Wealth Isn’t Luck: Garrett Gunderson’s Controversial Take on Escaping Scarcity Forever

Scarcity is the greatest destroyer of wealth because it comes from a place of limitation and lack. And it gets perpetuated because people are taught to budget. And budget is reductionist thinking. And it's a finite game. And here's where most of the wealth is trapped.

Garrett Gunderson is a best selling author.

Speaker and financial advocate who helps you.

Live your richest life.

It doesn't take money to make money. It takes relationships and ideas. It takes value and exchange. So if you think you have a money problem, it's not really a money problem. It's either a mental capital problem. Mental capital is ideas, knowledge, wisdom, insights, strategies, tools.

This is why you teach mental relational equals your actual capital.

I feel like our mental and relationship capital combined is like sole purpose.

How so?

Money is a byproduct of value creation. Value creation means that we've served someone, we've solved the problem, we've added value in their life. Vision is what determines value. And if we have a limited vision, we're going to limit our value. So for you to design your life, it's bold, it's courageous. We speak that into existence. But most people speak a language of poverty instead of prosperity.

What's the mental flip that people really must take a big breath into in 2025 to treat health and finance in the same value? So when it comes to money, the reductionist thinking is the killer of capacity. What is that all about?

Scarcity is the greatest destroyer of wealth. No luck, no saving, no discipline, no, no rate of return can conquer the scarcity mindset because it comes from a place of limitation and lack. And it gets perpetuated because people are taught to budget. And budget is reductionist thinking. And it's a finite game. There's only so much you can budget, but you start thinking about what you could save versus what you create. So it actually destroys value and traps people from becoming wealthy.

Do you think that makes people less of a creator and more of a consumer? To have a myopic lens where you reductionize everything?

Most of the population's stuck in the consumer condition. It's like a disease of the mind.

Talk about that. The disease of the mind. Because we all have to consume somewhat to live, but at some point it's a diminishing return where we just become habitual consumers.

There's the producer paradigm, which is a paradigm of I'm going to give more than I take. And producers actually consume more than consumers because they create a lot more. And there's a consumer condition which is I'm going to Take more than I create, and it's a victim blame scarcity. Mindset that holds people back and it's. It's really invisible to them while they're in it. It feels like reality. They can't tell the difference. And so that's. That's the issue is, is someone's trying to take more than they give. They think it's. Money's scarce. You got to hold on to it and, you know, you don't know when it could go away. And like, that mindset just. It just warps people.

This is why. And I don't know if you ever followed Bob Proctor's work. I'm sure you have. Yeah, he said this phrase like five years ago. I heard it, and it just hit my soul and it's just stuck there ever since. He said you take from abundance and abundance is still there.

Right? It's like love. You give and there's more now that you can give. Yes, right. It's like abundant. And the thing is, money works on velocity. So the velocity of money. Little nerdy here for a second. Is the GDP or the gross domestic product, the output of the country divided by the money supply. That's velocity. So if you keep the money supply fixed and there's more output, it means money is exchanged hands more often. The more times money exchanges hands, the more value is created and money follows value. And this is where people get confused. They think money follows effort. Effort is part of value, but it doesn't encapsulate the whole thing. So value creation is the key. And even more to that is all of wealth is built through unequal exchange.

So.

So if I buy something from you, like, I'm telling you that it's worth more than the money I give you, and if you sell something to me, you're telling me it's worth less than the money I give you, which means we're both wealthier because of the transaction. We wouldn't trade a dollar for a dollar. Like, if you buy one of my books, I have that book up here. I also have more copies, you know, so it took. It may have taken me a lot of money to create that book, but now you can get access to that information for 20 bucks, 25 bucks. And so we can both end up wealthier from that transaction. See, in commun. In communism, they believe that, like, there's an intrinsic value to things and it should be predetermined instead of through exchange. And so in a free market, it's like, no, I'm an exchange because I feel Like, I'm going to be better off through that exchange. And if we get into scarcity, we stop thinking about exchange and we think about survival. And it actually slows us down because we want to see maybe a number on a sheet, like in a savings account, rather than in a skill set or increasing our capacity or in a way to serve more people, solve bigger problems. And so a lot of people are just really constrained, but I think they're.

Constrained because they're either programmed from society or parents. Or if you want to get real, woo. Which we go here sometimes. Intergenerational trauma.

Genetics for sure.

Genetic trauma.

Yeah. Like, it could be generations. And they're holding onto beliefs that they didn't even understand where they came from. Yeah, I felt that. I felt like beliefs from my great grandfather who had to leave his wife because he literally couldn't poof it on the table and, and comes to America from Italy, living off of honey bread because it would, you know, it wouldn't go bad. And then goes all the way to Utah on a train. They change his last name. He's trying to save up money. He's going to be a coal miner. There's a mine explosion, so he becomes a goat herd, lives in a tent, and doesn't see his family again for seven years, which his wife was pregnant. So he meets his daughter at 7 years old. That permeates as like folklore, but it's a cellular level into generations. And, like, I would just find things that I was illogical about or, you know, and then I would find the logic and the emotion was still kind of lingering. So I had to do work on that.

Yeah.

You know, it was especially like, my wife once was like, hey, why don't we go to Italy for the summer? I'm like, oh, we're gonna go to Italy, where my grandfather had to leave. He's never even probably been to Rome. And we're just gonna go hang out and have fun during the summer. And I was like, I could feel the scarcity. I feel like, wait, I have the money to do it. But I had this kind of lingering thing. And then as soon as we booked the trip, I started actually heal the situation and then went to Italy. And it was like a completely transformational event for me because wife's like, since we've been married, this is the first time we've spent a full 90 days together uninterrupted, because I didn't go speak somewhere or do something. And I invested all this time with my kids and we're, you Know, we're playing cards, we're swimming in the pool, we're having four hour, you know, dinners. We. I didn't even drink coffee at the time. Started to learn, you know, I started drinking cappuccino. I was like, this is great. Became like, came home and started learning how to do that. Because it was like, more about satiating experience and quality of life, not just quantity of stuff, especially net worth. Like, net worth is one of the things that really harms people because they start to measure their value based upon the growth of their assets instead of the growth of themselves.

I think it's wild that. So you almost. Well, tell me if I'm hearing this correctly. You had a revelation when you went to Italy about your generational wounding when it comes to money. Yet paradoxically, you are an educator of people for money and finance.

But I still have my blocks. Like, it's funny, I write Killing Sacred cows in my 20s and I go back and read that. I can't believe I wrote it in my 20s. It's pretty amazing. But I could see after I wrote it, I went through some of the things I talked about in the book and experienced it. So it wasn't just philosophy. It was life experience. And it was hard. I was like, oh, damn. And now I really understood it at a deeper level. There's things I write that later on pop into my head and I'm like, ah. I could feel it now that I'm in the experience. Because it's one thing to write something when there's no stakes, but when you're in that situation and the stakes are high, you learn at a totally different level and understand where your limitations might be.

I find that no matter what our mess is, it becomes a message that we actually learn from out loud in public. And then if you do that long enough, you become a pro. You become really excellent. You have a high level of proficiency in anything. For some people, it could be relationships. For me, it's about, what wisdom do I get to acquire so. So that I can have the best life. When I was a little kid, I used to say, what's up with these adults? Like, why are they so stressed out? What's taxation? Like, what is this insanity? And I could feel it on a somatic level when I was super young. It's one of my. Honestly, it's probably the first memory Garrett I've ever had. Like, I just didn't feel safe. I didn't feel like this was the game I wanted to play. And then when I started to learn about my own money wounds, I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to be rich. Going to be rich. Never. If I'm angry at rich people forever, like, there's no way I can be wealthy if I have an emotional, energetic block of anger, of apathy or of hatred or really shame, actually, when it comes to money. Like, yes, I think this is really exciting because it's 2025, and people are definitely focused on their health and for sure, their money. Right. Because money is like the oxygen and the fuel that creates capacity for creation and everything else. Yet most people in January, February, they're focused primarily on health. What's the flip? What's the mindset flip where you can actually pay attention to all five sides of the Pentagon? Money and physical being, you know, the feeding of each other. Like, what's the mental flip that people really must take a big breath into in 2025 to treat health and finance in the same value?

Well, if you're. If you are your greatest asset, not like a stock bond or piece of real estate, but it's you. Improving your health is going to improve your energy, it's going to improve your confidence, it's going to improve so many things that. That naturally translates so you could become a greater value creator. So it's actually very harmonious that if you're taking care of your health, that you could easily start to pivot and take care of your wealth if you have the courage to face it. Most people just don't have the courage to face their finances because they're just. They've been taught to fear money. They've been taught that, you know, you know, I'm just gonna go make more. That's what a lot of people. I'm just gonna go make more. But they don't know how to keep more of the money they make or they know how to grow their money. But I think that if you grow yourself, that's the key. Because imagine this, Some people, they have an event where they make money and they didn't really understand it. Maybe they just bought bitcoin early or something like that.

Yeah.

If they don't grow themselves, they're gonna lose that. They're gonna destroy it. Because the gap between growing ourselves and growing our money, that's risk. So it's kind of like going to the gym. If I've never squatted and there's 405 on that rack, I'm going to get collapsed by that. That's what happens to lottery winners. They win all this money. They didn't earn it, they don't have it, they don't know how to be a steward over that. And so it'd be like someone getting on a plane and trying to fly it with no instruction. It's going to be awfully dangerous. Right? So that's kind of what happens with money. If we grow well, that happens. And so what I find is you take care of your health, you just have a more positive outlook on life. You start to see opportunity instead of victimhood and blame. You start to feel better. It's. You're easier to be around. So it's just putting a little bit of intention in money and not seeing it as bad or necessary evil. Like money is a byproduct of value creation. So value creation is a great thing. Value creation means that we've served someone, we've solved the problem, we've added value in their life. So we just have to continually ask, how can we impact more people? Or how can we more deeply impact. The people are reaching. And it's like you've kind of alluded to this, but it's create the life you don't want to retire from. And then all of a sudden, money's a friend, not a foe.

How do you actually define value?

It's a feeling of satisfaction. It's a feeling of fulfillment, of joy. It's a perspective. So we value things differently. That's the divinity of diversity, is if we all value things the same and we all could do the same things, we wouldn't exchange with each other, we wouldn't learn from each other, we wouldn't be quite as efficient. So value is just a feeling. When it comes down to it, it's in.

And then so currency, whether it's fiat or Bitcoin or gold or silver, any type of value, it's. It's a perception, right? It's a. It's a consensus among people, among minds that our consciousness believes that we're going to have language to describe this thing, this physical item or digital item as valuable. But why, like, what is the actual value of any of this stuff?

