[Ep. 399] The Proven System to Become a Millionaire with Brian Preston

Hello and welcome back to More Money Podcast.

This is your host, Jessica Moorhouse, and this is episode 399 of the show.

And I’m so excited to share this episode.

I have been waiting to share it.

I recorded it a little while ago, and I was kind of a fan girl because I love Brian so much.

He is the founder and host of The Money Guy Show and the author of his brand new book out on shelves called Millionaire Mission, A 9-Step System to Level Up Your Finances and Build Wealth.

But not only that, and I think the reason why I really like him is he knows what he’s talking about.

Because he works in financial management.

He does this every day and talks to people every day.

He sees what’s really going on.

He is a managing partner and co-founder of Abound Wealth Management, an RIA, with around $1 billion in assets under management.

And he has over 25 years of financial planning experience.

He also just loves, and you’ll get this for the episode, how he talks about money.

He loves helping people implement simple financial strategies that go beyond common sense.

And he interestingly started podcasting before us all.

He started his podcast in 2006.

And at the time it was really just for fun or just he didn’t see it as the thing that it became, which is this huge, huge resource that so many people go to often to find really great financial information.

And again, also he’s got his YouTube channel, which is also one of my favorite things to watch.

So make sure to check all of that out.

I’m gonna link to everything in the show and it’s for this episode, but you can find everything at The Money Guy Show.

So we are gonna be obviously talking about the topics inside his amazing book, All the Different Steps, really a great clear guide from someone who has been a financial planner for so many years, who really knows what they’re up to and just what are the pain points that so many of us are still struggling with, like debt, cash flow, investing, taxes.

Just sometimes it just feels so overwhelming and confusing.

And we just need a very clear guide, a how-to, some steps, if you will, to how do we do it all, what sequence, how do we prioritize everything, and how do we do it well, and how do we not make those really costly mistakes that we obviously want to avoid.

So we’ve got so much great stuff to go through in this episode.

I can’t wait to share it.

So with that, let’s get to that interview with Brian.

Welcome, Brian, to The More Money Podcast.

I’m so excited to have you on, being a longtime fan of yours and especially like your YouTube channel.

You are, and I was telling my husband this yesterday, I was showing him some of your YouTube videos.

I’m like, there’s something about Brian that makes me like just at ease.

I don’t know.

It could be your adorable accent.

I love your accent.

It is so sweet.

But also just like, you’re just no-nonsense.

You’re like, listen, this is what it is.

And I’m like, thank you.

We need some voice of reason in this chaotic world of personal finance.

And I especially love your, and we’ll talk about this later, your videos kind of comparing your advice to what’s going on on the social media front.

So welcome.

Jessica, I’m super excited to be here.

And thank you for that set up.

And I think kind of my secret thing is, is that I really got into this for the education side of it.

And that it wasn’t, I didn’t realize this was gonna be the greatest business idea to get business.

When I set it up, it really was because I recognize, hey, people just don’t know how money works.

Why don’t I have this technology of podcasting?

I think it’s gonna be important.

And it was an avenue to do it.

It wasn’t until three years later, like 2009, that I realized, holy cow, this might be something for the business, but the purpose was actually education.

And that still continued to be kind of the driving engine of this entire thing.

And I think that’s what sets you apart.

You can understand that from all the content that you create is you’re not one of those get rich quick kind of, hey, hot stocks, whatever.

You’re really in this to educate people.

But like you said, you really got into this sphere early.

2006?

Jesus, I’m like, there were podcasts back in 2006.

You must’ve been one of the first podcasters.

Good for you for getting in there.

And God bless my wife in the fact that she actually had to go tell my friends not to pick on me because this was really out there on the fringe of nerdiness to even go down this path.

Because when you have to explain what a podcast, back then, you had to explain what a podcast was.

And then the fact of why in the world would you even do this?

It was kind of a, it was a unique time.

But I will tell you, it was very fulfilling to me because we got feedback from people immediately.

Once we started creating content, iTunes, because Apple created this platform and then they didn’t really know what to do with it, but they did recognize that, hey, we were trying to create content and they put us on the featured page and we were there for 10 years.

Damn.

And it was all of us, mom and pops initially, but then probably around 2011, 2012, it’s almost like corporate America realized or worldwide corporate realized, hey, there’s potential here.

And then all the mom and pops slowly started disappearing.

And I felt like we hung on longer than most.

And I don’t know who our fans or advocates were at Apple, but I appreciated that because we were around for a while.

Yeah.

Probably some people were like, ooh, I’m learning some stuff.

And I had to manage my money.

I wanna talk a little bit about, so I know you started the podcast in 2006.

When did you start your YouTube channel?

Yeah, that started in 2017.

And once again, you go, Jessica, my core thread that runs through me is I’m the accidental success on everything.

It’s not like I was like, man, that’s a huge opportunity.

Let’s get into YouTube.

We actually were hired by Progressive Commercial to do an eight-part series for over-the-road truckers on good personal finance skills.

And then at the last minute, the executive that was working on that said, hey, we want two of them to be videos.

