The Get Ready Money Podcast
The Get Ready! Money Podcast with Tony Steuer features insightful conversations with financial experts who are changing the way we think about money. Listen each week to catch up on the latest financial trends and hear practical advice from Tony and his expert guests aimed at demystifying the complexities of finance, so you can build healthy habits that ACTUALLY work.
Each episode will leave you with tips for implementing small changes that can have a big impact on your financial future. Tony’s podcast is perfect for listeners seeking to get ready, be prepared, and transform their financial future.
The Tony Steuer Podcast is one of the 20 Best Literacy Podcasts. The best podcasts about Literacy from thousands of podcasts on the web ranked by traffic, social media followers, domain authority & freshness.
The Get Ready Money Podcast
The Get Ready Money Podcast with Dr. Brad Klontz and Adrian Brambila: Living A Life Of Abundance
On the latest episode of The Get Ready Money Podcast, I spoke with Dr. Brad Klontz, author and financial psychologist and Adrian Brambila, internet entrepreneur about changing the way we think about money and living a life of abundance.
In this episode we discussed:
- How to practice an abundance mindset and shift to a rich mindset.
- Why you must believe that you can change your circumstances to take control of your money.
- The importance of experiencing joy when you achieve financial independence.
- How and why you should use money to buy time. Poor people buy stuff, rich people buy time.
- Live within your means and practice balance.
Brad Klontz is a Financial Psychologist, Certified Financial Planner Practitioner, and Managing Principal at YMW Advisors, an independent, fee-only, Registered Investment Advisory firm. With over 15 years of experience in the field of financial psychology, he helps clients understand and overcome their subconscious beliefs and patterns that affect their financial behaviors and decisions.
Brad is also an Associate Professor of Practice at Creighton University's Heider College of Business, where I teach and conduct research on the psychology of financial planning, behavioral finance, money disorders, and financial wellness. He has authored or co-authored eight books and over 100 articles on these topics, and I have been featured in national and international media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and CNBC.
Adrian Brambila is the CEO of adrianbrambila.com. Adrian Brambila is an Ex-professional hip hop dancer who toured with T-Pain and started his first online business in 2011 teaching people how to dance the robot. It grew to the #1 place people learned the dance style of ‘popping’ online and although it never became a seven figure operation it allowed Adrian to quit his 9-5 and learn about affiliate marketing. Adrian went viral on TikTok in 2020 while living in his van and transparently showing how he was making over $100K a month on only a day of wifi a week. Today Adrian is an active affiliate for over 500 different companies, owns a digital marketing agency with 20 American employees and now teaches beginners how to do affiliate marketing through his program The Brambila Method.
Connect with Dr. Brad Klontz:
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The Get Ready Money Podcast and its guests do not provide investment advice. All content is for educational purposes. Guest opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Get Ready Money Podcast and Tony Steuer.
Are you looking to get ready, be prepared and transform your financial future? Then you've come to the right place. This is the Get Ready Money Podcast with Tony Stewart, where Tony has insightful conversations with financial experts who are changing the way we think about money. Catch up on the latest financial trends and hear practical advice from Tony and his expert guests so you can build healthy habits that work, Be empowered with tips for implementing small changes that can have a big impact on your financial future. So sit back and get ready to hear from today's guest. So sit back and get ready to hear from today's guest.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Get Ready Money podcast changing the way we think about money. I'm pleased to be joined today by Dr Brad Klontz and Adrienne Brambilla. Brad is an author, financial psychologist, as well as a few other things, such as an associate professor of practice at Creighton University. Adrian Brambilla is best known for making $1.7 million in one year living in a van, among many other things. So in this episode we'll be sharing their insights on how we change the way we think about money and living a life of abundance. Welcome to the Get Ready Money podcast. Thanks for joining us today. Hey, thanks for having us. Yeah, glad you guys are here. So you know to get started. You know, tell us a little bit about yourself. What are your origin stories?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'll start. By the way, adrian has a fascinating one. I can't wait to hear him share it. So I grew up in a lower income family. My parents divorced when I was two, so I had a single mom for a while. And you know, chapter one in our new book is called being Poor Sucks, tony, and that was pretty much my experience.
Speaker 4:Growing up was a experience of not having enough and everything that goes along with that. And I was aware too as a child that my family was a bunch of really hardworking, good people and I was sort of struck with this question of you know, some sides of my family have been in the United States since Mayflower and both my grandparents on both sides are living in, you know, very humble mobile home parks. And I was left with the question like why don't we own a piece of land or, you know, a building with our name on it? Like what's going on here? And it was really that sort of question. You know, why do so many hardworking, good people not experience abundance? And I ended up becoming a clinical psychologist and lost $100,000 trying to pay off my student loans by day trading, tony.