Well, I also see, by the way is a lot of people say they'll tell me what they value by telling me what they don't. I don't need a nice car. I'm like, yeah, but would you want one? Like, why are you telling me you don't need one? I don't need that nice of a house. Are you saying that to excuse away where you're at right now? Or if you want to be more valuable you have to value yourself. A lot of people don't value themselves enough. They don't stand up for themselves. They become people pleasers. They, you know, they think they settle because maybe something that the grandmother said or maybe something that they felt within. You know, like, I remember my grandma would say, oh, yeah, they just. All they care about is money. And like, when I was little, it's like, well, what does that mean? Right? And it's just a slight negative, but like, love my grandma, so don't want to disappoint her or. What's interesting is people think that money is the root of all evil, but they want more of it. So they actually feel bad for that, which is going to limit them in the value that they create and the value they have in themselves. You know, it's like, even the rental car that I got, it was only like 20 bucks more a day for a Mercedes versus whatever. Like a. You know, some people won't pay the extra $20 because then there's like. That says something about their own value. It's not that much more. But for them, it's like, I don't want to be seen in that because I don't want to be seen as greedy or whatever it might be. Like, there's all these stories, you know, so we got to increase our. What we feel we deserve if we're going to get more and if we're going to give more. And here's where most of the wealth is trapped in receiving. Most people don't receive value from other people because they go it alone. They're rugged individualists. They don't want to feel weak and ask for support. But if I do something for you, I feel better about myself. And if you're like, no, I don't need anything, it actually shuts down the relationship. And so there's all this goodwill or what I would call relationship capital. This not even tapped into. And when we think money, time, or ability are limiting factors, those three things are only limitations. If we try to do too much on our own, we try to do too much on our own, we get into scarcity. And then we inevitably think that hard work is the solution. But hard work with the wrong philosophy equals limitation, frustration, or even bankruptcy. And that's where the world's stuck.

Wow, there's so much there. So I think this adage of what? Work hard, save money, go to school, get a good job, maybe worked for a different generation before the advance of technology and, you know, even the understanding of consciousness. We are afforded this spaciousness in our lives to be spiritual seekers. Otherwise you and I wouldn't be sitting at the table and there wouldn't be people with us, right? We're seeking something and that is the truth. We just want the truth. Don't we just all want the truth? Because the truth is literally the most peaceful, amazing, playful space that we can just love and operate from. That's what this is all about. On an esoteric level, some might say love is all there is. So if that's true, if love is all there is, how can money be love? And how can that love start to heal the wounds that people have around money in the first place? I know we'll get into the tactical, but the tactical doesn't mean shit unless you have the mental. This is why you teach mental relational equals your actual capital, right?

So if you think you have a money problem, it's not really important money problem. It's either a mental capital problem. Mental capital is ideas, knowledge, wisdom, insights, strategies, tools. And if we have the wrong philosophy, it's going to lead. That's where scarcity clouds us, right? And then we take our mental capital and the bridge to relationship capital, which is people, networks, organizations, mentors, friends and family. That bridge is actually business. That bridge is how we serve and we solve problems and we add value. And so if we aren't where we want to be financially, well, maybe we're not impacting enough people. Or maybe we just have bad mental capital, bad ideas, bad views of ourselves stuck in the past, emotions that are lower level emotions like guilt, shame, whatever it might be. And that's where part of the trap is so, so many people have great mental capital, but if you don't share it, nobody's going to pay you for it. And money's just a efficient tool of exchange. It's man made. It's how we store value from, you know, things we've created in the past. But our bank account doesn't dictate our future or our potential. We could be resourceful, you know, like, it doesn't take money to make money. It takes relationships and ideas. It takes value and exchange. And if we buy into these faulty notions, I mean, that was a sacred cow is like I wrote the book about the nine faulty philosophies that are subtle that most people buy into, even regurgitate. And as soon as you see through it, you're like, wait, that, that doesn't make sense. It doesn't take money to make money, it takes value creation. You know, high risk doesn't equal high return. It's those that know how to mitigate risk and reduce risk and take action that actually get the most wealth. And, you know, there's just all these notions out there that as soon as we see them, we know how to avoid them. But if we don't see them, it's this invisible ceiling that holds people back.

But is there really, like. I get what you're saying, and I agree with almost everything. Is it really invisible? Once you know it's there, people still have an issue that it's there. In other words, it doesn't feel or it doesn't perceive itself to be invisible. For people that are really stuck, just like there's a group that. That doesn't even know it's there, right? But then there's a group that knows it's there, yet they still can't break through. They still can elevate. There's like, there's not the. The fuel source isn't there. I guess what I'm getting at is probably childhood wounds.

That's probably generational pain that's coming through. And more than anything, it's. They feel that it's unfair or unjust, and it means that they're stuck in victimhood. So even if they see it, they're using a past excuse to prevent them from a future action.

And this is where I have fallen into this trap for sure, where the ceiling that I kept hitting up against was the story that was playing out, where I had to sacrifice my health to be successful in my podcast, with my business and even with my family. I had to, like, work as much as possible and have lack of sleep and cut out things and not do the sauna and not train. I mean, it was all a lie. And it honestly wasn't until mid last year. And then moving into our property here, where I, like, designed my entire experience, where it was all around nurturing and taking care of myself. And guess what happened? More money came. So it was a paradox for me because it didn't seem based on the story I had created that was real. But then I just decided through the vehicle of pain, experiencing a lot of what I didn't want to experience that. No, I'm just going to play a different game. I'm going to design my experience of life that actually nurtures me, and then I have more capacity. But people get stuck in this trap. And you talk about this. You say many entrepreneurs sacrifice health and relationships for wealth. What is that really about the sacrifice? Where does that sacrifice mindset come from? Is it generational only? Is it something else.

It's cultural.

It's cultural.

It's cultural because watch someone give a speech. Like, I remember at 15, I took third place. This business competition won 500 bucks. And the next year I took first place. And as soon as I got up on the microphone to accept the award and the $5,000, I said the most cliched in the world. I was like, where'd that come from? And I was like, oh, it's like cultural memes. And so when people give up, get up and give a speech about success, a lot of times they talk about the sacrifice. But my belief is if it's a vision that's congruent with who you are, there is no sacrifice required. Sacrifice is the false belief system that we have to do it alone. That hard work equals the amount of time we spend instead of the value we create. And sometimes the hardest work in the world is to create a vision that's meaningful. So for you to design your life, it's bold, it's courageous. We speak that into existence. But most people speak a language of poverty instead of prosperity, a language of protection. Because what if this doesn't happen? I get to have the excuse of, well, I care about my health, I care about my family. And then these are our excuses that prevent us from the life that we want. Because in isolation, hard work is the only solution. But in collaboration, it's all about inspiration, it's all about conversation, it's all about team. And it's kind of that saying of if you want to go far, far, you got to bring people with you. If you want to go fast, you go alone, but you're going to burn out. Yeah. So sacrifice is just cultural. It just really is. And I'm like, if it's your dream, there is no sacrifice required. Because if it's your dream, the win is in the work. Like I believe we win when we play. And if we design this life we don't want to retire from, because the type of things we do feels like play. Look, we're not in the industrial age where you had to be in a assembly line doing the same thing every day, seven days a week. People are dying around you. People don't live past age 62, which was Social Security age. And I even think we have to question that most of our philosophies in finance are built in the industrial age. And we're in a completely different world now. So it's insane for someone to so called retire. There's a movement where people are trying to retire early and live as frugally as possible. And there is a, you know, it's noble to escape consumerism where it's not just about what you buy.

Yeah.

But you rob the world of your gifts and you're no longer in charge of the outcome of your income. So you're going to retire. Like, I was talking to some of my friends that are just killing. I was like, imagine if we retired when you could have the wisdom that you're now bringing to the world. And some of them are really helping teenagers out and they're doing all this kind of stuff. I'm like, hey, you're more fulfilled. Because even when I was in Italy, towards the end, I'm like, cool, I'm done with the four hour dinner. Like, I'm ready to get back in the game.

Yeah.

You know, I'd write a little bit, but I was really taking the time off. I came back excited to be engaged in the world of value creation. And that was a magical experience. But I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life because I think that we lose purpose when that happens.

Yeah.

And yeah, my dad was a coal miner. Retirement's a pretty damn good idea for a coal miner. Right. But I think we need to retire that concept and create this life that's ever expanding where we continue to challenge ourself to grow in an amazing way and then take the time along the way to enjoy the things people are saying they're going to enjoy in retirement. Just take those times along the way you like. When I left for Italy, my team had to figure out how to market without me. And they did. They learned how to market without me. They learned how to, you know, get ads to convert. They grew up. It's like the parent left the house and all of a sudden they had to figure it out. Sure. If I'm always around, we never solve that problem. So it actually became a very, like, I made more money that year than any previous year, taking that whole summer off.

See, that's fascinating when you let go of the reins and you just essentially imbued your team with trust that they could do it. It unlocked more creative space in them instead of rigidity or control, which then made you more money. See, this is the, like, there's already been like four or five paradoxes on this podcast. The first paradox that I shared was I have to sacrifice something that you write a lot about in order to gain financial wealth. I have to sacrifice my health. I have to sacrifice my family time. I have to sacrifice my Spiritual growth, but it's all actually bullshit. Yet I wonder how you feel about this. There is certain mentors and certain wisdom that we receive along our maturation process. Definitely. When it comes to money, that may serve a purpose for a time. It's almost like if somebody's 500 pounds and they're eating Cheetos, maybe Goggins would be a good motivator for them to kick their ass for, like, a few months. Maybe. Gary Vaynerchuk. Hustle and grind mentality might be good for somebody that wants to launch their own business, but if people get stuck in the trap that the same fuel source that got them to point B is going to get them to point C and beyond, that can actually be a detriment. Can you speak to that?

We're so trapped in the habits at that point. Like, if someone lives their life as a miser, which is one of the money Personas that gets stuck in preservation.

Like Uncle Scrooge.

Right, Uncle Scrooge, Right.

Yeah.

They don't just retire one day and flip the switch and become abundant. They are those habits. They never change. And so if money is always something to be hoarded, they. They never get to benefit the enjoyment. They never get the enjoyment. So I even look at it like we have to redefine and, like, have a new relationship with the word expense. Most people have a negative feeling with that word. And so they're taught to reduce expenses. But there's four types. Destructive expenses. We should get rid of those we're borrowing to consume. If we can't control our vices. There's. There's certain expenses that are meant to be eliminated.

Like only fans. No one should be doing only fans, y'. All. That is not healthy in any way.

That's not helping you.

Yeah.

