139. The 2 Fundamentals that Lead to Wealth with Rennie Gabriel

Let's spend money in alignment with the goals you want to create. Let's measure the pleasure you're getting from where you're spending your money and when we make it conscious. And when we focus on those expenses first, then we can bring everything in alignment.

Welcome, everybody. I'm excited today to have Rennie Gabriel with us, and he's going to talk to us about the two solid fundamentals that lead to wealth. Rennie is the author of the best selling book, Wealth on Any Income, that's been translated into eight languages. He failed high school math was broke at 50, but after applying these two fundamental wealth principles became a multimillionaire in a few years while only earning 5000 a month. Thank you so much for joining us today, Renny.

Thank you, Wade. Thank you for having me on the show. I appreciate the opportunity, my pleasure.

And I've gotten a chance over the last few weeks to get to know running a little bit better. I'm really impressed by what a student he is. How will he is to learn despite already having a lot of success. Maybe if you don't mind starting here, Rennie, would you share a little bit about your story? What got you on this journey? And a little bit you laugh because you're familiar with it. Shark Tank little bit. I got you there because I know in listening to it. What I love about it is it's so accessible and it makes people feel like it's possible for them to do it, too.

Yeah, well, I laugh about it because like you mentioned, I failed high school math. The attitude is one of the important things from the standpoint that I had to recognize that failure or success in high school has nothing to do with what happens in real life. And I did everything I could to stay away from any math class in College. I had taken one class and did really well in it, which surprised me, and it was so simple. I was actually tutoring other students, but there was one class I took and I figured, okay, math is not my thing.

I'm going to stay away from it. And so I graduate College. And after a year of teaching school, I entered the financial services business. It's all about math, so it makes no sense. But that's what I did. And I guess the point is, I mean, I love the concept of the three day weekend because in reality, I really never wanted to work. And so I was always looking at what can I do to create a passive income or what can I do to create residual income, whatever it is.

And the fundamentals were never there. And what I mean by that is I never learned how to do a personal budget. And here's the embarrassing part. I'm certified as a financial planner, and it was not in my coursework. So I'm taking all these classes to learn how to handle money. I'm a Chartered Life Underwriter. And none of this is teaching me how to handle money on a foundational basic level. And then I interview CPAs, and I find out it's not in their coursework either. So any of the people that the public would turn to to learn how to handle their money effectively on a foundational level has not been taught that information.

So I find myself after a couple of divorces, I'd also had a business failure. I'm age 50. I'm broke. There was a time earlier when one of the episodes after my first divorce, I had so little money, I had to collect soda pop bottles and cans to get the refund money to buy food for my children. So I know what it's like to have absolutely no money. And by age 50, I figured this is not working. I had to figure out what wealthy people are doing.

My job as a certified financial planner was I supported them in protecting their wealth and reducing taxes. But like I said, there's no instruction about how to create it. So I looked at what do they do and what I saw. And this is my limited vision. I saw that most of them who had businesses were funneling their money into projects outside, like real estate, apartment buildings, multiple houses, the land on which their manufacturing plant was located, the office park in which they had an office. I said, okay, I need to buy real estate, but I've got no money.

I used one of the concepts, one of the foundational concepts, which is called Pay Yourself First. Now, Wade, you're probably gonna be able to answer this question, but it's a two part question. First is, have you heard of the concept Pay Yourself first? Absolutely.

It's talked about I've learned it from so many people.

Okay, great. Now, can you explain it?

The simplest way I understand it is before you give money to any other entity, any other, your bills, your rent, anything that you make sure that some of your money goes into investments. 10% is usually a common number more. Lately I hear people saying 20%.

Okay, perfect. So you are able to answer it now, this is going to maybe be a shock that puts you in 10% of the population that can even explain it, let alone do it. Because I get interviewed on a lot of podcasts, and I'll often ask that of the host. And nine out of ten times they can't explain it. So they're just a reflection of the general public. And what I'm getting at is I had tried it twice before age 50, but at age 50, I realized I've got to be serious about this.

So I'm making 5000 a month, which is why the book is called wealth on Any Income. I'm setting aside $500 a month to 10%, and in three years I saved up a whopping $18,000, but my third and final and best wife. We've been married 22 years now had a realtor who came to us and said, oh, you should buy this triplex. And I'm in Los Angeles and $18,000 isn't going to buy anything. So my wife chipped in $18,000, and the realtor said, this is such a good deal.

