Learn How To Restore Your Relationship With Wealth

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and on this week's podcast, we have somebody intentional and someone and somebody mindful. But he's going to help you make you get wealthier. An intentional, mindful way. But before we talk to our guests, I'd be remiss if I didn't properly introduce my co host. You know him, you love him. The brain, the professor. Your flights go Sherpa. Scott Todd from scotttodd.net landmodo.com learn anything about anything. Investorninjas.com Scott Todd, how are you, Mark? I'm great.

How are you?

Pulse is still normal. Respiration's fine. I'm excited to get mindfully wealthier. Are you, Scott?

Let's roll. Let's see what we can do.

Well, our guest today is Ryan Sterling. He is a wealth coach at Future youe Wealth, and he's the founder and head wealth coach at Future you Wealth. He has over 15 years of experience helping individuals and families achieve their financial goals and teaches financial literacy courses in underserved communities. He's not just a financial advisor, he's a wealth coach. Using mindfulness and intention to restore your relationship with wealth. This is a lot to unpack. Ryan Sterling, welcome.

Thanks so much for having me. It's good to be on.

So let's just kind of start from the very beginning. What made you want to be a wealth coach? How did you get into it?

Yeah, so I've been a practicing financial advisor. I mean, really going all the way back to. To my first job out of college. I was one of those people where I wanted to be an investment banker in college. Now, I didn't know what an investment banker did. I didn't know the job function. I knew some of the firms, but I just knew that's what I wanted to do. But basically that was code for me saying I just wanted to be in finance. I was attracted to the lifestyle. I was attracted to the energy of Wall Street. Quite frankly, I was just looking for any way into the industry. And I just so happened to fall into wealth management. And it could not have been a better fit for me. I have an analytical side of my brain, but at the same time, I grew up in a family business. It was a chain of bakeries. And oftentimes I worked behind the counter at the bakery. And I loved people, I loved customer service. So the fact that I could be in financial services and that I could use my analytical brain, but I could also work with people, was the absolute perfect fit. That's how I got into being a financial advisor. I worked at some of the biggest firms in the industry. But it was a couple of years ago where I was at this point in my life where I was making more money than I ever thought was possible. I was checking off all of the boxes. I had the right title, I had the right firm pedigree, I had the right income. But my wife and I fell victim to a phenomenon known as lifestyle creep. And lifestyle creep is basically where every time you make more money, you spend more money. If you make an extra 50,000, you spend an extra 60,000. If you make an extra 100,000, you spend 120,000. And I got to this point where, again, I checked all the boxes, but I was in my mid to late 30s, and I said, wait a second. I'm not really happy where I am. I'm not as financially secure as I thought I would be. I'm in this business, which is kind of ironic that I'm helping people achieve their financial goals. Yet our personal balance sheet is an absolute mess. And I set on this course to say, what is wrong? Why is it so hard for us to fight the urge to consume? And how can we fight back against lifestyle creep? And that's led me to where I am today, and that at my firm, in the book that I wrote, you're making other people rich. It's effectively the process that my wife and I went through from being what I could call a consumer of stuff to being an owner, an owner of capital and an owner of life on our terms.

Scott Todd, you're making a face.

I just got blasted by something. Some noise. I don't know what it was, but it's hideous.

But I didn't hear it.

You didn't hear it? Like, literally, it was ear screeching. I don't know, maybe Chris did a great job of factoring out or something.

I don't know.

Oh, sorry.

So what is the process? What is it? How do I bring peace to myself if that's where I'm struggling?

Yeah. So it got to a point where at the end of the day, again, we were making more money than we ever thought was possible, but we were spending. We were in this cycle of consumption, and it was hard to break out. And effectively, it took us looking each other in the face and saying and looking ourselves in the mirror and asking the question, what do we want? What does our best, most intentional life look like? And are we using money as a resource that's getting us closer to that best life, or is it taking us away from it? And we ultimately came up with this process of answering. It's a very simple question, but it's actually somewhat of a complicated answer. And the question is, what do you want? What do we want? What do we want as a couple? What do we want to achieve? But we gave two constraints. Our wants can't be more money, and they can't be material things. So taking those constraints out of it, what do we want? We wanted more autonomy. We wanted more freedom. We wanted more ownership over our lives. We wanted to control our lives on our own terms. We wanted to be closer as a couple. And we looked at our consumption patterns, and we looked at this lifestyle that we were living, and we asked ourselves, wait a second. Is the way that we're spending our money, is that a reflection of our best, most intentional life? And the answer was no, Actually, the way that we were spending, the clubs we were going to, belonging to, the restaurants we were going to, the clothes that we were wearing, the, the cars we were like, everything was actually taking us away from everything we wanted. We were more dependent on our jobs and the next bonus than we ever have been.

