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Early Retirement Expert: A House Vs Stocks, Here's The Truth!

January 29, 2026 / 01:49:37

This episode features financial expert David Bach discussing home ownership, wealth building, and financial literacy. Key topics include the importance of home ownership, strategies for saving and investing, and the financial challenges faced by many Americans today.

Bach emphasizes that homeowners in America are worth 40 times more than renters and argues that buying a home can lead to wealth accumulation. He shares insights from his experience as a financial adviser at Morgan Stanley, highlighting how ordinary people can achieve financial freedom.

The conversation also touches on the significance of automating finances, the necessity of having a financial plan, and the impact of lifestyle choices on wealth. Bach provides practical advice on managing debt and the importance of saving, even for those living paycheck to paycheck.

Additionally, he discusses the unique financial challenges women face and the importance of financial literacy for everyone, regardless of age or income level. Bach's personal anecdotes, including lessons from his grandmother, illustrate the long-term benefits of sound financial practices.

The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to take control of their financial futures and start implementing the strategies discussed.

TL;DR

David Bach explains how home ownership builds wealth and offers strategies for financial freedom through saving and investing.

Video

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If you don't get in the game of home
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ownership and you rent in your 20s and
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you rent in your 30s, you're going to
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turn around in your 40s and having not
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built any net worth. And in fact,
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homeowners in America are worth 40 times
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more than renters. And I'm talking about
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ordinary Americans.
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>> But that doesn't mean that buying a home
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made them rich, right?
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>> It actually does. And I'm going to go
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through that.
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>> But am I not better off renting and
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investing in the stock market? I want to
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bust this myth because I have spent the
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last 33 years of my life helping
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millions of people with ordinary incomes
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become financially free, including nine
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years as a financial adviser at Morgan
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Stanley and I got to see firsthand how
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everyone who came into my office with an
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ordinary income built wealth. And
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there's a formula to getting rich, but
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there's also a system to how you put
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your financial life on autopilot in less
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than 10 minutes. And it doesn't require
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discipline, budget, and you don't have
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to make a lot of money to get started.
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But unless your financial plan is
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automatic, it will fail. But more
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importantly, I believe the next 10 years
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will be the greatest opportunity to
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build wealth in our lifetime. And yet, 7
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out of 10 people right now are living
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paycheck to paycheck. More than 50% of
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Americans don't have savings. And most
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people don't know where their money
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goes. And in fact, when we ask people,
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how much money would it take to totally
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change your life? They say $10,000. Now,
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how much money do you need to spend a
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day to blow $10,000 a year? $27.40
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a day. If you invested that a day for 40
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years, you'd have over $4,424,000.
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That would be life-changing.
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>> But just before we get into all of the
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specifics and the strategies, do you
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have any specific advice to people that
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are currently struggled with debt?
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>> Absolutely. There's a very simple
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formula to getting out of debt called
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dole. I'd tell you to
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>> listen, my my team gave me a script that
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they asked me to read, but I'm just
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going to ask you um in the nicest way I
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possibly can. Thank you. Thank you first
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and foremost for choosing to subscribe
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to this channel. It is um it's been one
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of the most incredible crazy years of my
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life. I never could have imagined. I had
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so many dreams in my life, but this was
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not one of them. And the very fact that
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these conversations have resonated with
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you and you've given me so much feedback
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is something I will always be
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appreciative of. And I almost carry away
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a sort of burden of uh responsibility to
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pay you back. And the favor I would like
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to ask from you today is to subscribe to
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the channel if you um would be so
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obliged. It's completely free to do
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that. roughly about 47% of you that
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listen to this channel frequently
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currently don't subscribe to this
00:02:19
channel. So, if you're one of those
00:02:20
people, please come and join us. Hit the
00:02:22
subscribe button. It's the single free
00:02:24
thing you can do to make this channel
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better. And every subscriber sort of
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pays into this show and allows us to do
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things bigger and better and to push
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ourselves even more. And I will not let
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you down if you hit the subscribe
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button. I promise you. And if I do,
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please do unsubscribe, but I promise I
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won't. Thank you.
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David, what has your mission been for
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the last three decades?
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>> I have spent the last 30 years of my
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life helping ordinary people, people
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with ordinary incomes become financially
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free. And the last 20 years I've spent
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helping people become automatic
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millionaires. So, I love to teach anyone
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at any income level, minimum wage,
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living paycheck to paycheck. You might
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be in debt. You might be struggling.
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I've taught millions of people how they
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can improve their life financially.
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That's what I've been dedicated to. And
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I spent 33 years total in the financial
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service industry.
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>> And is this conversation just for people
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that are in their 20s or is it
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applicable to everybody at every age?
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>> It's applicable to everybody at every
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age because whatever your age is, it you
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know, look, Stephen, so many people are
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living paycheck to paycheck right now in
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this country. What's happening right now
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is that seven out of 10 people are being
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left behind financially. Seven out of 10
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people right now are living paycheck to
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paycheck. When you go into looking at
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finances in America today, half of
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Americans can't get their hands on
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$1,000 in case emergency purposes. And
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my biggest fear, why I updated this book
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and why I decided to come back out one
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more time and do another financial
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literacy campaign is I'm afraid people
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are being left behind. I think with AI
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right now, the next 10 years is going to
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be the greatest opportunity to build
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wealth in our lifetime.
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That's the good news. The bad news is a
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lot of people being left behind. My goal
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today, next hour is very simple. I want
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to give you the system on how to become
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an automatic millionaire at any age
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level, at any income level. But what I'm
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going to teach you is how to put your
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financial life on autopilot in less than
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10 minutes. Because when your financial
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life is automatic, your habits work
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automatically. And an automatic
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financial life doesn't require
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discipline, doesn't require a budget,
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and you don't have to make a lot of
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money to get started.
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>> Why should people be taking advice from
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you on this subject matter? What's what
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have you done in those 33 years?
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>> I've been doing this my entire life.
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Right? So, if you go all the way back, I
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started investing at the age of seven.
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And how that happened is I had a
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grandmother, amazing grandmother. Her
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name was Grandma Rose. At 30, she made a
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decision that changed the whole destiny
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of our family. And the decision she made
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was she want to be poor anymore. And at
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30, on a very cold day on her birthday,
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she turned to my grandfather and she
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said, "We don't have any money. We're
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living paycheck to paycheck and I don't
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want to retire here. I want to go to
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California. I want to be where it's
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warm." And my grandfather said, "Well,
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what do you want to do about it?" and
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she's like, "We need to change what
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we're doing or nothing will change." And
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so my grandmother started saving 50
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cents a week out of her paycheck. So 50
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cents each because they were like middle
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class people, right? Didn't have a
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college education. My grandfather worked
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in a plant. My grandmother worked in
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retail. But she started saving small
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amounts of money. And over her lifetime,
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she became an investor. And she became a
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self-made millionaire. My first book,
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which you have sitting over here, was a
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book called Smart Women Finish Rich. It
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was the lessons that my grandmother
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taught me. So, at seven, my grandmother
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took me to McDonald's and she taught me
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a lesson that would change my life. She
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said, "David, you're sitting here eating
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McDonald's and cheeseburgers and your
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French fries and your milkshake." She
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said, "I'm going to teach you today how
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to be rich for real. You like to play
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Monopoly. Here's my lesson today." She
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said, "There's three types of people.
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those like you who are here eating right
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now, you're what's called a consumer.
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She said the people over there who have
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been working, they're called employees
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and they've been working for minimum
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wage and that's a very hard way to live.
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She said they make at the time they made
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85 cents an hour. And she said the third
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type of person is the person who owns
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this place. They're called an investor.
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And she said, "Today, I'm going to teach
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you how to buy stock in McDonald's so
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that when you come to McDonald's, you'll
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make money from everybody who's here.
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When your friends come to McDonald's,
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you'll make money from them, and you'll
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be an owner of McDonald's." And she took
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me down to a brokerage firm, helped me
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buy my first share of stock at
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McDonald's.
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That moment changed my life because what
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she made me realize is like everything
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that we do, I'm seven years old.
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everything that we do, there's an
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opportunity to be an investor and own
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that. So like at nine years old, I'm at
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Disney. I'm like, "Hey, Mickey Mouse,
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are you public?" So I was like not a
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normal kid in that way because I started
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investing at a young age.
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But then I made a lot of mistakes. Then
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I went to college. Then I got myself in
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credit card debt. Then I believed all
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the myths that young people often
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believe. I believed I couldn't really
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invest a lot until I made a lot of
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money. So, in my early 20s, I was making
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money but spending everything. So, I was
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went from making nothing to making