I'm chipping in 36. So it took the three of us to buy the property. So crucial element number one is pay yourself first. Crucial element number two is wealth creation is a team sport, not a solo sport. It took the three of us to buy the property. And after my having two other divorces and a business failure, my credit wasn't any good. So I actually had to use their credit. They added me to the loans, but it wasn't because I had decent credit. So we went from that first three unit purchase.

Within eight years, we had 550 units. We owned and managed. And this is how do I phrase it an attitude that the wealthy have. You can use debt to create wealth. So I borrowed money to make down payments on more apartment buildings with my wife and this realtor. And that's how we got to 50 units in eight years from the time I was 50. Well, actually, it would be five years because it was three years just to save up the first little bit of money I had.

So that's the story.

And I'm sticking to it. Awesome. So you and I talked a lot on the pre interviewing because I also have the charter life underwriter come from a field and so interested in how many people again, even from a field that have letters after their name, don't practice what they preach. I've made some of my own foolish mistakes, and I wonder if we can break this down and ask for your wisdom on a couple of things. So first one, the concept of borrowing money to make money can work out well.

And of course, if it's not executed well, it can be something that's not so good. So, for example, as an entrepreneur, there's a common belief it's not often spoken about. But it seems to happen that as entrepreneurs, some of us believe that there are these entrepreneurial gods that if we invest enough money in something, if we drop $10,000 on a credit card of a course, that some dude or some dude that is giving that the entrepreneurial gods are going to smile upon us, and we're going to be wealthy and genuinely without making fun of it, because I've done that at times and not in a pure sense of magic.

I'm willing to do the work. But the sense of when it makes sense. So if someone were to tell me, Wade, should I, for example, as an entrepreneur, bootstrap or invest a lot, I would say bootstrap as long as you can. To me, that's a fundamental. What are some of the things that people often miss? Because when you hear about real estate, I know you know, this. It's kind of like the life insurance field. There's a whole range of success and failure. There's a whole range of cast of characters that are in that field.

What are some of the distinctions that you would say to somebody said, but no, I've done this because in my case, a few of us we did do a triplex and we lost. But we missed. We didn't do the research. We didn't do the fundamentals. We were motivated by fear. So there's a couple of things that set up poorly, whereas even though there were certain things we didn't do right, that we did do not right. So what would you say are some of the things that the people who are listening said, I've heard this before, or I'm scared to do this.

What are some of the more the nitty gritty details where people often stumble?

I would say it's not necessarily nitty gritty details, but it gets back a little bit to the research you're talking about. And that's where you want to look for a track record. And the realtor that my wife and I invested with had a track record he already had. I think it was like three. Or maybe it was four rental houses. He knew how to find good deals. He knew what to do with them, to increase the rent. And all I was bringing to the table was some education that I had from 14 years earlier, where I took a class at UCLA on how to manage and profit with apartment buildings.

And I said, Well, instead of buying single family houses, if you're going to buy something, why not buy an apartment building? And like you said, you bought a triplex? Well, he knew what good areas were. He knew what could be done to improve the property. I had the skills to manage people better than he did. But the point is, it was the combination of talents that we each had. And if you look at a successful business, I'm not sure if this is off track or not, but I think it's on track.

I also did some angel investing, and I ended up learning a lot about what it takes to have a successful business. So if you're talking about, where do you put your money? There's a book I can't put my hands on it at the moment, but it was taught by a professor at MIT on, like, 22 attributes of a start up that if you do them in the right order, you've got a 50 50 chance of success where most startups are in the 8% chance of success.

But what I discovered is that there are two divergent personalities required to have a successful business, and one of them is a vision master. And you see that with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. You see that with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. You see that with Elon Musk and the people who are running his divisions I could go on and on. But the point is, you have a vision master, and you have an execution master. If you have two vision Masters, it ain't going to work.

You have two execution Masters. It's not going to work. You need one person with the vision and someone else who has the technical skills or the attitude to carry out that vision. That's what works really well. And, you know, hey, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munker have done really well with that pairing. So that's awesome.

I think one of the things. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

So anyway, in answering your question, in terms of the fundamentals, it's who are the personalities involved? And do they have a track record?

