Money Expert: #1 Formula to Build Wealth (It’s Simple)

I started diving into a little bit of your stuff in preparation for this. I'm like, man, there's literally so many different directions we could take this conversation. I'd be curious to know your backstory, but like I want to know how you recommend people think of wealth accumulation, I guess.

Yeah. Well, my my backstory informs like how I figured out a lot of the things in finance because I didn't come from money. My dad was a coal miner. His grandfather and my mom's grandfather, his grandfather and dad were both coal miners and my mom's dad was a coal miner. So, we had this fourth generation coal mining family and I've never stepped foot in a coal mine and I just knew like, hey, these guys work so hard, but it's not like they're getting further ahead financially, but I met other people that were wealthy. I was like, what do they do differently? So, I I used my young age to be really inquisitive and curious and interview all these people that I mean, and when I was young, I just thought someone with a big house meant they had money. I didn't know, you know, but it was like that was the start. And then I ended up in, you know, like as I was in financial services at the age of 19, I was able to like there's so many people willing to pay it forward to a young kid. I was like, "All right, what do you do differently than everyone else does?" And it was it really came to me in this one conversation where there was a woman named Nancy and she worked uh on as part of the Rich Dad team and I had read Rich Dad Poor Dad at the time. So, I'm, you know, in my early 20s, just got married, and I was like, get this little award for what I just doing in finances. She's like, "Yeah, that's awesome. I can't wait to till you get to the next level." You see, they they just look at money differently. And she goes, "Actually, they look at it differently. It's almost the opposite." I was like, "What do you mean?" Like, I was like, "Tell me more." And so, she asked me these questions. And every response I gave was, I budget. We're saving over 50% of our income. we live in this crappy apartment even though we're making a, you know, a good six-f figureure income because we're just saving and we're not going to have kids until we put this much money in the bank and we're not going to do this and I was putting off my whole life. And she just was like, I wonder what it's like living in the financial prison you built for your wife. I was like, oh man, I thought I was building that worth. I'm just building walls, you know? And like it it just hit me because I respected her and she just called me out.

And so I just called my wife and I was like, hey, I've been a total [ __ ] like I didn't mean to be. I thought I was being a protector and a provider. And she's like, "Yeah, like this dude that I married cuz like we're about a year in a marriage." She goes, "That first year was a lot harder than I thought because everything you think about is how do we cut back? How do we reduce which reduces fun and enjoyment?" She was a teacher. I complained. She was buying stuff for her classroom. And all of a sudden, that was a first shift. And then two other things happened at that same event. I met this mentor named Steve that helped me start like getting into meditation practice. And then I met this other person, Dan Sullivan, that I joined his program, a strategic coach. So I learned about business. And that next year, my income went up $480,000 because I went from being scarce and just saving and realizing no one shrinks the way to wealth and being about value creation and production. And that was the shift from scarcity to abundance. And it doesn't mean like I'm always abundant and I'm got it all figured out because sometimes I write the books and be like, damn, I wrote about that and I still made that mistake. They're so seductive. They're so it could happen. But the reality was my purview and my perspective was one that's primarily of abundance. And now more than anything, I can detect scarcity. I didn't know scarcity was a thing when I was believing everything was about scrimping and saving and sacrificing. I thought I was being a good steward of my money.

But the reality was I was limiting my upside. And my wife was like, "What if we just did this exercise?" And this was a big like when I came home from the trip, she's like, "Why don't we just look and see if there's anything that we're wasting money on?" And we cut out $170 a month. I mean, it wasn't really waste. We like had a Massage Envy, you know, membership. I actually used it, but we cut that out. We had cable way back in those days. We cut it out, which meant we now had no TV with anything on it, but like three channels, but we cut out stuff that we kind of enjoyed, and it didn't make a huge difference. You know, we're talking about like two grand a year. On the other hand, the next day, which was a Sunday, she's like, "What if we just thought of ways that you could actually make more money by just, you know, doing something more than what you're doing right now?" And I was young and doing well cuz I mentioned I got that award. And so I said, "What I might do is just like tell these financial guys that are 20 years older than me that keep asking, "How are you doing the numbers you're doing? What are you doing?" I'm like, "What if I just let them shadow me?" And I just charge them $2,500 to see what I do with clients for a day. And so we got like 10 people that signed up right away. And then they're like, "You should just do like a coaching thing." And within a within 18 months, we had 100 people paying $170 a month for me to do two conference calls cuz it was before the time of webinars, you know, there was no go to meeting back then or or uh Zoom. And we just produced our way through it. And I was adding more value and I was building these relationships. I was hosting study groups in my mid20s for a hundred financial advisors that were older than me, but they'd been stuck in their ways for so long because they hadn't had the shift that, you know, Nancy gave to me or Dan Sullivan gave to me or my mentor Steve had given to me or the gift that my wife had given to me being like, is this how we want to live? So, it's not that I haven't battled with scarcity along the way. It's just I become more resourceful and I've been aware when I'm in scarcity. So, I seek help and I ask better questions and I talk to people that don't tell me it's not my fault. when I talk to people that say, "What are you going to do about it and how can I help you?"

Yeah. Yeah. I think um it's funny, man. Like I I look at how society thinks in a lot of different ways and I I try to bring it into nutrition because that's kind of my wheelhouse, but I see like with nutrition there's some just like common sense pillars like eat real food, eat real food, eat enough protein, like real food. But there's so many different things that are just wrong that we've been fed to from a societal standpoint. I learned the food pyramid in college, dude. Think of what garbage the food pyramid was. 11 servings of bread. No, no healthy fat. Just no healthy fat. Just live on carbs. And you know, protein's an afterthought.

Exactly. And I mean, I'm I've been ketogenic now for over a decade. So like totally inverse of what society pushes on us from a nutritional standpoint. What's popular with, you know, big pharma, big medicine, big egg, all that stuff. I would assume much of that philosophical underpinning and just standard standard of care is also there in the financial sector.

They're completely Yeah. all over.