Speaker 4:I mean, I really went down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out how people become wealthy and was left with that question again in my adult life. First of all, why would a reasonably intelligent person do something so dumb? I had to think through that. It's like well, I wanted to get rich and I didn't know how to get rich and I didn't want to be poor. Being poor sucks. Um, and that has really led to my career of trying to study the psychology of wealth. Um, and we've studied hundreds of thousand people at this point around their beliefs, around money and what's associated with success and not, and um, adrian and I teamed up to take 21 harsh truths. So the book's called Start Thinking Rich 21 harsh truths to take you from broke to financial freedom, and we tried to make these chapters compelling, interesting and all of them are sort of a mindset shift, so sort of like in your face titles. And then we talk about the science, the research, and then personal stories of essentially transformation in terms of your relationship with money Fantastic.
Speaker 3:Adrian, awesome. Well, I think the first thing I'll mention I always share with my parents. My dad immigrated here from Mexico when he was 13. My mom's also Mexican and she grew up here in the States, but also really poor, and I I can't believe they did this, but they saved their whole life's goal of saving money was to actually to make sure that I could go to college and be the first person to graduate from a four year university, and they saved so much money. In fact, prioritize my that goal versus themselves, where I actually was able to graduate debt free, which is a huge advantage. Knowing where they came from and their background. It's a gift that I think I always have to share right away.
Speaker 3:And the reason I want to start there is because after my freshman year, I went to college. Of course, I did the very responsible thing every college kid does I partied and drank alcohol like no other freedom. Okay, when I got back to after semester, my my hardworking, honest Mexican parents, when they said, how's college? I lied to them. I said it's great, I'm studying, I'm working really hard, I played soccer and stuff, but I lied I when the in reality I was, I was blowing. I was blowing it. I was. I was totally blowing it. I felt so guilty that when I went back my second semester I quit alcohol altogether and and uh, uh partying and all that time I spent learning how to. Actually I needed something to do for fun. In Iowa winters they're brutal. Uh, so I I went to YouTube and I don't remember why, but I wanted to learn how to dance and I learned. I typed in YouTube how to dance the robot and all of a sudden that became my new passion. And the craziest thing happened after a couple of years of dancing from the internet. Um, I actually got an opportunity to uh audition for a rap artist named T pain and then, uh, from that point I actually made it and I was a professional like I was a living room dancer one night and the other night I was a full-time traveling professional robot dancer. After that ended about like almost two years later, my first business was teaching people how to dance the robot online. I continued that robot legacy and eventually it grew to the number one place people learn how to dance robot. It was my first online business and that was enough for me to quit my job at the time. My real nine to five job paid pretty much minimum wage, at prudential retirement working in a call center, and then on the side, I was working on this YouTube thing and learning how to dance, and then eventually that replaced my income. I've been a full-time entrepreneur since 2015. And then today, how I connected with Brad is we're content creators combined. We probably have posted 10,000 times online 10,000 different videos ranging from finance and minimalism.
Speaker 3:Most people, I think, when I I have a over a million followers and I gained those million followers when I was actually living in a van and I was I was a contradiction to what people think wealth is. I lived in a van as a multimillionaire and with a seven figure income. That doesn't make sense. Why would someone live in a van If they're a millionaire? That's the comments I would get. If you're actually a millionaire, you would not be living in a van. But I'm a minimalist at hand. I think the more objects you own, the more owns you, and I was trying to show people that wealth is not about objects, it's not about mansions and Lamborghinis. It's about time and having the choice to choose how you'd like to live, not live up to other people's expectation of what wealth is. So, yeah, that's how we got collabed and met Brad, and now we have this awesome book to help people.
Speaker 2:That's an awesome story. Of course, we could just take a break to have you demonstrate the robot, because that's you know, there we go. Demonstrate the robot, because that's you know, there we go. Awesome, because I'm sure that's everybody out there watching and listening is thinking the same as me. So that's, that's a great story.
Speaker 2:But I think what you said really resonates is you know I've heard this from so many people who are wealthy and we hear about this you know, with a millionaire next door, that it's not the people driving the Lamborghinis, that it's people driving the old, beat up vans that are more likely to be wealthy. But I think what's also inspiring is that both of you didn't come from a wealthy household, is it? You came from more humble beginnings? Is that you came from more humble beginnings? Is you know? Um, can I ask you to be? You know, like? What do you think is the one thing that helped you make that leap? You know, to other people who are struggling, you know saying, hey, I can do this. You know what would you say to them? How can they do it?