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$50,000 a year and I'm still broke. I'm
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like, well, it's not enough money. So, I
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went to $75,000 a year, still broke,
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spending more. Then I got to $100,000 a
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year in income. Lot of money, right? In
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my 20s. Oh my god, I'm rich. No, I was
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still spending more than I was making at
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that point. I was a financial adviser
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and al
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>> that was my job. I was working at Morgan
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Stanley helping people plan for
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retirement teaching retirement seminars
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and I met this ordinary couple that came
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into my office at the age of 52, Jim and
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Sue McIntyre. They had an ordinary job.
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That year they had made a little over
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$53,000.
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Their average income over their lifetime
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was $40,000.
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And at 52, Jim put out all the
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statements on a table in front of me. I
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sat there and added them up and they had
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a net worth of $1.8 million.
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And I sat back at a table just like this
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and said, "How did you do this?"
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And they had just been in my class for
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four weeks. They're like, "David, we did
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a lot of what you talked about, but we
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didn't have a budget because budgets
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don't work." and they talked about why
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budgeting didn't work for them. They
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said, "We put everything on autopilot.
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We saved money automatically for
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everything."
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And that was the moment that changed my
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life. I realized that day as somebody
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who was living paycheck to paycheck with
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a high income. These people had half the
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income that I did and they were able to
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retire at 52. I was in my mid20s and I
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realized that if I didn't start saving
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and investing, if I didn't change,
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nothing was going to change and I would
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never have the financial freedom that
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they had. And so I went home that day
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and I changed everything in my life. Now
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I had a lot of bad habits. So I had a
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lot of things that needed to be changed.
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You were the senior vice president at
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Morgan Stanley when you stepped down and
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you soon after wrote this book called
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Smart Women Finish Rich. It begs the
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question, what are the differences that
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you saw through your process of
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financial education that women face
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versus men?
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>> I started I was in business with my
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father and we had a lot of older clients
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and I would sit in on meetings one after
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another with widows. So in the first
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month of my career, I sat in three
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meetings with three widows where the
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husband had dropped dead suddenly. And
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my dad at the time was teaching these
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women how to read their brokerage
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statements, how to write checks, and how
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to know if they would have enough money.
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And I thought, "This is crazy." And I
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said to my dad for the third
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appointment, "Dad, what do you what
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what's going on here?" And he's like,
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"Well, what do you mean?" I go, "Well,
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you're teaching these women when their
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husband has just died how to handle
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their finances." And he said, "David,
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not all women are like your grandmother.
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Your grandmother was a rarity." And I
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said, "Dad, that's crazy. I'm going to
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go out and teach a class for women and
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money." And when I started teaching the
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class for women money, here's what I
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learned. Here are the things that make
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women different than men when it comes
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to money. Women, first of all, live
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longer than men, which means they need
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more money than men do. The average age
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of widowhood in America when I wrote
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that book originally was 57, Stephen.
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Now it's 59.
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Okay. You do all these shows on
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longevity. It seems like everybody's
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living forever. They're not. Okay. The
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average age of widowhood in America is
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59 years old.
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>> When you say widowhood, you mean the age
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in which a woman becomes a widow.
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>> Exactly. They're married and they lose
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their husband.
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>> Okay.
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>> Okay. So, so women are often wiped out
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when that happens financially. Second
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thing is that women are hurt more than
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men when it comes to divorce.
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The third thing that affects women is
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that they work fewer years. I'm like,
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these are just the the the the
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statistical realities. Women work fewer
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years than men because they have
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children. So that's an average of
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somewhere between 7 to 11 years less.
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And that's less money going into social
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security, retirement accounts, and it
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affects their earnings and often they
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earn less. So what I have taught for
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third nearly 30 years now is as a woman,
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I don't care what your situation is. I
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don't care if you're an entrepreneur. I
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don't care if you're a stay-at-home
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mother. I don't care if you're married
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to local bank president. I don't care if
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you're married, singled, widowed,
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divorced. As a woman, you have to be in
00:12:05
charge of your finances. Period. Drop
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the mic.
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End of discussion. You can't delegate
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your financial well-being to anyone
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else. You have to be in charge. Now, I
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will also tell you, Stephen, that women
00:12:19
make better investors than men. They
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they make better investors than men
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because often women don't trade like men
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do and they are they do more research
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before they invest and their performance
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is better. They're way better long-term
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investing than men are.
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>> I heard some stats once upon a time that
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men are
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the majority of the gambling addicts.
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>> Well, I'm sure they're the majority of
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the gambling addicts. And also when you
00:12:44
look at trading because trading's become
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a very big thing, but trading's always
00:12:47
been a thing.
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>> Trading meaning
00:12:48
>> trading like trading stocks, buying and
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selling stocks. Now it's buying and
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selling cryptocurrency, buying and doing
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selling options. All these things are
00:12:56
primarily men doing it and they don't
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make money because the bulk of people
00:13:00
who trade lose money day in day out in
00:13:05
year out. I teach a philosophy which is
00:13:07
this. Your money and your investments
00:13:09
should be boring. Your life should be
00:13:12
interesting. Your investments should be
00:13:14
boring. If someone's coming to a
00:13:15
cocktail party talking about their
00:13:17
investments and it's exciting,
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something's wrong with it.
00:13:22
>> Why?
00:13:23
>> Because sexy is how you go broke when it
00:13:26
comes to money. Boring is beautiful when
00:13:30
it becomes when it's about your wealth.
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So, even driving over here, my son was
00:13:34
just like, "Dad, why aren't you trading
00:13:35
Tesla stock?" I'm like, "You know why
00:13:37
I'm not trading Tesla stock? Because you
00:13:39
can't make money trading. You got to
00:13:40
figure out when to buy, when to sell. I
00:13:43
want my kids investing in index funds. I
00:13:45
have my clients investing in index
00:13:47
funds. Boring is beautiful when it comes
00:13:50
to money.
00:13:52
>> Before we get into the real specifics
00:13:54
and the tactical strategies and um we
00:13:57
think about a bunch of the sort of
00:13:58
things you said about debt and credit
00:14:00
cards and saving and getting out of debt
00:14:02
and how to become wealthy and an
00:14:03
automatic millionaire. Is there anything
00:14:05
we should discuss as it relates to the
00:14:07
broader context of what's going on in
00:14:09
the world? Whether it's wealth
00:14:10
inequality, whether it's the amount of
00:14:12
people that are living paycheck to
00:14:13
paycheck, what I'm trying to get a
00:14:14
picture on what the the state of
00:14:16
financial wealth looks like in the
00:14:17
Western world.
00:14:18
>> Yeah. Well, so let's talk, you know,
00:14:19
when people talk about economies. Here's
00:14:21
here's the economy that matters in my
00:14:23
opinion. Your economy, meaning the
00:14:26
person that's listening, the economy
00:14:27
that you're in control of is yours.
00:14:30
You're not in control over what's going
00:14:32
to happen with interest rates, what's
00:14:34
going to happen with geopolitical
00:14:35
things, what's going to happen with AI.
00:14:36
The only economy that you can control is
00:14:39
yours. Now, here's the question.
00:14:43
Are you working?
00:14:45
Most cases, the answer is yes. The
00:14:48
average person will work 90,000 hours
00:14:50
over their lifetime. So, if you are a
00:14:52
dual income household, you're going to
00:14:54
work somewhere between 90 to 200,000
00:14:58
hours, the two of you, over your
00:15:00
lifetime. You're going to actually make
00:15:03
millions of dollars over your lifetime.
00:15:06
The question is with your own economy,
00:15:08
are you going to keep any of the money?
00:15:12
And the sad thing for many people is
00:15:14
that they're not. I I say most people
00:15:17
have what I call a no plan. Money comes
00:15:19
in, money goes out. And they say, "Well,
00:15:23
I don't know where the money all went."
00:15:24
And I go, "That's called a no plan." A
00:15:27
person who's an automatic millionaire,
00:15:29
the moment money comes in, they have a
00:15:30
plan for exactly where it's going to go.
00:15:33
And it starts with paying themselves
00:15:35
first.
00:15:36
automatically.
00:15:37
>> A lot of people listen to this and if I
00:15:39
go back if I go back just over 10 years
00:15:41
in my life, I would have been sat
00:15:43
listening to this conversation in ÂŁ7,000
00:15:46
of debt. And I would have thought, God,
00:15:48
like I'm becoming a millionaire, that's
00:15:49
a that's a million miles away, no pun
00:15:52
intended. I to become a millionaire, I'm
00:15:54
going to have to earn so much more
00:15:56
money. And at the time, I was working in
00:15:58
call centers. It it would have just felt
00:16:00
so far away. And I say, you know, people
00:16:03
are struggling to feed their children,
00:16:04
let alone become a millionaire.
00:16:07
Is it far away for the average person?
00:16:10
>> It's far away if you don't know the
00:16:11
strategy. There's a strategy to getting
00:16:13
out of debt. There's a strategy to
00:16:15
building wealth. There's a system.
00:16:17
>> How much of it is just earning more
00:16:19
money? Because when I have these
00:16:20
conversations on my show, I think the
00:16:23
surprisingly untouched territory is we
00:16:26
don't teach people how to become more
00:16:29
valuable so that they can earn more
00:16:31
money. A lot of it's about like index
00:16:32
funds or savings, whatever. But how much
00:16:34
of it is just like I need to get higher
00:16:38
valued skills in the market?
00:16:41
>> We know for a fact that making more
00:16:43
money doesn't make you rich. So, so
00:16:45
people can go, as I told you earlier,
00:16:46
like from $100,000. They can go from
00:16:48
50,000 to 100,000 and still be broke.
00:16:51
They can go from a h 100,000 to 200,000
00:16:53
a year and still be broke. They can go
00:16:54
from 200,000 to 300,000 and still be
00:16:56
broke. In the US, when you take
00:16:59
households that make $150,000 a year,
00:17:02
one out of three of them are still
00:17:03
broke. When you peel back the curtain
00:17:06
and you ask why is that? Well, we know
00:17:08
things cost more, but we also know
00:17:10
there's massive lifestyle creep, right?
00:17:13
you get you get around other people who
00:17:14
are making more money and then you spend
00:17:16
more money. And the reality is these
00:17:19
phones are designed to get you to spend
00:17:21
everything, right? Today with the
00:17:23
algorithms, there's better technology
00:17:25
today than there's ever been to get you
00:17:26
to spend more money. And nobody wants
00:17:29
you to spend money once. They want you
00:17:30
to spend money for a lifetime, right?
00:17:32
It's a lifetime value of a customer. So
00:17:34
there's a battle for our income. And
00:17:38
everyone wants a piece of it. It starts
00:17:40
with the government. like you go to work
00:17:42
and you go to work at 9ine and you
00:17:44
actually work from nine o'clock to 12
00:17:47
for taxes. Now, this is an important
00:17:49
lesson actually. The government doesn't
00:17:52
ask you to budget to pay taxes. They
00:17:56
take your taxes from you automatically.
00:17:58
They take social security from you
00:18:00
automatically. They're they take the
00:18:02
money from you automatically because
00:18:03
they know you won't have anything to
00:18:06
give if they don't take it from you.
00:18:08
Then people work from 12 to about 3:00
00:18:10
for housing and food and then from 3:00
00:18:13
to 5:00 for all the rest all the rest of
00:18:16
things.
00:18:18
The people who build wealth in America
00:18:20
and really all over the world, they do
00:18:22
something different. They keep the first
00:18:24
hour a day of their income.
00:18:26
>> What do you mean by that? So what that
00:18:27
means is whatever you earn, you could be
00:18:30
making minimum wage, you could be making
00:18:32
$20 an hour, $30 an hour, $40 an hour.
00:18:35
Whatever you earn, the first hour day of
00:18:38
your income has to go to you. You're the
00:18:41
first person who gets paid.
00:18:42
>> And you mean you have to save it, invest
00:18:44
it.
00:18:44
>> You have to invest it. So how do you
00:18:47
invest the first hour of your day
00:18:50
without paying taxes? The answer is you
00:18:53
pay yourself first using a 401k plan.
00:18:56
So, if you have a job with a retirement
00:18:58
account, 401k plan, you sign up and you
00:19:01
use that plan. Now, I can't just stop
00:19:04
right there, right? Because because it
00:19:05
sounds so simple, like, okay, I'll use
00:19:07
my plan. No, you have to know the
00:19:10
formula to using your plan to be rich.
00:19:12
We know after 40 years now exactly what
00:19:16
you need to do if you want to be a
00:19:17
millionaire. I can tell you how to
00:19:18
become a millionaire starting in your
00:19:20
20s so that you're done by the time
00:19:22
you're in your mid-50s. You save a
00:19:25
little one hour of your income is 12 and
00:19:26
a.5% of your gross revenue. I went on
00:19:29
online today to look at what's the
00:19:31
latest statistics with 401k
00:19:33
millionaires. The new stats that just
00:19:35
came out from Fidelity. There are
00:19:37
654,000
00:19:40
people in Fidelity 401k plans that are
00:19:42
now millionaires.
00:19:43
>> What is a 401k?
00:19:45
>> Okay,
00:19:45
>> because you know we've got a lot of
00:19:46