The second is lifestyle expenses. Lifestyle expenses are like things that we can go and go to a concert or comedy, or we could go do these things and enjoy it. And I actually believe that some lifestyle expenses absolutely increase our ability to create value. Because if we have a quality of life, we're more interesting to be around. We're more happy. We're in gratitude. We show up differently because we're not exhausted. And if we start to look at that, like, quality of life being part of our investment, that completely flies in the face of budgeting and doesn't mean that we eliminate budgeting and we become reckless. It's just we use mindful cash management where we pay ourselves first and live off the rest. And don't go out of bounds. It's that simple. Then we don't have to have envelopes or jars or advanced software or look at every little cent that we've spent. And then the third type of expense is a protective expense. You know, insurance that transfers risk, asset protection, education, and even liquidity. But the fourth type of expense is the game changer, a productive expense. We put in a dollar more than a dollar comes out. The exponential skill sets, communication that could have to do with sales or marketing, relationship building, you know, like whatever. The most important skill set for us to deliver the value that we deliver. That's not a thing that we get from school. It's a thing that we go for the rest of our life growing. No matter how much wealth we've gained, we, there's always something to learn. And if we can keep that mindset, we become more productive because we grow ourselves. And so we have to kind of escape this trap of all expenses are bad and that budgeting is going to get us there. And then one day, someday when we're too damn old to enjoy it, we can finally enjoy life. Oh, like I don't want to go get crunked up in the club when I'm 85.

Yeah.

Definitely not saying like, like I don't want to go jet skiing when I might break a hip. Yeah, like I want to enjoy that along the way.

So. Good.

Yeah, yeah. We can't look at it as like competing with our balance sheet. Wow.

Okay. This is why the way this, this episode can change someone's life if they just take in and absorb what you're saying. Because there's this old school. And I love how you connected it to the industrial age. Right. That's essentially when Rockefellers took power. Right. Standard Oil and Jekyll Island. How deep we want to go down that rabbit hole?

Yeah, right.

We can, maybe we can go there. But, but now since we're in this new, new era, I mean we're literally in a hundred year gap, right? Maybe more than that actually, of when the industrial age started to take hold of people's psyche and making people automatons that sit in cubes or work at the steel mill. Like, we are afforded such amazing abundance through tech. And people have a very, some people have a very negative aspect of like, oh, technology is going to ruin the world and AI is here to kill us. And I actually think that's connected to the same thinking that was installed during the industrial age.

It was the same thinking that came when the printing press showed up. How so the printing press showed up and the Notion was so many people are going to lose jobs, the printing press is going to put away so many jobs. And it did, but it created so many more. Because first people could get educated that didn't get educated before because books became available and accessible. And what happened was these jobs that were not good jobs, like when we look at what Elon might do with the government right now, like, these are people that have talent, but they're put in a container that doesn't let them express their talent. But coming from a coal mining town, what I gotta see was sometimes people will defend their terrible job because the fear that they can't get something better because they haven't thought of this notion of investing in themselves, adding more value, and, you know, really growing into something where they can do something that's even more valuable for society and for themselves. So people get stuck in. I need to make sure to preserve and protect. And this is all I know right now. So don't take it away from me. Even if there's a better future. So what if robots can just start doing all the housework and start doing all the mundane stuff? Great, that's going to put a lot of people out of jobs. But if those people are willing to invest in themselves, they'll bring way more value to society. And we evolve as a society just like we evolved during the printing press. So this is. This is the notion is we have to let go of preconceived notions. We have to let go of, like, this is my safety net, and instead start asking a different question. How can I be more valuable? How can I create more value? And what else is out there that is now possible because we've removed busy work. And, I mean, I just think that people have amazing gifts and talent, but they never express it because they get stuck in a container.

Well, when I was young, I bagged groceries. I've been a janitor. Like, I've been there.

And I wash cars. Okay.

Like, that's actually part of the process. Right.

We maybe be like, I don't want to watch cars the rest of my life.

Yeah, you only experience what you want by really living what you don't. And so I think why people get stuck in that, really, because you and I both follow Dr. Hawkins, which is phenomenal on the screen right now, is the Hawkins scale. And what I love most about the Hawkins scale is it's just a map. It's just a quick map. I know you have a lot of financial maps that we'll talk about. I hope we will, because they're powerful in your program, but people get stuck at the frequency of 175, I believe, which is pride.

So once anything under 200 is. Out of integrity.

Out of integrity. But. But if I'm stuck, Garrett, I wonder how you, how you see this now after so many years of teaching abundance and then reflect back to when you were really stuck in that mindset of, like, scarcity and I have to work hard to get money. So contrast these two. If you or any of us are stuck at the level of pride, right above pride is courage and then acceptance, and then expression and then service. If somebody's stuck in pride, isn't it really just a moment for us to look in the mirror and be like, wow, I've learned new information. I've had new wisdom come into my life. How can I be most humble to use it? Isn't that really what this is all about?

That's. That's well put. And I think that pride puts us into some type of action, but typically from bitterness and anger and trying to prove something to someone else, which actually goes back to isolation instead of collaboration.

So pride keeps people stuck in isolation.

Yeah, which gets them to think that effort will get them out. But no amount of effort will compensate when we're in the wrong philosophy. Bad philosophy could still equal bankruptcy. Bad philosophy could be working yourself to the point where you have no energy left, especially when you're doing things you hate because of. And let's be clear about this, when you talked about going to school, getting good grades, working for a corporation was a different time. They actually use the term golden handcuffs. Golden handcuffs. Oh, we'll give you a pension. Yes, we'll give you benefits. And I had people tell me in my family, yeah, I don't like my job, but it has good benefits. And when we don't like the work we do, I think it creates a hateful relationship with ourselves and with others. There's jealousy that's going to come in during that point and comparison because we don't feel fulfilled, because we've sold out to what we thought was perceived security. And temporarily, it is security and stability. But long term, it's very disabling because we aren't giving the best that we have to contribute, which means we're lowering our capacity for wealth. It's like having a thermometer too low. That's the ceiling.

Well, I. I push back. I don't. I don't think that having a, quote, safe job is safe at all. Because at any moment, like California, most states are at will employers, Right? So anytime they want Garrett, they can just cut you. Even if they told you you'll be with us for 40 years. Oh, sorry. The market shift trended. We got to let go 50 employees this month. Sorry about that. So what I'm saying is there's no such thing as safety. I remember my life in 2013, when I was still grinding out and trying to make it happen in corporate America, Put my dream in a little box. I was like, I'll get to it one day. One day I'll get to my dream. Because I didn't know. I didn't love myself. I didn't know how to express in the way I express now. I hadn't tapped into my inner resources. And I remember in, like, six months, man, I got fired from this safe corporate job. I put my mom in a mental home, and I broke up with a woman I thought I was gonna be with forever. So it was like, three huge uppercuts. And the mother of all resourcefulness is pain. And from that pain, I became very resourceful. Like being in a spare bedroom, launching a podcast on a rickety plastic stand. Interviewing Dr. John Gray. Like, just going for it because I was tired. And this is what I want to ask you. I was tired of feeling the pain of what I knew I could become. I would wake up, and it would be like a nausea that I'd feel. I knew there was something else, but I didn't know how. I was looking for the how instead of feeling it in my heart and trusting myself and going for it. But that really came down to me being on my knees and looking at my pride. I had a pride where I just wanted to be safe. But at what cost? At the cost of my soul's expression. No, thank you. What do you feel about that?

I think we all have a sole purpose, right? S O U L It's like our values, our abilities. It's our. It's really like the highest context of our life, and it's where we feel fully expressed. And we, so many of us shortchange that because of consumerism, because of perceived stability. And that's where people get into force instead of flow. When you design your life, you find a lot of flow. When you chase the golden handcuffs, you feel a lot of force, you know, losing energy every day in the work that we do. And I. I think that you just said it so well. I think it's more remembering than anything.

You know, what are we remembering?

Like, what we were born to do, what we're here for like, what? What's in what our gifts are? What, what, what? Like, I can't look at someone and tell them what their purpose is. It's like their own self discovery. Yeah, but if they get into sacrifice, it's probably they're sacrificing their dream, their purpose, and their vision. And I think vision's the rarest commodity in the world. Vision is what determines value. And if we have a limited vision, we're gonna limit our value. And so a lot of people kind of shit on it. Like, it's airy fairy to create a vision. But vision's the container that tells our brain what's important and what to pay attention to. And far too many people are chasing someone else's vision rather than their own because they go, oh, this is a good job. Like, when I graduated in 1999, the economy was robust. I got offers at, like, strong investments. It was the number two investment company in the world. American investment bank, Merrill lynch, like, Anderson, these companies that either got bought out or don't exist anymore. And it would have been doing things that I now speak out against primarily. And I didn't, you know, it was like, oh, you'll golf with these institutional investors. I'm like, I don't really like golfing. Like, oh, this is a great job is the most that someone's been offered from our university. You should take it. I was like. And I'd ask people that were there. I'm like, how often do you work? Like, what's. It's like, oh, yeah, you just nonstop. But it's a good education. I'm like, probably in things I don't want to do. I was already an entrepreneur. I already had a financial practice. But I didn't want to disappoint my family because they went through all this hardship of, you know, my great grandfather being an entrepreneur and not working, and then him coming and being a coal miner. And so I'm like, I don't want to let them down. But at the same time, I was depressed leaving that, that year of college because I'm like, what am I going to do? And I just fortunately had a dean that was like, dude, you're making more than your professors. Like, don't go ask your family about this. Don't go ask your professors. Do what you're doing. And I just needed that one person to be like, you'll be fine. And I remember one of my professors was a money manager, and before he became a professor, so he managed $5 billion in municipal bond funds. He was number one in the world. And then decided the next 25 years was for service. I had this one strategy I approached him on. He goes, that's. That's pretty creative. I want to sit down and talk. Became a client. I made $70,000 on that transaction while I was still in school, while I was graduating. I remember just showing my grandpa, I'm like, I just made this. And he's like, got teary eyed and grabbed my shoulders, like, I'm really proud of you. And he's like, what he was really saying is, I'm scared for you to go do this kind of thing, but you're showing me that you can do it. You should go for it. And my mom and everybody kind of came around, became my first clients really after that, you know, after this professor. And so that was, that was a hard thing. But it also like changed my family because they took safe jobs that they didn't enjoy, but they weren't that safe. Being in a coal mine isn't safe physically. And there was unions that go on strike. And so you have times where there's not income coming in. I mean, I didn't know it when I was a kid, but there were times when my parents were living on saltine crackers and my grandparents are feeding me because the mines were on strike, you know, and that's, that's extraordinarily hard work. And I asked my dad, I was, I took him, I took him hunting every year. And I'm like, any regrets you have? He's like, yeah, I should have, you know, just worked harder earlier on, so I didn't have to work so hard in my life being a coal miner. But then he ended up getting a degree while we were, you know, me and my siblings were alive and then got a different job. Like he did this extra work and my mom worked. And so they had all that work ethic and they're just a little bit afraid because of the stories in the family. But I think I've shifted that, you know. Yeah, you definitely, by making that choice.