Speaker 4:Well, first off, I'll say I sure wish I had grown up in a wealthy family, and if you did, that's fabulous. I'm trying to give my kids that experience, but I think for me it was. And, by the way, this is something that we've now studied, and so I mentioned that we've studied groups of thousands with self-made, ultra wealthy people compared to middle class and lower income is something called in psychology, we call it an internal locus of control. So you have an extra, there's an external and there's an internal, and essentially it is where you look at the outcomes you're getting in life. Okay, and then to what do you attribute those outcomes? Is it external factors? So you know it's your parents' fault, it's whatever society's fault, it's the real estate market's fault, it's the stock market's fault, it's greedy bankers, I mean, there's a whole list of people that utterly and thoroughly deserve your blame. So you never run out of people to blame. But all of our studies have found that it's when you have an internal locus of control. That is what shifts everything for you. And you can cultivate an internal locus of control, and this is where you look at what's happening in your life and you're like, hmm, what is my role in this. Yeah, I get that. I get that.
Speaker 4:Somebody took advantage of me. I understand that. But what was it about me that trusted them? Perhaps in a way I shouldn't? Or why didn't I hire an attorney to look at that contract? Or what can I do differently next time?
Speaker 4:And and really that is the key factor that I can attribute in my life, like when I lost a hundred thousand dollars day trading, I was essentially trying to get out of debt. I had a hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt, sold everything I own, started day trading and start and lost all my money when the tech bubble burst. I would be in the same terrible financial situation now if I blamed the stock market or whatever was happening, but what I did is I asked myself the question why would a reasonably intelligent person do something so stupid when it came to his money? And that's the question I keep asking myself over and over. When my wife's mad at me, I'm very tempted to blame her, but what I try to do is say, okay, so what is my role in this? What can I do to make this thing better? And I think it's that mindset that has helped me more than anything else in my life.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I think people do blame that and you know I had some experience in litigation, consulting and best practices working with California Department of Insurance and there are oftentimes I mean there are some true financial predators out there, without a doubt, but oftentimes there is something where somebody was a little bit greedy or they decide not to pursue something that there is usually a string that they could have pulled that might have helped them, and so you know that's fascinating. You know, adrian, what you know. What do you recommend or what would you tell somebody who's struggling? You know that they can have some confidence to make a leap.
Speaker 3:I think the first thing that you actually can do right now is is has to be a mindset shift and change the way you think. Man, sometimes I feel like if I was listening to that I would be like mindset no, I need, I need, I'm broke, I'm struggling, like tell me something, but really the idea to be, the idea that you can be wealthy and change your circumstance is something that you have to believe first. I think there are people that are born here in this country and they are very easy to point out all the flaws and the excuses and the things that are suppressing them and we don't ignore that in the book. But I also think of my parents and what I saw. Ignore that in the book, but I also think of my parents and what I saw and my, my dad, my family, my grandma. She's a reason that we came here to this country and, knowing that there's a bunch of problems, they focus on the opportunities and one, one belief that I have I got from my parents was that we have the ability here in this country to actually work and change our circumstance. If you want nice things, if you want freedom, you can educate yourself, you can put in the work to do it. I do believe in that. Call me naive, call me ignorant, but it's a belief that I have, and I think it's hard to not change your class. If you think otherwise, if you think that the system is rigged and there's nothing you can do, I don't know how that's the best way forward to try to change your financial circumstance.
Speaker 3:And I think of my parents and some of the tactics of their thinking of hey, we can change, we can go from broke to financial freedom. I'm imagining my dad having to learn English and then he meets my mom in their late or really early, uh, uh, twenties, and and they would tell me stories of yeah, for the first few years when we met, we didn't buy any new clothes, we actually didn't go out to eat. You know, these are things we, we, we do and we wonder. You know, we have a lot of people reach out. It's like you can easily blow a hundred $200 on a weekend If you don't, if it's unplanned, cause you're hanging out with friends, they're getting cocktails, you get appetizers. My parents, my parents, didn't do that. So I, I, I saw them practicing their tactics. It's like they're working hard, they're both working.
Speaker 3:And then, when it came to trying to grow their wealth, they were doing these other things that now they seem like, oh my God, you didn't buy new clothes, like you haven't bought new clothes for years, like ew, gross. But to them they were. They were thinking about like wealth and changing it. You know you could argue that's well, why do I have to make those sacrifices? Like shouldn't, I shouldn't have to make those sacrifices in order to become wealthy. But the reality is any successful person that you know or have researched, they made sacrifices to get there.
Speaker 3:I think the path to wealth does take sacrifice, it takes discipline and it has. Definitely it takes restraint, because I think sometimes I think, if I meet someone now for the first time and I have, and Brad too, we have accolades, we, we have a multi seven figure net worth, right. So it's like oh, easy for you guys, easy for you guys. Here I am, I I'm broke, but the the desire and discipline actually doesn't stop once you're a millionaire there.