global listeners. There's different
00:19:48
types of 401k in every country. So in
00:19:51
the US, a 401k plan is a retirement
00:19:53
account. It is a retirement account that
00:19:55
the company has set up, right? And it
00:19:58
allows you to put money away tax
00:20:01
deductible. They call it pre-tax. In
00:20:04
most countries, you have a deductible
00:20:06
retirement account, but it depends on
00:20:08
the country, too, right? Like in Canada,
00:20:10
it's a different type of plan than it is
00:20:12
in Australia, than it is in Italy, than
00:20:14
it is here in the UK. Almost every
00:20:16
country though has some form of
00:20:18
retirement account and has the ability
00:20:21
to put money away automatically. Here's
00:20:24
the problem, and I'll use the US
00:20:27
specifically because it's where I do
00:20:28
most of my work in the US. Those who
00:20:32
have a 401k plan,
00:20:35
the ones that are millionaires, what
00:20:36
they did, here's the formula, the exact
00:20:38
formula. They saved 14% of their gross
00:20:41
income and their employer had a small
00:20:44
match on top of that. And then how they
00:20:47
invested the money is key because it's
00:20:49
not enough to just put money in these
00:20:51
401k plans. You have to be invested for
00:20:53
growth. And growth means stocks, right?
00:20:57
So you'd have to have and and the actual
00:21:00
specific allocation in these 401k
00:21:02
millionaires I just talked about was
00:21:04
about 70% stock and 30% bonds.
00:21:08
Okay. Now, what are people doing that
00:21:11
aren't achieving this? Well, the average
00:21:12
American saving maybe 3 or 4%. Maybe 5%
00:21:17
if they have a 401k plan. People who
00:21:20
don't have 401k plans in many cases
00:21:21
aren't even doing this. They can they
00:21:23
can open up an IRA account, but in most
00:21:25
cases, they're not doing that. So, the
00:21:27
whole secret is
00:21:30
not budgeting, not using discipline,
00:21:32
having the money move right from your
00:21:35
paycheck. paycheck gets deposited
00:21:37
automatically and then it moves the day
00:21:40
it hits your bank account automatically
00:21:43
first for retirement. Then later we'll
00:21:45
talk about building a security account,
00:21:47
building a dream account. The key is
00:21:50
that the money moves automatically.
00:21:54
So in the United States now there's by
00:21:56
the way 24 million millionaires now. So
00:21:58
we've seen an increase of 8 million
00:22:00
millionaires to 24 million millionaires
00:22:03
in the US in just 20 years.
00:22:05
How did they do that? There's two
00:22:08
primary escalators to wealth. That is
00:22:11
stocks and real estate. And if you're
00:22:14
not in stocks and you're not in real
00:22:16
estate, you are being left behind.
00:22:19
>> When you say real estate, does that mean
00:22:21
having a mortgage and owning a h home?
00:22:24
>> It's owning a home or owning REITs?
00:22:27
>> REITs.
00:22:28
>> REITs. Real estate equity investment
00:22:29
trusts. So, that's another way to buy
00:22:31
real estate without actually having to
00:22:33
own the home, but you don't get the same
00:22:34
level of returns.
00:22:36
>> I mean, this is um this is one of the
00:22:37
hot topics of conversation we've had on
00:22:39
this show several times is many of my
00:22:41
guests that are sort of financial
00:22:43
advisers say that owning a home is a bad
00:22:46
investment. I think from what I
00:22:48
understood from the research and from
00:22:49
reading your books that you feel
00:22:50
differently about that.
00:22:52
>> Yeah. I mean I I couldn't feel more
00:22:55
differently when we look at where is
00:22:57
wealth created in the United States and
00:22:59
also abroad. It's in two places. It's in
00:23:03
home equity and it's in the stock
00:23:05
market. So when you look at housing and
00:23:08
you take someone who owns a home and
00:23:10
we'll talk about I know it's hard to buy
00:23:11
homes right now but when you look at
00:23:14
people who own a home versus people who
00:23:16
rent homeowners in America follow this
00:23:19
for one second. Homeowners in America
00:23:21
are worth 40 times more than renters. So
00:23:26
the average homeowner in America today
00:23:29
is worth over $400,000.
00:23:32
>> But this doesn't establish causation.
00:23:34
I.e. that doesn't mean that buying a
00:23:35
home make made them rich, right?
00:23:37
>> It actually does. And I'm going to go
00:23:39
through that here. So the average renter
00:23:41
is worth $10,000,
00:23:43
right? So why why does buying a home
00:23:46
build wealth? and how much wealth in the
00:23:48
United States is now in home equity.
00:23:50
Wall Street Journal just ran an article
00:23:52
on this came out two days ago. There's
00:23:54
$34 trillion now in home equity in
00:23:59
America. This number has gone up 90%
00:24:02
since before co
00:24:05
the other money is in retirement
00:24:07
accounts which is 60 70% in stocks.
00:24:11
There's $45 trillion now in retirement
00:24:15
accounts. So those two things alone
00:24:17
equal $80 trillion dollar, right? Like
00:24:20
when you want to go like where are the
00:24:23
breadcrumbs? Where is wealth being
00:24:24
created? It's right in front of us. Now
00:24:28
the problem that we have in the United
00:24:30
States, but also look, we're here in
00:24:31
London right now. Problem we have in so
00:24:33
many cities is that real estate keeps
00:24:35
going higher and higher and higher and
00:24:38
people's incomes are not keeping pace
00:24:41
with the cost of buying a home. So, when
00:24:44
someone comes on a show like this and
00:24:46
says, "Look, you don't have to buy a
00:24:47
home. It's cost more to have a house
00:24:50
than rent. You, you know, I I watched
00:24:52
one of the shows. I won't say who it
00:24:53
was. It doesn't matter. They all say the
00:24:55
same thing. Don't buy a house. You'll be
00:24:58
trapped. You'll have to pay you'll have
00:25:00
to pay real estate taxes and you'll have
00:25:02
to pay insurance and things break." They
00:25:06
go through all these expenses
00:25:08
and it it makes it sound like, "Oh,
00:25:10
yeah. If I rent it'll be cheaper." No.
00:25:13
Who who do you think pays these expenses
00:25:15
when you rent?
00:25:18
You do. The landlord passes the cost of
00:25:21
these expenses on to the renter
00:25:25
ultimately. Why do they do this? Because
00:25:27
people who buy real estate buy it for an
00:25:30
investment. They buy it for an
00:25:32
investment. They're not they're not
00:25:34
subsidizing these costs. So, it's a hard
00:25:37
thing to hear and especially when you're
00:25:39
young. Like I have a a son who's 22.
00:25:41
He's in Chicago. He's going to move to
00:25:44
New York City. It'll be extremely hard
00:25:47
for him to buy a place in New York when
00:25:48
he starts working right away. Just will
00:25:50
be probably won't for two or three
00:25:52
years. A lot of young people when they
00:25:54
move to a major city, they can't afford
00:25:56
to buy right away. When I came out of
00:25:58
college, like you, I was in credit card
00:26:00
debt. I had $12,000 in credit card debt.
00:26:03
I remember opening up my bills and
00:26:05
having the room spin and thinking, I'm
00:26:08
never get out of credit card debt. how
00:26:09
am I going to buy a house? But I did.
00:26:12
And in fact, I didn't buy a home when I
00:26:15
was young by myself. I bought a home
00:26:17
with a best friend. So, how did I get my
00:26:20
first house? First house we bought was a
00:26:21
quarter of a million dollars. We put 10%
00:26:24
down and my best friend and I, Andrew,
00:26:27
we split that down payment. So, we each
00:26:28
put $12,500 down. This is how we scraped
00:26:31
it together. The house was a complete
00:26:33
fixer upper and we didn't have enough
00:26:36
money to make the mortgage payments. So,
00:26:37
we rented out bedrooms and we had
00:26:39
friends rent bedrooms and that helped us
00:26:41
cover our mortgage. We scraped it
00:26:44
together and that's what a lot of people
00:26:46
do when you're young. But if you don't
00:26:50
get in the game of home ownership and
00:26:52
you rent in your 20s and you rent in
00:26:54
your 30s, you're going to turn around in
00:26:56
your 40s and having not been built any
00:26:58
net worth. When I wrote the automatic
00:27:01
millionaire 20 years ago, two things
00:27:03
have happened since then.
00:27:06
The stock market has gone up in 20 years
00:27:10
600%.
00:27:12
>> Okay? So, if you had a $100,000, just
00:27:16
that is gone to $600,000.
00:27:19
If you bought a house, the house has
00:27:21
gone up 400%.
00:27:24
So, when you read this book with all
00:27:26
these, there's a a whole chapter of
00:27:27
updated success stories. There are a lot
00:27:30
of ordinary people that started saving
00:27:32
5, 10, 15, $20 a day, bought a starter
00:27:35
house, and today they're millionaires.
00:27:38
>> So, am I not better off renting and
00:27:42
investing in the stock market
00:27:45
versus buying a house? Because obviously
00:27:48
when I when I when I buy a house, I'm
00:27:50
paying a premium on the house so that I
00:27:52
can get a mortgage. I want to bust this
00:27:54
myth because what happens is people come
00:27:56
on they go the stock look I can tell you
00:27:58
right now the stock market over the last
00:28:00
20 years has averaged over 10% annually
00:28:02
people go the returns are better in the
00:28:04
stock market than the real estate yeah
00:28:06
but that's not applesto apple comparison
00:28:09
why
00:28:11
you buy a piece of real estate when you
00:28:13
buy a home people don't typically pay
00:28:16
cash for their first house they put down
00:28:19
20% and they borrow the other 80%. So
00:28:22
you take like an example of a take a
00:28:25
$200,000 home. $200,000 home you put 40
00:28:28
grand in. Home goes from $200,000 to
00:28:31
400,000 in 10 years. This has happened
00:28:34
to so many people in the last five years
00:28:36
since COVID. There are markets all over
00:28:39
the US where housing prices have gone up
00:28:41
100 to 200%. So a person buys a $200,000
00:28:44
home, they borrowed 80%. It's doubled.
00:28:48
So they've made 200,000 in profit. They
00:28:52
didn't put in 200,000, they put in 40.
00:28:54
So, they got a five times return on
00:28:56
their down payment. They go to sell
00:28:58
their house.
00:29:00
They don't pay taxes on the gain because
00:29:03
when you own a home, at least in the
00:29:04
United States, you own a home for over
00:29:06
two years. If you're single, you get
00:29:08
$250,000 in taxfree gains. If you're
00:29:11
married, you get over half a million
00:29:12
dollars in taxree gains. You get tax
00:29:14
deductions on the mortgages. So, what
00:29:18
happens is people come here and they go,
00:29:19
"You know what? You shouldn't be you
00:29:21
shouldn't be tied down. You need to be
00:29:23
flexible when you're young. You don't
00:29:25
want to have the responsibility
00:29:28
and you should take the extra money and
00:29:30
you should put it in a mutual fund. And
00:29:32
you know what happens in the real world,
00:29:33
Stephen? People don't do that. They rent
00:29:36
an apartment that's nicer than what they
00:29:37
can afford and they spend all their
00:29:40
money and then they turn around in their
00:29:42
mid30s and they have no equity because
00:29:45
they haven't bought anything and they
00:29:47
also haven't saved money.
00:29:49
It is an absolute freaking myth that
00:29:53
people take this extra money that they
00:29:55
could have used to buy a house and
00:29:57
they're going to put it in the stock
00:29:59
market. They don't do that. And that's
00:30:01
why also, by the way, corporate America
00:30:05
got into the game of buying up real
00:30:07
estate all over America, houses, and
00:30:11
building apartments to rent to an entire
00:30:15
generation, hoping these people never
00:30:19
buy
00:30:21
this. Like 10 days ago, Trump came out
00:30:23
and basically said he wants the
00:30:25
institutions out of buying up all the
00:30:27
homes in America. Why does he want to do
00:30:29
that? because he because he recognizes
00:30:33
how serious of a problem it is to have a
00:30:36
generation of Americans who are renters.
00:30:40
I'm telling you, when you look at
00:30:41
average Americans, average, I'm talking
00:30:43
about ordinary Americans. When you look
00:30:44
at where their wealth is, it's in home
00:30:46
equity and it's in the stock market. And
00:30:48
this is the last thing I'll say,
00:30:51
generational wealth is created for
00:30:55
better or worse through home equity. So
00:30:58
when you look at why you know you asked
00:31:00
the question about causation
00:31:03
if a family doesn't buy a home the
00:31:06
likelihood the next generation can buy a
00:31:08
home is very low because it's this when
00:31:12
someone dies
00:31:14
the money that is in the house that home
00:31:17
equity is often what transfer transfers
00:31:20
to the next generation helps the next
00:31:22
generation buy a house. I was looking at
00:31:24
some stats here because I want to what I
00:31:26
want I wish I could sit
00:31:28
>> sit down all of the guests that have
00:31:29
been on my show that have had a
00:31:30
difference of opinion and have said that
00:31:32
buying a house is a bad
00:31:33
>> it could be a really interesting
00:31:34
conversation. Right.
00:31:35
>> It would be a really interesting
00:31:36
conversation. What I've done as an
00:31:38
alternative to that approach is I've
00:31:39
pulled up what they've said
00:31:40
>> and I'm going to give you some of the
00:31:41
things they've said just so so you can
00:31:43
rebuttle them um and have your say on
00:31:45
them. One of the things that they often
00:31:47
say is that long-term real
00:31:49
inflationadjusted home price
00:31:51
appreciation in the US is about 1%
00:31:53
annually and one of my guests cited
00:31:56
Robert Schiller as the evidence of that.
00:31:58
After maintenance um which usually
00:32:00
equals 1 to 2% um property taxes which
00:32:03
equals about 1% insurance and
00:32:04
transaction costs the net real returns
00:32:06
approach roughly zero on average. So
00:32:10
when you say housing is a great
00:32:11
investment, are you referencing the
00:32:12
gross appreciation which is the the the
00:32:14
total appreciation or the net returns
00:32:16
after taxes, maintenance, insurance, and
00:32:18
selling costs?
00:32:20
>> So when you dig into these kind of
00:32:21
numbers like this,
00:32:23
what they are is they're numbers, but
00:32:25
they're not real world, right? And so
00:32:27
like when you when you talk to someone
00:32:28
who owns a home today and they've owned
00:32:30
it for 20 years and you ask them how
00:32:33
much of your net worth is now in the
00:32:36
equity in your house
00:32:38
over 50% of their net worth is in their
00:32:40
house. You will see people on your
00:32:43
YouTube channel that literally if you
00:32:45
read the comments and I'm sure you do. I
00:32:46
do
00:32:47
>> where people say it's not true. There
00:32:49
was I read a comment yesterday on your
00:32:51
YouTube page. All I know is I bought a
00:32:55
house and it's gone up in value three
00:32:57
and a half times and the rent when I
00:33:00
bought the house was $1,200 and the rent
00:33:02
today to buy that if I had that house if
00:33:05
I was renting it would be $4,000.
00:33:07
So the thing is you have to understand
00:33:10
is that rents always go up, Stephen.
00:33:13
Like I lived in New York City for 18
00:33:16
years.
00:33:18
When I moved to New York City in 2001,
00:33:22
a really nice apartment, a nice
00:33:25
apartment was like $6,000 a month. When
00:33:28
I left New York, that same apartment was
00:33:32
$25,000 a month. Follow the follow the
00:33:35
insanity of that math. Now, that
00:33:38
apartment went from being $2 million
00:33:41
apartment to a $5 million apartment. So,
00:33:44
I could have been renting it, but in my
00:33:46
case, I owned it and it went up in value
00:33:49
$3 million.
00:33:50
So, I have friends who have been renting
00:33:52
in New York for 20 years. They have
00:33:54
built no net worth. I have no vest
00:33:56
interest in this conversation. Meaning,
00:33:58
I don't sell real estate. I'm not a real
00:34:01
estate agent. I'm not selling real
00:34:03
estate. I've just seen in the real world
00:34:06
how people have built wealth. the the
00:34:08
the McIntyres in this book, the
00:34:10
automatic millionaire, when they came
00:34:12
into my office and they were worth $1.8
00:34:14
million and he was 52 and able to retire
00:34:18
having earned an average of $40,000 a
00:34:21
year.
00:34:22
All their money wasn't in the stock
00:34:24
market. They had bought a home in San
00:34:26
Leandro, California, what he what they
00:34:28
called a middleclass neighborhood. Their
00:34:31
home at the time was worth about
00:34:32
$300,000.
00:34:35
They had paid their mortgage off and
00:34:37
they had bought one more house on their
00:34:38
street. They rented the first house.
00:34:41
They bought a second house on their
00:34:42
street. They paid that mortgage off. And
00:34:45
so they owned two homes free and clear.
00:34:47
One house they got income from. One
00:34:49
house they lived in with no debt. And
00:34:51
then they had saved money in their 401k
00:34:53
plan. So, if I was a young person or not
00:34:57
even a young person, a middle-aged and
00:34:58
older person who took my down payment
00:35:01
that I was going to pay into the house,
00:35:02
if let's say it was say my down payment
00:35:04
was $20,000 and I put that into the S&P
00:35:07
500 instead over the long run, won't
00:35:10
that grow larger than the total home
00:35:12
equity potentially?
00:35:14
>> Here's why the index fund theory doesn't
00:35:17
work.
00:35:19
You can't live inside an index fund.
00:35:23
You can't live inside a mutual fund. You
00:35:25
have to live somewhere as long as you're
00:35:27
alive. Here's what people should do.
00:35:31
Take a look at what you're paying in
00:35:32
rent.
00:35:34
Now, ask yourself a question. If I'm
00:35:37
paying 5,000 a month in rent, which lots
00:35:41
of people are, right? Do you know people
00:35:43
paying 5,000 a month in rent?
00:35:44
>> Yes.
00:35:44
>> Okay. So, they're paying 60,000 a year.
00:35:46
Let's take that number.
00:35:47
>> Yeah.
00:35:48
>> So, over 10 years, they're going to
00:35:49
spend $600,000 in rent.
00:35:52
Yeah.
00:35:53
>> If the rent doesn't go up,
00:35:55
>> Yeah.
00:35:55
>> in 20 years, they're going to spend 1.2
00:35:58
million in rent. If the rent doesn't go
00:36:00
up, in 30 years, they will have spent $2
00:36:04
million in rent if the rent doesn't go
00:36:06
up. But the rent does go up. So, the
00:36:09
question you just have to ask yourself
00:36:10
is, am I going to take all this money
00:36:12
that I'm spending on rent and never
00:36:14
build anything?
00:36:16
And if you really believe that renting
00:36:19
is better than owning, then you should
00:36:21
still consider the idea of buying
00:36:23
something than that somebody else rents.
00:36:25
Cuz I promise you, somebody's getting
00:36:27
rich in the transaction. If you're the
00:36:30
renter, you're not the one who's getting
00:36:31
rich in the transaction of renting. It
00:36:34
is a great short-term solution renting.
00:36:37
It is not a great term long-term wealth
00:36:40
building solution. The other thing that
00:36:41
people often talk about and you you
00:36:43
cited earlier is the mobility that
00:36:45
renting gives you.
00:36:46
>> Yeah.
00:36:48
>> Your son was here a second ago. He's 16
00:36:50
years old. Yeah. Soon he'll be
00:36:52
>> at the age where he's got his own place
00:36:54
and he's thinking about different career
00:36:55
opportunities and oh my god AI is this
00:36:57
big thing. So he might want to go to San
00:36:58
Francisco. Then he might want to go live
00:37:00
in Florence and wherever else. if he's
00:37:02
bought a place, there is a interesting
00:37:05
sort of psychological but also financial
00:37:07
component to the fact that it makes it
00:37:09
harder for you to move with the
00:37:10
opportunity of life. And if we are if if
00:37:12
what people say about the future of work
00:37:14
is true, that we're going to have many
00:37:15
more careers in our lives than we did in
00:37:17
the past, one might assume that we're
00:37:19
also going to be more mobile. And so, is
00:37:22
there an argument to say that buying a
00:37:24
house might hurt my prof professional
00:37:27
opportunities, my ability to pursue
00:37:29
professional opportunities? The answer
00:37:31
is possibly, right? But here's the thing
00:37:33
about rent. Rent's, interestingly
00:37:36
enough, a major obligation, right?
00:37:39
Usually, when you go and you do a lease,
00:37:42
you lock yourself into a one-year lease.
00:37:45
Sometimes you lock yourself into a
00:37:46
two-year lease.
00:37:48
When you buy something, and this is
00:37:51
assuming that you have the money to buy
00:37:53
something, Stephen,
00:37:55
look up because you've got all the data
00:37:57
at your fingertips here. Look what the
00:37:58
average length of time it takes to sell
00:38:00
a home in the United States. Just just
00:38:02
Google that right now because what I
00:38:05
will tell you is in certain markets you
00:38:07
can put your home on the market and you
00:38:08
can sell it in less than 90 days. Now
00:38:11
some markets you can sell your home in
00:38:12
less than 30 days. In many cases
00:38:15