Yeah. I mean, it totally makes sense. And I went through a very similar journey, and I write about that in Dirt Rich. And it took a great recession and a huge ego kick to really make me reevaluate what's really important in life. And I had what I call Parkinson's law of money, which is the more money I made, the more money I spent. So, you know, I think we're totally aligned in this point. So. But to really be intentional about it, I think there could be some, some just natural friction with it, because let's just take Scott and his wife. Right? Like, I know Scott really well. Huge spender. Right. But his wife is frugal.

Mm.

And so how do they, how does she sort of navigate and bridge that gap between Scott, who, you know, loves to spend money on things.

Yeah.

And her, who's obviously much more financially responsible or, you know, wants experiences, let's say. Okay, I, I, this is total fiction.

Totally made up, fake. You know, like, we, we wonder why the President Trump, like, named everything fake news. I feel like everything Mark's saying. Right. Like, I totally, I totally am having, like, that Trump moment of being attacked.

Well, you look like a big spender, Scott, so I think there's some credibility there. I'm just saying. But no, I think it's a really good question and actually you used a word that I find really helpful and that's friction. So again, so what do we want? And ultimately my wife and I had to come to terms of we want to be on the same team again. We want more control, we want more ownership over our life. But we are in this cycle of consumption. So how did we break out of that cycle of consumption? And how does intention and mindfulness play into that? Well, friction is actually a big part of it. And here's what I mean by it. When I was trying to figure out, why can't we break out of this? The answer hit me one day when I was talking to a friend of mine, my buddy, he's in the startup space and he was looking to raise money for a new venture. It was again, all venture capital based. And he was venting to me one day because he was having problems with this one venture capital firm. And he said to me, he's like, oh man. He's like, they're killing me. They keep telling me I need to reduce the friction points between the customer and the sale. And that's when it hit me that the reason it's so hard for us to break out of this cycle of consumption is friction. Or more specifically, the lack of friction points. And if you think about it, there used to be natural friction points between us and spending our money. Like let's say you wanted to buy a pair of shoes, for example, you had to say, okay, I need a pair of shoes. Do I have cash on me, yes or no? If no, I have to go to the bank, I have to wait in line, I have to see a teller, I have to get my cash. Now I have to drive to a store, I have to dig through inventory. Do they have what I want? Do they have my size, yes or no? If no, I have to go to another store and repeat the process. So buying something like a pair of shoes decades ago could have been a three to six hour event. But with each passing decade, the friction points have been reduced. You're talking about credit cards, Easy Pay solutions, E commerce, and here we are. Today we can get an alert on your watch, press one button on your phone and you can have 20 pairs of shoes delivered a day later with free shipping. The friction is gone. And guess what? This was all intentionally designed. This was designed to get us to spend more money. When Amazon went to one click checkout, their profits increased by $300 million. They understood the fact that the easier we make it on people, the more they are going to spend. So that's When I had this realization, I looked and said, wait a second. We're in this world where it's rigged against us right now. And that all of these companies, they want us to download their apps, they want us to put our credit card information, they want us to get to the point where just one click checkout is what we get used to, because the easier to make it on us, the more we're going to spend. So that's where we said, wait a second. We now need to be the ones to intentionally add back the friction, add back the barriers between us and spending our money. So friction's a really good word for that because that's what we had to do. We had to get on the same team first, but then we needed to, as a team, intentionally add back those speed bumps and friction points between us and spending our money.

Yeah, totally. I totally understand it. Scott.