Speaker 3:And my challenge to you is have you ever looked at a five or $10 million home on Zillow? They look really nice, right? We could constantly upgrade our lifestyle. So we always have to have the discipline to withhold and with strain, and always focus on our cost of living, because that's the most important and that's so that mindset is carried from the beginning and it doesn't ever go away. You don't ever reach a certain net worth and be like, ah great, now I can blow all my money. Nope, I have the same discipline and mindset that I did back when I was making minimum wage, when I was making $27 a year, when I was making zero money for the first couple of years on my side hustles. I had the same mindset and it's the same mindset I have today.
Speaker 2:That's awesome and you know, I hear that from so many people that I've had on the show. I think of one guest, pritin Su, who is a financial planner. She was an immigrant and her and her husband came with nothing to the US and built up a multimillion dollar net worth by making sacrifices and not in avoiding lifestyle creep like you're talking about. Is that that's so important? You have limited resources and it's your choice on how to use them, but if you use your resources wisely, you can get ahead. So that's awesome advice and I think that's going to be inspiring for people who are watching and listening, you know. So let's let's talk a little bit about your book. You know, start thinking rich, you know. I mean, it's all about mindset is you know what is you know? Just a couple quick, maybe three takeaways for people from the book yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:So we structured the book to have each chapter be a separate essay that really explores a mindset. I mean, that's why we're so happy to be talking to you about financial literacy. And you get it, tony. You get that. It's mindset. It's not so much about oh, should I do a traditional IRA or Roth IRA? I mean, that's not what people are struggling with really.
Speaker 4:And so, for example, we have a chapter that you don't want to become a millionaire, you just want to spend a million dollars, and it's a challenge to the reader. It's like so we start that chapter by saying what would you do if we gave you a million dollars? It's the million dollar test. Do you have a rich mindset, do you have a poor mindset? So we talk about these as mindsets. We talk about broke. Like you know, a lot of people have been broke. That's very different than a poor mindset. A poor mindset can keep you broke forever, and so, essentially, a poor mindset thinks about all the stuff you're going to buy with that million dollars, and you can try it right now. So you're a millionaire, you have a million dollars, so take a calculator and subtract all the stuff you're going to buy and now that's how much money you don't have, and so now you've gotten rid of your million dollars, whereas a rich mindset it's a big shift for a lot of Americans A rich mindset would do essentially one thing with that money and they wouldn't go invest it in their business, because they know that most businesses fail.
Speaker 4:What they would do is they would invest that money and then, using the 4% rule for example, they would take out $40,000 a year and with that $40,000 a year and theoretically you could do that forever, the rest of your life spin off $40,000. Maybe you'll invest in a business with that, maybe you'll do a couple of years of that to save up for a down payment of a house, but it's a mindset shift regarding what you would do. I'll actually let Adrian talk about our chapter on. If you want to get rich, you got to get rid of your poor friends, because that's pretty alarming Adrian.
Speaker 3:That's a tough one. I don't want to get canceled. Let me talk about it. Okay, this is one we get a lot of heat on right. If you want to get rich, you have to get rid of your poor friends. Ouch, that one is hard to take.
Speaker 3:But in our first page in our book we define poor does not really mean or equate to money. It's the mindset. Broke is a temporary state of not having money. I've been broke. We've all been broke, I assume, at one point of our lives. But poor I don't think I've ever been. I've had a poor mindset because even when I was broke, I was trying not to be broke, I was saving, I was making sacrifices.
Speaker 3:But I do recognize and I remember there was people who did have a poor mindset. These are the people who were like oh, what's the point of saving man? What's the point of saving Dude, don't invest in the stock market, that's too risky, right? These are people who are always. Maybe they're living as soon as they get their check. I remember there was culture, especially when I was working minimum wage jobs um, friday payday, can't wait for payday, right. And then, as soon as they go with payday, what did they do? Is it because they were starving, like I need I know it wasn't the attitude Like I really need Friday to come because I, I'm, I, haven't been able to eat. No, it was never like that, at least in my circumstance. It was always like yo Friday. Never like that. At least in my circumstance it was always like yo Friday, are we going out? We're going out tonight, because as soon as they get their money, they'd blow it, hit up the clubs.