you actually have more flexibility when
00:38:17
you own something than when you rent.
00:38:19
And that's if you want to sell it. It
00:38:21
says the average time from listing to
00:38:24
sale is about 47 to 62 days from listing
00:38:29
to closing in 2025, including 16 days on
00:38:32
the market and 30 to 45 days to close.
00:38:35
>> That's called less than 2 months.
00:38:37
>> Even in hot markets, the process from
00:38:39
putting a house on the market to legally
00:38:40
selling it can take 1.5 to 3 months.
00:38:43
Meaning home equity isn't a quickly
00:38:45
accessible investment.
00:38:47
>> Yeah. But do you think that's pretty
00:38:48
quick? 90 days.
00:38:49
>> No, it is. It is quick. I mean it takes
00:38:50
takes you that amount of time to get out
00:38:51
of a lease.
00:38:52
>> Exactly. So now so so here you've got a
00:38:54
piece of property that you can turn
00:38:54
around and sell in less than 90 days.
00:38:56
Now this is the US. You can't do that.
00:38:57
Like for inance I live in Italy. That
00:38:58
could be very hard to do that in Italy.
00:39:00
But in the US you've got something
00:39:02
that's in a good market. It's liquid.
00:39:04
The other thing is you can rent it,
00:39:07
right? You're you're actually not
00:39:09
trapped. If if you start to build equity
00:39:11
in your home and you pay your mortgage
00:39:12
down slightly, next thing you know
00:39:14
you're able to rent that property and
00:39:15
you can still move. Today, people are
00:39:18
taking their homes and they're Airbnbing
00:39:19
them. What I really want for people is
00:39:22
the chance to be financially free.
00:39:25
There's also an age at which it doesn't
00:39:26
matter if you own. You know, once you
00:39:28
start to get older and you've built
00:39:29
financial security, you get in your 50s
00:39:31
or your 60s or 70s and you just want to
00:39:33
travel and you don't want to own
00:39:34
anything. That's a different stage of
00:39:36
life. So, the question just becomes
00:39:39
the money that you make. I go back to
00:39:41
the 90,000 hour comment. When you make n
00:39:44
when you work 90,000 hours over your
00:39:46
lifetime,
00:39:48
what's your plan to keep some of this
00:39:50
money?
00:39:52
You have to have a pay yourself first
00:39:54
plan. That has to be your number one
00:39:56
priority is that when you earn money,
00:39:58
the first person who you're going to pay
00:40:00
is you. If you say, you know what, I
00:40:02
watched Stephen and I saw David and I've
00:40:04
seen a bunch of other people on his show
00:40:06
and I'm not going to buy a house. Okay,
00:40:09
then
00:40:11
you have to pay yourself first more. Now
00:40:14
I go around the world for the last 30
00:40:17
years starting with Oprah with the
00:40:19
automatic millionaire. I launched this
00:40:20
book on Oprah and I talked about you
00:40:22
have to save 1 hour a day of your income
00:40:24
and people will get on these social
00:40:26
media boards and be like I can't save
00:40:28
10% of my income.
00:40:31
They'll I can't live off 90% of my
00:40:33
income. It's not possible. I have to
00:40:34
spend all of it. Right? Well, then that
00:40:38
person who's renting and not buying a
00:40:41
house, which is for savings, is clearly
00:40:44
never going to save. So, the other thing
00:40:46
about buying a house is it does require
00:40:49
force savings because when you use have
00:40:51
a mortgage payment, part of that
00:40:52
mortgage payment is paying down your
00:40:53
debt. And I teach you how to use a
00:40:55
bi-weekly mortgage payment plan. So, you
00:40:57
take a 30-year mortgage and you pay it
00:40:59
off five years earlier. And doing that
00:41:01
can save you, depends on the size of the
00:41:02
home, can save you $50 to $100,000 just
00:41:05
in interest payments. You talk about
00:41:06
having a savings mindset.
00:41:10
What is a savings mindset and how does
00:41:12
one go about saving if they are one of
00:41:14
those people that says, "Listen, I'm
00:41:15
barely getting by as it is, David."
00:41:17
>> Yeah.
00:41:17
>> How how the hell am I going to save
00:41:19
money when I'm actually increasingly
00:41:21
getting into more debt right now?
00:41:24
>> So, the first thing is you have to find
00:41:25
your money, right? So, what I what I
00:41:27
find, Steve, is when I talk to people,
00:41:29
most people don't know where their money
00:41:30
goes. Literally, they don't know.
00:41:32
They're like, I'm like, "How much money
00:41:33
you spend a month?" Well, I'm not really
00:41:34
sure. How much money you spend a year?
00:41:36
Well, I'm not really sure. You need to
00:41:38
be sure. So, you should be doing
00:41:40
something to track where your money
00:41:41
goes. Now, you can be sophisticated. You
00:41:43
can use apps. It will track where your
00:41:45
money goes. You can also take out a pad
00:41:48
of paper and I give people a 7-day
00:41:50
financial challenge for seven days. Just
00:41:53
bring a little pad of paper with you and
00:41:55
write down every single day where your
00:41:56
money goes. Now, why do I want people to
00:41:59
do that? Because most people today are
00:42:02
spending money unconsciously. I go back
00:42:04
to these phones. The fact that I don't I
00:42:07
don't even have to carry a wallet
00:42:08
anymore, right? It's just click click
00:42:09
click and pay for things. We've lost
00:42:11
touch with spending money. So, when
00:42:14
people start to see what they're really
00:42:15
spending, it's a wakeup call. The
00:42:18
biggest thing I've been sharing lately
00:42:19
is what does it take to blow $10,000 a
00:42:23
year per day in terms of spending? How
00:42:26
much money do you need to spend a day to
00:42:27
blow $10,000? Now, show us the per here.
00:42:31
Now, we happen to have these are we have
00:42:32
pounds today, right? So, um so I I'm
00:42:36
holding Stephen right now. I'm holding
00:42:38
what is known as a brick.
00:42:41
So, I don't know if your staff told you
00:42:42
how much I'm holding here. You know how
00:42:44
much what you guess I'm holding?
00:42:46
>> It looks like maybe $5,000.
00:42:48
>> Okay. So, this is a life-changing amount
00:42:50
of money, Stephen. This This is $10,000
00:42:52
right here.
00:42:53
>> And what does it take to blow $10,000
00:42:57
in a year per day? How much money you
00:42:59
have to spend per day to go through
00:43:02
$10,000? I'll make it easy for you. The
00:43:05
the answer is $27.40
00:43:08
a day. $27.40 a day adds up equaling
00:43:14
$10,000 over the year. Now, before we go
00:43:16
through where do you where do you spend
00:43:18
this money? How do you waste $27.40 a
00:43:21
day, the question becomes, if you didn't
00:43:24
waste $27.40 40 cents a day and you were
00:43:27
able to get yourself to invest $10,000 a
00:43:30
year, what could this be worth over
00:43:35
time? And the answer is in 40 years if
00:43:39
this was in the S&P 500 fund which you
00:43:42
quoted earlier and you earn 10% annually
00:43:44
with reinvested dividends
00:43:47
that stack there would grow to 4 million
00:43:50
four over $4,400,000
00:43:53
if you invested $27.40
00:43:56
a day.
00:43:57
>> Pass me this big brick.
00:43:58
>> Yeah.
00:43:58
>> So if I save
00:44:00
half of this a day then in did you say
00:44:03
40 years?
00:44:04
>> In 40 years. So, let me give you the
00:44:06
math on a couple different ways of doing
00:44:07
this. Okay, so what would happen if you
00:44:09
invested roughly half of this a day? The
00:44:12
number I use is $27.40 a day. It's the
00:44:15
magic number. That equals $10,000 a
00:44:18
year. If you invested that a day for 40
00:44:21
years, you'd have over $4,424,000.
00:44:27
>> If I invest $27 a day, in 40 years, I'll
00:44:29
have $4 million.
00:44:31
>> Over $4 million. Let's go through the
00:44:34
yeah butts now because people are going
00:44:36
to hear this. Some people are going to
00:44:37
go, "Wait, what?" And then we'll talk
00:44:39
about where you find $27.40 a day.
00:44:43
Yeah, but $4,400,000
00:44:47
won't be worth a lot of money in 40
00:44:49
years.
00:44:50
With inflation, it won't be worth that
00:44:52
much. It won't have the same purchasing
00:44:53
power. My answer would be it's worth a
00:44:56
whole lot more than zero. Right? If
00:44:58
you're not saving any money, if you
00:44:59
can't save $27.40 40 cents a day, you
00:45:03
won't have $4,400,000.
00:45:05
Yeah, but with taxes, you know, it won't
00:45:08
grow that much. Well, it could if it was
00:45:10
in a retirement account. You wouldn't be
00:45:12
paying taxes on the money. Yeah, but
00:45:14
it's not possible to earn 10% on my
00:45:17
money. Well, the stock market for over a
00:45:20
hundred years has averaged over 10%
00:45:22
annually with reinvested dividends.
00:45:25
Yeah, but the stock market's risky and
00:45:27
complicated. Well, no, it's not. If you
00:45:28
bought an index fund, it's actually not
00:45:30
that risky and complicated.
00:45:33
Yeah, but I don't know. I don't know how
00:45:34
to get started. Well, you could start
00:45:36
really easily. You could open up a
00:45:38
brokerage account. You could go to a
00:45:40
Charles Schwab, Fidelity. I mean, I'm
00:45:43
literally going to go through them all.
00:45:44
Vanguard, Robin Hood, Coinbase, Acorns,
00:45:50
and in less than 10 minutes, you could
00:45:52
open up an account and be saving. Pick a
00:45:55
dollar amount. $5 a day, $10 a day, $27
00:45:58
a day, and that could change your life.
00:46:01
Now, why is $10,000, Stephen, such an
00:46:03
important dollar amount? Here's what I
00:46:06
can tell you, having done this for 30
00:46:07
years.
00:46:09
This dollar amount right here, first of
00:46:12
all, this is
00:46:14
one in two Americans don't have $1,000
00:46:17
in a bank account right now. So, this is
00:46:19
10 times what one out of two Americans
00:46:21
have. But more importantly, $10,000.
00:46:24
When we do surveys
00:46:26
and we ask people, "How much money would
00:46:28
it take to totally change your life?"
00:46:30
The answer is not a million dollars. The
00:46:32
answer is not $100,000.
00:46:35
The answer is actually$10,000.
00:46:37
And the question is, why is it 10,000?
00:46:40
And the reason is is that's about what
00:46:42
the average person has in credit card
00:46:44
debt. And they feel like they're
00:46:46
drowning like you talked about earlier.
00:46:49
and they know that that could pay off
00:46:50
their credit card debt. Or they have a
00:46:53
job they don't like and they if you knew
00:46:57
that if they had $10,000
00:46:59
in a savings account, they'd quit that
00:47:01
job and they'd be free. They'd have to
00:47:03
go find another job
00:47:04
>> or start a business or something
00:47:05
>> or start a business or god forbid
00:47:08
they're in an abusive relationship and
00:47:09
they can't leave. But if they had
00:47:11
$10,000, they'd leave. So, you know, a
00:47:15
lot of people go, "David, you just make
00:47:16
this all too simple." And it's true. I
00:47:20
do because when it's simple, people take
00:47:22
action on it. So for years, I have
00:47:25
taught this concept called the latte
00:47:27
factor. A lot of people love me for it.
00:47:30
Now I have a lot of people hate me for
00:47:31
it. And I have taught that, you know, we
00:47:34
waste small amounts of money on little
00:47:36
thing. I had your staff bring me a nice
00:47:37
coffee. Um, when I started teaching the
00:47:40
latte factor, I would talk about the
00:47:42
idea that we waste five bucks a day on
00:47:45
coffee. And that if you don't believe
00:47:47
you can start saving and investing,
00:47:50
at least save $5 a day. Make your coffee
00:47:52
at home. And people would say, "But I
00:47:54
don't want to give up my coffee." Okay.
00:47:55
Well, then figure out another way to
00:47:57
save $5 a day. This iced coffee, I don't
00:48:00
know what it costs here in London. In
00:48:01
New York City, that coffee right there
00:48:04
is $9.50
00:48:06
plus a tip.
00:48:08
It's over 11 bucks. I know because I was
00:48:11
just in New York. So
00:48:14
today we we had a bunch of props here
00:48:15
and I said, "Well, let's try to show
00:48:17
like what what is $27.40." Like when I
00:48:20
go to my hotel later when I leave here,
00:48:23
a cocktail is going to be 30 bucks,
00:48:25
right? I was just in New York City
00:48:26
cocktail. I had a cocktail in my hotel
00:48:28
was $31.50.
00:48:31
Wine $50. Eating out. You go and have
00:48:33
lunch today, it's going to be $25. And
00:48:36
people say, 'Well, I have to eat.' And I
00:48:38
go, I know you do, but you could also
00:48:40
brown bag your lunch. It's what my
00:48:41
grandmother did. Now, her friends teased
00:48:44
her. But my grandmother was able to
00:48:46
retire to California. And her friends
00:48:49
all got stuck in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
00:48:51
where it was cold because they couldn't
00:48:52
afford to retire the way she did.
00:48:54
>> How many people could
00:48:57
actually save $27 a day? Because if I go
00:49:00
back again, just over 10 years of my
00:49:01
life, I mean, there's no chance I could
00:49:03
save $27 in a day. There's just no
00:49:05
there's just no there's no way
00:49:07
>> if you go back to what age?
00:49:08
>> If I go back to between
00:49:11
like 18 19 years old roughly that period
00:49:15
of my life.
00:49:15
>> Yeah.
00:49:16
>> There was no way I could have save $27 a
00:49:18
day.
00:49:18
>> Here's really the question. Do you have
00:49:21
friends and do you think you have people
00:49:23
who work with you
00:49:25
who are making more than $50,000 a year
00:49:28
and they're not saving $27 a day?
00:49:31
They're not even saving $10 a day. This
00:49:33
is true. I actually did a bit of
00:49:34
research um on this and it says
00:49:37
approximately 40 to 50 million families,
00:49:40
if we just take the United States where
00:49:41
I think there's what 330 million people
00:49:42
roughly um approximately 40 to 50
00:49:45
million families in the US can
00:49:46
realistically save $27 a day. This
00:49:49
represents roughly the top 30 to 35% of
00:49:52
households. For everyone else, the
00:49:54
bottom 65 to 70%. Saving that amount
00:49:57
would require either extreme poverty
00:49:58
level budgeting or is a mathematical
00:50:00
impossibility. over 40 million people
00:50:03
they think can afford to save $27.50 a
00:50:05
day.
00:50:05
>> Yes. It's based based on income and
00:50:07
expenditure data from 2025 to 2026
00:50:10
approximately 40 to 50 million families
00:50:12
in the US can realistically save $27 a
00:50:15
day.
00:50:16
>> So for those 40 to 50 million people in
00:50:20
the United States that would be
00:50:22
lifechanging. Now are there people who
00:50:24
can't afford to say that? Absolutely. In
00:50:26
the United States I I was just in uh
00:50:28
Arizona. I just did a keynote speech. I
00:50:30
asked the audience,
00:50:32
this is when the government was shut
00:50:33
down. I said, "How many people do you
00:50:36
think in America are taking and
00:50:38
receiving SNAP checks?"
00:50:41
>> What's that?
00:50:43
>> Thank you. Because, by the way, most
00:50:44
Americans don't even know what a snap
00:50:46
check is. That's a check that the
00:50:48
government gives to people for food. And
00:50:50
the dollar amounts a little over $6 a
00:50:52
day. So, smart people in a room, by the
00:50:56
way, I didn't know the answer to this a
00:50:58
week prior either. The answer is about
00:51:00
41 and a half million Americans
00:51:04
get a snap check.
00:51:06
When I told the room that, the room
00:51:08
gasped. I said, "So when you under when
00:51:11
you hear that the government was shut
00:51:13
down for six weeks,
00:51:17
that was three pay cycles."
00:51:21
Well, the average American doesn't have
00:51:23
two weeks of expenses set aside.
00:51:27
I I mean, I don't think everybody fully
00:51:29
grasps the problem right now. Four out
00:51:31
of 10 Americans can't get their hands on
00:51:33
$1,000 in case of emergency purposes. If
00:51:35
you actually dig into the Federal
00:51:37
Reserve data, it's 37% of Americans
00:51:40
can't get their hands on $400 in case of
00:51:43
emergency purposes. So, there's a whole
00:51:45
section of America that's truly
00:51:47
struggling. Like, but there's a whole
00:51:49
lot of America
00:51:51
that is still struggling. They're living
00:51:54
paycheck to paycheck, but their money is
00:51:56
being taken from them all the time
00:52:00
because they don't have a plan for it.
00:52:02
For that bottom 60% of Americans that my
00:52:06
research says wouldn't be able to save
00:52:08
$27 a day. Um, the data reveals a
00:52:10
discretionary income cliff. Once you
00:52:12
drop below the top 40% of earners, the
00:52:14
money available after bills vanishes
00:52:16
rapidly. The top 20% which earn I think
00:52:18
$96,000
00:52:20
per household are in a surplus. The
00:52:22
middle 20% um have a $15,000 surplus uh
00:52:25
which the $27 a day takes 66% from. But
00:52:29
the bottom 40% often have a roughly
00:52:32
$2,000 surplus. So it's impossible for
00:52:34
them to get to the $10,000 for that
00:52:36
bottom 40%.
00:52:39
What's what's the advice for them?
00:52:41
>> Start with something. Okay. It's like we
00:52:44
took this 50 and we said cut it in half
00:52:46
25.
00:52:47
I would say can you save a dollar a day?
00:52:51
I have actually talked about this idea
00:52:55
really simple. Could you save $10 a day
00:52:57
for 100 days? So like if you're
00:52:59
listening to me and you happen to really
00:53:00
be struggling right now, my question
00:53:02
would be could you save $10 a day for
00:53:04
100 days? Why? Because it would get you
00:53:06
to your first $1,000 and you now have
00:53:09
more than 50% of Americans who don't
00:53:11
have savings. And I can't tell you how
00:53:14
many people have come back after a
00:53:15
hundred days and said, "Okay, I did it.
00:53:17
It wasn't easy." For some people, saving
00:53:19
$10 a day could be really really hard.
00:53:23
But
00:53:24
you're you're into fitness. You saw my
00:53:26
son who just came in here.
00:53:28
Fitness is built through daily action,
00:53:32
right? It's built through daily action.
00:53:34
Daily eating well, going to the gym,
00:53:38
doing certain things on a regular basis.
00:53:41
Savings, the same thing.
00:53:44
There's a company called Acorns. I
00:53:46
invested Acorns back in 2015. Acorns
00:53:49
came up with an app that helps you roll
00:53:52
your change up. So, if I go to Starbucks
00:53:54
and I spend $9.50 on a coffee,
00:53:58
you can round it up where the 50 cents
00:54:01
to 10 bucks is put into investments.
00:54:04
Just rounding up your change.
00:54:07
And people have saved tens of thousands
00:54:10
of dollars over the last 10 years by
00:54:12
just rounding up their change.
00:54:15
Every time I've tried to improve
00:54:16
something in my life, like my
00:54:17
businesses, my health, my relationships,
00:54:19
I've noticed that the biggest shifts
00:54:21
have come from being better informed.
00:54:23
And when it comes to our health, most of
00:54:24
us know very, very little. So, when our
00:54:26
team was approached about partnering
00:54:28
with function health, it felt very much
00:54:30
aligned. Their team has developed a way
00:54:32
of giving you a full 360 degree view of
00:54:34
your health, many of the things that are
00:54:35
going on in your body, in the form of
00:54:37
different tests. You do one blood draw
00:54:39
and it gives you access to over 160 lab
00:54:42
results. Hormones, heart health,
00:54:44
inflammation, stress, toxins, the whole
00:54:47
picture. I use it and so have many of my
00:54:49
team members.
00:54:49
>> You sign up and you schedule your tests
00:54:51
and once you're done, you get a little
00:54:52
report like the one I have here. I can
00:54:54
see my inrange results, my out of range
00:54:56
results, and there's a little AI
00:54:58
function, too. So, if I have any
00:54:59
questions about my out of range results,
00:55:01
I can just go in there and ask it any
00:55:03
question I want. And these tests are
00:55:05
backed by doctors and thousands of hours
00:55:06
of research. It's $365 for a yearly
00:55:09
membership. Go to
00:55:10
functionhealth.com/doac
00:55:13
and use the code DOAC25
00:55:15
for $25 off your membership.
00:55:18
I had a friend of mine contact me and I
00:55:20
I spoke to one of the previous financial
00:55:21
adviserss and educators that I'd spoken
00:55:23
to on the show about him. He told me he
00:55:26
was in deep financial debt. Probably
00:55:28
earns about ÂŁ50,000 or dollars a year,
00:55:31
but has got himself into real debt. And
00:55:32
I imagine a lot of my listeners are are
00:55:35
somewhat in debt, whether it's credit
00:55:36
card debts or loans or others. Do you
00:55:38
have any specific advice to people that
00:55:40
are currently straddled with debt?
00:55:42
>> Absolutely. Because it's one of the most
00:55:43
important things you need to know how to
00:55:44
get out of. Debt is like quicksand. Like
00:55:47
you know, you talked earlier about how
00:55:49
you were in debt and what that felt
00:55:50
like. When I came out of college and I
00:55:52
had $12,000 in credit card debt, it felt
00:55:54
like the greatest weight on my
00:55:56
shoulders. Like I was carrying like a 50
00:55:59
lb backpack. And how did I get out of
00:56:01
debt? How do you get out of debt? I will
00:56:03
give you the very simple formula to
00:56:05
getting out of debt. DolP. DolP stands