Todd, what are your thoughts from somebody that sells something? I think this is a terrible podcast, honestly. I mean, like, think about it, Mark. Like, we. But look, what Ryan's saying is legit, okay? In terms of. Even if you think about the sales process that you're going to go through to sell your. Your land, okay, the more friction that you put in place of it, or even to buy the land, the more friction you put in place, the less success that you're going to have. So I always try to make it simple for people. And, you know, like, one of the things that you did with Geek Pay, for example, is you put a down payment link, right? Like, you created a down payment link so that it would make getting someone's payment down payment easy. Now, a lot of people want to take that and they want to go, here, Mr. Customer, I'm going to send you this link and you can make your down payment. It sounds simple, but you. But by emailing that link to somebody, you just introduce friction into the conversation. Why? Because you now, now, they got their email. They had to open their email, they got to look at it. Then they have to, like, click the button, pull out their credit card. You added steps there, as opposed to a Ryan, which credit card you want to put this on? Visa Master Card, Discover, American Express? And Ryan picks out his credit card, he has one less step, right? Think about it. One less step. Here, here's my credit card number. Take it.

We.

Sometimes you think that things are. Will create less friction, but you gotta really think about the process, how many steps are involved. What Ryan's saying is legit, right? Like, the easier you make it to do something, the more Likelihood someone's gonna do it.

But here's the thing. I told. Absolutely. But here's the thing. What so many of us do though is we fall into the trap of over consuming depreciating assets, the assets that go down in value over time. So again, the elimination of friction points for depreciating assets, that's causing us again to buy these assets that ultimately end up collecting dust in our closets that we're just going to be donating a year later versus the opposite. And this is a good thing, is that the friction points for appreciating assets have also been reduced. So I think, for example, in the stock market, you can open a Robinhood account on your phone, you can link your checking account, it could not be an easier process. And you can buy shares in an S&P 500 index fund with as little as $50. So on that side, owning appreciating assets, the friction points have also been reduced. So what I'm basically saying is the stuff that's getting you away from your best life, the stuff that's causing you to be trapped as a consumer, basically being at the control and the dependency on a company and a paycheck, add the friction points there, intentionally add back those speed points. It could be as simple as deleting all the apps from your phone. It could be as simple as saying no to online shopping for a month. It could be whatever you need to do to add back those barriers. But then on the flip side of it, what you do with your savings is use the lack of friction on the other side in terms of owning appreciating assets. Use that to your advantage again. You can now buy stocks, real estate, assets that work for you in a more seamless fashion. So take advantage of that.

No, absolutely. I think it's really important. So I'm a long term and long time meditator and so honestly the best part of my days now is that our literally doing nothing except watching my thoughts, following my breath and just, you know, looking at the nature of my mind. The problem for me though, Ryan, is Scott Todd again. So I'm really at peace. There's nothing in this world that I know intrinsically is going to make me happy. We get on the podcast and all of a sudden, sure enough, look, Mark, I got the iPhone 12 and I have an 11. So. So immediately I'm like, I have to get the 12. I never needed the 12 before. Until he has it and he's showing me, oh, it feels so good in my hand. It's so much faster and this and that. And now I've got to go, and I never needed it. Now I've got to get the iPhone 12. We can extrapolate that out because there's been studies done when a neighbor gets a new car, like within three months, a bunch of neighbors get new cars. So we're in this culture, if you will, that is constantly bombarding us for things that we don't necessarily need and maybe didn't even want until a guy like Scott Todd shows up in your podcast.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I have a chapter on the book and exactly what you're just talking about in that. The chapter in the book is called Scarcity in Times of Abundance. And it's talking about the fact that we live in the most amazing time. And you could ask for, right? I mean, things aren't perfect, but in terms of the technology, the medical breakthroughs, the way that all of us are on this conversation right now in completely different parts of the country, this is unbelievable. We should be celebrating this. I have access to more information, more luxuries than Kings in the 17th century. But we're meant to live in this place of scarcity, where there's two emotions. Having less than somebody else or losing out on something and brand the marketers and the messaging is to get you to that place of scarcity, to get you to feel like you're missing out, that you have less than somebody else. So a big part of this process, again, with the mindfulness, is having gratitude and turning that scarcity into the abundance by thinking about all of the amazing stuff and all of the amazing access that you have in your life right now. So I think a big part of that is, again, turning that scarcity into abundance through gratitude and just being really grateful for the fact that you have an iPhone 11.

Right? And I am grateful that even Scott Todd puts up with my shenanigans. Scott Todd, what are your thoughts?