And I mean, think about you have big pharma pushing their agenda. You got big farm pushing their agenda. You've got Wall Street. And dude, like people trust Wall Street less than big pharma. I mean, you know, they shouldn't. They're both pretty bad. uh you know, but at least Big Pharma might have some good that they bring to the world. But the ultimate thing is we trust people that we watch only bad movies about because people don't want to take responsibility with their money because they've been sold that it's too complicated. They've been sold that they're not smart enough. They've been sold that just hand it over to the experts. But those experts are just salespeople, not people that are actually producing the value. And what it does is it gets people to stop thinking about investing in themselves and they only think about investing in products. And here's the deal. There is no magic product. There's like there's no magic pill that someone takes and they're perfectly healthy. Like that's what people want, right? And they just want that magic pill. Well, there's if there was a magic product, we'd all own it and we just all be wealthy. But it's like the health that you have dictates your energy and your lifestyle. The wealth is how you live your life and how you have more influence and control of your finances by producing value, not by taking risk. And everyone's been sold this bill of goods that says budget and start early, wait for 30 years. Here's a big myth. Let compound interest take care of it. Compound interest takes 30 freaking years. Compounded skills way outperforms compounding interest. You know, it just does. But everybody's been convinced to give their money to people they don't know to lock it away till they're 59 and a half. Otherwise, they're going to be penalized and they don't get trained to create any cash flow with it. Now, when they're retired, they're supposed to start creating cash flow. It is a broken system. At least a 95% failure rate. But people do it because there's enough people saying it. But you know, Thus Cidius has said a myth like he's like if 50 million people say a foolish thing, it's still a foolish thing.

Like look at the consensus belief of co that was just nonsense, right? Like you couldn't say check your vitamin D levels, you know, take some vitamin C, uh take care of your immune system, get some sleep, get some sun. They're like no, you got to take a shot that you know nothing about with no trials on it because that's going to magically save you. And then ironically everybody with long co took the shot. I never met anyone that like I didn't take the shot. Never had a problem. You know, it's like but people want to believe that there's a magic pill or potion or a magic product. The magic is in you and your ability to produce value and overcoming your fears till you get to the place of value creation because value creation is the key to wealth, not saving and discipline.

Yeah, I completely agree on all fronts, but I don't remember where I heard it, but I I read something somewhere. was like the the fastest and best most effective way to make a million dollars is to find a way to help a million people. And like that always just stuck with me. It's like okay, value creation, thinking in terms of abundance and not scarcity. And like we're not like that's not ingrained in us. We have this conservative approach to finances that's just I don't know like it's the same schooling upbringing. I've had several people on the podcast talk about like the education system and just how we're forced and structurally taught to think and I feel like it's just it runs deep.

We're taught to not Exactly. Exactly.

It's indoctrination. So the indoctrination works because they want 80% of people to be compliant as employees. 17% to be dropouts. They'll do the work that no one else will do. And they know 3% will be the outliers. So it doesn't matter whe they get educated or not, they'll find a way because of their entrepreneurial skills. So isn't it interesting that we're sold time for money? Hey, if you get a degree, you'll get paid more. We've seen that that's not really true in today's world. Then it's if you get an advanced degree, you'll get paid more per hour. And if you get a doctorate, you go paid even more per hour and you'll get the respect of people because they have to call you a doctor. So that's the brainwashing. Yet, you know, Huberman said over 50% of what's in medical books is wrong. And it's easy to see why because big pharma has influenced the medical books more than actual science. And so what we're taught is memorization instead of critical thinking. And so I, you know, I did good enough in school to keep my scholarship, but I never let the classroom get in the way of my education. I got my education by starting a business while I was in school, getting to know the professors that were in business and having conversations, asking who they learned from, meeting people that donated to the school, not just the people that were, you know, teaching in the class. And we had a professor that became a professor just because he had already made all of his money, managed $5 billion in municipal bond funds. I became friends with him. We played raetball. we worked out together cuz he want to get in better shape. I'm like, I want to get in better financial shape. And so, it's not through the traditional methods that most of the genius comes in the world. It's through the non-conventional methods that question that have critical analysis that say why is that the case? Where would that be true? Where that might that be limiting? Is there a better way? Like, but you get punished for that in school as being annoying and frustrating. You look at like they said that basically uh Einstein was an act and they you know they said that Elon was uh non, you know, just not going to make it. Like it's the all these people that think differently because they don't fit that like mold. My son is going to school next year the same school I went to. And it's an interesting conversation cuz I said dude I'll be disappointed if you graduate because what does that degree mean? Means nothing. I want you to go meet people. I want you to have a great time but right now his real education doortodoor sales. He's knocking doors every day. I'm like, that takes real guts. It takes courage. It takes resilience. You learn to deal with rejection. You learn about yourself when you're in your dark moments and what it takes to overcome that. Like, that's the education.

Um, and you know, that's from someone who's a college graduate. I'm still saying, and even my he looked at my wife and my wife's like, "Yeah, your dad's probably right." And he got into schools that were really prestigious and I said, "Here's how much those are going to cost. Um, I'm willing to pay for half of it, but if you don't go, you go to these places you're scholaripped, I'll go ahead and just put some money in Bitcoin. I'll put some money towards your first business. I'll support you with education outside the classroom, a mastermind, a mindset coach, a nutrition. I hired. So, he said, "Okay." So, I got him a I got him a personal trainer that wrote a nutrition plan for him and built the workouts. And the dude got my kid he got shredded, man. he got lean and fit and he's like, you know, he's like doing progressive overload training and he's telling me he's like, "Yeah, I work out because I watch you, right?" So, like that's where he's really going to learn. He's not going to learn that much in a classroom. Unless he is going to be like a specific like career. There are some things that college is still useful for, but he wants to be an entrepreneur in business. College will be mostly detrimental to that. Not helpful.

Yeah, it's it's funny, man. Like, I I'm in Northwest Arkansas. I graduated from the UFA um in 2014 and I've built the business since then. Like I went the whole corporate route initially, quit doing that, started the business cuz I was passionate about the business and when I look back at all that I've done in the business over the 8 n years we've had it, it's like man, I didn't learn jack [ __ ] from the university. Like I didn't learn anything there. I think the biggest thing that anybody can leverage and benefit from is being a great communicator and learning to interact with people and people willingly providing knowledge to you. Like if like as a parent, I got two young kids. My goal as a parent is to make them not annoying so that they can listen to other people that have been there, done that, experienced things and can part impart wisdom on them in a willing manner.

You'll like this. So I'm in my general education. I'm in the nutrition class. We're learning about the food pyramid. And then I guess back in the days I was taking creatine. I don't take it anymore, but I was talking to nutrition teacher in front of the class. I'm like, "Yeah, what does creatine do?" She's like, "Nothing. It has zero effect." I'm like, "Even if you told me it just retains water and it doesn't have a long-term effect, I'll take that, but there's no way I'm getting bigger right now by taking it. What is, you know, what is that?" And she just said, "No, it has no impact." I'm like, "I could tell by taking it, you know, it has an impact." But she knew nothing about that. And this is her job as a nutrition teacher. Like, and I learned food pyramid, which has been proven to be invalid. We looked at like the, you know, high the fat loss programs were all just fabricated back in the day and what was being said and the studies weren't real. I mean, it's amazing how much the public buys into because they watch the news. I mean, I just look at it like this way. Like, isn't it amazing? Like, they'll be like, "How do we sell more wine?" Well, let's tell people it's good for your heart to drink wine. Well, I don't know. Is it good or bad? Maybe there's some benefit to your heart, but I can tell you there's other detrimental benefits to your liver. And ultimately, if you're drinking US-based wine, the sulfates and all the other chemicals they put in to make it taste is going to be more detrimental, but they want to have they want to push wine. So, they'll say that's good for your heart. Well, maybe it's the grapes that were good. And when you eat the grapes that aren't fermented, you get the same benefit, but that's not the study's going to show. Or they'll say, "Hey, chocolate's good for you." Well, is it chocolate or is it cacao? And it's Hershey's chocolate's probably not good for you. But they're reporting it out of context just to sell more product. And so you just have a more critical eye about things and say why would this like what would be the benefit of this? And then just you could try it for yourself. You could test it out and see the results. I mean how do you feel afterwards, you know, and what does it look like? And why would this like it just seems really easy to be like eat whole foods? That seems to make a lot of sense.