Speaker 3:And I think that is when we talk about what separates poor and rich. A rich mindset is people who are trying to change their trajectory on the up, and the poor mindset is someone who is complacent or okay, being not in the best financial position or even heading on the up. And the poor mindset is someone who is complacent or okay, being, uh, you know, not in the best financial position or or even heading on the down people that inherit money. On paper they look rich, but if they have a poor mindset, they're not going to have that money for long. Just look at the average statistics of lottery winners 70% of them in five years after nothing, right, they had millions of dollars. Why is that? It's because they had a poor mindset, even though they had. They had uh, uh money and I think that practical advice that we dive into the chapter with each chapter we give those tactics is it's.
Speaker 3:It's going to be very difficult for you right now to try to go around knocking on doors and asking if you're, if people are, millionaires and saying, hey, would you want to be friends. It's just not going to work. But what you can do is and you'll know, there's people that you hang out with and you, every time you hang out with that person, you feel like there's energy and it's positive. And and there you're not. You're not spending your time complaining, you're. You're spending your time gaining wisdom, trying to figure out how to level up, how to save and, and. If you're not talking about money right now with anyone, I think that's a problem. I think that's a problem. Like, you need to find the right people to talk about money and so you can find those people who are at your position now and trying to level up and and and it goes.
Speaker 3:And I would say there's poor mindset people in all walks of life, even even today, you know there's uh as you accumulate more money, I'm sorry to say life.
Speaker 3:Even even today, you know there's uh, as you accumulate more money, I'm sorry to say, it just actually doesn't get easier. There's more shiny objects you can buy. There's more people who are flexing bigger, more status things. So at the beginning it might be like a purse, you know, or or like a nice pair of shoes that are really expensive, jordans, even though you know you shouldn't be wearing them. And then when you get to millions, now that now the flex is a Lamborghini, your neighbor has a Lamborghini, so those don't go away. So so you still always have to protect your inner circle and I think people can always relate to you're the average of the five people that you surround yourself by and essentially we've kind of taken that same concept that everyone's yeah, I believe in that, but we've made it a little more financial oriented and then with a little bit of tough love in there. But yeah, that's the concept. Thanks for putting me on the spot, brad.
Speaker 2:That's awesome and I think that's you know. Something that people need to think about is that you know, as you point out, it's the trajectory of where you think you want to go or where you're planning to go, and where you're planning to go and where you're working to go is that you know everybody has setbacks. I mean, that's life, but it's how you bounce back. That's important. That's awesome advice. So the next round of questions are, you know, quick questions that I ask all of my guests, so either one of you can jump in when you want to. The first one is what basic money concept do you wish people knew?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'll go here and this is something that I'm so excited that my 11-year-old gets this and I wish somebody told me when I was 11. But essentially it's that the first dollar that comes into your life, just invest 30% of it. You know at least or more, and that will set you up to be a multimillionaire. I've run the numbers. I used to work in low income high schools. You can work at a fast food restaurant your entire life and retire a millionaire at least more likely a multimillionaire just by thinking every time I get a dollar likely a multimillionaire, just by thinking every time I get a dollar, 30% of it's going to go to my financial freedom fund.
Speaker 4:It's so profound. Everyone that is listening to this, everyone in the United States, has access to this. That's so great. Now it's so easy to invest. When I was a kid, it was actually you couldn't just pull up your phone and invest. It's amazing the time we live in right now in terms of accessibility for people to take that action, but that would be the mindset that I wish everyone could adopt as early as possible.
Speaker 2:That's great advice and it's something that I practice with my son. He's 19 now, but we've talked about that. Adrian, what basic money concept do you wish people knew?
Speaker 3:I think something I truly believe is that money can't buy any object that can bring you happiness.
Speaker 3:I think, uh, that money concept I wish people realized, because a lot of money that we spend, we live in this consumer, because a lot of money that we spend, we live in this consumer world and it's constantly advertised that the latest, greatest, more is better, and these things I really don't believe are true. In fact, I think are responsible for a lot of very unfulfilled and confused people. And so I think, as you accumulate money, to think what is actually, how do I actually use this tool? Instead of using it to buy things, use it to give you your time, because I think we also live in this world where the default is giving 40 hours minimum to an employer for 30, 40 years, and if you're very good at money, you actually don't have to do what everyone else does. There are ways to not do that, but it starts with understanding how you use your money and what's more important, and I think the answer is your time, not any object that you could buy.
Speaker 2:That's awesome and I think that's really what we're trying to do. And, brad, I love that you use the term financial freedom. I've been talking about that a lot more than using the term retirement, because people don't really retire. I don't know anybody who's said I turned 65 today, I'm done. That just doesn't happen.
Speaker 4:Tony, tony. Chapter 14 in our book is retirement is for dead people. So I think we agree with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's awesome and I agree with you, adrian is you know it's about time? Is that's what we're essentially doing? Is you're putting enough money aside that you can have as much time as you want to do your own thing, so that's the wonderful way to set it up. So what is one simple thing that people can do each year to set themselves up for financial success?