Wow.

And they supported it. It just was hard for them to support initially because they're like, how risky is this?

I want to speak to the heart and mind of somebody who's absorbing this right now and just let you know that if you're feeling shame or, or regret or anger that it's totally welcome. It's totally okay to have these feelings come up in this kind of conversation because that's actually a good thing for you to use as a navigation guidepost. To a different game. So feeling, you know, y' all are either with us or somebody left because they were feeling stuff that was real crunchy and they just didn't even want to learn about this new game. The new game is actually enrolled in gathering the relationships that you talk about. Relational capital, mental capital equals real capital, financial capital. But what's challenging is when we look at even what becomes present to me before that is someone's capacity that you mentioned earlier, of their ability to cultivate courage, to look in the mirror, to look at the game they've been playing. The strategy doesn't matter. The tactical doesn't matter unless the body and the soul are aligned totally. This is a spiritual game, and we're in a spiritual mental warfare here in America and in the world, man. There's forces out there that just want y' all to be automatons. They want y' all to not be entrepreneurs, to be a cog in their wheel. And if you're there and if you're happy, if you're truly happy there, great. I'm not here to tell you how to think, and I don't think you are either. It's just for the people whom this conversation resonates with, All I'm asking is that you give yourself permission to feel the stuff that's coming up and then breathe into the mindset of the new game. When did that mindset of the new game actually start to take hold on you? It sounds like it was in college.

Yeah, my senior year. You know, I started when I was 19 years old, got an internship, which basically meant I peddled mutual funds and life insurance to family and friends. I mean, it wasn't, you know, I learned about sales. I didn't learn enough about finance. And then in the year 2000, the market started going down right when I got in, like, in a bigger way. And so I got all my clients but one out of the market by. It was like between March and May of 2000, because I was like, hey, I don't really know what I'm doing. I was lucky in 98, 99, because the market went up. So I'm going to just. I wasn't married. I just traveled somewhere every month and used my young age to get meetings with people that were substantial. Because it's like if I was young and curious, a little red memo pad. And I sat in on a family office meeting in New York City, which was. They called it a low tier family office because you only had to be worth $30 million. And I was like, Dude, I was a kid. I was like 30 million. I come from a small rural town. That was a huge number. But I watched. They did things radically different. They focused on tax first. They had a whole financial team. They were trying to de risk. They were. And I was like, all right, I want to build this for people that would never have access to this information. Which was naive. It took me like a decade to build that. But I felt like it was the only, you know, it was like a passionate thing for me to do. And then the year 2008 hits and, you know, so it wasn't like I just had this smooth ride. I had 10 years of growth. And then in 2008, the market's going down in real estate. I was highly leveraging real estate because I thought that was the only way to gain real wealth because I'd read so many books on it. And I realized, like, we all have our own investor DNA. It's your values, it's your competencies, and it's really what drives you. And if you, you focus on that, you eliminate 80% of the investments out there because they don't align with who you are. And so that actually makes it a lot more simple. But I was in oil and gas. I had IPOs I'd invested in. I had a hard money lending fund that was bridge financing and real estate. I was just doing all this thing out of greed and naivety, right? Because I had confused luck and skill. Because my first real estate deal is 19 years old. I got what's called a champ loan for a down payment. I bought a townhome, rented out to college roommates, and it was $96,000 when I bought it. I sold it at 179. I'm thinking I'm a genius. And then my brother in law comes, he's like, hey, got this real estate deal. I just need 25 grand earnest money to lock it down. I'm gonna flip and turn around. I'll pay you back 50 grand in three months. He did. My other buddy Joel's like, hey, dude, I got a friend who's gonna lose his house. If you finance it, you can rent it to him. I just got him a job. And then he'll buy it back from you at the full value because he had a lot of equity in it. And he bought it back two years later. We split the equity. I'd made 90 grand. So those first three deals I was like, I'm a genius. But I was just, it was just timing and luck. So I got overextended in real estate, I had over 100 properties. You know, I didn't love it. I'm talking to bankers, I'm talking to property managers. I'm talking to, you know, just attorneys ruining vacations because I'm just constantly at the mercy of what's going on there. And I had no tenant that I knew they weren't sending me Christmas cards or hugs or, like, when I write a book, I get so much positive feedback of making difference in people's lives. That's my real estate now. 10 books. But I had to find that path through going through some of that pain. And pain's a gift. Even if we hate the rapping. I know that I don't love the rapping, but I always feel like it's God, like, being like, hey, you're off course. I want to get your attention so that you'll listen and get back on course with who you're meant to be.

The one word that stuck out in your story, which was, by the way, how did it work out? Did you have to go into massive debt?

So I did not declare bankruptcy, even though all of my business partners declared bankruptcy. So I inherited all the real estate. I was owning, like, 2060, you know, 80% of some of the real estate, and some I owned outright. So now I inherit a real estate portfolio that just took a long time to dig out. And, by the way, pure greed, because. But I had an event in June of 2007. I was hosting it called how to think like a Bank. I was teaching people about cash flow and collateral. And I declared to that room, I'm like, I don't want to be in real estate anymore. I'm going to sell my properties. So one of my partners is like, dude, the market's so good right now. We're just going to list everything for 20% over market. And we sold a few properties. I was going, I'm going to make a killing. If I would have sold them for market value, I would have gotten out of all the properties before the 2008 crash. But because of that greed, yeah, I.

Held on because the word that I was getting at is you peppered it in there. You're like, I didn't love it.

But, yeah, I was. I was in sacrifice because it was a lack of vision. It was a lack of vision. My vision was grow my net worth. And, dude, one of my more embarrassing moments is they put me on this cover of a magazine. It was me and my Bentley on the salt flats. It looked really cool, but some People call me a douchebag. I understood.

It's kind of douchey.

It's pretty.

On a salt flat.

Yeah. Like so. Yeah. And an escalate. It was ridiculous. But. And in the interview, they're like, so what's next for you? I'm like, well, dude, I've just. I've done so Well. I mean, 8 million seemed like that was my net worth. The time I felt really good about. I'm like, I've done so well. It's about. It's about giving back. I sure as hell gave back over the next year. But to banks, I gave back to. Not to like, pay it forward and being in charity, in getting my ass kicked on the very principles I wrote about in killing sacred cows and being like, ah. Then I learned. But I became 10.10x more valuable as a consultant because I had tons of clients that were stuck in real estate, that that wasn't really their gig. I knew how to help them navigate and get out of that, how to do auctions. I just, I knew a lot more. And I also learned because I went to speak on the stage, it was called Invest Fest 2008 in Vancouver. Right before I go up on stage, this banker calls me Regional Bank. I had. I had four units with them and I had a personal guarantee that the balloon payment was coming due. And they were calling to find out what I was going to do. And I was like, I'd like to refinance. Like, there's no. Because I had so many properties under my credit. They're like, you're not going to be able to refinance. We need the cash and you're on a personal guarantee. I was like, I don't know how that's going to happen. I don't have that cash right now. And he's like yelling at me because they actually went under, so they were stressed. And I remember I said, can I fly out and talk to you? And I called someone to mentor me. I'm like, what should I like? And I actually negotiated that deal where I was able to find an investor, come in, buy it at a discount, not go through bankruptcy or auction. And like, that was huge. But I remember I walked out on stage and I just was like, I know we just been hearing from some amazing speakers and it's been phenomenal. But I'm here to tell you, like, I'm going through some stuff right now. I just got the phone, this banker who's yelling at me because this is my situation with all this real estate and I'm going to find a way through it. But anyone else feel this way to everyone, raise their hand. And at the end, I've never had more people come up and talk to me. Be emotional. And the event organizers, like, that was a cool strategy. I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, that authenticity strategy. I'm like, I don't know what I was going to say if I didn't say what's going on, because it just was. I'm not good at hiding things or faking things. Right. But, like, that was transformational. Is like, hey, when you can be honest about those situations, a lot of people can heal as well. Because like you said, and we talked about, a lot of people are in guilt and shame.

Yeah, Right.

I thought I was doing what was best for my family, but it was actually hijacking me from being present, doing things I didn't want to do in the name of money.

I love that. This guy said you had that great vulnerability strategy, as if that's an authentic representation of vulnerability. A vulnerability strategy. It's like the exact opposite of true vulnerability. And it's interesting because it just seems to me from even how that guy described how he thought you were being, there's this desire of greed and probably pride that keeps people blocked in the mindset of, I have to get the shortcut. And any time in my life, Garrett, I've ever. I've fallen into this trap many times.

Even trying to grow expensive.

What's the hack? What's the thing? How do I do the shortcut? And every single time, 100% of the time, my shortcut has always turned into a long cut.

It's a detour. Those are detours.

It's a big detour.

Detour to the real lesson. And it's interesting because the word hack, I do comedy. So the word hack in comedy is someone that's sucks. Someone that's, you know. Yes, jerk off, whatever.

Yeah.

And yet we're looking for hacks in every other area of life. But, like, you know, I've been around people that look for hacks and health, and they're spending 10 times more on the hacks. And 10, you know, it's like, complicated rather than just doing the work.

The hack is that there's no hack. Maybe that's the most important hack.

Right?

And it's like, no hack.

I mean, if you know who you are, if you know what you want, if you know what you're called to, and you create a vision you never want to retire from, that's compelling. You forward, and it's beyond where your current reach is. That is where the juice is. That's where the joy comes from.

I think most people, and I've been here for sure, is I would say to myself many times, as soon I remember, as soon as I make my first hundred grand, as soon as I make my first hundred grand, I'm good. Okay, as soon as I do 500 grand, I'm good.

The target just keeps moving.

And I used to listen to people, people, let's be honest, a previous version of myself may have come across your work 10 years ago, seven years ago, five years ago, and I would have judged you. I would have said, look at this motherfucker. He's. He's got all this money and he's trying to tell me how to think and how to be. You know what? Once I get to my number, I won't even have to listen to him. But what you were saying, and what all the true grounded conscious experts in money are saying is that it's not about when you get to a certain dollar amount that you're all of a sudden going to feel peace or that everything's going to be okay. You'll see, my friend, that when you get there, there'll be new problems that God Creator brings to you that you'll be forced to solve. In other words, it never, ever, ever gives you the peace. So why don't we just give ourselves.