And I was like, you realize you hired us for a podcast.

And then he’s like, I don’t care.

Find somebody with a camera, get it out there.

And we did it.

And then we had such a good time doing it that Bo and I looked at each other and go, man, maybe this is the next chapter of why don’t we turn the podcast into both a podcast and a YouTube.

And then it felt like, just like when I started doing podcasting, I knew I’d hit a lick when iTunes featured us.

When YouTube, the algorithm, shot us up like a rocket ship, I felt like it was a great opportunity and we embraced it.

Yeah, you got in there early.

I literally just started doing the video podcasting a few weeks ago.

I’m late to the party.

I have friends in the content space.

Joe Salsijai, if you know him from Stacking Benjamins, every time I see Joe at a conference, he’s like, why didn’t I just start YouTube when you did?

Because I kind of had reported, hey, the water’s warm, get in here.

And we’ve had some good laughs about that.

Yeah.

And so you obviously create amazing free content to educate people, but another big part of your business, you have a firm yourself, you’re a financial planner.

And so I think that brings a really interesting element to things, you’re really coming at it from, I work with clients, this is what I hear, this is what we do.

Do you want to share a little bit more?

Because I know in your book, and we talked before I hit record, there’s differences between the US and Canada.

You mentioned that you’re a fee-only planner, however, your firm does invest money from your clients.

Do you want to share a little bit how that structure is?

And then also, and I know you talk about this in your book and in your content, if you’re US specifically, what are some things that you should be aware of before hiring a planner to understand?

How are they getting paid?

Are they biased, unbiased?

What’s going on there?

Yeah, this is one of those things where for years, I was going and speaking at University of Georgia to their financial planning program, at their capstone class, and talking about the different business models.

And I’ve been fortunate, I’ve kind of worked in two of the three.

There’s commission base, which means that you’re strictly 100% what you hunt and kill, meaning, you know, and back in the day, it was loads, mutual fund loads, where you’d get 3% to 5% on the front end if you did A shares, and then you could do these unique things called B shares, where you didn’t pay any commissions on the front, but if the client ever tried to leave, they would be on the backside, and then you also had really high internal expenses because some of that was coming to the advisor.

I always, because that was what was sold to me when I got into this wonderful world of investing, and I was in public accounting first.

And I remember after I realized how this all worked, I was like, man, that’s kind of a bummer that I got sold these B shares.

So I already had a bad taste about commission.

And then there was this hybrid that sits in between that’s fee based, meaning that the advisor can both be commissioned and take fees for like doing rap accounts where they charge 1% or something like that.

But they can also sell you life insurance and other things with full commission.

So it kind of sits in between as a hybrid space, which kind of confuses things even more.

And then to the right of that is even more what’s called the fiduciary fee only advisors.

Now that comes in multiple shapes.

There’s subscription-based, there’s hourly-based, and then there’s even assets under management.

And look, I’ve tried multiple, I’ve even considered doing retainers and other things, but when I started my firm and I started doing these experiments, and a lot of these things showed up when markets were bad, when advisor revenue fees were going down because the market was underperforming, as you’d see some of these new models pop up.

But when I talked to my clients, they’re like, I just want simple, and I can understand, at least with you taking a percent, is that when I make money, you make more money.

When I lose money, I like that you kind of lose money.

And it’s simple.

I can just multiply this.

Now the question is, do you just add enough value?

And what I like about being fee only is that we don’t get paid by any of the investments.

We don’t sell life insurance.

It really is what is in the best interest of the client.

We even held to that legal standard here in the United States with that fiduciary standard.

Pretty much you get sued as a fiduciary.

There’s going to be a settlement, or you’re going to write a check, because it’s just such a high standard to fulfill.

So you want to make sure you do things really in the best interest of your clients.

And here’s the sad part.

And this is why I mentioned that I used to talk to college kids about this.

I go always pull from the Bureau of Labor Statistics how many financial advisors are there.

And then I go look at NAPFA.

I look at XY Planning Network, Garrett Planning, and just try to see what is the pulse of how many fee-only financial advisors are there.

And we were less than 2% of the entire industry.

So I always describe us as the unicorns and the fact that most people are still out there doing products.

Which, look, I think there’s probably a lot of product guys that wish they could get on this side.

But this side is hard, because you don’t really make money unless you reach a certain size.

And I can tell you, it took me three years to find $10 million of assets for my clients.

I was a horrible marketer.

But people can’t believe me right now.

But I’m more nerdy than I am marketer.

So fortunately, the nerd stuff pays well once you establish a reputation.

Yeah, I have to say the same thing for Canada.

That’s something I advocate for is, if you want to work with someone who’s unbiased, or as unbiased as possible, who’s not going to sell you products first and then advise you second, find someone fee only.

But there’s not a lot of them.

And it makes a lot of sense.

I mean, it doesn’t pay well for the amount of work that you’re doing.

You can make a lot more money if you’re doing a different kind of a structure.

But as a consumer or someone who wants financial help, that is usually the best route.

Or what I have found, Jessica, and that ties into that’s why the show even started.