Awesome. I think that's something that in our case, we didn't have that person. We were all trying to be that person. We were all the visionaries, and we had a contact that knew some information to our understanding. We had done research, but we did not have somebody that said, Look, here's what I've done. I've done this 2345 times. And the ironic thing is not the ironic that the sad thing. We would have been totally open to that. We just didn't even know that a person on the team, if you will.

We thought, okay, we thought we had all the teammates. We thought we were good. And that's something I think is unfortunate, especially when people in our case, we put a lot of hard earned money into that. And it didn't work out when you talk with people about the fundamentals, the paying yourself first. I know a lot of people have a lot of reasons why they don't do that. What do you tell the person? Maybe even from your personal experience of what was that shift that helped you decide?

Okay, because I've heard about it. And you and I both know there are people who have heard about saving 10% and don't necessarily do it. How do you help somebody or make that shift or even maybe first, what was it that helped you make that shift?

Well, there are two things. One of them is at age 50, I'm looking down the road 15 years and saying, Well, am I going to be eating cat food or tuna? So I've got to take it seriously. I figured I got 15 years left. That's number one. Number two. Is it's an excuse from the standpoint of when someone says they can't do it, they've got to pay the grocery bills or they can't do it. If they cover the rent, they won't have enough money left over. And I had this conversation years and years ago with an attorney, and he said, Well, I had $5,500 of money.

Come in, remind receivables, but I've got $6,000 of bills. There's no way I can pay myself first. I'm short $500 as it is. So I said, Let me ask you this. So let's say you set aside just $250. That's all set aside $250. Now you're 750 short. What difference does it make? But now you at least have $250. It's yours for all the work you did. Now this is money you own, like you deserve to own some of the money you're earning, and he was at least open enough to do it.

And as a result, the money that started flowing in from his Billings exceeded his bills. He now had the emotional attitude that, hey, I'm going to get to keep some of this money instead of just being a conduit for it. And he was able to bring in more money. So I don't know if that was the universe saying, oh, now we see you know how to handle money better, we'll give you more of it or if it was his own attitude that said, I know I'll get to keep some of it.

So I'm going to make sure I get more of it instead of the cycle just continuing.

Yeah, I think there's so much to that of the expectations we set there's. Of course, as you and I both know, so much research around what we aim for is something that is more likely to happen. The more we focus on, the more we look to it. I just tell people with business, and it's a detail when I work with small business owners. Just a detail, though it's huge and implementation of looking at your numbers once a year versus once a month, you have so much more time to course correct.

It's like if you're in a class and a teacher, you get a quiz every week and you keep getting CS. You're not going to be surprised when you get a C at the end of the course, as opposed to the class where the whole class? You think you're doing great and you take the final and you get a D. Like what just happened? I didn't know that. I think so much of that is sort of the subtle disciplines of making sure that we're on top of things.

And some people listeners will say, Well, wait, is there magic going on here and again? I don't know how you say it. First of all, I don't pretend to understand everything about how the universe works. God, I happen to believe there's a God. Maybe there is. Maybe there isn't, but I do know that even something as simple as well. Okay, in that first month, like you said, maybe I'm short 750, but already in my mind, I'm thinking next month, hey, wait. I've got to make room for that 250.

So it allows for that course, correct. Can you share a little bit about how that even helps even if people don't believe in Woohoo or magic, how it starts shaping your brain when you do start paying yourself first and then perhaps adjusting some of your expenses in just sort of a very fundamentally sound grounded, physical, plain way.

Yeah, well, I'll answer that after I explain something that's really important. And I finished another book and it's called The Attitudes of the Wealthy. It's got, like, 32 different attitudes. One of the most important is the difference between what wealthy people do and what ordinary people do when it comes to thinking and hearing familiar information. As an example, we could be talking about a budget or, like I asked you if you knew what the expression was. Pay yourself first. Yes, I know what that is and what an ordinary person does when they hear familiar information is they make a statement like, I know that.

Or I've heard that before. That's not new to me. Whatever. But the wealthy mindset asks questions. And that's really key when we're talking about, what do I do this month to make it better? If someone is making a statement like, I'm going to be short money, this won't work out for me. The clients I have are no good. Those statements don't lead to any transformation. What would lead to a transformation is a question like, Where do I find better clients? What do I need to do to bring in more money?

When will I begin doing something? Who can support me with this? Those questions lead to the answers that produce the results the person is looking for. And statements don't take a person anywhere. So I wanted to bring that up. So I was touching on it in terms of, well, what are the questions you ask? And that provides the solutions to the problem of there not being enough money or you're going to be short this month. Or what do I need to do to have the extra 250?