00:56:08
for done on last payment. If you said to
00:56:13
me, David, I've got five credit cards.
00:56:14
I'd say, "Okay, Stephen,
00:56:18
I'd take a piece of paper just like this
00:56:20
and I'd start listing your credit
00:56:22
cards." I'd go one, two, three, four,
00:56:26
five. And I'd list them all. Visa,
00:56:29
Mastercard,
00:56:30
and I'd list them. And then I want to
00:56:32
know, Steve, how much do you owe? So, I
00:56:35
put the dollar amount down. And what I
00:56:38
would do is I put the dollar amount down
00:56:40
on paper and I list it small
00:56:44
to large.
00:56:46
Then I want to know the interest rate.
00:56:50
Now, what people say is, "Oh, you should
00:56:52
take the highest interest rate and pay
00:56:54
it off first." But I wouldn't tell you
00:56:56
that, Stephen.
00:56:57
I'd tell you you take the smallest
00:56:59
credit card. I don't care what the
00:57:01
interest rate is.
00:57:02
>> The smallest amount.
00:57:03
>> Smallest amount. So maybe this card
00:57:05
right here is $500. And this card down
00:57:08
here is 3,000.
00:57:10
I'd have you make minimum payments on
00:57:13
every card
00:57:14
automatically. This is really important,
00:57:17
the automatic part. Have you go on I'd
00:57:19
literally go into your house. I'd open
00:57:20
up the I'd open up your iPad and I'd
00:57:22
have you make minimum payments online
00:57:25
automatically so that every card's paid
00:57:27
on time. Then I'd say, "Stephen, how
00:57:30
much extra money do you have?" Because I
00:57:31
want you to put it all towards the
00:57:32
smallest card. We're going to get that
00:57:34
small card paid off as fast as possible.
00:57:36
We're going to add all the extra money
00:57:38
to that small card. Minimum payments on
00:57:40
everything. Once that card's paid off,
00:57:43
we're going to go like this. You don't
00:57:45
have to close the account because we
00:57:46
don't want to lower your credit score,
00:57:47
but we're going to put that card over
00:57:48
here. never use it. Now, we're going to
00:57:50
go to the next next smallest card.
00:57:53
Some people call this the snowball
00:57:54
approach.
00:57:56
The reason I teach this system is it
00:57:59
reduces the amount of credit cards you
00:58:01
have as fast as possible.
00:58:04
And you see yourself make progress. It's
00:58:08
really important to see yourself make
00:58:10
progress when you're doing anything
00:58:11
financially.
00:58:13
Then I would attack the interest rates
00:58:15
because the interest rates aren't always
00:58:19
permanent. You can negotiate your rates
00:58:22
lower. You can move credit cards to
00:58:24
another card with a low interest rate.
00:58:27
Have to be very careful though when you
00:58:28
do that because they're waiting for you
00:58:29
to make a slip up and make a late
00:58:31
payment. And when they do, they'll jack
00:58:33
the credit card interest rates back up
00:58:34
again.
00:58:36
You can also call up your credit card
00:58:38
companies if you're really struggling
00:58:41
and tell them, "I'm struggling and I'd
00:58:43
like to know if you have a program in
00:58:45
place where I can stop the interest rate
00:58:48
and pay these cards off and more
00:58:51
accessible." Like this is basically what
00:58:52
the nonprofit credit card counseling
00:58:53
organizations do. But the credit card
00:58:55
companies often have programs too for
00:58:57
this. They'll tell you to stop using the
00:59:00
card. they'll actually make it so you
00:59:01
can't use the card anymore, but they'll
00:59:02
stop the interest rate. So, that
00:59:05
approach has helped so many people get
00:59:07
out of credit card debt.
00:59:10
Now, I just want to say something super
00:59:11
important because I've gone through
00:59:13
this.
00:59:15
When you go through the work of getting
00:59:17
out of credit card debt,
00:59:19
it's a huge victory.
00:59:23
Don't go out and celebrate
00:59:25
on the credit cards because I got myself
00:59:28
out of credit card debt in college,
00:59:30
junior year, and then I went out and
00:59:32
celebrated and got myself back into
00:59:33
credit card debt.
00:59:35
>> And people do this all the time. Usually
00:59:37
people get themselves in a hole at least
00:59:39
twice, sometimes three times.
00:59:42
Don't go back in a hole again. Uh I
00:59:44
didn't carry credit cards for 30 years.
00:59:46
I only carried a debit card and I had to
00:59:49
pay it off every month. Should these
00:59:52
people um who are in the bottom sort of
00:59:54
60% be thinking at all about how to make
00:59:57
more money, how to increase their
00:59:58
income?
01:00:00
>> Absolutely. And what are the like the
01:00:02
easiest ways to do that would that you'd
01:00:04
recommend just from your own experience
01:00:05
of you know being in the professional
01:00:07
world and
01:00:08
>> so my experience and I know that you
01:00:10
look you wrote this great book diary of
01:00:13
a CEO right anybody hasn't read your
01:00:15
book you have this great book what's the
01:00:16
best way to grow your income if you have
01:00:18
a job it's to be good at what you do
01:00:22
right you can have a job at minimum wage
01:00:26
let's pretend you work at McDonald's and
01:00:28
you have a job working minimum wage
01:00:30
McDonald's. The owner of McDonald's, the
01:00:33
guy who owns that franchise or the gal
01:00:35
that owns that franchise desperately
01:00:37
needs good employees. Who becomes a
01:00:40
manager that makes more money? The
01:00:42
person who works really well. Now, a lot
01:00:44
of people, I don't I don't know if I
01:00:46
want to work McDonald's. I'm just giving
01:00:47
it as an example. Anywhere you work, how
01:00:50
you grow your income is you are the best
01:00:54
at what you do. You show up early. You
01:00:57
have a game plan at work. You work late.
01:01:00
You do what you say you're going to do.
01:01:03
You don't wait to be told what to do,
01:01:05
right? Like I've been an entrepreneur
01:01:07
all my lifetime. The hardest thing about
01:01:09
being an entrepreneur is what?
01:01:12
>> Yeah.
01:01:12
>> Everything.
01:01:14
>> It's everything. And most people are
01:01:15
entrepreneurs go, "Well, it's, you know,
01:01:16
a lot of times it's hard to have good
01:01:18
people unless you're a good leader."
01:01:20
People are so thirsty to have jobs with
01:01:23
purpose and meaning. And most people are
01:01:26
actually looking for leadership.
01:01:28
So if you can be really good at what you
01:01:31
do, you will make more money. There's no
01:01:34
limit to wealth in the world, right?
01:01:35
Like we've never seen so much wealth
01:01:38
being created in our entire lives as
01:01:39
right now. If I were young, a lot of
01:01:41
people, well, you should learn AI.
01:01:44
Yeah, you know what? Probably you
01:01:45
definitely should learn how to use AI
01:01:46
because if you don't learn how to use
01:01:47
AI, you're going to have really limited
01:01:49
skills and go the and do certain jobs.
01:01:52
You know what else people are going to
01:01:53
go out and do? Learn how to be a
01:01:55
plumber. Learn how to be electrician.
01:01:58
Learn how to put up garage doors. I've
01:02:01
got friends. I got I was just recently
01:02:02
on a podcast with a guy who's made a
01:02:04
billion dollars putting in garage doors.
01:02:07
>> And he took me through his warehouse and
01:02:11
showed me their garage door models. And
01:02:14
I was like, you know, I've got a friend
01:02:15
who makes gyms that go in garages. I
01:02:17
just connected them. He's got a huge
01:02:18
business making gyms for garages.
01:02:23
There's just no limit to the amount of
01:02:25
opportunities out there. You have to
01:02:26
though get out of a stuck mind frame. I
01:02:28
mean, you had Tony Robbins here. If
01:02:29
there's anybody who can help you get out
01:02:31
of a stuck mind frame, it's that guy,
01:02:34
right? But you can't you can't have they
01:02:37
Zig Ziggler used to call it stinking
01:02:38
thinking. You have to have
01:02:42
the ability to look into the future and
01:02:45
believe that your future can be as
01:02:46
exciting today or better. I put up a
01:02:50
post yesterday. I said, um, I would
01:02:52
rather be an optimist and be wrong than
01:02:57
a pessimist and be right.
01:03:00
And you show me somebody who wants to
01:03:02
make more money, go into the world an
01:03:05
optimist and figure out how to go make
01:03:07
more money.
01:03:09
Do you think a lot of this is a mindset
01:03:11
at at at the core of it? Obviously there
01:03:13
are real socioeconomic factors and
01:03:15
there's people live in certain
01:03:16
situations and if I think back to you
01:03:18
know where I was born in Botswana
01:03:20
there's just less opportunity and
01:03:21
sometimes you have repressive
01:03:22
governments and other factors that will
01:03:24
objectively keep you stuck but all other
01:03:27
things being equal
01:03:30
how much of the game is mindset.
01:03:32
>> It always comes down to a decision and
01:03:34
we started by talking about my
01:03:36
grandmother. If my grandmother hadn't
01:03:38
made a decision at 30 that she didn't
01:03:40
want to be poor, she was tired of living
01:03:42
paycheck to paycheck. If she hadn't
01:03:45
decided that she would go out and teach
01:03:46
herself about money and take 50 cents of
01:03:48
her paycheck and 50 cents from my
01:03:50
grandfather's paycheck and start
01:03:52
investing,
01:03:54
I wouldn't be here today. She made a
01:03:56
decision that had a ripple effect
01:03:58
through our family. She built financial
01:04:01
security for herself with that one
01:04:02
decision.
01:04:04
She taught my father how to invest and
01:04:06
he was a financial adviser for over 45
01:04:08
years. My sister's a financial adviser.
01:04:11
I was a financial adviser. I spent the
01:04:13
last 30 years teaching people about
01:04:14
money. One woman's decision had this
01:04:17
ripple effect. So, one thing I say to
01:04:20
people who are listening, especially the
01:04:21
moms,
01:04:23
sometimes you got to make a decision
01:04:25
that's not just for you.
01:04:27
You're actually making a decision for
01:04:29
your family. and you can come up with a
01:04:31
list of reasons why this stuff won't
01:04:33
work. Somebody who's watching this show
01:04:35
or listening to us right now, they're
01:04:38
already interested in this. That's why
01:04:40
they're here. Now, they're here for a
01:04:43
couple reasons. Either A, they're
01:04:44
hurting financially and they know they
01:04:47
need to fix something. Great. Start
01:04:49
where you are. Fix what needs to be
01:04:52
fixed. Some people are like, you know, I
01:04:54
think I'm doing pretty well, but I'm not
01:04:55
sure if I'm doing everything well. you
01:04:57
know, I I've I've opened up my Roth IRA
01:05:00
or I've opened up my 401k plan. I'm
01:05:02
putting some money away, but I don't
01:05:04
know if I'm putting enough money away.
01:05:07
Then you can improve what you're doing.
01:05:09
Some people like, I'm renting. I think I
01:05:11
would like to buy a house someday. All
01:05:13
right, make that a goal. I teach three
01:05:14
buckets when it comes to money. Three
01:05:16
baskets. Pay yourself first for
01:05:18
retirement. We haven't even talked about
01:05:20
emergencies yet. Putting aside putting
01:05:22
aside money for emergency purposes. Have
01:05:24
to talk about that. You got to you got
01:05:26
to get more money put aside for
01:05:27
emergency purposes and then building a
01:05:29
dream account. You need to put money
01:05:30
away for your dreams. Those three
01:05:33
accounts should be automated.
01:05:35
>> And on that point of having three
01:05:36
accounts, you call it a future account,
01:05:38
an emergency account, and a dream
01:05:40
account. How much of your earnings
01:05:42
should you be putting into each of those
01:05:43
accounts on a monthly basis?
01:05:45
>> All right. So, keep it super simple. I
01:05:47
recommend one hour a day. Again, said
01:05:50
this earlier, it's 12 and a half% of
01:05:52
your gross income. When you say 1 hour a
01:05:53
day, you mean one hour of the the time
01:05:55
you work per day.
01:05:56
>> Yeah. So, whatever you make an hour.
01:05:58
>> Yeah.
01:05:58
>> It's if you're say if if you're working
01:06:00
a 40hour work week, 12 and a half% of
01:06:03
your gross income goes off the top into
01:06:06
a retirement account. Now, let me just
01:06:08
say something up for the yahutters.
01:06:10
They're like, I can't go from 0 to 12%.
01:06:12
There's no way. Then start at 1%.
01:06:15
If you're not saving right now and
01:06:17
you're listening to us and all you do
01:06:18
when you leave this podcast is make one
01:06:22
decision
01:06:23
and that decision is I'm going to save
01:06:25
1% of my income and you start that this
01:06:28
month your life will change. Your life
01:06:31
will change because you start the
01:06:33
process of making a difference. It's
01:06:34
just like the first day you go to the
01:06:36
gym. Now I will tell you if you save 1%
01:06:38
of your income you won't notice it. And
01:06:40
if you did that every month for a year,
01:06:43
at the end of the year, you would have
01:06:44
saved 12% and you will be saving four
01:06:46
times what the average American saves
01:06:48
and you will be in a rockstar shape.
01:06:51
Then the second hour, this is where
01:06:53
people's minds blow up. But the second
01:06:55
hour, so the first hour goes for the
01:06:57
future, the second hour goes for safety
01:06:59
and for dreams. So 30 minutes of your
01:07:02
income, roughly 5%
01:07:05
should go into an emergency account and
01:07:07
another 5% goes into a dream account.
01:07:10
Now, that dream account could be for
01:07:12
buying a house, could be saving money
01:07:14
for college, could be the vacation you
01:07:17
want to take at the end of the year,
01:07:18
could be getting married, could be the
01:07:20
engagement ring, but you're putting
01:07:23
money away for your dreams. Because when
01:07:25
you put money away for your dreams,
01:07:28
that's how they become real.
01:07:30
>> And you know, the book is called The
01:07:32
Automatic Millionaire. This is a book
01:07:34
that sold over two million copies
01:07:36
>> um on its own.
01:07:38
Why did you use the word automatic?
01:07:41
>> Unless your financial plan is automatic,
01:07:44
it will fail.
01:07:46
How do I know this? Because I spent nine
01:07:49
years as a financial adviser at Morgan
01:07:51
Stanley and I got to see firsthand.
01:07:53
Everyone who came into my office with an
01:07:55
ordinary income who built wealth, they
01:07:57
did it by saving automatically.
01:08:00
Every single time a client came into my
01:08:01
office and they said, "I'm going to
01:08:03
bring you a check every month myself." I
01:08:07
never had a client save for more than
01:08:08
six months. They stopped.
01:08:12
When it once you make the decision to
01:08:14
automate your financial life, it works
01:08:17
in the background.
01:08:19
Now, here's the thing. Everybody else is
01:08:21
already doing this to you.
01:08:24
You go sign, you go to go to a gym to go
01:08:26
work out. They don't ask you to bring
01:08:28
them money every month. They
01:08:29
automatically bill you. You get a phone
01:08:32
bill, they automatically bill you.
01:08:34
Today, in many cases, when you rent,
01:08:35
they automatically pull the money out of
01:08:37
your account. The banks automatically
01:08:39
take money from you for your mortgage.
01:08:41
When you pay taxes, they're all
01:08:43
automated. Everyone takes money from you
01:08:46
automatically. Everything that you sign
01:08:48
up for on your phone is a subscription
01:08:50
service. Netflix, go through your credit
01:08:54
card today. Open up your phone, look at
01:08:56
all your subscriptions. All those
01:08:58
businesses are taking money from you
01:08:59
automatically. Why? That's the only way
01:09:02
they can be in business. They know if
01:09:05
they don't get money from you
01:09:06
automatically, you won't keep using
01:09:08
them. Most people who start off with a
01:09:11
free subscription, it'll take them three
01:09:14
to six months to turn off something that
01:09:18
they don't use.
01:09:21
I'm here getting people to automate
01:09:22
their financial life for themselves.
01:09:26
Is there simple ways, apps, tools,
01:09:28
websites we can use to go through all of
01:09:31
our subscriptions and turn them all off?
01:09:34
>> Yes, there are. So, let me tell you the
01:09:36
easiest way. This is really actually
01:09:39
free publicity for Apple, okay? Because
01:09:42
so many people have Apple phones. Number
01:09:45
one, only do your subscriptions inside
01:09:48
of Apple. In an ideal world, don't pay
01:09:51
anybody directly. Do it all through
01:09:52
Apple.
01:09:53
>> Why? Because if you go to the bottom of
01:09:56
your phone and you don't know how to do
01:09:57
this and you put subscriptions,
01:09:59
up will pop everything that you've
01:10:01
signed up for and you can go click click
01:10:03
click and turn them all off.
01:10:05
>> Do that.
01:10:05
>> Another thing I will tell you is that
01:10:07
when you sign up for anything, let's say
01:10:10
it's a one year because everything now
01:10:11
is a one-year trial subscription or a
01:10:14
one month trial subscription.
01:10:16
The moment you sign up for it, shut it
01:10:18
off. Because what happens is if you sign
01:10:20
up for anything and think of any
01:10:22
subscription you can imagine. Companies
01:10:24
hate me for this. The moment you shut it
01:10:26
off, when the time comes for it to
01:10:29
renew, they will offer you a better deal
01:10:31
to renew.
01:10:32
>> Okay, so I've opened up my phone. I've
01:10:34
gone to the settings. I've clicked on my
01:10:36
name in the settings and then I've
01:10:38
clicked on the button subscriptions.
01:10:40
I have one, two, three, four, five, six,
01:10:44
seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 of which
01:10:50
three of them
01:10:52
I would keep.
01:10:54
So, all these other ones have just been
01:10:56
running in the background and and it's
01:10:58
because I used an app one time and it
01:11:00
signed me up to some kind of free trial
01:11:02
and I just totally forgot to cancel it.
01:11:04
So, I've got Oh my god, some of them are
01:11:06
massive.
01:11:06
>> Okay. So, so as you do this, what you're
01:11:09
doing right now is a real life example.
01:11:13
So, if someone's listening to us,
01:11:15
watching this, they're married, they've
01:11:17
got kids, or they're single by
01:11:19
themselves,
01:11:20
this one exercise, my guess is there are
01:11:24
many, many people listening that could
01:11:25
find $50, $100, $200 a month that they
01:11:28
could shut off and redirect that money
01:11:30
to saving and investing and that could
01:11:33
change their life. Are there other apps
01:11:35
you can use and go to to figure out how
01:11:38
to cancel or leave your subscription?
01:11:39
>> So there there are and most these apps
01:11:41
you have to pay for, right? So like you
01:11:43
can go to So then you're right back into
01:11:45
paying for an app now. Probably the two
01:11:46
popular most popular apps are Monarch
01:11:50
and Ynab. You can also do this with your
01:11:53
credit cards. Um the credit card comes
01:11:55
doing a better job of showing it on your
01:11:57
statements. And again, I go back to the
01:12:00
Apple example because Apple makes it the
01:12:02
easiest to shut these off.
01:12:04
>> Maybe some of you will be spending $100
01:12:06
a month. So, I did $100 a month. And it
01:12:08
says if you invest if you sort of cancel
01:12:10
those subscriptions and invest $100 per
01:12:13
month for 40 years, an annual rate of
01:12:15
return of about 10%, which is roughly
01:12:17
what you get if you just put it into
01:12:19
some of the big tech index funds at the
01:12:21
moment. The total money you'll have in
01:12:23
40 years is $632,000,
01:12:28
which is staggeringly life-changing
01:12:30
amount of money.
01:12:31
>> It's staggering. And let me just give
01:12:33
some very specific investment for people
01:12:36
to consider, right? And they still need
01:12:37
to do their own due diligence and read
01:12:39
perspectuses. And yes, there's risk
01:12:41
involved in the stock market. But the
01:12:42
first one I would talk about and look
01:12:44
at, and these are all listed in my book
01:12:46
because I just want to give because
01:12:47
people like, what's an index fund? What
01:12:48
do I buy? Look at the Vanguard Total
01:12:51
Stock Market Fund. The symbol is VTI.
01:12:55
Okay, this this is actually the largest
01:12:57
index fund in the world. There's
01:12:59
trillions of dollars now in this fund. I
01:13:01
talk about it in the book. I looked up
01:13:03
the annual uh the annual returns of VTI
01:13:05
the last 10 years have been 14%.
01:13:08
14% annually. This fund has 3500
01:13:12
stocks. You you know all the biggest US
01:13:15
stocks. So you don't have to figure out
01:13:17
what stock to buy. You buy this fund,
01:13:19
you buy an exchange traded mutual fund,
01:13:21
you have access to 3,500 great American
01:13:25
companies. I'll give you another stock
01:13:28
index fund. I love
01:13:30
>> and everybody can buy this on their
01:13:31
phone right now probably
01:13:33
>> literally. You can go to Vanguard,
01:13:34
Schwab, Fidelity. This funds, this is an
01:13:37
ETF, so it's available everywhere. It's
01:13:39
a stock. And if you want to figure out
