we all love money too. I'm at the stage now, I still love money, I want to grow my wealth. Like, like we never stop growing because we're human beings, we evolve every day. But, but it's really about how do we continue to support the 14 year old that wants to become an entrepreneur and drop out of high school and like, woo hoo. Right. Or how do we support the six year old or the seven year old that's reinventing themselves still. Like I feel like I'm just reinventing myself at 52. Like I've been doing this for 20, but this whole media business and, and going in and doing, speaking about, it's a whole nother world. Yeah, right. And it's merging those two businesses together so we never stop growing and you don't have to do it alone. Yeah. And that's what this event is about.

I love it. You know, it's funny, I was, I had a very fortunate. It's not. You know how they tell you never meet your heroes? Right. They tell you that, you know, it's always never a good idea. And it wasn't that long ago. About a year and a half ago, I was able to have a guest of mine, that guy that named Les Brown. So he's obviously one of the most well known speakers on the planet and I was able to share with him that fresh out of coming out of homelessness, I got invited to a conference of a, from a friend of mine, which he was giving the it's possible speech. And I always say that live events are the. Where you can change in an instant. Like you can, you can take you a year, five years, ten years, or you can change in an instant. Like something can grab a hold of your heart, something can grab a hold of your mind. You get a new perspective, you, you make a new connection. And I'm a huge believer that live events are the way in which you accelerate your potential.

I agree with you. Yes.

Right. Because you got courses, you could do courses, you do them on your own, which is, they're, they're great and you need them and they're supportive. But as far as getting fast forward acceleration, you have to put yourself around the fire in order for you to catch fire. Right?

Absolutely. And you can change, like you said, in an instant, but you need the support because I'm telling you, life will constantly throw you, life will constantly sting you. Yeah, right. It's the challenges, the, the conflicts, the disappointments, the disagreements, they're all going to be There all day long, every day, every month of the year. So it's about when those come to you because they are after you change at the event. But when, when life comes to you and stings you, it's all in how you respond to that is what makes you successful or not. And going back to that event, going back to that, that experience, that transformation experience you had live with a community of kick ass human beings. Right. And you can always go back. So how, you know, what was the feeling at this event and then how can I change or how can I respond differently when these challenges come to me next month and how am I going to operate in a different capacity? Because I'm telling you, you either going left or you're going right. Right. Every day, every day there's 35,000 decisions. Are you going left or you're going right? And when we make those really good decisions because of that event we attended and because of the support and the community after the event, that's when people, lives do become a transformation.

Yeah. Well, look, I know we could send people a hundred different directions, but to kind of find out more about you and what you're working on, I want to get them to the live event. I'm sure they can pick up the book at the live event as well. But talk to me about where the best way for you to connect with everybody, you know, where would you like to meet everybody for the first time?

Yeah, I'm launching that book at the live event. It's March 31st, April 1st in Las Vegas. There's virtual tickets as well. There's in person tickets you can go to. The website is own your worth experience. So own your worth experience.com or you can head on over to just my website because it's Dawn Delby anywhere. My website, Don Delby, Instagram. Like it. We made it easy. But if you really want to go to the event, which I would highly suggest you do because again, entrepreneurs, it's a tax write off, right? It's a tax write off. So it really doesn't cost you that much money. And the, the value in exchange, you're, it's going to change your life. So that's ownyourworthexperience.com I love it.

Dawn, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I'm telling you what, everybody's gonna have to go pick up the book or spend some time with your live event. I look forward to meeting you in person myself in the near future.

I can't wait for that. Thank you for your time.

All right. Take it easy. See you.

You too. Bye. Bye.

I hope you liked that video. And if you did, make sure you check out this next video right here. You know, I kind of look at it like a game. I love playing games. As a kid, I still love playing games. I think the most fascinating game is the tax game. We're all in the game. I just go, how do I win that game? It's really just understanding the rules of the game. Most people understand very few of the rules, and so they pay a high cost, they lose the game, whereas you really understand the rules. It's a pretty easy game to win.