The new billionaire gets there and finds out there's 5,000 people ahead of him, no doubt.

Or he wants another yacht or whatever it is. What I'm getting at is like we're chasing the tail of the snake. And the snake only lives in balance when it doesn't eat itself to death. And we're trying to eat ourselves to death by thinking that when we get here that everything's going to be okay. So the real path, and I wonder how you describe this in your work, the real path is actually cultivating peace and confidence and joy in the clarity of vision as you get to the number. And also, I would even say not being attached to it, having to be a certain number, just focusing on developing the skills and the relationships that get you there.

Like, one of the main purposes of the book Mah on Mass, was to get to people understand there's not a number. It's like, I take him through this exercise, and it's called the value Index. I ask him, like, imagine you have an extra $10 per month, every month, above and beyond everything you have. How do you feel? What would you do with it. You know, what are you thinking about? Let's take it to a hundred. Let's take it to a thousand. Let's take it to 10,000. Let's take it to a hundred thousand every month. No taxes owed just above and beyond what you have. Let's take it to a million a month. Then I can take it to the place of what if you're a billionaire. And the whole purpose of this exercise is where you stop thinking about yourself and what the money could do for you and flip and think about what you could do for others. And I think that wealth, the way I define it, is in two ways. A byproduct of life well lived and being present. Byproduct of life well lived and being present. It's not net worth. I've just, you know, look, I was really happy in college. I didn't have a big net worth. I just had a lot of fun. I was happy outside of college. And then I got distracted thinking that my value was in my net worth. And I had to prove something to someone because of something that happened when I was, you know, in preschool where I felt I was stupid. I'm trying to prove to everyone that I'm not stupid, but there's always someone with more, and it's always this chase, and it's always skipping the moments along the way to that future point that never exists. Because when is. It's always more in that game. But what if you just designed the game that you enjoy? You could be more present along the way and you celebrate. How many entrepreneurs just don't even celebrate the wins along the way because there's someone else that has more? Like, I hit New York Times and Inc. 500 in the same week, but I lost 200 grand on real estate that week. Guess what I focused on. The $200,000 loss was in my 20s. You know, it's like, huge lesson. I was like, oh, yeah, if I hit this, then that's just like, as silly as the movie is. I love that movie. Click with Adam Sandler because he just has a remote to fast forward through life, and it's like fast forwarding through all the hard parts, and then he misses out on all of life. It's like a really profound lesson within a really silly movie. But I think that far too often we're trained to do that. And I try to, like, if I'm doing something new, just romanticize the beginning of that. Just like, you know, when I was dating my wife, like that, that early stage. So I'M like, there's just different phases and stages. You know, first time getting up and doing an open mic to the first time filming a. A comedy special and then getting on Amazon prime, like, just celebrated along the way. Not like I'd have a good comedy set when I open for my buddies. It'd be 20 minutes and I'd be, I. I'd fill my mind being like, ooh, you're more ready for the thing. I'm like, no, let's just celebrate tonight. Let's all hang out, like, in the moment. That's kinda what I like about comedy is when someone's laughing, they're in the moment.

Oh, yeah.

They're not worried about the future or they're not ruminating on the past. They're just present in the moment.

Oh, I remember Jim Carrey said, the reason I love what I do is because I just, for a little piece of time, I give people the permission to be free from concern.

Yeah.

Powerful. That's why he did everything he did.

And I feel like it's love. Like when there's laughter, there's, like, real love there. But the freedom giving and receiving.

No doubt. The freedom from concern piece is interesting because I would say if you looked at most people's internal narrative across the world, by the way, it's the major concern is either money, time, or health.

Yep.

And then relationships. But money's typically the first one. So I just love how much base and groundwork that we've poured for the spiritual, energetic side of money. It's super deep. It is so good. And by the way, if you're listening to this, make sure you bookmark this. Joshtrent.com Garrett, you can learn more about his program. What's the name of the program?

Multiplier.

Multiplier. I've gone through it halfway myself. It's phenomenal. It's everything we're talking about now. But expand it in a way where you can actually use it so it's on the screen right now. Joshtran.com Garrett, the reason I want to shift gears is because now there is a time for practical. Like, practical is really good. Taking supplements, good. Designing legacy wealth, good. Having strategies, really good mindset and philosophy off before that, you're fucked. There's nowhere to fly because you.

You don't get to fill the reward of more.

Yeah.

It's like, cool. I have more, but I want more.

Yeah.

And it's like, that's that trap.

Ooh, it's such a trap.

And it's easy to fall into.

It's easy to fall into because we're both. We're chemical biological beings and we're also spiritual beings. If you and I were just spiritual, we'd be like hovering right now, you know, but we're biological beings. Like, we have an amygdala. We don't want to be ostracized from tribe. We have a prefrontal cortex that get less blood flow when we're stressed out. Like, we're a biological system and we're a spirit. Right in the biology living. So I think it's important that we covered that. But now for the mind, like the mental capital, the relational capital equaling the financial capital, the mental capital is just as important as the spirit, as the relationships. Like, that's why it's in the formula.

I feel like our mental and relationship capital combined is like sole purpose because it's like relating to the people in the world, but knowing who we are at the same time. So we see each other as one. And what I do for you, I do for myself. And it gets us out of this duality where it's all give and take and what can I get? And the competitive zero sum game nature that really confuses people and gets them stuck in scarcity.

So when Grant Cardone's like, I don't want to beat my competition, I want to kill. I want to crush my competition. What do you make of that?

Yeah, I just think that, you know, I think, you know, interviewed him a couple times and seemed like his number one goal was to be a billionaire. And number two is like, I just asked him because he accomplished something. I'm like, did you celebrate? He's like, no, I'm on to the next thing. So I'm like, cool. I get how that's attractive to certain people that watch that and might help them past where they're at currently. But to what end? You know, the means don't justify the end. If it's about harming others, if it's about, like, some of the best athletes in the world are constantly bitter, but they don't seem happy. So there is an effective nature to that. But is it filled with love and abundance and joy, or is it filled with anger, resentment, and just brief moments of accomplishment? And I think that those moments are so brief because it's an insatiable appetite when we're thinking about kill versus when we're thinking about collaboration.

And the collaboration really only comes from, I guess you could say in different words, an energetic space of peace. I used to think that you have.

To be abundant to collaborate.

Oh, it's so much more fun, by the way.

You have to be abundant enough to compliment someone. People who aren't abundant won't compliment someone else because they want all glory to go to them. How fun is that?

And it could be even friends and family that you love that when you do achieve success or when they see you expanding your dream, they'll be the first ones to try to shoot you down. It's so sad.

It might be because of their own insecurities and their own lack of expression and they haven't done the work to be on purpose. And so it's a reminder of what they haven't done. And if they're coming from scarcity, it's just, it's a competitive nature. And the world rewards competition in some ways, you know, whether that's sports or things like that. But sports are different than business. Like in business you don't have to have a winner and loser. Like, I won't invest in options. And the reason I would never invest in options is because it's a win lose scenario. One person bets right, the other person bets wrong. One person gets the money, the other one loses. But I want a value proposition. How do I win, how do you win? And how does the marketplace win? And there's so much available out there in the world that way. And I think we're expansive when we think in that collaboration where we can invest in people, we can help grow them, they're going to have a level of appreciation for it. And it just takes a more abundant mindset to think that way.

For people that don't know what options are, what are options?

So options are like calls and puts. And so it's. We're basically saying, I think this stock is going up. So I'm going to put a call on that and I'm going to get even more return on it. And the other person says, no, I think it's going down, you know, so I'm going to put a put option on that. And so you buy like a small, it's like a premium that you pay in order for that to happen. And then it gives you like margin, it gives you an opportunity to have more gain. But. But you're basically taking the money from the other person who bet wrong. And so it's a very win lose. And you know, I've been in, I was in an event here in Austin once with my wife and the person next to me was writing a book on options. I was like, what good are options? What value does it bring to the marketplace? And she goes, well, I could work from wherever I want. I'm like, I get what it does for you. What does it do for the market? And my wife's just grabbing my knee, and I'm like, I'm not gonna be a total dick. I just want to ask a few questions. Because this person's obviously smart enough to write a book. There's probably a hundred other ways they can create. Create more value.

But the come from this is. This is really the crux of the mental piece of your formula. So the come from the intentionality of why you want to make the money in the first place will actually be the fuel source or the guidepost or the navigation of how and when. And you know, however it looks, when you achieve it, it's actually the intention that's more important than anything else. Whether it's freaking medicine, ceremony, human relationships, or money, they're all just vehicles. They're all just mediums of movement.

How interesting is it that people vilify billionaires? I think that's just an insane notion because they're like, oh, they've taken more than their fair share. I'm like, no, they've given so much to your life. They've given so much to your life that you gave them some of your money, and you giving them money brought more value to you. If they don't exist, that value didn't get created, and it's just something you don't have in your life. And if you're like, they need to be taxed more. Like, okay, so they. They're really efficient at producing. And you think that we should confiscate some of that at a higher percentage for them than you in order to give it to the government, who is extraordinarily inefficient at delivering that into someone's pocket. Right. Maybe a billionaire can have like, 90 cents on the dollar show up in, you know, into someone's life.

Yeah.

And the government gives them 10 cents on the dollar. And yet this notion of if someone has more, they've done something wrong. I believe that money is a receipt from value creation, not deception. Now, there are companies out there that are. Their entire basis is on deception and coercion. But that's actually the exception to the rule, because you have to think there's far more small business owners than big corporations. Small business owners hire a lot more people than big corporations overall. And most of them are out there doing amazing things, and yet we want to vilify them. If they become successful. Like, we want to put a lid on it and say, no, no, they need to give more of what they're earning. That's. It's because they don't understand economics and they don't understand value creation and because they feel victimized because they're not where they want to be. And so it's easier to point the finger and make a villain out of someone than point the finger at ourselves and take responsibility. Responsibility is the key reason why people don't have wealth. You have to be responsible for your actions, your reactions. You have to be responsible for your next thing that you do and even for your mindset. And if we don't take responsibility, we can't have prosperity because one doesn't exist without the other.

How do you think that human free will. This is both a tactical question and a spiritual question. How do you think that free will plays or interfaces with free market?