You know, it's funny, Mark, because every time I go to the dentist, I look, I look at the staff there, the back office staff, okay? And like, without fail, there's like a stack of checks on there, okay? Like just a huge stack of checks. And I'm looking at this, and they're opening these checks, right? Thousands, thousands of dollars. I don't know how much thousands of dollars was sitting there on that table any one time, but there's a lot of them. There's always a lot of them. And oftentimes I'll look at that, I'll be like, man, that is a lot of money coming in the door. And you think, like, that's a lot. That is a lot of money. Man, if I had that much money coming in. And then I look around and I look at all the people that are there processing the payments, and then I look at the staff and the building and the dentist, and the dentist is going, you, you know, room to room to room to room all day long. And then I leave and I get in my car, and I literally get to go do whatever I want to do, right? Like, I may not have the revenue that she has. Okay, she might have some big revenue number, but at the end of the day, I live the life that I want to live, right? I have the passive income. It allows me to live the life that I want to live. You know, yesterday is. Was a Monday, Monday afternoon, where was I on the golf course? Just. Just goofing around. It's like having a place to yourself, okay, I might go out somewhere on a Wednesday. It's amazing what happens when you go out and, like, everybody else is working and you can go to Costco and you walk in like you own the place, but on the weekends, you can't get in there. And I guess that's where it comes back down to is, what is it that you want? Do you want to be tied to an office, a medical office? You can get stacks of checks, Sure. I don't know how much of that is profit, but you're going to be slaving away all day long. Or do you want to say, I can live on less? I mean, I don't live on less now than what I did, but I could and I did for a little bit. But you know what? If you just keep growing your business, then you can create the life that you want, but you have to justify. Do I want. Do I want this type of lifestyle or do I want this type? I think that that's one of the questions that Ryan's getting to is, what do you want out of your life? And then go build it.

You hit the nail right on the head. And, you know, we're talking about assets. The most important asset that we all have is time. And time is. Is a. Is an eroding asset, and you can't. You can't get it back. So the idea of getting. Living this life of intention and using money as this resource to live your best, most intentional life is exactly what you just said, Scott. And tying this back into the comparison of other people. I know somebody who lives in my neighborhood.

Great.

Guy, he's a corporate attorney, hates his job. And he's the type where he genuinely hates his job. He always looks unhappy, he's always complaining. And I run my own business and every time I see him, he's like, man, this law firm, man, they are just, they're killing me right now. But like you, you have it made. I would love to, to do what you do. I would love to have my own business. I would love to be able to go for a run at 11am on a Monday, which I oftentimes do. And then literally within two minutes, he's showing me his brand new Mercedes and telling me that he brought the brand new Mercedes because he just belonged to this new country club, because all the partners at the law firm belong there. So it's like you bought a $70,000 Mercedes, you spent $40,000 in club dues because you want to impress the people at the law firm that you can't stand. And I think about this, I could easily be jealous of a brand new Mercedes. I don't have a brand new Mercedes, but I know that on the other side of that is being tied to that corporate paycheck. Whereas for me, as much as I would love to have a Mercedes, for me it's much more valuable to know that I can go for a run at 11am on Monday and I don't have to answer to anyone but my clients.

Yeah, no, absolutely. So Ryan, I mean, you know, for people listening to this, I can imagine somebody rolling their eyes and be like, well, easy for these guys to say. They already have a bunch of money. And how nice of them to have this luxury to think about these things when, you know, I'm living paycheck to paycheck and I don't have that luxury. I couldn't get the Mercedes even if I wanted to. I'm lucky to pay rent this month. What do you say to those people?

Look, it's a really good question and I have to say that I was you. I mean, granted I was a high earner and I get that, but I was living paycheck to paycheck for the longest time. And I can tell you that I put a plan in place. It was a three year plan to, number one, be saving a significant part of my income. So part of that, we downsize our lifestyle for fairly significantly. And the amazing thing is when we cut back against a lot of the consumption, our life actually got better because we felt more financially secure. We felt like we were moving towards something as opposed to just being in the cycle that was getting us nowhere. So, number one, it was give yourself time and really be intentional about where your money is going. I know people. I have clients of mine who've never made more than $80,000 a year that have over $5 million saved in their 70s. So I don't care where you are on the income spectrum. You most likely, for people listening to this podcast, you most likely have more capacity to save than you think. So, number one, it was saving, but number two, it was really being very intentional about thinking, okay, what do I want? I want more autonomy. Okay, how am I going to get that? It's going to be owning my own business. So what can I be doing while I'm earning a paycheck to be thinking about how I can make a transition to owning a business and having income come in day one. And a big part of that was really developing strong relationships with my current clients and setting up a firm that made it a seamless transition for them to join me. Even though I'm not necessarily in a passive income business, they're my clients and I have great relationships with them. And the process was pretty seamless because I was very intentional about getting my clients away from being tied to a firm and more to being tied with me. So I would say if you're someone in a service business, see what you can do. If the relationship that you have with your clients is your relationship, and if they value the firm relationship in part because of you or in large part because of you, think about how you can make the transition to owning your own company doing effectively the same thing. It just might not be a big firm standing behind you. And that's exactly what I did.