Speaker 4:Yeah, something each year. Well, this is something that I'm going to put a little twist on that, tony, and say if you do this once, you don't have to do it every year, and part of what I have discovered in our studies is that when you are calling upon yourself to take action repeatedly, you are much more likely to fail fail, and so what I think is a really useful exercise, by the way, we increase people's savings rates by 73% after doing one hour of what I'm about to share with you. We did this in a double blind controlled study. Essentially, we had people identify their top three financial goals. We had them get all excited about it. We had them create vision boards.
Speaker 4:You really need to feel these goals because we are wired to consume now. We're not wired to save. It's strange weird person that saves for the future. We're just not wired to do that as human beings. Get really excited, clear pictures of what those goals are and, in your state of euphoria, imagining yourself getting this automate movement from your checking account to a savings account with that goal in mind, or a 401k or whatever it is. Automate, automate, automate. Because you are capitalizing on what we call in psychology a status quo bias. We have a tendency to lead things the way they are Like have you ever belonged to a gym? Way longer than you were went into exercise? And the answer is yes. It happens to all of us, you know, and it's because you're not going to tell no-transcript thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars that you've set aside for your financial freedom. It's incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nick, it's back to exactly what you were saying before is that you don't have to save a lot, you just have to save and save consistently. So that's awesome, adrian. What is one simple thing you'd recommend for people?
Speaker 3:This is the opposite of financial podcast, but I'm seeing a problem right now. This is very personal my parents. I hired them part-time, they started taking Social Security and I've hired them for many years but now they just kind of moved from full-time to part-time and, despite having financial freedom on their end, they cannot spend money Like, they cannot get rid of the tactics that they use to get to where they're at and that immigrant mindset. Now, and my dad man I know he's going to listen to this, but so, dad, for some reason we eat out at a nice restaurant and the bill is over a hundred dollars and like which is very common in Austin, texas, and I love buying nice food. He can. He can not comment anything positive about the food. Now, it's too expensive. That's the only thing, and that's just one example. But I feel like, no matter what level that you're at, unless you're at a point where every dollar is, you need to pay off debt and credit card debt.
Speaker 3:I'm sure you heard many times on this podcast, but I do think you should also experience the joy of what financial freedom can bring and I think the best way. There's two of the things, the best ways you can spend money and you should do this at least once a year is you should either buy an experience and spend on an incredible experience that could be travel, that could be learning. Right now I just started. I heard uh, uh, the thing I'm I doing this year is, uh, um, I'm learning mma and brazilian jiu-jitsu, so I have a personal trainer. That's all new and I'm it is so humbling and I so grateful that I can spend money on a one-on-one trainer every day to do that, and that's that's me living. That that example. But I feel like if, if you're just only focused on saving and automating and doing all these things, you're never actually spending money on experience, then you'll get to where my parents, where I'm trying to like, you guys need to like. There's no point. Don't leave me this inheritance. Like, please spend money on your, on your, on yourselves. Um.
Speaker 3:And then the second the second thing, which I think is actually to get the most benefit of your money is is to actually gift it and and gift your money. I'll show one thing happened two weeks ago. Uh, my best friend from high, uh, from from third grade, uh, he, he suffered a really bad back injury. He used to work at UPS. So he's struggling and he's losing his mobility and so he stopped working.
Speaker 3:And one thing we used to find in common is we used to play video games as a kid. I miss him, so I actually bought him this sweet full-on computer, no reason, no birthday, I just bought it for him. It was like 1600 pc and now we game every night, we talk. I know it's helping and and, like to me, I like I love gifting that just be able to gift that to him and and now I talk to him every, every single day. We usually play it for an hour fortnight.
Speaker 3:Like to me, like that's me using my money and and it makes me so happy to do that. And and you and you know we donate and do all these things, but and those are I donate. When I donate money, I don't talk about it, right, but this is a gift to a friend and I'm so glad I could do things like that. And that and I feel like that's one element that's being missed is like to use your money, but use it, I would say, on an experience or on a gift, and I think those are the best ways to spend money.
Speaker 2:That's awesome and I think, well, you said a couple of things in there that are just amazing. I think one is giving anonymously, you know is when people don't know that you've made that gift, Is it really? That's even more rewarding is knowing that feeling if you've given something and you see that joy. But I think you've pointed out one of the huge challenges to the financial services industry is helping people make that switch from accumulation to decumulation, and we're seeing that is that people are struggling with that, and so that is important to have that mindset. You know, that's what you save money for. That was the whole point of saving the money is that you'd have it to spend.