It comes from the questions you ask, not statements you make.

I think that's so true. There's so many people who have said that. I know Tony Robbins has a quote. The quality of your questions determines the quality of your life or something. Paraphrasing. I know Dan Sullivan, one of the most successful coaches for entrepreneurs, has a book, The Power of Questions. So much of this. And I just think that a question opens up possibilities sometimes tell my children that sometimes one of my children is very intent of what they know and they'll say, Well, dad, this isn't working and you can't fix it.

I said, okay, hold on. There's two statements there. This isn't working. Okay, I'll accept that. How about you start with, hey, dad, can you fix this? Because sometimes I can. I know you might not. It's your kids. Of course, they can bring out a lot of the mortality in you and see your flaws very easily. But some of these things I can actually perhaps or at least let's even start with that question. And I think a lot of people give up on the questions. They get into the question because the question does require some thought process.

It requires some work. It might require getting uncomfortable. What came up for you or what comes up for people when the questions start leading to. Okay, now I've got to change now. I've got to shift. What do you find? Some of the obstacles people have when we talk about comfort, being who they've been identifying a certain way. And what can people do that's simple to start saying. Okay, well, I might have had this track record of all these losses or things that didn't work out the way I worked.

You wanted them to. How do we start making a shift? How do we start believing enough to make a shift and build some momentum in the direction we want to go?

Well, one of them is actually breaking down what it is that went wrong in the past. And it could be the belief systems. And it could be that. Well, in my case, one of the things that I noticed is the business failures I had in the past were the businesses where I was in total control, and I didn't have any partners. And so when I started looking back on my life, one of the things I noticed is, well, the successful businesses were the ones I wasn't alone in.

As an example, I had a pension administration company, and I had two other partners. We sold that off to a public company that was very profitable. I had a book publishing company where I was the only one. Yes, I had people who did editing and printing and this and that. But there was no partner in the business that I can bounce ideas off of. Or who had more experience than I did. To say that business was mediocre would be a compliment. I mean, we had 80 titles in the bookstores, but at the same time, when I compared it to what I was doing in real estate, I was making a dollar, $50 an hour in the book publishing and $700 an hour in real estate.

I think that gives you an idea of the difference between doing it by myself and looking at that. And when you talk about the Tony Robbins quote of the quality of the questions, one of the worst questions to ask is a why question like, why doesn't this work for me? Why don't I have good clients? Well, any answer will do. Well, the reason you don't have good clients is because you're a jerk. Okay, fine. That doesn't solve anything. It's the proper question. Start with what, when, where, how or who they don't start with.

Why? So if someone just uses those words to start the sentence, they'll get better results.

That is so unbelievably true. I was working on my master's degree in psychology, and I experienced the privilege of going into twelve step meetings, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and I was taking kids there for them to go to the meetings. And that exact same thing I remember people saying and I heard it so many different times. Why is going to get you right back in getting to relapse. Because why is all the drama, the sob story, the why me? Why this why that which is very different than what Simon Sinek talks about, which is what is your why what motivates you.

So to be really clear, that's a different concept. But why me? Why this why that? And other than, as you said, the mechanics, for example, I can look back and say at our triplex and say, okay, we were missing a strategic partner. And there's a nuance. So to a certain degree, you could say, why or what didn't we do or how? But definitely so much of this is about first, at least assuming it's possible. And to me, when you get caught up in the why question, you might almost never get out.

You might never just be stuck in that. All these reasons is the world a safe place or this place or that place? There are so many things I can't prove. And in my psychology degree, I learned well, certain things were the big fancy word efficacus. They work for me. Yeah, exactly. Word. So it works for me to believe there's a God I can't prove there's a God. It's efficacous for me. Great. So I move on with that. If someone wants to argue that with me, I mean, I'll entertain a great philosophical debate about God, but at the end of the day, it works for me.

So that's fine. One of the things that people get into the conversation of is debt and what they should do with debt. Or there are so many different ways to approach debt. And you and I both know if humans were rational. Well, the answer is easy. You pay off the highest debt first you go to the highest asset first, that's a huge asterisk if we were rational. Then you do things in a certain order. So Dave Ramsey, for example, talks about snowballing and you pay off debt in a certain way and different things.