It's crazy. I lived in Italy for a summer and I first off I tried to be paleo for the first two and a half weeks and after two and a half weeks I was like I just can't do it, man. I got to have some of this pizza. I I got to try some pasta. I got to have some gelato. I didn't gain any weight at all. Like none. Because they're not using the [ __ ] that we're using here. And they're not using the portions that we're using here. And they're just have a less a lower stress lifestyle.

Because if you have too much cortisol, you know, your food's going to still be a problem because you're holding on to stuff because a lot of people are just chronically stressed because they're doing too much and not clear about what they want and chasing someone else's dream instead of their own. And a lot of it's because they just haven't figured out money. A lot of people that haven't figured out money just carry around stress in the background all the time, afraid, are they going to have enough? Are they doing enough? They put it in things they don't understand. It loses. They feel bad about it. Like all that kind of stuff impacts our health. The relationships we have impacts our health. The purpose we have impacts our health. And our mindset impacts our health. Like we know the food we eat impacts our health. And whether we sleep impacts our health and if we get some sun or whether we walk or you know whether we drink enough water. For sure. Like there's some basic tenants that we don't have to biohack our way to everything. There's some basic things that if you do those fundamentals, you're going to be so far ahead of most people. But again, it's so much like, you know, nonsense. Like, dude, it just drives me nuts walking through a grocery store. Like my wife was like trying to get me a Father's Day like gift. Like, is there a healthy cereal that she could get me? Cuz as a kid, I love cereal. I looked at it looked like the box makes it look like it's healthy. I'm like, "This is 18 grams of added sugar, babe. I can't eat it." Like, but like they they, you know, all the 10 essential minerals and vitamins. It's all a lie. And they're selling it with cartoons and characters and in movies. And screw these athletes, dude. Screw these comedians that like they have so much influence. And what do they choose? They choose Sprite and Gatorade and they choose gambling and they choose credit cards. It's like, dude, you guys have real influence that can make a difference. What if you made a few million dollars less and you still had a hundred million? Maybe put positive, you know, influence into the world instead of just selling out to all these big shitty ass corporations. Like this is why I don't invest in stocks. I'm a money guy that doesn't invest in many stocks. And the reason is I don't want Coca-Cola to survive. The world's a better place if they die tomorrow. Their whole notion of a Coke within the reach of everyone's hand on the planet, that's diabetes for most people. They have a thing called stomach share. They go, "How much stomach share calorically do we have?" What? You're giving empty calories that are detrimental and you're trying to get stomach share? Like, I don't want that company to survive. I don't want to support that company in any way, shape, or form. So, I just don't invest in those companies even if they could profit. There's other ways to make money, my own business, the impact that matters to me, the purpose. Listen, I think that we've been lulled to sleep and indoctrinated that it doesn't matter what we do with our money, whether it's good or bad, as long as we make money. And so that's why we see people that endorse garbage. And that's why we see people that invest in companies that are terrible because sometimes the terrible companies continue to destroy things like Monsanto might be the worst company ever, just destroying our soil every single day. And yet people are okay, I guess, investing in it because it got a good return. But there'll be a reckoning, you know?

Yeah, I've got a problem with that, man. Like I put I put integrity pretty much the top of the pedestal, man. It's like you you have to stand for something or you fall for anything as the saying goes. And like I do not want to invest money in things that I can't truly 100% get behind. And I will happily leave money on the table if I can sleep better at night knowing that I didn't sell my soul to the devil so to speak.

So when it comes to like if I'm talking nutrition to somebody, I mean especially if they're coming from a standard American diet, they just be like drinking water from a fire hose. I'm assuming it's probably same with money. Like I could talk about ketone bodies and glucose and diabetes and all that stuff and it'd be like a million different angles. Million different angles with taxes and write offs and all kinds of stuff with wealth, but if I'm giving somebody an elevator pitch of like, hey, you got to move your body, progressive overload, eat real food, quality fats and proteins, minimal carbohydrates, and stay hydrated and get sleep. Like boom, there's that. What is that version in wealth?

Yeah. So the first one is automate your savings to take money off the top so you don't coingle your funds. So when you make a deposit in the bank, have a separate account so those dollars go to a separate account that is paying yourself first. Number two, learn to keep more of what you make. How do you do that? Save tax, save interest, save on non-performing investment fees, and then save on insurance costs. It's just basic design so you're not overpaying the government or overpaying companies so you keep more of what you make. That's about another 10% boost to someone's bottom line. Then it's invest in yourself. Ask yourself, how can I make more money by serving more people? So, you develop the skill sets first before you put money in a plan that doesn't benefit you for 30 years. Once you earn more money, then you look at one type of asset class. You figure out your investor DNA. What type of investments are you interested in that you're willing to learn about that you're going to fulfill on? Some people love real estate. I don't. Some people love buying a business or growing a business. That's me. intellectual property books, podcasts, like you find the thing that you could become expert at. Even if you utilize experts, stop diversifying in a bunch of things you know nothing about and just get super focused on one thing you you have ability towards that you're driven to learn about and that's aligned with your values. Focus first and then when you diversify, it's when you take money off the table to preserve it. But it's focus that builds wealth. So, automate your savings, save on all your, you know, interest, tax, IRS, and investments because there's tons of hidden fees. And then invest back into yourself. And then pick one asset class that you're willing to learn about. It's that's the fundamentals.

And how so you said your passion towards that? That's the business for you. So, not real estate, not stocks. It's like building, investing, and growing businesses.