I was feeling guilty because back then, my minimum was, you know, you had to have a few hundred thousand dollars of assets because you have to have enough in assets for the feed to be worthwhile for the number of hours it takes to do the plan.

And I was like, man, this is horrible because it doesn’t, there’s no bridge for people who want to know how money works.

Because that’s what I grew up in humble beginnings.

My parents were so good at saving and living below their means, but they knew absolutely nothing about investing.

So their idea of investing was a CD with a local bank.

And that doesn’t even keep up with inflation.

So it broke my heart that they had the hardest part of the behavior down, but never knew how to actually let their money or their army of dollar bills work for them.

So I felt very convicted that once I saw the problem, I was like, we got to figure out some way to educate the public on what are the good decisions, get them to a level of success so they can then figure out what’s going on.

Because an educated consumer is going to be a better consumer and also be accelerated on the path.

So that’s actually, you just in a nutshell figured out why I even started this podcast initially.

Mm-hmm.

No, and that’s what I tell people.

Even if you do have the money to hire somebody, you meet that threshold, you want to know what these people are talking about because there’s a lot of jargon and there’s a lot of this and that.

And if you have no idea what a portfolio is or asset allocation, you’re going to be confused and maybe make a decision that in retrospect, you’re like, oh, that actually wasn’t the best thing for me.

So you need to educate yourself.

It’s a great time though because of exactly like our interview here today, podcast, YouTube.

There is a whole world of education now that just wasn’t available.

You just got to make sure you align yourself since now we have, we’re drowning in information.

It’s just how do you streamline that?

I will share, on our website, we give away tons of free stuff.

If you go to moneyguy.com/resources, we even have those eight questions you ought to ask a financial advisor.

Because I think people are curious, but they need the education so they can protect themselves.

Absolutely.

Well, that leads me to one question.

So again, the reason that I’m drawn to you and I think why lots of people are drawn to me is there’s some element of trust and comfort, and you’ve been consistent for so many years.

I’m not going to be surprised one day you’re not going to have some ridiculous video on cryptocurrency is the future.

Everyone put all your money in cryptocurrency.

With that said, for me, I started getting into personal finance back in 2011, just out of self-interest, and it is so much easier to get this information now compared to back then.

But like you said, we’re flooded with information, some good, some bad.

So now you’re just like, who do I listen to?

I know a lot of the things that I love watching on your show is taking some things that you find on social media and giving your commentary.

What, out of just some of the things that you’ve seen, are some things that you’re like, I can’t believe someone said that and is getting away with that.

What are some bad pieces of advice or bad hot takes that you’re like, everyone be cautious of this, this may not actually be very good.

Take it with a grain of salt.

It is really, anybody who tells you wealth is easy or fat, you should ask how does this person make their living or how did they build their wealth?

That’s the big problem I see because we’ve reacted to so many videos where like 20-somethings are out there saying if you don’t have a Lamborghini and you’re 20, you’re a loser and I’m like, come on.

First of all, even people who can afford Lamborghinis typically don’t want a Lamborghini because they’d rather have, they know what that $200,000 could do for them if it was actually out there working, whether it’s an investment, real estate or something else.

So just to try to create these traps of envy for people to look to, is always something you should be ready to raise a red flag.

And that’s what I’m very transparent that true wealth is slow, steady, patient work.

And that’s why I always make sure I share the research.

The typical millionaire is 49 years of age, despite what you see on all the TV shows and social media and everything else.

49 years of age after 28 years of saving and investing.

That’s not to dissuade you from actually investing that first dollar, because it looks so far in the distance.

It’s just try to encourage you, do something today, because that’s the problem that I think all of people with social media struggle with, is how do you overcome instant gratification?

Because we get the dopamine hit from all this social media.

We get it from the food we eat, the fast food.

Meanwhile, all the really healthy stuff is so slow moving.

It might be, I post a, we have a chart that shows, we talk about the bowling point.

People say that weird because it sounds like bowling with the pins and balls, but it is that you’ve got to get to that first $100,000.

Even if you were saving like $10,000 a year and making like 8%, that would take like seven, almost seven and a half years to do.

But what I always tell people is yes, the first part is slow, but what I think is amazing is that in the last seven years, you’ll make over $500,000.

So on your journey to a million dollars, it’s going to be slow, faster, faster, fast, fast, fast, because instead of growing linearly, it grows exponentially.

But people just aren’t honest about that.

They try to tell you, hey, go buy this, go do that.

And it’s usually because they’re selling a product, they’re selling a course, or doing something that enriches them at your loss, which I like, we call it the abundance cycle.

I just give it to you until you get to a level of complexity that you’re like, oh my gosh, you’ve made me so successful, I have too much going on, please clean this up for me.

That’s when people typically reach out to become clients.

If you’re not getting the success that creates that complexity, then I’ve failed you and you don’t even have to listen to us.

Well, I think that’s what is so amazing about the level of success you’ve been able to build on your platforms is the people who typically get the most engagement, the most clicks, the most views, are the ones who are the most outrageous.

They’re the ones that say something polarizing or clickbaity.