Speaker 2:But at the same time and you know we could probably spend hours talking about this and I'm sure you both have studied this is, you know, like there is that fear of running out of money, and so again it's it's all about psychology, it's not about the numbers. Somebody has $10 million. They're still going to say the first thing they're going to say is well, what if I run out of money? You know where? It's probably impossible for them to run out of money, you know, but they're still going to really come back to have fears. That's a huge thing. So you know I want to skip through a couple of the questions, but one I really want to ask both of you is what money myth are you trying to break?
Speaker 4:Ooh, I love that one. So one of the studies so you mentioned Millionaire Next Door and we sort of replicated and did some things differently with a similar study and what we, for example, we found, looked at a group of people at 11 million in net worth and we compared them to a group of people that had about 500,000 in net worth and so essentially they had 18 to 20 times more money. And we asked them how much they spent on their last vacation, watch, house and car, and we were shocked to see that they had 18 times more money but they only spent twice as much. And that was kind of mind-blowing to me, even though I knew that most millionaires are frugal. That's how they describe themselves and we know that from the Millionaire Extortion. That's exactly what we saw.
Speaker 4:And most people, in terms of beliefs, have money scripts, which is what I've researched called money vigilance. They have some fear of the future. They're worried about not having enough. As you mentioned, it's hard to flip the switch to an abundance mindset unless you're practicing. That's why I love Adrian's advice on each year is look for ways to enjoy spending some money, because you're not all of a sudden going to be 70 and be like, oh, let's go, you're going to live like an Ebenezer Scrooge you know where there's not enough and you're going to be living a life of poverty even though you have some abundance.
Speaker 4:But essentially, a lot of my passion on social media is to challenge the myth that rich people are lavish spenders, because that's what young people are seeing. They're being lied to on Instagram with people leaning up against Lamborghinis they probably don't own and in front of mansions that certainly aren't theirs, selling you their get-rich rich quick course, flexing all these luxury brands and products and all that and, by the way, there's nothing wrong with having that stuff. But the bottom line is that most people, most rich people, are self-made, and most self-made rich people don't get rich by spending their money, especially on stuff like that. So it's an absolute myth that is very destructive, especially for young people who haven't figured it out yet, and so that's something that gets me all fired up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, same for me. One of the chapters in our book is poor people buy stuff. Rich people own time. But I have to be super transparent. If you were to come to my house now because I don't live in a van anymore and you saw me drive I have a Cybertruck, it's a nice car, I have a nice home and I have a pickleball court in my house that's going to be ready in like a couple of weeks. So it's like whoa, this guy's contradictory. Who is this Like? What a liar.
Speaker 3:But actually, all of the things I own I don't use my active income. I'm living way underneath my means and it's all my investment income that pays for everything and more. And so at the beginning, when you buy something and it's not through investment income, you're actually not paying money, you're paying time, you're trading your time, because if you work an hourly job and you have, like the way you think, if I want to say something, I have to work 10 hours to buy this. That's literally a trade of your time for the, for an object or a vacation. And what wealthy people do is not saying wealthy people don't have nice stuff, they do, but the. What wealthy people do is they actually live and buy everything from from their passive income that comes from from investment.
Speaker 3:So I think that's the big thing is like people are at the beginning. They, because of Instagram and algorithms, they're seeing the nice stuff and they they're thinking I need to, I need to trade my time so I can get that, so I can have this perception of success when, when the millionaire next door says, I yeah, I also want nice stuff, but I'm not going to get it now. I'm not, I'm going to delay my gratification and then I'm going to, and then I'm I'm going to pay it through through my, I'm going to invest first and then and have that. So I think that's something that, um, we have to make clear in case you, you guys, ever meet me in person, like, hey, I thought you lived in a van, what the heck? But, um, you know, yeah, so that that's. I think that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and I think you pointed out something I'm not sure if you said it right now or a little bit earlier that really resonated and just really struck home all of a sudden. Like you know, it's balance. Like I mean, part of the financial journey for us is it's about balance. And, by the way, this is something I had to really learn. My wife taught me this. She's God bless her.
Speaker 4:She must have seen a lot of potential in me, tony, because when she came to my house for the first time, she saw lawn chairs in my living room and I was so anxious about being poor that I would have trouble sleeping at night. I'm making six figures. Even when I had became a millionaire, like you know, in my late thirties I was petrified of being poor. It was hurting my health, and a part of the journey is is being able to enjoy some of the abundance. I mean, that's that's a huge part of the mindset, um, and. And the irony, of course, is that it's that saving some of the abundance. I mean, that's a huge part of the mindset, and the irony, of course, is that it's that saving fear of the future, vigilance that gets people to become wealthy. But it's really unbalanced too. I mean, you need to find ways to money.