Yeah. Because I want to help create a million lasting legacies. So all my money can go towards that because it's a big enough vision that I don't need to fund other people's vision. I don't need to put money in stocks like SpaceX that I'm not going to keep up with and understand and you know make sense of a 93 times earnings. I'm not going to go put my money in, you know, a bunch of real estate with tenants that I would never meet or get to know um just because it's going to cash flow because I don't like looking at spreadsheets talking to attorneys and bankers and talking to property managers and and maintenance people. like none of that's inspiring to me. But other people love spreadsheets. Other people love the that it's a little bit further disconnected. And I have clients that just crush it in real estate. So that could be the right asset for the right person. But most people just automatically think investing equals stocks and they just put everything in stocks. Well, that if if you're just going to raise the white flag and say, "I don't want to think about it." Great. I just recommend if you're in that case, put it in an index fund because after 30 years, 99% of the time it beats all the managed funds. You don't have to pay the fees.

So save money. I don't choose to do that path, but I'm also cool with people choosing their path. I feel like I'm there to be more of a guide to understand who are they, what's important to them, and what's the best path to get there. So, some people go, I want to pay off my mortgage. Great. Let's help you do that. Others are like, I don't care whether they have a mortgage cuz it's a low interest rate and I can do better. Awesome. Let's keep that. But I want to let them understand the consequences and the best ways to do it so that they're informed and make a decision that aligns their objectives with the methods how they get there. So, I think of myself more as a guide. Um, and that means it keeps it exciting because you would invest very different than just someone else because you have a certain knowledge in health. You have a certain knowledge in business, which means you could evaluate health companies. Like I've had I've had clients like Ben Greenfield and other people in health that like I just got them super focused on where their where their real knowledge was and watch them grow massively, you know, because they have the the the knowledge and the willpower and all that. And it's like, stop worrying about all these other things you know nothing about outside of the scope. open. It's like, dude, you just watched him take off. Or had another buddy named Mike Giri wrote about in one of my books that like when I first started working with him cuz we were good friends. It's like, why are you investing all this other stuff? He's like, I don't know. I'm like, why don't you just focus on these things and start buying companies to support it? And all of a sudden, he was flying private. Another friend that was had a 401k and it was only like, you know, 1% of his net worth, but 90% of his trust. I'm like, why are you in a 401k? Why don't you start this business you're talking about? that business just got a $77 valuation that he started in 2010. His 401k at best would be like56 million today. But like I like to I like to work with people that want to make a bet on themselves. If they don't, there's plenty of financial people for you out there. But if you're like, "Hey, I want to do something that really creates a legacy. I want to do something that really allows me to make a big impact." I love that cuz it's fascinating and it's fun and it's like, you know, I know that your best asset is you. It's not a stock, bond, or piece of real estate. It's the knowledge that you have. It's the business that you have. It's the way that you create value. And it's the way that you get education out there. So, if I come to you as a financial guy and say, "Let's get you in a diversified portfolio in these different funds." And you'll be able to touch them when you're 60 years old. Don't touch them until then. And don't worry if the market goes down, you can just buy on a dip. And if it goes up, you're making money. Like, no matter what, I'm just going to convince you to keep your money there because I get a percent no matter what. I don't like that model. I don't like I get a percent no matter what you do. and I'm going to get paid 10 times more if you have 10 times more money than another client. I'm not doing 10 times the work. That model is broken. It hasn't worked for a long time, but people are still doing it.

Yeah. And for me, like like both my parents took totally different path in life than I did. I mean, I'm the entrepreneur one. They are more like my dad's a was a teacher professor. Brilliant. My mom is nurse practitioner, but I mean, they both went the you know, pension plan, stocks, all that jazz. And they they're they're safe. They're they're well off. They're fine. They're stable right now. They don't have the stressors of me in business. But it's like my upside knows no bounds. Like when I'm working for somebody else, I've got a very very finite upper limit to what they're going to pay for this position. If I put it all into their pension plan or their their 401k program, like that is also limited. I don't like limits. I don't like ceilings. With me betting on myself, I have a lot more stressors. I have a lot more things that keep me up at night. But I feel like the upside potential is also just as high.

You also get like so many lessons. Like business is one of the best incubators for learning because it's like hunting. You either get the animal or you don't. There's not an almost. In business it's either you were responsible and did what you set out to do or you didn't, right? So it's like there's there's real accountability there. A lot of people that you know if you get tenure there's not as much accountability which means the tendency of a human being for many of them is just to kind of like cruise at that point and there's not as much learning. It kind of plateaus. Not always but more often because if you plateau in business you start go falling behind. you start, you know, losing, you know, you got to create a vision that is so compelling that people want to work with you and work for you and be clients. Like they they want that person that's speaking the future into existence and getting them excited about a bigger possibility.

Do you have like a like a like an individual's life cycle stages going through wealth accumulation and creation? Like is there like if you're just trying to get things figured out and build a stable, you know, self-sufficient base, like you probably shouldn't be worried about making trust funds for future generations and kids, right?

Yeah. So, the first thing is um you want to get financially fit, which just means your financial house is in order. You know why you're doing what you're doing and you're doing it right. Do you have the right car insurance? Homeowners liability, disability, medical insurance, life insurance, business owner policies of your business, the right tax strategies as a business, the right corporate structure, how you pay yourself, how you protect your investments in the downside, if you've reduced your fees. Like I have a checklist, it's called a financial health assessment that lets people see specifically where they're set and not set. If they just put FHA in Instagram at Garrett B. Gunderson, I'll hook them up with that checklist. That's the first step. Know where you're set and where you're not set and what applies. The second thing is to focus on financial independence. Financial independence is different than retirement. Retirement is like I'm going to wait till I'm old to finally enjoy life when I'm too old to enjoy it. That's my problem with retirement. Like missing out on memories along the way, not having quality of life because everybody's taught to sacrifice the present for a better future, but they miss out on all the memories. So financial independence is creating cash flow from assets to start covering your basic expenses. When you're financially independent, your work optional, which means you can swing for the fences in everything you do, knowing your foundation is handled. Then all along the way, it's about financial freedom. Financial freedom is a state of mind. Is money the primary reason or excuse you do or don't do something? If it is, you're not financially free. If it isn't, you're financially free. So people that are financially free say, "Do I value this? What's the economic impact? And what do I pay?" People are not financially free is like, "What's the price?" And they say stuff like, "I can't afford it." Someone financially free would say, "How could I afford it? What would it take?" Just a different mindset, more resourceful. So fit, independent, and free. That's kind of the three phases. But I always look at like if you really want to dial in your finances. Always seek to make more money because a lot of people get stuck thinking I got to live within my means. Well, there's three ways to do it. One is to budget. If you're a train wreck, I guess you have to do it, but it's never going to set you free. The second is to uh be more efficient within your means. Plug the leaks, IRS, interest, investments, insurance. Like I talked about, the third is expand your means, add more value, serve more people, solve bigger problems. Then after you make more money, learn to keep more of the money you make, and then learn to grow your money. People try to invest before they're ready. Because we have every video on the internet saying if you just start investing $2,000 at 20 years old and stop at 30, you'll have more than the person that started at 31 years old and invested all the way to 60. And you would have put a third of the money in. Okay, fair. I want my kids and I got my kids from the time they were teenagers to start putting money away because they don't have all the skill sets yet. And now I want them to develop their skill sets. Now they're, you know, 18 and 21. They both have over $10,000 in Bitcoin that they put of their own money through their own jobs because I'm like, hey, that's has tons of upside potential even if it doesn't pan out. whereas I don't want you to wait 40 years to see if the stock market's going to get you where I want to go. But that's fine if they want to put some money to stocks, but they're going to research and I'm going to teach them how to invest there. Um, but it's really about like grow your money is the third step. Make more money is the primary step. Keep your money is the second step. Some people go, "Oh, I'm going to invest before they've invested in themselves." Like it'd be like if you started a business, you're like, "I'm going to save everything in my investments." But you don't hire a team. Guess what? you're never going to grow that business because you're going to hit a ceiling of how much you can do on your own. You know, maybe with AI you could do more without as much of a team, but the reality is if you're too cheap because everybody taught you it's all about budgeting. You're probably not going to buy the course. You probably try to do it all yourself. And that is not a weight road to wealth. You know, if you want to go fast, you go alone. But if you want to go far, bring people with you. That proverb like that's the key is you start investing yourself. Then you invest in your team. And then if you have a big enough vision, you don't need to worry about all these products that are out there. You just say, "What's one asset class?" Whether it's real estate, whether it's, you know, uh, bonds, whether it's like where is it that you're going to just take money off the table from your business and start storing it somewhere else so you capture the wealth because businesses do have an insatiable appetite. And if you don't start pulling money out of the business by paying yourself properly and having something that's not correlated to the business, then you have too much focus and you're going to have unnecessary risk. So that's that's where the diversification comes in, but that prematurely done is going to cause the business to flounder.