01:13:41
how to do this and you're listening
01:13:42
right now, what I'd do is use ChatV or
01:13:44
Gemini and put in the stock the the fund
01:13:47
that um has been said and ask it how do
01:13:51
I invest in this in the country that I'm
01:13:52
in? What app do I need to use? What
01:13:53
website do I need to use? Again, this is
01:13:55
not investment advice. Well, I guess it
01:13:57
kind of sounds like it is, but
01:13:58
>> Well, and but it's also like so like if
01:14:00
someone says, "Okay, but I'm not I'm in
01:14:02
um wherever I am. I'm in the UK. What's
01:14:04
an index fund in the UK that covers the
01:14:07
UK?" I'll give you the global version of
01:14:10
VTI. So, because I own these funds, so I
01:14:13
So, the global version of VTI is a
01:14:16
symbol which is all I'm going to give
01:14:17
you another Vanguard fund.
01:14:18
>> When you say you own these funds, for
01:14:19
clarity, you mean you've invested in
01:14:20
them?
01:14:20
>> Yeah, I've got money in these mutual
01:14:22
funds. So, this other fund because I
01:14:24
have I want money my my personal money
01:14:26
that's in the stock market. I am
01:14:28
one-third global investments and I'm
01:14:30
twothirds US investments.
01:14:33
So, I have a lot of global index funds.
01:14:35
This global index fund the symbol is Va.
01:14:39
Okay. So this is the Vanguard global
01:14:42
index fund without US stock. Symbol
01:14:44
again is VA.
01:14:47
That fund last year and it won't always
01:14:49
be like this because global investments
01:14:51
have underperformed the US for a long
01:14:53
period of time. That fund last year was
01:14:55
up 35%.
01:14:57
Last year, global investments
01:14:59
significantly outperformed the US
01:15:01
investments and the US investment market
01:15:03
was up on average of 17%. So the US
01:15:06
markets were up 17% or higher and global
01:15:09
investments were up 30% or higher. Now
01:15:11
there will be a point in time, Stephen,
01:15:13
without a shadow of a doubt that we will
01:15:15
see a market pullback. And when that day
01:15:18
comes, you have to stay the course and
01:15:20
keep investing automatically monthly.
01:15:23
And then I'm going to give you a tech
01:15:24
fund because everybody wants to know
01:15:26
what should I invest in that is, you
01:15:29
know, should I invest in an AI tech
01:15:31
fund? And my answer would be is you
01:15:34
don't need an AI tech fund. You need the
01:15:37
best tech fund that's existed in my
01:15:39
lifetime. And that's the NASDAQ 100 ETF.
01:15:44
The symbol for that is QQQ.
01:15:48
So go and look up, you know, go into
01:15:50
whatever you're using and go look up
01:15:52
QQQ, read about the top 100 stocks in
01:15:55
the NASDAQ and the returns for QQQ. I
01:15:58
mean, actually, in the top of my mind
01:15:59
right now, I can I think it's over 20%.
01:16:03
Um, but look up what has the QQQ total
01:16:06
return been for the last 10 years.
01:16:09
I can tell you since I put money in QQQ,
01:16:11
it's gone up tenfold. Now, the market's
01:16:15
been unbelievable and there will be
01:16:17
pullbacks. And that is also why I should
01:16:20
say this, Stephen, because we haven't
01:16:21
even addressed this. I don't run around
01:16:23
telling people to put all their money in
01:16:24
the stock market. I also don't think
01:16:26
that young people should be putting all
01:16:28
their money in the stock market. I think
01:16:30
one of the greatest myths out there is
01:16:33
that when you're young, you should take
01:16:34
a lot of risk. Let me say that one more
01:16:37
time because it's super important. So,
01:16:38
make sure it sits.
01:16:41
Everyone says when you're young, you
01:16:44
should take risk.
01:16:47
The problem with that advice is that
01:16:49
today people in their 20s and their 30s
01:16:51
are taking a lot of risk. They're not
01:16:54
just putting money in index funds.
01:16:56
They're putting money in meme coins.
01:16:58
They're putting money in meme stocks.
01:17:01
They're putting money in NFTTS.
01:17:04
They're on social media and Tik Tok
01:17:06
watching people day trade. They're
01:17:08
trying to get into options. What they're
01:17:10
really trying to do is get rich quick.
01:17:12
All I can tell you is the older guy in
01:17:14
the room here, people who try to get
01:17:17
rich quick stay broke forever. And the
01:17:20
problem with taking too much risk with
01:17:22
your money when you're young is if you
01:17:23
keep if you do everything right, like
01:17:25
let's just say you're the you shut off
01:17:27
all your subscriptions and you're saving
01:17:29
$200 a month, but you put that $200 a
01:17:32
month into a junk investment and you
01:17:35
turn around in 10 years and you have
01:17:36
nothing to show for it, you'll stop
01:17:39
investing.
01:17:41
>> Looking at the QQQ data, so this is the
01:17:43
NASDAQ 100. So this invests in the top
01:17:46
100 companies in America. in the NASDAQ
01:17:49
stock exchange.
01:17:50
>> The returns over the last 10 years from
01:17:53
2016 to 2026, the annualized returns
01:17:55
have been roughly 19%.
01:17:58
The total return over that period has
01:18:00
been roughly 480%.
01:18:03
So, a $10,000 investment 10 years ago
01:18:06
would now be worth approximately $60,000
01:18:09
today if you'd done nothing.
01:18:10
>> Then nothing
01:18:11
>> ever added to it. Over the last 20
01:18:13
years, the annualized returns, the
01:18:15
return every year has been 15% with a
01:18:18
total return over that period of 1,500%.
01:18:22
And again, so if you've added $10,000 to
01:18:24
it 20 years ago and done nothing, you
01:18:26
would have roughly $170,000
01:18:29
today.
01:18:31
>> So here's the beauty of what you just
01:18:32
did. You checked my my you checked my
01:18:36
advice. You looked at the data and now
01:18:39
you know what has been done in the past,
01:18:41
right? Let me give you a super boring
01:18:44
fund. I'm not sponsored by Vanguard. I'm
01:18:46
just giving generic vanilla stuff here.
01:18:48
Look up the Vanguard balanced fund. So,
01:18:52
right, Vanguard Balanced Fund. And the
01:18:55
Vanguard Balance Fund is 60% stocks and
01:18:58
40% bonds. That by the way is the most
01:19:02
typical asset allocation. The difference
01:19:04
between stocks and bonds in the world.
01:19:08
The average retiree has a portfolio
01:19:10
that's about 60% stock and 40% bonds.
01:19:13
You look up the Valangard balance fund
01:19:15
and what you're going to find is that
01:19:16
fund has averaged over 8% annually since
01:19:19
inception.
01:19:21
It is as boring an investment as they
01:19:24
come. So if someone says, "Well, I don't
01:19:26
want to be 100% stocks. I just want to
01:19:28
be I want to be more conservative, but I
01:19:30
want some stock exposure. The Vanguard
01:19:32
balance fund is a great example.
01:19:35
I list all these funds in the automatic
01:19:38
millionaire. One of the kind of funds I
01:19:40
talk about the most is what's called a
01:19:42
targetdated mutual fund. I don't know if
01:19:45
you guys have you guys have a 401k plan.
01:19:47
>> We have something similar.
01:19:48
>> Okay. So in the US if if you have a 401k
01:19:51
plan what you're going to find when you
01:19:52
open up your 401k plan is you have what
01:19:54
are called targetdated mutual funds.
01:19:57
This is a onestop mutual fund solution
01:20:02
to your investing all the way until you
01:20:05
retire and it will be divided among
01:20:08
stocks and bonds and it will be what's
01:20:10
called rebalanced automatically as you
01:20:13
get closer to retirement. So, it'll go
01:20:14
from being more stocks when you're
01:20:16
young, less stocks as you get older.
01:20:19
There are trillions of dollars now in
01:20:21
these target date mutual funds. When I
01:20:22
wrote the automatic miller 20 years ago,
01:20:24
was just getting started. This automatic
01:20:27
solution to investing has changed the
01:20:29
game of investing for millions of
01:20:31
Americans. That's why there's 24 million
01:20:33
millionaires and that's why there's now
01:20:34
$45 trillion in retirement accounts.
01:20:38
>> We have a brain budget. The way to think
01:20:41
about it is we have a limited amount of
01:20:44
energy that we can spend every single
01:20:46
day. I'm saying find ways to simplify
01:20:48
your life. And one way I've conserved my
01:20:50
body budget is via our sponsor Factor
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subscription purchase.
01:21:32
Over the years, people have reached out
01:21:34
asking me for mentorship. But the
01:21:35
challenge I've always faced is that my
01:21:37
calendar doesn't permit me to help every
01:21:39
single person that reaches out. So when
01:21:41
I know I can't personally help, I try to
01:21:43
push people towards tools that I think
01:21:44
can. And that's why I wanted to tell you
01:21:46
a little bit about a resource that I
01:21:48
think will be great for those of you who
01:21:49
are founders of small and medium-sized
01:21:51
businesses. It's a content series that
01:21:53
our longtime show sponsor Vodafone has
01:21:55
created. It's called Vodafone
01:21:57
Business.connected.
01:21:59
You'll find it on YouTube. This series
01:22:01
delivers the knowledge that founders
01:22:03
today need to grow their company in the
01:22:04
digital age. There you'll learn about
01:22:06
personal branding, cyber security,
01:22:08
scaling e-commerce companies, and
01:22:09
through conversations with many founders
01:22:11
who I've invested in and work closely
01:22:13
with, the opaque picture of building a
01:22:15
business will become clear. Some of
01:22:17
those founders I've invested in in the
01:22:18
series include Cristiana Brenton from
01:22:20
Flight Story, Marissa Poster from
01:22:22
Perfect Ted, Leo Harrison from Chapter
01:22:24
2, and Georgia Gibson, who I've
01:22:26
partnered with to build Steven.com. And
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these are just a few of the great names
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involved. Search Vodafone
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business.connected to learn more.
01:22:33
The other book that you wrote which sold
01:22:36
incredibly incredibly well is this book
01:22:38
about smart couples finish rich. That's
01:22:40
the title. Smart couples finish rich.
01:22:42
Nine steps to creating a rich future for
01:22:44
you and your partner.
01:22:45
>> As it relates to how rich or wealthy you
01:22:47
become, the person you choose and the
01:22:49
way that you configure that
01:22:50
relationship. How consequential is that?
01:22:54
>> It's everything
01:22:55
>> really.
01:22:56
>> It can be everything. Why?
01:22:58
>> You're married. I'm married.
01:22:59
>> Yeah.
01:23:00
>> So, why can it be everything?
01:23:03
>> Because here's what here's what happens
01:23:05
in the real world, Stephen.
01:23:07
>> Often we marry our financial opposite.
01:23:11
So, I always joke like I used to do a
01:23:13
lot of seminars for couples and I'd say
01:23:15
there's two types of people that are
01:23:16
born in the world. One person comes out
01:23:19
literally with a calculator and they're
01:23:20
born to track where all the money goes
01:23:22
and they love to budget and they're
01:23:24
super excited about investing. That's
01:23:26
one kind of person. The other kind of
01:23:29
person loves to shop, loves to spend
01:23:32
money. Almost inevitably those two
01:23:35
people hook up. Now, sometimes two
01:23:38
people who like to spend money marry.
01:23:40
That's a disaster because they end up
01:23:43
broke. So now, what do you do about the
01:23:45
couple that's got their financial
01:23:47
opposites?
01:23:48
That's what led to smart couples finish.
01:23:50
Because
01:23:53
if you are married to your financial
01:23:55
opposite, you will fight about money all
01:23:58
the time. And fights about money are
01:24:02
what lead to divorce. They're the number
01:24:05
one cause of divorce. The real key and
01:24:08
what I've been teaching now for over two
01:24:10
decades is the way you get couples on
01:24:12
the same page when it comes to money is
01:24:14
you start with your values. So you look
01:24:17
at what do you really value most
01:24:19
together as a couple.
01:24:20
You put the money aside for a second.
01:24:23
You go through your values. What's most
01:24:25
important to you. What do you really
01:24:27
care about? You talk about your values.
01:24:30
And then you build a financial plan
01:24:32
around what's really most important to
01:24:34
you.
01:24:35
>> You say that there's six worst money
01:24:37
mistakes that couples make. And the
01:24:39
first of those is not deciding who is
01:24:41
responsible for what.
01:24:42
>> Yeah.
01:24:44
So often in a relationship, one person
01:24:47
pays the bills.
01:24:50
Okay,
01:24:51
who's managing the money? Now, I used to
01:24:55
say in every household there should be
01:24:56
at least one person that's paying the
01:24:58
bills and if the other person is
01:24:59
managing the money, meaning that they're
01:25:00
in charge of investments, that you still
01:25:03
get together and go through it. As I've
01:25:06
gotten older, I've really realized how
01:25:08
important this is because I go back to
01:25:10
the fact that the average age is 59.
01:25:12
Average age of widowhood is 59. I'm 59
01:25:15
now. I've had three best friends already
01:25:18
pass away, all men, and they passed away
01:25:22
before they were 57. So, all these
01:25:24
statistics that I talk about, I'm seeing
01:25:26
them come true. And I will tell
01:25:29
especially to the women, hear me loud,
01:25:31
hear me on this loud and clear, but this
01:25:33
is important for the men, too.
01:25:37
The question you need, this is hard to
01:25:38
hear. The question you have to ask
01:25:40
yourself
01:25:42
is if your partner died today,
01:25:45
what would you need to know about the
01:25:47
finances?
01:25:49
And the answer is everything. Now, what
01:25:51
does that mean? Everything. That means
01:25:52
you would need to know where is the
01:25:54
money.
01:25:55
Does he have money in an old 401k plan?
01:25:57
Does he have money in IRA account? Does
01:25:59
he have money in a bank account?
01:26:01
Where are the passwords to get into the
01:26:03
accounts? Where's the will? You know,
01:26:07
six out of 10 people listening to us
01:26:08
today don't have a will. You have to
01:26:11
have a will
01:26:12
>> at any age.
01:26:13
>> At any age. If you, especially if you're
01:26:15
in a relationship, you have to have a
01:26:16
will. If you have kids, you have to have
01:26:18
a will. Is there life insurance? You
01:26:21
know, so many people today who have
01:26:23
children don't have life insurance and
01:26:24
they don't have assets. You should at
01:26:26
least get a million to$2 million term
01:26:28
policy. Super inexpensive. Protect your
01:26:31
family. You have to run the drill,
01:26:35
right? Like we got on a plane, we flew
01:26:37
here today. The first thing they do on a
01:26:38
plane before you take off is they talk
01:26:40
to you about what to do in case of
01:26:41
emergency purposes. The mask's going to
01:26:43
come down. You're going to put it on
01:26:44
your face. Okay. You get on a cruise
01:26:46
boat. The first thing they do is talk
01:26:47
about what you're going to do if the
01:26:48
cruise boat's got a problem. You're
01:26:49
going to go get in these emergency
01:26:50
boats. You need to run the fire drill
01:26:54
for your family on finances. I almost
01:26:57
died like it's now been four years ago.
01:26:59
I uh my wife found me face down, passed
01:27:02
out. I was brought to the hospital in
01:27:05
Florence. Um I was in a coma for four
01:27:08
days. I was in the hospital for 17. I
01:27:12
had menitis. When I came out of just
01:27:16
like a movie, I'm laying down. I mean,
01:27:18
I'm laying down in the hospital.
01:27:20
Doctor's looking over me. Doctor says,
01:27:22
"Do you know what your name is?" I said,
01:27:25
"It's David." He said, "Very good." He
01:27:27
goes, "Your last name is?" I said, "It's
01:27:29
Boach." He says, "Do you know where you
01:27:31
are?" I go, "Yeah, I'm in Milan. I just
01:27:33
had an ankle surgery." Because I had had
01:27:35
an ankle surgery two weeks prior, two
01:27:38
two weeks before that. And he says, "No,
01:27:40
no, you're you're in Santa Maria Nolla.
01:27:42
You're in the ICU. Uh we're treating you
01:27:45
right now for menitis, but now that
01:27:47
you've opened up your eyes, you're going
01:27:48
to be you're going to be okay. You're
01:27:50
safe now." And then they brought my wife
01:27:52
in. They said, "Do you know what her
01:27:54
name is?" I and I made a joke. I said,
01:27:57
"It's Rebecca." She was like, "Who?" I
01:28:00
go, "Honey, I can still be a smartass in
01:28:01
the hospital. It's Alatia." And she
01:28:04
starts screaming and yelling and she's
01:28:05
like, "Oh my god, oh my god, he's okay."
01:28:07
But Stephen, the truth was I wasn't okay
01:28:09
because when you get men and judges, you
01:28:11
get brain swelling. So I couldn't
01:28:13
remember things. I couldn't remember my
01:28:15
passwords to the to the bank account. I
01:28:18
didn't know the passwords to my phone
01:28:19
number anymore, to my phone.
01:28:22
One of the things I did when I came out
01:28:23
of the hospital, because I always manage
01:28:26
the money, is I said to my wife, "We're
01:28:29
going to hire a financial advisor
01:28:31
and you have to be involved in what's
01:28:33
going on." We actually had yesterday our
01:28:36
annual account review. Because I tell
01:28:38
couples, you got to have an annual
01:28:39
account review either together and if
01:28:41
you have a financial adviser at a
01:28:42
minimum with your financial adviser. And
01:28:45
I didn't want to cancel the appointment
01:28:47
because I was, even though you guys
01:28:48
invited me to come here, I'm like, I'm
01:28:50
keeping the appointment. We'll fly here
01:28:51
to flute this morning. And so again,
01:28:55
having worked at, you know, Morgan
01:28:56
Stanley for nine years and been a
01:28:58
financial adviser, I've seen too many
01:28:59
couples not do this,
01:29:02
including sadly Stephen, my dad just
01:29:05
recently passed away. And my dad was in
01:29:08
the money management business his whole
01:29:10
life. So he managed the money and my mom
01:29:14
was not involved. And when my dad passed
01:29:17
away, we had to just like my book, step
01:29:20
in and help my mom with everything. Now,
01:29:23
she's lucky. She's got two kids in the
01:29:25
business, but she didn't. My mom was
01:29:27
just a ripe waiting example of somebody
01:29:31
who could be taken advantage of. So, the
01:29:33
time to learn about money is before
01:29:34
there's a problem. If you took smart
01:29:37
couples finish honestly Stephen that you
01:29:39
it's it's designed to be a a roadmap for
01:29:43
two people together where you can sit
01:29:45
down and go through this book chapter by
01:29:47
chapter together starting with just
01:29:50
organizing your financial information
01:29:51
putting everything into file folders
01:29:53
starts the conversation and then talking
01:29:56
about your values then talking about
01:29:58
your dreams then going into well what
01:30:01
what do you want to share you know you
01:30:03
have a very comp I don't know all your
01:30:06
stuff, but I've followed you for years.
01:30:08
As I told you, I'm a fan of yours. I've
01:30:09
got your book. I've watched your
01:30:11
podcast. I've listened to you now for
01:30:12
years. As your business is expanding,
01:30:15
your life is getting more complicated.
01:30:18
God forbid something happens to you
01:30:20
tomorrow.
01:30:21
>> Yeah. It'd be a [ __ ] nightmare.
01:30:22
>> And she's your fiance.
01:30:24
>> Yeah.
01:30:24
>> She wouldn't even know where to start.
01:30:27
>> And I don't know if she would know who
01:30:29
to call.
01:30:31
So, it's a worthwhile conversation. like
01:30:34
I just had this guy in the show and I
01:30:35
don't know maybe maybe we really need to
01:30:37
like need to involve you a little bit.
01:30:39
>> I was just looking at some of the data
01:30:40
here and it says that in terms of income
01:30:43
ignorance according to a 2021 study by
01:30:45
Fidelity Investments nearly 40% of
01:30:48
couples could not even identify how much
01:30:50
their partner earned. It says in terms
01:30:53
of financial infidelity, surveys from
01:30:56
bank rate and creditcards.com
01:30:57
consistently find that up to 40% of
01:31:00
adults share that they have kept
01:31:02
financial secrets which is hiding cash,
01:31:04
hiding bank statements and hiding debts
01:31:07
that they have from their romantic
01:31:08
partner. So that's almost half and you
01:31:11
pointed at this earlier on which is the
01:31:12
CFO dynamic. In many households, one
01:31:15
spouse acts as the chief financial
01:31:17
officer. And research indicates that
01:31:18
roughly 50% of couples um have a
01:31:21
non-managing spouse who has little to no
01:31:23
idea how much money the family have
01:31:26
total. They don't know where it is and
01:31:28
they don't know the passwords.
01:31:30
>> It can sound scary. It can sound
01:31:32
intimidating. And yet, I can tell you
01:31:34
every day, people who actually kind of
01:31:36
do this basic stuff that we've talked
01:31:37
about, once you start to do it, you feel
01:31:39
a lot better. You feel better instantly.
01:31:41
You don't you don't have to go from