Nice. I mean, here's why we don't have free market in a lot of cases, because the premise is people can't be trusted, and we have to use regulation and force to get them to do the right thing. But now we have to assume that the person in regulation and force is doing the right thing. And what it says is, you don't know what's best for yourself. I know what's better for you. Even if that were true, part of our evolution as a species is to learn. And if we push it down to lowest common denominator, where we have a false sense of security and safety at the expense of the people who produce the most and take the most responsibility, we actually stunt the growth of humanity. And so free will is where our purpose comes from. And we will make mistakes in a free market. And those mistakes are part of the ingredients of lessons that you can't always learn from a book or a podcast that we go through it and we go, okay, now, some people learn the wrong lessons. You know, like, I've had situations where I'm like, man, I want to keep trusting, but this is hard. But what I realize is, like, I'm just not trusting myself is why I'm projecting that. Because anything I say about someone else is something that I have to look into my own self and say what is unresolved in me.

Yes. And what's interesting is what. What I get the most triggered about in my life, and especially when I look back in total honesty, man of my journey with money, is connected to being raised on welfare. You know, I used to stand in that special line in middle School where the kids knew that the kids in that line were poor and that was like a real thing. And my dad was gone and my mom was stressed out and like, we didn't starve. I'm not, I'm very fortunate, actually. I'm a white guy from East County, San Diego. Like, there are people that have 20x more depth in hardship than me that I'll even understand.

As kids, we don't really know the difference.

We don't know the difference though. My nervous system was just so like a rose open to its environment that I really started to be angry that we were poor and angry that there wasn't enough. And just like anger fueled me for so long. And it wasn't until I just got beat down that I shared earlier where I just opened my mind to people that had money that I actually liked the way they were being. Because there's a lot of people that have money and they're not being great people.

If we vilify others, we don't have to take responsibility ourselves.

Right, but that's the. Okay, so this is a big piece. And this is actually the tactical in relationship building in your formula. So the mental side, we've covered quite a bit. There's much more in the course. But the relational skillset to be like, right now, you and I are cultivating a friendship. Right. It's a natural thing. It's not forced. I don't have a hardcore expectation of how you show up or what you give me. Same. That's how real relationships work. When you're dating someone, when you're in a friendship with anyone, that's how it's supposed to be. But if I bring to the table right now my projections of what I think a wealthy person should be or what you are or like, damnation of your character and soul, it cuts off to even our earlier point. When I look at you reductionized. It kills the space for capacity of creation.

Yeah. When we label someone, we look to validate that label.

Right. And then I can be right and justified and then we don't have a friendship. That's. This is lose, lose, Right?

Lose, lose instead of win, win. And you know, I mean, look, we're just, we're imperfect beings trying to do our best. I mean, I've been a victim before and didn't realize I'm like, oh, I'm acting like a victim. That's why I'm in pain. That's hard to admit. And I'm like, okay, it's time to do some work, you know? And that work is we had to do the inner work.

So when you started to do that work, and I'm curious what that work was, how did that impact your relational aspect of your quotient?

So I wrote this book, Disrupting Sacred Cows after some work I did, which was the follow up. Because someone's like, what? What didn't you write in Killing Sacred Cows that is so instrumental. I'm like, I didn't write where scarcity comes from. I knew at a surface level it might come from something we hear from a family member or in society or, you know, experiences that happen. But I did this somatic. I did MDMA sessions in the somatic therapy method. So you have an eye mask, you take MDMA and you have a therapist that has you take a mind's eye look through your body and then the body actually does the work. Your mind just sits back. And it's weird because last session I did, I came up with, once I healed something, it was worry that was stuck in my hip. She's like, well, what's left now that the worry's gone? I'm like, intrepid. I didn't even know the word intrepid. I was like, where'd that come from? I was like, intrepid. It's like, oh, this is what intrepid means. That's great. But when I did the first session, I couldn't move my shoulder. And someone's like, ah, you know, it's probably emotional. Like, no, I was lifting weights and then playing football with my son and then it couldn't. And it's like. So I went and got X rayed, got ultrasound, I did stem cells, prolozone, dry needling, everything I could think of. One MDMA therapy session, I could move it fully because it was just an emotion that was stuck in there. And so I did. You know, from 2018 till today, I think I've done 10 sessions. The first eight sessions were on childhood and the last two are on generational and just these trapped emotions and belief systems that were subconsciously, paradoxically hidden from me. Getting hit by a car when I was three, watching my, you know, in a cop car, going to a hospital 30 miles away, watching the reaction of my mom, having my dad show up in his coal mining outfit with coal dust on his face. And my grandparents show up worried. I'm like, ooh. When I'm not perfect. I hurt my family at 5, at my favorite place in the world behind my grandparents house, catching salamanders in the creek. Two older boys come and Say, hey, you want to join our club? That sounds amazing. And then turn out, that's not the club you want to join, because they molest me, right? So, like, now everything that I love isn't safe. And, like, you know, so I go back into this work and heal that, and all of a sudden I'm like, oh, here's where the scarcity came from. And it was stuck in my body. And physical pain that was actually emotional pain that my brain was smart enough to. To distract me by putting it into physicality instead of emotion. And then once the work happened, I released it and it showed me my false belief systems. I was like, oh, those aren't serving me. Those are false belief systems I developed before my prefrontal cortex was fully formed and then hidden from me. So anything reminded me of something, I would go into preservation and protection, right? So once I understood that, then I went into generational things that weren't even mine, and I was like, oh. And then I did the body code work with one of my clients that created it, and he took me through, and it was like seven generations back on my great grandma. And I was like, oh, okay. So it's like all these things. Once I saw that, I was like, well, I'll write a sequel about where does scarcity come from? How does it hold us back, and how do you actually heal it? And I'm not the expert in the healing modalities. I just put three pages of resources at the end, because whether it's EMDR or whether it's. There's so many different modalities out there, but if we don't do the work, it just lingers and stays with us and kind of creates that invisible ceiling or maybe visible that we're just confused how to get through, man.

No matter. Thank you so much for sharing that. That's so, so good for people to hear, because there's a lot there. The ability for us to heal comes from awareness and resourcefulness, right? So once you're aware of the wound, then you do the character building that's required to gather the resources to heal it. So I'm not saying that everyone needs to go do MDMA or needs to sit in a plant medicine ceremony, but this is actually part of your quotient of relationship building. Because if I don't have a loving relationship with Josh, how in the hell am I ever going to build a loving relationship with my children, with Garrett, with my audience, with my team? It's just not possible, is what I'm saying.

We didn't get an instruction manual on how to love ourselves or I didn't.

No. And neither did our generation.

It was more kind of like the opposite.

Our parents definitely did not. We're getting somewhat.

We get more now and then. I didn't get an instruction manual with money when I was born either. So I'm just going through, fumbling through those two areas and decided to share it.

The part that's so both liberating and also terrifying is when I'm sure when you went into the molestation, there was a gift there. And I want to be very respectful of that because I'm not pacifying, I'm not belittling experiences like that. I've done such deep journeys where I've asked God so many times, God, if anything has happened, I promise you, I. I can feel it. Like, if I've ever had sexual trauma, please share with me. Like, I'm. I'm ready to receive, you know, And I've never gotten a clear yes. No memory has popped up yet for many people. Sometimes JV Crumb, he's a big podcaster at like 50 something years old. He had a memory pop through of sexual trauma, and it changed his entire outlook on his health and his business and his life. Like, he's a brand new person. What I'm saying is the nervous system, you know, Bessel Van der Kolk's the body keeps the score. The nervous system is so wise and so intelligent more than any practicality of finance that we may go over today. The nervous system is so wise that it knows the connection between the unconscious mind and the nervous system nervous system, which is essentially the same thing. It knows exactly the perfect time to bring forth what is most wounding so that it can be healed. I just revel in the power of the nervous system and the unconscious. It's so profound.

Well, I had this dream one night which was like summer of 2018. There's like a thin person up on stage. I felt like I was in New York and there was lights to the side of them and they're performing and I was like directing. It felt like. Then all of a sudden I was the performer. Then all of a sudden I was the audience. Then I woke up and I turned to my wife. I'm like, I'm gonna write a theatrical keynote. I'm gonna write a one man show. So that's cool. What's that? I'm like, well, my buddy Bo Eason has a pretty cool one and this what his was like. But like, I'm called to do this So I have this formula. If I really. If it speaks to my soul, I immediately go, who's my co creator? Because that makes it real. So I call Beau. He's like, well, here's my acting coach, here's my movement coach. I might get their information. Then I called Michael Port, who had done some speaking coaching. I'm like, hey, have you ever directed a one man show? He's like, oh, dude, that's my jam. I was like, great, what does it look like? So he gets a screenwriter and I start working on it and I hire this guy, Larry Moss, who was Coach DiCaprio. And I'm probably the worst actor he's ever coached because I sucked the first day trying to act out this one man show that we created. And so I'm working with him and he's like, all right, first, first suggestion is, you gotta do some work on your childhood. I could see it in your neurology. Wow. And when he would coach me, he'd yell at me to trigger my neurology. My sister would be sitting there watching, crying. But it was like, he's a kind man. He just knows what to do. And it was like that was holding me back from being expressed. So how cool that I get this gift and a dream that then starts helping me heal. And by the way, the play that I wrote is my instruction manual for life. It's like, it's all the lines that. There's a whole segment just on sacrifice, like where I actually do like a money rap or like a rap where I'm like, sacrifice is the vice that traps us in losing games. Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice. Say yes. When what we mean is no. Worried about others feelings more than our own. We sacrifice life, Sacrificing who we are in the name of safety and security. Time for money. All at the expense of today. So anyway, that's just like a little segment of it. But it's like, how cool is that that it leads me back to doing all this personal work. I didn't know that's what it was going to do, but it's like it's been a gift, Such a gift.

But the intensity of the healing can be a stopping point for many because they haven't cultivated the courage. And that's not out of shame that I say that everyone's on their own path and everyone has their own timing and it's all good. You know, everybody's got their own timeline for healing. Yet many people that have wealth, um, they do so much work because of their wealth. And I want To I'm always like, present to who's with us, Right. I'm always present to who's. Who's sitting or hearing this. If someone is creating the excuse or the validation that you have to be wealthy first to do your healing, what do you say to them?

Well, like, there's so many great free resources right now. I always look at it. When you have more than time than money, then you have to just take advantage of the free resources and do the work by yourself or with someone that is a friend that you don't necessarily have to pay for. If you got more money than time, it's easy just to go right to the top people and the source I found, sure. Like, I've just reached out to authors because as an author, I don't know if people compliment my book. I'm pretty susceptible to flattery with the whole thing and I'll do things to support them, but yeah, so you just have to look there's plenty of opportunity. And that wasn't true 20 years ago. But thanks to the Internet and thanks to technology improvements, you could do the work now. I'm glad that I was on MDMA in that third session when it was three hours of blank tunnel stare doing nothing. And my therapist just sat with me because I was coming out to the other side to see what happened. I got to feel what it was like to lose innocence, lie to my mom for the first time, get away to a certain degree, wreck my bike, have a bruised rib and a bloodied mouth from falling off the bike trying to get away. And then I could look at where that innocence lost came up in other things. And I was like, oh, that's why that was so painful. Even though it was a completely different context. And by doing that work. It's not something I love to talk about, but I think it's important to talk about. And thank goodness for the healing modalities, because if I didn't. It's kind of like the show the Town. You ever watched that? Ben Affleck directed it. It's pretty awesome.