Speaker 4:Money has several purposes. One of them is to be spent and one of them is to be saved and invested. But to your point, tony and I know you've seen it, I've seen it in my work as a financial planner it's like there's no switch, that all of a sudden, oh, now I'm going to retire and now I'm going to, you know, um, take out money and be totally free spending, and I have to get some of my clients to go on experiments where I force them essentially to get like something, spend money in a ridiculous way. Like a massage, oh, like. I see a lot of vigilant people who that's? I would never spend money on that. Or or God forbid, um, like a sandwich. You know that costs $14 when I can make one at home for $2. And it's something that's very admirable because that's what gets people wealthy, but it's also imbalanced. If you have all this anxiety and scarcity, it's like what's the point? You know that that's not the point and scarcity.
Speaker 2:It's like what's the point? You know that that's not the point. Yeah, that's awesome, that's, that's great advice, and I think that's something that, as an industry, we're going to have to help people with is to understand that. You know there is a point to saving the money. But I think, you know, adrian especially you really touched on this is to live on your passive income. Is you know, if you do that, then you're not going to run out of money. It'll be impossible because you'll still have your principal. So that's, that's a powerful point. So you know, to wrap up is where can more people, where can people learn more about you? Where can they pick up a copy of your book? You know, brad, I know you've got several books. Is you know? Where can people do that?
Speaker 4:Go ahead, Adrian.
Speaker 3:Startthinkingrichcom is going to have links to where you can get our book. Our book will be in all places. You can get books in person and online. But what we're doing for each podcast we're doing we're so grateful for this chance to collaborate is a kind of special bonus. So if people go to startthinkingrichcom, slash Tony, then that'll just be for your audience here and we'll have an extra bonus for anyone that signs up and gets the book through there. And we have a community group and we're actually gifting a masterclass for anyone who, uh who, gets the book instead of charging for it.
Speaker 3:So I think it's um, if any, if anything resonated with you today, uh, or you know someone that it would. I think, um, definitely share the podcast and the book comes out. You know, I have to be honest, the book it's, it doesn't make money. We're really doing it because we, we want to help, we have exposure to and great partnerships and we have businesses that make money. This is truly out of love. Like we, we want to help people, helping, I think, making an impact. As you start to get to a point where you achieve financial freedom, you start to ask really, when you don't have to worry about bills or money you start to, you have to have deeper questions like well, what's my purpose? What am I supposed to do? I have this time and something that Brad and I have collaborated on, and I'm and I know it's the reason for you too, tony. Doing this podcast is like impacts you want to make a positive impact with the time that you have, and that's why we created this book as well.
Speaker 2:Definitely, definitely. And, as you point out, you do not make money from writing a book unless you're Stephen King and you sell millions of copies. It just it doesn't happen. So what social media channels are you on, adrian?
Speaker 3:All of them. If you search my name, adrian Brambila, they'll pop up on every platform. But yeah, every channel except for Twitter, cool.
Speaker 2:And for everybody watching and listening, I'll have links, as always, to your social media profiles and Brad, yours is Brad. Where can people learn more about you? Where are you?
Speaker 4:active. Yeah, same thing as Adrian. It's at Dr Brad Klontz on everywhere, including X.
Speaker 4:And there you're going to see like I'm always sort of like mortified that my the Dean. So I'm a professor. I'm always sort of worried that the Dean's going to run across my TikToks and go like what is he doing? But really what we are trying to do is is educate people in a compelling way, and you know how it is on social media sometimes you got to say sort of outrageous things to get people to stick around to hear the message you really want to share with them around how to go from poor to rich. So you'll find us using words like that all the time because it resonates on an emotional level and really what we're trying to do is promote healthy relationships with money and people doing what they need to do to take care of themselves and their families.
Speaker 2:That is awesome, and I did think I did remember what I was thinking of earlier, and it was when you were talking about the MMA, and you know that you want to do this stuff while you can. Is you know I just turned 60. And so I can't go back and play basketball anymore, you know, and some of the things that I enjoyed when I'm younger, it's just not physically possible. So I think you know that's the other thing. Is you talk about the time. Is you know you have to spend your time when you can and think about that, because if you put all that stuff off, the experiences until you're 60, can't do it, 70, you're not gonna be able to do it. So that's awesome advice.
Speaker 2:So I just wanted to wrap up with that and also to thank you both very much for joining us today on the Get Ready Money podcast. Thanks for having us. Yeah, this was a great conversation and, as always, thank you everyone for tuning in to the Get Ready Money podcast. If you learned something today to help change the way you think about money, please be sure to subscribe and share with a friend. Until next time, let's change the way we think about money. We'll see you next time.