Yeah, it totally makes sense. Well, Ryan, this has been phenomenal and your mentorship has been really valuable. Now we're at that point in the podcast, we're going to try to extract just a little bit more. Ryan Sterling wisdom. Get your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something else actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got?

I mean, it's a book that, you know, I'm sure a lot of your listeners already know this book. For those who don't know this book, I can't recommend the Four Hour Workweek enough. It's a book that has really been transformational in terms of my life, in terms of really thinking about the lifestyle design as a part of my financial plan. So it's not just about the money, but it's about the life that the money is allowing me to live. I think the four hour work week is really helping you think about work and lifestyle design in concert with one another. And again, it might not be the sexiest tip of the week in that I think maybe a lot of your listeners have already read that book. But if you haven't, I would certainly recommend reading it. And if you've read it, I would read it again.

No, I love that tip. And Scott and I, that's really what this model is about. I mean we work a two hour work week, so take that Tim Ferriss. But you know, people, you know, we say that, you know, people are like, do you guys really only work two hours a week? And the work is defined as the things that we don't necessarily want to do, but we have to do to keep our businesses moving. I mean, I've definitely worked more than two hours a week, but it doesn't feel like work to me. Stuff that I love to do, I don't consider, you know, a podcast or a roundtable podcast work. I love it. And I get to see some of my favorite people every single week and talk to them and get, you know, new ideas and joke around and it's great. So it's, the work is like the things I don't want to do. And that's only know two hours a week Scott's probably got because he's so efficient. Scott, how much do you really work a week now?

No, I, I think I still do about two hours a week.

Two hours a week. Okay. All right. So before we get to Scott Todd's tip of the week, I just want to mention our sponsor, which is flight school. Learn how the next 16 weeks can literally transform your life. Start building that passive income so you can work when you want, where you want, with whom you want. Solve not just your money problem, solve your time problem. And once we have that, we can move up Maslow's hierarchy of needs in a self actualization and discover what you really want to do in life, what our true purpose is. But you have to make that first step. Go up the mountain of land investing with Scott Todd as your Sherpa. He's done it thousands of times. He will take you up that mountain quickly, safely, efficiently, and it's guaranteed the tuition investment that you are going to make in a flight school, you're going to make back that money 180 days or less in cash or term sales, guaranteed. Just show us your work. Learn more. Go tolandgeek.com training thelandgeek.com training Scott, Todd, what's your tip of the week?

Mark?

You ever get an email from somebody and on the bottom it has like this really fancy, you know, like stamp, like signature stamp on it, you know, like maybe their picture, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got, I've got one of those.

Yeah, mine doesn't do that, but check out this one. If you want that, check out this link. It's web app.ystamp.com Go create a cool signature for free.

Oh wow. Let me check this out. Pretty good. My second favorite word too. My first favorite being automation. My tip of the week is start being more intentional, more mindful with how you're living your life, how you're consuming your financial goals, growth mindset. Read the book you're making other people rich, it is available. And then check out Ryan's website which is futureyou wealth.com futureyou wealth.com Ryan Sterling, are we good?

I think we're good. I really had a lot of fun with you guys today.

All right, fantastic. Scott Todd, are we good?

We're good, Mark.

All right. I want to thank the listeners and just remind them the only way we're going to get the author, ryan sterling from futureyouwealth.com who's written you're making other people rich is if you do us three tiny little favors. You gotta subscribe, rate, review the podcast, send us a screenshot of that review. To supporthelandgeek.com we're going to send you the $97 wholetailing course, how to double your money 30 days or less for free. So please do it. Alright, let's do this. 1, 2, 3. Let, let freedom ring. Not bad. Ryan's like, if I knew you guys were going to do that, I don't know if I would jump on it.

Sorry, I feel lame about my tip of the week, but yeah, sorry, I should have been more prepared on that one.

It's good. Thanks, Ryan.