What have you found that is maybe unconventional about how people should handle debt. You mentioned even the idea of perhaps going into debt 250 to start something. So what are some of the unconventional ideas that help people and then at the same time in the same question. But what is where people get themselves in trouble? So some people say, oh, I'm going to do what Rennie says. I'm just going to keep doing this. But I'm going to keep spending poorly. It's like no ready. Didn't say that.

Keep building up credit card debt and then try to make what do you see that maybe people don't know. And what are some of those red flags for people?

There's a bunch of them. And first you mentioned Dave Ramsey. And the funniest part about it is this is something I wrote about. And I was talking about 25 years ago. And then someone said, oh, that's the snowball way of paying off debt. You look at the lowest balance first, I don't care about the interest rate, and you focus on that. And one of the other things has to do with a personal budget. And where I found out about this personal budget, you laugh was a program called Debtors Anonymous, a twelve step program for people who can't handle money well.

And that's where I learned that all of us have expenses that show up every month that we don't account for, like your car registration fees or the fact that you're going to have to maintain your car or that you're going to buy clothing for your kids when they go back to school or the property taxes or whatever. And these don't show up every month, but they have a monthly amount you could set aside so you could be prepared for them if you spend $1200 a year on some item clothing, I don't care what, but you're not setting aside $100 a month for clothing, and you think you're covering everything you'll find out when you have to buy the clothing, you're going to be going into debt.

And on one of my forms, I have little asterisks next to all these items that have to be taken into account on a monthly basis to know that you're setting aside enough money so that these surprises don't throw you into a tail spin.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's something you and I both know from looking at investing charts. When somebody looks at when you look at a proposal or what's the investment can be worth in X number of years, it's to what you're referencing it's those last years when that compound interest makes a big impact. And yet now let's talk about the other part of that, because then there's the person that said, well, you know, ready told me to go do this, but they're still amassing credit card debt, which I think let's be really clear, is a very different thing.

You're not saying correct me if I'm wrong, continue to podmatch the credit card debt and invest. We're saying, no, no, you stop amassing more credit card debt. You get your budget in track. And so we're looking at a put this way. We're not looking at a credit card that you're continuing to add to while you invest. You're saying, okay, we're going to get a handle on that because I think I've seen a lot of people that will say, oh, no, I'm just going to keep doing what I do, and I'm going to hope the investment and I'm going to count on the IBS and charts, and I'm going to count that everything's going to be 1011 percent forever.

And that's a pattern that I've seen almost again focuses on half of the equation, leaving out the other. What are your thoughts on that?

You're absolutely correct. And one of the things that I learned again, this goes back to Debtors Anonymous. Was it's not about making more money. I continually Wade more money year after year, and as an example, I started as a school teacher, and I was short $100 a month. I went into sales and doubled my income, and now I'm short $200 a month. Every time I thought, if I just earned more money, it'll work out. And after I passed $100,000 a year, and now I'm short 2000 a month, it finally occurred to me this doesn't work.

And what I learned in debtors anonymous is you focus on the expenses. First you deal with the expenses, and then when you make more money, you'll actually have something to keep. And that is exactly what worked for me. So when you're talking about someone continuing to amass the credit card debt, they are not focusing on their expenses and putting together. And I don't like to call it a budget. I call it a spending plan. Let's spend money in alignment with the goals you want to create.

That's again, a shift in attitude. Let's spend money in alignment with what you want to create. Let's measure the pleasure you're getting from where you're spending your money, and when we make it conscious. And when we focus on those expenses first, then we can bring everything in alignment. And then when you're doing your investments, it's going to work out like the same thing you're saying if you're putting the money in the investments, but you haven't changed how you handle the money, it's just not going to work out any better than my thinking.

If I just earn more money, it'll work out. It doesn't.

Absolutely. Thank you. I think that's one of those things where I think of diets and sometimes people there'll be all sorts of different things that people will get into. And I know it's not the only variable. From what I read, I say I know it's not my field, but from what I understand, calories in versus calories burn is not the only part of the equation. There's other variables. But when I hear somebody say that calories in versus calories out has nothing to do with. I'm like that's a little strong there.

Tell me there's other variables. Tell me I understand, but there's still certain fundamentals. It's like you say, well, hey, if you're dropping 30% on a credit card, and again, unless you timed Bitcoin right or something, those are fundamentals. Those are things that we might not like to hear them, but they play out a certain way. Would you mind sharing a little bit about the work you're doing to raise philanthropists by teaching the fundamentals of wealth creation? I found that very interesting.