I've seen some really good Affleck film. Not that one, so that one's great.

Because there's a moment where he's talking to this girl that he's dating and she's like, ah, just another sunny day. But says it really, like, in a depressed way. He's like, what do you mean? She's like, ah, my brother died on a day like this. So sunny day reminds her of the death of her brother and puts her in a Somber, sad mood. And that's what happens with our unresolved issues, is when we bump up against those things that maybe should be like, hey, you just had success, but maybe you had success right before major trauma. And so success reminds you of the trauma, and you're pushing success away because you have this subconscious belief that's hard to see. So it's nice to have a light shine on that and be like, oh, and then have some modality that helps reprogram it, whether it's the EMDR just doing eye movement because you don't want to do mdma because, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever. I mean, yeah, you know, I love.

I love that I attempted to fumble us to the next phase of the podcast.

We're going to go to the financial, and you're like, I'm like, you know what? Molestation and mdma.

But there is a really, like, we can't stop this train unless we go into the wheels that move it. Because the tactical and practical, once you've explored the relational and really like the spiritual, I think that's part of your quotient without the word, then you can actually start to create hard money or liquid money. Right. Capital. And I just want to give people permission, myself included, that you don't have to have all of the stuff we've talked about figured out. Like, if you use that.

I'm still figuring things out every day, man.

If you use that as evidence as to why you can't move forward with the tactical, then that's a choice you'll make to stay stuck. So once the work has been started, if you will, in the aspects we've discussed, what would be, you know, if you took a breath and floated 30,000ft above everything you've learned in decades for somebody that actually is broke, let's talk to the broke. They're broke. What is a starting place for them to create? Liquid to create.

That's kind of interesting because I'm going to start with one more philosophical thing and then give you something really practical. It's just, you know, like, we give some, like, super practicals. Everybody should just go to missingmoney.com because a lot of times if you've moved or you change jobs, there's money that was sent to you at an old address, and now it's in the state and the state property until you reclaim it. I probably got 10,000 plus dollars over the years just by going there. Missingmoney.com yeah, so, like, you know, I moved offices and didn't forward everything, and.

It'S a record that the state holds everybody.

You go type your name in, and then, you know, they'll tell you how much. Maybe, like you had money in a bank, but it was inactive for a certain period of time, and it was a hundred bucks sitting in a savings account or might be a lot more like a check that came in from residuals that was thousands of dollars. So that's really practical for someone who's maybe needing some money right now.

What if you just change someone's life right now just from that one thing?

Yeah, and that'd be great. Here's. Here's where my starting point would be. And then I'll give the framework.

Okay.

Everyone has a money story, and there's the three layers to it. The first layer is the story we tell people, and it's not real. It's what we're willing to put out there because of protection and preservation. It's an identity. But then there's the money story we tell ourselves. And as long as we're telling ourselves certain things about our money story without sharing it with someone else, we're trapped by it. And one of the most key things you could do so you can find a place where you can be vulnerable, where it's safe, and you can share that. It'll start to lessen its grip on you. But the third place is what you can't share because it's hidden from you, and it's the sludge and it's deep in the basement, and it's a heaviness. And it's like. Because you can't grapple with it, you'll start to find it. If you share that second layer, it'll start to open up. You'll see what's really underneath that. And some of those other modalities can help you with it. Now, practically the first step for anybody is you pay yourself first. You set up a separate bank account, and you take a percentage. No matter what that percentage is, I don't care if it's 1%. You just start the habit of putting some money in an account that builds up some safety, some liquidity. I call it a peace of mind fund. Because when there's money there, you know that if you have a health challenge, you've got some staying power. If you need to shift careers, you've got some staying power. If you have a cash flow issue, you. It may not get a good return, but it creates that a little bit of stability, so you pay yourself first. Now, the second thing is there's plenty of places to find money. I call it the four eyes to efficiency. The irs, interest, investments and insurance. These are the four big things. No coupon clipping, no cutting back. It's that most people are tipping the government. If they're an entrepreneur, there's a 93% chance they're overpaying their taxes. We've done plenty of studies. Wow. One year we talked to 117 entrepreneurs. 107 of them were overpaying their taxes by an average of $10,430 per half million of revenue. So now a certain percentage of those could go back and amend returns. That's about 30% of people they've overpaid on because they have multiple companies, they've overpaid on self employment tax. That's 15.3%. The biggest case we ever had was someone overpaid 321,000 just on that. They amend the returns, they get it back, they miss R and D credits. They mean the returns. They get it back. They, you know, there's, there's things you can go back for. Not everything. Some things like you could pay your kids, but if you didn't pay them, you can't go back and pay them from the previous year. Right. Or there's an Augusta rule where you can rent out your home 14 days a year to your business. You write it off and take a tax deduction, but it's not personal income to you. And so that's another thing that could be of high value. There's, there's tons of tax strategy. The second is the I is interested. There's three Rs that help here, restructuring loans. There's a lot of people, you know, if they restructured their loans with the ideal loans way back in the day or they refinanced back in 2020 to 2021, they went from 4% to 2.75%. That's a huge difference over 10 years. 15 years, 20 years, we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. The second is reallocation. There's a lot of people have underperforming funds and their interest that they're paying is higher than their funds. They could simply pay that off and it's a guaranteed savings and renegotiation. Credit cards are especially something you can renegotiate. You know, if you have a good credit score, 760 or above. And there's ways to boost that. If you have good collateral. Like if you have a car that's paid off, you'd refinance that and get a much Better interest rate than it, you know, or something like that on the restructure. But even if there's good connections, I just know people that they went to finance something and they need a special institution. Maybe they have a winery or maybe they just have a home in a certain location and there's specific institutions that do well with that, you know, and then just good cash flow reporting. It's like if you have good blood work, you know, that's helpful if you're going to get insurance. Yeah, like life insurance. So if you have good cash flow, then the banks, you look better at the banks. So if you have that in order, you can simply renegotiate interest rates. It doesn't have to be that good to renegotiate a credit card interest rate. A lot of times if you say I'm looking to do a balance transfer, I'm thinking about canceling, they'll move you to the retention department and you can negotiate a better interest rate if you have a good credit score. So the third eye is investments. Small fees have huge consequence. So just like everybody's heard about compound interest, most people haven't thought about compounding costs. So 100 grand in 30 years grows to 1.74 million if that earns 10% a year. If you're 9.2% because of non performing fees, non performing fees might be heavy expense ratios. 12,1 fees which are marketing fees, legal and admin fees, and retirement plans. That 9.2% only grows to 1.4 million. That's $340,000 for less than 1% compounding cost, protecting your downside or even insurance. A lot of inefficiencies. Duplicate coverage is improper structure. You know, people have two different insurance companies. Combine the insurance companies, you get a multi policy discount, add an umbrella policy for your liability, you can get that for a couple hundred dollars a year and lower your limits of liability on your current home and get a million dollars of coverage for the same price. That kind of stuff, you know, raise your deductibles, stuff like that. It's just ensure that the catastrophic, not the inconsequential. And so you find ways to plug leaks and you keep more of what you make without having to work harder. So now you have even more money than go to this peace of mind fund. You automate that savings by paying yourself first and then you deliberately invest aligned with your investor DNA. So risk isn't in the investment, it's in the investor. You know tons about health. The companies you've invested in, you know the people that are involved, you know, whether it's legit or not, you have a different investor DNA than someone who's not in health. And where people take too much risk because they invest in things they know nothing about, hoping that 30 years from today it's going to pay off. And often it disappoints because instead of.

Wisdom, they're investing from greed.

Speculation.

Speculation, yeah.

Just because they. I'm not smart enough, I'm going to hand it to these Ivy League people or Wall Street. Like, would we trust Wall street with anything? Yeah. Would you let. Would you take your kids to Wall street daycare?

No, I definitely would not.

Hey, we lost 7% of your son. But sorry, just toes. Hopefully they grow back.

I wouldn't take them to the Pentagon daycare either.

Right.

We lost. We can't find this $12 billion. Trillion dollars.

Don't you love how they just.

Sorry about that. By the way. By the way, your PayPal, I noticed it was at $601. We're going to need taxes on that.

Right. But we can't tell you where these billions of dollars went.

Oh, my gosh. That was so good. So y' all rewind that again. This is a really great starting place for people. I asked you on our Zoom call one day, I was like, hey, who are you really for? And you said, well, I'm for somebody that wants to just keep more money, you know, $150,000 a year. Was that the baseline?

Something like that, yeah. Multiplier. If they're not making like 150,000, okay, there's. We just give them a lot of cool, supporting resources. But 150 and up. We're not. We're not looking to work with billionaires.

Yes.

I've done it before. It takes too much time. It's not who I am. I want to help a lot more people than a few people.

Yeah. And this is why I resonated with our connection. Because, you know, there's. There's lots of people that could come on a podcast and be like, I never work with anyone. My team does. And you have to make a million dollars a year. That just cuts out so much of the population. How can we ever grow financial consciousness?

And I remember where I came from.

How could we ever grow financial consciousness? If only the people that have already done enough work.

I always think of my great grandfather, had this financial framework. What he've lost seven years with this family. And it just drives me to help out the people that are good, hard working people that are neglected by the financial world because they don't have money. I don't manage money. I don't put people in mutual funds. I don't get paid on transactions like that. People pay me to teach and build out that financial team, which is a harder thing to do because I don't get automated money that just comes out of a bank account. But I feel like it's a very honest thing to do because I'm either adding value or I'm not. And if I'm not, they don't have to continue with me.

So when you were talking, I was. And this happens a lot in really good conversations, I was visualizing that if money was water and the infrastructure to hold that water investments. You talked about the four eyes. If the infrastructure of those eyes is really the earth or humus, it's how the water or the money trickles down and how it's held in different compartments in the earth. In other words, if the compartments aren't built out, then it's just all going to flow to one, which would be the irs, and then that gets overpaid. So it's about digging in your leaks, right?

Leaking. It's like a leaky bucket.

There's no container to hold it. So I'm making this as simple as I can for myself and everybody. The metaphor would be if money was water coming to the ground, how have you cultivated and dug out the space in which you live in the earth to hold that water so it doesn't leak? Or so it doesn't get eaten up by one and not the all.