Your business. Yeah. You it's it's almost like someone's stingy when they do that. Like they won't spend on the business, but they'll save money. And I'm like, "Stop spending time to save money." As you're a business owner, like I don't know what what's your hour worth right now, your highest hour. Like you know, you don't want to say, "Well, I'm gonna do this other stuff." Like I hired a I hired a cook, you know, it's just like easier. She could just manage my macros. She could like I'm really particular like with my food, no salt, all this kind of stuff. And you know, it's like and plus I get bored when I'm doing it. Like I eat the same stuff. She can like put a little different something in the stir fry like the different vegetables. She's going to the store for me. So it saves me three and a half hours a day. That cost me $100. All right. So 3 and 1/2 hours on my on a bad three and a half hours if I had the flu and I was throwing up and I barely was opening my eyes, I can outproduce $100. Was not that's like in my sleep. So why would I do that myself unless I got total joy in the process? Well, people do that because they've been lied to and said if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself. If you want to stay broke, do everything yourself. Because if you read the book, The Millionaire Next Door, it'll tell you how to be a miserable millionaire by never spending your money, never investing in yourself, not driving the vehicles you want or the having the clothes you want, never talking about money, and unfortunately when you die, your kids will blow that money because they didn't know you had it. So what good was it in the first place? It hurt you because it poisoned your mind and hurt your kids because they inherited it with no instruction manual.

That's the unfortunate thing.

Yeah, man. There is so much conflicting, confounding information that people don't know where to turn. Um, you you've referenced the books, several books. What what books do you put much stock in? Like I've read some of Dan Sullivan stuff. Like what do you actually recommend?

You've written a book too.

Look, I've written 10 books. The books that matter most for for readers would be killing secret cows is my original book. I did an updated version in 2024. So Killing Secret Cows 2 will teach you what's your investor DNA and what are the nine financial myths that once you understand, you know how to avoid. So, it's like a permission to succeed book. The second book is called What Would Rockefellers Do? Which says, "What do the wealthiest families do that most people never know?" And I just lay it out that anyone can start to apply the main principles to help you create substantial generational wealth. Even if you're starting in negative or at zero, you don't you don't have to be a millionaire to benefit from the book. Then the third book is Money on Mass, which is how do you heal your relationship with money? Know what your money persona is. Find where these financial leaks are so you can put it back in your life. That's my newest book and those are the three books that I think have the biggest impact on finance. Um most of the books like there's so many good books on thinking. Um the books I've read on finance that I think are pretty good like you know um Morgan Howell's a good author. He's got some really good financial books. The art of spending and you know uh psychology of money. I think that there's some really helpful stuff in there. Um I think the people that write the best financial books are not financial adviserss. They're like highly productive business people that have to write about their views on money. Um there's just, you know, I've read some super boring books on money that are like really good like opportunity cost and finance and accounting that would put most people to sleep, but like for me it really helped me out. There's a book that's really helpful called economics in one lesson by Henry Hlett. Like that's probably the most enjoyable economics book that teaches the fundamentals that will kind of help you think for yourself in a lot better way. Um, you know, Rich Dad Poor Dad and Rich Dad's Guide to Investing are still classics and teach you about cash flow. My problem with most financial books is you have books like Susie Orman. Her bias is, hey, you just need to save money and then put it in the market. Yet only 5% of her net worth a few years ago was in the market, yet she's telling everyone else to be in the market. She made her money through intellectual property and doing deals with FDIC and Starbucks and advertisers, yet she's telling everybody else to put money in the market. Even like I think the holy grail of investing is a really good book by Tony Robbins. I don't really love his book um money master the game because it's more like how do you want to stay middle class because it's funny he's he makes so much money from so many businesses yet his

The notion of the book was, "Hey, most businesses fail. You should just put your money in low-cost index funds." Inside of a... I read that book, and that was pretty much the synopsis of it. Just put it all in index funds.

Yeah. And I also thought, like, all the billionaires at the back of the book, but one, lied. All of them said, you know, they asked, he asked Charles Schwab, "What should people do?" "Oh, they should put their money in a discount brokerage account." Charles didn't make his money from putting money in a discount brokerage account. He made it by creating the discount brokerage account and having the biggest discount brokerage account company in the world. So, he became a billionaire through value and expansion. You know, you ask, he asked the Vanguard guy, Bogle, like, "What should people do?" "They should put an index fund." He didn't become worth $75 million by putting money in an index fund. He created the index fund, right? Like, so we go through the list. Even Buffett, Buffett's like, "Oh, yeah, just put your money in the market and, you know, diversify." He's not diversified at all. He's very strategic. He bought publicly traded companies and then had the main ownership of that company and then deployed his entire methodology. And by the way, it's thousands of percent that he's outperformed the market because he bought individual companies, right? Or he bought some stocks that he's on the board or knows inside what's going on, but ultimately he's not diversifying into a bunch of companies. He said, "If you could only make 20 investments over a lifetime, you'd become a better investor because you'd stop wasting money on things that don't matter. You'd really be selective with your investments." And he goes, "I'm not a good investor just because I'm a good investor. I'm a good investor because I'm a good business owner. I'm a good business owner because I'm a good investor." And those two things relate. And yet most people think, "Oh, he's the set it and forget it guy." He's just saying, "Hey, most of you won't do the work, so you should set it and forget it." And I'm going, "If you do, expect 7 to 9% because that's what he's telling you to expect. Yet a lot of people think they're going to get 12 or more, and they're not." So they're going to be disappointed because it's exponentially different, uh, as Tony Robbins wrote about in The Holy Grail, if you have, you know, money in a public traded fund or in a private fund, because most of the returns go to private investors, not public investors.