Thank you. And I'm so glad you used the word fundamentals, because that is crucial. People are looking for the fancy things, and that isn't where the answers lie. It does lie in the fundamentals. And the purpose of the work that I'm doing is to raise other philanthropists 100% of the profits from the work that I do, whether it's my books, programs, coaching, it doesn't make any difference. 100% of that profit goes to a charity called Shelter to Soldier. And what this organization does is two fold. And I say they saved two lives at a time to start with their rescuing dogs from environments where they would be euthanized.

And they're training them as service animals for soldiers who've come back with PTSD or traumatic brain injuries who might otherwise have committed suicide, and not one service member who's gotten their service dog has committed suicide. So they have a 100% success rate. And so soldiers that would have committed suicide are saved by dogs that would have been euthanized. So again, this charity is saving two lives at a time. I just am so in love with them. As a matter of fact, I'm moving closer and closer to being a spokesman for them to training the soldiers with this information.

We've gotten their service dogs because that's the most meaningful thing that I'm doing at this point in my life is donating to the charity. And I just want to get more and more involved.

That's beautiful. First of all, thank you for that on behalf of all of us. And that's something that is so needed. And I think it speaks to a question a lot of people ask us, why would I want more wealth? I know times have done this when I've had only a solopreneur's mindset, and there's nothing wrong with being a sole printer, but in the sense of, okay, I just need to make sure I'm looking out for me and that's great. And me being me and my family and that sort of stuff and being a responsible citizen.

So yes, and as somebody who's had different beliefs about money introduced them over the years, it's only recently when I was actually consulting with the client and the client said to me, Wade, why would I want to make so much money? It was a large amount of money to them that they were talking about. And I asked them. And this is why I believe that there are other forces in play in the universe because it was something I was struggling with. And still I'm working on said, Well, tell me something.

If $100 million fell in your lap, would you do good stuff with it or you do nonsense with it? And this person is like, Well, I would do really good stuff with it. I said, Great, I want you to have a hundred million dollars or whatever. I want that in your hands, because I know that's going to get somewhere as opposed to it. Not now that's very different than saying price gouging or anything that you're doing your client wrong to get there. But this idea of saying, well, what if there's something better?

What if there's something bigger? And like you said with this even concept of investing, what if we focus on a more bigger possibility, a bigger game and then seeing what serves in that way. And that's one of those things when you and I talk, I think so. Awesome. What you're doing with your charity, because one of the tough things I find is most people that are really fundamentally sound with wealth don't have a lot of desires. Think Warren Buffett. I mean, I've driven by his house before in Omaha.

I'm not sure if it's still there, but lives very simply. So you say, okay, when you have multiple billions of dollars, what do you do with it? Well, there's other stuff that you can do with it that is bigger. And so for whatever reason, for those people that seem to figure out how to do that to say, yeah, I'm not going to stop just because my situation is full. But you will do something more that I think that's awesome. So thank you for that. And thank you for that work, because that's just beautiful work.

Thank you. And one of the things that I do have to work with people on is attitude. And Warren Buffett has a great expression. You brought his name up. We brought it up several times, and he said of the billionaires, I have met money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they were simply jerks with a billion dollars. And the corollary to that is a good person who becomes wealthy, is still a good person. A person who contributes to other and wants to help others will be able to have a greater impact.

It just amplifies who they are. And so now I'm glad you had that conversation with that client, because that's exactly what I'm getting at. When I have people who come to me and they're coaches or their therapists or something like that, and they have this fear of making a lot of money, they're afraid it's going to corrupt them. And I need to let them know. No, if you're good now, you'll still be good with a lot of money. However, if you're already corrupt, you'll just be more corrupt with money.

They recognize they're not corrupt. Now they're open to doing much better.

Absolutely. And I think that's so awesome because the intention is great to say, I don't want to be corrupted by these outside forces, and we're all human. So there are certainly things that can happen. But I think it's so great to be able to do that. And I think about something you and I talked about of couples. How can couples have safe conversations around money topics? Because that's one of those other things where the intention to say another positive intention or loving intention. I don't want to argue with my spouse per se.

But if that means we don't get to have the conversations about money that we need to, of course, that can faster and lead to other situations. What do you suggest, people or how do you advise people around that?