You have always been very consistent in your messaging which I think is just a testament to why people keep on coming back to you and why I think your book is such a well-timed.

It’s like, oh yeah, you should have had a book by now.

Of course, of course, people are ready for this.

With that, I know you talk about kind of the system that you’ve created, which honestly, I went through your book.

I really liked the structure and here’s these things to check off.

It’s very well organized.

But one of the things that you talk about is the system that you, this 9-step system that you created called Foo, the Financial Order of Operations, which I love an order of operations.

Do you want to kind of share a little bit about how you developed this system?

I’m assuming it’s by working with clients over so many years.

And what’s in there?

What can people expect?

I’ve been managing money since the mid 90s for clients.

And then I went on my own with my first firm in 2002.

And I’ve been doing content creation since 2006 or education, financial education.

So I feel like I’ve been on a journey and just giving you a peek behind the curtain, really from, I can’t remember the first year that I did it, but we used to do what’s called the 30-minute financial plan.

I would create content once a year where I’d say, if you don’t know anything else, listen to this show, and I’m going to jam as much financial knowledge in you over 30 minutes of what you ought to do tomorrow to get your life out of the ditch.

And then that was going great, but then I started recognizing, man, I’m going through this process of telling people a mindset that people need to be doing, and I was like, we ought to fine-tune this even more.

And I’ll never forget, I was on LinkedIn, and there was this math problem that was using shapes that represented numbers, and they put exponents on it, they put parentheses, and nobody was getting the answer right in the comment section.

I was like, these poor people don’t remember in math.

Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally, you know, because math has an order of operations, and if you don’t complete it in the right order, you will not reach the correct answer.

So me being a good financial and math nerd, I was like, you know, money is the exact same way, and voila, we had, you know, I was like, let’s write down the system.

And look, there are other systems out there that came along before me, but I’d always noticed, hey, yes, this system does a pretty good job, but I disagree this, this, and this, because I’d have clients.

I remember clients as well as friends and family, I had an attorney once, super successful, she was young, had tremendous opportunity because she was a very talented attorney, but she quit investing altogether because she had, and realize student loans back in when I came out were not, it’s not predatory rates like we’ve seen in some of these other things.

It was very reasonable, but I found out she wasn’t doing any Roth contributions because she had heard I shouldn’t be doing any investing until I pay off all my student loans.

And I was like, wait a minute.

I was like, you realize probably two years in the future, you won’t even be able to do Roth IRAs because you’re doing so well in your career.

You’re making so your money is going up so fast.

You really should at least take advantage of your employer’s 401k.

You ought to probably be doing, getting the Roth contributions because the interest rate on that student loan just is not that bad.

And she was like, no, I’m not going to.

And I was like, so people need a better system.

And that’s when I laid it out and created the 9 Steps of the Financial Order of Operations.

And what I’m happy to report, Jessica, we create live streams every week.

And we take questions every week answering.

And this thing is field tested.

We’re going on years now because I think I coined it 2015, 2016.

And we’ve been road testing this thing.

And people can’t break it because I think it really does do a good job of walking you through what to do with your next dollar.

And I think that’s so important, especially like you mentioned, there are so many conflicting pieces of advice out there.

Like that’s a very old thing I’ve heard is like, make sure to pay off all your debt before you invest.

And you’re like, that is actually a terrible idea.

And also you’re forgetting that it depends on what kind of debt we’re talking about, right?

There’s so many specifics and it’s not just black and white.

There’s gray in the middle.

And I think especially as someone like you who has worked with so many people, you know the gray, you’ve seen it all.

And so it can’t just be like pay off.

I’ve heard that from so many people or even one that I hear often still is, for your emergency fund, save up $1,000, then move on to the next step.

You’re like, $1,000, I don’t know where you’re living, but that’s not even going to cover rent where I am in Toronto.

Biggest reason people go into bankruptcy is some emergency, whether it’s a medical emergency, they have an accident, or they get in a pickle and then they lean on credit card debt or predatory payday loans and other things.

So emergencies create desperate decisions.

So when I look at what you’ve got to do to keep your life out of the ditch, financially, you need to know it’s your highest deductible.

That’s really the number to move on to the next thing, and that’s why that is step one of the financial order of operations.

Go look at your homeowner’s policy, look at your automobile policy, look at your health insurance, figure out what the highest deductible is.

You don’t have to add them up.

I would just want the highest, because more than likely these things won’t all happen at once, but that will allow you to least keep yourself from making those desperate decisions.

And then I couldn’t help but, Jessica, we call it the wealth multiplier.

And this is something about debt versus investing and how powerful time is.

That’s that component that everybody takes for granted while you’re young.

But for a 20-year-old, a dollar has a potential to become $88 by the time you retire.

For somebody who’s 40 or 50, I think about myself, I’m 50 years of age, every dollar that I can invest probably has a potential to become $3.

So if you think about it in those terms, I mean the 20-something has money that is 20 times more powerful than mine.

You’ve got to think behaviorally differently.

And look, I’m all about paying off the debt.