Private investors are where the companies get funded early on and where the big dollars come. The problem is there's more speculation. You have to be more astute. You have to be more aware. You have to be more knowledgeable. And if you just throw your money, you might lose all of it in those types of things. But if you're smart about it, you might have hundreds of millions of dollars. It's just most people won't do the work or they just don't know that that exists. So, yeah, I mean, it's I, you know, Dave Ramsey's book, if you're a train wreck, I guess it'll get you on track, but it'll keep you in scarcity. It's going to make you feel guilt and shame around your money. And again, he's a billionaire because he built a campus and has an intellectual property company and, you know, didn't get it because he bought a mutual fund. That's not why he got rich.

So, like, do as they do, not as they say. That's what I would say. Do as they do, not as they say. And most people are spewing [ __ ] with most of their content based upon what they think people will watch, not based upon what they actually did.

Are you pretty bullish on Bitcoin? You've mentioned it a few times.

Uh, it's either going to be amazing or go to zero. It's, it's I'm not convinced that I'm not convinced on it.

Will it stop at 21 million? Well, you know, I know that there's a lot of like speculation that the, you know, supercomputers are going to hack it and stuff like that. Well, guess what? They're going to hack the bank if that's the case. So, like that's a poor argument because if we have these quantum computers, they're going to destroy the banking system before they destroy Bitcoin. But, I don't know, man. I mean, I've heard I, I'm, I'm holding on to my Bitcoin, but I'm not going to bet my future on it, right? Like, I'm going, this is an asset class that I think is worth looking at because there's if there really is a finite number of it and how much money they're printing, it's worth having a digital asset class that's easy to transfer and take with you where, you know, gold and silver is going to be pretty hard to carry around with you if [ __ ] hits the fan. Um, I, I don't want people to get distracted with a bunch of things like crypto and, and, you know, tech and AI stocks because they don't know enough about it. They just listen to the buzz cycle. And the buzz cycle is all BS. It gets people really emotional. They finally get in when it's too late and then other people sell. And by the way, when you hear people, oh, they, they lost money. No, they didn't lose money. They transferred it to someone else. It didn't get lost. It's in someone else's pocket. Lost is a nice way of saying, "Yeah, I put it in. It didn't work out." Well, it worked out for someone.

May not have worked out for you, but it worked out for someone. And they were in the know and knew a lot more, but they tried to make everybody feel like they were part of something when they weren't. So, I want people to be a lot more calculated. That's why I think anytime there's a bad economy, everybody gets really distracted and they start putting their money in stupid places instead of just focusing on themselves and being like, "How can I grow myself? How can I grow my relationships? How can I grow my skill sets? How can I grow the amount of people that I serve?" Like, those are the things that are really going to make a difference is when you're irreplaceable. It's not going to be because you have a big 401k because you can't spend that at the store without taking a hit or a penalty or taxes and you're relying on companies that you know nothing about. You've never been in the boardrooms. You've never talked to the owners. You don't know if the talent's moved on or if they're going to be disrupted by AI and have no plan because big companies, they move slowly quite often.

What is your pulse on the market, the economy, just the the aura right now as a whole? I mean, I've talked to several people and a lot of people that seem to be in the know, you know, suggest that we're headed for a pretty significant depression by 2030. Of course, how much that's just fear-mongering? Who knows? The way I feel kind of leaning into that, you know, abundant mindset as opposed to scarcity. It's like I can't, I've got to be stoic about things. What can I control? What value can I add? Like, I don't want to waste time thinking and obsessing about things that I... This is why I don't have a TV to watch the news on. I don't give two shits about what the news...

...tells. Well, because you know that's all fabricated on both sides. It's all, it's all nonsense, right? It's all just stories that are designed to promote fear because it's not really the news. It's, it's how do we get people to watch?

Mhm.

You know, breaking news, red on the head. Like, remember in COVID when they're like reporting deaths every day? I'm like, you think we have a system to truly report deaths this fast and, you know, motorcycle accidents of COVID death? Like, come on. You know, like, I people that didn't see through that, I'm still shocked. I know there were some people that had comorbidities that died of COVID, but it was like, they can't report it that quickly. They don't, you know, it's like it was just a lot of fear-mongering. So, I just didn't watch. And, uh, you know, I think that that's kind of what happened. So, most people predict nine out of two recessions, meaning these people that predict it predict it and they're wrong quite often. And part of the reason they're wrong is because there's so many variables at stake. You have people printing money which creates problems over time. But they feel like they have to print it because we're 38 trillion in debt and you can't collect that much just from taxing people. So the stealth way to tax them is to print money and water down the soup, basically. And that eventually has some type of reckoning. But at the same time, we have advancements in technology that offset it for a while. And we have, you know, um, we have a lot of people that use the dollar globally and that artificially props things up and, you know, so it's like it's hard to predict when it's going to happen because it comes down to a lot of factors like consumer sentiment or exposed fraud. Like, think about 2008. What was the problem? We had a lot of fraud that was going on that nobody really knew about with all these kind of things like collateralized debt obligations and packaging mortgages and selling them off whether people were laid on their payments and they were doing these stated income loans where people could be a stay-at-home mom and they could qualify for a million-dollar home because they just fabricated the income and underwriters were complicit in it. So, we just didn't know how much fraud there was. And that comes crashing down fast when we catch up with fraud. Now, in the government, we know the fraud is rampant. It's it's crazy. Like we're $38 trillion in debt. It's not like that $38 trillion went specifically to things that were benefiting humanity. A lot of that was just siphoned off. And so they keep hiding it as long as they can. Eventually there's going to be a reckoning. It's just when is going to be hard to say. And even if there is a recession or depression, we don't know how long it will last or if who it will impact or who it won't impact. Like in 2008, my business suffered in 2008 cuz I had a lot of real estate. But by 2009 it started climbing. By 2010 we had the biggest year we had ever had in the history of our company because people started to listen and we could point out what the problems were. So I think recessions happen and depressions happen because people become depressed about the news so much they start recessing in their activities every day and they stop spending money because they get so afraid. They feel like they have to hold on to it. They stop investing themselves. They stop investing in their team. They start to hold back. Like, here's a perfect example. There was a major recession long ago and McDonald's and Burger King, two companies you and I would be totally fine if they never existed, but uh, it's the story I'm telling. Um, they had completely different mindsets. McDonald's was like, "Hey, we're in a recession. I think that we could start buying the real estate that was never affordable on the corners that will get the most traffic because sure they're selling burgers and fries and milkshakes and whatever, but they're also a real estate company buying, you know, and acquiring the land."