01:31:44
having no savings to having a million
01:31:45
dollars to feel better. If you just
01:31:47
start automatically saving some money,
01:31:49
paying yourself first. The moment you
01:31:52
make that decision, you'll feel better.
01:31:55
You go and you turn off some
01:31:56
subscription fees like you just looked
01:31:57
at. The moment you do that, you'll feel
01:31:59
better. It's literally like a financial
01:32:02
muscle. You start to build this
01:32:04
financial muscle when you start to take
01:32:06
action. It is action that changes your
01:32:09
life. I always say I wrote all these
01:32:11
books. If a person buys a book, reads it
01:32:13
and doesn't do anything, then I was a
01:32:16
form of entertainment.
01:32:18
If you listen to a podcast on money and
01:32:20
you don't do something, then we were
01:32:23
again a form of entertainment.
01:32:25
My purpose for doing this podcast today,
01:32:27
why I got on a plane and flew out here
01:32:28
immediately to do this with you was I
01:32:31
want to try to change somebody's life
01:32:33
today. I've always taken the approach of
01:32:35
like I want to change a person's life
01:32:36
one person at a time. And sometimes the
01:32:40
things I share are hard to hear, but I
01:32:42
also know they wake people up. You had
01:32:44
this great great quote in this book. I
01:32:46
was showing this today to my son.
01:32:49
I'm holding, for those of you who can't
01:32:51
see me, I'm holding Steven's book, A
01:32:52
Diary of the CEO, which has also sold
01:32:54
millions of copies. And this is your
01:32:56
quote on page 233. I wonder if you
01:32:59
remember your quotes because sometimes
01:33:00
you forget them, right?
01:33:02
If you want long-term success in
01:33:05
business, relationships, and life, you
01:33:08
have to get better at accepting
01:33:10
uncomfortable truths as fast as
01:33:13
possible.
01:33:15
When you refuse to accept an
01:33:17
uncomfortable truth, you are choosing to
01:33:20
accept an uncomfortable future.
01:33:23
The one thing that wasn't in this quote
01:33:25
was money.
01:33:27
And everything we're talking about is
01:33:28
I'm like, you're gonna work 90,000 hours
01:33:30
over your lifetime. If you don't pay
01:33:32
yourself first and you have nothing to
01:33:33
show for it, the uncomfortable truth is
01:33:35
you will be broke. We haven't talked
01:33:37
about um global issues and government
01:33:40
issues and debt.
01:33:43
Why do you have to take care of yourself
01:33:45
financially right now more than ever
01:33:46
before?
01:33:48
Because the future is about to radically
01:33:51
change. And I will talk out of both
01:33:53
sides of my mouth for a second. Number
01:33:55
one, I believe the next 10 years, hands
01:33:58
down, will be the greatest opportunity
01:33:59
to build wealth in our lifetime. AI is
01:34:02
create going to create so much wealth
01:34:05
that we've never seen anything like it.
01:34:08
Like when you look at the returns in the
01:34:09
stock market from last year, they're a
01:34:11
result of AI. What's happening is AI is
01:34:13
making companies more profitable and
01:34:16
more productive than they've ever been.
01:34:18
The downside is people are losing their
01:34:21
jobs, right? You've had people on the
01:34:23
show including Tony Robbins talking
01:34:25
about this and there are going to be a
01:34:26
lot more of those job losses. So some
01:34:29
people are going to get much wealthier
01:34:31
and then a whole lot of other people are
01:34:33
going to have a challenge. But there's
01:34:35
another problem that we we're not
01:34:37
talking enough about and that is the
01:34:40
safety nets of governments.
01:34:44
All these safety nets that were created
01:34:46
in the US, Social Security,
01:34:49
Medicare, Medicaid,
01:34:52
unemployment, you can go to through
01:34:54
every single country.
01:34:56
All of these things are called
01:34:58
entitlement programs, which is a fancy
01:35:01
word for saying the government made a
01:35:04
promise to you.
01:35:06
And a whole lot of people are dependent
01:35:09
on that promise and there's not enough
01:35:12
money to pay for those promises. So like
01:35:15
in the US, you take social security. The
01:35:18
average social security check right now
01:35:19
is $1,900.
01:35:21
Not a lot of money, but about 60 million
01:35:24
Americans
01:35:26
depend on that amount of money.
01:35:30
In the US, Social Security, this is
01:35:32
government data, not me. you can do all
01:35:35
this stuff online.
01:35:37
The government is telling us that in
01:35:39
2033, that's around the corner, the
01:35:43
Social Security is going to be
01:35:44
underfunded and they're going to have to
01:35:45
cut the benefits. Now, what they're
01:35:47
talking about is cutting the benefits by
01:35:48
20%. You have a lot of Americans that
01:35:51
that's going to be a real problem for
01:35:53
every country's got this issue because
01:35:56
people are living longer. Governments
01:35:58
have more debt than they've ever had. I
01:36:00
am here to tell you,
01:36:03
it's a cliche term, but no one's coming
01:36:05
to save you. It's you're gonna have to
01:36:07
save yourself and you're gonna have to
01:36:10
take your personal financial well-being
01:36:13
more seriously now than ever before. And
01:36:16
if you do, you will be in great shape.
01:36:19
If you don't, you will be dependent on a
01:36:22
system that is buckling.
01:36:25
One of the things in your I think it's
01:36:27
the sixth point of the six things that
01:36:29
couples get wrong is waiting too long to
01:36:31
pay off the mortgage. What do you mean
01:36:33
by that? I actually had a friend contact
01:36:34
me um and asked this. They said,
01:36:36
"Stephen, I've got some cash that that's
01:36:39
been given to me." I think through an
01:36:40
inheritance. Should I pay off my
01:36:42
mortgage or should I go invest in the
01:36:45
stock market in the S&P 500 or something
01:36:47
else?
01:36:47
>> Yeah.
01:36:48
>> And I didn't know what to say because
01:36:49
I'm not a financial adviser.
01:36:50
>> So, if you called me up and you said,
01:36:52
"David, what what should I do?" I'd go,
01:36:53
"Stephen, what's the rate on your
01:36:54
mortgage?" Then you'd say, "Well, David,
01:36:57
I got a mortgage 5 years ago and it's 2
01:36:59
and a half%." And I'd say, "Okay, well
01:37:00
that's a really low rate, Stephen. You
01:37:02
know what? You can put the money in a
01:37:04
money market account right now and make
01:37:05
more than that. So maybe you don't need
01:37:07
to rush to pay it off as fast as
01:37:09
possible." But if you've got a mortgage
01:37:11
at six or seven or eight%, it's a
01:37:14
no-brainer. The biggest thing I can tell
01:37:16
you about paying down your mortgage
01:37:17
early is actually really simple. Here's
01:37:21
ways to do it. If you make one extra
01:37:23
payment a year on a mortgage, you'll
01:37:25
take a 30-year mortgage and you'll pay
01:37:27
it off, depends on the rate, five, six,
01:37:30
seven years sooner.
01:37:32
So, you can go online, you can run a
01:37:34
calculator. Today, you don't even need
01:37:35
calculator. You just run the question.
01:37:36
You put in your mortgage. You tell
01:37:38
Gemini, here's the size of my mortgage.
01:37:40
Here's my mortgage payment. If I make an
01:37:43
extra payment a year, how many how many
01:37:44
years faster will I pay it off? And how
01:37:47
much will I save? And you'll see the
01:37:49
number. When people see the number in
01:37:52
black and white, they go, "I've got to
01:37:54
do that." Now, here's the key. Make that
01:37:57
payment automatic.
01:37:59
The easiest way you make your payment
01:38:01
automatic is either make one extra
01:38:03
payment at the end of the year or take
01:38:06
your mortgage payment and increase it by
01:38:08
10%. So, if your mortgage payment is
01:38:10
$1,000, make an $1,100 a month mortgage
01:38:13
payment and tell the bank you want to
01:38:15
add that to the principal. When people
01:38:18
do that, they need to make sure though
01:38:20
that money is actually paying down the
01:38:21
principal. And another way to do that is
01:38:23
a bi-weekly mortgage payment plan where
01:38:25
you take your mortgage, you split in
01:38:27
half, you pay half every two weeks.
01:38:28
That'll also pay your mortgage off
01:38:30
early.
01:38:31
>> Prenuptual agreements. I'm engaged.
01:38:32
>> Yep.
01:38:34
>> Should I be getting a prenup?
01:38:36
>> So, I would tell anyone who's getting
01:38:40
married,
01:38:42
number one, if your incomes are not the
01:38:44
same, you should get a prenup. Number
01:38:46
two, if you both have good incomes, you
01:38:47
should get a prenup. Number three, if
01:38:49
you're in your 30s, you should get a
01:38:51
prenup. You would never go into a
01:38:53
business without a contract.
01:38:56
Marriage is the ultimate contract. It
01:38:59
just is. Now, is it romantic to do a
01:39:01
prenuptual agreement? No. Does one
01:39:04
person in the relationship typically not
01:39:06
like the doing a prenup? Yes. I know a
01:39:10
lot of women today who want prenups and
01:39:12
the husbands don't want them. It's
01:39:13
whoever's making the money. But I will
01:39:15
say this about prenups. You need a
01:39:18
lawyer. She needs a lawyer. You cannot
01:39:20
go and do a prenup right before you get
01:39:22
married. When people do that, those
01:39:24
prenups get thrown out the window
01:39:26
because they will claim and say and have
01:39:29
an argument for, I was under
01:39:34
extremely undue influence to sign this
01:39:37
agreement before the wedding. And those
01:39:41
agreements get thrown out even if
01:39:43
there's disclaimer language. And both of
01:39:45
you need attorneys.
01:39:48
And prenuptual agreements can often be
01:39:50
like a negotiation. And you can learn a
01:39:52
lot about your partner that it's not
01:39:54
always pretty. I'm not saying you, but
01:39:55
one can learn a lot about their partner
01:39:57
that's not always pretty when you do a
01:39:58
prenuptual agreement. And once the
01:40:01
prenuptual agreement is done, if it's a
01:40:02
reasonable prenuptual agreement, it goes
01:40:04
in a file. It doesn't get looked at
01:40:06
again. And it won't matter unless the
01:40:09
day comes that you need to pull it out.
01:40:11
And that's for a firsttime marriage.
01:40:14
Okay, you're a second time marriage or a
01:40:16
third time marriage and you've got kids
01:40:19
and custody issues and and and support
01:40:23
for your first wife. You definitely need
01:40:26
a prenup.
01:40:27
>> What is the most important thing we
01:40:28
should have talked about that we didn't
01:40:29
talk about?
01:40:31
>> Stephen, we've talked a lot about money
01:40:32
today, but money is just a tool. So,
01:40:36
what we actually haven't got to talk a
01:40:37
lot about is using money just to free
01:40:40
yourself to live your best life. And you
01:40:43
don't have to have money to live your
01:40:44
best life. Again, money is just a tool.
01:40:48
So, what's most important in life? I'm
01:40:50
going to say things that people know.
01:40:52
Health. You I started following you
01:40:54
because of all the shows you did on
01:40:56
health.
01:40:57
Love.
01:40:59
People hold on to love way too much.
01:41:03
Gratitude.
01:41:05
Being consistently grateful for the life
01:41:07
you have. Friendship.
01:41:12
loving your friends fully
01:41:14
and the la last thing is fun. You know,
01:41:18
I think people go through life and at
01:41:20
some point they stop designing their
01:41:22
life. My grandmother used to say, you
01:41:26
got to dream it, design it, and do it.
01:41:32
And she's like, you're going to run out
01:41:34
of time. So what I would say to anybody
01:41:36
is like this is you've got this one
01:41:40
beautiful moment in time where you're
01:41:42
here.
01:41:45
What do you want?
01:41:48
And start working on that today.
01:41:51
>> You listen to the episode with Tony
01:41:53
Robbins.
01:41:53
>> Yeah.
01:41:55
>> You've referenced him several times in
01:41:57
this conversation. If someone were to
01:41:59
ask me who was the greatest mentor and
01:42:01
the greatest influence in my life
01:42:02
besides my grandmother and my father,
01:42:04
it's Tony Robbins. So I went to Tony
01:42:07
Robbins seminars in the early 90s back
01:42:09
in the day when he had an infomercial
01:42:10
with audio cassettes.
01:42:12
And I went to a program that he taught
01:42:14
in Hawaii. He had this big hotel called
01:42:17
the Yaloa. And he did it he did an
01:42:20
exercise. This is so I it's like I
01:42:23
remember like this yesterday. He said to
01:42:25
this the room we were in and there were
01:42:27
I don't know a thousand of us in this
01:42:29
room. He said, "How many of you have a
01:42:32
dream that you're not working on?" And
01:42:35
we all we all had dreams like and so he
01:42:37
got us into a peak state and he had us
01:42:39
work on our dreams. And then he asked
01:42:42
the question, "How many of you think
01:42:44
you're going to be alive in 10 years?"
01:42:47
Everyone's like, "Yeah, I'm going be
01:42:48
alive in 10 years." He's like, "Great.
01:42:50
So I got a question for you.
01:42:52
Are you going to be alive in 10 years
01:42:55
having worked on your dream?
01:42:58
Hopefully gotten it right, done all the
01:43:00
things I've taught you to do, you know,
01:43:03
modeled the masters, got yourself in
01:43:04
peak state, learned the pattern
01:43:06
recognition.
01:43:09
Have you gotten 10 years older having
01:43:11
gone through your dreams and maybe got
01:43:13
it? Or did you just get 10 years over 10
01:43:16
years older and you let your dream die?
01:43:22
you let your dream die and the room he
01:43:24
just let that sit and then he had us go
01:43:28
off in groups of 10 and share our
01:43:31
individual dream. So we'd all written it
01:43:33
down on paper. So I shared that my dream
01:43:37
and this young kid financial adviser I'm
01:43:40
a guy. I shared my dream was to write a
01:43:43
book called Smart Women Finish Rich and
01:43:45
teach a million women to be smart with
01:43:47
money so they could protect themselves,
01:43:50
teach their kids, and help their family.
01:43:53
My heart's pounding, Stephen. I'm
01:43:55
sharing this idea with 10 strangers. And
01:43:57
then we go back into the room and he's
01:43:59
like, "How'd that go? Are you guys all
01:44:00
ready?" Gets us back in a peak state. 10
01:44:02
minutes later, a woman comes, taps me on
01:44:04
the shoulder, and she says, "I just
01:44:05
heard about your dream. My name's Vicki.
01:44:08
I've worked on Tony's last two books. If
01:44:11
you want to do your book, you're gonna
01:44:13
need a book proposal. You've done books,
01:44:15
you know this. She's like, I can help
01:44:16
you write a book proposal. I hired her.
01:44:19
I started working on that book proposal.
01:44:21
Later, I would go after the same agent
01:44:24
that Tony has, Jan Miller. She'd become
01:44:26
my agent. He'd write a cover letter. I'd
01:44:29
get a book deal, and I'd start working
01:44:30
to help millions of people. It started
01:44:32
at a Tony Robbins seminar. And I go back
01:44:35
to my grandmother, right? Dream it,
01:44:37
design it, and do it.
01:44:40
He gave me the life skills to do that.
01:44:43
And I will tell you something about Tony
01:44:44
because you know, you see Tony on all
01:44:46
these shows and people go, "Is Tony the
01:44:48
real deal?" I Stephen, if I if I was
01:44:51
with you and I send Tony a text and I
01:44:53
and Tony has a lot of friends like this,
01:44:55
Tony gets right back to me. Tonyy's the
01:44:57
real deal. I just went to Germany and
01:45:00
took my older son Jack who's 22 to see
01:45:03
him do UPW in September could bring
01:45:06
tears to my eyes because I wanted Jack
01:45:08
to have the experience without me there.
01:45:10
So he was, you know, bless Tony sitting
01:45:13
in the front row. I came in on day three
01:45:16
when he was in the peak state and I came
01:45:19
in and I watched him, you know, I was
01:45:22
basically his age and I thought, God,
01:45:24
you don't, you know, I went in, I gave
01:45:26
him a hug and I'm like, you just don't
01:45:28
even know. This is just this experience
01:45:31
that you're seeing, what you're learning
01:45:33
today, if you use this stuff, it will
01:45:36
change your life.
01:45:40
That's the power of Tony. And people go,
01:45:42
you know, whatever it is, your podcast,
01:45:45
your events, Tony's events, my books,
01:45:50
we're just catalysts.
01:45:53
But God
01:45:55
God gave you a seed and a dream. And
01:45:59
when we're the catalyst for like, look,
01:46:02
go do this. Listen to that voice.
01:46:06
Whoever your God is, that soul that you
01:46:07
hear yourself saying, I have a dream. If
01:46:09
I only had 10 years left to live, I
01:46:11
would really hate to die with that dream
01:46:15
inside me. That's the dream you go work
01:46:17
on.
01:46:19
>> And since then, you've done exactly
01:46:21
that. You've educated hundreds of
01:46:23
millions of people through your books,
01:46:25
through podcast, seminars, newsletters,
01:46:27
and thousands of media appearances on
01:46:30
how to do exactly that. How to get
01:46:31
financially free, pursue their dreams,
01:46:33
get hold of their money so that they can
01:46:35
live the life that is um destined for
01:46:37
them. And that is an incredible thing.
01:46:39
And you've sold almost 10 million copies
01:46:41
of your books worldwide. I'm sure you're
01:46:42
going to hit that number at some point
01:46:44
soon. And uh I guess you'll never get to
01:46:47
see the impact that that's had on so
01:46:48
many people's lives and how you've
01:46:49
therefore changed the trajectory of
01:46:51
their financial future and their kids
01:46:52
and their kids and their kids like your
01:46:54
grandmother did for you and your family.
01:46:57
I'd highly recommend everybody go and
01:46:58
listen to that episode. I'm actually
01:46:59
going to link it below. So if you
01:47:00
haven't listened to the episode with
01:47:01
Tony Robbins, that's a great next thing
01:47:03
to do if you're still listening now. But
01:47:05
uh David, I wanted to thank thank you so
01:47:06
much for coming and uh you present a
01:47:08
really interesting different perspective
01:47:09
on the subject of money which is is hard
01:47:12
to find. It's rare um but it's very very
01:47:14
very important and I'm hopefully it'll
01:47:16
be consequential for many. We have a
01:47:18
closing tradition as you know um where
01:47:20
we ask the next guest the question left
01:47:22
by the last and the question left for
01:47:24
you is
01:47:26
interesting. If you had all the money
01:47:28
you needed to have to support yourself
01:47:30
and your family, zero financial
01:47:34
worries, what job profession would you
01:47:37
be doing? Or rather, what would you
01:47:40
spend your time on?
01:47:44
>> That's surreal that this is the question
01:47:46
you're giving me that that was asked
01:47:49
before I got here. Like that's that's a
01:47:50
God moment, too. Like that's meant to
01:47:52
be.
01:47:52
>> This is, by the way, I'm not making this
01:47:53
up.
01:47:54
So,
01:47:56
cuz that's me. I have enough. I have all
01:47:59
the money that I need. I have my health
01:48:01
right now. I have my time. And this
01:48:04
year, what am I going to what what I
01:48:05
want to go do my dream for the year? I
01:48:07
want to have an endless ski season. So,
01:48:10
at the end of the year, ask me, did I
01:48:12
ski somewhere every month this year? I
01:48:14
leave you today. I go back to Florence
01:48:17
for 24 hours and I turn around, go to
01:48:18
Verbier, Switzerland with friends. I'm
01:48:20
going to try to ski somewhere every day,
01:48:22
every month this year with friends and
01:48:25
with family all around the world for
01:48:27
fun. I did this as my last dream to help
01:48:31
one more generation be smart with their
01:48:33
money. This is my final book. This may
01:48:35
be my final podcast. And what you've
01:48:37
done is you've updated your smash hit
01:48:41
best-selling book that's that sold
01:48:43
millions and millions and millions of
01:48:44
copies that you wrote 20 years ago to
01:48:46
make it relevant to the current
01:48:48
financial situation and world that we
01:48:49
live in.
01:48:50
>> And my goal with this was a lot of my
01:48:52
readers now in their 50s and their 60s,
01:48:53
but they've got young kids like I do and
01:48:55
I wanted this to be a book they can put
01:48:57
in their hands.
01:48:58
>> I'm going to link the book below.
01:48:59
Fantastic read. You've written several
01:49:01
incredible books. So, it's I'm going to
01:49:03
link all of them below in the
01:49:04
description for anyone that wants to
01:49:05
grab a copy of them. The Automatic
01:49:08
Millionaire, a powerful one-step plan to
01:49:10
live and finish Rich.
01:49:13
David, thank you.
01:49:14
>> Stephen, thank you. It's been great.
01:49:16
>> I'm going to show you how to get clear
01:49:17
on what you really want, figure out
01:49:19
what's been stopping you, put the plan
01:49:20
in place, and teach you the most
01:49:22
important thing that's made me
01:49:23
successful.
01:49:24
>> And I don't think people fully realize
01:49:25
the significance of how many of the most
01:49:27
influential people on planet Earth you
01:49:29
have worked with and continue to work
01:49:30
with. What is the pattern that you
01:49:32
noticed in those people?