I don’t have debt in my life other than this commercial building that we’re in right now.

Everything else is extinguished, so I’m all about paying off debt.

But there’s a time and a place, and why your money is so valuable with the component of time pushing that compounding growth, you’ve got to exploit that for your benefit.

And do you think a lot of the debt kind of messaging also is, I mean, this is what I found, is people attach shame to it.

So there’s, even though it’s like, you know, when you look at the math, it makes more sense to invest your money than pay off this low interest debt.

There’s just a lot of emotions and just, I don’t know, feeling of I’m not good enough or I’m a bad person for having debt.

And that’s what’s kind of holding a lot of people back.

Well, debt is a dangerous tool.

We always call it chainsaw dangerous.

And the fact that if you’re using debt and you’re not scared, you’re likely not using it right.

So I do want to make sure I share with your audience, you should be fearful of debt.

I mean, because there’s an entire market trying to get in your back pocket and convince you at $100 a month, you can afford any life you want.

And that’s a trap.

But with that said, there is just like there’s that’s an extreme to try to encourage you to borrow your life or rent your life at $100 a time.

That’s on this extreme.

On this other extreme is you’ll never use debt.

And that’s a false trap.

I know when I coming from, like I said, coming from humble beginnings, when I graduated college, I needed a car to get me to that job.

And I didn’t have money for a car, but I needed reliable transportation, because I just didn’t have it.

So I had to go borrow $10,000 for a car, a used car.

It was probably six years old when I bought it.

But it was reliable enough that it bridged me turning my time into wages, the wages turning into money, because I lived on less than I made.

And then that money invested turned into its own level of wealth creation.

And that’s the part, people, you need that bridge.

So that’s why we’ve tried to create rules or guidelines like 23.8 with car buying.

You got to put 20% down.

You can’t finance longer than three years, even though the typical car loan now is going on 70, 72 months.

That’s just crazy to me.

That’s twice as long as it should be.

And then your debt on your car should never exceed 8% of your gross income.

I’m trying to give you guidelines that gives you the grace to get in there while you might need this bridge of affordable transportation so you can get to your job, but then hopefully give you enough parameters or restrictions so that you’re buying a Toyota Corolla versus buying a Lexus or a Mercedes or BMW that social media is telling you you can afford at $100 a month.

So it’s moderation.

It’s somebody peeling back all the noise and giving you the actual what’s the truth on how to handle this dangerous tool, but also be scared enough so that you can be creating a plan to pay it off, but also build wealth in the background.

Yeah, no, and I think that’s a big issue.

There’s a lot of noise, especially since we talk about building wealth when it comes to investing, and I know you talk about this on your channel and in your book as well, when it comes to like, okay, I’m ready to invest my money, where do I start?

Again, you’re going to be seeing a million different options and different opinions.

I know you talk a lot about indexing.

I’m a big index fan, so that’s what I do.

But do you want to kind of share when people are ready to take that step into actually building their wealth, investing their money, where should they start?

What is the first step?

Well, I mean, I think it’s so hard to know, okay, yes, I want my money to work.

I hear these talking heads talk about how you can become wealthy, because I even had my, when you read Millionaire Mission, I hope your audience will see, I kind of share right off the get-go in the intro chapter.

I had an economics teacher.

It wasn’t part of our curriculum, believe me, in McDonough, Georgia, back in the late 80s, early 90s.

They were not teaching personal finance.

But I had an economics teacher who was also the wrestling coach and a veteran of Vietnam who was just an unlikely candidate who came into class one day, and I don’t know if it was regret or he just wanted to share a piece of nugget of information that he had figured out.

He said, guys, if you’ll just invest $100 a month at your age, you’ll be a millionaire.

And I remember thinking, wait a minute, I work fast food.

I could save $100 a month.

And it kind of just changed my life.

But then I didn’t even do something then myself because I didn’t know what to do.

I mean, invest, what does that mean?

And that’s why on the show, we always tried to talk about, hey, this is the best time in the world to be an investor because you’ve got all these low-cost providers out there who’ve created index funds.

It wasn’t that way.

This has only been in the last 15 to 20 years that we’ve had all these innovations where it’s been so much more accessible.

And I even like here in the United States, you can do what’s called indexed target retirement funds where you really only have to answer two questions.

It’s like, how much can you save and when do you need the money?

If you can answer those two questions, they’ll do the rest of it.

And I know when I tell people, because we can’t give recommendations on the show, but I always say, go look at the biggest providers in your country or your area.

Here in the United States, it’s like your Vanguard, it’s your Charles Schwab, it’s your Fidelities.

I don’t know what it is in Canada.

We’ve got like Vanguard, BlackRock, Vimeo.

So y’all have the same players, but yeah, those type of investment choices will cut the corner off, because the reason these things do so well is if you think about it, they’re low cost.

Index funds by the nature don’t trade a lot because they set the indexes every year.

The old companies come off, new innovative companies come on, so it’s just not a lot of turnover, so there’s not a lot of trading, creating tax transactions.

So if you couple that with just the fact that they’re encompassing the growing economy, the low cost, the tax-efficient structure, these things rock and roll.