So, they're like, "What we're going to do is we're going to increase our advertising budget, too, because we're going to let people know we're keeping the prices the same and we're going to be there and we're going to, you know, in this tough times you can come have a happy meal, whatever, right?" They're they're doing all that. Burger King said, "You know what? It's going to be a nuclear winter. We just need to hunker down. We're going to cut back." And guess what? McDonald's increased their market share 53% and Burger King lost 8% of their market share. Same time period. Different mindset. So, you don't have to participate in the recession.

Yeah, 100%. Man, I feel like people, I feel like people are really worried about AI AI right now because they feel like they're going to be replaceable. But like that is your own doing right there. You have complete control over what value you bring to the table and you can acquire skill sets that no AI can replicate and that makes you irreplaceable. It's just like totally shifted mindset. Man,

when Gutenberg came out with the printing press, which by the way only happened because of a wealthy German that financed it.

Um, you know, uh, everybody thought it was the end of the world because what, what job were the scribes going to do? That were just fighting, you know, and when they, they tried to present it as evil and the end of humanity. And what did it do? It democratized education. It gave access to education all over the place. It, it built new jobs that didn't exist before. You know, now you look like how many authors are there today versus 10 years ago? And you, I have people going, well, are books going to be gone? I don't know. 8% more books bought were bought last year than the year before. More vinyl was bought last year. More records were bought than any other time in human history. So as much as AI is going to replace jobs, yes it will, but it's also creating new jobs. Everybody said, "Oh, the coders are screwed." Guess what? Vibe coding has become much bigger than coding ever was. So it's already been kind of wrong. Like we can have these breakthroughs even though things will get replaced. And yes, we don't know what the future holds. But if we only worry about the future instead of taking care of what's happening in the present, you have to start learning how to use and adopt AI. Look, I'm, I'm not technologically savvy. So, I went to an an AI hackathon and I built a website in one afternoon because they just showed me what to do. And I was like, can it be this easy? You know, it's like you learn how to do stuff. I had, I have an AI consultant. I had him come to a full day with my whole family. We learned how to make songs on Sunno. We learned how to build websites in 5 minutes for my, for something really rudimentary like, and that was even a year and a half ago. I think people get afraid when they don't start adopting and using it. And there's this whole like movement of young people that are saying they hate AI, like that they don't, they want it to go away. And I'm like, wait, like this is just people feeling like they don't have a future. So, you have to start saying, well, how can I have a better future because I could become more productive. Have you ever seen that show like Edge of Tomorrow, Live, Die, Repeat, or Elysium with Matt Damon? Like either of those shows?

Yeah, I think I've seen that one. Matt Damon. Yeah.

Yeah. So, like they get in those suits right before they battle and now they're twice as strong. And that's AI. It can help you become twice as productive. And what I love is it gets rid of a lot of the work that I don't love doing so I can focus on creativity. Like, I've had people say because I've done comedy, "Do you have AI write jokes?" I'm like, "Hell no, that's the fun part. I'm not going to have AI write jokes." It's like my joke was like, "Do you have AI have sex with your wife?" I'm like, "No." Like that's stupid. Why would you take away the fun part? But do I have it do research for me and cite articles and find things that I would normally have to pay a research assistant to do? You're damn right I do. But I make sure to validate it. But like, dude, that saves me so much time. I built a logo watching the Knicks and the Spurs game. I, I was like, dude, this is one of my favorite logos we've ever had for something we're up to. I was like, that was so easy. And that would have taken back and forth for weeks and thousands of dollars minimum. And it took me moments back and forth, gives some feedback. I was like, that's the power is like it can allow you to do things so much more effectively. And if you don't adopt it, like I just think that you're going to get left behind and then you're going to really resent it.

Totally agree. Um, how, how do you draw a line between the, or what is the difference, I guess, between enough and a scarcity mindset? Like, I don't want to have a scarcity mindset. At the same time, I do want to be, I, I don't want to be satisfied, but I do want to be content in life. And like, kind of going back to your background with like hunting and spending time with your father. Like, there's things out there in the mountains watching the sunrise and sunset that no amount of money, no AI, you know, wizard is going to be able to replace, do, or take the place of. It's like, there are probably things in life as humans that we should be purest in nature towards. And have, again, scarcity is probably not the right word, but just more of a traditional mindset about...

Okay, so two things on this. One is, fall in love with the journey, not the outcome. And enjoy the process, not just the result. If we focus too much on the result, it's hard to have contentment. If we focus on designing a game worth playing, we've already won. So, design the game that you want to play and then you've... So, you win first, but then you play because you design this life that you love. Most people are going, "I'll be happy when." They're addicted to outcomes. Like, I've seen it with athletes. I mean, some of my favorite speeches are like Grammy speeches. I'll use just two very different artists. Drake won a Grammy and he got up and he said, "Hey, if people are singing your songs, you already won. You don't need an award for that. You won because you're making music and people are singing it, like, you won." Taylor Swift won and she goes, "Hey, you know what? Like, I appreciate the award, but I win every time I write a chorus, every time I figure out a bridge. The actual process, it's kind of that Rick Rubin creative act, the art form is what matters." And so I see AI removing the busyness so that we can get to intimacy with human beings. Like, in my financial firm, we use a lot of AI to analyze everything that's going on to save us time so we can spend more time having the deeper conversations with our clients. And then instead of us building a 30-hour blueprint, we can build it in 30 minutes. And then that gives us all this time that we can really dive deep and what does legacy mean to that person and what are their fears and what are their dreams and and what do they want to have and like ask the question behind the question instead of just doing a transaction. I think that AI could create more intimacy if people learn how to use it properly, or it will destroy it if they fear it. And I'm like, I'm just looking as a way to spend more time with community, have more in-person events. We're doing that now because of like, I'm like, "Hey, we've saved time. Let's just bring clients in and get one-on-one time with them. Let's have some fun together." Like, that's what we're thinking with AI. We're not going, "Hey, how do I get rid of employees?" We're going, "How do I make every employee get three times more done so they feel even better and we serve our clients better?" That's a different frame.