What I want people to consider, they're trained and indoctrinated to build a dam and accumulate. I want a river. Think about the Amazon River. There's life everywhere around that thing, and it's pushing so much water in the ocean that there's miles of fresh water. So think of river instead of dam and to keep the money flowing so part of it flows to you and you grow yourself so that you can earn even more of it because you're creating more value versus scrimping it and setting it aside one dimensionally.

Well, see, this flies in the face of Dave Ramsey. And I know you've done a lot of videos where people will send you a clip and you'll talk about it.

Yeah.

One thing that I noticed he is very vigilant on is pay off your car, pay off your mortgage, have liquid cash in the bank and don't touch it. What is harmful about that mindset?

I never want to talk people into or out of Their objective, if they're like, you know what we want? We want to pay off our mortgage. Cool. What's the safest, most efficient and effective method of getting there? And let's do the real math and economics to understand that. We look at your behavior, look at things like that. But for me, I have a home that I could have paid off, but I got a 2.75% mortgage on it. I have this cash value in my whole life policy that's earning 5% right now. If I pay it off, I actually hurt my wealth now. I could pay it off. And I asked my wife, do you consider our home paid off if, you know, I could pay it off in 72 hours? She's like, yeah. And if you know that money safe and stable, protected from liability, guaranteed once it's there, backed by guarantee associations, she's like, absolutely. I'm like, cool. So you have the peace of mind, because peace of mind matters. And if we only look at the economics and neglect the peace of mind, we ignore the person. But if we only look at the peace of mind and ignore the economics, we actually put the person at risk. So I don't like that. A lot of financial minds gurus, whatever you want to call them, have a one trick pony, and this is the only way that you do it. And that kind of lowest common denominator lack of intelligence is because they believe people can't be trusted. And we continue to lower our standards to the lowest consciousness instead of elevate to the highest possibility.

So is going to Dave Ramsey for financial advice, like going to a doctor about health advice who smokes cigarettes and obese?

Yeah, kind of. Other than if you're a train wreck, he will help get you on track.

Okay.

And he might be the best in the world at that.

Yeah.

So I'll give him that. Like, for sure. But if I look at what he's done, he's a brilliant entrepreneur who's built a massive business with entrepreneurial skills that budgeting wasn't the reason that he grew, that what was value? I mean, he, he built the entrepreneurial academy and campuses and, you know, reach and intellectual property. And like, he built a brand, a very massive brand. Now I just don't align with the values of that brand. It's kind of angry. There's a lot of guilt and shame. And again, it's, it's great for someone who's saying, I don't want to take the time to learn. Yeah, I know that's harsh and I don't mean to sound so, but that's just how I really feel.

I think it's like we've talked about traps a lot in this podcast and I have this next burning question as we round out. For me, the biggest question is we live in a society and the values of modernity in society have infused this consumeristic endpoint where we must have the house, the car, the white picket fence and all the things in order to then take a big exhale and feel like we've arrived. Yet a lot of what you teach, and especially this equation of relationship building mentality equals the liquid. It's completely opposite of that. I've been through many emotional intelligence trainings and there's a common thread that I wonder how you feel relates to money or wealth creation. And it is be, do, have, but it's opposite of modernity or society's vision of what wealth is. Who would I need to become in order to do the things that I would allow myself to have if I was wealthy? It's a complete flip of the script. But I wonder, in your own words, tactically, how does that relate to wealth creation? Be, do and have.

Yeah, the being is, is, is everything. And so that's where my belief is like, we value ourselves, we increase our value, we look at ways to serve. And as we do that, then we're being the type of person that does those things. And then the byproduct is that we'll have wealth. But wealth is a function of how we live more than what we have. Right. Going right back to that very first piece, it's just that we let society to define wealth and society said, well, I mean, if we look at society's original vision, it's indoctrination in that how much time you spend in school gets you the degrees that gain the respect. It's just that we're seeing through that now. Covid really helped people see through that.

Covid was a blessing.

It was like, here, let's just watch. This is all nonsense.

Oh yeah.

And so we're just indoctrinated thinking, oh, well, if you're MD, PhD, then you get to say you're a doctor. And that's, you know, now we're watching like people are telling their kids, you don't want to be that. You're going to go deep into debt.

Yeah.

You're going to be an indentured servant to insurance. You're going to be hand tied on the things that you could do because you're going to be prescribing drugs. And if you don't you get penalized and so you're like, oh, so I'm a customer service rep for pharma. Yes. If you're a general practitioner, that's what it's been relegated to. So your good intentions don't get rewarded because you're in a bad system. So we're watching, you know, like we talked about psychedelics. I mean, we've seen how psychedelics outperform pharma time in and time out.

Yeah.

And part of the reason they don't adopt them is because they're not looking for the solution. They're looking for someone to be stuck on a pill for the rest of their life. Or pills. Right. For that matter. I mean, look, if you don't vaccinate your kid, just you're going to get dropped by the pediatrician, because how are they going to profit?

Oh, we had that exact experience. We took my, my son to this place here just to get, like, I forget what. We had to get some form or something for the government. And she was like, oh, well, we don't, we don't work with unvaccinated children. Like point blank. She was wearing a mask and a face shield. This is like 2023, okay? Way beyond the theater of Shmovid. And I just took it upon myself to turn to Kerry Michelle, and I was like, let's just not do this. Let's just not even play this game. Right. Because children come into the world imbued, for the most part with perfect health. And all these injections, or for us as adults, mental indoctrinations, they're all just these hooks of pseudo safety that's being pushed on us as if some outside force is going to make us safe. Is there a time and a place for vaccinations? I'm sure there is. Right. Is there a time and a place for safety to be from the outside? I'm sure there is, but blanket statement, majority. I think it's almost controversial. And I wonder, you know, this advice of being your own sovereign being, having financial literacy, having financial wellness. That's why I added it to the Pentagon. It's so important. It's what I kept hitting up against time and time again in my life. And it wasn't until I added it to the Pentagon that it became a house. You know, if you look at a Pentagon, physical floor, mental emotional walls, spiritual, financial roof, it's the house we live in. If I'm not in mastery of those five sides and getting little hits from the universe, like taking my child to the doctor's office and then realizing it's not even a game I want to play. Then I could be consumed by society itself. I could be chomped up, Garrett. I could be just eaten, digested and shit out by society and it doesn't care. What is the most controversial piece of financial advice you've ever received as it relates to be, do have or society.

Itself that I've received and maybe even.

Or even that you've given.

When I wrote Killing Sacred Cows, I was just pretty early to the game of saying 401ks are a hoax. It's like you're gonna put your money into a government qualified plan, lock it away till minimum 59 and a half, have no control over the cash flow along the way, set it and forget it. So you have no accountability on what the results are going to be. You just say, well, you're in it for the long haul. And that stop funding it, cash it out and put it somewhere that matters. And at that time was controversial or later on it's not because a year later Time magazine said it's time to retire. The 40160 minutes did an expose on how mutual funds underperformed. But they had brilliant names and a lot of marketing behind it. So it became more of a kind of mass adoption. When I first put it out, I hired a PR firm. They couldn't get me on tv and then I flew to New York because I wasn't getting, you know, tv. I paid quite a bit and the owner of the PR firm walked in, threw my book on the table and goes, well, this would have saved me millions. This 401k thing I'm doing so stupid. And I didn't really have to give a speech that I was planning to give because it's the same PR firm representing Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey and all the people that are proponents of it. But like 401ks really came out for a couple of reasons. One, pensions were failing, so the companies were able to push the risk onto the employee versus having this risk on them. And two, if you think about it, how amazing is it for Wall street and financial advisors that they're getting a fee not just on your money, they're getting a fee on the government's money. And you're automatically putting money in that they automatically enroll you in some corporate, in some corporate jobs you have to opt out. Like you're just automatically enrolled. You don't even opt in. And that money's kind of tied up and all this kind of stuff. So that was you Know, that was kind of something that I called out. But then I started calling out other things like, hey, you shouldn't be in real estate if that's not your investor DNA. You know, like risk is in the investment or you the investor, not the investment you make. But trying to think controversial like that was at the time, it seems, it seems pretty inconsequential at this point.

What about one you've received that you put to use that at first you were like, that's way too weird for me.

I mean, bitcoin. When people started telling me about bitcoin, you know, I tried to buy when it was at 200 and it was like meaning to do in a McDonald's parking lot and backed out of that. I was like nervous. And a Chinese exchange. So I was a little bit later adopting to that. But it's a vote against the system. It has 11 divisible properties instead of nine. It's, you know, it's, it's scarce instead of. And it's, you know, it's. I could take it in my head, I don't have to. Like in the old days, if you're getting out, you're trying to get your gold out, it's going to get taken from you.

Yeah.

So, wow.

Okay, so we covered a lot of ground. What did we miss? When you look at the Pentagon that we teach here and in the way it creates wholeness and completeness for the person now wrapped into many of those sides is also other intricacies as well. I'm not saying that those are the only five things that we must master, but if we aim at those five, if we look through that lens, we're going to be in a good state. We're really going to do a good job with our life. We're going to be fulfilled. What do you think we missed? When we look at the connection of that roof piece, what do we miss? When it comes to financial awareness, financial health, when it comes to wholeness and completeness of self, the less we have.

To think about money or need to think about money, usually the more financially free we are. When money's not the primary reason or excuse, we do or don't do something. Financial freedom is a state of being and a perspective. So I mean, you could have something that's extraordinarily, you know, rich, but not be wealthy. So, you know, health is wealth. I mean, there's, I mean, we could go for another couple days on this overall. But ultimately that depth and harmony is what matters. Depth is presence and harmony is intention. So are you intentionally designing this, and are you present and enjoying it along the way? If you're not, you're either stuck in playing not to lose, which is wishing the past were different and holding on to what you got, or playing to win, which is chasing a future that's yet to happen, all at the expense of today. So design the game that you want to play and you've already won. Win, then play. That's the game. Design the win, know the win, live it along the way. It's not just the destination, it's the journey, which is, you know, maybe a little cliched, but that's really the game of money.

Well, sometimes the cliche is the most powerful. Yeah, that's why they're called platitudes, so that people try to ignore them. Man. Thank you for coming on the show.

Thanks for having me.

Really enjoyed this. Like, y', all. Joshtrend.com Garrett, this is a starting place for you to understand why you may be stuck. Well, definitely why they're stuck. I mean, you go in depth on that, but also how to create, like, how to find and craft the vision and then how to make more, keep more. It's all in there, y'. All. So until we see you again, we're wishing you love, wellness, and most importantly, peace and power. Talk with you soon.