They’re really a great opportunity, and that’s what I love, innovation and technology is making it easier for investors.

No, I’d agree, and just for anyone who’s listening who’s Canadian, we used to have target date ETFs for one year, but the company just did not do.

People just weren’t hopping on to it, so we do have target date mutual funds, but typically, yeah, you have to go through an institution or your employer, so unfortunately, I wish they were more accessible here because I think they’re a great product, but we do have ETFs and asset allocation ETFs, and we have other products here that are similar if you want to look into those.

I know that we’re here in the United States, and I do put some tax-efficient structures and other things, but that’s not, I hope people get the stories and the mindset, so I do think even your audience, if they’re in Canada, they’ll get a lot out of the mindset and some of the experience shares I tell through stories, because I think that’s universal.

Money’s the same no matter what currency we’re talking about when it comes to mindset.

Yeah, no, I completely agree.

One other thing that you do mention in your book, which we’ve already kind of touched on, but I think it’s important to touch on again, is you have these three ingredients to building wealth, and they kind of, for me, it’s like these are things that I’ve, you know, abided by for the past decade plus, and they’ve really changed my life.

Do you want to kind of talk a little bit about those three ingredients that everyone should integrate into their lives?

Yeah, I’ll talk about it.

I’m just going to go ahead and tell you the three ingredients and then tell you a little bit about each one of them.

So the three ingredients to wealth creation is discipline, money is the second, and then the third and most valuable is time.

And what I mean by that is, is that when you first start off on your wealth building journey, if you’re young especially, you’re going to have probably lots of time because life hasn’t thrown all the complications at you yet.

So you usually have to trade your time through labor and wages.

But you’ve got to be disciplined enough with that resource of your wages and your time to actually live below your means.

That’s why I say discipline and deferred gratification is the most important thing.

You’ve got to get the mindset right.

You’ve got to make the good habits easy, and you’ve got to make the bad habits hard.

And the best way to do that is to automate your automatic investing and so forth.

But if you can get the discipline right and have that mindset of living on what you make, you can then create the margin of money.

And then that money, if you can put it to work and start investing with the all-so-powerful component of time, that’s why I was talking about the wealth multiplier.

It is so valuable if you know that is a 20-something, your money can grow 50 times over and beyond.

You know, you’ll look at it, you’ll spend differently, you’ll invest and think about what every dollar has potential become.

That’s what I like to talk about, because now as I’m getting older, time is just, I recognize how scarce of a resource.

That’s why it is the most valuable.

Don’t take those early years and that exponential growth for granted.

And that’s why I know I keep talking about the wealth multiplier, so I encourage people, it’s in the millionaire mission, but it’s also at moneyguy.com/resources.

We have all this stuff you can download for free.

And for anyone who is a bit older, it’s still not too late, right?

It just means you can still do it.

It just will be a little bit of a different strategy for you.

And look, I have an entire section in Millionaire Mission where I talk about people, hey, look, if you’re behind, success is not just for 20-year-olds or 20-somethings.

I even go all the way up into your 40s and 50s on the different levers and control elements you can use.

And even if you are, this is the great thing with us living longer, is that even though a 20-year-old gets that 88 times over, there’s an opportunity for 40-somethings too, because if you live to a ripe old age, there’s still going to be money that’s out there working for you for 40 years.

It’s just don’t defer it, don’t wait, don’t procrastinate, make something happen today.

Absolutely.

Now, I know just to kind of touch on the last part of your book, which I’m so glad you wrote, I love finding out what these experts do with their money.

Do you want to kind of share a little bit about that?

That was one of my favorite parts of The Psychology of Money.

There was just a short section, it was like, oh, and also this is what I do with my money.

I’m like, oh, this is juicy.

I love to know.

Do you want to share a little bit about, obviously you practice what you preach, but what are some things that you are doing that have been successful in your own life?

And I set it up first in the intro.

I say, look, it’s always important when somebody says they’ve invented the better mousetrap to ask how did they create their own wealth?

Was it the chicken or the egg, which came first?

Did they make their money from the system that they’re selling or did they have wealth and then share the system that created it?

So I’m very clear that this all, I had built wealth and shared it with my clients before I kind of now created this product, the book, I call it the tip of the spear on hopefully getting people interested in knowing how to do money better.

It really is part of coming from a place of abundance, wanting to share and see if we can multiply this out.

So that’s the first thing.

And then when I get to the last chapter, what I do with my money, I just wanted to be transparent.

I wanted people to know I eat my own cooking because I think there’s, I always wonder how many people are actually hypocrites.

So I wanted to kind of open up the curtain and let everybody see, no, I practice what I preach.

I’m eating my own cooking, as we like to say around here.

And the fact that I walk you through my journey and even some of the mistakes, I mean, you probably saw it in there, Jessica, where I said, because I see it all over social media right now, is that there was a moment in time when interest rates were low and cash wasn’t earning anything, that I didn’t have emergency reserves because I had easy access to cash, whether it was my investment accounts or it was my home equity because the banks had made it so easy.