Yeah. No, 100%. How do you take that when it pertains to the actual act of wealth creation, accumulation? Like, are you always thinking about how to grow because you love the journey and the process so much? Are there times in your life where you're like, you know what, I'm not even focused on that. I'm not even fixated. I'm just wanting to be present and not even play the game, so to speak.

When I sold my business in 2021, I had this like switch in my head that flipped that was a problem. I started to like calculate my net worth regularly. I started looking at my investments more. I started to like think about keeping that net worth at where it was instead of living the life that I loved. And so that was like a problem because now I'm looking at this number that's relatively meaningless. I'm like, the only one that really knows it and nobody's my friend or loves me because I have a net worth or don't have a net worth because nobody really knows. But it was starting to occupy my mind. So instead, I had to be like, well, what's a process that I love? What's something that I enjoy? What's something that I can like engage in? And so like, yeah, I want to measure cash flow. Is it going in the right direction? Is it improving? Like, that kind of stuff more than net worth. And I want to think about like, what are the things that every day that I want to do more of and what are the things I want to do less of as it pertains to all aspects of life, including the money that I make. So I still have objectives, but I make my objectives about the number of clients I serve, not about the direct amount of money I make or how my net worth goes up. So now I'm relating it to people and the byproduct of serving those people is I make more money. But if I'm like, "Oh, I want to make $20 million," now it's less about the person and more about my ego. I want the $20 million to be a byproduct of, I want to serve 3,000 people. I want 3,000 people in my community. And the result of that is going to be that net worth or that cash flow or that thing. But now I'm focused on individuals, not numbers. And when we can get there, then we can be in a place of service and you can feel content with your work day-to-day instead of the gap of where you want to be versus where you are. And I kind of look at it this way, too. I, I romanticize the process. When something's new and it's difficult and like, oh, this is like approaching a girl for the first time. It's like, there's there's nerves, but you, it's like getting on stage to do comedy the first time. There's nerves and it was like the payoff was so big at the end because it went well and I was like, this is awesome. So, you know, I look at people, look at service, look at the things you want to do, hire out the things you don't want to do and become masterful at creating quality of life. Wealth is your ability to create quality of life and your ability to be present. Finance is trying to tell you to be happy one day and not be present today, which robs you of the real wealth of the gift of being present. Like, when I'm really present, time goes by quickly. Moments are amazing. I'm not in fear or worry. I'm just with the person. And it's a, I, I haven't mastered that art yet. That's still something I work on every day is how can I be more present? Because when I'm present, like, I'm having fun. I'm enjoying it. I'm, I'm connected. When I'm not present, fear comes in, busyness sets in, the grind starts to get to me, whatever it is, because now I'm suffering the future or thinking what I got to do versus what I get to do.

100%, man. I feel like the greatest sense of fulfillment in life comes from serving others, God, your community, spouse, kids at your highest capacity. And getting all this in check allows you to do that that much more effectively. And, uh, I could literally sit here and talk for three more hours, man. But I know I, you got, I want to be respectful of your time. But real quick, where, where are the, the books one more time that you'd recommend to? And where do people need to go to find, dig deeper into your world?

Gunderson.com/lifebundle. Gdunderson.com/lifebundle. You can get those three books. It's the Financial Intelligence. Like, and I, you don't have to read all three. You go to the very back cover and it'll tell you what to read based upon where you're at. So you can, like, it's like a choose your own adventure based upon your situation. We even throw in audiobooks if you buy them from there. They're on Amazon or whatever, you know, online retailers you, you prefer. But those are my three best. If you have a kid, I've got a, a book called "I Am Money" for kindergarteners through third grade. It's masterful because my co-author is a genius at writing for kids. She sold four million copies of books. This is the money one. It's called "I Am Money." That's super helpful for people with kids. And I have a book coming out next year that's for teenagers and college students. And it's really going to help them with money as well because I'm trying to, you know, uh, it's going to be using humor to teach finance. So, I think it'll be a cool book.

Nice. Nice. One last parting question. How has having kids changed the way you've thought about wealth accumulation, creation, removing the selfish desires? Like, how has that shaped things for you?

And I was, I was just thinking about it this morning. I was writing and I even called my son and talked to him for a minute who's doing the door-to-door sales. And like, we've had these things in our family, which is when our kids were young, it's like, let's give them what they need, but they have to earn and we'll pay for half of what they want. So they value money and if they want to work, we don't want to treat them, teach them time for money. We want them to bid jobs and invoices so they can see how to like be better at bidding and did they underbid or overbid because we said no, because they overbid. And so it just got me thinking like, it's not passing on money is easy. Passing on stewardship is harder. So it's like, how I look at like my kids as as these assets I want to grow, the most precious assets I have. So I want to pour into them. I don't just want to give them cash though because then they don't value it. So, it's, it's been fascinating because I do feel some pressure to just provide a game-changing legacy, but I also feel pressure to not give them a single dollar that they could borrow from our family bank when they're doing good things and incentivized. But there like one time my my young son was like, "Hey, Dad, are we rich?" I'm like, "Well, dude, I am. You're not. I, that's yet to be determined." You know, I was like, "You don't get an inheritance. You get a heritage with this family. There is a family bank and you can tap into it when you're doing great things, but if you're not doing anything, there is no cash. So, I like that. Like, I'm not telling them I love you more or less because of what you do. I'm saying I want you to find your path and I'll help you get there. But, if you don't have a path, there's no cash. Like, there is no sitting around. Like, that's not, there's no way to be fulfilled sitting around and having cash come in. It's just not, it's not possible. You got to be up to something.

Yeah. I mean, there's been multiple instances of that just being proven to fail time and time again in history. So, like, you can't really argue that fact anymore.

Yeah, man.

Well, G, truly appreciate the time, the insight, the wealth of knowledge, man. I will definitely, uh, be reading your books. I will link out maybe easy for people to find you and I would love to do a follow-up some point in the future, man.

That sounds great, man. I really enjoyed it. Uh, probably a lot different than what people expected when we talked working out for the first little while, but, you know, it was fun, little, little, uh, just getting to know you. Hey, well, not to go too long here, but like, I view life through this like hierarchy of human optimization. You know, it's like a pyramid structure, and this could pretty much be broken into pillars that everybody can relate with, but like the bottom of it, you've got health. You get that dialed in. Everything that you do in life is going to benefit from it. Above that, you've got self-development. That's when you learn these skills, you pour into yourself, kind of like you were saying. Then you've got wealth. Then you've got relationships and you've got your spirituality component. But everything in that pyramid gets better when everything's built on the fundamentals, the baseline. And it all just is symbiotic in nature.

100%. Fully agree.

Keep killing it, man. You're fighting a good fight. You're changing lives, brother. Appreciate you, man.

Thanks, man.