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Episode Highlights

  • The Greatest Opportunity to Build Wealth
    The next decade presents an unprecedented chance for wealth building, yet many are struggling financially.
    “The next 10 years will be the greatest opportunity to build wealth in our lifetime.”
    @ 00m 59s
    January 29, 2026
  • Women and Financial Independence
    Women must take charge of their finances, as they often face unique financial challenges.
    “You have to be in charge of your finances. Period. Drop the mic.”
    @ 12m 05s
    January 29, 2026
  • The Importance of Homeownership
    Homeowners in America are worth 40 times more than renters, highlighting the wealth-building potential of owning a home.
    “Homeowners in America are worth 40 times more than renters.”
    @ 23m 21s
    January 29, 2026
  • The Reality of Renting
    Renting may seem cheaper, but it often leads to no equity and long-term financial struggles.
    “It is not a great long-term wealth building solution.”
    @ 36m 40s
    January 29, 2026
  • Financial Freedom
    The goal is to achieve financial freedom through smart saving and investing strategies.
    “What I really want for people is the chance to be financially free.”
    @ 39m 22s
    January 29, 2026
  • The Importance of Saving
    Saving just $27.40 a day can lead to significant wealth over time.
    “$27.40 a day adds up equaling $10,000 over the year.”
    @ 43m 08s
    January 29, 2026
  • The Snowball Approach to Debt
    Focus on paying off the smallest debts first to gain momentum and motivation.
    “We're going to get that small card paid off as fast as possible.”
    @ 57m 34s
    January 29, 2026
  • Automate Your Financial Life
    Automating savings can lead to financial success without constant effort.
    “Unless your financial plan is automatic, it will fail.”
    @ 01h 07m 44s
    January 29, 2026
  • Global Investments Outperform US
    Last year, global investments significantly outperformed US investments, with some funds up 35%.
    “That fund last year was up 35%.”
    @ 01h 14m 55s
    January 29, 2026
  • The Importance of Financial Knowledge in Relationships
    Couples often face financial challenges due to differing money management styles; understanding finances is crucial.
    “If your partner died today, what would you need to know about the finances?”
    @ 01h 25m 40s
    January 29, 2026
  • The Importance of Prenups
    Prenuptial agreements are essential for financial security in marriage.
    “Marriage is the ultimate contract.”
    @ 01h 38m 56s
    January 29, 2026
  • Dream It, Design It, Do It
    Pursuing your dreams is crucial for a fulfilling life.
    “You got to dream it, design it, and do it.”
    @ 01h 41m 26s
    January 29, 2026

Episode Quotes

Key Moments

  • Financial Freedom00:59
  • Boring Investments13:50
  • Lifetime Value17:32
  • Myth of Renting29:53
  • Home Equity30:55
  • Daily Action53:32
  • Investment Strategies1:12:41
  • Self-Sufficiency1:36:03

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown

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