I quickly realized it was a trap that I did need to have actual cash reserves so that when things went bad in the economy, that I wasn’t just left going, oh man, all that access dried up really quick.

I’ve tried to share everything.

I’ve shared my experience into investing.

I’ve shared when I got into the wonderful world of real estate investing.

I’ve shared the troubles I’ve had in relationships because of money, but I tried to really open up the playbook.

I even joke at the beginning of the chapter in Millionaire Mission.

I’m like, I hope that you actually read the rest of the book because I think there’s probably going to be a temptation for people to immediately flip to the last chapter to read what I did with my money.

I tried to nudge or pick on the reader to encourage them to go back first.

Just a note on the real estate, Frank, because I know you talk about this in your content, and this is again something that’s blasted over social media.

Real estate is also like a slow and steady, not passive income stream.

It’s a lot of freaking work.

We had a live stream yesterday and it cracked me up that the audience, because we recorded it and there was something going on that we didn’t make the audience aware of.

Then I started seeing comments saying, hey, I think you’re running the wrong megahertz, so you don’t have a filter on because there’s a hum in the background that I’ve never heard on your show.

I’ve just wrote in the comments, I was like, that’s probably the air compressor that was sitting on the roof because they are replacing the roof up above us, but the show must go on.

I was like, but this is our passive investment because to get this roof, we had to do structural repairs.

Real estate is phenomenal.

I love it.

But you better have the foundation underneath you and understand what you’re getting into when you get into it.

That’s why I’m very transparent.

I tell you all the warts, all the positives, because I want everybody to benefit from that experience.

That’s why I put all of that in Millionaire Mission.

Such a great book.

I’m excited for it to come out, for people to read it.

Where can people find more information, grab a copy pre-order, or by the time this is out, it will be out in the world.

It’s available pretty much everywhere.

I’m curious to see how, because we know it’s going to even be in some of the bookstores coming out.

While we’re waiting, or even right after, if you just want to have a great place to wrangle all the options, you can go to moneyguy.com/millionairemission.

Actually, right now, whatever month we’re in, all the way up to lunch, we are offering some perks and it’s changing every month.

I would encourage your audience to really take advantage.

Go to moneyguy.com/millionairemission.

It will not only show all the places that you can have access to buy it and pre-order it, it’s all your likely players like the Amazons, the Barnes and Nobles as well as some of the independent bookstores out there, but it will also keep you up to date with any perks or other things.

I am hopeful that people will go on this journey to even pre-buy the book.

I know the temptation is wait until it comes out, but as you probably know, Jessica, with book launches, if we can get enough pre-orders and then they all come out, because I don’t have a big corporation behind me.

This is my first adventure into books.

I’ve always been the little engine that could, meaning the passion just kept this thing going, but I didn’t have a big corporation behind me pushing me.

I’m really asking for the kindness of my audience.

If you ever watched, if you ever listened, if you’ve ever learned anything, please consider pre-ordering this book, because I love it to be a best seller.

I’d love for it to catch the attention of some of the powers that be, so that maybe we can change this world, because that’s the…

I think that a lot of us content creators, we’re well-intentioned, but we’re so…

our voice is just…

It’s not as big as some of the bigger players, but maybe just through your audience and all the other people I’m doing interviews with, if we all kind of did this together, because the intent was pure when I wrote this, and I hope the readers can see that.

Yeah, I mean, I definitely saw that.

That definitely came through.

So, yeah, I’m excited for people to grab a copy.

And also, I guess people should check you out on The Money Guy Show on YouTube.

I mean, it’s incredible.

You have, like, over 400,000 subscribers.

That’s amazing.

So definitely check out.

And also, I think, was it thousands of videos?

I was showing my husband, he’s like, I’m sorry, how many thousands of videos?

I will tell you, podcasting was really, you know, a lot of those I was pulling the levers on.

We’re blessed now we have an entire media team that helps us with the edits and posting.

And they are just geniuses.

They’re awesome.

And look, the machine is very fulfilling, you know, as the algorithm helps us grow, as more people find us through podcasts.

It really is so fulfilling to see the comments and the emails we get.

I mean, just yesterday, I got an email from somebody who said, Hey, I was referred your podcast from a friend of a friend.

And then he proceeded over the next six months to listen to every one of our shows since 2006 and sent me a timeline of all the important life or unique events he heard in that six months.

And I was like, man, I have the best audience in the world that they actually took the time.

And that stuff’s rocket fuel for me.

I mean, that’s why we will continue to create content.

Jessica, when I started in my early 20s of just becoming an investor, I thought I was doing this to retire at 50.

And now here I am 50, but I feel so motivated because I see how much work there is to do and I feel like every morning I’m waking up and I’m doing something for personal finance and making things a little bit better.

So we’re not going anywhere.

And hopefully this book is the next chapter of pushing forward, making good financial decisions.

And you’ve been more than gracious today and I hope your audience will go check it out.

I think it’s probably worth repeating.

I’d be a horrible businessman if I didn’t say moneyguy.com/millionairemission, but this was an awesome opportunity.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much, Brian, for coming on the show.