It's funny. The first book my publishing company came out with was called Couples and Money by a doctor, Victoria Felton Collins, who is a psychologist and a money manager with a firm in Newport Beach, California. And in her book, she's got questions that couples write down the answers to on their own and then come together and discuss it. Because one of the reasons there are so many arguments over money as they each come from a different household that had different money values. And until they understand where they came from, like how their mother handled money or how their father handled money, or what did they think about in their family as they were growing up after they answer these questions?

And then the couple comes together and shares those answers. Now there's an understanding. It's like men are from Mars, and women are from Venus. Until you know the other's language, it's difficult to communicate. But when you know the other's language now you can have safe conversations about money.

Thank you. One of the other things I find is people can reach a point where they think it's too late. I didn't get it right. I've been doing this so wrong. And certainly your story and somebody might say I'm 60 or whatever it might be. And of course, we could talk about life expectancies and a zillion other things. When you're talking to somebody who's in that space, what do you find is usually the obstacle. And how do you usually help them look at that? So I mean, is it fear?

Is it just that they're so disappointed, so frustrated if you were talking to a person individually, what do you tell that person that hopefully perhaps gets them to consider? Yes, taking action, as opposed to simply replaying what hasn't worked?

Yeah. There was a great book that I picked up at a used bookstore by Richard Bach, and it's called It's Never Too Late. And I've got clients who are in their 60s and 70s and older starting to put these concepts into place, and it's working. But it gets back to something we discussed earlier. And that's the difference between making statements and asking questions. Where someone at that stage of life, they're 60, 65 years of age, and they say It's too late for me is a statement. And instead, if they ask the question, well, what can I do at this stage?

Who can support me at this stage? Where would I put my money at this stage? Then they've got different opportunities and possibilities available. So it is shifting from making a statement. It's too late to the proper questions that we've spoken about.

Awesome. And then when you talk to people, a lot of people seem to think they need to be brilliant to turn off. In fact, I find some people do the exact opposite. They assume that because they're smart, in my case, collected some letters after my name and two of the most fundamentally, again, fundamentally bad decisions I made. I figured my intellect was enough to overcome those. I could wiggle my way out of it. That's what. Well, sometimes in my case, I was younger than I did, and I hopefully hopefully won't be reporting that I did another one of those.

What do you tell somebody that says, yeah, but I'm not smart enough to do this. I'm not brilliant enough. That's for the smart people.

Well, let's get back. I failed high school math. That was not a predictor. And these things are very simple addition, subtraction, multiplication division. That's all it's required and the support of someone else who knows more. Okay, the best example I've got is in one of my workshops many years ago, there was a Gal who came to me and said, My brother, this is the term she used, so I don't want to do something politically incorrect. She said, My brother is retarded. He's got a very low IQ, and my dad told him that he had to set aside.

I don't remember if it was 20% or 50% of the money he earned, and he could only do minimum Wade jobs because he did have mental challenges. But he did have the ability to work. And he did set aside money. And I think the reason she was telling me this is because she had nothing and she was smart. And her brother who was retarded, who just did what her dad said because he didn't know any better, had over $100,000 in savings. Now, granted, someone could take advantage of him with that.

But his father was there to protect him. But the point being, she was saying my brother was retarded and he's got $100,000, and I'm really shark tank. I don't have anything.

Wow. And yeah, it's execution. Wow. There's so much we've gotten into today. Thank you so much for sharing your insight, your perspective. Where can people learn more about you and your work?

Actually, they can get a nine step roadmap to complete financial choice. I don't talk about retirement or any of that at wealthontenecome. Com TEDx, and they'll hear my TEDx talk and they can get this roadmap. It's a 27 page road map that explains each of the nine steps, one by one.

That's awesome. Thank you. And for those of you all listening, we'll put those in the show notes or if you're watching, you can see in the links below. Thank you so much, Ronnie. I've really enjoyed hearing your perspective on a lot of things, and especially us looking at some of the things that maybe perhaps people have oversimplified things on or over complicated things. So thank you so much for your perspective. Thank you so much for the work you're doing with the charity and the support you're doing.

I really appreciate you coming out.

Thank you, Wade. Again. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about shelter, to soldier and support other people. I really appreciate it.

My pleasure. And for those of you. Listing thank you for listening. And as always, I look forward to helping you help more people and make more money in less time. Doing what you do best so you can better enjoy your family, your friends in your life. Thank you.