I really appreciate everything that you do, and I’m going to continue watching and seeing where you go next.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Jessica.

This has been a blast.

And that was episode 399 with Brian Preston, who I forgot to mention is not only a CFP, but also a CPA and PFS.

He is also the founder and host of The Money Guy Show and author of Millionaire Mission.

Make sure to grab a copy right now.

It’s a really, really good book, honestly, and I think you’ll really like it, but make sure to also follow him on Instagram or wherever, YouTube, TikTok, Money Guy Show, at Money Guy Show is where you can find him in all platforms.

Make sure to check it out.

You’re going to love his YouTube channel, honestly.

I just love it.

It’s just like I watch it to chill out.

I just like, maybe it’s his accent.

I love it so much.

It’s just so soothing, and I love what he says.

He’s always got great advice, great advice.

So again, make sure to grab a copy of his book, and I am going to be giving away a copy of Millionaire Mission.

So all you have to do to put your name in the ring to win that or any of the books that have been featured on this season of the show, go to jessicamoorhouse.com/contest.

All the books are there, and you can enter to win all of them.

You will only win one if you are a lucky winner.

But put your name in the ring.

There’s nothing you’re really losing from doing that.

So make sure to enter to win.

Now, kind of along the same lines as kind of what we talked about, if you do want to learn more about budgeting or investing, I’ve got two resources that you may also want to take a look at as well.

So first, if you’re looking for a budget, I’ve got a whole bunch of budget spreadsheets for different scenarios, depending on if you’re an employee or a self-employed or you’ve got a side hustle, whatever.

Go to jessicamoorhouse.com/shop.

I’ve even got a little quiz on there that you can type in some information, and it will suggest what is the budget spreadsheet that’s most appropriate for you.

And they’re really cheap.

And I’m making some updates on them, so you will get those updates when they are ready, but you can check that out if you like.

And then I also have my investing course that is over three years old now, 400 plus students, very exciting.

It’s by application only.

And so you can learn more information about that at jessicamoorhouse.com/course, My Wealth Building Blueprint.

It’s all about investing for Canadians who want to just build a portfolio of passive index funds and just, you know, get rich slowly.

Just get rich slowly, right?

We’re all turtles.

We’re all turtles.

We’re not hares.

The hare does not win the race if you never read that story.

So anyways, what have we got on the docket for next week?

Ooh, I’ve got, I don’t even know how I’m going to honestly edit this.

I’m kind of, well, I don’t have to edit this, but I’m just trying to figure out, even just for like the little Instagram rail, how am I going to figure this out?

I’ve got three guests on next week.

Three of them.

I’ve never had that many.

I’ve only had two.

I’ve only had two at the time.

So I’ve got Naomi, Ken, June Carbone, and Nancy Leavitt on the show.

They have a book they all wrote together called Fair Shake.

Very excited to talk to them about it.

And these are some powerhouse women, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Yeah, it’s going to be a lot of fun.

You’re going to really, really love it.

And again, you can watch it on my YouTube channel.

Just a reminder too, I have a YouTube channel.

You can find it easily at jessicmoorhouse.com/youtube, or just type in Jessica Moorhouse into YouTube, and I am the only one that will probably pop up.

And you can find all of my videos, which I’m hoping to make some actual videos, more of them soon.

It’s just book writing takes up your whole life.

But what I have been consistent with is putting all of the video podcasts on there, which I’ve actually really like…

I don’t know if you remember it.

I was kind of talking about this at the beginning of the season.

I’m going to try this.

We’ll see if it works.

I’ve actually been really liking it.

Like, I’ve got a great video editor.

He’s got the system down now.

We’ve got a whole, you know, thing.

And I really like it.

I think they look good.

And they’re kind of just a cool way to see what it all looks like instead of just listening, if you’re interested, all on my YouTube channel.

And yeah, then I only have one, two, three, four, four more weeks of guests.

I actually have one blank slot right now.

I get a lot of pitches from potential guests, and they’re just not to be, you know…

The thing is, I want this show to always be at a certain standard, and so I don’t want to just let anyone on to fill a slot.

And so I think I’m probably going to have to reach out to some people because none of the pitches I’ve gotten lately are anything that exciting, you know, like they’re just like, oh, yeah, okay.

I want someone to be like, oh, that’s an interesting topic or that’s an interesting book or something like that.

So if you have any suggestions, hit me up on, you know, Instagram DM or email me, Jessica, jessicamoorhouse.com, if there’s something or someone you think would be a good fit.

And then I will, I will be the judge of that.

Sometimes I get suggestions like, that’s nice.

They will never be on my show.

And I will never tell you who those people are.

No, I’m just kidding.

So I, yeah, that’s really it for me.

That’s really it for me.

I’m running out of stuff to say.

Thank you so much for listening.

As always, a big thank you to my wonderful podcast team, video edit by Justice Carrara and produced by mravcanada.com.

That’s mravcanada.com.

And I told you who’s going to be on the show next week, so we’re good with that.

And that’s it.

That’s it for me.

Thanks for listening.